In the summer, the dense greenery along the Potomac River covers houses, streets, and history. We moved to the area in 1966 and slowly discovered some unexpected treasures--the towpath along the abandoned C & O canal, Sycamore Island, the old settlement of Cabin John, the Clara Barton house. The Glen Echo Amusement Park.
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The violence exacerbated by Mayor Daley’s draconian crackdown on protestors at the 1968 Democratic convention helped to elect Nixon, a far worse alternative than Humphrey.
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Once you are on the Pali highway you are stuck behind whatever you are stuck behind.
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Rush hour is a daily ordeal, a gauntlet thrown down by urban existence. It is a time when the open road, a symbol of freedom, transforms into a congested, serpentine nightmare. The once-fluid asphalt becomes a parking lot in motion, a claustrophobic ballet of honking horns and overly impatient drivers.
Beyond the physical inconvenience, rush hour is a psychological battleground. Patience, a virtue often lauded, is tested to its absolute limits. Road rage, a beast lurking beneath the surface, is easily unleashed. The daily commute, intended as a simple transfer from home to work, becomes a crucible of stress and frustration. Yet, despite its challenges, rush hour is a shared experience, a universal bond among city dwellers. In its monotony and meanness there is a strange solidarity.
It is a time when the human condition is laid bare. We see the best and worst of humanity: the kindness of a driver who lets you merge, the rage of one who cuts you off. It is a microcosm of society, a daily drama played out on asphalt stages. We are all actors in this involuntary theater, performing roles we never volunteered for.
Rush hour is also a study in contrasts. The city, a vibrant, pulsating organism during the day, becomes a paralyzed giant. The same streets that buzz with life and energy now crawl with frustration. The once-proud vehicles, symbols of personal freedom, are reduced to metallic snails.
And so, we endure. We become experts at navigating this daily labyrinth, developing coping mechanisms as varied as the individuals who engage in it. We listen to podcasts, daydream, or simply grit our teeth and bear it. In the end, rush hour is more than just a traffic jam; it’s a rite of passage for the urban dweller, a test of endurance, and a daily reminder of the complexities of modern life.
–30–
Crossing the bottleneck of a bridge required maneuvering through a tangle of feeder lanes, timing the rush hour, and most of all having good traffic karma.
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The desire and frustration built up
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Sex, drugs, and rock & roll. A mantra, a mythos, a marketing masterpiece. It’s a phrase that’s been tossed around like a well-worn beach ball, it’s luster only dulled by overuse. Let’s be honest, it’s about as original as a guitar solo in a Nickelback song.
Sex? Sure, it’s a fundamental human urge. But let’s not confuse quantity with quality. Casual encounters and one-night stands are as likely to leave you feeling empty as a Doritos snack bag after the party. True intimacy, the kind that nourishes the soul, is a far cry from the hedonistic image the phrase conjures.
Drugs? A chemical shortcut to euphoria, perhaps. But the comedown is often a brutal reminder of the illusion. And let’s not forget the long-term consequences – physical, mental, and social. It’s like trading a Ferrari for a rusty Pinto, only to realize the Pinto doesn’t even have an engine.
Rock & roll? Now, there’s something I can get behind. The raw energy, the rebellion, the ability to transport you to another world. But let’s not conflate every strummed chord and wailing guitar with genuine artistic merit. There’s a vast chasm between a Led Zeppelin concert and a karaoke night at your local dive bar.
So, where does that leave us? Sex, drugs, and rock & roll as a package deal? A recipe for disaster, more likely. It’s a caricature of youth, a distorted reflection of what it means to live fully. There’s more to life than fleeting pleasures and empty promises. It’s about building meaningful connections, pursuing intellectual growth, and finding your own unique rhythm.
Perhaps we should replace that tired old phrase with something more inspiring. How about “Curiosity, Compassion, and Creativity”? Or “Love, Laughter, and Learning”? Both are trilogies worth exploring.
–30–
I remember when sex seemed like the border between childhood and becoming an adult, shrouded in mystery and myth, perhaps wonderful and exciting but also dangerous and distasteful. Information was scant in my middle-America 1950’s childhood, but my mother managed to pre-empt more unreliable sources by explaining the basic “facts of life” in mildly appalling clinical terms. Mom! Stop!
That, together with the diagrams of shedding uterine linings in the film that served as sex education for us sixth-grade girls, didn’t make the reproductive process sound like much fun, let alone the monthly travails of pads and mess and embarrassment.
I don’t remember anyone mentioning how wonderful flesh-on-flesh could be, how perfectly right the experience of intimate and gentle human touch–but what a fortunate discovery that eventually was! In a world of potential violence and disrespect, I was lucky.
My “coming of age” coincided with the summer of love, the generation gap, the antiwar movement, civil rights and women’s liberation. Rules and expectations, including prohibitions around sex, changed dramatically. Despite the new freedoms and joys of sexual access, the practical considerations of reproductive health and pregnancy (for heterosexuals particularly) did not magically disappear. The sexual revolution looked different for men and women.
Information and access to contraception, especially the pill, was critical. The Boston Women’s Health Collective produced “Our Bodies, Ourselves”, the bound newsprint bible that detailed anatomy, sexuality, conception and contraception options, abortion (still illegal), sexually-transmitted infections and related conditions. Sometimes you had to wonder if the sex were worth the consequences, which seemed to fall mostly to women. As they always had. And still do.
Medical information was not routinely provided by the male-dominated medical profession. The women’s clinics where I volunteered took time to help women understand their health issues and many of the staff went on to become medical professionals, as did I. We shared the explicit goal of improving women’s autonomy and health. Over the past fifty years, much has improved. Women have generally had more life choices and become more accomplished and powerful in ways previous generations could only imagine. We rejoiced when Roe v Wade finally made abortion legal, and it is an ongoing agony to see the destruction of that right in the U.S. today. Yesterday, today and tomorrow, women’s reproductive health in all its manifestations remains fundamental.
Sex, Drugs & Rock & Roll! It’s all happening again. Right now! It’s the ultimate do-over. Okay, the sex is likely not the same. The drugs aren’t, likely, the same. The Rock & Roll, likely, but may be is, or not, the same. That is, if you still listen to your favorite golden oldies, dare I say exclusively.
But it’s a definite re-do people. Or call it a re-boot. It’s Chicago again.
And, I for one am thrilled. The context is different but also the same. We’re fighting for freedom, equality, and yes stop the war (feel free to choose which one). I couldn’t say it any better than my beloved artist India Arie.
Please listen to the lyrics of her song ‘What if’.
Who knows. We may live through the shattering of every possible U.S. glass ceiling.
Jessie’s Earrings
It’s sweet how a chance word can evoke a flood of memories.
My mother Jessie is gone more than 20 years and I think of her I often. But after talking to a friend about the current rage for tattooing and body piercing I thought of a habit of Jessie’s I’d forgotten.
She didn’t have a lot of jewelry and was the furthest thing from a clothes horse, but she almost always wore earrings. Her ears weren’t pierced and so she wore earrings that screwed or clipped on.
However as a teenager I wanted to get mine pierced. For some reason she forbade it, and altho she and I battled over many things in those years, on the pierced ears fight I backed down. I guess it wasn’t that important to me, but once I was no longer under her roof I did have mine pierced.
But as I knew from the time I wore screw-on and clip-on earrings myself, they can pinch after you wear them for several hours. And I now remember a gesture of my mother’s I found endearing. She’d raise her hands to her ears, pull off both earrings, and massage her earlobes.
And now how I wish I could watch Jessie pull off those earrings just one more time!
(For more about Jessie see My Game Mother, Fluffy and the Alligator Shoes, Elbow Grease, The Dinner Party, Art Imitates Life, Still Life, Jessie’s 79th, and Moonlight Sonata)
– Dana Susan Lehrman
