These were taken in Barcelona at the site of their World’s Fair with a Canon Digital Rebel. The fountains are lit at night during the summer with changing water heights and color.
Category: blog
Vote
Virginia is a proud Commonwealth. It is the Home of Presidents. It was the first state to have a black governor. It has a classy education system with ways to help parents pay for it. World class parks are located here. We have national, state and regional parks. Our interstate system is growing and is well maintained. We have shopping, caverns, mountains, seashores, beaches and farms. We have cities, suburbs and rural areas.
To protect these things, you need to get out and vote. With the wrong choices we lose too much to easily recover from.
There are two constitutional amendments on the ballot. One would drive unions from Virginia which is a right to work state. You can be union, or not. It’s the choice of the employee. Read up on the two amendments.
Please, think about more than the commercials on TV. Look up statistics. Be an educated voter.
I hope to see you at the polls.
Vacation part 2
I have to go to pictures to tell you about vacation at this point. There was the parade for kids at 9:30 in the morning. Old people are sleeping in on a day at sea that early. But there sure were a lot of kids at heart at the parade.
Then there are the dolphins leaping in front of a ship, riding the waves.
There was the Coast Guard Escort.
There was Tulum on the Atlantic Ocean with its white sand beaches and the restaurant that followed.
Tulum
Tulum
Tulum
Atlantic Beach, Mexico
Tulum
Tulum
And French Key in Honduras:
Big French Key, Honduras
Coral
Dunbar Falls and the Green Grotto in Jamaica:
Dunbar Falls, Jamaica
Dunbar Falls, Jamaica
Jungle Bloom
Green Grotto, Jamaica
Green Grotto, Jamaica
Bats, Jamaica
Swallows, Jamaica
There was Chichen Itza:
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Chichen Itza
Kohunlich
And Kohunlich
Where it rained and rained and rained….
There was the Promenade…on the ship:
And Galveston:
Galveston Oil Rigs
Farmer’s Market Pea
Oleander
Galveston Alley
And ships and ports:
And Dreams and clouds:
The Gulf of Mexico
Good Luck Tailsman
Jungle Bloom
Iguana, Tulum
Washington DC to Mayan Ruins, Jamaica, Honduras, Mexico, an adventure in several parts, part 1.
In September, my husband and I launched our first vacation in four years. We had to plan our time around family obligations, needs of our children, needs of our parents and somehow we gained enough confidence to escape to the Caribbean via the Liberty of the Seas. It’s a good what for us to travel. My husband spends every night driving the I 95 corridor along Maryland and Virginian roads delivering loads of UPS treasures to the different hubs. He gets a little tense behind the wheel when driving. Okay, that’s a lie. He gets really tense because he’s got tons of weight behind him and people don’t always pay attention to the big brown Mac he drives. You know, the drivers that are unaware or simply distracted on the road that make life difficult in the dark. So I don’t really want a driving vacation. It’s a busman’s honeymoon with possible loud remarks and anxiety. We leave the road behind when we can, and having someone else pilot a ship takes the responsibility off his shoulders.
The vacation started out as a major disaster (originally I typed it as a Cluster**** to beat all Cluster*****, but that didn’t sound like me. I have a hard time swearing.)
I had booked us on American Airlines from BWI leaving early in the morning for Houston which was our roadway to Galveston. Then life happened. The route was completely removed from the airlines routes. No one told us, not Orbitz who we booked through or the airline. I called to check in the day before only to find no reservation. A quick call to American Airline gave me a woman who bent over backwards trying to assist us. Hermione, (remember her?) was raging up the east coast and places were shut down. She found us a flight from Washington National, but the catch was, we had an hour and a half to get there. So we did. We were leaving a day early, but stood a really good chance of good fortune because we had called in so early. Throwing things into our bags which were mostly packed, we hoped into the car and drove in a polite and orderly way to the airport. I only forgot my swimsuit. My husband remembered everything. The drive was smooth although we resorted to driving up the privately owned center lanes of the HOV lanes. It was worth the money as we bypassed several areas which would have held our arrival up. Eric went to park the car leaving me with the luggage to get to the counter and get everything set.
It didn’t work. I arrived at the counter, only to have dropped my credit card. I tried to get the counter clerk to take cash in US and Euros for the luggage but my husband wasn’t there yet and he didn’t really want to be bothered. By the time my husband arrived, it was too late. We could catch the plane, but our luggage would have to stay behind. The clerk told us that we would have to buy a ticket from another airline in order to get the luggage and us on our way. The good thing that happened? Someone found and handed me my credit card. But the two of us were floundering. The clerk told us that United had a flight at 6:15 that we could buy and we’d have to wait for a refund. So off to United.
United sent us back to American and this time I went to the first class desk where I met Troy who was horrified that we had been treated so badly by United. He got us tickets on the 6:15, got the manager to override all of the holds incurred in doing so, and we had time to tell the manager exactly what his other employee had treated us like. Troy was asked to escort us directly to United where it was 45 minutes before the flight left.
Problem solved? Not in the least. United said it had no one on duty to take charge of the luggage so that we could travel but without our bags. My head was beginning to hurt and my husband’s head began spinning around like the little possessed girl in The Omen. One of the other clerks came over and mentioned he could get us on the 10:00 PM plane out of Dulles if we could get there. We took the tickets.
Then we called our son, asking him to meet us back at home and could he please drive us to Dulles. It was after six, and his shift at the car dealership was almost over so he most kindly agreed. We arrived at 8:15 and took our luggage to the luggage check in. Somehow one of the bags had gained three pounds in the trip from one airport to another. We were instructed to move our things around and lose the three pound overage. We even succeeded. We were sent to another window where the employee of United just laughed and got out things on the way. I still was forgetting my swimsuit.
The plane was late arriving for boarding, but I had time to book a room at the Super8 near the Houston airport while we waited. When we got on board it was a shiny lovely new plane, smaller in scale but with real leg space for us. The flight went well. We got to Houston 30 minutes early, at 11:30. The time is important or I wouldn’t bring it up. There was no ramp to deplane us. The pilot had called ahead, told them that we’d be thirty minutes early and asking them to make sure they had an employee to help those changing flights and for a ramp so we could get off the plane. No ramp, no agent. The pilot called again and told them we had arrived. It took the full thirty minutes to get a ramp so it was midnight when we finally got off. Got the bags, no worries there, and were sent to the people mover below the airport to find the place the hotel shuttle should have been at.
It’s a freaky way of running a people mover. It’s a circle, so to get to area C from area B you have to go to area A then the backside of B then the Marriott hotel then to C and then hopefully the shuttle would be there when we arrived. We got on the people mover and went from B to A where the operator (a remote operator) opened all the doors and said, “Thanks for using the Houston Airport….we’re closing now until 3:30 AM. Have a nice day.” Our day was not going well. For those of you who don’t know, I have MS but am in good shape, I just get really, really tired. The day had been exhausting enough, but we had to walk the entire length of the airport from the basement with all of our luggage in hand, up stairs and we finally ended up back at B with no one around to guide us. Eric bustled us back across the airport and got a number from another shuttle for the Super8, but it was the wrong number. At this point, I’m beginning to think this is pretty funny because, what else can go wrong? Never think that way. What can go right? is a much better phrase.
We call the number to find out it’s the wrong hotel. They give us a number. It’s a wrong number. Eric is herding us back and forth between doors trying to get some assistance and losing his temper. That was when we passed the desk of the Houston Metropolitan Police Department. I told him I was going in and he freaked, so I left my luggage with him and was buzzed in by the kindest, sweetest, black female desk sergeant ever. She took a look at me, a look at Eric and acted. Using the address we had, she found a number for the hotel, and she called them directly. Informing someone that you are a police officer and that you have two bewildered out of towners in town searching for the hotel you are speaking with gets instant results. We were guided to the right door (forgive me for giggling here but it was Door B) where our ride appeared in ten minutes. Thank goodness.
We made it to the hotel. After making sure that our IDs matched and we were a legitimate married couple we got a room on the third floor. There was a Jack in the Box close by so we had something resembling breakfast. Then we collapsed. Eric fell instantly asleep but I couldn’t sleep at all. So I pretended, then showered, woke Eric for another breakfast and we headed back to the airport to catch the Galveston Shuttle. It all went smoothly. The shuttle was on time, took our bags for us and put us on the highway from Houston.
Land around Houston is really flat. You see oil rigs everywhere surrounding the city center. The highway is built above ground level because of rare instances of flooding. Those instances of flooding had just happened to the city and things were backed up a little. People were glad to get out and they all had an agenda. We had booked the shuttle early enough so that the delays didn’t worry us. It stayed smooth all the way into Galveston, where the traffic was backed up to the mainland in an attempt to drop everyone going on the cruise off. There were a lot of people being dropped off. Both Carnival and Royal Caribbean were leaving at the same time. Our driver took a right and a left and drove around the traffic. One more left turn had us lined up on a police traffic officer who let us through the intersection that would have held us forever otherwise. And we arrived at the beautiful Liberty of the Seas, captained by Captain Johnsen and his enthusiastic crew.
Now you see why this is going to have to be done in more than one blog. This is going to take a while. The ship was on a lock down because of the NoroVirus. They were attempting and succeeding at sterilizing the entire ship before the passengers would be allowed on board. We boarded the ship at 2, were greeted and instructed where we could wait onboard until the process ended. We were tired. Finding a corner that had coffee, juice, pizza and cookies we settled in until the boat drill. Then we were out on deck in the sunshine and stayed while the rest of the passengers went back to the bars and food areas. We left on time. We waved at the dolphins which cavorted around the ships, waved at the people who watched us leave, waved at the Carnival cruise ship and waved at the ambulance which had just removed a passenger from the Liberty and was taking them to the hospital. We felt pretty darn lucky to be on board. At six we were allowed to drop our bags and go to dinner. At six thirty, the rooms were ready and squeaky clean.
We were on an adventure indeed, and this was just the first 24 hours. More tomorrow…
Ann
A Beginning to a Story, one just out of sight.
I’ve wanted to talk about the news these days, but one story piles on another until they waft across the sky like clouds. What was it that I saw, out there in faraway? What was it that the newspapers quoted and released, whether true or subjective idea? In fact, what is true these days.
The Olympics which bring to light a son’s fear of his parents? But wait, not here, not yet. Could it be that sport fills man’s dreams, but forgets the art of losing with honor? Perhaps, but not here, not yet. What of the Trumpets of Doom or Jousters of Certainty and Light, should they join us? No, not even this would bring me to write. The typewriter is calm tonight. Evil rests upon the wires which I must answer, but not tonight. The office is closed.
The hearth is lit tonight. A rousing fire finds itself a home putting rouge into your cheeks. The nanny waits in the kitchen with the butler, cook, and maid. A small staff who make their bread and butter as I make mine. Their fortune is tightly bound to our own. I close my eyes to the world for just a moment, then open them and see you. You should sit up straight at the table and wait for me to speak, but you natter on, your mind obviously elsewhere. There is no haste between us. You barely dream of my world. I worry constantly about yours.
The children lean upon the table in need of sleep, but I keep them with us still. They are our children. After a day of plunging arms into laundry, shining knives and forks for the dining room, of making beds and fluffing down into new homes for pillows, you still sit leaning into the gossip of the streets. Our world, as it is told, is one of parenthood, workplace, and hearth. There is more to it, more than the onlookers would understand, for our world is one of patience. The coin in our accounts is barely enough to keep you, my love, but keep us it does. Your hand at the art of homemaking stretches everything we own into beauty, art and song. The children are your pearls about your neck. They are my weeds within our garden, blooming and winding their winsome charms to please you. They run and play. The tutor who comes three days a week and is shared with out neighbor, that master of knowledge, will soon fail in his duty.
How much longer until we flee to our own place far across the ancient skies to the beginning of lives?
How much longer indeed?
“Children, I have changed my mind this evening. Your story of Princesses and scholars must wait until the morning when the sun shines and voices rejoice. Help each other to bed and leave your mother and I alone.”
“Good night, my loves.” Her gentle voice showing no surprise at my change in mood. They rise and help the youngest, the eldest picking her up with a kiss on her angelic cheek.
“Good night, Mother. Come tuck us in soon, please.”
“Of course, my dears. Father and I will be up in just a little bit. Go get Nanny to help you get ready.”
As they leave, my gentle daughter turns back to look at me. Her small sister is already asleep against her neck.
“Father, you don’t have to worry about us. We’ll do what we are bidden We love you both.”
My wife rises and turns her head to me. She moves the length of the table and waits for me to move my chair.
“Is it time to go so soon?” she says as she sits upon my lap and lays her head upon my shoulder. I cannot answer, my heart frozen despite her answering warmth.
I lean my head against hers.
“I don’t know.” The dark circles in around us, even the staff leaving the quiet alone. “It will be this week. I’ve made the changes that need making. I don’t know how much longer.”
When I Found Someone
No, this one isn’t a love story, it’s about meeting someone while blogging who looked at my world from a very German/Austrian world. They found me first, reading my poems and blogs and posting poetry and photography that I enjoyed. What changed was the fact that they were traveling in the United States. They were following roads that I have traveled with my family, with my parents, with my readings. I grew up in the Midwest and that’s a world far away from living near Washington, D.C.
I remember the wild flowers that seemed to sneak along country roads. If you had time to stop and see them up close, there was a symmetry to them as well as a beauty. There were fields of corn, wheat, soybeans, and the sunflowers in North Dakota that tracked the sun across the sky. My parents were involved with crop management and plant diseases. Dad was an Agriculturalist, Mom a Plant Pathologist. Both were active in many garden societies. They made sure we children each had a garden to mess about with and I loved mine. We spent money we earned shoveling snow or babysitting on plants. I always had perennials, iris and once a peony. There was the annual Iris Society auction that we could bid at. There would be one or two bids against us, before with wise smiles the adults would let me win. I liked yellow, blue, and purple iris. I wanted to breed my own colored iris, but I didn’t have time as I was growing up and time is fleeting when you are young. Dad taught me to root ornamental bushes so that new ones would grow. He forbade me to pull them up and check to see if roots were growing. I was as bad with carrots and potatoes.
We would head west once in a while, living Minnesota to visit family in North Dakota. We went to Jamestown where the world’s largest concrete buffalo lives. My uncle Jerome, Uncle Jerry, conspired with another man to buy and relocate real buffalo to live under the statue. He bought three females and the other gentleman bought a male. They flourished under the statue. There was a wild west town that was located above the field the buffalo were in. It had a school, a prairie church, a couple of houses with iron stoves that were powered with wood, coal, braids of straw in bad times, and sometimes even buffalo chips (But those would smell very badly.) I was never sure whether or not I was being teased back then, I believed most everything my parents said when I was young, trusting them not to lead me astray.
There is a show in Medora, North Dakota. If you ever travel through the area June through August, check into one of the hotels there. They’ll ask you if you want tickets to the show and you must answer yes. The entire town closes at sunset and you sit in an amphitheater with one escalator. The first joke is that it can go up or down. It was the whitest audience I had ever seen. A combination history (somewhat exaggerated) Of Theodore Roosevelt and his ranching there after the death of young wife and a revival of religion and local color and traditions it’s worth the time to sit and laugh and be part of the past. Theodore Roosevelt national park has wild buffalo, wild horses, rattlesnakes and horse trails so that you can feel what it’s like to be in the wild west the way it might have been. The prairie glows golden through the grasses, red next to the drop-offs into the badlands. There are so many different colors of red in that sedimentary rock. White clay, oceanic clay, for this was once a sea. There are fossils and coal veins that burn when struck by lightening. Eagles and owls overhead with their shrill cries. The owls at dawn and dusk move soundlessly feeding on gophers, mice, snakes. They have large appetites.
Heading west along I 94, you leave North Dakota for Montana and it’s sage and tumbleweeds. For those who think that North Dakota is flat, Entering Montana is flatter. The ground moves down and away from the highway, and the wild west is filled with farms, small towns and oil rigs. You take a left three quarters of the way through the state and you arrive at Yellowstone National Park.
Yellowstone is full. It’s just full of people, wild animals, rangers, a probation work program for young offenders who wait tables and wash dishes. It’s a cheap labor force and one that does some good. there will always be some who seek out recreational drugs but most of the kids are glad for some cash in their pockets and something to do. Retired folks work in the gift stores, spending their off times in walking, driving and seeing the secrets hidden but waiting for discovery. Pelicans, I never knew there were so many, weather on Lake Yellowstone. Bison and Elk stand next to signs that say “Stay away from the wild animals. They are dangerous.” There’s always one parent throwing a terrified child with a grimace next to the beasts to take a picture. I’m amazed at how patient the animals are. Buffalo aren’t known for their patient natures. They are wild with the need to roam and smack horns, to defend their young and their herds. The elk seem more mellow, laying on the shoulders of the roads watching for wolves and poor drivers. They turn their heads back and forth, just watching. About five in the afternoon they wander away, finding other places to munch and watch for wolves. When you see the wolves for the first time, they run along the road, tongues lolling, happy. You can see the happiness that is their spirit. They can hunt and they will, with or without watchers. The elk are their favorites, seeking the old or new. Then you find the bears. One is head first into a bear proof trashcan right at the ranger stations. The rangers just shake their heads, for a black bear will find a way. Feet waving in the wind, it was the only black bear we saw in the week we were there. The moose that appeared with a crowd of human tourists chasing it for photos was displeased but it had somewhere to go, where the water was deep enough to shake the humans off. The grizzly was trying to cross the road. The humans surrounded the young bear who wanted to go feed. I went up to the ranger and asked he had ever had to shoot one. He wryly looked around at the tourists, then grinned at me and said, “No, but I have been sorely tempted.” There was no mistaking the humor of a man who was stationed amid the wild how had to deal with humanity out of control. I asked where we could find a grizzly from a distance so that we could really see it. He looked shocked, then told me to go one parking lot back in the direction we had come from. He said to sit there and wait. We did. A field of lupines on the side of a mountain, and after an hour, sure enough, the bear did come over the mountain. It was free of humanity and dug for roots, ate flowers and really didn’t pay us any mind. When he had covered half the distance to us, munching happily, we did as the ranger requested and got back in our car, put the windows up, and left when he was still 50 yards from the road. His ambling was precious, his path through beauty breathtaking. The moon rose, and we retired, only to find a small lizard on our hotel door. An anole of some kind.
It was the path that my fellow blogger had followed. I remembered things through the lens of their camera. I’ll have to go back to my pile of photos and scan them into my computer to share with you sometime. I miss the west, the sense of community. I miss the way people helped each other. I miss the pace of life. However, I am a Virginian now, and there are places out here equally beautiful to show people. I hope someday they will be in the area so I can show them Luray and Skyline Caverns. I’d love to show them the mountains and the ocean. I’d love to take them to a baseball game in DC and a show in New York.
The Leibster Award
The Liebster Award
Posted by Whiteawjwords@wordpress.com 
Imagine my surprise this morning/late night, when I was cleaning out my spam folder which wordpress so kindly fills for me, to see myself nominated for the Leibster Award. Writtrace.wordpress.com has been one of the writers that I enjoy on a daily basis. Her writing intrigues me. So, I’m very happy to let her know that I accept her nomination. I’d also like to thank all of the new people and the old people who come and read what I write. Thanks so much.
WritTrace left me 11 questions to answer.
If you could give one power to every human being, what would it be?
The power to be kind.
According to you, which five countries should everyone visit?
Oh, so many places. Costa de Maya Mexico, Prague Czech Republic, Budapest Hungary, All cities in Germany, London England but there are so many more. Tokyo Japan, Vietnam, Barcelona Spain. I love travel and think it is the best way to open your eyes and heart to new people and traditions. I’d love to go to South Africa too.
What is your favourite animal?
Shiba Inus, the smallest breed from Japan and one of their National Treasures
Which period in history would you love to live in?
Here and now
What is your favourite story of all time?
Anne of Green Gables
Who is your role model and why?
My mother, Dr. LEBJohnson is my role model. She was the perfect mother for a small child, nurturing the four of us with attention and love. She let me be independent and make mistakes, but was willing to help me if I needed help. She pursued an education when I had entered high school, earning her BS, MS, and PhD in six years total. She supported my father after a series of strokes and did it with love. She ran Marathons starting in her late fifties and only giving up when the doc wouldn’t give her a warranty on her hip replacements if she went back to running. She’s still working and volunteering at age 80 1/2. She’s a great photographer. She’s a supporter of LGBT, women’s rights, civic responsibility. I can never reach her level, but I know I won’t give up. THat’s the most important thing she taught me, never giving up.
Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Things I read influence me a lot. Things in photographs, things overheard in public transportation that make your mind twist. I also belong to a Writing to be Published Class. They inspire me to give things my highest level of attention. They also keep me honest about editing. I haven’t posted any excerpts yet, but I will in the future.
What is the craziest thing you hope to do in future?
I want to publish a book that is well received by the public. I have two in the works and a poetry book sitting on the side of my mental percolator. Then I want to drive from Virginia US all the way to the bottom of Argentina taking photos and writing all the way.
What do you hope to accomplish in life?
I’ve been a musician, soldier, banker, mother, teacher and day care provider. I’ve worked sales. But all of these jobs have infused me with a desire to leave the world a better place than I found it by being kind and loving. So now, to keep the brain going and the enthusiasm full charge, I am writing 5 to ten hours a day. I want to take any extra proceeds after I pay off my debt load and buy up student loan and medical bills and forgive them so others can have a second chance.
What is your favourite quote?
If a messy desk is the sign of a creative mind, what is a clean desk the sign of. Einstein
How would you change the world for the better?
I would buy up bills that have been sold for a minimum price and forgive the debt so that young families who are overwhelmed, students who have to move home so they can pay off the horrid debt, and medical bills from those suffering from medical bills that are causing them to lose everything. I’d send a lovely card, with a paid in full/keep for your future records. I’d sign it, “From one human to another”
I’m supposed to nominate up to eleven other bloggers that I admire:
diespringerin@diespringerin
MSNubutterflies@beautifulbutterflies75
Springstart@life : Kamakhya@thenewleaf2016
homehugshuskies@homehugshuskies
sarahngima77@sarahngima77
Elan Mudrow@skillreader
ninefolddragon@ninefolddragon
MissKymmiee@misskymmiee
catastrophiccoffee@catastrophiccoffee
Aishwarya@aishwarya148
Sissh@heartsearcher
If you choose to accept the award…
Thank the blogger who nominated you
Answer the 11 questions I gave you
Nominate up to 11 other bloggers yourself (preferably those with fewer than 500 followers, this is more of a newbie award)
Provide those bloggers with 11 questions of your own for them to answer
Don’t forget to put the Liebster Award sticker on your blog!
And here are the 11 questions for my nominees!
1.What is your favorite thing to create? 2.What do you want people to learn about you? 3.Who is your favorite author? 4.If you could do one thing to make the world a better place, what would it be? 5.How does visual art impact your writing? 6.Do you ever try new styles of creativity? 7.Have you ever met a person who impacted you in a positive way the first moment you met them? Who? 8.What animal would you be if you could be anything? 9.Where have you traveled in life? 10.What is your favorite way to waste time? 11.If you had do overs, what would you change about your past?
On Writing and Thinking This Morning
There are days when I wake up and the words race to the page before my fingers realize they are typing. Those are the best days, when I can write 10 poems before 10 in the morning. I love to write. I get my ideas from things I see or read or trip over. The dogs don’t mind those mornings, they get put out and I stand on my deck to see the day while they look for turtles to retrieve for me. Lucky for the turtles, I’m quicker than the dogs when it comes to letting them in.
There are moments when the world crashes in flames around my simple soul. I sit motionless, letting crises after crises take me in sorrow or anger. Raging against injustice is as natural as breathing to me. I’ve been doing it since high school. That’s a long time. The world moves in circles, or perhaps on a pendulum. I’ve been accused of thinking with my heart and not my head, but I use both. You should be glad I do. In my lifetime I’ve seen amazing things. I ponder about my mother whose world has changed even more. She was five years old when WW2 started for the U.S. She remembers sitting around the radio as if it were a television on the seventh of December, 1941. Her grandmother was afraid for the young men whose lives would never be the same. Her mother was worried that her husband would have to go to war. He said he wanted to go, but his telephone company job couldn’t spare him. My mother says she sat watching the adults talk about the evils of Hitler and understood the needed to be stopped.
My memories started with my vision of course, a few flurries of blurred moments. I remember the Cuba incident, the assassination of the heroes of the 60s, transistor radios and the movies. I remember when we got our first TV. I remember when I was 2 and saw Peter Pan on my grandparents black and white tv. We started by sitting on the floor and ended up in laps and on the sofa when the crocodile turned up. I remember Vietnam and my father moving to the other room for his dinner as he watched the news. Walter Cronkite was the man of the hour and told the news as he saw it. Censorship abounded in the 60s. I remember riding on buses. I put together ideas that seemed old as time itself, but in truth were new to my parents too.
When the first man walked upon the moon, I dreamed that someday I would travel to the stars. I dreamed that I would fly upon an airplane over the tossing seas and see parts of the world that were different from my world. In high school, I got the opportunity to fly to Germany. It was very different from the U.S. I think the trip to Dachau was the worst part of the trip and still can’t get the images out of my head. I took one picture. It was sunny and spring. Tulips flowered along the wire fences. The guard towers were empty, but I could imagine the guns aimed in at us. The picture didn’t come out that way. In fact, none of the pictures on that roll of film turned out. There was one picture though. It was night, there were spotlights crossing the yard. A figure knelt by the wire fence. There was a fog. Spooky, yes? It could have been an exposure problem. It probably was, but I was stricken by the idea that emotional turmoil could be held in a place and never really released from it.
Money turned out to be important when having friends. I had very little, my parents investing in books to stimulate our minds and not in junk or stuff. I had enough toys, you can always tell when a child has enough. The floor is covered with things that don’t have a place. So, without the trappings of nice clothes that matched everyone else’s clothes, without the money for hanging out or beer, I found my self in a unique place. I was weird. You all know that of course. I don’t hide the fact. I found myself looking for something I believed in. Music was my passion at the time, but I wanted something different. I wanted to know I had helped the world be a better place.
I argued with my father about his use of the n word. I won. I told him it was unacceptable to call names, even in the car while dealing with incompetents. I explained the history of the world and the significance of the trauma that black Americans faced. I explained how it changed their perspective on the world, one that we as whites could think about but never fully understand. He never used the word again. Mom told me she had a similar fight with Grandma over Brazil nuts. She had done the same thing I did. Mom was in the car for my lecture to dad, my indignant sixteen year old sense of duty and honor offended. I’m sure she smiled while she had her head turned out the window. We were raised to be circumspect and obedient. Raising our voices to our parents was frowned upon, but sometimes, I think my parents were glad to know we were thinking of more than ourselves. It took me in great stead as I grew.
I wasn’t religious. I wasn’t raised within the confines of a religion. When I was twelve, I thought a lot about God. People did weird things in his name. I was like most kids, I would pray for something trivial “Please bring my dog home, he’s run away” and hoped that there was a greater power than mankind. I looked for fervor in my world. What I learned was that there were mysteries we didn’t understand yet, and science admitted it. So I stayed on the outside looking in jealously. I wanted my life to fill that void within me. I could never find it. Where others heard the voice of God, I heard Walter Cronkite. Where others felt at home and comfortable not asking questions, I was still the four year old asking why. What was worse was asking who, what , where, when, and more whys. I never have gotten an answer. The sisters at the College of St. Benedict told me that was okay, that someone needed to ask the questions about faith so that others would think about their own. Lovely women, the sisters. They would talk about things that I needed to talk about. They terrified me. I was shocked the first time I saw a nun in a bathroom. I had never thought about their humanity before. It was their humanity that bolstered the teachings my parents had given me. In the college, there was an air of safety. In the real world, there was again the issue of money. Money seemed to control everything. I vowed I would never substitute money for needed, clean and tidy. Silly me, the world revolves around money.
What was the most important thing I have ever done? I taught. I taught kids of all ages and loved every single one, except one. I don’t know why I couldn’t get along with that child. He seemed to have everything a child should have. Loving parents, good clothes, friends, but he kept ramming people into the water fountain and I had to deal with bloody lips and tears. He kept hitting, for no reason except he was taller and faster than the small kids. Didn’t matter what I said to him, we couldn’t get into a rhythm of learning. I had a wise boss who transferred him to another class where the teacher understood something I didn’t at the time. Bullies need to learn that they can’t bully. Her students took care of it on the playground, she was turned away at the time. But I watched because I was facing her. It solved the problem and the child did really well in her class. His bullying others was symptomatic of a society that had been oppressed and parents that told him it was okay to hit. They meant in self defense, but kids don’t always hear your whole sentence.
I loved teaching. Finding a creative way to do anything was a lovely challenge and my cluttered but organized brain understood a child’s need for tactile, visual, audio, and other stimulations. I hope that the kids remember learning something from me that is important in their daily lives. I wanted them to love learning. I hope they do.
Transistor radios, then high fi systems, and records and tapes becoming discs, the rise of the computers and success of Apple, HP, Dell, IBM all new to me and new to my children at the time. there is a cartoon of a three year old holding a phone and smacking his forehead. The caption reads, “Grandma, it doesn’t matter which finger you use to push the button on your computer, just click on it.” Technology. I never thought I would meet people online from Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Germany, France, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden China, Japan and the rest of the world. I have people I read that live in South Africa, Australia and in the Philippines. I have friends in Mexico. My daughter married a young man that I introduced her to because I met him in a video game called Everquest. I went to a ball called the Labyrinth with her, and he was willing to come meet her in person.
I’ve been greeted coming off a cruise ship with a sign that said, “Hissistor of the Horde.” That’s my nickname, I still use it when I’m gaming. Most of the gamers in the world fall into the category of 40-70 year old women. It’s an escape. We all need an escape.
I wonder what the next thirty years will be like, I’d like to be here to see it. I hope I will, medical advances may keep me around a lot longer than previously predicted. I’m a shut in now that the heat of the summer is here. Virginia is hot, humid and rather unpleasant. My brain reacts badly to heat. My thought processes show, my physical abilities become unpredictable. But in air conditioning, I continue to make rather good progress. So I’m inside until the rains cool things down. I promised the dogs I’d start walking them again when it cools off, they aren’t happy at having just backyard privileges. How many turtles can you find in a backyard, after all? At least no snakes this summer so far.
The world is changing. We’ll change with it and be amazed we do. I hope your day is full of pleasant new discoveries and that all is well in your world.
Ann
Music, Poetry, Prose and Changing Times
Music, poetry and writing are the methods of following change in the U.S. Music uses repetition, rhythm and where it helps, rhyme. Rhyme is difficult because it has to further the message without over simplifying it. The movement of the blues and jazz, of black hymns, of swing, put such energy into music of the common man that we needed the sixties events to sway us into all of the rock genres. We had radios. That’s nothing in today’s world but in the sixties and seventies TVs and radios became cost effective to own. It was a social revolution. The process of miniaturization was on the development tables. We had seat belts in cars. We didn’t have to rely on a newspaper that was out of date before it was printed. No, words of the doings of man seemed rocketed to us. And we sang songs and danced to welcome the changes.
At the time I was in college studying music performance in the 70s, there was a dispute over the role of modern music (as it’s now labeled). We studied the classics, progressive, gregorian chant, romantics, baroque, and folk music through the ages. Plus we had our own style emerging in direct response to our environment. The music of the sixties and seventies was so powerful that it swayed a huge portion of the population into a passionate response. There were messages that were so powerful they couldn’t be spoken with the same impact. We demonstrated, stood up for rights and believed we could achieve them. We saw West Side story on the TV with Leonard Bernstein conducting. We wept tears at a story that Shakespeare told so long ago put into our world where racism was real and the South was dangerous. Times changed quickly. Things that seemed my parents had always known suddenly exposed themselves for what they were, new and changing to meet the demands of the entire population of the U.S.When I graduated in 1975, Native Americans were about to be given the vote if they lived on so-called government “reservations.” In 1976, Title 9 came into being giving women a new outlet in sport. It was a real challenge. In 1977, I was in the last basic training class of only women. We wore the Woman’s Army Corps insignia all the way through basic, and it was retired with our graduation. Standards changed and people changed with them.
Poetry and music lyrics share similarities, and they both deviate in how they are used. The tools are there. California Dreaming is said to have a simple set of lyrics, but the concept was new. The method of delivery was new. The fact that the idea was accessible was also something new. We’d seen and heard Elvis. He outlined the status quo for us. We saw John Wayne who was the ultimate macho man. We learned from the music that the Beach Boys sang. And there were many new lessons. We didn’t have to stay in one place for the rest of our lives. We could travel and that concept brought on a period of extreme social change, and because of the Kennedy brothers being murdered, the image of Jackie’s son saluting the flag covered coffin, the tragic death of Martin Luther King Jr, the music we heard was portraying both sides of our society, good and ill.
We knew more. We questioned our roles as women, becoming a stronger voice for the right to be more than in the past. Men had to choose an image that the TV wanted to suppress, macho or stupid were portrayed as the two options they had. The TV hyped Jackie Gleason and John Wayne. But there were strong elements there too ; The Smothers Brothers and Laugh In. Intelligence in both sides of our species. Only the messages mattered. I watched those “Commie Pinko Shows” with my parents and we loved to laugh at the mixture of music, jokes, skits and just plain fun. It was hard to believe that that was dissident thinking, it’s still hard for me to believe. It seemed like the John Stewart Daily Show, a representation of our world with humor.
My generation talked. My mother’s generation talked and we communicated. That was strange. For many many years when I needed a wise best friend, my mother was the one to turn to, she always had a song for an aching heart, a melody for an infant, a poem for a toddler. She’s still my best friend. But, I digress, we were talking about love and (deep breath) sex. That was new. We were talking about current events and we knew them because of the TV and radio. We talked about, sang about, and demanded social change. For a little while, things did change. It looked like the dreams of the 60s were coming true. I was all in favor of a nicer kinder world, like the one Stevie Wonder sang about. I loved his lyrics, music and optimism. I loved Peter Paul and Mary, and Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, Shawn Phillips, the Who, and the what, where, and why.
Then came the period of the 80s and our social progression and ethics changed. We became more egocentric, the accumulation of things by adults became more intense. Money was the important thing. Do unto others before they do unto you. You saw the black rage at society with rap because of the inequities that life provided them, again with rhyme and a strong bass, words so powerful that they broke your heart, angered you, or made you sorrow. You had grunge begin in the white population in protest of materialism, surely there had to be more to life than this existence, and suicide took some of the best artists. You saw alcoholism appear strongly in music where it had been mostly in prose before that time. Drug addiction was still referred to with stealthy whispers, “Only that kind of person does drugs.”
Then the internet took off. We could afford computers at home that had more power in each case that the huge rooms of data banks from the past. They improved every day. Technology doubling itself, faster and faster. There was a rebooting of the seventies material in the 2000s, issues that had been laid aside, brought their messages back. It looks simplistic but it represents who and what we are today.
Poetry is complex with people finding a voice in a nearly forgotten format. It isn’t always clear in its message, it requires thought and the interpretation doesn’t guarantee that you understand what the author meant. But the reader’s message is equally valid. Old dusty professors will always come up with a different interpretation that those studying under them, twenty to forty years younger. Time changes our outlook. Music simplifies the message. Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait is straight forward and the music heightens the experience so you don’t forget the simple words. Puff the Magic Dragon was and is a story for the imagination of the young and old, not a drug message. Where have All the Flowers Gone is a song about the repetition of the mistakes that we repeat as a society. The Beach Boys was about having some fun and not becoming too serious to soon. “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tack and they’re all made out of ticky tack and they all look just the same.” A protest about the loss of creativity and the sameness that felt forced upon us.
The audience and the message have to concur before fame occurs. We have something to say, audience needs to want it. Music and writing are two vehicles to send a message that will leave footprints long after we are gone. The amazing thing is that because of the internet, writing and music are marching around the world demanding to be read and heard. Cuba allowed some old English rockers to perform in Cuba and they wanted to go meet fans who could have been jailed for listening. They performed for free. Imagine that. Classical music is performed for free on the streets and plazas of the world. Day concerts of Beethoven, so that the music lives on. Bach is used to heighten our knowledge of math. So is Mozart. Wagner introduced a social message that helped bring on World War II and the quest for supremacy. What a powerful medium emerged! Tolkien took Wagner’s message and wrote a message of opposition and unity in the face of evil. There was a cartoon, Wizards, that took a cartoon audience through the message that Tolkien took four lengthy novels to write. Before Tolkien was Dickens with his eternal belief that we have to believe in the good of people, that good would overcome greed, that good people would be rewarded. There was Plath who suffered from severe bouts of depression, her poetry was part of her therapy. She needed meds. We all have a little bit of all who have come before and while poetry-blind as the times may be, I know a revolution of poets just waiting to emerge. Just check in on LinkedIn.
It isn’t the written word alone that is swaying thought, it’s the combination of music and attainable art, attainable word, dance, politics, social ills, and the acceptance of change. There is nothing simple about it. I find myself singing the damnedest things at strange moments. And behind all of the musicians, writers, politicians, do gooders and tyrants are the messages that the common human needs to hear to preserve their sense of self. There’s nothing simple about lyrics, only that when analyzed out of context and condemned as primary, elementary, simplistic, and even moronic, aren’t. But the analyst is a fool to think they can control the reception something gets. We’re evolving, and we demand the right to hear ourselves reflected in art.
It’s Rained on my Fourth of July
It’s raining outside, and I can’t say I’m sad about it. So many places in the US and Canada are suffering from drought. I like the rain, although I can’t go to a ball game or to the fireworks tonight. My grass is green in July and the air is mild. I can go and splash in the puddles, jumping up and down like a kid as the neighbors call for reinforcements and my husband shakes his head. My garden is blooming and I haven’t had to set a sprinkler yet. I’m saving money by watching nature at work. The little green frogs climb the side of the house for the bugs at night, and the fireflies are hovering just over the grass if they are males and about six feet up if they were females. They prefer nights and I prefer them to the mosquitos who hunger for flesh.
I have movies that I love on the Fourth. 1776, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Forest Gump, anything not to violent but that represents history. There was a great show on Edison and how his lack of mathematics eventually worked him out of the electric business. They rarely mention the things that he did to Tesla, although he wanted to be the genius to think of things, he didn’t want to be a team player. So, we ended up with General Electric and Westinghouse which were a very important part of my upbringing.
I’ve been to the fireworks in Washington DC, Chicago, Akron, Minneapolis, St. Paul, San Francisco and I love the color, the sound and the smell of the different chemicals. My son and son in law buy from local legal firework stands and make safety a part of their private show in our driveway. They even make me put my shoes on. Sometimes we have been in the mountains when people start firing their fireworks off and you can see them for miles. Traveling in the US is something that became Americana in the time right after WW1. My dad learned to drive a Model T by accident when he took the brake off at the top of a hill, or that’s one story he told. He said his father was angry, really angry.
I served in the US Army and marched in parades on the Fourth as a member of the 6th US Army and 1st US Army. Marched up and down the coast of the Pacific, and visited a lot of places that needed music on the Fourth. I’m pleased as punch that we entertained so many. Music is a passion of mine. It builds an energy that is transferred to an audience, as long as you play the right notes.
But the biggest part of being a patriot, is a series of behaviors that my parents modeled for me and I tried to model for my kids. Voting after studying the platforms of the candidates, that’s number one. Helping my neighbors if I can. Donating to food banks, clothes banks, and charities. Paying my taxes and telling the truth about what we earn so that schools, roads, police departments, farm subsidies, the military, etc. can do what they are supposed to do. People who put their faith in God to solve problems instead of following up their words with actions really take away from our society. I honor the President of the US with paying attention to his policies, writing him with my opinions, and being respectful of him or her. Respect and politeness, saying please and thank you, not gossiping or lying to make a point are all standards of behavior that I was told were American. I taught school because it was a job with the honor of working with the people who would run my world when I got old and grey.
Our country was founded by a group of people as different as if they were the same. They shouted and argued but they also acted. They found people who could find ways to communicate to represent them. Granted there were problems, but the American way was to find a way through them. Injustices still exist that shouldn’t anymore. I hope we work our way though them soon. We were promised an awful lot growing up. I want everyone to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Enjoy the fireworks tonight if it isn’t too dry or too wet. Happy Fourth of July.
Ann WJ White 