The Winner Takes It All

We went to an ABBA cover band concert in Colorado Springs tonight. It was a so so concert, the cover band was Swedish and while they supposedly had been performing around the U.S. for 20 some years, they're onstage patter was stiff at best, and the sound was echoing.  Too bad, I like ABBA's music even if it is a bit monotonous.

I was struck by the song "The Winner Takes It All" especially tonight.  It really is true, you know.  The winner does take it all, and write the history.  We've been watching the PBS Special Presentation of Latino Americans.  The Spaniards came into Texas and California and took the land away from the Indians.  Then the U.S. won the Mexican American War and despite the Treaty of Guadalupe, white Americans started pouring into Texas and California and soon they had taken away the lands owned by the Spanish and Indian families in those areas. 


While I really sympathize with the Latino plight, I don't condone the Americans' behavior in any way, I have to point out that the Californios and Tejanos did the same thing to the previous residents... the local Indian populations.  It's been true throughout man's history.  The victor takes it all, and writes the history so it looks like they were doing the previous owners a favor by taking away their holdings.  Europeans have been extremely good at this.  They "colonized" the Americas, Africa, India .... and of course the native population was really only there holding the land till the Europeans got there. The United States was just following a pattern of colonization and subjugation.   After all, they were the winner and "the winner takes it all."

I could become a communist in my old age, from each what he can to each what he needs.  But mankind doesn't work that way.  They are always looking to win, at the expense of anyone in their way.  I know that. So I'll just protect my little corner of the world and hope a new winner doesn't take over the United States - Colorado in particular and start appropriating the previous landowners' lands - including mine.

Serendipity's First Run!

The Crags/Pikes Peak from Mueller State Park

Larry and I took Serendipity up to Mueller State Park - a beautiful Colorado State Park in the shadow of the Pike's Peak massif - for her first run this week.  We figured we needed to do a shake down run before we stored her for the winter, and while out we could enjoy the aspens as they changed their colors to the beautiful golden hue they take on before dropping their leaves for the winter.

We are tenters, have been for years. But the summer of 2012 ended that part of our life.  We took Heather and her kids - Aiden, Brooke Lynn and Connor camping to Zion National Park where it rained, poured actually, and filled our tents with water, then flash floods rushed down the river and we watched from our riverside campground as the river rose and rose and rose... and we were within inches of having to grab everything and head for high ground when it finally subsided.

And then our trip with H and the kids was aborted on the way back to California at Mesa Verde where I woke Larry and Heather up in the middle of the night with heart problems and ended up in the hospital, first in Cortez where my left ventricle quit working altogether, then Durango where they gave me a pacemaker to keep me alive and kicking.

That was it.  We were through with tent camping!  But we have always loved seeing the U.S. by road and campsites are often much more scenic than hotel rooms.  And we had always said we would like to tale long leisurely trips to different areas of the country taking in the sights and culture of the place.  So we evaluated our life, and decided we were old enough to buy a trailer and sleep off the ground inside a "box" with a kitchenette, a bathroom steps away - inside our abode - not down the trail.Serendipity was the outcome. In a previous blog I waxed on about how we found her.

So we found ourselves at Mueller State Park camping with our friends the Golondziniers - who have a much more luxurious trailer,  a fifth wheel. And were we planning on traveling with four people regularly, we might very well have bought something quite similar.  But we couldn't quite leave our tenting roots behind, and we don't think we'll have too many hitchhikers with us on our future travels. So we brazenly used their trailer for the night time card and board games we played but were contented with Serendipity for our own use.

 It was lovely to stumble down the length of the trailer to the toilet in the middle of the night (we are older) and to be able to plug in the computers and work at the table after dark - with electric lights.  Or watch TV... had their been dish coverage (yes we have a t.v.) or had we thought to bring a DVD with us.  I think we're going to really enjoy travelling around the country with Dippy.  We do need to get a couple of camp chairs so should we invite someone to play cards inside Dippy, we can and not be users all the time.

Maybe in a year or two we'll succumb to the lure of a fifth wheeler, but for now we're quite content with our choice for an entree into the RV world.

Serendipity (the table comes out giving a direct shot down the trailer bed.)

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling - Rule #1

I just got home from our shakedown run with Serendipity to Mueller State Park, and that's certainly a subject for my next blog, but while cleaning out my inbox I came across this gem:  Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling.  

 Why didn't someone give this to me years ago?  Most of the rules make a lot of sense.  If I'd had them then, maybe my efforts at writing would have been much more successful.  Instead, despite several attempts at getting "published" in travel reviews or professional magazines or ..... I remain an aspiring writer.

Rule #1:  You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

Does this include my attempt to hike Elk Meadow Trail yesterday?  I started off jauntily, convinced that with my maintenance asthma drug and my rescue inhaler would get me through. After all, the day before we had walked the park road down to the Visitor Center and back -- a very successful 2 1/2 mile trek.  Yes, I had to stop towards the end and inhale, but then I strolled along and celebrated with a glass of wine at the campsite.

So on the Elk Meadow Trail (which was shorter by far, although a little hilly) I did fine for the first 1/2 hour, then things started to fall apart.  The wind picked up tremendously and as we started up towards the beginning or ending, if you prefer, (it's a loop trail) I started to wheeze. OK. No problem.  Inhale... that's what rescue inhalers are all about.  And it got me through the day before.  But I found myself walking shorter and shorter stretches before I had to stop and catch my breath.  Larry had lots of time to take pictures of chipmunks, aspen leaves ripped from their trees and shimmering on the ground, thankfully not of me however.

I was down to talking myself around the bend, to the next clump of aspens, over the next rise, each time stopping talking to my legs, telling them and my lungs we could do this.  When we got to the top of the last rise and I saw the kiosk ahead I rejoiced!  I had made it!! No Larry said, that's a different trail head.  We have .6 miles to go.

I am sorry to say I shouted at him.  I didn't know I had the breath for it, but I shouted "I can not go any further!  I can't!  I won't!!!"  He nodded, went down the 6/10 of a mile trail to the next trail head to get the car and brought it back to pick me up.  

 

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Crunch time!

 It has always been Larry's and my plan to buy a small travel trailer and set off around the U.S.  seeing it all at a leisurely pace.  We had finally decided that now was the time to take action and had been trailer hunting in California while we were assisting our kids with the first two weeks of back to school stress.  We actually found one that suited our needs perfectly.  It had a full bathroom (great for late night visits) a short queen bed that did not have to be folded up each morning, a well designed kitchen and a bump out for a couch/seating area.  So we kept the brochure, came home to Colorado and promised ourselves next spring we would begin this new version of travel.  After all, we still had our trip to Argentina and Chile ahead of us to keep us busy this fall.

But then I decided to browse through Craig's List.  Lo and behold, there was a trailer with almost the exact same floor plan as the one we fell in love with.  It was two years old, never used, and it was $10,000 less. So we called the seller, checked it out, and of course we bought Serendipity.

The trailer had a sad story behind it.  The previous owner and his wife, like us, had planned to travel the country in their retirement, leisurely checking out our wonderful country.  But then his wife died suddenly.  So in his grief he decided to fulfill their plan.  But no sooner did he get Serendipity home than he had a heart attack and was unable to use her - even once.  The kids were now selling the trailer as part of his estate. We think they were happy that a couple close to their parents age were going to use it finally, and we promised to use Serendipity faithfully and well.

So now we are in the process of equipping a "brand new" trailer for a shake down run 31 days before we leave for South America.  The shake down run will be 5 days, but we first have to de-winterize the trailer, fill the tanks (propane and water), stock the trailer with all the amenities needed to live for 5 days, including the 1 time items one usually adds.... sheets that fit a short queen bed, racks to hold things, bins to keep stuff from running amok during travel, towels, dishes, etc. etc. etc. Then re-winterize the trailer before we take Serendipity to her winter home.

In the meantime we have the trip to Argentina and Peru to finalize.  Yes, we have the flights booked, the cars booked, the first night or 2 after each landing booked, and a basic itinerary in mind.  There are after all the must sees to plot on the map. We have bought books on the history of each country, and books by Isabel Allende, as well as books by others on their travels so we can be well informed when we get there.  I'm a fast reader, but that's still a lot to get through in... did I say 31 days?


But have I mentioned before that Larry is a Libra?  In his world, we cannot leave without a complete day to day itinerary in place, even though we never get 4 days into an itinerary without being 5 days behind because what you find on the ground seldom matches what you planned.  There's bound to be a festival in one town, a farmer's market in another, a waterfall never mentioned in the guide books that the locals say is spectacular or .....

So now we are in crunch time, the story of our life.  Blogs?  I'll get them up in between all the other stuff going on,  I hope!

Sorry, don't buy it.

So yesterday another shooting using a semi-automatic weapon took place in Washington, DC.
Even worse, it took place inside a complex supposedly well defended by the US Navy.

Why did this person even get into the building with a gun?  He was a Navy reservist with a history of abusing the privilege of gun ownership.

My guess it was because anyone who is military, ex-military or a spouse of a military personnel is never even questioned when going onto a base. Any base. But wait! These are regular people now.  Not specially vetted people who have no anger issues, or depression issues and are not currently serving at the base they're visiting.   Why don't they have to justify what they're doing on a base they don't currently report to -even if it's just to visit the Base Exchange to buy groceries and why don't they have to have they're cars/bags/etc. searched by the rest of us?  It makes no sense.  The military needs to take a long hard look at who they think is safe to let on base and who isn't.  And they need to throw away the military id as a reason that the person wanting entry is safe.

(And while we're at it... take away the semi automatics. From everyone.  Let people have a rifle, a shot gun - it's their right after all , but they don't need a military weapon.  That weapon is for killing people en masse, not animals for food and not defending your home from a burglar. Sorry NRA but I don't buy it.)

Don't worry, be happy!

I try to keep a happy face most of the time, no matter what's swirling on around me... no one wants to hear me whine incessantly about the dark side of life.  But it's been a tough year here at the Stevens' household. 

Last August my heart decided to stop working, technical term... Left sinus syndrome... and I ended up in the hospital in Cortez. then Durango instead of in the Cliff Dwellings at Mesa Verde with my family.  Upshot? a pacemaker.

In October Larry had a serious attack of atrial fibrillation while backpacking in the Grand Canyon. Upshot?  He had to be airlifted out.  Since then he's had several attacks, twice while bike riding and for a while rather frequently -one preventing him from is 14teener (hike up a 14,000 high mountain) ... but he's learning to manage it.

In November, I got a very nasty cold over Thanksgiving, that turned into bronchitis, then in December it returned and I ended up being hospitalized with pneumonia.

We skipped along ok till then until July when my old childhood nemesis returned... asthma.  Since I hadn't had asthma symptoms for years and since it appeared as a full blown asthma attack not as a complication of a cold I didn't recognize it, I found myself collapsing, unable to catch my breath and thinking it must be my heart.  The second attack  put me in the hospital.  They didn't recognize it either... because of my heart.  It kept hogging the attention.  Thankfully my nurse practitioner at home said, wait... there's nothing wrong with your heart, what about... asthma?

We have decided that we cannot just give up and die at 63 and 65 respectively.  We've got to climb out of this morass and get on with living the way we want to live.  So...

We went out and bought a travel trailer.  We're going to explore the U.S. from top to bottom. Canada too We've seen a lot of our continent, but there's more to see and some to see a lot more than the fast passes through we made the first time.  Or that deserve a second in depth look.

We're off to Argentina and Chile in November.  We have a burning desire to see the world. And there's places we haven't been, and therefore need to go.

There.  I've whined my whine, we will go on from here.  Travelling the road of life, maybe a bit more slowly, maybe a bit more cautiously... ignoring real health issues is foolhardy, but you'll find us somewhere out there immersing ourselves in the parts of the world we still haven't seen, getting to know our small, lovely planet.

Pencils and papers and teachers

The United States has it's priorities all wrong.  We send millions, if not billions of dollars to the Middle East to support countries that hate our guts ... but take our money.  Our excuse? Well if we don't give them the money, they'll hate our guts and maybe sell their nuclear weapons if they happen to be Pakistan.

In the meantime, a piece on the news tonight says that the city of Philadelphia has laid off teachers, assistant principals, counselors, school nurses and still doesn't know if they can keep the schools running.  Other large city school districts have been in the news recently as well for their lack of funding.  The problem with their funding is that they rely upon property tax for schools and the large cities, by and large have seen urban flight by the upper and middle classes and decreasing property tax revenues as a result.  So the students and teachers left in the city have seen dwindling funds available for their existence.

 Perhaps what we need to do is take back the money we send to Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan... and any other country that dares to bite the hand that feeds them - ours, and put it in the schools.  Don't give it to the city.  They have made miserable choices over the years, give it to the schools.  Demand that it be spent on books and pencils and papers.  Not on any special projects - just teachers with small classes - 30 kids per teacher no more, throw in some counselors (forget the assistant principals to start) books, pencils and papers.  As those who like to look back say, look what we did 100 years ago.  We educated all those kids with hardly anything -- except pencils and paper and teachers.

Hell No! We Won't Go!

I came home last night from playing about the worst game of duplicate bridge EVER. I'd like to think it was that I was wheezing when I got there and had to inhale albuteron to stop hacking, so my brain was in overdrive.  But when your brain is in overdrive you're supposed to play better not worse.  And I definitely played worse.

So then I sat down to watch the news.  The usual crises were being featured, Syria, Egypt, Japan's nuclear disaster.  But then there was a piece on China's latest way to treat millions of people like cattle.   The Chinese government wants to move millions of people off the farms and into cities.  Never mind that they don't want to come.  Never mind that all those millions of people are feeding the country, or at least themselves.  Never mind that  a small city in China is over a million people, and that they already have huge ghost cities that have been built and are standing empty - because no one wants to go, and can't afford to anyway. The Chinese government wants to urbanize China, and if the government wants it to happen, it will happen. It's dreadfully amazing.  Want to hear more about it? Here's a link to a You Tube piece about China's Ghost Cities from Australia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqAzvX6UrI. )

I am always amazed at the uncaring, dehumanization of it's citizenry by the modern Chinese government .  This is just another example of it.  Why don't all those millions of people just rise up and say No!  Hell No!  We Wont Go!  Shaking my head, I went to bed.

(As a supplementary piece, I am going to post Larry's article:  Eminent Domain in China - more on the less than civilized way China runs it's real estate world - on our joint post... Larry and Patrice Stevens ... if you'd care to read it.)

The circle of life...

I live in the woods up here in Monument, Colorado.  Monument is on the Palmer Divide, about halfway between Denver and Colorado Springs at 7000 feet.  Larry and I personally have a little under three acres of trees, the houses in Monument are either large or small lots, but all are forested and while the weather is much harsher here than down in the Springs, more snow by inches, colder by 10 degrees, we all are here for the wildlife and the trees.

But Mother Nature is harsh.  Many of you heard of the Black Forest Fire we had early this summer, we lost over  500 homes up here from it... by a combination of wildfire and drought.  Larry and I were personally lucky, yes we were voluntarily evacuated, but the fire didn't cross Hwy 83 so we were never really threatened.  Animals fled the area too, those that made it out.  Birds and deer, squirrels and bear, coyotes and fox... all headed north or west to escape the inferno.

In the midst of it all, just after we realized we'd be safe, Larry and I and Juan moved back into the house and started setting out our bird feeders again.  Looking out over the back meadow, we saw a remarkable sight.  A mother and a brand new fawn alone in our trees, taking advantage of the stream bed and the relative safety there. What an affirmation of life we thought! We've been watching the mother and her fawn all summer --- they've joined a small clutch of deer that wander through on a regular basis, marveling at the wonder of life.

But, sadly, we are going to the lose the fawn.  Yesterday the clutch wandered through again and we realized that the little one had a broken leg.  We can't get too close, of course, they are wild animals after all, but from our window we can see that he is not able to use his one leg at all.  At first we hoped that he had just stumbled a bit over the rocks, but no... he is truly injured.

I am heartbroken! The coyotes live up here too, you know.   And they are hungry. I had a favorite black squirrel that hung around last year- his antics were adorable and the fact that he looked different than the red squirrels made him stand out. But he suddenly disappeared... either a car or a coyote... or even a falcon caught him I'm sure.  And a neighbor was out walking his 2 little dogs a while ago, when one was snatched from him just yards away by a coyote running through his field.  And now "our fawn". He isn't gone yet, but the weather hasn't turned yet either, and the colder and wetter it gets, the more the coyotes are on the hunt.  I fear he will be one of the first victims this winter.

I know the coyotes have the right to life too, and that life in the forest is harsh, but I am saddened by this turn of events.  I guess it's good I don't have to live off the land, I would have started out naming all the fawns, kits and baby squirrels. Only to realize that they are not pets but denizens of the forest destined to be food for other larger predators.

Farewell little guy, we will miss you.

Maybe a wisteria?

Today was designated Kettle Drum day.  Larry and packed up the gardening tools and headed down to the Kettle Drum house to mow the lawn, pull the weeds, spray the areas we want nothing to grow in and generally do a complete check up on the place.

We had to replace the entire front yard of the Kettle Drum house because the drought had so weakened it that when the contractor we'd hired to start up the outdoor system delayed two weeks, supposedly to give it a chance in case of a late freeze, but instead it finally threw up a red flag and died.  Our tenants spent half the summer with a dead tree and lawn while we waited our turn in the long line of people with similar issues to have their lawns replaced.

Larry, being overly cautious about what I can and cannot do, decided I would be gopher and sent me out to get gas for the lawn mower and buy some new plants to replace the less hardy, and therefore, dead shrubs and flowers in the front yard.  I was somewhat successful and bought a couple of low growing sage... a standard up here in the alpine regions. Then I was looking for a replacement for the juniper that had been planted in a pot, designed to grow and cover the posts to the front porch and I came across bougainvillea.  Really!  Bougainvillea.  This strikes me as like the saying salmon fishing in Yemen.

Bougainvillea are one of my most favorite plants, they love to be ignored, watered infrequently and love to be left to sprawl all over TROPICAL hillsides splattering bright fuchsia color about  In California they train them to grow up palm trees to belay the telephone with a plant on top feel but we live at 7200 feet.  It snows here as early as late September and as late as mid June.  Who in their right mind plants a bougainvillea in Monument... or even Colorado Spring?  It's premeditated murder!  Apparently the wealthier contingent in our area do.  They plant them as annuals. ANNUALS! They spend hundreds of dollars to buy bougies big enough to make a summertime splash then callously let them die come winter.  Oh maybe some of them have a green house to move them to, but for the most part, they just plain let them die.

I left the nursery with a shrub much more suited to our environment, sighing with envy at the thought of a bougainvillea climbing the front porch of the Kettle Drum house but unable to bring myself to cold bloodedly leave the poor thing to freeze to death in our first snowfall.  Maybe a wisteria?

Wow, am I relieved!

Wow am I relieved.  My interest was caught by an article on Yahoo! entitled "A Very Sinister Tale."  For those of us who are left handed - yes Larry and I are BOTH left handed - sinister has a very different meaning than to the public at large who view it as a word indicating lurking danger or great harm or evil.  But we know the original meaning of sinister was from the left hand side. [from Latin sinister on the left-hand side.]

So when this article popped up, I had to read it. Turns out two psychologists from the late eighties came out with a study that stated left handed people lived 8 - 9 years less than right handed people on average. The two psychologists did a study of 2000 people who had died recently and asked their families if the deceased were left or right handed. The lefties lost so they deduced that we died younger. Rather a small study, don't you think? And apparently they sort of overlooked the fact that we lefties weren't allowed to be left handed for a very long time. So some of those righties were probably left handed. After all we were, well, sinister!


I don't know about you lefties out there, but when I went to kindergarten the first thing my evil teacher did was to tie my left hand behind my back so I could learn to write right handed. My mom quickly put a stop to that, standing up for my rights to be left handed if that's what my brain wanted. After all, lefties are in their right brain. That, plus being named Patrice not Patricia gave me a lot to fight for going through school. Yes I'm left handed, no I'm NOT Patricia Phoner, I'm Patrice Faynor. (My last name was Foehner and for many uninitiated teachers, it was too incomprehensible to pronounce - except phonetically.)


We lefties are also stronger of mind if not of body. We've had to overcome a lot of obstacles to stay true to our brain. Scissors are made right handed, writing was designed for righties - how many of you lefties out there turn your left hand upside down to write? or find yourself with ink all over your left side of the palm because your hand passes over the ink right after it's been put on a written page? Three ring binders are designed for righties as well. They get to write away from the rings, we have to struggle with our left palm bumping up against those rings. And then how many of us purposely seek out the left hand corner of a table when dining so we don't bonk elbows with the righties sitting next to us?


But at least this study is being debunked. I am relieved! I can now go on without worrying that my right handed friends are going to last a lot longer than I do. And I can revel in my own uniquenesss. Only 10 -11 % of us are chosen to be SINISTER.

Into the Unknown

I've been working on Larry's and my family trees for several years now. Actually it's turning out to be a lifelong project, since I keep getting distracted by side branches, and even twigs one side or the other. I have a tree for the Stevens family, the Fox family, the Frutiger family, the Foehner family, the Gregory family and now the Liddicote and Berg families.

 Some, including Larry would argue... who cares? They're dead, they're gone. That's very true. But I confess I am a puzzle fanatic, and this, as much as anything is a puzzle to be solved, another piece to put into the picture that makes up me. And I am continually amazed at what I find out when delving into family history.

Think about taking what's left of your family, getting on a boat in Germany or France and heading out across an ocean to a new world that you know very little about. Many of my German and Swiss ancestors did just that, headed for New Orleans, then up the Mississippi to St. Louis, before fanning out into Illinois to find farmland and start a new life. When they left their families in the Old World, they knew they were never going to see them again and may never even hear from them again. That took courage ... or desperation to make a better life for yourself and your children.

 My 9th great grandmother, Penelope Van Prinzen was given to a British man in marriage by her father a Dutch nobleman and then headed off with him to the new world. After their ship foundered of Sandy Hook, NJ the passengers struggled to shore only to be attacked by Indians. Penelope's first husband was hurt in the boat wreck and she stayed with him. Indians came and killed them and stripped them to skin but Penelope came to even though her skull was fractured and left shoulder hacked. She was cut across the abdomen and her bowels appeared and she kept them in with her hand. She continued in this condition for 7 days, taking shelter in a hollow tree and eating the excrescence of it. Then saw a deer with arrows sticking out and 2 Indians appeared, whom she hoped would put her out of her misery. One went to knock her on the head but the other, an elderly man, prevented him and throwing his match coat about her carried her to his wigwam and cured her of her wounds and bruises. After this the Indian took her to New York and made a present of her to her countrymen, viz. an Indian present, expecting 10 times the value in return. In NY Richard Stout married her. He was a native of England and of a good family and Penelope was in her 22nd year and he in his 40th. She bore him 7 sons and 3 daughters. Now that's one tough lady!

Larry's 2nd great grandfather Levi Ruggles left his home in Missouri to join the Union in the Civil War.  He was a bit of an opportunist to be sure, always looking out for himself.  He married a widow older than he with several children and there gained enough wealth to establish himself and become a noted architect/builder in Louisiana, Missouri.  By joining the Union Army, however, instead of the Confederate he was never able to return to his wife and the two children he had with her.  Louisiana was a hotbed of  Confederate supporters and he feared for his safety. He never divorced her either.  He just took a commission as an Indian Agent in Arizona after the war and married (becoming a bigamist) there to start a new family.  Levi became a member of the government in Arizona and was murdered in Florence, Arizona .. a town he founded, and a place he said had everything that crawls, bites and stings.

It's stories like these that keep me delving into the family tree.  Someday I might even get back to Adam and Eve.....

I don't believe them

First of all, writing a blog every single day is wearing. I have a social life to lead, after all! If it were my job, I'd do it no question.  Since it's my avocation it might be a bit more sporadic. Every day, then maybe skip a day.  Hopefully no more than two.

I don't believe them. The big bosses that is.  It seems that big business is complaining they have LOTS of jobs to fill, but no one capable of filling them.  If only the schools would turn out a good product they'd be able to hire lots and lots of workers and unemployment would plummet.

Ok.  What ever happened to in house training programs.  Interns.  Apprentices. Electricians learn their trade by apprenticeship, why can't the businesses hire people on a trainee basis, pay them less for a period of 3 to 6 months and train them to do the job - just like electricians do.  Sure there will be a few untrainable people, but overall they might find there are LOTS of people out there ready to step in and learn the LOTS of jobs they say they have.

This was actually proposed by Arthur Laffer of the Laffer Curve fame by the way.  He wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal. So it's not just me, the raving left wing Independent offering this suggestion.

I don't believe Big Business.  They just want to complain, and hang onto their money all the way to the bank.

A different path...

I was watching a piece on education on PBS tonight.  It happened to be on a charter school in Oakland California that educates only young, black boys.  All the students start their morning with a rally round the flag pole, chanting inspirational sayings. Then they go off to their classes and are expected to excel.  And to the amazement of many, apparently over all the kids do.

Why are these kids excelling?  Well first of all, maybe because they are in an environment where they feel safe.  There are no girls to show off for or compete against, so they only have to compete against their male peers.  There have been many studies which have found that unisex schools take away a lot of the stress of competing and showing off, especially as kids get to the critical teenage years. This works for both boys and girls.  If you raise your hand and take a chance on answering a question, no girl (or in a girl's school, boy) is going to see you make a mistake.

Secondly, they have been taken out of the regular school system where many have struggled with peer pressure NOT to perform.  It's not cool to be the brain, it IS cool to be a member of the in crowd... or gang. And the class sizes at this school are small.  When you have 30 or more kids and 1 hour to teach them a concept, you better hope they get it without individual assistance. It makes sense that small class sizes make it easier to catch the ones that are missing the point. Taking a small group of kids, putting them in an ideal environment is bound to get results. Even if they were screw ups before.

Trouble is ...  Many of these young men are going to get to the end of their high school career and say what now? Not all kids are college material, not all kids are driven to succeed, many kids would be happy just to make a good living at a respectable job... whether it's an electrician, a plumber, a bridge builder or running their own business. We need more than just doctors, lawyers and stock brokers to run our world. We need to give them a path to success either in a trade school or a university, and teach the kids along the way that success comes in many shapes and sizes.

If we look at education for ALL our kids this way, and provide different paths for different folks, then I think we could say we succeeded in making our country a better place.

Civil Rights... women's rights really have improved!

Watching PBS' News Hour tonight, I was interested in the piece about Civil Rights 50 years after the March on Washington.  Being a woman I have my own perspective on this. Women have come a long way since then, a lot further than blacks and gay and lesbian Americans, if truth be told.  We have burned our bras and forced men to accept us in the workplace, academia and have made large gains in income. We still haven't gotten a woman into the White House, but more and more women are working in Congress and I have faith we'll have a woman president before I die.

When I went to college in 1968 I went to a small, Baptist college - The University of Redlands - and frankly many of the professors there felt we woman were only there for our mrs degree.  Maybe some of us were.
In the dormitories, we women were required to be signed in by 10 pm on weeknights,  and 11 pm on weekends... unless we had special permission in advance. And we were grounded if we didn't do so.  Really! (Men of course could come and go as they pleased.)  We were high school graduates, many of our high school friends were out there married or working for a living and we "girls" still had to check in or be grounded.

I admit I was somewhat confused about what I wanted to do with my life. I ping ponged through majors before selecting a group major so I didn't HAVE to choose.  So I took a class called Contemporary Womanhood in our school's  January inter term to take a breather and maybe learn something new. My eyes were opened wide!  I learned who Betty Friedan was (that's her in the forefront above leading a march for the Equal Rights Amendment.)

I discovered that women in some states were not allowed to own property or have a credit card in their own name in the 1960s!  Despite the Equal Pay Act of 1963, women at that time were earning only 56% of what men were for equal work.  (We're still not there, ladies... now we earn an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by men in comparable work.)

I apparently was also very lucky to be a college student.  Women constituted about 22% of the college population in 1968 and were openly discriminated against at the graduate level since Title IX had not been passed as yet (that was in 1972)  and there were very few opportunities for women to participate in anything but intramural sports. (Most people think Title IX applies only to sports, but it is far more reaching. It also covers higher education, career education, sexual harassment, standardized testing and technology. )

I applaud the efforts of the gay community to achieve the rights we women struggled for... marriage to a person of our choice, the ability to have families if we want and not if we don't, I applaud the Black community for fighting for their rights too - there is still too much inequality on so many issues for them as well.  Who said old white men were the only ones who could rule the world?  Maybe if they let us rule the world it  would be a better place.  And while we're at it, pay us the same amount as you pay your golfing buddy Fred.

What is better ... to tell the truth or to keep mum and keep the aid coming?

I support very few charities these days, and the ones I do support are not so popular with our federal government it seems.

One of my favorite charities is Medicins Sans Frontieres ~ or Doctors Without Borders for you American folk.  They have consistently been out there, actually doing good work in disasters around the world. Their mission statement is: MSF delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, healthcare exclusion and natural or man-made disasters. Unfortunately, in trying to be in the forefront of providing service to those in need around the world, trying to remain in the background and insisting that they are there only to provide services to those in dire need, they find themselves in the middle of political firefights over what they report.

MSF was already in Haiti when the 2010 earthquake devastated the country. They were among the ones blowing the whistle in Haiti when their supplies were being held up by the US Military - or rerouted to the Dominican Republic so other planes could land. 

Here's a quote by Mona Gable from the Huffington Post 1/18/2010: Bill Clinton is on the ground in Haiti with Chelsea touring the rubble. I'm elated the former president was able to get permission from the Defense Department to fly in. It's no small feat. Ipm telling you. Because apparentyly not everyone can.
Take Doctors Without Borders (MSF) the highly respected international medical humanitarian organzation.  You knw, the one Sandra Bullock gae $1 million this week before she won the Golden Globe? They've been in Haiti for years.  They have hundreds of medical staff in place, and are working in five hospitals in Port-au Prince.  They know the country.  They're experts in delivering medical aid.  These are the people you want on the ground after a killer earthquake? Am I right?Then wy was an MSF cargo pane carrying, among other badly needed supplies, an inflatable surgical hospital, not allowed to land in Port-au-Prince on Saturdaay and re-routed to the Dominican Republic?Despite assurances from the United Nations and the Defense Department that its planes would be allowed in?  If this is an air traffic control problem, they need to fix it now.  Maybe Bill Clinton could help."



Just last month, MSF was forced to pull out of Somalia after 22 years of work there. "The decision comes after the release from prison of a Somali man convicted of killing two MSF staff. In December 2011 a Somali employee of MSF who recently learned his contract would not be renewed shot and killed a Belgian and an Indonesian worker at an MSF compound. Though the shooter was convicted and sentenced to 30 years, authorities released him from prison after only three months, MSF said." from the Huffington Post, Jason Straziuso. 8/14/2013





Since 1991, dozens of attacks resulted in the deaths of 16 Doctors Without Borders staff in Somalia. Two MSF employees who were kidnapped in a Kenyan refugee camp near the border and held in Somalia for almost two years were released last month.


MSF denounced "extreme attacks on its staff in an environment where armed groups and civilian leaders increasingly support, tolerate, or condone the killing, assaulting, and abducting of humanitarian aid workers." In what must have been a very tough decision for them, Medicins Sans Frontieres decided they could do no more good and were indeed doing harm to their own employees by staying.


And in Syria, in the midst of the raging civil war there, Medicins Sans Frontieres is in the hot water bucket again. True to their mission of providing medical support to people in need of help wherever that might take them, MSF has been over in Syria working with refugees and victims of violence in Syrian cities during the civil war there. Three hospitals in Syria's Damascus governorate that are supported by MSF have reported that they received approximately 3,600 patients displaying neurotoxic symptoms in less than 3 hours on the morning of Wednesday, August 21st.

Now that an investigation is underway by United Nations inspectors, Medicins Sans Frontieres is trying to remove themselves from the political issue by stating that in its role as an independent medical humanitarian organization, it was not in a position to determine responsibility for the event. Just report what they saw on the ground. MSF’s sole purpose is to save lives, alleviate the suffering of populations torn by Syrian conflict, and bear witness when confronted with a critical event, in strict compliance with the principles of neutrality and impartiality. Medicins Sans Frontieres knows that Bashar Al Assad could easily throw them out of the country if he feels they've become supporters of the other side. Or worse, as in Somalia, condone or support attacks on the MSF staffers trying to provide care and comfort to his own people.


MSF could have kept quiet about the gas attacks, but it would have come out anyway, and reporting what cases they are seeing in the hospitals they support is only good policy. But providing the world with the evidence, whether they choose to accept that they did or not, puts the organization in a very precarious position as it tries to live up to its mission of delivering emergency aid wherever it might be needed.