My maternal Great Granny was a fearsome old bat. She was born in 1869, just four short years after the US Civil War ended and (only five days subsequently) Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. She died a few months before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
What a lifespan.
I was fourteen when she died, and so I remember her clearly: Her ramrod-straight posture. Her unyielding demeanor. Her hats (think Downton Abbey’s Dowager Countess). The fact that–all her life–she had a housemaid. The dictum that we children were to be “seen and not heard,” and that we practically had to back out of the room, genuflecting all the way, as we said our goodbyes.
I can’t remember a single moment of real kindness or generosity from her, even at Christmas. Poor Maudie, the maid. She wasn’t allowed a suitor. She rarely had an afternoon off. When she went out to do the shopping, and she’d pick up her favorite newspaper (the one with the entry form for the football pools–which she loved playing) she had to hide it under her coat so Great Granny wouldn’t spot it upon her return. This contrasted greatly with my father’s side of the family. Dad’s family encouraged its servants and retainers to have lives beyond their work, and when the (mostly female) members of the staff had married themselves off to suitable suitors, they stayed in touch and became much-loved friends and families with whom the Muffett children holidayed over the summers.)
Great Granny had seen much in her life. She’d struggled and she’d suffered through several regional, and two World Wars, and it seemed she didn’t have much time for merry persiflage or unseriousness in her life. I’m glad I wasn’t as deprived as she, and that I don’t take after her all that much. For the lack of deprivation in my own life, because she took it on the chin in generations before, I’m grateful.
And I do remember one of her favorite sayings:
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
It’s a statement which reeks, in twenty-first century terms, of privilege and superiority.
But perhaps there’s at least a grain of truth (or maybe even more of one) in it.
Now, I do know exactly what you can make a silk purse out of. I’ve spun, knit, woven and sewn just about all of the options. None of them has included the aforementioned sow’s ear.
Many (many) years ago, I came up with what I believe was a bona-fide corollary for the original maxim:
And you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a horse’s ass.
The circumstances at the time were those of devastating family trauma.
And yet.
Absolutely nothing in the decades since, within or outside the family structure, has changed my mind on this subject.
Much as I am loathe to admit it, there are folks on this earth (horse’s asses?) who seemingly can’t be saved. I demur when it comes to answering the question of whether they should be saved, although–if you extracted an answer from me under duress, I guess it would be that part of the onus is on them, and if they can’t recognize the efforts of those who have real affection for them and have genuinely tried to help them, and separate those efforts from the witless and driveling sycophancy of those eagerly encouraging them to pile on to their sense of grievance, to self-immolate and make a public fool of themselves in a burst of self-indulgent narcissism–then, as difficult as I may have found it at first, I have–with time and enormous regret–washed my hands of them.
Sometimes–as hard as it can be–you just have to put your own oxygen mask on first.
You can’t make a sow’s ear out of a horse’s ass.
I am reminded of this daily on social media such as Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and such like. So many horse’s asses, most of which don’t even rise to the level of sow’s ears. Shouting into the vortex. Pretending to expertise which–if they had it–would show themselves competent in particular areas. And, otherwise, exposing themselves as frauds.
Sad.
That’s why I recommend ricochet.com to you. Bright, intelligent, mostly civil conversation (there are some exceptions; you can’t have an established community of a decade-and-a-half’s existence and not find some spirited disagreement) amongst those on the Right.
We’re not horse’s asses. Or even sow’s ears.
For that, please look elsewhere.
You won’t have to look far.
Happy Easter, all.
Beautiful post!
Thanks for reading and commenting.