NOT FUNNY

O.K., I am an old fart with lots of experience in the world. I am not of the millennial generation.

To dismiss and make fun of anything that might help the poor and disadvantaged as as been done by the Daily Show and others is just plain unconscionable. Those folks in the media go home to their expensive Manhattan apartments, smiling like cheshire cats. What do they know about empty bellies and empty minds? Their kids go to private schools, get picked up in limousines, and eat wonderful food. Eventually the kids will go to Yale.

Here, in this poorest of rural communities in America, kids are hungry. They never have enough of anything. Many of these kids and their families are undocumented. They live in fear every day.

But these parents, like all of those at the Daily Show, want the best for their kids.

The Affordable Care Act has many problems, we all agree. But, please give this idea of helping so many a chance.

The other day I was in a place that cares for kids after school. There was plenty to like there, but what was so bad was a staff member who made small kids feel small and incompetent when they were doing what little kids do.

To me, it is not funny to make fun of the best instincts we Americans have. Seems to me that it dismisses the best about our young generations. Should we think that they can only connect to the important issues of the day with broad satire, tweets, etc.?  What is happening is pandering to the commercial and the money.

I would love to have some of these folks who make fortunes from japing serious problems in our society to live for a week in public housing with $100 a week for a family of seven.

Empty Bowls

It was one of my best teaching days but it broke my heart. Here are kids at the Lacoochee Boys and Girls club, where they come every afternoon after school. This day I was to bring clay so that the kids could make little bowls for the Empty Bowls project, which in this community funds the money for food for these kids. So they are making these bowls for a fundraiser that will take place in town at the steps of the courthouse next month. And they understand that they will not be there to experience it.

Prosperous folks will come and eat soup and bread contributed by philanthropic souls. For a contribution everyone will get one of these clay bowls to take home. The kids ask, "What will they do with the bowls?" I say that they will put paperclips in them and remember that lots of kids (including you!) may not have enough to eat sometimes. They don't really know that the food they eat at the Boys and Girls Club must be paid for.

But they love making anything out of clay! They are starved for creative work. They hunker down and, middle school students down to five year olds, work hard on these bowls. Most have forgotten the goal and some of the little girls are putting clay eggs in their bowls and the boys are thinking how they can include a stele. All the time this is happening (75 pounds of clay, yikes!), there are many wonderful conversations and I am charmed by the beauty and outgoingness of these children. Some of them know me from other venues and we are so comfortable together.

But I look around this place, that a year ago was so dismal and actually frightening to me, and see such improvement. But everyone really looks foreword to being in the new community center that will be complete by the year's end.

I look around and see that the space for the little kids has less richness than our upstairs hall playroom for visiting grandchildren that is full of books, blocks, Legos, games, trains and trucks and dolls. I could cry.

Most of the folks who work here are tender and supportive to kids. But there was one staff member who seemed so toxic to kids. She never was polite or respectful to them, outright angry. I thought I would never let a kid of mine be anywhere near her. I felt the devastation that the five year old kid who spilled his meal might have felt. He couldn't help it! No one offered to help him clean it up ("Hey, no big deal. Let's clean it up. You get the broom, I'll get the dustpan. And you can still have lunch!) But no, that tiny kid's day was ruined. When I spoke of this to the administrative staff they said they were working on it..

Empty bowls.. The food that is served there daily does fill bellies. What I saw being served today was a menu of doughy cheap hot dog buns topped by the cheapest of generic hot dogs, melted velveta cheese and ketchup on top. On the side were generic crinkle cut fries from a big box store. I had brought $10 worth of grapes and they were served as well. The drink was kool aid. Lots of empty calories but those bowls were really empty. I could cry. This is not food for growing bodies and brains!

We nourish our grandchildren with fresh organic foods from the garden, no manufactured food, certainly none of those hot dogs made out of who knows what? We are so privileged!

So, I keep on trying with the community garden. Keep on being there for the kids.

You Are What You Were

Elderly grandma that I am, I still inhabit the soul I was given. From the time I was aware at a very young age, I was always outdoors looking at everything. In our first family house there was a large unkempt yard out back. We kids had a huge sandpile in which we made habitats with small toys. What interested me more were the hollyhocks that bloomed next to it. I watched those wonderful blooming flowers and I noticed when they evolved into those round seeds closely nestled next to the stalks. I would peel these off and look at them, wondering at their disk shaped seeds. I planted many of them, but I don't know if they ever came up. I was four.

Throughout elementary school when I had a huge range to explore in our small town, I rode my bike daily to the woods on the edge of town, usually with friends. We explored, observed, made fires and smoked corn silks. All the time I was observant of the plants that grew there in upstate New York. I looked for the rare pink lady slippers, the white bloodroot that bloomed in early spring. I loved the trillium that bloomed in the woods.

Back in the town I noticed when the earliest snowdrops bloomed, and then the scilla and then the crocuses. I could go back there right now and tell you where to find them.

But many years pass and these interests in the natural world took a back seat to changing locales, the business of coming to be a grown-up, having a career and a family. But these interests have always been with me.

Today as I was walking in the woods, which I do every day, I rejoice in the wildflowers that I know like the back of my hand. Here are the snakeroots, the blue curls, the farewell to summer, the Caesar weed and all the mosses and epiphytes. I have to dodge the huge golden orb weaver webs where the inhabitant is large and getting ready to make an egg sack for the next season. I see a lovely red rat snake dancing across the barn floor.  The deer and the turkeys and the fox squirrels are always there somewhere. This is where I was meant to be!

I think that people need to look at their earliest interests to know where they are meant to be. I have always told my students that they need to examine what their passions are to see what they should study and pursue. Sometimes I am talking to a student who seems to be interested in manicures and hair and I think.. O.K. you are interested in the personal and physical lives of people. Maybe healthcare?

When I am doing my volunteer activities with kids I can sometimes clearly see where a given kid is going. That girl who is such a great observer may be going into science. That lovely little nine year old boy who cradles a bug in his hand may become an ecologist. The boy who talks only of violence, guns, and mayhem might be..a tea party person, or could surprise everyone and be a good dad and a birder?

We need to ask kids, and each other, what their real passions are. Whatever age you are, if you reflect on this, you'll know more about yourself.

Short Timer

Sunday night and I'd like to watch Sixty Minutes but the football games go on  and on.. I have no time for that. Long ago I decided that my opinion of football (with the concussions and greed), could be not mentioned.

I am a short timer! I want every day and every hour to count! I have no time anymore to sit through meaningless awards ceremonies or banquets. Been there and done that. I would rather be out working in my extensive gardens and walking through the woods to admire the fall wildflowers. I would rather be in a group of kids I can teach and learn from. I would rather be in a conversation with good and old friends. I have never been good at 'hanging out' when folks speak of inanities and sometimes keep checking their phones.

This evening, the dining table had been newly refinished and the coating was still tacky so we ate our wonderful dinner on the screen porch at a table there. We had candles and great food, lots of green beans and lettuce from the garden, and a pork stew with potatoes and carrots. The dog at our feet. And we had great conversation about the news today and family matters. I love every minute of these times we come together. On the screen porch. eating dinner, the birds and the owls were at full throat, and we felt so happy with it all. Such are the pleasures of a long time marriage.

When I was out weeding in the vegetable garden today something stung me on the hand. It hurt, but I paid no attention, but now, my hand has ballooned to twice its normal size. Maybe I am really a short timer! Stay tuned.

Everything changes all the time!

These kids are two of my eight grandkids. Next week they are coming to visit, and now, they are much bigger, several million words advanced from then - and still, just as cute, now connected to Kindle Fire.

I wish I could say the same about my life in the digital world! Everything changes, but it is not as cute. A couple of months ago I replaced my old p.c. laptop with a new and wonderful desktop Mac with a huge screen. There were no instructions whatsoever - because Apple is intuitive! It always works fast, no problems with viruses.

But I have so many issues! With my iPhone and iPad I have been charmed by their seemingly seamless interfaces. However, since my iPhone was recently updated, I can no longer download photos to iPhoto on my computer. I don't know how to make the wireless printer work with these things. I can't send email on my iPad. And in the iPhoto program I still can't send photos as an album. Of course there are many ways around Robin's Hood barn with a Mac and I try all of them. No luck. I have asked my young friends with Macs who visit to have a go at helping on these issues, and eventually, they seem as clueless as me. The outcomes are strange and I have to reconfigure what I know. On line help is useless to me.

Yes, I could take some classes on Mac use if I went on an hour and  half commute each way to Tampa, but there I would not have my own computer or my own internet access or printer - aargh! I really need some friendly knowledgeable person who could come here, hunker down with me for a couple of hours, and fix these issues.

Many of my elderly friends have taken a different route. The have basic cell phones, old computers that at least do email, maybe print out stuff. But I want more! And I want to know how to do it!

But I have a pretty good attitude about all of this by now. Life goes on and mine is pretty good, and maybe, one day soon, a Mac person will show up (or I'll figure out how to find him or her) and all my issues will be resolved.

Everything changes all the time, it's true. I want to be in the midst of those changes and that's true too.