Ellen Goodman

What a shock. After all the Chrismas festivities I slipped upstairs and checked The Boston Globe only to read the last column by the retiring Ellen Goodman.

Fridays will not be the same without her words. Sometimes it was like she was in my head. Her column on her only daughter leaving for college captured my feeling when my daughter, the same age for had left for Germany a couple of weeks before. When she talked about the passing of the ritual holiday meals from the older to generation to us, it was if she were talking to me. Her description of birds and peace on her Maine vacations match my joy in the small natural things.

As for her politics -- I felt she was saying what I wanted to say, but she had a wider audience.

The letters posted on the internet about her column equally shocked me. Of course, there was the you'll-be-missed. However, the viciousness and the hatred of others, accusing her of being a baby killer because of her pro-choice stance, of helping to destroy the country because of her feminism. She was labelled the horror of horrors, a LEFTIE.

When did the level of discourse descend to such a level? I couldn't help compare it to our Christmas conversation with me as a far leftie and a guest as a far right. So many statements began with "you probably won't agree..." Amazingly enough we often did.

Yes, I will miss Ellen's political voice. I could say Goodman's voice, but after so many years of her being part of my regular weekly reading, she seems more like Ellen. I will equally miss her insights to regular life. Unlike many male political columnists, perhaps like a Mary Cassette painting, big ideas can trickle down to the small details of daily life and up again and that is what I will miss the most.