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.