"Someone ______ on Tina"

(I will be using a word referring to a particular bodily function that may offend/upset some people. This will also be discussing bullying. Use appropriate self-care.)

Several years ago, I wrote about Kevin (named changed to protect his privacy) who had been a friend of mine from church and school and who, in fourth grade, made a 180 turn and became a bully. To this day, I have no idea what happened to him. 

This morning, I woke up remembering something he'd said about me and that sort of encapsulates how bullies operate and what was done about it in the 1970's. 

I think most of us are familiar with the song "Frere Jacques" (Brother John). The lyrics in French are:

Frere Jacques
Frere Jacques
Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines!
Sonnez les matines!
Din, din, don.
Din, din, don.

Kevin, for whatever his reasons, would often sing the song -- during class -- as:

Frere Jacques
Frere Jacques
Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous?
Someone peed on Tina
Someone peed on Tina
Din, din, don.
Din, din, don.

My fourth grade class had some serious discipline problems. My original teacher, Mrs. Cook, was a older, very nice lady who, among other things, taught us about the state of Florida and had a brief lesson about The Diary of Anne Frank. All I remember about that lesson is reading the lines, "Anne had only begun to write. If she had lived, her talent would have developed and grown." (In 5th grade, I started keeping a diary and have done it off and on since.) 

In the second half of the year, Mrs. Cook left because of health problems -- I cannot remember if she came back, although I think she did -- and the substitute that took her class had no idea how to discipline. She once left the room after ordering us, when I come back, I don't want to hear any talking, any meowing, or anything like that!  When she left the room, immediately the class broke into noise, and several meows.

I don't remember Mrs. Cook or the substitute saying anything to Kevin about his vulgar song against me. It could be that they did and he just didn't listen. (I wrote this entry about another fourth grade incident where I had been accused of something I didn't do, and Mrs. Cook believed me.)

Basically, bullying was tolerated. 

"So, Tina, why didn't you tell? Why didn't you say anything to a teacher or to your parents?"

Answer:  What good would it have done?

I had already been told by my parents to "ignore them" way back in the first grade. I had learned in Sunday School and church that we were to turn the other cheek and forgive our enemies. I had also been told, either directly or indirectly, that if I fought back, I would be the one who got in trouble, and the bullies would get off scot free. 

Not much has changed since 1972-1973, when I was in fourth grade. 

I'm writing this with mixed feelings. I feel angry right now about what happened. I will process that anger in what are hopefully healthy ways. Sometimes I use this blog as a sort of therapy, writing out things that happened to me in the past so that I can learn from them, and maybe show other people that, "Look, you're not alone; this happened to me as well." 

I may talk about this with my counselor, depending on when my next appointment is. Because I could have forgotten about this incident by then. I've been in therapy off and on since my 20's, and many of my sessions have led me back to childhood bullying. 

I also feel angry for, and sad for, that little girl who thought she had to put up with being bullied and that she felt like she had no one she could turn to. 

But, after several years of therapy, and being in a healthier church situation, especially, I have learned to tell myself that 99.9% of the world doesn't know who I am, and of the less than .1% who do, many of them have a "favorable opinion" of me. 

I can walk into my church and have several people say, "Hi, Tina, how are you?" and some of them really do care about the answer to that question. 

And although I can point to places where, "yes, bullying affected me here, here, and here," I'm no longer bullied. I am doing the work to come to terms with what happened.

But this morning's memory is a bit like the monkey on my back that jumps on me from time to time and tries to tell me that I deserved to be bullying, that I deserved to have Kevin tell me that "someone peed on me." Nope, no one deserves to be treated like that.

I do wonder what happened to Kevin to cause his behavior to change. I've speculated that maybe he suffered abuse and this was the way he handled it, by acting out. If I'm right, I hope he got the help he needed. 

Bullying still goes on, and too many times, nothing concrete is done. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Killing two birds with one stone

This piece should be subtitled, “Or, if this doesn’t work, I don’t know what will!”

I have had a very long, busy day today. Not a “bad” day, just a day where I’ve had to jump from one place to another to another. According to my LifeCycle app, I spent two hours and 32 minutes on the road, and two hours and 12 minutes at the doctor’s —that was for two doctor’s appointments. I sandwiched lunch in between both appointments (pun slightly intended) and was able to come home and rest for a couple of hours before getting back in the car, driving to the church building, where I spent a little over half an hour rehearsing with our praise team before, once again, getting back in the car again and coming home. At the moment, I am in my living room, on the couch, next to a space heater. 

I occasionally sing alto on my praise team. While I am not a Madonna, a Billie Holiday, or even a Taylor Swift, I can carry a tune and I’ve learned to sing a part that I did not grow up singing (I grew up singing soprano). Before the pandemic, we had eight people on stage - two sopranos, two altos, two tenors, and two basses - and we projected the words and music up on a screen. By doing that, I could follow the notes, and by singing next to an alto, I could pretty much learn my part and keep up.

The pandemic changed that.

When we went back to meeting together and singing on stage, we were reduced from eight singers to four singers . . .and because we were also doing (and we still do) an online service, we could no longer project the words and music together. Our “music screen” for our online audience is a “picture in picture” screen, and the only thing that will fit so that they are visible are the words. 

I’m not the world’s most confident alto, and I’m afraid going to four singers brought that out. 

Fortunately, our worship leader believes in a lot of praise, encouragement, and help when needed. He’s currently attempting to get practice recordings of the music we sing in separate soprano/tenor and alto/bass tracks. We have some music already in those practice tracks; if you listen to them in stereo, one ear has the soprano/tenor and the other has the alto/bass. If you’re wearing earbuds and want to listen to your part, just put in the earbud that plays your channel and start listening. 

I’ve had trouble getting the alto part at times, and on one occasion, our worship leader asked his wife, will you sing the part while Tina records it? (His wife is a wonderful singer.) I appreciated her help and I got through the next service.  (Our worship minister once texted me that I got it right more often than not. I keep remembering that when I am feeling shaky on my singing.)

This week, the two songs we’re doing have recordings, but not separate channels for soprano/tenor and alto/bass.

We use an app called Planning Center, which helps church worship leaders with their scheduling and also contains copies of the music we’re using on a particular week. The music is loaded in a PDF file and the recordings are loaded in mp4 or whatever format they happen to be in. 

I am scheduled to sing alto on Sunday.

So, since I was going to spend what turned out to be over two hours on the road today . . . I put that time to good use.

I downloaded both songs from Planning Center to my iPhone, and played them on a loop while driving to the vein doctor’s office (legs look good but left one needs a bit of a tweak), while driving to lunch, while driving down to the urologist’s office for a look at my bladder (which included a trip through the ‘needs its own circle of Dante’s Inferno intersection’, a.k.a. I-285 and GA State Road 400), and then while driving back to the church building for rehearsal. 

The result?

Well, I think it was halfway decent singing. 

Sunday will tell!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

(PS: If absolutely none of this makes sense, it’s because it’s nearly 9:20 p.m., I’ve been on the road and at the doc’s and at practice, and I wanted to write before bed because I’ve committed myself to writing every day. Consider this a practice run, or a draft that is so rough you can feel the bumps on it.)

Yep, they're human too.

I heard a story about a preacher that reminded me that preachers are also human.  Sometimes I think we forget that.

This particular preacher was driving down a busy road, leaving a voicemail for one of his church's members. (I hope he was driving hands-free. 🙂) A driver cut the preacher off.  

The preacher let out a very unChristian word.

Then, to his horror, he remembered that he had not disconnected the phone.

Which meant that the person he was leaving the voicemail for heard the word.

Oops.

So, on Sunday morning, he began the sermon by telling on himself. 

His audience's reaction?

They roared with laughter. 

And at last report, he still has his job. (Some churches might have fired him on the spot.) 

There are several reasons, I think, why the preacher's audience laughed.

One, he was willing to own up to his slip of the tongue and not try to hide it.

Two, he's been candid about some of his past struggles, which makes him relatable to his congregation.

Three, he's been a preacher at that congregation long enough for them to know that he is human and that he messes up.

Four, he brings to his role not only a wealth of knowledge of the Scripture, but a heart full of compassion for the people he serves. 

Five, he's never behaved like he's "all that", rather, he sees his role as being that of a humble servant of God.   

So many "public service" people -- doctors, nurses, first responders, grocery clerks, other service jobs -- have been under so much stress since COVID began. 

But probably none more so than preachers, because they get bombarded with so many, "Why did God allow this to happen to me?" questions. 

They're called to give "spiritual" responses to human questions when they may not even know the answers themselves. 

The people they serve are often so awed by him they think he is God.  Or, they get angry because he is not God, but rather, an imperfect human being. 

Some preachers may need to be called out or confronted on their behavior or on their handling of the Word of God, or on their treatment of the people they serve. 

But my guess is that most of them are people who have a deep desire to serve God and to serve others.

Just like the preacher in this story.

We need to remember that they're human, too.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

(P.S. - If you're reading this and you have a priest, or pastor, or whoever delivers the sermon or homily, just insert their title in place of "preacher". 😊)

I keep thinking I've heard everything, then . . .

Every time I think, "Now I've heard everything," something else comes up and reminds me that no, I haven't heard everything yet.

The latest item on the "now I've heard everything" list, also known as the, "What the . . . (fill in the blank)" list?

You know how at the Bills-Bengals game this past week, when Damar Hamlin showed up to encourage his team?

That wasn't Damar Hamiln.

It was a clone.

You see, Damar Hamlin really died. So the NFL and the FBI substituted a clone because they don't want to admit that Hamlin really died from the COVID-19 vaccine.

This is why Hamlin has not done an interview since he was released from the hospital. And also why, when he went to the Bills-Bengals game, he came dressed in a mask, sunglasses, and hoodie.

The person in the SkyBox that was filmed giving the "heart" signal to his team?

That was the clone.

And by the way, he wasn't really giving the "heart" sign. 

He was flashing Illuminati signals.

This is the theory floated on Twitter by a particular Tweeter whom I will not name. And sadly, there are those going along with it. 

Damar Hamlin decided to troll the trolls by posting a picture of himself posing next to a mural someone painted of Damar making his "heart" gesture and commenting, "Clone".

So let's see:  

Damar Hamlin collapsed from cardiac arrest on January 2nd. But his cardiac arrest wasn't caused by a rare condition called commotio cordis. Or possibly another type of heart condition.

It was caused by the "jab"; i.e. the COVID vaccine.

So the NFL went into coverup mode and brought in a body double to play Damar Hamlin.

He was trained for 72 hours to walk and behave like Hamlin, including the famous heart gesture. 

And it was the FBI that brought in the body double.

When he appears in public -- which he has done rarely -- he wears a mask, sunglasses and hoodie so that people won't know that he's not the real Damar.

This is why he won't show his face and why he hasn't done an interview since being released from the hospital. 

If you sit down and think about it: 

- Wouldn't his family sense that there was something "off" about their son?

- Why would the FBI be interested in bringing in a body double and helping the NFL cover up a death?

- Why would the NFL cover up a player death in the first place?

- Wouldn't the team know that there was something "off" about their friend and teammate? 

Has it occurred to anyone that the reason why Damar Hamlin hasn't done any interviews is because he's still being treated for his heart condition?

That the reason he wears a mask in public is because he has a heart condition and is now immunocompromised? 

That he wears glasses and a hoodie in public because he'd probably be swarmed if people knew who he was? 

I've read YouTube conspiracy comments about the JFK assassination, the RFK assassination, the 1969 moon landing, and the 9/11 attacks. A few days ago, I blocked a Tweeter who commented that they found it hard to believe that 19 "terrorists" took down a whole country with "box cutters" (the words in quotes are from the tweet.) 

Six million Jews died in concentration camps, men did walk on the moon, the birth certificate is real, jet fuel does melt steel, and Oswald acted alone. 

Add to that list: Damar Hamlin does not have a body double.

It becomes very hard to keep your faith in humanity when you read certain comments on social media. These days, I just look at them, shake my head, and move on after a well-deserved eye roll for the commenter.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

I 

Spiritual HOAs

I have never had the pleasure or displeasure of living in a HOA.

HOA, for the uninitiated, stands for “Homeowner’s Association”, and a neighborhood that has a HOA has certain rules you have to follow in order to keep the neighborhood looking nice. For example: the grass can only be so high, only so many people can live in a house at one time, what colors you can paint your house, what decorations you can have on the lawn, etc. etc. (The city of Coral Gables, Florida might qualify as a HOA:  they have no street signs on a pole, according to city ordinances. Their street signs are engraved on stones at the corner and you have to look down to see them. And I have heard that their building code is so strict that it governs the paint color you can use INSIDE your house.) 

While HOA rules are usually well-intentioned, I have heard some horror stories about living in a HOA or trying to be in charge of a HOA. My preacher and his wife were presidents of their HOA for a year and I think they were glad to be shed of the responsibility. 

Today in church, we were talking about religion that is only skin-deep, using Hebrews 4:12 as our jumping off point. The verse says, “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” 

Our preacher commented on traditions that were well-intentioned, but eventually became more of a “show that I am religious” rather than “this is a reflection of who I am”. Mark 7 tells the story of certain Pharisees and teachers of the law who asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

They were not referring to our modern Western practice of “wash your hands before dinner” or after going to the bathroom. The hand washing they were talking about was a ceremonial washing, a tradition showing that they were committed to personal purity.  

Commitment to personal purity is good. But eventually, the practice of the ritual became more important than the reason the ritual was being practiced in the first place! 

The outward sign of religion became more important than what was on the inside. 

A HOA can observe all of the rules of paint color, lawn decor, how many cars you can park in the driveway, how many pets you’re allowed to have, and whatever other rules they choose to have. When you drive through a HOA neighborhood, they look neat, tidy, and clean. 

But what goes on in the inside of a HOA home? 

Are there couples who just don’t speak to each other and who are on the verge of divorce?

People addicted to drugs or to alcohol?

Those who abuse their spouse and/or children?

If you just drove through a HOA neighborhood, you’d only see the outside. You’d see the grass nicely cut, the streets swept, and everything kept in order. 

You don’t see the insides of the homes where the families live. 

How many of us live in a spiritual HOA?

Or how many of us attend a house of worship that is a spiritual HOA?

You walk in, dressed in your Sunday best, and when people ask how are you, you’re expected to say, “Fine, and you?” 

The preacher is expected to preach with verve every single time he gets up to the pulpit. 

The more you show up at activities, the more you volunteer, the more active you are, the better a Christian you are. 

But who sees inside you and knows that you haven’t been reading your Bible, or praying? Who knows of the anger you feel towards God because He, for whatever reasons, has not answered your prayers the way you want Him to? 

Who knows of the constant ache in your heart for a loved one who has turned their back on God? 

Who can you tell about your depression, or anxiety, or your doubts about “is God there? Is He real? Does He love me?”

Or are there the unwritten rules of a spiritual HOA, that you have to dress, talk, act a certain way in order to be a “true Christian”? We might give lip service to, “Oh, it’s men that look at the outward things but God looks at the heart,”  but how true is that in most of our houses of worship? 

How deep is our religion? Does the word of God penetrate to the thoughts and attitudes of our heart? Do we let it? Or are we content to live in a spiritual HOA, where we look and act and talk the part of a Christian - take part in our figurative ceremonial hand washing and criticizing those who don’t - and don’t really stop to think about the sin that is in our own heart. 

I absolutely do NOT want to be living in a spiritual HOA, where the most important thing is how you look, talk, and act on the outside. Isn’t the most important thing the inside, and isn’t your action supposed to come from a heart that prompts the action, not the expectations of the spiritual HOA? 

I think that’s what Jesus would say. 

I hope I’m right!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

“Unspoken”

In the world of Christianese, the word “unspoken,” or the phrase, “I have an unspoken,” is often listed. 

If you have an “unspoken”, it means that you have a prayer request that you’d rather not be made public. 

A July, 2022 article on theunion.com titled “Chaplain’s Satirical List of Troublesome Faith Words” defines “unspoken prayer request” as “when someone requests prayer for themselves but won’t fess up to the thing they did. Or a sly prayer for a sinner who doesn’t know they’re being prayed for.”

Okay, that could be true, and probably why “unspoken” is considered Christianese by many.

I’m not a fan of Christianese — in fact, some Christianese makes me clench my teeth — but there’s a flip side to the word “unspoken” when it comes to prayer requests.

It’s also a way of saying, “Someone I know needs prayers, but the subject needs to remain private.” 

I do believe in prayer. I believe in praying for people. But sometimes people may be too embarrassed to share a prayer request. Or it is about a subject that the person wants to keep private or that needs to be kept private.

So I’m one of those who will say, “A friend of mine has an unspoken prayer request.” 

Usually, I’ll say it like that because the person has said, “You can ask for prayers but I’d rather keep the subject private.” 

So I’ll honor the person’s request. 

God knows what the person needs, and often, a “spoken” is not necessary. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Make the left turn at . . . Loll?

Bugs Bunny, in many of his cartoons, winds up in weird places and then complains, "I KNEW I should have taken that left turn at Alberquerque!" (In the cartoon, Bugs Bunny In King Arthur's Court, he adds, "I will never, never take directions from Ray Bradbury ever again!)

When one man had to make a left turn, he discovered something about his wife he never knew.

In Coal Troll's Blog, written by John M. Williams, a native of Harlan County, Kentucky, Williams describes growing up in Harlan County and comments that "Harlan County is not on the way to anywhere." He's right. If you wind up in Harlan County, there is a 99% chance that you meant to get there. (I was born in Harlan County; my family moved away when I was four but we've made many trips back since. My last visit was in 2019, to scatter a portion of my mother's ashes on her father's grave.) 

After Williams wrote the entry "The Harlan County Way" in February, 2013, he got a total of over 200 comments talking about life in Eastern Kentucky. The majority of the comments were positive memories. 

One man, not born in Harlan County, told the following story, retold in my words:

He'd married a woman born and raised in Harlan who'd moved to Indiana when she was a teenager. On vacation, they decided to go see the woman's sister.  They'd been driving south, so I wouldn't know if they'd turned right or left -- although I suspect it was left, if they were coming from the direction I think they were. 

In any event, when they reached Pineville, Kentucky, there's only one way from Pineville to Harlan, and that is US Route 119. It's been repaved, widened, repaved, and rerouted over the years. (I remember riding over the road one time and seeing two construction machines parked on the side, one with "CAT" and the other with "Caterpillar" on the side.) When I drove it in 2019, it took about a half hour to get from Pineville to Harlan. My cousin later reminded me that it used to take about an hour and I said, "Yeah, I thought it was a long drive from Pineville!"

The driver in the comment was driving on US 119, looking for the turnoff to Loll. 

He was quite surprised when his wife informed him (his words were "chastised soundly") for missing the road. So, he made a U-turn and drove back down US 119, then made yet another U-turn and drove back towards Harlan, this time much more slowly. 

His wife told him to take the turn at Loyall. 

Why? he asked. 

This is where my sister lives, she responded.

In Harlan County, Loyall is not pronounced like the word "loyal." It is pronounced, "L-O-L-L."

He commented, that was the day that he learned that when you turned onto US 119 at Pineville, his wife "changed languages and needed a translator."

I believe it. She stopped speaking English and started speaking Appalachian. 

I spent almost five years of my life in Harlan County. I still count myself as a Harlan Countian, even though I have not lived there since 1968. These days, I proofread depositions from a court reporting firm in Louisville. (Someone once asked me, "Do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky LEW-e-ville, Louis-ville, or Loo-ville?" My answer:  "You actually pronounce it Frankfort.")  Specifically, I proofread depositions for civil cases, and many of those depositions have come from Eastern Kentucky. Whenever I see the words, "Mamaw" and "Papaw" in a deposition, I just mentally nod my head and say, "Yep, they're from Kentucky." (I know there's other areas of the country that use "Mamaw" and "Papaw." 

Here's one other reason I knew Loyall was pronounced "Loll". 

My father graduated from high school there, from the now-closed Loyall High School.

So, Bugs Bunny, next time you turn right at Alburquerque, if you wind up in Harlan County, don't be shocked if you think they speak a foreign language there. 

Because they do. And for many people, that language is the language of home.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Fighting back in nasty dreams

I've had a couple of bad dreams the last couple of nights. Last night's (or in reality, this morning's dream because I had it after I dozed back off) dream was especially upsetting so I am not going to go into details.

What's interesting, though, is that in both dreams, I was either standing up for myself or figuring a way out of the situation. 

I can say that in the less upsetting dream, I was standing up to a bully and telling him that if he hit me again, I was going to go to our principal. 

I'd like to think that that shows some internal growth on my part, that my subconscious is finally saying that it's okay for me to stand up for myself when I am being treated badly. Not that I would demand special treatment at the top of my lungs (unless it were special circumstances, like if I were bleeding or my son were bleeding), but to just simply say, "This behavior is unacceptable and if you continue doing it, there will be consequences."

I'm nearly sixty and I do struggle at times with the ghosts of childhood bullies past. Throw in some good old spiritual abuse in college, with a dose of, "if you fight back, you will be the one who gets in trouble while the bullies get off scot free," and yeah, it makes sense that a) I would not fight back, and b) that I would definitely deal with the aftereffects of bullying and abuse. 

But I'd like to think that if I'm dreaming about fighting back, maybe I'm being told, "Look, you are allowed to tell people when something is bugging you." 

That's still very hard for me to do. And while my dreams are a good window into my subconscious, and they *might* provide a guide to my reality, I still have to live in that reality. Which means I can't totally rely on dreams. I still need God, a good therapist, and good friends. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

MLK Day . . . what to say?

Is there anything I can say about Martin Luther King, Jr. that has not already been said? 

I have seen/listened to the “I Have A Dream” speech, and I encourage others to see/listen to all of it. Not just the repetition of “I have a dream”.

I know the line of judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have seen the line, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is a burden too great to bear.”

I have also seen the line, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

I’ve been to the King Center, and I’d like to go again because I think when we went there, Matthew had not even been conceived yet. (He turns 24 next month.)

So today, I’m going to address the question: If I had been old enough to remember Martin Luther King’s assassination, or if I had been an adult at the time of his death, what would my reaction have been?

I was born in 1963. It was not until relatively recently that I realized that in my hometown of Harlan, Kentucky, it’s very likely that my mother pushed my baby carriage past “Whites Only” and “Coloreds Only” signs. The Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the 24th Amendment, outlawing poll taxes were passed in 1964 and 1965. 

Today, most of us see these events as necessary, and some of us wonder, why did it take 100 years after the Civil War for Blacks to gain basic rights — the right to vote, the right to stay in any hotel they wanted, the right to not be discriminated against in job seeking and hiring, the right to live where they wanted  . . . 

And some, as Martin Luther King wrote about in Letter From Birmingham Jail, thought that Blacks were moving “too fast” and wanted them to slow down. 

MLK died on April 4, 1968. 

Not long after his death, according to a January 17, 2022 article on CNN.com, 31% of Americans polled believed he’d brought his assassination upon himself. 38% said they were sad. 5% said they were angry. 

Where would I have fallen if I’d been old enough to understand who King was and what had happened to him, and why? 

Given that I lived in a small town in southern Kentucky in 1968, with conservative parents in a conservative community, it’s very possible that I would have fallen into the majority that was neither sad nor angry that he had died. And perhaps I would have believed “he brought it on himself”. 

I might not have cared. After all, I’m not Black. Why should I care about the Civil Rights Movement? It doesn’t affect me.

Sixty-four years later, I’m only beginning to realize the injustice perpetuated towards Blacks in the USA. 

One of my FB friends posted, “My travel is different because of the work you did on the road! Thank you! #MLK”.  

The friend who posted that status is Black and he is currently traveling.

Before the Civil Rights Act was passed, it was legal for hotels to refuse services to Blacks, and Blacks couldn’t do a thing about it. I didn’t know until the 2018 movie Green Book was released that there was a guide, called The Negro Motorist Green-Book, written by Victor Hugo Green, which listed places relatively friendly to Blacks, places they knew they could stay and places they could go without possibly being harassed. I hadn’t thought about it: if you can’t stay in a motel while you’re on the road, where do you sleep after a long trip? Where do you get a meal if you’re hungry and the local restaurants have signs announcing “Whites Only”? 

I wouldn’t have thought about that in 1968, in Kentucky, if I were old enough to understand what happened to MLK. 

What would you do if a White person thought a Black person had “disrespected” you by not saying “ma’am” or “sir”, or by not getting out of the way of a White person fast enough, or by not following a White person’s orders? Well, look at Emmett Till. Or the thousands of other murders/lynchings of Blacks who didn’t “know their place”? 

Would I have become one of those White people, thinking that “these people don’t know their place”? 

Would I have regularly incorporated a particular racial slur into my vocabulary? 

Today, I live in a mixed neighborhood; in fact, at the moment, I think we are the only White, English-speaking family in our cul-de-sac. Most of my neighbors are Mexican and I have seen some Blacks and Asians, and some Whites. One year, my son was the only White child in his class. 

I attend a mixed church, as opposed to the nearly all-White church I attended as a child. I don’t know the percentage of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and others in my current church. 

Would I be here, and even be willing to be here in this neighborhood, if I’d been one of those people in 1968 who wasn’t sad or angry that MLK had been killed? 

Would I be a racist? Or at the very least, patronizing to Blacks? 

I think about a scene from Driving Miss Daisy, where, on the way to a dinner where Martin Luther King is speaking. Miss Daisy talks about how wonderful it is that things were changing . . . and then her chauffeur, Hoke, points out that she hadn’t even thought to invite him to the dinner until they were on their way to it. 

I worry that this is how I think: that I’m glad things are changing, that I’m glad things have changed . . . but that I metaphorically don’t invite Hoke to the dinner until he’s in the car driving me there. 

I’m glad I can invite a Black couple to dinner without fear of retribution. I have heard a story about MLK and his wife being invited to a dinner party by a Jewish couple (I think it may have been the rabbi and his wife of The Temple in Atlanta.) They got lost and Martin sent Coretta to the door of a White household to ask for directions, saying, “It’s safer for you because they’ll think you’re the maid.” 

But while I’d love to think that I’m not a racist, that I’m not patronizing to Black people, that I treat all people equally . . . do I? I can honestly say that I am not a blatant racist. I am not a member of the Klan, and I find Jim Crow abhorrent. I am still discovering ways that Blacks have been and are still being treated that make me angry and that make me ashamed to be White. 

And yet, sometimes I have the “those people” mentality when it comes to Black people. There’s the temptation to look down at non-Whites and say, “I’m better than you.” Just like Scout Finch described Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird:  “All he had that made him better than his nearest neighbors was that, if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white.” 

If my skin color is the only thing I have that makes me better than others, that’s pretty pathetic.

On this MLK Day, perhaps I have more to say than I think. 

I struggle with prejudicial attitudes towards people who are not White. I grew up in an all-White neighborhood and only went to school with Blacks because of mandatory busing. I have had Black friends, Black roommates, go to church with Black people, live in the same neighborhood as Blacks and other non-Whites . . . and I struggle with prejudice. It is wrong. My prejudicial attitudes are wrong. 

Like my preacher has said on one occasion, I want to see our society not as “color blind” but as “colorful”. 

I need to hear the stories of those without my privilege. 

I do not want to be the person I may have become in 1968, thinking that “MLK brought it on himself”. 

I do not want to be a patronizing, holier-than-thou White person that either thinks she’s better than White people or that wants to just show off how “woke” she is. 

So that leaves me with the challenge: Am I willing to put in the work involved in deconstructing my racist attitudes and at least attempting to see the world through eyes that are not mine? 

On this MLK Day, I am willing to start. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Forged in cold water

The cold water lapped at Martha Elliot’s chest as she held her three-year-old daughter on her shoulder.

Martha, her daughter, and two other relatives were trapped in a truck, victims of a May, 1979 Texas flash flood.

 

The flood had already claimed the lives of Martha’s husband and her two sons, swept away when they tried to pull another truck, the truck the husband and boys were riding in, out of the water. 

 

Martha may have been in shock, scared, maybe unable to process what had just happened to her, but she was determined that her daughter would survive.  No matter how tired her arms grew, she was going to hold that child above water. 

 

It was nighttime, the time when scary thoughts love to appear and torment the thinker. Who knows what Martha was thinking as the truck filled with water? Am I going to die, Lord? My boys are gone. My husband is gone. Will I join them? 

 

But my daughter will survive.

 

The morning came, and rescuers also came for Martha, her daughter, and the two other relatives.

 

When the shock of the flood and the deaths of her husband and sons receded, Martha knew that it was she and her daughter now, on their own. 

 

So she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, mustered all the faith she had (and probably some she didn’t have) and moved to Abilene, Texas to start her life over. 

 

Her first step was to enroll in Abilene Christian University.  Her goal: to eventually have a degree that would help her to raise her daughter. People rallied around her, and six years later, she graduated with a degree in home economics and early childhood education.

 

She eventually started teaching kindergarten, and was surprised on the first day of school to have a five-year-old call her a profane word. Had that been me, I might have quit.

 

Not Martha.

For 19 years, she poured herself into her students, and not only did her influence affect them, it affected the teachers around her.  Perhaps they were attracted to an inner strength that Martha may not have realized she had. 

 

Seventeen years after that horrible year of 1979, the daughter Martha held above water level in the truck, her daughter Debbie, got married and moved to Atlanta. While Martha was happy for her daughter and welcomed a son-in-law, Debbie’s marriage meant that Martha would be living alone for the first time in her life.  

 

She came to Atlanta to care for Debbie while Debbie was on bed rest during her pregnancy with twins. And after the twins were born, Martha found every reason to visit Atlanta as often as she could. 

 

Martha retired from teaching in 2011. The next year, she had a heart attack, and after rehab, she came to Atlanta to live with Debbie and her family. They welcomed her, arms open. So did their church. 

Family, by blood, marriage, and church, meant a great deal to Martha. She was a familiar presence at ladies’ Bible study class on Tuesdays and later, in the seniors’ Bible study classes on Sunday and Wednesday mornings. She was the one who kept up on the prayer list for her small group. She made sure that birthday and get well cards were sent out from the senior class to those who needed them. And for a time, she helped teach a Sunday School class full of kids from eight to ten years old. 

Martha Elliot died of cancer on January 8^th. Her funeral was yesterday. I was not able to attend but did watch the livestream. Her daughter Debbie posted a long tribute to her mother on Facebook. She wrote, “Martha did not consider herself to be a strong person. Her life proved otherwise. When Debbie mentioned at one point how strong and independent Martha was, she said, ‘No, I am not. I just did what I had to do. I didn’t have a choice.’”

I beg to differ. I think Martha did have a choice. She could have chosen, after the death of her husband and two sons, to figuratively curl up in a ball and live the rest of her life in bitterness and self-pity, angry about what had been taken from her so suddenly. 

 

She could have communicated that attitude to her daughter. 

 

But she drew on a deep faith in God, believed in Him, and then set about doing what she had to do.

 

A speaker at Martha’s funeral mentioned her “empathy”. Upon hearing that, my mind flashed back several years to when we had an auto accident.  While no one was hurt, our car was totaled. It was Debbie’s family that said, we have an extra car. Please use it. I believe that car belonged to Martha. 

After hearing about Martha’s empathy yesterday, I knew where Debbie had gotten her own empathy from. 

 

That daughter, held above chest-high cold water, grew to be a wonderful woman with faith of her own and creativity with her twins and her younger son. 

 

I did not know until after Martha died that she had lost her husband and sons in such a tragic way. Being the researcher I am, I was able to find a short article about the flood and Martha’s loss of her husband and sons.

 

Usually, the word “forge” is associated with heat and metal, as in forging a suit of armor or forging horseshoes. 

 

In thinking about Martha’s life, and her faith, I believe that that faith was forged by cold water on a horrible night that she never forgot. Cold water may have taken her husband and sons, but it did not take her daughter and it did not take her faith. 

Instead, it acted like a fire in a forge, shaping her into the strong, empathetic, faithful and kind woman she was and that we remember. 

She will be missed, missed by her blood family, her family by marriage, and her church family. 

And she will be remembered as a woman who, with her faith in God, overcame a nightmarish loss and left us an example of faith forged, not by fire, but by cold water.

 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Have some #warcoffee

 

Yaroslava Antipina’s normal, ordinary life was shattered on February 24, 2022. 

That was the day Vladimir Putin’s Russian troops fired the first shots in their war against Ukraine. 

They were supposed to win in three to four days. 

It’s nearly 11 months and the Russians have not won yet.

Not long after the war began, Yaroslava began writing what she called a war diary on Twitter. She would post pictures of her coffee cup, full of coffee, and invite us to have #warcoffee with her. 

The idea caught on, and many Tweeters from around the world – including myself – began posting pictures of their #warcoffee to share with Yaroslava. 

She’s an ordinary Ukranian who lives in Kyiv, worked until recently in an office, and who has learned to cope with air raid alerts, bombing, power outages, and the other horrors of war that I cannot begin to imagine. 

One of her tweets read:  “Hi, air raid alert.  It’s not a pleasure to welcome you in the capital of the brave.” 

“Hi, woman from Ukraine. I’m tired so much to warn you about threats. I’d love to have some good news instead.”

“My dialogues with the war.”

As I write this, it’s a little after five p.m. in Kyiv, and they’ve just heard the “all clear” siren after another attack. 

Yesterday, the Russians attacked Dnipro. Yaroslava’s tweet read:  “You probably saw the pictures of Dnipro. These rubbles covering people. Some damn missile took lives, hopes, maybe sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, grannies. We will win. And we will never forget.”

But between the events of bombings and air raids, Yaroslava shares her life with us, her visits to her family and a walk in the woods near their home, a “one-minute walk” around Kyiv she’s recorded and posted to Twitter, photos of the view from her home. These are glimpses into a life that is affected by war and of a spirit that will not be crushed or quenched because of an enemy. 

 

Yaroslava’s office job ended recently, and she has decided to devote herself to her writing.  She intends to write and publish a “war coffee diary”; much like Anne Frank and other wartime diarists have done. (Two other war diaries worth reading are Zlata’s Diary, written by a young girl during the war in Sarajevo, and The Diary of Nina Kosterina, written during the 1930’s and early ‘40’s by a girl living in Moscow.) 

Yaroslava is a normal person living in abnormal circumstances who chooses to live one day at a time, enjoy simple pleasures, and her #warcoffee friends. 

I know that many believe Elon Musk has killed Twitter. But Yaroslava Antipina is worth following. Look for her name or for the hashtag #warcoffee. 

She also blogs over at buymeacoffee.com. Look for the name Yaroslava. You will know you have the right person when you see under her name the words “is having war coffee”. 

If you can’t buy her a coffee, have some #warcoffee with her. 

Or, if you drink coffee, drink coffee in her name and in the name of the people of Ukraine. 

If you don’t drink coffee, drink some #wartea or #warwater and remember the people of Ukraine. 

Out of curiosity, I looked up the meaning of the name “Yaroslava”. It means “fierce and glorious”. This fierce and glorious woman would probably not think of herself as such. 

But in these times, not only the time of war in Ukraine, but these times of anger and polarization throughout the world, we need more Yaroslavas willing to share their #warcoffee with us.

 

Go join her.

 

Slava Ukraini.

 

Just my. 04, adjusted for inflation.

Minor ramblings

 We are at the point at every new year where I say, It’s the middle of January ALREADY?

Monday is Martin Luther King Day. My husband has the day off. My son does not (and I don’t think he’s happy about it.) I thought I had the day off, but I got a text from my doc reminding me of my annual appointment on Monday. So I don’t get to eat on Monday morning.  Cue stomach rumbling. 

I did tell the people I proof for that I needed Friday and Monday off due to a desperate cleaning I needed of my office. While I’ve filled up three boxes of trash, it’s the organization that bugs me. I do have labeled drawers, which helps. What I am trying to do is use my 10’ x 10’ office as an office AND a craft area. So all of my supplies for both subjects have to be stored in the same room. I also have a cutting table that folds up but needs to be pulled out and be unfolded in order for me to work on it. What I would like to do is to get the bookshelves out and move the books to another set of shelving. 

I don’t think I’m going to do that tomorrow, though, because tomorrow I am going to tackle the garage. My husband will be working overtime - I think - and I will have the chance to work there. 

I have three loads of laundry to fold and put away. 

And more clothes to hang up and put in drawers. 

I actually need to learn to delegate better. My son is good about doing his own laundry. I’m the one who feels like I need to fold and sort laundry for my husband and me. Like some people, I have a lot of trouble assigning duties to others. I’m a horrible perfectionist and I’m having to learn that if I don’t follow “the schedule”, it will not be the end of the world. When I was hurrying to my therapy appointment, I told myself that the worst thing that could happen if I were late was that I’d have to reschedule. 

Someday I will write about the difficulty of finding a routine I can stick to. 

Right now, I will stop rambling and head for bed.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Ms. Frazzle

I would love to be compared to the lovable science teacher from The Magic School Bus series, Ms. Frizzle.

Alas, today, I can only call myself Ms. Frazzle.

It all began yesterday, when, after finishing a job of proofing, I chose to take a nap.  A two-hour nap. I ate a late lunch and then spent the evening doing prep work for my next proofing job.

Then I went to bed and did not sleep well. Probably because of that two-hour nap. My Fitbit informed me that I got less than five hours of sleep. Tattletale.

I had gotten up at 6 a.m.  I decided to try and get a couple more hours of sleep and take a shower when I woke up again. So I set my alarm for 8 a.m. I'm not sure how much I slept, but the alarm went off at 8 a.m., I got out of bed . . . and that is when my son decided to take his shower.

In the words of an old Molly Hatchet song, the kid was flirting with disaster.

To be fair, he had no idea I wanted to take my shower at 8. He normally showers at 6:30. Today he didn't have to work so he took his shower later.

So I threw on clothes and ate breakfast. I made myself a smoothie and thought about making eggs, but since the price of eggs these days is comparable to the price of gold and/or precious gems, I only had the smoothie (yogurt, kale, and strawberries) in order to save the eggs. (This is how frazzled I was: I didn't realize until much later that I had leftover oatmeal I could have had with that smoothie!)  I also made myself some coffee, even though my sensitive bladder doesn't like it. This was a day where I said, "Bladder be danged, I need the caffeine."

Then I chatted online with my BFF, who is at a writing workshop in Vegas (yes, that Vegas) and graciously shared with me a story she wrote. The subject was a fantasy caper.  I described it as "Leverage meets Ocean's 11 meets Star Wars meets Harry Potter." I laughed at several lines and she told me that some things I liked, the workshop teacher liked also. I'm glad to know that the workshop leader and I both have good taste. (My BFF has been a professional writer for over a decade. I told her recently she'd come a long way in her writing and I was very proud of her.)

And then I looked at my Google Calendar, and my iPhone . . . and discovered it was 9:30 . . . and I had a counseling appointment at 10.

So I terminated the chat, fast, and dashed out the door, after taking a needed bathroom break.

I had planned to take the coffee with me. I was halfway to the office when I realized that the coffee I needed was back at the house.

Five minutes later than I wanted to, I arrived at the therapist's office, had to dash inside for another bathroom break (blame either the coffee or the smoothie) and texted my son, is there anything I can get while I'm out?

His response: "Chips."

So I hurried into the therapist's office, told her about the morning's events, and I think she was amused. We had a good session where I talked about Christmas, a trip to Florida, and the murder of a rat (a real one; he died at the hands of a mousetrap due to a overdeveloped taste for peanut butter).

On the way home, I spent too much money at the gas station because our governor, after a year, allowed his suspension of the gas tax to expire so gas, at its least expensive in my area, is about 3.00 a gallon. (On my way to the therapist's office, I stuck my tongue out at a local gas station.)

I then spent too much money at the grocery store (although I will not apologize for twenty dollars of it. It's a gift card for someone who's just had surgery.) Had I decided to buy more eggs, I might have had to consider taking out a small loan. I did get the chips, per my son's request.

So finally, Ms. Frazzle made it home and relaxed over lunch and cold coffee. I ended up reheating it (and then putting an ice cube in because it came out of the microwave too hot!)

I spent the afternoon and evening at the computer, with a dinner break. Now I'm splitting my time writing this and chatting with my BFF.  She's telling me about what's she's learned. She takes her craft very seriously, which makes her a good writer.

I will be going to bed in a few minutes. There will be no proofing for me over this long weekend; my son has an appointment tomorrow, and I have an office to clean up on Friday. And I think my husband and I may end up tackling the garage and will probably be thrown for a 30-yard loss.  He and I may meet the same fate as the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs met at the hands of the Georgia Bulldogs earlier this week.

So if you hear a loud burp near the Atlanta area, it's my garage having a snack on two humans.

On the other hand, if you see a school bus magically transform into a vehicle that will go exploring . . . I will not be the one driving it. After all, I am more Ms. Frazzle than Ms. Frizzle.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Happy 50th birthday, Schoolhouse Rock!

Thanks to a Facebook post, I learned that January 6 is not just another "day of infamy."

On January 6, 1973, sometime between a couple of ABC cartoons, a ditty called "Three Is the Magic Number" premiered. 

It was the very first segment of what we know as Schoolhouse Rock, the ABC series that taught millions of 1970's children about English, math, history, and science. 

It lasted from 1973 to 1984, and in 2009, a DVD of the Schoolhouse Rock episodes came out. I had a copy and played it for my then ten-year-old son. I'm not sure how much he learned from it (maybe more than I think) but I remember the DVD for a recording of the song "Electricity" by the group Goodness. 

A fast look at Wikipedia told me that Schoolhouse Rock started when an ad executive saw his son was struggling with learning his multiplication tables -- even though he could memorize song lyrics. So he hired a musician to write a song to teach multiplication. That song was "Three Is a Magic Number." 

A co-worker of the executive heard the song, created visuals for it, and eventually pitched it as a TV series.

The rest, as they say, is history -- singable history, in this case.

I was nine years old when Schoolhouse Rock premiered. To this day:

• when I count the number of stitches I have on a knitting needle, I count them three at a time to the tune of "Three Is a Magic Number" ("Three, six, nine /Twelve, fifteen, eighteen . . .")
• my husband will still recite the very last part of "Interjections!" ("Darn, that's the end!"
• I find myself thinking of the lyrics of "A Noun Is a Person, Place or Thing" to remind myself of what a noun is
• if I want energy, I remember, "Verb! That's What's Happening"
• "Conjunction Junction" is an earworm.

I know there were other songs about the other parts of speech, but I do not remember them as well. 

"America Rock", another segment of Schoolhouse Rock, burst onto the scene in 1975. This was the series that taught kids how a bill became a law, what the 19th Amendment meant, how the American Revolution happened, along with the arrival of the Pilgrims.

And -- and -- the piece de resistance, "Preamble". I cannot, ever since I heard the song, recite the Preamble to the Constitution without hearing the song in the back of my head, "We the People/In order to form a more perfect union . . ." 

Throw in Science Rock and Money Rock -- segments I am not as familiar with -- and you have a perfect curriculum, all set to music. 

Looking back on the Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, you can spot some of the '70's influence: the bell-bottom pants on the Wonder Woman-esq main character in "Suffering Until Suffrage", the afros on the Black kids in "Verb! That's What's Happening", the Nixon-esq politician in "I'm Just a Bill" running down the hall yelling (albeit in a Southern accent), "He signed you, bill! Now you're a law!"

In thinking about "America Rock", you could make the case that their coverage of American history is problematic: the arrival of the Pilgrims glosses over their treatment of the Native Americans who were there first; "Elbow Room", about the Western expansion, also ignores how Native Americans were pushed off their land. There is nothing about slavery or the Civil Rights movement. Nothing about the wars we were in. And other sordid parts of American history that we still don't want to or like to talk about.

But the idea -- of setting education fundamentals to music and seeing what happened -- worked. 

The earworms in my brain, and in the brain of just about every other '70's kid, prove it.

Happy 50th birthday, Schoolhouse Rock!

Just my .04, adjustment for inflation.

Can I have the recipe for that, please?

 Between church this morning, a needed afternoon nap, getting my son to *his* group on time and then getting to our new small group on time (our church small group of four just merged with a small group of about five), and dealing with the rain, my writing “practice” tonight is going to be a short one.  I use the blog a lot not only for reflecting on events in my life and current events in the world, but also for just practicing writing. 

While coming home during a heavy rainfall (my husband was driving, not me!), I was scrolling Twitter on the iPhone and came on this tweet:  “The pastor’s two older kids (age 3 & 4) sang ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ today and I’m still laughing about ‘with angelic roast proclaim’.” The kids sang it today because the family had been sick during their Christmas service and they ended up singing today during their church’s announcements. 

I tweeted back, “Angelic Roast sounds like something I need the recipe for.” So I’m wondering if a) there is such a dish as “angelic roast”, or b) is that something a chef could create a recipe for? It would go wonderfully with ambrosia (considered “the food of the gods”) for dessert. :-) 

(Someone in the thread commented, “I’ve had some angelic roasts, so this works for me.” I suspect the tweeter is talking about a different kind of angelic roast, so that will be another story for another time.) 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Okay, we can breathe now . . .

On Monday night, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, #3, collapsed on the field during a game with the Cincinnati Bengals. 

Most of us have seen the terrifying picture of Bills and Bengals players kneeling in a circle around him, shielding Hamlin from view as the NFL’s medical team performed CPR on him. 

On arrival at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Hamlin had to be resuscitated yet again. (When I heard that, I feared the worst.) 

The doctors sedated Hamlin and placed him on a ventilator. 

By Wednesday, we were starting to hear positive reports of his improvement.

When he awoke on Thursday, he was still on a breathing tube but able to write on a clipboard, “Did we win?” 

The response:  Damar, you won.  You won the game of life. 

A doctor reported that “not only are the lights on, he’s home.”

The world started letting out the breath it had been holding.

By Thursday evening, Hamlin was breathing on his own, and on Friday morning, the Buffalo Bills released the welcome news:  He’d talked to his teammates via video. When he came up on screen, the team stood up and clapped for him. Bills player Dion Dawkins said afterwards, “We got our boy, man! That’s all that matters.” 

Hamlin told them, “Love you guys,” and made what is a signature gesture for him, both hands coming together and forming a heart. 

Today, he posted on Instagram.

He thanked everyone for their support, for their love, and asked for prayers for the long road ahead. 

For someone who’d had to be revived twice at the beginning of the week, it’s a remarkable recovery.  

On Sunday, the team will take the field - without Hamlin - against the New England Patriots. I’m wondering what they will be thinking. The good news about Damar Hamlin may be the shot of adrenaline the team needs to beat the Patriots. Or, it’s possible that the mental roller coaster they’ve been on may have taken a negative toll. 

Commentators and journalists have talked about the effect of Hamlin’s injury: first, that “life is more important than football,” how traumatizing it was for players to see his collapse, the fear that he might not make it . . . and now, the relief that we feel since he’s awake and able to communicate.

A toy drive he’d started, with a goal of $2500, has received around $8 million. 

Players, fans, and others associated with the NFL are posting “Love for Damar” with the number 3. Some teams have outlined the number 3 on the 30-yard line in the Bills’ team colors of red and blue. 

But even though so much of the news sounds positive, Damar Hamlin is still in critical condition. And while I was checking the Internet for this post, I found in a CNN article that Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest, which is caused by electrical disturbances that cause the heart to stop beating properly. What Hamlin suffered was not a heart attack or heart failure. I had not known there was a difference between “heart attack” and “cardiac arrest”. Thank God the medical personnel got to Hamlin in time. Now the doctors want to know what caused that cardiac arrest. 

Damar Hamlin is not totally out of the woods yet. He has, as he himself says, a long road ahead. 

But now, the world can finally let out the breath it’s been holding all week. 

#lovefordamar

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Two years

Where were you two years ago today?

Is January 6th, 2021 a date that lives in your mind, like 9/11? 

Or for my parents’ generation, November 22, 1963?

Or for my grandparents’ generation, December 7th, 1941?

It should.

Because two years ago today, a group of people, waving American flags, Trump flags, Confederate flags, and even Christian flags, started with a demonstration in front of the Capitol building — after listening to speeches by Donald Trump and others imploring the audience to “fight like hell” to take their country back. 

So they went to the Capitol.

Inside, Congress was going through their Constitutionally mandated responsibility to cast their electoral ballots.

The 2020 election season would soon come to a close.

But not without a fight. And it turned out to be a literal fight. 

We should not forget that there were people who stormed barricades, pushed past police officers, and eventually gained access to the Capitol building and marched to the door of the House of Representatives. 

Does anyone want to think about what would have happened if they had gotten in? 

Does anyone remember that someone brought a noose and a scaffold, and that one of the slogans the mob was screaming was, “Hang Mike Pence!”?

Does anyone remember that portions of the Capitol building was wrecked, and that part of the wreckage included bodily waste smeared on the walls?

I know there are people who argue about whether or not January 6, 2021 was an insurrection or not. I’m not going to fight with people. 

Today, in the same chamber, as I write this, Kevin McCarthy has lost 13 ballots to become the new Speaker of the House. Since the Republicans now have control of the House, it should be easy for them to elect a Speaker.  Right?

Uhhh, apparently not.

It’s 9:57 p.m. as I write this, and in three minutes, the House will reconvene for round 14. At this point, I fully expect to start hearing the fight theme from “Rocky” playing and Kevin McCarthy entering in boxer shorts and wearing boxing gloves. 

Until a Speaker is elected, the new House cannot be sworn in and they cannot do any work. According to CNN Politics, this is now the longest speaker contest in 164 years.  The last time a speaker contest went this long was in 1859, two years before the Civil War started.

There are a group of Republicans that are determined that McCarthy NOT be Speaker, but as I’m writing this, I just saw a tweet saying that the House is reconvening and that finally, on the 14th ballot, McCarthy should win his speakership, the House can be sworn in, and work can finally start. 

I fear that another January 6th could happen after the next Presidential election. All you have to do is scream loud enough, “The election was stolen!” and if you can get a large enough following with enough influence, you could very easily duplicate the events of January 6th.  

I hope not, but I’ve become very cynical and jaded, especially in the last decade and particularly in the last six years. Politics and news used to be fun for me to watch and listen to. Now I can barely stand it. 

Let’s hope the House chamber has lots of coffee. They will need it.

And let’s hope that maybe the American electorate has more common sense than I give it credit for having!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Row, row, row your words, gently on the page . . .

This is another night where I will just be writing stream of consciousness again. I don't know if I am entertaining, boring, or torturing my poor little blog audience. I do okay when I have a particular subject I am writing about. I can knock off a blog entry in about an hour or less. 

Tonight I am writing to write. This is practice writing, so I guess anyone that reads this will have to take this as an equivalent to a musician practicing their scales. I took piano lessons as a child but never had the discipline to practice as much as I should have. And I am the daughter of a man that learned to play piano by ear. My dad did enjoy playing boogie-woogie on the piano; I think he was a fan of Jerry Lee Lewis. 

Where the "writing off the top of my head" ability came from, I have no idea. There are no writers in my family that I am aware of. Except for my late Uncle Jerry, and the two books, dissertation, and many academic papers he wrote would probably be a good cure for any insomnia I have. (I just looked on Amazon. One book is called Thermal Management Handbook: For Electronic Assemblies; one is Hybrid Microelectronics Handbook.) His dissertation title included the words "neutron-irradiated silicone", and when I found that title on a computer at my first library job and showed it to my reference desk partner, her response was, "Sure!" I love my Uncle Jerry. I would also probably not understand his writing. 

My mother never wrote anything, but she was the one who read to me. My father was not a book person; he enjoyed the newspaper, news magazines (and a copy of Field and Stream), and news programs. My mother read a lot of mystery and suspense. So did my grandmother. My sister takes after our father in that she prefers magazines to books. I prefer books. 

Well, there's my consciousness stream for the evening. 

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Writing to meet a goal

 Today is one of those days that I’m writing just because I said I was going to write every day, no matter what. So I’m not really sure what I am writing about. This may be just a stream of consciousness entry, where I write down whatever comes into my head and it may or may not make any sense. 

• Our church’s (very small) Young Adult group decreased by one as we held a good-bye dinner for a young lady that is leaving. She is Brazilian, and tomorrow she will take a non-stop flight from here to Rio to see her mother . . . and then hop a plane to Ireland, where she plans to study English. I think it’s funny that she is going to Ireland to study English. She’s young, unmarried, knows at least two languages, if not more, and has a kind and adventurous spirit. She’d also like to travel while she’s in Ireland. Now’s the time for her to do it!
• The 118th House apparently showed up wearing their Bozo the clown outfits. They’ve taken six ballots, and they still have no Speaker of the House, which means the new 118th House members cannot be sworn in yet.  It’s the first time in 100 years where there has been more than one ballot to elect a Speaker. Kevin McCarthy wants the job. There are those that don’t want him to have the job. Frankly, I think the House is acting like a bunch of two-year-olds, and I apologize for the insult to two-year-olds.
• We have not seen rats or mice since we returned home from Florida. Which probably means that I will find a trail of rat poop somewhere tomorrow morning. 
• I am officially back at work; I finished proofreading 221 pages and promptly got another assignment of around 250 pages which is due back Friday. I will be working all day Thursday.
• Because of all the holidays my husband has taken, all of the traveling we have done, and the fact that the calendar has rolled over, my own internal calendar is shot. It will probably take me a week or so to get a feel for what day it is . . . just in time for Martin Luther King Day to show up and wreck my internal calendar again. (No shade meant for MLK, who definitely deserves his day of remembrance. I’m just having a rough time remembering what day of the week it is!)
• I’m still stuck on giving my antagonist in my work in progress a reason not to shoot my protagonist. This is one of those things that drives writers crazy.
• And I still need to close out our financial books for the last year.
• As members of the Peanuts gang would say, “Sigh.” Or maybe, “Good grief!” would be a better exclamation!

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

Sudden death

 Last month I experienced the sudden death of two people.

One was a Facebook friend who’d I’d been around for 20 years.

The other was a cousin of mine.

And we almost saw it happen again last night.

The first person, Kathy, I “met” during the days of Yahoo Groups. I joined a group made up of people who’d all read two books, Karen and With Love From Karen, both written by Marie Killilea. Marie’s daughter Karen was born in 1940 and a year later, diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It took her parents 23 doctors and two and a half years to find proper help. I read both books when I was 13 and was captivated. We in the group swapped stories about the effect the books had on us and swapped stories about each other. I joined the group right before my son was diagnosed with autism and the group was a support to me during that time. 

Kathy was one of the first people to say hello to me when I joined the group. Later, she formed another online group for people who loved books as she did. She was such a fan of the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. She loved God and was enormously proud of her family. 

She died in her sleep in mid-December, while she and her husband were on their way to a cruise to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. One of our mutual Facebook friends messaged me and when I saw the words, “Kathy is dead,” I was stunned. The only comfort I can find is that she went to sleep and woke up in heaven. 

I saw an enormous outpouring of love and memories for her on Facebook. I thought of three people who would be totally heartbroken (in addition to her husband): her best friend, and two other dear friends she met on Facebook. 

She lived a life that will be remembered, and you can’t ask for more than that.

The other was my cousin Bill, who I wrote about yesterday. His sudden death came when he went to burn some brush and the wind blew up. He either suffered smoke inhalation, or a heart attack, or both, and died. His funeral was yesterday, and since he broadcast high school sports for a number of years,  it was appropriate to hold his funeral in the Harlan County High School gymnasium. From the number of comments I saw on Facebook, Harlan County lost a legend. 

Last night, a young Buffalo Bills football player, Damar Hamlin, tackled a Cincinnati Bengals player, Tee Higgins.  They both went down and got up. Nothing remarkable. It’s normal, and expected, to see tackles in football games.  Right? 

Except two seconds after he got up, Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field and this time, he did not get up.

The medical personnel raced onto the field, and both Bills players and Bengals players formed a human wall around Hamlin, shielding him from the audience and from the TV cameras. 

Hamlin was given CPR on the field in those agonizing moments before the ambulance arrived.  

Bills players - and Bengals players - cried, and many of them knelt in prayer for their fallen teammate. 

After an hour or so, and discussions with players and between both coaches, the game was suspended at 5:58 of the first quarter. They will not resume this game this week. Which I think is good. If the teams had tried to play again, no one would have been able to concentrate. All they’d see is the body of their fellow player, lying on the ground, his arms outstretched, receiving CPR so that he could just survive. 

I’m watching a clip of the Monday Night Football broadcast from last night. One of the speakers said he’d never seen an ambulance come onto the field. I have, one time on TV, where someone had a neck injury. (I cannot remember who was playing or when it was.) They did bring the ambulance onto the field and take the player off. 

However, there’s never been a situation where a player collapsed, on live TV, and had to be given CPR before being loaded into an ambulance. 

Damar Hamlin is currently in critical condition in the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He is alive. 

But we could have seen sudden death on the field last night.

The idea of sudden death scares me. Of waking up and finding my husband dead next to me, or of losing my son, or sister, or niece. I think it scares me because death is something that is out of my control. There is a verse in the book of Proverbs that says “no man has power over the day of his death”.  I get scared of being the one left behind having to deal with an estate. It also scares me to be the one to die and leave others to handle my affairs. 

What do I say? What is there to say in the face of sudden death? Of a relative? Of a person you only knew through a computer screen? Of a young athlete? 

“I’m sorry,” sounds so trite. “Thoughts and prayers,” sounds tired and overused. 

Life is precious when you are looking into the face of sudden death. 

That’s all I know to say.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

“Blessed every day.”

 As I write this, the funeral of my cousin Bill Ellis is about to begin. 

The funeral will be held in the gymnasium of Harlan County High School, and when you have a funeral in a gymnasium, that says something about the number of people you expect.

My cousin Bill was from Harlan, Kentucky. Harlan is not a town with large churches or large places to “put on a show” in order to raise money. But it does have the gymnasium of the Harlan County High School. 

Bill’s death has hit me hard, and I think it’s because it happened so suddenly. 

Last Friday, December 30th, the family believes that Bill went out to burn some brush in a burn barrel, and the wind kicked up very suddenly. In trying to put the fire out, he suffered either smoke inhalation or a heart attack and died. The fire department was there for several hours until the fire was gone. 

He leaves behind a wife — his second wife, whom he married after the death of his first wife — a daughter, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and a host of relatives and a county full of friends. 

Bill was 18 when I was born, and by the time I was four, he already had a baby daughter. That was my cousin Kellie, and when my family would visit from Florida, she was my playmate. Bill and his wife would later have a son, Jeff. 

I remember a younger Bill with a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. During a visit to Florida, he once jokingly asked me if someone had hit me over the head with an ugly stick. But I also remember on one visit to Harlan seeing him play in a baseball game—I think a neighborhood league or something like that—and his team lost. He shook hands with the opposing team afterwards, saying, “Good game.” I thought, “Why is he doing that? They lost!” 

What I didn’t know was that I was witnessing an example of good sportsmanship. 

Bill, for many years, was known as “the voice of the Bears” (the Harlan County High School teams),  broadcasting football and basketball games on radio station WTUK. Sometimes his wife Tami would call the games with him, and he’d often play the trick of turning off her mike (joking that he could always turn the volume down on her radio.)

I last saw Bill in 2019, when I made a trip to scatter a portion of my mother’s ashes at her father’s grave. He and his wife had dinner with Susie, his sister; and me. He showed me a bookmark where he had pasted my father’s obituary. He hoped it wouldn’t upset me. I appreciated that Bill remembered my dad in that way. (Bill was the son of my father’s sister.) It was obvious by then that he was fighting health problems but he did not complain. He was like my father in that way; he would not complain about how bad he felt. 

In reading his obituary, I learned that Bill had been an elder in the Rosspoint Church of Christ. Being an elder is not an easy task. I have no doubt he handled it with grace. 

The obituary writer pointed out what I hope people will remember about Bill when they think of him:  When anyone asked him, “How are you?” his answer was, “Blessed every day.” 

Maybe that was why he had the attitude he had about his health struggles, and other tragedies he faced in life. Carol, his first wife, died of ovarian cancer.  A few years later, his son Jeff died suddenly. In the best tradition of “life must go on”, Bill, just a few days after his son’s death, called a ballgame on the radio, and afterwards, the winning team presented the game ball to Bill. He thanked them and encouraged them to keep on walking with God, no matter what, and reminded them that if they did so, they would be “blessed every day” no matter what the circumstances were. 

I went up for his mother’s funeral in 2004, and I remember him sobbing as he stood in front of her casket. Just because Bill knew he was “blessed every day” didn’t mean that he couldn’t be heartbroken at the death of a beloved mother. 

I have a hard time understanding how God could allow certain things to happen. I don’t understand why He doesn’t intervene. I’m guessing that Bill’s widow and the rest of his family will lie awake at night asking,  “why?”. Man has asked that question since the time of Job, and pat and easy answers just do not cut it. 

Perhaps, though, the answer is not, “why did this happen?”

Perhaps Bill Ellis was placed on this earth to remind us that, no matter what, God had blessed him every day . . . and that no matter what, if we trust God, we, too, can be “blessed every day.”

In loving memory,

William Wayne Ellis, January 23, 1945 - December 30, 2022.

Rest in peace, Bill.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation. 

New Year’s writing on a bad day

 This year, I will write every day. 

Maybe it won’t be a lot of words, but I will write every day.

Whether on the current WIP (which has suffered a setback; I need a new reason for my big bad not to immediately shoot my hero) or in a journal, or here on the blog . . . I will write.

So why is today a bad day?

First off, I am not depressed. I do not have a black cloud hanging over my head and I’m not on the edge of tears. (I have also not seen a mouse since we came back from a short vacation to Florida). 

Yesterday I had a very bad headache, so I practiced some self-care and took some Advil PM and went to bed early. I woke up 10 minutes into the new year to the sound of fireworks. Many of my neighbors take advantage of any and every opportunity to set off fireworks. New Year’s is no exception. I did not find out until this morning that the Georgia Bulldogs won their playoff game at the stroke of midnight, just as the Peach Drop dropped. Now Bulldogs will be facing Horned Frogs (from Texas Christian University) for the national championship. And although I know which team I am rooting for, I am wondering what would happen if a real horned frog met a real bulldog in real life. (Bloodshed, maybe?)

Today we had church online; the service was pre-recorded and it was funny to see our preacher commenting on his own sermon in the chat room. (He and his wife are in Indiana at the moment because his wife’s father is ill.) 

Today I am also dealing with a bad backache between the shoulder blades. I think my back is getting revenge on me for all the driving we did in the four days of our vacation. We spent probably eight hours on the road getting to our hotel room in Ocala, several more hours the next day between driving to see my mother in law near Orlando, and then driving to our hotel room in Tampa. 

The next day I did driving (not hours of driving, though) when I had lunch with my BFF (she did most of the driving because she came up from Sebring). Then my husband did driving when we went to St. Petersburg to see my sister, her husband, and their daughter. 

And the next day, we spent nearly ten hours in the car from Tampa to home. Most of our time in the Atlanta area was spent crawling in a traffic jam. I was not shocked. 

Yesterday I spent more money than I wanted to buying groceries, but we will eat for some time. 

So I think my back finally said, “No more!” 

I did some self-care by taking an ice pack and lying down for a while; ended up taking a nap. 

Later this evening I will ask my husband for a back rub, probably with Biofreeze. 

It’s the back pain that’s making this day “bad”. But I am determined to write. 

Happy New Year, everyone.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.