The Supreme Pragmatist

Still too hot and rainy to do anything much in the garden, but a lot of it is mulched with grass left over from mowing and there is most of a round bale of hay out there to mulch the paths. It is all still potential.

So I went to Lacoochee school today to attend one of the monthly community organization meetings. I know these meetings have a long string to play out (and I am not good at hanging out!). There is an agenda but everything is very free form, not the 'get it done, everyone out the door in an hour stuff I do at other board meetings. But I find it amazing to attend. Lacoochee is quite like a third world country - and in our midst!

There were about fifteen people there; retirees who are devoted to the community, the usual representatives from the sherrif's department and the parks, neighborhood crime watch, and the Girls and Boys Club, United Way, community health, concerned citizens (I am one of those), the wonderfully energetic media specialist at the school, some volunteers. We are all ages and colors and sizes. Notably lacking is representation from the Hispanic community which is what this title one school is all about.

We all grab cups of watery coffee and pastries encased in cellophane and chat a few minutes about livestock and other country matters. Then the school principal comes in, and as usual, I cannot help noticing the similarities to Dolly Parton - the speech cadence and the face. She is totally mesmerizing as she stands there in the horseshoe configuration of the tables where we sit. She says she is not a speaker, but a a talker. And what a talker! She includes every single person by name and eye contact as she talks. She leaves spaces for comments. This is better than going to church! She has stories, right on point.

For three hours we are all riveted. "If it's the best for kids, that's what we'll do". And she does. She gets grants, ekes out funds for a child to go to Shands Hospital in Gainesville every month for treatment for a cleft sinus. She is always looking, looking for ways to help these kids who live in this small piss poor comunity in rural Florida. She BELIEVES! She believes in children and in the education that will take them where they need to be. She will give them wings to fly.

Her politics are strictly pragmatic. I can sense that she is uncomfortable with the heavy load of testing our state mandates. But she'll work with the system, tweaking what she can. This woman never gives up, even through the dense red fog of bureaucracy.

When I first began volunteering at this community school, I was too judgmental, fresh as I was from being director of a private school where we had the freedom to invent without the tenacious fingers of the state and nation dictating our outcomes. (Also, the kids were those priveledged ones)

This community organizing meeting today was so affirming to me about the way we Americans can effect change. We are a generous and energetic people and we try hard. The bottom line, as this principal says, is the kids.

Anniversary Today

Here is our son, Chris, receiving a birthday gift from his three year old daughter, Caroline. She had collected some perfectly white stones from a driveway we were walking past earlier in the day, and she knew this would be the perfect birthday gift for her dad. Her brother, Joe, has his eye on the chocolate pendant he gave his dad, hoping he'll share it.

This day is also our 49th wedding anniversary. Forty-four years ago we were in a hospital giving birth to this man who is now a father. Tonight I thank god I am not in labor, but in a local restaurant eating salmon and reminiscing with my old spouse about the good times and the bad- and how we got over them. The best thing is our kids and our grandchildren. We are so fortunate to be still closely connected to all of them, funny and weird as they and all of us are.

We have been so blessed! What a wonderful trip it has been with Andy the grandpa, the spouse, the main provider, the maker of things and the most interesting person I know. He's the person who is comfortable in the White House and in our house as he vacuums and dusts and fixes the plumbing. We have been to all the world's continents in all kinds of situations. We have had audiences with heads of states and we have camped in primitive conditions. We have dealt with cancer and end of life issues with our parents, and the deaths of siblings. We have talked our heads off and worried beyond sanity about our children and the state of the world.

There were quite a few times when we didn't think we would make this marriage work. Somehow, it did. We have too much history now to abandon such an interesting relationship. Both of us had compellingly interesting work and a wonderful family of three children and many more kids who came to us from time to time.

I celebrate this day, my oldest son's birthday, and our anniversary of a most intensely interesting and loving marriage.

Philanthrophy

While I am waiting for the weather to break so I can start planting my seeds, the phone rings several times a day. These are people wanting MONEY. Sometimes, when the caller is identified, I don't pick up because I know they'll say," How are you tonight, ma'am?" (Why would a perfect stranger want to know how I am?? Should I really tell them?) Sometimes I am caught and that familiar hot toast feeling engulfs me. I know I am about to feel guilty about kids who are dying of various diseases, birds that are going extinct, people who are in jail for no good reason, police and fire departments that are going broke, universities that need funds, politicians that need help, polar bears who have lost their ice floes, and the local orchestra that needs major support. I believe in all these causes! This is hard. All these and many more smell blood (money).

Americans have traditionally been among the most generous globally. When there is a disaster- earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, volcano eruption, we pony up. Americans have given generously through their churches who funnel the funds to the needy. We give to United Way in our workplaces. But we are unwilling to be taxed.

I know very few people who donate to charities. I see the lists of donors in the back of the programs for the arts in our community. These are generally prosperous people (as are we) and they can be counted upon to support the arts or the hospital, or CASA, or whatever. I do know that it is a very tough sell to get board members to donate to the institution of the board on which they sit!

It is even a harder sell to get the younger generation to donate to a philanthropic cause. I do believe that to whom much is given, much is expected. Some people tithe to their churches. We, not church goers, have always done this, and more.

I am not aware that most of my friends and family give to charities. Some are pinching every penny, I know. This world needs some redistribution of wealth and if you can give five bucks to saving polar bears or sick kids or your local orchestra, go for it. It's only a super size burger away, and hey, your body will appreciate it.

Thanks from Pollyanna!

The Fall Garden Begins

Middle of August and the days are so hot you can barely breathe. But I have already received my seed order and I finger the crisp packets of many kinds of lettuce, celery, carrots, chard, beets, arugula, broccoli raab, kale, peas, and other vegetables. There are no tomato seeds, or eggplants or peppers. These are the hot weather things I know will not have the time to come to harvest before the frost in December. I will buy broccoli and collard seedlings at the farm store, and maybe I will go for cauliflower and brussels sprouts. In the last couple of years there seem to be more choices.

The compost pile has been cooking all summer, ready to be spread over the seed beds. Right now, the vegetable garden is a mess! I have been weeding the beds when it is cool in the mornings, but I haven't the heart to take out the morning glories adorning the fence or the zinnias or the milkweed that so attract the butterflies and hummingbirds. I will do it the last week of August when we return from a cool visit to Seattle.

Our vegetable garden is quite small, 200 square feet or so, enclosed by a six foot chicken wire fence that is buried a foot to deter the armadillos. A string flies above the fence from pole to pole and it has old neckties attached to it at intervals. I am convinced this fluttering fabric deters the deer. Some years ago, I became convinced that top down, no weed gardening was the way to go. So I pile on the mulch, never till. When it is time to plant I just pull back the mulch for the row I want to plant, apply some compost and stick in the seeds. It works!

Last year, almost all the vegetables we ate came from our own garden. (Yes, we certainly ate a LOT of broccoli and snow peas!) But there was so much else! We had wonderful salad greens every day, carrots, beets, peas, eggplant, tomatoes, herbs. The innovation of last year was the salad garden tables. We have two of these raised beds on legs that grow only salads. They are immune from the burrowing of armadillos and nibbling of rabbits, and they are so easy to weed and harvest!

But it is still the hottest part of summer and the next harvest is only a glimmer in my eye, some seed packets, and a fantasy for our table. We are devoted to growing organic. The fall garden is not so prone to the predations of hot weather bugs so it's easier than the spring garden. There are not so many tomato horn worms or stink bugs to contend with.

I want you to try vegetable gardening! Not only good eating, good exercise, fascinating scientific interests, it is good for the soul.

In subsequent posts I will let you know more about this garden. Ask questions!

One of the Best Things

Our nephew, Dan from California, visited us in Florida off and on from the time he was a very small boy. He got it in his head that he'd like to live here. After he graduated from Santa Cruz and batted around for a few years being a chef, he arrived here, a graduate student in Marine science. By this time we had despaired of having any of our children want to live here; they were all far away leading their lives (as we had taught them).
When Dan arrived, I was so happy. I never had any expectation that a member of the family would like to live here! Dan was always one we could count on (to take care of pets, house, emotional needs of his cousins.) Dan borrows money from us and pays it back, has the keys to our houses and hearts. He comes to visit us on the holidays and many other times as well. He is Family!
Sometimes we don't hear from him for days. But we always know he's there! A few years ago he began bringing Inia for family visits. Inia is a beautiful, smart, accomplished and lovely person ( and also a marine scientist on her way to the PhD) and all of us hoped this was becoming permanent.
They married last month, in her native Puerto Rico, and we all celebrated! Dan is finding that his niche is in teaching, and it seems he has much talent for the work. I hope they'll stay here in the neighborhood, at least for now. I do celebrate everyday. I hope their lives will be interesting, and I also hope they'll be here for a long time. Whatever happens, this time Dan has been here has been the best of the best for me.
As Grandma, I would love to see a grand niece or nephew or two.. But, in any case, I do appreciate the years with Dan, and now Inia.

One of the Best Things

The night time heebie jeebies

Usually I sleep like a rock in my high canopy bed, so quiet here miles away from anything. Sometimes I hear the calls of the owls and the hissing of the deer, and when the moon is full, as it has been these last few nights, I am awakened by the brilliant light of it, pure and white, beckoning me to wander out onto the porches and wonder at the beauty of such light falling on pastures and the sleeping cows.

But lately, I awake in the middle of the night, and I am afraid for this country I love. The media from the right and left is too shrill, too pandering to their own interests, too eager to tweak the worst in us.

I voted for Obama because I thought he was truly a good man and had the heart and strength to put forth his ideas of making this country great again. I believed Obama had a mission to make this country work. I still think this. I am disheartened with every pragmatic compromise he must make.

Living here in rural America where everyone totes a gun and for the most part are suspicious of any new ideas (gays, blacks, taxes), I am so aware of class differences. I am aware that rigorous thinking is foreign to our neighbors - and to many of my countrymen. Is there anyone out there over sixty-five who does not appreciate Medicare or Social Security?? Come on! This is government run! We pay our taxes for this stuff! And we love it! Don't you know this?

And here is where the media, mostly the right, comes in. They whip up folks to say they won't have choice in health care, they'll be thrown out of the system. Have they investigated this? No! They just listen to the ads that are backed by the big pharmaceutical and medical companies who in the end just want a huge profit in their pockets.

What disgusts me is our Congress that has to pander to these large companies. A senator cannot vote for Sotomayor because of the gun lobby etc. With very few exceptions I think our legislators have been bought by special interests.

We have a bipartisan form of government, a wonder in the world. I respect the differences in philosophy and want this to continue. But I am cynical in my old age. We have lost our way in the homage to Big Money and Power. We have seen this as America caused the global recession.

I voted for Change. And now I see the cracks. My night time heebie jeebies are about racism.. The talk shows discuss whether Obama is truly an American. I have such distrust for these guys who are actually making a ton of money whipping up the emotions of people who do not think any where near rigorously. They talk about elitism. This, of course, hits a nerve. (Fear, envy?)

How could any rigorously thinking person believe that Sarah Palin could run this country?

Is our destiny to understand everything in 140 characters? I think we are better than that.

Shark Attack!

Last week, a young friend of mine, an old student and the daughter of a good friend was savagely attacked by a shark. She had just returned home from a summer job at her college and was relaxing and swimming with her sister from a raft just beyond her family's dock in Boca Ciega Bay. It seems that the two of them, Jenna and her big sister Laura, were dangling their legs off the raft, when suddenly what must have been a large bull shark attacked Jenna's leg. She screamed and Laura somehow managed to drag her onto the raft and then onto the dock and apply pressure to staunch the copiously bleeding wounds, called 911 and the neighbors, and calmed her little sister on the way to the hospital.

It looked quite grim when I heard about it a few hours later. Would she lose her leg? Did she need blood? What about Laura? How must she feel? I went to bed and dreamed about sharks. As the days passed I heard constant updates on Jenna's progress. More than six hundred stitches up her entire leg, and almost a week in the hospital, but we know now, she'll be fine, and can even go back to college in a month. For all her life she'll have that thin scar line from ankle to thigh. And what a tale she'll have to tell her children and grandchildren.

This affected me so much on many levels. First, this family has always seemed so golden to me; nothing bad could ever happen to them. I have taught all three siblings and they were among my favorite students. The connection to each other this family had and has is extraordinary. I love this family! They have always cared so much about each other, seeing each child as an individual, but they were never 'helicopter' parents and let their kids follow their stars. So all three kids went far away to college. These parents truly gave their kids wings to fly.

And next, how can we as parents ever protect our children from the unexpected? What horror it must be to have your college student gunned down by a maniac? Or the always dreaded automobile accident? Or.. a shark attack?

When my own kids, who have fledged now, come back to visit, I am incredibly thankful to have them here. Count them; one, two, three. You've let them go, but that incredible parental love is always anxious. We still love to have them HERE, under our roof. But we know we can't control a thing.

So, this picture is of quilt I made this week, commemorating the shark attack. I will give it to this family and I hope they will leave it around their house for the kids to wrap up in, and maybe remember this amazing experience in which everyone - the sisters, the brother, Mom and Dad, many friends-showed the love of an amazing family.