My Thoughts on Marriage Equality

Hello Friends. 

Ever since the Supreme Court handed down their decision on marriage equality I’ve been thinking about what, if anything, I should say on the subject. I decided I did have a few things I wanted to share and I thought a blog would be the best way to do it. 

I’m curious about the people who think that “Holy Matrimony” has always been the custom and that by changing the law to recognize same sex unions we are doing something akin to altering the length of a day or changing the location of the moon. Anyone who knows history should recognize the fact that marriage has changed through the centuries. In the earliest days of Christianity marriage was frowned upon by the elders who thought that celibacy was the ideal. If a man needed to have physical union with a woman then marriage was grudgingly accepted. It wasn’t until the tenth century when couples, looking to have children, went to their priest to ask for a blessing of their union that the church became involved at all. Even then marriage was a civil contract between the parties and no religious witness to the union was necessary to make it recognized as legal.

The Catholic Church made marriage a sacrament in the twelfth century but the priest was there only as a witness for the church. The sacrament was always bestowed by the parties upon each other. (At least that’s what I was taught all those years ago by a wonderful IHM nun.)

Up until recently marriage among the upper classes was more often than not a way to consolidate fortunes. It was nothing but a business contract and certainly nothing that involved Christ or his love. It was not a joining of two hearts as much as it was a joining of two families for financial or political purposes. Among much of society marriage was simply the contract that was demanded so a man would take care of his offspring. 

We aren’t asking that your church be forced to perform our marriage ceremonies. We aren’t asking that you be forced to cheer from the sidelines as we are permitted to make decisions regarding a spouse’s health care. We are simply asking that the communities where we live, work, and pay taxes be made to grant us the same rights as our married heterosexual counterparts. Are two men or two women who have committed to each other not worthy of the same civil consideration as the guy up the street who is now on wife number three? 

While I truly respect those who think that their marriage is blessed because of their particular religious beliefs I don’t understand why those who are most adamantly opposed to marriage equality believe giving their LGBTQ neighbors equal rights under the law will put their marriage, or the institute of marriage, in some sort of jeopardy. That's akin to saying that you can't eat pizza because I don't like tomatoes. It makes no sense. 

For those who cite Leviticus in the Old Testament as the proof of the Lord’s condemnation of homosexuality I believe that eating pork and shellfish are equally condemned. So for that matter is wearing two different types of cloth at the same time as well as having your body tattooed. You don’t get to pick and choose with Leviticus. You either take the whole thing as the literal word of God or you don’t. I prefer to look to the New Testament where Christ told us to love one another as he loves us. There is no mention of conditions or limitations on that love.   

In a nutshell it comes down to the fact that I’ll respect your civil rights if you respect mine. We don’t have to see eye to eye. We just need to treat each other without rancor and hate. If we can remember the golden rule and treat each other as we wish to be treated the battle will be won.     

Last but not least, for those who think that the Founding Fathers never intended for equality to be the law of the land I doubt that Adams, Jefferson or Franklin thought that owning an AK-47 or a Sig-Sauer automatic was a right to be given to the guy who has the budget to own one of those puppies. Again my friends, you don’t get to pick and choose what applies to you and what applies to those you disagree with. Civil rights apply to all. 

As a post script…After I wrote the above I was thinking of what might happen if the courts had decided to make all things equal by not recognizing marriage at all. Religious folks could still have their ceremonies and be recognized as spouses in the eyes of their church but the state would simply see them as two folks who lived together and shared a home. No tax breaks, no consideration for inheritance, no legal rights to make medical decisions and the half of the couple who did not actually give birth to a child would have to jump through the hoops of adoption and whatnot to be seen as a parent or have the authority to make a medical decision in case of an emergency. Isn’t giving your LGBTQ brethren a few rights better than giving up those rights?

The whole thing comes down to EQUALITY under the law. That’s all we’re looking for. 

 

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Happy Anniversary to Me!  

On April 22, 2012 my life changed. It was a long time coming but it had to happen sooner or later. It was on that day that I shared a truth I had never really dreamed of sharing.  I told my sisters I was a lesbian.

I know that there are many women who come to that realization late in life but that was not the case for me. It was something I first realized when I was around fourteen. I did my best not to think about it for the next few decades. I ignored it. I denied it. I did everything I could to make my sexuality non-existent. Finally when I was in my mid forties I accepted the fact that I was a lesbian and that wasn’t going to change. All I had to do from that point on was hide it.

I was fairly successful at keeping my secret. There was really no one I could speak with about it and my family and friends had come to accept that I was a singleton, what some would call a spinster, and I was okay with that. Sure I had lesbian romance novels that I devoured but I managed to keep them out of sight so that I wouldn’t be judged by my reading material. The only time I really worried was at night as I was trying to go to sleep. I would think about what my family and friends would think if they knew. I wondered who would turn their backs on me.

Then four years ago I was laid off/retired from my job. I became involved with Facebook and it opened a new world for me. I was welcomed into a chat room for lesbians and I made friends. I saw that lesbians were everywhere, in every walk of life and they were able to live happy, fulfilling lives right out in the open without having to hide. That may not seem like anything new to you but to me it was a huge revelation.

On the Sunday my damn burst I’d read a story in the newspaper that upset me to no end. The Catholic Church had appointed a bishop to oversee the charity work of a bunch of nuns who were doing social work with LGBT homeless kids in California. These were teenagers who had been kicked out of or who had fled their homes because of their sexuality. When I read the piece in the newspaper to my youngest sister on the phone I began to cry. When she asked why I was so upset I choked out that I was a lesbian. Her reaction was along the line that it was about time I’d said something. She had figured it out when I was eighteen.

After telling my youngest sister I told the sister with whom I live and from there on there was no going back. In the next two weeks I came out to all the important people in my life and much of my extended family. I was happy.  For the first time in years I went to sleep without worrying what people would think of me. My friends and family all told me that they simply wanted me to be happy. They all accepted me exactly as I was.

I thought that things couldn’t get any better but a friend urged me to try dating. Well I was long past the bar stage and online dating seemed the way to go. I tried a few different lesbian sites and I tried a site I’d seen on Facebook but none of them panned out. I gave it one final shot and signed up on Match.com. I was as honest about myself as I could be and ponied up the fees for a three month shot at it and I got VERY, VERY LUCKY. A wonderful woman saw my profile and wrote me a note.

Being on the shy side and new to dating I took things slowly. For about ten days we just emailed and then for a couple of weeks we did phone calls and Skyped. Finally we went on a date and next month we’ll celebrate our 2^nd anniversary together. I always tell my girl that she is the icing on my cake; the cherry on top of the sundae of life. She just laughs.

So all in all I just want to celebrate the day. Knowing your truth and being able to actually live it are two very different things. I’m envious of the women I know who never hid in a closet. They have become my heroes and I’m lucky to know a number of them. It doesn't make my story any less joyous. It just makes me wish I had been braver earlier in my life.

I hope that if you are hiding something in your life you free yourself of that burden. I hope that if you know anyone like me that you encourage them to take a chance on life and happiness. Sometimes things do work out. They did for me.  

My Avalanche & Stop Gun Deaths

It has been a very long time since I posted a blog. I've started a few but never quite finished them and they were pushed aside and grew a bit dusty while they sat on the shelf here in cyberspace. Since it is a cold and snowy day here I thought it was a good time to do some cleanup and finish up with some thoughts that have been rattling around my head.
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My Avalanche

There are things that you do that will change your life forever but you don't know that when you're doing them. It is only in hindsight that you can see a pebble has caused an avalanche that forever alters your life.

A couple of years ago I was newly retired. I had been spending a lot of time reading and one afternoon I wrote an author a fan letter. That was the pebble that began a change that would alter my life forever. As a result of that fan letter that author made me a part of a wonderful community of women she had on facebook. As a part of that group I acknowledged to others, for the first time, that I was a lesbian. It was a freeing moment. The pebble had grown to a small snowball.

One day while checking things out in that author's group I struck up a chat with a woman on the other side of the world and we began to message each other and we came to be friends. It was easy to chat and laugh and we began to exchange the stories of our lives and the small snowball became the size of a softball.

Feelings that had long been buried came to the surface and after reading an article in the paper one Sunday morning I could no longer contain my emotions and the secret I had been living with for decades burst forth. I finally admitted that I was a lesbian to my youngest sister. The rest of the family and most of my friends soon followed. The softball was now the size of a soccer ball.

My online friend encouraged me to reach out to other lesbians and become part of the community. Friends on facebook assured me that life would only get better and, if I went looking for it, that love could find me. I joined a couple of dating sites and events are now up to the size of a basketball.

Things were really good and life was looking up. I was meeting members of my facebook community in real life and horizons were expanding. I had my reading, I was doing a little bit of writing and I was a happy camper. Every once in a while there was a nibble on one of the dating sites but nothing ever progressed beyond a couple of emails. That at least was the case until mid 2013. The basketball sized snowball was building up momentum and was now the size of a very large boulder and heading downhill at an alarming rate.

That Monday in May when I received a message from someone at Match.com I didn't have any expectations. I didn't want to seem too anxious so I waited a day to reply and we soon began a regular correspondence. Of course being as cautious as I tend to be it took a couple of weeks before we even began to talk by phone and then another month before we met face to face. It was our first face to face and "in person" date when the avalanche hit. I haven't been quite the same since.

The fact that I have fallen irrevocably in love with a wonderful woman at this stage of my life is amazing to me. As amazing as being hit by an avalanche in the middle of a Philadelphia summer. I never expected it even though I hoped for it. I wanted to know what "being in love" was like and I have been granted the great, good fortune of finding that out. The fact that she feels the same about me is icing on the cake or the cherry on the top of the ice cream sundae of life. It simply doesn't get much better than it is right now.

I realize that I'm a very fortunate and blessed woman. I simply hope that whenever your avalanche strikes that you're ready for it and welcome it with open arms. It might be the best thing that ever happens to you.

p.s. My Avalanche is named Rusty and she is an absolutely wonderful and amazing woman.

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My Thoughts on Guns

This is something that has been on my mind for a long time but it was brought to the forefront with the report of a woman being killed by her two year old in a Wal-Mart store last week. I know that the NRA has a slogan that says "Guns don't kill people. People kill People." and to me that is simply bull!

After all the school shootings that this country has endured, after all the senseless deaths that we read about every day, when are we going to say "ENOUGH"? There will always be a criminal element in this country who will want guns for their illegal purposes but it was not their weaponry that killed those students at Virginia Tech or the children at Sandy Hook. Those were weapons that were legally purchased. What we need to do is to make it harder for those on the edge to access weapons.

When you purchase a car you need to prove that you are insured. Why can't we force gun owners to do the same? Make them prove that their weapons have trigger locks and are kept in a space that would be very difficult for a child or a thief to access. Why can't we proscribe the sale of automatic weapons that were designed for military use? I'm not saying that responsible gun owners should be made to give up their pistols or hunting rifles but seriously, why does any private citizen need to own an Uzi or an AK-47?

I know that buying insurance may not seem like a lot, but if reputable gun dealers were made to check that someone purchasing their goods had the proper paperwork and insurance necessary to own a gun then things would have to get better. If you don't think so then you need to think about the insurance you need when you purchase a car. You must have liability insurance in every state in the country. While some folks get away without it, for most of us there is money to pay for damages and medical needs when there is a serious accident. If you can do it with a car you can do it with a gun.

I know that there are holes that would need to be worked out but I figure that if you are a responsible gun owner you would welcome any step that would allow you your gun and work to keep guns out of the hands of the sick and irresponsible. You also need to remember that a lot of the safety features on the automobiles we drive today are as a result of the insurance industry. It wasn't the auto companies that got seat belts in your cars, it was the insurance companies. The same goes for airbags, safety glass, and anti-theft systems. Imagine what they could do with trigger locks and safety boxes.

If you have a better idea to curb the violence I urge you to contact your representatives at both the state and local level. Maybe one of those ideas will spark something that could save a life.

In 2015 gun deaths are expected to outpace traffic fatalities. Check it out.         http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html


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Well, that's it for now. I wish each and everyone who reads this a wonderful and happy 2015.

A Slap in the Head

Sometimes life hits you upside the head and sets you reeling. That happened to me recently and I thought I'd write about it. I know I haven't been a steady blogger of late but I really do have to write about this. 

Last week my cousin Kathy died. The thing that made this so difficult was that I never believed it would happen even though she'd spent the last four decades fighting melanoma. She treated her cancer as something to live with rather than something to die from and that is how I came to think of it. When her health faltered and she didn't send out her normal Christmas missive I believed it to be just a hiccup on the road to a new treatment or therapy that would keep her going. This time she wasn't that lucky.

Kathy was eleven months younger than me and the first of our generation in the family to pass away. That may not seem like something to be noted, but when the first in a generation is lost you know that you truly are mortal. Up to that point you can say to yourself "Well s/he was older than me. I have time yet. No need to worry." It's at that point that you realize, maybe for the first time, that it could have been you. It wasn't this time but it might be you the next time. Are you ready to let go? Is anyone?

If you haven't yet felt that slap from life let me assure you IT WILL COME. At some point when you least expect it you will be reminded of your own mortality. You'll wonder if you are as happy as you could be. Have you loved enough, laughed enough, done anything on your bucket list? Do you even have a bucket list? Will you be missed? Will you be mourned?  

Now I need to digress just a bit. While I was writing this blog today I received a note from my nephew. He is twenty-nine, single, fun loving, and a fine man. He was with us this weekend to say goodbye to our cousin and after returning home he learned that a close friend, a member of a close knit circle of friends, had committed suicide. Can there be anything worse than to think that perhaps if you had said or done something just a bit differently that you may have prevented a suicide?

I've always gone with the thought that, in most instances, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I think that you have to be desperate and at the absolute end of your rope to even think about it. I feel sorry for the friends and family the young man left behind. They will never think of all the joy that was shared with him without also feeling confused and betrayed by his final act.

After all of that I come down to the original point I wanted to make and that is to enjoy life to the fullest while you can. Tell those you treasure that you love them. Spend time with them. Don't put it off. You think there will be time but unless you are the proud owner of a crystal ball or a time machine how can you be certain of that? If it's a question of dusting a table or playing with a child and you pull out the feather duster then I feel sorry for you. You will live in that child's memory as someone who brought joy to their life. Will the table remember that it was dusted?

Enjoy your life. Kathy enjoyed her life despite her cancer and there were hundreds of people who attested to that fact the other day. Hers was a sendoff full of laughter as well as tears. If life is hitting you upside your head use my cousin as an example and live your life to the fullest. Tell folks how you feel about them and don't put it off until tomorrow or the chance may pass you by.

A recent shot of Kathy and my Uncle Jack.  

       

July 3rd

As I begin this blog it is a bit after midnight and the calendar has officially moved from July 3rd to July 4th. What is now yesterday would have been my mother's ninety-third birthday. It is the first birthday that has gone by without one of us, her children, bringing her up and talking about her and remembering her among ourselves. That's not to say that we all didn't think of her. We just didn't call each other out on the memories or reminisce with one of the many stories we could tell to honor our Mom.

I think the thing that got my memory really stirred up this year was the fact that it was the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Back in 1938 my mother, along with her father and brothers, was in Gettysburg for the 75th anniversary of that battle. She would have been eighteen, newly graduated from high school and preparing to attend nursing school in Philadelphia that fall.

My mother and her brothers had lost their mother five years earlier and in an effort to keep his kids together my maternal-grandfather sent his children off to boarding school in McSherrystown, PA under the tutelage of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. He thought that was the only way his children would be able to be together because he did not feel capable of caring for them himself.

That time in boarding school made my mother yearn for the stability of a family and she got that for herself when she married my father and eventually had four children of her own. I'm not saying that she was the perfect mother or that we were the perfect children but she instilled in us an appreciation for the closeness of family that so many of my contemporaries seem to lack. We all truly care about one another, like one another, and love one another; that was her doing.

Just one more related little story about Mom and Gettysburg...One of the nuns that taught my mother at St. Joseph's Academy in McSherrystown was a granddaughter of General George Pickett who led his Confederate troops in an ill planned attack against the Union forces on July 3, 1863. I guess that shows that we are not really as removed from history as we would believe.

Were my Mom still with us she would love things like facebook and cell phones. She was all for reaching out to keep in touch with friends and loved ones. Imagine  what facebook would be like if everyone who used it had a parent or grandparent watching over their posts. It would certainly be more civilized don't you think?

So that's it from me for now. Happy belated birthday Mom! Thanks for everything. We still give you the only present you ever asked of us. You have kids who love each other.    

Go and celebrate the 4th with Fireworks and barbecue and if you think of it stop for a moment and thank the powers that be for giving me a fantastic Mom.

Thomas, Arthur, Mary and Jack. Summer 1938. McSherrystown Pa just a hop a skip from Gettysburg.

Authors & Admiration With a Bit About My Mom

This past week one of my facebook friends, who is a full time author, posted on facebook that authors should not be admired. After all they are only doing their job when they sit down and write. I respectfully disagree.

Think about what authors, and others who work in the arts, give us. They give us worlds that they have created form pure imagination. Think of the world that you see in a painting or hear in a song. Think of the worlds you enter when you open a book. Can you create like that? I've tried and it isn't easy.

Writers allow themselves to share hopes and dreams that they hold dear with folks they have never met and will never know. They share their inner life. They write out the hurts that have made them cry in the middle of the night and others get to share that pain. A writer lays bare their own soul for the entertainment of others.

Think of the Dementors in the Harry Potter books. We all knew the feelings of desolation and soul sucking depression but JK Rowling gave those feelings a form and a name. Margaret Mitchel created the world of Rhett, Scarlet, and Tara and has set imaginations ablaze for seventy-seven years. I've been to medieval England, Hawaii as missionaries landed to convert the natives, on manhunts for homicidal killers and in the mind of a woman as she discovers love for the first time. How can I help but admire the wonderful authors who have made me privy to all that?

So if you're an author, when someone says they admire you just say thank you. You're being complimented by someone who has paid their hard earned money and invested the time to read your work. Let them be a fan. After all, isn't there someone that you admire who thinks that maybe what they do isn't really all that special?

And now, since it is Mother's Day a few words about my Mom. She is the reason I read. She gave me a love of books and when I was nine gave me the keys to the kingdom by allowing me to go to the nearest library on my own. The stories I discovered that summer of 1958 have stayed with me forever.

When I was in high school Mom let me read the books she had here in the house. There was "The Caine Mutiny", "From Here to Eternity", "Gone With The Wind" and others. I became a fan of authors like Irwin Shaw, James Michener, and Leon Uris. It wasn't until I was in my twenties and out working in a large office with a lot of other women that I found out about writers like Danielle Steele. For a while I was hooked on romances but then I discovered mysteries. Memberships in mail order book clubs always guaranteed that there was a hardback available to keep me busy.

Over the years I have bought more books than I care to count. Each and every purchase was because of my mother.

She was a woman who loved movies too and we spent many a hot summer afternoon in our darkened living room watching on television the movies she and her friends had seen when they first came out. Think of movies like "So Proudly We Hail", "The Fighting Sullivans" and "Orchestra Wives". Since Mary K. loved movie magazines I not only got the movies but the stories that went along with the actors and actresses that appeared in them. She gave me a trove of trivia that has stood me in good stead over the years.

We had out arguments and disagreements but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss her.

Happy Mother's Day Mom. Thanks for the books.  

       

 



  

Social Media and Saving Memories

Social media, facebook for me, is a wonderful thing. It has changed my life and broadened my horizons immeasurably. From the comfort of a chair in my living room I have made friends with people around the world. There are people who bring joy to my life every day that I have never met but they hold a treasured place in my heart. In cyber space there are no borders. A friend can be thousands of miles away or the other side of the city.

I started thinking about this when I saw a post on the Repeal of DOMA a couple of weeks ago. The majority of Americans, in all age groups, are now in favor of marriage equality for those who are part of the LGBT rainbow. What is most surprising to me is how quickly the barriers are falling on this issue. Had you asked me ten years ago how long it would take for marriage equality I would have asked "What's that?" Now we are at a point where it seems inevitable. A question of not "If" but "When".

Social media is responsible in a large part for the change of public opinion. It breaks down borders. Borders that are not only physical but are ideological. We hear about the child of a friend of a friend who is bullied or beaten because they are different and we say "that should not be" and we change and we influence the people we contact to change. We see reports of loving couples torn apart and families broken because the couple is gay and we say "this should not be". We see an LGBT character in a TV show or movie and we see that they are really no different than we are and we change.

The shift toward marriage equality is a change whose time has come. The day that it does we need to say thank you to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zukerberg and Jack Dorsey. Thank all the people who took the time to put up a post or click like in support of the organizations that fought and lobbied for change.  

I look forward to the days when my friends and I have the same rights as everyone else. In the meantime I'm going to pull up my favorite electronic device and have a chat with some friends.

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I am a fan of music, particularly the music that is now known as "The Great American Songbook". Give me Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Jerome Kern and I'm a happy girl. Throw in Richard Rogers and his collaborators and I'm in musical heaven. Add some Broadway and movie scores and I'm in your debt forever.

I just watched, again, Michael Feinstein's American Songbook. The first episode of this season talked about how easily so much of Broadway history was lost. The magic that is Broadway resides mainly in the memories of those who saw a show. Original scores were tossed and cast albums were clipped and compressed to fit the time available on the records of the day. Cameras were not allowed to record a performance so history went unrecorded. There are snippets here and there of show highlights but we will never see Gertrude Lawrence in "The King and I" or Ethel Merman in "Gypsy". So many of the wonderful singers , dancers, actors and actresses that I grew up with are gone and they are being forgotten.

The point of all this is to say 'save what you can'. Save the music that means something to you. Those one hit wonders that no one but you remembers. Tell your kids about the things you saw on TV that made an impression; see if you can find clips on You Tube and share the love. Treasure what you love and pass that love on. (My poor nieces and nephew have been inundated with the movies and music my siblings and I love. This was not a bad thing for them. They are trivia champs among their friends. Go figure.)

Share your books and those CD's, records and tapes. Don't toss all your memories out in the trash. Save that copy of "Goonies" and that playbill from "Wicked".    

Save and share the love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilV5K8tw_6o

Grandmom & Boardwalk Memories

It happens all the time. You're chatting with someone and one little thing is said or you see something that captures your attention and your conversation or your train of thought goes off in a whole different direction. That happened to me the other day. A friend posted a picture of someone at the beach near a boardwalk. That boardwalk reminded me of the summer days I spent as a kid under or close to the Wildwood boardwalk. (Those of course were the days when at high tide the water came up under the boardwalk in Wildwood. People today look at that beach and find that hard to believe.) Those memories made me think of my Grandmother. Since her birthday had just passed she was on my mind.

My Grandmother was a remarkable woman. Far from perfect but strong and unbending to the end. She lived in South Philadelphia, not too far from Second Street,  for all of her ninety-two years with more than sixty of those years spent in the small garden front twin house she moved into with her husband and small son around 1922.  

Ann left school at either twelve or thirteen and got a job working in a tinsel factory. She moved from there to one of the huge sugar houses along the Delaware River where she sewed large bags of sugar shut with heavy white twine. She also used that twine to crochet and made tablecloths and table runners as well as doilies and antimacassars that would grace her home for years to come.

While her husband was off at war she worked sanding Victrola cabinets at RCA Victor Company in Camden and when he came back and went to work at Curtis Publishing she kept house for her son and husband and went to her parents house regularly and took car of that house as well. After her mother died she announced to her husband, my grandfather, that they would be selling their home and moving back to her father's house so she could take care of Pop and her brothers. My Grandfather bought that house from his father-in-law and my Grandmother ran and took care of it until she was the only one left.

Sometime in 1940 my grandparents bought a neighborhood bar. While taking care of her home she took care of cooking for their business too. It was a hectic time and business during WWII, in a neighborhood that served longshoremen and factory workers, was booming. Life was good but it had ups and downs. There are stories about the time my grandparents had a fight and she picked up a bar stool and threw it over the bar at him. Ann was no shrinking violet.

Her son, my Dad, fought in WWII and returned home and went to work for his father tending bar. He married my Mom and they lived in the apartment over the bar while they saved to buy a house. When I came along my grandmother had a girl in the family to spoil and spoil me she did. My siblings do not let me forget that.

My parents moved to a house in Northeast Philadelphia when I was two and with no car in the family it was an hour's trip from our house to South Philly where my grandparents lived but it never seemed to be a problem and my Grandmom would hop the bus and trackless trolley and make the trip often.

As a kid, for me, the highlight of the summer was spending a week at her house. We went to town and shopped and went to the movies and if the timing was right we went to Wildwood to visit her sister Helen who was staying at her son's home there.

And here we are back to the Wildwood Boardwalk. Those days in Wildwood were happy ones for my Grandmom. She laughed a lot and relaxed more than she was ever able to at home. We went to the beach during the day and did the amusement rides with my cousins at night. Basically we all had fun.

She lived a good life and a very long one. She was a tough woman who loved her family and friends. She worked hard and played hard too. She was my Grandmom  and I loved her and whenever I think of the rare summer days I spent near a Boardwalk I think of her.

Ann   Easter 1956

A Few Thoughts On My Catholic Education

Something sort of funny occurred to me last night while I was posting on facebook and it made me think that it was a subject worthy of a blog.

I'm part of a group where we discuss a slew of topics that range from anything to everything and a good time is usually had by all. Last night one of the ladies posted a link for a page that has the title "24 Signs You Went To Catholic School". Some of the observations and pictures were spot on and rather funny. A result of the posting was a discussion with friends about the merits of a Catholic school education and the nuns who taught in them all those years ago when I was a student.

The thing that most surprised me about the conversation was the fact that I was slightly insulted by someone who had never attended a Catholic school making light of it. I could only compare it to how you feel if you hear someone making fun of one of your siblings. It's perfectly fine if you do it but god help the outsider who does it.

I was born into a Catholic family in 1948 and am part of the huge Baby Boom that has been making waves worldwide since it began in 1946. I grew up in Philadelphia, a city that is proud of its history of Catholic education. There was never a question about where I would go to school. I would go to the parish school and then onto the all girls high school in my area.

In the fifties and sixties I would guess that 95% of Catholic school teachers were nuns. As with any large group of people there were some good and some bad apples in the barrel of teachers I came in contact with over the years. There were definitely women who were too old to be standing in front of a classroom everyday and there were others who were too young and inexperienced. The thing is that it was because of the sacrifice of these women that I received a great education. I grant you that there were nuns who were quick with a ruler over the knuckles but they were keeping control of classrooms bursting at the seams and without their discipline it would have been chaos.

Think about the fact that there were between fifty and sixty of us in a classroom and one nun did all the work. There were no aids or helpful moms who were there  to lend a hand. Sister had to handle it all herself. In the grade school I attended there were six classes in each grade. That's a lot of kids. In my eight years there I had one teacher who was not a nun and there were only two lay teachers in the school. If one of those poor nuns was too sick to make it from the convent to the school there was no substitute. The nuns in the rooms on either side assigned desk work and traveled back and forth to make sure all was quiet and orderly.

When I went to high school it was a whole new world. From dealing with one order of nuns I now had eight orders of nuns to deal with. Again there were very few lay teachers. In my four years of high school I had three lay teachers (and one of those was for gym). Think about the fact that there were eight periods a day plus home room and that's a lot of teachers. Nuns were the backbone of the Catholic school system. I'm of the opinion that these women, some of whom still give me the willies, provided me with a great education. Any weak spots were mine and not theirs. Looking back I can see that many of my teachers were probably in their late twenties to mid thirties when I was in high school and were, for the most part, very nice women.

I graduated high school in '66 and did not go on to college. I went to work, as did most of my friends, and missed much of the upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies. While folks in colleges were protesting the war in Vietnam I was volunteering at the USO. While my contemporaries were "Turning On, Tuning In and Dropping Out" I was working hard and saving my money so I could travel. But I digress.

While there was social unrest in the cities there were winds of change blowing through the convents too. In the seventies many of the women who had donned habits took them off and left their orders and their classrooms behind. They found that they could do social work and help others without being bound by a habit and vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Lay teachers became the rule rather than the exception. Catholic schools went from being the default educational choice to being a luxury that most families could not afford. Those absent nuns were replaced by lay teachers who needed to be paid and insured and the only way a school system could do that was to charge ever increasing tuition. There was a chain reaction that took place that is still being felt today.

I have to say that having gone through twelve years of school with nuns that there was a time I considered that life. I found I enjoyed having a bit of freedom and some spending money more. I had over thirty high school classmates that went into religious orders and as far as I know only three remain.    

What it all boils down to is that while Catholic schools and the nuns that manned them may be a source of jokes they were also a gift. I firmly believe that the education I received is far superior to today's. I think that the thousands of women who were in school when I was would, for the most part, agree. (There were between three and four thousand girls in my high school while I was there from the fall of '62 to the late spring of '66.) If I had the chance to go back and do it all over would I? I honestly don't know. I certainly wouldn't be the woman I am now without the schools I attended and the women who taught me.

Thanks for reading. The link to the site that started all this is below.  

 
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjkiebus/signs-you-went-to-catholic-school-6ygq    
If you look at #7 you'll see a Sister of Saint Joseph and a girl wearing a uniform almost exactly like the one I used to wear. (Our jumper was Air Force Blue with a 'Blessed Mother' blue blouse.)
      

Another Sunday

I don't have a lot to say but it's been so long since I've done a blog I'll just riff a bit and we'll see if there's enough worth hitting the publish button once I'm done.

This week saw the beginning of Lent with Ash Wednesday. I must sat that day is barely a blip for me any more. At my age I no longer feel compelled, nor am I required, to follow the rules concerning fasting; that and it's been more than a dozen years since I attended mass regularly. I never would have believed that I would turn away from the church where I was raised but I realized that the church and the men who run it turned away from me. The do not recognize that women are equal to men in the eyes of God. They refuse to realize that in this day and age a disease that can be spread via intercourse can be prevented by the use of a condom. They preach that the use of one is wrong and how many useless deaths have there been because of that? They preach 'artificial' birth control via a pill is wrong but say nothing about the fact that a man can take a pill to ensure an erection. To me that is hypocritical. I won't go into the scandals that have rocked the church. Their treatment of nuns who provided support and charity to LGBT youth is not only unkind it is ridiculous.
I know that there are people who read this that will despair or feel sorry for me. Don't. I love God and I think S/He still loves me. I pray and I treat the people around me with love and respect. The Church is different than the faith. Jesus told us to Love one another. I figure that as long as I'm doing what he said to do I'm Okay.  

What else about this week....??? Valentine's Day was Thursday. I've never been a big fan of the day because I never really had a reason to be but this year was a little different. It was the first year that there was a hope that someday I might have a reason to celebrate the day. I have seen friends find love and blossom because of it. It's wonderful to know that the possibility exists.

One last thing and you can resume whatever it was you were doing before you got sucked into reading this blog...it may surprise you to know that I'm making a concentrated effort to spend less time on the computer and less time on facebook. I've missed reading. I've been missing the thrill of losing myself in the theater of imagination that a good book provides. I still love facebook and will still be there every day working on my group page and touching base with all my friends but the time will be less. I have a host of stories that I'm anxious to read and the only way to do that is to cut back on something and that something can only be the computer.  

So my friends go and enjoy the rest of your day. As the song goes "Live, love, laugh and be happy". As for me I hear my kindle calling my name.  

Twenty Years

     There are some events in your life that you never forget: the birth of a child, the day you met the person who would change your life forever, the death of a parent. Right now I'm thinking of my Mom. It's twenty years that she's gone and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.
     My Mom was not perfect but she was a unique woman. She didn't always have an easy life but she never really complained about it. She fully expected to die at the age of forty, as had her mother and grandmother, and when she didn't she treated the years that came after as gravy. She had a good sense of humor and laughed about the fact that the first thing she read in the newspaper every day was the death notices. She called them "The Irish Comics" and always found something to laugh at when reading them. She often commented on the fact that people would spend an arm and a leg for them. (For those of you who have never thought about it the cost of a death notice in the local paper can be quite expensive. Last I checked it was eight to ten dollars a line and that's without a picture.)
     I won't say my Mom was perfect, hell none of us are, and we argued quite a bit, because she always knew how to press my buttons, but we also got to that point where we were friends. I was the one who never left home so I was the one who got to hear all the stories, and she had a lot of them. The woman remembered every outfit she ever wore, every movie she ever saw and all the books she read. The love of movies and books I picked up on but I never really got that love of clothes; I can however describe in detail the dresses I wore for First Communion, grade school and high school graduation. Yes, I am my Mother's daughter in many respects.
     She had one story about meeting a friend for dinner. It was summer and she had a yellow dress and black accessories; hat, gloves, shoes and handbag were all black. The problem was the gloves. They were three-quarter length and did I mention it was summer? Well all was fine until they got to the restaurant and she went to remove her gloves and found that the dye from the gloves had come off on her arms. She ate dinner wearing the gloves.
     She was twenty-one when the US entered WWII and she was a registered nurse. Unlike many of her classmates she did not volunteer to serve. He father had died the beginning of 1941 and she wanted to stay in Philadelphia to be close to her two younger brothers who were still in school. She worked as a private duty nurse for a while and earned the exorbitant salary of $50.00 a month for working twelve hours a day, six days a week.    
     My siblings and I kidded that Mom was a nurse but she always tended to diagnose the ailments of her kids as 1.- Gas or 2.- Too much makeup. (My brother never had to worry about number two and neither did I for that matter.) I remember having the measles when I was in first grade and how sick I was and the care my Mom lavished on me. I remember the first time I saw her cry was when my youngest sister had pneumonia when she was about nine months old and she had to be hospitalized. It killed her that she had to leave her baby in the hands of others. I didn't see her cry again for almost twenty years and that was when my Dad passed away.
     When Mom went in the hospital that September day in 1992 she had the knowledge deep in her soul somewhere that she wouldn't be home again. She was hospitalized for over a hundred days before she died and in those days she prepared us for her death. She told us what to put in her death notice, the songs she wanted at her mass, the clothes to dress her in, where to have lunch and what to eat. The thing about those conversations was that she made a joke of them. We laughed when we talked about having soup at the buffet after her funeral; she wanted the guests to have something to warm them up after standing out in the cold. When she did finally let go she waited for all of us to be in the hospital. She knew we would need to lean on each other more than she ever had before.          
     What else can I say? She loved her kids and thought family was the most important thing in the world. She was a great cook who never really followed a recipe. She loved to shop, especially for shoes and always over packed for a weekend away. She loved to sing. She was a night owl. She loved to talk on the phone and could spend hours chatting away. One of her favorite lines was that she had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. She had a memory for people and once recognized an old schoolmate from behind more than thirty years after leaving grade school. She was not good with money and was dangerous with a credit card.

     She was Mary Katherine beloved wife, mother and sister. She was my Mom and I still miss her.    

Christmas for Me

     Christmas is almost upon us. We all tend to view the Season a bit differently depending on where we are in life.
     As a child  I looked at this time of year as being full of the bright shiny things I dreamed about having for my very own. That new two wheeler or a pair of skates. Going to see Santa was a huge deal in my family. Our tree sat on a platform and there was a train that went around that tree. The platform had chimney paper tacked on the sides and the space under it and behind that chimney paper was where presents got stored so there was enough space to walk through the living room.
     As teenager I looked at Christmas as a time away from school. A time to be shared more with friends than family. For a short time I got to play assistant Santa for my youngest sister. Helping to buy and hang decorations and setting up the tree was a step toward being an adult. And family traditions changed too. Gone was the platform and trains and now the tree was much taller (for a while it was even aluminum) and actually went up before Christmas eve. I met my friends for Midnight Mass and we all trooped back to one house where the parents welcomed us freezing girls into their kitchen and plied us with hot chocolate and cookies. There was a lot of laughter. The joy now came because we were focused more on others than ourselves.
     I got older. My friends became parents and we all got to that point in life where staying up late to kick up our heels became the exception rather than the rule in our lives. We also began to lose those closest to us. People moved and contact was lost. A classmate passes away and a parent dies far too soon. Keeping Christmas became something done for the children that came into my life. I decorated and shopped and wrapped presents and tried to make sure that those I loved had a good Christmas.
     Now my nieces have children of their own ranging from seventeen years to two months old. There is less decorating than there used to be and we are back to a short tree that sits atop a cabinet. Less lights are strung than in the past and there are fewer decorations gracing the rooms of my home. When you're in your sixties getting out that second or third huge container full of decorations just doesn't seem quite as necessary as it used to.
      I do my shopping online and my siblings and I stopped exchanging gifts because we've gotten to that point in our lives where if we want something we buy it for ourselves. We don't have the patience or the budgets that we used to. We still buy for the children in the family but the newest member is too young to know what is happening and the others no longer believe in Santa. A bit of the luster has gone off the day.
     Midnight Mass is a thing of the past too. My sister and brother-in-law and I have friends in on Christmas Eve and we eat delicious food and chat and catch up on each others lives. Come Christmas day we'll travel to my youngest sister's home and we'll all be together in one place. That is the best part of Christmas now. One niece with her husband and daughter will be there from Massachusetts and her brother will drive up from Virginia. My oldest niece and her three will be there too and most of the people I love most in the world will be together under the same roof. That is the greatest present.
     I will share time with my friends. The women who have been part of my life for decades that I'll sit down and share a long chat with, be it face to face, by phone or by video chat and the new friends that I spend a part of every day with in the virtual world online. All the lovely, strong, vibrant females that bring joy to my life simply by being a part of it.
      So Christmas has changed for me. It changes for each and every one of us as we grow older. If Christmas is not your holiday I'm sure there is another day or occasion during the year that means as much to you. Whatever that day or occasion is I hope you enjoy it and treasure it as much as I do Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

A Few Thoughts on Guns and Loss

     A score of children were lost on Friday to a young man, not much more than a child himself, who obviously had problems. He took his own life after ending the lives of twenty seven others. There is so much to blame that you don't know where to start. Access to firearms, check, access to the technology that can turn a gun into a means of massacre, check, lack of access to a mental health system that could have helped the gunman, check.
     There is no solution that will easily solve these problems. Funding is needed to make access to weapons more difficult. Funding is needed to provide care to those people who could commit such crimes. And where do we get that funding?
     We know that the NRA spends a huge amount of money every year lobbying to protect the rights of gun owners. Maybe a percentage of their budget should be appropriated to safeguard the public. I've seen figures from $200 million to more than $300 million as their budget for 2010. That is just the budget for one year. Imagine how much better our mental health system might be with that influx of funds. It wouldn't cure the problem bit it sure could help.
     Now this part is all me...based on what I know of the way things work. Make gun owners carry insurance. You carry insurance for your cars and your homes and your boats. What if every registered gun owner had to buy a policy that would cover them for use of their firearms. The law in most states makes sure you have a policy in order to drive a car in case something goes wrong. Well what if something goes wrong with a gun? Make sure there is a pool paid into for the damages that are inflicted to the families and community when these horrors happen. Because we all know it will happen again. It has happened time after time and public grief and the call for action will not keep it from happening again.  
     If responsible gun owners were going to have to pay for the losses caused by the few they may force better rules to be in place. Rules like mandatory trigger locks and the banning of military style weapons  sales to individuals. They would turn to the NRA and demand action be taken. There are safety labels galore on a ladder or an extension cord but I've never seen a warning label on a gun.
     It is true that people kill people. but people with guns can kill a lot of people in a very short period of time. People that might be six or sixty. Lets make it harder for this to happen. Please.

 



      

Thanksgiving Remembered

     It's Thanksgiving week 2012 and I've been wondering what I should write about. I finally settled on  Thanksgiving Days Past.
     When I was a kid we always had Thanksgiving dinner at my Grandmom's house. She lived in South Philadelphia in a small garden front twin home. It wasn't really a big house and when we arrived it was  as full as it could be. When I was very small it was my Grandmom, Grandpop, along with my Uncle Joey and Uncle Pete who also lived there; add in my Mom, Dad and the three of us kids and it got crowded.
     One thing you need to know is that my father made his living as a bartender in a neighborhood taproom. That taproom was right around the corner from my Grandmom's house. In Philadelphia the only days taprooms closed were Sundays and Election Days; that meant my father always had to work on Thanksgiving and because of that we had dinner early. I can't say I remember the exact time but it had to start before two in the afternoon.
     The table was always full. Too crowded to hold all the food. There was the requisite relish dish with celery stalks and black olives. The tiny bowls for the cole slaw that was always served. Dinner plates, the fancy little glasses for the tomato juice that was always part of a fancy meal and then the space in the middle for the serving bowls and platters. My grandmother always sat in the chair closest to the kitchen so she could jump up to refill anything that got emptied and to be sure her brothers were served first so they could leave the table and get away from the noisy kids. I remember those dinners as the best. There was always laughter.
     Invariably after dinner we would go and get out of the grownups way by going out on the enclosed front porch and counting the pennies in the jar my grandmother had on the kitchen sideboard. That would keep us busy for a long time. My father would have a quick nap and then would get up and walk around the corner to be at work by five. We were never in a rush to go home. Around seven or so my grandmother would put on the coffee pot and then it was time for turkey sandwiches followed by pie. Around nine my mother would get us all ready and we would either stand on the porch and watch for the bus to turn onto the avenue so we could make it to the corner and catch it before it passed or we would call a cab to get us all back to our part of the city.
     The last great Thanksgiving was in 1956. My youngest sister was an infant and it was the last year that my grandfather was with us. He died the following October and we had Thanksgiving 1957 in a restaurant. It would be more than 30 years before we did Thanksgiving in a restaurant again.
      Dinner moved to our house around 1970. It moved a few times after that as well but this is not the time for those memories.
     The funniest thing I remember about that Thanksgiving after my Grandpop died....We were having dinner at a nice restaurant on Chestnut Street and we were finishing up our meal. The waitress came over to see if we were all right and asked if we needed anything and my brother, who was six at the time piped right up, "Can we have seconds?"
     Have a great Thanksgiving everyone. Remember as you sit down to your table on Thursday that it might not seem to be an extraordinary day to you but it may be the building block of someone's treasured memory.        

     

Memories of Fear

I know, I know....Nobody does a blog two days in a row but here I am anyway.

     This morning I watched the CBS Sunday Morning Show and they did a piece on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It took me back to those days when I was a freshman at St. Hubert's and the real dread I lived in that October. But then I wasn't the only one living in fear. The entire nation was in the same boat.
     We were watching shows like 'The Jetsons', 'The Lucy Show' and 'The Beverly Hillbillies' on TV. They were all brand new that fall. Shelly Fabres was singing 'Johnny Angel' and Acker Bilk was playing 'Stranger on the Shore'. People were going to the movies to see 'The Longest Day'.
     I had to use Google to remind me of the TV and music and the movies of that year but I remember the fear on my own. I had nightmares for years about a sky full of planes heading south to defend us all. There was a real and palpable fear that the world could come to an end. Mine was the first generation who grew up under the cloud of nuclear war. We saw the power of what a single bomb could do in the photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We went through bomb drills in school.
     So many years later a touch of fear is still there. Not as bad as it once was but it hasn't completely gone away. The dream of all those planes does not come with the frequency it once did but it does show up every once in a while. When I see movies and TV shows that talk about the Cuban Missile Crisis I am reminded of that kernel of fear that resides in me and is mostly dormant now.
     I think of the history I have seen since that long ago October. A president and his brother were assassinated and so was MLK. We lived through the hell of Viet Nam and the horror of 9/11. We have had embassies and consulates attacked and Americans killed all over the globe but we have not been as close to the precipice of total destruction as we were that October so long ago.
     Thank God that cooler heads and diplomacy prevailed that October. Thank God that FEAR did not win.

  




     

Mid-October Rant, et cetera

     It is hard to fathom that it has been nearly a month since I last made an entry here but the calendar does not lie and it has been that long.
                                                             
     We are approaching the middle of October. Sometime in the next week we will welcome a new member to the family. My beautiful niece Elizabeth and her husband Will are due to become parents any day now. I'm thrilled that my brother is going to be a Grandpop. He'll be good at it.

     The other major event on my radar is the upcoming election and the divisiveness that is being engendered by it. I know that there are things I see in ads that make me want to scream because they are so patently false. Each side calling the other liars is to be expected. It has been going on since the birth of the country and the election of John Adams. What I truly resent are the lies that contend the president is either a Muslim or that he is not a citizen at all. I really thought these attacks were beneath contempt but they keep surfacing.
     The irony of the questions being raised about the President's religion makes me think of all the talk during the primaries of the problems that would be faced by Mr. Romney because he is a Mormon. I have not heard or seen a single thing attacking Mr. Romney's faith. Yet a man who has been a practicing Christian throughout his adulthood is having his beliefs questioned. With the questions about his faith and religion the haters are saying that the Muslims in this country are less. That they are to be feared and that they are terrorists bent on destroying the country. This couldn't be further from the truth. It is akin to the accusations raised in 1960 that the Pope would have a line direct to the White House should JFK be elected. We all know how that turned out.
     The accusations that the President is not a citizen are so ludicrous they should not need to be addressed but there is a certain millionaire who, whenever he is on TV, manages to cast these aspersions. I doubt that there is a person in the country who has had his citizenship more closely reviewed. If there was anything that could have been found or proven it would have been long before election day 2008.
     Personally I don't care what your politics are. Your politics like your religion is your own. The only thing I ask is that you vote your convictions and not your hate. And I ask that you vote. If you don't vote you have no right to complain about what might happen
     And that is the end of my rant.

     What other fun things have been going on? Well the new TV season is well and truly underway. And my guilty pleasure this season is 'The Neighbors' with Jami Gertz. It is dumb and silly and it makes me laugh. But then I do like Jami. Her comic timing has always been great. I also like 'Partners', 'The New Normal' and 'Go On'. None of these shows will go down in history but they all make me laugh and that is a blessing in this day and age. And if you're wondering about new dramas....well nothing new on the radar. I haven't been impressed. If there is something I'm missing just let me know.

     One final thing, I'm loving the Spotify music app. I make playlists that I can share with my friends and with the cost of only a few moments of commercials in the course of an hour it is priced just right at $0.00. If you like music and hate paying for it then check it out. You could do worse.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

     Have you ever said something and then been teased about it but you weren't exaggerating or boasting...you were simply stating a fact? That happened to me recently.
     Last month my sisters and I attended a baby shower for our niece. Liz is expecting her first child and as Great Aunts we were all looking forward to being there. My sister Eileen does all the shopping for such events (I shop only online) and she had seen something for the baby that came in a couple of different shapes. She was rattling off the choices and the word 'lamb' was no longer past her lips when I piped up "Yes, a lamb. Mom had my room decorated in lambs when I was born. I had a lamb on my crib and a rocking chair that played 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and a night light that was a lamb." My sisters thought this was hilarious. I being the oldest actually had a decor for my childhood bedroom. They, and my brother, all being younger got my hand me downs and they had no memory of my lambs. (Except of course for what is left of that ceramic night light that I can't bear to part with.) So the gift was bought and it was indeed a lamb.
     That brings up up to yesterday, which just so happened to be my sixty-fourth birthday. I ran away from home in Philly to spend my weekend with my youngest sister and her wonderful husband in the peace and quiet of South Jersey. Said kid sister was making one of my favorite dinners, meatloaf, at my request. She also went out and bought a chocolate cherry bread pudding for dessert. Our brother, the soon to be grandfather, was also going to join us and my remaining sister had a dinner date with her hubby to celebrate his birthday.
     I was happily reading when the front door opened and the sister I hadn't expected to see came in with a bag containing some Hagen-Dazs Blueberry Crumble and jelly beans. And then a box also appeared. A box with a funny shape and a head sticking out. It was a Lamb, a white fluffy lamb with pink ribbons at her ears. The softest lamb you can imagine. My sister is a mush ball like me. A joke gift with a soft edge and a sweet heart. A sweet heart, I was informed later, that my sister had kissed before it was put inside my lamb.
     I am so blessed by my family. My mother always told us to love one another. We fought and had lots of disagreements when we were kids. And when I say we fought I mean the kind of fights that included fists and feet and slaps and screaming at the tops of our lungs. But then we grew up. We lost our father and we came kicking and screaming into adulthood. Twenty years ago we went through a protracted hospital stay and the death of our Mom. We learned to lean on each other and treasure what it meant to have siblings that you loved and that loved you , unreservedly, in return.  
     To get back to my lamb I think her name will be Pi. Yes like the number used to measure circles. I have checked and it is called an irrational and transcendental number. Sort of like my siblings and I. We might occasionally be irrational but we transcend that and love each other anyway.
     The next time you hear "Mary Had A Little Lamb" you can think of me and Pi.  
     Pictured below is Pi and right under her you'll see me and my great sisters and brother.
     I am indeed a very fortunate woman.      
               

 

Friends and facebook and Angst

It's been a while since I've done a blog but I'm back again and I have a few things to say about Friendship and facebook and angst.  

Facebook is a funny place when you think about it. It is a virtual world where we connect with people that we might have actually met and those that are, for all intense and purposes, simply phantoms in our lives.

We go to a page and we say we like the subject and we can exchange words with others. We can do that over and over and we will 'friend' or be 'friended' by those we come in contact with. Those with similar likes. In that respect I've been very fortunate in that I'm a member of communities of women who share some of the same loves that I do.  

There are women in those 'Pages' that I admire and respect. I admire the talent and the character they share with the world. I respect that they are individuals who have private lives and lines that shall not be crossed. We are 'friends' in a virtual world that exists in cyberspace and nowhere else. These are not the people you will run into while you're shopping for groceries or filling your car with gas.

Unless you are invited to do so there are lines that should not be crossed with those you know from facebook. You don't ask for names, addresses or phone numbers. If that information is offered that is one thing but it should not be sought. And if private information is offered without reason or inappropriately flags should be rising all over the place.

Whenever there is even the hint of something funky make a copy, do a screen print. Document even the slightest incident because someday it may come in handy. If someone gives you pause for thought once make note of it and it there is a repeat run in the other direction as fast as you can and block them from all avenues of access that you think they may try.

Last but not least do not engage in discussions on the pros and cons of your action. Warn those you know might be effected about a potential danger and disengage. The person sending off warning bells and raising flags will have defenders who may take issue with your action. In the end you can't take that into account. You may respect those defenders but that doesn't mean you need to change your mind. Stick you your guns.

There will be angst. You might be criticized and loose a virtual friend or two. Ignore it. Trust your instincts and know that you've done the right thing. If a person you've never met and you have no true relationship with 'unfriends' you haven't really lost anything except a few lines of type on a screen.  

Now you all go ahead and have a wonderful time. Play games, chat and enjoy. Just be careful out there.

      

Stars and Celebrity

It used to be that when you called someone a Star it meant something. It meant that they had reached a level of fame or accomplishment in their field. Think of Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig in baseball or Cary Grant and John Wayne in the movies. We knew a star because they did something that stood out above the normal. That being said I take exception to the new show NBC is touting that they call “Stars Earn Stripes”.  To call Todd Palin a ‘star’ is ludicrous. Dean Cain is a fine journeyman actor but I don’t think he is a ‘star’.  And the other participants are not what you can call the best in their fields. The exception is Gen. Wesley Clark who was once the commander of NATO. I’m guessing that he’s in it purely for the money and is laughing all the way to the bank.

I once heard the phrase that he who praises everyone praises no one. If Todd Palin qualifies as a star how do we classify Michael Phelps. People who are famous for being famous, think Paris Hilton or the Kardashians, did nothing to earn their fame. They rode in on the coat tails of family fame or notoriety. Conrad Hilton built a chain of hotels and Robert Kardashian was a well thought of attorney. The fact that they were at the top of their field should not make their progeny celebrities.

When my niece and nephew were kids and we would talk to them about movies and the actors who appeared in them we told them that some actors were stars and some stars were actors BUT not all actors were stars. Spencer Tracey was an actor who was a star too. John Wayne was a star who acted. Frank Faylen, Thomas Mitchell and Edgar Buchanan were all fine actors and none of them were stars.  

Stars had qualities the put them above the rest. We have diminished the term STAR when we apply it to people who have done nothing to earn the title. Please folks Lets be sure someone deserves title before we apply it to them.

That’s my rant for the day. You may now return to your normal activities.   

Possibilities

     Did you ever get a word stuck in your head? For the better part of a week the word Possibilities has been stuck in mine.
     The thing is we are faced with endless possibilities each and every day. The possibility we have to say 'Good Morning' to a stranger, or a friend, and bring a smile to someone's face or to pass someone and say nothing and let them continue on, feeling invisible to the rest of the world.
     We have infinite possibilities as to the food we eat, the books we read the shows we watch and the movies we see. Our choices may bring us joy, hope, love or even death.
     The dictionary defines a possibility as something that may be, exist or happen. Once upon a time we were all a possibility. What if your mother or father had not believed in the possibility of love?
     We think of about the "What if's" of life and play with possibilities. What would we do if we won the lottery? What would happen if we were brave enough to say hello to that stranger? It's easy and fun to do when we consider the future but can be sad and depressing when we play that game with the past. What if they hadn't taken that turn? What if they had gone to the movie on a different night? What if I made that phone call or had said I was sorry?
          We don't know what the future holds and the past has already happened and must be borne. But the next time you you need to make a choice think of all the wonderful things that may happen. You may meet someone who will bring joy and love into your life. And the possibility may make you brave and change your life for the better.  

"Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult." 
— Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire)
"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." 
— Anaïs Nin (The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)