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Pope Francis couldn’t have said it better.

During Monday’s Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square, he told the crowd not to toss out older family members like “discarded material.”

He said “the solitude of the elderly” is “a tragedy of our times,” lamenting that “the life of children and grandchildren is not given as a gift to the elderly,” per the Holy See Press Office.

The pope added, “We grow if we give ourselves to others.”

The truth is that visiting an elderly family member benefits the younger visitor far more than it benefits the older person who is visited.

I’m blessed to still have my mother and father, both in their 80s. The best moments now are quiet ones on the back porch, as they recall life in America’s past.

I love asking my father about his military service. Drafted during the Korean War, he served two years – and had experiences thwarting racism, which he shared with me.

My dad grew up in Carrick, Pa., just south of downtown Pittsburgh. When he was drafted, Pittsburgh, like much of the country, was segregated.

The Army, though, had ended segregation a few years prior, in response to an executive order by President Truman.

Out of my father’s company of 200 soldiers, about 10% were Black. Among fellow soldiers he befriended, three happened to be Black.

One of those Black friends, who would become a mathematics professor, was being harassed by a group of fellows. The ringleader, a white fellow from Georgia, named Hodges, called him racial epithets.

My dad, who stood just under 6-foot-2, angrily confronted the harassers. Every one of them backed down – and never bothered his friend again.

But the story gets better.

See, Hodges’ father was a connected politician in Georgia, who arranged for Hodges to become squad leader. In that position, Hodges tormented a Black member of his squad, also my father’s friend, by assigning him the worst duties.

Until Hodges got busted for theft.

Stolen items were found in his locker. The captain told Hodges’ squad they could vote for their new squad leader. They elected the Black fellow Hodges had been tormenting. As the new squad leader, he assigned Hodges the dirtiest, most awful job there was – cleaning the kitchen’s grease pit.

That sweet little piece of justice happened in 1953 – 11 years before the Civil Rights Act would become law.

It happened in a very different America, in a military whose integration policies were just beginning to expose thousands of people of many different backgrounds to each other – and break down barriers.

Hearing my father’s story reminded me that while the young are quick to dismiss prior generations for their imperfections – “OK, boomer!” – they do so at their own loss.

Older folks have a treasure trove of wisdom to offer. They offer us a front row seat to their experiences with our shared history. You may be surprised by the deepness of their understanding and the actions they took to leave the world a better place than the found it.

But to benefit from their knowledge, you have to spend some time sitting with them on their back porch.

Do that, and they’ll treasure the time you give them more than you can know.

But as much as visiting benefits them, you’ll benefit even more – and grow more than you may imagine – from the hard-won wisdom they have to share.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

Here’s one good thing about the COVID-19 pandemic: Bike sales are booming. I hope that means kids will begin riding in big numbers again.

There was a big bike-sales boom in the early 1970s, too – the result of millions of baby boom kids, like me, riding our bikes from dawn until dusk.

From its inception in the 1800s, the bicycle had been produced mostly for adults. In the 1900s, bikes offered urban working-class folks an inexpensive way to get to and from work. Sales were brisk into the early 1900s.

But as America prospered – as the automobile became the chief mode of travel – bike sales plummeted. Sales wouldn’t grow again until millions of baby boomer kids were living in wide-open suburbs.

Schwinn was the first bike maker to tap that youth market.

In the 1950s, the standard bike design was the cruiser, a gargantuan, fender-covered machine built for adults. There was only one gear (slow) and you braked by reversing the pedals and pressing down hard.

In the early 1960s, however, Schwinn designer Al Fritz had an idea, reports Bike Magazine. He’d heard about a new youth trend centered in California: retrofitting bicycles with drag-racing motorcycle accoutrements. “Choppers” – custom motorcycles with long handlebars – were all the rage. Fritz introduced chopper elements into his new design.

The Schwinn Sting-Ray was born.

It had smaller, 20-inch tires – with flat racing treads – and high handlebars and a banana seat. Every kid had to have one. And every manufacturer began making bikes just like it – a style we referred to as the “spyder” bike.

I got my first spyder bike for Christmas 1970, when I was 8: a red Murray one-speed with chrome fenders and a black banana seat. I rode it so often and so hard, it was worn out by my 12th birthday.

As Christmas 1972 approached, I dreamed of every kid’s early-‘70s dream bike: the Schwinn Orange Krate, the greatest five-speed bike in the history of childhood.

Such a bike sold for $95 when it was introduced in 1968, but there was no way my single-income family could afford one. It cost the equivalent of nearly $700 today!

Still, I was plenty blessed that Christmas morning. I got a neon-green Huffy spyder bike, a color that made it one of the cooler bikes in my neighborhood. I loved it – but it got stolen when my sister, Kris, left it unlocked outside a department store.

My dad found me a used Murray five-speed that was even better. I polished it every day, and rode the wheels off of it exploring and discovering the outside world.

Childhood has changed since then. With adults so often structuring and monitoring activities, kids who ride today likely ride with adults. And just last year, The Washington Post reported on industry research showing significant declines in children’s bike riding and bike sales.
But now, pent-up energy from pandemic lockdowns is causing bike sales to explode. Let’s hope that means more of today’s children will put down their electronics, pedal long and hard with warm summer air whipping through their hair, and experience what bikes have long represented for kids, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics: “a source of pride and a symbol of independence and freedom.”

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

My father’s mission was to tame the stupidity out of me – a powerful blessing too few children are experiencing now.
My dad had his work cut out for him.

Over the years, I shattered a picture window with a baseball, accidentally broke neighbors’ lamp posts and once hit a golf ball through a neighbor’s window (I mowed a lot of lawns to pay for the repairs).
The high point of my stupidity occurred when I was 10.

Too lazy to go upstairs to the kitchen to dispose of an apple core, I tossed it into the basement toilet. It produced the mother of all clogs and my father was beside himself when he discovered his idiot son flushed an apple core down a commode.

My dad was tough on me because he needed to be. He knew he had a potential lifelong idiot on his hands – one bearing his otherwise well-regarded name – and had a limited amount of time to tame the stupidity out of me.

As I got into my teens, I made his work harder. I added stubbornness to my skill set. I saw it as my duty to butt heads with him – or, to be more precise, he saw it as his duty to butt heads with me.

He grew up without a father and remembered the dumb things he did in his youth. He knew that any young man is only one or two knuckleheaded decisions away from heading off in a dangerous direction – a direction he was headed toward until his football coach became the father figure he’d long desired and guided him onto a productive path.

He never backed down when he saw me being stupid.

I wanted to use my work savings in high school to buy a car, but he made me put that money in a college fund. I was furious – but as I got older and graduated from college with minimal student debt, I was grateful that I lost that battle.

“When I was a boy of 14,” a saying attributed to Mark Twain goes, “my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he’d learned in seven years.”

I wish every child had a father like mine. Stubborn fellows like him are the absolute best creatures on Earth to tame the reckless impulses of their young sons’ formative years.
But fewer children have fathers around.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 19.7 million children, more than one in four, lack a father in the home.

“Consequently,” says the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), “there is a father factor in nearly all social ills facing America today.”

According to NFI, kids without fathers are more likely to grow up poor, drop out of school, go to jail and encounter numerous other struggles in life than are kids who grow up with dads.
The friction my father caused me, I now know, was also the basis for my respect for him. He knew friction is the only way to polish an average lump of coal into a diamond.

And I was incredibly blessed to have a stubborn father who never tired of taming the stupidity out of me.

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©2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

Police were called about John Mahone, a black man, having an argument with his wife. A cop shot and killed him because he thought Mahone had a knife. Mahone had a can opener.

An officer searching for illegal whiskey saw another black man, Harris Miller, run. When Miller didn’t halt, the cop shot and killed him.

Police were called to subdue R.D. Mance, a black man with mental health issues. A cop subdued him – with his gun.

These shootings happened in Atlanta in 1948.

The white cops didn’t lose their jobs. Nobody marched in the streets. The killings were “justified.” National media – then print and network radio – never noticed them.

Those killings of unarmed black men were brought to the county’s attention by Pulitzer Prize-winning Pittsburgh journalist Ray Sprigle, the first white reporter to go undercover as a light-skinned black man in the Jim Crow South.

Sprigle’s powerful story is beautifully told in “30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story that Exposed the Jim Crow South,” by journalist Bill Steigerwald. (Disclaimer: Bill, a longtime friend, edited my column for years.)

Posing as black, Sprigle, 61, was escorted through the Deep South by John Wesley Dobbs, a black civil rights pioneer from Atlanta, who believed change must come through the ballot box (his grandson would become mayor of Atlanta).

Dobbs, 66, introduced Sprigle to sharecroppers, local black leaders and families of lynching victims. They visited ramshackle black schools and slept in the homes of prosperous black farmers and doctors.

Sprigle, a seasoned journalist, was appalled by what he saw.

There weren’t just separate water fountains, bathrooms and elevators for blacks. Courtrooms used separate Bibles for blacks. Stores wouldn’t allow black women to try on clothes. White kids rode buses to school; black kids walked.

Sprigle’s shocking, angry and persuasive series was syndicated to about a dozen major newspapers, from New York to Seattle. Time magazine played it up big.

No white paper in the South ran it, but 10 million blacks in the land of Jim Crow could read Sprigle’s powerful words for seven straight weeks on the front page of the Pittsburgh Courier, then America’s largest black paper.

In 1948, few white Americans were aware of how unjust, unequal and humiliating daily life was for black Americans in the segregated South.

But during a three-month period leading up to the Truman-Dewey race in 1948, Sprigle had the whole country and national media debating the future of legal segregation.

The conversation he initiated temporarily lost its steam, however.

It wasn’t until 1955, through the power of network television, that the North’s conscience would be awakened for good.

As Steigerwald writes, “news footage of ugly mobs taunting schoolchildren and local governments using clubs, police dogs and fire hoses on peaceful American citizens were ultimately more persuasive than Sprigle’s colorful words.”

Still, Sprigle initiated an important national discussion in the media that would eventually culminate in equal civil rights for all Americans.

Regrettably, in 2020, with millions of Americans galvanized by their disgust at George Floyd’s treatment and death, the discussion is far from over.

All productive discussions – all meaningful solutions – require calm and reason.

Here’s a good starting point: Why don’t we work harder to fully understand each other’s unique experiences and difficulties – so we may finally solve America’s 400-year racial dilemma.

(Editors, here is a link to the book“30 Days a Black Man: The Forgotten Story that Exposed the Jim Crow South,” by journalist Bill Steigerwald: : https://www.amazon.com/30-Days-Black-Man-audiobook/dp/B07361J2YR/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=30+days+a+black+man&qid=1591649832&sr=8-1)

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

It was a perfect late-spring Saturday.

Several members of my large extended family gathered at my parents’ house to trim hedges and plant flowers. The sun was out, the skies were brilliant blue and the temperature was perfect for yardwork.

A wonderful old saying, “many hands make light work,” was certainly the case – though we really didn’t “work.”

We gathered as a family, laughing, joking, catching up with each other, marveling at how fast the little ones are growing, and paying homage to our shared heritage.

Beautifying my parents’ yard reminded them how blessed they are for working so hard to raise good citizens, who love doing nice things for their elderly mom and dad.

We savored every moment. And when it was time to leave, nobody really wanted to part.

It wasn’t until I left that I learned a peaceful protest in downtown Pittsburgh had gone violent.

The Trib reported the “planned peaceful protest was spurred by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Video of the incident showed at least one police officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he cried that he could not breathe. Floyd was black, and the officers involved were white.”

That video is difficult to watch. Why the barbaric tactic of kneeling on a man’s throat, when he was clearly cuffed and already detained? Bystanders pleaded with the officer to remove his knee from Floyd’s neck as Floyd pleaded he could not breathe.

Protesters have every right to demand answers – to demand change – and they were protesting peacefully in Pittsburgh until violence was sparked.

“The floodgates opened and protests turned violent about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, police said, indicating that it all started with ‘the vandalism and ultimate burning of a marked Pittsburgh Police vehicle,’” according to the Trib. “More specifically, a man dressed in all black began spray-painting the cruiser, then jumped on the hood and broke the windows.”

Who was he? A young white male from the suburbs – allegedly, Brian Jordan Bartels, 20, of Shaler – clearly more interested in wreaking havoc and creating mayhem than in calling attention to the protesters’ cause.

The Trib reported that police wrote, “A black female from the crowd stepping in front of Bartels and pleaded for him to stop. He gave her the finger and then jumped on the car hood and stomped the windshield.”

The little twit.

It was young fellows just like him who caused violence at such protests across the country – causing mass destruction and the death of at least one security guard.

These young men could have done something positive last Saturday, such as helping their aging grandparents tend to their landscaping.

They could have protested peacefully, written letters to the editor, informed friends on social media of things each of us can do to create needed change, or promoted political candidates who will work to prevent deaths like Floyd’s from ever occurring again.

They could have done many positive things to effect change, but they did the opposite.

Bringing many positive hands together is the way to make light work of effecting change – that is where the focus should be.

But as we saw in Pittsburgh last Saturday, all it takes is one negative hand to disrupt so many positive actions.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

What The Bogota Post got right about America before COVID-19 rings just as true during the pandemic – maybe even more true.

In a May 2019 article, “The List of Things Americans Take for Granted,” the newspaper examined some of the freedoms and blessings that too many Americans forget they have.

Amid the pandemic – as we all get a taste of having some of our freedoms curtailed – perhaps it should be easier to remember how good we’ve had it.

Free speech is one right we ought never take for granted.

“As we have seen recently in America, political tensions are running at an all-time high,” reported The Post. “But people are entitled to their opinion and in America, you can express this without fear of repercussions … .”

Some refer to our leaders with vulgar, crass expressions. Some make allegations about politicians that facts don’t support. Others – a regrettably small percentage – take the high road by making reasoned arguments about what they think of ideas or policies.

Whatever Americans say publicly or post on social media, nobody fears government hit squads kicking down their doors in the middle of the night.

Try that in many other countries and see what happens.

“In China, Thailand or, as has recently been seen in Hong Kong, expressing your political views, even in a diplomatic way, can lead to your imprisonment or even worse, the death penalty,” reported The Post.

Another right too many Americans take for granted is voting – choosing our government’s leaders and policies.

The integrity of the vote is central to a well-functioning republic. It lets us settle our differences at the ballot box, not on the battlefield.

Our two-party system has its flaws, but, said The Post, “some countries have a one-party system where you can only vote for candidates who stand for that party. Other countries don’t even (have) an illusion of democracy – they have a dictator in charge and his or her word is what makes the law.”

Comparing the U.S. to developing countries, The Post noted that clean tap water and abundant electricity are taken for granted. Both result from the freedoms that unleash massive wealth creation. Our economic horsepower funds massive projects that deliver power and drinking water across our great land.

Before COVID-19 did a number on our economy, some Americans took abundant jobs for granted. Our robust free markets enable entrepreneurs to innovate, creating jobs that enable millions to thrive.

Earlier generations were happy just to have a good-paying job. Today’s Americans can choose paths that are meaningful to them. Don’t like what you’re doing? Try something else – open a restaurant, start an online business, get training for the job you want.

The Post article captures well the great irony of America: The better off we become, the more we complain about how bad things are.

“Americans often take for granted these freedoms and privileges and with social media and a consumerist society it is easy to feel unhappy with what you haven’t got rather than what you have got.”

Exactly. COVID-19 is temporarily restricting some of our freedoms and blessings. Let’s make sure they’re fully restored when that challenge has ended.

Let’s make sure we preserve them for future generations to fully experience and appreciate.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

Here’s one COVID-19 silver lining: The drive-in theater, a uniquely American creation, is doing booming business again.

I’ve long been nostalgic for this wonderful piece of Americana. When I was growing up in the ’70s, my mother and father often packed my five sisters and I into our massive station wagon to see outdoor movies.

America’s first drive-in theater opened on June 6, 1933 in Camden, N.J. According to History.com, it was the creation of Richard Hollingshead, whose mother found indoor theaters uncomfortable. His idea, which he patented, was to create “an open-air theater” that would let patrons watch movies from “the comfort of their own automobiles.”

The concept was a success, but it wasn’t until 1949, when Hollingshead’s patent was overturned, that drive-in theaters began opening all over the country.

“The popularity of the drive-in spiked after World War II and reached its heyday in the late 1950s to mid-60s, with some 5,000 theaters across the country,” reports History.com. “Drive-ins became an icon of American culture … .”

Kerry Segrave, author of “Drive-in Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933,” explains that the boom resulted from several uniquely American trends in the 1950s.

New highway systems allowed entrepreneurs to purchase inexpensive farmland for outdoor theaters, which patrons could easily drive to.

Americans’ love of the automobile also was important. Car designs were bold and creative – the 1957 Chevy is still widely loved as a classic, beautiful design.

American cars in the ’50s weren’t just machines to get people to and from places – they were statements. Americans loved spending time in their cars, including hours at drive-in theaters.

And with the baby boom well under way, for many single-income families with more than two children – like my family – the drive-in theater was one of the few entertainment venues they could afford.

We attended outdoor movies frequently in the mid-1970s and it was always a treat. The cooler was packed with soda pop and sandwiches. The family-size potato chip bag could feed a village. We lowered the tailgate of our Plymouth Fury station wagon and set up a glorious buffet on it.

Soon, the blue sky fell dark and the film projector began rattling. Black-and-white numbers – “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” – flashed onto the screen. Yellowed 1950s footage advertised hot dogs, popcorn and other concession items we could never get our father to buy. Finally, the feature film – such as “The Love Bug” – would play.

The drive-in theater never was as popular in any other country as it was in America. All great things come to an end, however. In 1978, as operating costs grew and rising land values encouraged entrepreneurs to sell to developers, the drive-in theater began to decline.

The United Drive-in Theatre Owners Association says only 305 drive-in theaters now exist – and, boy, are they needed now, as the coronavirus, and its social-distancing mandates, are impeding freedom to be entertained.

I trust that many more entrepreneurs, the lifeblood of our economy and the engines that will drive our economic recovery, will invent creative ways to get us to the movies. Large, blow-up screens? Temporary theaters in mall parking lots? How about dinner and a movie in restaurant parking lots?

Where there’s a need, a solution quickly follows, as the American drive-in theater is reinvented all over again.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

The murder hornets don’t stand a chance.

We’re still amid a pandemic that has dragged on way too long, producing far too many bizarre, exaggerated doomsday scenarios on social media.

Some of our political leaders are enjoying absolute power a little too absolutely.

Conspiracy theorists claim Bill Gates, who’s probably an extraterrestrial, purposely spread COVID-19 because he wants to implant computer chips in us – or something like that.

And now the murder hornets are coming?

Also called Asian giant hornets, these ghastly bugs look like creatures from a 1950s horror flick.

Approximately 2 inches long, they slaughter honeybees by ripping their heads off, and their menacing yellow-orange noggins make them look like extraterrestrials – the way Bill Gates’ real head looks when he removes his human mask at home every night.

So far, these giant icky bugs have been spotted in Washington state and Canada. Now that the scariest coronavirus stories are losing their edge, the murder hornets’ murderous ways offer a fresh round of stories, true and false, to scare the bejesus out of us.

These stories will surely be featured in the news soon:

“Actual murderers are offended that entomologists are demeaning their life’s work by naming a foreign bug after their profession.”

“The Council of Global Bug Integration accuses federal officials of jingoistic propaganda and creating antipathy for people from a particular region of the world by referring to America’s newest hornet as the ‘Asian giant hornet.’”

“The murder hornet can fly 20 mph and kill more than 50 people every year, but when it’s pan-fried and seared, it makes a tasty dinner – one with the potential to positively impact the effects of climate change in America and the world.”

There was once great hope that in the age of digitization and incredible computing power, human beings, with access to limitless sources of knowledge, would become smarter – that our judgment would be improved by factual information, science and sound reasoning.

That hope fell to pieces faster than the 1970s killer bee scare, which terrorized my otherwise placid childhood.

There was once hope that this pandemic would bring us together – that we’d collaborate more, and quibble less, to do what we can to address this great challenge.

But the polar opposite has happened. The pandemic has done more to illustrate our deep divisions than to heal them. Many have used our powerful technology platforms to scare and misinform their fellow human beings, rather than to enlighten them.

It’s regrettable, but it’s so.

After two months under lockdown, we’re tired of worrying, tired of our politicians posturing, and eager to get back to normal.

I’d give anything to visit an Irish pub for a pint and some camaraderie. I long for a conversation about the meaning of life, car tires and how bad the Pirates’ losing record will be this year.

So I feel bad for the murder hornets.

You have the stuff of greatness, my homicidal wasp friends – your terrifying faces, your enormous size, your ridiculously direct name – but your timing is way off.

As states begin to reopen, our news outlets and social media fanatics are firing off new rounds of scary pandemic material.

If I were you, murder hornets, I’d hire a better publicist, fly back home and sit out your invasion for another year.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

Dear Ms. Beardsley,

I hope you’re doing well. I miss seeing you and my classmates at school every day, but homeschooling is working out well for me.

Mommy and Daddy are doing the best they can to make sure my siblings and I continue to learn during the covid-19 pandemic. They make sure we stick to a schedule like the one our school follows.
But they aren’t getting along as well as they usually do. Every night, they hit the box wine harder than they ever did before.

I suppose that’s because Mommy is a lawyer and, since her work has been impacted by the virus, she’s home a lot. Daddy has a construction company but his projects are on hold, so he’s home a lot, too. We’ve never spent so much time in the house together, and that has its challenges.

Anyhow, though they aren’t professional teachers like you, they’re helping me learn interesting things I never thought about before.

Besides my regular lessons, they thought I should read classic literature. The first book they assigned is “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain. I was shocked by some language in the book, but my parents helped me understand that its painful words and thoughts remind us of what people in our country did wrong in the past, so we can better focus on how to do things right, now and in the future.

That makes perfect sense to me. So I was surprised to learn that some schools have banned the book because it might cause some discomfort. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t literature supposed to open our eyes and make us think?

My siblings and I are doing really well at our math, science and English lessons. But Mommy and Daddy say that the thing we most need to learn is the ability to think for ourselves. They want us to use reason – not emotion – to make sound decisions. They call this “critical thinking.” They worry that too few people are thinking things through these days and that that is dangerous for our country.

So I was disappointed to learn that a Harvard law professor argues that homeschooling should be banned. Professor Elizabeth Bartholet said in Harvard Magazine that it’s authoritarian – that it allows powerful parents to lord over their powerless children.

She said parents who homeschool their children are overwhelmingly Christian and that some are “extreme religious ideologues” who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy. She said that children should “grow up exposed to…democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.”

Well, I agree with her second point, but her first point is a reach. It appears she is sharing an emotional reaction to her stereotypical perception of parents who homeschool, rather than applying critical thinking.
The fact is about 4% of U.S. children are homeschooled. Several studies show they score significantly better on standardized tests than their public-school peers – regardless of race or economic background. The fact is that the majority of homeschooled kids go on to flourish in their lives.

Mommy and Daddy have their flaws, but they sure are helping me learn how to reason and think. In fact, we are all thinking it is best that they continue homeschooling my siblings and me after the pandemic ends.

I’ll be sure to visit you often if my schooling continues at home. I look forward to seeing you soon.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].

In the outside world, the COVID-19 pandemic is highlighting our divisions.

Inside the Little Sisters of the Poor retirement residence in Pittsburgh, it’s revealing the power of grace and humility.

The mission of Little Sisters of the Poor (LSP), a Roman Catholic order founded in France in 1839 by St. Jeanne Jugan, is to care for the elderly poor (of all denominations) in their last chapter of life. Today, 172 LSP homes in 31 countries serve nearly 12,000 aged poor.

One might think the people who live and work there would be in a panic, as this miserable virus ravages so many retirement homes.

Rather than fret over stringent limitations imposed due to the coronavirus, however, the sisters, staff and residents are displaying incredible cheerfulness and hope.

To protect LSP Pittsburgh’s 93 residents, the sisters sent home its 184 volunteers, who help with a massive daily workload. Full-time staff members’ temperatures are checked before entering the facilities. Everyone wears layers of personal protective equipment (PPE). Everyone works overtime.

The residence hasn’t experienced a single case of COVID-19 – a huge blessing.

Residents spend most of the day isolated in their modest apartments (leaving only to pick up box meals). Visitation and social gatherings have halted.

Residents greatly miss seeing their children and grandchildren, so an LSP activity staffer began running FaceTime, a video chat application, on her iPad.

FaceTime was an immediate hit. When donors learned of the need for iPads to run it, donated iPads arrived.

“We’re very blessed that way,” Sister Mary Vincent Mannion, mother superior of the residence, told me. “We survive on donations of food and supplies, but no sooner does a need arise than a generous soul steps up to help us meet it.”

Daily chapel visits are suspended, so the sisters began closed-circuit telecasts of Mass and other events within the residence. They make daily rounds with cookies, wine and cheese, and other goodies.

With the bingo hall temporarily closed, the sisters created hallway bingo. Residents sit in socially distanced chairs just outside their apartment doors.

The residents, too, are eager to do their part to help others.

Some sew masks and other PPE items in their rooms, donating them where they’re needed.

Others bake cookies, or create paintings and other crafts to display in the halls, bringing happiness to their neighbors.

But the residents’ strongest contribution is prayer.

Seventy of them formed a Pray Warriors club, which accepts prayer requests for those suffering. They’re praying daily for COVID-19 victims.

“God especially loves and listens to the elderly poor,” said Sister Mary Vincent. “Passages throughout the Bible speak to His love. And that is why their prayers are so powerful.”

In the middle of a pandemic, everyone at LSP Pittsburgh is focused on doing what she or he can to help others in need.

Meanwhile, across the country, pride, arrogance and divisiveness worsen. Some are heartlessly using the crisis to bludgeon political opponents.

If a pandemic, in which so many things are beyond our control, cannot bring us humility, I can think of only one thing that can.

We must become humble and gracious like the sisters, staff and residents at LSP Pittsburgh. Only then will we come together and accomplish the great feats that are needed to get our country back on track.

I pray that we learn from LSP Pittsburgh’s powerful example.

To donate provisions or funds to the Little Sisters of the Poor’s Pittsburgh home, visit littlesistersofthepoorpittsburgh.org or call 412-307-1100.

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Copyright 2020 Tom Purcell. Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact [email protected] or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at [email protected].