Peg Bracken, 1918-2007

In September 1964, I was living in Chicago with my then-husband and our 9-month-old son when a package arrived for me from my mother. It was a book, and on the flyleaf she'd written

"With love to Barbara. Happy housekeeping!"

The book was The I Hate to Housekeep Book, by Peg Bracken, and it was terrific—funny and irreverent about maintaining a house, it wasn't the slob approach but dedicated, she said, to those of us who are "random housekeepers." There were chapters on how to clean things ("Stains, Spots, Blots, Scars, and Dueling Wounds") and how to cook things ("Dinner Will Be Ready As Soon As I Decide What We're Having") and overall, how to not take it all--or yourself--too seriously.

I loved it. She made me laugh. I read it over and over again. I bought her other books—The I Hate to Cook Book, The I Still Hate to Cook Book, I Try to Behave Myself (this one an etiquette book) and The I Hate to Cook Almanak—but my favorite was, and still is, the housekeeping one.

I sometimes thought about writing to Peg Bracken to let her know how much I enjoyed what she'd written, but, like so many other things I think about doing, but don't, I never did. And now I never will.

I still get The I Hate to Housekeep Book out to look something up, and every time I do, I see my mom's inscription and wish again that she'd lived a whole lot longer. I wish I'd thanked Peg Bracken for her books; I'm sure I never thanked my mom enough for everything.

Parenting Rule #1: Stay on the offensive

In line at the small grocery store in Nevada City, behind a mother and her two preteen sons. Mom and younger boy are in conversation, and mom is growing increasingly irritated with what son is saying . . .

Mom [exasperated]: That's the wrong thing to say! I don't know how many times I have to tell you!
Son [in a reasonable tone]: You've never told me.
Mom [same tone as before]: I shouldn't have to tell you! You should know it yourself!

Desperado

Saturday's "This American Life" was called "Act V," as in Act V, the final act, of Shakespeare's Hamlet, as performed by inmates of a high-security prison in Missouri. The cast included men who had committed violent crimes—first-degree assault, rape, murder. Most, if not all, had never seen or read a Shakespeare play. To hear their impressions, their reflections on the characters and motivations of Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, et al, was to hear Shakespeare interpreted as I've never heard it before.

It was hard for me to continue thinking of these men as not nice people, as people who need to be locked away for a long, long time. In talking about their crimes, they sounded compassionate, self-aware, resigned, remorseful. They talked about what prison life feels like--dehumanizing, demeaning. And yet their crimes were horrible, and they did do them. They learned to act, to interpret Shakespeare; was all the other talk an act, too?

Some years ago, I was on a ferry in San Franciso Bay that passed close enough to San Quentin that I could see the exercise yard, prisoners in their orange jumpsuits standing at the fence, looking out toward the boat as I was looking over at them. "They were all once 3 years old," I thought. What had happened to them between age 3 and that moment of my seeing them from the ferry?

Why do we put people in prison? To keep them away from us? Certainly. To teach them a lesson? That, too. To purge them of their "badness" and rehabilitate them? Not so sure about that last one; seems like that ought to be part of it, but how can any rehabilitation occur in such a place? I don't know the answers to these questions, and it seems pretty clear that the people in charge of running our prison system don't, either. Maybe, though, we need to start with the 3-year-olds.

The cast and director of Hamlet, Act V

Missouri Eastern Correctional Center