Himself, the Daddy

My dad was a fair-minded man, the Libra of all Libras. One of his amusements was to have me argue both sides of a question. This worked well on topics such as mosquitoes. Yes, there should be mosquitoes in the world because of the food chain; we wouldn't have toads without mosquitoes. No, mosquitoes are bad because they kill humans indiscriminately. I liked keeping my responses simple. I was a simple child. However, if the topic was one about which I had passionate interests, the going was tough. I remember the Sparkle Plenty exchange. No, it's not good for girls to have dolls as they are better off exploring the natural world and housing a pet cockatoo instead. Yes, every little girl should have a doll. Personally, I didn't really see the point of the discussion. Anybody attempting to take away my Sparkle Plenty doll, my one and only childhood carry-on item, was in trouble. I found these exercises in fair-mindedness tedious. Nowadays, though, as I read some of the heated debates about health care, flu shots, guns, abortion, and civility, I'm thinking my dad gave me a rare gift. None of these "threads" existed in my day but if they had, I would have been taught to see both sides. Seeing where people "are coming from" helps to know where they are going. The whole point of my activist existence is to set the record straight. There have been times when it was futile to find the good so for myself I have instead of seeing the good in all, I look for the good and hope to find it. I have learned my dad's lesson but I have applied it differently. I'm reminded of a lecture I heard years ago in which a man made the startling pronouncement, "You have to close your mind to keep the garbage out." The Amish have shunning and the snobs have social exclusion. I have drifting off to a better planet. My dad, strange to say, would approve if I had first given the party in question a hearing. Next Monday, I will have my memorial lunch for the anniversary of this splendid man's death. I will go to Kildare's for a traditional Irish repast with my traditional hot water rather than a Guinness . My dad wasn't Irish but as in everything else, he gave it a try during his six years in Belfast and I hear tell he liked it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...may the road rise up to meet you with a couple of characters along the way to learn you...

Passing Angels

I call them Passing Angels, my bus encounters people. I had planned a different topic for my blob but then malware invaded the Dell in the Shire. Tuesday came and went. There is always a reason for such events. Randy said he thought Earthlink had an "outage" and I needed to scan for malware. Malware was found and the outage seems to have turned to inage. I tend to skip the science and look for Another Reason. I think, in this case, the reason was Todd. I was at the Franklin/Rosemary bus stop when I heard this man ask if the (couldn't hear which) bus had gone by. No answer from the requestee so I piped up and said, "The N is late if that's the one you are catching." He replied, "No, I'm going to Timberlyne to check my mail." That seemed odd. Timberlyne is way out in the country whereas a post office was around the corner. He was a nicely dressed, almost preppy, stocky man with a milk chocolate complexion verging on dark chocolate. He had a soft Southern accent. I then said I liked the Timberlyne route which brought forth one of those, "Since the time I've been here" remarks which prompts a, "Where did you from from?" comment. It turned out he was not from these parts. He was from Philadelphia and had known and studied with some famous artists such as the cartoonist who drew The Family Circus. He said his father was a writer and his mother an artist. Early in life he learned to join words with drawings. He gave me some water color tips as it is my favorite medium. And some Amtrak tips for going to Philadelphia. We talked about the wonderful statue of the woman seated with her suitcase in an old-fashioned summer dress and hat. Suddenly my bus came. The lateness had been just enough. I got up from the bench and he asked earnestly, "What is your name?" I said, "They call me Mimsey." "I'm Todd." "Thanks for the art lesson, Todd." I leave it to you. Do you think this is why I was kept home working on the computer? Is this why my bus was late? Is this one of those angels with a directional sign pointing me towards Central Park with a sketchbook in my hand? You know what I think.

~~~~~~~~~

...may passing angels "speed you with a song, a melody of Heaven"...

Peace Angel: courtesy of Bernadette Deming

Ya Me Exista El Dia

Photo Credit: William A. Bake

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Call me She Who Does Not Finish. Perhaps it's my horoscope which is a broken record of the warning, "Don't scatter your forces." However, I don't buy my horoscope because where I was born the stars were all upside down. Maybe it's because I am, according to Barb Sher, one of many a Scanner. These are good people who simply dabble in everything and there's no time left over to accomplish any one of the tasks. Get this: "What you've assumed is a disability to be overcome by sheer will is actually an exceptional gift. You are the owner of a remarkable, multi talented brain trying to do its work in a world that doesn't understand who you are and doesn't know why you behave as you do." !!!! I started a novel in '79. So far, no one has taken the title. A sign? I did write 92 pages and 150 drafts of those same pages. I told the story except for the ending to dozens of people on trains, planes, and buses. I imagine somewhere right now someone is wondering whatever happened to my delightful character, Evy. I had a dream once where Evy did the same. She came in a whisper of a cloud and asked, "What happened to me?" Guilt trip. I honestly don't know. There are several possibilities. She either succumbed to a recurrence of polio, or married Bartholomew Fields and together they created an orphanage in Cadiz, or quite possibly he died unexpectedly while filming in India and Evy went on alone visiting her old home on the Outer Banks where she became an artist of paper cranes. I asked several authors to write it for me with the identical response, "It has to be in your voice." Oh, bother. I also started an autobiography in 2003. I really liked the first five paragraphs. I liked them so much, I couldn't go on. Nothing seemed as lively or inspiring as those five paragraphs. Therefore, announcing to you that this is anniversary week on the Blob comes with great pride in achievement. I was only going to do one post on January 7, 2009. And yet, here I am. It is an unfinished work but a continuing one. I was looking at the entries of an old Gratitude Journal I kept in 1999. Every single day is accounted for. Another achievement. The last scribble says, "I thank you, my Gratitude Journal, for your attention and guidance and friendship, discipline and sympathy." Perhaps it is a fitting quote for the Blob as well. Perhaps a Scanning Gemini/Sagittarius is nae sa bad. A few things do get done and the itinerary always reads, "And then...."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

...may the blessings of projects awaiting be with you...

Sad News

Wedding Photo: Courtesy of Charles Letts

~~~~~~~~~

Photo Credit: poconoangel

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Charles LettsJanuary 9, 2011 at 1:22pm

Subject: Mario Cavallini Sondra Ball

Hello. I am a friend of the late Sondra Ball and Mario Cavallini. Mario was tragically killed in an auto accident on 12/30/2010. They published a poetry site Autumn Leaves. I do not know how to tell poetry type people of Mario's passing. Do you have any suggestions? Here is a link to his death http://www.facebook.com/l/84a79mL0OaAn_NZfCnm9gPBdO8Q;notice.http://obits.nj.com/obituaries/sunbeam/obituary.aspx?n=mari

******************************************************

Among my first entries on the Blob, I published one of my favorite of Sondra's poems which I came across one chilly evening in Eureka, California. I am re-posting it here in the memory of the the two who were so kind to me.

Early Winter on the Brandywine
by Sondra Ball

........................................................
By the edge of the Brandywine

where weeping willows grow,

I find a fallen tree trunk

still clear of snow.

............................................
I sit upon the tree trunk,

watch grey green waters flow

southward towards the Chesapeake

through banks of snow.

............................................
I sing to the Brandywine:
green waters,

clean waters,

where do you flow?

............................................................
I hear the river answer:

......................................
over hills,

over rills,

through the white snow.
........................................................
By the edge of the Brandywine

where weeping willows grow,

I find a fallen tree trunk

still clear of snow.

Cardinal Hollow

My dad's brother, Henry, was a major figure in my life. He was the only uncle who wrote regularly during my childhood overseas. He liked to decorate the envelopes with National Wildlife Federation stickers and the latest of stamps. This may have been a side effect of one of his jobs as he rode the rails for the U.S. Postal Service. Henry was a railroad man and a letter writer. He was fond of birds and monarch butterflies. When I visited him in his efficiency apartment with no yard in Albuquerque, he had a stack of my letters, some opera records, and wanted to know if I ever received the postcard with the photo of the cardinal painted on the mailbox.

An excerpt from a letter:

Sunday, November 23, 1986

Would you believe it--I planted over 2000 shrubs and trees on the 60 acres at the Hollow with the aid of an Indian helper. I also bought a telescope and became a watcher of the skies, purchased a pair of binoculars and became a fair to middling ornithologist for a country boy. My immortality will be back there where I mostly planted varieties that would reproduce themselves for thousands of years and where my unknown, unseen epitaph will be at the base of a mighty {stained, unreadable}. I have a few more months before my eyesight completely fails. It is wonderful to know of such events in advance. One sees many, many things in a new, brighte {his spelling} and more beautiful light." Because of the name he gave the property in northeast Oklahoma, I associate cardinals with him and his homeplace. When my grandson was born, another Henry, I saw a cardinal out the window and felt the spirit of poetry and opera my uncle had always loved. A cousin sends this memory of Uncle Henry: "I never had a conversation with him that didn't include him quoting long passages from Shakespeare's plays. He put off having cataract surgery because he enjoyed the personal light show of lights at night - said neon lights were like his own private fireworks display. (If you've had cataracts you'll understand, if not - you won't). Monarchs used to go through St. Louis county when I was a kid. Thousands of them...I remember the very last cardinal I saw, too, it landed on a branch in the winter right outside the window of the classroom when I was a jr in high school. Never saw another one again." Lucille asked if I noticed the bush, Nandina Domestica, next to the rhododendron where the cardinals have been gathering at Bag End Garden. Considered by the Chinese to ward off mother-in-law problems, this particular plant of hers is a relative of the one in the front as a result of tossing branches over the deck above me. The red berries complement the cardinals as though pre-destined. George writes: "My mom loved cardinals. Ever since she passed away, she has made her presence known to family members through ornithological form--very noticeable, as in crossing in front of me when going up the driveway or walking down the bikepath, or driving down the road. And cardinals moved into the neighborhood AFTER I moved to our current home." Will, a longtime birder in New York states, "They have always been here." His favorite spot for looking is The Rambles of Central Park. A quote from an events calendar explains why. "Lose yourself in a 37 acre woodland as your guide from the Central Park Conservancy leads you through a maze of pathways and scenic wonders." I've heard that cardinals are the state bird of seven states and have a tidy repertoire of songs. As I feed the cardinals here at the Shire in North Carolina (one of the states), I ask them if they know a little La Boheme. I like to sing along, of course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

...may the melodies of our feathered friends bless your day...

Photo Credit: Harvey Doerksen/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service