…from my youth.
My mother is a strong willed Sicilian woman who although she had many diplomatic skills was also blunt when asked a direct question. This bluntness made her more than a few enemies.
There is one in particular that comes to mind, I won’t quote the name as the woman in question is long dead but to say there was no love lost between them is the understatement and then some. I’ve heard the stories of their many conflicts dating back to the 40’s for decades.
I remember thirty something years ago the subject came up and my mother was talking about something that had happened back in the 50’s. She was actually getting angry over it, one of the few times I ever saw her start to get carried away. She began to mention a rumor and suddenly stopped herself short. I noticed a look on her face as if she was angry to have even alluded to it.
I asked her about the rumor and she wouldn’t go any further, her whole attitude shifted. She said that she would not repeat it, no matter what she had done to her in the past or how much she disliked her the very suggestion was beyond the pale and she scolded herself for mentioning it.
Her anger dissipated at once and she gave me a talking to on propriety and respect and she stressed about how one should never go by rumor. It really struck me how ashamed of herself she was. I had never seen that before.
I don’t think I have to say what the rumor was, but it really gives an illustration of how attitudes have changed in just a few generations. My parents did have homosexual acquaintances (as did I) but their orientation was never openly discussed. In those days to suggest or mention it was considered the height of impropriety.
I never knew the mainstream media held such old fashioned values.
Update: Stacy notices that Robert Gibbs thinks he’s my mother.
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