With all these years since our high school graduations, I doubt my husband and I could pass an American History test, but we certainly renewed our interest after a weekend trip to San Antonio, Texas.
We went because my husband had never been to the Alamo. We dragged along a trio of granddaughters because we had extra room in the van and resort.
They missed the audio book on the lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Their role in the social and political changes is still seen today: the support systems necessary to maintain women's role in the work place; equal pay for equal work, day cares and simplifying the work at home; the integration of the races in the military and in the work force and the needs of the returning soldiers.
After polio crippled him, Franklin Roosevelt trained Eleanor Roosevelt to be his eyes and legs. When he needed an on-site inspection of an institution, she went and returned with her notes and the menu for the day.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
"Everyone with children was ready to go after two hours," my daughter sighed plunking down a diaper bag. Stripping the baby, she added, "She was practically panting from the heat."
The baby stayed inside the rest of the day. After a quick freshen-up, her brother went down for a nap.
When I stepped in the room for a second with something, he grinned mischievously at me, eager to play. I left quickly – after his early morning, he needed sleep. He took a long nap – as did his baby sister. I chatted with my daughter, the men went out to look at the prograss on the nearly finished workshop-barn.
After weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby or leaving her with us for the evening's reunion dinner, my daughter laid out pajamas for both children, made sure we had our instructions, tweaked her hair and make-up and left the baby with a bottle.
Grandpa and grandma had the kids with no parental supervision. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
Grandpa took his little buddy out to the backyard to play – they returned to rummage through the cupboard for matches. During his week of preparation for company, grandpa had piled up a bunch of yard trash and workshop excess to be burned. The company of grandchildren absolutely guaranteed that he would have a fire – whether we needed it or not.
Little buddy would do anything grandpa wanted to do.
With the baby settled down for another stretch of sleep, I grabbed the camera and followed them out the door.
The two of them watched the fire from their perch on the log of a pine tree that once grew in the yard. Legs dangling, the little fellow looking up every so often at his grandfather.
Grandpa noticed a stray stick, stood up, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandson looked around, found a bit of a stick, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandpa went back to the log and sat down again. Grandson went back to the log and clambered up to sit beside him.
The two sat and watched the flames of the fire shooting up to the sky while I looked across the flame and snapped a couple pictures.
The fire ceremony did not last. With the day's heat still lingering and supper already eaten, they did not initiate the ritual of roasting hot dogs or marshmallows or building s'mores. They came back inside to prepare for bed about the time the little one woke up, looking for something to eat.
While I prepared a bottle for the baby, Grandpa helped his grandson with pajamas.
"Time for bed," Grandpa said.
"Night, night 'tory," the child insisted.
"Okay, go get a book."
He found one and the two settled down in the overstuffed chair to read it.
If my hands had not been full of baby, bottle and burping, I would have gotten a digital picture. My mental photo will suffice.
They read, then Grandpa went to tuck him in bed – and stayed a long time. After burping the little one, I walked down the hall and peeked in on them. Grandpa lay on the bed with grandson, telling him another story.
"He wanted me to tell him another story," he said. "I'm not done yet."
I tip-toed away, patted the baby's back, checked the bonfire and answered the phone. Momma and Daddy would be getting back later than they originally thought.
I laid down on the couch so I could hear the baby if she woke up.
And that's where the parents found us when they returned – resting sleepily in the living room, the bonfire down to coals and the clutter of the day around us.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
"Everyone with children was ready to go after two hours," my daughter sighed plunking down a diaper bag. Stripping the baby, she added, "She was practically panting from the heat."
The baby stayed inside the rest of the day. After a quick freshen-up, her brother went down for a nap.
When I stepped in the room for a second with something, he grinned mischievously at me, eager to play. I left quickly – after his early morning, he needed sleep.
After weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby or leaving her with us for the evening's reunion dinner, my daughter laid out pajamas for both children, made sure we had our instructions, tweaked her hair and make-up and left the baby with a bottle.
Grandpa and grandma had the kids with no parental supervision. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
Grandpa took his little buddy out to the backyard to play – they returned to rummage through the cupboard for matches. During his week of preparation for company, grandpa had piled up a bunch of yard trash and workshop excess to be burned. The company of grandchildren absolutely guaranteed that he would have a fire – whether we needed it or not.
Little buddy would do anything grandpa wanted to do.
With the baby settled down for another stretch of sleep, I grabbed the camera and followed them out the door.
The two of them watched the fire from their perch on the log of a pine tree that once grew in the yard. Legs dangling, the little fellow looking up every so often at his grandfather.
Grandpa noticed a stray stick, stood up, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandson looked around, found a bit of a stick, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandpa went back to the log and sat down again. Grandson went back to the log and clambered up to sit beside him.
The two sat and watched the flames of the fire shooting up to the sky while I looked across the flame and snapped a couple pictures.
The fire ceremony did not last. With the day's heat still lingering and supper already eaten, they did not initiate the ritual of roasting hot dogs or marshmallows or building s'mores. They came back inside to prepare for bed about the time the little one woke up, looking for something to eat.
While I prepared a bottle for the baby, Grandpa helped his grandson with pajamas.
"Time for bed," Grandpa said.
"Night, night 'tory," the child insisted.
"Okay, go get a book."
He found one and the two settled down in the overstuffed chair to read it.
If my hands had not been full of baby, bottle and burping, I would have gotten a digital picture. My mental photo will suffice.
They read, then Grandpa went to tuck him in bed – and stayed a long time. After burping the little one, I walked down the hall and peeked in on them. Grandpa lay on the bed with grandson, telling him another story.
"He wanted me to tell him another story," he said. "I'm not done yet."
I tip-toed away, patted the baby's back, checked the bonfire and answered the phone. Momma and Daddy would be getting back later than they originally thought.
I laid down on the couch so I could hear the baby if she woke up.
And that's where the parents found us when they returned – resting sleepily in the living room, the bonfire down to coals and the clutter of the day around us.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
"Everyone with children was ready to go after two hours," my daughter sighed plunking down a diaper bag. Stripping the baby, she added, "She was practically panting from the heat."
The baby stayed inside the rest of the day. After a quick freshen-up, her brother went down for a nap.
After weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby or leaving her with us for the evening's reunion dinner, my daughter laid out pajamas for both children, made sure we had our instructions, tweaked her hair and make-up and left the baby with a bottle.
Grandpa and grandma had the kids with no parental supervision. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
Grandpa took his little buddy out to the backyard to play – they returned to rummage through the cupboard for matches. During his week of preparation for company, grandpa had piled up a bunch of yard trash and workshop excess to be burned. The company of grandchildren absolutely guaranteed that he would have a fire – whether we needed it or not.
Little buddy would do anything grandpa wanted to do.
With the baby settled down for another stretch of sleep, I grabbed the camera and followed them out the door.
The two of them watched the fire from their perch on the log of a pine tree that once grew in the yard. Legs dangling, the little fellow looking up every so often at his grandfather.
Grandpa noticed a stray stick, stood up, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandson looked around, found a bit of a stick, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandpa went back to the log and sat down again. Grandson went back to the log and clambered up to sit beside him.
The two sat and watched the flames of the fire shooting up to the sky while I looked across the flame and snapped a couple pictures.
The fire ceremony did not last. With the day's heat still lingering and supper already eaten, they did not initiate the ritual of roasting hot dogs or marshmallows or building s'mores. They came back inside to prepare for bed about the time the little one woke up, looking for something to eat.
While I prepared a bottle for the baby, Grandpa helped his grandson with pajamas.
"Time for bed," Grandpa said.
"Night, night 'tory," the child insisted.
"Okay, go get a book."
He found one and the two settled down in the overstuffed chair to read it.
If my hands had not been full of baby, bottle and burping, I would have gotten a digital picture. My mental photo will suffice.
They read, then Grandpa went to tuck him in bed – and stayed a long time. After burping the little one, I walked down the hall and peeked in on them. Grandpa lay on the bed with grandson, telling him another story.
"He wanted me to tell him another story," he said. "I'm not done yet."
I tip-toed away, patted the baby's back, checked the bonfire and answered the phone. Momma and Daddy would be getting back later than they originally thought.
I laid down on the couch so I could hear the baby if she woke up.
And that's where the parents found us when they returned – resting sleepily in the living room, the bonfire down to coals and the clutter of the day around us.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
"Everyone with children was ready to go after two hours," my daughter sighed plunking down a diaper bag. Stripping the baby, she added, "She was practically panting from the heat."
After weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby or leaving her with us for the evening's reunion dinner, my daughter laid out pajamas for both children, made sure we had our instructions, tweaked her hair and make-up and left the baby with a bottle.
Grandpa and grandma had the kids with no parental supervision. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
Grandpa took his little buddy out to the backyard to play – they returned to rummage through the cupboard for matches. During his week of preparation for company, grandpa had piled up a bunch of yard trash and workshop excess to be burned. The company of grandchildren absolutely guaranteed that he would have a fire – whether we needed it or not.
Little buddy would do anything grandpa wanted to do.
With the baby settled down for another stretch of sleep, I grabbed the camera and followed them out the door.
The two of them watched the fire from their perch on the log of a pine tree that once grew in the yard. Legs dangling, the little fellow looking up every so often at his grandfather.
Grandpa noticed a stray stick, stood up, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandson looked around, found a bit of a stick, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandpa went back to the log and sat down again. Grandson went back to the log and clambered up to sit beside him.
The two sat and watched the flames of the fire shooting up to the sky while I looked across the flame and snapped a couple pictures.
The fire ceremony did not last. With the day's heat still lingering and supper already eaten, they did not initiate the ritual of roasting hot dogs or marshmallows or building s'mores. They came back inside to prepare for bed about the time the little one woke up, looking for something to eat.
While I prepared a bottle for the baby, Grandpa helped his grandson with pajamas.
"Time for bed," Grandpa said.
"Night, night 'tory," the child insisted.
"Okay, go get a book."
He found one and the two settled down in the overstuffed chair to read it.
If my hands had not been full of baby, bottle and burping, I would have gotten a digital picture. My mental photo will suffice.
They read, then Grandpa went to tuck him in bed – and stayed a long time. After burping the little one, I walked down the hall and peeked in on them. Grandpa lay on the bed with grandson, telling him another story.
"He wanted me to tell him another story," he said. "I'm not done yet."
I tip-toed away, patted the baby's back, checked the bonfire and answered the phone. Momma and Daddy would be getting back later than they originally thought.
I laid down on the couch so I could hear the baby if she woke up.
And that's where the parents found us when they returned – resting sleepily in the living room, the bonfire down to coals and the clutter of the day around us.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
After weighing the pros and cons of taking the baby or leaving her with us for the evening's reunion dinner, my daughter laid out pajamas for both children, made sure we had our instructions, tweaked her hair and make-up and left the baby with a bottle.
Grandpa and grandma had the kids with no parental supervision. We could do whatever we wanted to do.
Grandpa took his little buddy out to the backyard to play – they returned to rummage through the cupboard for matches. During his week of preparation for company, grandpa had piled up a bunch of yard trash and workshop excess to be burned. The company of grandchildren absolutely guaranteed that he would have a fire – whether we needed it or not.
Little buddy would do anything grandpa wanted to do.
With the baby settled down for another stretch of sleep, I grabbed the camera and followed them out the door.
The two of them watched the fire from their perch on the log of a pine tree that once grew in the yard. Legs dangling, the little fellow looking up every so often at his grandfather.
Grandpa noticed a stray stick, stood up, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandson looked around, found a bit of a stick, picked it up and tossed it on the fire.
Grandpa went back to the log and sat down again. Grandson went back to the log and clambered up to sit beside him.
The two sat and watched the flames of the fire shooting up to the sky while I looked across the flame and snapped a couple pictures.
The fire ceremony did not last. With the day's heat still lingering and supper already eaten, they did not initiate the ritual of roasting hot dogs or marshmallows or building s'mores. They came back inside to prepare for bed about the time the little one woke up, looking for something to eat.
While I prepared a bottle for the baby, Grandpa helped his grandson with pajamas.
"Time for bed," Grandpa said.
"Night, night 'tory," the child insisted.
"Okay, go get a book."
He found one and the two settled down in the overstuffed chair to read it.
If my hands had not been full of baby, bottle and burping, I would have gotten a digital picture. My mental photo will suffice.
They read, then Grandpa went to tuck him in bed – and stayed a long time. After burping the little one, I walked down the hall and peeked in on them. Grandpa lay on the bed with grandson, telling him another story.
"He wanted me to tell him another story," he said. "I'm not done yet."
I tip-toed away, patted the baby's back, checked the bonfire and answered the phone. Momma and Daddy would be getting back later than they originally thought.
I laid down on the couch so I could hear the baby if she woke up.
And that's where the parents found us when they returned – resting sleepily in the living room, the bonfire down to coals and the clutter of the day around us.
The one thing we did not need the evening we took care of my daughter's children was a bonfire. The infant and her two-and-a-half-year-old brother had arrived in the early afternoon, hot, sweaty, miserable from the unexpected, intense heat at the picnic for the 10th year reunion of their mother's high school class.
No excited phone calls, no cards in the mail, no flashy pictures on e-mail or websites announcing their arrival, but still they come – tumbling, pouncing, barking and mewing for their own place in the family.
First, the Pennsylvania family announced they had returned from vacation with a couple of pit bull puppies. My son wrote that their names are, “Tiger and Izzy. Izzy is white and Tiger is brown with slightly darker stripes across his back. At least he used to have them. We’re still trying to figure out if we are going to keep them. I figure they’re fine, but you know the pit bull stories. And they do like to wrestle with each other. We don’t let them have free range through the house – we thought we had them house trained, but they surprise us every time. So at night they go in a cage. They actually run to the cage when we bring them in the house.” He added that his wife has trained them to sit by putting food down in front of them and telling them “Sit” repeatedly. She would move the food if they moved. They learned to wait until she says, “eat.”
Then my daughter called. Her friend, an enthusiastic, animal-lover who provides housing when the local pet shop does not have room for a stray, called to say she had the perfect cat for a house with babies and toddlers.
Our youngest grandson named the sleek, black, feline ‘Pirate.’ Like every other two-year old in the house, the cat loves to play. In the wee hours of the morning while the rest of the house slept, I watched Pirate swat and spin a sporty, metal Matchbox car across the hardwood floor.
“That cat likes to roll the Matchbox car,” I said to the weary daddy emerging from his bedroom to start the day.
“Every morning,” he sighed.
“And he likes to carry soft, small stuffed animals in his mouth,” my bemused daughter said. ... And, the baby’s pretty pink socks, I concluded after a flash of black with a dot of pink zipped by me.
Still kittenish, Pirate loves to wrestle. He tackled my hand in vigorous combat – but never unsheathed his claws. Visiting toddlers and pre-schoolers grab his tail, pet him backwards and delight in discovering the cat. Without baring a fang or claw to teach them their manners, Pirate heads for higher ground until an adult intervenes. An excellent place to be when the one-year-old cousin – with a topknot that flops charmingly over her eyes – arrived with her parents.
Eyes sparkling she reached to pet the cat. “Nice kitty,” her pet-less parents said. Technically they had a poodle, but through the busy years in college and work, a relative had assumed ownership of my daughter-in-love's childhood poodle. A cat acceptable in one apartment was prohibited in the next.
Leaving the cat at home, we loaded up a double stroller and went to the Farmer's Market in Little Rock. Toddlers and adults gave a cursory look at the fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables, baked goods and novelties. But, the St. Louis family came to a complete stop in front of a pair of ten-week old Shih Tzu puppies.
“We have been talking about getting a dog,” my son and his wife said bending down for a closer look. They petted and held the puppies. They wanted a dog, but with a six-hour drive home, they had not planned to buy a puppy.
They walked away saying, “If it is here when we get ready to go, we will take it with us.”
Three hours later, the puppy left the market in a brand new dog carrier.
At the house, their daughter grinned at the tiny mop of a dog. She clamored over her daddy’s leg to the puppy and turned herself around to sit down on it. Her daddy guided her bottom away from the little dog. Still smiling, she stood up, looked around, found the puppy and again prepared to sit on it. Before she landed, Daddy re-positioned his daughter and slid the puppy back into the cage's protection.
Pirate walked over to the cage and poked a black paw through the grid to welcome the little stranger.
Puppy names floated over the cage: Bowser, Rocky, Bean – the new owners settled on Mr. Bean.
They broke up their ride home to St. Louis with frequent rest stops. Holding their toddler’s hand and the puppy’s leash, the new owners experienced a new reality, “Cute dog ... oh and your daughter is cute, too.”
No big announcements, but the new norm has arrived for our families with new pets.
Move over and make room for a few retirees at the clanking, banging, roaring games in the local arcade. Recent studies suggest action video games can improve visual acuity, mental flexibility and in physical coordination for senior citizens:
Vision improves after playing games with bad guys popping on and off the screen daring players to shoot them for points. "Far from being harmful to the eyesight, as some had feared, action games such as Counter-Strike, Call of Duty or Left 4 Dead provide excellent training for what doctors call contrast sensitivity. Contrast sensitivity is the ability to notice tiny changes in shades of gray against a uniform background and is critical to everyday activities such as night driving and reading. It often degrades with age," reported Brain in the News about a study published in Nature Neuroscience.
Previously doctors only offered glasses or laser surgery to improve this aspect of vision. This study shows that even without those corrections, the brain can make better use of whatever information is received from the retina, reported Daphne Bavelier, a professor at the University of Rochester in New York State and the study's leading researcher.
The study compared the contrast sensitivity of hard-core action game players with those who preferred less rapid-fire fare. Action buffs were found to be 50 percent more efficient at detecting contrast. Wondering if vision improved with play or if individuals became action game players because they had better acuity, Bavelier asked two groups of non-action players to play the games for 50 hours. One group played Call of Duty, the other a game bereft of action.
"We found that the people in the first group improved by 43 percent and the other group not at all," she said. Plus, the effects of the training remained for months, even years after the training. At this time Bavelier does not see any point at which the action games become detrimental to the person – except "for your social life, perhaps," she suggested.
But who can have a social life if cognitive skills have disappeared? Another study covered by Brain in the News reports that playing a strategy video game appears to improve the cognitive skills that tend to decline with age.
Typically, older adults fail in mental skills such as "executive control – or the planning, scheduling, working memory, dealing with ambiguity, multitasking and switching between tasks,” said principal investigator Arthur Kramer, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He hypothesized that strategy games "in which players must juggle many competing obligations – might engage all those brain functions simultaneously in a fun and motivating way." The researchers chose the computer game Rise of Nations with multiple paths of victory, including conquering competing powers militarily and building several notable structures to obtain points. After five weeks with a total of 24 hours of game time, players scored significantly better than non-players on standard tests of task-switching, working memory and reasoning ability. The study found that playing the game paralleled improvements in mental functioning.
Another study focused especially on senior citizens. In that study, researchers saw improved coordination and visual perception when Gramps played Halo or Call of Duty. With that in mind – despite the lack of further studies in the field – several companies now sell “brain games” to stave off dementia or the effects of aging, Brain in the News reports.
The final verdict awaits further studies, but meanwhile having a few action games around retirement home might provide a bit of variety from the weekly games of Bingo.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
Incredible! Today, my oh-so-much-older-than-me cousin celebrates reaching the official age for retirement.
Is this that awesome, much older, wiser, cuter and artistic cousin who came to stay for a few days to help my mom with her passel of five kids by ironing the basket of clothes that never seemed to be empty? In those days before an abundance of wash and wear, mom had to dampen the clothes dried on the line and then iron them to look neat for church, school and trips to town. Even though Mom did not insist on a new outfit every time we got a speck of dirt on us, with five little ones, she had a perpetual pile of wrinkled laundry to flatten.
And that’s where Cousin Maretta entered the scene. She would come over to stay with us for a few days, to hang out and to iron – and iron. The seven-and a half year gap between us, prohibited deep conversations. She was a teenager and I had barely entered grade school.
At her house, I played with her little sister, Joyce, who was in my grade at school. Mostly big sister Maretta, from her superior age and experience ignored us. Or, more comfortable with someone our own size and age, maybe we ignored her – except for that one summer afternoon. That day we watched as Maretta and the between sister Donna pulled out swim suits, books, sun glasses and blankets. They arranged their collection in the back yard and settled down to work on a tan.
Little copy cats, we joined them in this obviously important ritual.
When my parents arrived to pick me up that evening, my cute cousin sported a toasty tan – and I glowed like a boiled lobster.
By the time my mom preserved me with a thorough dousing of vinegar, I had danced my howling reaction to its sting and smelled like a pickle. Emotionally scarred for life – but no skin damage, not even a blister, I nevertheless, never again purposefully exposed my skin to long periods of time in the sun.
Before I knew it, Maretta hurried off to get married and raise a family. With that she moved beyond my childish level of comprehension.
She settled down in Indiana where my husband and I initially lived after we married. Although only a couple hours apart, we only crossed paths once – both too busy caring for our growing families.
Last year, with our families grown and having their own children, we reconnected when I called to inform her of my father’s passing. Having lost her own mother not that long ago, she reached across the miles to comfort the family.
Since then she has entertained me with e-mails loaded with collections of pictures she has gathered from the Internet: Weird tree formations, a variety of electronic signatures, unusual buildings around the country, sand creations and many, many more. Via e-mail I caught a glimpse of her creative floral arrangements.
Even more importantly, she has scanned and attached pictures of our parents, aunts, uncles and cousins from years long gone including a picture from the summer she came to iron and a story of the summer my mother went to her parent's home to recuperate from “milk leg” – a strange, rare illness that follows weeks after the birth of a child. I had never heard of the illness or that my mother suffered from it. I just remember her being gone. Now I know ‘why.’
So today on Maretta's birthday, I celebrate again the wonder and privilege of having a oh-so-much-older-than-me cousin with a grand sense of humor, an artistic touch and memories I can only wish I had.
(Still the younger cousin, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
Buy ahead, plan ahead, be prepared. I practice that philosophy – especially in the kitchen. With a car load of kids I keep a picnic basket ready to go. So, many years ago, when we headed out to Disney World with our five of sons, I planned to spend our money on Mickey Mouse, not MickeyD's.
I expertly made sandwiches in the car on the ride down to Florida. At the hotel, I pulled out the camp stove, set it up, lined up spaghetti and tomato sauce and prepared to cook. And, I would have – if I had remembered to pack pots and pans.
We ate sandwiches. The next day I went shopping at a thrift store for a couple beat up-pans and cooking utensils.
Before heading out to see the mouse, the dog and the duck, I boiled water for the promised spaghetti. It was bubbling away merrily. The kids laid out plates and silverware for a hot meal – and the tank ran out of propane. My husband left to find fuel.
After that, pots, pans and plenty of propane went into the car first including the trip to our oldest son's graduation from basic training in the Army. With kids and company to feed, I had the skillet hot and the eggs sizzling when I reached for the salt and came away empty. Ever resourceful, my husband scraped salt off a couple of pretzel sticks to make a palatable dish of eggs.
I added a traveling package of salt and pepper to the picnic basket.
I learned all those lessons years ago and decided to share the adventure of cooking on a camp stove with the granddaughters.
Before heading out, my husband helped me pack up eggs, butter, skillet, matches, a lighter, salt and pepper. We had everything – except a table cloth I realized staring with dismay at the park's raunchy looking picnic table. I resolved to make one from my stash of red checked, gingham. Meanwhile one enthusiastic grandfather hauled out the tank of gas, attached its hose to the stove, turned on the gas and quickly turned it off at the sound and smell of leaking gas.
The stove inspector found the leak – a deathly ding in the brass fittings. It would have to be replaced. We ate cold cut sandwiches, went to buy a new connector and ended up having to purchase a new tank of gas because the old one would not work with the new connector.
At the house, the girls planned to make chocolate chip cookies. The baker of the day pulled out everything needed in the recipe and started measuring butter and sugar to cream together.
The butter-flavored shortening came up short. We made up the difference with margarine and vegetable shortening. The flour canister came up a cup shy of the necessary amount for making cookies. I could not find any a sack of flour in the freezer, the pantry or the top, top shelf in the cupboard.
We substituted a cup of Beignet mix from Cafe DuMonde lending the cookies a delightful French flavor.
Rice Krispy treats sounded easy and fun ... but we did not have that kind of cereal. So we used chocolate and vanilla flavored cereal bombs and the left-over chocolate chips. The guest cooks thought they had landed in chocolate heaven.
Before heading out for the long trek to their house, we loaded up the new tank of gas, the new stove connector, the new table cloth and the 30-year-old camp stove.
Back to the park we went. Back to the table with the old orange camp stove. The connector fit – but we had nothing to connect to the third end – which lacked a seal. It hissed noxious gas fumes.
Back to the store my husband went to exchange for a single connecting tube. Later – much later – he returned. Adhering to the philosophy that no one can have too much chocolate we set out ingredients for No-bake cookies - and the jug of milk tipped and spilled on the ground. My husband drove off to find more milk.
Finally, the cook of the day had everything in place and began measuring ingredients to make cookies.
She lit the burner. A paltry, blue flame feebly glowed. We studied that nearly invisible flame, waved our hand over it and decided to try the other burner. The pan warmed up, bubbles appeared in the chocolate mix and then it all went out and would not start again. The pipes had rusted. We ate cold chicken, crackers and fruit. As I said, I come prepared – if we can't heat, at least we will eat.
(The usually well prepared, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com.)
Brother, can you spare me the time?
All I need is a bit of time.
Listening to experts, I am time poor improving my life with just a few minutes of time invested here and there every day.
From my allotted 24 hours, I wisely invest eight hours hanging out at the office because all the business counselors guarantee showing up for work every day impresses the boss and shows up favorably on the yearly review.
16 hours left to do everything else, except no one mentioned that I would also spend another 30 minutes every day driving to and from work – plus 15 minutes running around gathering up a sack lunch, my keys and odds and ends needed for errands before or after work. Add in 15 minutes on average everyday for errands – dropping a coat off at the dry cleaners, a book at the library or grabbing a gallon of milk at the grocery store – and I've blown another hour a day just coming and going to work.
15 hours still bankrolled to spend daily – until I realized none of the authorities mention time expended every day dressing and grooming – at least half an hour a day – longer if I do anything other than brush, wash, comb and make-up. Add in flossing, styling, a pedicure, manicure and laundering clothes and the clock ticks me down another hour.
14 hours is great riches in time – except I haven't eaten a thing – not a thing all day. And all of the health gurus emphasize the need for eating regular, healthy meals – sitting comfortably at a table. So there I am well dressed, exercised and I still need at least three meals a day or I will definitely faint right off the face of the earth.
A meal, whether one drives-through, prepares it at home, pours a bowl of cereal or pops a TV dinner in the oven takes time.
My husband testifies to everyone he knows that within 20 to 30 minutes of my walking in the door each evening I have a meal on the table – not take-out, not a TV dinner, but home cooked he says and I refuse to enlighten him.
Since he sets the table with place mats, dishes, silver and napkins, I don't have to include that time, but it still takes nearly an hour to fix, eat and clean-up after supper. Add in 15 minutes for a simple breakfast of cereal, 15 minutes to eat the sack lunch I packed and I bestow a minimum of an hour and 30 minutes to just eating – if I don't count time for that late night bowl of popcorn or mid-day tea break.
12 and a half hours a day left to do everything else. Still plenty of time to sit down for at least 30 minutes to read the Bible, pray and meditate as spiritual advisors advocate.
With 12 hours a day, I have plenty of time left for a few minutes at the computer to check my email, weblog and Facebook or to make phone calls. After watching my mother maintain contact with family and friends with frequent and regular letters and phone calls to her extended family I know its importance, but it takes time – at least 30 minutes a day.
11 and a half hours – plenty of time to squeeze in a hobby. One avid hobbyist said any woman with a hobby should dedicate at least three hours a day to it. I'll use that time any day. I only have a few hobbies: cross-stitch, sewing, garage sale shopping and knitting.
Reading though is NOT a hobby, it is a way of life, as essential as eating, breathing and sleeping. I must have at least an hour day to just read – books, newspapers, the backs of cereal boxes, a novel, biography or a collection of essays including 15 minutes of reading before I fall asleep.
7 and a half hours left to be a writer and responsible citizen means using 30 minutes a day for jotting down my thoughts and experiences, checking snail mail and paying bills.
Seven hours, and I haven't said a word to my husband, done a bit of housekeeping or slept a wink.
Let's say I can squeeze all that in 45 minutes.
6 hours and 15 minutes left to my day. Here is where I always come up short. According to the National Sleep Foundation's website – the recommended number of hours per day is seven to eight hours for optimal health.
So brother can you spare me some time? I need some sleep.
Long overdue, prison reform has finally returned to the table, thanks to Senator Jim Webb a Democrat from Virginia. Webb says it is time to revamp the system across the country.
In March Webb introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009 that would, according to his website, "create a blue-ribbon commission to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system with an eye toward reshaping the process from top to bottom. I believe that it is time to bring together the best minds in America to confer, report, and make concrete recommendations about how we can reform the process," Webb said.
Although the United States – the land of the free – has only 5 percent of the world's population, we report holding 25 percent of the world's reported prisoners. Many prisoners are drug offenders whose jail rate has increased 1,200 percent since 1980, noted Webb.
Passive drug offenders swamp the nation's prisons. Without viable rehabilitation programs, jail time simply serves as a de-tox time until the sentence ends and the drug abuser leaves having gained no insight to their drug abuse.
"According to data supplied to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, those imprisoned for drug offenses rose from 10 percent of the inmate population to approximately 33 percent between 1984 and 2002. Experts estimate that this increase accounts for about half of the dramatic escalation in the total number imprisoned over that period. Yet locking up more of these offenders has done nothing to break up the power of the multibillion-dollar illegal drug trade. Nor has it brought about a reduction in the amounts of the more dangerous drugs – such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines – that are reaching our citizens," Webb wrote in the March 29 issue of Parade magazine.
Webb advocates addressing the source of the drug trade – the truly dangerous criminals who will do physical harm to anyone who interferes with their sale of drugs.
These people belong behind bars to keep them from continuing the importation and sale of drugs, not the drug user.
But it is not just the drug problem that needs to be addressed. As a nation, we need to
address the mental health needs of the population with adequate facilities and treatment rather than using the prisons.
America has four times as many mentally ill people in prisons than in mental health hospitals, according to Webb.
It is past time to quit using the jails to hold the mentally troubled persons while waiting for a bed to open in a psychiatric ward. It is past time to have state run forensic units available for those who do commit crimes while mentally incapacitated.
It is time and past to quit just building jails and to begin building a better system for addressing the crimes and poor choices folks make – especially the non-violent crimes which overflow our jails.
Unfair, inequitable sentencing sends drug abusers to jail for longer terms than murderers. More minorities than whites land in jail for longer sentences for similar crimes.
Years ago, the popular "three strikes and your out" policy swept the nation's states and sent the prison population rates soaring.
Prisons work best for one primary purpose – keeping violent offenders away from the populace. Prison populations should contain the criminals who commit violent crimes – including those who will do anything to line their pockets with cash from the sale of illegal drugs.
The current system is not working. The locked door perpetuates the problems by minimizing or overlooking further felonious crimes committed behind bars.
Let's hope Webb's determination bring about a turn a corner in prison reform across the nation.
And The Biggest Loser of Season 7 on the reality show .... will have to wait to be revealed on tomorrow night's episode. However, in 1941 the biggest loser was a 479-pound woman who lost 300 pounds in 18 months as noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported the AP story in El Dorado's Aug. 13, 1941 edition of the Daily News.
By following a diet under medical supervision, Dr. James J. Short of New York, said that the unnamed woman lost the weight without injury to health. She was just fine – if you don't count the spell when she could barely walk. Since that was quickly remedied, the doctor concluded, that there apparently is no limit to the amount of excess weight which can be safely removed.
The past few years, contestants on "The Biggest Loser" have lost similarly fantastic amounts of weight while learning better eating habits and exercising for hours every day – all under close medical supervision.
But in 1941, weight-loss clubs, programs and gurus remained few. Only after World War II, in 1948, did the country see the formation of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly) followed by Overeaters Anonymous in 1960 and Weight Watchers in 1963. Those with weight problems before W.W.II suffered the onslaught of what would be politically incorrect today.
For instance on Aug. 7, 1941 the Daily News carried an AP story quoting author Nina Wilcox Putnam. She said that women who allowed themselves to grow unattractively obese should be punished by law. "They should be spanked in public and made to apologize to themselves and their husbands. And everybody who looks at them," she said underscoring her point.
Putnam qualified her startling declaration by excluding women suffering glandular or other ailments conducive to obesity. "But, women who make a minor ailment an alibi for not reducing should be penalized," she said, speaking from the arrogance of the recent weight loss victor.
Putnam had just completed two months of a rejuvenating program "And before I am through I'll look like 18 instead of 59, which I am," she boldly declared.
Putnam initially weighed 187.75 pounds. She dropped to 152 and expected to weigh only 140 when finished. The loss had all been done under a purely scientific treatment program. She refused medicines or diets, according to the story.
"Now women will wonder why I ever got so fat in the first place. Well, I was injured in a hurricane in New England in 1938 and was laid up and inactive for two years. But the minute I was well, I went to work on myself."
Of course, even then, in an era with different parameters for political correctness, her words created a furor.
Some women approved what she said. Others took exception to her views as an infringement on personal matters. Putnam re-asserted that she meant all she said about punishment for women who grow fat – she never said anything about fat men.
But then Putnam – who wrote for Hollywood movies – was sure every woman could be glamorous and charming. To that end she promised to campaign for free beauty clinics.
"I'm tired of only the rich having advantages," she said. "I want them available to every woman. As we have medical clinics, we can have beauty clinics. Beauty culture is no longer the prerogative of the rich, any more than medical attention."
Incidentally, Putnam also advocated for exercise, proper diet and cleanliness.
Unfortunately, the free beauty clinics never materialized, but her free advice remains the standard for losing weight: exercise and maintain a proper diet.
Cleanliness won't shed any pounds, but it sure helps appearances.
(A foot-dragging, weight watcher, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)
A symposium I covered this week. It is fun to listen to a knowledgeable person look back over history and then reference it to current news.
By JOAN HERSHBERGER
News-Times Staff
President Barack Obama inherited a mess when he came into the presidency, but Dr. John Sutherlin, speaking at the Noon Symposium at South Arkansas Community College Wednesday, doubted that the mess would have been any different if Al Gore had been the departing president.
Sutherlin, a political science professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and co-director of the social science research lab, is a 1986 graduate of El Dorado High School.
"Once 9-11 happened, this changed public policy – so much would have to happen. We had to go from Afghanistan to Iraq. It would not have made any difference if it had been Gore. With the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that Clinton signed, the United States had to enter the country."
Sutherlin came to analyze Obama’s first 100 days in office.
"I am not sure why the first 100 days are more important than the first 45 or 90 days but we have placed some significance on them," Sutherlin said. He saw only a a slight difference between Obama and McCain – no difference in economics; some difference with social concerns.
Sutherlin opened with a comparison to the first 100 days of previous presidents.
Like Bill Clinton, Obama changed the rules about tax dollars being spent on abortion or planned parenthood.
"Abortion will always be a hot button," Sutherlin said. "Both parties get a lot of mileage out of it, while most Americans are dead in the middle. Both parties will continue to milk this issue. The stem cell research will continue to be involved. In 1980-81 there was a similar issue with the in-vitro fertilization of Reagan’s time. This is no longer a point of contention."
George Bush's transition into the presidency was truncated with the challenge on his election from opponent Al Gore. He had to deal with Yemen's attack on the USS Cole and challenges on his appointments – and then came 9-11. George H.W. Bush Sr. had a smooth transition into the presidency from his years as vice-president under Ronald Reagan.
"Bill Clinton had the worst first 100 days in recent history. You would have to go back to Grant or Harding to find a worse first 100 days. He did not come in with a mandate because he never received 50 percent of the popular vote. He tried to tackle issues without a mandate such as gays in the military and healthcare reform," Sutherlin said. "Like Obama, many of his appointees faced major concerns with tax problems such as failure to pay or tax fraud." They failed on the floor.
No one else in the past 40-60 years has come in with more issues needing to be addressed than Obama. The last days of his predecessor had major financial losses, bank failures and the world opinion of the United States was very low.
The stimulus package - the biggest issue - will continue to evolve in the next two years because it is linked to a huge budget. In the past, during the first 100 days the newly elected president could reach across party lines, argue all day, then shake hands with members of Congress and they could go home as friends. In this first 100 days you do not see bipartisanship, but a series of bills passed along party lines in both houses of Congress, according to Sutherlin.
There is a big shift. State decisions will be affected because the stimulus package for the states comes with strings attached. "It has become a shell game. More or less is spent here or there and there is a limit on spending of the local government," he said.
"But we have to consider our national interest in having a car company. We, as a nation, slipped up in 1983. At that time we had 783 shipyards, now we have six," he said. Ships are now built in Pakistan and other countries.
During his first 100 days, Obama – who has a lot of personal charisma – has received favorable treatment from the press with minimal challenges or criticism from them, Sutherlin said. MSNBC fawns over him and Fox depicts him as unable to do anything right, according to Sutherlin.
Issues the Obama administration addressed during the 100 days included the Ledbetter Law aimed at ending sexual discrimination on the job. "Women doing the same work as a man for years have earned 15 percent less. If this law brings this up to speed, it will improve the work for many," Sutherlin said.
The childcare laws catch the four million children and their families who fall between the cracks in state and federal coverage. But Sutherlin went on to underscore that there is a difference between actually approving a universal medical care bill and medical care. There may be a guarantee of coverage, but it does not exist if there are no facilities.
With the ethics changes, much of the mandated disclosure has come back on Obama. His top people have had to disclose their information. Without Tom Daeschel and his staff, Obama lost their efficiency and insider knowledge.
Whether it had been Obama or McCain who won the election, there would have been little difference in the changes in policy on global warming, according to Sutherlin. "We will follow the rules of the rest of the world in this regard.
Right now all of our energy comes from coal and gas. You can double the renewable resources in the next four years and it still would not change that because the renewable resources are only about 2 percent of the whole picture and they are difficult to put into place."
Sutherlin spoke from personal experience in trying to convert at least 25 percent of his household energy to solar energy. The number of solar panels he would need would cover his entire roof and his neighbor's garage.
"It is difficult to go green in urban areas and in apartments – people like their cars too much to give them up," he said, adding that without an established infrastructure of mass transportation, it won't happen.
Sutherlin pointed out that 100 years ago the newspapers carried stories worrying over the end of coal. "We still have oil and gas and coal. We are the only country with limitations on our natural resources. It is just not possible to reduce the carbon output with urban life."
The reversal of the torture at Guantanamo Bay detention camp was inevitable, he said. If it had been McCain elected, as a former victim, it is unlikely that he would have continued it either, he thought. Sutherlin went on to point out the contradiction that while the world opinion opposes the torture, no other country is stepping forward to take these prisoners – because they are a problem. "They are very dangerous people."
Internationally, Obama has reached out to Cuba and other countries trying to open and establish communication with the hope that if we could communicate with them that would make a difference. Sutherlin saw the move toward Cuba as taking care of an irritant to the last 13 presidents. It is a country about the size of Pennsylvania with half the population.
Looking world wide, "It does not make a difference to them if you are Republican or Democrat. You are an American and you have messed too long with the Mid-East. North Korea is not likely to reduce its nuclear weapons with Obama and it does not matter to them if he is a Democrat or Republican," Sutherlin assessed.
Internationally, the United States is a tricky subject. "We can be well received and liked and wrong in what we are doing," he said. "The problem is that the United States has a third of the world's income and has the largest military. We can act unilaterally – and many times have done so when we could have used another form."
Sutherlin said Obama seeks stability in Pakistan because of the nuclear weapons.
"We have the constant threat from Iran and Pakistan. Israel has a new prime minister.”
Israel has bombed facilities with nuclear capabilities. There is a saying, "If the Palestinians put down their weapons, we will have peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there will be no Israel."
Sutherlin said he does not think that Obama would support Israel, but would cut them loose. He does not support Israel as did Clinton. Clinton was almost entirely consumed with Israel in his last 90 days, Sutherlin said. Obama will move toward the Palestinians more than Israel, but the Palestinians are split into five little countries. A policy decision will force Israel to act unilaterally to protect itself such as the building of a wall or putting up a fence.
While Obama is a charismatic speaker and very highly popular around the country and the world, on the policy side, people have begun to step back and say, "let's take another look at this. Whether you like him or not, Obama is a charismatic charmer, he is a good speaker, has style, is young and optimistic. He is the antithesis of McCain. But then so was Carter. He was seen as new, young and a maverick," he said.
"Obama does not just appeal to certain populations. I cannot remember when I have seen this clean of a break between administrations." Sutherlin said he thought Obama will continue to be popular until it hits the pocketbook.
On religious issues, Obama is notorious for not referring to God in any form or having any religious symbol around him, Sutherlin observed.
Energy will continue to be an important issue. An energy policy of cap and trade is a noble effort, opined Sutherlin, but if the goal is to reduce the production of any pollutants and convert to other ways it will take a lot of money to build. "There is a lot of money in the economic package for green projects," he said.
"The Republicans need to take a look at this. They can be environmentally active and a business. Oil and gas enjoyed a lot of favor under Bush, and we will see a reduction in the emission control numbers." This will make a difference in the numbers expected during expansion. Arkansas and Louisiana have bio-fuels and renewables such as sugar cane, algae and wood chips. The next issue is universal health-care. There are two ways to achieve this: a slow, incremental approach where one group after another is added to the health care plan, or an omnibus plan, according to Sutherlin.
"Look for a debate on these issues in the summer and fall. I do not feel really positive about them. Everyone talks about the European plan. Yes, they have it and they have a higher tax bracket. But 20 percent of Europeans have private insurance on top of that. That is a greater percentage of dissatisfied people than in the United States. There is a difference between having insurance and having access to facilities themselves. We would need to construct."
Several in attendance asked questions after Sutherlin’s lecture.
In relation to the economy, he predicted inflation and hoped it would not soar to double digits as it did in 1977-78.
"It is coming, you just can't see when it is coming or for sure when it will come," he said. Bush spent more money in his last 90 days of office than he did his first seven and a half years, Sutherlin said. Obama is spending too much money and that is not a lot different from Bush.
"They have fleeced the American people. Remember in 1945 you could purchase a Coke for a nickel and now it costs a dollar? Has your income increased 20 percent in that same time period? The value of income and property is less. The decline of the dollar is an important story that will not end."
Violet gingham curtains bordered with broadly smiling fairy ,princesses and topped with a purple valance accented with castles capture the fairy princess theme seen around the room in pictures, books and wooden cut-outs. A closet stuffed with two racks of pink and pastel colored dresses in all sizes and a dresser filled with sleepers, onesies and baby-sized black patent leather shoes, white and pink crocs, moccasins and tons of socks - testify to the baby’s soon arrival.
A pristine white, lacy bassinet at the foot of the couple’s bed bespeaks the impending arrival of the expected child as does the three-tiered cake made of baby diapers, tied together with a pink ribbon on the shelf in the living room.
The infant will come home to the palatial preparations today- sweet, wide-eyed looking around trying to sort out all the new things she sees - now that she has left that special place under her mother’s heart.
Last week, momma told her big brother “the doctor is checking to see if the door is open for the baby to come.”
This week the doctor announced the door had opened and told momma to be at the hospital the next day to be medically induced to speed things along – if nothing happened overnight.
“It is the only civilized way to have a baby, ” a friend replied to her emailed announcement.
And it was.
April 29 was a day of casually watching television, getting an epidural to erase extreme discomfort, and then in the midst of it all a long nap for the expectant mother who joked as she waited for the doctor to escort the baby’s arrival - after her accommodating nurse tended everything else that day.
I bounced between my daughter at the hospital and my husband and grandson at the house. After a supper break, I came back and met the expectant father in the parking lot, rushing back from a quick outing to get his supper.
“They called,” he explained. The door was open and the baby paused before her grand appearance. “Can you take this in for me?” he handed me his package. I told him to run. I followed more slowly with extra pillows and blankets for his night’s stay at the hospital.
I still got to the room before Dr. Dreamy – as the nurses call him for his sweet personality, warm smile and easy manner with the new mothers .
Suddenly all the packages discretely placed in the room gained importance as the nurse, aide and doctor selected whatever they needed. With everything arranged, my daughter did five minutes of quick work and “Here she is,” the doctor announced.
A couple lusty cries announced a healthy child protesting the insult of bright lights, cool air and the need for clothes. Swaddling the tiny human in a receiving blanket, the nurse handed the yet-to-be-named princess to my daughter.
She reached out, crying, smiling, looking deeply into her daughter’s wide, inquiring eyes assuring the child that everyone welcomed her.
“Now what is your name? Emory? Ella? Or Caroline?”
The child stared soberly back at her mother waiting for the verdict as two grandmothers and daddy watched. Our turn to hold the newest grandchild would come. Right then, momma needed to become acquainted with this little person who had been dancing her delight in life for nine months in tight quarters.
When daddy’s turn came to hold his daughter, he took her like a pro - his fearful approach of two years ago expunged with experience.
The nurse cleared her throat, “I need to take the baby for a bit,” she said, a list of inspections, weigh-in, shots and eye drops lined-up on the bassinet.
I went over to the nursery table and watched her measure off 20 inches of length for the 6 pounds 13 ounce baby. “She looks like a sweet Caroline to me,” I said. With little more discussion, that became her name.
Two hours later, grandpa brought big brother to the hospital. He proudly wore a blue pin announcing, “I’m the big brother,” but mostly he just wanted to see his momma. He crawled up into bed beside her , looked at the burrito-wrapped baby and let his momma know that he wanted to be snuggled, too. After a snuggle and a story, he marched down the hall holding grandpa’s hand, waved at the nurses and went home to open the door to welcome his sister home to her new room.
Babies come and babies grow – tall. Just ask my 2-year-old grandson. He may still be sorting out how to pronounce all the words he knows, but when he knows the meaning, he will not tolerate any mistakes. This month he pulled himself up to his full 36 inches and emphatically told his mother, “NOT a gickle (little) boy! Me, tall boy.”
Tall enough and smart enough to have learned to sing the Happy Birthday song from beginning to end – with a few extra repetitions of “Happy bu-dy to dyu.”
He sang it to his St. Louis cousin – after he got home from her first birthday party. He saw her picture on the refrigerator, said her name and began singing for her birthday.
She can't sing, but his now 15 month-old St. Louis cousin, according to her momma, “is playing around with words and sounds more and more each day” – and evidently, people. Her parents took her to a casual family restaurant recently and allowed her to get down from the high chair. Little Ms. Congeniality walked up to folks at nearby tables, smiling waving and calling out “Hi!” Several returned the grin and greeting. Others gave her a baby high fives.
The little socialite even tried to help her mother prepare for a party as her mother wrote in a recent e-mail:
“I had things going on the stove and in the oven, mountains of dishes to do throughout the day. I kept looking in on her every three to five minutes to make sure everything was okay. At one point I looked in the living room and saw that she was sitting in the middle of the floor with what looked like dirt all around her. Upon closer investigation – I saw she had chocolate cupcake crumbs all over the place. My darling girl, in the course of five minutes made her way through the kitchen, stepped up on her chair, knocked a cupcake off of its cooling rack on the dining table, carried the cupcake through the kitchen into the living room – ALL WITHOUT ME SEEING HER! I was truly amazed. All I could do was shake my head and laugh. I actually was fairly proud of her determination, speed and climbing skills – but I decided to put the baby gate up to keep her out of the dining room after that.”
Some areas have to be off limits to children, but for curiosity's sake, I keep a shelf of oddities for visiting grandchildren – including the shell of a large star fish I found at a yard sale.
During a recent visit, the two-year-old grandson explored its spiny bumps as he turned it around in his hand.
“Poke,” he looked up at his mother.
“Yes, it does poke,” she said and talked with him about star fish. He wanted to think about this new discover. Even if poked, he wanted to sleep with it that night. After he fell asleep, his mother eased the poke-y shell out of his hands.
Fortunately for Grandpa, the child just studied the tools used at his house last week.
At that same age, his only boy cousin fell in love with Grandpa's favorite hammer and carried it everywhere – including to bed. I persuaded Grandpa to give the child the hammer and buy another one for himself.
Considering the hammer he bought, I don't think Grandpa minded too much that he gave his hammer to a “tall boy.”
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
The news defies the imagination, but grabs hold of a very old idea: Give generously without a public display.
Since March 1, that is exactly what has been happening in the financial offices in at least nine state universities across the nation, according to the Associated Press. The recipients of $46.5 million received their portion of the windfall with three stipulations: The bulk of the money must be used for student scholarships, the remainder can be spent on various costs such as research, equipment, strategic goals and operating support . . . and the recipients must not try to find out the source of the cashier’s checks or checks received from a law firm or representative.
The chancellor of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs accepted $5.5 million and signed a confidentiality agreement that she would not try to find the donor.
Because middlemen were used, it’s not clear whether the gifts came from an individual, an organization or a group of people with similar interests.
“It was a remarkable gift particularly during these economic times,” said David Wolf, vice president of advancement at the University of Southern Mississippi. The $6 million the school received is their largest single gift ever.
“I think somebody is out there, or potentially a group of people, that has a great respect for the value of a college education and the power that it brings,” Wolf said. “Gosh, if it’s the same person or the same collective group of people, it’s an amazing story.”
How refreshing! Gifts given with no “grip and grin” photo session of recipients shaking hands with a smiling donor while holding a check between them. A gift with no expectation that the next dorm, classroom or athletic field will be named after the donor or their organization. A gift with no expectation that the donor’s child or grandchild will be accepted in the fall.
Someone, somewhere simply signed a check saying “here is cash to educate the next generation.”
"In my last 28 years in fundraising ... this is the first time I’ve dealt with a gift that the institution didn’t know who the donor is,” said Phillip D. Adams, vice president for university advancement at Norfolk State University which received $3.5 million.
The other universities were Purdue, $8 million; $1.5 million to the University of North Carolina at Asheville; The University of Iowa received $7 million; the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Maryland at College Park each received $6 million; and Penn State-Harrisburg received $3 million.
An unusual story, but not a new idea. A couple thousand years ago Christ told his followers “When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you,” Matthew 6:2-4 (NIV)
It takes a someone with a great heart to give without needing to have their ego inflated – but a secret gift does not need to be in the millions. Anyone seeing a need can prepare a meal, slip a couple dollars or pay on an outstanding bill. All it takes is a willing heart and an open hand.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
Leafing through a second-hand quilting magazine with colorful pictures of intricately, pieced fabric, my daughter looked up and protested, "How do they decide whether a quilt is beginner's level or not? This doesn't look like a beginner's quilt to me." She thrust the photo of a beautifully stitched quilt in front of me.
So says this child of mine who pulls out a sewing machine once or twice a year.
She laid the magazine down, refusing to look at any more triangles and tiny blocks assembled into a queen sized quilt and labeled easy enough for a beginner.
She looked across the room at the baby quilt she had come to my house to make for a friend. "Now that is a beginner's quilt!"
Well yes, 12 nine-inch blocks with a two-inch sash around each is a beginner's quilt – it might even qualify as a simple quilt. I made a similar, full sized quilt when I was about her age. Big blocks, colorful, simple to assemble, but it really impressed by my grandparents who hung it on the wall behind their sofa.
The simple quilt quickly and easily satisfies her need to create. She developed her own style last year as she helped me sort my stash of fabric. Stacking reds, pinks, blues, greens and violets, she stumbled across a couple yards of intriguing fabrics: one printed with colorful pages intended to be made into a toddler's fabric book about insects and a piece printed with a child's map of a city traversed with a road just the right size for Matchbox cars.
"It would make a great, reversible play quilt," she said and began pawing through my stash of green fabric until she found a grassy print of shamrocks to sew between blocks as a border.
Within the hour, her newly claimed fabric covered our dining room table and I tried to show my lefty how to use a rotary cutter.
She tried but opted for shears for the cloth pages as well as the accompanying silhouettes of a dragon fly, butterfly, lady bug and bright yellow sunflower.
Raiding my sewing cabinet, she hauled out bug shaped buttons and cars to decorate the finished quilt and bonding fabric to stiffen the cloth bugs to make them appear to have just landed on the little quilt.
Spools of thread and stray pins cluttered the floor of the sewing room. She insisted she wanted to machine quilt it.
I talked, coached, sewed, sighed and insisted that we needed to take out and re-stitch haphazardly cuts, seams and machine quilting.
The house was a mess but we completed the play quilt for her son before she left that weekend.
I messed up her house in December as we talked our way through another simple, reversible baby quilt with blocks from a cloth book. She cut and sewed straighter lines, but I figured insufficient framing strips so we had to re-calculate and make do.
She returned last week to make her friend's baby boy a play quilt similar to her son's.
She sorted through my thrift shop and garage sale finds and chose a Bob the Builder book to use on the reverse side of another kid's map I had found somewhere.
She ripped apart the completed book, trimmed the pages into blocks, figured out the spacing between the blocks and the number of strips needed to sew it together.
Between my work schedule, visiting with folks and taking care of her two-year-old, the simple quilt took us a couple of evenings.
Tuesday night she cut straight lines that sewed up quickly and easily into strips.
The blocks lined up evenly. The top and bottom sandwiched the flannel filler and pinned together smoothly.
Wednesday evening she machine quilted straight lines through the sandwiched material and finished it with a zig-zag stitch on the edge of the red quilt binding from a Smackover reader.
A simple quilt finished with very few glitches.
One more simple quilt like that and the two of us just might be ready to make one of those beginner quilts.
(A student of stitchery, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. She can be reached by e-mail at joanh@everybody.org.)
Several weeks after the arrival of the eight progeny of a single mother who already had six children, my Pennsylvania son wrote, "I would council any woman who thinks she doesn't "need" a man but she "needs" to have children, to think, instead, of her children's needs before she gets pregnant. Children deserve a resident father."
"Here in America, men and women feel the right to pursue their desire to have children, without intending to have any sort of relationship with the child's other parent. Anyone, man or woman, who sets out to have children by themselves, intentionally depriving them from the start of their other parent, is wrong," he wrote emphasizing that entering parenthood intending to short-change one's children by not including the other parent is not in the child's best interest.
His comments opened up a lengthy discussion on his weblog.
My one contribution to the discussion focused on the fact that men and women approach life differently. Those differences offer children another perspective on just about everything. The most obvious example can be seen on "Jon and Kate plus 8" where the uptight, controlling mother is matched with a laid-back, take-it-easy father. If the children had only their
hyperventilating mother around during these formative pre-school years, they would miss seeing their father's contrasting casual responses to the same situations. He demonstrates "don't sweat the small stuff."
The topic brewed in the back of my mind as I sorted through several years' accumulation of letters, cards and writings where I came across the following observations made by my Michigan son, Mert Hershberger. He sent us these thoughts four years ago.
I learned how to make money from my dad; I learned how to save money from my mom; and as a family we share the treasures we have with each other.
I learned how to work hard from my dad; I learned how to take it easy from my mom; and as a family we love life: In the easy and the hard times.
I learned how to trust God from my dad; I learned how to pray to God from my mom; and as a family we watched the Lord hear us as we called on His name.
I learned that God created the world for us to study and enjoy from my dad; I learned that God revealed the Bible for us to study and enjoy from my mom; and as a family we watched the seasons change from spring to summer to fall to snow-white winter and we memorized Scripture after Scripture.
I learned to be faithful from my dad; I learned to be grateful from my mom; and as a family we worshiped in the Lord's House.
I learned that discipline means you are loved from my dad; I learned that generosity means you are loved from my mom; and as a family we inherit the blessings of our Father.
I learned to see that God is good from my dad; I learned to taste His goodness from my mom; and as a family we feasted at the Lord's table.
I saw the footsteps of Jesus in my dad's life; I saw the hand print of the Lord in my mother's; and the Holy Spirit led us forward as a family.
I studied the growing humility of the Lord in our dad's way of life; I observed the steady honor of the Lord in our mom's way of life; and as a family we hosted the Lord in our homes when the poor, the confused, the rejected, and those of us kids who tended to stray were given shelter.
There are so many other ways children benefit from having both a father and a mother in residence. Those who intentionally set out to do otherwise only fool themselves. Their kids know the difference.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)
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