Texas Family Secrets Page: 90 of 212
[4], 206 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.View a full description of this book.
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judged, and exiled from the community.
Women had their little homilies passed down from one generation
to the next. These rites of passage were part of Mother's
litany. "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor
one. Don't let him know you have a brain. Always let him win
at bridge and tennis. Laugh at his jokes. Don't stay single and
make your mother a shandeh [shame]. Get married."
Ask any woman and she will tell you that the secret to a long
life is marriage. Marriage is a better prescription for good health
than penicillin. When Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations'
mediator, went to see Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion concerning
Israel's blockade of the Suez Canal, Ben-Gurion's wife
approached him.
"Listen, you are a nice man," she said, "so why don't you get
married and leave Israel alone?" Mrs. Ben-Gurion's wisdom
reflects three thousand years of maternal influence, the secret
from the heart zealously withheld from the eyes of the male
population.
In the musical "Annie Get Your Gun," Annie Oakley belts out
her response to her competitor, Frank Butler:
"Anything you can do, I can do better.
I can do anything better than you."
It foretold a new litany, a laying on of hands that would give
grace and respect to an up-and-coming generation of women.
Our secrecy lay open to inspection. We were willing to turn the
Bible on its head. No more subservience to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. We are the daughters of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and
Leah, and as such would express the secrets of our heart to an
outside world.
We do not aspire to become daddies in the physical sense.
We want to become daddies in the creative and mental images
we are capable of producing. Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher
are proof it can be done.
So how come Aunt Rose fainted? She should have known
better. Being a daddy would have, at least, given her a minimum
wage. And, who knows, the world might have jumped
light years earlier to a kinder, gentler community.
85
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Texas Family Secrets (Book)
Collection of stories by forty local writers describing family histories and anecdotes in the Grayson County, Texas area. Each story is preceded by a brief biographical sketch of the author.
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Lincecum, Jerry Bryan & Redshaw, Peggy A. Texas Family Secrets, book, 1997; Sherman, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth20209/m1/90/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Austin College.