Going on a mission trip –to Louisiana

 

 Written for dissemination April 25, 2013

          When this post hits the ether, I’ll be finishing up a week in south Louisiana (Baldwin) at the United Methodist Church Overseas Relief (UMCOR) warehouse. While there, the Jacksonville UMC “missioners” (who let me go with them), along with others from Hot Springs Village (AR) and Portland (OR), helped fill school bags, health kits and layette kits for use wherever disasters hit.

         Meanwhile I’ll continue an abbreviated run-down of this week’s April days that someone or some group has designated as “special.”
          25^th – National Zucchini Bread Day, *East meets West Day, *World Penguin Day.
          26^th -- Hug an Australian Day, *National Pretzel Day, *Richter Scale Day,  * Take Your Daughter to Work Day.
          27^th Babe Ruth Day, *National Prime Rib Day, *Tell a Story Day.
          28^th Great Poetry Reading Day, *Kiss Your Mate Day.
          29^th Greenery Day, *National Shrimp Scampi Day.
          30^th Hairstyle Appreciation Day, *National Honesty Day.

[I wrote this before I went to Louisiana, and based my information on things we did several Septembers ago when my own church group spent a week “down there,” plus information found on the web site.]

           Besides the emphasis on overseas and domestic relief—already UMCOR has responded to the West, Texas explosion--some volunteers go into the surrounding area for projects or help needed there. Schools, day-cares and parks welcome participants to supplement the workers already in the field.
          Since I worked in my own yard last week, I could be available for park plantings and cleanup of winter detritus. No schoolrooms for me, please.
          The following information is from the UMCOR website and might be interesting to both United Methodists and those of other denominations (who likely have their own relief agencies).
 
          “UMCOR provides humanitarian relief in the United States and internationally. Our efforts are targeted in places where natural disasters, war, or conflict have done so much damage that communities are unable to recover on their own. While UMCOR is not a first-response organization, we stand ready to accompany communities in need over the long haul of their recovery, until they are well on their way to establishing a “new normal” after a crisis.”

[Pat here: UMCOR has to be contacted for assistance; it doesn’t just go into areas helter-skelter.]

“In addition, UMCOR helps communities in the United States and abroad prepare for emergencies and to reduce the risk of disasters through a roster of training programs.

“We also are involved in global development work. Specific programs address issues of health, sanitation, poverty, sustainable agriculture, nutrition, and food security. Many development problems are interrelated, so UMCOR uses integrated solutions to address their root causes. UMCOR seeks to empower local hospitals, schools, churches, and other stakeholders by enhancing their capacity to address these issues.”

Next post, I’ll share my experiences. Meanwhile, enjoy the remainder of April. #

April happenings mean many things to many people

 

              April is National Soy Foods Month. According to Rosemary Boggs, AD-G, three companies that make soy products are Soyjoy, Morningstar Farms and WestSoy.

April is also the peak of tornado season that runs from March to June. Be prepared. Lists exist.

Some other April-long observances are: Autism Awareness; International Guitar; Keep America Beautiful; National Child Abuse Prevention; National Frog; National Humor; National Parkinson’s Awareness; National Volunteer; National Mathematics Education; National Poetry; Stress Awareness.

          And then there are special “days,” either important events --or not. Depending on you.

     April 18th -- First laundromat opens in Fort Worth Texas – 1934; * Great San Francisco earthquake in 1906; * Paul Revere Day--Paul Revere rode to alert patriots that "The British are coming..." in 1775. * Pet Owner's Day. Take some time to celebrate the furry family members in your life!
           April 19th--Humorous Day. Tell someone a joke—old or new. “Did you hear the one about…?”

        April 20th--Cuckoo Day. Cuckoo Day? In Britain, various places celebrate the coming of the bird between mid-April and June. Some hold cuckoo fairs. (See more online.) * National Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Day. Yum, yum!

April 21st-- Kindergarten Day. The first kindergarten was founded by Friedrich Froebel in Germany in 1837.

April 22nd-- Earth Day, the day each year on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The April 22 date was designated as International Mother Earth Day by a consensus resolution adopted by the United Nations in 2009. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries each year [Wikipedia]. * Girl Scout Leader Appreciation Day. I wasn’t offered any cookies this year,alas.

April 23rd-- Home Run Day. Hank Aaron hits his first home run in 1954.      International Sing Out Day. “Take me out to the ballgame.” Oh, wait.* William Shakespeare's Birthday. The bard was born in 1564.

April 24th-- Administrative Professional's Day, the fourth Wednesday of April. *Pigs-in-a-Blanket Day.

Did you happen to notice that one of the month-long April observances is National Poetry Day? Aw, you should have known I’d come back to that!

To close this week’s April ramble, here are some haiku of mine published during 2008 in the now-defunct online-journal, “Thirty-Seven Cents,” a branch of the Missouri State Poetry Society that began when a postage stamp cost 37 cents.

“early spring warmth/ a mourning cloak butterfly/on the witch hazel”

“redbud in full bloom/ poet colleague discovers/ she has lymphoma”

“lady in new grave/ owing the cemetery/a clean-up fee”

“bedraggled pansies/ in the newly-green garden/ dianthus blooming”

May the remainder of your April be filled with working in the dirt of your flowers or your vegetables, raking last year’s leaves, mowing the hen-bit and clover, uncovering violets, weed-eating around the lilacs and azaleas, sitting in the shade with a glass of tea and inhaling the fragrance of newly-bloomed narcissus.

Ah, April. What a month.

Cold week in the Ozarks: a journaling

Bundled up last October; not quite as cold this spring. But still cold--most of the week.

 

by Pat Laster

 

 APRIL 1- Monday, 7:55 a.m. – Couchwood. Sunny and foggy; up at 6:58 before alarm. Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

APRIL 2 – Tuesday, 8:14 a.m. At WCDH in the Peach Blossom Suite. Lower floor accessible street-side by stone steps (a death-trap by night without a flashlight) or park-side by a narrow path between the building and the edge of a 6-foot drop-off onto Polk Street. 42 degrees, rainy.
          After the first night, I wrote:

Lighting’s

poor, chair’s too low. 

The heating unit sounds

like a squadron of motorbikes

revving.

 

Coffee’s

good, the décor’s

pleasing and restful, bed’s

comfortable, dresser storage

ample.

          9:42 a.m. –breakfast: an Easter dinner roll spread with peanut butter and dried berries brought from home, almonds (ditto), cold skim milk and coffee from the common kitchen here. A cinquain texted to the roll baker:

Brother
Guy, I just ate
one of your homemade rolls
at Dairy Hollow in April.
Yum, yum!

APRIL 3 – Wednesday, 6:23 a.m., up with alarm at 5:58, 34 degrees!?! A call during the night from Tech Support Simon, who was “tuning up” my 3-week-old laptop, interrupted my sleep, making the alarm seem even earlier.
          Leading a Lucidity poets’ workshop across town that started at 8:30 meant leaving here at 8.  Jottings from the session included: “forensic = law,” a line from one poem, “The dead always want more,” and a reminder that “specifics are better than generalizations.”

APRIL 4 – Thursday. My notes begin at 11:30 with a lecture by our renown and long-standing professor Larry Thomas from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who has traveled this route for 19 years. After this year, he’s bowing out. Past age 80, he deserves to, though we will miss him terribly. Notes: Frost’s quandary can become our own: “What should I do today?”
          In another note the lecturer says, “A poem says one thing and means another.” I don’t agree with that statement, because many of my works are literal, not metaphorical. Perhaps he was talking about GOOD/GREAT poems.

APRIL 5 – Friday. 42 degrees—finally sunny. 10:05 a.m. After two days of arising by alarm for Lucidity workshops at 8:30, I sleep in till I’m rested. Vivid dreams of being back in the music classroom of 7^th graders are thankfully quashed by notification of a full bladder. At 7:20, I rouse, decide it’s too early, so, like a cat, I stretch, yawn, assume my favorite (fetal) position and return to sleep. But not a deep sleep, for I begin building Fibonacci (a new form of poetry for me) in my head. [6 more pages of notes.]

APRIL 6 – Saturday, 7:38 a.m. 50 degrees! I take my coffee outside and a bird seems to greet me. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” with an occasional 5^th “sweetie.” It must know I stand below. [Tee-hee.]
           From inside, I grab a straight-back, slatted-back, caned-seat wooden chair. (Yes, I know there’s too many adjectives, but I want to be specific.) Add a pillow, fetch the oak TV tray that I brought with me “just in case.” (This is the “case.”) Voila! An outdoors writing station! [7 more pages of notes, mostly research about boardinghouse rates and related information.]

APRIL 7 – Sunday, 7:32 a.m.—up at 7:27, 51 degrees, cloudy. DREAM: I’d accepted an interim choir directing job at a local church. After one-and-a-half rehearsals of a difficult but doable anthem, I up and quit. “Lack of respect,” I shouted.
          First inciting event: While I was “teaching,” a man whom I knew talked–not whispered--to his neighbor the entire time. Second inciting event: Four women—two of whom I knew—quit singing and began hand-jiving in rhythm.
          Skip to the end: As I was leaving, the talkative tenor had gathered the group and some Cokesbury hymnals in the choir loft to “pick out something for Sunday.”
          I think I just dreamed a short story!

 

New recipes (to me) for Easter 2013

by Pat Laster

                
                Easter—the second of the two most major holy days in the United Methodist Church—with all its pomp and circumstance—has come and gone; only a memory now, but a great one.

                After services came family gatherings, and in the Couch extended family, we participated in that, too, complete with egg hunt for one lone Oregonian toddler great-niece.

              Our meal was a potluck at a brother/sister-in-law’s home off Brazil Road in north Saline County, Benton Arkansas. Another brother brought homemade (huge, luscious) rolls, ham, a layer cake and two pies. A sister served up a rabbi-motif platter of fresh veggies and dip served in red and green peppers and her famous potato salad. The hostess made a delicious-tasting and eye-appealing strawberry trifle. Grandson Billy’s mother (Billy was working at Cracker Barrel in Arkadelphia) cooked a great cheesecake in a spring form pan, something I never did! Other families brought other dishes, all delectable.

               I took two vegetable dishes from recipes found in “More Faithful Cooking: Favorite Recipes from United Methodist Women and Friends” of Piggott UMC. I’m glad to report that both got positive “reviews” from the cooks in the family. The recipes follow.

               SAUERKRAUT SALAD – submitted by Roma Richardson. Ingredients: 2 14-ounce cans sauerkraut; one cup chopped green and red bell pepper; one-fourth cup salad oil; one-half cup vinegar; 1 cup sugar; two teaspoons celery seed; one-fourth cup chopped onion; salt and pepper.

               Directions: Drain and rinse sauerkraut. Mix in other ingredients and refrigerate. Serves 8 – 10. (That was easy once I got the lids off the cans. For some reason, I don’t do can openers well.)

              The reason I chose the other recipe needs an explanation. In my recipe book search, I stopped at a green bean casserole. Why? Last July when I bought two used cars from Bill Fitt’s Motors, the senior Mr. Fitts gave me 4 quarts of canned produce from his garden that he’d put up himself. One of them was a jar of green beans. “Aha!” I said—probably aloud.

              But I would have to buy another onion, another bell pepper, a package of pre-cooked bacon (my choice to do this), two small cans of mushrooms and a container of bread crumbs. Done.

             GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE – submitted by Dotty Patridge. [The directions and ingredients were interspersed.] Fry 6 cubed pieces of bacon until halfway done. [I fried the entire 13 1 medium onion, chopped, 1 bell pepper, chopped, 1 clove garlic, chopped. [I estimated and added a heaping teaspoon of chopped garlic.]

             Add one fourteen-point-five-ounce can tomatoes drained. Cook until soft.
             Add: one-fourth cup mayonnaise, one Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, one cup mushrooms, sliced and drained, two (fourteen-point-five cans cut green beans, drained. [I used the quart of Mr. Fitts’.]

            Mix and place in a sprayed casserole. Cover with crumbled bacon and bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. Serves around 8. [Or more, depending on how much each diner spoons out.

            This cooking experience turned out much more complicated than I imagined. The frying pan, though large, held only the first three veggies. To add the other ingredients, I pulled out the Dutch oven and poured everything in to mix.

             Afterward, my white range was brown-and-red spotted, I’d used four utensils to stir; I’d bought an up-scale-but-manual can opener  that didn’t work  any better than the one I had, meaning I had to pry the tomatoes and mushrooms out of half-opened cans. Still, it tasted and looked good.

             I'm sure the United Methodist Women of Piggott wouldn't mind at all if you decided to use one of these recipes. And I wouldn't, either.

Marching through March

At breakfast (can you guess where?) earlier in the year with daughter, Annamarie.

 

 

* The March Sisters from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women: Amy, Beth, Jo, Meg.
*The Ides of March: when Caesar was killed by Brutus.
* March 21: Beginning of astrological spring.
* Saying: ...wild (or mad) as a March hare.
* Synonyms of "march" for children K=go, walk; 1st=march, leave; 2nd=advance, continue, parade; 3rd=hike; 4th=tramp, progress; 5th=depart, stride.
* (Other) synonyms for "march"  = step in time, pace, tread, goose-step, promenade, file, plod, strut.
* Hal March and Bob Sweeney were a radio comedy team, and March later emceed "The $64,000 Question" game show.

Looking through my sources for something about March, I found 2 entries in the Morrow  Book of Quotations in American History. One, from "Marching Through Georgia" by songwriter Henry Clay Work (1832-1884), and one by Philip Randolph, labor and civil rights leader, in a speech to March on Washington Committee, September 1942.

A 2011 almanac distributed by Shelter Insurance contained one bit of March trivia: "On March 25, 1752, Benjamin Franklin founded the first insurance company in America. Ben's company, a mutual company, is still operating successfully. [We] operate on the same sound business principles of Ben Franklin."

Trivia from Arkansas Living (formerly Rural Arkansas) : Presidents with March birthdays are James Madison, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler and Grover Cleveland.

 Another item from the same publication: "Why is March so windy? Part of the reason is that as the days grow longer and the sun warms the earth's surface more rapidly than the air above it, the air becomes increasingly unstable. This causes deep atmospheric turbulence that brings strong gusts of wind."

May your march through the last week of March--Holy Week leading to Easter--and Passover, be one of solemn introspection followed by joy and rejuvenation. #

An update on—and happy birthday to -- Kid Billy

Pat Laster

On Tuesday, March 19, my grandson Kid Billy a.k.a. Billy Joe Paulus, will turn the ripe old age of 23. Gee-whiz, it seems like only yesterday he was 8 months old and asleep on a woman’s shoulder in a foster home somewhere in rural Clark County--on a 72-hour hold from Human Services.

Still asleep, he was moved from one shoulder to another—mine—placed in a newly-purchased car seat and was driven to Benton in Saline County. We were both unaware of what our future together would bring.

Seventy-two hours? How about twenty-three years? His first six years were spent in Benton on West Sevier—across the street from Our Lady of Fatima School. At only $135 a month, the tuition was worth my walking him across the street to (the late) Mrs. Debra Cloud’s classroom and back again after school. He loved Mrs. Debra.

In September of 1997, after the beginning of Billy's first grade, I took a job in Arkadelphia. Before I could secure a house there, I drove back and forth. The Fatima teacher and principal wanted to medicate him for ADHD. I actually asked the teacher (whose son I’d had problems with in middle school) if she wanted me to take him out of school right then. She backed off and said no, so we were good for a time.

I found the perfect house in Arkadelphia on North 15^th Street with great neighbor-landlords. They had a son a little older than Billy. And cats.

Sure enough, Dr. K. the pediatrician, watched Billy for 10 minutes and decided yes, definitely ADHD. He prescribed Ritalin.
 

But that was then and this is now. On the first day of March this year, I watched him sing with both the Henderson Concert Choir and the Chamber Chorale. He stood stock-still for long periods. His hands held the music folder up so that his eyes could flit from score to director without obvious head movement. Focused? Focused? I’d say so!

After the concert, he introduced me to the friend who’d asked him to go in with some others and rent a house in town for next term. I wrote out his part of a down-payment (in addition to paying his on-campus apartment rent: what we do for love) on the spot.

Thanks go to Dr. Jim Buckner, who five years ago, offered KB, from Benton High School, a band scholarship to HSU. Thanks also to the former choral director, Dr. Eaves, who accepted KB into the select choral group, and to Dr. Ryan Fox, present director, for being a supportive friend and excellent—no, superior--choral man. KB is one of only two or three non-music majors in this group. Which makes Grandmother extremely proud.

Two trumpets lie somewhere in our residences unused. I’ll offer one to another grandson who, besides being in a Conway middle school’s orchestra this year (violin), wants to play also in the school band next year.

This “fifth child” of mine is why I don’t volunteer. I think 23 years of raising a grandson should be considered my volunteer work.

As well as my passion. Happy birthday, son.    #    

 

 

 

 

 

Dipping into the fractious waters of current events

by Pat Laster

              I eschew writing columns/blogs—and making comments—about politics, but I sometimes click “like” on others’ Facebook pictures/ sayings/ opinions/ rants, etc.  It’s not that I don’t read about state, nationaI and international government happenings. I do. And I do read many editorials and columns and letters-to-the-editor.

 But I’m going to step out of my comfort zone and do some aping of folks like John Brummett sometimes does with his arrows.

 I doubt I can sling arrows, but the computer might allow plusses and minuses. Perhaps I could use smiley and un-smiley faces. Using entries in my journal as reminders, here goes.

+ - Bravos to Arkansas's Governor Beebe for vetoing the 20-week abortion bill. And the 12-week one.

–– - Boos to the Arkansas legislature for overriding the governor’s vetoes.

+ - Congratulations to Misao Okawa of Osaka, Japan, who was presented with the Guinness World Records certificate for being the world’s oldest woman at 114.

+ - Kudos to Steven Hanley for his feature in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “Arkansas Postcard Past,” many of which end up taped into said journal. A Mansfield, AR combo gas station/café/ grocery/ truck-and-tourist stop somewhere around 1940 is one such item. The business sold Coca-Cola, Delaware Punch and Sinclair gasoline. During that time gas was 18 cents per gallon.

–– - Poor Land commissioner Rueben G. Dye, on February 24, 1913, put in a strenuous day. He had his office declared vacant by Attorney General Moose, being appointed to it by Governor Robinson and then seeing the house pass a bill to abolish the office––all in one day.  Also Mr. Dye enjoys the distinction of being the only state official in the history of Arkansas [politics] whose office was declared vacant after he had been elected to it. [Maybe that needs to happen in 2013. Just sayin'.]

+ - Willie Kavanaugh Hocker, who died in 1944, designed the Arkansas flag as a result of winning a contest around 1912, beating out 64 others. The flag was adopted February 18, 1913 and made law February 26 that year. The design was unchanged until 1923 when a fourth star was added for the Confederacy.

–– - There are 925 million hungry people in the world and US folks spend $51 billion a year on our pets, according to K. Horrigan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

–– - The US has five percent of the world’s population, yet consumes one-sixth of the world’s animal protein—8 ounces per person per day, and we pay less for it than anyone.

+ - Arkansas has 96 weekly newspapers and 28 dailies, according to Jack Weatherly.

+ - A joke going around, found in Terry Mattingly’s religion column earlier: Father James Martin, a Jesuit, tweeted, “Pope Benedict XVI is raising the bar when it comes to giving things up for Lent.”

–– - After the meteor hit Siberia, a nationalist leader in Russia was reported as saying, “It’s not meteors falling. It’s the test of a new weapon by the Americans.” [!?!?]

+ - Ash-Wednesday-on-the-go:  Episcopal and Ecumenical Catholic priests set up a drive/walk-up place for prayers and ashes in Little Rock.

–– - [Some news briefs beg me (!) to turn them into cinquains:] “Precious, /thirty-one, barged/ into a high school class, / helped daughter beat up another/ student.” [I can’t imagine; glad I’m retired from the classroom--except in occasional dreams.]

+ - “The gift of singing songs …” (title) “Children’s/ choir—Italian--/ sang to Pope Benedict/ in German, his native tongue. He/ thanked them.”  

+ - Long live Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.