What’s it like to look back at 90, over
most of a century? Been there, done that, enjoyed most of it. When
I was born in 1914, women could not vote. But in my lifetime, a
woman named Hillary Clinton may well become president. The year I
was born, we were at war. When I turned 90 last month, we were at
war, which makes me wonder what we’ve learned about living
together. On the other hand, a man has also walked on the moon and
people around the world connect by television, radio, movies and
satellites.
I remember as a little girl the first sound I
ever heard coming out of the air and how awed I was. The sound came
from an oatmeal box wound with copper wire, a crystal and a “cat
whisker,” which my dad painstakingly constructed and fastened to a
pair of earphones, all the while threatening me with dire
punishment if my sweaty little fingers touched the crystal. And
then through those earphones came the most beautiful saxophone
music I’ve ever heard.
But it is not the technical or
political milestones that make a life. It is the feelings, the
beliefs and the values that guide us. I guess I’m a late bloomer.
It was in the second half of my life that I found my passion.
Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham
summarized it. “To love what you do and feel that it matters
— how could anything be more fun?”
That’s the way I
feel about my years as a feminist. In the 1960s when the second
women’s revolution began, I became an activist. During my 25 years
with the Mesa County library and 14 years as a columnist with the
Grand Junction (Colorado) Daily Sentinel, I
fought for economic self-sufficiency for women, believing that if
women have a strong economic base to operate from, all else is
possible.
I wrote about the rights of women, intellectual
freedom and political liberalism, even though the columns often
spawned letters of outrage. The work has given me energy and drive
I never knew I had. When I became a feminist it was all the way.
That included having fun. Otherwise, why would I fly a plane at age
59 or start riding a motorcycle around town?
A few
decades ago, I went to Denver to hear Gloria Steinem speak. I was
surprised at how short she was, but she had a big message. She
closed with these words: “Go home and do something outrageous!” And
we did, or tried to. As Helen Hayes said, “The hardest years in
life are those between 10 and 70.” Everything is easier now,
perhaps because people think of me as a “pioneer.”
Women
have made great advances in America, personally, in business and in
politics, but we still have a long way to go toward equal
opportunity. And as a liberal, I have to believe that we can come
close to achieving a truly open society.
In today’s
world, liberals are idealists. We believe that government is
inherently good and that it exists to make the human condition
better, while conservatives keep telling us that government always
makes things worse. It is an ongoing battle.
In 1960,
when he was running for president, John F. Kennedy said he was
proud to be a liberal. He said it wasn’t so much a party creed as
an attitude of mind and heart. He called it “a faith in man’s
ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to
increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and
freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves…”
It takes a long time to create a true liberal. We usually start
young and enthusiastic, sure we can save the world if we work hard
enough. Finally, we come face to face with unfiltered reality.
Either we go by way of guitar lessons or yoga or just plain
dropping out, or we stay in the world, swinging.
I’m
still swinging. And let’s rejoice in what the writer Dorothy Sayers
said about women in my time of life: “Time and trouble will tame an
advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable
by any earthly force.” Right on!
Henrietta Hay
is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). She lives in Grand Junction, Colorado, and can be
reached by email at
henri@henriettahay.com.
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