fiction | Spirit of Cecilia

April 20, 2023

MUNRO: I have known Ruben for almost thirty years and have corresponded with him on and off for all those years. I have always respected him and I think he respects me too even though I have been controversial or unpopular in certain quarters at times.

RUBEN NAVARETTE https://rubennavarrette.com/

In my remarks at Fresno State, I shared with students 25 “nuggets” of personal advice and wisdom.

learned these things the hard way from 35 years of knocking around in — and being knocked around by — a splendid yet difficult self-made career in media, journalism and storytelling.

1)- Follow your passion

MUNRO: Every person must find where his or her talent lies so they can develop expertise and also develop his or her talents. It is sad when people never find out what they TRULY LIKE and WHAT THEY ARE TRULY GOOD AT.

2) Be curious

MUNRO Albert Einstein wrote: “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.

—”Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'” LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64”

3) Find mentors

MUNRO: “Your goal […] is to be less a product of the times and to gain the ability to transform your relationship to your generation. A key way of doing this is through active associations with people of different generations. If you are younger, you try to interact more with those of older generations. Some of them, who seem to have a spirit you can identify with, you can try to cultivate as mentors and role models. Others you relate to as you would your peers- not feeling superior or inferior but paying deep attention to their values, ideas, and perspectives, helping to widen your own.”
― Robert Greene THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE

4) Take risks

MUNRO You have to take risks but they should not be wild chances. And you should never put the financial security and stability of your family at risk. It is why it is easier and better to take chances and travel when you are young and single. In my youth, I served in the Marines, lived and worked abroad, worked in construction. I still took risks when I was married and with children but measured risks. I always maintained health insurance for my family had savings and credit available. I had one car and it was free and clear.

5) Live in other states

MUNRO: I went to school in New York and New Jersey (Seton Hall college and NYU). With the American Military College, four summers with the University of Northern Iowa (in Spain), and Seattle University (5^th Year Teaching Certificate k-12 plus credential in English, Social Studies and Spanish.

I served in the Marine Reserves in New Jersey, Virginia, Spain, Italy, Greece. Earned Bilingual Certificate of Competence. Graded AP Spanish exams for 14 summers as an adjunct professor in Cincinnati and San Antonio (Texas). Studied and worked one year at the University of Virginia while on sabbatical. Mentored young teachers and helped them find placements.

5) Travel more in the U.S. & throughout the world

MUNRO: I have traveled to 47 states and Puerto Rico (never been to Idaho, Alaska or Hawaii) plus many countries in Latin America and Europe. I lived for a while in Portugal, Spain and Ireland.

6) Harness “people power” by building relationships

MUNRO
NETWORKING. Networking is very important and I struggled with this because I came from a first-generation family -my father was the only one in his family to go to college and have a professional career and we were somewhat alienated from our American neighbors and community. I had no real connections or “palanca” as the Spanish say. My father was disabled by a stroke when he was 63 and I felt I had to make my own way in the world -which I did. I paid my own way through graduate school and bought my first house (a condominium in Kirkland, Washington). But it took me ten years to get my teacher’s credential and thirteen to get my MA.

Through hard work and struggle I finally made some contacts via ETS (AP), Ron Unz , Linda Chavez, ED Hirsch,jr, Diane Ravitch, Jaime Escalante, Rosalie Pedalino Porter. Letters of recommendation from administrators and Mentor teachers plus some of these well-known educators and authors helped get me a Fellowship at UVA. Later I had a chance to research and edit books for authors such as ANDREW ROBERTS (Walking with Destiny a biography of Churchill) Through Andrew Roberts and the GILBERT HIGHET SOCIETY I have met many authors , journalists and teachers and have corresponded with them (Such as Victor Davis Hanson), Having contacts is very important. Churchill was a master at this and so is Andrew Roberts.

I founded the AP program at my high school in SPANISH, AP US HISTORY and AP US GOVERNMENT. in the beginning years we funded all the books and exam fees by selling chocolates. They said our kids (Arvin High) couldn’t do it and that it couldn’t be done but we did it.

I helped my high school win awards via the We the People program. I published some one act plays and articles in magazines and newspapers. Then I leveraged this into a job and fellowship at the University of Virginia. This helped me max out my credits but proved a dead end because many of the professors were hostile -actually hated E D Hirsch (though he had been at UVA but via the ENGLISH DEPARTMENT not the Curry School of Education).

I found many of the professors to be anti-Catholic and deeply biased. So it was not entirely a happy experience and I was away from my family for almost a year. Fortuately I spent Thanksgiving and Easter with a Scottish cousin in Maryland and also took time out to visit Scottish friends in Scotland (who still write to me!)

In a year I did not make one friend or any useful connection and was glad to go when my time was up.

My advisor said, “You are stuck with me and if it had been up to me you wouldn’t be here.” I did not even see her the last six months I was at the school. She would not admit me to her classes. I was personal non grata chiefly because of my military background and supposed political stance.

“But now let’s talk about your network, which is made up of the people you know–family, friends, acquaintances, current and former coworkers, teachers, and neighbors–and the people they know. These people may be able to help you get informational interviews. And they might even be able to get your resume on the right person’s desk. If, when I refer to networks, you feel, Lady, I don’t have one, I want you to visualize the person who comes to mind when I say, Who cared about you? You can begin to build your network by simply checking back in with this person. Tell them what you’re up to and ask how they’re doing, too. Share your thoughts about where you might be headed in life. Get their feedback and advice. And with all respect due, ask if they’d be willing to help with whatever your next step might be. Their help could be as simple as just telling you that they believe in you so that you can believe in yourself too, or being listed as a reference, or writing you a letter of support. If your life has been such that you do not have much of a network, I want you to recognize that you may actually have different strengths, like the wherewithal to hustle and make good use of whatever resources you can find.”
― Julie Lythcott-Haims, YOUR TURN HOW TO BE AN ADULT.

7) Learn to tell your own story

MUNRO
We all have experiences and stories and we should pass on some this experience to our friends and family and if we are able to a wider community. I gained a lot of experience working with English for the Children but also I made a lot of permanent enemies in my district particularly among Union leaders. The main reason is I opposed the Educational Establishment and openly opposed the Union on the issue of bilingual education reform. I was assailed as a “White Supremacist”, “English-only racist”and “anti-immigrant.” They hated the fact I taught Spanish and recruited along with Jaime Escalante Spanish-speaking students and parents to support our campaign. The hated the fact that I opposed the Union position (considered disloyal). They said over and over I spoke for myself as an individual and not for the Union or the School District. Most teachers and administrators were afraid to support me publicly. My wife and I were principal writers and translators for the English for the Children Campaign and I wrote and recorded ads in Spanish and English with Sherrie Annis (wife of Howard Kurz). We interpreted for immigrant families. We contributed out time and effort without any remuneration. Yet the Union paid big bucks to Stephen Krashen (whom I met and debated). Krashen was surprised that I knew his work and respected it and that I had not political ambitions for myself. He was surprised that I sincerely only cared about students. Unlike Union leaders he was not nasty or hostile to me and invited me to have a coffee and a chat with him (which I did). The president of Cal State Bakersfield walked out in a public forum with other professors as he didn’t want to listen to or encourage a “Right Wing Nativist Extremist like me”. Of course, I am not anti-immigrant. I am a political moderate. I am not an extremist. My chief motivation was to promote standards and academic integrity for students. My parents were immigrants, my wife is an immigrant, my son-in-law is an immigrant my daughter-in-law is an immigrant. My wife and I sponsored an immigrant family -all US residents and citizens today. We did not want to see that family separated and the educational opportunities of the son limited. Other people talk but we acted IMMEDIATELY to protect a family and guarantee no family members would be arrested and deported. The son went to college and became a minister. I am not against VOLUNTARY DUAL IMMERSION or bilingual education. I had a big argument with some of Ron Unz’s supporters. I said if you don’t have waivers for parents to keep their children in bilingual programs they want I and most teachers could never support prop 227. So we continued with Dual Immersion bilingual education in 1998 and we still have it today. Nothing changed at my daughter’s school SHERMAN ACADEMY in San Diego except that for a number of years parents needed to sign a form once a year. They no longer have to sign a waiver which is fine with me. I just believed in high standards and absent qualified dual immersion/bilingual teachers districts should offer sheltered English immersion as an alternative to bilingual programs that didn’t really exist. And of course, all of my grandchildren are Mexican-American and go to bilingual dual immersion schools. I haven’t a nativist bone in my body. But to this day there are Union activists for whom I am, to put it mildly a persona non grata. People like that walk past me and don’t even respond to me. But when you stand up for something you are going to pay a price. I have no regrets. I think I helped kids. I never did anything in education that harmed kids.

8) Ask others to tell you their stories, and soak them up

MUNRO:

You can’t learn everything from books or from your own experience. It is important to get others to share their stories and experiences. Recently a teacher told me the problems he was having in his school district with his department chair and local administrators. I told him to cool it. To keep his head down and not challenge the establishment. It is best in such an unequal struggle to beat a strategic retreat. I encouraged him to apply to another district and vote with his feet which is what he did. And I said know there are some battles you cannot win.

^—

9) REIN IN YOUR EGO, BE HUMBLE

MUNRO
^{You have to have humility because NOT ALL CAN BE KNOWN and we are sometimes WRONG. We shouldn’t be ashamed to admit we made mistakes because that is another way of saying we may be sadder and may have experienced defeats and disappointments but that we are a little wiser today than we were yesterday.}

10) Build your resilience

MUNRO Yes, you have to “roll with punches” as my old mother used to say. Many a good horseman has fallen off and gotten back on again. As Burns sang “ But Man is a soger (soldier), and Life is a faught (battle; fight).

11) Persevere, get up off the mat when you get flattened

MUNRO
There are few reputations more storied and none more deserving than that of Marine Corps Recruit Training. The difficulties of Marine Corps boot camp are legendary. It is not enough to simply endure, you must prevail as an individual and as a unit. You learn teamwork. Pulling together to prevent all from falling apart. Tapping into the purpose that brought you here, to serve the Marine Corps and for the Nation you fight for.

I always was motivated to defend and protect my family, my church, my students my community and my nation. Nobody had to pay me to tutor kids on Saturdays or after school. That’s why students are and were loyal to me because I was not motivated except by love friendship and civic virtue. I am proud of my certifications and university degrees but proudest of having served in the Marine and earned an honorable discharge as a “peace time ice-cream Marine.” I neve claimed I was a hero but I did serve honorably with heroes. My Marine experience made me tougher, more punctual, and able to work 16-hour days seven days a week when necessary unloading rail cars, and digging ditches to help build homes and apartments. Of course, learning self-defense came in handy on a few occasions. Once I saw a big brute beating a student and pounding him against a concrete wall. I only said, “Hey, what’s going on?” And the brute assaulted me and tried to choke me and knock me down. I broken his hold, knocked him down and put him in a full-nelson. He yelled and threatened to cut me with his knife. I told him calmly “Try it and I will break your neck in self defense. Maybe I have killed men before. Think about that. I learned this hold at Marine Corps OCS in Quantico. “ He settled down until the police came. What bugged me the most was no one wanted to admit they were witnesses to what happened even the victim. Why? Because the brute was a drug dealer collecting money and had a reputation for viciousness and brutality. But one thing I learned in the Marines is we all have one powerful weapon and that is our life and if we are prepared to sacrifice it we can save others and maybe ourselves.

12) Seek out different takes on issues from family & friends.

MUNRO We had a lot of disagreements in our family with prop 208 (traditional marriage) and abortion (my wife and I believe in parental consent and notification for minors). Our basic sympathies are pro-life and pro-family but we can peacefully coexist with fewer restrictions on abortion or somewhat stricter restrictions. But others are strongly ProChoice. But we don’t favor outlawing or criminalizing abortions. So I really believe we are Pro-Choice and Prolife We believe most abortions should be legal but that they should also be rare because abortion is not to be used for birth control, To us miscarriages and abortions are tragedies. Also we can peacefully coexist with Gay Marriage (all civil marriages are equal under the law) But we have an array of opinions in our family.

I believe your have to inform yourself via a variety of sources so I read our local paper and subscribe to WSJ plus via podcasts or the internet read or hear, the London Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Washington Post, and the New York Times, Reader’s Digest and Commentary magazine. I discuss issues of the day with family and friends. I know we don’t always agree. Many are dead set against RFK jr even being on the ballot but I feel trying to keep Trump off the ballot or blocking RFK Jr from being on the ballot is undemocratic and a mistake. I remember Eugene McCarthy was kicked off the ballot of a technicality in New York State in 1976; in New Jersey, he was on the ballot and Ford won that state by a narrow margin. So there is no question a 3^rd Party could tip an election one way or another. I don’t know if I would vote for RFK Jr (I admit I loved his father and uncle) but I support his right to be on the ballot. If you don’t like him don’t vote for him. I tolerated Trump but did not vote for him and I tolerate Biden (but think he is too old for the job). Personally, I wish both candidates would go away. It is a relief to know that in 2028 neither one will be on the ballot.

13) Stay ambitious, but also be content with what you have

MUNRO:

This is the virtue of moderation. We need bread but we do not live by bread alone. We need shelter and transportation but we do not need great luxuries. Burns also sang “Contented wi’ little, and cantie wi’ mair (singingly cheerful with more),

14) Always do what scares you most

MUNRO We are always scared at times but we must live each day with courage

15) Talk to strangers

MUNRO Yes, you never know what they might know or where they came from. Unless they are threatening be polite and friendly especially to young people.

16) Listen, listen, listen

MUNRO “There is an old saying God gave man two ears and one mouth meaning we should listen more than we talk a lot more.

17) Consider the possibility that you’re wrong

MUNRO Yes, by their fruits they shall be known but there is much mystery in the world and many paths. It’s possible that smartphone use in classrooms, APEX classes, ZOOM classes and AI will make educational standards higher than ever. But I am skeptical. I believe in index cards, oral testing, note taking, cursive essays. At the very least there should be alternative ways of learning and testing.

18) Be willing and ready to change your position

MUNRO Yes, we have to adapt and make peace with the world and new technologies Somethings can’t be cured and so must be endured. But I am glad I am not young anymore. But I will admit some things I won’t change very easily. My love of America. My love for the Marine Corps. My love for the Dodgers and baseball. My great affection and loyalty to the Roman Catholic church in which I was baptism and married. But political parties? Be damned. They are at best a necessary evil and often are evil and corrupt.

-19) – Get all the education you can, early on in life

MUNRO:

NEVER STOP LEARNING and READING and LISTENING TO OTHERS WISER AND MORE KNOWLEDGEABLE THAN YOU. “The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“If we are to use the words ‘childish’ and ‘infantile’ as terms of disapproval, we must make sure that they refer only to those characteristics of childhood which we become better and happier by outgrowing. Who in his sense would not keep, if he could, that tireless curiosity, that intensity of imagination, that facility of suspending disbelief, that unspoiled appetite, that readiness to wonder, to pity, and to admire?”
― C.S. Lewis, An experiment in Criticism.

“Books were her refuge. Having set herself to learn the Russian language, she read every Russian book she could find. But French was the language she preferred, and she read French books indiscriminately, picking up whatever her ladies-in-waiting happened to be reading. She always kept a book in her room and carried another in her pocket.”
― Robert K. Massie, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

“Whereas Taft discouraged the young Yale student from extracurricular reading, fearful it would detract from required courses, Roosevelt read widely yet managed to stand near the top of his class. The breath of his numerous interests allowed him to draw on knowledge across various disciplines, from zoology in philosophy and religion, from poetry and drama to history and politics.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, THE BULLY PULPIT

20) Be grateful for all you have, and the people in your life.

MUNRO Gratitude is a high virtue. As Yeats wrote “No man has ever lived that had enough Of Children’s gratitude or woman’s love.”

The most difficult part of life is gaining wisdom and a sense of gratitude for all we do have and for the time of good health we do have. The most difficult thing about life is that we have to, sooner or later, say goodbye to those whom we love. Either they will leave us or we will leave them. We should love each other and appreciate each other NOW, this hour, this day, this week, this month this year.

My mother and father died at the beginning of the 20th century now long ago! I am very grateful for my wife, my family, my grandchildren. I am grateful for the many students many thousands by now-I have had over 34 years of classroom teaching. I am grateful to those who have become teachers themselves or other service professions such as nursing, medicine, law enforcement or military service. This includes my daughter and my son who are both Spanish and dual immersion teachers. The highest-ranking NCO in the Air Force was my former student and four years on the Varsity Soccer team. We are still friends.

We should thank some people for merely living at the same time as we do. I am thankful for my parents and grandparents it was a miracle they survived 1914-1945. I am grateful for the fact I met my Spanish teacher and that he introduced me to Spanish culture and language and to my Spanish wife and her family. I will remember him for all my life -and he was an immigrant and an exile and a great and good man.

21) Choose carefully who you marry, what you do, where you do it

MUNRO This second part is good sense and moderation. The first part needs more commentary and explanation.

Frank Delaney, the Irish novelist wrote: “Marriage is very important. Marrying a girl is the most important thing a man can do. Never mind business or politics or sport or any of that, there’s nothing so vital to the world as a man marrying a woman. That’s where we get our children from, that’s how the human race goes forward. And if it’s too late for children, there’s the companionship of a safe and trusted person.”

AGREE this is a topic I have thought about and written about on a number of occasions. When I taught Economics in high school I always point out that merely on an economic basis the person whom we marry will have a great influence not only on our happiness and health but our economic future.

There are at least six reasons NOT TO MARRY (a gentleman thinks of such things for himself , his charges and his friends).

#1 Don’t marry someone you don’t really know. If you are pressured to rush to the altar as my Uncle Norman was you have to ask yourself. “What is the reason for the rush?” If he or she truly cares they will give you time to be sure.

#2 Don’t ever marry someone you don’t like or have anything in common with BESIDES sex and physical attraction. Everyone I have ever known married someone with whom he or she felt a strong sexual attraction. I could be wrong but this is the easiest part of a relationship. Speaking as a man, most women 16 to 60 are sexually attractive at some point in their lives. Once again, speaking from personal experience, most women hit their peak attractiveness from age 25 to about 42. Most women, just like most men, unless they work very hard at it, start to lose the battle of the bulge in their 40’s. Once again, perhaps it is just me, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. If I compare the looks of my friend’s wives who are excessively thin they seem more pinched, more wrinkled and less attractive with each passing year. Other women, with a more matronly look, remain very pleasant to be with and to look at.

Some women are astonishingly beautiful for a short period of time and others have a high lifetime batting average and remain attractive for a longer period of time. There is such a thing as growing old gracefully. The bottom line is if you can’t respect the behavior, habits and values of your potential mate, rethink the situation. What will it be like with this person once the haze of romantic love fades? Could you love your wife (once again, speaking as a man) if she lost her size 6 figure? Let’s face it multiple pregnancies and the years usually wreak havoc with a woman’s figure. And time does not remain still for any of us in any case.

It is a mistake to marry for beauty alone, a very big mistake.

#3 If the people around you who know you well and love you –your parents, siblings, close relatives, teachers, and wise friends- are counseling you against marriage to a certain person, you must pause. Although they don’t know your potential spouse as well as you do, they are not as emotionally mixed up as you are by the strong sexual attraction or romantic feeling you have for that other person. This is particularly true if the couple is sexually active (which I counsel against but I am a realist). Nothing fools you that you have to have your spouse like an active sex life before marriage. I wonder what purpose a honeymoon serves for people like that? And why even wear white? But if people around you are expressing doubts you should at least give yourself some time to think about what you are doing.

Imagine, for example, if your spouse had no money, lost all of his or her teeth and gained 100 pounds. My father always said to me that I should look at the mother of the potential bride because it was a reasonable indication of what the daughter would look like in 25 or 30 years with 25, 30 or 50 additional pounds. I would add another proviso too.

I don’t think it is important to marry for money and position. I think marrying for personal happiness and family reasons are the most important. But that having been said there is something one should always consider. It is one thing to marry someone who has next to no money but it is another to marry someone with extravagant tastes and $50,000 in debt!!!! Most marriages fall apart for two basic reasons: lack of sexual compatibility and financial distress.

#4 building upon that last point. Never marry anyone in whom there are signs of unstable behavior. If your beloved needs to be drunk or high to have a good time, I think it is a serious cause to worry. If he or she can never hold down any kind of job at all in the last few years find out why. Can’t he or she get along with the boss or with coworkers.. Is the discipline of work too much for him or her? Once again, I have never been a great success in life but I have always worked. I worked my way up from being an ex-soldier, a laborer in construction and unloading rail cars to sales, to being a bank employee, then finally a Community College instructor and high school teacher. No one has ever asked me for my resume or offered me a job but I have always been respected as someone who was a hard worker, honest and loyal and have so always been gainfully employed in my life.

#5 And lastly to reiterate a point mentioned before if your primary drive for getting married is an overpowering urge to have –or continue to have –sex with this person, STOP. Sex is important for a good marriage but sex is NOT love.

It is absurd to overvalue physical love. Speaking as a man, men are beasts and I think it is true to say, that in the dark, as has been said, women are all the same if that’s all you want from a woman. But once again that is not love. Real love is sharing laughter, sharing experience, sharing children, sharing affection, trust. Physical love (eros) can provide the spark and the glue for the beginning of a relationship but it cannot provide the substance. Being in love and having love in a marriage is something other and something more than being sexually aroused. Not all desire is love though it may always be lust. The desire for a woman period might just be lust but the desire for a specific woman is another. Some people say this is love too but I do not ; love that is merely transitory and sexual is not love merely as Anthony Burgess called it in A Clockwork Orange, “the old in and out”.

I have seen many successful marriages between mature males (25 or so )with young women as young as 18 or 19. I believe that male and female should be about the same age though there is nothing wrong with a woman being slightly older (my wife was 27 when we married and I was 26).

#6 Never get married because you feel you have to or everyone else is getting married. It is chivalrous to treat your date with respect. It is foolishness to marry someone because OOPS she says she is pregnant. I have known friends who married their pregnant girlfriends but did not know if they were the father. That is no way to start a marriage. Once again fidelity and trust are the basis of any good relationship.

22) Don’t waste time, value it; it’ll run out, just watch

MUNRO TRUE we are all mortal. Treasure time because time is fleeting. “Swiftly flow the years!”

23) Listen for the knock at the door, the next opportunity

MUNRO YES THIS IS TRUE especially when one is younger though at my age my chief preoccupation is to spend time with my family, especially my grandchildren. I don’t want to travel anywhere really except to see my family. I have seen much of the world. At my age I just read what I want say what I want study what I want write what I want. I am not eager to influence people or make a lot more money.

24) Read and listen to different points of view in the media

MUNRO VERY TRUE and I made comments on this earlier.

25) a bad list, eh? But what would you add? Name one thing.

MUNRO ONE THING I would add:

TAKE CARE OF CREDENTIALS AND DOCUMENTATION.

I have a passport and a passport card (and birth certificate)
I have a baptismal certificate and a marriage certificate
I have my honorable discharge from the Marines.
I have my driver’s license
I have copies of my diplomas and transcripts
I have a copy of my teaching credential.
I have life insurance and my house is in a living trust
My daughter has passwords to my media accounts and social media.
I have a last will and testament
I have made a basic inventory of my personal property for my children to help them dispose of it when I am part of Yesterday’s Seven Thousand Years. I have small bit of cash on hand in a special place.
Most have sentimental value only photos, letters but other things have some small monetary value (books, autographed baseballs, coins, original artworks, museum ) replicas) My mother’s upright piano.