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ritaxis: (Default)
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 10:11 am
Here's what the Chronicle printed. There are errors, of course: he did not grow up as one of five, but as one of two, and actually spent the latter half of his adolescence on his own, as his mother had died and his father was off in England preparing to have the second clutch. Paul's in the second clutch, not the first clutch, as long as we're going for factual accuracy. And "soon disillusioned" does not describe my father's relationship with the Party, which lasted about ten years, and ended amicably. Yes, he was disillusioned, but not in the way people usually mean that word: he was inspired by his experiences with the Party to seek more communist ways of doing and being: and that is what anarchism was to him. "Primitive communism," more or less. He kept his Marxism and went forward, not back, from it (I say this as disagreed with him on various topics). Usually "soon disillusioned" is used to describe a person who pulls back from the Left and becomes a Derchowitz or something.

And Rosemary is in there, though she's not where she belongs.

And the son-in-law? That's the nice fellow. I imagine some people are going to wish that the quotes included certain other people, but that's the way it goes.
ritaxis: (Default)
Tuesday, February 21st, 2006 07:40 pm
So I sent in a version of my father's life to the Chronicle editorial obituaries department. The reporter who called me to verify was completely flummoxed. "Who are the full siblings? What's a hanai daughter? Who is this Rosemary and why is she among the wives?"

She said "we don't use dialect" when I explained what hanai means (it's a Hawaiian term for a kind of adoption, much more inclusive than "adopted" or "step," though I think maybe my dad officially adopted Ch'asca, and I totally missed the opportunity to change hanai into adopted: I think it's going in as step). She questioned the number of grandchildren, which I had never counted, but it's six, actually, which seems funny to me, but there it is. There they are. So then she refused to list Rosemary among the survivors because she didn't have a sexual relationship with my father.

I said "I can hardly believe I'm talking to a San Francisco newspaper." The hospital didn't have any problem with my family: why should the newspaper?

("It's a news article, not an advertisement," she said, and I said, "You're writing about a real man and his real family. But I'm not arguing with you, just trying to explain.")

I told her we make no distinctions about blood or marriage or association in my family, that we are constituted as I said we were. But no.

On other fronts, I went to get my science fiction teeth today but some roots were fused to the upper jaw bone so I have to go to an oral surgeon to have them removed properly, which makes the whole procedure that much more expensive.

I wish I could make things all better for my kids: a thick letter of acceptance for the one, and freedom from pain for the other.

But the plum blossoms are blooming and if I would get myself outside to go stand under them and cry for beauty's sake I would be much better.