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Posts Tagged ‘diversity’

Living in a Changing World

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, Writing, tagged , on June 20, 2024| 4 Comments »

I titled this Jungle Aviary. Keeping up with today’s changing world is as hard as finding the possible birds in this charcoal drawing. Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

I was born in 1939, before going to the moon and beyond was hardly even a dream. It was a world in which every home didn’t have a television, computers didn’t exist — and racism was rampant.

While the N word was never spoken in my home, and my parents didn’t believe they were prejudiced, I was taught that separate but equal was the right way to live when it came to Blacks and Whites.

Observing the world, especially as a young reporter, I quickly realized how laughable that belief was. The deck was stacked against anyone but the WASPs.

Then came my acknowledgement that sexual orientation comes in more than two flavors — and I quickly saw that the world was a hard place for those who didn’t fall into one of those two categories. Sadly, my youngest brother was one of those. I don’t think he even accepted himself, and he became one of the early victims of AIDS.

I would like to think the world is an easier place for one of my own children, who came out as gay back in the early 1980s. And even easier – although rarely anyone of whatever persuasion has an easy life – for my dear granddaughter and her dear wife who live next door to me and have become my emergency caretakers.

Meanwhile, the world has changed so much that at 85, I’m having trouble keeping up. And yesterday, I committed what today has become a politically incorrect blunder.

My cardiologist’s medical assistant spoke in a heavily accented voice, and I was having problems understanding him. At one point, I asked him where he was from. “California,” he replied.

After he left, I looked at my granddaughter, who had taken me to my doctor’s appointment, and said: “I shouldn’t have asked that, should I?”

“It’s become a very diverse America, Nana,” my granddaughter replied, noting that she had just completed 40 hours of diversity training for her new job.

Gads! It’s hard keeping up with today’s world, especially at 85. But I guess if I’m going to keep on breathing, I need to keep on trying.

Be kind out there everyone!

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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My Neighbors, The Coyotes

Posted in Art, Journeys, Writing, tagged , , , , on February 11, 2021| 1 Comment »

Cat No. 6 — Happy Fat Cat with Blue Eyes

          Somewhere around 5 a.m. this morning, a nearby pack of coyotes begin to howl.  My canine bed-partner Scamp sat up beside me and listened – and continued in that same position until I finally got up at 6 a.m. to walk him.

          The coyote howls brought back the time I had encounters with coyotes on Antelope Island in Great Salt Lake. I saw one or two often, especially when I visited the island to bird watch in winter.

          Once, when I was researching a story about coyote research at Utah State University, a playful coyote stole my camera bag. I admire the animal’s survivability, despite mankind’s desire to eliminate the species. 

          I live in Tucson, a city of more than half a million people, in a large apartment complex, near the corner of two busy four-lane roads, with banks, grocery stores, a MacDonald’s, two bagel places, a Starbucks, an animal clinic, two pharmacies, an Ace Hardware, a UPS office, several restaurants, and more businesses to the north and east.

          South and west of me is a scattered residential area broken up by desert ridges, washes, and even a dry river bed, to accommodate the area’s occasional monsoons, which recently have been rare.

          If you like having all the conveniences of a city but still a bit of nature in your life, as I do, it’s an ideal place to live.

I’ve seen bobcats in the parking lot, great horned owls raising chicks in large trees I walk by daily, rare North American birds from my third-floor balcony, and once or twice passed by javelinas that came into the complex when someone left a gate open.

          And then there are the coyotes that serenaded me and Scamp this morning. It was a good song, I thought, remembering my recent repair bill because desert packrats got into my car’s engine compartment.

Without coyotes, the desert rodent population might rise to take over Tucson. Just because they are different from us doesn’t make them evil.

          Hmmm! Now that’s a thought that can be expanded on.

          Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

           

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