Nora And George Are Vanishing Breeds

WE CAN ONLY HOPE THEY ARE UP THERE GETTING ACQUAINTED, PLAYING HARPS, LAUGHING AT ETERNITY

In the grand scheme of things, Nora Ephron and Lonesome George should have had nothing in common, but now they do. Both died last week, and both were vanishing breeds.

George was probably older than 100 so Ephron, leaving us at age 71, was considerably younger by comparison.

George was a youngster too, as far as giant tortoises go, since a 200-year lifespan is not unusual for his kind.

He gained his world fame for being the sole survivor of a subspecies of tortoises that once lived on Pinta, one of the Galapagos Islands, hence his handle as“Lonesome” George.

Nora Ephron was a writer, whose humor could locate that place inside you that is very serious about life, but who also made you laugh about that seriousness. Her novels, plays, scripts, essays,articles and movies (as a director) gave respect to romantic comedy because inside her stories, both men and women could laugh at their respective genders with equanimity instead of rancor.

Usually.

Ephron was no one’s wilting violet, when it came to matters of equal treatment for women, and her heroines did not play second fiddle. Meg Ryan, who starred in “When Harry Met Sally,” “Sleepless In Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail,” might seem just as cute as a button, but Ephron’s characters, including the cute and pretty ones, untangled their way to their goals with strength and independence.

Meryl Streep’s roles in“Silkwood” and “Julie and Julia” blazed very real women into our memories, thanks to Ephron’s ability to select everyday ingredients about their lives and personalities that explained why they are also notable in human history/herstory.

Serious stuft .

In her 1996 commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College, she explained a time frame in women’s history that many of us close to her age understand because we lived it, too. Our generation straddled our mothers’ and grandmothers’ rigid roles, over the chasm our own activism caused and arrived at today, where we hope things have changed for our daughtersand granddaughters.

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim,” Ephron said. “Because you don’t have the alibi my class had - this is one ofthe great achievements and mixed blessings you inherit: Unlike us, you can’t say nobody told you there were other options.”

Her/our generation was the one that, when passed the baton carried for at least two centuries by feminists, finally was able to make “other options” a larger reality in less time than ever before.

Ephron’s female contemporaries, who have become world leaders, artists, politicians, activists, scientists, doctors, mothers and more, are retiring or dying. There are not too many years left for these primary sources to explain, explore and express in any medium what has happened to alter women’s lives in thepast six or seven decades.

Thankfully Nora Ephron put in her two cents’ worth for history through the words she put on paper and into the mouths of performers.

Lonesome George was the end of his particular family branch of giant tortoises, and his passing, as was the case in 1914 after the death of Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon, is being mourned as a loss to the world.

“‘Extinction’ means ‘forever,’” the environmental T-shirt slogan reminds us. As after most highprofile extinctions, we try to believe there’s been a mistake, that somewhere out there is a second chance and yet another species isn’t really gone but still flying, swimming or walking around away from our prying eyes.

In Arkansas, for example, many folks are certain the ivory-billed woodpecker will eventually emerge from our backwoods and swamps again and defy extinction right here in our state.

George’s death marks a biological change,something humans rarely pay much attention to even though we really need to know another link in the chain of life has been broken, and what that means as the chain rattles its way toward us.

Ephron’s death stands as a reminder that women of her generation broke molds, spoke out, changed things through their art, skill, action and humor. She once commented, “I feel bad for the people who don’t at some point understand that there’s something funny in even the worst things that can happen to you.”

We can only hope she and George are up there getting acquainted, playing harps and laughing at eternity.

FRAN ALEXANDER IS A FAYETTEVILLE RESIDENT WITH A LONGSTANDING INTEREST IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND AN OPINION ON ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE.

Opinion, Pages 13 on 07/08/2012

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