Trying to keep it on the light side...

 

From Pencil Box to Keyboard has been a bit on the serious side lately.  Bummer. I was looking back over the topics and realized, that, once again, the serious topics have moved in and brought their heavy, dreary belongings with them.  I used to be more fun.  I miss that.  I want to return to the days of writing about light “stuff” – like list making, purses, Hershey Kisses, Snow Brownies and things that make you forget the heavy issues – if only for a few minutes.

With that in mind - I briefly considered telling you about cleaning my garbage disposal this week.  It was impressive and easy… and this time I didn’t need to have it replaced when I was done.  Then again... I also reorganized my pantry… an adventure of sorts. Or – I could tell you about spending a wonderful afternoon with my remarkable granddaughter in my basement going through old albums and boxes of black & white photos of unnamed grim faced ancestors with startlingly unusual and unattractive hats. My granddaughter asked why no one smiled back in the day.  That reminded me that there was a time when she thought the world used to be black and white.  Guess I have a lot of old photos around. 🥴  Anyway ... I have to mention that these albums and photos smelled very bad – sort of tonsil-grabbing if you know what I mean. It isn't a project that you want to spend too much time doing.  These albums and photos also reminded me that I should take the time to write names on the back of my photos – you know… for future generations. They also “tell” me to forego hats and to smile more.

To continue in the photo line of thinking – I noticed a while back that I didn’t have any photos that I could hold in my hands.  I think I went digital without being totally aware of it.  I saw my camera in a drawer in my laundry room just the other day and wondered for a moment what it was. Anyway – realizing that I didn’t have any “real” photos, I figured out (with the help of my brilliant daughter) how to transfer the digital ones from my phone to my pc and from there to one of those sites on a cloud somewhere unknown in the universe that will print them for you.  Ta Da. Magic. Anyway – in no time at all, I suddenly had 358 hands-on real photos in a little basket on my coffee table.  Many who have been to my house have spent time looking through them – real photos – sort of a rarity.  A blast from the past. Alas… I haven’t’ written any names on the back of them – yet.  Maybe next week…. 

The original title of this blog was "Ugly Hats and Grim Faces..." I changed it after waking up this morning to the news of Russia attacking the Ukraine... an event both ugly and grim.

                These are difficult times to be sure.  Hope we all find many good things today -- things to smile about. We have so much for which to be thankful this February morning. 

O Canada!

 

Who hasn’t had their eye on our neighbors to the north for the past few weeks – if for no other reason than to see how much Justin Trudeau’s hair has grown? 

I have always loved Canada and every Canadian I have ever met. I care about Canadians.  Living so close to the US/Canada border, it was once easy to travel back and forth.  For me it was a relatively short jaunt to the Peace Bridge and Ta Da – lovely Canada.  I have seen Niagara Falls from the Canadian side many times, and Toronto – so nice.  I love Montreal as well – even considered applying to McGill University at one point in time.  Figured I could practice my French while studying other “stuff”, but they didn’t offer the program I wanted. Quebec City is beyond description – in all good ways. Once I even flew from Toronto to Calgary, Alberta (I shopped at a memorable Hudson Bay Company department store there.), and then – took a train from Calgary to Vancouver, British Columbia – across the Rocky Mountains. Amazing.  By the way – 8 days in Vancouver is not enough – so much to do and to see.  Stanley Park is one of my faves. Then there is that I have always felt safe in Canada.  I have always loved that about Canada.

It pains me to see today, however, that instead of staying in town and talking with people at the very start of the Freedom Convoy, the Prime Minister of Canada has put on big heavy boots and taken it upon himself to threaten to take people’s children away from them, kill their pets, confiscate their money and property, invalidate the licenses they need to work, arrest them, etc.  Who knows what other devious plans he will devise to crush freedom? His actions have gone way past the skullduggery of politics and the expected hubris of power hungry “leaders”.  I fear that hard-working Canadians must feel like they are trapped in the Chateau Frontenac with a madman behaving like Jack Nicolson in The Shining. And why? Unlike the devastating destruction of personal property done by US protestors (actually rioters and vandals) who were encouraged by the liberal far left, these were peaceful protests that we witnessed in Canada – something that a free people are allowed…or used to be. If this travesty can happen in Canada, it can happen anywhere and … it is. Shameful….

It’s past time to take a close look at the festering, spreading infection of the “woke” and of those leaders who believe themselves to be above the law. This infection is insidious.

Then again maybe there is hope … at least in the United States … are we seeing signs of the woke turning in on and eating itself?  I just hope that those who take over are less hateful and not as power hungry… that they encourage respect for differing opinions and do not deny freedom of speech… that they actually make positive change and remember who they represent. Power over others can be a dangerous and devastating thing.  Lucky for us that Americans have elections - often. Trudeau has been in power since 2013 and will remain there apparently at least until 2025.  It works differently in Canada than in the United States. Trudeau could be there for a very long time.  O Canada! My heart goes out to you. Let Freedom Ring!     

Ephesians 4:32

Focus... Focus... Focus...

 

For quite a while now, I have been doing a bit of thinking about what is wrong with people. I am talking here mostly about the latest phenomena of airline in-flight brawls, general rudeness and impatience with store clerks and servers, etc.  Ugly. I have come to the conclusion that – at least in part – many have reached their breaking point with high levels of frustration generated by a complex combination of things like job stress, family stress, insane, power hungry, controlling, politicians, etc.  You know, the whole going to hell in a handbasket thing.  The feelings of helplessness are the worst. Then – I think people sometimes just get to the point of taking it out on anyone they can – including innocents who just happen to get in their way. It can be anything from shortness of temper or minor rudeness to - unfortunately -  episodes of stupidity/insanity that make national news. 

I have to talk to myself sometimes and, quite frankly, am thankful that I can write to sort things out -- and sometimes vent. I don’t like myself when I am short tempered or rude. I don't like other people either when they are.

It's difficult to be frustrated with life. Don’t we free people always want to be in control of our own lives? We are used to our freedoms.  It’s hard to see them being taken away – the loss of being able to manage your own lives, to deal with the consequences of mandates of government overreach, to see that hard work sometimes doesn’t make dreams come true… it’s hard… so hard. Then there is the whole hope for a better future for your children and grandchildren concern. Major…. Every parent in the entire world knows this particular hope. The thing is that the hardships of these times touch everyone in some way.  Unnerving for sure.  However – I am not one to give up hope.  Hope is a powerful thing and I will grab on to it wherever, whenever I can and hang on for dear life.  I think that individuals can "Mandate Freedom" in their own lives.  I have.

I saw a meme on social media this past week.  Perhaps you have seen it as well.  The title above a jumble of letters in bold face type reads something like -- The first 4 words you see is your focus for 2022.  Of course, I could not resist scanning the jumble to see where I might be headed.

                      Power… Alignment … Health … Strength 

I will gladly go with that, but just have to add a bit of a mantra…

                                   You. Can. Do. This. 

And so … we get closer to the end of the second month of the world of 2022. How are you all doing?

 

Going to Hell in a handbasket...

Language has always held a fascination for me and when someone wrote to me a while back and used the phrase “Going to hell in a handbasket”, it was one of those Ding-Ding moments.  Time to do a bit of research on language.  That should keep me out of trouble for at least a couple of minutes. 

Now the standard explanation is, of course, that “going to hell in a handbasket” means that someone is headed for disaster and it is most likely that there is no turning back.  The expression has been around, actually, for hundreds of years. Some think it refers to the baskets used to catch guillotined heads in the 1700’s in France. Others associate it with the American gold rush of the 1840’s when men were lowered by hand into mine shafts (in baskets) in order to set dynamite. Then there is Meat Loaf who named his 2011 album Hell in a Handbasket. (Did you know, by the way, that his real name was Marvin, then Michael Lee Aday?)  Anyway -- I also located dozens of memes and several cartoons with this “theme” of going to hell in a handbasket.  The Urban Dictionary defines is as a “Comical way of describing a situation where you or somebody is going to end up in deep shit.”  That is my favorite tidbit of all. Sometimes research is fun.

My question --- Is one able to buy tickets for others to take a ride in this basket?  Just asking for a friend. (This last idiomatic expression – asking for a friend -- came into use in the 1990’s. I really like it. It makes me smile from the inside out.) 

Grandma Bessie, snakes, and freedom ...

 

What I am thinking about today, for some reason, is my Grandma Bessie who on a small, relatively harmless scale, used fear to control her ever growing and rowdy bunch of grandkids. (Don’t all parents/grandparents do this sometimes?) There is control and there is control. Anyway -- Bessie was my father’s mother. The thing is, and what I am thinking about today, is that she lived during the influenza pandemic of 1917-1918. I have thought about this several times during the past -- going on now -- three years. She survived.  Both of her children did not. I can’t imagine the horror of losing your children and (as the family story goes) of being too sick herself to be able to attend their funerals. It is beyond tragic for sure.  Nevertheless, she and my Grandpa Earl went on then to have my two uncles and my dad (the middle son) … and so the family began again ... and here I am telling you about it.

Now as I remember -- this grandma, unlike my grandpa, did not smile a lot.  Sadness hangs on in many ways. Sad to think that I don’t have one single memory of her really smiling (you know -- the kind of smile that just sort of bursts out) … although … I sure hope that she did. Everyone deserves some joy in their lives. Anyway – the Spanish Flu was apparently not enough horror for one life time -- another epidemic was yet to come. Polio. 1955. Some of you will remember the Jonas Salk oral vaccine -- a cherry-flavored drop on a sugar cube, and if you are old enough, you may also remember seeing (in magazines and newsreels) rooms full of children in iron lungs. You may also remember hearing about previous experimental vaccines, like the Cutter vaccine, an experimental injection, that tragically actually caused polio in thousands and thousands … and thousands … of cases ... innocent people who became pawns in some sick, twisted game of chess. Sound familiar in any way? That, too, was a scary time. 

But to get back to Grandma Bessie… never one to disappoint in the wives’ tale department, she had her own brand of advice especially when polio struck in that outbreak of 1955. (I was a mere 6 years old, but I remember it well. I tend to remember scary stuff.) These bits of “wisdom” were sort of like some of today’s mandates really -- not even close to “following the science”. I remember her cautioning me not to drink from a creek - as I often did – because the creek water would give me polio.  She also told me never to eat a peach if I hadn’t removed all the fuzz – because the fuzz would give me polio. Needless to say, washing a peach in a creek and then eating it was totally unthinkable. Double polio?  I think she also used fear to induce me to stop turning over rocks on her front bank -- a favorite way of mine to find snakes.  Yuk! Hard to believe now that I ever did that… and that I looked forward to it… that I did it repeatedly on purpose after finding that first one in a heart-stopping experience.  Anyway -- I rarely drink from creeks these days – or flip over rocks in search of garter snakes, but… I think of her warning to this day – every - single - time I wash or peel a peach – especially if I eat them with fuzz.  Yes, some things hang on in various ways.

Turning the page ...  control by fear remains effective today. It is important to realize though that this control can exist on a deeper, scarier level -- and perhaps not with good intentions. Again -- there is control and there is control. I am not even sure the term mandate, for example, was used in earlier times the way it is now. Maybe there was another word. It certainly was never a part of my routine vocabulary … until recently. Too bad it is so popular now. Sad that it has become a household word. I am not sure what word was used for this type of control in other times and I don’t think the term will serve us well when history records the events of these times in a looking back on it -- in what I think of as a retrospective perspective. This is especially important when you think of how our children are being treated – some forced to take an experimental vaccine (big pharma, big bucks)– some isolated and denied education or participation in sports because they are not vaccinated. Then there are those who are now in their third year of forced masking. There is an entire generation out there who have been denied the communicative power of facial expression for now into the third year! (Most of what one communicates is done without words, by the way. I have studied nonverbal communication for years.) What damage have these mandates done? What damage do they continue to do?  Enough now.

Then – to add to the horror - there is this idea…. Think of how you look back at some of the “mandates” of the World War II era, for example. This past week (January 27^th) was Holocaust Memorial Day and the 75^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  How did all of that start? It was a systematic method of control by those in power.  How did it progress? Jews were segregated and forced to wear a yellow Star of David as a way of identifying them before isolating them in ghettos. They were denied jobs because of their race and their beliefs...and then it got worse. We look now with horror at the end result of all of this.  Over 6 million souls ... horrors almost beyond belief.  See what I mean?

It is a good thing that some things hang on a bit… that we don’t forget. Maybe there is hope that we can learn from our mistakes that way.  Hope so….  No one can completely erase history  -- try as they might, and some are trying.  Someone will remember – at least as long as we are free to talk and write, read, and … learn. Have courage. Speak your truth. It is your right to do so even though others may try to silence you. We will not all agree, but  that is okay.  We should be able to work it out or at least listen to each other and try. 

Sometimes I feel like Little Orphan Annie in that old James Whitcomb Riley poem about the goblins that will get you if you don’t watch out. Today…. those would be the power-hungry type of goblins, aka control freaks, thirsty for their command over others. They are experts in fear mongering. Aren’t we just plain sick of it – and getting sicker of it every single minute? And yet -- are there signs of revolt throughout the entire world? Hope? Is it too late to salvage what was our world?

It's a lot -- I sometimes wonder what my grandchildren will remember about me… their own retrospective perspective. I want them to remember that I really smiled and laughed… that I found joy in life and in them. I hope their memories will not include a lot of old wives’ tales of a scary nature. They are all old enough to remember these times. I hope their memories have to do with a sense of living one’s life in the positive, of the importance of freedom of choice (Freedom Over Everything), and about a courage to stand, sometimes feeling very alone, against those thirsty goblins.  I hope they remember that their Nana took a stand and spoke out .... I hope they remember that I didn't like to be bullied... by anyone... and that I would push back.