The Soapbox Papers

Islands in Stormy Waters

2009-02-22T13:31:00.005-05:00

It seems we are all floundering in stormy seas these days. So much of what we are used to is in jeopardy: our jobs, our homes, the well being of family and friends. Even if each of us individually is not doing too badly, each of us has a friend or two, or family members who are having a tough time. We're hearing all the bad stories - in the news or word of mouth - but this is a good story. And the best part about it is that it is true.

The day before yesterday I left my doctor's office feeling really rotten --feeling worse, in fact, than when I got there. I'd just had it confirmed (second doctor's opinion, this one a specialist) that for the rest of my life (!) I am on a special diet, paraphrased to "If it goes in your mouth and tastes good - spit it out!" and - on top of all that, I need to quit smoking (six well planned attempts so far this year - none lasting more than three days) and eat a small haystack of fiber every day. Ack.

Knowing I would probably be feeling this way when I left the doctor's office, I packed my camera. I decided I would just drive (so far I am still allowed to do that!) until I found a pond or other interesting place where I could just relax and look for pictures to take. No more than a previously unexplored mile from the doctor's office I found a small pond that begged (with an open handicapped parking place!) for me to stop and do just that. The sun was positively in the wrong place, I grumbled to myself, but there were ducks, a small blue heron and - way out about 30 feet - a huge turtle on a rock sunning himself. I started shooting at the turtle, trying all sorts of settings, and glanced up to see a man walking my way on the sidewalk that goes around the little pond. He was wearing a headset and smiling - at me! He had one of those smiles that required a return smile - and as he approached I asked where in the world I knew him from. He told me I didn't - he'd just gotten out of prison where he'd spent the last 15 years. He asked, "Are you going to take a picture of me?"

There are a lot of people who prefer not to be photographed around here, so I explained that I was trying to get a shot of the turtle, but would he mind if I took a shot of him? His smile grew wider and he told me, "Shoot away!" and stooped down with his bag. So I did - and thanked him, told him he had a great smile.

"I'm happy. I guess I'm just - blessed," he said. I asked him what made him feel he was blessed, and he told me he'd gotten a job - a good job. Well, I told him, in these times it is certainly a blessing to have a job at all, much less a good one. He said, "If you knew how I got this job, you'd know just what a blessing it is!" and - he told me.

It wasn't long ago he got up and took the bus to one of the industrial sections of town. He'd asked another bus rider if this was the right bus to get to a certain address he'd seen in the paper and was told it was - but it wasn't. Still, he saw a sign from the bus window that said 'Hiring Today' and got off the bus to apply. After filling out the application the person taking information asked for his driver's license. Well, he didn't have one, he told her, and said he was going to be getting one soon. He left and was feeling a bit low. Wrong bus, no driver's license - and - he was in a suit and tie - it was getting hot out, too. He sat down to clear his head for a few minutes and a truck pulled up close to him. The driver asked him if he was lost. He answered that he was looking for a job. The man in the truck asked him what sort of work he was looking for. He told the man (forgive me, I forgot!) and the guy told him to go across the street and ask for a man named Charlie. If Charlie had nothing for him, he should go up the stairs and apply for work up there.

He smiled wider as he continued, "So I went across the street and found Charlie, and he told me he didn't have any work today - but maybe try again next week. Then I went up the stairs as the man in the truck told me." He asked the receptionist for a job application, and she cheerfully gave him one. He told her a man in a truck had sent him there. The receptionist replied that she knew that - that the man in the truck owned the company. She was told, she said, to take his application and find him a place to fit in the company.

It was at about that time the man in the truck - the owner! - came in and introduced himself. He looked over the application and asked what he'd been doing that there was no previous employment listed. The young man told him he'd just gotten out of prison and he hoped that wouldn't be a problem. But the owner of the company was impressed by this man, showing up early early in the morning in his suit and tie looking for work. He gave him a job.

He's been there a while - even doing a little overtime this week - but the wonder of it all - being on the wrong bus, getting off at a random place because there was a hiring sign, being seen by this man and appreciated enough to be hired for a good position if he followed the man's direction - still amazes him, still reminds him he has value and worth, and is blessed - that wonder still has not left him.

It was at this point that he introduced himself. His name is Willie. I think of him as Will, because he is a grown man and deserves a grown man's name. He is a year and some months older than my youngest kid.

Will went on to tell me that he lives over there, gesturing to some small apartment buildings across the street. He told me all his people were in Texas, but that his church has helped him get started. They gave him furniture, a brand new set of pots and pans. They even gave him a television (emphasis is his) and a cell phone, though he is still trying to figure out how to use that.

He told me about his mother, how she would not visit him in prison because she wasn't the sort to subject herself to searches and other indignities, even for him, but she wrote to him consistently. He said she passed away about two weeks after he was released, but he knew she was still with him, maybe whispering in the truck driver's ear, "This is my son. He's a good man."

Will said he really wasn't good with people, having spent so much time alone. I assured he was. He said it is hard for him to talk to people he doesn't know. I said, " No, it's not. You just did! You have to have a bit of confidence in that!"

Will said something about not being good with ladies (I, being old, knew what he meant, that he really meant young ladies!) and I reminded him that he does have a great smile, and that should help him there. He said that there is this lady at church...But as much as he wants someone special in his life, he knows he isn't quite ready yet.

He mentioned why he'd been in prison - something about taking something from a store. I don't think he was alone in that caper, and the length of his time in prison makes me think someone in that group may have had a weapon. I didn't ask. It didn't really matter to me. What lesson there was to be learned, Will seems to have learned it. I am quite good at seeing through BS, and there was none to see through with Will.

We walked back to my car, still talking about this and that, and he thanked me for our conversation. I thanked him for the same. I am going to have my photos of him printed and maybe I'll see him another day at that pond as he walks home from work. I'd like to see him again to see how he is doing. He's on his way up from down, and I can't imagine him not reaching all his goals.

I thought about this encounter a lot since it happened. It turned my day around, yes. But something more. There are still blessings to be had out there, and all it takes is the ability to recognize them - because if you recognize them for what they are, you appreciate them. They can't happen unless you appreciate them. You may have "good luck" or things might just "fall into place" - but to be blessed, as Will knows he is, it takes that acknowledgement and appreciation.

Aren't You Incensed?

2009-02-04T07:30:00.004-05:00

Apparently I didn't howl loudly enough! When I read the AP report on visa applications, bank bailouts and layoffs here, I was livid. I sent the information to people I expected to be as upset as I, and I posted it in Facebook. No one commented, no one reacted at all, and I wavered a bit, thinking maybe it isn't such a big deal. But it is a big deal. Plain and simple, taxpayers bail out the banks and the banks hire people from the world employment pool, not the national. It is clearly a money issue, and one of the reasons you will find highly degreed people, some, no doubt, repaying student loans, flipping burgers at fast food places. Aren't you incensed? I am.

Some people call it outsourcing when customer service jobs are shipped off to India or other foreign lands. How many of the unemployed will tell your that they have been 'outsourced' (- a polite way of saying 'fired,' it means the same thing -) that have been replaced by foreign labor, 'interns?'

The banks-those big ones being bailed out by the taxpayers - have helped cause the financial woes in this country by allowing qualified American people to go jobless - or be underemployed - while they cut a few corners by replacing those workers with foreign workers. They should be held accountable for this, and some restrictions should be placed on their hiring practices before another cent of taxpayer money bails them out. And what about the auto industry? How many are using 'foreign interns' rather than citizens of our own country to fill their technical needs? What about other industries, some with Department of Defense contracts, who hire from the international pool?

Somebody listen to me! This is a big deal. This is partly what has derailed our economy! We the taxpayers must demand that as long as we are bailing out banks and other employers, those banks and other employers had better not be giving our jobs away to the foreign visa applicants.

2009-01-27T05:55:00.002-05:00

I used to be a huge fan of HGTV - the house and garden channel. I loved the decorating shows and the shows about unusual homes. I loved the house hunting shows, especially those about first-time home buyers. Maybe I watched too closely to these programs, but I became increasingly uncomfortable with the supposed realtor. When the property virgin person - or couple- was asked what they could afford, the couple would reply with an amount figured by his banker or loan officer. The realtor asked what the person -or couple - planned to use as a down payment on the property they were shopping for, and often there was no funding - or very low funding set aside for that. The realtor began to show houses to this person - or couple - at the very top of their price range. I've even seen a realtor add the down payment amount to the approved loan amount and then increase the price range accordingly.

Now I believe everyone should make a living. Realtors earn theirs as a percentage of the price of the properties they sell. Selling the most expensive homes, regardless of the financing required by the buyer, best serves the realtor, not the consumer. What does the realtor care if in real life the person - or couple - cannot afford to make the payments? And what payments!
The buyer has a mortgage payment and a second mortgage on the property for the down payment they didn't make! That's a heavy burden. I shudder to think how many of the home buyers shown on these programs lost their homes in the economic environment we've had lately. I stopped watching.

I used to enjoy the programs on HGTV that showed stagers preparing a house for sale. I learned a lot that is nice to know if company's coming and you want to make a good impression. But I saw perfectly good appliances being replaced with appliances with the current finish - these days it's stainless steel. Nice if you can afford to do it - but not necessary to sell a house. People who are looking at houses they really can afford won't be concerned about such things. On the programs showing buyers looking at houses, cheap flooring is disdainful, but on the staging programs, the floors are made up with peel-and-stick tiles.

I suppose it all depends on whether you are a seller or buyer. I'm just not comfortable with the ethics of the realtors who inevitably put people in homes they can't afford and those who cover up less than ideal features of a home with cheap fixes. Better to leave a bad floor exposed honestly than to put a pretty face on it that will have to be removed anyway to correct the problem.

I don't know. Perhaps I am looking too deeply into programs created to entertain, but I just can't watch anymore. And if these programs are what is going on in the real life housing world, I understand how the problem got so out of hand and foreclosures became to common.

2009-01-24T11:55:00.007-05:00

Photo by Fabola

This week it seems the whole world tuned in to watch the inauguration of a new president of the United States of America, the 44th, the man for whom we have been waiting for years, especially the last eight. Something historical happened here. The media keeps saying what is historic is that Barak Obama is the first African American to become president of this country. Well, yeah – there is that – but there’s more.

One of the most telling things about this inauguration was the mood of the people – there were nearly two million people who showed up in Washington for this event, ordinary people from everywhere, black people and white people and yellow and red people and mixed people all converged on Washington with one purpose – to see Mr. Barak Obama become President Barak Obama, or at least be in the same city when he took his Oath of Office.

For the life of me, I have never seen anything like it. With all the usual crowd noise a gathering that size contains, I’ve heard that as soon as President Obama spoke, the crowd hushed themselves and listened. Nearly two million people gathered, and at the end of the day, even with an overload of security and police, not one arrest had been made. Now think about that. Nearly two million people gathered tightly in one area. Somewhere someone got knocked into or shoved aside, somewhere someone stepped on someone else’s toes, literally or figuratively. Certainly someone offended someone, yet not a bit of violence took place.

The vast majority of the US population is behind President Obama. Not just the Black folks, although they certainly have reason to rejoice in his presidency - but all sorts of folks. And that's because all sorts of folks have wanted to see change in this country and were in need of a leader who would lead the country as a whole, not forgetting the regular ordinary people. We've needed someone who knows. My friend Jackie puts it simply, "Obama GETS it!" He hasn't said, as President Kennedy did those decades ago, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." He said nothing about 'you.' He said 'we' and 'us.' Together we can accomplish much. And now we have a leader who can not only tell us how, but show us.

I asked around - I thought I had been mistaken - but no one else that I asked had ever heard of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday being a day of service. President Obama said it was, and found a place to put his skills to use on that day. While it is nice to have parades and picnics on Dr. King's birthday, maybe in the future it will be more a day to help others - paint and repair, build and restore in our own neighborhoods, rather than just a day to celebrate.

President Obama has the attention of the majority of the population of the US. They wait, as they did on Inauguration Day, to follow where he leads. The next four years will be hands-on for his followers. They can see the vision he sees - the vision for this country many of us have dared to dream before now, but couldn't believe would happen the way things were going in Washington. President Obama is not afraid to roll up his shirtsleeves and get to work. He leads by example. It is that which will have the most effect on the country as a whole: the population is ready to follow. But we also know nothing happens overnight, and there will be times of sacrifice ahead. But the plan is solid, the results will come.

The population has had enough of someone telling them what is best for them, telling them nothing is wrong with the economy, telling them we should continue as we have, that things will get better. We want something more than that.

In Barak Obama we have one of our own. People who have never been involved in politics in their lives gathered in Washington, or around big screens and small screens all over this country to see Mr. Obama become President Obama, their chosen leader for the next four years. We see a man that we can follow, a man who beckons us to follow, and we will be a part of the rebuilding of this country’s economic system, its position in the eyes of nations all over the world, the greening of transportation and other industries.

There are those who don't believe. They won't be joining in with the new growth and the helping attitude so prevalent among the rest of us. At least, not at first - and some, perhaps not at all, ever. But you know, even they have got to admit that the effect that President Obama has on the working folk and the other folk who are behind him is astounding. We are just beginning. Nothing is going to change overnight except out attitudes and our intentions.

Geez - nearly two million people for his inauguration, and not one arrest. Something very good is going to come from this.

'Tis the Season ...again

2008-12-14T14:22:00.003-05:00

I need reminders, now and then, that the dreaded Holiday Season is upon us. This is Florida, after all, and house decorations and lights just don't look Holidayish without the white wet and cold background - but I trade off what I can. It was for this reason, looking for a bit of Christmas spirit, that I settled down with my coffee to read a bunch of letters to Santa that recently appeared in the newspaper of the place to which I will be moving shortly. (Great idea, that - reading what you can about where you expect to be for the rest of your life is a good way to get the sense of the place. Reading the local paper is a great way to do that.)

So I began reading these letters to Santa - presumably written by children who are still at the age of believing. At first I was slightly amused. Amusement drifted into disbelief. Disbelief morphed into appall. There were few who asked for anything for the less fortunate. There were few who even asked at all. The majority of these kids wanted. "I want ... I want ... I want ..." And what they wanted! They wanted PS2s and BIG screen televisions. They wanted game systems and up to fifteen games. Big stuff. I cannot recall a single letter that wanted just one item, either. These kids want it all - and Santa, they want it by Christmas.

I've read that not too many families all sit down to a meal at the same time every day these days. Another consequence of this, aside from lack of table manners (another blog entirely!) is there is no casual family communication. Around the table is the perfect time for the family to get a feel for one another's circumstance, the family's circumstance. No one has told the kids that times are hard, things are tough, and money is tight nearly everywhere this year. No one has told these kids that, with a roof over their heads and food on the table, they are better off than many, many children. No one has reminded them that the upcoming holidays are, in each instance, celebrating something. The birth of Jesus is at the heart of Christmas, after all. Hanukkah celebrates rededication of the Temple of Jerusalem in 165 BC, and the oil lasting 8 days. Kwanzaa, the newest holiday, celebrates African culture and family and community values.

Each family's dinner table, in the old days, is where the kids found out what their family believed. The kids were included in the planning and getting ready for the holiday that family would celebrate. If it had been a bad year (as has this one) it was at the dinner table that the kids learned that Dad got a bonus or Mom got a raise - or was laid off, let go, or downsized out of work; that the house payments were way behind, or that there was no credit left on the credit cards, these things could be discussed openly and honestly. Everyone had a very real sense of what was possible and what was not. Wishes were one thing, wants were another, and needs another still. In these surroundings, children learned they could not have everything they wanted, or sometimes even one thing they dreamed of. (I used to want a pony) They learned what would make the others in the family happy, what would best serve their own holiday best. They grew to value, even cherish, their family's traditions, and they learned empathy, compassion, the art of caring for others.

Not only are people like me annoyed at the selfish and self-absorbed attitude of many kids these days, but the kids - the kids are being cheated.

Economics 101

2008-10-18T09:10:00.005-05:00

We are in trouble. We are watching the news on television and the Internet, and we are reading the papers, trying to be one jump ahead of tomorrow's news, trying to save ourselves from the fate of the numbers: unemployment has reached levels it hasn't reached in years; foreclosures are rampant, prices are up and optimism is down. If your car isn't in the driveway in the morning, it is more likely repossessed than stolen. Times are hard.

With a tendency to anxiety, I feel it, too, burrowing into the center of myself, but I am probably in better shape financially than most. I don't have a lot, but then, I don't need a lot. Years ago when Simplicity was all the rage in bookstores, I actually read The Simple Living Guide by Janet Luhrs, who also publishes Simple Living Journal. I wasn't an immediate convert to all Luhr's ideas, but I did digest the principles, and they have been serving me well. In many ways, I am better off than many people I know in this time of crisis.

But for a student loan, I owe no one. I am disabled, living on Social Security Disability (a fixed income if there ever was one) and if I can get one part of the US government to listen to another part, the student loan will be 'forgiven' due to my disability. I would feel bad about that, but for the fact that the student loan has more than doubled on fees and interest during the time I have been disabled - which is outrageous - and the number of telephone calls I get from the party handling the loan, harassing and threatening to have payments taken out of my Social Security Disability check every month. I've offered an amount that I can afford out of my monthly budget and been refused. I have no doubt that it will be resolved in my favor, so when I think of owing money, I do not consider my student loan. The paperwork is pending.

I live in a building filled with people much like myself. I've come to understand there are some things I will never understand. I live with no pretenses. I am in no way trying to impress anyone or keep up with the Joneses, Jacksons, or the lady on the fourth floor. I could probably qualify for an electric wheel chair or scooter, as many of my neighbors have, but at this point I do not want one, and hope to hold off on that particular item as long as possible.

I have a car (such as it is) while many of my neighbors do not. That means I also have gas and upkeep and auto insurance payments per month. The gas prices haven't really hurt me. I still put a budgeted amount of money into the gas tank each month. I just go fewer places in my car, and when the gas runs out, I stay home. My car (such as it is) is paid for and requires only regular maintenance. It will not survive my trip to Wisconsin, though. It has no back window (I cover it with tarp and bungee cords when rain in forecast) and looks like it has psoriasis, but it gets me where I need to go and no one is going to steal it.

I don't spend what I don't have. It's called "living within your means" and I have done it for as long as I can remember. I do not get manicures or have fake nails applied because I don't have money to spend on such things. I won't spend large amounts of money on shoes as some do because I am hard on shoes, due to unfortunate degenerative factors, and I am certainly not a clothes horse. I suppose I could get my hair cut more often, but as I've gotten older my hair is doing amazing things - it's curling! - and at this point I want to see how long I can grow it and still hold a curl. It will have to be shaped, though, and I have a coupon a friend gave me that will get that done for me free at the very good local stylist school. I prefer the look of well buffed fingernails to suffocating nail polish that chips and demands closer attention, and I think I can splurge the small amount at that location to get a proper manicure.

I do enjoy nice things, and I've been known to save to get them. Fortunately, my taste runs to the charming, and "pretties" that are charming can be had for a song at certain thrift stores. Please call me frugal, the polite word for 'cheap.' My grandmother used the word 'mingy.' Last week's great find was a chamber pot. (For you young folks, a chamber pot was used at night instead of the outhouse, back before there was indoor plumbing. ) It's perfect. If it had two handles, it could be a soup tureen, but it has one. It's a chamber pot. I plan to plant oats in it for my cat. Oats are a soft grass with nutrients and flavor enough that just may keep Liberty away from my houseplants. Oat seeds are not expensive. Houseplants can be. But preparing for my move to Wisconsin, I am taking cuttings and seeds from many Florida plants to be houseplants in my new home. If the oats work and Liberty doesn't eat them, that is.

What I am is creative, and you may find things (like my chamber pot) in odd places in my home that are serving purposes for which they were never intended. When a friend offered me her old computer desk, which has a drawer and nicer shelves than I had in my current one, I took hers for my computer and moved the old one into the kitchen where it houses my microwave. The pull out keyboard drawer is perfect storage for plastic wrap, waxed paper and aluminum foil. Removing the CD holder from the top of the computer stand, I have a place to store upright the many trays I use. I will be going off to get a nice enamel (low scent) paint soon, and a good sealant, and top coat of polyurethane to keep it pretty. I am thinking a dark rust color. I've discovered the cheap furniture that you put together can be made more useful and longer lasting with a light sanding and a good finish. In the old days, I think this was called "making do."

The main thing is, I think, to decide just what is important in one's own private world and what really isn't. It's too soon for making resolutions, but not too soon to decide how one wants to live. It should be a lot easier to decide now what one can do without than to have circumstance take it away - and in the times in which we live, circumstance has a broad definition. Income, outgo - too little of one, too much of the other, and the ship can sink, seemingly overnight. The lighter the cargo, the more likely it will fit in the lifeboat...

Middle Class and Beyond

2008-10-12T10:54:00.003-05:00

Of late, I remember an episode or M*A*S*H from years ago. In this episode, B.J. Hunnicutt was wallowing around the camp, feeling low, grumbling about how his wife had to do menial things at home while he was away. When the guys had heard enough of it, Hawkeye sat B.J. down and told him that those who had the most stood to lose the most. B.J., with his wife and home and such, clearly had more that most of the men in camp. That was why he had more at risk.

I've been thinking of this lately because it applies now, right here and now, in the US, and probably in some other countries as well. There is such turmoil in our land today - such stress and anxiety - there are reports of people taking drastic measures, even familial murders and suicide, to resolve their financial problems.

Someone in some high-up place has decided that those Americans who earn less than 250,000 USD are (ta-da!) "Middle Class." That's an awfully wide brush with which to be painted. I have less than 250,000 USD per year to live on - much less - and I am betting you do, too. The things we have in common with those who earn over even 100,000 USD are evident, with those differences increasing expotentially as incomes rise to $250,000 that designates us and them to the same "Middle Class."

Credit card debt plays a big factor in a "Middle Class" person's or family's financial health, as well as lenders who financed mortgages far too expensive for the homebuyer's actual budget. People who "qualified" for large mortgages but had no downpayment were asking for trouble. When all the papers were signed and the keys given, the new homeowner has two liens against his property - the mortgage and the loan he had to take out for the down payment. It's scary if you step back, let the flush of new ownership fade a minute, and look at it. Worse, after a year or two the new owner may decide to take out an equity loan against the house for whatever reason. It snowballs. That's how a lot of people got themselves into their financial discomfort and how many forclosures have come about.

But - at what dollar point do we fall from "Middle Class" to "Lower Class?" No presidential candidate has mentioned that. No one has mentioned the "Lower Class" - also known as the "Working Poor" These are like the majority of B.J. Hunnicutt's co-workers on M*A*S*H, people who work every bit as hard as B.J., but who have no wife, no love-nest waiting at home. The working poor do the jobs nobody likes to do, but which are necessary to businesses who pay them as little as possible with few if any benefits. A dissatisfied worker? The waiting list of those ready to take that position is long, the competition evident. The unemployed jostle for these jobs, as low paying as they are, when the unemployment runs out because something is better than nothing when it comes to putting food on the table, a roof over the head of their families. How do they get by?

Some people take on second and third jobs. Those who can't, those who are getting on in years, and/or who are disabled find themselves grasping for these jobs, too - hence the greeters at Walmart, independent taxi drivers, the men and women who demonstrate products in the grocery store. These folks often fall below the poverty level. Their incomes consist of Social Security or Social Security Disability and sometimes food stamps. Many are on the charitable lists of various organizations at holiday time. Many of the men are veterans from WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. To most folks these people do not exist - they just escape their peripheral vision. Often they are condemned as "takers" or those seeking "entitlements," and treated as lepers from those who are but a payday or two away from joining the ranks of those below the poverty level.

So here we are with the middle class, the poor, poorer and poorest, and from the yeas and nays among us, we will select a new leader for the next four years.

I say all this because I am an independent voter, one of those both candidates want to impress with his expertise and skill and leadership and good ideas. Every four years I end up dragging out this poem from 1996 and sometimes with a change or two, serve it up again:

Apolitica 2008

And so begins the circus,
three rings, a clown and a caucus,
playing dirty, playing on fear
accusations flying through the air
in spite of third party rebuttals,
shrouded hate,
none of the dignity of
our founding fathers
who thought elections
were a wonderful idea.

Spare me the rhetoric.
My politics are a plaid blanket
lain across stiffening knees
your kind has brought me to,
threads of red, white and blue
woven closely, the warp sturdy
and twisted, and the woof patterned
after traditional speeches that

cannot stand alone;
town-hall meetings with
filtered audiences.

You seem to agree on what
is important, but cannot agree
on why, or when or how
problems should be remedied,
wars should be fought,
people made whole again
after tragedies, and who
should say how the money is spent,
on what and why, how much
to butcher that sloppy fat pig -
and who should be

served at the banquet.
There is always a banquet.

Politicking for politics sake,
not for the sake of the Union,
you've let balloons fall
in conventions of the times we live in,
scrutinized the preacher, the teacher
and the soldier who would be king.
I grew up in the 60s - I remember
hate and the murdering of good men.
I feel that fear again. The division is
that deep, the hate is that intense.
I try not to listen. I pull
my plaid blanket close to my skin,
let it breathe my scent, become me
and realize it is me
you want top convince
-an everyday person -
and millions like me
who bring out the worst in you
while we try to decide
the best for us

and I study the weave
in the only cover I have.
I tug at the edges.
It does not keep me warm.

To be continued ...

Owning Stuff

2008-06-28T12:50:00.004-05:00

Well, I guess I've gotten this weekend's Stupid out of the way. I was preparing my breakfast a while ago and managed to drop a whole, freshly-cracked-but-not-in-the-frying-pan-yet egg right in that very slender crack between the sink counter and the stove. I wiped down the topside of the mess, cracked open another egg and cooked it, ate it, and soon I will have to tug the stove out from the wall to clean the raw egg from the floor. First I will write this.

Recently YO (Youngest Offspring) found himself a landowner. It wasn't unexpected, but it didn't happen quickly, either. For years it had been his plan that when it became his he would simply sell it and be done with it. But that's not what happened. He went out to survey what had become his - the treasure of the land as well as the responsibilities and obligations that came with being a landowner. He could see it rise and fall before him, smell the dew in the morning, the dirt, the intermittent flowers, some which promise fruit and some not. I suspect it has become a part of him now, a part which challenges him and fills him up like nothing but owning something can do. I only have an inkling of how that must feel. We (Us and the Bank) owned a house in Ohio for several years. It felt good to dig up the yard and build a vegetable garden, to plant daisies and black eyed Susans along the fence, even to mow the lawn or shovel the snow. It was OUR house, so much different from renting, even though we were not there long enough to pay off the mortgage to get the bank out of the equation, to own it completely, free and clear.

But YO doesn't have to wait - he can claim complete ownership and take even more pride in that land of his than even the most domestic day I'd enjoyed in Ohio. Fortunately, YO is of the nature to enjoy this. We all know some folks who aren't even partly aware of the value of the things they own. There is so much more to value than cash. I suspect this is the lesson his father wanted him to learn, although his father didn't even even enjoy it so much as YO. YO will put his land to work for him in whichever way(s) his very creative mind takes him. One day, perhaps, YO will build his home and live on his own land; perhaps he will bring home a wife, have children there. Or not.

So now I will go and pull my rented stove out from the wall of my rented apartment wall, clean up the dropped egg, and most likely keep going, washing down the kitchen and dining area floors. My place may be rented, but it is my home. There is a certain pride in that, too. )

Resignation, of Sorts ....

2008-06-07T12:29:00.003-05:00

There comes a time in a person’s life when she has to resign herself to the fact that the younger folks really are smarter than she is about some things. For me, it is the technical things. Yeah, well - I may know the geography of this country, and I may even be able to point to the general direction on a globe when asked where a certain country is; I can use proper grammar in spite of the drive to be politically correct; I can cook most anything from scratch, apply basic first aid, amuse a child for a day for under $3; I can change the oil in my car if I have to, change the clock for Daylight Savings Time, and change a tire. I can tell time on an analog clock, wind a watch, write a legible letter in longhand and mail it, catch a fish, be quiet for hours on end, mend with a needle and thread and replace a button, read a chart, read a grid and read a book. I cannot figure out an MP3 player or much in technology since then. I do not pretend to understand these things, even though it would certainly be to my benefit to do so. My mind is full. If new information does not twine gracefully around what I already know or replace something I already have stashed up there in the darkened attic, I cannot grasp it. There is no room.

And I guess that’s okay. I try my best to live by the Desiderata – well spoken advice written by Max Ehrmann in 1927. In part, Mr. Ehrmann says, “...Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth ...” And I suppose that is really about the best way to have birthdays over, say, the age of 60.

I have no problem with surrendering bubble gum, though I still blow soap bubbles from a bottle. I do not miss skipping rope, though I would ride a bicycle if I had one. And my memory seems to have gone south, but I still remember how to research and find information I may have forgotten.

It’s the new stuff I can’t seem to get. I spoke to the Verizon guy this week and told him I’ve had Verizon’s fastest DSL for five years now, and I love it – but what is this FIOS stuff? He was a wise man and gave me the simplest answer he could. “Oh,” he said. “FIOS is ...um... the next generation!”

I am saying this now so my kids and grandkids will know I am woefully uninformed about the latest in technology. They should, before thinking they can bring me into the latest technology, speak to YO (my Youngest Offspring) who is quite in tune with the modernest of the modern. He has tried to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the latest (or at least more recent than I own!) technology and it has left him very low on patience. It does not become the man.

I am saying this because I am perfectly content with the technology I do own, and while I do appreciate so many of the wonderful changes recent technology has wrought, I am fine. I often find myself wondering what the cost of such technology has been to humankind, and every now and then I will question it out loud, but be unwilling to part with my own microwave or computer or bottle of soap bubbles.

I’m not saying I am stupid about these things. I probably could catch on to a lot more technological advances than it appears, but I am not convinced I want to. The space upstairs is limited, and there are so many other things I want to know.

A Voice from the Middle

2008-02-29T09:24:00.009-05:00

I don’t just say I am politically independent to ward off arguments or to hear myself talk. I really am. I regret that the Republican party has narrowed its candidates for nomination for president down to one person already. It is much too soon.

Looking on the Democratic side, I see one candidate hurt and confused that the other candidate is leaping ahead in number of delegates and popularity of the masses. Senator Clinton, you have shown clearly why independent voters like me wait to make our choices. Let me explain.

The highest office in the land is no place for a shrewd shrew. Watching your behavior, I try to imagine the leader of my country treating world leaders or even everyday contacts the way you have treated your opponent, the press and the public. You may have experience as a Senator of your adopted state, but the work there didn’t (though it should have) teach you much about diplomacy, niceness, public relations or people skills.

It is unfortunate that those in the public eye are going to hear negative things said about themselves and even their children. Unfortunate, but frequent. To shrug off all dignity and reply with fury when you felt your child was wounded was not a good thing, Senator. She is a big girl; it was herself whose reply, if any, should have been heard. I look into an imaginary future and see that same reaction happening if someone somewhere in the world angers you, and what would you do when entertainers and political columnists and cartoonists do what they have always done, and make you and your imaginary White House a pillory? See, Senator, not everyone in the world is going to like you. Saying “Shame on you ... “ makes no points in the diplomatic or good manners circles, not even the polite corner. Acting a shrew is not going to work with world leaders, either.

Neither did you learn about keeping the spirit of your word, not diving through the loopholes. When the delegates were removed from Florida, your party decided not to campaign there. I believe all Democrats campaigning signed something to that effect, agreeing to the party edict. The day before the Florida primary election it was all the news that you were in Florida – though not campaigning. Yep. All the news. Very Shrewd. Marketing people will tell you that any publicity is good publicity, and that said, it appears to me (and most likely others) that you broke the spirit of your word, your signature, visiting Florida and making news in Florida the day before that state's primary .

I could go on.

This is why I stay in the middle. Nominees and candidates will eliminate themselves; if given enough time, real personalities will emerge and thinking people will give serious thought to how we want our country represented in the world. I am certainly not against having a woman as president, but she must be presidential material.

We still have a bit over eight months before our presidential election. Who’s next?

Small Talk

2008-02-28T17:00:00.004-05:00

Youngest Offspring (YO) has been writing lately of things people say, things people ask. I read these and offered a rather glib comment – I told him that this was small talk, that nobody really cared about his answers. I’ve thought about it a lot since I wrote it, and I think maybe I made a sweeping statement that nobody cares – when there are definitely important exceptions. “Nobody’ is a pretty big word to use, saying anything, much less talking about who cares.

I know I care – but most of the things YO wrote in response to those who asked - I already know. I mean – this is my kid, and he is writing about the facts of his life. Yet I read with interest these answers to the questions, curiously wanting to know how he described some of these events. After all, he is a grown man. There are some things he mentioned in his response that I didn’t know.

Beside me, I’m sure there are others in his life who do not consider it small talk to ask what he does or who he is. Who among us has not found someone fascinating, and wanted to know all about that person, purely because we are interested and care to know? It happens a lot, not just when we become infatuated or begin to love someone, but whenever we notice a person and decide to ourselves, “Hmm – this is someone I would really like to know better!”

Many people do not answer when someone asks personal questions, or we give non-answers, glib throwaway lines that are often funny, but definitely evasive. Maybe there is a distrustfulness, or maybe we don’t want to let the asker into our private selves for our own reasons. Not answering – or giving a small talk answer – conveniently stops the inquisitions, and we are safe unto ourselves again.

I live in a place that seems to run on small talk. There are some among us who walk around the place with our heads down, not acknowledging anyone else, but the rest of us greet those we pass in the hallways and in the courtyard. We say, “Hey, how’s it going?” or “How are ya?” or “How’re ya doing?” which translates into “Hello. I see you. I don’t know you well, but I see you every day and we live in the same place, so I want to be polite. I want you to think I am friendly. I hope you are well.” It’s a short exchange, lasting only the few seconds it takes to pass one another. Same thing happens in grocery stores and pet stores and department stores and drug stores and it means about the same.

Just for fun, I decided to answer anyone who asked me how I am with, “I’m crazy as a loon!” just to see if anyone really paid attention. I was surprised how many actually did – and how many “Huh?”s I got. I do it still, sometimes. One of my friends hates it. He reminds me of something I told him several years ago, something I learned from a very smart man. The smart man told me to listen to what things I say most often. He said it is the things one says most often that indicate how we really feel about ourselves.

I am going to leave the computer now and go tell that woman in the mirror that she is bright, funny and kinda cute...

Today's Topic is ...

2008-02-28T16:29:00.003-05:00

Yep -- today I am writing about toilet paper.

I don't know anything about its history, and I have no idea what folks did before it came along - it's just always been there for me. Those of us who have enjoyed it all our lives consider it a necessity, right up there with bread and water and soap.

I remember reacting to a large jump in the price of toilet paper, I think it was somewhere around 20 - 25 years ago, by writing to the company of the brand I used. I told them not to forget that they were selling a "one-use throw-away product."

Enter the 1990s and the creation of the double roll. I clearly see the attempt of the industry to hold down costs in making these, and they were handier than ever. It held the price to minimal changes for some time.

Now the Toilet Paper Industry is trying its best again to keep the price the same for a longer period of time. The rolls aren't getting smaller. In fact, I have seen one company go to triple rolls, even offering an extension to fit over the standard rod in the toilet paper holder so the larger size would fit. No - many, many companies have reduced the size of each sheet of toilet paper. It varies now from 4.27 X 4.0 inches to a larger 4.5 X 4.0 inches. I don't know when this started. Early on changes, if there were any, were far more subtle than now. I noticed. There is currently a whole inch of play room in the rod of my toilet paper holder.

Much depends on the brand, of course, and the size of each sheet is on the package, usually on the lower right of the front of the wrapper.

File this in the "In case you were wondering" file.

Just Another Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T08:24:00.007-05:00

Those who have known me for more than a year know how I feel about February 14 - otherwise known as "Heart Day," "Cupid's Day," "Love Day," or "(St.)Valentine's Day." You know the background of this "holiday." (Or if you don't and want to, check it out here ) No -- this isn't about the history or the around-the-world traditions regarding today's celebrations. This is about people looking out for people. I write about how, for every other holiday, we look out for the unfortunate folk that have less than we do, and see that they at least have dinner on Thanksgiving, something in their socks for Christmas, a chick or an egg or some such on Easter. In general, we are a charitable people - except when it comes to Valentine's Day.

When was the last time you were reveling in the glorious feeling of being loved on Valentine's day and gave even a half-thought to your friend, your sister or brother, or - yes, in the spirit of the other holidays, even a stranger! - who was not romantically attached to anyone; someone you know who has no significant other with whom to share this day ? Have you once thought of looking after these folks who go it alone? See what I mean? We have ALWAYS been neglected on Valentine's Day.

Well - this year is different. Someone remembered those of us who are unattached, who have no one to send or recieve flowers to or from. Today we have (Ta Da!)

Unconditional Chocolate!

The kind people who make Dove (r) Ice Cream have, whether unwittingly or not, created exactly what we need on a day like today. Let all the lovers have their Unconditional Love -- we have our Unconditional Chocolate (tm)! Chocolate is, after all, "The Great Sublimator" - the "instead-of" savior for so many of us- and all done done so tastefully , thank you , with no overt labels or advertising to embarass us or anything. At last! Something for the solo folk among us!

I was introduced to this marvel by a friend with whom I shared dinner the other night. He asked what he could bring, so I left dessert up to him. It was outrageous! My friend, also a singleton, bought chocolate-on-chocolate-in- chocolate-cake, and brought this ice cream as an added touch.

Omigoodness.

So to the makers of Dove(r) Unconditional Love ice cream, thank you - thank you - thank you! To those who know an unattached person, consider gifting him or her with this delight for Valentine's Day to show he/she is not forgotten!

To those who recieve this as a gift from your friend or family member today, bear in mind this is an entire pint of Unconditional Chocolate(tm) and it contains 4 (four) individual servings. (Yeah, right!) But I have heard (and this is purely a rumor) that chocolate has no calories for the whole of Valentine's Day.

Enjoy!

When did THIS happen?

2008-02-12T22:47:00.005-05:00

I remember some years ago -- let's see, Taran was about 18, so it was about 18 years ago - I was talking to him when he suddenly said, looking at my chin, "Why don't you pull that hair OUT?"

*Sigh* I had never noticed a hair on my chin.

"So pull it out," I told him. He did - and showed it to me. It was long and dark and a bit crinkly, not at all like the awful peach fuzzy type hair that had decorated my cheeks for the previous ten years or so. It was then that I realized something rather kind about getting older: As changes happen to us, like the growth of hair on chins, we become oblivious to them by another means - in this case, my eyes were going just enough where I could not see the hair (okay - I never really looked for it before then) in the mirror. And as we get older, we adapt. Now I feel for hairs on my chin and pluck each little dickens out by touch - whenever I remember.

My first reaction, of course, was to go find a magnifying mirror. I figured I really needed to keep an eye on my face and chin and such, if it was going to sprout hairs that looked like they belonged elsewhere. I found one on e-Bay - lighted, with 8 times magnification! I won the auction, got it for under $20 including shipping, and set it up for a good look at my face. I gathered together tissues, 2 sizes of tweezers, a nice warm and damp washcloth and settled down to have a look-see.

Omigoodness.

Let me tell you, NOBODY needs 8 times magnification to look at her face. There are some things you really don't want to know, and in real life no one else is EVER going to get so close as 8 times magnification! I packed away the magnifying mirror. I take it out only when my eyebrows grow over a half inch long and need to be rearranged and plucked.

In the eighteen years or so that has passed since I discovered I do grow hair on my chinny chin chin, other indications of age have crept in while I wasn't looking. My hair is full of platinum blonde streaks. People pay good money to get these cool streaks in their hair - and here come mine, free for nothing. I've tried several times to cover it with L'Oreal 5A, which is a nice medium ash brown, but when it starts to grow out, I find I probably should have used a darker shade, after all, regardless of the helpful hints I've gotten over the years that as one gets older, she should color her hair a bit lighter. I've even started cutting it short now and then, when I think of it, so it doesn't look like I am younger than I really am...

And then -- and then, one morning last summer, I woke up and discovered I had turned 60 (sixty) years old. I have no idea how I got here. That I did becomes obvious, when I stop and think about it. My joints are worn out. They call it "Degenerative Joint Disease" - which is just another way of saying arthritis, I suppose. Two by two my joints, starting at the bottom and moving up, have lost all their cartilage. Getting around is difficult, but at least I can. Some of my friends cannot. And I am having more and more "Senior Moments," which come over a person with no warning and yet there is still enough thinking going on upstairs where one is aware of it and embarassed, uncomfortable. I suppose in time that will pass. I do expect to be developing a more jaded vision of myself as well as a wider sense of humor as time goes by.

But I was startled when looking at some of the photos one of my grandaughters posted on Flickr.com . I was in this picture with some other folks and I did not recognize myself. I know, I know -- we are not supposed to think of ourselves being our body image - but I honestly did not recognize myself. I know I need to lose weight, but I had no idea I am so fat. I know my smile has undergone some changes, but I did not recognize it as mine, as me.

*Sigh*

I thought I was smaller. I thought my smile was prettier. I thought I was younger.

Accumulations

2008-01-31T18:29:00.000-05:00

Ah -- Youngest Offspring writes about sorting and packing - in his case, a garbage bag a day. He's hit on the hardest part about packing: the sorting. Especially when the sorting involves things accumulated by another, it is, at best, a difficult task. Yet at the same time, it is an enlightening thing, if it is done thoughtfully, over time, as Youngest Offspring ("YO") has been doing. A person wants to know the whys and wherefores for some of these items, and the sorter is left with no clues, save for other items and whatever he can remember about the accumulator. Some things explain away some of the mysteries of relationships and attitudes - others simply leave the sorter even more baffled.

I'm packing, too. I have been packing mentally for a long time, but that is as different from the real thing as mustard from grapes. Now I am figuring what I can sell and how much I can get for what I sell, and trying to let that amount be enough to get the rest of me, the cat and our stuff from here to there. My packing is not the same as YO's. I am older, I have far more things to pack than he does. YO travels light and sorts his own belongings accordingly. Off the top of my head I can only think of one item (of the many he has been offered) that YO has kept: a small goblet made of some sort of light wood. I remember when it was given to him, but not the circumstance. YO remembers the circumstance, and as far as I know, still counts it among the keepers in his life.

I have some of those. Keepers. But once I am gone, who will realize that the beat up old stapler that has survived sortings for over 30 years is the only thing I have left from my marriage to a red-headed man in the mid to late 1960s? I have a collection of records (vinyl!) that can take me, in a matter of seconds, back in my mind to various years of significance in my life. Who, but me, really cares? And what about the record player/stereo (complete with speakers!) to play them on? I bought that piece of clutter about nine years ago at the flea market for $35. The belt had slipped off the turntable (it is there, just not functioning) and it has been on the top shelf in my closet (complete with speakers!) for the past 9 years.

"Dump it," I can hear YO tell me. "Get rid of it. Get another one after you move." Easy for HIM to say. He doesn't have a vinyl collection (as a matter of fact, I cannot think of any item he does collect, aside from his photos, and he keeps those on line and probably elsewhere. ) But I say to myself, stereos like that (complete with speakers!) are not so easily found these days in the condition this one boasts. I just have to find someone who can put the belt back on the turntable and it will be just fine and I can listen to my old vinyl. Here's the thing: this item has value for me. To YO, it holds no value at all, and, in fact, it is taking up valuable space when moving is calculated in linear feet.

That I have owned anything as long as I've owned my beat-up old stapler surprises me. I have moved and started over again so many times I have nearly forgotten what my original purpose was. That stapler has survived countless sortings over the years. On the outside, it has no value, not really. I have a hand held stapler, a full length pink stapler, a mini stapler that uses teeny tiny staples - so I know I have not kept that old stapler to use to attach one paper to another. Yet I have kept it.

So I am going to tell you a secret. Sometimes keeping a particular item that appears to have no value actually holds the value of remembrance. I look at that stapler - not as an item, whether it is useful or not, whether it works or not, whether or not a replacement does the job better. Each time I see it I am reminded where it came from. I am reminded of the good times, the silly, playful times shared with its previous owner. The value of that stapler, then, lies in its ability to act as a bridge across the years, from now back to thoughts I otherwise might have lost. I have other items, from other times. I have items that, were my kids to sort my belongings, would certainly end up in the trash.

There is, in one of my jewelry cases, somewhere in my apartment, a single golden knot cuff link. Looking at it reminds me of the afternoon YO was born. His Pop had been spending the day helping the downstairs neighbor with a project, having a beer or several, when I called down to him that it was time to get to the hospital. Well, he stopped what he was doing, excused himself, and came upstairs. He showered, changed into his dress slacks and a coffee brown shirt with those golden knot cuff links. He then proceeded to become ill; the nearest receptacle was the kitchen sink. Somewhere during that healthy cleansing, Pop lost a cuff link. That the one I still have has no value is clear - Pop could have gone into the pipes to find the lost one in the trap - but he didn't. I still keep the remaining cuff link. It reminds me of the day my Youngest Offspring was born.

If only all the strange things people keep would come with a history, an explanation. Going through the items in your house frustrates my YO, I'm sure - but the things that have no value to him may well have held the value of remembrance for their previous owner.

It's okay to throw them away now. Their usefulness has ended.

As Good a Time as Any....

2008-01-02T14:19:00.000-05:00

Here we are, at the beginning of a new year (I slept through most of last year -- welcome to 2008!) so this is just about the best time I can think of to start writing again. No -- no list of resolutions here, no baring my soul and rotten habits to the world in general. I do not believe in an annual soul-searching to decide what it is about myself I want to improve in the next 12 months. I know what they are. Either I will or will not expend energy on these things. What I do, however, like to do this time of year is mark the successes, accomplishments (whether successful or not -- effort needs to be applauded, too, doesn't it?) and such.

Ah -- but we are all full of good intentions, aren't we! Each of us is certain we are on the right track while everyone else is -- well, maybe just a little bit off... Which reminds me -- 2008 is an election year here in the US. It should be interesting to watch, though I am sure I will be doing more than my share of talking back to television commercials and the helpful e-mails those folks I hardly know at all are sending to me with urgent notes to "Important, Please Read." Then there is my uncle in NY who likes to send me all his Tidy Righty messages, and old friends I haven't heard from in years telling me this is the year the Libertarian party will finally, at long last, shine. Ah -- if I can just keep my sense of humor alive for a while longer.

Here's what I've got: One kid is so far right he will probably tip over one day. This kid has great values and a wonderful outlook on life, and that is good for this kid. I have another kid who balances the first one a bit - a logical thinker with an eye on the reality of life and economics and such as it occurs to her in the real world of folks who work for a living. And I have another kid who looks upon the happenings of this country from outside its borders - wandering in now and then for visits and experiences, but for the most part quite removed from it all. And me --? I am happily in the middle of it all, centered somewhere as a political independent with some leanings in all directions.

It's going to be an interesting year! Stay tuned ...

Immigrants to Citizens...

2006-05-01T17:57:00.000-05:00

My father came to this country as a small child, through Ellis Island, with his parents and older siblings. It wasn't too difficult for his family to adapt to life in New York City. They came from Bermuda, and English was their language, albeit not quite the same as the English spoken in their new country. My grandparents became citizens. They learned the history of this country and learned the pride of being an American. My grandfather found work at a meat company in the city. They bought a house. My grandmother planted a garden that took up most of the back yard. My grandfather built a boathouse for the small boat he would take out to Riverhead on weekends on the small trailer he built for that purpose. My grandparents made themselves at home in the United States, and raised the Old Glory on the flagpole in their front yard in the Jamaica section of New York City on all national ocassions. Their children went to school and did well. My father and all his brothers served in the Armed Forces, during World War II and the unrest in Korea thereafter. This is half of my heritage.

The other half isn't nearly so clear. My mother's family came to this country around the same time, I think, and possibly through Ellis Island. They came from Greece, and to this day no one seems to know what my grandfather's real last name was - but at Ellis Island, as was the custom, his name on his papers was shortened to the first five letters, Bales. My mother tells me the family insisted on the pronounciation from the original name, which is "Ballis," and though I see the name now and then, the owners either had a different original pronunciation, or gave up telling people it was not pronounced "bales," like cubes of hay. My mother's mother died when she was quite young, and I can't tell you whether my mother was born in this country or not, but she and her sister and brother grew up speaking English, and my grandfather learned it as well, as he would have to, to run the restaurant he did in Duluth, Minnesota.

I guess you could say that I am second-and-a half generation American. The way my family came to be Americans is the same as countless others. They came to this land with a dream in their hearts. They'd heard that dreams were possible in America, and they worked to make their own come true. They adapted. They learned our history and the ways of being an American. It's been this way since the country began.

We have so many people in this country now, from so many places around the world, who have heard that the United States is still a place of dreams. They have come here, some through Ellis Island, some across other borders. Some have come to go to school in this country and have decided to stay. Some have come ahead of their families, and save and scrimp to bring their families here. These new arrivals are still learning the history of this country, learning how we came to be, learning about The Revolutionary War that brought this nation to its birth, and the shame of The Civil War. They learned how the National Anthem came to be written. Some even learned to sing it, that difficult song that recounts the birth of this country, that holds the pride of this country in its nearly impossible range. These immigrants are becoming citizens, taking seriously the responsibilities as well as the privileges. They are adapting. They are becoming Americans.

Many others are crossing the borders in search of the same dream, but have not gone through the proper channels to legitimitize their presence. Others have come here legally, but have allowed their paperwork to elapse without continuance. These people are here illegally. There are thousands and thousands of them and today, May 1, 2006, they have made a stand to be noticed by their absence - in the workplace, in the schools, in the marketplace. They are objecting to the United States government's plans to deal with them. But they are not dealing with their own situations. They are not legitimate citizens here, and while I certainly do not advocate anything bad happening to them, these people do not have the rights and responsibilities of those who have taken their stands and become legitimate citizens. I am hoping that some sort of agreement will come between the national government and those illegal residents so that those who are qualified to become citizen of this country may be accorded that position as quickly as possible. I am hoping those of the same background and prior nationality of those not here legally will take it upon themselves to help those around them to qualify, to learn the language, to become legitimate American citizens.

Yes. I said learn the language. During the years when immigrant swarmed into this country through Ellis Island and settled in New York City and other eastern seabord cities, there were certain neighborhoods populated by an ethnicity where the residents spoke their native tongues - but the young ones went to school and spoke English. They interceded for their parents, and the parents made an effort to at least understand the language of the land to which they had moved. There is no reason for it to be otherwise. Certainly ethnicities should be able to maintain the language of their former countries, but in this country, the language is English. If one is to understand maps and road signs, news reports and political promises, one must learn the language of the land. Here is where those of that ethnicity who have already adapted can aid those newly arrived. Here is where the young ones, learning English in school, can help the parents understand. What a close-knot community (and think of the power!) that would build!

Should the National Anthem be translated into another language? For the purposes of understanding it, and the history of it, yes. But that means it must be translated accurately, with the references to the "rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air..." intact. That is the history of the National Anthem and of this country. Certainly an ethnic group who want to write an anthem of their own should - and perhaps they can come up with a melody more easily sung! - because the United States National Anthem is certainly not the only patriotic song in this country. It would be wonderful to have a variety from which to choose during times of national celebration -- but leave the original alone, please. There is too much history there, too much pride and too much meaning for alterations.

Are these immigrants of value? Of course they are! Should there be a system set up to more easily assimilate them into our country, to educate them to become citizens? Absolutely! The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written for the citizens of the United States of America! The sooner these people join in with the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the stronger and better this nation will become. I look with interest at Washington to see how this is addressed...and will speak of this again, I am sure!

Old Books

2006-02-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

I love books. I have books - cookbooks, plant books, biographies and autobiographies, poetry books, fiction, non-fiction, specialty books, music books, coffee table books, art books, text books, how-to books, self-help books, books of cartoons and blank books. If you see me at a thrift store or a garage sale or a flea market I will invariably be checking out the books. Ask anyone who has helped me move -- I love books.

There is a certain satisfaction to be enjoyed by reading a book. It feels good to hold a book - the physical feel of some books is exquisite - leather bound or linen finished board covers, the smoothness of the page, or, conversely, the coarse pulpiness of a favorite paperback. Books are comforting because they are there, they are physical, because they hold knowledge and secrets, ideas and humor and pictures and and they are available at your bidding to share it all with you. They can be a world unto themselves, and you can go there whenever you like. They are part of my home and part of myself. How in the world can I even think of getting rid of them - or even some of them? Yet, thinking of a major move ahead for myself, I know I must thin the bookshelves, at least a little. It will be an interesting and painful project, but the result will be a smaller library that is all the more precious for the thinning.

Several weeks ago I sent a CARE package to my mother. It contained the sugarless chocolate she loves, the purple scarf and red hat I'd had a friend crochet for her, and a few odds and ends. I was about to seal the package when I noticed, on my bookshelf, a biography of Bette Davis. I'd found it at a yard sale and it was among the biographies I've been meaning to read, but had never gotten to. Bette Davis was a contemporary of my mother. They grew up at the same time in history, coming of age during the war years. That was one of the reasons I chose to put it on my shelf to read one day. But I can find another - such books are thrift store regulars. Instinctively, I knew it would be a treat for my mother. It would be a tight squeeze, but I fit it in, sealed the box and sent it. Mother's response was amazement (she had the mistaken idea I'd made the hat and scarf for her - but though I knit some, I don't crochet...) and surprise. "How did you know," she asked me, "that I have always been a Bette Davis fan?" Well, maybe I remembered something about that, possibly subconsciously, when I bought the book - I can't say it was a conscious thing. At the time I put the book in the box to send to Mother, my only thought was that they were contemporaries, and she would enjoy reading about that time again through someone else's eyes. It made me feel good to picture her as she said she was: curled up in her chair with a cup of coffee and her sugarless chocolates, reading Bette Davis' life story.

I love it when that happens - when I can give exactly the right book to exactly the right person. I am looking over my bookcases with a different eye these days, wanting to do more of that. But there are books and there are OLD books, and of those, there are olde books and there are ol' books.

In these days of Internet, most books become outdated quickly. I was reminded of that reading Taran's blog this morning, wherein he wrote about a website, Newsroom101.com where Associated Press lays out its stylesheet and even provides exercises for those who want to write for them or like them. I reached over to my reference shelves and pulled out three style references: one a 1965 booklet, 52 pages in length, called The Associated Press Stylebook , a 1970 publication of the (Modern Language Association) MLA Stylesheet, and a copy of the 1977 The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual. Now - were I a lady of leisure, I'd have gone to the website Taran mentioned and compared my tangible stylesheets with those now presented by The Associated Press. But I am not a lady of leisure, and at that moment I was late for an appointment, so I just left my ol' books near my work chair and went about my business. But as I drove to my destination, I realized that my entire reference library is probably all updated somewhere on the internet. I really don't need any of them anymore...do I?

Returning home, I started writing this. I look at my three books and know I will put them in a pile to get rid of. These are ol' books that have served their purpose on my shelves, and it is time to let them go. I won't throw them out, though. Somewhere there is a lady of leisure (or a gentleman) who will find them irresistible and might even check their contents against the information on Newsroom101.com and thoroughly enjoy herself doing it. I've just lightened my moving load by about 12 ounces...

There are some books on my reference shelf that will join them - ol' books like my 1991 copy of Florida Media Law Second Edition published by USF - Tampa. It is outdated, but I think I will read this one first, just to get the principles of it, before it goes into the OUT box. There are far too many ol' grammar books, and I think I will limit myself to just one. Maybe two. Dos for Dummies was a good ol' book, but as I recently told a lady who told me she had a six year old degree in computer science, that and a buck will get me a cup of coffee. I have a few other books dealing with writers and the internet, all about 8 or 9 years old. Those ol' books are gone! If I can't find what I need to know about writing on the internet myself, these days, I'd best throw my keyboard out my 7th floor window!

After I get finshed sorting the books on the reference shelves, throwing out those outdated ol' books, I will move on to the rattan shelves that divide my apartment and work on the rest of my books, those olde books that might just have to find, as Bette Davis' biography did, new hands to hold them.

The adventure continues...

What an interesting stream of thought...

2006-02-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

Taran's Blog was interesting this morning. He speaks of opinions...and what an interesting stream of thought he has lain out for us today!

For years and years it has been said that a person of good manners will not speak of such things as religion, politics or the cost of things. I was raised in that generation and I was taught that, but as I have aged (think of me as a good cheese, or a good wine!) I have found that such self-limited conversation quickly becomes boring - or stupid. If it is good manners to not include such topics (I believe the reason given was to avoid conflict) so as to not offend or alienate, then what is the purpose of the conversation? Nearly all of getting to know a person via conversation is finding out the person's opinions, his beliefs, his feelings. Deliberatly avoiding politics - when so much is political these days - or religion - when so much of a person is his ethical and/or spiritual beliefs - or the cost of things - when that is a major concern of most of us, and is tied to the other two subjects - is to form a superficial relationship or to fail to really get to know another person.
It would be rather like standing blindfolded before a wall, hearing only the reverberation of one's own voice.

See, we don't have to agree - or avoid a topic - to be friends. What we need to be friends is to have an understanding, a genuine liking for the other person, and respect. By virtue of life itself, another is worthy of our respect until the very day that that person proves unworthy of it. We like another person for his traits and qualities: his sense of humor or sense of integrity, shared interests, or just some - intangible something that we find likeable. Growing to know someone without knowing his insides, how he feels about such important things as religion, politics and even the cost of things is knowing a shell, not a real person.

In this day when everyone is being told to be his/her "authentic self" how can we not want to know the authentic selves of those we encounter? Including the parts we may not agree with when getting to know someone is honest. It is the caring thing to do. You don't have to agree. If you are a tolerant person (and we should all be - or be becoming - tolerant persons, given the day and age we live in, the smallness of our planet due to internet and global interrealationsips) you can find friends - people with whom we share a mutual liking - in the most diverse places.

And if an overture to a person meets with indifference or ignoring (odd how the word "ignorance" seemed the grammatically correct extension of the word "ignore" in this sentence!) then we have faced one of the major truths to our existence: not everyone is going to like us - any more than we are going to like every individual we encounter.

But better we know this.

Knowing this keeps us from looking stupid.

And so passes another Valentine's Day...

2006-02-14T23:05:00.000-05:00

I always wonder why it is that, for every other holiday on the calendar, we look out for the needy. Thanksgiving - we try to make sure everyone is well fed. Halloween means a bit of candy for everybody. At Christmas we have drives to make sure everybody gets something. On the 4th of July we make huge displays so everybody can see the fireworks. But on Valentine's day, the needy go unnoticed. The ones who had a partner once but no longer do, the ones who have never had the closeness that is celebrated with chocolate and red satin and lace today are left to their memories. Some of those are lonely, some would really like to be partnered again, some feel completely abandoned on a day that celebrates Love. No one offers an acquaintance to a single friend or family member, no one plays matchmaker, no one even notices those who go home to a dinner for one. I guess it is a rather self-involved holiday, with the couples thinking only of themselves, albeit one another.

It's been years since I've been in love. At my age and in the state I am in, I suppose it is a normal state to not be in love. I can't say I miss it, though I am far more poetically productive when I am in love. Love isn't always the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day. Love is hard work much of the time, and while it is almost effortless while you are in it, when it goes, you notice how tired you are, how hard you tried, what you gave, gave up for it. I can't say I haven't loved thoroughly -- I have. But those I loved best are all gone - having passed on to another place entirely or just changed geographic locations, but still on the planet. Sometimes I think I will never find that again, and it doesn't bother me to think so - but I am still open to the idea. It's just that, at the age I am, the requirements change.

I am pleased that I don't need to be part of a couple to feel whole. I'm not sure that I ever did, even when much much younger. Now I have a treasure of memories that warm me. Sometimes when I read some of what I wrote during those episodes of my life I am startled by the passion of those times. What wonderful men I have known! I do not often see the equivalent of such men around me where I live or in the circles in which my social life, wilted thing that it is, takes me. Sometimes being alone is preferable to the choices at hand.

When I read Taran's blog today I found I am not alone in my feelings about Valentine's Day - and that for Taran, at least, there is the sense that perhaps next year will be different.

But to the deaf eye - it doesn't matter.

The Art of Moving, Part Two: Being Sure

2006-02-12T09:52:00.000-05:00

When I left off writing about where I think I will spend the rest of my life, I wrote as the thoughts came - what Florida has come to mean to me and why I've come to love being here so much. I wrote again about the "rules" by which I've lived my life - those ingrained laws that inserted themselves in my brain while growing up which may or may not be valid. Not being well for a while, (I identify with the Matchbox 20 song, Unwell, - except in the song the person sees an impending breakdown while my "breakdown" is in my rear view mirror - and oddly, someone - my therapist - agrees with me!) I recognize that for now, being introspective, even being somewhat self-involved, is a necessary part to the way back from where I was. Bear with me, then.

I have decided to move from my warm and comfortable Florida home to Beloit, Wisconsin. It's been far from a snap decision, taking years in the making. Even so, I need to work through the decision process, because I will be going into the (nearly) complete unknown - a city I've only visited, never lived. I'd definitely have preferred that my daughter and her daughters and their kids moved back to Florida, mind you, but that isn't going to happen, and, upon reflection, I certainly wouldn't want them all to move here simply for me. They have lives there that are enmeshed with other people they love, places which are familiar to them, and enjoy as much as I love my Florida home. It just isn't realistic to expect them to come here. Jinger and her family tried living here - in fact, it is here Jinger met Tim. But she missed the people and places she grew up knowing so much that she was unhappy here. Choosing a place to live should always include the happiness factor.

And I am happy around my daughter and her family and their families. They make me laugh, they warm me with their caring, and I find myself in a place where I am actually wanted, (even appreciated!) and in a place that I am a part of when I am there. I remember even telling Jinger that her home had become "the home place" - Family Central. And with Dusty overseas and Taran traipsing around his elastic corner of the world, being in the one location where these wayward sons will naturally gravitate to be with family is a great selling point.

It sold me. And it is constantly reinforced. Just this morning I viewed comments added to a photo I posted on Flickr.com - one shot of last night's dinner - and there was my explanation, a comment from Jaime, my youngest (to date) granddaughter, a response from me, and a note from Jinger - a conversation - and the interplay made my day. It happens a lot like that on Flickr, and I enjoy it so much now because it is not an everyday event. Face to face interactions, of course, are much more rewarding. From this distance, these things remind me what awaits me when I do move.

One of the reasons this could not be a snap decision is that there has been a part of me that felt moving from Florida would be accepting a sort of defeat, that I would somehow be a failure if I left this place where I had cut out a life for myself and accomplished things I wanted to accomplish as a poet, as a member of the arts community, as a functioning member of society. When I recognize that the past several years since I became sick I have done little to further those causes of mine (and the longer one stays away from the artsy activities, the harder it is, as in so many things, to get back to it) I think perhaps starting out as the new person on the block may actually be easier. And Beloit, Wisconsin has a viable arts community. This knocks a hole in another of my hesitations for moving: While I love my family, my daughter and her family, my granddaughters and their families, and even the friends I made while visiting, I do not want to live in anyone's pocket. I want to be there where everyone else is, but I want to have my own life apart from them as well.

I can do that. Perhaps this is exactly the best time in my life to start over again, to one more time envision how I want to live (all right, the boots and scarves and mittens and sweaters aren't exactly what I want, but we'll consider it a trade off!) and work toward that. I have come to realize that I have attained a certain success here in Florida. If I haven't accomplished all I intended, it's because I'm not done yet. I can accomplish what I want no matter where I am, I suddenly realized. Yes -- I can do that.

And it will take some doing. I live strictly on Social Security Disability. I actually live quite well, all things considered, because I know how to live well on very little, and - quite honestly, I live better than many people I know who have more income than I - but who are owned by debt in a proportion I do not have. The problem is accumulating the funds to actually pack up those things I will choose to begin this new chapter of my life with me, and physically move myself there. Jinger has sent a list of places that offer the type of housing I will need - subsidized housing that has apartments designed for handicapped people with aid bars in the bathroom, that sort of thing. I have decided which of these to contact and as soon as I have a vague idea of when I can afford the move, I will make more solid arrangements with the one I eventually select to be my new home.

One thing I have pretty much decided: I will probably not take my car. Eventually I will find another when I settle into my new place, but Augie needs things (a back window, a few piddly repairs to the creature comforts - the blower motor, the radio, the cruise control (probably a fuse on the last two items - I have to check it out!) and -- I dread finding out exactly what - some front end work. Could be just the CV joints - a reasonable repair I can probably afford next month - but if it is major, Augie goes. Ideally, I can get him into trustworthy transportation shape over the next few months - it would be a good and comfortable way to travel, just me, Liberty the Cat, important papers and the computer and other delicate things, and the plants. But I am prepared to let him go. Getting him trustworthy for the trip (most of it freeway miles - a cinch if he is in good shape!) will cost money I could be setting aside for the trip itself.

And the smallest truck I can rent for the trip is about 12-13 foot moving U-Haul or its ilk. Pricey. I checked. But I understand that I can also hire a part of a BIG moving van, that it is actually reasonable in cost (whatever that is) and I will be looking into that in the next few weeks as I do what I can to accumulate funds. A friend looks out for small jobs for me - even negotiates a fair price - cleaning houses or designing/creating something to be printed, and another friend uses me as a courier, sometimes.

While the date (or even the season) isn't sure, I do know I am going. I am living my life these days with that in mind, disposing of things that won't make the final cut, acquiring only those things I will need later and making do with what is around me, knowing I will create an entirely new and different home when I get there. I've told Jinger I won't have any draperies at all, but for the sheer ones I love. I don't need any more than that here. Insulating draperies will be necessary there. She'll keep her eyes open for me, and if I am really lucky, when I am close to deciding which of the apartments on the lists are being considered, she may even tour them for me, perhaps with her camera, so I know better what I should shuck off here and what I will need to bring with me. I will need bookshelves when I get there, and probably a chest of drawers or two, a file cabinet, and a computer desk and/or a regular desk. I'll need cooking pots that don't have Teflon, so I can throw out the junky ones and give the better of these to people who have nothing. I will also empty out my pantry of canned goods before I leave, the excess going to the Emergency Pantry the Resident Management Committee keeps.

Usually, when my life has made an abrupt turn into change, I've been taken by surprise. This one will actually have a plan, of sorts. Lord knows it is well thought out.

As I write this, I get excited all over again.

I'll be 59 this summer.

I'm overdue for a new start.

Spoiled

2006-01-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

I'd say I am somewhat spoiled. I've been in Florida now for just under 20 years, and I have happily gotten used to winters with 58 degree mornings, roses blooming in January, no snow, no ice, no blizzards and no itchy wooly underwear.

I like being able to go to the beach just to watch the birds and breathe in the salty air whenever I feel like it. I thought, when I moved here, that I would always be able to do that - just go to the beach and sit whenever I pleased. I haven't done enough of that. Other things always get in the way -- because when you live here, you know you can always go, so this sort of little pleasure is often kicked aside. When I moved here, I told my kids I was picking my retirement spot early, that I was moving here to stay.

It was here, in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, that I started to create a new life for myself. I went to college. Got my Associate's degree, then my Bachelor's. Discovered that I still had a knack for writing (Sometimes during years of wifehood and motherhood, skills and talents get forgotten. ) I was evolving into someone I really wanted to be. I finally had a job I enjoyed with a company I was proud to be part of. I had a sense of capability, of independence, of being in charge of my own life. I was creating a local reputation as a poet, and learned the skills and nuances of public presentation. I was finding causes to support, and, though I am not one to make a flock of friends, I was friendly with most everyone, and enjoyed the bond of friendship with a few select people. Found love a time or two, found like a few times more, and have had friends die and move away. I've been disappointed and outright stunned, I've been hopeful and a diehard believer. I've loved living here.

My daughter (and her kids) came to Florida some time ago, stayed a while, fell in love and married and doubled my inventory of grandkids.

My daughter picked up her family and moved back to the roots she remembered and was familiar with in Wisconsin. I've missed her a lot since she's gone, and the kids -- growing up in a place I had visited a time or two and knew not at all, but for the climate. But Jinger is a snow-bunny. Jinger always loved snow and the more vigorous change of seasons that happens in Wisconsin. She needed to find her own place, and Wisconsin was it. Taran came and went and came and went in Florida. He had been growing up in Trinidad, and the climate in Florida suited him far better than that in the northern states where he was born and spent his early childhood. He joined the Navy here and spent some time in Orlando before going to his Great Lakes post, then he went South again until his father's health dragged him North again. Then back to Orlando, then to Clearwater to work for a time at the same company as I. I think, sometimes, that working there changed the direction of his life. He found a place where he was appreciated, not just for what he knew and his ability to get a job done, but for his ability to think, to learn, to grow. And he outgrew the place. Eventually he returned to Trinidad - a gap I cannot seem to close even to see him and do the motherly pride thing. He's been back to visit, but these days the world is his teacher, and he freelances his abilities and is constantly learning more, implementing more, and one day he'll be back again - most likely to visit. I don't believe he will set down roots in Florida again. And Dusty. Dusty's visited Florida, but his roots and family are in Pennsylvania. I doubt he and his wife will consider Florida until they are old and in need of the constant warmth.

But there are many kinds of warmth. Of late, I have lost two friends within a week of one another, both to pneumonia. Florida is no safeguard against illness. The friends I have left are busily into their own lives, as they should be. I am most often left to my own devices, which, since I lost my mind in 2001 to a sort of accumulative breakdown, are narrow and of the self-serving type one uses as one tries to mend. I've gotten much better, mind you -- but I am aware that I am not "well" yet, and while working toward that end, I do have to make allowances for what I cannot do anymore, forgiving myself for the inabilities that thwart me. It isn't easy, and while my friends have ruffled their feathers from time to time, they have stood by me and I am grateful for that. But I need more.

When my daughter calls, I immediately calm. There is nothing like her stories of her job, her family, her life, always seasoned with her laughter, to make me smile and -- miss her all the more. I have been visiting to Wisconsin in the early summer, several times in the last few years, and each return to Florida I miss her and the girls more. Now when she calls, I know some of the people she talks about. I've actually made friends with some of them. I can picture in my mind the setting for her stories.

When my granddaughters call, I can see them in their environments in my mind's eye. They are young women now, with husbands and children (though husbands and children are not evenly divided among them) and each has her successes, each has her challenges. I've met three out of four of my great grandchildren, and I miss knowing the littlest one, the one with the serious face, the one so very tiny , as my daughter was as a baby. The oldest one, a little boy with incredible dimples, is four now. I've caught myself imagining me teaching him where his five fingers go on piano keys.

I've thought of moving to Wisconsin.

I've thought about it for several years now.

(to be continued)

Good Night, Mother Goose

2006-01-21T16:31:00.000-05:00

I lost a friend this week. Thomas Bruce Reese has left the Planet. I feel his absence somewhere in the center of my being.

I haven't been well myself, and had not been to see Tom since last spring, though I kept promising myself I would go, kept thinking of him and what I would say when I saw him next. I wanted to tell him his babies - the stray cats he adopted - were being cared for. I wanted to tell him that he had been in my thoughts and in my heart. I wanted to tell him I valued him and our friendship, that I cherished the silly gifts he gave me: thrift shop jewelry, books, a purple teddy bear, the recycled greeting cards, the newspaper clippings he thought I'd like with notes in the margin, written in his ornate scrawl . But I didn't go. Perhaps it's just as well. His friend, right-hand man, and eventually, the man who looked out for Tom's best interests and kept the rest of us informed, Malcolm, says he suffered from dementia, as well as the physical ailments that come along when a body turns 89. Malcolm said Tom believed he was the director of a very successful art gallery. While the financial books would say that belief was a lie, in the minds and hearts of many of us poets, artists and musicians around St. Petersburg and beyond will swear his belief was correct. Depends on how you define success. Tom was a friend, a mentor, a critic, a hero and a nemesis, depending on whom you ask, and the time of day you ask.

I will leave the history writing to those who know more than I - Google "Thomas Bruce Reese" and you will find websites and stories - one even with a mostly-accurate timeline - much of which I know is true, some of which I suspect is embellished. I understand there is a book in the making about Beaux Arts Gallery and Coffeehouse, his far-reaching contribution to local culture. When Tom became ill, his Gallery and Coffeehouse, on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, went on the market. This was not the first home of Beaux Arts. The history will tell you that, and as I said, I will leave the history writing to those who know more than I. But let me tell you about what I do remember...

I remember a man who sat in the open air of the gardens of the original Beaux Arts coffeehouse on Sunday afternoons and listened to a parade of open-mike performers, sometimes with his eyes closed; I remember how he commented at the end of each performer's set, for good or for bad, on their selection of material, their performance skills, or sometimes the history related to the performance.

I remember picking Tom up (This was when Tom could no longer drive -- many of us breathed a sigh of relief!) early on Sunday mornings and being treated to breakfast at a little restaurant in downtown St. Petersburg before we went to the Mainsail Arts Festival or other annual event. I remember not being able to keep up with him at those art shows, him, armed with the latest flyers for Beaux Arts events, flitting like a large and colorful butterfly (how he loved his bright clothes!) from place to place, talking with old friends and inviting new friends to his Gallery. I remember him trying to pair me up with unsuspecting visitors to Coffeehouse - it bothered him that I had, for a time, chosen to remain unattached. I remember him getting up and walking out of the Gallery in the middle of my recitation of one of my poems, saying (not quietly - Tom gave no criticism or admonishments privately or quietly!) he would not stay and listen to a piece of work that I cared so little about that I would read it too fast, or too carelessly. If I didn't care about my work, he said, why should he...

I remember helping him clean up the gardens, but having to check with him before tearing out what most people would regard as weeds. Tom recognized all species of plants and called few (I can't recall a single one!) a weed. I remember (after an afternoon of that ) going across the street to the gay bar where we had what he called "a dollar dinner and a dollar beer." When a friend of mine from another organization was the performer at that bar - a talented cabaret singer/entertainer - I remember excitedly dragging HIM across the street so he could hear her and appreciate her talent. And how Tom loved dance and drama! As late as the mid-nineties he would throw costume galas to see how everyone came dressed.

Because of his gruffness, sometimes, because of his very direct way of speaking, many of the younger people who visited his coffeehouse on open-mike night overlooked his direction, his attempts to teach them how to be better at what they did. But Tom Reese could have taught Bob Dylan to speak distinctly, one syllable at a time; he could have taught rappers to slow down in their delivery: he'd have said, "Your message is too important for you to race through it!" And he would have said it loudly. Toward the end, he said everything loudly. Somewhere on the premises was a hearing aid or two, but he seldom had one in use. Yet he missed little. Maybe because of his age, maybe because not many knew he had a degree in Fine Arts, many did not take him seriously.

I did. I learned a lot from Tom. When I started to get sick, he knew. He'd even call me when I had been away too long. I tried to explain it to him,tried to tell him how my mind was beating me up so severely it was hard to leave the safety of the blankets, then, much less my house. "Are you writing it down?" he asked. Sadly, much of it went unwritten, as I believed then that if I got through the worst of it, who would want to remember. When I made my uncommon appearances, sometimes during the day when he was alone, he was always glad to see me, always ready to tell me who some of the new performers were. He would show me the latest paintings and scuptures in the gallery and take me on a tour of the side garden.

I last toured the side garden, the front and the parking lot on my own, with the permission of one of the tenants, once the "For Sale" sign went up on Central Avenue. I documented it with pictures of the place - too few, and none of the inside - that I wanted to keep to remember those years. A friend of mine says it is the end of an era, now that Tom is gone. The place is sold, and will be torn down to make room for - something else. But a part of Tom carries on in so many of us, I doubt the era is over. Recently, at a grocery store, someone who knew me told the young man packing up my groceries that I am a poet. The young man stopped a moment and looked at me and launched into a spirited rap -- and I caught myself telling him, "Slow down, slow down! What you have to say is much too important to rush through like that!"

I remember how Tom would ask about people he hadn't seen for a time, and the poem I would read at the end of some of those coffehouse nights:

Counting Sheep

And the sheep have
gathered into a tight knot
near the haystack
where the little boy sleeps.

I’ve heard it said
that in the course of a day
every single sheep in the flock
will rub against its shepherd --

perhaps not in affection,
but in acknowledgment;
perhaps not in devotion,
but in loyalty.

Mary’s lamb was different --
one on one acceptance, probably;
devotion, affection --
trailing around behind her
like a ripped hem. It was
the talk of the town.

Po Peep wasn’t
the shepherdess type -
easily distracted,
no doubt scatterbrained
(quite possibly blonde)
yet even disenfranchised,
her sheep came home – remember?

Close your eyes.
The sheep are coming home again,
one by one -
even the little black one,
his wool shorn, filling three bags.

Rest easy. Everything is going
according to Plan.

Goodnight, Mother Goose.
From the collection, Bartering Copyright (C) Smokey Combs, 1993 All Rights Reserved

This is MY fence and I will sit on it as long as I choose...

2005-12-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

There is always someone asking what I think about this or about that, and usually I have a well thought out response, because I do think a lot, and analyze, probably to a fault. But when it comes down to war and peace – well, this is my fence. It has barbs on the top and it isn’t comfortable at all. The links are beginning to rust, and I am not sure whether it is going to last long enough for me to decide whether to drop down on one side or the other. But it’s my fence.

Nobody likes war – save those corporate entities that make their fortunes supplying the necessities of war. They don’t count in this assessment. They do what must be done, and as long as they do it honestly, to the best of their abilities, with full integrity, I cannot fault them. That’s what they do.

I don’t like violence of any sort. I’ve seen enough in my own life to last for centuries. But I recognize that there are times when violence is unavoidable, when diplomacy does not work, when the last resort is the only option left. So it is with war.

After September 11, 2001, I believe this country was right to go into Afghanistan in search of Bin Laden. We had good intelligence that he and his Taliban were there, and we owed him and them pursuit, capture, and justice. We went into Afghanistan with our allies’ understanding and support. We were at that point of last resort, and come hell or high water, we were going to find that bastard and his cohorts. We were as humane as possible going into Afghanistan, aiding that country as much as possible while in pursuit of the madman that had fled there.

Not long after this, our government became uneasy with Iraq. They were under the direction of the United Nations, and were subject to periodic inspections in the search for weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was arrogant and taunting, and after an attempt on his life, he killed a large number of Sunni in his country, and ran his country with little concern for his citizens. It was not a pleasant place to be. There was infighting among the religious groups – but since before the time of Christ there had been infighting among the religious groups, there had been tyrants in control. This was nothing new.

Presidebt Bush was given information (which we now know was bogus) that there were weapons of mass destruction hidden about in Iraq. In his haste, Presidebt Bush disregarded the opinions of the UN, of our allies, of wise men around the world. The public was led to believe this would be a quick war, in and out – find the weapons of mass destruction and destroy them or remove them – in any case, disarm Iraq. The actual conflict was short. But we remain there just the same.

I cannot help but think that if the troops we sent to Iraq had been sent to join those we already had in Afghanistan, Bin Laden and his cohorts would have been caught and brought to justice, made to pay for September 11, 2001. I cannot help but think that had Presidebt Bush not been so hasty to invade Iraq, had he allowed the UN to complete its inspections, had we continued in Afghanistan and met our goal there, had the time to let the truth about weapons of mass destruction rise to the surface, things would be much different for us today.

I feel our government acted in haste that has cost us dearly in American lives. I support our troops there. They are doing as they swore to do when they enlisted to serve this country. Many are going above and beyond mere service and are actively helping the Iraqi rebuild their homeland, educate their children. Our guys are showing the Iraqi, one on one, that we are not a bad nation, that Americans are, by an large, a caring and generous people. Our troops are ambassadors of our way of life. Yet they are in constant risk of random violence. We lose more lives there every day. We get caught in the crossfire of the infighting that has been going on in that part of the world for centuries. We don’t belong in the center of their fighting, and if no one has found a way to stop it in thousands of years, who are we to think we can stop it now? Iraq may well be a democracy, but it will never operate as a western nation. We should not have that expectation. You can glue peacock feathers on a duck, but it will still quack. Yet somehow we have gotten ourselves embedded in Iraq with no end in sight and a death toll rising daily. All we can do is train those Iraqi troops and let them care for their country’s security themselves. But as with all new skills, sometimes it takes a push out the aircraft door before the trainee realizes he has the skills and knowhow to use a parachute. We need to lessen our presence so the Iraqi troops realize this for themselves.

I don’t have a problem supporting our troops who are following orders. I object to the orders that sent them there.

I believe our work in Afghanistan was hobbled by sending troops to Iraq. Afghanistan wants us there. They want us to find and remove Bin Laden and his followers. They want our support, want to learn how to take care of themselves, how to rebuild, how to best lead and develop their country again. I believe we have been undermanned in Afghanistan because of Iraq.

So I sit on my fence, uncomfortable and unhappy with the leaders of this country who failed to look at the big picture, who acted in haste, who were impatient to follow agendas that are still shadowy, at best. Was it for oil? Was it for big business? Better minds than mind have wrestled with this. I am not sure I agree with their conclusions. I am still processing information, still trying to understand the whats and whys of these situations.

I do know this: for nearly as long as there has been a USA, there has been the tendency of Americans to feel superior to other peoples and nations. We are often arrogant. We think we know best for the rest of the world – yet we have pockets of poverty in this country to match those anywhere else, and a corporate personality that, with the misuse of unions, has sent our industrial sector elsewhere to survive. Our patriotism translated itself into belittling other nations who choose to solve problems in their own countries before taking on those of global proportions. We thumb our noses at the UN if it does not agree with us without a thought to listening to the reasoning behind its decisions.

As a nation, we are all the things we teach our children we should not be – because I believe teaching peace begins at home. It begins with teaching a child to listen, then giving a child choices and teaching him to think, to reason. It begins with manners, with teaching empathy, teaching diversity, that we are not all the same, we don’t all believe the same, and we do not act or react the same. We teach our children not to be bullies, and we teach them how to deal with bullies if they absolutely must. We teach them that sometimes the answer is not yes or no, black or white, in absolutes. And we make room on our fences, so there is a place for them to see both sides before making a decision.

You don't have to agree with me, nor I with you, to be friends. I am open to new information, and I will process it, reason on it. I have even been known to adjust my point of view in the light of new information.

I hope you will hear me as well.

Beginning Again

2005-12-10T07:58:00.000-05:00

I guess I needed a break.

If you are used to writing on a daily basis and then don't write for a day or two - stuff you want to say piles up and it is harder to begin again. And the longer it is, the harder it becomes to get down to business and address all the thoughts that normally are put down in a (quasi) orderly fashion and it snowballs into weeks of silence -- when that is not the intention.

It certainly isn't that nothing has happened, nor that I haven't had much to write about - but it is breaking the silence in the first place that is the hardest, and that is what I am doing today, so that, perhaps, tomorrow will be easier to write, and the next day and the next.

I forget sometimes that some of the rules by which I have been living my life are arbitrary, and not based on fact or truth or any of the upright things we think are behind rules. Some of the rules that I have held since childhood were given me by a parent wishing to avoid embarrassment ("Don't ask for anything," the parent would say as we entered a store, thereby avoiding the embarrassment of having to say no, we can't afford it.) or developed by a child's mind ("I can't ask for anything because ... says I can't. That must be right.") For years, such rules (I use the asking for things as an example; there are other rules just as falsely set) are a part of who I am, and I tell myself that it is part of my independence, part of the self-sufficient person I am - thereby giving it a positive spin. But when you break it down to its basics, the rule is not one that should continue to hold to, hard and fast.

I have been remembering, of late, that as she who makes the rules by which she lives, I am also she who can modify and even break these rules as I see fit. (I can hear my daughter's voice as I write this saying, "Well -- yeah!")

So the rule that if I skip a day or two here, on this blog, I have to explain it in the next entry -- is hereby abolished. If I skip a day, I skip a day and I probably had a fairly good time doing something useless during that time. From this point forward, this will be less a daily episodic blog, but more of a series of essays that may or may not connect to anything else on the planet. So I begin again, more rationally.

I never said I ran out of things to say.

Taps

2005-10-20T23:08:00.000-05:00

We were invincible then --
we wore taps on our shoes.

We smoked Newports and Winstons
in the restrooms and in the woods
behind the teachers’ parking lot.

Boys gathered into knots
in the hallways, in the stairwells,
girls not too far away

Long Island, New York, 1960 – 61 – 62 – 63

We were unbreakable.
Sunday dinner was an event
that called for “yes ma’am”
“no sir” and families gathered
pretended to be close,
came visiting on Sunday.

Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights
opened our eyes to traveling circuses
and dogs that sang with their owners.

We were enviable in those days –
Mom still ironed our clothes:
rolled sleeve dress white shirts
for the boys, or peacock colored ones,
magenta and lavender with socks to match
somewhere between tight, peg-legged
black slacks or dungarees

and Cuban heeled shoes with taps.

For their daughters, Mom pressed skirts
as short as the dress code allowed –
snug black ones with kick pleats
and innocent white angel blouses

or tight sweaters that they wore
with pale pale pancake make-up
and black eye liner
on the inside of their eyelids.

Hair was something that you teased,
love was a ring on a chain
and slow dances in the school gym
on Friday nights
in dull black flats or sling-backs,

sometimes with taps.

O yes -- we were
bulletproof then,
living up to our expectations
of another day, another year
of being the same:

security was stability
and we were stable then,
full of learning
and hi-fi technology

Murray the K’s
Submarine Race Watcher’s Club
on WINS

or Cousin Brucie on WABC

AM Radio.

That’s the way it was.
We were invincible,
we were tough
until that day in Mr. Gabrick’s
American History Class:

the stuttering intercom
interruption, saying that

the President is dead,
Ladies and Gentlemen

a moment of stunned silence

shot

the world no longer a safe place
for young punks
and third year Latin, Rock ‘n’ Roll,
prom queens and hot rod cars

the crack started – (then and
there) in our armored innocence
and now we are no longer draft exempt.

Mom put down her iron and burned her bra.
She bought a dishwasher. Now
we don’t know where to find her
after dinner anymore.

Even Murray the K died
somewhere on the West Coast

and we are vulnerable,
Boys and Girls

We are watching it
happen on CNN
o yes, o yes
we know everything now.

We can travel nonstop to London
in a matter of hours, fly
to the moon or down the street
in our safety regulated cars

we can source information
on anything from anywhere
on the internet.

We are grown-ups now.
Nostalgia is a trend.
High school history
is our childhood.

We win at Trivial Pursuit.

We are mortal.

The President is dead,
Boys and Girls

and Taps
is a different sound.

______________
From The Soapbox Papers (c) 1996 Smokey Combs
all rights reserved

About Blogs and Bloggers

2005-09-14T19:33:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a social worker today and the subject turned to blogs. My friendly social worker acquaintance mentioned she was going to a meeting this afternoon that would be all about blogs -- and did I ever read any?

I told Karen that yes, I do read blogs - a lot of them! - and that I have one of my own. I told her I am not always as good about writing mine as reading others, but that it was a great way to learn and to communicate with Out There. I asked Karen what she thought of blogs in general. She told me that what concerned her was this huge bunch of unsubstantiated information floating around the internet.

Those are opinions, I told Karen. Most blogs, I told her, reference their sources of information, and if a reader is interested or concerned, that reader can generally click on a link that will take them to the source. I told her how easily one can get lost going from source to source and link to link - but the experience is wonderful in and of itself. It's not unlike reading the dictionary or a brand new encyclopedia or making a new friend. And sometimes you do make new friends.

I told her it is a great way to learn about just about anything, and the pros and cons of any situation. Most blogs have a place where readers can leave comments, and whether one chooses to leave a comment or not, reading through those comments is just as informative as reading the initial blog entry. While it is true one has to form opinions along the way, it is nothing but enriching to read what others think and feel (and why) and constantly question the validity of those opinions we do hold dear.

I have another friend who refuses to read blogs. I mentioned him and a mutual organization a few weeks back in this blog, and e-mailed the link to him so he could read it. (He did read the link.) He told me he didn't read blogs as a rule because he felt they were personalized journals not unlike diaries, and he felt he didn't want to know the secrets and other diary stuff he would find there. I know there are some blogs that are just that. When I do my random wanderings (I use the 'next blog' feature at the top right of the page here on blogger.com) I click past those -- but I stop and read blogs from all over the world that express opinions on the news or some invention or politics or some other issue that is not dealing with a personal fight with parents, what happened on a date last night, or what the new baby had for breakfast.

Among the more interesting blogs I have stumbled upon is a message place where a teacher writes notes for her students - about homework, class policy, hints and such; a blog written by a young Sunni in Iraq who was jailed on the day he went to sign up for college (this blog was linked by news sources, I later found out) and the comments added to his entries were as interesting to read as his blog entries themselves. I found a psychiatrist who discusses political matters, a handyman/construction worker who discusses advertising; I read of people who travel and their impressions of the places they go. I read blogs written by everyday people in countries other than my own, and I learn about those people and how they see everyday people in my country.

I have a son who blogs constantly, diversely and well. I have a brother who is cruising around reading blogs, gathering information for when he gets down to the business of writing his own. I have another son and daughter who read blogs - mine, their brother's and those of who-knows-how-many other people. I feel good about this - that when any of them write, they will have well rounded opinions, they will have explored whatever subject strikes their individual fancies, and they will be adding something positive to this exploding internet.

That we can write about anything in a blog is mind boggling. No censors - at least, not obvious censors. And yet - as in me choosing not to read diary blogs - we are all censors. We develop favorites, yet we are never satisfied with the same old circle of people. We explore and we read and we learn.

And we blog.

Survival Plan

2005-09-06T10:11:00.000-05:00

Given that most of the physical victims of the Gulf Coast Disaster that was Katrina were poor folk, and many were older and/or disabled, many on Social Security and /or Social Security Disability and others receiving some sort of aid to families with dependent children, is it possible that the timing of the storm made much of a difference?

A neighbor said that this morning. She said that, because it was the end of the month, when those on fixed and limited incomes are the most strapped for cash, more people were unable to evacuate than if the storm had come through even a day or two later. Those who remained didn't have a lot of food in the house, and probably had no emergency gallons of drinking water stashed away, either. Prescription medications, a couple of days' supply left, may have been ready for their monthly refill. The gas gauge in the car (if there was a car) was probably on E, ready for it's monthly infusion of gas.

It sounds like we need a Plan B.

Because I live on the Florida coastline, I check into these things. My community is prepared. Anyone who needs assistance to evacuate is encouraged to register with the Fire Department. If one is not registered, one can still be assisted, but will have to wait out his/her turn on the list. (Those who have previously registered are reminded to keep their addresses current on the registry.) There are lists available everywhere that one can use while creating an emergency supply box. Things to include are batteries and flashlights, water, necessary medications, first aid kit, a pre-paid phone card, and more - but you get the idea. Important papers should be encased in plastic, photos and such in waterproof (zip loc) freezer weight bags, just in case. And it is more important that any other time that each of us carry up-to-date identification with next of kin listed as well as medical conditions. If one hasn't already put In Case of Emergency (ICE) information on one's cell phone, not is a good time to do it. Even if you can't make a call, the information will be accessible as long as the battery is good. And that reminds me -- when the very first hurricane warnings come, plug in the cell phone to charge, even if you have no minutes left - for just the above reason. Check with neighbors and church groups to see who needs a way to evacuate, or who can find room to take you (or others who have no car) to safety.

I am one of the lucky ones -- the patch of earth where I live will be one of the two islands left of Pinellas County if St. Petersburg meets up with Category 5 hurricane. I live on the 7th floor, which means I will be requested to move down to somewhere on the first five floors during a storm, but I won't have to evacuate. In the event of such a thing, I will toss my car keys to someone who must evacuate, put Liberty in her carrier, pack up whatever is in the freezer and refrigerator to share, and go visit the neighbors.

With such a large community, even toward the end of the month there will be, somewhere amongst us, food for everyone, and even enough to share with those who come visit us to be safe. We have sense enough to keep drinking water on hand. There is a resident management team where I live that keeps a supply of canned goods, blankets, and assorted other necessities that we all contribute to when we can, as a bit of added insurance. There are large rooms for meetings to be held and announcements made, so we should have some realistic idea of what is going on. And I have neighbors who really care about one another.

I just reviewed my survival plan. It's a good time for everyone in a vulnerable location to do that. If there are holes in yours, find a way to fill them in so you will have less to worry about should the unthinkable happen in your community.

And pray that if disaster comes, it doesn't come at the end of the month.

Balancing the Checkbook

2005-09-05T22:56:00.000-05:00

I am disabled - I've mentioned that before here - and I rely on my monthly Social Security disability checks. They drop like clockwork into my bank account, and I can count on them being there on the third day of every month. It's how I pay my rent, buy my groceries, pay my bills.

But what if I am taking refuge in another city and cannot access my account at the ATM because my bank is under water? What of all the transactions lost?

And what if I didn't have direct deposit and my monthly checks arrive in my mailbox? What if I lived along the Gulf Coast? What if I no longer have a mailbox?

Those who come in contact with the displaced persons from the Gulf Coast disaster -- think of these things. Think of all the ways their lives are different now, of all the things that have stripped these people of everything - everything! - save their dignity. Treat them with care. Dignity is all many of them have left, and we must do nothing to take that away from them, too.

Love with an open heart.

Give with an open hand.

Just thinking...(Odds and ends)

2005-09-05T21:23:00.000-05:00

I've been doing more reading than writing these past few days. I am unsettled, vaguely unhappy with the world in general, and, as usual when I am in this state, I have thrown myself into cleaning something. Did the laundry, tidied up several areas, and broke the belt on my vacuum cleaner. I don't have a spare. That means it is time to quit.

I browsed around the web a while, trying to find something to focus on that wasn't wet, hungry and righteously furious, and made notes of things to research and eventually write about. Look for a rant in a day or two -- I just want to check facts before I toss them down here.

I found myself defending an earlier blog entry, Getting Better - posted last week - to several people over the weekend. One person told me it was morbid. Another said she was "deflated" at the idea that the possibilities were frightening, and suggested I add the word 'irresistible' to that line. I am not arguing that this is how these people see the poem - but I felt the need to defend that, at least for me, the poem is accurate. And no, the word irresistible has no place in the poem, because it (the possibilities) is entirely resistible. I resist it all the time. Still working on why -- but the fact of the matter is, if the possibilities were, in fact, irresistible, I would be well, not merely getting better. He who thought the poem was morbid prefers Helen Steiner Rice, and sends me e-mails with all the saccharine encouragement links he can find. I tried to explain to him that sometimes reality is an inspiration all by itself, and the act of recognizing improvement in one's condition is certainly an encouragement.

But that's what poetry is, and what it does. Each of us has a magnificent set of filters in his/her head through which everything we experience, everything we hear, everything we read passes. These filters are our own, based on everything we know and experienced up to that moment. What passes through these filters and reaches the brain becomes what we know now, this minute - and becomes part of the filter for the next input. It's what makes us individuals. It's why I can write a poem about someone with a great childhood not understanding mine and have a listener come up to me, after a reading, and say he knew exactly what I meant - he and his lady friend were of two different geographical cultures. That's not what I wrote about -- but that is what he heard, how it filtered down to his brain. I took it as a compliment that he could translate it into his own life.

I suppose I should remember all this when I discuss politics or ethics or much of anything of worth with anyone.

Sigh.

But I am human, and I forget.

"There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger." -- Agatha Christie

2005-09-01T16:24:00.000-05:00

It is not that I expect little of them, but my children never cease to amaze me. In his blog, my youngest son, Taran, speaks his mind (rant rant rant!) on the aftermath of Katrina. Some of what he wrote was what I expected - but some of his ideas blew me away.

Taran mentions empty seats. Here's the scenario over the last weekend. There is a hurricane churning and gathering strength in the Gulf of Mexico that is going to make landfall - definitely going to find a place to go onto dry land - somewhere on the Gulf Coast of the US, and most probably Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. Orders for evacuation go out, and as in all instances, they are stressed and soon made mandatory. So people pack up and leave. A lot of people go. But by the admission of the mayor of New Orleans, not everyone who should evacuate would go. Many just could not go. Many just couldn't afford to go. And yet, on the highways leaving town, there were cars with many empty seats. How many of those leaving even thought about taking along someone else, someone who would otherwise have to stay behind and get through as best he could? Those who drove off in vans and those big old SUVs -- was there a bit of room for someone else there? Under the circumstances - hey, there's a hurricane coming and home is in the direct path - couldn't the beds of pick-up trucks even been utilized to get people to high ground and safety?

Never thought of that.

Those grocery stores who knew they were directly in the path of the oncoming storm -- couldn't they have rented trucks to carry some of their stock out with them -- the water and food and diapers and such that are in such demand now - but which are under water?

Taran also mentioned rental car agencies. All the cars left on their lots now have to be written off as, at least, flood damaged. Wouldn't it have been better, as Taran says, for the agencies to have tossed the keys to families who needed to get away from the descending storm?

Planning an evacuation needs to take on a more extensive, more thoughtful, more creative approach.
Hurricanes bring loss. The loss wouldn't have to be so many lives if we were a society of people who looked out for one another.
Think. Plan. Be safe.

And listen to your kids.

Restraint

2005-08-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

I suppose my age is showing again. It's gotten so I am proud of it, though. Lord knows I've earned the thick streaks of platinum blonde in my hair and the "expression" lines on my face. It used to be that one was respected just for having been born lo, those many years ago. "Respect your elders!" we were taught. After all, we have years of experience on our side, and even if we don't know all the latest technology, we do know a thing or two about living.

Well, in one little town in England, that is not what the schools are teaching. In Wellingborough it's okay for school children to cuss out their teachers. Not just grumble something in a moment of frustration, but up to five times. Not only does the teacher have to put up with the humiliation of that show of disrespect, but he/she must keep track of the number of times the cuss word is used during that class period - and keep a tally on the chalkboard! (If the limits are exceeded, the class will be "spoken to") The article does not mention if the teachers are allowed to cuss back at the kids - but I would think that, even if such was allowed, few teachers would actually do it. They know the wisdom of restraint.

I am aware that many of the words that are offensive to me have fallen into such common useage that kids don't think twice about saying them no matter where they are. I remember when my boys' language suddenly started to be peppered with cuss words. I took the older one aside and told him that I understood that is how guys talk among themselves, but that such words should not be spoken around older people (mothers in particular) and ladies. My son, nearly 13 at the time, told me he knew lots of girls who used such words. I told him it was then up to him to decide who was a lady and who was not. He learned judgement that day, he learned respect, and he learned restraint. His language has never offended me since.

Things are different now. Young people seldom have to wait for anything. Never have to exercise much patience. Never have to think about offending others - no one is teaching them. And then, in Wellingsborough they get the go-ahead to disrespect their teachers (up to five times a class session) and someone actually thinks that's all right.

It isn't all right. You know it and I know it. If a kid can't learn restraint in his language, how will he learn restraint in his actions, in his angers, in the injustices that befall us all?

Getting Better

2005-08-28T16:40:00.000-05:00

I found the this wonderful picture at Flickr.com and read the notes. It was taken by a young lady, Riri, who was photographically exploring Whitby Abandoned Psychiatric Facility. I understood it at once. I wrote the accompanying piece to go with it, because it is something I know.

Getting Better

This is what it is like
to be getting well:
You can see out.

The colors are bright,
the leaves lush on the trees,
the branches dark
and strong
and you know what is outside
you can see it
through jagged openings
that wait only for you to turn
around, face the fresh
air and notice

and you notice
that you are still inside,
notice that it is grey in here,
dull and dark and safe
in this shipwreck
and the bars
across the open space are gone.

Outside in the wilderness
of trees it is bright
and welcome warm.
You stand back
from the window
and look past

the raggedy hole
into the frightening

possibilities.

Copyright (c) 2005 Smokey Combs all rights reserved
_______________________________________________________________

If you want to see more of Riri's work (And I strongly recommend it! She is talented and has an eye for the real world that is tempered with an uncommon gentleness), visit here.

Maybe you will write your own poem...

New Toys

2005-08-27T17:11:00.000-05:00

I'vr been busy playing with my new toys. I have just discovered how easy it is to scan photos into the computer and upload them to Flickr.com. That rectangle full of shifting images to the left on this page is a Flickr 'badge' - it offers a preview of all my pictures, which will bore the average blog reader...they're mostly family, mostly from the box under my bed which has defied sorting for more years than I care to count. Some of them are nearing extinction, and I uploaded them just in time. Some of them are priceless, at least to me. Bit by bit I am sorting them and saving them to disk. It's a project -- but one I do enjoy.

Another reason things have been pretty quiet on this front is that I have run across something that has caught my attention and I am investigating it. I had no idea there are those among us who believe what we saw, what we were told we saw, what happened and what we were told happened on September 11, 2001 is not necessarily the truth. It boggles my mind, and I am trying to find out what I can through reliable sources. If you want to do this as I do, start where I am starting, at 911Truth.org. I have tried four times to link to this site, and after each attempt I have lost everything written after the link in my blog entry. Spooky. More about this soon.

Whatever Happened To...

2005-08-24T13:48:00.000-05:00

With Cindy Sheehan, a Gold Star Mother, reminding us that someone should be accountable for the losses mothers endure during a war - and with Joan Baez, always on the side of peace, singing at Camp Casey, my mind goes back to the Viet Nam Era, a time of flower children and flower power and posters, including this one, the mission statement of the organization Another Mother for Peace. I Googled the statement of the poster, hoping to find a nostalgic copy of it -- only to find that Another Mother for Peace is back, alive and well and promoting peace, and is completely behind the Cindy Sheehan originated movement!

Mothers promoting peace didn't just fade away after Viet Nam. The cause of peace is not merely a war-time issue. Promoting peace is actually a way of life, a gentleness in the way one lives -- those little things one does that put a positive spin on one's environment. This is everyone's duty in a peaceful society, but it falls most heavily on mothers, who teach their children from the time they are born how to act, react, how to tolerate and forgive, how to promote peace in their own back yards. Mothers have always taught peace.

With the rising human cost of the War on Terror, Another Mother for Peace has risen again to spread the word that war is not healthy. Now they reach higher. This year's AMP "New Summer 2005 Peace Homework" assignment is Stop High School Recruitment . AMP believes high school recruitment encroaches on the privacy of families and nudges us all a bit closer to the draft. Along with its own suggestions (write letters to the appropriate people, talk to your kids) AMP links to another site, Leave My Child Alone, which gives more detailed suggestions and even more information.

The poster itself, which I remembered and which started this morning's net wanderings, is the design of Lorraine Schneider, back in 1965. Read her fascinating story here. You can get your own copy of the poster and other merchandise, the funds, of course, benefitting the cause, at the AMP website.

Hm. More stuff to put on my list of gifts to buy. Puts a whole new spin on the phrase, "meaningful gifts!"

Life and Death

2005-08-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have read the original Soapbox Papers, the 1996 collection of poems I refer to from time to time, and the title of which I swiped for this blogspot, may remember the poem below -

May 12, 1996: Ask Me Today
for TR, 1986-1996

Ask me today
what I think about capital punishment,
what I think about deliberate murder, what I think
about the thousands of chances to be and become
stolen
from one or more beings
becoming the 'second chance' for the thief.

We come into this world with one life,
our entitlement, our own, and if we
take another - or another and another -
in our greed to have our way, in our
hatreds, in our angers, in our passions -
we forfeit our own.

Ask me today if I believe in rehabilitation
that cannot include restitution,
and what about an eye for an eye, and why
should judgement of his intent
be left to a God he did not believe in?

No -- let him submit to his proven beliefs
without a whimper, his god of cold steel --
or failing that, a final cigarette
before a firing squad, a gasp of air
before the gas comes, the final thoughts
before a far too benevolent
lethal injection.

from The Soapbox Papers
copyright(c) 1996 Smokey Combs
_____________________________________________________________

I mention this today because, in my wandering around the Net I find myself hearing about and from those who would totally abolish the death penalty, even for those like the man who confessed to murdering my grandson (and another soul) with no remorse, about whom that poem was written. I have had to examine my own beliefs, because what I hear and read that is going on in the world regarding the misuse of death as a punishment is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong - yet I cannot be for a policy that makes no exceptions for those whose confessed crimes indicate they must - MUST - forfeit their lives.

That death as a penalty exists in nearly all cultures indicates to me that perhaps the Jewish laws in The Old Testament, referring to an eye for an eye, was common in its day. But the Jewish law also made room for accidental deaths, for circumstances that would make the one who caused a death not necessarily a capital offense. There were, in those days, Cities of Refuge, places set aside as "safe places" for those who took the lives of another unintentionally. Fleeing to one of these cities was not necessarily a certain fate for those who had taken a life. There were guidelines carefully lain down to allow one to stay there.

What this means to me is that there were exceptions made, that a judgement had to be met, before one was allowed safety. Conversely, I feel it also indicates that there should be exceptions made in the disallowing of the death sentence.

Do I believe political executions are wrong? Yep. Do I believe war and its killing is wrong? Yep. Do I believe there is a chance a person on trial for a capital puishment crime who has not confessed, or who has not been proven absolutely positively guilty and claims innocence should serve a life imprisonment term instead of death? Yep. Do I believe the 'honor killings' practice of some religious sects is wrong, that one person should arbitrarily end the life of another according to some tenet? Yep.

It is possible the Iraqi constitution, being argued over and written as I write this, may include capital punishment. The UN has requested it not, but as I have said before, the Iraqi constitution belongs to the Iraqi, and other nations, regardless how right each feels its own way is, are best staying out of it. Let Amnesty International sanction them. They are non-political and speak for a far larger group than even the UN -- they speak for people world wide who find such punishments abhorrent.

But when it comes right down to it, I want the deliberate murderer with no remorse put to death. It is his forfeit. It means the life (lives) he took had value.

Tuesday

2005-08-23T06:49:00.000-05:00

Dawn broke even,
six clouds across a watercolor sky,
shades of morning easing out the night.
The last star flickers like hope,
absorbed without a sound into morning.

I drink coffee, remember
something you said, realize
the fact of the matter:
you are Monday morning,
all business, catching up, no time
for leisure dreams, your heart
stashed away in some vault,
waiting for a better time

while I take time before the day
to contemplate things beautiful:
new sky beginnings, the drift
of accidental cloud formations,
your smile, remembered --
my open heart
on Tuesday morning.

-- from The Soapbox Papers, copyright (c) Smokey Combs 1996 all rights reserved

And This is a "Man of God?"

2005-08-23T06:20:00.000-05:00

This is one of those reasons one wants to keep Church and State as separate as possible:

Robertson calls for assassination of Chavez
Televangelist calls Venezuelan president a ‘terrific danger’ to U.S.

Does Robertson pray with that mouth?

Feel Better?

2005-08-23T05:03:00.000-05:00

I recieved an e-petition in my inbox this morning from a well-meaning family member. There was no actual petition, however, just the name of the problem, " PETITION TO LOWER GAS and Diesel PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES" and a list of the first 1533 people who have signed it, with the message,
"PETITION FOR PRES. BUSH Presidential Petition Please do NOT let this petition
stop and lose all these names. If you do not want to sign it, please forward
it to everyone you know. To add your name, click on "forward". You will
be able to add your name at the bottom of the list and then forward it to
your friends. Or, if necessary you can copy and paste and then add your name
to the bottom of the list. THE 2,000TH PERSON PLEASE SEND IT ON TO THE
FOLLOWING E-MAIL ADDRESS: President@WhiteHouse.gov
Thank you very much. "

There was no statement given to which the undersigned agreed, no statement, in fact, whatsoever but that one should not let this petition stop.
So I did what I usually do -- checked it out at Snopes.com (the Urban Legend people) and found that, while this petition was not specifically mentioned, there was a great article regarding on-line petitions. According to the folks at Snopes, the signing and circulating on-line petitions is not an effective way to get one's message across or of remedying important issues for a variety of reasons. No one is actually keeping track of the mushrooming
messages with lists of names, for one; often these do not have an intended recipient who is in a position to remedy the situation being petitioned. Then there is the sad (but safe) fact that no one can verify the names on such a petition is another. These lists of names, even if they reach someone with the authority to do something about the petitioned situation, are treated with no seriousness.
According to Barbara Mikkelson, of Snopes.com, "In a world beset by complex problems, the solutions of which will take enormous amounts of time, money, and commitment, such simplification as the e-petition provides a welcome relief. Imagine having the power to solve those problems! Moreover, imagine having it merely at the click of a mouse! " Ms. Mikkelson
goes on to explain how comforting the action of joining a petition is to those who participate: at last, something John and Jane Everyman can do! But she continues, "E-petitions are the latest manifestation of slacktivism, the search for the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue without having had to actually gets one's hands dirty or open one's wallet."
Further, there may be money involved. Because of the interest in these on-line petitions (though not, as far as I know, regarding the above 'petition' I received this morning) web sites emerge to 'service' these petitions. Ms. Mikkelson explains, "Many of these sites display banner ads that generate revenues for the sites' operators. That means every time someone visits
to view or sign a petition, the site's owners earn revenue." Now that isn't necessarily an evil thing, but it does make one wonder if the purpose of the website isn't ultimately to make money for the owner, and if so, one wonders where those funds are directed.
So sign a petition, if it will make you feel better. I would suggest not adding your e-mail address or other identifying factor for obvious safety reasons, but then, without identifying yourself, you realize that your signature is nothing more than a way to vent your discontent.
If signing a petition doesn't do it for you, and you feel upset enough about an issue to do something, you might try doing it the tried and true way. Pick up a pen and paper and write to your Congressman, your Representative, even Presidebt Bush. Write it on the computer if you like. Use a format that includes your address. Then print it out and sign your name to it. Put it in a stamped envelope and send it to the proper address. The chances that you will be heard, that your voice from the wilderness will be noted by those who can actually do something about the situation, will increase at least one-hundredfold.
There now. Feel better?

Poem Updated

2005-08-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

I managed to find the elusive book of poems by Sir Richard Harris mentioned here earlier this week. I knew when I read the copy I'd found on the Net that parts of the poem I posted were not exactly right. I have updated that entry entirely, keeping true to the form and features of the poem as written in the book, I, In the Membership of My Days by Sir Richard Harris.

It's a powerful piece, written in "God's voice." Hearing Sir Richard Harris recite it (as one can on certain albums - I, In the Membership of My Days (duh!) for one. It may also be on another album, the title of which escapes me at the moment.) is incredible. The work bellows, it sobs -- and it seems entirely appropriate for this time we are living in.

If you didn't 'get it' the first time around, give it a shot in its proper format.

The "Toy" You Never Quite Grow Out Of

2005-08-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

Kids love them. Fathers love them. Mothers love them, in spite of the fact that vacuum cleaners also love them. You can find them at most department stores, toy stores and discount stores. They are seldom found at yard sales, flea markets or thrift stores, because once you have them, you keep them or pass them on within the family. They are Legos. Simple Legos. The plastic pieces of dreams, the building blocks of imagination. Yeah.

Last weekend, Brickfest 2005 convention was held at George Mason University in Arlington, VA. It is the official convention for AFoLs ( Adult Fans of Lego.) Lego fans gathered from all over the place to play and show off their creations. I first learned of this at Wired.com in a story by Michael Grebb. If I had known about it sooner -- naw-- I know I wouldn't have gotten involved, but I might have had Legos more in the front of my mind at gift-giving time. They are timeless. Now that there are larger Legos made with smaller children in mind, it seems to me there is a Lego set for just about everyone a person might find on a gift list. With this in mind, I clicked over to Lego's website -- checked under products -- and found all sorts of sets, games, and -- no building sets. I clicked the shopping cart, and there they were. Lots of building pieces. Reasonable prices.

So I wandered around the net a bit and found Ben's Lego Creations -- a site of his efforts. He is especially fond of machinery and 'bots.' Then I found Eric Kingsley's creations - he is quite diversified. Seems since I was young, Lego had added many elements to its sets of bricks, and many technical creations are now possible. But the one site after my own heart is here, where, for a price, you can have a Lego replica built of your own home or a dream home or some such. This is the sort of Lego building I want to do!

I used to play with Techie Kid's Legos while he was at school. When I was a kid, somewhere my brother and I inherited an old rusty erector set, a group of grid panels with little nuts and bolts to hold them together in whatever creation we could come up with. Well -- that was swell, but I remember the metallic smell on my hands and I wasn't crazy about that. When we were even younger than that, we had some Lincoln Logs -- but there were never enough of those. We had the cannister of Tinker Toys, too -- the bare bones of creative toys -- but there weren't enough of those, either, and I think they were left behind when the family migrated East around 1955. But I have always wanted to create solid things like houses, buildings -- even cities. Maybe that's one of the reasons I enjoy my SIMS so much -- you get to design and build your own houses, over and over again.

And now that I am a grown up, and I have time to myself to play with such things as Legos -- I have no room. But maybe I can give some as gifts over the holiday season this year, and (if I can do it politely, without intruding) when I visit those I gift with Legos, they will not mind if I just -- play for a while!
_______________________________________________

Disclaimer: Lego is a registered trademark. This page is in no way affiliated with Lego. Visit the official Lego site at http://www.lego.com/!
_______________________________________________
Note:

Yep -- here we are, toward the end of August. "Next August" is the time, I vow to myself every December, I will begin the holiday shopping and preparation for the next year. I hope everyone likes Legos...

The Price of Being Read

2005-08-21T09:11:00.000-05:00

I guess it comes with the territory. When one starts participating - not just writing a blog - in Blogdom, in come the ads and spamblog comments. I saw Haloscan active on a blog or two, and read the good things people have to say about it -- so it is the newest addition to the Soapbox. Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

I am really getting into this -- looking for new places to gather opinions, facts, references. (Note the expanding Links list!) I may have to develop a separate life just to keep up with it all. I find places to add my two-cents worth (I do give change!) and I hope that, as I write about things other than the care and feeding of the Organism (um.. that would be me) I will be hearing from others with their opinions and comments.

I think blogging is far preferable to forums and message boards. I have seen so many of those revert to name calling and other nastiness. I have not seen that in (at least the circles I inhabit in) Blogdom. I find people are authentically more helpful, more prone to not post anything if not done nicely. (Now, watch me leave the safety of my own blog and run into the nastiest stuff...but you know, I don't believe that will happen. )

Evolution of internet communication, of sorts.

I like it.

Hm. Seems like I lost some of the comments on some of these posts. I wonder how that happened...

Update Complete

2005-08-20T13:59:00.000-05:00

I finally added the pictures to the main vacation blog -- so now I can go about the rest of the day without that over my head. There has been so much going on -- and I have been reading so much stuff that I want to talk about -- I can't imagine getting it all done, yet I can't imagine not. Stay tuned !

Faith beyond Creed

2005-08-17T07:47:00.000-05:00

I am getting very tired of the right-righteous zealots and Presidebt Bush saying how right we are, how God is on our side (which would make Him opposed to -- whom, exactly?) and in my head I hear the late Sir Richard Harris reciting the poem below, one of his own works. Today is as good a day as any to share it.

There Are Too Many Saviors on My Cross

There are too many saviors on my cross
lending their blood
to flood out my ballot box
with needs of their own.
who put you there?
who
told you that was your place?

You carry me secretly naked in your heart
and clothe me publicly in armor
crying God is on our side.
yet
I openly cry
who is on mine?
who
you who bury your sons and cripple your fathers
whilst you bury my Father in crippling his son

The antiquated saxon sword
rusty in its scabbard of time now rises
you gave it cause in my name
bringing shame to the thorned head
that once bled for your salvation

I hear your daily cries
in the far-off byways in your mouth
pointing
north and south
and my cavalry looms again
desperate
in rebirth
your earth is partitioned
but in contrition
it is the partition in your hearts
that you must abolish

You
nightly watchers of Gethsemane
who sat through my nightly trial
delivering me from evil
now deserted
I watch you share your silver
your purse rich in hate
bleeds my veins of love
shattering my bone
in the dust of the bogside and the shankhill road

There is no issue stronger
than the tissue of love
no need
as holy
as the palm outstretched
in the run of generosity
no monstrosity greater
than the acre you inflict

Who gave you the right to increase your fold?
and
decrease the pastors of my flock?
who gave you the right?
who gave it to you?
who?
and in whose name do you fight?

I am not in heaven
I am here
hear me
I am in you
feel me
I am of you
be me
I am with you
see me
I am for you
need me
I am all mankind
only through kindness
will you reach me

What masked
and bannered men
can rock the ark
and navigate a course
to their anointed kingdom come
who sailed their captain
to waters
that they troubled in my font?
sinking in the ignorant seas of prejudice

There is no virgin willing
to conceive in the heat
of any bloody sunday
you crippled children
lying in cries
on derry's streets,
pushing your innocence
to the full flush face
of christian guns
(battling the blame on each other)
do not grow tongues
in your dying dumb wounds speaking my name
I am not your prize
in your death.
you have exorcised me in your game of politics

Go home to your knees
and worship me in any cloth,
as I was never tailor-made
who told you I was?
who gave you the right to think it?
take your beads
in your crippled hands
can you count my decades
take my love in your crippled hearts
can you count the loss

I am not orange
I am not green
I am a half-ripe fruit
needing both colors
to grow into ripeness
shame on you to have withered my orchard
I
in my poverty
alone
without trust
cry
shame on you
shame on you again and again
for
converting me into a bullet
and shooting me into men's hearts

The ageless legend of my trial grows old
in the youth of your pulse
staggering shamelessly from barricade to grave
filing in the book of history
my needless death one april.
let me
in my betrayal
lie low in my grave
and you in your bitterness
lie low in yours
for our measurements grow strangely dissimilar

Our Father, who art in heaven
sullied be thy name

-- Richard Harris
from I, In The Membershp of My Days, Random House, New York, 1973
Copyright (c) 1973 Limerick Music Ltd

_________________________

I found the book and made corrections to the Web copy of this poem previously posted. The above poem is true to the book from which it was taken regarding line breaks , capitalization and punctuation. --Smokey 08/21/05

Earth Observation

2005-08-16T23:49:00.000-05:00

I ran across this, from the Earth Observatory on the NASA website today. It's a place where one can view astronaut photography and see the way the world looks from 'way up there.

This picture reminded me of something I wrote some years ago:

Tech

When metal scrapes against the sky
there is no sound,
but the scar it leaves
is thick,
diffuses light.

We know the answers.
They were carved in trees
that shrieked when we cut them,
noise that filters
into our centers
and comes out like ink
when we write on paper.

Disposable philosophies,
the ache for something permanent:
we go blindly into the future
without Carl Sagan.
Our common sense has been waylaid
into legislation
meant to protect the citizen
against all predators

but the predators are inventive,
and when metal scrapes against the sky
there is no sound,
but the scar it leaves
is thick and hard to breathe.

(c) 1999 Smokey Combs - all rights reserved

Going Home

2005-08-15T08:10:00.000-05:00

It happens to all vacations -- they end. Today I will pick up my friend at the airport and give him back his keys -- my house sitting will be over. I have enjoyed myself, completed two projects for him and gotten a third - the gardening - off to a great start. I have managed to keep two cats - his and mine - from maiming one another. I have rested, watched chick flicks on the cable channels he gets that I don't , rested, played in the yard, gone to a Browns game that was rained out, and rested. But it is time to go home.

I did enjoy myself -- but truth be told, I will be pleased to be home again. I always feel 'at home' at Doug's -- but it's not the same as being home. To look up at the walls and see MY art, to look at the shelves and see pictures of MY family, to sleep in my own bed (which I love) and use MY computer (which is better, faster, and has MY files on it -- as well as the ability to upload photos from my camera) will be nice. To be available for phone calls from friends and family on MY phone, to lose MY keys, and know what my cat is up to (sort of) will be nice.

I am thinking about what makes a place home. I think the answer to that is the person(s) who live there. There are traces of that throughout the place that one does not leave around when one visits even a good friend. Taran is finding that out while he deals with his late father's home and his papers and his towel. A person's home is where that person can be totally his/herself.

I have been known to look about my home and wonder what one who came after I left the planet would think of it -- and me -- because our homes speak loudly about us. (See Housekeeping for more on that!) I know one isn't supposed to care about that -- and some intentionally don't care - but it matters to me that I leave things -- well, kind of orderly, kind of tidy, sort of the way I want others to think I live my life. But those who know me - who, in the event of my departure, would be the ones sorting out my home - know better. They know I am a woman of good intentions and a good heart -- but a few bad habits. I don't always make my bed. I don't always wash dishes after each meal. I could dust more often and clean the windows more often and probably change the litter box more often. I could sort my mail and throw stuff out once in a while. I could empty the trash more often, even when it doesn't smell.

But that's what home is. A place where one can exercise his/her own bad habits. If one cannot do that, one is not truly at home. And so I leave my friend's house as neat and tidy as I found it.

And go home.

Stealth

2005-08-13T07:34:00.000-05:00

Liberty the Cat wears a collar with her license (who thought licensing cats was a good idea? Fie on thee!) and a couple of tiny brass bells. It's a break-away collar, so if she gets stuck somewhere she will lose the collar, not dangle or choke. It's something she has worn since she became my cat, although I think she is prettier without it. And she was without it for a time -- having sprung free of it while exploring her temporary home in Doug's spare bedroom. I didn't realize it was gone - and so, didn't look for it, for a time - during which Liberty became Stealth Liberty, the terror of Grovewood Lane. The little bells are just tinklers - nothing loud or anything - but when she wears her collar, part of my head can hear the bells and knows exactly where she is, mostly, sort of, all the time, like background noise. Without it, I have no idea. Poor Dexter doesn't, either. She sneaks up on him so quietly I can hear surprise in his cries when she suddenly gets in his face. And that's not fair. This is his house, after all.

So in the name of fair play, I hunted around and found her collar and put it back on her. She shook her head to hear the tinkling, stretched out, then -- and I have never seen her do this before -- held her head still as she walked away, the bells silent. Smart cat. Stealth Liberty. Poor Dexter.

The encounters between the two cats seems to be getting less intense. I doubt they will be bathing one another before it is time to take Liberty home, but they may settle into some form of play before then.

There goes Liberty, crouched and moving fast - not making a sound. Stealth Liberty.

Maybe not.

ICE, Please

2005-08-12T09:05:00.000-05:00

What a great idea this is! Cell phone owners have, literally in their hands, the ability to give first-on-scene rescue workers important contact information. The concept is called ICE - for In Case of Emergency -- and comes to us courtesy of a paramedic in the East of England. By adding this information under the address ICE on your cell phone, you can show next of kin, or even a note regarding medical information ("I am a diabetic") or anything pertinent to a rescuer who finds you in a state where you cannot speak for yourself. Parents can be sure this is on the cell phones of their young kids. Older folks can do the same, and, in fact, this alone may get some of the hold outs to try out these new-fangled things.

Hoax?

Of course, whenever a new idea comes about regarding equipment, hoaxes abound. That's why I checked with Snopes.com (They of "Urban Legend" fame) -- as I do anything which concerns me. Here Snopes gives, not only the history, but the common hoaxes regarding ICE that you may find in your inbox -- and declares them as false. Don't be afraid to help yourself by adding ICE to your cell phone address book.

You never know.
Be safe.

House-Sitting

2005-08-11T20:24:00.000-05:00

I got someone to cover my tutoring chores for a few days and told the folks there I was going on vacation. They asked me where, and I told them: Clearwater. Big deal, they told me -- so what! Clearwater is a stone's throw from St. Petersburg. What's the big deal?

The big deal is this: I am away from my apartment, my phone, my own chaos -- and I have entered into someone else's. My friend Doug will be visiting Ohio until Monday, and I am house/cat/garden/pool sitting. I brought along Liberty the Cat. My host, Doug, already has Dexter the Tabby. The cats are about the same age, but I was still apprehensive. When my last cat, Miss Daisy, was still with me, we were room mates of Doug and Dexter, Michele (Doug's Lady friend) and Courteney, Michele's daughter. Dexie was a cute kitten, but mean -- and he had claws. Miss Daisy didn't have front claws, she was quite old, and quite passive. Dexie hurt my Miss Daisy, and climbed the screened in porch to make friends with a squirrel. That's the only way I can figure the fleas got in the apartment, and the fleas always seem to go for the old and weak -- Miss Daisy. Because of her age and the other problems that go along with it, I had to put her down. It broke my heart. So you can imagine I carried, reasonable or not, a bit of a grudge toward Dexter, and I also carried a great deal of apprehension about introducing the timid, sweet loveable Liberty to this terrorist tabby. But I brought her. This is a big house, and there is a pocket door that separates the bedrooms and bath on one side from the rest of the house, and I figured that if necessary, I could keep Liberty, who is used to small spaces, apart from Dexter.

My cat is a tyrant.
Who would know to look at her? Dexter walked up to her carrier, as soon as we came into the house, he hissed at her. She hissed back. I let her out of her carrier in the bedroom in which we are staying, and Dexter, who had followed us in, was shooed out. Liberty ran under the bed. I finished getting our stuff in and settled, then settled down with Doug to talk. We heard the screaming and looked up just in time to see Dexter streak down the hall from one bedroom to another, Liberty hot in pursuit. Doug went into the battleground and broke up the fight, each contender going into his/her own corner: Liberty back under her bed, Dexter, across the house, under Doug's bed. Mostly, that's where they stayed, although Liberty wandered out now and then to explore.

Doug tells me that at 4:30 this morning Liberty explored herself into his bedroom and caught up with Dexter under Doug's bed -- and Dexter screamed and hissed and Liberty growled and fussed until Doug broke it up again. Me? I'm on vacation -- I didn't hear a thing.

Dexter hiding under Doug's bed .

I am hoping that before I go home again the cats will have learned to get along and actually play together. I am saving space on my memory card for that one.

I won't be entirely leisure-oriented here. I have a project in the side yard. "Do whatever you want with it," Doug said. Heh heh. I miss having a yard to play in, so this is really fun for me. It's a narrow strip of ground with a privacy fence as a backdrop. Along much of the fence, Doug is training his passion flower vine. His hasn't begun to bloom yet, but the flowers look like this one (left).

There is also a stand of Mexican Petunias, which like to grow in colonies. Doug's have gotten 'way too tall, and I am going to cut them back, which will thicken them. Since they make a good background plant, I am going to remove the ones closest to the yard entirely. Both the Passion Flower and Mexican Petunia attract butterflies.

Left: Doug's Mexican Petunia and Allamanda (before)

My favorite tropical plant, is Allamanda, growing up near the fence. Allmandas are supposed to be both a shrub and a vine, but after some scrutiny, I have to conclude that Doug's is mostly a shrub, and an ungainly one, at that. I will have to trim it back, and I hate the idea -- but maybe, if put into some rich soil and covered with a bunch of mulch, I can make babies from the cuttings. All parts of the plant are poisonous, so that means garden gloves (which I hate) -- but it is another of those plants butterflies like, so I will muddle through.

Doug is partial to dark red coleus, which is a plant with "insignificant" flowers, grown just for its foliage. I prefer the cream colored coleus with green, but this is what Doug wants, and it is his yard...!

He has a bunch of different colored impatiens (Busy Lizzie) in the front of his house, and I plan to move some of them (rather, cuttings of them ) to the back. Anywhere else, I would be afraid to start cuttings right in the soil, but this here is Florida, and we are in the midst of the summer humidity season, so all I will have to do is put the cuttings in some good moist potting soil in the ground and put a good layer of mulch around them. They'll root.

Lying on the ground, broken into chunks, are the remains of several pots of geraniums. I am not a big fan of these, but I can't bear to see them just lying there, so I will pot them up and put them somewhere where they can do well. They were not a good mix with the other plants of the side yard. They don't like a soil that is too rich, so they will probably do well anywhere ---else!

I have until Sunday evening to get it done, and that includes running out to get some mulch, and then there is another chore I promised to do, and the cats must be refereed -- but this is my vacation. I'm having fun.

Right: New plantings and mulch added. That huge thing on the fence is Doug's Passion Flower Vine - still has no blooms. The Mexican Petunias have been cut back, and some are in the corner far up by the fence (where you can't see them. Just behind the Mexiacn Petunias is the Allamanda- only slightly tamed. To be continued...

Doug (left) seemed to like it just fine!

Becoming Modern

2005-08-09T20:04:00.000-05:00

When Techie kid was younger, he would hail each of my accomplishments on modern equipment as my coming to be a "Modern Mom." I'm not sure how surprised he was that I could manage to comprehend each new-fangled thing that came along, but he always was pleased that I had mastered something new. Techie Kid is knee deep in his Medical and Health Information Network project, so I am not sure he even noticed that I have mastered something new. Or maybe he just isn't surprised anymore.

I finally figured out how to get the pictures out of my camera and onto my computer. Not only that, I have figured out how to get them out to other people. I can actually take pictures and share them! I can crop them, resize them, color them, delete them -- and get the camera ready to take more. And it was easy.

I feel really foolish -- I have had the camera 18 months or so, and hardly used it. When I did use it, I was at events I wanted to save, but could't figure out how to get the pictures out. So it surprised some family members when I was able to share with them photos from a dinner when my brother (BBB - left) visited . I learned where to put the memory card from the camera and was able to get these memorable pics.

Then I found out that the internal memory of the camera could be transferred to the memory card and I could access them just as easily -- so the pictures of my granddaughter Jaime's wedding were accessible! And the pictures of my mother, too!

And, of course, the inevitable picture of Liberty the Cat can now be shared:
So now I have a new toy and will probably go overboard for the first few days -- but I think in the end, I will have an improved blog. I have discovered how easy it can be to illustrate just about anything I can write about, and that can't be all bad. It may even shorten my entries -- after all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

So now I am what Techie Kid used to call a "Modern Mom." Stick around -- it could be a fun ride!

Tribute

2005-08-06T11:08:00.000-05:00

Those of you who keep up with Techie Kid's blog know it has been a rough week for him. He lost his Pop earlier this week. The picture at the side is one taken when his Pop - known to many as Rocky - was Taran's age.

He didn't look like this in recent years. He'd lost much of his hair and may or may not have had a beard - he could grow one on a whim whenever he wanted, as Taran can. What hair and/or beard there was was no longer dark. He'd lost most of his excess weight and his face was thinner, but the forehead and brow were the same, and the smile -- well, I don't know that it would have been the same. The picture to the side was taken at the best of times. I will always remember him this way. There was always a gentleness to his smile, and it always went without explanation. I knew him well once, and I can say with all confidence, I doubt anyone knew me as well as Mahin did. It amazes me still at how well he knew me, and how he loved me anyway. In this picture, Mahin had much to smile at. Life was good to us. We had Taran - his only child and the one person in the Universe he would always love with a fierce and all-encompassing love.

At the time that picture was taken, we were living the Great American Dream - we had our kid, the house, complete with garden in the back, the car, the pick-up truck, the dog and --we had our troubles, mostly concerning extended family members or those not in our immediate household (yet) - but we spent time together, had fun together, and, as in the Turtle's song that he called "our song," we were Happy Together.

It was good. So good, in fact, that though we have been apart longer than we were together, we were still friends. I could count on him still to understand me, and I know he was aware that I understood him, too. I will miss him deeply, just knowing he was there at the other end of an e-mail, his eyebrow raised, his humor, though a bit slower, still intact.

Mahin and Taran (below, 2000?) always understood the other's feelings, if not one another's point of view. Rather -- they often understood where the other was coming from -- just didn't agree with all the details. They are more alike than different in many respects, and fom the beginning until even recently I felt the need to try to explain one of them to the other -- trying to get them to do the impossible: understand one another.

That they already did on some level wasn't lost on me - I just wanted to know they were close for my own sake, I guess. Mothers are like that. We never quite give up.

Goodbye, Mr. Mahindranath Taran Pande Rampersad. You were appreciated and loved and you will always be remembered with the warmth and gentleness you radiate in these pictures.

Real Men Cook...and Bake

2005-07-31T11:33:00.000-05:00

As I write this, dessert is in the oven. While shopping a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a box of (here goes my image) cake mix -- but one like I had never seen before. The product is a Sweet Potato Pound Cake, and the company that offers it is Real Men Cook Foods. I didn't think much more about it, put the groceries away, and didn't find it again until this morning, when I decided my sweet tooth deserved some attention. The directions are wonderfully simple, and it took me less than five minutes to mix it up and get it in the oven. Then I sat down to read the box. (As I mentioned, I have been reading EVERYTHING lately!)

The cake mix box says the product I have in the oven is the inspiration of a New York bakery. The name and address is given on the box - even the name of the baker and his wife! Then there was a paragraph about Real Men Cook(R), which seems to be an organization. The paragraph mentioned twelve years of producing the largest family celebration of Father's Day - but I had never heard of such a celebration. The packaging mentions that a percentage of net proceeds of this product goes to Real Men Charities, Inc. On the side with the nutritional information is a short poem by a nine year old boy. On the side of the box with directions for making this cake are notes about sweet potatoes, how good they are and how good for you.

I tasted the batter before I put the cake in the oven and noted nutmeg in the mix. I do not like nutmeg - but this isn't like most nutmeg I happen across. This nutmeg tastes more like that I used to grate fresh for Techie Kid's pop's porridge. But whether or not I like the cake itself (If I don't, I have neighbors who will!) I do like the idea of the company, and when I noted the website on the box, I decided to go take a look around. Here I found something really wonderful and unusual. Real men. Cooking, caring for children, making a difference in their communities. Real men as family heads and nurturers. Wander around the website, as I did, and see if you don't smile to yourself. While the company and website have a definite African American bent, it is about real men of all colors and creeds.

I am disappointed that the Father's Day Celebration the website mentions has not yet come to the Tampa Bay area. I am from the other side of the street; all I know of father is that I did not have a good one. Father's Day usually passes by without even a nod from me - except that I think of the men who are the fathers of my children and salute them from the distance between us. One was an active participant in nurturing and child rearing, one was, by nature, not. But to make Father's Day a celebration that includes people like me, and includes those families who have no in-house dads -- that's a great idea that needs more exposure. I like the sound and feel of this organization, and hope that more men develop an urge to cook something more substantial than beans and weenies in the kitchen.

Cooking seems to be symbolic of a lot of things in this world, anyway. While Techie Kid was visiting, it was important to me to cook a great dinner as often as I could while he was around to eat it. It's a means of showing love, and I think especially in the times we live in, it is important for families to make it a priority to have dinner together - if not daily - as often as possible. To realize that your health and happiness is important enough to another for him/her to cook for you is a great heart-warmer. How can anyone be petty over a dinner of freshly cooked food?

My daughter recently told me that her brother, when home from work, traditionally makes silver-dollar pancakes for his family - a wife and two small boys - and I smile at such traditions. I remember staying with an aunt and uncle when I was small, and on his days off, when it was a Sunday, Uncle Frank, a former Navy cook, would make pancakes for the family. Now, Uncle Frank's family thought the burnt-on-the-outside-raw-on-the-inside delicacies were spectacular, but I remember being less than impressed. Looking back, that he would take over and make this special breakfast on a Sunday was rather spectacular in itself, and I imagine his children never tasted the burned parts.

As a grown woman, I know many men who cook - most out of neccessity. My friend Doug makes the best Fettuccini Alfredo I've ever had. My friend Michael sautees a mean chicken breast and can make any rice or pasta mix Lipton or Uncle Ben's puts out. My brother Bob (BBB) cooks for a living, but I have never tasted his own cooking since he's grown up. In the building where I live there are men who are accomplished on the grill and smoker in the courtyard - and many say their grilled fish and ribs are among the very best.

And now - the cake is out of the oven and I am having a slice of it warm with a dollop of whipped cream. Nutmeggy, yes - but not at all unpleasant. The texture is wonderful, the appearance is top notch. Can't really taste the sweet potato, though. I think I would go lighter on the nutmeg and let the sweet potato taste come through a bit more. But I'll buy this again. Maybe next time I'll add raisins or nuts or both to it. Or as the box suggests, add more sweet potato - either grated or canned and mashed up - and see if that doesn't cut the nutmeg taste down a little. By the way, the directions called for baking the cake in a loaf pan, but since my loaf pan is missing (who did I lend it to?) I baked the cake in an 8 x 8 cake pan, and adjusted the time. I like the crustiness of the cake this way, and I may make it the same way even when I get my loaf pan back from where ever it is.

So guys, put on your aprons, even when you aren't going outside to grill something. Cook for your families, cook for your friends, cook for yourself.

Real men do.

Whew. Busy busy busy....

2005-07-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

Been very busy of late, and too tired to write something of substance -- although I have been reading everything in sight lately, and there are quite a few things brewing under the strangely curly hair on the top of my head. I'll get to that later -- but for the moment, let me share with you an interesting quote from Techie Kid, he of the fascinating blog:

"Democracy these days seems like a matter of voting for the people who will support the stock you own. Isn't that insider trading?" --Taran Rampersad

Still in the research coffers: isn't there some "Good Ol' Boys" club to which Mr. GW Bush belongs which deals with just that premise? It isn't widely known and is not an open membership organization, but if someone can get the details before I do, please let me know. It's been back burnered in my head for years...

I just finished annual membership job for a local sports club to which I belong -- The Browns Backers of Pinellas . I do their newsletter and get my year's membership. It's a good trade. Everything I know about (American) football I learned from my friend Doug, and the Cleveland Browns is his team, so it follows that I learned by watching Browns games and became a fan. And I am a fan of the club itself. The BBoP is far more than a bunch of people who gather at a bar and watch the game. The BBop has a personality and a heart, and it shows. BBoP supports a local program which provides free vouchers for low income women to recieve mammograms. BBoP feeds hungry families at Thanksgiving. In the past, BBoP has supported the local Humane Society. And more. And on top of all that, the BBoP has fun. The club participates in local holiday parades with a float volunteers toil over, each year exceeding the last. And a louder, more supportive fan team you would find nowhere else! Doug -- the club president (for who knows how many years) becomes the host, spokesperson, half-time leader, and the keeper of the "fumble helmet." Fumble helmet? Well, see, whenever the Browns score, there is this small nerfy football that appears. Doug cues someone on the side who turns on music, and he tosses the ball to one member who tosses it to another who tosses it to another until the whole room is looking out for it, because to have the football in one's possession when the music stops (at the arbitrary whim of the music person) means a coupon for a free beer or soft drink. If one fumbles the ball, however -- or if one is the worst fumbler of the ball during this round -- one gets to wear the fumble helmet - until the Browns again score, and the game begins again. The fumble helmet is an old but authentic football helmet, and the wearers of this helmet are photographed for the web page. Doug would also serve as head cheerleader, but BBoP already has one -- a pixie-brownie sized little woman named Judy B. Goode -- complete with costumes, props, toys, and an imagination that knows no bounds. If there are any Browns fans in Pinellas County without a place to gather with others to watch the game, come to a BBoP meeting for an experience in gamemanship and serious Cleveland fun. Drop me a note and I will get you information -- or just check out the website and show up. You will be warmly welcomed, and in no time you will recognize this is truly one of the absolute best sports fan clubs anywhere. I show up when I can -- never as often as I would like -- and holler "GO BROWNS" just as loudly as if I had been born in Cleveland.

Anyway, I was working on the newsletter for the BBoP for much of the last week. I'd done it before and had the template safely stored in Publisher -- but since the renovation of my computer late this past winter, Publisher was useless. When I bought this computer, I also bought The Print Shop, but never got around to using it or getting acquainted with it -- so it was a real challenge to get this newsletter out -- and learn the new program -- under deadline. Did it, though -- and I think it is more attractive than the previous newsletters, either due to the features of the program itself or the extra time I spent trying to make it all work. In the end, I had to reinstall my printer as well, and because of the Broderbund program, the act of printing on this computer just became more complicated. I have to straighten that bug out quickly! I did learn that Open Office, installed by Techie Kid earlier this year, is not compatible with anything else on this computer, and, in fact, it caused many of the frustrations I had trying to make deadline. I think the time will come when I will get a second computer and have it all done in non-microsoft tools -- but for the moment, if I expect to be productive, I will have to use what is most compatible - microsoft. Eeew. Bad taste in my mouth.

In the middle of all this, my friend called and asked if I could help a friend of his to get his new condo in order for the arrival of furniture. Sure -- an easy few bucks cleaning up a bit of dust and such in an empty condo -- piece of cake, right? Aw, when am I gonna learn! Things are never that easy! It seems my friend's friend had left the electricity off in the condo for a few months -- a few of the most humid months Florida has seen in years. There was mildew and mold everywhere. Everywhere. It had to be scrubbed and disinfected and I guess I gassed myself pretty badly in the process -- being in enclosed places like closets with chlorine based cleaning solutions nearly did this smoker in! What surprised me was that my ankles and knees didn't give out with all the floor sitting/scrubbing and the contortions one must pose in small places. What I thought would be one afternoon of work turned into three afternoons and a couple of hours more. I have finally gotten rid of the cough, and have been invited to stop by and see the condo now that the furniture is in place. I just hope the proud condo owner remembers to leave the air conditioner on low when he travels North again. I'd hate to have to do that all over again and have to work around furniture and personal effects! The extra money was nice - but there is a line of medical providers lined up outside my door just waiting for their share. I splurged a little and carried home Chinese one night, but mostly the extra funds just went - as it all does these days - to those who help me maintain the organism.

Anyway, that - plus my daily tutoring in the computer center downstairs from where I live, and recovering from what certainly must have been close to pneumonia, and the newsletter, and the sudden hunger I have to read everything everywhere, has kept me quite busy. It is the weekend, though -- and I have no obligations but to Liberty the Cat, who will remind me when it is time to eat or time to lie down so she can cuddle.

But I have started other entries - some in my head, and one or two in the DRAFT folder -- so I am nearly back to normal again here.

Be back soon....

Swim Lessons

2005-07-20T10:19:00.000-05:00

There are those who try
to help us learn to swim --
they unburden us of pretense,
name our sorrows,
hear the silent screaming.

They give us tools:
show us strokes
demonstrate breathing,
help us put ourselves
back together again.
It's what they do.

They know.
For fifty minutes
they nudge and tug at us,
answer us back in our own voices,
swim to the center of the gene pool,
tread water, beckon us.

On good days we follow.
On days when we cannot
they swim back to us,
patiently wait
for our water wings to grow.

(c) 2002 Smokey Combs All Rights Reserved

Dark Waters

2005-07-19T18:41:00.000-05:00

It was like learning to dive
before learning to swim,
fear the first emotion

Years later
the mother would mention
in casual conversation
how she'd go down the block
in the middle of the night
until she couldn't hear the baby
crying anymore.

When she had grandchildren
the mother used to say
how babies only cry out of need,
even if the need
is to not be alone in the dark.

So I learned how to dive
before learning to swim.
I floundered, I splashed.
I learned how to float.
I made it.

It wasn’t pretty and
there was no applause.
Dark waters run deep.
I guess you had to be there.

Copyright ©2002 Smokey Combs
All rights reserved

Pinnocchio's Last Stand

2005-07-18T23:17:00.000-05:00

I am not where you left me,
not where you set me
aside in that cubbyhole
in your workshop.
I have left you, Gepetto –

and when you are done doing
everything you set out to do,
when you are finished
saying things and building things
and making old things look
brand new again – when you are
done with your list-making,
prioritizing and goal tending
you will reach for me

and when you do
all you will find is
a shaft of air.
You will shrug,
think you have misplaced me,
and you will say
so what

so what I am saying to you is
see ya, fare-thee-well,
happy trails and goodbye.

I am off to seek the fortunes
of the world on my own terms,
leaving you with your
labels and index cards,
classification tabs

and the knowledge
that you probably made a mistake
when you catalogued me
because the part of me
you could not sort
and could not understand
is my curious independence

and I am gone - gone - gone, Gepetto!
leaving you confused,
positively bewildered at the very idea,
the fact that my heart
isn’t wooden after all.

(c) 2000 Smokey Combs All rights reserved

Introducing....

2005-07-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

For anyone who mght be curious --this is me. Well, this is sort of me -- the picture is a few years old, yet it is the closest to what I look like in real life than many of the more recent ones. There are a few platinum blonde streaks in my hair, and maybe a few more character lines -- but essentially this is what I look like.

Noah Webster

2005-07-17T12:26:00.000-05:00

Noah Webster is an unsung hero in my opinion.

I would salute Noah Webster, but I doubt he could receive such a salute. I am as sure as I am sitting here writing this, the man is spinning in his grave.

Languages Evolve.

We add new words every day. Someone makes one up, or we derive from other languages or they just occur and fall into common useage. Normally they are assimilated into the language with little impact, and we carry on, expanding our vocabularies and understanding word by word. But with the onset of political correctness, American English has devolved into word games. Few of us use the word 'man' referring to mankind anymore -- as in the title of "Man's Search for Meaning," by Viktor E. Frankl. Frankl did not write about a single male human being. 'Man' refers to humankind. Could such a title pass a publisher's scrutiny today? Doubt it. The theory behind that is that women scholars would be offended by the 'sexist' title. Fiddlesticks. That opinion is sexist. Are we so certain that women who would read Frankl's book are more interested in being excluded as a gender via sexist wording than they are interested in the content of the book? We are pussyfooting around the language trying not to offend women who should be insulted at the act of our pussyfooting around. Do we not trust these women to understand that shortcuts in language require all of us, men and women alike, to assume that the word 'mankind' does not refer only to one gender? Give me a break. My sisters are smarter than that. And not nearly so petty.

We are, as a country, ruining our language. Grammar has gone out the window, the same window which we are advised not to toss the baby out of, along with the bathwater.
Example: Each of the children had his own idea about the dog.

Simple and clear, right? We know that each single child had an idea of his own regarding the dog. Most commonly heard now is, "Each of the children had their own idea about the dog." We take a singular (each=every ONE) and pluralize the rest. This happens so we don't use the generic 'his' - and the only other option in correct grammar is to add the cumbersome, 'or her' to the sentence. This is the choice I most often make because I cannot be sure how my reader will react. Unfortunately, even newscasters these days use the improper 'their' and 'they' pronouns rather than the the universal 'his' and 'he.' Used to be we were told to listen to newscasters and announcers because they spoke properly. Can't do that anymore.

What prompted this tirade today is thatI got bored last night and used the feature on this blogspot to go to the 'next blog.' There are so many fascinating things that people find to write about, it is usually a great pastime. I cruised around for several hours just reading and learning how other people think. There are blogs from all over the world here, one 'next blog' click away. They're random, so I started a list of the ones I enjoyed and will go back to for more entertainment or for more information. There were many I would have liked to read, but I was tired of the new language that is being used by many of the younger people today. I really want to know what they are thinking, what is important to them, but so many of them are writing in a new type of shorthand, composed partly of computerisms (easy ones like lol, roflmao, etc.) and a different sort of shorthand -- ppl for people, substituting u for you, that sort of thing. For someone like me, it is tedious, at best. Many of the young bloggers also used completely phoentic spellings - which I guess is okay if one has the patience to get through them. I don't. I was raised reading and writing the language properly, and for me it is just too hard to read a blog as though it was a second language - because, in fact, it is. The sad thing is these folks have something to say. I believe what they have to say, how they feel, what they think, is important. Really. There are great ideas out there in young minds and I don't like that I have this barrier in the way of getting to know them. And the barrier is of my own making

Language Snob

When I was in (I think) the 10th grade I had an English teacher like no other. He taught from a book I have been trying to find since. The premise of the book was the acknowledgemnet that we can all make ourselves understood in the spoken and written word. But the calibre of our lives, our education, of our plans for the future, our standing in the world and our own self-esteem is all tied up in the quality of our language - hence the case against Ebonics. Why do you suppose actors and speakers and even some politicians take classes to eliminate regionalisms from their language? To be salable. And that was the thrust of the 10th grade textbook. Proper language will win out over improper in job interviews, letters to the editor, complaint letters, and blogs, where we reveal ourselves at what is arguably our best. So it's okay, this 60s textbook said, to write and speak however one chooses - as long as one recognizes that those who know better -- know better. There are many of us who can fall into dialect and all its mis-grammar glory among friends or acquaintances. But when it comes to saying something in a forum that we hope will be read/heard with seriousness, when we actually want to be taken seriously, proper language will win every time.

I read the blog of a local man, wherein he applied to the editors of a local paper for space in their publication as a columnist. He claimed also to be a software developer, yet, aside from his mispellings and horrid grammar (far beyond colloquialisms and a personal 'style') he could not - and admitted he could not - figure out the simplest HTML. Folks, what is not believable here? Right or wrong, snob or not, those of us who read also, consciously or otherwise, make judgments of what we read - not just the content, but the care that goes into the act of communication. I've said it when giving poetry workshops, and I will say it again here: If what you have to say is important, you will bother to say it so it is important to the reader/listener. And who of us bothers to write or speak if what we have to share is not important to us?

Poor Noah. He tried. We seem to have come full circle, to where he began. We have nearly as many ways to say the same thing as young folks wanting to say it. Maybe they can understand one another, but I just can't see an amendment to the US Constitution written that way - or a good legal brief, for that matter. We clamor for 'small print' to leave out the 'legalese' and tell us in plain English what they mean and then watch the young folk complicate matters with their individual styles. I don't know. Maybe I am just too old, but I believe there are some things that should unite us, and language is one of them.

Liberty the Cat

2005-07-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

Liberty the Cat was doing her morning relaxation exercise -- sprawled out at the foot of my bed, dozing in the filtered sunshine. I was in my usual place in the bathroom, able to see her through a mirror placed on the inside of an open door. As I watched her, she stretched and yawned and looked directly into the mirror.

I have watched cats and kittens, dogs and puppies, birds and even a raccoon look at mirrors. Kittens will actually peer into them, now and then -- but I was totally dumbfounded this morning when Liberty the Cat looked into the angled mirror through which I saw her - and saw me. Her eyes held mine - but I was reluctant to believe this cat had actually used the mirror as a tool, as I had, to see around a corner and down a short hallway. To make sure, I reached to the floor where one of her inevitable shoestrings lie and picked it up. Liberty can resist being called, being snuggled, even treats rattled in a can, if she has half a mind to, but Liberty cannot resist her shoestrings. I usually wiggle her shoestrings for her to leap and play with, then I ask her, "Are you ready?" and she assumes her pounce stance and waits for me to toss the string so she can retrieve it. This morning I raised the shoestring so it was in front of my face and wiggled it. Her eyes grew wide as they do when she is about to give chase, and when I waved it to and fro, her eyes were on the long end. Liberty the Cat was using the mirror. A cat can use tools.

Of course, cats have been known to use many things to their own advantage for years, but this, for some reason, amazes me. It also makes me wonder just how closely this little creature keeps tabs on me. And why...

Another Year

2005-07-10T09:25:00.000-05:00

So here I am, on the second anniversary of my 29th birthday. A cursory inventory reveals a woman who is slightly better off than last year, a wee bit lighter in weight, a bit more active in things, but every bit as mouthy and independent in thought and action. I hope to bear up well, but as with all things, there are no guarantees.

Taran recently did a blog entry on legacies, and now is as good a time as any for me to think about them, myself. I do not stand to inherit a blessed thing. My father passed some years before with no notification directly to my brother or myself, but I suppose that was just as well. He is a subject best not discussed in polite company anyway, and all I would have liked, that had belonged to him, was his fountain pen. It is most likely in some collector's display now, simply for its age and condition. My wanting of it is complex. Having become a writer myself would do as a simple explanation. The fact that he had a beautiful handwriting is another. I cannot think of too many positive things about my father, and that some do exist helps me to deal with how few there were. And the fact that, in the third grade, lo, those centuries ago, I was never permitted to use ink because my own cursive handwriting had not progressed sufficiently to please the nun who made such decisions is another reason this pen is important to me. We (or those who had progressed sufficiently) used fountain pens because (deep breath here) there were no ballpoints, (certainly no stick pens, felt tip or other such inventions!) readily available at that time. And the fountain pens we did use typically did not have cartridges. They had on-board bladders which would hold a supply of ink that was nearly always almost sufficient for the project at hand. Still, it would have been nice to have. I remember how my father guarded his pen, not allowing anyone else to use it, because another hand would change the shape and thrust of the nib and affect the appearance of whatever would be written hence. It was exactly his.

My mother, who shares the same birthstone as I, wears a gorgeous ruby ring that she has repeatedly told me will not be mine, as she has promised it to someone else. I cannot think of anything Mother has that I would want, and expect nothing as a bequest.

There is no property, no land, nothing of any value I expect to come into at any time during the last half of my life. And there is no land nor property that I can leave to my children -- yet they still have recieved a legacy already that they shall always have. Intangible. We all leave legacies of an intangible kind. Most are unintentional, and while most are unconsciously left, I want to muse about them consciously for a time and make adjustments where I can.

The Robert Bly book, Iron John comes to mind. I read this book years ago and loved it, wrote reviews about it, even sent my note encrusted copy of it to my brother, who may or may not have read it. In the reviews I wrote, I always ended the same way -- that I recommend this book to anyone who is a man or who knows one. I stand by that. In this book, Bly uses a fairy tale as the basis for his explanation (and his recommendations) of the plight of men today. One of the most memorable things I noted in this book was the belief that a boy becomes a man beside a man. A father's legacy to his son(s) was what he was, what he held as important and valuable, his mannerisms, his reactions, his dignity and respect, his manliness. In earlier days it also included his profession; hence a carpenter taught his son to be a carpenter, a blacksmith taught his son to be a blacksmith and so on. These are things that are just "in the air" when men (or a boy and a man) are together, and the younger absorbs these as easily as breathing. Bly realized the value of mentors. Those of us who have no family associations seek out mentors of our own. You know the old proverb, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." We find what we need when we need it.

And -- men or women, aren't we all mentors of a sort? We all leave an impact on those around us, hopefully (but, unfortunately, not neccessarily) for the better. It amazes me that my daughter holds important many of the same things I do - albeit for different reasons in some respects. But I do not find it odd that all my children are very verbal, they all write well and speak well, and they all have, in varying degrees, a certain diplomacy that helps them do whatever they choose in this life with one less barrier than many others. My older two children have a certain joy, almost a giddiness regarding family that their father enjoyed. My younger son has his father's seriousness of mind (and stubborn-ness, which both define as "purpose") We are all leaving legacies.
______________________________________________________

I decided this year to bake a cake for myself. I have been invited by a dear friend to share dinner at his house, and I will bring it with me. The sun is beginning to peek out from the clouds, the bands of Hurricane Dennis are nearly passed now, here in St. Petersburg, so it looks like the dinner will not be postponed as I'd earlier thought. That means I had better get into the kitchen and get baking. It will be a vanilla cake, light and fluffy, baked in a bundt pan for easy transporting. I will divide it in half horizontally and, at my friend's house, add the finishing touch -- a layer of whipped cream in the center, covered with a layer of fresh strawberries, another layer of whipped cream. With steamy hot and creamy coffee, it will make a wonderful dessert, and I am pleased that I will be sharing this with close friends. They have seen the changes, over the years, and love me anyway. What more can one ask?

Dumb and Dumber?

2005-06-24T09:40:00.000-05:00

When I get bored, I go to one of my favorite sites, Snopes.com -- they of Urban Legend fame. Here you can not only check on the mailings your friends send you ("I swear this is true -- send it on to all your friends!") but, if you choose the RANDOM option, you can learn all sorts of interesting things apropos to nothing.

I sometimes watch The Tonight Show with Jay Leno before going to sleep, and upon occasion, I see him traipsing around the street asking random people questions about this or that -- things I remember learning when I was quite young. Things I feel like I have always known, things I somehow figure everyone knows, get the strangest answers from those Jay asks. First reaction, of course, is that which Jay is going for -- the laughter. But upon reflection, it is very sad how little folks know about things they really should know. So when doing my RANDOM at Snopes.com this morning, I came across this, and immediately knew it was something I had to share.

Much of what is on the test is no longer important to us, but some things – like writing a bank check, writing a receipt, writing a promissory note – are things that not everyone who passes the eighth grade these days can do. Some noteven when they complete the 12th grade and receive their high school diplpmas. Scary numbers of high school graduates can balance a checkbook and keep a running balance. We do have Excel or other spreadsheets, which can be set up to do this for us, but knowing how to manually take care of our financial matters is something that isn’t covered in most schools. Budgeting isn't covered. How to write a complaint letter isn't taught.

I marvel at the depth of subject matter that this test covers. Are teachers still teaching actual geography – and the folks we see on the street on Leno just managed to sleep through those lessons? We laugh when one man-on-the-street says Colorado is the capital of Nevada, but how many people around us can actually find Iraq on the map? Does anyone know the attributes of the parts of speech anymore? Can anyone diagram a sentence?

Have we really become dumber? Don’t know. I know that budget cuts have all but removed the arts from the classroom. Music appreciation and art basics are gone most everywhere I look. Somewhere in the middle of the last century someone thought PE (Physical Education) was a good idea, and for a chosen few who are offered scholarships for their participation in intramural team sports, it really is, if the attitude of the school is well defined and the focus is still on book-learning.

It seems to me that, while there is much more to learn than there was one hundred ten years ago, we actually know less history, fewer language skills, less practical mathematics. And there seems to be less learned at home, too.

Makes me cranky when I think about it. Makes me worry when I watch Leno. These people on the street he finds to talk to will be running the country.

On Poets and Poetics

2005-06-23T09:53:00.000-05:00

I was visiting http://www.easylum.net/ the other day and was directed to a great article in the Washington Post about poet Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost -- fascinating! But not at all surprising. I understood completely.

I have long held that poets are not made, they are born. There is something genetic, I believe, that predisposes a person to survive on words, to sweat and breathe and leave a trail of words behind. There is a different viewpoint among poets (though not the same view, by any means) than the viewpoint of those who are not poets. Somewhat skewed, perhaps - but poets have an insight unmatched by others. The goal of poets is to speak of that insight, to be heard, to touch others, to be understood. Poets have a bit of vanity in their veins. They care for their work with parental concern, they grieve when it is taken, abused by misconceptors, and destroyed.

Any idiot can read the books and write a "poem," indeed, some don't even read the books and write a singular poem. But to BE A POET does not mean one has written a poem. In fact, there are poets who have never, ever written a poem as we know it, but who have expressed themselves in other ways that leave no mistake as to their poetic genetic identity.

The captive poet in the above article is a real honest-to-god poet. While it is a shame all his work was not returned to him, he goes about his freedom to write more and more - in fact, it is as much a need for him to do so as it is to eat and sleep and breathe the air. What works were not returned to him are there, somewhere. All words committed to paper and shared are there, somewhere. Even if they have been destroyed, they exist in the mind of he who condemned the papers to burn. The poet has been successful. He has expressed himself and been understood, just as surely as his work reached his fellow captives. He can write again what he feels has been lost -- or he can maintain that he has reached someone with words, and that someone has reacted, and go on to write about other things.

That is what a poet does.
Smokey

Pound Cake

2005-06-20T10:36:00.000-05:00

The very best cake I make is very simple. It calls for a pound of butter, a pound of flour, a pound of sugar and a pound of eggs. Simple? If you just throw it all together, it's nothing special.

But if you separate the eggs and beat the yolks until they are very light, if you first beat the butter and slowly, slowly add the sugar, and when the all the sugar is added, slowly, slowly, add the flour and then slowly, slowly the beaten- stiff egg whites, and then add the personal touch (if I have not used vanilla sugar - sugar stored in a jar with a vanilla bean in the center - I add some vanilla. Someone else might add almond oil) - or, if the butter is especially fine, don't add another thing, but put the batter in the biggest pan you own and bake it in a very slow oven for an hour and a half. It doesn't need frosting. If you must, you can sprinkle it with confectioner's sugar - but it is magnificent in its simplicity, and stands well completely unadorned. (For anyone thinking about making this cake -- it requires a punch bowl sized container to mix in, and at least a 12 cup pan for baking. I use a 10" high antique angel food pan to bake it. A very slow oven is 275 degrees f.)

It's the humanity that makes this cake such a winner. I regret I discovered it after all my kids grew up and left -- but it is something I make upon occasion, and it never fails to wow its eaters. For someone to try and commercialize it -- well, for one thing, it would not be economically feasible. Yet I make it for parties where the host has no problem with money. What I add to the simplicity of the ingredients cannot be bought or sold. It's me, my heart, and my spirit.

That is what I gathered from reading one of Taran's recent entries to his blog. I loved reading the left-brain article and the account of Taran's artist friend. I love the idea of abandoning 'good enough' as well. Ask any of my kids. When they were small and were sent to clean their rooms, they would come and get me and ask, wanting to be done, wanting to go out and play, "Is it good enough, Mom?" My reasoning was, if they have to ask, it isn't good enough. Those kids knew darn well what they hadn't done -- and were hoping to get by without having to do it. And depending on my mood, sometimes I would let them. After all, 'good enough' for WHAT was a major concern, especially for them. I don't believe I raised one single neurotic perfectionist in the bunch.

But when it comes to our work, our chosen profession, our output for others, our art -- then "good enough" takes on a different meaning. Even more so in a Conceptual Age, what we leave behind us as we go through this life becomes more important. The contacts and friends we make, the sharing we do, the human-ness of ourselves. As an added bonus, we can rest easy that there is no competition. No one can be a better me than I can - no one can be a better you than you can. Our work is our best, when we are at our best. Our decisions are the best we can make with the information at hand. In time, of course, we have to forgive ourselves that our information may not have been complete, our decisions and our creations may not be the best we can do today -- but when they were made, when they were our projects -- we did the best we could with what we had.

I'm getting hungry. For no good reason, I think I will go make a cake.

Housekeeping

2005-06-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

There comes a time when there is no escaping it. The personal living space must be straightened out, dusted off, wiped down and made presentable to the outside world. For some it is easier than for others. Some folks just dust off the top of the refrigerator, run the vacuum around the room long enough to scare the cat, spray and wipe down the bathroom porcelain, and empty the trash. They are ready for visitors. For the rest of us -- well, we have more stuff than we have places to put that stuff, and not all of that stuff should be seen by visiting eyes. Underwear and personal enrichment cassettes aside, there are things we own that we just don't need others to know about us.

Nobody needs to know I own an iron and an ironing board. Like my thirty year old sewing machine and vintage sewing supplies, this says things about me I would prefer to keep to myself: I do not sew well, (nor often) and I iron every ten months or so. These things must be out of the visitor's line of vision. No one needs to see the wonderful grapevine basket full of purple yarn and a 3/4 finished crib blanket that I started 'way back when my second-to-the last grandson was born. Since him, there has been another grandson, a great grandson, three great granddaughters, and several friends with babies that have entered my life and the purple crib blanket is still unfinished. No one needs to see it, no matter how good, how domestic, how 'designer placed' it looks in its grapevine basket next to the book case.

No one needs to know I have a table fountain and some wonderful stones upon which the water tumbles in what my cat believes is surely her own personal water fountain. Where I live, the water is extremely limey -- and a deposit forms almost immediately on the stones. I''ve tried diluting the water with vinegar, but Liberty the Cat is totally opposed to this, and besides, the aroma of vinegar counteracts the tranquillity of such a fountain in the first place. I should probably give it away -- the fountain, I mean -- and be done with it. But you know, I have wanted one of those things for years and years, and when I bought it, several years ago on e-bay, I got such a deal! I could buy bottled water specifically for the fountain, but I suspect some of the stones are limey, because when I tried it (once, a long time ago) the lime deposit was delayed only a day or two. No one needs to see this decrepit fountain. And if I put it in the closet, I have to take something else OUT of the closet, and I can't figure out what that item should be.

I suppose I could take the old stereo I bought, complete with speakers, at the flea market some ten years (or more) ago out of the closet. I bought it because it had a turntable, and I have (why does this not surprise you?) a collection of vinyl records. All that is wrong with the stereo is that the belt that goes on the turntable needs to be put back in place. I mean, the belt is THERE, it just needs to be put in place. But even if I find someone to put the belt in place and I can actually listen to my vinyl records - even record some of them to cassette! -- I will have a problem. All the vinyl records I have stashed in cupboards and cabinets and in the bottom of the closet will have to move out where I can get to them. That means anyone who comes to call will notice that I own such vinyl as Rod McKuen, Mystic Moods Orchestra, Gershwin -- as well as jazz and rock classics, a smattering of classical music, and a Robert Frost reading Robert Frost record. I am not sure I want others to know that much about me.

Besides, if I take the vinyl out of the cabinets and cupboards and from the bottom of the closet, I will have to put something else in those places. Not a problem. I have boxes, dishpans full (hey, it is a fine filing method) and plastic storage containers full of poems, parts of poems, copies and re-writes of poems, and Other People's Poems that I am fond of. But if I put all these scraps and semi-finished chapbooks and poems-on-napkins and such in the cupboards and cabinets, how will I get to them when I have a few minutes and want to work with them? Most likely I would just start another pile of them somewhere...

There are other things, of course, that I wish to keep to myself. Correspondence (often in the same or adjacent dishpan as poems and poem parts) and family pictures, the scrapbook my daughter thinks I should be keeping, the journals (ditto) and notebooks scattered about which speak volumes about me without a sound; the strings I hang from lamps and doorknobs to amuse my cat; the tarnish on the silver plated platter upon which I feed my cat; the assortment of books I have begun and left about the place (who needs to know I actually skimmed "Growing Up Brady" by Whatsisname, who played Greg on the show?) and read in bits and pieces? Or the cuttings I acquired from the courtyard downstairs that are beginning to root in cute little pots my window?

Anyway, it is a challenge -- and I have until 2 PM Friday to make my little apartment 'inspection ready.' Because this here is an efficiency apartment ina Public Housing building, I am supposed to be inspected at least annually. I have been certified to begin my third year here, and no one yet has inspected my apartment. Ever. But there is a new management staff, and these folks seem more efficient than their predecessors, so I feel I am doomed, this time.

I am still writing from the computer lab, not my apartment, and I look forward to the weekend. My apartment, having been made inspection ready (by then) will host a techie inclined friend (who built my computer for me in the first place) to install an (are you ready?) updated version of XP on my machine, and track down the connection problems I have been having. My friend has recently had his heart broken (again) and I think I will do something creative with a chicken and listen to him weep over dinner. It's the least I can do!

I hope to continue this no later than Monday (June 20) from the comfort of my own chair in front of my own computer in my own apartment, which, having been made visitor ready, somehow, will have a semi- open door policy. I still intend to keep at least one day a week to myself -- no visitors, no anything. But I will be able to write and blog as I choose again.

It may well be worth the trouble.

Forsooth and stuff!

2005-06-13T09:40:00.000-05:00

Hark! I see an end to my not-able-to-get-online-with-any regularity- misery, lo, somewhere between here and the horizon. I have been occupied recently with other matters -- including the survival of a friend, Thomas Bruce Reese, he of Beaux Arts Gallery and Coffeehouse fame (see reeseart.com ), and since the benefit held downtown St. Petersburg to help him out a bit yesterday, I can move on to other things in my head -- but not without a few words about the benefit itself. Tom's claim to have the Oldest Continuous Coffeehouse in the area -- indeed, possibly in the country, perhaps even the planet -- means that when there is a benefit held for him, the oldest hippies and folk singers known to man will emerge from the dens of their present lives and wander in, play music or recite poems, tell stories, and mingle with their comtemporaries. It was held at a small and yet wonderful location, The Globe Coffee House on First Avenue North and Fifth Street North, St. Petersburg -- a place normally closed on Sundays, and, when open, a place of comfort for many young folk - some arriving on skateboard and others afoot, and some with laptops tucked under their arms. Makers of fine coffee and coffee drinks, a wonderful raspberry tea, and sweet things that appeared to be lovingly baked by the proprietoress herself, The Globe heard the need -- and opened its doors to the old hippies and folkies and poets who crammed into the place yesterday. Some performed -- many chose to not perform but to 'audience' -- a role some play better than others, but which is necessary to make any such gathering a success. And I don't know the figures, but I think the gathering was a success. Funds were raised, memories were jostled, and friendships renewed. Coffee was consumed in many forms and flavorings, and nowhere was there the ugly head of commercialism or blatant headline success -- although many of the participants had had their own successes, and though some with the blatant headline successes who had passed through the various Beaux Arts doors who are now deceased (Marilyn Monroe bought art from Tom Reese. Jim Morrison (of the Doors) passed through while going to college and staying with his (I believe) grandmother; while Kerouac and others had visited ("Go write something new!" Tom is reported to have told Kerouac) -- there was no one who had 'sold out' or who had not given themselves over to making the best of whatever talent they had been given -- and the skills Mr. Thomas Bruce Reese helped them to hone.

I am hoping there will be another one of these soon. There are a lot of old hippies and folkies and poets around, and with young folks taking over all the good places these days, it is nice to have a gathering where the artists and audiences combine with one purpose in mind -- having some fun and taking care of an old friend/mentor/legend.

Well, that was interesting.....

2005-06-06T09:03:00.000-05:00

Ach! I had a real surprise yesterday (Sunday) at home. I was running upkeep on my computer (even if it won't get me on line, the silly thing still gets visited from outside sources -- so I run Ad-Aware every day, regardess, and AVG Virus Protection. After both were updated (don't ask me how -- the updates can often get on-line when I cannot. Yesterday morning they both did) I noticed that the internet connection was still open -- so I used it to visit here and my mailbox. Then I gave it the ultimate test -- I went to my on-line playground and played a game or two. It let me. I came back here, made comments to my comments, and decided to have lunch. By the time I had eaten and straightened up the kitchen, I could no longer get on line. All that had happened in the interim is that AVG notified me of two virus attempts -- and both were, I was notified, successfully healed. Both had come in, according to the notifications, on my updates.

This gets curiouser and curiouser. Any time now I expect my home computer to sprout hair and a face and look like the cantankerous child it has been lo, these weeks. I imagine it would be a tech's nightmare -- it appears to be running clearly and quickly, so techie would leave. No sooner would the poor tech get home than my computer will dissolve into error messages. Tech will swear it is something I did -- but I did nothing.

Go figure. And if anyone has an idea I can try (she with ten thumbs and a literal, not a technical, mindset) -- by all means, let me know here. I get two hours a day -- if my students let me -- in the computer lab when I can check my e-mail and this spot.

Please and thank you --
Smokey

Sometimes Ya Gotta Let Go....

2005-05-31T09:23:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it becomes blatantly clear that a relationship you are hoping will continue is a dead horse somewhere on the road behind you. When that does -- well, maybe this explains it:

This Is To Tell You

You have been removed from my list
and set free from bombardment
of stories and factoids,
jokes, URLs and websites
and other connections to me.

The line was tenuous at best,
an overture met with indifference -
and I despise indifference
nearly as much as hatefulness,
and I refuse to feed yours.

It doesn’t mean anything
that I have included you out,
only that I have felt stupid
including you in
where you didn’t ask to be.

While there has been nothing of value
in those awkward overtures --only in the
thoughts that sent them, only in the reasons,
the laughter, the smile, the wanting to share --
they were well meant

and it t doesn’t mean anything
that I let you know this, except everyone
should know the reason
of an action he didn’t expect

and you didn’t expect it,
did you? Not from me.
But now is the time of my self-survival, an honoring
of the incredible fragility inside,
spun opals under glass,

a respect for her capacity for breakage,
and the fact that, unbeknownst
to you, the stones
you hold in your fist
frighten me.

© 2005 Smokey Combs
all rights reserved

Gone again....

2005-05-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

I'm off line again. I did learn a few things, though – and thought I would share them here.

The last person to work on my computer (besides me) removed my registered Windows Millenium and installed instead that infernal Windows XP.

So here I am, with an infernal XP installation on my machine which no longer works because some settings are off, some settings are missing, all this after I ran regular maintenance – a disk clean-up. The problem results in my not being able to get on line. My modem works – although the person who installed the infernal XP replaced the ethernet cable twice (it wasn't the cable, it is in the connection settings) and somehow messed up my connection to MSN (MSN Premium comes with Verizon DSL – which I have, and when my computer works, I love) so that, even when I fiddled around and managed to get on line, I could not access my custom home page or (more importantly) my calendar.

So I spent an afternoon on the telephone with Verizon techies, who checked everything they could check without being in my home office area. My modem is fine. My cables are fine. The connection isn't. They told me to report the error to Microsoft.My ME -- which only disadvantage I found was that it does not play my SIMS as well as XP (and, in fact, is not even recommended on the SIMS CD case, as is XP) –is gone forever, with my registration and all the settings that used to work. Whatever patch or repair I had with ME through Microsoft is not working with this infernal XP. I wonder what Techie kid would say to this situation. Sigh. Probably just shake his head and go get a cup of coffee. He shakes his head a lot when he has to think about me and technology in the same paragraph.

All that was really wrong with my computer running ME is that there was no good spyware running on it, and its virus protection was (just barely) out-of-date. And, of course, the SIMS thing – the program ran, but not so well as it does on XP. It wasn't broke – but the last person to work on my computer fixed it anyway. The only thing I can think of is to save up over a number of months to buy a new OS, wipe the hard drive clean and start from scratch. That means I will be writing these entries at home, then transporting these, as well as anything else I want to send via e-mail, via floppy to the downstairs computer lab where I tutor ten hours a week, where, if time permits, I can post entries here and send e-mail. I won't be able to access the internet over the weekend.

So meanwhile, being off-line, I have had the opportunity to edit and write and re-write a lot of my work from years and years ago – as well as build a whole new SIMS neighborhood. I manage to keep busy anyway, and still have time to be incensed at some of the goings on in my neighborhood, my state, the country, and the world. Expect some to come plopping in as I transport them on my floppies...

Smokey

This was written 6PM 05-21-05; not posted until 10:30 or so 05-31-05 because the word processing program installed on my computer by the last person to work on it – besides me – does not automatically save to the universal Microsoft Word, and I had to teach myself all about the new program before it could be productive. (I am becoming less and less open to change – does anyone out there blame me?)

A Bit of (Overdue) Ranting

2005-05-13T18:08:00.000-05:00

Several events have happened around here whilst I was unable to post stuff here, and I cannot let them pass with no comment from me. They may not seem related on the surface, but related they are – all by one common denominator.

The first two made national news. Though unrelated events, they happened at the same school in St. Petersburg. One parent is trying to link them – but that doesn't fly with me. The first event was the publicizing of an unruly five year old girl, a kindergarten student, handcuffed by police and taken away. Apparently the teacher cleared the classroom (thus, this child's behavior interrupted the class and the learning experience of her classmates) and tried “reasoning” with the child – apparently the latest method in the science of dealing with children – but to no avail. Bear in mind this teacher's hands were – pardon the pun – tied by all the rules and regulations put in place by parents and the school board. She was not allowed to touch the child. She did manage to get the kid to the principal's office, where the child went into the destruct mode, tearing up the office and attacking the principal. The child's parent was called but unable to collect her little darling. The police were called. Off the video, but directing the situation, was a police officer who had dealt with this child in another incident. It was he who ordered she be cuffed, and they managed to remove her from the school. All of this was recorded on video – her classroom was one of those equipped with a running camera, and one was running in the principal's office.

All over the country folks were enraged. I am at a loss as to why they are enraged. Has no parent lately taught his/her child that there are consequences to his/her behavior? That behavior such as that exhibited in the videos requires the child be restrained to avoid hurting herself and/or others? That all other tools were removed from those adults into whose care this little darling was entrusted? I have been hearing folks say the poor child has 'issues,” and that those should be considered. I have heard this referred to as a racial issue, as the child was African American, and the officers on the video were Caucasian. It is not a racial issue – it is a discipline issue, and for the record, the police officer directing the situation, who had dealt with this child previously, was African American. I say, if this is how you raise your kid, this is what you can expect to happen to him/her. If she has “issues” the parents should be dealing with those issues, but still demanding the child, for her own well being and that of those around her, be accountable for his/her own behavior.

In the second instance at the same school, a little boy arrived late for breakfast, and hurried down the camera equipped corridor to get to his classroom. He turned a corner to go to class, then, seconds later, was seen to turn back onto the main corridor and out the door. He left school grounds and subsequently was hit by a car as he attempted to cross a busy street. Parents are up in arms. Why was he not escorted to his class? Why was he able to get out the door and off school grounds? And they blame the school, saying someone should have taken the time out from his/her already busy schedule, that he/she should have been away from his/her appointed classroom, (taking care of, teaching, the rest of the students in the class) to escort a child who knew where he was supposed to be anyway to a classroom which was in the same place it has been all school year. Was this child not taught that he belonged in school during the day? That it wasn't a choice, it was an established fact that he was required to be in a classroom being taught during school hours? This was not a kindergarten child, and though I do not recall his exact grade, I believe it was second or third – either of which gives the child enough school experience to know what is required of him as a student. If he decided, for some reason, to leave the school, he is leaving the safety of a learning center and off on his own. It was his behavior that led to his accident. Period.

We don't know why he left. Unfortunately, the little boy is still in a coma, and I am very sad for his family about that. That he was hit by a car is regrettable, but the school, certainly not his teachers, cannot be held to blame. After the first story, about the little girl in handcuffs, made national news (it had actually happened last fall) the mother, grasping at straws, said perhaps her child was afraid he would be handcuffed, too -- and fled. The school says it had kept the first incident quiet, that the student body did not know about it until the national televised news reports this spring, and the national television airing took place after the boy was hit by the car.

The third incident was a drug bust – a sting, actually. Local police were familiar with the location, having been there before. They knew the folks in the abode were drug people, that, in a prior sting, there had been guns on the premises, and they arrived prepared to deal with the situation. One sleepy inhabitant of that abode was repeatedly told to put his hands in a surrender position, yet he persisted in reaching down, under the sofa upon which he had been sleeping. When he would not comply with the repeated request, he was shot. Dead. Investigation of the premises revealed that, while there was no gun where the young man was reaching, there was a gun stashed under another sofa in the room. The family was, of course, upset. They had lost a family member, and upset is expected. But they claimed that there was unnecessary force in the firing of the gun, and that the force need not have been lethal. OK. Envision this – a grown man on a sofa reaching down for something under the sofa. What parts of the man are exposed? Yep – his vital parts. You can't shoot for a non-vital place because they are bent into the body. The neighborhood was up in arms, and of course, someone said that it was a race thing (the young man was African American) and an investigation, which declared it was a 'good shoot' – that it was necessary under the circumstances – was questioned as racially biased.

Bullfeathers. Listen – if this is the choice a person makes as to how he/she is going to live his/her life, then this is consequence that is always possible. Family members would do better to blame this life choice for the death of their loved one, because the lifestyle the man chose was a dangerous, life threatening one. The cops – in trying to keep the neighborhood safe for those children and adults who reside there, are not to blame for the result of someone who chooses a drug infested life and who threatens in action or in word those who would enforce the law. I would ask those agitators whose purpose is to stir up the neighbors what their reaction would have been if the young man had been able to access the weapon he knew was under one sofa or another, had fired that weapon, killed a cop, and subsequently been killed, or wounded and on trial for murder. Would their sympathies still be with the young man? The officer just removed step one of that scenario. The rest of the facts are still the same.

I guess responsibility is what I am getting at. If we don't teach our kids to behave when they are in the care of others, if we don't teach them that when they are sent to school in the morning, that is where they are to stay until dismissed, if we defend their actions when they are involved in illegal activities, we can expect bad things to happen to them. They need the guidance that can protect them from circumstances that embarrass and humiliate them and their families. We cannot make others the scapegoat when the bad behavior of our children leads to dire consequence. It is we – or if they are adult or, of an age where they understand the responsibilities they hold in their own lives, it is they – who are responsible for their own actions. No one else is accountable.

We pay teachers (too little) to teach our children, not escort them through halls or be abused by unruly children. We pay our police departments (also under-funded) to uphold the law, to aid us when we need aid, and to keep our neighborhoods as clear of drugs and crime as possible. They are doing their parts. We must do our part – and hold our young adults responsible for their own actions.

Who in the World Wants to be ME?

2005-05-12T23:56:00.000-05:00

You may have gathered from reading this that I don't have much to my name that most would consider of value. Yet someone stole my identity, and I still can't figure out how. I get my bank statements mid-month, and in March I noted that I was in the red nearly $550. Someone had charged nearly $200 to my account - and subsequent charges for being overdrawn amounted to nearly $350.

Now, I haven't been well in a long time, and I tend to prioritize things according to the attention they demand. I admit I am not a monthly balance-the-checkbook person. In my reasoning, I don't have to be. I have one income, my Social Security Disability check, and I keep track of what I spend. I know, roughly, what is in my account, and while the balance will never make the neighbors envious, I thought I was building up a bumper fund in there, so when such things as car insurance come due I don't have to sacrifice anything to pay it. In March I decided to take a peek and see how my little bumper was doing, because I had hoped to make a trip to Wisconsin this year, as I have the past two years. Imagine my surprise and shock.

It seems someone had, on February 22, charged my account for SBC-DSL. Twice. On March 9, someone again charged my account for SBC-DSL - four times. Each of these was a new account, apparently, and by the time I got to the bank with my statement on March 17, the first two accounts had started to cycle to their second payments, and while I was conversing with my banker, four more charges were added as the others began to cycle. Now I don't know anything about SBC-DSL -- I have been a Verizon Broadband customer for over a year -- but there was a number to call, and with my banker, I called it and connected to SBC's Customer Service -- which is located in the Phillipines. (Verizon's Customer Service - at least for residential phone service - is in India) Between the banker and a very assertive I, Customer Service stopped asking me stupid questions ("What is the name of this account? What is the e-mail on this account?" "There IS no account," I bellered. "I - the owner of the account you folks have charged all these accounts TO - did not OPEN an account with SBC.") I managed to get the ear of a supervisor, who spoke to my banker to get transaction numbers and then gave me a confirmation number that these charges would be reimbursed to my checking account. Once that was done, my banker assured me, the bank charges against my account would be removed. I don't know that my Visa check card was used, but I had it shut down at once.

Meanwhile, I had the month of March to get through. By the end of March, SBC still had not made good on their promise to reimburse my account. I had the service address in Texas, sent them a registered priority mail letter reminding them of the confirmation number and telling them that I would be filing a fraud affidavit the following Friday if the funds were not in my account by then. They were not there. I did file the affidavit, with the help of my banker, and slowly funds started to come back - first the SBC funds, then from the bank. Sigh.

I now go into the bank and cash checks to get shopping money - which I hate - rather than use a check card. I now check my bank statements for anything out of the ordinary, even if I don't balance my account every month. And I did lose a large amount (well, large to me -- ) of cash I kept at home (thank goodness) for emergencies. It got me through with sufficient cat food to keep Liberty happy, and litter (ditto) rent, medications, and gas for my car. I did have a goodly supply of food on hand-- I always keep full cupboards -- so that wasn't a problem. All I had to get from the store was the fresh stuff - milk and bread and butter and eggs, coffee creamer, some MacIntosh apples and something green and leafy to keep my tummy happy. Things were close around here for a while, and still are, though not quite so bad as they were.

But the damage was done. Things are nearly back to normal, but what I would have saved in the bumper fund April is gone, and this month is the big renewal premium for my car insurance. Because I lost all that I did, I will not be making my Wisconsin trip this year. See, when my April SSD check hit the bank, it went to pay those bank charges. I don't have this month's statement yet, but from the interim balances I have gotten, things are still not right.It's taken its toll on my anxiety prone tummy and my state of mind - which had been trying its best to normalize the past few years. I keep telling myself it's only money, after all - but geez - one's entire existence is all tied up in it.

Who in the world would want to be me? And why open so many accounts with the same DSL provider? I still don't know who was behind the whole mess - and I doubt I ever will. The bank is looking into it for me, and promised to get to the bottom of it - but I am not sure of that at all.

Anyway.

One more adventure in the life of ...

From the Original Soapbox Papers.....

2005-05-12T09:12:00.000-05:00

When I am invited to conduct a workshop, I often choose to talk about profanity in poetry. I believe profanity is trite, uncreative, and has no place in a poem. That is my rule. But as with all rules, there is an exception. My exception to this rule is a poem called Dogshit - a piece which has gotten me in a bit of trouble at Beaux Arts Coffehouse and Gallery (more about which at another time) where the hoary haired old owner brings me to task over my choice of title and topic. But the more I go over the piece, the more certain I am that the word dogshit is precisely the right word. The poem doesn't work substituting poop, caca, doo-doo or feces -- and, in fact, the poem DOES work. In the years since I have written it, I have had several acquaintances ask me if the poem wasn't about him/her...to which I smile my Mona Lisa smile...

Here, then, is a poem simply titled, Dogshit.

Dogshit

Consider dogshit:
its scent, its texture.
You know where it came from,
you know what it is made of
so you handle it
even dispose of it
with the respect its qualities demand

yet you know me:
my scent, my texture.
You know where I came from,
you know what I'm made of
yet you handle me
even dispose of me
with less respect
than you give to dog droppings

but I
shall embed myself
into the soles of your runaway shoes
and one night you will
awaken from a soft dark sleep
and my scent
will be in the air.

from The Soapbox Papers, (c)1996 Smokey Combs
all rights reserved

Whew!

2005-05-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

Well, that was sure a lot to overcome! I haven't been well, folks, and I have had a lot of trouble with my home computer, so I haven't said a word here in over a month. But I am back now, ready to soapbox opinions, tell stories, and even print a poem or two.

Partially in explanation, let me just say that when part of your computer runs with one OS and part of it defaults to another, settings reconstruct themselves, and I am proud to say that, piece by piece, I have managed to find the right settings for my own computer, though I had to sacrifice a program or two to do it. I don't care how modern I am if the blessed computer doesn't work for me. I still have to reset my printer and camera dock (Techie Kid asked me what I needed a printer for -- I should have known right then and there he has no idea what I do as a wordsmith, how, when you compose a business letter for a client or a newsletter master, one has to be able to print it out from one's own computer, because to send it to another place to print (how stupid when you have your own printer!) could cause misalignment due to other versions of the program needed to compose the thing in the first place!) and get all the old files where I can access them more easily. I can comfortably say that I am back now, and buckle up, folks -- I have a lot to say bottled under the skin of these fingers...

Sometimes

2005-03-30T14:22:00.000-05:00

Sometimes

(Thoughts for the parents of Terri Schiavo,
March 30, 2005)

even if we cover ourselves
with sack cloth
and sit among the ashes
of our burnt offerings,

even if we face East,
fast for days,
finger our prayer beads
and cry

even if we kneel for hours,
beat our breasts,
make promises, make deals,
sacrifice whatever we have,

ask God over and over
and over and over again

sometimes the answer
is no

and all we can do
is put our arms around one another,
comfort one another,
sweep up the ashes
and accept the truth:

Sometimes
the answer is not what we want.
Sometimes the answer is no.

(C)Smokey Combs 2005 all rights reserved

No High Heels, Please!

2005-03-11T10:30:00.000-05:00

My friend Joyce cannot hear. I cannot sign - at least , not very much -- in fact, very little. Still we have fun, go places together and are just -- well, friends.

Joyce had gone round and round with her computer. At one point her brother came to visit and gave her a new one. It came with a new operating system on it. I have 'heard' about it ever since. She asks if I can help her with some of the settings, if I can help her set up her e-mail, that sort of thing. I told her earlier this week I would take a look at it -- but as this week went the way it went, I don't think I can -- or if I actually get there, I don't know as though it will help her. What she really needs is to get her brother back here to set her computer where she wants it set, and give her what she wants. I don't know that he is a techie -- but he certainly broke Techie Rules for Dealing With Older Computer Users (OCU) Rules #1 and 2:

Rule #1 Thou Shalt Ascertain What it is the Older Computer User Wants

The main thing to remember is that the OCU most probably will not evolve into even a near techie. Someone provided a computer for this person (or she for herself) so she can stay in touch with her family and friends, explore the internet for fun, look up medical conditions and talk show celebrities, and play games. If she has a preferred game place, that should be respected and availability to it should be assured. She should also have available the easiest search engine and the easiest, most client friendly e-mail available. This may not be what she says, so techies are advised to ask. Then listen to the answer and go directly to

Rule #2: Thou Shalt Provide for the Older Computer User What Said User Wants, Not What Thou Thinkest Said User Wants/Needs.

This should go without saying, but it apparently needs to be said. Make sure the OCU can use the all programs on her computer that she needs, and that she can access all the sites she likes. Now, you may know that the OCU's preferred game place is a gathering place for viruses and other nasties -- but this is where she wants to play, this is one of the reasons she even has a computer, so it is better to just make sure she has access -- and also access to programs to check and clean out the viruses and nasties when she is finished with her game playing. She should be shown how to run the clean up and instructed to run it after each and every visit to such a place. You don't want to tell her she can't go there any more.

Give her the simplest e-mail available to her, and I don't care if it is on an operating system you don't like. This is her computer, not yours.

Don't give the OCU what you think she needs. LISTEN, and don't make me tell you about the woman, a victim of Tsunami, told those well intended folks who asked her what she needed, "no high heels, please!"

Smokey

Bye Bye Techie Kid!

2005-03-11T10:09:00.000-05:00

It took him nearly 4 years to come visit, and now he's gone again.

Sigh. I guess mothers never get done mothering.

Techie Kid is off at his usual break-neck speed, determined to assuage his curiosity and explore his new home. I am hoping they have postage stamps (for all the e-mail in the world, a mother still likes to get a note now and then in the actual handwriting of her kid. It's more personal. Heck, you can't blame us for sentimentality -- mothers are 85 percent sentiment.) and I am also hoping he enjoys the beauty around him -- that he will slow down long enough once in a while to look.

It was so very nice having him here -- though I wish I could have offered better accomodations. We seem to not-say a lot of things, my Techie Kid and me. Some things are unspoken and some are just unsaid. Odd for two people who are so wordy everywhere else. During his stay I had him accompany me to a therapy session. I guess I wanted him to see where I am now -- as opposed to where I had been and where I will eventually end up. I wanted to give him reason not to worry about me and depression and prescription drugs and kitchen knives -- I hope he learned enough where he thinks of me as only mildly neurotic now -- just like everyone else. For a while there even I wasn't sure I could get back to this place.

So on to his adventure he goes -- dragging his worldly posessions behind him. He will keep busy, he will keep charming the birds out of the trees and allowing butterflies to land on his fingers.

I hope it doesn't take him another 4 years to come back.

Smokey

Speaking of Contamination.....

2005-03-07T10:39:00.000-05:00

Ach! My home computer contracted something insidious, and was out of service for a time. Techie Kid has spent time he hasn't really had cleaning it up and installing for me the latest in everything, and tells me that today it will be servicable once more. (Thank you thank you thank you!) I must remember to make a small batch of peanut-butter cookies for that man.

I hadn't realized how much I value my computer and the access it affords me until it was gone - I was actually frustrated to tears. I read things that begged me to write about them. I could write, of course - I do have paper and pens and pencils around here - but I tend to do best dropping things right down in words once, editing them from that place, and sending them off on their own from that place. Like here. Of course, I write all the time -- which is what allows me to just plop down entries in seemingly short amounts of time. I've probably been writing it for days in my head.

Without a working computer I had the chance to read the entire Sunday paper from end to advertisement end, start the Super Hard Crossword Puzzle (which generally takes me until Wednesday to finish) and to pace a dent in the floor in my apartment. I actually organized a few things around my computerless place this weekend - and repotted my GruGru palm, which is cactus-like on the trunk (one-inch very sharp spines all over it!) and has a floof of strap-like leaves on the top. I used oven mitts, for all the good that did. The plant (I call him "Spike") is about 6 feet tall, and at one point it toppled over onto my right arm - extremely painful. I actually sat there on the floor a moment. I had to think of the best way to get the heavy old sharp thing off my arm and decided the best thing to do was place my left arm around behind my head and push the trunk straight off, the way it came down. Some of the spines apparently broke off under the skin, and one in particular seems to have at least grazed a vein - there is a big ol' bruise just southeast of the elbow. Ow. I just noticed it acts up as I type. Where did I leave my Tylenol?

More soon about a whole bunch of things. It was a very interesting Opinion Page in the Sunday St. Petersburg Times!

Contaminated Intuition?

2005-03-02T22:39:00.000-05:00

Jeopardy is a long running television game show in the US. Success in this game requires the contestants answer selected questions in the form of a question (What is... or Who said... or some such) and the questions are often obscure or quite specialized.

For years I have watched this program, often with friends. We call out our answers as we watch, and often we wonder how we (or how our friends) could have possibly known the right answer. When we ask one another, the usual answer is, "I don't know how I knew that -- I just knew."

What do you call that? Years ago in a poem I cannot lay my hands on at the moment, I wrote about intuition. I said it was the quick synapse that brought together all we knew from anywhere together to create a knowledge, give us answers, render judgements. It cannot be traced back, yet it can be astoundingly accurate. In that work I raised the question of contamination. Can daydreams or fervent longings and such change that summation of past experiences, of the things we 'know' without knowing? I am halfway through reading Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, and I am hoping the second half will provide me with an answer to that.

I'll get back to that here when I have finished the book and let you know. Meanwhile roll it around in your head a moment, taste the ambivalence. Is it possible to contaminate our intuition with daydreams?

Smokey