The more I learn about other cultures and customs, the more I think, Wow! I wish White people had that! Whether it’s Black aunties who’ll give you the side-eye if you’re not acting straight or random family gatherings like our Hispanic next-door neighbors have, we European-descended Americans don’t have anything like that. It’s about community, being connected to something bigger, stronger, and more timeless than what any individual one of us can be.
Not only is it about community, but it’s about keeping our heritage strong. We see this in the ofrenda. An ofrenda is a traditional Mexican altar to honor the ancestors, seen particularly around Dia des Muertos (Day of the Dead). Pictures of the ancestors are placed on it, and the family shares stories of each one. As Dia des Muertos arrives, they place food offerings on the altar.
That’s such a neat custom, isn’t it? In this way, Mexicans stay connected to their ancestors and their family histories.
I was reflecting on this over the weekend. My younger daughter turned fifteen last week, and since her birthday landed right in the middle of the week, we did the big birthday celebration all weekend long. It started with a breakfast of her choosing–biscuits with sausage gravy (homemade, of course). Last year I found this biscuit recipe that makes delicious, flaky biscuits, and every time I make them, I think, Man, Grandpa would’ve LOVED these! And it hit me. Just as the favorite foods of the deceased are part of the Dia des Muertos custom, we also have our own food customs.
There’s that coconut cake that’s baked and served every year at Christmas because “Santa” loved it. There’s that gelatin salad that is made the same way Mimi (what Peter called his grandma) made it and is on the table for Christmas dinner. There’s the tradition of experimenting with vegetable sides at Thanksgiving because that aunt would do that. And there’s the thought of, Man, Grandpa would’ve LOVED these biscuits! The favorite foods of our loved ones keep them in our memories.
We also have the picture displays. Maybe we don’t put up an ofrenda, but we have family picture walls. In my parents’ home in the upstairs hallway hang pictures of family members past and present, and Mom tells who each of them is and something about them. In my own home, we have family pictures hanging on the stairwell, and Peter and I have told the girls stories about them. We keep their memories alive if they’ve died, and those who are still alive stay close to our hearts in the sharing of our memories.
Maybe family picture walls and those cherished recipes–or those recipes that make us think of beloved departed relatives–are our gringo ofrendas. May our cherished family members live in our memories and hearts as we share their stories down through the generations.
Content/Trigger Warning: This entry contains mentions of child sexual abuse. Be kind to yourself; it’s okay if you need to skip this.
In the continuing debate of “man versus bear,” there are millions of stories about why women choose the bear they’d meet in the woods. Even men are saying they’d choose the bear. Here’s another one.
It was summer 2016, and I was taking a walk through the neighborhood. It must’ve been a particularly mild day because our summers are usually suffocatingly hot and humid. I had my phone and was listening to music. A text came through from a former neighbor who had moved: “What is going on there???”
I shot back, “What do you mean?”
She sent a link to a news article from one of the local outlets. A neighbor, the man who lived behind us with his wife and their two daughters, had been arrested and charged with eleven counts of variations on sexual assault of a child–his older daughter. The charges ranged from statutory rape to indecent liberties with a minor to child molestation, and later his sexual offender’s profile page would indicate this had been going on the majority of her teen years, from when she was eleven to sixteen.
Of course, the link found its way to the local Facebook page (not by me; someone else in our town). People whose lawns this guy had mown were chiming in with, “He’s such a nice Christian man.”
And that’s the thing. He presented as this “nice Christian man.” He was that one glad-handing people at HOA meetings and around town. He was very vocal about his religiosity. My older daughter mowed lawns around the neighborhood, and she was out mowing ours one day when Bob came by. He offered her his hand to shake, but she got a funky vibe from him and backed away. She wasn’t rude, but she put up a boundary. Both of my girls got this strange vibe from him.
At one point Bob mowed our next door neighbor’s lawn. Bob didn’t know crap about taking care of grass. He couldn’t identify grass types so didn’t know how to adjust his mower accordingly. He also left a mess of clippings. Our neighbor’s lawn had weeds; our lawn has professional weed control. Bob had mown the neighbor’s grass and blown the wet clippings–seed heads included–into our lawn. I thought Bob was going to swing back and take care of the mess. After half an hour of not seeing him, I asked him to take care of the mess he’d left in our yard. He gave me push-back. I told him I’d take pictures of the mess and post them in the neighborhood Facebook group. A little bit more back-and-forth let him know that not tending to his mess would ultimately be bad for his business.
He looked at me aghast and tried to manipulate me. He put his hand on his chest and said, “I thought you were a Christian!” Ugh! The very nerve of this man to question my faithfulness when he was committing atrocities against his own daughter!
He spent a couple of years in jail. In the meantime, his wife sold their house. The older daughter moved out as soon as she could. There were never any charges brought against him. His wife didn’t. In fact, she welcomed him back into her home–an apartment by this point–when he was released. I’m pretty sure at least the older daughter has gone no contact. She’s since gotten married.
The family was a homeschooling family. The older daughter would have people over to study; they always sat outside on the back patio. When Bob was mowing lawns, his wife and both daughters accompanied him. I guess he couldn’t risk leaving them home alone where he couldn’t monitor their activities. Another neighbor told me at the beginning of our homeschooling journey that the girls used to take dance, but their mom eventually said it was “too much.” They were isolated.
Later Bob and his wife–the daughters were both gone by this point–took mowing back up. She had kept the business going while he was locked up. They had some customers in our neighborhood who still stuck with them. My girls didn’t want to go outside at all if he were within sight. They wouldn’t even go out into the yard to play, and if we had to go from house to car or car to house while Bob was around, they ran between the two to minimize their risk.
You know what else bears don’t do? Bears don’t molest their children. Bears don’t pretend to be holy and righteous while committing grievous sins.
I don’t see either Bob or his wife in the neighborhood anymore when I’m taking a walk on a warm spring day. I know which lawns they used to take care of, and I see other people tending to them now. A couple of years ago Bob was involved in a vehicle accident that nearly left him crippled. I’m just gonna keep my thoughts about that to myself.
After my morning cup of coffee, I generally drink water all the rest of the day. Sometimes, though, it’s just a little bit chilly for water, but I want to keep my water levels up so I brew a cup of herbal tea. If it’s around lunchtime, that tea might be black or green. We’ve kept a stock of tea on hand for ages; I personally have since I was in college. When the girls were younger, we’d take tea in the afternoons. Sometimes Mary, my older, would help me make homemade scones to go with it.
A cup of black tea steeping. Am I the only one who feels like this takes forever?
Though tea time isn’t really a thing for us anymore, we still all drink tea on occasion, and our pantry is about 1/8 tea. Honestly, the last thing we need is more tea, though we tend to have more black tea than anything because, again, we don’t drink black tea after a certain time of day.
My aunt Susan died last September, leaving Mom in charge of her estate. Mom asked if we wanted the teas that Susan had had, and since she and I apparently had the same taste in tea, I said, “Sure.” The other evening–earlier this week–I dug into one of those boxes of tea. I didn’t think a whole lot about my selection: Green tea with ginger. I brewed it, added a little honey, and as I sat sipping it, it hit me. Ginger. Then I remember the box of peppermint herbal tea I’d also brought back. Ginger. And peppermint. Used to calm upset stomachs. Susan must have drank those to stave off the nausea from the chemo. Then my heart pinched as it thought about her and realized the discomfort and pain she endured for the three years she battled the cancer that would eventually take her life. #cancersucks
One day, it’s going to hit me, and I’ll be able to mourn her death. The last decade or so–maybe a little more–it was like Susan didn’t really want me and the girls as her nieces anymore. It was frankly kind of confusing. We saw her at the family “high holies”–Easter dinner, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. She was always a generous giver, and she remembered our birthdays. She was generally loving and fun when we came together at Mom and Dad’s and when we’d host the girls’ birthdays.
Something was off, though. Susan wasn’t a big fan of other people’s boundaries. When I declined to sit with Grandma while I was working an intense residency program, I got pushback. The job was only part of the reason behind my unwillingness to do it. I adored my grandma, even named my older daughter after her. But when I’d made a special trip a few days each week to stay with Grandma in the month leading up to my wedding, I never got any gratitude back. I didn’t get gas money, either, but that’s a little thing. I could suck up the lack of “Hey, thanks”; it was harder to tolerate all the criticism. Every day Susan would find something else I’d done wrong when I was doing the best I knew how without any guidance.
That’s just one example. There are others that I don’t see a point in going into. Susan used to have a small property in our county over in the spitting-distance-from-the-beach section that she’d come down to a few times during the year. After she sold it, she’d stay at a hotel on the island. When I found out she was coming this way, I’d invite her to drop by. If she didn’t want to do that, I offered that I could bring the girls over to the island. She couldn’t go to that part of the county without coming either three miles or fifteen miles from us, depending if she wanted to take the back roads or the interstate. She never responded to either offer. My mom was confused (she may still be) as to why I didn’t make more of an effort to see Susan when her illness kept her closer to home. Susan’s house is 2 1/2 hours away from us, one way. Maybe I didn’t feel the desire to do that when it seemed clear to me that she didn’t want to see us even when it would’ve required no effort on her part.
Susan had a penchant for drama, though she had zero tolerance for other people’s drama. Scott Lyon talks about holding grudges as a form of drama addiction, and that was definitely a gift Susan had. She once held a grudge for twenty years against a cousin who lived literally all the way on the other side of the country. She held people hostage with the threat of her grudges. Christmas Eve 2002, Grandpa had a heart attack. The hospital he went to had recently come under the auspices of the hospital where I did my internship and contract chaplaincy. I’d grabbed my employee’s badge as I raced out the door that night. We beat the ambulance (but we won’t talk about that). When we got word that the ambulance was a minute out, I clipped my badge on, introduced myself, and asked the charge nurse if I could wait by the ambulance bay. She allowed me to. Susan reported to the family, “Sara went back there and flashed her badge around.” Certainly sounds BiGgEr and more dramatic, doesn’t it? But it far from represents my professional demeanor in reality. (Did you know drama addiction’s a real thing? You can scope out this article on it here, and check out Scott Lyon’s book, as well. For you podcast lovers, Jordan Harbringer had Scott on his podcast.)
I don’t know what happened. Again, possibly it’s boundaries. The thing that will hit me one day is the realization that the cool aunt I had growing up is gone. I mean, she’s been gone for longer than she’s been dead, but there was always the hope, ya know? Susan and I had the best times when I was a kid. We went to the zoo with Grandma; my younger cousin was there once or twice, too. We went to the place at the beach. I could talk to her about things that I couldn’t talk to anyone else about. It was with Susan that I had pizza for breakfast the first time.
She showed up for me. She came to my dance recitals and graduations. She never married and never had any kids of her own. For seventeen years, I was it. Then my little (haha! He’s over six feet tall!) cousin was born. Susan doted on us and adored us. My cousin lives several hundred miles away so she didn’t get to see him but maybe once a year or so. She showed up for him, too.
One day, it’s going to hit me. I’ll be drinking a cup of tea or walking along a beach, and bam! The tears will pour out unchecked, and my heart will break. I’ll grieve losing the aunt I once had, and I’ll also grieve the loss of any opportunity for us to be family again, anything close to what we once were.
Just writing these words is a wakeup call to me. I have an honorary “auntie” who I text with routinely and meet up with for coffee every so often. But I still also have two blood aunts, one I haven’t really spoken to beyond Christmas cards since Mary ran away. I need to make sure I don’t again encounter “too late.”
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine comes the faces of war. You’ve seen them, I’m sure. They are women. They are children. They are fathers devastated by the loss of their families. They are even Russian soldiers who are too human to want to follow a homicidal maniac’s orders to kill innocents.
War always brings its innocents. Eighteen-year-old boys who are ripped from home by conscription and handed a gun after six weeks of training are sent to kill other eighteen-year-old boys who are pretty much just like them, separated only by language, culture, and nationality. We’ve seen the slaughter of women, children, and the elderly. We have seen remote attacks on hospitals and apartment communities. Russians have fired upon caravans of Ukrainians heading out of the country in search of refuge in neighboring countries. Remarkable is that I’ve yet to hear the term “collateral damage.” These innocents aren’t unfortunate victims of repercussions after a missile attack. They themselves are the targets.
This war is showing the strength of women. Yes, we’ve seen the heartbreaking images of suitcases, the only remains of a man’s family. We’ve seen the pictures of a pregnant woman, a survivor, however briefly, of a missile attack on a maternity hospital. (Her baby and she died the following day.)
Then there’s Olena Kurilo, a 52-year-old kindergarten teacher. Early in the war, the apartment complex where she lived with her husband was struck by a missile. She was inside their apartment, and the windows were all blown out, glass shrapnel flying everywhere. She survived with a damaged eye but otherwise superficial wounds. Her husband was saved by a fortuitous flat tire. They now live outside of the city; their adult daughter is still living in a shelter.
Olena Kurilo after the missile blast that destroyed her home.
Olena is half Russian on her mother’s side and is a proud Ukrainian citizen. She boldly speaks out against the atrocities happening in her country. She envisions peace, a reunion of her family, and has hope to teach and love grandchildren one day.
Another woman who became “internet famous” in the early days of the war is anonymous to us. This article contains both the video and the transcript from her encounter with a patrol of Russian soldiers. She was furious with them, with their occupation of her country, and she didn’t hold back. She cursed at them and straight-up cursed them (“And from this moment, you are cursed.”). She offered handfuls of sunflower seeds to these Russian soldiers and asked them to put them in their pockets so that when they die, sunflowers will grow.
This was the first indication to me that there is a vast difference in ideology between the boots-on-the-ground Russian soldiers and that coming out of the Kremlin. While this woman was on her brave vitriolic tirade against these occupying forces, the man tried over and over to get her to move on, even using “please.” He told her to move on in several attempts to de-escalate the situation. What he didn’t do was more remarkable to me. He didn’t draw out his side arm and shoot her where she stood.
While media shows Russian police dragging away peaceful protesters to prison–even holding a blank piece of poster board can get you the maximum of fifteen years in prison–this woman who was “protesting” with the voice of her fear and anger walked away from this encounter on her own occupied home soil (probably with pockets still full of sunflower seeds). The soldier didn’t want to kill her and chose not to. I hope she lives to see the end of this war.
Amidst the Russian trolls parroting Putin’s lies and news of Putin’s saber rattling, these glimpses of humanity and strength give me hope. More hope comes as I see all the ways that the Ukrainians are “waging peace” by giving food and hot tea to their Russian prisoners of war. They’re “waging peace” by letting the POWs call home and allowing their mothers to come get them. Though likely inundated by Putin’s incessant anti-Ukraine propaganda, these soldiers are experiencing the compassion and peace-waging of every day Ukrainian citizens.
What’s most remarkable to me is, there is no international law or code of war that makes the Ukrainians behave this way. Without a formal declaration of war, the rules of the Geneva Convention don’t apply. We saw the same thing in Vietnam. Since that was a “police action” and a “conflict,” the Vietnamese were under no obligation to treat our soldiers with kindness or compassion, and, in fact, our POWs were tortured and held in abysmally inhumane conditions (especially in the south). The Ukrainians are choosing better. They are choosing compassion. They are acting according to the Way of Jesus, as much as it’s possible during times of war and occupation.
It started innocently enough. All I was trying to do was find that one grocery store cookbook that held the recipe for the casserole I wanted to make for dinner. The hutch where we store our cookbooks was a mess, though, making even accessing that section of cookbooks a challenge. So I pulled off the huge stack of loose paper recipes–all those we’ve printed off from emails and websites over the years–and placed them on the table. What a mess! While I had them all off, I decided, Why not punch holes in them and get these bound like I’ve been meaning to do?
First, though, I found the cookbook I wanted. When we were dating and in the early years of our marriage, my husband couldn’t go grocery shopping without bringing one of those home. Sauerbraten noodle casserole with steamed red cabbage on the side… Mmmmm! So good!
This huge, disorganized stack of recipes had been making our hutch a cluttered disaster
This is what I started with. After about a half-hour or so of sorting and organizing them, I ended up with two 3-ring binders full of recipes, categorized by type of dish with categories in alphabetical order. My tween helped me, so there was some memory-making mixed in with the organization.
As I went through that stack of papers, pulling out what didn’t belong and seeing what I had, so many memories came at me, all tied to recipes and cooking!
Cranberry Orange Sauce–I found this recipe in the early days of our marriage at a website that was a humble alternative to All Recipes but is now a French snack food company’s website. I still make this sauce every year for Thanksgiving dinner and usually have enough to can a couple of small jars for leftovers.
Beef Stew–My dad sent my aunt Susan and me this recipe by email, and one of them made it for a family dinner we had to miss when our firstborn was in the Intensive Care Nursery. Mom brought my husband and me servings of it along with biscuits for dinner one evening while we were at the hospital.
Zucchini au Gratin–This was a side for a fun French meal I made when I was in Div school and our family was just made up of two. That night over dinner, my husband told me he wanted to join me on a long weekend mission trip that was coming up.
Taco Soup (x3)–You know when you lose a recipe, you have to print it off again? Yep, that’s this one. Except, I’ve made it so often, I pretty much have it memorized. It’s a family favorite. Paula Deen’s recipe. Look it up; you won’t be sorry. But then there was also the one from the now-French-snack-foods site and my Aunt Linda’s.
Butternut Harvest Soup–Also times 3. But I found the one that’s got my own custom seasoning tweaks written on the back. Super-win!!!
Gingerbread–Not cookies (though that recipe was in the stack, too). No, I’m talking about warm, spicy, fragrant, soft gingerbread, maybe with a lemon glaze on top. I first tasted this on a field trip to Duke Homestead when my firstborn was in daycare. Now I make it to go in an adorable Nordicware gingerbread boy and -girl loaf pan Susan sent me. Hmmm… Now I want to make gingerbread.
In this day of modern technology, recipe websites galore, and the handy-dandy online recipe storage tool known as Pinterest that we can access from any device, paper recipes are almost a thing of the past. But when’s the last time you sat down with your child or spouse with a recipe printed on paper and said, “I made this when” or “This recipe came from your grandma, and I remember that time…”? Having a much neater Mimi hutch (the hutch was handed down to us from my husband’s grandma) is valuable, but the stories of the recipes on it are treasures beyond measure.
Twenty-four hours. One thousand, four hundred, forty minutes. That is how much time each of us gets each and every day to make things happen. Multiply that times seven to get one hundred sixty-eight — 168 — hours in a week. So why don’t we all have enough time?
I heard someone say today that someone else doesn’t have time to do something that’s important. I just looked at her and asked, “Why not? She has the same twenty-four hours in the day as the rest of us.” Once one of my students came to me with the excuse of “I didn’t have time to get my work done.” I asked her if she’d had time to play with a friend, to which she answered in the affirmative. I told her, “If you had time to play, you had time to get your work done.”
Sometimes, there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day. I get it. I go through those days, too. They usually happen right around the time of big events, so they’re not everyday occurrences. Some days, the craziness and crammed up days are scheduled. When I wake up, I know that’s ahead of me. Nothing else will fit in those days, and as it is, 1:00 a.m. sees me still working, still pushing through the last little bit of work before I crash in exhausted slumber.
Then there are the other days. You know the ones I mean. You get up and get things done. At the end of the day, you have an extra thirty minutes or even an hour or two to focus on that something else that may be important. In my days, my work day often starts when our school day ends, so I could conceivably be “on” as mom and teacher for eleven hours then turn around and snag an extra hour or two of work before bed. When it comes to that time I have to be productive, that time I must use and finesse for the sake of efficiency, I have a choice: I can buckle down and get my work done, or I can piddle away the time chatting with friends, cruising social media, or playing games.
Then there are weekends. It is quite common for me to use Saturdays as make-up days. Sundays, too, if I absolutely must, but I try to keep sabbath on Sundays. When I have important priorities, like taking courses, working, or catching up on things for the house, then those take precedence over every thing else. When that writing course or that online class on publishing will help me advance my career and ultimately benefit my family as a result, then forget fun! I don’t mind being anhedonic for the short-term when there is so much delight on the other side long-term. After all, I only have 168 days a week to get that week’s tasks done, so I better prioritize my time because once it’s gone, it’s gone. There’s no getting it back.
This is the opportunity cost of time. It’s just like with money. If you have a task that needs to get done, and you need to spend five hours a week completing it, then you have budgeted that five hours for that task. If you then burn part or all of that time in talking to friends, playing games, or running all over town for fun, then you don’t get those five hours back. They’re gone. *poof* Disappeared.
I no longer hear “I don’t have time” from myself or anyone else. We have time. We just have to decide how we’re going to invest our time. Often, if we have less fun with our time now, we’ll have the time and money to have more fun with our time later. It’s a simple concept: Work first, play later.
I frequently tick people off by violating the social sexual contract.
The social contract is an unspoken, unwritten, but universally accepted “rule” that dictates how people in a society are supposed to relate to each other. The social sexual contract determines the patriarchal order, giving men dominion and control over women and all aspects of women. It gives men access to women’s bodies in the marriage relationship, taking away the limitations of marital rape. It also gives men control over women’s reproductive health, allowing them to make laws that govern women’s bodies. It is this contract that states men don’t have to listen to women and women are supposed to accept this. This contract allows men to interrupt and talk over women when they’re speaking.
It says that, even if women are sexually harassed in the workplace, that they should just be quiet in deference to the man’s reputation. We have even seen this in churches in recent years in light of the #metoo movement where women who are sexually assaulted by male ministers are instructed to forgive their rapists and keep quiet because, after all, he’s a minister with a family, and her speaking would ruin his reputation. (Often, the minister is asked to resign quietly but then goes to another church and repeats the same behaviors.)
As a woman, I’m sick of living under a contract I didn’t sign. I have violated the social contract many times.
I violate the social sexual contract when I call men out on interrupting me.
I violate the contract when I make my own decisions about what happens to my body.
I violate the contract when I declare the injustice in the church patriarchy as insecure male ministers block women’s ordinations then plagiarize their exegetical work.
I violate the contract when I affirm and support other female ministers.
I violate the contract when I refuse to excuse bullying behavior by male family members and name it for what it is.
I violate the contract when I set boundaries against male relatives who want to draw me into hugs I don’t wish to give.
I gladly will continue to violate the social sexual contract. This social contract has become so pervasive that women gladly accept it and buy into it, allowing men the freedom to treat them however they wish. Men don’t consciously realize that there is a contract, but they reap its benefits daily. Only when women and people of color stand up and say, “Enough!” do white men even see there is a problem. Some, like many males with whom I’ve dealt, think the problem is in the one who’s tired of being treated like crap. More evolved males see the problems within the existing social systems and move to eradicate them.
What problems do you see in the existing social contract? What steps can you take to change the contract to make it more equitable?
Y’all, I spent seven years of my life preparing for shelter in place.
As a Gen Xer, we were raised to follow rules for staying in the house. We were the generation of latchkey kids. Every day from sixth through twelfth grade, we rode the bus home from school, let ourselves into our homes, and followed our parents’ rules. My parents’ rules are remarkably like the rules we’re following now.
Rule #1: Come in and lock the door. I always keep our doors locked, anyway. Too many years of city life following living by myself ingrained that habit in me.
Rule #2: Call me (Mom 98% of the time) as soon as you get home. This phone call usually was my chance to tell her about my day and also to get instructions. My parents and I email often, but since the social isolation started, it’s every day.
Rule #3: Don’t let anyone in the house. My own cousin who lived next door wasn’t even supposed to come over. Haha. Nope. If you don’t bathe here, you’re not coming in at this time.
Rule #4: Don’t leave the house. I could be in the yard and on the back deck, but I couldn’t go for a bike ride or a walk on the street, couldn’t visit with friends. Sound familiar? Same stuff, different decade/century/millenium, except now I can be out on the street since I’m an adult.
Rule #5: Get your work done before you play or watch TV. I honestly don’t get those folks who can binge-watch Netflix all day. I can barely sit still through a movie. Even though we have all day to play, school still happens. I tell my younger, “Get your work done. Then you can play without worrying about having to work.” We still have a rule, no matter what, school work and chores have to be completed before TV and friend time.
Rule #6: Do xyz to help prepare for dinner. Mom didn’t get home until around 5:30, and she always wanted to have dinner on the table as close to 6 as possible. Most days, this meant I had to clean chicken (ew!) or make spaghetti sauce. In these days of social isolation, cooking is still enjoyable. We experiment, and we work together to pull dinner together.
If you’re a Gen Xer, then you were made to survive. We handled being on our own for hours at a time perfectly fine. We followed the simple rules of our parents and that usually was enough to keep us healthy and out of trouble. We can do it again now, too.
I heard someone say today that someone else doesn’t have time to do something that’s important. I just looked at her and asked, “Why not? She has the same twenty-four hours in the day as the rest of us.” Once one of my students came to me with the excuse of “I didn’t have time to get my work done.” I asked her if she’d had time to play with a friend, to which she answered in the affirmative. I told her, “If you had time to play, you had time to get your work done.”
