Well, on Wednesday Night….

MY QUESTIONS RECENTLY WERE: Fill in the blanks: 1.  Halleluia I’m a ________ 2.  Jump back turn around ________ 3.  My ______ lies over the ocean  4.  _______  Happy little wash day song  5,  Don’t step on my ___________  6.  Mama Mia, Papa Pia,_________  7.  and on that tree I see, ” __________   8.I’ve got a hot rod Ford and a _________   9.  It gives me a thrill to wake up in the morning on ____________ 10. On the baby’s bottom or the baby’s knee, _________ ?11. Aint gonna study ______ no more. 12.You put your ______ foot in, you put your _____ 13. Who was combing his auburn hair by the light of the silvery moon ?__________  14.__________, where the deer and the antelope play  15. Put your shoes on, Lucy!, don’t you know you’re_________?

THE ANSWERS:  My answers:  1. bum    2.pick a bale of cotton   3.Bonnie  4. Rinso white, Rinso bright!….  5. my blue suede shoes!  6. Baby’s got the diarrhea!   7. “I’ll love you til I die” [There’s a Tree in the Meadow]   8. Two dollar bill… 9. Mockingbird Hill  10. where will the baby’s dimple be?  11. war  12. left foot; right is ok  [and you shake it all about]  13. The old baboon [I Went to the Animal Fair…]    14. …where the buffalo roam [Home on the Range]  15. in the city?

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WHAT WOULD A BETTER GENETIC BUILDING STONE BE?    Not that we can influence it, but at least it’s a positive way of looking at the future…sort of.  Since our primary genetic motivation seems to be survival of the fittest and kinship selection, what else might work?  Survival of the kindest and comfort selection?  Survival of the honest and peace-loving selection?  Your ideas:

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NO ADDITIONS TO LIFE Part One? Don’t be shy…

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WHO SAID THIS?  Bernie Sanders? …

Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.  No, Harry Truman

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JUST BE AWARE THAT…There’s lots more going on than I can cover.  Just topics to be aware of, if interested:

I’m going to ask how much my major stores charge when I use a debit card. Apparently it can be a problem, since New York has a new law that the amount must be posted.

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In my town, efforts to raise goods for Ukraine met opposition with local food pantries’ requests instead. .  My thoughts:

• “Which also has bombs dropping on their heads?”  Just my thoughts, of course. Besides, it shouldn’t be “either…or…”

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OUCH!  What a life…  In Gaza, assistance includes emergency self-delivery items for pregnant women.  Yikes.  Post partum depression?  Difficult to think about it, much less be there now.

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SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE RESCUE:

• In Pakistan,  social media reportedly was used by the party of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan to win the most seats in their Parliament.  AI also was used to simulate his voice.

In the USA, President Biden’s campaign has reportedly used Tik Tok to reach out.  (“lol hey guys”)

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WHEN I FIRST STARTED writing about the NRA I was unable to discover how many members it had–at least easily, that is.  Now that it’s in trouble I see that it has lost more than a million members since an earlier peak of 6 million in 2018.  Gun Owners of America is one outfit that considers the NRA “too liberal.”

TODAY  I see there was a 20+ shooting after a Super Bowl party, with several cxhildren being shot.

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

Fill in the blanks….

1.  Halleluia I’m a ________

2.  Jump back turn around ________

3.  My ______ lies over the ocean

4.  _______  Happy little wash day song

5,  Don’t step on my ___________

6.  Mama Mia, Papa Pia,_________

7.  and on that tree I see, ” __________

8. I’ve got a hot rod Ford and a _________

9.  It gives me a thrill to wake up in the morning on _____________

10. On the baby’s bottom or the baby’s knee, _________

11. Aint gonna study ______ no more.

12.You put your ______ foot in, you put your _____

13.Who was combing his auburn hair by the light of the silvery moon ?__________

14.__________, where the deer and the antelope play

15. Put your shoes on, Lucy!, don’t you know you’re_________

THAT WAS FUN FOR ME!  How’d you do?

Nan

LIFE – PART ONE

Is it a negative hallucination

that we mortals cannot see?

All around us

what linking knot has come asunder?

What forces have come undone

or made invisible?  Who are we?

Is the Anti-Christ real after all?

The wind whispers around me,

fresh and cool for now, but moaning.

Or are those tears?  “Bugs

have invaded my hair!  And

I am running out of air.”

Our dark velvet skies, brighter but not

healthier.  The effusion now includes

“space junk,”  which is tracked.  To which

space will it be delivered,

along with us?

I can remember being gentled by the wind’s

soft kisses.  How long will the memory endure?

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P. S. LETTER TO READERS:  What more can we say or do other than to stir the pot of our knowings, even if it’s too late now to change results?

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YOUR ADDITIONS?

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News Item:

ROBOTIC SPACE PLANES The United States and China currently have reusable robotic spacecraft regularly in orbit: two X-37Bs, built by Boeing and operated by the U.S. Space Force; and a vehicle believed to be operated by the Chinese Ministry of National Defense. Combined, the two X-37B craft have flown six times in space since 2010, most recently landed after 908 days in November 2022.

AT LEAST WE HAVE LOVE FOR ANIMALS

My heart drops when I see vicious remarks aimed at groups of people–transgenders, refugees, non-whites–but I am encouraged at the news stories about the rat hole hero in Chicago; Flaco, the freed owl in New York City; and the pediatrician who volunteers care for the pets of the homeless in California.  Some of us can still be touched by what we consider beauty (I wish there was another word for what I mean), but my rotten feelings get so easily swept along in the path of manipulation, dishonesty, elitism, and so much more I don’t want to remind myself of.

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Socrates believed one should be skeptical of everything, and he practiced what he preached regarding democracy. Socrates was an outspoken critic of the Athenian government. Two of his biggest criticisms of democracy concerned the majority rule’s lack of knowledge and the potential for a demagogue.  Sound familiar?
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REPRESENTING THE LAND   Earlier this month, the Board of Trustees in Nederland, 45 miles northwest of Denver, authorized the appointment of two guardians to represent Boulder Creek and the watershed for purposes of preparing annual reports about the ecosystems’ health and to make recommendations on improving water quality, wildlife habitats and wetlands protection.

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HANDS OFF THE  HELPERS

Given a reported shortage of doctors, due in part to high insurance costs and to encroaching attempts to stomp out their professional oaths, including standards of care  being set by some state legislatures, the public is aimed at many being brutalized by the movement, be they women conscripted to parenthood, as well as the transgender treatment situation, both of them overlaid by volatile, uninformed emotions often twisted and shoved like a painful colonoscopy.  The abortion camps seem to have clarified themselves, but the question concerning Transgenders remains as murky as ever.  National uninformed pressure appears to be taking its toll on doctors, and therefore on patients.

For those with overwrought views on transition treatment for children, pro or con, I reviewed several articles on Google and did come away with the idea that maybe “Gender affirming treatment” misleads and possibly promotes less careful evaluations.  Just from my selective reading it seems that the first task of treatment is a joint approach by medical and psychological experts to determine an inclusive assessment prior to proceeding with “gender endorsing treatment.”

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