Allow me to introduce myself....

( http://eyeonsparrows.blogspot.com/2012/01/funny-thing.html see how I got started on this.)

As to the title, you thought you knew me already?

I dug up my submissions for my first try at reader columnist, in December 2009.  I will run one of them tomorrow, but here is my attempt at 'tell us a little about yourself' which went in with them.  Add two years to the ages quoted, though if you want to freeze me at the age of 56 I won't fight you, and be advised that SOTA stands for School of the Arts, SAIL is a self-contained (full-time) gifted program for the last two years of elementary school.  Bryant is one of the economically poorest schools in the city, and became first a magnet arts school, lost that funding, then a public Montessori school.  It was our neighborhood elementary.  Oh, and we have five grandchildren now, with two more on the way.

I tried to imagine what might make me register as an individual to the newspaper committee.  The health care battles were fresh in the public mind, my upbringing in the nation's capitol might be pertinent in terms of showing that I was aware of events and impacts in the body politic.  This spot was for a personal column, cautioned that it was not to opine on politics except as they might be part of my own experience and issues, but still...citizenship IQ should be a plus, I thought.  

Looking at it now, I think it was probably too long.  I was up against the deadline because I didn't finally make up my mind to do it until time was short.  Whose line was it that I'm sorry I wrote such a long letter, I didn't have enough time to write a short one?  (Mark Twain, maybe?)   I hit 'send' and then thought that my comment (see below) on the book, Sugar of the Crop, might be misconstrued.  I just wanted to include an example of something I found interesting.  The book was about those still alive whose parents had been slaves; obviously those parents had been very small and were raised as free men and women, but raised by those who had lived their whole lives in slavery--had that made them passive in the face of conditions or defeated, unable to function in the new reality of freedom? How did that first generation do, did they succeed in marking out their own paths, and the answer she found in taking these oral histories was yes, they were taught to identify and create their own opportunities and not let prejudice and the past beat them down. It was fascinating.  I couldn't help wonder if it wouldn't have been safer to omit any comment, but where's the 'unsend' button when you need it?  See what you think when you get to that.  I did not mean it as saying we don't have any real race problems, by any means.

So anyway, this is my self-introduction two years ago.  When I was faced with repeating the task the following year (when I again was not selected) I thought, I used my best lines last time!  Will they remember? Do I go with bland, or can I tweak the points--the challenge of making two different forms of catchy delivery of mostly the same information.  The second time, I trimmed it down a little, but hit the community/school highlights, my reading, interests, and my general background.

Dear Editors,

My name is Marian Stoddard.  I am 56 years old, of European descent, a college graduate, and I have lived in Tacoma since 1978 and in the same west Hilltop house since 1980.  I am married to an attorney, William Stoddard, and we are the parents of six children, four girls and two boys.  Our oldest is 34 and our youngest is a freshman at the UW in Seattle, going to school on a Gates Foundation Achievers scholarship.  We have four grandchildren and wish they were close by.

Our children have all attended Bryant Elementary, though one went to Wainwright for two years in the SAIL program.  I was a Bryant parent for twenty-two years, and actively involved.  Four attended Hunt Middle School and two went to Jason Lee, and five of them have gone through the International Baccalaureate program at Foss.  One son graduated from SOTA.

I grew up in Washington, D.C., where the museums are free and we went often, and am the oldest of six children.  My father had a master’s degree in public relations from Boston University long enough ago that some people asked if that was a real job; he eventually turned an avocation into a business and became an art dealer.  He has been the only agent in the U.S. for modern Aubusson tapestries.  My mother worked as a school teacher once all of us were in school.  Growing up, my grandfather, Wallace Bennett, was a U.S. Senator from Utah, so growing up in the nation’s capitol with that exposure gave me a lifelong interest in the workings of government, especially since my ninth grade civics teacher was one of the best teachers I ever had.

I am somewhat disabled, not in the missing limb or paralyzed in a wheelchair sense, but I have permanent injuries from an auto accident twenty-six years ago and have had two later back surgeries.  My husband is diabetic, a daughter and a sister have lupus, and a son has clinical depression, so I know what it means to deal with health challenges, and I bring that perspective.

I like to keep up with local and national politics, the law, world events, and medical research; I am particularly fascinated by what we learn of how the brain develops and works (or doesn’t work).  I am almost never without a book, and I bless the memory of Thomas Jefferson for the idea of public libraries, or I would be both bankrupt and squeezed out of house and home.  I like to read science fiction and fantasy, mysteries, historical fiction, biography, and some non-fiction if it’s not dry as dust.  I like to have something to think about.  I was fascinated by a compilation of oral histories titled Sugar of the Crop, by Sana Butler, of persons whose parents were born in slavery.  The author is a thirty-something black woman who grew up in middle-class Connecticut, and this project upended some of her assumptions about the personal legacy of slavery.  Most of her subjects’ parents did not feel flattened by the background of oppression, but anxious to go take on the opportunities of the world, and taught their children to do well.

I love music, and I have had enough musical training that non-musicians have sometimes asked me if I was a music major, while real musicians know better.  I am glad that my husband also shares that talent and love of music, and we have sung together in choirs for many area church programs.  I joke that I had to marry Bill because my mother always wanted a tenor in the family.

I would look forward to the chance to be a reader columnist for this year.  I start my day with the newspaper, a real newspaper, the kind whose pages can get messed up if my husband gets it first.  I only miss the days when we could switch off between the front page and the South Sound sections, but I am glad for any minor measures which help the paper survive.  I value it.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Marian J. Stoddard

[and, 2012 note, we have had to give up the paper and I miss it badly--as soon as the budget allows, we will get it again]