"My Token Moment"

                                                                 Sydney M. Williams

Essay from Essex

“My Token Moment”

July 3, 2021

 

“The making of friends who are real friends

is the best token we have of a man’s success in life.”

                                                                                                                           Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909)

                                                                                                                           Author, The Man Without a Country

 

Perhaps it was my sheltered childhood, or maybe it was the time in which I grew up, but the concept of tokenism never entered my mind, even when my older sister dressed me in her clothes. I never felt singled out, though, as her younger brother nearest in age, I was. I just didn’t realize it. Even when standing on her bed, wearing her Mary Janes, I never saw myself as a symbol of something profound. Women, in my early life played an important role, and not just because I was my sister’s plaything. With a whimsical father, my mother was the more practical. My maternal grandfather died when I was six, so my grandmother played the grandparent role for both. Of my paternal grandparents, my grandmother, an independent woman, was my grandfather’s equal in all respects. Her counsel was wise. She once advised me not to marry a Mary. There were too many in the family, she said, and marry a woman older than you, as they live longer than men. Sage suggestions, which I took and never looked back.

 

And I never felt privileged. Maybe that was because of privilege. To the oblivious, they say, ignorance is bliss. I grew up as a white, Anglo-Saxon male in a Protestant-monopolized small New Hampshire town. While we had horses to ride and hundreds of books, the house was four miles from the village and there was no television. We slept three or four to a bedroom. My mother cooked (when she did) on a wood stove and kept milk in a real ice box. There was no central heat and, of course, no air conditioning. The telephone was a “party line,” meaning we shared it with others. The “privileged,” if I thought of them that way, lived in town with a TV, electric stove, refrigerator and a private telephone line. 

 

While women were a strong influence in my early years, men were ever-present. As a sculptor, my father’s studio was in our backyard, if we dared interrupt him. Among my siblings, I was the second oldest of five boys and four girls. While supposed to set a good example, I never did. I went to an all-boys high school and, in college, while I enjoyed the company of women, I mostly hung out with male friends. There were women soldiers when I was in the army, but Fort Dix was dominated by men, albeit of mixed races and religions. During my forty-eight years on Wall Street, I worked with all genders, races and religions, but women and racial minorities, while present, never dominated.  

 

Now, at Essex Meadows, I find myself in a matriarchal society, and I have a better sense of what it is to be part of a minority – at least in gender. Women residents out-number men, roughly three to two. The CEO of this retirement community is a woman, as are six of the seven department heads. I could not be happier.

 

Recently, Caroline and I were invited to dinner with two charming ladies. They wanted a man, or so one of them said, so would we join them? For a moment my feelings were hurt. It was not my imagined scintillating wit or presumed verbal sparring prowess they wanted; it was because I was a man. It was my token moment. But if that be tokenism, I look forward to many more such moments.