After almost 50 years in California, I made my first trip to Catalina Island a week ago. I recommend it. My husband, Jim, and I flew to Long Beach and rendezvoused at the dock with our grandson and his girlfriend. They drove from Sacramento, stopping at UC Santa Barbara to tour the campus in preparation for our grandson’s attendance in the fall. There was a time when our grandson’s social life was non-existent, and graduation from high school was hanging by a flimsy thread — for a variety of complex reasons. I blamed video games. The lead-up to my gaming education began at my daughter’s house. Our grandson, 17 at the time, sauntered into the living room wearing a robe. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. “Did you just get up?” I asked. I’m sure my eyes narrowed. He responded with a slow smile, followed by a yawn. “I was playing video games ‘till about 5 in the morning. Video games are fun grandma; you should play sometime." “They’re so violent; I wouldn’t be able to stand it.” “They’re not all violent. Come over sometime, and I'll show you." “OK, you’re on,” I heard myself saying. “It’ll be fun,” he said, stifling another yawn. Two weeks later Grandson answered the doorbell on the first ring. His 6-foot frame filled the doorway. He pulled a long, dark-brown curl away from his face. He looked unusually clear-eyed — preparing for our video game competition, no doubt. Grandson sat beside me on the living room sectional and began describing his video game equipment. I appreciated he thought I knew what he was talking about. "This is the controller," he continued and placed the contraption in my hands. I'd seen these before but never touched one. “Put your thumbs on the analog sticks and your forefingers on the bumpers and triggers,” he said, gently guiding my hand. “Just relax your fingers.” To demonstrate, he’d chosen Journey, a simple game where the player controls a faceless figure in a robe and a scarf, crossing a hilly desert. When the player tags the scarf, the figure floats in the air and travels greater distances. Grandson explained how to handle the controls — what to press, and when. I've never been coordinated but managed to get the robed figure to do a couple of jumps. “I have some others to show you, Grandma.” I followed him down the hall and into his bedroom. I braced myself recalling snippets of conversation between Grandson and his mother that included the words, “health department.” The door opened freely. A snow blower’s path had been cleared from the door to the computer chair. “I’m going to show you StarCraft. I think you’ll find this game interesting,” he said, in all seriousness. Bursts of color, and objects I couldn't identify flashed onto the monitor, followed by sporadic explosions. "There are three competing groups," Grandson explained. I couldn’t keep up with the action; things were blowing up in every direction. I finally understood these groups were separate armies on combat maneuvers trying to outflank and destroy each other. I marveled at our grandson’s ability to simultaneously handle the controls and think strategically — at warp speed. I declined to play. He’d forgotten that when he was 5 years old I'd refused his offer to teach me chess. It was then that he brought up video game tournaments. “Did you know Grandma that professional players compete for six-figure prize money?” “Never heard of that. How does that work?” He explained how players sit on opposite ends of a stage in a tiny booth with windows, their faces blocked by large computer monitors. They hold one hand on the mouse and the other hand left of the keyboard so they can quickly reach the special hotkeys. “Players have speed ratings called APMs — actions per minute calculated on the number of actions a player performs. It’s like a baseball player’s pitching speed. Some gamers can average up to 1,000 APMs during a battle segment.” I compared this with my 45-words-a-minute typing speed. Lesson over, I looked around the bedroom — books everywhere. “Have you read all these?” I asked. “Most of them. I prefer science-fiction, but I’ve read lots of the classics — 'The Glass Bead Game' is my favorite.” I walked over to his dresser and read aloud some of the titles: 'Siddhartha,' 'Cat's Cradle,' 'Neuromancer,' 'Jonathon Strange' and 'Mr. Norrel, Le Morte d'Arthur, The Brothers Karamazov.' The 'Fountainhead' was the only book I’d read. I’d have to remember to tell Grandpa that Grandson does something other than play video games. He reads books — some with titles I couldn’t pronounce. As we approached the dock at Catalina Island I hoped our grandson would remember this trip, our gift to him, as warmly as I remember his gift to me.

I finally did it — something I’d wanted to do for years. I signed up for a drawing class. This isn’t the first time I’ve had the courage to try something new. A few years ago I decided to learn tap dancing. I purchased a pair of shiny Boch tap shoes and sped up the hill one Tuesday evening to the Colfax Sierra Vista Community Center for my first class. I was the oldest person in the room. The instructor was very welcoming, as were the other students. I hid in the back row. I was beginning to get the hang of it, but my Achilles’ heel was having none of it. I lasted four sessions. I now had time to learn a musical instrument. What could be an easier instrument to play than a ukulele? According to YouTube, I could learn in five minutes. My tennis elbow flared up after four. I had failed as a dancer, and as a musician. I was ready to become an artist. The impetus for taking a drawing class happened during a game at my daughter-in-law’s baby shower. I attempted to draw an apple on a wood building block. It looked like a bare bottom. When I tried to add a stalk it looked obscene. I hid the block in my purse, jumped up and offered to serve cupcakes. The Placer School for Adults catalog listed the perfect class: “Drawing Made Easy,” taught by Steve Coverston. I’d heard Steve’s name here and there. One former student described him as having “magical teaching skills.” I zoomed down the hill to Auburn to sign up. The class is full, said the cheery lady behind the desk. I was relieved. Maybe this was a sign. Someone up there was trying to protect me from embarrassing myself. I honestly can’t draw a circle — the ends refuse to meet. “I can put you on a wait list,” the school lady said. I don’t like wait lists. I either want to be in or out. “OK,” I said equally cheerily. “You’re number one,” she said as if I’d accomplished something. Three days later I learned I was in. I felt rather artsy when purchasing the required supplies for the class. There was a huge sketchbook, several pencils with a number I could hardly read, and umpteen erasers. Now I was committed. The night before the first class, the weather people predicted a massive storm for the following day. Snow was forecast as low as 1,200 feet — that’s Auburn I gasped. I dived under the bed with a flashlight and a copy of Annie Proulx’ "The Shipping News." This was looking like a second bad omen. The morning of the class I called the school. The receptionist was still cheery. “Has the class been canceled," I asked hopefully. “Nope. We have staff that drives in from Foresthill and Colfax and they managed to get here." “Managed?” I detected a snide remark. With one click she knew I lived below both those locations. The predicted Arctic blast was more whimper than a roar. The roads were clear and the sky was blue by afternoon class time. The art room was full, almost 25 people, mostly women. The instructor asked the class to introduce themselves, and state their level of drawing skill. My anxiety lowered each time a person admitted to being a beginner — first drawing class they said, like me. The session began with Steve explaining the drawing supplies … the weight of the paper, the size of graphite pencils, and which erasers did what — yes, we did need all of them. Steve lamented that for many of us art lessons stopped very early — not considered on par with the other subjects. He was very encouraging, ending with a “don’t give up.” Before our first in-class assignment, we were asked to help ourselves to three inches of masking tape on a dispenser at the front of the class. My anxiety returned. Oh no. He was going to have us tape our drawing on the wall. Wrong. The tape was to secure our sketch page to the desk as we completed our assignment — drawing our open hand without looking at the paper. It was fun. My sketch actually looked like a hand. A later class assignment was to draw three objects that we brought from home. I chose a seashell, a garlic clove, and a dried pepper. I eagerly showed the finished sketch to my husband and asked him to identify the items. His answer: a rock, a rock, and a rock. My husband and I are still together. I’m enrolling in another beginner’s class this autumn. I’m taking the art instructor’s advice — refusing to give up.

I know I’m not the only one who’s stunned when they see someone familiar out of their usual habitat. My first memory of this was at age 13, seeing my cooking teacher in R. Rowlatt and Sons, Ironmongery and Hardware Merchants, a shop in my hometown on Silver Street. I stood and stared. She was shopping, like any ordinary person. I’d never seen her outside of the classroom where she directed us girls to wash our hands and scrub our nails before we touched a rolling pin. She knew who I was — mostly because I was one of only four dark-skinned kids in the whole school. But also because I was the girl whose attempt at bread making she held up as an example of how not to. Instead of rising to a soft mound like those of all the other girls, my dough was as hard as a rock chiseled from Hadrian’s Wall. I had killed the yeast. To this day I am immediately intimidated by any recipe that has yeast as an ingredient. My most recent imitation of a deer in the headlights was on a nippy summer morning in Waterford, Ireland during a recent European vacation. My husband, Jim, and I were on our way to the famous Waterford Crystal showroom. A short distance from our destination I casually glanced up at a sign on the outside of City Hall. Had the plaque not been bright blue with white lettering, I might have missed it. I stopped abruptly and read these words: “FREDERICK DOUGLASS AMERICAN ABOLITIONIST SOCIAL REFORMER AND STATESMAN SPOKE IN CITY HALL 9TH OCT-1845.” Oh my goodness. What was Frederick Douglass, a black slave from America, doing in Ireland in 1845? I knew a little about Frederick Douglass — that he was born a slave and became a famous orator. But I was ashamed I didn’t know more. I remedied that when I returned to the United States. I purchased a copy of Douglass, his three autobiographies compiled into one volume. I also searched the internet for information about the plaque. I read in the Irish Times that a Timothy J. Madigan, director of Irish Studies at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY was in attendance in Waterford when the plaque was unveiled in 2013. I shot off an email to Professor Madigan. I thought I was a bit cheeky contacting him and was delighted when he responded the very next day. He began his email with, “Hi Pauline — great to hear from you!” He went on to say my timing was perfect. He’d recently given a talk about Frederick Douglass’ experiences in Ireland, and the various memorials to him, which included the commemorative plaque Jim and I saw in Waterford. I was surprised to read that Rochester and Waterford have been sister cities since 1983, and celebrated their 30-year anniversary with the unveiling of the Douglass plaque. From the various resource links provided by Professor Madigan, I learned that the escaped slave lived for 25 years in Rochester, and it’s where Frederick Douglass is buried. The publication in Rochester of one of his autobiographies put him in danger of being captured and returned to slavery. Abolitionists’ friends convinced him to travel to Great Britain for his own protection. He stayed there for almost two years giving several hundred lectures — one was in the Waterford City Hall. Several articles highlighted Douglass’ time in Ireland, and the profound effect it had on him. Often quoted is this excerpt from a letter Douglass wrote to his friend and mentor, William Lloyd Garrison, the famous white abolitionist: “I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and Lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab — I am seated beside white people — I reach the hotel — I enter the same door … I dine at the same table — and no one is offended. No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence … I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people.” British benefactors purchased Douglass’ freedom from his Maryland master ensuring he could never be enslaved when he returned to the United States. The price: One hundred and fifty pounds sterling. In Waterford, my husband and I continued our walk to the crystal factory. There, displayed among commemorative pieces, was an exquisite crystal bowl. It was a replica of a gift presented to the President of the United States by then Prime Minister, Enda Kenny TD, on behalf of the people of Ireland. The recipient was the son of a black man — President Barack Obama.

I had never watched the TV law drama, “Suits,” so I had no idea who Meghan Markle was. I, and the world, now know she is the young woman who, on Saturday, will marry Henry Charles Albert David Mountbatten-Windsor (aka Prince Harry), fifth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom. What makes this announcement even more newsworthy than an upcoming marriage of a British prince would be that Ms. Markle is an American, an actress, a divorcée, and happens to be biracial — one black parent and one Caucasian one — like me. In an interview she gave to Elle Magazine in 2015, a year before she met her prince, Ms. Markle talked candidly about growing up biracial in a non-diverse section of Los Angeles. The article, “Meghan Markle: I’m More than An ‘Other,’” is worth a read. The Elle article begins with “What are you?” — a question often asked of those whose race is indiscernible. Meghan plays coy. She answers to a “who” rather than a “what.” “I’m an actress, a writer, the editor-in-chief of my lifestyle brand ‘The Tig,’ a pretty good cook and a firm believer in handwritten notes.” You would think that laundry list would suffice. Instead, there’s always the follow-up: “Right, but what are you? Where are your parents from?” Meghan gives up. “I’m half black and half white.” I’ve never been asked “what are you” because unlike Ms. Markle, I look biracial. But I’ve been asked where I was from because I have the remnants of a British accent. When I respond that I was born and raised in England, the response is often a squinty look followed by a suspicious, “You don’t look English.” The dark curly hair and brown skin also confuses them. I’ve heard more than one American express dismay after returning from a trip to London where they discovered the place was teaming with “foreigners” — dark-skinned people, in other words. It’s not only Americans who find swarthy faces incongruent with British accents. I have family and friends in England who’ve had difficulty adjusting to a modern Britain that is evolving from a homogenous society to a multi-racial one. The magazine photographs of Ms. Markle show her coloring to be similar to that of my daughter, Tina, an accomplished environmental attorney. Like Meghan, there’s nothing about Tina’s appearance that would identify her as having African ancestry. In junior high school she was cursed for being “Mexican” by Caucasian girls and insulted for being “white” by Latinas. When she casually told me this one evening, I was furious. But my daughter was amused at being racially undefinable. She found it exotic. What Tina did not find amusing or exotic happened when she was in high school. The mother of her friend, who happened to be Caucasian, asked Tina, “Why would you tell people you are part black when nobody would know?” The woman was not malicious; she was mystified. She was proclaiming loud and clear that to be part African-American was something to be ashamed of — something to hide if you could. I was relieved these insensitive episodes didn’t upset Tina. I grew up in an all-white Irish family in an all-white community in England. When kids called out cruel names to me, I was confused and hurt. I didn’t feel different from them. I was surprised each time a person identified me as “colored.” I’ve often read where single-race people think mixed-race children are doomed to grow up confused and conflicted. They may when ridiculed for being different, or forced into a racial category that denies any part of who they are. We’re not born confused or conflicted. In the Elle article Meghan explains that when completing a mandatory census in the seventh grade, she was faced with selecting an ethnicity box that included four choices: Caucasian, Black, Hispanic or Asian. Because she looked white, her teacher advised her to check the white box. Meghan couldn’t do that — doing so would deny the other parent. She put down her pen. She wasn’t being rebellious. Rather, she felt sad. When she relayed the story to her father, he told her something that she has never forgotten. Meghan’s father told his daughter that if the situation happened again, she should draw her own box. Apparently Meghan Markle, soon to become a member of Britain’s Royal Family, has done just that.

This is an open letter to Nigel Thrift, vice chancellor and president of the University of Warwick in England. Mr. Thrift was in Placer County recently providing details on a proposed 6,000-student Warwick University on 600 acres west of Roseville in Placer County. I hope he’s still in the area so he can read this. Dear Vice Chancellor/President Thrift: May I say your surname is perfect for someone who is looking for investors for the new University of Warwick proposed for construction in Placer County in 2016 — although you may have the money part covered. I know nothing about the financial side of this project. Also, your Christian name (or should I say “first name”), is pretty cool, too — very upper-class English. How many Americans are named “Nigel?” Actually, this letter has nothing whatsoever to do with your nice name. I was born and raised about 50 miles east of Coventry where your Warwick University is located. I know it’s not news to you, or to most English and Americans, that though we mostly understand each other’s language — facilitated by American films in Great Britain, and British programs on American public television — there are still some words and pronunciations that cause confusion. In my teens I dated an American serviceman who was stationed in England. He would become my first, but not my last husband. “Frank the Yank,” as my cheeky siblings called him, was a bit odd. Even I, a self-centered teenager at the time, managed to discern this. However, I continued to go out with him. I told myself Frank’s behavior was just a cultural thing, something to be understood — like his Southern accent. One of his many quirks was to correct my pronunciation. “Nestlés chocolate is American,” he announced one rainy afternoon as he sat on our sofa in the living room munching a chocolate Aero bar, “and it’s pronounced “Neslees” not “Nessels.” He also said I pronounced “aluminium” incorrectly. “It’s not al-you-min-i-um,” he told me mockingly. “It’s a-loo-min-um.” As I’m sure you’ve experienced during your illustrious career, this English versus American pronunciation is typically dealt with in a lighthearted way, and has been fodder for fun between the two nationalities. You’ve probably heard about the American serviceman whose smile disappeared when he found out that his British girlfriend’s request to “knock me up in the morning,” referred to a wake-up-call knock on her door. I hope I’m not being too familiar. I don’t know if you’re renting a car while you’re visiting Placer County, but if you are, know that Americans have a different word for the hinged cover over the engine. They call it “the hood.” If you travel to Amish country, and were having car trouble, asking a mechanic “to look under the bonnet,” might make you seem slightly deranged. My current husband told me a story of how he learned the name of another British car part. He and a couple of other American servicemen stationed in England, were walking towards the Running Buck, a huge bar in the town of Ipswich in East Anglia, a few miles from their assigned airbase. The English bartender, and avid hunter, affectionately known as Dickie Bird, was walking with them. “I have to remember I have a bunny in my boot,” Dickie Bird said — thinking out loud. My husband responded with, “A bunny in your boot? You can’t have a bunny in your boot.” “I bet you five pounds I do,” Dickie Bird replied. “You’re on,” said my husband. “Follow me,” said Dickie Bird, and led the group back to the car park. Dickie Bird lifted the lid on the trunk of his car, and there, on the pages of the News of the World, lay a dead rabbit. “There’s the bunny in the boot,” said Dickie Bird with his hand out. But getting back to the University of Warwick. I’d like to suggest to you that when the time comes to develop an entrance exam for the new college, that you give priority to the following pass/fail oral test. Before any one of the projected 6,000 students set foot on the campus of the University of Warwick, Roseville, they must correctly pronounce, “The University of Warwick.” I have no doubt that 100 percent of those applying for college entry will be able to pronounce the first two words: “The” and “University.” It’s the third word, “Warwick” that will trip them up! I’ve heard Warwick pronounced by television newscasters as “Worwick,” — and “Warewick.” The correct pronunciation, as you and I know Sir, is Wha (as in “what”) –rick, — Warick. I would be willing to sit on the oral examination board. I cannot end this letter without mentioning the one mispronunciation that manages to make me laugh outloud no matter how often I hear it. After 40-plus years of marriage, and numerous elocution lessons, my husband still manages to mispronounce Worcestershire, as in Worcestershire Sauce. He pronounces it phonetically, “Woor-cest-er-shire.” The correct pronunciation, as you and I know Sir, is the British way – “Woo-ster-sheer.” Since I am correcting him, and he is not correcting me, I think my current husband will be my last one. With the utmost sincerity,