I have a few confessions to make.
First, against the sage advice of my late friend Owen, I spend an inordinate amount of time reading Alabama Football message boards. If you have no idea what a football message board is, in a nutshell, it’s where a pile of nuts get together to rant at each other, the coaches, the team, any other team, the officials, Paul Finebaum, and the weekly rankings.
Sometimes needed info comes across, too, like Bama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s recent ankle surgery. He will likely play against LSU in two weeks, but not this week when my daughter, son-in-law, and I are traveling to Tuscaloosa for our annual game together.
Today, the message boards gave me relief and hope that watching the backups will be a glimpse into next year. Good, though I am already too guilty of wishing time away — not a good look for a sixty-three-year-old man.
However, in the consternation yesterday about Tua’s injury, some posters called worriers like me “Snowflakes.” That term also got strewn across the boards in relation to Tennessee coach Jeremy Pruitt’s dressing down his own quarterback on camera Saturday night as the Vols dropped their 13th in a row to Bama.
Should he have done this or not? I don’t know, but I’m not a snowflake if I think the coach went too far.
I have no idea where that term originated, and I don’t have time or any inclination to look it up. It’s a safe bet to me that some insecure man coined it in relation to those like me, I assume, who are “overly sensitive.”
I would never apologize to anyone about my sensitivity. I don’t care what you think if I cry on hearing Wilco’s “On and On and On,” or if I’m anxious and fearful about revisiting my hometown now that both of my parents are gone. I remember a good friend telling me after I wrote to him on the death of his last remaining parent,
“Now I’m an orphan.”
That got to me, as I know my condolence letter got to him. I never considered referring to him in any unmanly way, and I’m betting that the same goes for him regarding me. He does say I worry too much, but he’s concerned, not critical, I trust.
I suppose I’m considered a “liberal snowflake,” too, and yes, I’ll vote for Warren or Bernie, or anyone on the blue side in 2020. I like Mayor Pete the best, but that’s because he’s well-read as anything else. His favorite novel is James Joyce’s Ulysses, for God’s sake. Now if only Amy Klobuchar would announce that Absalom, Absalom! is her favorite, then my world would be in balance.
I like that ticket, by the way, whichever end is up. Substitute Warren or Biden, and I’d be almost as fine with it.
Besides, each snowflake is unique. I learned that in third grade.
Another confession.
I’ve had a problem with the emergence of the pronoun “they” in referring to one person.
This is a purely grammatical stance, though, and you’re going to have to trust me on that.
I’ve taught college English for almost thirty-five years, and I have always marked wrong the noun-pronoun or pronoun-pronoun disagreement, “Anyone/they,” or “Any woman can take their . . .”
In my wife’s native language, Farsi, there are no gender specific personal pronouns — it’s all one and the same. I can’t tell you the Farsi pronoun that’s used, but I do know that the Persian elders in my life, even after living in the States for almost forty years, still refer to male cats as “she,” and perhaps male persons, too.
They don’t mean anything by it, before you or anyone else resorts to their snowflake fallback.
We have a relative who has transitioned, and just when I thought I had the right gender pronoun down, this relative switched to “their.”
I didn’t like it. I said to everyone that I couldn’t do it. That I refused to do it. That my training forbade me to do it.
I felt smug and righteous.
Make that self-righteous.
And, I know the moment it/they/he/she/we changed for me, my final confession, today.
A few weeks ago, over lunch, a friend of mine asked about the relative I mentioned above.
“Where is she living now?” he asked.
He might have said “he” instead of “she,” but I didn’t correct either one.
In my head, though, I thought for the first time, “they.”
He or she wants to be called “they,” and it doesn’t matter if I don’t like the disagreement or if I don’t get it. This person has politely, respectfully made their request.
Who do I think I am not to honor it?
In answer to my friend’s question, I said, “Well, you know she/he has transitioned and is living on the west coast now.”
“Well, that’s the perfect place for him/her (whichever one he used).”
I said, “Yes, it is,” knowing that as with the pronouns, we were speaking two different connotative languages. I understood his well; mine, I fear, was not clear enough.
So as clearly as I can, right here and right now, let me say that my beloved relative is living on the west coast, and they are happier than they’ve been in years.
It’s just too bad that they’re a Tennessee football fan, though, in my heart, I don’t hold that against them or anyone else in my boarded world.
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