Eulogy for My Grandmother

On Saturday, June 18, 2011, one day after what would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday, we celebrated her life with an event at the Woodstock Community Center. It was a very special day, with music, readings, and spoken tributes. One of her friends, who is a former professional opera singer, led us all in singing Happy Birthday. Some Native American musicians played music (Mescal was interested in Native American culture her entire life). Family members played "The Ashokan Farewell" and other instrumental arrangements. A New Orleans-style jazz band, called the Saints of Swing, began the event with a rousing musical procession, and after all the speeches were over they led a procession of guests down to The Colony for the reception.

New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey was the first speaker, and his tribute to her was very thoughtful and engaging. Mescal had been a political activist for the last four decades of her life -- she even served one term on the Woodstock Town Council in the early 1980s. She meant a lot to a lot of people, and really made her mark on the community.

The Woodstock Town Council decided to name the Woodstock Community Center after my grandmother because of the instrumental role she had played in acquiring the building for the community while she was on the council. She would have been proud but also embarrassed by the generous gesture in her honor.

Six months after her death, in January 2011, I still miss her all the time. Below is the text of my own comments delivered at the memorial event:

Hello, I’m Mescal’s granddaughter, Beth. I knew Mescal for 46 years – almost 47. I learned so much from my grandmother. I have so many wonderful memories of Mescal, but I will try to keep my remarks brief. Mescal was born in a world without television, or cell phones; the radio and the telephone were not used nearly as much as they are today. There were movie theaters in the world, but not in the rural community where she grew up. She had a fairly solitary childhood; except for her sister and cousins, there were no other children close by, except for the summer boarders at her grandparents’ boarding house. She read a lot, and was very close to her father, Fred Toms, and to her maternal grandfather, Mathias Burgher. Even at age 99, she would talk fondly of both of them, and her memories of her childhood were as vivid as if they had happened yesterday. She always told us stories of growing up in that far-off distant world, trying to teach us modern kids what it was like to live without electricity, or indoor plumbing; and to give us an appreciation for how hard her grandmother had worked to do things we take for granted, like doing laundry.

Despite – or maybe because of – growing up in this small community, Mescal was curious about the rest of the world. When I was around 15 or 16 years old she took me to the Tibetan Buddhist monastery for a kirtan – a ceremony of meditation and chanting. Afterwards we stayed to have a meal with the monks. It was a simple evening, really, but to me it meant and still means a lot. It was an experience of learning about people whose views and beliefs were different from ours, through the very simple act of watching and learning and absorbing the moment. It was an experience of accepting and respecting them, without judging their beliefs, AND of being accepted and respected by them. Mescal didn’t take me there as some kind of pedagogical exercise, or at least I didn’t experience it that way. Instead it was something that SHE wanted to do, and she was generous enough to include me. She went because she was curious, and I was curious too. I’ve always loved her curiosity and her sense of adventure. And it made me feel really good to be included in her life and the activities that she cared about. I often didn’t feel like her granddaughter; I felt like her friend.

Another important memory for me was that, as a young teenager, I was often brought along with my grandmother as she delivered Meals on Wheels. Mescal was one of the founders of this organization in the Woodstock area, and she worked hard as one of the volunteers who brought hot, healthy meals to shut-ins. I would accompany her to the kitchen in the Dutch Reformed Church where I met the people who prepared the meals. As we made our rounds, I met the people who received the meals. As a young person growing up, I only knew of my grandmother as someone who cared very much about helping other people. She believed in serving others, and she taught me this by her example.

She always wrote letters to the newspapers, and letters to her elected representatives, about the social issues that concerned her the most, both locally and nationally. She didn’t just talk about the issues she cared about, she acted on them.

Throughout my life, Mescal was an inspiration to me, and a role model. I was always SO proud of her, and proud to be related to such a remarkable lady. The letters she wrote to me were so interesting and impassioned that I would share them with my friends – her thoughts on universal health care, and other political issues. She was outspoken, opinionated, and passionate about the causes she believed in. She was also quite frank and open when talking about her political views, her religious views, and even sexuality and the body. She didn’t refrain from talking about a subject for fear of embarrassment or of offending someone. More than anything else, she wanted to have lively conversations and exchanges with people about things and ideas that really MATTERED.

Most of all she wanted to make the world a better place. When I was staying with her here in Woodstock last summer I noticed she was wearing a pair of pants that had lots of holes and tears in them; I wanted to buy her a new pair, but she wouldn’t let me. I wanted to sew up the seams where they were coming apart, but she said no, “it doesn’t matter.” What was important to her was instead giving the money to some organization that needed it because of all the good work they did in helping people. She didn’t believe in spending money on herself needlessly.

I want to stop and acknowledge, too, the unfailing support of her children and their spouses and partners, which helped facilitate Mescal’s generosity in the world. She was so grateful for your love and devotion. You always made sure she was taken care of, and that she had what she needed. She felt that she was not a good mother, and I believe it was very humbling for her to experience the love and generosity from you all that she didn’t feel she deserved. Through this, I think, she experienced grace, and she was always, in my view, living in a state of gratitude.

I always wanted to be just like my grandmother. Sometimes I think I am like her, at least personality-wise – with all of her flaws – but at other times I realize I don’t even come close to the generosity and the unselfishness that were so key to who she was. But I will keep trying to learn from her example. And when I am 99, I will still remember her like it was yesterday.

Mescal Hornbeck

My dearly beloved grandmother, Mescal Hornbeck, died on January 19, 2011, at the age of 99-1/2. I was very close to her, and her death was a major loss for me. I had seen her only about three weeks before she died, and she was in good health. Her death (from congestive heart failure) came as a shock to me, because somewhere in the back of my mind I really believed she would live forever. I was fortunate to spend two months with her in the summer of 2010, along with my son, Eli, and to have seen her frequently during 2010. I miss her so much.

One gesture of mourning that I made was to cut off my hair after she died. Sometimes Hindus shave their heads in mourning for a close family member, such as a parent or spouse. I did not go quite that far, but did cut it pretty short, as short as I could stand to. After not having cut it at all for 5 years, this was a radical change.

What was the point of cutting of my hair? It was a number of things. For one, it represents for me the major loss of one of the most important people in my life. For another, it represents my transformation. I can no longer in any way think of myself as a child, because I have no more living grandparents. At age 47, of course, and being a parent, I stopped being a child quite a long time ago, but something about having that amazing matriarch -- the wizened elder, the sage --made me feel like I was in some sense still sitting at her feet, at least figuratively. Now I am one generation older; the elders in my family are my parents and their generation.

I do feel that 47 is fairly old, but my grandmother was still more than twice my age. Therefore she was always right -- though she would listen to other people's point of view, at least most of the time. She was cantankerous and difficult to get along with sometimes, but she was also an amazing individual who made quite a contribution to the world.

We held a "celebration of her life" on June 18, in Woodstock, New York, where she had lived for the past 40 years. It was the day after what would have been her 100th birthday. This was a remarkable experience for me, and I will be reflecting on it for quite some time. Maybe some of my reflections will make it onto this blog, but most of them will remain private. Grieving is not really something you can do publicly, I have found.

The Song of the Thirteen-Year Cicadas

A Poem for Valerie on Her Birthday

“Why don’t we do it in the road?”

My bicycle tire

Passes an inch

From a two-headed cicada,

As my son calls it.

Are they the rabbits of the insect world?

Multiplying by the billions,

Engaging in a month-long orgy

Of cicada love.

Then, fulfilling their destinies, they die.

Or are they the cows of the insect world,

Large, slow, gentle creatures,

Grazing for thirteen years,

On tree roots,

Providing food to fatten the moles?

Then, emerging, they are like babies,

No worldly experience to prepare them

To defend themselves from hungry birds.

Or curious humans.

Or hungry humans.

Cicada ice cream, emergence cookies,

Cicada pizza, spicy cicada stir fry,

Pesto cicada pasta,

Cicada-portobella quiche,

“El Chirper” tacos.

“They’re high in protein,” people say,

As if our normal diet were somehow deficient.

It’s best to gather the newly emerged “tenerals,”

They’re the softest.

Don’t eat the legs and wings.

Like dogs, they have

A thirteen-year life span;

One year for a human

Is like seven years for a cicada.

And they have well developed hearing.

I think of them more like teenagers, though,

At age thirteen they are just discovering the world

And other cicadas.

It’s a month-long frenzy; the droning hum we hear

Is the mating call of amorous males.

“I can’t get enough of your love,” he sings,

Determined to find a receptive female,

Coyly flicking her wings.

He defends against male interlopers

Through acoustic jamming.

They are so caught up in their teenage hormones –

Their relentless need for the love embrace –

That they are oblivious to

The brevity of

Their remaining days.

If these were seventeen-year cicadas

Would they be drinking and driving?

Begging to borrow the car keys?

“Even going so slowly you can’t fly without bumping into things;

Why on earth would I let you drive my car?”

I tend them like sheep,

Rescuing them from the car windshield,

The asphalt pavement,

The screened-in porch

Where they would be doomed.

Fly, cicadas! Mate!

Find your love!

Lay your eggs in safe places,

So we can enjoy your song again

In thirteen years.

by Elizabeth Hornbeck, 6/4/11

My Grandmother at Age 17

My beloved grandmother, Mescal Elizabeth Toms Hornbeck, died on January 19 at the age of 99. I have spent that past week (my spring break) at her house in Woodstock, New York, taking stock of the estate -- going through books, photographing the furnishings, and thinking about the disposal of her belongings. She had a lot of them, but she also has a lot of kids (4) and grandkids (7) and even great-grandchildren (2). Among the books I discovered her 1928 senior class high school yearbook, the Maroon, from Kingston High School (New York). Here's what the text says:

Mescal B. Toms [this is a typo, her middle initial was E.]
11 Lucas Avenue
Prospect: Elmira College.
Career: A.A., 1, 2, 3, 4; Interclass athletics, 1, 2, 3, 4; Captain hockey, 1; Captain baseball, 1; Prisma, 3, 4; President Prisma, 4; Hi-Y Auxiliary, 4; Mary Lyon, 4; Varsity debating team, 4; Bankers' Council, 2; Literary Editor MAROON.

Do you remember the Heritage of the Desert, in which Mescal plays so prominent a part? It wasn't our Mescal, but we are sure that she could have played the part to perfection. Both she and Bebe are dark, vivacious , and full of fun. Mescal acts well the part of an efficient executive too, for under her administration Prisma has enjoyed one of the most prosperous years since its organization.

Also printed in her senior class yearbook was this poem she wrote:

A Hermit

“For who would rob a hermit of his weeds,

His few books or his beads, or maple dish,

Or do his gray hairs any violence.”

–- Milton

A hermit sits in meditative bliss,

His thoughts removed from common things like this.

His mind is on the infinite

And spurns the signs of human fellowship.

His books, his beads, his weeds, and maple dish,

The only tokens of his lost kinship

With us, his fellow mortals here below.

But scorn him not! With noble strength and aim

He left this world of sordid sin and gain

To seek for wisdom and for Wisdom’s Source.

--Mescal E. Toms

My Endorsement for Tracy Greever-Rice, 4th Ward City Council Candidate

I’ve spent the last month or so volunteering on my friend’s city council campaign, and I’d like to share with you, my friends, my endorsement of Tracy Greever-Rice for the 4th Ward seat on the Columbia City Council. I’m not endorsing Tracy because she’s my friend, though indeed I feel very lucky to have her friendship. Rather, I’m endorsing her because she is an incredibly impressive candidate – knowledgeable, experienced, smart, dependable, hard-working, and – most importantly – her values and her vision for the city are ones I embrace whole-heartedly.

I attended a mayoral debate last Monday, an event hosted by the Missourian newspaper, and couldn’t help thinking that Tracy could debate circles around all of the mayoral candidates. I didn’t get to stay for the Fourth Ward debate, but I’ve seen Tracy in action, and I’ve seen video footage of a forum for the four candidates, as well as video clips of the other candidates put up online by the Missourian. My overall impression is that Tracy is more knowledgeable than anyone else about the details, intricacies and complexities of city government and public policy.

Here’s one example: In the mayoral debate, candidates were asked about whether under the current and future economic constraints, Columbia should continue to fund social services. I had heard Tracy address the same question the previous day, and she pointed out that the money that the city spends on social services is used to leverage funding from state and national sources, and without the city’s allocation, we would not have access to the outside funding that provides three or four times as much funding, ultimately, for the city’s most vulnerable members.

The depth and breadth of Tracy’s grasp of complex questions have impressed just about everyone who has met her. Her knowledge is in large part a function of her educational and professional background. She has a PhD in rural sociology, and is the Associate Director for Community and Economic Development-related initiatives at OSEDA (the Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis at the University of Missouri). In this capacity, Tracy has worked with dozens of communities throughout the state of Missouri, including Columbia. She has analyzed the data on funding of social services, which is why she knows so much about it. The local Chamber of Commerce often call Tracy’s office (including Tracy herself) to get needed information about the city. (I think it’s utterly ridiculous that the Chamber endorsed a candidate, Daryl Dudley, who has none of the sorts of skills that Tracy brings to the table.)

Although I have described Tracy as a progressive, Tracy makes a point of saying that she takes seriously her responsibility (should she be elected) to represent and work for ALL members of the community. Although one of her opponents is running on the claim of being able to facilitate communication and help people on different sides of an issue to reach agreement, I am confident that Tracy has all of these skills too. She has served on the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission as well as other boards and commissions, all of which require the ability to communicate and work well with others. She is highly professional, respectful of others and able to command their respect. She is a kind, understanding, and empathetic person, which I think goes a long way towards being able to work with people whose viewpoints are different from hers.

This election is critical to Columbia's future, because the city council will soon begin work on a new long-range comprehensive land use plan for the city, the impact of which will be felt for the next 10 or 20 years. It's important to elect a council that will stand up for the welfare of all members of the community, with council members who understand the complexities of public policy and its impacts on people.

What I want to say to all of my friends who are voters in Columbia’s 4th ward is this: to vote for anyone other than Tracy would be a mistake; and if Tracy does not win this election on April 6, it would be a real loss for the city of Columbia. It would be a lost opportunity to have a council member who brings to the table an incredible skill set, and a vast background in the kind of community involvement that will make for a highly effective council member. This is an issue of fundamental importance to us all; the election is not a popularity contest, it's about real issues and will have profound and lasting effects on what happens in our community. You owe it to us all to vote for the most qualified candidate for the job.

Tracy has been endorsed by the Sierra Club.

I was interviewed for and quoted in this Profile on Tracy for the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Update, March 28, 2010:

Tracy has just picked up another endorsement, this one from the Boone County Smart Growth Coalition.

Hiding Behind Anonymity

In earlier times, such as 18th-century England, political censorship forced many writers to publish anonymously for fear of imprisonment. In the absence of freedom of speech, anyone who spoke out against the government was taking a dangerous risk, as were their publishers. Well, today, “Anonymous” is making a come-back, but for the most part these are not courageous political activists and revolutionaries. Anonymous comments have become the stock-in-trade of the ignorant, petty, and just plain vicious – people who are ashamed to be associated with their own stupid or hateful comments.

All you have to do is read the “Comments” section online on your local newspaper, on blogs, or other websites. I never worried too much about this until recently, when I was targeted through this blog by a couple of losers who are unwilling to own up to their own comments by using their real names.

Initially they were just taunting me for a comment I made at a film screening; these comments were posted on my February 27 blog post on “True/False Film Festival 2010.” I responded to their comments in my March 2 post on the film Colony (“Why I Didn’t Like Colony”), and received more negative comments which are posted there.

But what is not visible on my blog is additional comments that I received from “partoftheprecipitate” and “doublewordscore.” After those obnoxious comments that got posted, I had to take the unprecedented (for me) step of moderating comments. I received two more messages from “doublewordscore” and one from “partoftheprecipitate,” all highly insulting, and attacking my work as an educator.

Now this harassment wouldn’t be so alarming if, A, the cyber-attacks hadn’t continued over a period of several days rather than just a one-off incident; and, B, if these people weren’t hiding their identities. Someone suggested to me they were former students of mine. As far as I’m concerned this is no trivial matter. You really have to wonder about the psychological and emotional stability of someone who carries a grudge against a professor years after having taken a class in which the student got a grade he or she didn’t like. Given all the violence on college, university and high school campuses, from Columbine to Virginia Tech, our so-called “ivory tower” is anything but.

When folks are leaving anonymous comments on websites, it’s impossible for readers to know if they are just idiots blowing off steam, or if there’s actually a violent intent. Here’s an example: a wonderful woman, whom I knew personally, was murdered by her ex-husband over Thanksgiving; her two teen-age daughters and her grandmother were also slain by this misogynistic lunatic.

The husband / murderer, Kraig Kahler, was fired from his job with the City of Columbia in September, less than three months before he killed four members of his family. You should read the comments that were posted on the Columbia Daily Tribune’s website when the story of his firing was published – but you’d better have a strong stomach. The vast majority of comments are verbally abusive to his wife and overly sympathetic to husband, seeing him as persecuted. Comments degenerated into wild and unfounded speculation about Karen Kahler’s character and behavior – comments posted by people who never even met her. Here are some examples:

Someone named “taylor100” wrote,

“Yes, we are still ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room due to the censorship our our comments. Let's see, she was well taken care of, had three great well adjusted kids, happily married for 25 years, and then she decides to try something new. Yes, this whole situation has been brought on due to her selfishness.

“Mr. Kahler was trying to save the marriage and the family and now they are all going to suffer for years to come. Eventually the truth will come out and everyone will understand. I will probably be censored again just like RationalThought.”

Then “detoito” responded with this:

“You spend your whole life building this career, and your angry wife claims you touched her against her will (Her words, not mine), and you are fired. It is going to be hard enough for Mr. Kahler to find anything in his field of expertise as it is, but to add being fired to the list would make it next to impossible.

“I think he chose the lesser of two evils.”

Someone named “crighton” wrote:

“Oh and by the way, the original arrest was just a setup. She was playing hardball with her attorney so she could get the most out of the divorce. Happens all of the time to good people.

Then there’s “fay_mccollom” who wrote:

“it was a bearhug and not a 'hit'. Its women like her that lose credibility for all true victims.”

All told there were 70 reader comments on this article (about a dozen of which were actually deleted by Tribune staff for being over-the-top offensive), the majority of them supporting Kraig – the eventual mass-murderer. Rumors I’ve heard (and suggested in the Tribune’s Comments section) suggest that Kraig himself was the author of many of those comments bashing his wife. After the murders happened, the Tribune reported on Kraig’s internet stalking of his wife.

I wonder, if people leaving comments on the Tribune’s page were required to give their real names, would there be even one-tenth of the irresponsible posting that we see nowadays?

Final True/False Report

Let me begin by saying this is my one hundredth blog post. That's #100, yippee! There should be some kind of celebration; it will be a long time before I reach the next big milestone. I started my blog with the 2008 True/False Film Festival, so it's appropriate to be discussing the 2010 Festival at #100.

The Festival was great this year. After sitting through 13 films, I can report one more poultry slaughter (a turkey, in Those Who Remain) and a sheep slaughter (On the Other Side of Life). Combine that with the 16 bear paws (four bears worth) found in a Chinese dumpster (Disorder), and the two chicken slaughters I reported earlier, and the animals didn’t fare too well in this year’s documentary film selections.

But it was a great weekend. I packed in as much as I could, yet there is still a long list of films that my friends raved about that I didn’t get a chance to see. At a debriefing with friends on Sunday night, about 20 people talked about their two top films from the festival, and there was a wide variety of opinion. Here are the ones I missed but want to see:

The Red Chapel (dir. Mads Brügger, 87 min.), about two Korean-Danish comedians visiting North Korea, got rave reviews from everyone who saw it.

Holy Wars (dir. Stephen Marshall, 81 min.) followed a Muslim extremist and a Christian extremist in their proselytizing efforts; the filmmaker set up a debate between them, and the outcome was remarkable.

GasLand (dir. Josh Fox, 86 min.) – everyone who saw this film said it was unbelievable and disturbing; one of my students said she cried through half of it. It’s about natural gas, Halliburton, and groundwater pollution.

Cowboys in India (dir. Simon Chambers, 78 min.), the plot of which I still haven’t figured out, sounds great and got lots of thumbs up.

The Mirror (dir. David Christensen, 85 min.) is set in the Italian Alps and explores the attempts by a small-town mayor to build a giant mirror to bring sunlight to his village. Some monkish Germans are also involved.

My husband liked Circo (dir. Aaron Schock, 78 min.) a lot, which was one of two Mexican circus films, the other being The Tightrope (dir. Núria Ibáñez, 80 min.) (which neither of us saw).

Waste Land (dir. Lucy Walker, 98 min.) is about artist Vik Muniz, whose art uses trash from the Rio de Janeiro landfill. People loved it.

Clearly, the True/False Film Festival needs to be about two days longer if a person's going to get to see everything they're interested in seeing.