Coat Hangers & Knitting Needles

 

 The Accidental Crusader

 It removed the government from women’s wombs. Having a child or not having a child depended on the woman herself. No longer did she have to worry about having the resources financially, physically, emotionally. She didn’t have to worry about losing a job or giving up her education. She didn’t have to forego pleasure in the bedroom to guarantee she wouldn’t get pregnant. And mostly she didn’t have to worry that she might have to seek an abortion no matter how dangerous. 

Estelle Naomi Trebert Griswold’s (1900–1981) work made it possible for married couples to seek and receive birth control information legally. It is difficult to imagine now that a married couple was not able to get information on how to control the size of their families.

Griswold’s childhood in Hartford, Connecticut was unexceptional. Her father was a toolmaker who believed in educating his two surviving children in Native American customs. Despite the unhappiness of her parents’ marriage, they never divorced. Whether it was because of their Roman Catholic faith is unknown. Griswold’s later fight for birth control was contrary to the tenets of the religion.

A smart child, she was promoted to fourth grade from second and from fifth to seventh. Despite her early academic success, her studies were hampered by frequently skipping class. She encouraged others to go with her. Still, she graduated in 1920. 

Music, Not Crusading, Her First Love 

Although she wanted to continuing studying, Estelle lacked the money. Music caught her interest and she paid for classes at the Hartt School of Music, the performing conservatory for the University of Connecticut, by working in a bank. She had a good contralto-soprano voice.

Despite disapproval from both parents, she moved to Paris in 1922 to continue her music studies. A case of tuberculosis made it difficult for her to fulfill her dreams.

Her return to the U.S. was triggered by her mother’s serious illness. When both parents died, she remained in Hartford where she tried to continue with her singing career with limited success.

In 1927 she married Richard Whitmore Griswold (1898-1966). They lived in New York and later moved to Washington D.C. It was in D.C. that Estelle Griswold changed careers. She began studying medicine at George Washington University and later was a medical instructor at the university.

When her husband, who was then employed by the Office of Public Affairs, was sent to Europe in 1945, Griswold followed him.

Discovering Population Issues

Never idle, she worked with the United National Relief and Rehabilitation Agency. The extreme poverty among the refugees touched her. At the same time, she witnessed overpopulation, caused in part by lack of birth control.

When they returned to Connecticut, this time in New Haven, Griswold volunteered at the Human Relations Council where she became executive secretary. She also funded the infertility program and marital counseling program at Yale.

She learned of Planned Parenthood activities because she lived next to their New Haven offices.

Planned Parenthood wanted to change the 1879 law forbidding contraception in Connecticut. Called the Barnum Act, after sponsor P.T. Barnum, who in addition to his successful circus businesses served four terms in the state legislature, it was considered one of the most restrictive laws in the U.S. with birth control users subject to arrest and imprisonment. Although many doctors ignored the law, the group wanted to get the law off the books.

Griswold had doubts about her participation; she needed a job. Her husband had developed emphysema and could no longer work full time. Her hesitancy was her lack of knowledge about birth control. She could not have children and thus had not used any birth control methods. She began work in 1954 with the title Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut.

Part of her responsibility was to organize “border runs,” which took women seeking birth control to neighboring states.

Later, it would be the same for people who could afford to travel to change states or countries to get an abortion. 

Going to Court

Connecticut denied the legal use of oral contraception, despite the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving it as safe. Two people decided to challenge it: Estelle Griswold and C. Lee Buxton. Dr. Buxton, a graduate of Princeton and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, became Chair of the Yale Medical School Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 1953. He would not accept that under the law he could not legally prescribe contraception methods. He participated in legislative challenges in 1957. He and Yale Law School Professor

Fowler Harper and Lawyer Katie Roraback filed five cases challenging the law:

        Buxton v. Ullman

        Hoe v. Ullman

        Doe v. Ullman

        Poe v. Ullman

In each case the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the law banning contraception. An appeal for Poe v. Ullman was also unsuccessful.

Griswold and Buxton opened a clinic. Women came to them for birth control advice, but there were protestors outside saying using birth control was immoral. On 9 November 1961 Griswold and Buxton were arrested, convicted and fined $100 each. The clinic was closed.

The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the sentence in April 1964.

Buxton and Griswold appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case was accepted, although two earlier challenges had been rejected by the court. Originally it was known as the Buxton Case, but when it went to the highest court in the United States it became Griswold v. Connecticut.

Griswold and Buxton won, 7 to 2. The Barnum Act was unconstitutional because it infringed on marital privacy, the same privacy argument that would be used in Roe v. Wade.

It removed the government from women’s wombs. Having a child or not having a child depended on the woman herself. No longer did she have to worry about having the resources financially, physically, emotionally. She didn’t have to worry about losing a job or giving up her education. She didn’t have to forego pleasure in the bedroom to guarantee she wouldn’t get pregnant. And mostly she didn’t have to worry that she might have to seek an abortion no matter how dangerous.

Life was safer for married women. It would take a while longer for unmarried women. 

Griswold was inducted into the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Women%27s_Hall_of_Fame in 1994.

Danger, Danger

 

When Greece had a financial crisis, the banks shut off all withdrawals. People could not get their money while the government worked through its financial problems. If people didn't have cash on hand, they were unable to buy food.

In one of the first scenes of Handmaiden's Tale two women discover they have no way to access their money via their banks. Women were no longer allowed bank accounts.

In some countries, American expat bank accounts were closed by banks under U.S. pressure. American expats found their expected paycheck had no place to go. Their bank accounts were closed and in some cases mortgages and loans were called. This is not a what if. This has happened because of America pressure on foreign governments and banks because of FATCA.

It may not have happened to you yet where you are, but a major bank hack could shut off your money.

Imagine you're traveling and your can't access your bank account with your card to pay for your hotel or meal.

Banks can lower interest rate or charge a negative interest rate. 

What would you do in any of those incidents?

Impossible you say?

Did you think four years ago the mess the U.S. is in now was possible? Did your grandparents or maybe great grandparents think October 1929 was possible in 1928?  

Now let's talk about life in a cashless society. More and more it's happening where cards or mobile phones are required over currency. Not just in the U.S. but in different countries. 

To be fair we need to look at both sides, cash and cards and/or mobile phone access.

Disadvantages of Cash

Robbery -- on the street, in your home.

Home hiding places don't pay interest.

Losses through dropping or leaving someplace. 

Some merchants only want cards (and are mobile phone transactions), which I never understood because they pay a fee to the bank.  

Banks and/or the government would control every cent you have and/or spend. 

You can't get at your money if your need it. Withdrawal amounts are already limited depending on how much money is in that bank's vault.

What's Wrong with Cashless?

Everything you pay is traceable,

Paying your babysitter or paperboy, giving your grandchild a dollar can be impossible if the kid doesn't have an account.  

Card-to-card transfer? The recipient needs to have an account.

Banks can block at will or by computer error.

Selling small items such as at flea markets become almost impossible.

Money raisers such as Girl Scout cookies or church sales becomes almost impossible.

Life becomes more complicated.

I love my debit card for many reasons BUT I want a choice and I do not want all my money to be subject to the government or a bank any more than it is now. 

Before you claim I'm hysterical, alarmist or ignorant, did you ever think the White House would have a bulldozer destroy the East Wing based on the whim of one man, a group of rioters would try and stop the legal change of administration cheered on by a president, a convicted felon, never mind be president, armed representatives of the government would kill innocent U.S. citizens. My unbelievable list doesn't stop there.

The question is, who do you want to have control of your money on a day to day basis? 

 

 

 

 

 

Maisie Tucker et.al.

 

As  a child I lived on 14 acres of land. Our closest neighbor, Maisie Tucker, also had a large piece of land. Our two properties were separated by a Robert Frost type stone wall.

There was no way my brother and I would cross that stone wall. 

We thought Maisie was a witch.

Her house was a perfect witch's house with long grass, falling shutters. We drove by it regularly, sometimes several times a day when we did a lot of errands.

My grandmother told us we were wrong and that Maisie was just an old woman, a lonely woman.  

Why I thought of her today after decades of her never crossing my mind, I have no idea. And I'm sure I'm the only person on the planet now who even knew she existed. 

Once she must have been a little girl, gone to school, had friends. 

I have no idea if she married or even ever had a beau. She must have grown up when chaperones were the norm. In our small town, she didn't participate in anything. I'm not sure she went out for groceries. I never thought about it before yesterday.

The fading from existence holds true for almost everyone who has ever lived on this planet. Some leave examples of their work such as the cave paintings in France. A few make the history books.

With my brother's death, my grandparents have mostly disappeared unless someone reads about them in one of my blogs. Their wide range of relatives and friends have disappeared.

Did Maisie have relatives that survived her? Was she just a lonely old woman who died alone? 

I could use Maisie as a character in my books. 

Even someday I too will fade from view first with those that loved me, then those I knew casually. One of my books may be found in an attic or trash or a library. I'm sure given enough time there will be no digital trace of me.

Maybe someone will mention me and a listening child will ask, "Who?" 

It doesn't matter. What matters is what I do now and to whom, with whom, how I will live my days.

Maisie, for whatever reason, lived her live isolated and alone. 

She wasn't a witch. 

 

 

Two Collaborations

 

 Fourteen Days, stories written by 36 famous writers, a modern Chaucer Tales.

The premise

During Covid in New York City, people quarantined in their tenement spend each evening on the building's roof not only clapping and cheering the health carers, but telling stories. The superintendent is the link.

The book is deeper than the simple concept. 

The writers include Margaret Atwood, John Grisham, Scott Turow, Erice Jung, Tess Gerritson, Diana Gabaldon . . . Their ages run from mid 30s to 80s. Editors were Atwood and Douglas Preston.

I can imagine how each worked on their stories locked in quarantine in different places. Did they use ZOOM, the internet etc. to connect? 

Another Collaboration 

In the mid-1990s I joined a group of writers from England, Germany, U.S., Israel and Australia. We found each other through the IWWG, International Women's Writing Guild, now celebrating its 50th anniversary.

We communicated by fledgling e-mail. At first we just discussed writing, then shared our personal lives. We learned about spouses and kids, our problems and joys.

The most poignant was our Israeli member whose son started university and moved to New York City just before 9/11. She thought he would be safe there. He was not one of the victims. Mother-fear goes beyond writing bonds. 

We decided to collaborate on a short story collection with interlocking characters to be set in Camden Market in London. Each of us came up with a person. Then we selected our secondary character created by our fellow writers in the group.

I went to London to photograph the Market. No internet photograph transfers back then, so I sent the developed photos the old-fashioned way, by post.

One of our German writers acted as editor and did the leg work on  the cover and printer. 

We read each other's work and then the completed manuscript. It was not even a baby success, but we had a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. The book is now out of print. Somewhere, perhaps in a box under my bed, I've a couple of copies.

Many years later we still exchange emails, not often, but there's a feeling of joy when an email comes in. We've lost two members. Others are fighting with health issues. 

Some of us are still writing.

I'm in touch on Facebook with the daughter of one of the writers. I wish she were alive to see her two beautiful grandsons. 

The good memory of writing the anthology came swirling back with Fourteen Days making it a double pleasure.

Notes 

Fourteen Days is a project of the Authors Guild Foundation. I'm a proud member of the Guild, who offers so many services to writers including health insurance and legal services. Proceeds will go to the foundation.

I'm having fun trying to guess who wrote what. Their ages go from mid thirties to eighties. 

 

Free Write - Cluttered Table

Julia's Free Write 

Colors, colors inside the coffee shop and beautiful flowers outside.

And to make life even better, finally a truly glorious, just-the-right temperature summer day.

Inside though something was out of sync: upon arrival there was only one table free, so I grabbed it.

As time went by the early coffee/tea/juice breakfast lot started leaving.

Ah, peace.

In the corner though a mystery: a table waiting to be cleared and an abandoned baby stroller.

However, outside all-of-a-sudden there were sirens, cop cars, ambulances arriving on all sides.

We sat and watched the scene unfold, wondering if perhaps we shouldn’t discretely disappear.

A rush of uniforms and men with guns in hand had us diving for cover.

It was only when I watched the news that evening that I learned that the abandoned stroller had held the baby of the wealthiest person in the state. 

D-L's Free Write

"It's your turn to clear that table. I've walked up the blinking stairs three times, Janice knew that the mother never leaves a tip.

Fanny hissed, "Well I've a sore leg."

Janice knew that Fanny's sore leg was selective. After their shift at Harry's café, when she'd been on the bus, she'd seen Franny leave the supermarket carrying a bag of groceries. Probably the limp had been in the bag too, because Fanny was walking fast.

The table they were arguing about had been occupied by a regular young mother with a toddler and a two-month old. The toddler was cue, a good thing too because she was also a brat." 

Fanny sighed. "You win." She limped up the five stairs to the other tables.

WOW! The woman had left a $5 tip.

Rick's Free Write

Strange city. Strange country. Strange life.

She was a ‘trailing spouse’ in the parlance of the UN agency for whom her husband worked.

Two children, one just in school, one an infant. Getting a job was out of the question. Not without a full-time nanny, which they couldn’t afford.

So she searched for mental diversions. Not shopping. Not museums. Places where she could sit in a corner, park the stroller, keep the kids calm and quiet.

Like this café on a hillside overlooking the lake. Lots of sunshine. A garden with a plethora of flowers.

She occasionally saw other women who seemed like herself. But she hesitated to engage. Her language skills were not great.

The tea was good. The chocolates were wonderful.

She wished they had never come here. 

About the Free Writers

Rick Adams is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices.com, a weekly newsletter reporting the airline industry  top stories . He is the author of The Robot in the Simulator. AI in Aviation Training.  

Visit D-L.'s website  https://dlnelsonwriter.com, She is the author of 15 fiction and three non fiction books. Her 300 Unsung Women, bios of women who battled gender limitations, can be purchased  at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/300-unsung-women-d-l-nelson/1147305797?ean=9798990385504 

Visit Julia's blog. She has written and taken photos and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

 

 

 

 

Corruption Beyond Belief

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEfnuYIBDEw The corruption of this president is unbelievable. Don't believe. Check them out. If you're paying taxes your money is stolen.

 

Horrified

 Each day I'm more horrified and terrified at what my birth country is becoming. Trumps speech on voter fraud, one more series of lies added to my fear. It isn't just Trump. It's those under him.

I believe that a country has the right to defend itself and that defense is the duty of its citizens acting as soldiers.

I don't believe those soldiers should be sent to illegal wars. 

Two more soldiers have died in an illegal war.

Sending soldiers to kill in illegal wars turns them into murderers pretending to be heroes. They are not defending their country.  

The U.S. has no right to attack Iran under international law any more than it has to destroy boats in international waters.

It has no right to remove the leader of another country as it did in Venezuela.

It threatens to take over Cuba.

It threatens to take over Greenland.

The U.S. is a global bully. It's like child, no make that a brat, that says, "I want what I want when I want it and I'm going to take" then tries sowing pain and destruction.

No matter how much patriotic bullshit that has been shoved down the soldiers throats from childhood, no matter how many Pledge of Allegiances said, no matter how many Star Spangled Banners sung, when a soldier pulls trigger and the bullet hits another human, they committed murder. 

Those soldiers thoouoght they were defending their country. They were victims of leaders who sold them phony patriotism 

 

Trilingual Dog

  

Our dog, Sherlock, is trilingual.

He was a rescue, a three-month-old male. We went to  the SPA, the name of the local animal rescue center, looking for an older, small female. 

The person in charge, reached under a counter and pulled out a fuzzy male of just three months and put him in my arms. He kissed me.

According to his DNA, his mother was a Yorkie, his father a mixed Jack Russell with all sort of breeds in his genes. 

His name was Spider, which we quickly changed because a good, good friend, is afraid of spiders. We thought of having a Facebook naming contest, but as a mystery writer, Sherlock was a natural choice 

Even as a pup, we realized that he understood much of what we said by his body language. His understanding was also signaled by ear directions.

Thus we started saying things we didn't want him to understand in French. Ice cream, glace, go, allez and entire sentences. 

Oh là, là, là.  

We realized he developed a third language, a series of barks, whines, growls always used for the same things. If we didn't respond, those same sounds would be combined with soul-searching stares.

His body language would include spins and placing himself where we would get the hint..."I'm in the kitchen, how about food?" or "I'm by the door, let's go walkies." 

I suspect he thinks we are less than bright that we aren't speaking his language.

However, we have a friend whose dachshund speaks button. The owner has yes and no buttons and the dog will push the no repeated times when she disagrees with her owner or yes when she agrees with the owner.