One Day Last Week

For some unearthly reason, I awoke at 5 AM last Friday and couldn't get back to sleep. I watched the sun rise over my barn roof before going downstairs; a real joy to behold, something I should do more often. Then, I dressed for work, grabbed my camera and headed out to take some pictures of a few trees that still had leaves.

Later in the day, an intense, but very brief, rainstorm blew through town. I think it was supposed to be a snow shower, but the morning had been warm and sunny, so we had rain instead. By the time I got home from work, the sun was setting, and the retreating rain clouds were beginning to show some color. I have a small point-and-click camera, not the best for taking sky shots, but I was thrilled it captured some of the color I was seeing.

These first three shots are from the west, south and east of my house, respectively, and show the beginnings of color. I apologize for the trees and power lines interfering with the view; rather crowded around here.

Within five short minutes, those same views had changed to these spectacular colors. Isn't nature wonderful?

Remembering

There is nothing I can add to make this day any more important...except to say I am sorry for the world's losses.

For my brother, Tom McLemore, whose soul was killed in VietNam, though his body struggles on. I'm sorry for your losses, too.

The Consequences of Heroic Acts

Three weeks ago, I wrote about my grandson, Donovan. Let's face it, I was boasting about him, in the way that grandparents are wont to do. My mother used to say that if you boast today, you will cry tomorrow. But three weeks had passed, and I hadn't yet. Another old wife's tale.

Three weeks ago, another grandmother's beloved grandson was released from prison, after serving time, reportedly, for assault. He is in his late twenties, stands a couple of inches taller than Donovan and, evidently, spent most of his time while incarcerated working out in the prison gym. Where Donovan has lingering baby fat, this other grandson has muscles upon muscles. He has more than six-pack abs - he sports a full case of them. His arms start at his neck, just below his earlobes, with upper arms as big around as my thighs. Yes, that big!

Three days ago, my grandson and the other grandmother's beautiful boy crossed paths. This chance meeting didn't turn out well for either grandson. My grandson was knocked to the ground and injured by the other grandson, who was arrested for his assault on Donovan.

Donovan saw one of his neighbors pull into the apartment building parking lot. From out of nowhere, it seemed to him, another woman and two men ran up to his neighbor's car, whereupon the unknown woman reached into the neighbor's car and began beating her. Donovan ran over to the car and placed himself between his neighbor and the attacker. He held his hands up, palms open and facing the attacker, to block her blows, giving his neighbor time to exit her car from the passenger side.

Donovan pleaded with the attacker to just walk away, that what she was doing wasn't going to solve anything, and would only bring trouble to her if she continued. The other grandson began shoving Donovan in his chest, trying to push him out of the way. Donovan turned toward the attacker and said she needed to leave, that because she didn't live in the building, she was trespassing and could be arrested for it.

That's when the other grandson sucker-punched Donovan, who has never hit anyone in his entire life - blind-sided him, knocking him unconscious. This man, a street-fighter wise in the ways of bullying and beating others, hit Donovan so hard that the inside of his upper lip, along the jaw teeth, was split almost to the outer skin. He bloodied Donovan's nose and mouth so severely that Donovan lost enough blood to become anemic. Either the man's fingernail, or perhaps a ring he was wearing, gouged a piece of D's lip away, and he needed stitches to close the gash.

My grandson had to visit the hospital twice for his injuries, but he is going to be okay. His bruises and wounds will heal before long. The other grandson is back in county prison, for violating his parole agreement (no fighting), while he awaits trial on charges stemming from his assault on Donovan. The prognosis for him is not as good as it is for Donovan.

I've written about this for a couple of reasons. First, to say how proud I am of Donovan for doing a brave, selfless thing in coming to the aid of friend and neighbor when she was unable to defend herself. I also am proud of him because he was putting into action the lessons his mother and I (and others) have tried to teach him about not giving in to his anger in confrontations - to walk away, which he was trying to pass on to the attacker. His actions, his obvious grasp of the non-violent solution to conflict, tells me he is maturing, and growing toward independence. He is adapting to the world and learning how to live among - to navigate around, to cope with - the rest of us complicated, not always well-behaved, human beings.

Mostly (as always and no matter what this says about me), I've written for myself, to help me understand the incomprehensible. I write to release the extreme anger and murderous rage I feel toward that other grandmother's beloved grandson for hurting my gentle-spirited, kinder-than-God grandson, greatest gift I will ever receive - our beloved Donovan.

This is me, walking away.

Passages

The picture of the little boy, above, is of my grandson, Donovan. I took the photo when he was four years old. This was seven years before we learned he was autistic. Donovan had been misdiagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder at age seven, and prescribed medications which made some of his symptoms worse, including causing him to have suicidal thoughts at age eight. He is an Aspie, as some folks now refer to people with Asperger's Syndrome. Donovan is on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, which means he has a greater chance of being "mainstreamed" than youngsters on the more profoundly autistic end of the scale. Like most Aspies, he has a high IQ and absorbs information like a sponge. Also like most children within the autism spectrum, his social skills and emotional maturity lag behind his intelligence and physical development. Consequently, he is now a 6'4" tall, highly intelligent, high-school junior – turning eighteen today (Sunday, 10-10-10) – who sometimes sounds like a boy of twelve, or fourteen. On really bad days, he's more like a child of nine or ten, but those days are fewer and farther between than they were last year and the year before that.

He is maturing, physically, more rapidly than his mother would like to see. He used to be too small for his age, and was started on growth hormones two years ago. At that time, he was a little shorter than I am (I'm 5'6", and shrinking, height-wise). He now towers above me, and his mother, his father, both biological grandfathers, most of the kids at his high school – and the teachers, as well! What's alarming is that the growth plates on his bones have not hardened yet, which means he's still growing. He'd be great at basketball, I think, but his coordination hasn't caught up with his height yet.

He had a girlfriend this spring, but the romance faltered: neither one of them is ready, yet, for such a relationship. Donovan is a kind-hearted young man, generous in spirit, protective of kids smaller and younger than he, probably because he was bullied so when he was younger and small.

He wants to get his driver's license, but he has what seems like the human version of fainting-goat disorder. Sometimes, when he's under a high level of stress, he passes out. Not what you'd want in a driver sharing the road with you. Until the cause of the fainting can be determined, and either cured or medicated, he won't be issued a license.

Donovan faces multiple challenges on his road to adulthood, many of which will be with him for the rest of his life. He's a good kid with a good brain and loads of potential. He will adapt to life among the rest of us (which may or may not be such a good thing), and will make his mark in this world. He is dearly loved and has the support of more than just his family, so I believe he will do well.

The body of the boy in the first image has grown and is now that of a young man, but the eyes that look at me when we're talking haven't changed a bit. They belong to the same four-year-old who thought the universe was a place of wonderment, magic and boundless joy, who thought his Nanny was his best friend.

I will be, for as long as I live – and maybe beyond that.

Happy birthday, my beloved Boo-Boo!

Remembering

I didn't watch the late night news the night John Lennon died, and was told the next day at work by a friend who came in to the post office to get her mail.


I was a Beatles fan from the first time I heard "I Want to Hold Your Hand," in the late fall/early winter of 1963. The Beatles' music and the hysteria that followed their explosive popularity helped take my mind off the assassination of Kennedy, one of my heroes. All through my remaining teen years and into my early twenties, John, Paul, Ringo and George - their music, I mean - was a part of my life. I didn't know how much of an influence they were until John was murdered. Oh, sure, I thought (for about 10 minutes) the world would end when the Beatles broke up in 1970, but it didn't, of course.


While I didn't think Lennon's murder would bring about an end to "life as we know it," I did grieve his death, which surprised the heck out of me at the time. A few weeks later, in talking with some friends about the murder, I realized I was mourning the loss of an icon of my youth, perhaps my youth itself. Google's logo today was a remembrance of Lennon, and it made me feel nostalgic for his voice...and a time when my life was less complicated, though not easier.


There are so many songs from Lennon's Beatles years and his post-Beatles career that I hold dear ("Woman," for instance), but I chose these two songs because "Stand by Me" is one of my all-time favorite R&B songs from my teens (by Ben E. King, covered by many others, including Lennon), and "Oh, My Love" is a rocking love song, with a gentle rhythm that I really like.

Abashment Deserved

Well!  I found out who made the mistake that cost me my PHEAA grant, the fidgit!

Uh...that would be me.

I entered the wrong information on my application back in May, which I discovered when I went over my application worksheet last night to see if there was room/evidence for me to file for an appeal. 

Boy, do I feel stupid?  The answer to that would be a resounding "Yes!"  Thank goodness I was on my best behavior when I went in to the financial aid office yesterday morning, or my face would be even redder than it is right now.

There's a Bathroom on the Right.

Way back when – “Back in the day,” as my grandson is fond of saying, when talking about my youth – one of my favorite bands was CCR, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Still is, come to think of it. One day, somewhere in the early ‘70s, I was happily singing along to one of their tunes, when my first ex started laughing at me, something he liked to do upon occasion.

“What did you just say?” he asked, between chortles.

“What do you mean?”

“Just now, when you were singing. What did you think they were saying?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like ‘don’t go out tonight, there’s bound to be a fight. There’s a bathroom on the right.’  Why? What did you hear?”

Between snorts and guffaws, he asked me if I thought what I was singing made any sense.

“Well, no, but then a lot of the songs don’t make sense. What’s so funny?!”

He started singing the chorus. “Don't go around tonight. Well, it's bound to take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.”

Forever after, whenever I heard the song, I joined in at the chorus, singing my version. (Turns out, there were thousands of us who thought the singers were giving directions to the head.) It has remained one of my favorite examples of miscommunications.

Today, five weeks into my new career as a college student, I received notices, via email from the state and snail-mail from the college, that one of my grants is being rescinded, because I am enrolled in a program that does not meet the requirements for getting a grant from PHEAA. This means I have lost funding for this semester and next. It means I owe the college nearly a thousand dollars more, if I plan to stay enrolled through the end of this semester, and another thousand for the spring semester. This will be on top of the Stafford loan I made to pay the shortfall from the Pell and the PHEAA grants, to cover the tuition balance and the cost of books.

I am flabbergasted. When I applied for admission to HACC in May, I told my advisors what courses I intended to take. When I went to the financial aid office, I repeated my plans, and asked for help with obtaining grants, if any were available for the courses I intended to take. When I applied for grants through FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and PHEAA (Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency), I clearly stated which college I wanted to attend and the program I intended to enter.

Was I singing the wrong lyrics again, or were all these other people hearing/reading the wrong words? I don’t understand how the grant from PHEAA could have been made in the first place, since the program (which I spelled out for them in all my applications) was not eligible.

This is not the blog I wanted to write tonight. I planned to write about my first month at college, how it has turned out that I really like the accounting class (which I thought I’d hate) and that I’m having a blast in the computer class learning how all the software I have works. I love learning new things. I like the challenge to my brain and the stimulation of being in a school setting again. I wanted to tell you all the fun stuff.

Tomorrow (Thursday) morning, I’ll visit the financial aid office and say “WTF?!”, or words to that effect, only more polite and socially acceptable words to that effect. (You don’t suppose PHEAA is in cahoots with OVR, do you?) Tonight, I’m too bummed out to do much of anything. I’m feeling queasy, from the disappointment, I’m sure.

Damned good thing there’s a bathroom on the right!

(Thursday afternoon follow-up: Nothing I could do about PHEAA; those funds are lost.  However, I'm still enrolled because I was able to increase the student loan to make up the difference for this and the next semesters.  If I change from the diploma program to the associate degree program, PHEAA funds would become available.  Have to think about that some more, for it means a longer period of study [60 credit hours as opposed to 20 credits for the diploma], but an associate's degree might serve me better in the work place.  Something to consider.)


(The guy on the left, full beard, looks a good bit like my first ex, John.)

School Dazed

My Lop-sided Mom-Haircut, September 1954

I don't remember much about first grade, beyond the new box of chubby crayons, eight in a box, and the huge yellow pencil.  Oh, and recess (of course), and the name tag on butcher's twine that I wore around my neck.  All first graders wore them, which made us easy targets for the second-graders (who only lost theirs just three months earlier) to point at us, laughing about the tags. 

The photo above is from second grade, which I remember much better.  The dress, with the lace-trimmed collar that would not lie flat because my mother had starched the daylights out of it, was plaid, in shades of brown and cream and orange.  Mama picked it out for me, and a green one just like it, only with a peter-pan collar.  My preference was a red dress with little bouquets scattered all over, trimmed with white piqué collar and piping on the sleeves.  But my heart's true desire was the pink party dress of sheer rayon, with tons of ruffles, and puffed sleeves with dark pink bows.  We went home with the sensible cotton day dresses in brown and green.  She did let me have the red plaid book satchel with the bright red plastic handle, though; perhaps as compensation for having to leave the party dress behind. 

I remember the dark brown mary-janes that buckled on the outside edge, and the anklets with lace around the cuffs.  I was so afraid Mama was going to buy those awful brown and white saddle-oxfords, or the lace-up ones like I had in first grade, which never stayed tied, causing me to trip more times than I can  remember. 

By second grade, the love of school that began the year before had grown into a passion, if one can have such a thing at age seven.  When the weather changed toward fall, I could hardly wait for the first day and marked the calendar in anticipation almost as strong as when awaiting my birthday.  I loved reading and spelling more than I did arithmetic.  We were divided into reading groups named for birds, based on our skill levels.  My group, the cardinals, were the top group, and our numbers grew during the year as other kids learned to read better.  My teacher gave me a compliment one afternoon, telling me that I read very well, with inflection and good phrasing.  When I got home that afternoon, I told Mama that Teacher said I could read with infection.  (My mother loved to tell that story.)

What prompted these memories was my search for a book bag this evening, in preparation for my first day at college tomorrow.  There are two or three of them somewhere in the house, maybe the attic, but my favorite is one Ex-B received a few years ago as a promotion through his company.  It's constructed of tough nylon canvas, black with Microsoft's MSN logo stitched in white next to the rainbow-colored butterfly.  I think it was meant for his laptop, but he gave it to me for my camera and lenses.  I haven't bought my books yet, but I have put in it (so far) two wire-bound notebooks, my fountain pen with extra cartridges, a couple of pencils and trusty Staedtler sharpener, a spare rescue inhaler, about 50 paper clips, two clean handkerchiefs, my wallet with ID and lunch money, house keys, car keys, cell phone and my second pair of cheater reading glasses.  Plus, all my hopes that I will do well and not be the oldest kid in class.  Oh, yeah...an apple.

No crayons, though.

New Day, New Life

Back in May, I posted about my divorce, and in the comments, BB wrote "...one worry about such a divorce is which version of you will emerge at the other end." 

At the time, I wasn't convinced I would emerge, let alone have any idea who I would be, if I did.  Like millions of other people around the world, I was facing some serious financial problems, and was more concerned with just surviving than who I was going to be.

Then there was the blow to my pride in registering for the food bank, and the nightmarish mess with the OVR.  On the heels of that, my poor old car decided it couldn't go another inch and started acting up.  It needed repairs (close to $800) to pass inspection by the end of this month, and I was broke - beyond broke.  I was busted.

I had had all I could stand.  Like Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) in the movie, Network, I was as mad as hell.  I felt something inside start to crack.  The image that came to mind was a crow egg cracking open, with a new chick pecking its way to the outside.  That's where the line in my poem, I Am, came from.

A new Crow is emerging.  I'm getting my bearings, stretching my wings and deciding in which direction I want to fly.

I've written to our governor about my experiences with OVR; not for my sake, because I am finished with them, but in hopes someone in his office (I doubt Rendell will ever see the letter) will look into what's happening at the OVR.  Perhaps the next person who seeks help through them will receive better treatment than I have.

I applied for (and was granted) a student loan to pay the remainder of my tuition and books.  Didn't want to go further into debt, but I need this training and diploma to help me find more (or better) employment.  I also did not want to quit the job I have in order to have OVR pay for anything!  I start classes this coming Tuesday.

Since I have no savings, and only a part-time job which doesn't even cover all the necessities, and have been turned down for other part-time work more times than I care to count, in desperation I applied for a home-equity line of credit to pay off the one credit card I have (27.5% APR!) and get my car repaired.  I expected to be denied the loan, despite the fact there is no mortgage on the house, nor any liens - plus taxes and insurance are current.  Imagine my surprise (stunned surprise, actually) when the loan went through!  The payment each month for this loan is far less than what I was paying to the credit card company, so that the income I do have will go farther.  Plus, I learned yesterday that I will be getting a small raise.  (The historical society took a hard hit three years ago when the market and world economy dropped into this deep recession.  There were no salary increases for those years.)

I was beginning to see light at the end of that dark tunnel.  The eggshell cracked a bit wider.

Last week, I decided to cut my hair.  Big deal, you might be thinking, but it was a big deal.  I started letting my hair grow out four years ago, the spring before all the darkness came upon my spirit.  (Thought I would grow up to be a long-haired biker granny - HA!) 

The details surrounding my fraudulent marriage knocked me down, hard, and I stopped caring about everything.  When the eggshell started cracking, when I got mad and started taking control of my life again, I realized I didn't want this mane of hair, either.  I pulled it into a ponytail, went to my hairdresser and told her to cut it all off.  I kept fifteen inches of it in the ponytail.

"What are you going to do with it," she asked me.

I told her it was a souvenir, a reminder of what I had survived over the last four years. 

"Cutting this off," I said, "is cutting my ties to that time.  I'm letting go of the past, putting it behind me."

When I grew quiet, she asked if I was okay.

Told her I was, but that I didn't realize that was why I got my hair cut until I actually said it out loud.

The shell cracked open all the way.  The new Crow is out.  Don't have all the answers yet, but they will come in time. 

They will come.

I Am

Crow-citation (Crocitation)


I am
A bright golden leaf
Dancing in the soft autumn breeze,
Delaying my destiny with the ground.


I am
My mother’s love-song
That hums in my heart,
Lifting me up in my darkest hours.


I am
The cracking eggshell
That shelters the hatchling-me,
Until I am ready to face the world.


I am
The brush that strokes
The canvas of my life with color,
Painting a dream yet to be.


I am
The sunrise on a crisp winter morn,
Whose light sparkles across the snow,
Lighting my way with rainbow splinters.


I am
The crow’s wing feather
That fell onto my window sill,
Entreating me to take flight.


I am
A portal to the Universe
Where all answers will be found,
Beckoning me to step on through.


I am
The library, full of stories,
That holds the key to who I am,
Waiting for me to unlock the door.


I am
The last page of the old book,
And the first page of the new,
And only I can write the next line.

I am ready, now, to live.

Martha McLemore, 2010
Photo by Stuart Richardson

Green Bananas

One of the many blogs I like to visit is Notes from the VooDoo Cafe, written by Ricë Freeman-Zachery, an artist-writer-free-spirit in Midland, Texas.


Last night, before turning in after a long, hard day, while I was grousing about my aches and pains (Whiner should be my middle name), I visited Ricë's cafe.  She had found and posted a short video about another artist-performer, Ilona Royce Smithkin, that inspired me to shut up and be glad I can still buy green bananas.

I had my hair cut very short last Saturday, so that most of the white is what shows now, and I was thinking about getting it colored orange or purple, but I rather like Ilona's color.  More than that, though, I absolutely love her attitude and free-wheeling style.

(It appears that Google will not allow me to embed the video here, so if it doesn't play as it should, please use the link at Ilona's name.)

Scrambled Eggs (or, WTF with the OVR?)

Several months ago, I wrote about an unfortunate experience with the Pennsylvania Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, whom I had contacted seeking help in trying to find a career/training which would support me for the rest of my life.  I tried to write humorously, mostly to help me get over the despair I felt after talking to my counselor.  I can find no humor in how things have turned out, none whatsoever.

I was assigned a new counselor, a young woman who, unbeknownst to me, was new on the job.  We got off to a good start, I thought - certainly better than CL and I had done back in February.  AS, the new girl (well, she's at least 40 years younger than I am), told me I was eligible for OVR services and asked me what I hoped to accomplish with their assistance.  I explained that, given my age (62 at the time) and my inadequate education, I had concerns that I wouldn't find full-time work (currently employed part-time) which would provide enough income for me to live and be able to keep my house.  I explained that I had no savings, no health insurance, no retirement fund and was looking at a pretty bleak future when I reached retirement age.  I needed additional training or education, with documentation of some sort - degree or diploma - which would help me compete against younger, better educated applicants.  Although it is against the law in the US to discriminate on the basis of age, it happens all the time in the corporate work arena.  My hope was to acquire a position with the state or federal government agencies where age is not a factor, but skill set is.

We went over some options for me, including the option of returning to college.  As it turned out, a community college in Gettysburg offers a Professional Bookkeeper Diploma program, obtainable in 18-20 credit hours, which I could finish by the end of 2011, going part-time.  I was excited, and began feeling hopeful again, after several months of despair and serious depression.  AS encouraged me to apply for admission to the college and to apply for state and federal financial aid.  She stated that OVR could help with tuition, depending upon how much funding I could secure from state and federal sources.

I applied for grants through FAFSA, which stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and was awarded, initially, enough funds to almost completely cover my tuition, fees and books for the coming school year.  This was great news, because I have absolutely no money to cover anything, after using paychecks from my part-time job to pay bills, put gas in my car, buy food - and medicines I need to keep me going.

The first thing that disappointed me, but is completely understandable, is that my grants were reduced because I will be a part-time (under 12 credit hours per semester) student.  Well, that's okay, I thought, because AS had said OVR could grant up to $2,000 per semester, depending on how much remained after grants were awarded.  I didn't need the full amount, so things were looking very good for my starting classes at the end of August.

(Aside: Now, understand that becoming a bookkeeper is NOT what I want to do.  It is what I can do, and must do, in order to provide for myself over the next 10 or more years, hoping, of course, that I have that much time left.  I've made peace with bookkeeping, but if I had my druthers, as my Mom used to say, art and creative writing are my first choices for more education at this stage in my life.  I've always wanted to be an artist, and was toying with taking those courses.  Except that reality reared its ugly head and bit me in the butt, real hard.  Earning a good living as an artist is a serious challenge, even for the gifted artist...and I do not believe I have that gift.  So, bean-counting it is for me.)

I called AS and asked for an appointment to go over what to do next to acquire the education assistance she told me would be available through OVR.  Her response surprised, shocked and depressed the hell out of me all within the few seconds it took to realize what she was telling me.  OVR will fund my training only if I am a full-time student.

What?!?  We had discussed, frequently, the fact that I could only go to classes part-time because I needed my job to pay the bills, pay for food, gas, meds, et cetera.  At what point in those discussions had she planned to fill me in on that little tidbit of necessary info?  I ended the call stunned, couldn't even think of what to say to her that was polite and could be said in church.  I called back the next day to set up a face-to-face to learn what I could do next.

Oh, it gets better.

Turns out, she shouldn't have taken me on as a client in the first place, despite meeting the eligibility requirements, because I have a job.  Because...I...have...a...job. (Where had I heard that before?!)  Six months into this, and she tells me she shouldn't even be meeting with me because I am employed.

And they wonder why they are sued?  Well, I do not intend to sue OVR for the ineptitude of their employees.  I do, however, intend to fight this all the way up to the federal level, if I must, because nowhere on their web site does it say that their services are available only to the unemployed.  Their web site promises compassionate, professional counseling, with every possible effort made to help clients find or maintain adequate employment, through counseling, physical rehabilitation, education and/or training and a whole laundry list of other possible services.

Look out, OVR; I has a mad, and you is it!  (Quote from a LOL Cat picture.)

How Long?

I read the headline on my MSN homepage: Iraq general wants the US to stay until 2020.  Ten more years in a war that should not have been, served the purposes of one man - and his father - and costs us billions of dollars every day we're there: not to mention our most valuable assets, our fellow citizens.


Upon reading the words of the headline, my heart sank and a great sadness swept over me.  A poem by one of my favorite writers, Robert Service, a Canadian (born in England), came to mind and I went searching for my worn volume of his works.


(My grandson, disabled with autism, turns 18 this year, and if the draft is reinstated, his disability probably will not prevent his having to go.  This is the source of the sadness that overtook me for awhile this morning.)


Here is Robert Service's poem, "The Stretcher-Bearer":

THE STRETCHER-BEARER


My stretcher is one scarlet stain,
And as I tries to scrape it clean,
I tell you wot --- I'm sick with pain
For all I've 'eard, for all I've seen;


Around me is the 'ellish night,
And as the war's red rim I trace,
I wonder if in 'Eaven's height,
Our God don't turn away 'Is Face.


I don't care 'oose the Crime may be;
I 'olds no brief for kin or clan;
I 'ymns no 'ate: I only see
As man destroys his brother man;


I waves no flag: I only know,
As 'ere beside the dead I wait,
A million 'earts is weighed with woe,
A million 'omes is desolate.


In drippin' darkness, far and near,
All night I've sought them woeful ones.
Dawn shudders up and still I 'ear
The crimson chorus of the guns.

Look! like a ball of blood the sun
'Angs o'er the scene of wrath and wrong.
"Quick! Stretcher-bearers on the run!
O Prince of Peace! 'Ow long, 'ow long?

Good Question

Once Innocent

"Somewhere, and I can't find where, I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest, "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?"

"No," said the priest, "not if you did not know."

"Then why," asked the Eskimo earnestly, "did you tell me?"

- Annie Dillard, at Whiskey River

A Drive in the Country

Adams County, Pennsylvania

I had to go to Adams County, to the west of here, this evening to meet with the teacher of our Meeting's pre-school.  She will be taking over my duties as treasurer, bless her heart, and I was going over some of the tax work she'll have to do.

Adams County was my introduction to Pennsylvania over forty years ago and the land there is part of why I love this country.  The fruit growing region in the mid and northern part of the county makes me feel as though I've come home every time I return there.  I like to drive the back roads, over rolling hills, through long stretches of woods, instead of taking US Rte 30 to get there.  The drive goes past fields of corn, soybeans and timothy, through orchards of apples and peaches, pears, plums and apricots.  Old farmlands, in cultivation for over 250 years, populated here and there with original homesteads even older, are the last, rapidly disappearing vestiges of a wholly different America.

There is a hill I must crest on the eastern outskirts of Biglerville that presents me with a vista which never fails to take my breath away, no matter what the season or the weather.  The distant western horizon undulates with the blue layers of the South Mountains, where, this evening, the pink-tinged, smoky-mauve clouds look like fat dumplings atop a rosy-pink-juiced peach cobbler.  The storm that came through over the weekend ushered in more seasonable temperatures, lingering still, and the breeze blowing through the Jimmy's open windows is summer-soft.

I haven't lived in Adams County for twenty-five years, but every time I return, I feel like I'm going home, and my heart swells with emotion and weeps nostalgia - for what, I couldn't say.  All I know is I feel like I belong there, in those hills, beside those fields.  I fit in there; with the land, at least, if not with the people.  It is where, for a short time, and for the first time in my life, I knew who I was, and liked being me.
Posted by Martha McLemore
The photo above is not mine, but can be found, with more photos of the area, here: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=adams+county%2C+pa+orchards&w=all&s=int&referer_searched=1

Evening Sky, 25 July

After the storm this afternoon, the neighborhood was transformed.  Neighbors spilled out of their homes, some collecting downed limbs and ripped off leaves, others sweeping water from their sidewalks, righting their garbage cans and picking up trash blown in by the fierce winds.  Children poured into the streets, riding bikes, sailing little homemade boats in the gutters, laughing and squealing while they splashed through deep puddles.

A couple of blocks away, somebody was running a chainsaw - must have had more than small limbs knocked down if they've brought out the big gun.  Somebody else, believe it or not, is mowing his lawn!  The trees are still dripping rain, for heaven's sake.  Well, it's his mower that will get clogged.  Maybe he just couldn't take not mowing his grass another single minute.

The ambient temperature has dropped at least fifteen degrees, and there is a soft, northerly breeze doing its part to push the heat down.  There are fewer locust cries filling my ears, but now the birds are out, re-marking their territory with song, since the rain washed away the last notes they laid down a few days ago, before the heat forced them into silence.

I looked out the back windows that face the carport and for a split second thought that it was afire.  Not so.  It was the light - a gorgeous pale orange - from the sunset bouncing off the semi-gloss paint.  I put flip-flops back on and went out to the front porch to catch the show.  My camera was acting up again, so I just stared at the sky, trying to remember the dance of color and light.

Cantaloupe-hued clouds streaked in sinuous waves across a cerulean sky.  Maxfield Parrish would have given anything if he could have caught this scene.  (I apologize for the amateurish sketch above, done on the computer; wish I could do better, to do it justice.) 

We aren't out of the woods yet, with heat forecasts for the coming week edging back up toward ninety again; but, for this evening and all night long, this is what summer is supposed to be around here.

A wonderful end to a happy day; yes, indeed!

Uh...

This post is not exactly how I wanted my 200th milestone to turn out, but...well...yo, dogz, dis iz whut it iz, aw-right?  (I hope my grandson doesn't see this.  I embarrass him with my attempts to use his teen-patois.)

See, it started like this:  I learned a new word today - poetaster, pronounced POH-uh-tass-ter, meaning, essentially, a lousy poet.  When I said the word aloud, several lines of truly awful rhyme popped into my head, and I thought of rap, that punchy beat, half spoken, half sung music that kids of my grandson's generation find so appealing (I like some of it, too; the not so violent stuff).  So I went cruising YouTube for some rap/hip-hop beat instrumentals to post with my drivel and stumbled onto this.

I was stunned.  I thought rap, gangsta rap especially, had not escaped our shores.  Had no idea it is a world-wide phenomenon.

This video knocked my rap-rhyme right out of my head...at least, for the moment.

Enjoy...I think?

PS:  It's raining cats and dogs!  Not really - just huge raindrops.  There's a tornado watch for our county until seven this evening.  Hope they're wrong about that!

Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight

     I've waited all day, since before sun up, for the temperature outside to drop below eighty.  Still waiting.  We haven't had a summer like this for about fifteen or so years - and the dog days aren't even here yet!  Ninety-six, with heat index around a hundred.  Kinda warm, y'know?

     No sign of the thunderstorms the weather folks said were coming our way Saturday afternoon.  There are large patches of grass that may not ever recover from the scorching heat, patches that sound like you're stepping on cornflakes - crunch, crunch, crunch.  There is one advantage to the dry weather; still haven't had to cut grass yet.

     I've decided to leave the a/c on downstairs tonight, in the hope that the house won't be so stinking hot when I get up later this morning.  If I wait too long to turn it on, the poor thing struggles against the solar collection properties of the house and never does cool things the way it's supposed to do.  (High heat inside makes it difficult to keep the asthma under control.)

     There is a constant high-pitched buzz during the daylight hours from insects - locusts, mostly - complaining about the heat.  In the late afternoon and early evening, small frogs join the chorus.  I have no idea where they come from, as there are no ponds or streams near the house.  I make sure the Double-Bar-Bee Saloon and birdbath stays full, just in case the frogs visit during the night.  In addition to the birds and bees who drink here, there is a thirsty young cat who drops by for a drink, too.  He runs as soon as my hand touches the doorknob, and I doubt I'll ever tame him, but he is a pretty thing to have around; a grey-tan-and-black tabby, about a year old by the looks of him.

     The Borough is considering water use restrictions again, which is a good idea if we don't soon get some rain.  If the dry spell continues into August, we'll need a lot of snow this winter to replenish our water supplies.  The ones feeling the heat most are local farmers and fruit growers.  The other day I had to go to Gettysburg to register for some college classes.  I drove past a field where the farmer was cutting hay and was treated to the fresh, wet aroma of sweet grasses falling before the blade.  By the time I made the return trip home a couple of hours later past the same field, the hay had already lost its fresh aroma and smelled like it had been drying for three or four days.  I bet it could have been baled that same day.

     I wonder if the unusual (for us) summer is because of global warming, or if the sunspot activity is greater than normal.  Whatever it is, sure hope things cool off real soon.  I've spent so much time just standing under the running shower head lately that I may be permanently prune-skinned by the end of the month.

     Still, things could be worse.  Not going to say how, because I don't want to jinx myself.

Trolling for News, Found This.

While searching the news outlets, I stopped at Lisa Golden's blog to see what was new in her neck of the woods.  Followed a suggestion at the bottom of her most recent post and found a rant she wrote back in February this year. 

At the end of it was this wonderful joke, which is too close to the bone for me right now, but I did laugh - "a bitter laugh," as Lisa wrote, but I needed to laugh. 

I told her I was stealing the joke; figured there were at least two or three of you who stop here who might get a kick out of it - one way or the other.


LOST WOMAN

 A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him,

"Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground, elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am,"replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

18 July 2010

Seven from sixty-three:
Demi lune hangs in the sky,
sweating moonbeams.

The night’s breath is heavy
with the scent of coming rain,
and settles on my skin – warm,
moist and caressing – like
a half-remembered lover’s touch.


When I was fifteen,
And still a virgin of the world,
Sixty-three seemed forever away.
Now it is fifteen that seems
The myth.  At fifteen on this date,
My life had barely begun.


At twenty, no longer a virgin,
I knew I’d be dead by thirty-three:
My Christ-complex years.

I wanted to walk across Europe
All the way to China, starting
At Stonehenge and ending
At the Great Wall.
I didn’t want to grow old.


Seven away from sixty-three:
Now I hope I do.

(C)2010 Martha McLemore

Food, Glorious Food

I registered with the Red Cross food bank today, which I’ve been trying to avoid doing for several months. I have been stubbornly resisting asking for help, perhaps out of foolish pride, or maybe humiliation...I’m not sure why I didn’t ask for help, despite the need.


I think I learned this attitude from my mother, who learned it from her father. She was fourteen when the stock market crashed in 1929, and millions of people lost everything they had in the blink of an eye. My Grandfather Honeycutt was a prideful man, successful and well-respected. He came up from poverty and worked hard to acquire what he had for his family.


Within weeks of the crash, he had lost everything – his job, their home and automobile, his self-esteem and his pride, even friends he’d known for years. He had to ask for help from his family, and when they could no longer help, he had to ask strangers; then, finally – the hardest blow of all – he had to accept welfare. With public assistance came loss of standing among former friends and neighbors, most of whom needed assistance as much as, or more than, my grandparents did, but they refused to ask for it. They didn’t want to go on the “public dole.” I’m sure there was welfare fraud in their time, just as there is today, and there will always be that segment of society who views those who accept public help as bums, or lazy, shiftless lay-abouts.


Mostly, though, my grandfather couldn’t accept that he was unable to provide for his family on his own. That probably is the reason I didn’t ask for help before today, too.


As I sat in the intake office with my caseworker – God, how I hate the sound of that! – I kept swallowing back tears and this huge lump in my throat. Asking for food meant I have failed in being able to take care of myself, that I am unable to provide the most basic of necessities. When a Red Cross volunteer brought out a shopping cart with groceries to the cubicle where I sat, I felt sick, as if someone had punched me in the stomach. At the same time, I was overwhelmed with gratitude – no more cornmeal mush for awhile, although there is nothing wrong with mush! Mush, or rice, is mighty good, especially when the alternative is to go to bed hungry! (I was going to imbed a YouTube video of the “as God is my witness..." scene from Gone with the Wind, until I watched it. Things are not super-great right now, but they aren’t that bad!)


I have plenty of food to get me through to next pay day, and beyond that. Clients (that’s what we are called) are able to draw from the food bank once a month, though I intend not to need them again. But I learned today that swallowing foolish pride is no big thing, and that accepting a helping hand when I need it doesn’t mean I am a failure. Getting sick from lack of nourishment when all I had to do was ask for a little help? That is failing to take proper care of myself...as God is my witness.

Going Fishing

You want to know what’s sad (in a way) or at least dumb?  See the fish animation on the sidebar, last thing on the right? I keep trying to feed the green one.  (Left click on the image to feed them.)


I am invested in taking care of an image, a bunch of pixels of color and apparent movement, a non-existent creature.

Am I that lonely, or is there something else at work here, some human or sentient being need to interact with other “living” beings? Because, you see, at some point I forget that I am playing a game and I begin trying to anticipate where the little green fish will go next - so that I can get there before all the other fish arrive in order to drop food pellets for my little green buddy.

What’s up with that? Is it a delayed case of empty nest syndrome? Am I substituting this moving bit of color on my monitor screen for a living plant or a pet dog or cat to nurture? Is this a female thing, a need to take care of...of...something, anything, to feel fulfilled?  To justify my taking up air and space here?

Or am I bored out of my skull at work, chasing my (note the possessive pronoun!) green fish when I should be working on taxes and filing?

I’ll put this issue on the back burner and let it simmer for awhile. In the meantime, I’ve got a fish to feed.