From the Autobiography workshop in 1985:

When I’m depressed, nothing interests me.  At other times I enjoy many things:

Among these are drawing, sketching, cutting and pasting, writing, browsing in the library or second hand thrift shop, singing, looking for Indian artifacts in plowed fields after a rain, brainstorming  or discussing ideas with a friend, smelling the earth after it rains, looking at rainbows, feeling the warmth of a purring cat, exchanging soul gazes with my pet dog,  sharing food with friends, laying out under the stars, reading aloud with an intimate, snuggling under the covers while the rain patters on the roof, singing Christmas carols, the lit Christmas tree, walking on the beach collecting gifts from the sea, attending a Quaker meeting, viewing a sunset, picking and enjoying flowers, speculating on strange encounters, genealogy, watching a heart-warming movie, a good mystery novel…

More recently: blogging.

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FUN TO IMAGINE —  Here are the stones my daughter brought me from the beach in Washington State (my middle name is Stone), and my daughter just reminded me that my son-in-law’s name is Carpentier, and he’s a fancy carpenter.  Just fun to think about outrageous things:

(Continued from Daddy)

Stoically I got into the black ’35 Chevy, and we headed towards Berryhill High School.  He drove and stopped. A little driving and a lot of stopping and drinking.  “Hand me the bottle. If you practice what I teach you, you can grow up to be a champ, and maybe play at Wimbledon.”

“It’s getting dark, Daddy.”

“It’s getting dark, the lady said. Better hurry.”  He ran the car onto the berm, then back on the road.

“Watch out, Daddy! Watch out! Do you want me to steer?”

“Yeah, you steer. I’ll just operate the little pedal down there.”

The old Chevy continued toward Berryhill High School, slowly at first, with me nervously steering. I reached across him turned the headlights on.  “Daddy! Don’t go so fast!  Take your foot off the gas!”

“Can’t. I’m paralyzed.”  I grabbed at his leg as the car swerved.  It was rigid.

“Take your foot off the gas!”

“Paralyzed,” he said complacently.

Some hectic maneuvering followed, and finally the car pulled off the road with a jerk, and shuddered to a stop. Summer crickets sang in the field about us, but there was silence inside the car.  He began searching his pockets for a Camel and a match.  It was dark now, but his pale puffed face was momentarily illuminated in the match light. His blue eyes stared ahead, at nothing.  His faded red hair trailed down over his high, perspiring forehead.  As he flicked out the match I saw him lift the cigarette to his lips, which were not smiling.

I sat very still, my heart pounding, angry and frightened.  He had pretended to be paralyzed  in order to scare me.  In the process, we could have wrecked.  He was part of the night  next to me. “You could have killed us!”

“Didn’t. though, did I?”  His words were slurred.  He turned his glazed blue eyes toward me and stared emptily into mine.  With fearful fascination I watched this unpredictable man, my father,  as the darkness enveloped us again, and the silence, except for the night life of the fields alongside the road.

Then suddenly: “Watch out for those sons of bitches! Those rich capitalist bastards.  They’re out to get the poor man.  Sons of bitches!!”  Suddenly he struck out at the night, contacting not the sons of bitches but the windshield, which splintered loudly in the night air.

I got out of the car. The air was damp, and this was North Carolina countryside.  There was no moon.  We had never reached Berryhill High.  I didn’t know where we were. The only lights were about a half mile down the road.  I started walking down the deserted road, hugging my chilled arms to myself.

It wasn’t a house.  There was a high fence,  a gate, and a building. Signs Keep Out and No Trespassing==some kind of prison camp.  A dog began barking furiously nearby. I had to keep on.  I approached and called out:  “Can I use your phone?  We’ve broken down and I need to call my mother.”

A friendly response from someone looking out into the night.  Fearful that they would return with me to help, and find my drunken father passed out across the steering wheel amid the glass fragments, I spoke quickly, almost in code, to my mother  and left as quickly as I could, not knowing where we were, my directions were vague.   I was afraid to ask the men for the location.  Big men, with revolvers, let me back into the night, to return to the Chevy and to wait.

It seemed like a long time, but an empty stomach, the silence of the night and the lostness of us blended into a kind of  timeless enduring,  Was that a light on the road’s horizon?  No…yes!…It’s turning around! Frantically I ran toward the lights, waving both arms, but quietly, wishing still to hide our plight and location from the uniformed officials inside the high fence.

The lights stopped, then slowly approached.  Was it a stranger?  A new fear?  The car was not familiar.  “Nancy?”  My mother’s voice.  “Nancy?”

It was warm inside the taxi. As I climbed in beside Mary Mott, our neighbor, my mother was climbing out of the front seat of the taxi to find my father.

THE END

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Almost 40 years ago when I took that autobiography  workshop at the Friends General Conference at Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania,  my memories were much more….memorable?  We didn’t really share very much aloud. I only remember that we briefly shared memories we had of living through historical events. A very enjoyable and successful workshop!

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Quote From the Depression:  “Use it up, wear it out, or do without.”

This is the first of a 2-part retrieval of memory written during a Friend’s  General Conference in 1985 as part of an assignment during a workshop:

Our family pediatrician, Dr. Adams, studied the rash around my waist for several seconds, then told me to get dressed. Speaking both to my mother and me, he asked about possible stresses in our lives. We looked at each other. “No.”

He carefully folded his stethoscope  and put it in his pocket before he spoke again, to me. “Is your father still drinking?”

My face must have burst into sunshine as I spoke: “Oh no. he’s quit drinking. He hasn’t had a drink in ten days!”

It wasn’t the smell of the alcohol I minded so much as what it did to Daddy. He was frightened of people, really, so he only drank at home.  When drinking he never walked through a room, he staggered as though the house was riding the stormy seas.  Our worst fears were never realized, though: he never fell on us.

I probably learned my listening skills ministering to him. I had to always b e ready to tell him where he had left off on some story, when he returned from the toilet.  He also helped me to accept the bizarre; whenever Daddy pointed to the dirty woodwork behind me and asked if I didn’t see those people, and described what they were doing, I assumed that he spoke figuratively, or metaphorically.  I now know that he was describing what he saw, during dt’s.

Whenever Daddy started drinking, he wouldn’t stop until he passed out.  By high school I had learned to peek inside the house first, then if necessary I’d “go for a walk” until he passed out. There were a lot of long walks during high school.  When it was safe I walked back to the house quietly, falling into my bed, still dressed.

Before high school I hadn’t learned the walking trick, and it seems I had to deal with him a lot. I remember especially one summer night in 1947, when he invited me to take a ride with him to Berryhill High School, where he would show me how to improve my forehand in tennis, hitting balls against the walls.  I was eleven, and he knew I hoped to improve my tennis game, while he had won the 1940 men’s singles tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina. [I think he had avoided the draft due to flat feet].

Mother was starting supper, we wouldn’t be gone long.  And then, surreptitiously, he brought out the brown paper bag containing a jug of cheap wine.

My face fell. I looked to mother to intervene. Her expression didn’t change.  She nodded to me.  “Go ahead, it’ll be all right.”  Didn’t she know it wouldn’t be?…

CONTINUED NEXT POST

FOUND IN MY FILES, 1985

One of my favorite pasttimes as a child was reading a sad story to my sister and bawling together at the top of our lungs.  The most effective vehicle for this cathartic endeavor was entitled The Dog of Pompeii, in which a boy is forced to leave his dog behind on the shores under erupting Vesuvius.

Our imaginations constructed with horrified relish the scenario in which the dog arrives on the scene, finds his master has left him, and is engulfed in flames with great sorrow.

One can only speculate as to the needs for grief expression  that were met by us in this  tragic-quaint and somewhat comic manner.

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FRIENDS, AGAIN …

How old do you think your followers are?  And/or your own follows, if there is a difference.  When Keith Wilson says in his title, Musings of an Old Fart, we might imagine, but turns out his “old” isn’t my “old.” Jill Dennison has too much energy to be old, as do Gronda Morin, Dr. Rex and Diane Ravitch, though we may not be surprised at Lobotero due to his drawn gravatar,  nor certainly by Dr. John Persico’s  “Aging Capriciously.”  I’ve sort of gotten hung up on the idea of a tea party for followers and those followed, so I may ramble on about that idea from time to time, unless there’s some objection.  This may have been done before and outlawed, idk.

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OH DEAR

Just when I’ve started to get comfortable with myself,  I read in Michael Gazzaniga’s book Who’s in Charge?” the following:   “…this social group size [150] has been constant for humans from prehistoric times through today.  Not only was this the size of related groups that gathered together once a year for traditional ceremonies in ancestral hunter-gatherers, it is also the size of modern-day hunter-gatherer societies  and modern-day Christmas card lists in personal address books.”

I don’t know about you, but my Christmas card list is on the shady side of ten….

“Because ‘Good Faith’ Can No Longer Be Assumed”:

In the Wind,   “I won’t think about that now, I’ll think about it tomorrow.”  Well, folks, tomorrow will be here before you know it and we probably better think about this sooner than later

How Trump could win the presidency even if he loses the popular vote AND the Electoral College

Michael Johnson and other House leaders must pledge to certify the election results

Robert Reich’s Feb. 1 Newsletter

 

Seems like I made a confession before, but I can’t remember what I confessed to, of the many I might.

My photo today is of me at my prime, half a lifetime ago, which reminds me of another earlier poem,

“MY Mirror Is A Liar:”

It is my fifth birthday and

I am in pigtails, swinging

on the garage door,

wondering if I will still

be me

when I am grown.

Eighty-eight years later,

I am.

(Ooh, I didn’t know that photo would be so big!

Anyway, back to my confession.  I am a neophyte at this blogging business, if you haven’t noticed.  It’s gotten recently worse because I can’t reply to some posts because they use that little square in order to do so.  And when I look for help I find some SEO, without any suggestion of what that stands for.  I’m also having difficulty re-blogging, maybe in some cases if I’m trying to re-blog from Gugenheim (shudder).  I usta could, but not so much now.  Moreover, I get confused between “Reply” and  “comment,” and who the author is.

I’m running free of my censor today and want to tell my friends that I appreciate you, although I rarely converse with you or welcome your visits verbally…no, not verbally…in writing.  It’s nothing to do with you; it’s my shyness or avoidance or …and I HATE TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR MYSELF, so ignore those remarks.  My topics seem to consume me and remain undigested until the next one.  I wish there was an easier way for me and my blogger friends to meet together on one blog (or post).  Everyone has seemed friendly except one whose toes I must have stepped on. I still visit her site but don’t try to reblog her. And oh, Dr. Rex, a Floridian fomerly from Puerto Rico.  and friendly Ali Redford, who remains somewhat of a mystery.  And of course one of my daughters… and the two bloggers with the same gravatar.  And my favorite and perhaps most longterm blog couple, Katiemaefredricks.

Jill Dennison shares snarks, music and keen observations, and we both live in Ohio. Aussi Ned Hamson?  Ned Hamson gave me blood transfusions for months (reblogs), and when not re-blogging, “liked.”  Keith Wilson and I discovered a place connection by way of Charlotte, North Carolina. A breath of Fresh air comes from Annie Writes,  and  Petru, an old faithful (not necessarily old, tho)  great friend who lives in South Africa writes poetry and paints, or perhaps I should just say she’s an artist..  I’m kind of fearful of 10-grain because he’s so prolific and sharp, , but welcome him and any visitors I get, as I do the new guy on my block, KK, who says he will attempt to download what has been uploaded throughout the life  “Before, yes before…
my memory may start fading away….,
Else, the whole thing will go away,
Unsaid, unlettered, unsung…sheer waste”  (I initially  avoided his blog because he shared how economics-oriented his life has been and I suspected he might be quite different than it turns out he is.) But upon looking further, I am more confused.  If he is a hit singer of Indian origin, how is it that his “KK” blog doesn’t mention it?  His photo looks quite different on his blog versus Google.  Could it be father and son?  Either is welcome to visit and it’s no newsflash that I can easily get confused.  Oh, it would be too crowded if everyone who visited me just once visited for this gathering,  so I may sometime in the future comment on other friends or may be lazy, or forget, or be ashes  (Tho I have a nice obituary already written for that eventuality.  “They” will share it.)

THE JOKE’S ON ME:

[In response to a painting of a woman with scads of things in her high hat]

SNIFFLES

Ow.  My head is full to over-

flowing.  I can’t sleep for ideas

cascading in my mind’s eye.

There’s the metaphor for today’s

prompt: An overstuffed movie

projector. Although apt in my

mind,  it feels kinda stuffy–

–you know–like you might have a cold

coming on.  But she’s  kind of cute

without the hat.

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THE JOKE:

I couldn’t figure out to deal with Mr. Linky, then I learned you have to pay to post on it now.  Since I’m against paying money everywhere these days, I never got this posted on D’verse and shan’t.

NEW DOG IN TOWN

Diane yawned and stretched luxuriously, welcoming Saturday’s early summer breeze carrying birdsong.  After a brief shower, during which she sang Oh What a Beautiful Morning, while duly recognizing how corny she was being, she toweled dry and turned to select her outfit for a lazy stay-at-home day.

She opened the closet door, switched on the light and stared in disbelief as a knee-high dog ran into the bedroom, frisking in apparent abandon.  Her first thought was that a portion of her walk-in closet wall had been breeched, but investigation proved that not to be the case.  She lived in a condo complex which opened off the second floor.

Her next thought was that someone had invaded her condo while she was out, inadvertently forgetting their dog. What else? A creepy notion, surely.  Ever since the town’s serial rapist had attacked her last year she had been doubly careful about everything, she thought. She checked the windows which were all on the second floor and assured herself that her single double-locked entrance was still secure. Although it was unlikely a serial rapist would strike the same place twice, there was always the fear.

She sat down to finish waking up. Surely she was not processing correctly this morning?

It was then that the light caught the reflection of a thin collar around the dog’s neck, bearing an engraved nameplate with the word Messenger on it.  Diane burst out laughing.  Who could be playing such a complicated joke on her?  She shook her blonde head in surprised disbelief and patted the smiling—yes, he seemed to be smiling—dog’s own light brown head.

Of course she had no dog food, for she had no dog, but poured milk into a cereal bowl and watched as Messenger lapped it up.  Studying the canine, she wasn’t sure what breed he was.  His ears were long, floppy and soft like a cocker spaniel’s, but his coat was short and had a tan sheen.  And oh, his eyes were as endearing as a hungry child’s. He wasn’t a mess, but Mess would have to be his name for now, she decided.

He apparently had very short nails since he had moved silently into the kitchen with her, but now she heard hungry lapping noises. Her energy suddenly returned with a spurt of memory.  Drink equals pee!  Returning to the closet, she hastily put on a summer frock and grabbed a bathrobe belt for a leash.

“Let’s go, boy!”

The two of them hastened down the outside steps and paused by a bit of lawn.  She had no plastic bag so was thankful one wasn’t needed at the moment.  However—if Mess was going to be even an overnight visitor she realized a trip to the grocers was in order, and was pleased to note the dog was a calm front seat passenger as well, watching the scenery out the side window with apparent interest.

It had been decades since Diane had owned a pet, and it was a cat at that.  She returned to the car after purchasing the necessities, and immediately clipped on Mess’s new leash.  A walk would be indicated, as soon as they returned home.

After Diane put away the groceries she and Mess set out for the leisurely walk she anticipated.  They walked past yards with blooming flowers, bird baths and the pleasant accoutrements of a quiet early summer morning, Mess at her side as though he had just finished training school.

They had gone several blocks when he began pulling, unexpectedly determined.  Diane gripped the leash tighter, but Mess appeared to have discovered a scent he lusted after.  The leash was hurting

Diane’s hand, and he ignored her words.  Perhaps he hadn’t just graduated from training after all.  Finally she gave up, and let him run, and soon he was out of sight.  Diane turned slowly and headed home, surprised at how lonely and abandoned she felt. She realized she had already bonded with him, but apparently the experience was not reciprocated.

It was two nights later that she heard scratching at the door.  Looking out the peep hole she could only make out the dripping wet tail of Messenger since he was so close to the door.  She was torn between wanting to embrace him and fending him off. He had been into mischief, perhaps with a rooster, and bore the cuts,  bloody mouth bloody patches on his coat and tail as a result.  He still wore his leash, and after re-locking the door Diane led him into the bathroom, where he was shampooed  twice, and his bloody teeth soaped off.

He was not a happy camper, nor was she at first, but gradually warmed to the fact that he had found his way back home, even in a new neighborhood,  which she recognized as a rare accomplishment. It was late by the time she had towel dried the dog, and had taken a long shower herself.  Yuk—she hated to imagine the fight Mess had been in.  She decided not to take him to the veterinarian for fear Mess might be mis-perceived as a dangerously aggressive dog, and labeled as such.   Maybe he had tried to play with the wrong animal.  Diane smiled into his trusting eyes and stroked his soft ears before heading to bed.

She didn’t have to invite the enthusiastic pup up onto the bed to snuggle.  Perhaps he was a harbinger of good times ahead.  There were no more reports of the serial rapist, either.

THE END

This CAN’T BE THE REAL END.  HOW CAN A MYSTERY HAVE NO END?

Feel free to finish it for me….

While reading The Myth of Free Will by Cris Evatt, I was unbelieving.  What do you think of a statement that “compared to what you’d expect by chance alone, there are more people named Ken who moved to live in Kentucky, Florences who moved to Florida, and more named Lois who moved to St. Louis; there are more Denises  who became dentists and Lauras and Lawrences who become lawyers, compared with people with names that do not share letters with these occupations.  If your first or last name begins with ‘H’, you are more likely than chance to own a hardware store, and if one of your names begin with ‘R’ you are more likely to own a roofing company, with ‘C’ a computer company and with ‘T’ a travel business.”

What folderol!  Just to be sure, I checked out my names and places and occupations.  No luck.

Then I realized that my middle name is Stone, and that my daughter who just visited had brought me a container of…rocks?…stones?…she had collected in Washington State along a rock-covered beach, because she knew I liked and collected natural things, like stones…