Bumped into a high school friend for the first time in 30 years.

[chowmama]

114. There was a certain amount of it 'back in the day'

My dad (and mom) came into adulthood (and my dad, right out of the army) straight into the McCarthy days. My mom seemed to weather it ok, but my dad became about as paranoid as you can get. He read some liberal stuff and had many liberal beliefs, but we were all warned not to talk about anything political. The message was that the neighbors could, and would, hurt you. They, on the other hand, could say anything they damned well pleased. On the occasion of the Kennedy assassination (that would be the first one), Dad had to listen to somebody say "One down, two to go." He didn't feel he could safely respond.

We went to Protestant churches not for the beliefs, but for the neighbors. We attended all the neighborhood get-togethers and held our own not for any social enjoyment, but for the neighbors. My mom pretended to drink at these events for the neighbors. She lived for open bars where she could fix a glass of orange juice with ice cubes and pretend it was a screwdriver. The worst was when the host poured extra strong drinks as a favor and she had to figure out how to get rid of it without anybody seeing. The kiss of death would have been the cry "So, what - you think you're better than the rest of us?" Somehow, she managed to avoid it while seldom having to drink more than a sip, but she was miserable every minute. And not going wasn't an option.

One of the, only in retrospect, funnier memories was when we were very little. It seemed that everywhere had somebody who was probably a Russkie spy. It seemed to be a point of pride. Pity the neighborhood so bereft, so impoverished, as to be ignored by the Commies. Ours was a family that had kids much older than us. The parents were loud, they drank a bit too much, and the husband was by his own public admission pro-union. They lived two houses from us and liked to have us little kids over. They always had cookies.

So my parents told us that we were never to go over there. If we went over there for cookies, somebody might think my dad agreed with them and then he would lose his job and we would all starve. Seriously, we were told this.

Now we didn't believe it and we went over there all the time. I mean, they had cookies! Nothing happened to our family. Nothing ever seemed to happen that we ever heard of, except in much bigger places to much more important people. (I'll admit that the pro-union guy did have some trouble getting ahead, but even he didn't starve or get arrested.)

But Dad stayed afraid for the rest of his life. Towards the end, we were all together at their home and having fun, when he stopped and turned the tv on. He explained that he always had to watch the last 2 minutes of the game and all the highlights afterwards because - if somebody found out he hadn't watched the game, it might upset them. The implication was that this upset would result in something unpleasant.

This upbringing may have something to do with my personality. I hate social events, have no interest in religion whatsoever, and leave people alone until they become unpleasant. At that point, my response is somewhat left of 'Bite me'.