Plattdeutsche Park

 

The news is an awful bummer but I began subscribing to another positive news newsletter.  I also focus more on the “fairer” of the newsletters, like the 1440 and the Skimm.  I read Press Run, in which the author takes on the negativity of the mainstream press toward President Biden.  I also read Reuters a lot for their impartiality.

As for why the news is generally a bummer:

1.      Ukraine.  The coverage of the carnage left behind by the retreating Russian army is truly horrifying.  President Zelensky calls it genocide and it sure seems to be, but the Western countries seem hesitant to go that far.  They do call Putin a war criminal, however.  The Russians, of course, is claiming the footage of the bodies tied with their hands behind them and left strewn on the streets are a “hoax.”  Yeah.  My lyin eyes are deceiving me.  Oh, it is so sickening.

2.     The abuse and mistreatment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by the GQP.  The Rethuglicans on the Judiciary Committee practically pranced about, shouting “We are racists!”  There’s no shame anymore.  Every single one of those GQP corrupted Senators voted against the most qualified person ever to be nominated to the Supreme Court.  She far outshines trump nominees and yet she was mocked and interrupted by the thugs during the hearings.  And every single one toe stepped to the “no female blacks on the Supreme Court.”  And while the hearings were going on, the Chair, Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, didn’t object once to Jackson’s mistreatment.  The only one to defend her was Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey.

3.     The GQP continues to flagrantly break the law and get away with it.  Those of us who believe in law and order are thoroughly depressed by the lack of consequences for the higher up law breakers.

 

In more positive news today, I saw on the Long Island paper, Nassau Daily Voice, that the Plattedeutsche Park restaurant was voted the best German restaurant on Long Island.  I so remember the Plattedeutsche well and very fondly. 

 

I went there when I was first dating Rich.  His parents, grandparents and all his relatives were of German heritage so the Plattedeutsche was like a second home to them.  Every year, the Park had Volks’ Fests and Oompah Fests.  They were so much fun!  There were games for the children to play; delicious bratwursts, knockwursts, hot dogs and potato pancakes to stuff a hungry self on; a loud, lively Oompah band and lots of dancing, drinking and singing.  Every once in a while, folks would form a parade and march around the park.  The fests were always packed and always filled with “gemütlichkeit”.

 

I’d taken German in junior high and high school but had forgotten most of it by the time I began dating Rich.  I didn’t know what “gemütlichkeit” was and asked his grandmother.  She answered that it wasn’t a real word but a combination of ideas conveying that everyone was experiencing good feelings together.  Happy camaraderie.  That certainly defined the spirit at the fests.

 

On special occasions, we’d always eat at the Plattedeutsche.  This is where I learned to truly appreciate German food.  I’d grown up with American/Irish meals and so I really enjoyed dishes like rouladen, sauerbraten, schnitzel, apfelkuchen, and many others.   Family birthday parties and gatherings were always held in a private dining room at the Plattedeutsche.  We stuffed ourselves.

Throughout our marriage, Rich and I went to the Plattdeutsche every year we lived in New York.  When we moved to Maryland, we’d travel to Franklin Square to meet up with family to celebrate Oma’s birthday.  Oma is German for grandma and that is what Rich’s grandmother was called.  After Rich passed away in 2001, I went with our children to the Folks’ Fest.  We couldn’t stay as long as we used to; it was too painful. 

 

Now, twenty years later, all I remember is the good times and the great food!  

 

Hatred

Lots of sad stuff about today.  First, what’s going on in the Ukraine:  with the Russian pullback to regroup, people re-entering one of the occupied cities have found hundreds of murdered citizens, many with their hands tied behind their backs.  I saw some pictures and they were horrifying.  The news broke yesterday and I’m really glad I wasn’t paying attention.  People can be so evil to each other.  It’s a wonder God isn’t sick of us all.  Today, President Biden called the slaughter a “war crime” and wants Putin to stand trial.

It's also the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination.  He was shot and killed around 6 in the evening, and it was on the TV news when I came down the following morning for breakfast.  I was 13 and in 7^th grade, that horrible year from hell when I was bullied and tormented.  My Deaf parents were in the dining room, chatting over breakfast.  I broke the news to them and their response was “Oh no, now there’s going to be trouble.” 

I didn’t understand.  I was beginning to be aware of what was happening because we had Current Events once a week.  I was assigned world news and so I was more informed about what was happening in Viet Nam and other places.  I’d heard of Martin Luther King, but I thought he was doing a good thing.  Why would anyone shoot him?

My parents were right about trouble.  There were some fights breaking out at my junior high but, more than that, there were angry people rioting in the streets.  We had to have a curfew and only “essential” personnel could be out after curfew.  That meant my dad, who worked the night shift, could go to the Baltimore Sun where he was a printer. 

Watching the news became a terrifying experience.  There were images of cities on fire everywhere in the country, with people raging in the streets and vandalizing stores and cars.  I was especially frightened by the scenes in our city, Baltimore, as familiar places were set on fire or destroyed by rioters.  There was a report that snipers were firing at people driving in cars after curfew.  I couldn’t sleep until my dad got home.  I was afraid he would be killed by an unheard sniper’s bullet.

I was also learning much about systemic racism.  Our history hadn’t impacted me much up to this point; slavery wasn’t taught in school.  Neither was Jim Crow laws or segregation.  Now I was becoming aware of hatred I didn’t understand.  For some reason, white people seemed to hate black people for the color of their skin.  Black people only wanted to be treated as well as white people and that was fair, I believed. 

Even as things began to get back to “normal”, I was beginning to read stories about James Earl Ray, George Wallace, Bull Connor and the Ku Klux Klan.  It was sickening to think that some of the awful things I’d read in Gone With The Wind were still going on.  I shared my feelings with my parents but found to my dismay that they were prejudiced against black people too.  My mom did take me aside and advise me to “make friends” with black classmates so that if there was more “trouble”, I would be safe.  I didn’t bother to tell her I was already friends with black classmates but after Dr. King was assassinated, they seemed wary around me.

At about that time, I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time.  There was no way I could make myself think as my parents did and that was the beginning of continuing arguments with them.  I wanted to know why they, who suffered discrimination and prejudice because of their deafness, could hate another group of people suffering because of their skin color.  They always had prejudicial, ignorant reasons.  At 13, I was positive that adults were flawed.

I can’t hate people because skin color, religion, or sexual orientation are different from mine.  I’m not religious; I don’t go to church.  However, I do believe in Jesus and his teachings.  The one lesson that sticks is love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.  There’s no language that says “only if they are white and Protestant”. 

We sure do need to have the true history of our country taught in schools even if it makes white people squirm.  We should squirm.  People the world over do such evil to other people.  It’s heart-breaking.

 

"Coda" - The Movie

 

From my newsletter Know This:

 “Troy Kotsur, first Deaf man to win an acting Oscar, receives standing ovation in sign language https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/oscars-2022-for-hearing-impaired-troy-kotsur-a-standing-ovation-in-sign-language-2846918

Troy Kotsur received a standing ovation in signed clapping at the 94th Academy Awards after he became the first-ever Deaf male actor to win an Oscar for his work in the film “CODA.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYedLv-1hB0 During his acceptance speech, https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/oscars-2022-coda-star-troy-kotsur-makes-history-83671442 Kotsur said, “I really want to thank all of the wonderful deaf theater stages where I was allowed and given the opportunity to develop my craft as an actor.” Kotsur also offered a personal thank you to director Sian Heder, saying, “I read one of Spielberg’s books recently. And he said that the best director —  the definition of the best director was a skilled communicator. Sian Heder, you are the best communicator. And the reason why is you brought the deaf world and the hearing world together, and you are our bridge.”

KnowThis

CODA, which stands for “children of deaf adults” https://www.coda-international.org/ is the the primary focus of the film, which follows a 17-year-old girl named Ruby who is the only hearing member of her family. Kotsur and his co-stars Daniel Durant and Marlee Matlin, who are also Deaf, hold leading roles as members of the protagonist’s family.””

 

I signed up for a temporary Apple subscription so that we could watch the movie last night.  The Best Picture Oscar was definitely deserved and, even more so, Troy Kotsur’s Supporting Actor award.  There were times during the movie he reminded me of my father, a hard working family man with a love for jokes and stories. 

If my parents hadn’t gotten into drinking and the ensuing troubles, I believe my family would’ve been like the Rossis in many ways.  In one way, we would’ve enjoyed an insular closeness.  Like Ruby, I have always had a love for music.  I joined the choir and the Ethnomusicological Society (a folk group) in high school.  My parents would come to the concerts.  One scene in the movie especially “got” me and that was when there was no sound at all, to indicate that the Rossis couldn’t hear any of what was going on.  They looked around themselves for cues from time to time and we movie viewers saw voiceless images of Ruby and her partner singing and of the audience reacting.  This is what my parents experienced.

I well remember being the family interpreter and that was one thing that did confuse me about the movie.  I grew up in the ‘60s-‘70s and no interpreting services were provided anywhere for the Deaf.  Moreover, because my mother had attended a repressively orally based school for the Deaf, I never learned to sign until I was 19.  As a child, I found myself an oral interpreter trying to convey messages I didn’t understand myself. 

Ruby’s story seemed set in more recent times (because of the cell phones) and at that point, interpreters were regularly provided almost everywhere.  I told myself that she seemed to live in a small town which may not have had access to or finances for interpreters like the big cities had.  By the 1990s—even before cell phones—interpreters were provided in medical, governmental, and educational settings routinely.

In addition to having a really tough time communicating with my parents without sign language, they began to drink and attend a social club for the Deaf.  They fought violently with each other.  My mother also seemed to suffer with an undiagnosed emotional disorder and we could never tell from day to day what mood she’d be in.  My younger brother was hearing, like me.

I remember only a couple of bullying events that occurred because of my Deaf parents.  The first was when I was about 6 and we’d moved to a new neighborhood, to a house my parents had just purchased.  Determined gardeners, they’d ordered peat moss delivered to our back yard.  It was piled high, like a small mountain.  One morning, I woke to hear chanting outside: “Cassie’s mother is deaf and dumb!”  I jumped out of bed and ran outside to find a couple of our neighbor’s kids atop the peat moss, dancing and laughing while they chanted.  Blind with sudden fury, I ran up the mound and pushed them off.  Then I ran in to my mother and learned a new fact:  she couldn’t hear me no matter how much I shouted.  Until then, I’d believed adults were hearing outside and Deaf inside.

The second event took place when we moved to Baltimore.  I was 10 and my brother 8, and we made tentative friendships among the kids in the neighborhood.  Those kids were led by Tommy, a bully who lived right next door to us.  Every few days, Tommy would get the other kids to torment us with accusations that our parents must be Nazis since they couldn’t “talk right”.  Once Tommy chased us home, caught up with my brother and pushed him through our glass storm window.

We didn’t tell anyone at school that our parents couldn’t hear and so we weren’t teased or bullied there because of it.  Because of the bullying and the worsening issues with the drinking and violence, we became closed and didn’t confide anything to anyone.  There was an unspoken rule in our family:  there is nothing wrong with our family and don’t you dare tell anyone about us.

Still, the movie “Coda” did bring back more happy memories than sad.  I will watch it again before my subscription expires.