Elaine Gray, Author at GOSSIP FROM THE GIRLFRIEND GATHERINGS

Understanding Labor Day – Celebrating the American Working Class

September 1, 2014 By Elaine Gray

You know it occurred to me as I prepared for Labor Day 2014 that I had minimal knowledge about the holiday that I have celebrated every year with family and friends. I had some general knowledge of why we, as a nation, celebrate it but did not know much about the origins of the holiday. So, I decided this Labor Holiday weekend to do some research and share with others who may not have full knowledge.

Labor Day in the U.S is basically the holiday that celebrates the achievements of the American worker and their contributions to our country. It is celebrated yearly on the first Monday in September. Oregon was the first state to celebrate it back in 1887. By the time it became a federal holiday in 1894 thirty other states were already celebrating it. Also, eighty countries worldwide celebrate Labour Day (that is how they spell it!) each year but in those countries it is celebrated on May 1.

After the national adoption, the early celebrations in local cities and towns included parades, festivals, and speeches by community leaders. Also, the holiday marked the end of the summer and a return to school for children. Now, in more recent times, the retail community has added their flavor to the holiday by offering sales on their merchandise to the citizens that are enjoying leisure time and may want to shop.

The ingenuity of the American worker and inventor changed the world with the inventions by persons such as Orville and Wilbur Wright, Eli Whitney, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Goodyear, Granville T. Woods, Elijah McCoy (the real McCoy), Lewis Latimer, Jan Ernst Matzeliger, Garrett Morgan, and Otis Boykin – just to name a few. We all have reason to celebrate the achievements of these workers and many more like them who have contributed much to the American way of life.

Musings on the Death of Robin Williams

August 13, 2014 By Elaine Gray

When one my best friends mentioned the death of Robin Williams in our phone conversation, I responded with the one-word question of disbelief – “Who?” She repeated his name again and it still took me a few seconds to truly understand the gravity of what had happened. As she explained the few details she knew, an image popped into my thoughts with the words of an old Smokey Robinson song – “Tears of a Clown.” The song states that there is nothing in human life sadder than the tears of a clown when no one else is around. These were my immediate thoughts.

Robin Williams gave all of us feelings of happiness and laughter with his beautiful and amazing talents. It is heartbreaking to think that we could not be there for him while he struggled with his illness. I know some of us will focus on the fact that he committed suicide, but his death is no different than someone who dies after battling cancer or leukemia. Depression is an illness just like cancer and death (suicide) can be the end result just like cancer. It is a known fact that suicide is #10 on the causes of death of Americans.

There is a stigma in our society for persons with emotional illness. Some of us even have family and friends with some level of emotional illness, but we just ignore it. Usually, we make excuses for their behaviors but the deep-down fact is we fear it. If you live a public life (celebrity, politician, etc.) it is even more difficult to seek help when suffering from emotional illness because of the fear of being ostracized. Until the societal view changes on emotional illness, I am afraid we will lose more brilliant, talented, and well-loved individuals to it.

Let us all remember Robin Williams for the smiles and laughter he gave us. Let us accept that at the moment his life ended Robin had suffered more pain and despair than we can ever understand. Let us send up prayers of caring peace for him and his family.

In August 2011, I wrote a post “Down in the Valley – The Valley so Low” ( https://gossipfromthegirlfriendgatherings.com/2011/08/08/down-in-the-valley-%E2%80%93-the-valley-so-low/) about depression – especially in women. Perhaps it is time to revisit that post and give close attention to our family and friends. We must rise above our fears to help those who may need us more. Let us do this in memory of Robin Williams.

To Have a Friend You Need to Be a Friend

August 6, 2014 By Elaine Gray

It is easy for me to meet and bond with others whether they are male or female. I have close friends in both sexes but my closest friendships are with other women. I learned about female bonding by watching the women in my family during my youth. They were all very close and there were lots of family gatherings. I was always eavesdropping on conversations by lurking close to whatever room they were in – usually the kitchen. In some of the old family photos where the women are together you can find me – the only child in the picture – peeking around the door or over someone’s shoulder while they are sitting. I learned a lot listening to them sharing their lives with and helping one another. I also learned how they handled discord and maintained their relationships.

As I moved through the phases of womanhood, I learned there are women who don’t feel comfortable around other women. Usually, these women are okay with a one-on-one friendship but just don’t do well in a group. As a younger woman, I would try to encourage and include women I knew like this into my group of friends but experience finally taught me to “let it be” because it didn’t always work. Sometimes it made the outing uncomfortable and unbearable with the “loner” woman acting a little crazy! I finally accepted that it is simply a difference in personalities and everyone has a right to be themselves. I just don’t have to have the negative ones in my inner circle.

I have discovered that in order to have a good lasting friendship and to make great new friendships you should be:

Selfless

Caring

Kind

Honest

Encouraging

Accepting

Positive

Open-Minded

Versatile

Funny

Whole and Fair

In self-control

A Good Listener

A Good Communicator

These are qualities that I believe will sustain long-lasting friendships if both parties strive to incorporate them in their daily lives. The burden of uplifting and maintaining a friendship should never fall on one person.

Question(s):

How healthy are your friendships?

What do you think of the friendship qualities I listed?

Do you have any to add? If so, please share.

Girlfriend Gathering Movie Review – Get On Up – James Brown Biopic

August 4, 2014 By Elaine Gray

A group of girlfriends and I had a “movie and lunch” outing to support the movie “Get on Up” – the James Brown Biopic. The movie was awesome and Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal / performance of James Brown was FANTASTIC! The first thing I did when I arrived home after that outing was to order CDs with 50 of James Brown’s songs from Amazon.

This movie reminded me that I was lucky to grow up in the 60’s and 70’s when music included “real” musicians with “real” musical instruments and songs told a story or had a message. I remember how the music of James Brown made us FEEL and MOVE. The pony, the twist and the jerk were some of the dances of my childhood. I know I discovered how my hips could move imitating his girl dancers and dancing to the beat of his music. When he would tell Maceo to “take it to the bridge” no person with ears and rhythm could remain still. You had to move. James Brown and his orchestra gave us “funk” before we had a word for that type of music.

I learned some things about his life that was news to me from the movie. I knew he grew up poor in Georgia but I did not know the full circumstances of his childhood. It was moving to know the obstacles that he overcame in his life to become the musical genius and icon in modern music. We, in the African-American community, will always treasure his contribution to us in claiming our own racial identity as we moved from being Negro to being Black to being African-American. His song, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” helped us proudly claim what some would have us shun in shame and instilled racial pride in our children. It was beautiful coming from one who had endured so much.

If you haven’t made plans yet, please consider seeing the movie. I plan to purchase it for my movie library when it is released. When my music CDs arrive from Amazon I plan to put Zumba away for a while because I will be able to move to “I Got the Feeling” and “Papa Got a Brand New Bag”!

Here’s a link for those who may need a little reminder of the power of the James Brown’s FUNK:

Communing with My Creative “Tribe” at BlogHer ‘14

July 30, 2014 By Elaine Gray

This past weekend I communed with my blogging sister-girlfriends at BlogHer ’14 in San Jose, California a.k.a Silicon Valley. This was the second time I attended this conference and I was excited about reconnecting with and meeting new female bloggers.

It is really hard to describe the feeling to be a part of this creative “tribe” of women. The networking, sharing and bonding is truly unique and dispels the myth that women are competitive with one another. We strategize on improving our writing craft and monetizing our blogs. We celebrate our ability and freedom to lift our written voices to inform and engage others. We honor those who are blazing trails in this arena. We applaud dynamic women that are making a difference in our society through medicine, business, government and the arts.

There were many great women that shared with us throughout the conference and, just to give you an idea, here are the names of four of them:

Arianna Huffington – Chair, President, Editor-in-Chief of Huffington Post Media Group
Richelle Parham – Chief Marketing Officer of eBay North America
Kerry Washington – Emmy nominated Actress and star of the hit TV show “Scandal”
Demetria Lucas – Author of “A Belle in Brooklyn” and known as the “Black Carrie Bradshaw”. She interviewed Kerry Washington at BlogHer ’14.

At the end of the conference, McDonald’s threw us a party and Rev. Run of Run DMC was our DJ. It was a blast!