Saturday, June 30, 2018

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

By the time you read this post, I will have danced with my daughter at her wedding reception to an Eric Clapton version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And then, after I've delivered a few heartfelt words to the assembled guests, I will relax into a celebration of marriage made up of toasting, dancing, and most likely, a few tears. For this post, I will share my words of love with you:

When Katrina was 2 1/2 years old, she informed me that she had "two minds." One was a "thinking mind," and she used that one quite brilliantly. She still does. Her other mind was a "dreaming mind," and we are here to celebrate the realization of one of the dreams that mind produced. It began as a friendship, evolved into love, and now embraces the commitment and comfort of marriage.

But back to that little girl with two minds. At age 3, Katrina had a brief relationship with Davy Crockett, whom she met on television. I recall setting a place at the table for her imaginary friend Davy and contacting a cousin who lived in San Antonio to pick up a coonskin cap at the Alamo for Santa to give to Katrina. But her affair with Davy was brief, just long enough for her to memorize five of the verses of "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," and sing them over and over. "Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee . . . " (I bet she can still sing them!)

And then Katrina met Dorothy. And then Katrina BECAME Dorothy. Ruby slippers, blue and white gingham dress, braids in her hair, and a basket to carry a stuffed dog named Toto. And this was not a Halloween costume . . . this was EVERY DAY. Katrina attended her 4th birthday party as Dorothy, and I dressed her little guests in homemade costumes for the Lion, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and Glinda, the Good Witch. Jenna toddled around as a little Munchkin baby. We ate a Yellow Brick Road cake, and a good time was had by all.

Our later discovery of "Return to Oz," a dark sequel to "The Wizard of Oz," coincided with the normal loss of innocence that all little girls and boys must go through. The Emerald City was in ruins, and a villainous king ruled the land.  Leaving Oz behind, Katrina soon turned her attention to creating music and poetry and fiction of her own, but I don't think Dorothy ever left her. I think that young girl, her imagination alive with a better world somewhere over the rainbow, still resides in Katrina's heart.

And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. Which brings us to this moment. Katrina and Derrek have a dream to fulfill, one dependent on love, imagination, and a strong sense of home. Everything is in place for a happily-ever-after. Katrina and Derrek will begin their married life in a very, very, very fine house (with at least one cat in the yard). My dream for my daughter and her husband is that they fill that home with love and joy, with art and music and imagination, with compassion and affection, with forbearance and forgiveness. Because as everybody knows  . . .

There's no place like home.










Sunday, June 24, 2018

Close to Home

I was not a good history student. In my post-WWII childhood, I lived in a bubble. We were too poor to travel anywhere, so the places where history happened were foreign to me. Some then-current things stand out, like the 1957 launch of the Soviet Union's satellite, Sputnik, or the construction of fallout shelters in our basements after the Cuban Missile Crisis, but what I remember most about my elementary school education in history was having to memorize the Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the names of the Presidents of the United States. I recall it as a requirement in order to graduate from 8th grade. I met that requirement, but remained uneducated about so much American history.

I did not fare much better in high school, more interested in the fact that my boyfriend sat next to me in U.S. History II than I was in anything my teacher was lecturing about. And this, despite the fact that I graduated in 1968, the year that everything happened.

Okay, so maybe I did a little bit better than I've implied. I maintained As and Bs in history classes, and I had the beginnings of my political leanings emerge during a time when social justice was paramount. But I have regrets about not learning more, understanding more, or being able to make reference to events that seem eerily similar to the events of the day.

I am currently reading Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, a "narrative invention" that he penned in 2004. It's frigging blowing my mind. I will have more to say about it in a future blog post, after I've finished reading it. Essentially, Roth re-imagines American history, writing of the election of Charles Lindbergh in 1940. As with most Roth novels, the focus is on the American Jewish experience. Lindbergh wins the election because he is against American involvement in the war, a position that supports Hitler's agenda.

In reading that far, I recalled stories about Hitler Youth camps existing in my own little county in New Jersey. I googled the topic and found a story in Weird New Jersey, which gave me all the information I needed. Although the events occurred before I was born, the fact that the Nazi presence was so close to home was jarring. (Although my information comes from the Weird New Jersey story, credit has to go to local author and historian Frank Dale for his research and documentation.)

Bund Camp Nordland opened on July 18, 1937 in Andover, New Jersey, a town with a population at the time of 479 people. "Bund" means "Federation," and this federation was the American equivalent of the Nazi party. Originally named "The Friends of the New Germany," it was renamed in 1935 as the "German-American Bund." Fritz Kuhn was hand-picked by Hitler to be the "American Fuhrer." The opening of Bund Camp Nordland drew 10,000 German-Americans to little Andover, and initially, the locals accepted the camp, as it contributed to their economy.

Bund Camp Nordland offered weekend retreats where German-Americans could drink beer, sing songs of the Fatherland, converse in German, and "take comfort in the knowledge of their own racial superiority." Youth camps, although looking like Boy Scout Jamborees, also celebrated German superiority. Ouch.

I am of German ancestry. I have been to Germany. I have friends in Germany. My name is German. Twice, when traveling abroad, I have been asked if I am German. I have also read a lot of Holocaust literature. Just as I know that most Americans do not approve of the xenophobic policies of the current administration, I know that not all of German citizenry approved of Nazi rule.

Eventually, local hero Denton Quick, Sussex County Sheriff, began a personal crusade against the Bund. He would take down license plate numbers of every car in the parking lot at rallies and events. He offered information to the FBI. By 1940, the Bund began to lose its acceptance in the area, and in a misguided effort to reboot its popularity, it invited the Ku Klux Klan (who claimed 60,000 New Jerseyans as members) to Camp Nordland for a joint rally on August 18 of that year. The Bund posited that it and the KKK shared common goals and ideology. Over 3,500 Klansmen and Bundists attended.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Quick was not giving up. On April 30, 1941, he and a few deputized American Legionnaires raided the compound. They confiscated material which they gave to the FBI and allowed the press to photograph Hitler's portrait and the huge swastikas affixed to the roofs. They shut the place down, never to reopen again. Fritz Kuhn served some time in Sing-Sing and other detention facilities, and ten years later, back in Germany, died.

The 205 acres on the banks of Lake Iliff, site of the Bund camp, are now used as recreational fields. I doubt that many of the children playing sports on the site know the dark history of its past. Perhaps that's not a bad thing. But adults? We need to understand how easily evil ideologies can invade a population. Pay attention. Don't let evil settle in close to home.


Thursday, June 21, 2018

The Longest Day

Were you up at 6:07 this morning? If so, you were awake at the moment that the sun was directly over the Tropic of Cancer, an event that marked the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. You may know it as the First Day of Summer or the Longest Day of the Year. Even if you don't celebrate love and fertility or rollick around Stonehenge on this day, it is certainly a day worth celebrating, especially after the harsh winter that some of my Northeast friends experienced. Now if you happen to reside in the Southern Hemisphere, today marks the Winter Solstice, and that's a whole different ball game.

(Sidenote: On December 23, 2013, just two days after Solstice, I crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in Rockhampton, Australia. It was hot! I have yet to cross the Tropic of Cancer, but I have a plan to step on the Equator next April. Bucket lists can be demanding and exhausting!)

So today is the longest day, but how long is it? That depends on where you are. If you are in the Arctic, the day never ends. In my home state of New Jersey, daylight prevails for 15 1/2 hours. For reasons which will be revealed a blog post or two down the road, I am now back in a place where this longest day is under 14 hours long. Does is matter? Not at all!

But generally speaking, the days do seem to be very long, full of angst and disbelief and hand-wringing. That has certainly been true in the last few days, as more and more details about the separation of children from their parents at the southern border have emerged. I do not feel that I need to pontificate on this nightmare in this post. Either you are a decent human being and you are devastated by this horror . . . or you are beyond redemption.

What to do? I'll channel Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire: "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." That idea has come to fruition in the effort by Charlotte and Dave Willner of San Francisco to raise $1500 to go toward legal help for the families separated by this heartless administration. They directed donations to go to RAICES, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, a 501 c3 charity based in Texas, their intention to provide legal help for one or two of the family members suffering this separation. As of this writing, the amount raised is $17,095,448. I suspect it will not be long before the new goal of $20,000,000 is reached. The new plan is "to locate every separated family in the United States, get them lawyers, and when possible, get them out of federal detention - parents and children alike." A Facebook spokesperson claimed this is "one of the largest fundraisers we've ever seen on Facebook."

It warms the heart, doesn't it? Despite the evil policy enacted by this heartless administration, regular American human beings have rallied toward a cause to the tune of over $17,000,000! Won't you do your part to help them reach their goal? It's pretty easy to do. Here's the link:

Donate to RAICES

Thank you!


Sunday, June 17, 2018

Commencementalhealth

I know today is Father's Day. Anyone on social media could not be unaware of it. But Father's Day, like many holidays, is not "happy" for everyone. Count me as one of those people. Nonetheless, if the day is a happy one for you, by all means, appreciate it and enjoy it.

Today has another, very different meaning to me. It was FIFTY YEARS AGO today that I graduated from high school! Now, I just said it has meaning to me, but does it really? In hindsight, it was a day that marked the end of my public education and the beginning of . . . life? As for the day itself, I remember very little. After the ceremony, my parents took us out to dinner, something that we rarely did. I remember my father thinking he could order me an alcoholic drink to celebrate my graduation into adulthood. He was annoyed and insulted when the waitperson said that I could not be served alcohol, as the drinking age in New Jersey was 21. And that's really all I remember, although I probably made up for the alcohol-free dinner at one of the all-night graduation parties.

I have three kids who graduated from high school, and of course, I attended the ceremonies. As any parent would be, I was proud of them. I had enough pride for two parents, as their father was not alive to express his. Sometimes, those milestone events, like holidays, are just reminders of what we've lost.

Last week, news circulated on social media that a senior at the local high school, the same high school that I attended and taught at and from which my kids graduated, committed suicide. I do not know the family, and I do not know any details of his decision to end his life, but I am full of sadness anyway, as are most of us who've heard the news. And we all have the same unanswered question: why would an 18-year-old take his life? What, we wonder, could have been so bad? It is painful to think about what this year's graduation day will mean to the family of that young man.

It is easy to opine, especially at my age, about how the young don't know what lies ahead, that surely life gets better, that nothing can be so bad that suicide is the only answer. But the truth is that life doesn't always get better. Sometimes, it even gets worse. Life is messy. It is rife with pain. Break-ups, untimely deaths, car accidents, weather-related devastation, divorce, cancer, murder, mass shootings, poverty, homelessness, rape, robbery, bullying, and the list goes on. Lots of pain to go around. It's a wonder we don't all check out.

So why don't we? Well, there is work to be done, for one thing. Preservation of the earth's beauty, education of our children, the never-ending fight for equality and justice. There is art to be made, poetry to be written, songs to be sung, gardens to be planted, baseball games to be played, mountains to be climbed, waters to be swum. There are cupcakes to be baked, letters to be written, puzzles to be solved, books to be read, ice cream cones to be licked. There is marching and protesting and voting to correct injustice. There are the hungry to feed, the homeless to shelter, the mentally ill to counsel.

There are children who are in pain. We need to help them. Let's start with the 2000 children who have been separated from their parents and "placed in detention" in Texas. Perhaps correcting that horrific policy will be a start toward creating a world in which the pain that life offers will not undermine the simple joy and beauty of life on this earth.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.




Friday, June 15, 2018

Weed

No, not that kind. I'm thinking about chickweed, crabgrass, dandelion, thistle, and the ridiculously fertile purslane, which can produce over 2,000,000 seeds per plant! Can you guess that I have been spending the day (and many days before today) weeding? I'm exhausted, frustrated, and wondering why I even bother.

Of the 250,000 species of plants worldwide, only about 3% behave as weeds. But that 3% consists of the most prolific, productive, and insistent plants, gifted with survival instincts that defy reason. I am coming to the conclusion that weeding is a losing battle.

When I was first widowed, over fifteen years ago, I took to gardening and landscaping with a vengeance. It was how I grieved. My husband had been the gardener; I'd focused on other talents in our household. On a winter's day in a deep and dark December, Pete left this crazy garden for some weedless other-worldly plane. All winter long, I plied the fire with kindling and sorted through the ashes of a marriage and a family in an attempt to resurrect a life. By spring, I was resolute.

I studied those garden beds and realized that I had a thing or two to learn. Depending on the wisdom of gardening friends and trusting in a trial-and-error method, I began my gardening obsession. Once I had command of the vegetable gardens, I turned my eye toward perennials. I created landscape masterpieces out of coreopsis, yarrow, salvia, sedum, coneflower, phlox, coral bells, vinca, pachysandra, and thyme. Just saying their names gave me some satisfaction within the confines of my loneliness.

I demo'd the in-ground pool and built raised-bed gardens in its place. I constructed a greenhouse. I had tons of black dirt delivered and scoured the cornfields across the street for fieldstone. I built border walls. I designated herb gardens and lily gardens and black-eyed Susan gardens. I was obsessed.

And I weeded. I dug up wild rose roots, a veritable subway of gnarly underground chaos. I sprayed a mixture of vinegar and Dawn on the persistent weeds working their way through the pebbled pathways. And I hand-picked the weeds from my vegetable gardens. I was vigilant.

I entered a gardening contest. I won for "Most Creative Garden." I was a gardener.

And then, a dozen years later, my life took some happy twists and turns, and gardening became somewhat of a side interest. I still put my time in, but my passion was not as great as it had been. And the weeds took note. They conspired against me. If I wasn't going to dedicate my time and energy to growing things, the weeds were going to punish me with enhanced productivity.

And that's where we are today. My perennial gardens are suffering, choked by uninvited guests, including poison ivy. Sedum and stonecrop have reigned supreme, killing off their enemies and annexing other garden plots. That wildflower garden that I planted with seeds from Vermont? I can't even find it anymore. It's hiding underneath some crazy Dr. Seuss-inspired giants.

The weeds are winning.

There's a metaphor here. Don't make me explain it to you.


Monday, June 11, 2018

House Wren-ching

Despite their tiny size, house wrens sing an incredibly loud song. And it is utterly beautiful. Early summer here in Northwest New Jersey is made even more glorious thanks to the soundtrack provided by the little wrens. At one of the corners of my house, where the logs cross one another, I have provided four small wren houses, a little condo of bird heaven, and in years past, at least two of the houses have been occupied during breeding season.

For reasons I cannot fathom, an industrious little wren decided that the condo was too public. Instead, she constructed her nest on top of one of the Bose outdoor speakers which is situated under the eaves over my back deck. The other day, the poop on the deck forced my eyes upward to discover this little residence. Of course, I left it alone, as there was enough activity for me to know that there would soon be a little family residing there.

The days go by, the white poop spots continue to gather on the deck, and the little wren comes and goes with straw and insects and other materials. I await the birth, knowing that a typical wren clutch size is 3 - 10 eggs.

And then, this morning, while I was busy with my gardening duties, I became aware of a lot of noise around the nest. There were two wrens attending the nest, each approaching from a different side of the speaker. Downy feathers dropped from the nest, along with lots of twigs. I wondered if my music was too loud? Having some need to go inside, I gave up my attention to this little bird drama. When I came back outside, maybe 15 minutes later, there was quiet. I looked down to find six tiny little bird bodies on the deck, each less than an inch big. Yes, they were all dead.

I scooped them up into a seedling cup so that I wouldn't inadvertently step on them, and I was so saddened to look at their perfect little bodies. Why did this happen?

I went to my bird go-to, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to see what I could learn about house wrens and their nesting habits. And I found this:

House wrens are aggressive. Single males sometimes compete for females even after a pair has begun nesting. In about half of these contests, the outsider succeeds in displacing his rival, at which point he usually discards any existing eggs or nestlings and begins a new family with the female.

So I guess that's what happened. I considered the cruelty and the sadness, the oddities of nature. But the little tragedy that took place on my back deck seemed larger than just bird theatre. It was later, when I took a break from gardening to waste some time on social media, that I understood my despair about my little wren babies. Story after story told the sad tale of children being taken from their parents by ICE at the border. Heart-wrenching stories.

Yes, there is nature. But there is also human nature. What is it that makes us different from our animal counterparts? The easy answer would be "compassion," but we've all seen evidence of compassion exhibited by our animal friends. Perhaps a combination of compassion and intelligence then? My little wrens were subject to centuries of behavior and instinct that caused them to behave in ways that seem, well, inhuman to us. So be it. But aren't we humans better than that? Every instinct that we have informs us that our offspring need to be loved and protected by us. And our intelligence should make sure that nothing interferes with that basic human need.

So how to explain what is happening at the border? Is there ice in the veins of the ICE agents? Perhaps the more pressing question is this: is there ice in the veins of this administration?

We know the answer to that. Meanwhile, there are children crying out for their parents. "Mama! Papa!" they cry. Displaced and discarded indeed.

I will end with a quote from the illustrious Robert De Niro: "Fuck Trump!"


Thursday, June 7, 2018

Crudely Fooliani

Okay, this one is political and angry. Look away if you don't want to get riled up.

Rudy Giuliani was, at one time long ago, "America's Mayor." This was post-9/11, when America needed a hero. Giuliani fit the bill. His fall from grace is even more disturbing, given the lofty place from which he fell. He is now a cartoon, a blubbering idiot, a fool. And a danger to our country.

Giuliani was reveling in his role as "TV lawyer" for our current Liar-in-Chief while in Israel yesterday. His stupidity in denigrating Kim Jong Un publicly was on display in this one comment: "Kim Jong Un got on his hands and knees and begged for it (the canceled summit), which is exactly the position you want to put him in." Nothing like humiliating the man with whom you want to have a serious conversation about something as critical as denuclearization. As of this writing, there has been no response from North Korea, but my guess is that Giuliani's comment did not meet with compassion and understanding from "Little Rocket Man."

But that's not the most important takeaway from the Israel debacle. Part of Giuliani's spiel involved his take on Stormy Daniels. Defending his boss against the accusations leveled by Daniels, Giuliani chose to step back in time several decades to denigrate women by attacking their looks and implying that a woman's worth is based on her appearance and her occupation.

"Excuse me, but when you look at Stormy Daniels? I know Donald Trump, look at his three wives, beautiful women, classy women, women of great substance. Stormy Daniels?" (Sorry that I can't insert the scornful noises and looks that accompanied these comments.)

The irony of someone who looks (and acts) like Giuliani dissing a woman for her looks is just beyond the pale. And holding up the THREE wives of his boss, one of whom was a nude model, as icons of womanhood just boggles the mind.

"So, yes, I respect all human beings. I even have to respect, you know, criminals. But I'm sorry, I don't respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person and isn't going to sell her body for sexual exploitation."

Did he just say that a criminal is worthy of more respect than a woman whose chosen career doesn't meet with his standards? Did he blatantly invoke a double standard in that his boss uttered the infamous "grab 'em by the pussy" comment? Does he really think that there is anyone left on this planet who does not believe that his boss willingly cavorted with a porn star and paid her to keep quiet about it?

In a conversation with Chris Hayes on All In, Elie Mystal of Above the Law summed up what's going on here by labeling it a "puritanical game" and casting Stormy Daniels as Hester Prynne. If this is Making America Great Again, I want out.

And Rudy Giuliani is an ass.




Sunday, June 3, 2018

It was the third of June . . .

. . . another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

Did you catch that earworm? Okay, sorry. I couldn't resist. If you did catch that earworm, you are probably of a certain age. Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" was released in 1967 and was a smash hit. Although there really is a Tallahatchie Bridge in Money, Mississippi, Gentry made up the story of Billie Jo McAllister. (Spoiler alert: he jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.)

After the song became a hit, Rolling Stone reported that it's only a twenty foot drop off the bridge, and the water is deep enough that you would not hurt yourself if you jumped off it. Many people tested this theory, driving the local police crazy. What drove the rest of us crazy was trying to figure out what they threw off that bridge up on Choctaw Ridge. Most of us were certain it was a baby.

But Gentry would not concur. She posited that it was not important what was thrown off the bridge. What was important in the story was the casual way that the family discussed the suicide of Billie Jo McAllister over dinner. Pass the biscuits, please.

"The song is a study in unconscious cruelty," Gentry asserts.

Wow. Unconscious cruelty. There's a lot of that going on these days. As we declare our tribe and spout our opinions, there are people who are suffering in myriad ways. People in Puerto Rico with no electricity. People in Flint, Michigan, with no safe water. People at the border being separated from their children. Children in school buildings worried about being shot. People dying a slow death because they cannot afford health insurance. And we discuss these issues over dinner with an academic disconnect from the reality that others are living. Pass the biscuits, please.

Or we don't discuss anything at all of concern over dinner. We check our phones, stare into space, or race off to our ball game or shopping mall or local tavern, thinking ourselves safe from the sad events happening in other people's lives.

And I'm not saying that we should spend our days like Debby Downer, being depressed about the state of humanity. (Although it gets harder and harder to avoid that these days.) What I am saying is that there seems to be more and more sadness, more despair, and more hopelessness out there. A lot of people are eying that bridge.

It shouldn't be this way. There is a panacea for "unconscious cruelty." Call it compassion, call it empathy, call it human kindness.

Keep those things in mind when you vote.




All You Need Is Sgt. Love

The news this morning included yet another video of police brutality. There's no point in me detailing it for you. You've probably s...