Sunday, December 18, 2011
Why are people? Sigh....
So, I was just at the drug store making some more Christmas cards ( I know, making your own Christmas cards at the drug store - that's a whole 'nother thing), and hear a dog barking. Then while I'm paying for the cards, the woman with the dog, a mid-size poodle-y looking thing, comes in line behind me, so naturally I turn and hold my hand down towards the dog and she says 'Oh, no don't do that, h...e'll bark or . . . . He's not a friendly dog" and she picked it up. Now, call me kooky, but if I had a dog that wasn't friendly and might 'or . . . ' at people, I damn sure wouldn't bring it into a store where there are people, especially kids, who might not be cautious about reaching for a strange animal, and might get, I don't know, bit, 'or . . .' whatever. Get your dog socialized or don't bring it into places where people are, you MOron! And if it bites a kid and you get sued, you'll be all 'why are they doing that to ME?' No doubt a *&#%ing cidiot. Why are people? Sigh.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
“Neighbors Helping Neighbors”
Went to a spaghetti supper tonight, a benefit at the firehouse, for a family in town. She’s battling breast cancer, and some friends got together and decided to help them out. The place was packed. Of course, having it two days after Thanksgiving, when everybody needs a break from turkey leftovers, didn’t hurt, but it sure did show the support that a town can give to its friends. Besides the supper, there was a silent auction, and a 50/50 drawing, the gallon jar for that was full and they’d run out of the printed tickets by the time we got ours. Three tables loaded with desserts, all donated. The woman thanked me for coming as we were leaving; I said “Good food, good friends, for good people” and gave her a hug. I’d be willing to bet that the show of support helps them as much as the money. Neighbors Helping Neighbors.
We do this. We rally with donations, like the one I made this morning to help with vet expenses for the dog that escaped a tragic fire a few days ago; her master and another dog did not escape. No, I don’t know them, but it doesn’t matter. People in the town they live in put together a car wash, to help the rest of the family with expenses, and I’m sure there will be more such events before it’s all done. Neighbors help neighbors.
It happens all over. Those not affected, no, even those who are affected get together and do what they can to help. I saw it at the pig roast up in Upper Jay last month, where area people came and ate and drank and visited and gave each other monetary and moral support. I saw it a couple of weeks later, when musicians gave their time and talent for a concert to raise money for HelpJayNY, to a packed house in the Indian Lake movie theatre. I saw it when I helped pack a truck of donated things to be sent to New York after 9/11, in the three truckloads of things collected in Chatham that we took to South Florida after Hurricane Andrew, in the dozens of people who descended on the Gulf areas to rescue animals after Hurricane Katrina, in the SUV load of donations our audience brought this summer for the troops overseas, and so many more examples throughout our country. Neighbors help neighbors, even when they are hundreds of miles away and we’ve never met them.
We got a bunch of help for the kids affected when our cast house burned in July – from patrons, from people who had been at the theatre in years past, from people who didn’t know them, but who wanted to help out. Also got so much support at our fund-raising Gala-wow!
Here’s what I think - we help, because we can, because we feel better for it, because it’s the right thing to do, and maybe also because we’re glad it’s not us – this time – but someday it might be and we hope that other neighbors will help neighbors. Go ahead, help your neighbor.
We do this. We rally with donations, like the one I made this morning to help with vet expenses for the dog that escaped a tragic fire a few days ago; her master and another dog did not escape. No, I don’t know them, but it doesn’t matter. People in the town they live in put together a car wash, to help the rest of the family with expenses, and I’m sure there will be more such events before it’s all done. Neighbors help neighbors.
It happens all over. Those not affected, no, even those who are affected get together and do what they can to help. I saw it at the pig roast up in Upper Jay last month, where area people came and ate and drank and visited and gave each other monetary and moral support. I saw it a couple of weeks later, when musicians gave their time and talent for a concert to raise money for HelpJayNY, to a packed house in the Indian Lake movie theatre. I saw it when I helped pack a truck of donated things to be sent to New York after 9/11, in the three truckloads of things collected in Chatham that we took to South Florida after Hurricane Andrew, in the dozens of people who descended on the Gulf areas to rescue animals after Hurricane Katrina, in the SUV load of donations our audience brought this summer for the troops overseas, and so many more examples throughout our country. Neighbors help neighbors, even when they are hundreds of miles away and we’ve never met them.
We got a bunch of help for the kids affected when our cast house burned in July – from patrons, from people who had been at the theatre in years past, from people who didn’t know them, but who wanted to help out. Also got so much support at our fund-raising Gala-wow!
Here’s what I think - we help, because we can, because we feel better for it, because it’s the right thing to do, and maybe also because we’re glad it’s not us – this time – but someday it might be and we hope that other neighbors will help neighbors. Go ahead, help your neighbor.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Hurricane Irene hits the Adirondacks
The river babbles behind us as we carry things to a storage container parked on the front lawn. Two months ago Hurricane Irene tore through the area with record-breaking rains that turned the now benign stream, about maybe 20 feet wide, into a raging torrent that leapt over it’s banks, surged across lawns and roads, through houses and businesses, tearing up trees, buildings, pavement and lives. Now the couple is moving memories to install a new heating system. “The neighbor’s barn was there”, she points to the corner of an ell on the back, the river side, of their old mountain farmhouse that has withstood many other storms in it’s almost 200 years. “It caught on our house and the water went under it”. The water dug a hole more than five feet deep under their house and tore out the foundation, went into the basement and destroyed the furnace and everything else there. “There were five brook trout on the floor”, she adds.
The course of the river changed, “it’s about 20 feet closer to our house now, and it just drops off, there used to be lawn there and a gentle slope down to the water”, I am shown. “I miss our lawn”. An old cedar tree was torn up by the roots when the water surged by, she had some of it pulled near the house to use the wood for something, she’s not sure what. The trunk is a good foot and a half thick.
They are just one of dozens of families whose lives were torn up by the roots when Hurricane Irene’s torrential rains hit the Adirondacks on August 28. The water came from the tops of the mountains in this High Peaks region, rushing to small streams and sometimes taking parts of the mountains with it. The small streams held what they could and the rest stormed of their banks onto fields, forest, lawns and roads. When the streams got to the Ausable River’s East Branch, which runs through the towns of Keene, Upper Jay and Jay it did the same thing.
Two branches of the Ausable River, West and East, flow through two valleys and meet at the village of Ausable Forks – where the water was up to the door handles of the pizza parlor, two blocks from either river. “It’s probably in Ausable Chasm” is a catch phrase about things that were washed away. It’s about 20 miles from Ausable Forks to the popular tourist spot where the river narrows and pours through deep rock walls before broadening out and finally dumping into Lake Champlain.
You first see some damage on Route 73, where pavement was torn up by what are usually tiny brooks you can step across; orange cones and new pavement now line the road. Then you notice the storage containers beside houses that are near a stream. Then, turning onto Route 9N and heading north, some houses are empty, some have piles of rubble outside: possessions and walls heaped together to be taken away. Near the house where I was helping several piles of trees, bushes, branches, boards and bicycles and more sit in the trees between the road and the river. She found her kayak under one of the piles, pulled it out and set it in the sun, undamaged.
On a side road I take photos of piles of trees and rocks, then notice that some of the rocks are black, look closer and see that some of those have yellow stripes on them - it’s not rocks, it’s pieces of pavement, torn up and left there by the water of a small brook as it raced past to join the bigger river and add to the woes downstream.
Along the road, which runs beside the river from Keene to Keesville, pieces of buildings, furniture, scraps of clothing and trees lie in fields, along the river bank, stuck in trees and on guard rails. Bridge abutments are scraped to the top by the debris pushed past. In Jay, the water was up to the bottom of the recently restored covered bridge, some 20 feet above the normal height of the river. An 8 foot high wall of 2 foot thick concrete blocks on the opposite side of the road from the river is marked about a foot from the bottom with ‘April, 2011’, showing the depth of the flooding then. Now added, at the top, with arrows pointing up, is “Hurricane Irene, August 28, 2011’. On the other side it says “Irene was here-don’t come back!’
Firehouses in Keene and Upper Jay are empty, with damage that might not be repairable. In Upper Jay, the fire chief gave the order to move the trucks just in time; the water was up to the doors as the volunteers drove them out. The hamlet’s library was flooded, the soccer and ball fields destroyed, a woman watched her livelihood float away as she stood downstream from her antique shop.
The once popular family attraction Land of Make Believe, no longer operating but with many of the memorable pieces still in place, is now bare, with piles of sand pushed from the road to open it to traffic standing in what once was a parking area filled with excited children. A pony kept there was swept away.
Near where one town road meets the highway, a three car garage blocked the view of the field behind it. Now you can see the whole field, there is no trace of the garage. You can also see a house in the middle of the field; it used to be beside the road, a hundred yards or so away.
Upper Jay is tiny, with just a few people and fewer businesses in the hamlet. One, a motel, opened for refugees until they could return to their houses, or make other arrangements if that was not an option. A woman tells me that she brought food from Lake Placid, 20 plus miles away, for them. “People in Lake Placid had no idea, we didn’t get this kind of damage”, she says, adding that some of the things that were sent were “Lake Placid people’s idea of what these folks needed – a chocolatier sent boxes of fancy chocolates” and she shakes her head.
People are picking up and putting their lives back together. Some may not be able to. The neighbor of the couple I was helping may not, their house has been condemned. Some say ‘well, they live in a flood plain, they should expect it’. You can’t expect a ‘500 year flood’, as this is being called. ‘They should move’, those same people say. To where? With what?
No, it wasn’t as big and bad as Katrina’s flooding of New Orleans. Or the tornadoes in the southeast, perhaps. Or maybe not event he scope of the destruction when the floods took out the towns in the Catskills. But for the people affected, it is. When it’s your disaster, it’s big. This is big, for that area.
To help: www.helpjayny.com
.
The course of the river changed, “it’s about 20 feet closer to our house now, and it just drops off, there used to be lawn there and a gentle slope down to the water”, I am shown. “I miss our lawn”. An old cedar tree was torn up by the roots when the water surged by, she had some of it pulled near the house to use the wood for something, she’s not sure what. The trunk is a good foot and a half thick.
They are just one of dozens of families whose lives were torn up by the roots when Hurricane Irene’s torrential rains hit the Adirondacks on August 28. The water came from the tops of the mountains in this High Peaks region, rushing to small streams and sometimes taking parts of the mountains with it. The small streams held what they could and the rest stormed of their banks onto fields, forest, lawns and roads. When the streams got to the Ausable River’s East Branch, which runs through the towns of Keene, Upper Jay and Jay it did the same thing.
Two branches of the Ausable River, West and East, flow through two valleys and meet at the village of Ausable Forks – where the water was up to the door handles of the pizza parlor, two blocks from either river. “It’s probably in Ausable Chasm” is a catch phrase about things that were washed away. It’s about 20 miles from Ausable Forks to the popular tourist spot where the river narrows and pours through deep rock walls before broadening out and finally dumping into Lake Champlain.
You first see some damage on Route 73, where pavement was torn up by what are usually tiny brooks you can step across; orange cones and new pavement now line the road. Then you notice the storage containers beside houses that are near a stream. Then, turning onto Route 9N and heading north, some houses are empty, some have piles of rubble outside: possessions and walls heaped together to be taken away. Near the house where I was helping several piles of trees, bushes, branches, boards and bicycles and more sit in the trees between the road and the river. She found her kayak under one of the piles, pulled it out and set it in the sun, undamaged.
On a side road I take photos of piles of trees and rocks, then notice that some of the rocks are black, look closer and see that some of those have yellow stripes on them - it’s not rocks, it’s pieces of pavement, torn up and left there by the water of a small brook as it raced past to join the bigger river and add to the woes downstream.
Along the road, which runs beside the river from Keene to Keesville, pieces of buildings, furniture, scraps of clothing and trees lie in fields, along the river bank, stuck in trees and on guard rails. Bridge abutments are scraped to the top by the debris pushed past. In Jay, the water was up to the bottom of the recently restored covered bridge, some 20 feet above the normal height of the river. An 8 foot high wall of 2 foot thick concrete blocks on the opposite side of the road from the river is marked about a foot from the bottom with ‘April, 2011’, showing the depth of the flooding then. Now added, at the top, with arrows pointing up, is “Hurricane Irene, August 28, 2011’. On the other side it says “Irene was here-don’t come back!’
Firehouses in Keene and Upper Jay are empty, with damage that might not be repairable. In Upper Jay, the fire chief gave the order to move the trucks just in time; the water was up to the doors as the volunteers drove them out. The hamlet’s library was flooded, the soccer and ball fields destroyed, a woman watched her livelihood float away as she stood downstream from her antique shop.
The once popular family attraction Land of Make Believe, no longer operating but with many of the memorable pieces still in place, is now bare, with piles of sand pushed from the road to open it to traffic standing in what once was a parking area filled with excited children. A pony kept there was swept away.
Near where one town road meets the highway, a three car garage blocked the view of the field behind it. Now you can see the whole field, there is no trace of the garage. You can also see a house in the middle of the field; it used to be beside the road, a hundred yards or so away.
Upper Jay is tiny, with just a few people and fewer businesses in the hamlet. One, a motel, opened for refugees until they could return to their houses, or make other arrangements if that was not an option. A woman tells me that she brought food from Lake Placid, 20 plus miles away, for them. “People in Lake Placid had no idea, we didn’t get this kind of damage”, she says, adding that some of the things that were sent were “Lake Placid people’s idea of what these folks needed – a chocolatier sent boxes of fancy chocolates” and she shakes her head.
People are picking up and putting their lives back together. Some may not be able to. The neighbor of the couple I was helping may not, their house has been condemned. Some say ‘well, they live in a flood plain, they should expect it’. You can’t expect a ‘500 year flood’, as this is being called. ‘They should move’, those same people say. To where? With what?
No, it wasn’t as big and bad as Katrina’s flooding of New Orleans. Or the tornadoes in the southeast, perhaps. Or maybe not event he scope of the destruction when the floods took out the towns in the Catskills. But for the people affected, it is. When it’s your disaster, it’s big. This is big, for that area.
To help: www.helpjayny.com
.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
A 9-11 Ceremony
Our local fire department, like others across the country, had a small ceremony this morning to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9-11. A flag hung from the extended ladder, black cloth draped the windshield of a pumper, and turnout gear stood in front of it: empty coat, boots, bunker pants and helmet to signify the gear not to be worn again by those gone.
Some of the firefighters spoke; where they were, what they were doing – just as most of us are remembering the same things about that day. One woman told of fears that a cousin who worked in the towers was lost and the elation when he was finally able to call two days later to tell them he had gone out of the office for coffee – his co-workers perished. A fireman talked about how one plane made it’s turn over our county, how comment was made about the plane flying so low and slow, how unusual that was – not knowing how much more unusual that flight was going to become. A man now a state trooper told how the day created his job, because the State Police forces were increased. Several remembered going to an annual weekend fire school and how every person there jammed an auditorium on Friday night for a memorial service.
One just waved his hand, indicating he had no words to say, and a tear fell from his cheek.
There will be many more ceremonies, one is scheduled this evening at the county 9-11 memorial. There will be many more tears, as more memories are shared.
As we did ten years ago, our country and our people cry, and continue. It would be unfair to those who gave their lives to do otherwise.
Some of the firefighters spoke; where they were, what they were doing – just as most of us are remembering the same things about that day. One woman told of fears that a cousin who worked in the towers was lost and the elation when he was finally able to call two days later to tell them he had gone out of the office for coffee – his co-workers perished. A fireman talked about how one plane made it’s turn over our county, how comment was made about the plane flying so low and slow, how unusual that was – not knowing how much more unusual that flight was going to become. A man now a state trooper told how the day created his job, because the State Police forces were increased. Several remembered going to an annual weekend fire school and how every person there jammed an auditorium on Friday night for a memorial service.
One just waved his hand, indicating he had no words to say, and a tear fell from his cheek.
There will be many more ceremonies, one is scheduled this evening at the county 9-11 memorial. There will be many more tears, as more memories are shared.
As we did ten years ago, our country and our people cry, and continue. It would be unfair to those who gave their lives to do otherwise.
September 11 - Ten Years later
I put on the t-shirt I got on the Comfort, the one that says “Terrorists may crumble buildings, but they can’t touch my patriotism. In memory of those who paid for freedom with the ultimate price. September 11, 2001. God Bless America still the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
I’ll go to the firehouse for an impromptu, short ceremony there, then later read a message, updated from when I first wrote it ten years ago for the truck company newsletter, before our matinee performance.
As everyone, I will have my moment to remember, what I was doing, what I thought and felt and did that day. I will make a moment for those lost, for those still being lost as a result of the attacks in 2001. I will take a moment to be thankful for our American life.
Here’s what I think: We should all do this, not just today, but every day.
My reading:
“Everyone in our country, and beyond, was affected by the tragic events in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania ten years ago today.
I went to New York as a member of an Emergency Medical Services Task Force, went to the scene and saw the destruction that was left of the World Trade Center and saw the desolation on the faces of those going to dig in the rubble, some for their friends and co-workers, some just to help. I stood crying at the ‘wall of tears’, where the pictures and messages from people looking for their loved ones were beyond heartbreaking. I heard the thanks of countless people, strangers, in a city that before was known for its cold, self-centered personality – thanks just because we were there, had come to help and support them.
I can only say that if those who perpetrated and carried out this horrendous crime against humanity thought they were going to bring the United States of America and its people to their knees by these actions, well, they did.
They brought us to our knees to unite in prayer for the victims and their loved ones, and then to add a prayer for the strength and the wisdom and courage to do what must be done next. Then, we stood up with more patriotism and determination than ever and with the resolve that they would not win, that we would keep our life and our freedom and our country and our spirit.
And we did and we can continue to do so.
We can get down on our knees once again and say a prayer for the victims and their families and friends.
We can say “Thank you” and “God Bless You” and “God Be With You” when we see a fire truck or an ambulance or a police car go by, in memory of the brave men and women who ran towards, not away from, the carnage at the World Trade Center and who died doing their job.
We can say a prayer and a “Thank you” for those people who were on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, those people who may have averted another incident with even more deaths and destruction.
We can show our patriotism - wave a flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star Spangled Banner, not just today when the memory is being celebrated, but tomorrow and the day after and the week and the month and the year after tomorrow.
We can teach a child to respect our country and its government and its flag.
We can say “our knees, my butt – this is America”, and do everything in our power to keep our country moving and growing and going strong, as we did after this tragedy and as people have throughout every day of its existence.
Please join us in a moment of silence in remembrance.”
I’ll go to the firehouse for an impromptu, short ceremony there, then later read a message, updated from when I first wrote it ten years ago for the truck company newsletter, before our matinee performance.
As everyone, I will have my moment to remember, what I was doing, what I thought and felt and did that day. I will make a moment for those lost, for those still being lost as a result of the attacks in 2001. I will take a moment to be thankful for our American life.
Here’s what I think: We should all do this, not just today, but every day.
My reading:
“Everyone in our country, and beyond, was affected by the tragic events in New York City, Washington DC and Pennsylvania ten years ago today.
I went to New York as a member of an Emergency Medical Services Task Force, went to the scene and saw the destruction that was left of the World Trade Center and saw the desolation on the faces of those going to dig in the rubble, some for their friends and co-workers, some just to help. I stood crying at the ‘wall of tears’, where the pictures and messages from people looking for their loved ones were beyond heartbreaking. I heard the thanks of countless people, strangers, in a city that before was known for its cold, self-centered personality – thanks just because we were there, had come to help and support them.
I can only say that if those who perpetrated and carried out this horrendous crime against humanity thought they were going to bring the United States of America and its people to their knees by these actions, well, they did.
They brought us to our knees to unite in prayer for the victims and their loved ones, and then to add a prayer for the strength and the wisdom and courage to do what must be done next. Then, we stood up with more patriotism and determination than ever and with the resolve that they would not win, that we would keep our life and our freedom and our country and our spirit.
And we did and we can continue to do so.
We can get down on our knees once again and say a prayer for the victims and their families and friends.
We can say “Thank you” and “God Bless You” and “God Be With You” when we see a fire truck or an ambulance or a police car go by, in memory of the brave men and women who ran towards, not away from, the carnage at the World Trade Center and who died doing their job.
We can say a prayer and a “Thank you” for those people who were on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, those people who may have averted another incident with even more deaths and destruction.
We can show our patriotism - wave a flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance and sing the Star Spangled Banner, not just today when the memory is being celebrated, but tomorrow and the day after and the week and the month and the year after tomorrow.
We can teach a child to respect our country and its government and its flag.
We can say “our knees, my butt – this is America”, and do everything in our power to keep our country moving and growing and going strong, as we did after this tragedy and as people have throughout every day of its existence.
Please join us in a moment of silence in remembrance.”
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thank them a lot, thank them often
I’ve been listening to the scanner all day, which is not unusual since its never shut off, but today it was in case there were things happening with the hurricane that I should respond or stand by for. Fortunately for the squad, the hurricane didn’t amount to as much as predicted and we only had the usual sort and amount of calls, and extra help wasn’t needed.
The fire companies are a whole ‘nother story, though. The county called all departments out to stand by in quarters starting at 8 a.m. today. Many of them have been flat out since before that. Heavy rain brought flooded and washed out roads, and then flooded basements. Now the wind has picked up a bit (nowhere near the predicted but it’s a bit brisk) and trees are starting to fall. Fire departments responded for a family needing help getting out through the water surrounding their house and to evacuate residents of a mobile home park being flooded by the creek it is next to. Some went to fire alarms activated by the storm, or power blips. Some checked out a car stranded in water on a flooded road. Then a barn fire, which was burned to the ground by the time it was discovered and the first fire fighter got there.
They’ve been running between setting up warnings at the impassable roadways to pumping water from a basement before a furnace or other costly appliances are ruined or a fire started, to trees fallen on power lines or across roadways or both, to assisting rescue squads with emergency medical calls - and there’s no sign of them getting any break soon.
Hopefully there have been enough people so they can take a little rest between calls, and also hopefully the faithful, helpful auxiliaries have been making food for them.
It’s not just our county, either. I can hear some areas of Greene County and they’ve been just as busy if not busier. All day. As I am sure others throughout the storm track area have been.
And you know what’s the best part? They do this because they want to help their families, friends, neighbors, communities. That’s right, they don’t get any pay except for the grateful thanks of the people they help, and the waves when they march past in the firemen’s parade. No pay, no benefits, no retirement. They just want to help. And they do. We’d be in a sorry mess without them.
Here’s what I think: these men and women don’t get enough credit. Friends have posted a video on Facebook of an area firehouse with floodwater around it – where are the people who staff this building? Out helping their neighbors – I wrote the first part yesterday, and this morning they are heading out again, after a full day and night of helping, to check out an odor of smoke in one of their neighbors homes. Hoping that it is not a fire, for everyone’s sake. The firefighters we invited to see the dress rehearsal of Grease, after they responded to our cast house fire, kept thanking us for the invitation, and I kept saying no, we thank you for what you did-this is little enough we can do. We all need to give these people a great big THANK YOU for everything they do, and we need to do it more often
The fire companies are a whole ‘nother story, though. The county called all departments out to stand by in quarters starting at 8 a.m. today. Many of them have been flat out since before that. Heavy rain brought flooded and washed out roads, and then flooded basements. Now the wind has picked up a bit (nowhere near the predicted but it’s a bit brisk) and trees are starting to fall. Fire departments responded for a family needing help getting out through the water surrounding their house and to evacuate residents of a mobile home park being flooded by the creek it is next to. Some went to fire alarms activated by the storm, or power blips. Some checked out a car stranded in water on a flooded road. Then a barn fire, which was burned to the ground by the time it was discovered and the first fire fighter got there.
They’ve been running between setting up warnings at the impassable roadways to pumping water from a basement before a furnace or other costly appliances are ruined or a fire started, to trees fallen on power lines or across roadways or both, to assisting rescue squads with emergency medical calls - and there’s no sign of them getting any break soon.
Hopefully there have been enough people so they can take a little rest between calls, and also hopefully the faithful, helpful auxiliaries have been making food for them.
It’s not just our county, either. I can hear some areas of Greene County and they’ve been just as busy if not busier. All day. As I am sure others throughout the storm track area have been.
And you know what’s the best part? They do this because they want to help their families, friends, neighbors, communities. That’s right, they don’t get any pay except for the grateful thanks of the people they help, and the waves when they march past in the firemen’s parade. No pay, no benefits, no retirement. They just want to help. And they do. We’d be in a sorry mess without them.
Here’s what I think: these men and women don’t get enough credit. Friends have posted a video on Facebook of an area firehouse with floodwater around it – where are the people who staff this building? Out helping their neighbors – I wrote the first part yesterday, and this morning they are heading out again, after a full day and night of helping, to check out an odor of smoke in one of their neighbors homes. Hoping that it is not a fire, for everyone’s sake. The firefighters we invited to see the dress rehearsal of Grease, after they responded to our cast house fire, kept thanking us for the invitation, and I kept saying no, we thank you for what you did-this is little enough we can do. We all need to give these people a great big THANK YOU for everything they do, and we need to do it more often
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Visiting one of my past lives
I took a step back into one of my past lives a few days ago. After not going there for several years, I went to Springfield, to the truck company I worked for, and visited the few people still working there that I know, and then met some of them for dinner. The occasion was instigated by one woman I was good friends with, she recently left the company (which isn’t even named what it was when I was there) to drive for another outfit, was home for a week and wanted to visit everyone. Just worked out right I had a day off when it happened. I haven’t seen her sine I left, over 9 years ago. Talked on email, on facebook, on the phone a couple of times, but haven’t seen each other, so it was really nice. Lot of catching up, general chit chat and laughing. Some ’have you heard about’ – both good and sad news.
Made me miss both the place and the driving. They all say it’s not the same as it was when I was there, and I can see that – Our little company has been absorbed by one of the owner’s other companies, and that’s not a change for the better from what they all were saying.
It was a good place to work, I thought. Small, everyone like family, always friendly and ready to talk, just to visit or to try to work out a problem. One reason I left is that the trying to work out problems part was not happening as much. There are other reasons as well, but that was one.
But for the 17 winters I was there, I was part of that family. I started as a rookie, with a few months of regional driving miles behind me, but with a whole lot to learn. There weren’t trainers as such and I mostly had to pick up things as I went, but I didn’t get into too much trouble. I remember being so pleased when the first partner they put me with said to the office, after my first shift driving ‘she does good – I slept for 8 hours’.
I went from that to being the ‘special projects’ trainer over the years there; it seemed every time they had a new driver that needed special attention, they gave them to me to train. Some worked out, some didn’t. Some I was proud to have a hand in, some wouldn’t have worked out no matter who tried. Oh well.
I got an award from the company at an annual driver’s dinner; I had done a collection for a special thing for Feed The Children, combining it with the theatre I think it was the 30th anniversary season, and collected things to donate to that group. That winter I won the Humanitarian Award. I had just made it in on the afternoon of the dinner, and didn’t have what I’d normally have worn to such an event with me, but put on a nice shirt and clean jeans and went – and was totally surprised to win something. A plaque and $250. Plus they let me take the things to FTC in Oklahoma City.
Same as they let me drop off the Evita coffin in Chicago on one run.
I felt part of the company. Even when I’d go visit in the summer, they’d stop to chat. And ask ‘you back?’ For a while I’d get The Bakery’s pumpkin donuts and take a couple of bags over when I went for my first trip, and so when I was ready to start in the fall I’d call and say ‘it’s pumpkin donut time!’ I called one time and was leaving a message for dispatch, and when the girl (someone new who didn’t know what it meant) repeated ‘tell him it’s pumpkin donut time?’ I could hear Kevin in the background yelling ‘She’s Back!’.
So many memories, mostly good, a few bad - I think I left before the bad got to be more than the good. But mainly what I remember is being part of it – of the company, of the people, of just driving in general, with the other drivers I was ‘one of them’. That’s a good memory.
Here’s what I think: yes, most of the time I’m fine to have left that behind me, but every now and then I sure do miss it. I was part of it, I belonged, I could do it. And I know I’m happy that they remember me and make me feel welcome, even after being away almost 10 years. And I think maybe I’ll try to put more stories about that life on here. Maybe, if I get to it.
Made me miss both the place and the driving. They all say it’s not the same as it was when I was there, and I can see that – Our little company has been absorbed by one of the owner’s other companies, and that’s not a change for the better from what they all were saying.
It was a good place to work, I thought. Small, everyone like family, always friendly and ready to talk, just to visit or to try to work out a problem. One reason I left is that the trying to work out problems part was not happening as much. There are other reasons as well, but that was one.
But for the 17 winters I was there, I was part of that family. I started as a rookie, with a few months of regional driving miles behind me, but with a whole lot to learn. There weren’t trainers as such and I mostly had to pick up things as I went, but I didn’t get into too much trouble. I remember being so pleased when the first partner they put me with said to the office, after my first shift driving ‘she does good – I slept for 8 hours’.
I went from that to being the ‘special projects’ trainer over the years there; it seemed every time they had a new driver that needed special attention, they gave them to me to train. Some worked out, some didn’t. Some I was proud to have a hand in, some wouldn’t have worked out no matter who tried. Oh well.
I got an award from the company at an annual driver’s dinner; I had done a collection for a special thing for Feed The Children, combining it with the theatre I think it was the 30th anniversary season, and collected things to donate to that group. That winter I won the Humanitarian Award. I had just made it in on the afternoon of the dinner, and didn’t have what I’d normally have worn to such an event with me, but put on a nice shirt and clean jeans and went – and was totally surprised to win something. A plaque and $250. Plus they let me take the things to FTC in Oklahoma City.
Same as they let me drop off the Evita coffin in Chicago on one run.
I felt part of the company. Even when I’d go visit in the summer, they’d stop to chat. And ask ‘you back?’ For a while I’d get The Bakery’s pumpkin donuts and take a couple of bags over when I went for my first trip, and so when I was ready to start in the fall I’d call and say ‘it’s pumpkin donut time!’ I called one time and was leaving a message for dispatch, and when the girl (someone new who didn’t know what it meant) repeated ‘tell him it’s pumpkin donut time?’ I could hear Kevin in the background yelling ‘She’s Back!’.
So many memories, mostly good, a few bad - I think I left before the bad got to be more than the good. But mainly what I remember is being part of it – of the company, of the people, of just driving in general, with the other drivers I was ‘one of them’. That’s a good memory.
Here’s what I think: yes, most of the time I’m fine to have left that behind me, but every now and then I sure do miss it. I was part of it, I belonged, I could do it. And I know I’m happy that they remember me and make me feel welcome, even after being away almost 10 years. And I think maybe I’ll try to put more stories about that life on here. Maybe, if I get to it.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Unwanted emails (a recurring theme)
Once again I am in a discussion with a friend about forwarded emails. This person forwards many very enjoyable ones, but sometimes sends ones that I just don’t care to get. You know the kind, that ‘prove’ that a person, place or thing are all wrong for whatever the purpose is because of all the dastardly reasons listed in the email. Occasionally there’s a grain of truth to these, more often not. It’s easy to check, there are several sites that do this for a living. I use snopes.com, there are others. About three clicks and before you pass along what is pure untruthful drivel, you can see for yourself what has been found out about the particular item. Pretty easy but most people don’t bother, they are so intent on sharing this ‘GASP-did you know this, how dare they’ news. Most of the time when someone sends me one of these I don’t make an issue of it, often I will go to snopes and check it out and then forward them the link to to read for themselves. I hope they get the hint because they are, after all, friends, or they wouldn’t be on my email list and me on theirs. Some do, some haven’t; and I’m not sure if I’ve directly addressed this issue with the person who sent the latest or not. The item in question was all about how Barak Obama is not really an American citizen because of all sorts of alleged problems with his birth certificate. Variations on this theme have been going around since his candidacy was announced, if not before. My first reaction is that ‘don’t you think that those in charge of his campaign, to say nothing of people in the government who pay attention to such things, would have carefully checked this so as to not have any question about the matter?’ Gee, ya think? Another person replied to all on her mailing list that she did not want to receive this sort of thing any more, and I followed with a similar message. This of course led to a discussion on how we can always delete the messages – but that’s not the point here. The point is that to responsibly share emails the sender should not pass along something that isn’t true. The sender should stop and think ‘does this person want to receive this message?’ The sender should know their friends well enough to edit the mailing list. As I put in one of my responses, don’t send everything to everyone. You never know who you might be offending or upsetting.
I (and the other protestors to this particular message) have obviously offended and upset the sender by objecting to getting these emails. She has sent a message that says in short that she won’t be forwarding any more emails since ‘not everyone seems to appreciate when I send something out’ and that ‘free speech and the right to use the delete button seem not to apply…’. Well, yes, there is free speech, but there’s also common sense. There’s also my right to say I don’t want to get things like this. The delete button is indeed an option, and I exercise it often, but as another objector to this item said, you don’t know until you read at least part of the message if you want to do that. I may lose a friend over this, and that would make me sad. But if you can’t tell a friend what you do or don’t want them to tell you, then maybe it wasn’t that strong a bond to begin with.
My messages regarding this:
“…we've been friends for a long time, but I don't wish to receive any more of this sort of thing either. I agree with Gail in that even if you don't like Obama as president, there should be respect for the office. I find it and every thing else of this manner that I have looked up on hoax sites (snopes. com shows several examples of this theme, all false, btw) I have found to be if not entirely false, at least bent to suit someone's hateful rabble-rousing. And has anyone stopped to think that, gee, maybe all this was checked out before the man was even proposed for nomination for the election, because why the hell would anyone leave themselves open for him not being a valid candidate? Just because something is received on the internet does not mean it is true. Please, everyone, check things like this out before spreading more hateful lies. PS, this is not the first message of this type I have sent this week alone. If people would spend the time and effort trying to spread good things that they do spreading this garbage, we'd all be a lot better off.”
And:
“The delete button is often used. However the assumption (and this is not personally directed to you, Carey) that everyone will want to receive every email is not always the right one to make. For that very reason, I personally don't forward to a general group of my email list, I pick and choose. No doubt there are people who don't mind the emails that some of us don't want to get. Send those to those people, and others to the people who want those. Please do not make us the bad guys for speaking up as to what we do or do not wish to receive. That is our choice to make and our right to request. If this annoys you, I'm sorry, likewise any others it may annoy.”
Here’s what I think: no matter how good a friend you are, no matter how well you know the person, don’t assume (makes an ‘ass’ our of ‘u’ and ‘me’), think a bit – and don’t take it personally if someone says they don’t agree – not even the very closest of friends always do. It’s how people are.
-
I (and the other protestors to this particular message) have obviously offended and upset the sender by objecting to getting these emails. She has sent a message that says in short that she won’t be forwarding any more emails since ‘not everyone seems to appreciate when I send something out’ and that ‘free speech and the right to use the delete button seem not to apply…’. Well, yes, there is free speech, but there’s also common sense. There’s also my right to say I don’t want to get things like this. The delete button is indeed an option, and I exercise it often, but as another objector to this item said, you don’t know until you read at least part of the message if you want to do that. I may lose a friend over this, and that would make me sad. But if you can’t tell a friend what you do or don’t want them to tell you, then maybe it wasn’t that strong a bond to begin with.
My messages regarding this:
“…we've been friends for a long time, but I don't wish to receive any more of this sort of thing either. I agree with Gail in that even if you don't like Obama as president, there should be respect for the office. I find it and every thing else of this manner that I have looked up on hoax sites (snopes. com shows several examples of this theme, all false, btw) I have found to be if not entirely false, at least bent to suit someone's hateful rabble-rousing. And has anyone stopped to think that, gee, maybe all this was checked out before the man was even proposed for nomination for the election, because why the hell would anyone leave themselves open for him not being a valid candidate? Just because something is received on the internet does not mean it is true. Please, everyone, check things like this out before spreading more hateful lies. PS, this is not the first message of this type I have sent this week alone. If people would spend the time and effort trying to spread good things that they do spreading this garbage, we'd all be a lot better off.”
And:
“The delete button is often used. However the assumption (and this is not personally directed to you, Carey) that everyone will want to receive every email is not always the right one to make. For that very reason, I personally don't forward to a general group of my email list, I pick and choose. No doubt there are people who don't mind the emails that some of us don't want to get. Send those to those people, and others to the people who want those. Please do not make us the bad guys for speaking up as to what we do or do not wish to receive. That is our choice to make and our right to request. If this annoys you, I'm sorry, likewise any others it may annoy.”
Here’s what I think: no matter how good a friend you are, no matter how well you know the person, don’t assume (makes an ‘ass’ our of ‘u’ and ‘me’), think a bit – and don’t take it personally if someone says they don’t agree – not even the very closest of friends always do. It’s how people are.
-
Monday, August 1, 2011
Bushnell House Fire
It’s been three weeks minus two days since I woke up to Chatham’s tones going off for a structure fire on Hudson Ave., and as I was thinking ‘that’s near the cast house, maybe I better go down just in case the kids get nervous’ and as I started to get dressed, it changed to corner of Bushnell and Hudson, house on the left, which was closer but still not and then changed to ‘house on the right’ and I can’t even describe – or remember – all of what went through my mind. I know that the phrase ‘scared the shit out of me’ is a descriptive one, and I know that hard as you try you cannot put on pants and a shirt at the same time, but you can come close. I know that Matt calling me to say they were all out was indescribable relief ‘that’s what I wanted to hear, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes’.
As the previous post says, there’s no found cause. A few thoughts on maybe if it started here it was this or if it started there it was that, but can’t put an exact answer to that. Probably just as well, because I’d hate to think that it was something any one person did, for their sake and ours.
The community overall (the expanded MHT community) has been wonderfully supportive. Neighbors gave the kids blankets to wrap up in; they got out in their bvd’s and nighties. Before the fire trucks were gone people made offers for housing, and there were bags of clothes spread out on the hood of my car.
Besides the ‘fire chasing’ news reporters and items, we were on radio to give a plea for help. Jesse did a masterful job with media relations.
Monica came over and took charge of the kids, driving back and forth to other cast houses, bringing them back when the Red Cross got there to give out vouchers (say what you want about the organization, they were there when we needed them) for food and clothing, the County Fire Chief’s Association gave vouchers for purchases at WalMart (ps, both the Red Cross and Walmart vouchers got screwed up but straightened out fairly quickly).
I’d told the kids if they wanted to go to Ace Hardware and get clothes they could in the morning and put it on my tab, well they went at about 4:30 in the morning, one of the firemen standing by at Chatham station called and Frank (who had brought the gator to the fire) went up to open the store and let them get things.
Can’t even mention all the people who helped, from a little boy who brought $100 of his own saved up money to donate, to a long time friend of my family who donated a sizeable check ‘in memory of Ed and Marian Peduzzi’.
The kids are recovering, they’ve gotten so much in clothes, stuff, money, gift cards that the rest of the company is a bit jealous. Won’t make up for favorite things lost, I know, but they are all grateful for knowing the generosity they’ve received.
The house is totaled and we’re waiting for estimates to demolish it, and starting to think about what to do to replace it. Real glad it didn’t get into the attached barn full of props and sets, that would have been a whole different story. Not sure what stopped it but glad it did.
Many things were salvaged, including the other day on a last foray through, Brian’s glasses, ipod, phone and notebook; some electronics even still work.
Many thanks to the Powers That Be for the smoke alarms going off and waking them up. Many thanks to all who have helped.
Never want a night like that one again, if you please.
As the previous post says, there’s no found cause. A few thoughts on maybe if it started here it was this or if it started there it was that, but can’t put an exact answer to that. Probably just as well, because I’d hate to think that it was something any one person did, for their sake and ours.
The community overall (the expanded MHT community) has been wonderfully supportive. Neighbors gave the kids blankets to wrap up in; they got out in their bvd’s and nighties. Before the fire trucks were gone people made offers for housing, and there were bags of clothes spread out on the hood of my car.
Besides the ‘fire chasing’ news reporters and items, we were on radio to give a plea for help. Jesse did a masterful job with media relations.
Monica came over and took charge of the kids, driving back and forth to other cast houses, bringing them back when the Red Cross got there to give out vouchers (say what you want about the organization, they were there when we needed them) for food and clothing, the County Fire Chief’s Association gave vouchers for purchases at WalMart (ps, both the Red Cross and Walmart vouchers got screwed up but straightened out fairly quickly).
I’d told the kids if they wanted to go to Ace Hardware and get clothes they could in the morning and put it on my tab, well they went at about 4:30 in the morning, one of the firemen standing by at Chatham station called and Frank (who had brought the gator to the fire) went up to open the store and let them get things.
Can’t even mention all the people who helped, from a little boy who brought $100 of his own saved up money to donate, to a long time friend of my family who donated a sizeable check ‘in memory of Ed and Marian Peduzzi’.
The kids are recovering, they’ve gotten so much in clothes, stuff, money, gift cards that the rest of the company is a bit jealous. Won’t make up for favorite things lost, I know, but they are all grateful for knowing the generosity they’ve received.
The house is totaled and we’re waiting for estimates to demolish it, and starting to think about what to do to replace it. Real glad it didn’t get into the attached barn full of props and sets, that would have been a whole different story. Not sure what stopped it but glad it did.
Many things were salvaged, including the other day on a last foray through, Brian’s glasses, ipod, phone and notebook; some electronics even still work.
Many thanks to the Powers That Be for the smoke alarms going off and waking them up. Many thanks to all who have helped.
Never want a night like that one again, if you please.
Odd comments and smoke alarms
So, a patron came to the office door Saturday night and asked ‘what was the fire that is mentioned in the program?’. I started to explain, got interrupted several times (and that’s just my favorite thing in the world as some know) as I was trying to, and finally it was apparent that she was more interested in how it started than the fact that 11 people got out safely and they weren’t the people she was watching on stage they were the tech crew (I think I told her that about 5 times). Each time I tried to explain to her about the County Cause and Origin Team, who are very well trained in this sort of thing, and the insurance investigator coming to the same conclusion: ‘unknown accidental cause’, she interrupted again with a ‘but they must have some idea’ and ‘what do you mean they don’t know’. My patience was getting more worn as she went on, but the final straw (and I was good, I didn’t tell her what I wanted to, didn’t even – well hardly even – raise my voice, but it did get a bit hard) was when she said ‘well! that seems fishy!’ ‘That was when my voice went hard and I asked her ‘Why do you say it seems fishy?’ Guess what – she didn’t have an answer for that, just mumbled ‘well – because – well – ‘ a few times.
Now, she might have been an arson investigator. Might have won firefighter of the year award wherever she’s from. Might know a whole lot more than I do about fires (and I’ve been to a lot of them, although admittedly I’m not a firefighter, and I went to arson school long ago). But from the way she looked and talked I kinda doubt it. So why would she say something like that? Obviously for whatever reason she’s got an interest in fire, but still, what would lead to such a remark. Is she a citidiot who would of course think that here in the sticks we wouldn’t have people who could find a fire cause – not so, at all, our team is good. Is she just a trouble making busybody – kinda more my thought – or did she go through a fire herself at some time? Won’t ever know. What’s the moral of this story? Not sure, just wanted to mention this odd happening. Well, yeah, I guess there is one – don’t interrupt, you’ll get through the conversation and learn everything it was about a lot faster. And don’t make comments when you don’t know everything – or anything – about the subject matter.
Here’s what I think: I’m just glad all the kids got out. Smoke alarms, Smoke Alarms, SMOKE ALARMS! Was talking to a person yesterday who said ‘oh, ours don’t work right so we took the batteries out’. I told her I have 11 people walking around today who wouldn’t be if they’d done that. She said ‘oh, maybe we better get ours fixed.’ $24.95 for a 6-pack at Home Depot. Is your life worth that?
And to the woman who thinks it’s fishy – glad you were enjoying the show, but: ‘Fishy This!’ ya nitwit!
Now, she might have been an arson investigator. Might have won firefighter of the year award wherever she’s from. Might know a whole lot more than I do about fires (and I’ve been to a lot of them, although admittedly I’m not a firefighter, and I went to arson school long ago). But from the way she looked and talked I kinda doubt it. So why would she say something like that? Obviously for whatever reason she’s got an interest in fire, but still, what would lead to such a remark. Is she a citidiot who would of course think that here in the sticks we wouldn’t have people who could find a fire cause – not so, at all, our team is good. Is she just a trouble making busybody – kinda more my thought – or did she go through a fire herself at some time? Won’t ever know. What’s the moral of this story? Not sure, just wanted to mention this odd happening. Well, yeah, I guess there is one – don’t interrupt, you’ll get through the conversation and learn everything it was about a lot faster. And don’t make comments when you don’t know everything – or anything – about the subject matter.
Here’s what I think: I’m just glad all the kids got out. Smoke alarms, Smoke Alarms, SMOKE ALARMS! Was talking to a person yesterday who said ‘oh, ours don’t work right so we took the batteries out’. I told her I have 11 people walking around today who wouldn’t be if they’d done that. She said ‘oh, maybe we better get ours fixed.’ $24.95 for a 6-pack at Home Depot. Is your life worth that?
And to the woman who thinks it’s fishy – glad you were enjoying the show, but: ‘Fishy This!’ ya nitwit!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Father's Day
No matter how well – or not – you get along with, or got along with your father, stop today and remember him. Embrace the good times, and try to learn from ones that were bad, if only to not do those things yourself.
Most of my times with my father were good, I was fortunate. Oh, of course there was a rebellious ‘I hate my father’ spell when I was a teenager. But it passed, soon enough.
My father had a quick temper (that I unfortunately inherited). He would yell a lot, but strangely when it was something serious he often took it calmly.
As mentioned in another Father’s Day post, he hunted deer with bow and arrow. This hobby led him to purchase the ‘latest and best’ in bows, and at one time his pride and joy was a ‘recurve’ bow. Of course, one day when there were several of us kids around, we had to try to string it and shoot it and of course we were doing it wrong and broke the bow. We spent the day in terror of what he’d do to us when he got home from work, and we met him with the bad news at the front porch – he stopped, looked at his bow (and no doubt thought of the cost of replacing it, definitely an issue in those days) and sighed and merely said ‘well that’s what happens when you don’t know how to do something the right way’ and went on in the house. Maybe he hoped we’d learn from that to stop and do things the right way – and maybe we did learn it, a bit.
Other things I learned from him were a strong work ethic – the cows had to be milked at 6 o’clock – that’s both 6 o’clock’s every day – I told that to some of the partners and dispatchers when I was driving truck, when they’d comment that I almost always got deliveries on time (unless there was a real reason not to). He worked hard his entire life and I don’t doubt that one how or another I will too.
He never stopped finding new things and I hope I never do either. He always wanted to see new places. He loved back roads, and taking a new one to see where it went. His interests were widely varied - from opera to deer hunting – and he could have a conversation about all of them. He had no tolerance for fools.
One night, when I was a very new driver, I was coming home from a friend’s house up the road, and slid on the ice and went into the trees. No major damage except for breaking all the little squares in the grill of the car. I walked home, he came up with I forget which vehicle and pulled the Chevy out, and then at some point found a way to repair all those pieces. And only said, ‘yep, that ice can be tricky’.
My mother used to say, when someone would call or something would happen to bring him to mind, ‘your father is very close’. He was very close when I had the wreck with the truck: I rarely dream about him (although I often do about my mother, another story) but I had several times for a short while. Then, the wreck happened and although it was bad (and scary) enough, it could have been a whole lot worse. I said at the time that something did the right thing for me, but thinking on it, I rather believe it was someone being close enough to make it happen. After the wreck I didn’t dream about him for a long, long time.
His birthday would have been on Tuesday. I’ll try to have some strawberry shortcake this week to remember him by.
Do something to remember your father by.
Most of my times with my father were good, I was fortunate. Oh, of course there was a rebellious ‘I hate my father’ spell when I was a teenager. But it passed, soon enough.
My father had a quick temper (that I unfortunately inherited). He would yell a lot, but strangely when it was something serious he often took it calmly.
As mentioned in another Father’s Day post, he hunted deer with bow and arrow. This hobby led him to purchase the ‘latest and best’ in bows, and at one time his pride and joy was a ‘recurve’ bow. Of course, one day when there were several of us kids around, we had to try to string it and shoot it and of course we were doing it wrong and broke the bow. We spent the day in terror of what he’d do to us when he got home from work, and we met him with the bad news at the front porch – he stopped, looked at his bow (and no doubt thought of the cost of replacing it, definitely an issue in those days) and sighed and merely said ‘well that’s what happens when you don’t know how to do something the right way’ and went on in the house. Maybe he hoped we’d learn from that to stop and do things the right way – and maybe we did learn it, a bit.
Other things I learned from him were a strong work ethic – the cows had to be milked at 6 o’clock – that’s both 6 o’clock’s every day – I told that to some of the partners and dispatchers when I was driving truck, when they’d comment that I almost always got deliveries on time (unless there was a real reason not to). He worked hard his entire life and I don’t doubt that one how or another I will too.
He never stopped finding new things and I hope I never do either. He always wanted to see new places. He loved back roads, and taking a new one to see where it went. His interests were widely varied - from opera to deer hunting – and he could have a conversation about all of them. He had no tolerance for fools.
One night, when I was a very new driver, I was coming home from a friend’s house up the road, and slid on the ice and went into the trees. No major damage except for breaking all the little squares in the grill of the car. I walked home, he came up with I forget which vehicle and pulled the Chevy out, and then at some point found a way to repair all those pieces. And only said, ‘yep, that ice can be tricky’.
My mother used to say, when someone would call or something would happen to bring him to mind, ‘your father is very close’. He was very close when I had the wreck with the truck: I rarely dream about him (although I often do about my mother, another story) but I had several times for a short while. Then, the wreck happened and although it was bad (and scary) enough, it could have been a whole lot worse. I said at the time that something did the right thing for me, but thinking on it, I rather believe it was someone being close enough to make it happen. After the wreck I didn’t dream about him for a long, long time.
His birthday would have been on Tuesday. I’ll try to have some strawberry shortcake this week to remember him by.
Do something to remember your father by.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
My Sunday morning sermon
The Tony Awards are presented tonight – Broadway’s equivalent of the Oscars, the awards every show hopes to win, to insure a place in the record books and hopefully boost ticket sales and create a longer run.
One of the shows nominated for several awards is ‘The Book of Mormon’. It’s billed as a ‘religious satire musical’. It’s written by the creators of the animated series ‘South Park’. I haven’t seen the show, nor have I ever watched the series, which, from what I’ve heard, is very – for want of another term – irreverent, and has language that used to be banned from tv.
Several friends have seen ‘The Book of Mormon’ and have raved about how good the show is. They say the show is very funny, the story line is sweet, the songs and dancing great and overall it’s the best they’ve seen – and they’ve seen (and been in) a lot.
The authors call the show ‘an atheist’s love letter to religion’.
I haven’t seen the show, haven’t listened to the score, and probably won’t. Not that I don’t like comedy, musicals, sweet stories. But one song in the show is titled: "Hasa Diga Eebowai", which translates from the Ugandan in the show to ‘Fuck You, God’. I just can’t rationalize, in any context or translation, a show that has a song with that title in it.
Not that I’m a prude, I admit to being a long way from that and to using the word myself probably way more than should be done. And I’m not overly religious either, although I do have some beliefs that go along religious lines – and some that probably don’t.
But to put a song with that title and theme into a musical show – nope, just can’t understand that. Just can’t understand what it adds to any plot. Just don’t understand the creative process that would come up with something like that.
So, I guess I just won’t be hoping that the show wins any awards. And I hope that someone points out the wrongness of that title, that song. It probably won’t be done, but I can hope.
Because here’s what I think: that whether you believe in God (or any God) or not, to so crudely and blatantly and publicly send the message that title and song do – and you can say all you want that it’s a satire and people know that (which I’m not sure all people will realize)- is just wrong. And it should be noted as wrong, not given an award for it.
One of the shows nominated for several awards is ‘The Book of Mormon’. It’s billed as a ‘religious satire musical’. It’s written by the creators of the animated series ‘South Park’. I haven’t seen the show, nor have I ever watched the series, which, from what I’ve heard, is very – for want of another term – irreverent, and has language that used to be banned from tv.
Several friends have seen ‘The Book of Mormon’ and have raved about how good the show is. They say the show is very funny, the story line is sweet, the songs and dancing great and overall it’s the best they’ve seen – and they’ve seen (and been in) a lot.
The authors call the show ‘an atheist’s love letter to religion’.
I haven’t seen the show, haven’t listened to the score, and probably won’t. Not that I don’t like comedy, musicals, sweet stories. But one song in the show is titled: "Hasa Diga Eebowai", which translates from the Ugandan in the show to ‘Fuck You, God’. I just can’t rationalize, in any context or translation, a show that has a song with that title in it.
Not that I’m a prude, I admit to being a long way from that and to using the word myself probably way more than should be done. And I’m not overly religious either, although I do have some beliefs that go along religious lines – and some that probably don’t.
But to put a song with that title and theme into a musical show – nope, just can’t understand that. Just can’t understand what it adds to any plot. Just don’t understand the creative process that would come up with something like that.
So, I guess I just won’t be hoping that the show wins any awards. And I hope that someone points out the wrongness of that title, that song. It probably won’t be done, but I can hope.
Because here’s what I think: that whether you believe in God (or any God) or not, to so crudely and blatantly and publicly send the message that title and song do – and you can say all you want that it’s a satire and people know that (which I’m not sure all people will realize)- is just wrong. And it should be noted as wrong, not given an award for it.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Are they EFF*#+ kiddint!?!
In the 'are they fucking kidding department for today:
A school district in Silsbee, TX, is demanding that a family pay the district's legal fees for a lawsuit brought by the family. The suit was over the issue of their daughter being tossed off the cheerleading squad because she refused to cheer for a basketball team member who had raped her. Yes, he's still on the team, and yes, the school had her removed from the squad because she would not say his name in an individual cheer. A petition is online to voice your opinion, mine is below:
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/tx_cheerleader/?rc=fb_share2
By taking this stand you are condoning and even encouraging rape and all forms of physical and sexual assault. To have this done by anyone is unconscionable, to have it done by persons who are entrusted with the education of our young people goes so far beyond that, there are no words to describe the unfairness and inappropriateness of your decision. A long hard look should be taken at your thinking and attitudes towards victims, women and your reasons for wanting to be involved in the education of the young people of your area. This is just flat-out wrong. Would you want to do it, had the rape happened to you? Would you demand that your daughter cheer for her rapist. Ask yourselves those questions, give an honest answer and then reverse this decision. You do not deserve to be in the positions you are, if you truly believe yourselves to be right. I can only shake my head and hope that you do not represent the thinking of the majority of people in your area, and that your incredibly wrong attitudes are not passed on to others, especially the young people whose care and education have been entrusted to you – a position of trust you so blatantly obviously do not deserve.
A school district in Silsbee, TX, is demanding that a family pay the district's legal fees for a lawsuit brought by the family. The suit was over the issue of their daughter being tossed off the cheerleading squad because she refused to cheer for a basketball team member who had raped her. Yes, he's still on the team, and yes, the school had her removed from the squad because she would not say his name in an individual cheer. A petition is online to voice your opinion, mine is below:
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/tx_cheerleader/?rc=fb_share2
By taking this stand you are condoning and even encouraging rape and all forms of physical and sexual assault. To have this done by anyone is unconscionable, to have it done by persons who are entrusted with the education of our young people goes so far beyond that, there are no words to describe the unfairness and inappropriateness of your decision. A long hard look should be taken at your thinking and attitudes towards victims, women and your reasons for wanting to be involved in the education of the young people of your area. This is just flat-out wrong. Would you want to do it, had the rape happened to you? Would you demand that your daughter cheer for her rapist. Ask yourselves those questions, give an honest answer and then reverse this decision. You do not deserve to be in the positions you are, if you truly believe yourselves to be right. I can only shake my head and hope that you do not represent the thinking of the majority of people in your area, and that your incredibly wrong attitudes are not passed on to others, especially the young people whose care and education have been entrusted to you – a position of trust you so blatantly obviously do not deserve.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Goodbye to a soldier
Today is Memorial Day. Maybe it’s appropriate that I said goodbye to a soldier over the weekend. He was a WWII veteran, one of the thousands who served his country well and quietly. He came home with several awards: the Asiatic-Pacific Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal and the American Service Medal prior to his honorable discharge on Jan. 1, 1946. I don’t remember him ever talking about the war or his medals. He may have reserved that for the American Legion which he was a long and proud member of. I went to a small town in the mountains for the service, where there aren’t too many of his generation, his war left - in fact there might only be one at this point. He was 95 when he died, and besides serving his country, he served his town and his family and friends for the whole 60+ years I’d known him. He was active in his church, the volunteer fire and ambulance departments, a town councilman, and one of the people that others went to for advice on how something to do with the town or a function of it – or something in their life - might be best handled.
He’s one of the thousands that we should thank every day for the life we know – quiet, unassuming, faithful, hard-working men and women who served their country, helped their family, friends, neighbors and just went on about their business. They did what they had to do and moved on to what had to be done next. No fanfare, no expectations, they just did what they saw needed to be done.
Leroy, as the priest said, you’ve ‘changed your residence’. You’ll always be right next door in memory, though. To you and all those like you – Goodbye and Thank You.
_
He’s one of the thousands that we should thank every day for the life we know – quiet, unassuming, faithful, hard-working men and women who served their country, helped their family, friends, neighbors and just went on about their business. They did what they had to do and moved on to what had to be done next. No fanfare, no expectations, they just did what they saw needed to be done.
Leroy, as the priest said, you’ve ‘changed your residence’. You’ll always be right next door in memory, though. To you and all those like you – Goodbye and Thank You.
_
A funeral in the mountains; ‘changed residence’ and Coming Home
Had to go to Indian Lake Saturday, for Uncle Leroy’s funeral. He had every right to be having a funeral, having been 95 and active and alert up until fairly recently. He wasn’t really an uncle by family, but his family and my folks were very close and so he became our uncle and his sister our Aunt Margaret. He was the last of their generation in that group, another thing making it a sad passage.
The priest remarked that his predecessor had kept a book of all the parishioners and the events in their lives he tended to, and that when someone died he would write ‘change of residence’. Thinking on it, whatever you do or don’t believe in, that’s a pretty good way to describe the final move. Personally I’d like to think I’m just moving on to another new place, maybe seeing some old friends, and having some new adventures. And, there’s the whole Rainbow Bridge thing.
It was fitting that the funeral was on Memorial Day weekend; Leroy served in the U.S. Army during World War II earning the Asiatic-Pacific Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal and the American Service Medal prior to his honorable discharge on Jan. 1, 1946. He was active in the American Legion and they gave him a 21-gun salute at the graveside service.
That I recall he wasn’t one to talk a lot about his military time, even with that impressive list of awards - he preferred to talk about hunting and fishing and family. Leroy, your final resting place is near my parents. I hope you find them in your ‘change of residence’ and that you’re telling stories about hunting and fishing and family together there. Where they lie is a near perfect spot, near enough the Cedar River to hear the water racing by, surrounded by trees, mountain views. There’s two more places in our family plot, I claim one.
Speaking of change of residence, it occurred to me as I was driving up Route 28 that on every trip to Indian Lake, somewhere past the top of the North River hill I get a feeling of coming home. There’s the place where if you look off to the left you can get a glimpse of Snow Mountain – when we were kids we’d vie to be the first one to call that we saw it. Then you get to the top of another hill and can see the village water tower and top of the ski slope. Down the hill on the right is where George and Ida Osgood lived with their daughters, and then the barn where George kept the school bus he drove. Cross the inlet between the lakes, up and down another small hill and past the dam and the boat launch, and then you’re in the village. Even though we don’t have the house there any more, and Margaret’s old house where we spent so much time is gone, it’s still home. And I’m glad I got to go there, and to say goodbye to Leroy, and see long-time friends. For too short a time, I was home again.
.
The priest remarked that his predecessor had kept a book of all the parishioners and the events in their lives he tended to, and that when someone died he would write ‘change of residence’. Thinking on it, whatever you do or don’t believe in, that’s a pretty good way to describe the final move. Personally I’d like to think I’m just moving on to another new place, maybe seeing some old friends, and having some new adventures. And, there’s the whole Rainbow Bridge thing.
It was fitting that the funeral was on Memorial Day weekend; Leroy served in the U.S. Army during World War II earning the Asiatic-Pacific Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, American Defense Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal and the American Service Medal prior to his honorable discharge on Jan. 1, 1946. He was active in the American Legion and they gave him a 21-gun salute at the graveside service.
That I recall he wasn’t one to talk a lot about his military time, even with that impressive list of awards - he preferred to talk about hunting and fishing and family. Leroy, your final resting place is near my parents. I hope you find them in your ‘change of residence’ and that you’re telling stories about hunting and fishing and family together there. Where they lie is a near perfect spot, near enough the Cedar River to hear the water racing by, surrounded by trees, mountain views. There’s two more places in our family plot, I claim one.
Speaking of change of residence, it occurred to me as I was driving up Route 28 that on every trip to Indian Lake, somewhere past the top of the North River hill I get a feeling of coming home. There’s the place where if you look off to the left you can get a glimpse of Snow Mountain – when we were kids we’d vie to be the first one to call that we saw it. Then you get to the top of another hill and can see the village water tower and top of the ski slope. Down the hill on the right is where George and Ida Osgood lived with their daughters, and then the barn where George kept the school bus he drove. Cross the inlet between the lakes, up and down another small hill and past the dam and the boat launch, and then you’re in the village. Even though we don’t have the house there any more, and Margaret’s old house where we spent so much time is gone, it’s still home. And I’m glad I got to go there, and to say goodbye to Leroy, and see long-time friends. For too short a time, I was home again.
.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Happy Birthday, Stephen!
Today is my grandson’s 23rd birthday – how did that happen? It wasn’t all that long ago he was graduating, eager to try a new life in a new place and gone from our immediate lives. Just a short time before that I was going to football games and track meets to cheer him on. And that was only a little bit of time after teaching him to drive the stick shift pickup his mother got for him – yeah and that he rolled over into a corn field after getting forced off the road by a vehicle that drove away – heard all of that on the scanner and was getting up to get dressed because I was sure from the location who it was, when his mother called to say he was all right – she’d called the guys in the ambulance that responded to make sure. Shortly after that he moved into my house, and for the last couple of years of school it was my job to get him up in the mornings. He wasn’t an eager student, and when he graduated the truant officer told me ‘now I can take your number off my speed dial’. That, btw, carried over from his mother. Gee, it was just a little bit ago that he was twelve and consoling Mom over the breakup with a guy by saying ‘since I’m the man of the house now is it ok if I have one of those beers he left in the refrigerator?’ Not long before that he told me, upon hearing me talk about donating a kidney to a friend, and donating blood after 9/11 “Geez, Meema, you gotta stop doin’ that stuff!” “What stuff, Stephen?” “Well, givin’ away blood, givin’ away body parts – you gotta stop doin’ that!” PS, neither happened. Going to California with me in the truck – he has inherited my love of travel and seeing new places, what’s over the next mountain and around the next bend in the road. Anguish on that trip when his game boy got broken – we had to time the stop for the night so that we were close to a Walmart in Oklahome to get a new one, and then find another Walmart in NY when that one malfunctioned. So much more…. Scares like when he fell from we’re not sure how high up a tree in the yard when he was just past a toddler, and when he drank some medicine and ended up in the ER. And now he’s 23 and 2/3 of the country away. When he’s here there’s never enough time to visit a lot, and it’s not like the too few years when a visit to Meema meant renting 3 movies – one for him, one for me and one for us to watch together. He’ll be here again in July for his mother’s wedding, and there will be a few minutes to catch up, and then I get to get up early to take him to the airport again-how come I get all those early flights? Part of the job. Happy Birthday, Boo – love you lots.
For Dawn
My grandson’s birthday and the happiness of it also brings some sadness. He was born a year to the day after a dear friend was killed in a car accident. In the way that these things sometimes happen, I feel there’s a reason they share a day. Maybe some of her spirit lives on in him. She would have liked him. She’s no doubt one of several who have watched over him when it was needed, like when he rolled the pickup and fell out of the tree. She’s in many memories. This morning her sister posted in Facebook: “24 years later and I still can not find forgivness for you. I hope karma gets you! I remember and if I find you, You'll remember too.” I share some of that, but I think there’s been at least some karma. Goodbye again, Dawn – we will always miss you.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Mother’s Day 2011
Looking at past posts, I’ve said most of what I have to say about mothers, my own, and the mother’s my daughters have become. I’m waiting to become a great-grandmother for the 4th time any day now, and that’s a whole different thing for sure. Never thought when I was a granddaughter, or even a mother that would happen, but it has. So I’ll just repeat from the past couple of years: from 2009, about my mother: “She is honored just about every day in my memory, and I repeat what I said at her funeral: ‘Some people say ‘Oh, no, I’m becoming my mother’ – I say ‘I should be so lucky’.” Thanks, Mommy.”
And from 2010: “So, somehow, somewhere, sometime, I did something right. And I have to thank my girls for helping me be a mother to help them become what they did. I’m sorry for everything I did wrong and I’m glad we all got beyond it. And I’m proud that you became the great mothers you are. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day. “
Happy Mother’s Day to us all!
And from 2010: “So, somehow, somewhere, sometime, I did something right. And I have to thank my girls for helping me be a mother to help them become what they did. I’m sorry for everything I did wrong and I’m glad we all got beyond it. And I’m proud that you became the great mothers you are. I love you. Happy Mother’s Day. “
Happy Mother’s Day to us all!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Part 2: celebratingl
A friend’s Facebook post led me to a blog about the celebrating that followed the news of Osama’s killing. It was a good post with interesting references and reactions, I agreed with some, didn't with some. The writer was likening the celebrations to rioting in Boston after the Red Sox won the World Series some years ago. He cited a story by an NYC reporter who went to the WTC site to find scores of young people, he made it seem like all the people were college students and no doubt a majority were. The writer pointed out that these people were only 10 or 11 years old when the WTC attacks happened, and how much could they really grasp – yes, they were that young when the attacks happened, but they have lived with it ever since, and with the war(s) that have followed 9/11. They do have a grasp on the significance, since some of their family, friends, their generation are fighting those wars. And, being young and college students, most of them will celebrate anything. C’mon – even though you didn’t join the ‘rioting’ with the Red Sox win please don’t tell me you’ve never done a ‘wooo’ or the equivalent about something. Yes, I agree some of the participants were overboard. Yes, perhaps the WTC site should be considered above such actions, but to some, what better place? I would have preferred to go to the side street across from the site, laid my hand on the heart-breakingly touching brass plaque that commemorates the fallen firemen, police and emergency workers and told them that they have, in a way and to some extent, been avenged. Rather than a mob drinking and dancing, I prefer to have the image of the photo of firemen on their ladder truck, one with his arms raised in a victory pose, looking at the NYC building with the scrolling headline “Osama bin Ladin is dead” as my own mark of the event. But if theirs is waving a flag, or raising a beer – that is, after all, what America is about, the freedom to do things like this as we wish. That’s why we eliminated one symbol of a vastly different way of life.
Ding dong, the Witch is dead.........
“Ding dong, the Witch is dead.” This innocent phrase, originally penned as part of a song for the movie version of a children’s fantasy story, seems to have become a catch phrase for the killing of Osama bin Ladin. Someone actually sang it to me in the gas station yesterday morning. By now, of course, there are stories, replays, photos, in-depth reports, columns, blogs and more world wide about the event. I turned off the news last night as it was showing film footage that panned to a pool of blood, I didn’t even wait to find out if it was his or someone else’s. I’ve seen pools of blood, thanks anyway. There are understandable ranges of emotions in our country: jubilation, relief, pride, and yes, concern. We are entitled to all of them. We have eliminated the symbol of a dark day in our country, our history. We have prevailed over that face of evil. We have won a battle. We have not, unfortunately, won the war, and those who feel we have should reexamine their thoughts. Osama was one man. His followers are many. As one friend put it, and I can’t improve on this: “The thing to appreciate here is not so much the fact that the man is dead, but something or someone as bad or worse will fill in the void of his passing.
His flavor of evil has been discontinued, but that was just him. Like something from Ben and Jerry, a different flavor will fill the shelf space.
Nature abhors a vacuum.” (Ken Walker 5/2/11)
We should not relax our vigilance, indeed we should strengthen it. As long as there are different people on earth, there will be different. My Facebook post yesterday: “While I join all Americans in celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, I can't help but wonder what his fanatical followers might do now....................”
And in retrospect, celebrating is the wrong word to use here, and the wrong feeling to have. I did not ‘celebrate’. I felt pride that my country had found this one bad man, relief that this one particular threat has been eliminated. I also feel concern because I am convinced that his followers will retaliate and I am worried as to how. I watched the towers fall on television, saw the remains first hand and close up ( http://www.picturesandwordsbybarb.com/WTC.Story.pdf ).
We are now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hope and pray in whatever manner and to whatever entity you do that it does not happen, but be prepared that it will..
His flavor of evil has been discontinued, but that was just him. Like something from Ben and Jerry, a different flavor will fill the shelf space.
Nature abhors a vacuum.” (Ken Walker 5/2/11)
We should not relax our vigilance, indeed we should strengthen it. As long as there are different people on earth, there will be different. My Facebook post yesterday: “While I join all Americans in celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, I can't help but wonder what his fanatical followers might do now....................”
And in retrospect, celebrating is the wrong word to use here, and the wrong feeling to have. I did not ‘celebrate’. I felt pride that my country had found this one bad man, relief that this one particular threat has been eliminated. I also feel concern because I am convinced that his followers will retaliate and I am worried as to how. I watched the towers fall on television, saw the remains first hand and close up ( http://www.picturesandwordsbybarb.com/WTC.Story.pdf ).
We are now waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hope and pray in whatever manner and to whatever entity you do that it does not happen, but be prepared that it will..
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
What are they afraid of? Themselves.
I’ve been following posts on Facebook about a heartbreaking fire out in Ohio. It is labeled as not only arson but also a hate crime. Someone sprayed anti-gay phrases: ‘fags are freaks’ ‘burn in hell fag‘on a barn and set it on fire. There were eight horses in the barn, one a week-old foal, one a mare due to foal any day. When the owner saw the fire he tried to get into the barn to save his horses, his pets, his friends, but could not. They all died. The owner is understandably heartbroken, the neighborhood is in shock, and all are wondering who would do this and why.
One report mentioned that a group called Ohio FAIR was posting a %5000 reward towards finding the arsonist(s). I called them to see if I could donate (no, it’s that company’s reward but the guy I talked to is going to let me know if any other funds are started) and while talking about the fire I said ‘You wonder what people like that are afraid of to make them do something like that?’. He answered ‘themselves’.
Themselves. Because they don’t know how to accept, to deal with someone who is different and so their answer is to strike out, to hurt, to hide behind the dark of night. This, instead of finding out more about why this person is different, finding out that he might be a perfectly normal, acceptable person except for this one difference. This is where cowards and bullies come from, because this is a cowardly act, an ultimate bullying act.
People, individuals, schools, society that condones (and by not stopping it they are condoning) bullying all have encouraged acts such as this. There are many, we heard about this one, there are so many others that we do not hear of. All because one person is different, and others cannot accept that. People’s lives are lost because of this, at other’s hands and sadly at their own.
What are they afraid of? Themselves.
Don’t be afraid. Learn. Accept. You don’t have to like them, you don’t have to agree with them. You just have to accept that some people are not like you and accept that. You go your way, they go theirs. Meanwhile, we can try to teach, to show that their fears are unfounded, to help prevent. If it works just one time, we’ve accomplished something.
PS, I did mention to the guy at FAIR that I’d like about 10 minutes in a small room with the person(s) who did this, just me and my tire stick, to educate them. No, that’s not what I mean by teach, but damn it would feel good.
One report mentioned that a group called Ohio FAIR was posting a %5000 reward towards finding the arsonist(s). I called them to see if I could donate (no, it’s that company’s reward but the guy I talked to is going to let me know if any other funds are started) and while talking about the fire I said ‘You wonder what people like that are afraid of to make them do something like that?’. He answered ‘themselves’.
Themselves. Because they don’t know how to accept, to deal with someone who is different and so their answer is to strike out, to hurt, to hide behind the dark of night. This, instead of finding out more about why this person is different, finding out that he might be a perfectly normal, acceptable person except for this one difference. This is where cowards and bullies come from, because this is a cowardly act, an ultimate bullying act.
People, individuals, schools, society that condones (and by not stopping it they are condoning) bullying all have encouraged acts such as this. There are many, we heard about this one, there are so many others that we do not hear of. All because one person is different, and others cannot accept that. People’s lives are lost because of this, at other’s hands and sadly at their own.
What are they afraid of? Themselves.
Don’t be afraid. Learn. Accept. You don’t have to like them, you don’t have to agree with them. You just have to accept that some people are not like you and accept that. You go your way, they go theirs. Meanwhile, we can try to teach, to show that their fears are unfounded, to help prevent. If it works just one time, we’ve accomplished something.
PS, I did mention to the guy at FAIR that I’d like about 10 minutes in a small room with the person(s) who did this, just me and my tire stick, to educate them. No, that’s not what I mean by teach, but damn it would feel good.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Easter memories……..
Waiting for it to be time to go meet Lynne for Easter brunch at Lippera’s, yummy – and thinking of Easter in years past . . . . .
Hunting for Easter candy – my parents would hide candies all through the house – never outdoors that I remember, and never eggs, again that I remember, don’t know why. My sister and I would run from place to place: under sofa cushions, behind books, behind and under knickknacks – sometimes very easy, like next to the banisters on the stairs, sometimes harder, but we would run around like – well, like little kids – until we found all the candy. Then we’d compare who found the most. And of course, eat some.
The aunts would take us to church, and we probably had new spring outfits for that, although I cannot remember details of a single one. (Imagine me not remembering an outfit!)
There would be a family dinner, usually at the Big House, which was where my father and his siblings had grown up and his oldest sister still lived. As with all family dinners, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins – and food - one dinner I still remember was traditional Italian, with a pasta course that was enough for two dinners, then the full ham dinner, then salad, then desserts.
Since my sister’s birthday is in April sometimes they came on the same day and we would celebrate both.
When the kids were small we would go to my parents and they hid eggs for them – one year Stephanie came running in to the kitchen to tell the adults: “Sara just sat on one of Penny’s eggs and it was her most colorfable one!”
I hid candies for Sara, but it’s not as much fun with just one. Then I did for Stephen, up until he was maybe 13 or so – I think the last time was one year my sister and niece came over for dinner, and I hid things outside, since it was a nice day – Stephen and Rachel hunted, more to humor the adults than to find candies for themselves.
My sister did it for a few years for the younger kids, but they’re all pretty past it now, another ritual left behind.
When Stephen was small he would come over and we’d dye eggs together. I did some the other night, because it’s Easter and you have to have colored eggs; gave some to Sara in the basket I took there yesterday and I’ll eventually eat the rest myself, had one for breakfast.
Another day to reflect on the meaning of it, and maybe that’s why I dreamed about both of my parents last night.
Celebrate it however you do.
Happy Easter – renew, revive, reaffirm, rejoice
Hunting for Easter candy – my parents would hide candies all through the house – never outdoors that I remember, and never eggs, again that I remember, don’t know why. My sister and I would run from place to place: under sofa cushions, behind books, behind and under knickknacks – sometimes very easy, like next to the banisters on the stairs, sometimes harder, but we would run around like – well, like little kids – until we found all the candy. Then we’d compare who found the most. And of course, eat some.
The aunts would take us to church, and we probably had new spring outfits for that, although I cannot remember details of a single one. (Imagine me not remembering an outfit!)
There would be a family dinner, usually at the Big House, which was where my father and his siblings had grown up and his oldest sister still lived. As with all family dinners, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins – and food - one dinner I still remember was traditional Italian, with a pasta course that was enough for two dinners, then the full ham dinner, then salad, then desserts.
Since my sister’s birthday is in April sometimes they came on the same day and we would celebrate both.
When the kids were small we would go to my parents and they hid eggs for them – one year Stephanie came running in to the kitchen to tell the adults: “Sara just sat on one of Penny’s eggs and it was her most colorfable one!”
I hid candies for Sara, but it’s not as much fun with just one. Then I did for Stephen, up until he was maybe 13 or so – I think the last time was one year my sister and niece came over for dinner, and I hid things outside, since it was a nice day – Stephen and Rachel hunted, more to humor the adults than to find candies for themselves.
My sister did it for a few years for the younger kids, but they’re all pretty past it now, another ritual left behind.
When Stephen was small he would come over and we’d dye eggs together. I did some the other night, because it’s Easter and you have to have colored eggs; gave some to Sara in the basket I took there yesterday and I’ll eventually eat the rest myself, had one for breakfast.
Another day to reflect on the meaning of it, and maybe that’s why I dreamed about both of my parents last night.
Celebrate it however you do.
Happy Easter – renew, revive, reaffirm, rejoice
Saturday, April 23, 2011
....love brings you a fairy tale ....
I went to my daughter’s today to deliver Easter things – a Winnie The Pooh with Tigger prominent gift bag with trinkets, colored eggs, candy for all, and a candle for her. The candle’s kind of a ‘for you’ gift, but Easter seemed as good a time as any to give it. It’s more holder than candle, square with a tea light inset on top, and in nice lettering it says: “Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life…love brings you a fairy tale.” Reaction: “I LOVE that candle!! I saw it and thought about getting it but never did.. Thank you meema!!!!!! (Love Meema too!)”
She’s getting married in a couple of months. Yes, this is the same daughter who for years shared my philosophy (in fact she coined the phrase) “Men are fine as long as they know what ‘thank you-get out’ means”. Yeah, I’m not big on ‘relationships’ any more. Neither was she, for a long time. It took Geoff a long time to talk her in to getting married. Then he was the one who ‘strayed’. She’s had a couple of guys over the 13 years since he left, but nothing stuck. There was one who several of us thought might eventually become a contender, but before that happened, along came her fairy tale. Every now and then she’d talk about different ones of her neighbors in the trailer park she lived in, a couple across the street with two little girls no more or less than any others. Then she mentioned that the neighbor’s wife left them. Then she was going to the neighbor’s now and then for a beer. Nothing unforeseen in that. Then the neighbor bought a house and she was helping him move. Nothing unforeseen in that either, we’re like that. Then, in the middle of the move, the neighbor turned to his daughters and said ‘Sara’s my girlfriend now’ – to which she said ‘Did ya want to tell Sara about that?’ And then she was moved in, and then came to my house one day and said ‘I figured I better tell you before you hear it on the street somewhere’ and held out her left hand with a diamond on it. Who’d’a thunk?! So they’re getting married July 9. She says he treats her better than any man ever has, and you can’t ask for more than that for your daughter. They seem to need each other. Their fairy tale is giving them a chance to live happily ever after.
She’s getting married in a couple of months. Yes, this is the same daughter who for years shared my philosophy (in fact she coined the phrase) “Men are fine as long as they know what ‘thank you-get out’ means”. Yeah, I’m not big on ‘relationships’ any more. Neither was she, for a long time. It took Geoff a long time to talk her in to getting married. Then he was the one who ‘strayed’. She’s had a couple of guys over the 13 years since he left, but nothing stuck. There was one who several of us thought might eventually become a contender, but before that happened, along came her fairy tale. Every now and then she’d talk about different ones of her neighbors in the trailer park she lived in, a couple across the street with two little girls no more or less than any others. Then she mentioned that the neighbor’s wife left them. Then she was going to the neighbor’s now and then for a beer. Nothing unforeseen in that. Then the neighbor bought a house and she was helping him move. Nothing unforeseen in that either, we’re like that. Then, in the middle of the move, the neighbor turned to his daughters and said ‘Sara’s my girlfriend now’ – to which she said ‘Did ya want to tell Sara about that?’ And then she was moved in, and then came to my house one day and said ‘I figured I better tell you before you hear it on the street somewhere’ and held out her left hand with a diamond on it. Who’d’a thunk?! So they’re getting married July 9. She says he treats her better than any man ever has, and you can’t ask for more than that for your daughter. They seem to need each other. Their fairy tale is giving them a chance to live happily ever after.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A Great Smoking Debate
Yesterday my friend Kelly down in NC posted a news item about a sad, sad event in which a trailer with nine thoroughbred horses traveling on I-95 caught fire, none of the horses were saved. The article noted "Troopers said a discarded cigarette from a passing vehicle likely flew into one of the partially open stalls, setting fire to the hay, troopers said."
Well, that set off a storm of responses that led to a great smoking debate, and of course because I don't know to keep my mouth - or keyboard - shut, got into the thick of it. Some of the postings are below, there were some others in between.
Right now I'm trying to find out if she's all right, as she lives in the path of the storms that went through yesterday.
Kelly's first post: how aweful!!! Smokers DO NOT discard your cigarettes out the window when driving down the road! Someone did just that last nite and inadvertantly killed 6 thoroughbred on I95!!!!
Billy: For years I've smoked, and if I want to smoke in my car I will, let the horses fend for themselves. They shouldn't have been driving anyway
Plus people who put out butts in their car are more likely to set the inside of the car on fire then people who toss them out are likely to start a fire period. So would you rather the 1 in a million chance that my cigarette flying out the window will start a fire, or the one in a hundred chance that I light up the inside of my car like a little piece of hell on wheels, and go flying 90mph at other cars?
Kelly: your the smoker so let it be your car that catches fire, and your insurance to pay the additional damages. and I think your #'s are a little backwards, your more apt to start a fire outside your car then in.
Me: I doubt it's a 1 in a million chance, many wild fires are started by tossed cigarettes. Kelly what's the full story on this? Think the key words here are 'put the cigarette out'-the smoker is more apt to actually put it out if discarding in the car, as opposed to just tossing the still lit butt out the window. And why should other people have to deal with your noxious litter? It's yours, keep it yours. I don't drop my toilet paper on your lawn.
Me: That is truly terrible! And to your smoker friend I say, suppose it had fallen into the open window of another car, and killed a family, that would be their fault for driving next to you, I suppose? Smokers are by and large incredibly thoughtless, I have observed, as long as they can indulge themselves they don't care about results - and I realize not all are, but so many that I lump them all together. This is just too sad.
Me: Yeah, there are documented cases of grass/brush/wild fires being tracked back to a cigarette as the point of origin. In this particular case the point of origin is uncertain, although it is probably a better guess that it might have been a... cigarette from a vehicle, than oh, say perhaps the horse playing with a Bic. But yes, there are cases of cigarettes thrown from moving vehicles starting fires in the grass along the road, I have seen it myowndamnself. When the big red trucks with the flashing lights are in front of your house and the guys in the funny coats are putting the wet stuff on the red stuff, I hope you can still say you can throw a cigarette butt into the grass out back with no flaming results.
Billy: lol, prove it, show me a documented case of a cigarette butt being 100% certain the cause of a roadside fire. it's always speculation, and usually proven to be false. you're like one of those people who think it's bad to smoke around gasoline, even though it is impossible to ignite it with a cigarette
Me: Well, Bill, few things in the world are 100% certain, but when investigators find the filter of a cigarette at the point of origin of a fire, it's a high percentage indication that's the cause. As far as what I believe, don't ass-u-me - I do indeed know several things about cigarettes and fires, one of them being that it is not the gasoline that burns, it is the fumes that ignite, and do not actually burn, they explode, causing things in close proximity to burn. I am glad that you have so far not had bad experiences caused by your somewhat daring attitude towards cigarettes and fire origins, and hope that continues, for both your sake and that of others around you who would be affected if at some time your beliefs are proved wrong.
Peter: "Kelly, I have read the story and although very tragic indeed, it does say likely and not that it's positively from some other driver. For all anybody knows, it could be the driver of the the truck himself OR MAYBE even the guy in back FELL ASLEEP with a cigarette. Yes, I still smoke, and can I say i've never flicked one out the window of a car, absolutely not. Can I say that I have not for years and don't now, ABSOLUTELY. I remember that you used to smoke and if you tell me that you've never flicked one out the window of a car, i'd have a very hard time believing that. Sorry, but just how it is. And to your friend that realizes that all smokers are not alike that but STILL lumps them all together I say, I live by the beach now and when i walk on the beach I DO constantly pick up other peoples butts on the beach as they take many years to bio-degrade. Can you say that you clean them up when you see them? I highly doubt it. But then you'll tell me you're not going to clean up after anybody who smokes. Non-smokers put themselves on such a high pedestal I sometimes just find it so hard to believe. you act like just because they smoke, it gives you the right to classify them in any way you wish. Even if you've never smoked in your life, i'm sure there is some kind of dirt that could be dug up on you too. Everybody has some somewhere. It's just that it's easier for you to do because smoking is not something that's hid for no-one to see. I say, just be glad that ember hit your face and not the bedding or you wouldn't be here today to trash people who smoke that you don't even know. Sorry for the rant but some things on here are very hard NOT to respond to."
Me: Geez, Kelly, I bet you didn’t know you were going to start a whole debate! Peter, you are an exception. Sure, there’s ‘dirt’ that can be dug up on me, some of it being that I don’t always pick up other people’s litter such as butts on the beach (ps I hope you wear gloves or cover your hands somehow when you do that). And I for sure don’t belong on a pedestal. However, after a lifetime of being around smokers, some of the thoughtless things I and probably many other non-smokers have been subject to (without getting in to the whole second hand smoke thing, and some before the new laws abolished smoking indoors in so many places) include: moving the ashtray so that the smoke from the cigarette isn’t floating into their face – but it is going right into mine; always having to sit in the smoking section to sit in non-smoking; lighting up when they are done eating whether others are or not; having my clothes, hair, self smelling like used ashtrays, having smoke bother my eyes; now smokers have to do it, standing one step away from the door, so that I have to walk around them to get inside; putting out smoldering butts dropped where they might start a fire; putting out fires in ash trays and butt cans and on the ground caused by smoldering butts ….. and so on. Yes, these are little things that could be called petty, but not to the person constantly putting up with them. Turn around the irritation you might feel about the fact that now you can’t smoke every place you’d like to, maybe. And maybe you never do any of these or other annoying things with your cigarettes/smoking, and yes there are no doubt other smokers who don’t or didn’t do these things, but these are things that some if not most/all of the rest of us have dealt with.
Tossing still lit butts out the car windows, whether done by a passerby or the people in the truck in this instance (although what difference that makes, I’m not sure, the result was sadly the same) does cause fires, which lead to loss of property and more – if it’s a lucky case just some grass and trees lost, but all too often it’s people’s homes, and even lives. Firefighters put their lives on the line every day to extinguish fires caused by careless smoking. You are an exception if you always police your own butts, but the reason smokers get lumped together is the same as any other group taking the heat for the way the majority of them are – the majority of smokers are not the way you are.
Sorry Kelly – and I still think it’s sadder than sad that the horses were lost due to someone’s carelessness and not caring.
Well, that set off a storm of responses that led to a great smoking debate, and of course because I don't know to keep my mouth - or keyboard - shut, got into the thick of it. Some of the postings are below, there were some others in between.
Right now I'm trying to find out if she's all right, as she lives in the path of the storms that went through yesterday.
Kelly's first post: how aweful!!! Smokers DO NOT discard your cigarettes out the window when driving down the road! Someone did just that last nite and inadvertantly killed 6 thoroughbred on I95!!!!
Billy: For years I've smoked, and if I want to smoke in my car I will, let the horses fend for themselves. They shouldn't have been driving anyway
Plus people who put out butts in their car are more likely to set the inside of the car on fire then people who toss them out are likely to start a fire period. So would you rather the 1 in a million chance that my cigarette flying out the window will start a fire, or the one in a hundred chance that I light up the inside of my car like a little piece of hell on wheels, and go flying 90mph at other cars?
Kelly: your the smoker so let it be your car that catches fire, and your insurance to pay the additional damages. and I think your #'s are a little backwards, your more apt to start a fire outside your car then in.
Me: I doubt it's a 1 in a million chance, many wild fires are started by tossed cigarettes. Kelly what's the full story on this? Think the key words here are 'put the cigarette out'-the smoker is more apt to actually put it out if discarding in the car, as opposed to just tossing the still lit butt out the window. And why should other people have to deal with your noxious litter? It's yours, keep it yours. I don't drop my toilet paper on your lawn.
Me: That is truly terrible! And to your smoker friend I say, suppose it had fallen into the open window of another car, and killed a family, that would be their fault for driving next to you, I suppose? Smokers are by and large incredibly thoughtless, I have observed, as long as they can indulge themselves they don't care about results - and I realize not all are, but so many that I lump them all together. This is just too sad.
Me: Yeah, there are documented cases of grass/brush/wild fires being tracked back to a cigarette as the point of origin. In this particular case the point of origin is uncertain, although it is probably a better guess that it might have been a... cigarette from a vehicle, than oh, say perhaps the horse playing with a Bic. But yes, there are cases of cigarettes thrown from moving vehicles starting fires in the grass along the road, I have seen it myowndamnself. When the big red trucks with the flashing lights are in front of your house and the guys in the funny coats are putting the wet stuff on the red stuff, I hope you can still say you can throw a cigarette butt into the grass out back with no flaming results.
Billy: lol, prove it, show me a documented case of a cigarette butt being 100% certain the cause of a roadside fire. it's always speculation, and usually proven to be false. you're like one of those people who think it's bad to smoke around gasoline, even though it is impossible to ignite it with a cigarette
Me: Well, Bill, few things in the world are 100% certain, but when investigators find the filter of a cigarette at the point of origin of a fire, it's a high percentage indication that's the cause. As far as what I believe, don't ass-u-me - I do indeed know several things about cigarettes and fires, one of them being that it is not the gasoline that burns, it is the fumes that ignite, and do not actually burn, they explode, causing things in close proximity to burn. I am glad that you have so far not had bad experiences caused by your somewhat daring attitude towards cigarettes and fire origins, and hope that continues, for both your sake and that of others around you who would be affected if at some time your beliefs are proved wrong.
Peter: "Kelly, I have read the story and although very tragic indeed, it does say likely and not that it's positively from some other driver. For all anybody knows, it could be the driver of the the truck himself OR MAYBE even the guy in back FELL ASLEEP with a cigarette. Yes, I still smoke, and can I say i've never flicked one out the window of a car, absolutely not. Can I say that I have not for years and don't now, ABSOLUTELY. I remember that you used to smoke and if you tell me that you've never flicked one out the window of a car, i'd have a very hard time believing that. Sorry, but just how it is. And to your friend that realizes that all smokers are not alike that but STILL lumps them all together I say, I live by the beach now and when i walk on the beach I DO constantly pick up other peoples butts on the beach as they take many years to bio-degrade. Can you say that you clean them up when you see them? I highly doubt it. But then you'll tell me you're not going to clean up after anybody who smokes. Non-smokers put themselves on such a high pedestal I sometimes just find it so hard to believe. you act like just because they smoke, it gives you the right to classify them in any way you wish. Even if you've never smoked in your life, i'm sure there is some kind of dirt that could be dug up on you too. Everybody has some somewhere. It's just that it's easier for you to do because smoking is not something that's hid for no-one to see. I say, just be glad that ember hit your face and not the bedding or you wouldn't be here today to trash people who smoke that you don't even know. Sorry for the rant but some things on here are very hard NOT to respond to."
Me: Geez, Kelly, I bet you didn’t know you were going to start a whole debate! Peter, you are an exception. Sure, there’s ‘dirt’ that can be dug up on me, some of it being that I don’t always pick up other people’s litter such as butts on the beach (ps I hope you wear gloves or cover your hands somehow when you do that). And I for sure don’t belong on a pedestal. However, after a lifetime of being around smokers, some of the thoughtless things I and probably many other non-smokers have been subject to (without getting in to the whole second hand smoke thing, and some before the new laws abolished smoking indoors in so many places) include: moving the ashtray so that the smoke from the cigarette isn’t floating into their face – but it is going right into mine; always having to sit in the smoking section to sit in non-smoking; lighting up when they are done eating whether others are or not; having my clothes, hair, self smelling like used ashtrays, having smoke bother my eyes; now smokers have to do it, standing one step away from the door, so that I have to walk around them to get inside; putting out smoldering butts dropped where they might start a fire; putting out fires in ash trays and butt cans and on the ground caused by smoldering butts ….. and so on. Yes, these are little things that could be called petty, but not to the person constantly putting up with them. Turn around the irritation you might feel about the fact that now you can’t smoke every place you’d like to, maybe. And maybe you never do any of these or other annoying things with your cigarettes/smoking, and yes there are no doubt other smokers who don’t or didn’t do these things, but these are things that some if not most/all of the rest of us have dealt with.
Tossing still lit butts out the car windows, whether done by a passerby or the people in the truck in this instance (although what difference that makes, I’m not sure, the result was sadly the same) does cause fires, which lead to loss of property and more – if it’s a lucky case just some grass and trees lost, but all too often it’s people’s homes, and even lives. Firefighters put their lives on the line every day to extinguish fires caused by careless smoking. You are an exception if you always police your own butts, but the reason smokers get lumped together is the same as any other group taking the heat for the way the majority of them are – the majority of smokers are not the way you are.
Sorry Kelly – and I still think it’s sadder than sad that the horses were lost due to someone’s carelessness and not caring.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Spring
Today it’s more spring like – more ‘seasonal’ – go figure. Spring always signaled many changes –for one thing, we could start leaving the cows out during the day, although if it was wet we didn’t want them in the pasture because their hooves would slide and pull up the grass by the roots and that was a bad thing. Getting the machinery ready for plowing, planting, and so on. April is too early for planting, but not for planning. Which field to put the corn in this year, should we switch from hay to corn or the other way around? Hoping for good weather to dry the fields, hoping the hay lasted until the cows could go out and graze full time. My mother would start planning her garden and ordering seeds. We’d have our semi-annual ‘trying on party’, which involved getting the new season clothes out and seeing what still fit, or in my case, if I grew into any of my sister’s hand-me-downs – usually that took several years. And sometimes I hoped it would never happen, she wore ‘girlier’ clothes than I did. I was happy with jeans and shirts, there’s a photo somewhere of me with jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and a piece of rope for a belt, hugging one of my horses. Teasing warm days and then back to cold again. Waiting to hear the ‘peepers’, that’s the first sure sign of spring. I’ve got a lot of branches to pick up, a few downed trees to spend quality chain saw time with. Bulbs to plant, and the seeds I got the other day. But, it’s spring, and for today, we’ll take that.
Friday, April 1, 2011
April Fool Snow
April Fool, it’s snowing! Although it appears it will be only a couple of inches instead of the foot that was being predicted before the track of the storm changed, it’s still snowing. Most are saying enough, already, after a snowier winter than we’ve had in a long time. Again I say: this is what winter used to be. When it melted in March I said we will probably have at least one more storm. I remember April and even May snow storms. In the 1970’s, was still living over by my folk’s house, there was one that dumped several inches of heavy wet snow, I remember a big limb broke off one of the maple trees in front of their house, and if memory serves it almost landed on my father’s car. About 10 years ago, I had just moved all my daffodils so that the workers could get the heavy equipment in to make a new septic field, and the next night it snowed about 10 inches, I said the poor daffodils were probably saying ‘what the hey, here?!’ And in 2002 we were rehearsing ‘The Sound of Music’ and it snowed; I was writing an email to Monica who was on tour at the time and said ‘WTF-it’s Snowing – May 18 and it’s SNOWING!’ Someone made little Trapp Family snowmen on the picnic table that hadn’t been moved off the terrace yet. So, April Fool on us, winter isn’t ready to leave us alone yet. The good side, with temps in the 40 and 50’s predicted, it won’t be around long.
The daffodils and crocus are poking up, no blooms yet but they’re coming along, the iris and day lilies are coming up. I got a planting tray and seeds yesterday and may even get enough ambition to plant and then replant some flowers, we’ll see.
Here’s what I think, we can’t fight Mother Nature, so make the best of it. All that snow was good for the ground and good for the water table – with apologies to those who got too much water table and had flooded basements or worse.
Think the real thing Spring!
The daffodils and crocus are poking up, no blooms yet but they’re coming along, the iris and day lilies are coming up. I got a planting tray and seeds yesterday and may even get enough ambition to plant and then replant some flowers, we’ll see.
Here’s what I think, we can’t fight Mother Nature, so make the best of it. All that snow was good for the ground and good for the water table – with apologies to those who got too much water table and had flooded basements or worse.
Think the real thing Spring!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Valentine’s Day
The radio station I listen to had a big party Friday night: the ‘I Did, I’d do It Again’ for couples to renew their wedding vows. It was sold out. That’s a great statement for marriage, romance, and so on, but, as I asked one of the personalities who were the hosts, what about the rest of us? “So, if there's a big 'I Did, I'll Do It Again' party to renew the wedding vows, why isn't there a party for those of us who 'Did But Ain't Never Gonna do THAT Again!'? Just wondering.”
Remember in school (well, maybe they don’t do it any more, but we did when I was in grade school in the 1950’s) the valentine parties? Cupcakes with pink frosting and red sprinkles. A box with valentines for everyone in the class, and you had to give to everyone, because it wasn’t ‘nice’ to leave anyone out. Nicer cards for the people you liked, of course. I don’t remember for sure what grade, 2nd or 3rd probably because the parties didn’t go on in much higher grades than that, anyway, yeah, I was the kid who didn’t get any./ None. Zip, nada, not a card. I was upset, and probably cried, although I don’t remember for sure. The teacher and I think one or two kids went looking, and lo and behold, they found a whole stack of cards for me, sitting near where the box had been. I don’t remember if the box was set out for us all to put our cards into, or if we gave the cards to someone to put into it and then it appeared. I just know mine didn’t make it. Never felt the same about Valentine’s Day since.
I mean, it’s a nice thought and all, make your special someone feel even more special, but again, what about those of us who don’t have someone? Give us a day, too!
My Facebook post this morning: “To those saying 'To celebrate Valentines Day, change your profile picture to you and your spouse/significant other. Re-post, and make sure to tell how long you've been together.' - my profile picture already is me and one of my three significant others - we've been together since Camp Katrina, October, 2005.” My profile picture is me holding Streetcar.
Is it lame/sad/whatever that my significant others are three cats? With my record with human ones, I don’t think so, and that’s where we’ll leave that.
Anyway, holiday made up by the card/candy/flower companies or not, to everyone who does have a significant other make sure you do something special for them, with them, and enjoy them as much as you can.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all those I love!
Remember in school (well, maybe they don’t do it any more, but we did when I was in grade school in the 1950’s) the valentine parties? Cupcakes with pink frosting and red sprinkles. A box with valentines for everyone in the class, and you had to give to everyone, because it wasn’t ‘nice’ to leave anyone out. Nicer cards for the people you liked, of course. I don’t remember for sure what grade, 2nd or 3rd probably because the parties didn’t go on in much higher grades than that, anyway, yeah, I was the kid who didn’t get any./ None. Zip, nada, not a card. I was upset, and probably cried, although I don’t remember for sure. The teacher and I think one or two kids went looking, and lo and behold, they found a whole stack of cards for me, sitting near where the box had been. I don’t remember if the box was set out for us all to put our cards into, or if we gave the cards to someone to put into it and then it appeared. I just know mine didn’t make it. Never felt the same about Valentine’s Day since.
I mean, it’s a nice thought and all, make your special someone feel even more special, but again, what about those of us who don’t have someone? Give us a day, too!
My Facebook post this morning: “To those saying 'To celebrate Valentines Day, change your profile picture to you and your spouse/significant other. Re-post, and make sure to tell how long you've been together.' - my profile picture already is me and one of my three significant others - we've been together since Camp Katrina, October, 2005.” My profile picture is me holding Streetcar.
Is it lame/sad/whatever that my significant others are three cats? With my record with human ones, I don’t think so, and that’s where we’ll leave that.
Anyway, holiday made up by the card/candy/flower companies or not, to everyone who does have a significant other make sure you do something special for them, with them, and enjoy them as much as you can.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all those I love!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Guns
A friend posted on facebook: To everyone who is calling for stricter gun laws in light of the tragedy in Tucson, may I offer this little tidbit: If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons made Oprah fat! Remember: Hold the person accountable for their actions, not the means they chose to utilize!!!
My reply: Not to start a debate, and I'm not against guns, but: in our area a 12 y.o. boy shot his best friend-playing with dad's pistol; in MA the trial just ended for a gun show operator where an 8 y.o. shot himself-with an Uzi. Virginia Tech, how many more? No, the guns don't do it by themselves, but holding the person responsible after the deaths doesn't seem to be helping. Won't bring them back. Why does the average person need an Uzi, anyway? Know I won't be popular, but I do think there needs to be better way to attempt control - what we have now isn't working like it should. Too many people needlessly die at the hands of those who should not have the means to make it happen.
My reply: Not to start a debate, and I'm not against guns, but: in our area a 12 y.o. boy shot his best friend-playing with dad's pistol; in MA the trial just ended for a gun show operator where an 8 y.o. shot himself-with an Uzi. Virginia Tech, how many more? No, the guns don't do it by themselves, but holding the person responsible after the deaths doesn't seem to be helping. Won't bring them back. Why does the average person need an Uzi, anyway? Know I won't be popular, but I do think there needs to be better way to attempt control - what we have now isn't working like it should. Too many people needlessly die at the hands of those who should not have the means to make it happen.
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