EULOGY FOR MURIEL
REMEMBERING MURIEL AND HER FOND
HABIT OF SWEARING (ON OCCASION)
I cannot say in simple words what Muriel meant to me. She was one of a kind. She was unique. She was totally herself and never self-conscious. She was a ready fighter for justice and she didn’t care who she had to take on. She wasn’t afraid to fight for justice and when you were around her there was a way in which some of her courage seemed to rub off on you, too.
Remembering her laughing is a delight indeed, because she laughed so well, it came from deep within her, and she enjoyed a good joke as much as anyone. Her language maybe wasn’t always free of four letter epithets, but then, she wouldn’t have been our beloved Muriel if she had always spoken like a lady.
Yes, I remember, along with you, many a good “goddamn!” and other phrases, like “that son of a bitch!” or “that no good goddamn lousy bastard!” if she was really mad–say, maybe, giving her opinion of a man like Richard Nixon.
Sometimes, I wonder, about this heaven and hell thing. No, I don’t mean personally, or in a religious sense–as an atheist I don’t believe in such things. But it does lend itself to metaphor or certain ways of expressing ourselves. I mean, would Muriel’s soul be going to heaven or hell?
I know what you’re all thinking, the answer is heaven, of course, she was a great person! Right, I agree with you, but I think the wishes of the person herself also have to be considered. I mean, can you imagine explaining it to Muriel this way: there’s a place, it’s very quiet and peaceful, it’s for good people only, there’s never any trouble or fighting or fuss, there’s a lot of angels that can sing angelic songs, not like the other place, which is hot, and the boss is very mean, and everybody’s scared of him, and what they really need is someone not afraid to stand up to the devil hisself, and the pay would be low and the struggle would be long and hard–and then ask Muriel if you had to choose between a perfect place like heaven or a turbulent, chaotic, dangerous place like Hell, which would you choose?
And I’m not so sure, to tell you the truth. I can picture Muriel choosing heaven, getting bored there, and asking to be transferred to hell; I can also picture Muriel choosing Hell first and organizing a union and busting up the dirty tricks of the Devil pretty bad, and being kicked out of Hell and told to go to Heaven and drive God crazy for a while! The possibilities are endless.
I can kind of picture her arguing with the Devil as they tried to usher her out of Hell, which I know is ridiculous, but it is just my poor way of saying something we all felt when we were around Muriel: she wasn’t afraid of anybody and she wasn’t afraid to tell them that to their faces, too!
I admired her greatly for in her own special way she was quite a leader and had quite a few ways to charm people. She was always sincere and frank–always herself, as I said before–but that didn’t stop her from also being shrewd and sizing up a situation quickly and quietly. She was a good judge of character. In the olden time, I guess someone might have said, she was a hard judge of character. She expected a lot from a person. Human nature is deep and true and either you are a genuine human being or you are not. Her friendships with loyal, honest friends were deep and true.
But for the hypocrite and liar, Muriel had no patience, no tolerance. I often saw Muriel casting a long and careful look at such a person. She was a hard judge of character but she expected no more from others than what she expected from herself: honesty, courage, loyalty to family and friends, and dedication to principles worth fighting for. If Muriel didn’t trust someone, for whatever the reason, that was a serious caution to everyone else to think twice before trusting that person, too.
I think some of that rough language was sometimes used to put friends and acquaintances at ease. We are all friends here, let us speak freely and have a few laughs, and people can swear and speak freely in their own homes, can’t they? And some of those famous politicians, generals, and dictators she so richly swore at deserved to be sworn at, didn’t they?
Actually, it was kind of nice to hear somebody swearing and not afraid to show real emotional passion behind her political convictions of a lifetime. Of course, along with the jokes and sometimes angry language, was a very quick and bright intelligence. She carried on serious and prolonged conversations about many issues and she could converse with people about a wide range of subjects.
She had deep principles and a profound intelligence by which to understand and explain these principles to others. If you were fair yourself, in what you believed and how you explained yourself–no matter how different it might be from her own position– she would always act in a civil manner and carry on an open-minded fair-sharing conversation for as long as you liked.
I think Muriel breathed new life into that old saying, “I may disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it!” Sure, there are circles of friends we trust and see the most but Muriel could talk to just about anybody when she had a mind to, although where this notion came from that she was a little bit opinionated on occasion, I’m not sure. I think probably it’s a rumor started by her enemies, those goddamn bastards!
However, if you were not a bigot and showed no sign of intolerance or prejudice in how you spoke, you could certainly have an open and fair discussion with Muriel any time. Indeed, she liked to learn from others; I won’t say that she ever enjoyed being in a position where she might have to admit that she was actually wrong about something but I think she could do it, if she had to- . . . maybe!
Well, I suppose Muriel might say, that she was wrong so few times in her life– during her many years of political activism–that she never had enough of a chance to become good at it . . . at admitting that she was wrong about something, that is.
And that brings us to the heart of the matter, doesn’t it? Her beliefs, her principles, her cherished ideals that she held so close to her heart and which she would have willingly died for, if need be. Hitler and fascism? “Every human being had a goddamn duty to stop that madman!” Would you want weaker language when fascism was the issue?
But it just wasn’t how she responded during those great moments of historical crisis, for here was a day-to-day worker, who energetically worked for a new society, a better way for people to live and love and work together. Here was someone who helped organize and unionize and helped lead protests and fights for justice. She was no bystander or fence-sitter, by golly; she liked to join a good fight and she tried to get in the thickest part of it, too, if she could.
Here, also, was a woman aware of her own gender’s oppression and exploitation by men but who always put the interests of the working class as a whole first and foremost in her mind. It wasn’t just about gender, or race, or this or that category– it was about class, the haves and have nots, the rich and the poor, and don’t let anybody ever tell you different or that there isn’t a deep class division beneath many of these up and down spikes in the economy or the new reform movements and protests that we see from time to time- -for Muriel, there was always a way to see to the core of social reality and not be taken in by surface appearances or double-talking hocus pocus.
Indeed, here was a woman who read serious works of political philosophy and understood well what the game was all about. Here was one who could never be fooled easily and when she was part of a bigger movement–her union, a protest rally, a peace demonstration, a civil rights rally–she couldn’t be fooled at all. She knew about the liars and the hypocrites and the phony politicians promising anything to anybody just to get elected. Where other people got cynical, she got wiser.
Yes, she was a woman and she wasn’t supposed to swear, but what the hell, weren’t these real issues and great moments in time? How could one feel anything other than total emotional and intellectual commitment as they were being caught up in the turbulence and protest of those remarkable times we call the Thirties and the Forties! The 1940’s– where forces for liberty and democracy were squaring off against the forces of tyranny and despotism–would the world exist half-free and half-slave if Adolph Hitler continued to attack and conquer country after country–is there a chance he could even conquer the whole world, plunging the world backwards hundreds of years or more into medieval centuries, those deadly and brutal and barbaric times, of oppression and tyranny?
And what of racism and civil rights, or the exploitation of labor and rights of working men and women, or war and peace with nuclear weapons, or many another issue? Yes, she felt passionately about all of them, and she had a right to. I think we may be asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, why did Muriel feel so passionately about all of this, passionate enough to swear, perhaps we should ask: why can’t others learn to feel as passionately about life as she did?
You know, I’ve seen various photos of Muriel, and it is surprising, really, how the photographer caught a lot of different poses and expressions on her face. The one I like best, she is sitting on a bench in Yosemite, and Dick is beside her. They are sitting on a bench that is in front of Yosemite Falls, and it probably was spring, ‘cos the falls looked full and there is this utter look of serene contentment on her face. She is at peace with herself, totally at peace with herself, with her beloved husband Dick beside her.
I think, I would like to think, that here this afternoon, she has found peace once again in this gathering of her friends who are here today, to remember and treasure her, to hold her in our arms once more. I would like to include myself among her friends, who wanted to pay his last respects to a lovely and wonderful and great lady–Muriel Eldridge–may she rest in peace.
