Nomination for a Woman Who Made America

There has been some talk lately about the Women Who Make America, due to a special on PBS. My mom has called me about it (a few times) and my twitter feed went bananas the first time the special was on. One of the tweets stated something like the real women that make America are pretty busy just getting sh*t done, so have no time to pause and congratulate themselves as part of a television special. These are the people who just do it, everyday, without recognition or accolades, because it (whatever it is), just needs to get done. It got me thinking..

My grandfather had a rural postal route many moons ago. When he decided to retire from his post, practice was that he would name the person to take his route. He decided that his daughter, Barbara, would take the post. She was interested in the job, qualified and looking for just a position. Her dad named her as his successor. This was met with a hearty “no thank you, what are you thinking appointing a woman to this job?” and “we’ll take it from here.” Undeterred, he took the request up the chain of command. When he did not get the answers he wanted, he sought legal help. No one was going to deny his daughter a job based on her gender. When it was made known that he had an attorney and was ready to fight for his appointment, the postal service relented and Barbara was awarded the position. She was one of the first women to hold a rural postal route. She faithfully (and successfully) carried out her duties with the postal service her entire career. Barbara left us last year after Alzheimer’s Disease took over her once very active brain. She was an excellent seamstress, postal worker, mother, grandmother and drove bus for the company that she owned.

My grandfather would not consider himself a political person. Barbara would not have considered herself a feminist. They were just two people who wanted to treated fairly and treated others in the same fashion. Barbara would have been too busy delivering the mail on her rural route to notice that PBS was doing a program about how women’s roles have changed and the women that were so instrumental in changing them. By doing her job well for so many years, she opened doors to other, qualified women that wanted to work in various positions in the postal service. This may not be newsworthy to many, but it is newsworthy to me. It shows that the people who make the United States a place where people are treated fairly and justly are not necessarily elected to high office, attend Ivy League schools or the like. It shows that people who make it a priority to do the right thing move our country forward.

Barbara is my nomination for the list of Women that Make America.

I WON! I WON!

I received tweet from Jim at http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/ letting me know that he had awarded me the Kreativ Blogger.  WOOT!  It totally made my day, because I was having trouble getting motivated to write a post for the week.  Then, BAM! an award, a mention, a subject!  Jim is a good fella.

In any case, “the rulez” in accepting this award are that I need to post 10 things about myself that you may not already know, and that I will tag 6 bloggers in the post.  I am working on the 10 things, (will most likely have to call my mom), and tag the bloggers I can think of, because I really only know of a couple.  If you have read this blog before now, you know I am rather new here.

1. Most of my followers are family or friends of my mom.  I am not sure what this says about me.  When we told folks we were moving they said to keep in touch, but I am too lazy busy to get with each of them individually and have too much to say for Facebook, so blogging seemed like a nice way to let folks know what we are up to. And, apparently my mom has alot of friends and talks alot.  In any case, I appreciate all of you!

2. When I was much younger, all I wanted out of life was two great danes and a BMW.  To go even further, I bet a good friend $50 that I would not be married until after the age of 40, because I did not want any husband to expect me to have children.  How did all that turn out?  I married one year after graduating college, have a great husband, three wonderful kids, drive a minivan (that is NOT a BMW) and the thought of cleaning up after a dog… well, let’s just say I don’t see any pets in our future.

3. I am a feminist.  Many women’s issues are big hot buttons for me and I have not yet decided if I will post about them here.  See #1.

4. I did not change my name when I married.  At the time, I was militantly against it and JB did not care either way.  After our second child was born I thought about it, but two things held me back.  First, JB questioned why after so many years I would do it, because who really gives a shit, its just a name, and, second, it costs, like, $150 or something if you don’t do it right away.  So, still thinking that it is a silly tradition and being cheap, I kept my original name.

5. I used to do volunteer work for Planned Parenthood.  Not alot, a few times I made phone calls to donors and once handed out condoms at a Bonnie Raitt concert.  We got to meet Bonnie Raitt afterward.  She was wicked cool.  Bruce Hornsby had opened for her that night and although I did not get to meet him backstage, I did meet his parents.  Nice people.

6. When I was a kid and the other girls were frothing over David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, John Stamos or whoever, I wanted to be Jane Pauley.  To me, she was IT.  Successful, smart, the whole package.

7. Perhaps not a surprise because of #6, two of my favorite movies are Working Girl (Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith) and Baby Boom (Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard).  True, Melanie Griffith’s character takes down the bitch character that Sigourney Weaver plays, but I really like the bitch.  And I was seriously pissed when Melanie Griffith “did it” with Harrison Ford.  Cheapened the victory for me.

8. I tear up.  Alot.  Over all kinds of things.  Certain songs, when I finish a marathon, when reading posts about friends and family that are battling cancer, all kinds of stuff.  Remember that song “Bringing You Home” by Don Henley?  Its about the birth of his daughter.  It came out when I was pregnant with my daughter.  When painting the entryway to our house (at the time) it came on the radio and I bawled like a baby right in front of the open front door,  The neighbors must of thought I was nuts.

9. I started running a few years ago after seeing a poster for the Chicago Marathon.  At the time I was on the home stretch to finish my MBA and was seeking for “what to do next”.  JB and I were in Chicago to see Wicked, (highly recommend), I saw the poster, turned to him and said, “Wouldn’t it be cool to run a marathon?”  He replied, “Sure”.  To be honest, I don’t think he thought I would actually do it.  Next thing we know I am training for my third marathon in as many years.

10. Back in the day, I played tennis with my dad.  Like almost every day.  My dad has only a couple of speeds.  We kid that if he is not moving he will fall asleep.  Actually, this is not only kidding, and I have the pictures to prove it. Another thing about Dad.  Not only did he play tennis with my brother and I whenever we wanted, he drove school bus for many of our sports activities.  I played alot of tennis back in the day and it was nice to have him courtside.

Whew!  Therapy session is over.. So the second part of “the rulez” is that I reveal the blogs that I like reading and provide links to each. (Right?)

For running – I like a few, but here are two –  http://katierunsthis.com/  and http://imrunnerchica.com/.  For politics and family all rolled into one, I like http://www.mommiesarelight.com/.  For family, I love http://blog.shoesonthewrongfeet.com/, her humor and ability to turn everyday events into a cute/sensitive/meaningful story is always a good read.  For travel, I like http://lesleycarter.wordpress.com/..  I regularly read many blogs, just cannot think of them on the spot.  There are so many good ones..  Of course, I also read http://blogginglily.blogspot.com/ religiously.

So thank you, Jim, for bestowing this award upon me.  I will work to live up to it.