Service Interruption

Not to sound conceited or anything, but when I'm not available to update the website, it does not get updated. And I'm unavailable for the next couple of days. If you need someone to blame, blame Kelly. That's what I always do.

We'll return on Friday.

-Megan

Updated: 
Um... we'll return on Monday. 

Topic 209: Praying in Public

Carol:

Say a Little Prayer for Me

Texas Governor Rick Perry filled a Houston stadium with an “apolitical Christian prayer service” on August 6, a “day of prayer and fasting on behalf of our troubled nation” (qtd in NYTimes.com).  Have he and the other elected officials at the event blurred the lines between church and state which is a fundamental component of the United States Constitution? Conservative Christian evangelicals, or fundamentalists, are Governor Perry’s primary constituency. They wield inordinate power because of well-organized political strategies , giving the impression that their religious/political position is representative of the larger American point of view. But, is that true? I guess we will find out now that Mr. Perry has officially declared himself a Republican candidate for the next election.
 

 The conservative Christian movement does  not in fact represent a significant demographic either in the Nation or in the United States Congress.   A recent report by the Pew Research Center shows that  the 112th Congress isn’t all that different from the 111th Congress in terms of stated religious affiliations, nor does Congress vary significantly from the religious make-up of the public that elected their representatives. About half the group is Protestant (mostly Baptists and Methodists), one-quarter is Catholic and the rest a mix of smaller denominations such as Episcopalians, Jews, Presbyterians, Buddhists and Muslims. The only divergent statistic from the general population is the group who profess “no religious affiliation, “ with only 1% of Congress choosing that descriptor as opposed to the American public’s 16% (source: Pew Research Center)
 

That really isn’t very surprising. Having a visible religious identity is good politics, unless you’re a Muslim, of course. Consider the scrutiny President Obama has undergone—is he or isn’t he a Muslim, is he or isn’t he an American citizen, etc.? If there are no atheists in fox holes, there are no atheists or agnostics in politics. And, even the religious affiliation of Americans  seems much more “fluid” than we would expect. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 44% of American adults have switched religious affiliation at some point, whether from one Protestant denomination to another, conversion to another faith, or dropping/picking up religious connections.
 

The numbers of Christians in America have declined with barely 50% of the population identified in 2010 as being Protestant, 26% describing themselves as belonging to Evangelical churches. And the Pew Report notes that not only are Protestants on the decline, but “the Protestant population is characterized by significant internal diversity and fragmentation.”  The group that has seen the most gains in recent years? The unaffiliated group, the largest percentage of which come from people between 18-29 years old.
 

Both religion and politics in America represent more diversity and regionalism than the well-orchestrated campaign speeches and rallies would have us believe. Governor Perry may be part of a religious majority in the South, which has the heaviest concentration of Evangelicals in the country, but  he may have a harder sell for “prayer and politics” in the West, which has the largest percentage of unaffiliates, agnostics and atheist.
 

Praying in public? Can we really say that any call for public prayer organized by a political figure, whatever his or her political or religious affiliation, is apolitical. I remember the slogan from the sixties, “the personal is political,” and what is more personal than our religious beliefs.
Source:
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.  Pew Research Center.
         

Megan:

My good friends Kelly and Chuck have arrived from California and are spending the week in Sedona. So, I'm skipping this topic today to hang out with them.

Service Delay...

No essays today. No good reason either. We'll be back tomorrow.

Topic 196: Echoes

Carol:

Echoes of Things Past

As always, my father pulled me out of my sleeping bag too early. I pulled on my blue jeans and jacket, grabbed my fishing pole, then followed him along the trail that led from our campsite down to the water’s edge. It was just light enough that I could see my breath as we picked our way along the pine-needled forest path. We descended the last few yards to a spot where the trees gave way to a clearing at the water’s edge. I was glad for our early rising when I caught my first glimpse of the glassy, mist-shrouded   mountain lake 
 

While my father readied the poles with bait, I sat down on a rock and searched along the edges of the lake for signs of other campers, but we seemed to be alone in the chill and quiet. Suddenly, a sound emanated from the far shore, echoing through the forest.  A bird’s cry of such a sorrowful tone that I pulled my coat closer around  me. The cry reverberated; then, out of the mist glided a single loon, its slow movement disrupting the calm of the lake’s silvery surface.  Continuing its mournful call, the loon turned and disappeared back into the mist, leaving nothing but the echo of its song behind.
 

Fifty years later, I don’t remember the name of that mountain lake somewhere in the Canadian west. We may have caught fish for breakfast that morning, may have grilled them over the campfire my mother had been tending, may have talked about the clear, chilly air of the summer morning.  All of the details of that perfect, mystical sun rise have faded except the mourning call of the loon and its glissando, setting off ripples through the water.
 

I suppose I would have taken a photo if I had a camera at the time, but the act of looking through the lens, staging the scene and pressing my fingers against the metal of the camera would have broken the sanctity of the moment; I would have shifted from being inside of the scene to being outside of it.
 

How often have I grabbed a camera and yelled out, “Stop” so that I could freeze for time the joy, the beauty, the spontaneity of a scene only to produce the pale imitation of a blood-red sunset or the out-of-focus fluttering of a butterfly wing? How do we capture a moment of bliss without killing it?  Wordsworth talked about poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility.”  Great writers, composers and artists have the power to create— or re-create--scene so vividly and authentically that we are propelled back into our own memories. Emotions are revived and savored, echoing from the original experience, rippling through time. 
 

Marcel Proust traced the smell and taste of French cake, a spongy and sweet madeleine, back into his childhood,  a literary journey that became the seven volumes of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu.  When I see a loon, I am transported backwards to a single frame in the action of my life; when I hear a loon, I disappear into the single note from the song of who I am.
 

For sometimes, when our world is not our home
Nor we any home elsewhere, but all
Things look to leave us naked, hungry, cold
We suddenly may seem in paradise
Again, in ignorance and emptiness
Blessed beyond what we thought to know:
Then on sweet waters echoes the loon's cry  (from “The Loon’s Cry” by Howard Nemerov, 1981)
 

Source:
Excerpt from “The Loon’s Cry.” Contemplativetoday.blogspot.

Megan:

I'm taking a sick day. I'm either having an allergy attack or coming down with a cold, but either way, I'm spending the day in bed.
     

Harry Potter Day, Pt. 2

No essay today, we're off to see the final movie.

 

Happy Harry Potter Day!

 

Happy 4th of July!

We hope you all have a nice holiday weekend!

See you tomorrow.

Service Interruption #4

We are off to New Orleans! 

See you next week.

Topic 176: Backyard Gardens

Carol:

Why I Don’t Have a Backyard Garden

I have had a subscription to Sunset Magazine for over 30 years. I originally bought it for the person I wanted to be someday, and I still read it for that fantasy woman who grows heirloom tomatoes in container gardens, weaves baskets to harvest the tomatoes, and has all the latest tools carefully arranged in a quaint potting shed. June’s Sunset cover article is “Create a Dreamy Backyard Retreat,” which set me off on another imaginary trip to a future where I actually have a dreamy backyard retreat for reading, meditating, and munching  healthy snacks featured in old issues of Sunset Magazine.

Brother's garden, Phoenix, AZ.

I guess it’s time to just admit that I enjoy reading about my fantasy life more than actually doing the work to make it come true, including  the notion of a little haven of zen-like quiet and English country, blooming color built off the  the cement pad behind our basement.  Here is why that will never happen:

(1)    Irrigation: water is a big issue in Arizona, and we have had our share of water problems in Williamson Valley. We used to have spigots in the back to attach hoses to water the apple tree my green thumb father planted behind the house in 1983. The tree died in 1984, and we disconnected the spigots a few years later  after a winter freeze that cracked the pipes and spewed water through the basement into the non-dreamy backyard. An irrigation system would solve the problem, but it would also  send our water bill skyrocketing and completely offset the effect of the various water-conserving appliances we have installed.

(2)    Labor: our back property slopes downhill, giving us a nice view from the top floor of the San Francisco Peaks but also  three flights of stairs to the basement, which has the only direct access to the backyard. Walking around the sides of the house to get to the backyard means tripping through the rough, granite-strewn terrain and risking injury from cat claws and cacti, the natural botanical  inhabitants of our yard. Not to mention the hard work of bending over with my creaky knees to pull thorny weeds or hauling buckets of water during drought season.

Other brother's garden, Newbury Park, CA.

(3)    Skill/Talent:  whatever you want to call the knowledge and creativity that makes a green thumbed master gardener, I don’t have it. My parents had it, my siblings have it, their children have it. My husband doesn’t have it, nor does he want it. (He was greatly relieved to buy a property without a blade of grass). My own efforts to maintain a primitive front yard garden of drought-resistant local plants are sporadic at best, and I celebrate when a single Iris blooms after a May frost.

Niece's garden, Newbury Park, CA.

(4)     Critters: those granite rocks and native plants attract all kinds of high desert creatures. Visitors to our yard have included javalina, skunks, snakes, lizards, rabbits, owls and road runners, tarantulas, scorpions and deer. We enjoy even the scary creatures from afar, but I don’t like thinking about them as part of a “dreamy backyard retreat.”

My backyard.

You get the idea by now that I can concoct any number of excuses for not having a backyard garden. The main reason is actually pretty simple. I love visiting my green thumb family and friends. I like sitting in their gardens sipping iced tea or reading Sunset Magazine while they stoop or stretch and prune, complain about their water bills, show me the bloody scratches from their thorny weeds and announce that they imagine themselves someday—after winning the lottery-- relaxing in a “dreamy backyard retreat” while a professional gardener does all the work.  

Megan:

 

I did not write today because I was busy thinking of an answer to the above question. I have since been dismissed because of my employment history, family connections to the legal profession and a confessed, innate mistrust of law enforcement. I am relieved because I am going to New Orleans next week for a job fair and jury duty would have interfered with those plans.

Service Interruption

We are in California for a few days and will be back on Tuesday. 

Have a great weekend!

Happy Birthday Carol!

Service Interruption #3

We hope everyone had a nice Easter. 

Instead of writing an essay, I (Megan) am busy supervising this:

What you can't see is Bella cowering between my legs, afraid of the horses. Also what you can't see is although the child is fearless when it comes to farm animals, she screams if Bella even looks at her. 

Carol didn't write an essay because she is tired and recuperating from the effort of making a fabulous Easter dinner yesterday (or as I like to say: Lazy). 

We'll be back tomorrow.

Topic 148: Temporal Halos

   
Carol:

            Word Play

Today's topic is second choice. The one we threw back was not appealing to either of us, and we only allow ourselves one "throw back." So, we're stuck with "temporal halos." I vowed with T148 not to do any research, resort to Google for ideas, and not to spend many hours on it because there is just too much fun stuff going on around the house right now. There are puppies to play with, after all. Instead, I'm going to play one of my favorite games. Fictionary.
 
We used to play Fictionary on Saturday nights with our college friends while  were waiting for Saturday Night Live to come on. The game is cheap and simple,  requiring  only a dictionary, paper and pencils. The idea is to find a really obscure word in the dictionary and then make up several definitions for it, the more elaborate the better, then read them out loud along  with the real definition. Winners are the ones who guess the correct meaning of the word. Winners are also the ones whose phony definitions get chosen instead.  I love this game because it takes full advantage of my experience with word play. During detention time at my Canadian junior high school, I was required to either memorize stanzas of poems or copy out the dictionary pages. Very civilized, eh?  I write good dictionary.

I’ll use today’s topic “temporal halos” to illustrate. Here are 3 possible definitions, with a whimsical nod to some of my favorite TV shows.

(1)    The Bio-medical Definition:  According to the medical sleuths on House, temporal halos are bio-electrical phenomena that show up as round shadows on brain scans. Generally, temporal halos are symptomatic of increased neural activity in the temporal lobe, neuropathic manifestations if you will, that most frequently signal the presence of brain lesions.  What causes these brain lesions will only be revealed at the 55-minute mark of a 60-minute, high-stakes,  medical guessing  game. Diagnosis: epileptic seizures brought on by pulsating waves of, not STD’s as you might suspect, but HDTV’s that are left on all night  when people fall asleep on the couch instead of going to bed at a normal hour.

 
(2)    The Paranormal Psychology Definition: The science team on Fringe identifies temporal halos as emanations from doppelgangers who travel between parallel universes. “Temporal” here refers to time and space aberrations as opposed to brain abnormalities. While the Housian bio-electric halo is distinguished by its silver metallic flicker, the Fringian halo appears as a translucent rainbow much like the delicate  multi-colored shimmer of a soap bubble or oil puddle.  This halo only manifests for that split second when the doppleganger slides through one world into the other, pushing through a kind of osmotic, membranous force field that keeps parallel worlds from bleeding into each other.

(3)    The Prismatic-Pyramidic-Spiritualistic Definition: Reruns of  Michael Landon’s Highway to Heaven provide convincing proof for a third definition, much favored by crystal collecting Sedona psychics. Angels walk among us, heavenly guardians, ephemerals  whose presence in the temporal world is kept secret lest humankind become distracted from performing everyday functions or acts or bravery. These Earth Angels use eye-deceiving clothing to hide their wings, but their temporal halos can be seen with the peripheral vision, what we might call the Divine Parallax View.  These halos present as auras rather than the gold disks represented in traditional sacred iconic art. Unlike the Housian and Fringian temporal halos which retain a fixed ring shape, the Landonian halo appears to vibrate and even elongate during high-intensity intervention, we might say a heavenly adrenaline rush.

 
There you have it, three plausible and distinct definitions for an archaic expression.  If you want to play the game, post your own definition. But….no googling,  no Merriam-Webstering, please.
 


Megan:

 

Mom is right. There IS a lot going on around here right now and my essay did not get written.

Topic 144: On Seeing One's Name in Print

Carol:

The Name Game

Living in a small community for so long, everyone in my family has been named in the local newspaper more than once. Our son made the front page when he was about four years old and happened to take a big taste of salsa at a food contest on the Courthouse Square at exactly the moment the photographer came by. I suspect that today’s topic deals more specifically with those people seeking fame or recognition of their life’s work, say in the theater section of the NY Times or the best seller stack at Barnes and Noble. There are, however, a lot of famous people who decide NOT to use their birth name in print, choosing instead the glamor or simplicity of a stage name or the anonymity of a pseudonym.
 

Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn

In the entertainment industry, the position of an actor’s name on the marquee or the screen credits is important. Imagine the marquee of  your local theater if the stars of the 1963 romantic thriller Charade had used their real names “Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston” and “Archibald Alexander Leach.”  Not much space left for their co-star “Walter Matuschanskatasky.”  Sometimes the birth names are maybe a little too ethnic or just too complicated, like “Natasha Nikolaevna Zacharenko-Gurdin.”             
 

Ellis, Acton & Currer Bell

Authors use pseudonyms-- “noms de plumes”-- for more complex reasons.  Historically, it was not only more difficult for women to get their work published, but also to be taken seriously once their work was in print. When Ellis, Acton and Currer Bell published their 1846 collection of poems, there were questions about who the “brothers” were, if there were actually three of them, but never speculation about their gender. When Currer Bell published Jane Eyre the following year, contemporary reviewers began to consider whether or not a man or woman had penned the book, about which “…though relating to a woman, we do not believe to have been written by a woman” (source: Fonblanque qtd in Evans 364). The true identity of the Bell brothers as the Bronte sisters was not revealed until Charlotte visited her London publisher in 1848.
 

Sometimes authors use pseudonyms to keep a safe distance between professional and literary careers. An Anglican deacon and mathematician wrote professionally under his own name in the early 1850’s but his best-known work was published under the name Lewis Carroll. James Tiptree Jr. had been writing popular science fiction for over 15 years before “his” identity was revealed as the psychologist Alice Sheldon.  Over 13 mystery novels were published under the authorship of Amanda Cross, all set at Ivy League universities and featuring the English professor cum sleuth Kate Fansler. Determined not to jeopardize her tenure or her substantial academic reputation,  " Amanda Cross" protected her true identity until a zealous fan tracked down the copyright information which led to Carolyn Heilbrun,  a full professor at Columbia University, author of some of the most important feminist literary studies of the 20th century, including Writing a Woman’s Life (1988).
 

I just found out one of my retired college colleagues has published a kind of memoir, a recollection of the people and events of his time at the college. It’s on sale at our College bookstore. I understand my name is in the book. If I can get this essay finished early, I’ll just have time to drop by and take a peek. I don’t mind seeing my name in print. Not vain, just curious.

 Sources:
Evans, Barbara and Gareth Lloyd. Companion to The Brontes. Everyman: 1985.
Want to know the real names of the actors mentioned in this essay: go to
Trivia: Pseudonyms 

Megan: 

No essay from me today. 

I think I'm sick. 

 

Puppy sick...

 Introducing Bella. 

Service Interruption #2

No essays today because we're having a busy day and our attention is directed elsewhere. 

Well, actually, Carol wrote her essay. Megan is busy but wants to write on this topic because she thinks "Earth Bound" is a neat topic. And also, it's a Japanese video game. But that's not what she's going to write about. 

Hey, look what happened here this weekend:

That fuzzy, vaguely dog-shaped... shape... in the middle is a coyote. You'll just have to take our word for it. Check back tomorrow for actual essays.

Topic 112: The Life Urge in Nature

Carol:

I Came, I Saw, I Condored

The Science Channel’s website has “top 10” links that are curiosity-catching if not deep science. "Top 10 Mating Rituals" fits today’s topic, but I prefer “Top 10 Species We Miss.” The list includes such favorites as the Dodo Bird (#1) and the Dinosaur (#2). Less colorful is a bird whose extinction is the result of a conflict with the life urges of another species, the human being.
 

Passenger Pigeon 1889

Number 3 is the Passenger Pigeon, which at one time represented 25-40% of the bird population of the United States. Between the arrival of the first pilgrims in the early 1600’s  and 1914, the passenger pigeon population  dropped from over 3 billion to zero with the death on Sept 1914 of the Cincinnati Zoological Garden’s captive pigeon Martha.  During the late 19th century, human intervention failed to re-establish the species, which needed large, healthy flocks to survive. What happened to the passenger pigeon? Some of their demise came from habitat loss as the European settlers moved westward.  More devastating was the appetite for pigeon meat, which became a commercial product in the mid-1800’s. Human beings literally ate the passenger pigeon to death. (Source: Encyclopedia Smithsonian.)
 

A bird not on the Smithsonian’s top 10 is the California Condor, North America’s largest land bird, with a wing span of 10 feet and a life span of up to 60 years  Again, human beings can take dubious credit for the decline in the condor population, not because anyone would consider these vultures edible. The growing people population overtook  their territory, and pollution weakened the eggs and killed the parents.  By 1987, the population of wild condors had dropped below 10. Scientists had been already been collecting eggs for breeding programs, so they captured the remaining wild condors and stepped up captive breeding efforts. (Source: National Geographic website).
 

Almost 100 years after the extinction of the final passenger pigeon, the California Condor population is rare, endangered, but growing.  Human intervention was controversial and extreme, pinning all hopes for reviving the species on ambitious and expensive captive breeding/re-introduction programs through the collaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Los Angeles Zoo, the San Diego Wild Animal Park and later groups such as the Peregrine Fund. 
 

The current estimated population of California condors is over 320, with half in the wild. In 1996, the Peregrine Fund began releasing captive-bred condors into the Grand Canyon, with the National Parks Service in 2009 recording 8 wild-bred condors in Arizona and Utah along with 5 nesting areas. If you want to see a California Condor up close, your best bet is probably a zoo (San Diego Safari Park, Santa Barbara Zoo). If you want to see a Condor in the wild, California’s Big Sur and Pinnacles National Monument  near Hollister.
 

The Grand Canyon?  Ask my husband about his field trip to the Canyon with the bird-watching class from Yavapai College several years back. The trip started at the North Rim, where a dinner-time sighting caused a stampede of birders to the windows of the Grand Canyon Lodge to glimpse a Condor. Their best viewing came later at the South Rim, right outside Kolb Studio where the condors soared close enough for Marc to see their numbered ID tags. Marc was so excited, he bought a t-shirt announcing to the world, “I Came…I Saw… I Condored.”
 

Two bird stories with very different endings. Ironically, the extinction of the passenger pigeon led to the enactment of many of the conservation laws that would later rescue the Condor from becoming one of the “Top 10 Species We Miss.” 

California Condor in flight, 2007

Sources:
Discovery Channel.” Mutant Planet. Top 10 Extinct Species—Passenger Pigeon
  http://science.discovery.com/top-ten/2009/extinct-species/extinct-species-03.html
Encyclopedia Smithsonian on line.”Passenger Pigeons” 
  http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm
National Geographic online.”California Condor.”
 http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/california-condor/
National Parks Service: Grand Canyon Condor Re-introduction Program. http://www.nps.gov/grca/naturescience/condor-re-introduction.htm

Passenger Pigeons. Encyclopedia Smithsonian on line.
http://www.si.edu/encyclopedia_Si/nmnh/passpig.htm

Megan:

No essay from me, sorry. Turns out I don't get along with the pain medication at all. So, I'm hanging out in bed today.

Happy Valentine's Day

So...

Happy Valentine's Day!

See you tomorrow.

Topic 95: Human Blindness

Carol:

Justice Blindfolded

Not all talk at our dinner table is about punctuation, genealogy, and dogs.  Table talk  also reflects my husband’s interests, such as the latest issue of BMW Rider’s Magazine, hot headlines from the New York Times, and The Law.  Contrary to the lawyer/shark/bottom feeder jokes, Marc and I both consider his career an honorable profession.  So,  when we drew topic 95,  I thought about  the symbolism of the famous statue “Blind Justice.”  My subsequent search for information about the term led me in several very strange directions.
 

The most common Google links led to films and TV. The 1994 HBO film  centers around a gun-fighter who was blinded in the Civil War.  The 2005 TV series involves a New York Detective, oh my, blinded in the line of duty.  Despite creator Stephen Bochco’s success with such mega-series as Columbo, Doogie Howser M.D, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue,  Blind Justice didn’t make it past the first season(source: IMDB).
 

My next search  led to a forty-page pdf document called “Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth.”  The report was written by Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center whose website provides easily accessible fact sheets and educational materials indicating that Lady Justice is not blind to color. For example,  DPIC’s “Facts About the Death Penalty” (updated 14 Jan. 2011) cites several studies showing that the odds of a defendant receiving the death penalty increase  when the victim is white, regardless of the race of the defendant (source: DPIC website).
 

My search for “blind justice” next took me to a book called Blind Justice (2009) The cover photo reveals that its author Craig B. Brown is also Judge Brown, so I skimmed  several pages of the introduction out of curiosity.  Much to my surprise, his title is, oh my, a play on words; the now retired honorable Judge Craig B. Brown of North Carolina is blind.  Since I could only read a few pages of the introduction without having to buy the book, I googled Judge Brown to find out more about him, expecting a fascinating story. Which I got.
 

Judge Brown had  been the subject of controversy  over a 2008 high-profile murder case where 17-year old Lawrence Lovette was accused of murdering two North Carolina college students. During a bond hearing,  Judge Brown called on state law-makers to enact legislation to curb gang violence in what amounted to a four-minute speech. This diversion from typical proceedings in effect “branded” the defendant as a gang member, such prejudicial, unsupported assumptions potentially tainting the jury pool.  Defendant Lovette is still awaiting trial, ineligible for the death penalty because of his age at the time of the crime. His older co-defendant pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. His plea bargain was supported by the family of 22-year-old victim Eve Carson, who have publically stated that neither Eve nor her family believe in the death penalty.  Judge Craig Brown resigned two months after the controversial bond hearing, a year later releasing his book (source: Winston-Salem Journal). If you want the “rest of the story,” Brown writes about the case in Chapters 14 and 15 of Blind Justice.
I don’t know what new project Stephen Bochco is working on these days, but there is a story to be told. A blind, retired Judge from the South becomes a writer-advocate to fight street violence. The series will  need a catchy title, though, a play on words perhaps?   
 

Sources:
Blind Justice (2005). ABC Television program       
“Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth.” 

Brown, Craig. Blind Justice. Google Books. 2009
Death Penalty Information Center
Death Watch North Carolina “Durham Judge Who Made Gang Plea Resigns.” Winston-Salem Journal 07 May 2008
  
“Judge: Nc. Needs Anti-Gang Laws Now. WRAL.com. 19 Mar 2008.



Megan:
I didn't write today because I was preparing for a phone interview. 
So, I'll be back tomorrow.  

Topic 90: College Libraries as Social Centers... sort of

This is the last day of our Canadian friends' visit, and Carol doesn't feel like writing today because she is a slacker.

Topic 83: On Telling Jokes

Carol:

Knock, Knock

I have mentioned in other daily theme essays  that  I was raised in a family of practical jokesters and punsters, and that I married into a family where I am  the only white sheep in a herd of black humorists.  I appreciate funny jokes, but I don’t tell them myself.  I could never tell a joke right. I could rarely get to the punch line without blowing it or giggling uncontrollably. Mostly, the laugh would be on me, and my friends liked me to tell jokes just to watch me be silly. I got most of my repertoire from the Reader’s Digest humor columns or bubble gum wrappers. Two things I did really well back then: silly and innocent.

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Banana. Banana who?

My father’s humor tended  toward really corny groaners or long, convoluted stories that sucked you in until you saw a little look in his eye that he was leading up to a punch line. A woman in Calgary once offered to pay him $50 to write jokes for her when she preparing a talk for a big meeting. I will never forget her because she told a pretty funny story one time about how, getting ready for a fancy dinner she sprayed her hair with air freshener instead of hair spray. My Dad turned her down, reminding her “It’s all in the delivery,” 
 

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Banana. Banana who?

My siblings are jokesters too, and cartoonists, which is probably why they went into the greeting card business together. When they were in the planning stages of their venture, my brothers brought a whole bunch of their  jokes to a family gathering,  but they waited until my mother went to the kitchen to pass out the jokes because she might get offended by the off-color ones. One of their best-selling cards was “Hot Tub Tips for Men.”

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Banana. Banana who?

Not that my mother didn’t have a sense of humor. One time somebody-- probably one of my brothers—sneaked  into my parents’  backyard and marked all the oranges hanging from a tree with a brand-name ink stamp. I think it was “Tropicana,”  but  I never can tell a story right so I expect someone to  correct me on the details. My mother picked the oranges, walked into the house with the basket of fruit. Then, she  turned to the most likely culprit and said, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” Well, you had to be there. It’s all in the delivery.

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Banana. Banana who?

 My mother loved my college boyfriend right away, but he said it was because she didn’t know the “real” him. Marc  was pretty good at holding back the darkest, most extreme side, that vein of black humor that came up from his family roots and was passed down to our kids. When he gets a funny card from his sister, he’ll show it to everybody but me. As they are laughing away, Megan usually remarks, “ You wouldn’t really appreciate it, Mom.”

Knock, Knock. Who’s There? Orange. Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
Orange you glad I’m finished with this essay?

Megan:

No time to write today. Packing for the next phase of the journey -- San Diego and a job fair. Mom will be joining me and hopefully we'll both be back here next Monday. I leave you with my favorite joke that I heard recently. It really needs to be told rather than read, but is excellent for people who often blow punchlines :

"Did you hear the Legally Blonde actress was stabbed? Reese... um... "

"Witherspoon?"
 "No. With a knife." 

Topic 80: Suspended judgments

Carol:

         A Clean, Well-Lighted Place in Prescott                
 The weather has disrupted our family.  Our satellite dish is covered with ice, so our TV reception has been out since last night. Milo’s morning walk was canceled, and  worst of all,  so was Megan’s six a.m. flight from Prescott to Denver. She is booked on an afternoon flight, but the weather in Denver is starting to deteriorate and it’s snowing again here. “Wait and see” is the mantra for the day as we put on the coffee, crank up the heat and hang out in the living-room for weather updates

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was about Megan’s travel plans. My second thought was about some folks I know who must be pretty cold, wet and uncomfortable right now. Bad weather doesn’t disrupt their TV reception. Most of them don’t have electricity. It doesn’t interfere with their travel plans. Most of them don’t have transportation. Luckily, they can drink their coffee and hang out in the heated living-room of Quixote’s Garage.

Thousands of tourists visit Prescott each year, with its yesteryear charm and reputation as “Everybody’s Home Town.” Unfortunately, that friendliness doesn’t always extend to the homeless people who also come here to escape the summer heat of Phoenix, look for work,  or seek military benefits at the local VA hospital. Community groups provide meals, but shelters have limited capacities and public transportation is almost non-existent. Increasingly, local business owners and the police have made the downtown Courthouse area and local parks inhospitable for anyone who appears to be loitering. No hanging out allowed.

That’s where Quixote’s Garage comes in. The Garage is exactly that, a former business  with huge roll-up commercial-grade doors that go up in the summer to let out the heat and down in the winter to keep out the cold. Modeled after the principles and vision of Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement, and hospitality houses for people “at the margins,”  Quixote’s Garage is “Everybody’s Living-room,” where all are welcome, homeless or not, jobless or not. A big sign out front announces “Loitering Allowed,” and the space inside is laid-back, friendly and safe. That safe part is important, more important than the heat, hot coffee, books and games, or comfortable couches. 

Quixote’s Garage is a drug-free, alcohol-free, hassle-free, fragrance-free, hostility-free zone. It is  NOT a  Free Speech zone: no talk about drugs and alcohol, and no discussion of controversial issues (religion and politics) that might disrupt the atmosphere of safety and respect.  Spend time at Quixote’s Garage, whether as guest or volunteer, and it also becomes a judgment-free zone.

 Divisive preconceptions about “lazy people who don’t want to work”   and anonymous statistics about homeless vets, the mentally ill or vagrancy don’t stand up well against the stories and faces of individual people, of real human beings. Listen in, and you’ll hear funny work and travel anecdotes, re-hashes of chess or rummy strategies, newcomer advice on where to find hot food, the best campsites, day work, or how to maneuver the red tape at the VA; and, you’ll hear lots of good-natured teasing. Join in, and you’ll get intelligent, interesting discussion of history, philosophy, and okay a little politics. You won’t hear foul language, cruel gossip, or whining…that gets teased out of people really fast. 

It is snowing again with a hint of blue to the north-west. Megan is curling her hair in the bathroom in hopes that the storm will abate in time for that afternoon flight. I’m thinking about my friends. Do they have enough AAA batteries for their flashlights, garbage can liners to protect their gear, a dry change of socks, and transportation to get through the snow and muck to the warmth and safety of a clean, well-lighted place called Quixote’s Garage.
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community” (Dorothy Day).

Learn more about Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker Movement, and the spiritual/philosophical notion of “radical hospitality” at the following sites:

  The Catholic Worker Movement Homepage
  Baylor University: Christian Reflection—A Series in Faith and Ethics.
  
Megan:

I haven't written an essay because I am supposed to be in Colorado. Also, I would just like to add that I wasn't curling my hair. I was drying it so I wouldn't get sick in the snow. Geez mom, you make me sound so spoiled. Wah wah, my flight got canceled. Wah wah I might not get to spend New Years in a ski chalet in Vail. Way to remind me what's important.