Just The Write Touch

To pick or not to pick

2011-09-17T22:46:00.000-04:00

My fingertips are tender; my left shoulder is aching.

After playing a two-hour jam session yesterday, and four hours today, I guess my fingertips and shoulder have a right to complain a bit -- especially as it has been almost two, maybe closer to three years since I have played that extensively. Nevertheless, I am exhilerated!

Something happened this evening as I played with a bluegrass group called Willow, a group kind enough to invite me to sit in and play and sing with them every now and then at their Gospel Opry. For ten years, they have played mountain gospel tunes on select Saturday nights at a church in Seminole. Most of the songs I had never heard before, but these musicians grew up hearing them sung at church and at home -- and I have learned some poignant tunes.

So what happened this evening, you ask? Or maybe you're not asking, but I'm going to tell you anyway! :-)

For the first time, and after playing guitar for almost 40 years, I played my guitar with a pick.

That's it?!? You drew me this far into this rather lame post to tell me you played your guitar with a pick?!?

OK -- before you click off in disgust, please hear me out.

To pick or not to pick is just the surface question. It's not just a matter of preference, although I do have a tendency to prefer bicycling to motorcycling and kayaking to outboard motorboating. Maybe I started strumming with my right hand fingers because I didn't have a pick. The tiny town we lived in when I first started playing didn't have a music store -- it was so long ago I don't even remember.

But I do remember trying a pick a time or two. Aside from the fact that I'm not terribly coordinated -- so the pick usually ended up flying through the air or inside the guitar itself -- there was another matter.

Playing with a pick made the guitar sound VERY LOUD!!! Much louder than I was used to playing.

So loud, in fact, that I was afraid somebody might actually hear me play. 'Cause, see, I'm not a perfect player. Sometimes we play by ear or with lead sheets that are in a different key than we're playing in so I'm having to transpose and play and sing. And I mess up -- a lot. So it has been safer to play, but not to play loudly enough that anybody but me -- and God -- could hear.

That doesn't mean nobody has ever heard me play. I used to play for kids' church and for an occasional women's group. I used to play when I was a library story lady and I used to pull the guitar out and play and sing at home quite a bit. But somehow those times were different -- and my rather quiet guitar strumming matched my not very strong voice. So.

When I have played with Willow, it has been more a time for me to reconnect with my guitar than to actually add some sound to the group. They're all amped; I'm not. My guitar isn't even miked, 'cause I like to move a bit when I play. Nobody could really hear me play. I couldn't even hear me play.

Tonight all that changed. I bought a couple of different kinds of picks, and ended up using the one shown above. See those little diagonal lines? They're actually raised ridges that act as grippers so the pick can't fly away as easily.

This particular pick is the lightest one made, so it's very flexible. Even so, I could feel my right arm tiring sooner than during yesterday's practice.

But -- I could actually hear myself play! And I didn't sound half bad.

There's more to this little tale. My writing has been the same way. My voice has been heard in the publishing field -- I've had a number of children's magazine stories published, have written for a couple of newspapers, have a travel book and some church plays published. But, so far, it has been a rather softly strummed voice. I have a feeling -- just a feeling, mind you -- it's about to pick up in volume...pun intended.

Maybe I'll even get an amp before too long.

:-)

Today's OED Word: Indian Summer

2011-08-31T14:11:00.000-04:00

I'm curious as to why the Oxford English Dictionary chose Indian Summer as today's Word of the Day.

Here's the definition given:

orig. N. Amer.

1. A period of unusually calm dry warm weather, often accompanied by a hazy atmosphere, occurring in late autumn in the northern United States and Canada; a similar period of unseasonably warm autumnal weather elsewhere.

However, the weather of late has been neither calm nor dry, and warm and hazy are understatements. Nor is it late autumn -- summer is still in full swing for almost another full month.

Perhaps, the OED had in mind the second definition?

2. fig. A late period in the life of a person or in the existence of a nation, culture, etc., characterized by calm, happiness, or achievement.

Don't think I'll go there.

"The hurrier I go . . .

2011-08-21T00:12:00.001-04:00

Numa Pompilius, 2nd King of Rome, 715-673 B.C.

. . . the behinder I get!" said the White Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I think I may finally have figured out why I always feel as though I'm two-steps behind in the tarantella of life.

It's all King Numa Pompilius's fault!

This second king of Rome -- after Romulus (of "and Remus" fame, suckled by a she-wolf and all) -- added two months, January and February to the calendar of the day, pushing August from the 6th month to the 8th month.

I, being born in August, should have been born in June. But, no -- I started out two months behind! No wonder I feel like I'm forever playing catch-up.

August, itself, seems to have been awarded the left-overs in terms of festivals and events. It is the National Month of Immunization Awareness, Psoriasis Awareness, Water Quality, Cataract Awareness, and Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness.

It is also, however, National Goat Cheese Month and Happiness Happens Month, the latter brought to us by The Secret Society of Happy People.

Yes!!!

King Numa seems like a fairly savvy ruler. If the Wikipedia entry is accurate, the Roman historian Plutarch recorded King Numa as being spiritually sophisticated: "He [Plutarch] says Numa "forbade the Romans to represent the deity in the form either of man or of beast. Nor was there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being; during the first one hundred and seventy years they built temples, indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any kind; persuaded that it is impious to represent things Divine by what is perishable, and that we can have no conception of God but by the understanding."

King Numa also established an understanding of boundaries and legal ownership that prevented many disputes. His reign was a peaceful one, and he apparently died of old age.

The image above is imagined, of course. It is fitting that this particular image was imagined by Gnaeus Calpernius Piso, during the reign of Caesar Augustus.

King Numa had a good reason for shoving August from 6th place to 8th -- he was trying to align the solar and lunar calendars to make life easier for all.

He couldn't have known that 2600+ years later his mucking around with times and seasons would set me back from the get go.

Ah, well. Don't worry. Be happy.

Maybe I need to take a lesson from the White Rabbit.

Do you suppose the pokier I'd go, the further I'd get?

A Parable for Our Times

2011-05-17T23:34:00.001-04:00

And the Lord spake unto Anne saying, "Fill up thy tank."

But the hour was not early and the traffic was building. And the trip odometer indicated that only 386 miles had passed since the last infusion of fuel.

"But, Lord," Anne replied. "The last time I ran out of gas the trip odometer read 429 miles. It is only 30 miles to my destination. I will fill up on my way home."

And so Anne undertook her journey. Before long, she arrived at a crossroads of a sorts. To her right, and down the road a ways, lay a fuel supply depot. To her left, and over a causeway between great waters and over several miles of interstate highway, lay her destination, a repository of knowledge and learning where she was studying methods of teaching people to read and to understand what they read.

And, lo, the voice of the Lord came unto Anne a second time saying, "Even now, turn aside and fill up thy tank."

"Yes, Lord," Anne replied. "I have agreed with You. I will fill up on my way home."

And Anne turned left. She journeyed over the causeway between the great waters and she traveled the several miles of interstate highway.

And, lo, it came to pass that as she exited the interstate highway and merged onto the avenue on which her destination, still some miles away, lay, that her faithful vehicle sputtered. Her trip odometer read 400 miles, and so she was befuddled.

"Help, Lord!" Anne cried.

But the voice of the Lord was silent. The hand of His mercy, however, covered over her, and she coasted into the parking lot of a convenience store.

Now a fuel supply depot lay nearby, and Anne set her face unto this haven. She journeyed on foot, yea, crossing avenues of much traffic, to where her salvation lay -- in this case in the form of a gas can. And the merchant within showed her how to remove the plastic insert within -- with barely a roll of the eyes -- and so she filled the can and returned unto her van.

But then her wits failed her and she knew not how to transfer the fuel into the tank of her van. And she tried various means of funneling the fuel into the tank, but succeeded only in spilling some of the precious liquid. Nor did those nearby know how to transfer the fuel into the tank.

And, lo, the Lord suggested that, perhaps, the plastic insert, which lay on the ground, was, in fact a spout -- although one end seemed to be stoppered. And Anne tried various means of attaching the spout to the container, but without success.

And so Anne dialed a lifeline, yea, even Lee, who exhorted her to examine the cap more carefully to see whether it contained a removable disk.

And, lo, as she did so, she noticed that raised lettering, reading "Remove this disk" adorned the cap. Nor were these the only instructions. Plastered prominently on the side of the can were directions for afixing the spout and for transferring the fuel into the tank.

Before the hour was out, Anne had replenished her fuel tank and was on her way to her destination, that veritable repository of knowledge and learning where she was studying methods of teaching people to read and to understand what they read.

Dancing with one who danced with Pavlova

2011-02-25T22:25:00.003-05:00

Ballets Russes dancer Alexandra Baldina. Photo courtesy of Susan Tyne, Grades Examiner in the Royal Academy of Dance, U.K.

For as long as I can remember, I have loved to dance.

For as long as I can remember, I have not been very good at it.

On the inside, I'm Odette/Odile, Thoroughly Modern Millie, or part of a Chorus Line.

On the outside?

Ain't no way.

I've taken dance lessons of various types off and on over the years. Ballet. Tap. Folk Dance. Rythmic Gymnastics. Modern dance. More ballet. Square Dance. More tap. Clogging. Jazzercise.

I know an arabesque from a shuffle-ball-change and a pas-de-deux from a do-si-do.

Getting my body to cooperate fully has always been another matter.

Doesn't matter. Put music on and I start moving. On the inside, at least. I also know how not to embarrass my family and friends in public places.

In high school, my babysitting money paid for ballet lessons at a studio that was on my route home from school. In those days, the late 1960s, we walked to school. Two miles one way. No snow, because it was Southern California. Only one short uphill stretch. But I lugged a lot of books and my gym bag.

On Tuesdays, my gym bag also contained my leotard (black), tights (pink), and pointe shoes (pink satin Capezios). After school, I stopped at the studio, changed into my ballet attire, and spent an hour relevéing, pliéing, and pirouetting.

The owner was Miss Irene, a student of the Imperial Russian Ballet as danced by Tsarist era dancers. Miss Irene, in fact, had been a student of one of those dancers, and we learned to turn our legs out from the hip, to keep our hips aligned even when executing a rond de jamb en l'air, to hold our arms just so, and to turn our noses up at the mention of any of those upstart companies like the American Ballet Theater.

Miss Irene's teacher, she told us, had danced with Pavlova, with Nijinsky.

I practiced at home sporadically. Our single-wide mobile home didn't allow for much in the way of floor work, but I did my barre exercises at the kitchen sink or while brushing my teeth in the morning.

I knew I wasn't destined for a career in ballet, but I could dream, yes?

One day, Miss Irene had a guest.

"Hurry, girls," we were told as we arrived. "Miss Irene's teacher will conduct your lesson today."

Quickly we changed, then stepped onto the sprung wooden floor and took our places, facing the barre, in first position. The music began, and we slowly rose into a relevé-two-three-four-five-six-and-down-two-three-four-five-six. Behind us a stick beat time to the music.

Demi-plié. Grande plié. Second position. Turn and fifth position.

We dared not turn our heads, but we tried to look out of the corners of our eyes for a glimpse of Miss Irene's teacher, this remnant of another, more romantic, more terrible, Dr. Zhivago time.

She came behind us, adjusting our port de bras with her hands, correcting our turnout with her stick. Through each of the barre exercises, she wandered up and down among us, pounding her stick and counting.

We moved into the center of the floor. Now we could see her fully -- her face to us, her back reflected in the full-wall mirror behind her.

I don't know what I expected, but this woman was old. In her eighties, at that point. Short. Tiny almost. No longer petite, however. As do most women, she had spread a bit. She wore a skirt and blouse and shoes. But her posture was ramrod straight, her turnouts were perfect, and her bearing was . . . imperial.

At the end of the lesson, we each stepped forward and curtsied.

"Thank you, Madame," we murmured.

She nodded.

And that was it.

Still, I wondered. Really? Did this woman really dance with Pavlova? I didn't recognize the name. We only had Miss Irene's word, but why would I doubt?

Weeks later, I flipped through a stack of record albums at our local library. One was titled Les Sylphides, a ballet with music by Chopin. Idly, I turned it over and began to read about the work choreographed by Mikhael Fokine for the Ballets Russes in the early 1900s. Four principal dancers performed the premier in 1909, I read. Tamara Karsavina. Anna Pavlova. Vaslav Nijinsky.

And there she was.

Miss Irene's teacher.

The fourth principal.

Alexandra Baldina.

Postscript: Not long after my lesson with Alexandra Baldina, my school activities crowded out my ballet time. I put away my toe shoes, and joined the debate team. Occasionally, I searched encyclopedias and other reference materials, but I never found anything about her. Then along came Google. My first search, a couple of years ago, yielded a link to Larry Long, director of the Ruth Page Foundation of Dance in Chicago, who had been one of Baldina's student. A few weeks ago, another search turned up a link to Susan Tyne, a Grades Examiner in the Royal Academy of Dance in the U.K. Susan's grandmother, Dorothy Tyne, also had been a student of Baldina's -- and the photograph on this page was given to Dorothy by Baldina. Baldina married Theodore Kosloff.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

2011-02-06T12:02:00.002-05:00

One of Jay's one-of-a-kind expressionist coffee mugs.

A roll

of mint Mentos

slipped

from a pocket

and passed

down church pew

or theater row.

Double-deep,

double-dark,

triple-rich
chocolate.

Stinky goat cheese,

stinky cow cheese,

stinky llama cheese,

stinky, stinky, stinky.

Robust,

puissant,

intimidatingly dark --

preferably

organically grown,
fair trade --

brewed coffee.

Clotted cream

spooned straight

from the jar.

Cayenne

sprinkled straight

from the can

just about

everything.

God be with you 'til we meet again.

Hush. Listen. Ask. Focus. Obey.

2011-01-12T00:34:00.000-05:00

A Facebook friend suggested we choose five words to live by in 2011.

This was before New Year's Day, of course, and I had plenty of time to think about it. Just not a lot of time to write about it. Maybe Promptly should, in a spirit of contrition and correction, be one of my words for this year, but it's not one of the words given me. The words that came to me over a period of several days were:

Hush. Turn the radio off. Turn the TV off. Cut the chatter -- especially the interior monologue that I carry on with . . . whom? Hush.

Listen. Turn my inner ear toward the heavens and wait expectantly to hear . . . what? Listen.

Ask. Don't assume. Don't jump to conclusions. Don't even hop to conclusions because this has to be done . . . when? Ask.

Focus. One thing at a time. Not twenty. Not twelve. Not two. One that must be done . . . how? Focus.

Obey. Otherwise, what is the point of the other four? Obey.

Up from the Abyss

2011-01-04T01:05:00.000-05:00

Three months is a long time between posts, even for me. Normally, my editor would have reminded me by now that blogs are meant to be frequent musings and ongoing conversations, not whenever-you-feel-like-it postings. Normally, my writing instincts would have overridden whatever obstacles were in the way of my waxing poetic (or emetic) on some topic or another. But these past few months have not been normal, and my editor has refrained from criticism.

Or he has given up.

My writing instincts have been occupied elsewhere, namely in writing about writing as part of my latest course of study. This past fall I began studying for a doctorate in children's literature at the University of South Florida, in Tampa.

I also taught two sessions of Literature in Childhood Education to 70 undergraduate education majors.

All I will say about the experience is that overwhelmed doesn't begin to describe it. But I survived, and in a few days I begin the second semester.

Tonight, I ascend from the abyss to gulp some air and post an entry here. Tomorrow I descend again. Perhaps a stray bubble will make its way to the surface and land in this blog. Perhaps it will be another three months before I breathe again.

Either way, my editor will have to be patient with me.

Act? Care? Envision? Think? -- Follow the herd?

2010-09-12T14:36:00.003-04:00

"I chose "Care", but don't always do it," one friend emailed me.

Another wrote on my Facebook page, "Perhaps we are sorted by the occupation we choose. I bet most accountants would fall into the detail ["Think"] section."

Another friend noted that because the original discussion had been about the need for a common vision, she, normally a "Think" person, "likely would have been inspired to choose "Envision!"

Huh? Let me bring our new readers up to speed.

In a previous post, I described a meeting where the people were asked to stand by one of four signs--with no in-betweens allowed--that best described them:

Act! Plunge in and try things.
Care. Make sure everyone has a say before acting.
Envision. See the big picture and possibilities before acting.
Think. Figure out the details before acting.

Here's how the group responded:

Twenty-two of the people stood by two statements. Three people stood by one statement. No one stood by one statement.

The "Think" friend, in the middle of master's level counseling courses, also pointed out that because people could see where other people were moving, a herd mentality might have influenced the outcome.

And, good counselor/student that she is, she also provided other options to help me derive my own conclusion: Even distribution across the sample population OR Act-15, Think-7, Envision-3, Care-0.

A fourth friend suggested the opposite: "Guessing no one in that group chose Act!. 22 took #2 or #4. three chose #3. I would have to say #1 for myself, though only in most general and relative to what I observe in others sense. So, what happened next?"

Good question.

Time for an answer.

Twenty two of the people not only clustered around "Act" and "Envision," they positively swarmed to get there. Two people stood by "Think." No one stood by "Care."

Wait, wait wait!

Hold the horses here.

What happened to the third person who was supposed to be standing by "Think?!?"

Well, the third person was me. I was a bit caught in the crush of people trying to get to the "Act!" and "Envision" side of the room. Before I could move, the leader had positioned herself in front of the "Care" sign, and had begun speaking. I would have had to walk right in front of her to get to the other side.

At least, that's one way to look at it.

Another way, of course, is that I was still "Think"-ing about it and didn't "Act!" quickly enough.

But the distribution concerned me.

I see too many half-baked ideas being rushed into policy or production without enough thought being given to the ramifications and consequences. I also people abandon brilliant, creative concepts when they can't immediately understand them and put them into action. We love our ruts, no matter how inefficient and counterproductive.

Being a "Think details" person, I know how tedious the work of preparation can be. Translating a "Vision" into "Act"-ion takes time and effort. It's easier just to write off the idea, than it is to make it work.

The irony was that this was a group of educators operating in an ostensibly Dewey-based system. The same John Dewey, who wrote extensively about Democracy And Education, where everyone's voice is part of the process. Only no one, apparently, "Cares" enough to listen. Or maybe we just didn't "Think" before we "Act"-ed. Or maybe we need some to "Envision," others to "Think," others to "Care" before we all "Act."

Or maybe the underlying truth is that we aren't truly made to function in a pure democracy.

You didn't really "herd" that idea here first, did you? :-)

What Type Are You?

2010-09-03T23:23:00.000-04:00

Recently, I sat in on a meeting. The person running the meeting spoke about the need for common vision among the group, which numbered about 25 people, then had us perform a simple exercise.

Posted at four points in the room, were statements that went something like this:

Act! Plunge in and try things.
Care. Make sure everyone has a say before acting.
Envision. See the big picture and possibilities before acting.
Think. Figure out the details before acting.

We were asked to stand by the statement that we felt best described us -- with no in-between's allowed.

It's important to note that we weren't given specific scenarios. This was an "in general" sort of response, so -- as commercials say -- results may vary.

But on this day, the response went like this:

Twenty-two of the people stood by two statements. Three people stood by one statement. No one stood by one statement.

Guesses as to how we defined/divided ourselves? Where would you have stood?

Giving to airy nothing a local habitation . . .

2010-07-17T13:48:00.000-04:00

"Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact;
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is the madman; the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt;
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."
Thesesus -- Act V, Scene 1 -- A Midsummer Night's Dream

Of Gifts and Talents and Proclivities

2010-06-22T21:49:00.002-04:00

Left: Our granddaughter's interpretation of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Photo and stylization courtesy of Jane Cato Studio. What you can't see is the makeup and tousled hair of her zombie princess alter ego.

Years ago, I read one of those how-to-live-a-blessed-life kind of books in which the author spoke of the time-released capsules she believes God builds into each of our lives. Sudden discoveries and realigning of circumstances had released new and unexpected creative energies in her own life. God doesn't give everything to us all at once, she wrote. He lets us discover, in His time and as we go along, the gifts He planted in us from the beginning.

I have thought about the phenomena of implanted time-released capsules often these last few years. My husband touched clay for the first time three-and-a-half years ago, and one of those extra-fast-acting time-released capsules burst open.

For me, however, the first sense I had that I could be a "real" writer came in my 20s. But circumstances didn't align themselves for me to explore that in all of its fullness until I was in my 50s -- a slower-acting capsule, as it were.

One of our responsibilities as parents, says Proverbs 22:6, is to "Train up a child in the way he (she) should go." Most people interpret that in terms of religious teaching. But it also speaks to paying attention to the individual personality, abilities, and talents each child has -- and to the times they are released in their lives.

One of our sons was assigned in seventh grade to write a computer program for a game. This was in the Commodore 64 era when we played Atari's Pong at home and kids played that newfangled game, Pac-Man, in arcades. I don't even have the vocabulary to describe the game he created, but it was intricate enough that we had to buy additional external memory to hold it all -- and even then I think he only scratched the surface of what he had in his mind. Today he's the IT guy at a Colorado ski resort -- where he can also make the most of another time-released capsule called snowboarding that exploded in his life a couple of decades later.

Another son absorbed everything he could learn about fishing and hunting from his father and from other people and from books. Beginning when he was about eight years old, he often fished the neighborhood ponds after school when the other kids rode bikes and played kickball. One day when he was 13 or so, my husband and I were visiting my parents in Spring Hill when he called to tell us he had snagged a barbed treble hook in the top of his foot while fishing from a bridge not far from our house in Seminole. My husband walked him through the process of backing the hook out, which he did successfully -- and then went back to fishing. He explored the professional fishing tournament circuit for a time before circumstances limited his time. Today he's our go-to guy when we have questions about Florida flora and fauna . . . and fish, of course.

A third son would spend days in character -- Huck Finn was a favorite, corn cob pipe and all -- and he also learned to love the physical labor of building things. His second grade teachers commented on his "showmanship" when they filmed him doing a science experiment. When he played the Jack of Hearts in a fifth-grade production of Alice in Wonderland, the advisor suggested he consider a theater program in high school. He did, but turned to building sets and running lights and sound in the technical theater program instead. Today he's the go-to guy at a major corporation, responsible for maintaining much of their physical infrastructure and equipment. And he's a backstage dad for his children.

Of course, our sons explored other interests along the way. They played baseball and soccer in the local leagues. They each learned to play more than one musical instrument -- one still plays around with music quite a bit. One has learned the art of selling. Two of them still enjoy reading books. All three are good writers, when they have a use for writing. They all learned how to cook and to use hammers and saws and wrenches and what not. Sometimes they still call their dad for a how-to walk through, but sometimes he calls them for the same.

Now our children watch their children walk in particular paths, or -- for three of our grandchildren, at least -- dance down particular paths.

Our oldest grandson was two, maybe three, when he started asking to wear my "clap shoes" when he came to visit. They were just my wear-to-the-office 1-inch heeled pumps . . . but he liked the clapping sound they made on our tiled entry way and on our concrete kitchen floor. By the time he was four, all he wanted for his birthday was a pair of tap shoes. His mom, a dancer herself and married to our theater son, enrolled him in tap lessons. From his first lessons, he exhibited an innate ability to follow the steps -- and, when he made a mistake, to correct himself back into the rhythm. Last night, I got teary-eyed watching him rat-a-tat-tat across the stage . . . and also perform a very sensitively danced lyrical number.

His brother was barely two when he memorized the score and choreography from the Wizard of Oz. He couldn't articulate the words, but the on-pitch melodies and voice inflections were there. He couldn't match all the steps, but he had the timing of Scarecrow's loose moves down pat. Before long, he followed his brother into dance classes. Last night, I lost count of the number of dances -- solos, duets, trios, group dances -- to which he had memorized the choreography and inserted his own personality.

Little sister was just four when she saw Michael Jackson's Thriller video and started teaching herself the choreography, including the moon walk. Her reaction when Michael Jackson died? "But he's still alive in Thriller." Last night, she performed a solo version (a 5-year-olds' recognizable rendition) of Thriller at the DanceMoves Studio's final program. She can turn respectable cartwheels and has a lovely toe point.

Their parents have poured lots of time and money into helping their children follow these paths to date. What does the future hold? None of us know. They could wow them on Broadway or a different time-released capsule could take them down new and unrelated paths. For now they have learned the disciplines of working hard at something, of working consistently at something, and of sharing what they have learned with others. I suspect they have learned to walk hard, walk long, walk joyfully in whatever way they find themselves down the road.

Everything else is icing on the proverbial cake.

Making a Joyful Noise! Part Two

2010-06-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

From Haydn's The Creation and Lord Nelson Mass -- performed by the Eckerd College Concert Choir and Friends this past March.

It's a grand night for singing . . .

The voice lessons I took in high school didn't turn me into an opera diva. Cosí fan tutte wasn't on my Top 20 and Lohengrin wasn't exactly easy listening.

Those were the days of the Beatles, Herman's Hermits, Marianne Faithful, Petula Clark, the Mamas and the Papas, the Lovin' Spoonful and others. Even now, phrases from "As Tears Go By," "Downtown," "Monday, Monday," and more drift through my mind at the oddest times.

Just listen to the rhythm of the gentle bossa nova . . .

Playing tag in my brain with the pop tunes and lyrics of the 60s, are the show songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Leonard Bernstein, and others.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

Not opera, by any means. But my instructor was also the choir director at our church. And he encouraged me, a high school sophomore (freshman?), to sing in the adult choir.

I wonder if he knew what a gift that was.

For one thing, I was never quite youth group material. Most of the other kids at church went to the same high school, a different one than I went to. Most of the other kids played sports or were in band or were in other group activities.

Me? I was on the speech team.

The debate team.

Yes, I was on the drill team one year, and I did go on a youth group outing to play in the snow at Big Bear. And while I wasn't exactly a fish out of water, I felt a bit like a mountain-stream rainbow trout mixing it up with Coho salmon fresh from the ocean.

For another, my voice wasn't knock-'em-dead-powerhouse solo quality. Give me an acoustic guitar and a coffeehouse setting and I might be able to earn a few bucks. But belt it out on Broadway? Ain't gonna happen.

Except.

Except that somebody encouraged me to join the adult choir.

Chorus, choir, chorale -- the synergy of individual voices so yielded to and blended with each other creates more than just magnified sound. It creates a new voice, one that is more than the sum of its parts and that transcends parts all together.

We bring our puny voices to the group, offering them to the music, moving as one with the director, trusting -- as did a long ago little boy -- that our vocal loaves and fishes will be multiplied and divided to feed the multitudes more than just a picnic lunch.

And what of the loaf being multiplied? For me, my range extends, my volume expands, and my voice becomes a little less puny. I am taken out of myself and become more than myself.

Make a joyful noise, the Psalmist said.

He never said it had to be a solo.

Making a Joyful Noise! In Memoriam Interlude: 5 . . . 6 . . . 5-6-7-8

2010-05-11T02:04:00.007-04:00

Susan Hartley in Ireland, 2005.

Not everyone sings with the voicebox. Not everyone makes melody with the mouth.

Susan Hartley made a joyful noise with her feet. Tap-e-ta, tap-e-ta, shuffle ball change, shuffle ball change, jump down, jump down, jump down, stomp! Only a whole lot faster and a whole lot more intricate.

She must have been something when she was younger. Her bio says she started dancing when she was five, and was a demonstrator for Paul Draper in his New York studio by the time she was 12. When she was 15, she was part of a group of precision acrobats called The Hurricane.

Tap, jazz, acrobatics, ballet -- Susan danced it all on concert hall and theater stages from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And she shared what she knew. In 1988, Susan opened Dancemoves Studio in Seminole, Florida, where she taught countless girls and boys how to cartwheel, arabesque, and Shuffle Off to Buffalo.

Nine years ago, give or take a few months, I watched Susan take my then somewhat hesitant four-year-old grandson by the hand, lead him to the center of her studio dance floor, and walk him through a series of tap steps.

Brush forward, brush back, step. Brush, brush, step. Fl-ap, heel; fl-ap heel. Fl-ap, fl-ap, fl-ap, flap.

Week after week, month after month, year after year. Tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, hip hop, acrobatics. First one grandson, then another, then a cousin, then a granddaughter.

It was all about developing that innate itch that makes us sway, swing, and step to music. It wasn't about perfection. It was about the kind of professionalism that drives you to keep practicing until it's as perfect as you can make it. It was about the kind of professionalism that keeps the show moving regardless of what faux pas has just occurred onstage.

Miss Susan didn't go over and over and over a step. She expected her students to watch closely and remember complex combinations almost instantly. She expected daily practice between lessons. That was part of the training. Broadway directors would be culling wannabe's who needed coddling from professional dancers who had the mental acuity as well as the physical agility to handle two-hour's worth of demanding choreography.

There was no undeserved praise awarded and no slack given. Little miss in a huff off in a corner? Pick her up, bring her back into the circle, and tell her to save the hissy fit for later. Shut the door, shut out the distractions, and carry on.

Knowing that one teacher is never sufficient, she brought in Lane Napper and other professionals from the Broadway Dance Center and other studios to conduct master classes in dance, voice, and theater. Her daughter, Elizabeth, joined her in the studio teaching musical theater and voice. She took her students to New York, Ireland, Miami, and as many places as their parents were willing to let the children go. She taught them how to conduct themselves in an audition, how to occupy themselves when it was someone else's turn to practice, how to overcome the fear of doing a round off, how to be generous with each other.

One student ended up with a part in a Nickelodeon TV show because of the connections Hartley helped her make.

Her choreography reflected Draper's melding of ballet and tap and her own acrobatic and ensemble training. Her studio boasted the only precision lines (think Rockettes kick lines) in Pinellas County.

It can be hard on kids when their mother works with other kids. Especially when you don't quite fit in to her world, their world. That's not an excuse. It's also hard when you know you're not quite the mother your child either needs or would like to have. Either way, there are choices to be made. Choices to let go of unrealistic expectations, to accept what is and not what we wish was, and to find the perfect path our Creator has prepared for us -- and no one else -- to walk in.

Susan's son struggled with that. Susan struggled with it, too. Maybe no one knew how much until it was too late. Ultimately it cost both of them -- and all of us -- big time.

There are no guarantees of how many days we each have in this world. Or of how we will pass from this world into the next.

All we have is today. How we choose to live today is what matters for today . . . and, oddly, for tomorrow, too. Today we can choose anger and bitterness over what we perceive as unfair. We can choose to sit in a huff in the corner because the music isn't to our liking.

Or we can choose to get up and make a joyful noise to the music that is playing -- one that echoes through eternity.

With our mouths.

Or with our feet.

Making a Joyful Noise! Part One

2010-03-27T00:49:00.001-04:00

"Oh, dear! What can the matter be? Dear, dear, what can the matter be? Oh dear, what can the matter be? Johnny's so long at the fair."

I must have been three or four -- no more than five-and-a-half because that's when my long, wavy brown hair was chopped into a pixie cut -- when my dad sang that to me as my mom brushed my hair into submission. My first memory of someone singing.

"He promised to buy me a trinket to please me; and then for a kiss oh, he vowed he would tease me. He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up my bonny brown hair!"

My dad didn't sing much, even though he had a passable baritone voice. He could carry a tune and his voice, while not big and booming, was smooth. His choice of songs, however, didn't much meet with my mother's approval.

"My name is Yon Yonson. I come from Visconsin. I verk in de lumber yard dere. And I go down de street and de people I meet, dey say "Hey, dere! Vot's your name?" And I tell dem my name is Yon Yonson. I come from Visconsin. I verk . . . "

I don't remember my mother singing much at all. Although she had a cultured and expressive speaking and reading voice, her untrained soprano singing voice sounded forced -- maybe because her piano teachers through childhood and college directed her toward strictly classical music studies. Perhaps she would have been a great torch singer -- we'll never know because, to her, the epitome of a great singer was someone like Maria Callas .

I remember her wistful delight when my second cousin's mother took up voice lessons in her 30s? 40s? and joined a local opera group. My mother was thrilled when I took voice lessons for a couple of years during high school, first from our choir director and later from a prominent area vocal teacher.

But my first memory of my mother and singing was when I was six and sang in our church choir. Not a children's choir. A mixed ages choir because the tiny Episcopal church (see photo above) we attended in Mountain Home, Idaho, didn't have enough people to warrant both an adult and a children's choir. You wanted to sing, you sang -- regardless of how old you were.

Me? I got to sing because my mom was the choir director. I think she also played the organ? piano? for the services . . . but that part I don't remember.

What I do remember is holding the hymnal and rehearsing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!" . . . and having the audacity to ask my mom if I could hear a particular passage again because I hadn't quite gotten it. I must have heard one of the grownups make a similar request and copied it, because I remember my mother being a bit annoyed with me and one of the other women kind of chuckling and saying, "It's OK. We have time."

My next memory is a little later. I was maybe seven or eight and sitting by her at the piano while she played (an octave higher than written) and sang this very delicate little ditty: "I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear but a silver nutmeg and a golden pear. The king of Spain's daughter came to visit me, and all for the sake of my little nut tree. Her dress was made of crimson; coal black was her hair. She asked me for my nut tree and my golden pear. I said so fair a princess never did I see. I'll give to you the fruit of my little nut tree."

My dad on the other hand taught me this one:

"I went to the animal fair. The birds and the beasts were there. The old baboon by the light of moon was combing his silvery hair. The monkey, he got drunk. And sat on the elephant's trunk. The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees and that was the end of the monk, the monk, the monk."

Feth Fiada . . . The Lorica of St. Patrick

2010-03-17T23:57:00.002-04:00

An Seamróg, is é seamair Éireannach. (The Shamrock, a typical Irish clover. Photo & caption courtesy of Wikipedia).

Many people become Irish for a day each March 17. Green beer miraculously flows from taps, pipes skirl, and people greet each other with "Erin go Bragh!" -- a bit of bastardized Irish loosely translated as "Ireland Forever." The day is named after St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, who is also the patron saint of Nigeria and of engineers, according to AmericanCatholic.org.

No beer here, and not much in the way of pipes or patriotic platitudes.

Just a bit to share from The Wisdom of St. Patrick: Inspirations from the Patron Saint of Ireland by Greg Tobin. According to Tobin, legend has it that Patrick and his followers were hid from enemy soldiers by seeming to be only a herd of wild deer. One of Patrick's disciples, Benin, appeared as a young fawn and bleated out the prayer that became the Lorica (Latin for "breastplate") of St. Patrick. Feth Fiada means "Deer's Cry."

It seems appropriate to share the Lorica in these last few minutes of St. Patrick's Day, 2010:

I

I arise today:
vast in might, invocation of the Tirnity;
belief in a Threeness;
confession of a Oneness;
meeting in the Creator.

II

I arise today:
in the might of Christ's Birth and His Baptism;
in the might of His Crucifixion and Burial;
in the might of His Resurrection and Ascension;
in the might of His Descent to the Judgment of Doom.

III

I arise today:
in the might of the Cherubim;
in obedience of the Angels;
in ministration of Archangels;
in hope of resurrection through merit;
in prayers of Patriarchs;
in predictions of Prophets;
in preaching of Apostles;
in faiths of Confessors;
in innocence of Holy Virgins;
in deeds of good men.

IV

I arise today:
in the might of Heaven;
Splendor of the Sun;
whiteness of Snow;
irresistibleness of Fire;
the swiftness of Lightning;
the speed of Wind;
Absoluteness of the Deep'
Earth's stability;
Rock's durability.

V

I arise today:
in the might of God for my piloting;
in the power of God for my stability;
in the wisdom of God for my guidance;
in the eye of God for my foresight;
in the ear of God for my hearing;
in the word of God for my speaking;
in the hand of God for my guard;
in the path of God for my prevention;
in the shield of God for my protection;
in the host of God for my salvation;
     against every demon's snare;
     against all vices' lure;
     against concupiscence;
     against ill-wishes far and near.

VI

I invoke all these forces:
between me and every savage force that may come upon me,
     body and my soul;
against incantations of false prophets;
against black laws of paganism;
against false laws of heresy;
against idolatry;
against spells of women and smiths and druids;
against all knowledge that should not be known.

VII

Christ for my guard today:
against poison, against burning,
against drowning, against wounding,
that there may come to me merit;

VIII

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ in me,
Christ under me, Christ over me,
Christ to the right of me, Christ to the left of me,
Christ in lying down, Christ in sitting, Christ in rising up.

IX

Christ in all who may think of me!
Christ in the mouth of all who may speak to me!
Christ in the eye that may look on me!
Christ in the ear that may hear me!

X

I arise today:
in vast might, of the Trinity prayed to:
believing on a Threeness;
confessing a Oneness;
meeting in the Creator.
Salvation is the Lord's, salvation is the Lord's
Salvation is Christ's
May Thy salvation, O Lord, be always with us.

Amen.

Insiders' Guide to the Greater Tampa Bay Area

2010-03-17T11:09:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was the official release date for my new book (how good it feels to say that!), Insiders' Guide to the Greater Tampa Bay Area: Including Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.

Check out my new blog by the same name to keep tabs on IGTB and on the Tampa Bay area. There's also a Facebook page -- if you become a fan, you'll get an update most days as to what's happening around Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties.

Here, I'll put the answers to a few questions people have asked about the writing itself.

How long did it take you to write the book? From initial contact to release date was just over a year. From contract date to the finish of the text was a tad over ninety days. That's three pages-plus a day, seven days a week, of research, writing, and revising. After that, I also had to proofread/revise the entire text twice, plus help create the maps.

Is this a self-published book? No, the book is published by Globe Pequot Press, a subsidiary of Morris Communications, LLC.

How did you get this job? Short answer: It was a fluke. A writing friend passed along an email she had received that included info about GPP looking for a writer from the Tampa Bay area to write an IG. I sent in my resume and clips, and they contacted me. Long answer: There are no flukes. Seven years before, I had quit my job as a business manager and devoted myself to writing -- childrens' stories, I thought -- full time. Six years before, I started freelancing for Tampa Bay Newspapers. Four years before, I went back to school and earned by B.F.A. in Creative Writing from Eckerd College, where I did more writing in 18 months than I think I had done in my whole life up to that time. Six months before, I had graduated from the University of Alabama with an M.A. in Community Journalism, where I doubled the amount of writing I did at Eckerd. As part of the program I spent a year in the newsroom of the Anniston Star and explored just about every facet of community life through a journalist's eyes. Having lived in this area for more than 30 years, I had the background. Having taken the writing journey I did over the last seven years, I was in shape to get the job done. Even longer answer: In the beginning, God . . .

Have questions about the writing process? Ask! In the meantime, help me celebrate! Ready?? 1-2-3 . . . WAHOOOOOOO!!!

Now available in bookstores and at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc. 326 pages. Softcover. ISBN: 978-0-7627-5347-5

I Remember . . . When Eco-Awareness Meant Not Littering

2010-03-13T00:25:00.004-05:00

Above: Trash left by festival goers the day after a March 2007 event in Clearwater. The entire park area behind the chain link fence was covered with cups, bottles, plates, napkins, and other garbage.

My first official speaking engagement came when, as a high school junior, I was invited to speak about environmental awareness at a Southern California civic club meeting.

My biology teacher had formed an Ecology Club -- a somewhat radical idea during that 1969-1970 academic year that straddled two decades and bridged the uneasy era between all-out support for American involvement in Vietnam and the country's eventual about face.

As president of the new club, and as a member of our school’s forensics (debate) team, I was a natural choice for this teacher to suggest for a speaker at a local Rotary? Lions? meeting.

Air, water, and land pollution were somewhat new rallying cries for us back then. Smog in the L.A. basin often spilled into Orange County, obscuring Saddleback Mountain with a greasy haze. Various water quality acts and other legislation had just been passed -- with the goal of eliminating industrial pollution by 1985.

Anti-littering campaigns were in full swing.

A few weeks ago, I attended a private screening of a newly released motion picture at a local theater. As an alumna of the same college as the author of the book on which the movie was based, I received an invitation exclusive to those affiliated with the college.

We went and we watched, including all of the credits -- a quirk of ours. Then we stood up to leave, and we surveyed the half-eaten bags of popcorn, drink cups, napkins, candy wrappers, and other trash left on the floor at more than half the seats of this college-affiliated crowd, many of whom profess concern about the problems of carbon emissions and global warming.

I was ashamed.

Did You Try the Door? Like . . . duh!

2010-02-20T12:21:00.000-05:00

My 13-year-old grandson and I sit in my van in front of his dance studio this past Thursday waiting for his teacher to arrive.

His lesson begins at 4 p.m. and -- miracle of miracles, as they sing in Fiddler on the Roof -- we're a tad early. Usually his teacher is at the studio before we arrive. The last couple of weeks, however, she has pulled up a minute or two after us.

Today, her van isn't in front of the studio. So we continue our discussion of Lord of the Flies, which he has just finished reading, and the fourth (?) Harry Potter book, which he is currently reading.

Periodically, I check the time on my cell phone.

"Do you think the class time was changed?" I ask around 4:11. Occasionally the 4 o'clock class is canceled, and he doesn't have to be there until 4:30. "Should we call your mom to see if your teacher called?"

Around 4:20 I call my daughter-in-law and explain that the teacher apparently hasn't arrived and had there been any message about the class time changing?

"Did you try the door?" she asks.

"Her van isn't here," I answer, motioning my grandson to go check the door.

Tactful person that she is, she doesn't come back with what I would have said to her husband or his brothers not so many years ago. Namely, "Is that what I asked? Did I ask if her van was there? Answer me! What did I ask?!"

[Truth to tell, however, she might have used the same teaching tactics I used to use if it were her son placing the call! :-) ]

Instead, she merely says maybe the teacher's son dropped her off at the studio and that perhaps we should try the door. Which my grandson does and which, of course, is unlocked and just waiting for him to pull on the handle.

Like . . . duh!

How many times do we assume a door is closed to us without ever even pulling on the handle? Worse, how much time do we spend sitting in front of doors we assume are closed, locked, barred to us . . . without ever pulling on the handle?

Like . . . duh!

Totally Jazzed by "A Cinderella Story"

2010-01-29T16:25:00.005-05:00

"The spoiled stepsisters learn to dance at an Arthur Murray studio, Handsome Hunk Charming swaggers ala The Fonz and the heroine is saved by her pet poodle? Wowza!"

That's the opening line of my review of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's A Cinderella Story, which entranced me this past Tuesday evening at Ruth Eckerd Hall. After I had decided -- twice -- that I really couldn't attend because of a previous obligation, my own fairy godmother, aka Sandy Huff, waved a free ticket in front of me and whisked me off to the ball.

I was mesmerized.

From the opening number danced by the Butler (Alexander Gamayunov) to an a cappella scat song sung by arranger and jazz band diretor Ron Paley to the poignant pas de deux near the end which featured Bob (Gael Lambiotte) and Nancy (Serena Sandford) dancing around and past each other but never touching or looking at each other, the performance was a creative melding of ballet, jazz, ballroom dancing, and theater.

Paley took Richard Rodgers' tunes from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s -- decades when he partnered with Lorenz Hart -- plus one or two later songs from his partnership with Oscar Hammerstein and turned these ballads into big band jazz arrangements that formed the score for the ballet, set in the 1950s and choreographed by Val Caniparoli. (See video below)

I hadn't a clue.

Rodgers & Hart was "before my time," after all. Even Elvis Presley was BMT. I grew up with the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and Joan Baez. I loved (still do) Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, but they were soon supplanted by Andrew Lloyd Webber's and others' works.

So I didn't recognize any of the tunes -- not even "Blue Moon," which both Ella Fitzgerald and Elvis Presley covered.

Neither did the little girl -- maybe six years old -- who sat, enthralled, on my left. Didn't matter to either of us. We enjoyed a well-told story, creatively presented.

Other, more senior or more musically-enlightened members of the audience must have experienced the thrill of recognizing old songs transformed by the magic touches of Paley, Caniparoli, and -- why not? -- Cinderella's fairy godmother.

If the RWB hasn't produced a CD of the score and a DVD of the performance, they should. Their funny, artistically satisfying, gorgeously-danced, inventive rendition of a familiar story that never grows old in the telling deserves a vastly wider audience than just the people of Winnipeg and those few souls who catch one of their half-dozen or so tour stops.

[Photos and video are courtesy of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. See more video interviews with cast members, choreographer Val Caniparoli, and even footware manager Krystal Comstock on their Web site or on YouTube.)

Get On With It!

2010-01-26T11:34:00.002-05:00

OK -- here's the deal.

I had planned to write entries about our walk in the woods, the Great Christmas Camp Out, and First Night. All on January 2. Didn't get any of it done. Now these unwritten entries lie lodged in my brain, accusing me of overlooking them, and holding other, more necessary word tasks hostage.

So I'm giving in and meeting their demands.

Pics from hike in the wood are posted below:

Left: This condo tent features two roomy sleeping areas, walk-in closets with shelves, and skylight ceilings for real sleeping under the stars.

The Great Christmas Camp Out at Lakewood Retreat was a blast! Trying to sleep while shivering fully clothed in a sleeping bag in a tent at 33 degrees gives one new appreciation for modern comforts . . . and is good for the soul, as well. LR's game room is as much fun as it ever was, and we introduced grandkids to roller ball. They have a new disc golf course, a human foosball area (!), and playing teenaged ninja air hockey brings new dimension to the game. The lake is mostly dry, but we took a night walk--thank you, Jeremy--onto the lake bed to see the stars. Roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire beats any gourmet meal in any fancy, schmancy restaurant.

Not many pics 'cause my camera battery died, I had forgotten to recharge the other one, and neglected to bring my charger. I'm slipping . . .

New Year's Eve we broke tradition. Instead of falling asleep on the couch while watching some dumb old movie, we went to St. Petersburg's First Night celebration. Well done! We listened to a ragtime piano historian/performer, jazz combo, string quartet, opera selections, surfin' USA music, and more. Plus fireworks at midnight -- all for a very reasonable fee and no alcohol.

Now can I get back to work?

Seventh Day of Christmas Greetings!

2009-12-31T16:45:00.000-05:00

I think.

I mean, when is it really Christmas--the Christ Mass?

Sextus Julius Africanus, an early historian calculated in 221 A.D. that the Incarnation took place on March 25, Nine months later would be December 25, conveniently four days after the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year.

But there is some evidence, based on passages in Luke, that Jesus was born in late September or early October. Other people claim that He was at other times during the year.

The historical western Church has celebrated Jesus' birth on December 25 since 273 A.D., and many western churches still celebrate twelve days of Christmas with the Feast of Lights (coming of the Wise Men) on January 6. Eastern (orthodox) churches, however, used to celebrate Jesus birth and baptism on January 6 -- and, according to RelgionFacts.com, a few eastern churches still do so. Most eastern churches celebrate His birth on December 25 and His baptism on January 6.

Many Christians rightly note that the Incarnation of Christ -- His conception -- should take precedence over His birth.

Our consumer culture today would have us believe that Christmas begins just after Labor Day, builds in intensity over a three month period, and ends rather abruptly at midnight on December 25.

As a result, we're sick of Christmas by the time it arrives and we dread its return the next year.

How sad.

No wonder, in the words of John W. Peterson, we have:

"No room, here in the hearts of mankind.

No room, no cheery welcome to find.

No room. Surely the world is blind.

No room."

Ah, well. For me, Christmas is December 25 through January 6 -- all twelve days. Advent ("coming") is the time of preparation that includes the four Sundays before Christmas.

For me, Christmas is about Jesus being born within, not just about His birth 2,000 some years ago, so my preparation time begins in the summer when I begin preparing for the Christmas program at our church. In the writing and in the rehearsing during the fall, something new of Jesus is born in me -- a new understanding of this mystery, a flash of insight into His Word -- and something new of Jesus is born into our church family -- people from first service getting to know people from second and third services, a fourteen-year-old discussing Scripture with a fifty-year-old and an eight-year-old leading us in prayer.

My prayer is that something new of Jesus is born in those who attend the programs, usually held the second or third Sonday in Advent.

This year, our home Nativity set went up on the 20th. And, after years of not putting up a tree, I impulsively put up a table-top one on the 24th.

Both will stay up until January 6. And as long as all the packages and cards are in the mail by the 6th, I count myself as being on time with deliveries -- more or less. ;-)

But who's to say Christmas can't be February 10 or May 3 or August 19? Something new of Jesus can -- should? -- be born in us as often as He and we are willing.

Happy Birthday, Jesus -- today and every day!

Mountain Mellow Thankful

2009-12-19T12:31:00.022-05:00

Left: Loved this sticker plastered to the wall of a BBQ place in Asheville, NC. Check out Hebrews 11:13-16! (This is not a product endorsement--although I like their Web site and they may have a really great product. But I'm not a customer).

Decisions, decisions. Do I play catch-up with dated postings? Or do I leave vast chunks of my life unreported to my faithful readers and unrecorded for posterity?

Hmmm . . . oh, why not.

This last week of 2009 should be about tying up loose ends, right? Any left untied and that come unraveled after January 1st will leave interesting holes in the pattern.

Meantime, my last posting concerned our pre-Thanksgiving Circus of the Arts Pen Women conference in Sarasota.

We struck the circus tents around noon on Sunday, packed up and vacated the hotel premises. From Sarasota to Safety Harbor is about an hour's drive, and I arrived home at 2 p.m. to find Lee packed and waiting for me to unload the van, repack the bags, load up the other van, and head out. Which we did at 3 p.m. -- how's that for a quick transition?!

This time our destination was North Carolina and a week of mountain mellow with Lee's brother and sister-in-law. And Banjo. Can't forget their lovable Labradoodle.

Above: Dave and Lee enjoy a moment of brotherly bonding over a plate of BBQ.
(Mmmmm -- except we thought Dave liked BBQ and he was being polite. What a good brother.)

So what am I thankful for this season, this year? I'll let some pictures speak for me.

Left: Sign near Grandfather Mountain in NC.

Sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren who enrich my life in so many ways. Who can resist melting a bit when the eyes of a three-year-old light up in wonder when he puts a "CD" in a Sesame Street player, pushes a button, and hears music playing. This is the same grandson who played "have you heard this song before" all the way home from a Rays game -- and actually listened to each song I sang before answering 'yes' or 'no.'

And have you ever heard a five-year-old princess with the giggles? Or played clapping games with a nine-year-old? Or watched a thirteen-year-old play Ninja air hockey? 'Nuff said.

The beauties
of the earth above and below ground . . .

Left: Formations in Linville Caverns, NC

Right: Fall foilage in Asheville, NC

. . . and for the ones that come to earth from above.

Below: Fat, fluffy flakes of snow began falling just as we finished Thanksgiving dinner.

Left: Some of Lee's work as displayed at the Art Arbor Festival at Boyd Hill Nature Park in St. Petersburg.

Lee's continuing forays into the world of clay. Highlights of our trip to NC were visiting Highwater Clays in Asheville and attending a kiln opening outside of Boone. Read more about each of these adventures at Lee's blog, Formed & Fired Creations in Clay.

Left: Nancy's daughter-in-law, Shelley, and I put this puzzle together over Thanksgiving. One of the best designed puzzles I've done in a long time -- odd fittings and shapes. Not that I've had much time for puzzles lately, which made it doubly enjoyable.

Time to play . . .

. . . and time to reconnect with forever friends.

Right: We had lunch with Sandy Houser, a friend from our first days in Florida, and her brother Tom before heading home to Florida.

Finding a Magic Island at the Circus of the Arts

2009-12-16T14:17:00.012-05:00

Left: Laura Vaughan and I co-chaired this year's conference. See that fuzzy boa she's wearing? One of our members knit a boa for every attendee -- in an assortment of funky colors!
Photo by Helene LeBrun, Gainesville Branch, NLAPW

Clowns cavorted, word acrobats wrote guerilla poetry, improv artists created theater, jewelry sprang from the imagination, and music filled the air -- all at the Florida State Association of the National League of American Pen Women's 2009 Biennial Conference, Circus of the Arts!

Held November 19-22 at the Hyatt Regency in Sarasota, the conference allowed members -- professional women writers, artists, and composers of many types -- to connect with colleagues from around the state.

As conference co-chairs, Laura Vaughan, from the Daytona Beach branch, and I, from the Clearwater branch, reached across the state to organize the conference, held in a third location in the county south of where I live.

Talk about a three-ring circus!

The emails flew back and forth, and women from other parts of the state contributed ideas and elbow grease. In the end, it was so worth it.

One of our Clearwater Branch co-president's, Charrie Hazard Moscardini, displays the poster, featuring branch activities, we created for the conference's Parade of Presidents. Photo by Helene LeBrun, Gainesville Branch, NLAPW

We shared ideas about how to market our work, learned how to make our Web sites roar like a lion, and listened to musical compositions ranging from symphonies to songs for children. Our members-only contests drew about 250 entries total, and we distributed about $2,800 in prize money.

So what did I get out of the conference?

Aside from some new friends and great ideas, my most serendipitous moment came Saturday evening when the hotel miscounted the places they set. Instead of setting up six tables of 10, they set up six tables of eight -- needless to say, we had a bit of confusion when our state and national presidents and a dozen or so other members walked in to the dinner and had no seats.

Good humor prevailed, however, and the hotel hurriedly brought in an extra table and squished in other place settings at the already seated tables. But it meant that a few of us found ourselves with unexpected dinner partners.

I joined a table comprised of women from the Sarasota and Southwest Florida branches. On my right, was a woman who, for 18 months, sailed much of the world in a boat built by her husband when he retired. Imagine!

But it was while I was chatting with the woman on my left that I felt my stomach do one of those "Oh my" flip-flops. Readers of this blog will know of my passion for children's literature -- and this woman, Elizabeth Waterston (not the actress), turned out to be co-editor of The Selected Journals of L. M. Montgomery (five volumes).

Yes, THE L. M. Montgomery who wrote Anne of Green Gables.

Waterston also wrote Magic Island, published in 2008, a readers' guide to Montgomery's work.

Oh my, oh my, oh my.

Home Again, Home Again Jiggety-Jig

2009-12-07T16:45:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy week in Lake Woe . . . oops, wrong show. Apologies, Mr. Keillor.

But it has been a busy three weeks in Writer-ville. A statewide conference in Sarasota -- I'll tell you all about it and, yes, that's a mustachioed me! -- a week in North Carolina and all the catching up to do once we returned home.

PLUS our church Christmas program is this coming Sonday, December 13, at 9 and 11 a.m., which means a bulletin and PowerPoint to prepare and all the last-minute costumes, mikes, and props to pull together.

Then there's my day job.

"Are you working?" people ask me. What they mean is, "Have you found a job working for somebody else yet?"

OF COURSE I'M WORKING!!!

I'm a freelance, self-employed writer who works at least 40 hours a week and often more. I write ad copy, I'm in the second round of editing a travel guide to the Tampa Bay area, and I write short stories and articles, some of which get published and paid for. Other work I do is along the lines of promoting myself and my work through involvement with a couple of different organizations, and still other work is volunteer work for our church and elsewhere.

But it's all work and I work hard at what I do. I also happen to love what I do and working.

So . . . the next few posts will be to catch up my faithful readers on my whereabouts and activities as I've been gallavanting, cavorting and otherwise carrying on for the last few weeks. It's been a circus -- and more!

I. Hear. Rockin' in the La-and.

2009-11-15T19:03:00.006-05:00

Those are the words with which we, the Clearwater Chorus, opened our Fall concert this afternoon at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Complete with string bass thumping and fingers snapping.

Rockin' in the land a-and ringin' dem bells. Rockin' Jerusalem, rock-in' Jeru-salem, in Jerusalem a-and ringin' dem bells.

André Thomas, director of choral activities at Florida State University, arranged the version we performed -- but if you search YouTube you'll find half a dozen or more videos of choirs and choruses performing a number of arrangements of this spiritual.

Even the performances of the same arrangement differ from our performance this afternoon.

Art amazes me.

The art teacher maintained the bulletin board outside my office at Sacred Heart School, where I worked for twelve years. She gave groups of students the same materials, the same instructions, the same length of time to work -- and yet the variations in each work posted on that bulletin board made each a unique creation. Some were bold, some were subtle. Some students scrunched the materials into a small space, others used the entire background. Some turned materials on end or used them in unexpected ways. Others were more traditional.

Today's performance was like that, too.

A unique combination of songs: Rockin' Jerusalem, Frostiana (a Randall Thompson arrangement of Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken), Bach's Sicut Locutus Est, Festival of Lights, Mary's Boy Child, Carol of the Bells, I'll Be Home for Christmas, I Get Along Without You, I'll Know, Hernando's Hideaway, and The Most Wonderful Time of the Year -- and that's just what the full chorus sang. An ensemble group performed almost as many songs and soloists sang an additional half dozen or so.

Sung by not quite 100 vocal musicians from north Pinellas County and directed by Bob Drick, those songs will never be sung the exact same way by the same people with the same accompaniment ever again.

You had to be there. In the moment. Experiencing aural art.

Conversation With A Five-Year-Old

2009-10-20T14:33:00.002-04:00

"Guess where I got this, Grandma."

She holds up a toy bulldog she has taken from a little plastic toy dog carrier.

I'm stymied, but I play along.

"WalMart," I guess.

"No. Guess again."

"Target."

"No. It wasn't that kind of store." She opens and closes the plastic carrier door.

I try a different tack.

"You got him from the SPCA -- the dog pound."

"Grandma," she explains carefully, as if I were a two-year-old, "this is a fake dog."

"OK," I counter. "So you got him from the fake dog pound."

She stops and I can see her processing that thought. She looks up quizzically.

"Do they have fake dog pounds?" she asks in all seriousness.

Kids. Gotta love them.

P.S. Turns out she acquired the dog -- a Georgia bulldog -- when they were on vacation in northern Georgia. "At a store near the cabin."

Fit as a Fiddle?

2009-10-19T23:19:00.005-04:00

No, I don't really use 10-lb. weights -- those are courtesy of Lee. I use 4-lb-ers . . . but they don't look as impressive in a photo.

See that logo? "Jazzercize Fit Club."

That top is my reward for having Jazzercized my little -- OK, not so little -- buns at least 150 times since January 1.

More than three times a week, which was my goal.

I started J-cizing almost three years ago and lost about twenty pounds and almost two pant sizes. I've regained ten of the pounds, but am still wearing the smaller size. Not quite as loose, but hey.

The main thing is that I can sit at the computer most of the rest of the day without my legs going on strike and walking out on unfinished work.

Who knew being a writer meant having to negotiate with one's own body parts? My legs' contract stipulates a workout 3-4 times a week and a walk on alternate days, my eyes get periodic breaks from the computer screen (they've also demanded an increased 'Zoom' ratio lately), and one arm sometimes throws a hissy fit until I slip on one sleeve of a flannel shirt . . . think of a blanket thrown over a race horse so it doesn't catch a chill.

Ah well. Things are tough all over, right?

In any case -- anyone out there looking for a good workout? Jazzercize combines aerobics, yoga, Pilates, kickboxing, and free weights and an hour of Contemporary Culture 101, as it's all choreographed to (mostly) pop music.

So maybe I'm not quite fit as a fiddle -- maybe a cello?

Get 'Em While They're Young

2009-09-25T18:31:00.008-04:00

This past Thursday through Saturday, I attended the National Newspaper Association's 123rd Convention in Mobile, Alabama.

Meeting publishers and editors of community newspapers -- mostly weekly papers -- from all parts of the United States reinforced my conviction of just how vital their work is to the overall health of an area.

Thanks to Dr. Jennifer Greer, journalism department chair at the University of Alabama and my master's project advisor, she and I were invited to present the paper and project as part of NNA's Community Building Symposium.

We heard lots of good ideas presented by people doing everything they can to help newspapers find their way to continue serving their communities through a changing economic and technological landscape.

I maintain one key is largely overlooked -- instilling the news habit when kids are young. Common wisdom says you don't wait until your child is an adult before you teach him or her to brush his or her teeth.

The problem is that not much in most newspapers is targeted to kids, is about kids, or is on a child's reading level. Our study showed less than 7% of available news space was targeted to or referred to children age 14 and under -- about 20% of the population.

Material targeted to children is largely puzzles, games, general knowledge articles, and coloring pages.

I applaud any newspaper who does that much. They have invested money and space in those products in an effort to include the youngest members of their communities in the readership of their community publication.

But most of the material we found -- even material targeted directly to children -- was written at a higher-than-9th-grade reading level.

I contend newsrooms can do more -- much more.

Part of a newspaper's responsibility is to help citizens "navigate society," according to Bill Kovach and Ted Rosenstiel, authors of The Elements of Journalism. But how credible is the map if 20% of the population is largely missing from the picture? And how useful is the map to the community's youngest citizens if they can't read it?

Want to know more about how to write real local news -- government meetings, community events, community issues, and more -- from a "kid angle" and in simple language?

Reply to this blog posting or send me an email (aander8130@gmail.com). I'd love to talk to you about scaling down local news without dumbing it down.

Our children (and their parents and teachers) can use all the help they can get in finding their way through their local world.

Kid-sized real toothbrushes, kid-sized real news -- makes sense, yes?

Twenty Years, Twenty Plus Stories

2009-09-18T23:53:00.006-04:00

"Just Kidding," the lead story in this month's issue of Pockets® magazine for children, a publication of Upper Room Ministries, is by yours truly and marks twenty years since my first children's story was published -- also in Pockets®.

I can still feel the envelope in my hand. Not thick with a returned manuscript of several pages, but thin.

I can still remember reading the letter advising me that a story I had submitted to Pockets® magazine for children had been accepted for publication. Sign the enclose contract card, the letter said, return it, and they would send me a check. Not at publication, but now.

I can still remember thinking, "Maybe I really can can be a real writer."

Since then I've had more than two dozen children's stories published, most in Pockets® and a few in other magazines. The first dozen appeared between March 1989 and October 1991, and were written while I worked with my husband in a construction business we owned.

Then we closed the business, I went to work elsewhere full-time, our three sons hit their teens, and our parents' health began to fail. Writing children's stories went by the wayside.

Writing didn't, however. I wrote/edited a weekly newsletter at work for seven years, discovered drama, and wrote vignettes and plays for church programs.

As I neared age 50, I decided it was now or never if I was going to be "a real writer." I quit my job, went back to school, and went back to writing. I sold some of my dramas to CSS Publishing and began writing for a local newspaper. My second round of children's stories began appearing in 2003, exclusively in Pockets®.

Why Pockets®?

Because they take children seriously. They take God seriously. And they take their publication seriously, meaning the stories are well-written, the illustrations and graphics are top-notch, and the magazine is full of thoughtfully planned content.

There is very little that is "cute" in Pockets®. God is not "sweet."

Instead, Pockets® presumes that children face the same questions we all face: Why am I here? How can I get through today without messing up? What's in it for me? Does God really care about me -- even when life doesn't go the way I think it should?

Pockets® presumes children are spiritual creatures, as well, who talk to God and who listen for God to talk to them.

I deliberately targeted Pockets® magazine for children when I started writing children's stories. Over the years, I have written about:

a child who has to repeat fourth grade because of a learning disability
a girl who has her head "in a bait bucket," as her older brother says, because she's so focused on a Saturday fishing trip she misses the things that happen "this day"
a child with a rambunctious dog
a boy who realizes that, if Jesus needed a step-father, maybe it's OK for him to have one, too
an immigrant girl whose brother died during a war
a boy who doesn't know how to pray for his very ill coach
a boy who wonders if God watches TV
a child with an alcoholic mother
a boy falsely accused of stealing something
a child who grumbles that God mustn't want us to have any fun because there are so many rules--things like never cut another kid's hair and never throw food in the cafeteria
a child in a group foster home who wonders whether God knows he's there
a child who thinks "just kidding" is a good enough excuse to cause mischief
a child whose best friend steals something from him

Real children, real world, real God.

It's been a privilege to be a real writer.

Happy New Year!

2009-09-08T12:04:00.003-04:00

This is for all of us who grew up going back to school the day after Labor Day. The First Day of School meant a new school year, a new teacher, new classmates, new books, new room.

Today's kids will mark mid-August as a time of new academic beginnings.

There are other New Year's Days, as well. Later this month, Jews around the world will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, which has come to be known as the Jewish New Year. Christians begin their religious calendar with the first Sunday in Advent, which is either the last Sunday in November or the first Sunday in December.

Then there's the January 1 New Year we inherited from the Romans. Orthodox Christians, who still follow the older, Gregorian calendar, celebrate Orthodox New Year in mid-January. Later in January (sometimes early February), the Chinese New Year and Tet Nguyen Dan, the Feast of the First Morning, or the Vietnamese New Year, are celebrated in Asia.

There's another Jewish New Year in the spring time. Leviticus 23:5 puts Rosh Hashanah in the seventh month of the year. Leviticus 23:34 says Passover is during the first month of the year. One would assume the new year began the first day of the first month; but, as with our academic calendar versus our civil calendar, that's a good example of assumptions being dangerous things.

And, just to keep things interesting, the Islamic New Year will be on December 18 this year (2009), but was on August 2 in 1989 and was on April 17 in 1999. The year 2008 saw two Islamic New Year's Days -- one on January 10 and one on December 29 -- because the Islamic year is 11-12 days shorter than the Julian calendar.

Because of the number of different religions and ethnic groups, India had 30 different calendars until 1957.

Maybe the point is that every day is a new beginning--the first day of the rest of your life, as someone wisely said.

Best Advice I Ever Got: Know When to Quit

2009-08-26T13:33:00.004-04:00

I can’t pinpoint a particular source for this piece of advice. Maybe that’s because it’s one of those maxims applicable to a variety of situations and circumstances.

Eighth grade Home Ec, for instance. I remember making a fruit salad that was held together with whipped cream. In the days before tubs of pre-whipped artificial fluff, that meant beating heavy cream until it thickened and held its shape.

Beat it one turn of the mixer blades too long, however, and the cream separated into butter and whey. No turning back, no turning back. The only thing to do was to start over with a new batch of cream.

Art can be like that, too. It’s tempting to work and rework a painting, a poem, a play before we let go of it. Just another few brushstrokes here, rework a scene there, and it will be perfect, right?

But work it too long and art suffers. Maybe not quite so visibly. But somehow inspiration and technique separate, and we lose the impetus that drives us to share our work. And isn’t sharing our work part of the point of creating it?

Quitting too soon, of course, isn’t good either. Cream not whipped enough returns to its liquid state, resulting in runny fruit salad. Half-baked plots result in stories that fall apart.

Knowing the point at which a creation is ready to be presented to the world is an art in itself. Not too soon, but not too late, instead of being hidden away under the pretext of not being quite finished.

I wrote this for the August/September 2009 "Hoot O' the Owl," the newsletter of the Clearwater Branch of the National League of American Pen Women. Enjoy!

Lazy, hazy days of summer . . .

2009-08-25T15:16:00.003-04:00

. . . are coming to an end. Kinda sorta, anyway.

The autumnal equinox doesn't happen for another almost month, but school started today in the Tampa Bay area. And even though I haven't sent kids off to school in more years than I really want to acknowledge, the start of school is still, to me, the end of summer.

I only hope it's also the end of the "could care less, just leave me alone" lethargy that hits too often this time of year.

Maybe the fact that I'm actually posting a blog entry is a good sign!

Catching Up

2009-08-06T15:46:00.002-04:00

More than a month since my last post and only one -- gentle -- reminder from my editor.

That's because he knew what I'd been working on. Day and night. Night and day. Marathon writing at all hours to get it done.

What is it, you ask? Well . . .

Check out Amazon.com.

I'll get back to Kalends and Ides, I promise.

More On the Ides

2009-06-23T22:13:00.003-04:00

Two friends responded to my musings about the ides of March. One posted her comment to the blog itself -- one comment is recorded below, with the author's permission. Thanks to both for adding to my store of knowledge. Stay tuned for more about Ides, Kalends, and more than one way to mark the passing of time.

"Hi, Anne --

Well, the Ides are only the 15th of the month in March and three other months. I can't recall the other three right now! The Ides are the 13th on other months -- maybe June, too? I think that's confusing enough for anyone, and people can't remember when the Ides are and decide it's not worth it!

I don't know how the Romans were able to follow the calendar, anyway. You dated things by the Kalends (the first of the month), the Nones, and the Ides (which both varied according to the month -- because one varied, the the other varied). Any given day was marked as three days before the Nones, never the day after the Ides. "After" didn't count. Only "before" counted, or the exact day. Actually, the day before was the "pridie," or "day before" the Nones,Ides, or Kalends. Since the Kalends and the Nones happened before the Ides, which fell either the 13th or the 15th, the bulk of the month was counted as 12 days before the Kalends of the NEXT month. Boy, that's confusing.

Did I tell you about the the time in Latin class when our teacher had us write our birthdays in English and translate them into Latin? My birthday really IS the Kalends of September (Sept. 1), and Kalends is literally the only day that's easy to figure out in Latin. The next day she gave the quizzes back with a stern lecture accusing us of cheating: "I can't believe how many people were born ON THE KALENDS," and she particularly glared at me!

I think the answer to your question is that Shakespeare was very brave to know and use the Ides at all! Everyone else was rightfully too chicken!

Thanks --

Julie"

The Ides of June

2009-06-12T01:48:00.003-04:00

I'm curious--why is it we speak only of the ides of March and not of other months?

Did Shakespeare's "Beware the ides of March" forever link "ides" and "March" to the exclusion of other months?

This is my research question for the next few days. Anyone out there know the answer or want to guess?

Oh, the irony of it all

2009-05-14T21:24:00.003-04:00

I just posted this entry to the Journalism Education blog on Poynter.org. Knowing, however, how few of my faithful readers also faithfully follow Poynter--much less the JE blog on Poynter--I reprint it here for your enjoyment and edification.

During the 2005-2006 school year, Florida Department of Education instructed record clerks throughout the state to code the records of transferring students in particular ways.

[Note: When you start reading through the education bill the Legislature has to review/revise each year, then all the procedural instructions that emanate from the legislation, then all the practical instructions not covered under the procedural instructions, you begin to understand why teaching/learning seems to be last on the list. And you realize that people like records clerks--often pulling double duty as receptionists and other aides--are probably undervalued.]

Back to the FDOE coding during 2005-2006. Here's the instruction given regarding courses a student may have taken to fulfill the practical arts requirement that year (http://www.fldoe.org/FASTER/manl0506/appx-i4.htm ):

The Practical Arts graduation requirement may be fulfilled by substituting one of the basic Computer Education (CE) courses on a curriculum equivalency basis. The course numbers that can be used are 0200300-0200380, 0200800-0200810, 0201300-0201360, 0201380 and 0200890. If a substitution is made the Computer Education course should contain a 1 in the Course Flag field. The Practical Arts graduation requirement also may be fulfilled by the completion of the JROTC program 1800300-1800360, or 1801300-1801330, or 1802300-1802330, or 1803300-1803330, or 1804300-1804350. If that substitution is made, the JROTC courses should contain a zero (0) in the Course Flag field. The Practical Arts graduation requirement may also be fulfilled by Journalism 1006300-1006330. If that substitution is made, the Journalism course should contain a dollar sign ($) in the Course Flag field.

You did catch that last sentence, didn't you? :-)

Goodbye April, Hello May

2009-04-29T23:12:00.003-04:00

Where did the month go? Where did the year go? Where did my youth go?

Don't feel you have to answer these rhetorical questions. But if you'd care to wax philosophical with me, go right ahead! Isn't that what blogs are for?

Must be the "lusty month of May" syndrome of which Guenevere sang in the Lerner and Loewe version of Camelot.

All the World's a Stage

2009-04-16T23:32:00.005-04:00

. . . and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his lifetime plays many parts." Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene 7

La-a-dies and gentlemen! This Saturday, I direct your attention to Stage Right, aka R. E. Olds Park's Art-in-the-Park in Oldsmar, Fla., where, at 10 a.m. renowned Safety Harbor ceramic artist Lee Anderson presents Formed and Fired, a display of vessels from his prize-winning Pegasus and Therapeutic Pot Smoking series. Also appearing at Art-in-the-Park will be Safety Harbor writer Anne W. Anderson and her NLAPW cohorts displaying their artistic wares and reading selections from their published writings.

On Center Stage at 1:45 p.m., we present Christian and his Red Sox teammates battling the White Sox at the North Brandon Little League Field. Little brother Jackson leads the cheering from the sidelines, while parents Brian and Kristina keep things moving backstage . . . a stage within a stage, as it were.

At 3:30 p.m. on Stage Right, it's Tyler, Caleb, Raelin, and Devon with their Dancemoves friends tapping, jiving, and hip-hopping, by invitation, at the Festival of States' FamilyFest in St. Petersburg's North Straub Park, all under the watchful eyes of parents Jeremy and Jessica.

But wait! There's more!

On stage at Ruth Eckerd Hall this Sunday at 3 p.m. the 100-voice Clearwater Chorus, including alto Anne Anderson, presents Carmen to Candide: A Treasury of Musical Favorites from Opera to Broadway Musicals. It's gonna be GREAT!

Whatever stage you find yourself on this weekend, may your performance be heartfelt and full of joy.

Let it Rain, Let it Rain, Let it Rain!

2009-03-23T13:00:00.003-04:00

Thanking Him who causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike that it's falling here and now, washing the pollen from the air and the dust from the cars and giving our thirsty land a much-needed drink of water.

Hi, Everyone!

2009-03-18T11:07:00.002-04:00

DATELINE: New York

2009-03-13T15:19:00.005-04:00

Friday, March 13, 2009

I'm writing this from the breakfast room of a Holiday Inn in New York.

No, not Manhattan or even the Bronx. Not New York City at all, although I can say I'm in close proximity to the Big Apple.

I'm in a town called Stony Brook, home of Stony Brook University, where I've been attending a news literacy conference and meeting a marvelously eclectic group of people ranging from a high school librarian from Illinois to a man from Spain who works for the United Nations' media literacy program. Most people who attended are university presidents, college professors and high school teachers. That's because Stony Brook is promoting its News Literacy curriculum and program, hoping to help others to implement it or something similar.

A few industry people were here, most notably Neil Budde, formerly with Wall Street Journal Online and Yahoo! News and now with DailyMe.com; Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News; Ted Koppel, now senior news analyst for NPR and a contributing analyst for BBC America; Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of NPR and former senior vice-president for NYTimes.com; and Alexandra Wallace, senior vice-president of NBC news.

Some news innovators were here giving presentations about NewsTrust.com, Link TV's Know the News project, Poynter's NewsU, and other projects including some that reach around the world.

What was the outcome?

Monday, March 16, 2009

I'm writing this from home sweet home in Pinellas County, Florida.

I'm still sorting through my impressions of last week's news literacy conference, as well as the impressions of a conference in St. Pete the week before called Journalism That Matters.

Aside from all the interesting people I met from all over the world this past two weeks, and aside from how strongly I feel that the news industry has an important function to fulfill in society, I am more and more disturbed by that same news industry's current definitions of 'news,' of 'journalism that matters,' and of 'news literacy.'

Oh no, I hear some of you saying. This sounds like it may be the beginning of another diatribe or sermon. At the least, another scathing letter to Somebody In Charge.

Lovin'

2009-02-23T08:32:00.007-05:00

He loves me . . .

I love him (yes that's a broccoli bouquet) . . .

But God loves each of us bestest of all . . .

Sweet, Subersive Li'l Ol' Me

2009-02-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

A few mornings ago I deliberately and with premeditation defaced a store sign.

Inside the store.

I had gone to the store -- which shall remain nameless -- for my biweekly load of apples and broccoli and assorted other items that disappear from our pantry shelves with methodic regularity. Nutmeg. Steel cut oats. Instant coffee.

Even though I carried a list, I strode up and down each aisle, glancing right and left on the lookout for unexpected bargains. Purposeful. Focused.

Stopped short by a laminated sign crookedly hanging above an empty shelf.

"Due to high demands," the sign read, " we are having manufactured out of stocks."

Hullo, I thought. "Manufactured out of stocks" must mean someone is deliberately manipulating the supply system.

Journalist that I am, my investigative reporter mode began to kick in. What nefarious supplier might be plotting to create panic among an already nervous populace by deliberately manufacturing shortages of groceries?

Or maybe, my more cautious and objective internal editor posited, there has been a resurgence of punishment by confinement in stocks and the demand from those so sentenced has created a market for an escape mechanism. But why apologize? Who would be inconvenienced? Unless the empty shelves meant the manufacturer was hoarding the item to inflate the price desperate prisoners would be willing to pay.

I began making a mental list of people to call, sources to hunt down, Web sites to scrutinize.

Then I read the rest of the sign: "sorry for the inconvenience"

No capitalized 's' at the beginning of the phrase and no period at the end.

Was the sloppy script a ruse to distract me from a more sinister economic scheme?

Puh-leeze. My jaded news-consumer self rolled her eyes. Are you that desperate for your definition of front-page news that you have to see plots and perpetrators under every stone?

With that, jaded news-consumer self marched on, turned the corner and resumed hunting down best-buys.

You can't just ignore that sign! shouted investigative reporter and stalwart editor. At the least, there's an entire educational system to take down: Teachers ripping off taxpayers by taking paychecks without fulfilling their contracts to cram grammar and usage skills into their students! Administrators failing to properly oversee teachers ripping off taxpayers!! Legislators funding administrators who fail to properly oversee teachers ripping off taxpayers!!!

You're right, my jaded news-consumer self agreed, halting our progress toward the produce aisle. Something must be done.

So I pulled out my pad of yellow sticky mini-notes from my purse and scribbled a few words. Then I wheeled my cart around and returned to the scene of the partially mutilated phrase. As I passed the offending sign, I reached out as though grabbing something from the empty shelf and affixed the glaring yellow paper bearing this strident demand:

How about apologizing for the bad writing instead?

So far, they haven't caught me.

La-la-la-LA-A-A-A!

2009-02-03T22:00:00.003-05:00

Gershwin. Rodgers and Hammerstein. Leonard Bernstein. Irving Berlin. Richard and Robert Sherman. Lerner and Loewe. Andrew Lloyd Webber. Verdi. Bizet.

Mah-velous, dah-ling.

Clearwater Community Chorus. April 19, 3 p.m.

Date Night

2009-01-31T20:12:00.002-05:00

When our kids were little and money was tight, date night meant Taco Bell and the dollar movie -- no popcorn. Our outing cost less than the babysitter's fee.

Then the dollar movie theater closed and a stroll through Home Depot took its place. As long as we didn't succumb to the "wish-I-had's," it was still a cheap date.

Tonight we may have found our newest version of date night -- the hot dog combo at Sam's Club ($1.50 -- including little packets of sauerkraut and all the mustard, relish and onions you want to glop on) or the Italian sausage with grilled peppers ($2.16).

Entertainment provided by myriad shoppers lined up next to the dining area, trying to get their full carts past the one receipt checker at the door.

See you there same time next week?

Anne is talking back to her editor.

2009-01-30T10:23:00.004-05:00

My editor tells me I'm not adhering to the spirit of the blog.

That line will sound familiar only to the most devoted of my many readers. That's how I started out my Just A Bloggin' Along post back in September, 2007.

Short, daily posts, he told me then and told me again last night. This whenever-you-feel-like-it stuff has got to stop.

I tell him that's what Facebook is for.

And I remind him that HE doesn't have a Facebook page. So there!

Doesn't matter, he says. Blah-blah-blog it.

Hmmm . . . I think I just did.

White Socks & New Beginnings

2009-01-21T17:44:00.005-05:00

Some years ago, my husband -- whose favorite Christmas decoration is the Bah! HumBUG -- answered the question "What do you want for Christmas?" with "Nothing. If you have to get me something, get me something I can use -- something like white socks."

As I recall, there was more to his response. A bit of a rant, actually, about people buying stupid things that are more about what they think the recipients ought to like rather than what the recipients actually might like and about all the junk we end up with as a result.

If I remember correctly, his sons and I each took his comments to heart. He got a lot of white socks that year. Along with other items that we thought he ought to like.

One of our sons has made that a tradition, every Christmas since giving each of us a six-pack of white socks along with various other goodies.

I've come to look forward each January to pulling on a pair of just-out-of-the-pack, unworn, unstretched, not-yet-dingy white socks. Something about sheathing my calloused, buniony feet in fresh cushy cotton signifies a new beginning. New paths to walk, new trails to hike, new places to explore.

And don't we do that as a nation, too?

Every four years we pull a new fresh administration over 200-some years of walking together as a people.

But -- even if it lasts eight years instead of four, this administration will give way to another one, just as full of hopes and ideals and dreams. We know this administration will wear out eventually, just as the one before it did.

The elastic is going to lose its stretch and the tops will sag around our ankles. Thin spots will appear where our toes and heels have rubbed against our sneakers. Sweat and other stains will dull the pristine white.

For the moment, however, there is change.

There are new socks for new beginnings.

Orange Bowl Half Time

2009-01-01T18:57:00.006-05:00

Watch tonight's Orange Bowl Half-time show and look for 12-year-old Tyler Anderson and four of his DanceMoves Studio colleagues, ages 12-20.

He'll be in the '5' of the '75' . . . dressed in silver costume . . . shouldn't have any trouble spotting him or the others. :-)

2006 photo . . . from a standing position in a not-very-big living room.

My Two Moms

2008-12-31T15:22:00.003-05:00

My two moms: My mother, Dorothy Louise, and my mother-in-law, Mary Katherine, share a laugh at Christmas, 1983.

"A good ol' gal." That's how one relative described my mother-in-law in a note to us shortly after her death just before Christmas. It's an apt description -- one that fits a patchwork quilt of memories I have of her.

But I can't write about my mother-in-law without writing about my own mother. After all, I knew them each for about the same length of time -- I was 45 when my mom died after a gradual, several-years-of-Alzheimer's decline, and my mother-in-law was an integral part of my life for almost 40 years.

Two women born less than six months apart, one in the Chicago suburbs and one in small-town Idaho, brought together by the unlikely -- or so some people thought -- pairing of their offspring.

Mary Katherine (I've seen it at least in one place written 'Kathryn') Wilson, born in September, 1920. Daughter of Viola Elva Boyd and Joseph Jerome Wilson who pretty much eloped because he was Catholic, Canadian, and six years younger than she, and she was a Protestant from Illinois. He was a house painter who settled with his wife in Lake Forest, Illinois where their four children -- two sons, two daughters -- were born. My mother-in-law.

Dorothy Louise Cutting, born in January, 1921. Daughter of Lulu Mae Williams, daughter of a Welsh-born Nevada mining engineer and his wife, and Ralph Philip Cutting, whose parents moved from Danville, Illinois, to the Dakota Territories to Montana where he met Lulu Mae and sat for his pharmacist's license. They settled in Weiser, Idaho, where their three children -- two sons, one who died as a youngster, and one daughter -- were born. My mother.

My mom, a late-in-life bonus baby, was born into a household run by two older women -- her mother and her mother's mother -- who, for whatever reason, didn't think it necessary or didn't have the patience to teach little Dorothy the domestic arts. No cooking, no sewing, no knitting or crocheting, no gardening, no canning or preserving. Instead, she got piano lessons, impeccable manners and a love for literature that probably came from my grandfather. She grew up as the small-town belle of the ball, went off to Whitman College where she majored in English, minored in piano, and filled her diary with notes of parties and outings and dates with half a dozen different young men.

My mother-in-law was taught how to have the house cleaned, the washing and ironing done, and a home-cooked supper on the table. After graduating from high school, she went to beauty school, as it was called back then, and learned hair styling. A professional photograph of Mary K. taken during that era and family talk suggest that she was approached about doing some modeling. If I recall correctly, her father didn't approve the idea. Somewhere along the line, she learned to tap dance and was part of a mass tap dance on the pier in Chicago.

By 1943, my mother, newly graduated from college, was working in Tacoma, Washington. As WWII escalated, however, she went to work for the American Red Cross and was stationed in Washington, D.C.

By 1943, my mother-in-law had met the older brother of her best friend and fallen in love with him. He was a radio operator on a submarine stationed at Norfolk, VA -- I think -- it was wartime, and so she took the train to Washington, D.C., where they were married. No family, no big wedding.

My parents didn't meet until the spring of 1952, after my mother had worked for a time at UC Berkley and lived in a boarding house in San Francisco, then come back to Boise where she rented a room -- people still did that in those days -- from my great-aunt-to-be. My father was the son of a mining lawyer and, a cousin tells me, Idaho "king-maker." My mother's wedding was more of an event.

Writing about my father and my father-in-law is more difficult. Suffice it to say that neither my mother nor my mother-in-law had an easy marriage. But because each had such a strong sense of loyalty, neither spoke much about it to anyone -- for good or bad. That doesn't mean they were saints. Just women coping the best they could under the circumstances, figuring that was part of life.

My mother-in-law and my husband taught me how to cook. My mother taught me how to read. My mother-in-law welcomed me into her air-conditioned home after our first child was born in the middle of a Southern California heat wave. My mother introduced me to music. My mother-in-law made lefse, krub, and rosettes -- foods she had learned to make for her Scandinavian-heritaged husband. My mother made supervisor of secretaries in the Orange County district attorney's office. My mother-in-law nursed her mother through terminal cancer, her father and father-in-law through their final days, and her husband through terminal emphysema. My mother became helpless and I nursed her until, for my family's sake, I had to let others take over.

Most of all, my mother and my mother-in-law became friends. They got together for lunch occasionally and stayed in touch with each other. Neither tried to tell us how to run our lives or raise our kids. Both were there if we needed them.

I probably didn't let either of them know enough how much they had taught me.

So here's to you both, Mom and Mom. I am who I am today because of who you were.

I thank God for each of you.

Judging Books By Their Cupboards

2008-12-29T18:32:00.005-05:00

A cousin with whom I'd lost touch over the years tracked me down some time ago. Out of the blue I got a phone call from him and we caught up with each other. I hadn't seen him since I was about ten and he was thirteen.

"I remember when you were little, your room looked like a library," he said. "Shelves of books -- and you'd read all of them!"

I looked around at the bookshelves lining my living room and office area and thought of the ones in our bedrooms. Not much has changed.

So when I came across this Web page with pictures of the world's 20 most beautiful libraries, I was intrigued.

One, the library at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, I've actually stepped foot in. For a whole hour -- all that our tour itinerary allotted us. Ridiculous.

These magnificent libraries are works of architectural and visual art as well as repositories of the world's records. Incredible beauty encasing incredibly ordered words.

Ah well.

Maybe I'll make my own itinerary someday and include these among the stops. I assure you I'll allow more than an hour at each. Care to join me?

Happy Holy-Days, All Y'all!

2008-12-25T16:25:00.004-05:00

Jesus' birthday is obviously something to crow about -- that was Lee's comment as he unloaded his kiln and put these ceramic roosters in about the only available spot.

I had just finished packing up 50 -- count 'em! -- pots that had been sitting on the living room floor and shelves and there are still more to be packed away. My husband is one of those 'out of sight, out of mind' people, so things tend to stay out until there's no more room.

Not that I'm much better, mind you. But it was getting hard to walk around. And I wanted to put up our Nativity scene and, and, and.

We also put up a Christmas tree this year. First time in a long while. Too busy. No kids at home. No room. What's the point? But, inspiration struck. (Three guesses from where.)

So this is our tree this year. Pottery by Lee. Stained glass star by Pamela J.

Happy Birthday, Jesus! A great miracle did, indeed, happen back in the days of Judah Maccabee. Celebrate!

Mea Culpa

2008-12-17T23:41:00.007-05:00

Last month I wrote about "The Blob and I," an article by Rudy Nelson that appeared in Books and Culture, published by Christianity Today. Nelson was refuting a recently published book by Jeff Sharlet. Here's one paragraph from my November entry:

"And a new book, The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet, called a journalist because he is a contributor to several magazines, including Harper's and Rolling Stone, and creator of a couple of blogs purporting to monitor "America's secret theocrats," suggests that this movie was a fundamentalist Christian group's deliberate attempt to sway public sentiment by making the monster a metaphor for Communism."

Mr. Sharlet left a comment earlier today on that posting, objecting to what he perceived as my questioning the validity of his title of journalist and refuting Nelson's article. I suggest that my thousands of followers read his comments and my response rather than my repeating them here.

However, Mr. Sharlet noted that he is more than just the creator of a couple of blogs and that he does more than just monitor a particular religious group.

In fact, Mr. Sharlet is the creator of two online religious journals: Killing the Buddha, "a religion magazine for people made anxious by churches, people embarrassed to be caught in the "spirituality" section of a bookstore, people both hostile and drawn to talk of God. It is for people who somehow want to be religious, who want to know what it means to know the divine, but for good reasons are not and do not," and The Revealer, "a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion" published by the New York University Center for Religion and Media.

Mr. Sharlet writes about a number of topics in his blog, Call Me Ishmael. I read only the most recently posted one, dated February 3, 2008, about his book, The Family.

I regret not having explored the two sites before writing my post and for not including links to Mr. Sharlet's blog and the other two sites. As I wrote in the previous post: "Ah well. Read the articles for yourself. You decide. That's what a free, unbiased press is all about, right?"

But I should have given you the tools to do so.

And, regardless of my semantical struggles over the title "journalist" and regardless of any other opinions I may hold, Mr. Sharlet is a best-selling author and prolific writer about religion in America. I did him a disservice in suggesting otherwise.

My apologies to him and to you.

Ode to Joy!

2008-12-12T16:17:00.004-05:00

Gotta see this -- be sure to watch it all the way through!

Magnificent Mozart!

2008-11-18T17:03:00.001-05:00

The Three Altos: Pamela Beyersdorf, Anne Anderson, and Patricia Freed

I'll admit it -- I'd never heard the Mozart Requiem before about two months ago.

But when Eckerd College sent an open invitation to alums and others to sing the work as part of the chorus, I was among their first responders. After singing Faure's Requiem, thanks to former Aldersgate UMC choir director Angel Vazquez-Ramos, and after singing Hadyn's Missa Brevis, thanks to Jacksonville State (Ala.) University's Calhoun County Civic Chorale director Dr. Patricia Corbin, I didn't want to miss the opportunity! Also, thanks to both directors, I had the confidence to make the attempt.

Dr. Marion Smith, choral director at Eckerd, arranged the concert, which included selections from Mozart's opera Cosi Fan Tutte, as the finale to Eckerd's 50th anniversary celebration.

Soloists included professional opera singers and Eckerd alums Antonia Brown, Anna Tonna, and Chris Pedro Trakas, as well as Gregory Roman and Lothar Bergeest.

Our accompanists? Members of the Florida Orchestra!

I couldn't hog all this fun to myself, so I asked friends and fellow altos Pam Beyersdorf and Pat Freed if they'd like to sing, too.

Turned out Pat had sung the Requiem in high school -- and still remembered it! Which was a very good thing as it was full of 16th note runs and syncopated entrances and all sorts of tongue-twisting Latin.

It was also magnificent. Look for a recording, if you haven't heard it.

Signs of the (newspaper) times . . .

2008-11-11T13:22:00.006-05:00

The Tampa Tribune reports that, after 40 years of weekly publication, the St. Petersburg edition of The Florida Catholic is changing to an online news service. Six times a year TFC will mail a free magazine, to be called Gathered, to every registered Catholic family in the diocese. The article was not clear whether TFC would continue a print edition serving the rest of its multi-diocese circulation area.

Unfortunately, TFC's last front page and Bishop Lynch's comments both make it sound as though TFC is gone for good. Only in the sixth paragraph does Lynch add the words "as we have known it."

If journalism is to survive as a profession and as an industry, we MUST recognize the difference between "dead and gone," "gone for good," and "in transition." The more we use deadening words, the harder the transition to new, living forms.

BTW, the Tampa Tribune announced 18 more newsroom job cuts including a columnist and editorial editor.

And locally, the Tropical Breeze, Safety Harbor's monthly newspaper, stopped publishing a print edition with its October, 2008, issue.

"As long as the Arctic stays cold"

2008-11-10T19:39:00.004-05:00

Movie trivia time.

Anyone out there remember what movie ended with the line above?

The year was 1958 and movie studios had discovered that horror movies made money. So Valley Forge Films, needing to fill the coffers for other, more esoteric films produced by its parent company, Good News Productions -- although IMDB (Internet Movie Database) lists the film company as Fairway Productions -- came up with this screamer.

Burt Bacharach and Ralph Carmichael each contributed to the music. The lead actor opted to take a $3,000 flat fee instead of $150 + 10% -- and the film ended up grossing millions.

In 2008, the film was nominated for TV Land's Best Movie to Watch at the Drive-In award.

And a new book, The Family: the Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet, called a journalist because he is a contributor to several magazines, including Harper's and Rolling Stone, and creator of a couple of blogs purporting to monitor "America's secret theocrats," suggests that this movie was a fundamentalist Christian group's deliberate attempt to sway public sentiment by making the monster a metaphor for Communism.

There may be, however, just one or two tiny problems having to do with accuracy.

Rudy Nelson, associate professor of English at the University of Albany and "Third Assistant Director in Charge of Daily Script Revision" on the film in question, explores the discrepancies in Sharlet's article in his own article . . . but to put the name of Nelson's article here would give away the title of the movie.

Before I do that, here's what Sharlet emailed Nelson after Nelson emailed Sharlet with what Nelson says was a "low-intensity (and good-natured, I hope) correction of the misinformation, not really expecting a reply."

Nelson says Sharlet "thanks me for my message, offers apologies if he's misunderstood [the movie], and then goes on to point out, with several apt illustrations, that art can take on meanings not intended by its creators."

This is true to a point. As a dramatist and writer of fiction, I'm sometimes startled by what actors/readers take from my work.

But to charge intent is different from art taking on "meanings not intended by its creators."

I wouldn't think Sharlet can have it both ways.

Ah well. Read the articles for yourself. You decide. That's what a free, unbiased press is all about, right?

The actor? Steve McQueen.

The movie? The Blob.

Nelson's article? "The Blob and I" in the most recent issue of Books and Culture, published by Christianity Today.

The last line of the movie? Let's not even go there. At least not in this entry.

Note dated December 17, 2008: Corrected grammar in paragraph six.

Need I.N.F.O.?

2008-10-29T17:14:00.003-04:00

Check out my newest blog page called I.N.F.O. -- Information. News. Facts. Opinion. -- and its debut article "All 13 Presidential Candidates on Florida's Ballot."

Yes, there are more than two candidates on the ballot -- 13 in Florida! -- ranging from an Alaskan representing the Prohibition Party to a Nicaraguan representing the Socialist Workers Party to the ubiquitous Ralph Nader representing, no, not the Green Party -- that's Cynthia McKinney on the first all-woman-of-color ticket -- but the Ecology Party.

Kids Can Vote, Too

2008-10-24T13:27:00.003-04:00

Kids Voting USA volunteers will be manning precincts around the country over the next couple of weeks. Kids of all ages can cast their ballots when their parents cast theirs. (No, the underage "voters" ballots don't count in the official results.)

It's not too late to volunteer. I just found out about the organization on Tuesday (Wednesday? the days are a blur) and I'm signed up as a Kids Voting Tampa Bay poll worker for this Saturday -- as in tomorrow -- and next Saturday at a mid-county election office.

Yesterday I met the director of Kids Voting Tampa Bay at the polling place to get the materials and instructions. A steady stream of early voters filed through the doors and lined the hallways.

This on a Thursday two weeks before Election Day!

Should be fun -- look for an affiliate in your area.

Where It All Began -- Part 2

2008-10-22T12:14:00.005-04:00

One summer, I worked as a checker (cashier) in a grocery store in Pinedale, Wyo.

It was 1972 and my husband and I, with our infant son, had moved to this bustling town of 1,000 people (in the summer) the previous fall. Pinedale is county seat for Sublette County, population 3,000 at that time, and Falers' General Store, which I remember as an IGA but which I can't verify at the moment, was the largest grocery store in the county.

IGA stands for Independent Grocers Association. This one was owned by Harold Faler, a local resident and -- yup -- independent grocer.

Most people, then as now, struggled to make their paychecks stretch. Toward the end of the month, the grocery baskets coming through the check-out counter weren't quite as full. Payment sometimes included lots of coins scrounged from various hiding places.

When the money ran out, people signed the slip.

Coming from the megalopolis of Southern California, I was taken aback by such trust.

Bank loans, I'd heard of. But they were hard to come by and you didn't take one out to cover everyday expenses. You got a second job instead.

Charge cards, I'd heard of. We even had a JC Penney card that my husband had obtained after being steadily employed by an aerospace company for a number of months.

Gas cards, I'd heard of. Shell, Texaco, and others were fairly common by this time.
Cards for each individual company.

But signing a grocery store receipt as a promise to pay it back -- WITHOUT interest -- when the next paycheck arrived? All I can say is that more than one Sublette County family had Harold Faler to thank for not having to go to bed hungry back then.

So what was the difference between Faler's extending credit and today's creditors selling credit?

Stay tuned for Part 3.

Poynter Article Published

2008-10-21T13:27:00.006-04:00

Whew!

Took five months and a ton of perseverance, but the article I began last May during my internship at Poynter is front-page posted!

High School Journalism Classes Threatened in Florida

And you can read one of my fellow Fellows, Jennifer Cox's, take on the article at 78 Picas -- her blog as a UF doctoral student. Way to go, Jen!

Where it all began

2008-10-11T20:16:00.007-04:00

Want to know where this financial mess really started?

Other than Adam and Eve wanting to keep up with the Lucifer Jones's, of course.

Last Sunday's Tampa Tribune ran an article written by Patrick May and originally printed in the San Jose Mercury News.

The article, "50 Years Later, How the Credit Card has changed America," told how ... well, here. Read the first two paragraphs for yourself:

"Fifty years ago this month, Bank of America mass-mailed to nearly every home in Fresno a small piece of plastic called the BankAmericard. The credit card had arrived, a shiny corkscrew for each recipient to unbottle thousands of dollars in spending money that hadn't existed before they ripped open those envelopes.

That first taste went right to Fresno's head. By the second year, cardholders had racked up nearly $60 million in purchases. BankAmericard morphed into the Visa powerhouse. And a half-century later, as America embraced and then exported the concept of buying things with money folks didn't necessarily have, the whole world has gotten tipsy."

Let's see. The U.S. Census estimates Fresno's population in 2007 to be 407,508. In 1960, according to the U.S. Census, Fresno's population was 131,595, having grown from its 1950 population of 91,669 -- a 43.6% change.

If we figure an average of four people per household, that's 32,898 households -- give or take a couple.

In two years -- TWO YEARS -- those 32,898 households had, in May's words "racked up nearly $60 million in purchases." That's about $1,824 per household.

$912 per year.

Doesn't sound so bad, does it? But . . .

In 1958, the average household annual income was only $4,650.

Dr. Seuss for President

2008-09-27T19:05:00.002-04:00

Why not?

The Knotty Problem

Part of the Dr. Seuss for President exhibit currently at the Syd Entel Gallery in Safety Harbor.

("I like your town," my middle grandson said. "It's got neat stuff in it -- not like ugly nothing." This after we toured the one-room exhibit and the adjoining Susan Benjamin art glass gallery, walked out onto the local pier, played by the marina fountain with bronze birds in flight, visited the massive Baranoff live oak and an artwork of bronze children playing in a mosaic stream -- all within three blocks of each other.)

Back to Dr. Seuss, the nom de plume of Theodore Geisel who started his career as a political cartoonist.

Not coming to your area? Click on the link to the Dr. Suess Art Web site so you can browse for yourself. Sorry -- no pier or glass gallery on the Web site. You'll just have to come and visit sometime!

Every Living Thing . . .

2008-09-22T12:50:00.004-04:00

...is the title of one of James Herriot's many books about his lifetime doctoring farm animals and pets in Yorkshire, England.

I came across this paperback while cleaning out cupboards and closets this past week. I don't remember how it got in the laundry basket full of yard goods -- and, no, that doesn't mean potting soil, cultivators, and petunias -- shoved in the back of my clothes closet waiting for desire and opportunity to merge under the needle of my sewing machine . . . which is shoved under the bottom shelf of a bathroom closet.

Nor do I remember how I acquired Herriot's book. No matter.

Suffice it to say not as many closets got cleaned out as intended. Instead I savored Herriot's stories of colicky horses and persnickety cats, of staid farmers and eccentric assistants.

Mainly I marveled at how neatly Herriot told his stories. Swift incision inserting the reader immediately into the scene, exploratory rambles among the inner relationships between man and beast, then out the same way as in, stitched neatly closed with a pithy observation or tug-at-your-heart thought.

You say you've already read them?

Oh, go ahead. Read them again. Some things are just as good the second time around.

High School Journalism Standards

2008-09-17T22:07:00.004-04:00

Censorship, under the euphemism "prior review," may be the most blatant threat to high school journalism programs. The most insidious threat, however, may be how journalism courses are classified by state departments of education.

Here are a couple of entries I posted recently to the Poynter Institute of Media Studies' Journalism Education blog. Poynter, a non-profit organization that owns the St. Petersburg Times, is a resource center for journalists.

Florida J Classes May Lose Practical Art Credit Status

Indiana J Programs Get Major Boost

Whaddaya Think?

2008-09-11T00:18:00.005-04:00

Check out the poll to the right ... and then click on the 'Subscribe To' logo to be notified when I update Just The Write Touch.

Don't miss a posting!

Coming Soon . . .

2008-08-22T12:03:00.001-04:00

. . . a new look, a new direction.

Coming in September!

Bye-Bye BAMA BLOG

2008-08-15T11:07:00.003-04:00

After today, it's officially over.

Today I can still say I AM a Knight Fellow in Community Journalism at the University of Alabama and The Anniston Star.

Tomorrow the verb changes to WAS. Grades have been posted (4.0, thank you very much)and the diploma gets mailed next month.

Already I've been shut out of the UA electronic library system. That hurt.

Yes, I left Alabama almost three weeks ago. Turned in the final version of my master's project (Title: Community Journalism and the Community's Youngest Readers: A Study to Determine the Extent of Newspaper Content Directed toward Readers in Grades 2 through 8) on July 24, packed up, shipped off, yard-saled, and gave away the rest on the 25th & 26th, and left on July 27. Took a side trip to North Carolina and arrived home on August 3.

It was a really good year.

But now it's over.

Today's StoryPeople story reads:

I used to wait for a sign, she said, before I did anything. Then one night I had a dream & an angel in black tights came to me & said, you can start any time now, & then I asked is this a sign? & the angel started laughing & I woke up. Now, I think the whole world is filled with signs, but if there's no laughter, I know they're not for me.

So now I'm listening for laughter, ready to start any time now.

Anyone need a journalist out there?

All Over But the Shoutin'

2008-08-04T23:05:00.006-04:00

Oh, wait. Maybe I shouldn't use that for the title of this blog. It is, after all, the title of Rick Bragg's book.

But then titles can't be copyrighted, so technically I'm OK.

And it's a really good title, one that I'm not sure I really understood until now. Because now it really is all over ... but the shoutin' on August 9 when Pomp and Circumstance plays for the gazillionth time and capped and gowned scholars parade past capped and gowned pedagogues and pay homage to Wisdom.

Or something.

I, however, shall participate in spirit only.

So what did I learn this past year?

I learned that trying to define the profession? craft? art? trade? of journalism is like trying to define the boundaries of the oceans. Much depends on the tides, the shifting sands, and whether you're on a boat or on shore.

There are very good reasons for not describing too precisely who is and who is not a journalist -- the Associated Press lists only a high school diploma in its requirements for reporters -- and there are equally compelling concerns about an 'anything goes' rumor-mongering that passes for journalism when the definition becomes too fuzzy.

I learned that most news organizations are three-headed monsters pulling in separate directions, mainly because the business? industry? service? manufacture? of journalism is equally muddled. Financial accounting in the world of journalism is neither strictly based on goods produced nor on services provided. Instead, it's a hybrid. And if you talk to employees in any of the three separate, but supposedly equal (yeah, right) departments -- newsroom, advertising, circulation -- you'll hear three different visions for the company.

I Left My Heart....

2008-07-28T17:11:00.008-04:00

Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Fransisco among cobblestoned hills and cable cars. I left mine -- at least a piece of it -- between Cheaha and Piedmont among the kudzu-covered foothills of Calhoun County, Alabama. In particular, in Anniston.

The last paper has been written and turned in. The last presentation has been given. The last, the last, the last.

It's been more than a good year. It's been a gift.

I mean, how can you not have a good year when you've been given an all-expenses paid master's degree?

Oh sure, we paid in brain cramps from more than a few long nights reading academic studies and then writing, writing, writing.

But, all in all, it was a marvelous gift.

I gained new respect for journalists and academics alike. I learned to navigate a new community quickly. I made new friends.

And then there was the music.

From being stretched by singing with the Civic Chorale to learning shape-note music singing ... and the sung liturgy of the church I attended and learning that William Levi Dawson was actually from Anniston -- a second marvelous gift.

Now it's over.

Now the Knight Fellows go their separate ways.

Now I move on.

I don't know what the future holds. But I know Who holds the future.

And that it's about the Giver more than the gifts.

Colonial Independence Day

2008-07-04T18:33:00.010-04:00

George Washington used this chair for nearly three months of the Federal Convention's continuous sessions. James Madison reported Benjamin Franklin saying, "I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I... know that it is a rising...sun."
Made by John Folwell in 1779
Mahogany, height: 153.5 cm, width: 77.5 cm, depth: 58.2 cm
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA
Information and picture courtesy of ushistory.org

Before The Star Spangled Banner's "Land of the free and the home of the brave," written during the war of 1812.

Long before America the Beautiful's "spacious skies" and "amber waves of grain," written in 1895.

Even longer before Grand Old Flag and Yankee Doodle Dandy had us waving straw hats and soft-shoeing our patriotic sentiment.

Before all of those, there was this, written most likely in three-part, shape-noted harmony -- four parts apparently a more recent concession to changing times. And I sang this today with a group of a hundred or so sacred harp singers of all ages -- probably age 7 to age 90 -- from around the country who had come to Anniston, Alabama for two weeks of singing camp.

They opened the singing to the public today -- four hours of one-after-another a cappella songs resounding throughout a wooden-floored church much the way they must have sounded 200 and more years ago.

Including this paean to the young America -- remember that a half-sun was carved on the chair George Washington used during the Constitutional Convention in 1787 -- generally accepted as the turning point in the young country's development. Haven't quite figured out the 'Science' part, but it was, after all, the Age of Reason and humanism is not a new invention.

Didn't notice if the two singers attending from Great Britain
joined in the singing on this one . . .

Ode on Science
by Jezaniah Sumner, 1798

The morning sun shines from the east,
And spreads his glories to the west,
All nations with his beams are blest,
Where’er the radiant light appears.

So science spreads her lucid ray
O’er lands which long in darkness lay:
She visits fair Columbia,
And sets her sons among the stars.

Fair freedom her attendant waits,
To bless the portals of her gates,
To crown the young and rising states
With laurels of immortal day:

The British yoke, the Gallic chain,
Was urged upon our necks in vain,
All haughty tyrants we disdain,
And shout, “Long live America.”

from: http://fasola.org/indexes/1991/?p=242

For Posterity

2008-07-01T16:48:00.004-04:00

For some reason, this article took some tracking down in The Anniston Star's archives. As it's one of the most extensive I did this past year, I wanted to link it to my blog.

Calhoun County overrun with strays -- from the October 15, 2007 Anniston Star.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

2008-06-08T15:11:00.011-04:00

"Once upon a time, there was a community nestled against the foothills of the mountains of northeastern Alabama.

The community had a long and varied history.

It had music and art. It had hiking and biking trails.

What it didn't have was a lot of high-paying jobs.

It used to have Industry. But then times changed, and the foundries and mills and factories shut down and moved to a place called Out Source."

So begins my editorial series, published in today's Anniston Star.

What you won't see reading it online is the layout. Full front page of the Insight section -- wow! Pardon me for a moment while I turn a cartwheel or two -- figuratively speaking, of course.

This wasn't just an assignment to me. As I've spent the greater part of a year here, I've heard wistfulness in people's voices ... a yearning that Anniston, and many of its surrounding communities, could somehow regain its former "Model City" status. I've heard more about the area's problems than its potential.

That's not to say there aren't problems. But every community, every person, has problems. You can let them consume your life, or you can develop your assets and trust that the problems get resolved in the process. Mostly they do.

Calhoun County, with Anniston as its heart, has so many assets on which to draw. Maybe they've just been taken for granted -- like heirloom silver service being used for everyday breakfast but never being polished up and used to serve company. Maybe my outsider's eyes will help this area see that "what might be" might be even better than what once was.

I thought of this as my gift to a community about which I've grown to care a great deal. They've helped me make a home away from home, and I'm grateful.

Spelling Bee

2008-06-05T22:34:00.003-04:00

From the LaQuinta motel in Tuscaloosa after a long day of tedious coding Alabama newspapers for children's content. But there's a TV in my room ... and those of you who have been following my BAMA BLOG/M'LADY'S M'LOG know that I don't have a TV set in Anniston. So ...

Kudos to ESPN for broadcasting the 2008 Scripps Spelling Bee -- loved the play-by-play! The kids amazed me ... I'd never heard of any of the words in the final round.

Pardon me while I go read my dictionary.

Spring Session

2008-06-01T14:29:00.004-04:00

After loading us with theory and arming us with methodologies, the creators of this course launched us into the field with a short-term assignment: Produce a piece of community journalism while meeting the needs of your host news organization.

In my case, the host organization was the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. This non-profit organization that teaches journalists around the world how to be better journalists, owns the St. Petersburg Times ... and also Tampa Bay Newspapers, for whom I wrote.

They were gracious hosts indeed -- gave me my own office with telephone, Internet access and use of the copy & fax machines and of their extensive library. Provided coffee and an assortment of teas. Even a meal or two or three.

More important, they provided friendly interest, probing questions and expert guidance as I explored elementary, middle, and high school newsrooms in the area. My focus, I thought, was going to be on how the high school programs were changing. It ended up being slightly different, and that is a subject for a different post.

In the meantime, here are two videos I produced at two of the high schools I visited. Hillsborough High in Tampa is home to The Red & Black, Florida's oldest high school newspaper, first published in 1899. At Palm Harbor University High School in Pinellas County, publishers of The Eye, I focused on yearbook journalism.

Second Term is History

2008-06-01T00:15:00.007-04:00

So is the interim Spring term.

But I'll get to that in a separate posting.

First, I must beg pardon of all my faithful followers of the BAMA BLOG (or M'Lady's M'Log). I promised to keep you apprised of my academic adventures in Anniston, Alabama.

Instead I have digressed.

I've chatted about "chemical weapons incident" sirens and about singing with the Calhoun County Civic Chorale. I've bragged on my husband's pottery and have shared my observations on revival in Obama land ... and have given equal time to the Snoopy candidate.

Granted, I have shared some of my 'Grand Rounds in Community Journalism' videos. Viewers learned how to bake lebkuchen and experienced the beauty of Anniston awakening to Spring. And I posted an editorial about the proper punctuation of President's Day ... er, Presidents' Day ... I think.

Weighty stuff, right? For this I move 563 miles away and leave my family and friends for a year?? This is graduate school???

Allow me to make amends.

Besides Grand Rounds, which is a one-credit lab class, we studied Editorial Leadership, Media Management, and Research Methods. A slightly lighter load than last term's five classes, but we also were expected to begin work on our individual projects due later this summer. Here's a recap of each course:

Editorial Leadership -- Lots of writing in this one beginning with a lengthy op-ed column (mine was on the negative personal savings rate in the U.S.), several unsigned editorial board editorials (everything from the aforementioned punctuation piece to one on abortion), a letter to the editor (on who's really to blame for pharmaceuticals entering our water supply), several personal columns (observations about life), several reviews (the play Copenhagen, a choral concert, a middle school entrance, and Jon Stewart's America: The Book), and a 5-part editorial series written after we had organized, publicized, and held a public forum (decent attendance ... about 25 people showed up and we had a good discussion). This class gets the award for most readable textbooks -- four of them.

Media Management -- Lots of field trips in this class, both in-house -- think delivering papers at 3 a.m. to learn about independently contracted carriers -- and as far afield as Montgomery. We visited the headquarters for Southern Living (sweet, and not just as in cookies) and the offices of the Daily Home (circulation about 2500, although they have several publications). We learned about every aspect of the news business -- accounting, production, advertising, broadcasting, radio, online -- and attended legislative sessions and visited with AP reporters. Only two writing assignments for this course. Here's the intro to my final paper:

Turkeys Can Fly and Other Disastrous Circulation Assumptions

Mention the Great Thanksgiving Day Turkey Drop and those of a certain age immediately think WKRP in Cincinnati, the 1978-1982 CBS sit-com set at a struggling radio station. The turkey giveaway, station manager Arthur Carlson’s idea, involved dropping live turkeys from a helicopter to patrons at a shopping center. Needless to say, the event was a disaster – both for the turkeys and for the shoppers.

“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly,” Carlson said later in the show.

As God is our witness, we in the newspaper industry have tended to think newspapers can sell themselves.

“We’ve depended on the fact that we put this product out 365 days a year and that should be enough,” said Dennis Dunn, circulation director at The Anniston Star, a 30,000 circulation Consolidated Publishing daily in northeastern Alabama. “We’ve been a little naïve in that our attitude has been, ‘We’re ‘The Newspaper’ and people should beg to buy us.’”

Research Methods -- Actual exams in this class -- ones where we had to memorize terms like prestige bias, intercoder reliability, cohort analysis and explain how they related to other terms. Lots of analyzing of experiments as to whether they were reliable and/or valid. As a class we did a content analysis of 200+ newspaper Web sites to determine how many attempted to convey newsroom ethics policies to readers. And our final assignment was a paper/presentation proposing our master's project. Appropriately researched, cited and with every step laid out before the committee, of course. Mine is titled:

Community Journalism and the Community’s Youngest Readers:
A Study to Determine the Extent of Newspaper Content
Directed toward Readers in Grades 2 through 8

There you have it.

Had it.

It's history now.

Growing Up Into Myself

2008-05-05T13:47:00.001-04:00

Dressing up now includes ... LIPSTICK!

And I'm wearing 2" heels today.

Just finished a rereading of Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie, and a first reading of the recently written sequel, Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaughrean (2006).

Does this mean I'm growing up after all?

The Fat Lady Has Sung

2008-05-02T12:08:00.010-04:00

That my last post was April 9 tells a bit about what life has been the past three weeks.

C-R-A-Z-Y!!!

But...the papers and presentations are finished. No more near-drowning in a deluge of reading material about such dead-weight subjects as statistical regression and market demographics. No more all-nighters at the Star with Sandra, Cassandra, Andrea and Christina putting the finishing touches on our term papers. (Yes, at my age -- can you imagine?!) No more field trips to Montgomery, Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Talladega -- fascinating bright spots in our journey that I haven't written enough about.

And my gig with the Calhoun County Civic Chorale has come to an end.

Directed by Dr. Patricia Corbin, and part of Jacksonville State University's music department, the Chorale is comprised of JSU music students, for whom this is an actual credit-earning class, and anyone from the community who wants to sing.

I discovered the CCCC last fall when I was casting about for something to do with my free time. Choir in one form or another has been part of my life since I was old enough to read, but I wasn't ready to join a church here. That's another story I haven't told. Suffice it to say, I figured JSU, as do most colleges, would probably have a civic group ... and I was right.

They even have an Opera Theater, folks, which says a whole lot about the strength of their music program.

So Monday evenings for most of this past academic year have been spent ten miles north of Anniston in JSU's music building with a mixture of ages (my guess is 19 to early 70s) and races and working backgrounds (can't even assume all are professionals in the strictest sense of the word).

For our December concert we learned Haydn's Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo (yes, in Latin), Ralph Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on Christmas Carols, Mendelssohn's There Shall a Star Come out of Jacob, an a cappella arrangement of I Saw Three Ships, and an arrangement of In the Bleak Midwinter that uses a melody I've never heard before.

Wonderful selection and challenging.

I didn't know what challenging was. Those, at least, were somewhat familiar territory.

This spring's concert was loosely dedicated to thoughts of "love lost, love found" and was comprised of the most difficult and eclectic works I've done. We started with Londonderry Air (if you don't distinguish the words carefully it sounds as though you're singing about the queen's bum ... to use the British term), a Brahms work, Nanie (based on a Schiller poem), three madrigals based on texts from Shakespeare's plays, Erev Shel Sho Shanim (sung in Hebrew, text from Song of Solomon), Pinkham's Wedding Cantata (text also from Song of Solomon), Laughing Song (based on a William Blake poem), and If Music Be the Food of Love (also adapted from Shakespeare).

I need to write more about Nanie.

And also about the song we sang after it called Homeward Bound. But I think I'll save both for separate entries.

Suffice it to say, the no-longer-lithe lady has sung. This term is all but over.

Spring in Anniston, AL

2008-04-10T00:51:00.005-04:00

Did this for one of my classes -- some of the quality is lost in posting to the Web, but you'll get the idea. Enjoy!

P.S. The answer to the quiz/poll about Lee's pottery titled "Pegasus Triad?" The name refers to the use of horsehair and feathers in creating the design -- Pegasus being the mythical winged horse and there being three pots in his display.

April in Anniston -- and Say It Ain't So

2008-04-03T23:35:00.005-04:00

Birds (look right to see fine feathered fellow outside my door the other day) and bees ... and first lawn-mowing of the season occurred yesterday.

It's April in Anniston, which means only four more months remain of this program. And when I think of the work I have to do in that four months -- yikes!

Prize-Winning Pottery

2008-03-28T00:40:00.004-04:00

Lee won second place in the student division of the Students - Members - Faculty Show at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center! Cash prize ... and people showed up at his raku workshop the next day.

The trio was titled Pegasus Triad -- not sure if the judges got it, so I thought I'd see how many of my faithful readers get it. Quiz/Poll is on the right side. I'll post the correct answer in a week or so.

Spring Break

2008-03-19T22:47:00.003-04:00

Haven't hit the beaches yet, but I'm in Florida over spring break.

No, I'm not partying in some hotel on Clearwater Beach or Treasure Island. No chug contests at wherever the current hot spot is.

I'm home in Safety Harbor. Taking one set of grandkids to the park and going to see another set dance at the Pow Wow Festival. Fixing corned beef and cabbage and watching my hubby smoke pot.

Ooops.

That didn't sound right. How about watching him raku fire some of his pottery, which involves placing the red-hot pots into trash cans filled with shredded newspaper which ignites the paper. Then you cap the can with the lid which creates smoke ... hence the smoking pot.

'Bout as wild as it gets around here. Even on spring break. Which, by the way, is a first for me.

And I promise: No wet t-shirt contests either.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

2008-03-17T23:35:00.003-04:00

'Tis the season to be jolly well into getting the tax forms filled out and sent off to the IRS.

So I'm compiling and posting and figuring it all up. And sorting through bills and papers so everything for 2007 gets put away neat and tidy for posterity.

Part of the process is putting all my published or produced writing for the year into a binder. And this year of 2007, I've discovered, was a bit remarkable for me as my work was published in four different genres and in six different publications, including three different newspapers, a children's magazine (short story), a literary review (poem), and an anthology(worship services). Also did some advertising copy writing and learned to write historical research -- a different style than regular academic work, which I also did this year.

I can remember reading a "How to Be a Writer" kind of book in the Pinedale, Wyo., library when I was barely 20 and thinking, "I can do this." I can remember taking a Journalism class and a Literary Magazine Production class at St. Petersburg Junior College's Clearwater Campus a few years later and thinking, "I'd love to do this."

But making a living at it was another matter -- or at least I thought it was -- and so instead of making books I kept them (the financial kind) and, and, and.

And kept writing a little bit at a time. School newsletters. Letters to church vestries and politicos and writers I disagreed with ("Not another letter," my husband would say. "I feel sorry for whoever's getting this one." They were nice. But they were forceful and to the point.) Church skits and plays.

Until here I am 30 years later getting paid to go to school and write!

"I alone know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "Plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 ... a combination of Today's English Good News Translation and the New King James Version.

Amazing.

Testing...

2008-03-05T21:59:00.005-05:00

Most of us have had the experience of listening to the radio and having the final strains of a Brahms lullaby or a Metallica serenade segue into the SQWONK! SQWONK! SQWONK! of the Emergency Broadcasting System.

We sit up a little straighter -- but not much because, after all, has there ever really been an emergency when it was used? Mostly we just wait, in varying states of impatience, for the announcer's no-nonsense voice telling us it was "only a test."

Something of that nature took place today in Anniston.

The emergency sirens (or si-REENS, as one new friend says in Alabamese) went off and the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency conducted a simulated "chemical weapons incident" at the Anniston Army Depot. That's where workers are systematically destroying part of the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons -- some dating back almost half a century.

If this were an actual emergency, as the announcer would say, you probably would not be reading this. That's because I haven't a clue as to what I'm supposed to do. Hold my breath and tape up the doors and windows, I think.

And tune to the emergency broadcasting frequency.

And hope they had gotten their doors and windows taped.

Editorial Leadership

2008-02-23T19:14:00.003-05:00

That's the name of one of our classes this term. And, since some of my many fans have asked for samples of my writing -- OK, OK, in my dreams they have -- here's a recent assignment:

Punctuate This

No wonder we can’t figure out complicated problems like health care and Social Security. We can’t even figure out how to punctuate Presidents Day.

Northerners of a certain age remember making stovepipe hats out of black construction paper near February 12, eating cherry pie on February 22 and having two days of no school.

Pity our children and grandchildren. The Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968 moved Washington’s Birthday, as it had been called since 1885, to the third Monday in February. One holiday instead of two.

Side note: George Washington might not have minded the switch. A change in calendar systems during his lifetime shifted his birthday from February 11 to February 22.

The 1968 bill also proposed renaming the holiday “Presidents’ Day” (apostrophe after the ‘s’) to honor both Washington and Lincoln. But that part of the bill got lost, and it wasn’t reinserted in 1971 when the Uniform Monday Holiday Act was passed.

President Nixon proclaimed it “Presidents’ Day” in 1971, in honor of all presidents, but a presidential proclamation is not the same as an executive order.

Technically, we celebrate one president’s birthday (apostrophe before the ‘s’) because the holiday is still listed in Federal statutes as Washington’s Birthday. State statutes are another matter.

In Alabama, for instance, on the third Monday in February we officially celebrate George Washington’s birthday and Thomas Jefferson’s birthday – although Jefferson was born in April. Alabama Department of Archives and History officials were stumped as to why we honor Jefferson, saying only that it “slipped into the code” in 1907.

“Presidents Day” (no apostrophe) has become the officially preferred designation, in an attempt to honor all presidents, even though “President’s Day” is the p.c. – punctuationally correct – version and even though the Chicago Manual of Style and many dictionaries prefer “Presidents’ Day.”

And even though, officially, it’s still just Washington’s Birthday.

With the latest round of presidential candidates riding into their respective Jerusalems so convention delegates can raise the palm branches and shout ‘Hosanna!’ we should acknowledge the peculiar combination of destiny and drive that has drawn fewer than 50 people – very different in parentage, in education, in religion, in character, in conviction of what was best for this country – to occupy its highest office.

We should also acknowledge that we among the nations of the earth can most truly say to our children that any of them might grow up to be President of the United States.
We should not take either of those peculiarities for granted, regardless of whether we agree with the current occupant of the office or not.

It’s time to make it official. Presidents Day.

No apostrophe. Honoring our past. Keeping faith with our future.

If we can do that, maybe there’s hope for resolving health care and Social Security.

Gray Inside and Out

2008-02-23T19:07:00.004-05:00

Weather outside: Overcast all day long.

Weather inside: Not much brighter.

This news from Anniston brought to you courtesy of KFCJ.

For My Far Away Sweetie

2008-02-13T22:57:00.003-05:00

I did this cooking video for one of our classes. Also did a man-on-the-street -- or,in this case, people-in-the-park -- video which The Star tried to upload it to its site in time for Valentine's Day, but it kept hanging up at the third frame. C'est la vie.

Videos that run on the Star's site include an upfront ad -- currently the ad is for a local Cadillac dealership.

Ads, of course, being how a news organization keeps the bills and the staff paid. The Internet has changed how businesses advertise, so one of the current issues is how to make the Web site draw revenue in ways that print used to. Voila!

And, because I say the recipe is available on 'our' Web site, here it is:

1 c. honey warmed over low heat
3 c. flour mixed with 1/2 tsp. each of baking soda and salt, plus 1 tsp. each of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves
1/2 c. finely chopped walnuts
8 oz. finely chopped candied fruit -- Add the fruit and nuts to the flour mixture
1 egg and 3/4 c. brown sugar mixed together in a large bowl
Add 2 tsp. lemon peel and 1 Tbsp. lemon or lime juice and the honey
Mix in the flour-fruit-nut mixture

Roll on floured board and cut into shapes OR spread in a lightly greased 15"x10" cookie sheet. Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for about 12 min. or until light brown. Cool.

Glaze with 1 c. powdered sugar mixed with 3 Tbsp. water (for a thicker frosting increase powdered sugar to 2 c. and add a few more drops of water.)

Store in an airtight container. The cookies harden when they cool, but the frosting softens them again. The longer these sit, the better they taste. Enjoy!

Typicus Touri

2008-02-12T21:16:00.004-05:00

I are one. Or at least I were one.

Two weekends ago, Sandra Martinez and I drove to Panama City Beach, Fla., for the American Journalism Historians Association's Southeastern Symposium. Jennifer and Jeremy Cox, fellow Fellows, drove down separately ... er, together, but in a separate car. Sandra came to cheer on the three of us as we presented papers we had done in our Media History class for Dr. Julie Williams, professor of Media History at Samford University in Birmingham and our professor through UA.

The conference was fun and informative. Feminist and ethnic perspectives on historic media tended to predominate; our papers were unique in that regard: Jen's focused on how the media reported the deaths of two blonde bombshells 70-some years apart, Jeremy's was a look at sports journalism focusing on the controversy the last time the Cubse. won the World Series, and mine told of the beginnings of medical journalism.

We walked the beaches and bought trinkets and met new friends. On the way home, we stopped in DeFuniak Springs, Fla, which was just winding up their 13th Annual Assembly at the Florida Chautauqua Center. What an event! Civil War/War of Northern Aggression reenactors, art shows, horse & carriage rides, music and scholarly speakers from various disciplines. What a great idea! Go to www.Florida-Chautauqua-Center.org for more info.

But pictures are more fun, so here you are:

Equal Beagle Time . . .

2008-02-03T21:55:00.000-05:00

In the interest of providing equal time, and because of a comment made by someone, enjoy the video below. Mike Huckabee also spoke in Birmingham last weekend. Huckabee spoke on Saturday to a crowd of @ 1,900 at Samford College. Obama spoke on Sonday to a crowd of somewhere between 8,600 (arena capacity and I saw a few empty seats although others said people were left standing outside) and 11,000 (campaign manager's words) at Bartow Arena on the UAB campus.

For a sense of what each said that weekend, go to www.annistonstar.com and scroll down to the videos. Compare and contrast style and content, etc.

The comment? "I assume that because you went to see Obama on Sunday, that's where your persuasions lie."

Puh-leeze. Shouldn't we be listening to as many candidates as possible? Anyway, in the interest of equal time (in terms of Republicans vs. Democrats -- remind me again what those terms mean?), I offer this video found on YouTube.

Revival in Obama Land

2008-01-31T10:23:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd be missing church this past Sonday.

Fellow Fellow Cassandra Mickens had e-mailed us info about presidential hopeful Barack Obama speaking in Birmingham with a noon start-time, which meant leaving Anniston no later than 10:30 or so. Great! I thought. In all my 50-something years, I've never heard a president or candidate speak in person--although I missed George W. Bush's unscheduled stop in our little town of Safety Harbor because I turned right instead of left one day. But that's another story.

Obama's visit sounded like the perfect opportunity to cross an item off of my bucket list. Not that I have one, and if I did I'm not sure this would actually qualify, but you know what I mean.

So other fellow Fellow Jeremy Cox and I drove over. We had gotten a last-minute e-mail saying that while the doors opened at noon, Obama wasn't actually speaking until 2. We almost decided to leave closer to noon, but it's a good thing we didn't. We parked just a couple of blocks from UAB's Bartow Arena and then stood in line for almost an hour.

We chatted with folks around us -- the middle-class black family behind us said they were undecided at this point. The man, who was close to my age, said the only thing he cared about was that his Social Security would be there when it was time for him to retire. The woman spoke about Kerry having a "heart" like Jimmy Carter's, so she didn't think he'd ever get elected.

Finally got in, and found decent seats facing, but at the farthest point from, the stage. Cassandra, on the other hand, arrived right at 2 and slipped in with no line, but had to hike up to the uppermost seats on the side.

Then the service began.

Welcomed by the pastor emeritus of a Birmingham church (1st UMC, I believe). Confession of sins (he called himself a "recovering racist") followed by an opening prayer to the "God of all the spirits of all flesh" that He would turn the "hearts of all the races and families of this earth toward Yourself" and "unite us in the bond of global peace," that He would "transform our political system and bring real glory to Your name. Amen."

Supporters started the "O-ba-ma" chant and then a mixed choir from area churches got the crowd clapping and urged them to "lift up your hands and praise."

We lift our hands and give You praise for the rest of our days.... Somebody say 'Change!' Change! We can believe in! We can believe in! Yes, Lord, for the rest of our days. C'mon, clap your hands! Like the dew in the morning, gently rest upon our hearts... Lord, I lift Your name on high Lord, I love to sing Your praises I'm so glad You're in my life I'm so glad You came to save us . . . We're gonna have some real church, some Alabama church Somebody make some noise in this place! All of my problems I put it all in His hands . . .

There were testimonies from a couple of young college types in jeans and t-shirts (he wore a jacket over his, she didn't). "Change begins with each of us."

There was an altar call, 21st century techie style. "Everybody bring out your cell phones and text in 62262" which would tell them what your cell phone number was so they could call it with updates and reminders.

There was an offering requested. "Four hours is a small price to pay for your future, the future of this country."

With the lights down low except for a spotlight on the "Change We Can Believe In" banner and the flashes of cameras and cell-phone cameras, He descended from heaven . . . oops . . . wrong savior. Although it looked like he was going to descend. Right under the CWCBI banner were steps leading from the seating area and, from my vantage point, it looked like Obama would make his entrance down those steps to the stage. Instead, he came in mortal-style from the side.

"There's a new South, ladies and gentlemen. And it's not a new South waiting to be born. To the consternation of some, it's done messed around and got here already."

Jeremy tells me it was his boiler-plate speech, so you've probably heard it before. You can read Jeremy's take on it and see some more photos and actually hear a bit of Obama's speech at his blog: The Fourth Estater. Get a "20-something word-herder's" view to put along side this quirky quinquagenarian's take on the event.

No coffee and cookies in the parish hall afterwards. Darn.

Back to Work . . .

2008-01-29T22:35:00.000-05:00

To those I missed seeing over Christmas break, my apologies! I picked up a more-than-a-cold-not-quite-the-flu bug that wiped me out pretty much from New Year's Eve on. Believe me, I had a list of folks with whom I wanted to share some time, but I doubted they wanted to share my bug. I'm still a bit froggy . . . taking a while to shake the effects completely.

Lee and I drove back up January 6, then he flew back. Classes began Wed, Jan 9 . . . but this term our classes are Monday (Editorial Leadership in the morning and Grand Rounds in the afternoon), Tuesday (Research Methods), and Wednesday (Media Management). So we had one class on Wed the 9th, then four days off. Then three classes and a Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon w/economic report on Friday. Then Monday off (MLK day), class on Tuesday, and then attend the Public Research Council meeting in Birmingham on Wednesday with all kinds of state officials and those who want their attention.

Tomorrow we go to class in the morning as usual. Then we get up the next morning at @ 2 a.m. and go deliver newspapers with the contract carriers. When they say we'll learn all phases of media management, they're not kidding.

We're also working on a bit of primary election coverage. And doing LOTS of reading . . .

This coming weekend three of us will be presenting papers we wrote for our media history class at the American Journalism Historians Association symposium in Panama City.

Meantime, check out my video (below) I did last term on municipal sewer systems. Watch for a slide show to be posted tomorrow from the Barack Obama rally in Birmingham that I attended with fellow Fellow Jeremy Cox.

Stay healthy!

Out of Sight!

2008-01-25T13:38:00.000-05:00

Our assignment was to find out what people thought about the communities they lived in -- why they lived there, what brought them there, why they stayed there, what they thought their community needed and what it would take to make that happen.

I had three small communities in Calhoun County, two of which did not have municipal sewer systems. Many people said they'd like to see more businesses come into their areas, but that the lack of a sewer system kept that from happening.

So I looked at Calhoun County's largest city, Anniston, and its sewer system, as well as my third community, Piedmont which did have a sewer system, but which had just had one of their major industries pull out.

The challenge was to tell about these two different types of systems in under two-and-a-half minutes. In order for me to post this to my blog, I also had to pare it to under 94 MB. Blogspot says videos can be up to 100 MB, but I've had difficulty uploading anything over 95 MB.

I also produced two print articles of @ 1000 words and took still photos, including 37 mug shots of the 40 people I interviewed (some people didn't want to be photographed). One article told about the three communities and the other explained septic and sewage systems in more detail than this short video could.

But the article didn't have music.

While I Was Away . . .

2007-12-27T14:29:00.000-05:00

Here's what Lee's been doing for the past year. And while I've been away for the last almost six months, he's really gone to pot!

No Snow in Florida . . .

2007-12-26T11:14:00.001-05:00

T-shirts and shorts . . . apple juice instead of cider . . . but laughing all the way. On a break from 'Bama Bloggin'. Thought I'd share this video by Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter institute.

Stick around to the end where he's joined by Dylan, Presley, and the Four Tops!

No place like home... and Happy Birthday, Tyler!

2007-12-19T15:08:00.000-05:00

A real break! No projects due ... nothing we have to read ... or write ... or research ... or think about. So what did I do with my first couple of days home?

Slept (we got in at about 2 a.m. Saturday) ... sang the Christmas program with the choir ... slept ... had dinner with Mom & Judy and Dave & Nancy & Lee ... fell asleep over dinner so slept some more ... took a friend to lunch for her birthday ... celebrated Tyler's 11th birthday! ... slept some more ... went to the dentist for a crown and a filling (3 hours of restful repose reclining with my head lower than my feet) ... took Tyler to his dance lesson ... and slept some more!

Today I finally am feeling awake and alert. Making Christmas bread this afternoon and going to watch Lee do raku tonight. The photo is from Lee's first showing last spring at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center. Lee used every technique learned to make the rooster--parts of it are thrown, parts are rolled, and parts are handformed. He started doing this last fall -- barely a year ago -- and he'll be helping with three workshops this Winter/Spring at the DFAC.

Frost On My Windows!

2007-12-04T22:26:00.000-05:00

This morning I scraped FROST off of my windshield!!! First time in, oh, maybe 30 years.

"Our cheeks are nice and rosy . . . "

A Matter of Definition

2007-11-27T21:35:00.001-05:00

The young father stood in line in front of me with his two children--a boy, maybe 5, and a girl, maybe 7--at the WalMart pharmacy tonight. In front of them, a woman haggled with the clerk for a good ten minutes about her prescription.

Through it all, the children stood quietly, the boy at his father's right hand, the girl at her father's left. His hands rested lightly on their heads. Occasionally the father caressed his son's head, running his hand over the close-cropped straw colored hair, or he patted his daughter's mousy-brown hair pulled back in a series of bands and barrettes. Once in a while his hands dropped to one child's or the other's jacketed shoulder.

Their sweatpants and warm jackets had seen newer days; the father's lighter jacket bore a number of NASCAR decals. A tattoo swirling up his neck from his t-shirt became lost in the neat, but not trimmed, beard covering his cheeks and jaw. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a ball cap topped his head. Tenderly, but almost unconsciously, his clean, long-fingered hands--left ring finger banded in gold--assured his children their father was right there with them.

They didn't fidget.

They didn't fight.

They didn't poke each other or pester their father.

They stood quietly in line at WalMart and waited. And waited.

Once the little girl turned her head to see who was behind them and saw me watching them. I smiled, she gave me a solemn look with her gray eyes, then turned her head back around.

At one point, the father slid his hands down their arms and pulled them closer in a quick hug; then he released them, and his hands returned to their positions atop his children's heads.

It wasn't until a mother with two little girls took their place in line behind me and started talking about the Christmas parade they had just attended that the father and his children turned around.

"D'you go to the parade too?" he asked, and they chatted briefly about the lights and the chilly weather.

The children had turned around as well. Their thin faces looked a tad pinched. But then in this day of the obese child, perhaps I've just become accustomed to plump and so normal seems pinched. Light streaks of dirt rimmed the boy's mouth; the girl needed a tissue.

The father had no front teeth, his other teeth looked in questionable shape.

As the three spoke to the family behind us, their accents and grammar bespoke their rural Southern roots.

Today's Anniston Star carried a report on yet another study -- ever wonder who pays for these? Guess who's taxes do -- the headline of which said the majority of children in Alabama live in poverty. Of course, on reading the article, that wasn't quite the case. The study showed that, for the first time (since these kinds of statistics were kept, of course), the majority of Alabama school children are eligible for free or reduced lunches from the federally funded school lunch program. That means that @ 24% of Alabama's children live below the federally-defined poverty level and the rest live at up to 185% of that level.

So are they poor or not?

Depends.

Depends on who you ask.

On how you define poverty.

On what program you're trying to fund or what agenda you're trying to push. Or whose votes you're currying.

The woman ahead of them finally got what she needed, and the father and his children stepped forward to the counter. The clerk found part of his order, but said another part was still being processed. He stepped back, his daughter with him, so I could move up and be served.

The boy remained where he was, not realizing his father and sister had moved. The father reached out and touched his son's shoulder. Immediately, the boy turned, his father motioned slightly, and the child stepped back by his father.

I thought of the parents I've watched who have raised their voices, motioned frantically, hissed through clenched teeth, glared, rolled their eyes, threatened, grabbed, yanked, and cursed while their children played 'you can't catch me' or rolled on the floor or whined or screamed or otherwise made life miserable for their parents, everyone else in the store . . . and for themselves.

Was the family ahead of me poor? I've no doubt they weren't rolling in dough. Insurance covered at least part of the father's prescription, but maybe it didn't cover his dental work.

The clerk handed me my order and I turned to leave. The woman behind me stepped up. The father stood to one side with his children, one hand on his son's head, the other hand on his daughter's shoulder.

Poor?

Now Thank We All Our God....

2007-11-22T21:22:00.000-05:00

...with heart and hands and voices!

I am thankful . . .

. . . for my family, scattered though we are

. . . for my husband, from whom I am separated only by miles this year

. . . for being invited to an Orphans' Dinner today

. . . for this incredible Knight Fellowship program and all the teachers who helped bring me here

. . . for long-distance friendships that have spanned decades

. . . for short-distance friendships, some of which have also spanned decades

. . . for new friendships just begun

. . . for God who truly does open the windows of heaven to us to pour out His blessings upon us ... may we always in all things give thanks, whether we perceive the blessing or not.

And deliver us from despair...

2007-11-17T23:56:00.000-05:00

The young man killed himself.

Seventeen years old and convinced that there was no hope, no future he put a bullet in his brain.

I don't know, God does, what his circumstances were. I don't know, God does, what he was thinking that morning.

But I have stood at that brink. More than once.

Suicide makes sense ... if.

If it's all up to me.

If this is all there is.

If there is no such thing as Real.

Then suicide makes sense.

But, contrary to the M.A.S.H. theme song, suicide is not painless. Even those of us new to this community who didn't know the boy or his family, hurt for those who did.

Deliver us from evil...

2007-11-13T23:05:00.000-05:00

Small-town life.

Mayberry.

Quiet.

Safe.

This afternoon, searchers found the body of a 17-year-old boy, a senior at a high school in Anniston, who had been missing just over a week. Somehow, God knows if we don't, he ended up in Georgia instead of at school last Monday morning. Somehow, God knows if we don't, he died, probably that same day.

Less than a month ago, two women were kidnapped in the middle of the day from the parking lot of the swankest inn that sits right on the main street in town. One was raped, both were robbed.

Small-town is relative.

Coming from Pinellas County's dense almost a million people, Calhoun County's hundred thousand seems sparse.

The past couple of weeks I've been talking to residents of a town of 1,200 people who think of Anniston's 24,000 as "cluttered," full of "rukus," and "not safe."

And yet when I read through back articles from The Star, I find there has been robbery, kidnapping, and murder in that tiny town.

How small is small enough to be safe?

Perhaps it's worth remembering that the first murder occurred in a town of four.