Pondering current events

The telephone/ electric pole "fence" I promised to show you. ( photo by PL on a throwaway camera's CD)
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by Pat Laster

           Recently, I jotted the following sentence in my journal.
           “The three top National Geographic Bee winners were Rahul Nagnikar, 14, from Texas; Vansh Jain, 13, from Wisconsin, and Varum Mahadevan from California.”
            My ponderings: One, we are still a country of immigrant families. Despite all the negativity about illegal aliens, these families are ensconced in their communities and schools. Some may be home schooled or attend private or public schools.
           Two--and I’m merely asking: Do these children do better test-wise than those of many-generations-in-America’s past immigrant children? Do the newer immigrant parents think they have something to prove? I think I would, were the situation reversed.
            Are they vying for the $25,000 prize or for the thrill of winning over their classmates? Do they study online? Have they traveled a lot? There are other variables. 
           Just wondering. People comment about President Obama’s “foreign” name, but in my collection of given names, many sound as though they are from places other than the British Isles and Germany—as our forebears were.

           Other political topics in my journal dealt with Mitt Romney’s visit to an inner-city school where he touted two-parent families (good grief!), good teachers and strong leadership as the cure-all for every school. Class size shouldn’t matter, he continued. No, not if you have a sensible ratio of teacher and qualified para-professionals to children. My written comment echoed some of the teachersstatements in the school he visited: “He’s really out of it!?!”

            Another item, with much less gravitas, caught my eye recently. “Tamae Watanabe, 73, (that’s what I honed in on, since I’m facing another seventy-something birthday soon) who was the oldest woman to climb Mount Everest when she did it 10 years ago, beat her own record during a successful climb last weekend, saying, ‘It was much more difficult for me this time. I felt I was weaker and had less power. This time it was certainly different, I felt that I had gotten old.’”
           Well, duh! Poor thing, I guess so!
            I found more about her online. She’s Japanese and a retired office worker. She lives at the foot of Mt. Fuji. Always in love with mountains, she’s been climbing the Japanese Alps (did you know Japan had Alps?) and other mountains around the world for many years.
            “Banks are going to figure out a way to extract revenue from the customers in any way, shape or form,” says Stanley J.G. Crouch, chief investments officer at money manager Aegis Capital, in an article by P. Gogoi, AP.
             And that’s exactly why I’ve changed banks—at least for the present. Three months ago, Arvest began charging my account $6 per month. I protested. “Oh, all banks are doing it,” the teller said.
            When I told that to the First Security manager in the Salem Community—closer to Couchwood than Arvest, which I’ve been with since we lived in Arkadelphia—she assured me her bank was not going to do that.
            Now if I can get Kid Billy weaned away from Arvest, then I won’t have to travel so far so often to replenish his bank account. #

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press

The Florida doves must have been on vacation....

by Pat Laster

         …and knowing how much I appreciate their native habitat—at least the Florida panhandle—thought they would give me a thrill by stopping by (“Stopping by Couchwood on a sunny June day”—apologies to Robert Frost).
         And they certainly did that. I wonder where they’ve gone. Should I walk through the neighborhood? Up and down Samples Road? I think not; other things require attending to, you know.
        One of those other things was preparing to attend a Catholic funeral in Searcy. Stereotype (tradition?) had it that women eschewed the pant suit in favor of a dress or skirt-and-top. And a head covering—a handkerchief or scarf, if I remember. (Turns out, neither of these traditions was in vogue.)
        Before I headed north, I had to find something to wear. I thought I had two skirts, but I must have put the long brown one in the winter-clothes closet (portable: I put it together myself!) upstairs.
          The other was a black gored one with a flare at the hem. I bought it at a Macy’s in Virginia several years ago while shopping for a sister’s performance dress. It didn’t fit my not-walking-for-exercise body then and it certainly doesn’t now.
          But in the meantime, against emergencies, I had purchased some undergarments meant to slim and hold. Or hold and slim. Now was the time to test them. I got into one that I didn’t think I was going to get out of, short of cutting the expensive garment. But I gathered my upper arm strength and managed to extricate myself.
          With all the girdling pieces underneath, the skirt and a shiny gray overblouse suited the occasion. I bought some dark knee-high hose––I threw a boxful away when I packed the winter clothes––and added a scarf that I could pull over my hair. I was comfortable. Well, probably not comfortable, but satisfied that I looked okay. One stranger, a hostess at lunch, complimented my outfit.
         An actress friend said that dressed for a recent play she was so trussed up that if anything snapped, she’d probably go flying through the air. I now know the feeling. 
         I made it through that occasion without mishap, so I donned the same outfit for church the next day when the handbell choir performed the offertory. Yes, you heard me: this was a performance, not a presentation.
        Other musical groups involved were the church choir--with imported voices from Hendrix and Grace Prez in Little Rock, a brass quintet imported from UCA, a piano player—the director’s piano teacher, and the new organ. The occasion: the recent-Hendrix-graduate music director’s last Sunday at this church. Talk about pomp and circumstance. It elicited a standing ovation.
          Speaking of graduates—egads! This musician is Kid Billy’s age!?!—most of KB’s classmates graduated from college recently. Not KB. He’s in summer school as I write, taking biology. Because he changed his major three times, he’ll be a six-year student. And it he doesn’t get a job, and should Social Security and Teacher Retirement go kablooey, he’ll be in big trouble. 
        By the way, I heard the Florida doves in Beebe that weekend. Hmm and harrumph! #

A visitor to the neighborhood

by Pat Laster

        One morning recently, from my roost on the front-porch, south-facing swing, I heard behind me what sounded like a Florida dove! At first—like I did when I was a child––I thought it must be an owl. But there were no trees in the hayfield beyond the property line where the sound came from.
        Mesmerized, I walked from the porch toward the repetitious sound. It came from the giant hackberry that helps delineate the yard-yard from the rest of the acreage. I saw movement, and soon a gray bird flew west into a smaller hackberry. It called/sang again.
         “How in the world did you get so far afield?” I asked my visitor.
          Last year at this time, I sat on the balcony of a high-rise in Fort Pickens and watched doves flit around the light standards. I loved their calls. How different they sounded from the soft, gentle coos of Arkansas doves.
         For the next two days, I heard the Florida bird pair. Googling “doves” I discovered this visitor is a Eurasian-collared dove. Whatever they are and however they got to be in my yard, I care not. As long as they stay here, and bless me with their calls, I can transport myself to the cool Gulf breeze where my older son and his family live.
        Since I returned from Piggott on Friday, I’ve heard the visitor only one time, alas.
        On Saturday—the first opportunity to sleep late after the week’s 8 a.m. breakfast calls, and the 9 a.m. class calls—I awoke at the unusual hour of 5:25 a.m. I had to cut hydrangeas to harden for a Sunday church bouquet. While engaged at that pleasant task—66 degrees—I decided to cut three newly-bloomed, pure white gardenias and some long stems of tansy (white heads).
         That done, I sat in the swing with coffee and the newspaper(s) and mused:
         The difference between a downtown (any city) inn/hotel/motel and home is the relative quiet of the latter—no trains during the night and almost no vehicular traffic, especially at six a.m. In any size city, traffic begins early. Even in this relatively rural area, folks leave early to drive to Little Rock or Hot Springs or Conway. But not on a Saturday.
         The most noticeable difference between any city and home is the abundant birdsong.           Mockingbirds seem to be constantly changing their “tunes.” (Is that like writers revising?)
          One neighbor’s Doberman greeted my presence—after a week’s absence—with what I call a threatening growlbark. I ignored it. Another neighbor’s backyard rooster crowed—as per instinct.
         Other birds with “inside” voices reminded me of farm women going about the chores of early morning. They were in the background. Even beyond those sounds, the mourning doves across the road called and responded.
        The sun rose on my left. I looked up, and a contrail—like a pencil mark—led from the sun behind the trees upward and diagonally across the sky. A symbolic sight I took to mean: rise,  shine, give God the glory, and get to work. 
        The Florida doves might yet come back.

Hemingway-Pfeiffer's writers retreats

by Pat Laster

To ease the work of my children when I have moved for the final time to a place other than earth, I have been going through printed material that includes some of my published works. One son has already said he doesn’t want anything that doesn’t include my writing.

I came across an anthology from the June 2006 retreat. On the first page each writer penned—for posterity?—“one true sentence,” from the phrase used by Ernest H. himself. Perhaps you’ll find them as interesting and poignant as I did.

*  “I never think of Mom as a particularly strong individual until I recall incidents such as this.” – J.A.
 * “Excited to be fourteen years old and scared because I know nothing about growing up.” – G.B.
* “One truth I hold: Life is not a linear progressing inching in years and decades. It is a circle revolving upon itself, moving from unknowing to knowing, sleep to waking, from gain to less to gain, from birth and back, and who among us can fully chart the course before the journey’s done?” – J.C.
* “Don’t waste your life grieving for things that you could not have.” – Milo Miller, father of R.D.
* “My stories are my world to share.” --E. F.
* “Facing my true self may not be what I expect it to be.” --S. H.
* “Writing is like fishing: the best catch comes once you stop fighting the current.” --R. H.
* “I’ll bring the margueritas.” --K.H.
*“Life would be boring if all men WERE created equal.” --C. H.
*“With mentor’s guidance, my pen strikes truer.” --B. J.
* “My best poems have not been written.” --W. J.
* “And all of us are safe because of him and other soldiers like him.” F. B. N.
* “Books are easier than people.” M. S.
* “My mother was not a happy woman.” P. L.

The second retreat I attended in 2007, the mentor began with a pile of peanuts on the table. The obvious first task was to brainstorm using the five senses. Before the week was out, all writers turned in something about peanuts.

Here is a vignette written by Rita Dortch from Rector, and is used with permission. Rita is a retired elementary teacher. 

         "A Peanut Day"

       “Raining again?” I moaned.
       “Come on kids, it’s time to go.”
       “Ah-h-h-h, Daddy, please! Not today. Let us rest.”
       “This is the best time to do it, because we can’t work in the fields.”
        “Momma, can’t we do something at the house?”
        “R-i-t-a,” Momma shook her head and motioned us from our comfortable chairs. Larry Joe and I looked at each other with grimacing faces. Thank goodness, I had Larry Joe. He made the days bearable. He was our comedian.
        We arrived at the barn as the rain steadily danced on the tin roof. Under the side shed, out of the rain, sat a giant stack of withered peanut vines covered in dimpled, dusty, hourglass shells. I cringed to think that my ONE day out of the cotton fields would be spent pulling the musty, bumpy shells from their dead life-lines. Only the smell of Momma’s homemade fudge, brimming with fresh ground roasted peanuts tantalized my taste buds.
        The musty smell of those earthy peanuts linger in my memory—as does the wonderful day we spent with my brother popping one joke after another. We laughed together and forgot the pouring rain.Oh, I wish I had some of Momma’s peanut butter fudge. THE END

Today, since I already had my submissions for the Anthology turned in, I spent the morning revising the pieces Dr. Rick Lott critiqued. One or two of the writers at Piggott worked frantically to finish and turn in their pieces on the flash drives that each of us used during the week. Then, we all headed home with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, new friendships made and old ones renewed, and satisfaction about what we accomplished during the week. #