To Bob and All Huggy touchy Folk, everywhere!
After not seeing my former boss, Shirley Smith, for several years,
Cathy and I drove to Sedona, Arizona to spend the day with her. When
we arrived Shirley gave Cathy a huge hug and then embraced me.
Stepping back she exclaimed, "My goodness, you've finally learned how
to hug!"
During my time as an assistant director with the Department of
Services for the Blind, I was the only male on the four person
executive team. Shirley, Bonnie and Faye were all old friends from
years of working together. Our executive team meetings always began
with group hugs and friendly, personal chatter. Having been raised by
parents who seldom touched in public, never hugged by my mother, and
most certainly never by my father, and only kissed lightly on the
forehead when being tucked into bed, I was called, "The Stick" by my
Team Mates at work. I asked Cathy, whom I hugged every chance I got,
and she said, "Yeah, you are a bit stiff when you hug other women." I
told her that I was going to correct this flaw in my otherwise
flawless persona. She rolled her Italian eyes and said, "Either you
got it, or you don't. I'm not sure there's any hope for you." I
began daily drills. I hugged her in the morning, even before we rose
from bed...enough of that! But still, when the Team met I fell back
into being Stiff Old Carl. I wisely decided to avoid practicing with
my female staff or the young female students, but my daughters and
close female friends became subjects to my crude hugs. So it was a
proud moment when Shirley finally declared me to be a bona fide
hugger.
Folks like Shirley, and most of all, Cathy, were important in my
efforts to learn that hugging was not always an effort for a guy to
"get next" to a woman. And then I began hugging my son and my adult
grandsons, and my sons-in-law,.
Something else that we did not learn to do when I was growing up was
to say, "I love you". Cathy and I agreed that this was going to be a
much used word, not only between ourselves, but with our children.
And so love ruled our home. But I would never in a thousand years
tell another man that I loved him. Children, yes, but once they
reached manhood, never!
Then this young macho bull rider galloped into daughter Jennifer's
life. And with him, Don brought a gaggle of fellow Bull Riders.
These young guys amazed me. They joked easily together, slapped one
another on the shoulder, hugged when it came time to leave, and said,
"I sure love you, buddy".
The contrast between those stiff, more formal years and the warm
hugging world I now live and love in, is amazing. Whatever we do,
let's agree that this current Witch Hunt will not undermine our desire
to hug one another and tell our dear friends and family, "I sure love
you". I understand that it is Sex that advances our Race, but it is
truly Love, that gives Life meaning.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/15/17, Bob Hachey <bhachey@verizon.net> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I sure do hope we can truly reduce the occurrences of sexual harassment in
> the workplace and in society generally. But I also hope we don't go too
> far.
> (see below).
>
> Bob Hachey
>
>
>
> The power of touch, good and bad . By Roland Merullo . I come from a family
> of touchers. Grandparents, parents, a multitude of aunts, uncles, cousins -
> we hugged and kissed without reservation. Often, when we spoke, we'd put a
> hand on the listener's shoulder or forearm. There was nothing strained or
> affected about this: It was as natural as making eye contact, as shaking
> hands, as reaching out and straightening the crooked shirt collar of
> someone
> we loved. This comfort with physicality occasionally got some of us into
> trouble. A cousin of mine went to see a new priest at the local church,
> needing to speak with him about a difficult matter. After an hour-long
> face-to-face, my cousin thanked the priest, reaching out to squeeze his
> upper arm as he did so. "Don't touch me! the priest shouted, recoiling. My
> cousin left the church wondering if he'd ever step back inside. In an
> unpleasant encounter with a local police officer, after a traffic incident,
> I happened to reach toward him - not in a threatening way, but as a gesture
> of reconciliation. I wanted to touch him on the shoulder and refine the
> point I was trying to make, offer an avenue to agreement. He responded,
> loudly, fiercely, just as the priest had done. "Don't you touch me! In
> Russia, where I've spent a lot of time, it's common to see two male friends
> walking along the sidewalk arm-in-arm. The same is true in Italy. It
> doesn't
> mean they're lovers; it's not sexual, simply human. But in certain American
> circles, touch between straight men is all but forbidden, as if the
> Puritans
> are still casting their long shadow over us. One of the things I enjoyed
> about having young children was the almost continuous physical contact. You
> lifted them up when they were tired. You sat them on your lap when reading
> to them. You touched them a hundred times a day, and each of those touches
> -
> like those between my cousins and parents and aunts and uncles and me - was
> a wordless "I love you," an assertion of a bond of trust. The touch of
> adult
> lovers is the epitome of this wordless acceptance. We all remember our
> first
> kiss, our first hand-holding, even our first slow dance. It is touch,
> ultimately, that keeps the species going. And so it's particularly
> distressing to me, as someone who takes joy in physical contact, to witness
> all the recent revelations of what must be called a perversion of that
> contact. If allowing a friend or loved one to touch you speaks to a
> wordless
> trust, then putting your hand on someone who doesn't want to be touched
> speaks to a poisonous rupture of that trust. It's a violation, perhaps the
> prototypical violation. As much as it troubled me to hear my cousin's tale
> of his bad moment with the priest, and as unpleasant as it was to have the
> police officer feel threatened by what was obviously a slow and
> unthreatening gesture, I believe people have the right to decide when and
> how they want to be touched, or if they don't want to be touched at all. I
> was discussing this with a young woman recently, a bright 22-year-old, no
> stranger to unwanted attention. We were wondering if the flood of recent
> revelations would actually lead to better behavior - at least on the part
> of
> some men. "It might change things," she said guardedly. "I just hope it
> doesn't mean that nobody touches anybody anymore. In almost every case I
> can
> think of, the intent behind physical contact is unambiguous. You know when
> it feels wrong, and when it doesn't. Grown men know when they're giving a
> co-worker a friendly embrace - in moments of congratulation or deep
> sympathy, say - and when they're angling for some illicit sexual thrill, or
> asserting a weird dominance. Even children can often sense when someone is
> creepy or not. Like my young friend, I hope the revelations by women who've
> been assaulted give the creeps pause and lead to an atmosphere of greater
> respect. And, like her, I hope we also find a way to continue to be able to
> touch each other, when it feels right - for both parties. Roland Merullo's
> latest novel is "The Delight of Being Ordinary: A Road Trip with the Pope
> and Dalai Lama.
>
>
>
>
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