Well, November sucks! And I have cabin fever. Too crappy to go out. Too grumpy to stay in.
No news on the news channels. That leaves two TV options. Regular programming and PPV.
Regular programming’s Deep Carpet Cleaning, Marvin the Tap Dancing Horse or Juicing With Jack just don’t seem to work for me today. I guess I’m just too hard to please intellectually.
If only I wasn’t too stingy for PPV. I could watch Drag Me To Hell, Land of the Lost or Single Secretaries: Naughty Home Videos. Anyway, I used to be a single secretary and my home videos would not have made good watching.
The mail was disappointing. Two more offers for long-term care insurance and an invitation to buy a new car. Something tells me these people are not working off the same mailing list. I did get a charming little catalogue that sold really important items that you can’t find anywhere else. Like Snuggies for dogs and little plastic things to fit over your toes to keep them apart while you sleep. Personally, I don’t care what my toes do after I go to sleep but other people may not be that careless about things like that.
I could cook but I cooked yesterday. I could clean my closet but I did that LAST November. The only thing left is to turn this into a list day.
Every once in awhile I spend a lot of time making lists. This doesn’t serve any particular purpose except to appear to have a purpose. I list all the things I need to do. I list all the things I might do. I list all my bills and all the money I expect to acquire in a given time (this list is always depressing.) I make a three-page grocery list of all the groceries we will probably eat in the next 12 months. I list all the books I have heard mentioned that I want to get at the library. This list is always very short because I can’t remember the titles.
Well, it’s a crappy day!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
I don't have much to say about November in North Missouri other than that it's better than January but not near as good as some other months. Today it is cold, wet, gloomy and threatening snow. I am not fond of November. I prefer to remember other months, say August, in North Missouri.
AUGUST IN NORTH MISSOURI
In praise of morning, that unfolding of the day, August in North Missouri
has no equal. It is a grateful gasp...an indrawn breath..our second wind..that marks the end of summer’s excess and whispers of autumn.
Some heavenly goddess, in draperies of gauze, has taken pity on us and
covered the sun with the skirt of her sheer garment, and the sun is less harsh. The
night is clear and still.
Fence corners and porch rails are held in place by the embroidered
structures of the spider people. Their artistry captures the night mist and turns it into jeweled beads to greet the morning sun.
It is a month of rest. What is to be born has been born. What is to be grown has grown.
With the serenity of a beloved grandparent the days of August guide us
toward change... and the beauty of autumn is conceived.
Whatever the harvest is.... or will be...it is done.. Forgone in the fire and rains of summer....
and August is its epitaph.
AUGUST IN NORTH MISSOURI
In praise of morning, that unfolding of the day, August in North Missouri
has no equal. It is a grateful gasp...an indrawn breath..our second wind..that marks the end of summer’s excess and whispers of autumn.
Some heavenly goddess, in draperies of gauze, has taken pity on us and
covered the sun with the skirt of her sheer garment, and the sun is less harsh. The
night is clear and still.
Fence corners and porch rails are held in place by the embroidered
structures of the spider people. Their artistry captures the night mist and turns it into jeweled beads to greet the morning sun.
It is a month of rest. What is to be born has been born. What is to be grown has grown.
With the serenity of a beloved grandparent the days of August guide us
toward change... and the beauty of autumn is conceived.
Whatever the harvest is.... or will be...it is done.. Forgone in the fire and rains of summer....
and August is its epitaph.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Ben, My Friend
Friends are a special gift, a mysterious connection between one person and another. Their presence sustains us long after they are physically absent. Some friendships have to be worked at to acquire and sustain while others are dropped on our hearts at the most unexpected times and never quite leave, living and breathing in our memories. Ben’s friendship was the last kind.
Ben became my friend the year the Ford plant came. I really needed a friend that summer, the year I was eleven. Suddenly the house, which had been so chaotic and overcrowded with sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews, emptied out like an October seed pod. In that strange lull of abandonment I really struggled. I read a lot but you can only read so much. I particularly missed my 13-year-old brother who had moved on to friendships and activities with other boys that could not include a pig-tailed girl.
But Ben made up for a lot.
Ben was there because we had the good fortune to be in the path that ran from the existing utilities to the new Ford plant location. This was a windfall as they paid Mom $500 for the right-of-way to ditch right through our place. It was a fortune to her and she put it to good use by having Fred Simmons put in some in-door plumbing. But that was later.
All that summer and fall a crew dug and mucked their way through Missouri clay from the highway a mile west, up the gravel road to our house, across the side yard, down to the crick, across the hollow and up the opposite slope toward Grandma’s. When the crew moved on Ben was left to watch over large piles of pipe and to continue widening and squaring off the ditch, shoulder-high to him, that snaked down and away across the yard. I liked to stretch out on the side of the ditch and watch Ben. To me he was bigger than life with skin so black his arms, glistening with sweat, glowed blue in the July sun. I chattered away to him, satisfied to get an occasional “hmmph or chuckle out of him.
I told him about my cat that died of worms and how I caught my shirt on fire at the stove and about the possum my brother and I caught in the box trap last winter. I recounted all the plots from the books I was reading. I told him about the time my sister cooked hotdogs wrapped in cheese and a piece of bread with a toothpick stuck in them to hold them shut. I said they didn’t taste all that good to me and they looked like dog turds.
He stopped shoveling that time and looked me in the eye and told me not to talk like that. I asked him what for and he said, “That’s no way for a little lady to talk.” Well that was something for thinking about. I wasn’t sure any ladies lived at our place but I didn’t mention that to Ben. I figured maybe his mother was a lady. I tried to imagine Ben’s mother and the lady she would be. I kept thinking up this really large, very black lady in a slinky dress and a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. So I asked him about that.
I waited ‘til he got back in the digging rhythm again; jab with the spade, stomp with the foot, swing up and out over the side of the ditch, and asked him right out. “Ben, was your mother a lady?” He stopped digging again and looked at me kind of funny and then looked over the side of the ditch like he was looking a long way off and said, “Why yes, I ‘spect she was.”
I asked him what all a lady did and he said it wasn’t so much what ladies did as what they DIDN’T do. And he wouldn’t talk anymore about it.
Also Ben sang. He sang mostly hymns I didn’t know and it was not like any singing I had ever heard on records or at our Methodist church or at the country music shows. When Ben sang it was like the sound came from everything in the earth. Like the grass and the trees and the dirt he was shoveling all got mixed up with the clouds in the sky and came out of that great chest of his and echoed across the hollow in the most beautiful sound I ever heard. I loved it when Ben sang.
Ben was still there after school started that fall and even when the first snow came. He had stretched a little tarpaulin out from the back of his pickup and kept a fire going on a pile of rocks by the tailgate with a coffee pot on it. It was early for snow, wet and way over the tops of my shoes when I left for school that morning. Ben hollered at me when I got almost to the corner and asked me where I was going. “”Well, I’m going to school,” I said. “Clear to the highway?” he hollered and I said, “Well, yes”.
I waved at him and went off down the hill but before I got to the bottom I heard his old truck coming behind me and he stopped and said, “Get in chile, you got no boots for your feet. Get in, I’ll carry you to the bus.” And he took me the mile to the highway and stopped just this side. I could look across the highway and up a ways and there were all the other kids waiting at Leimkuhler’s Gas Station for the bus but Ben wouldn’t go any further. I said, “Why, Ben, we’re supposed to go right over there.” And he said, “No, little girl, I’ll just be letting you out here. Now be careful crossing the highway.“
It was many years before I realized the risk to that gentle man, of being seen “carrying” a little white girl in his truck. When I got home from school that night Ben, his truck and the diminished pile of pipe was gone. Snow covered the long serpentine bulge of the newly covered ditch. I had known he would be gone. He had told me they were finished and he would be gone. But I missed him very much.
Sometimes when I thought about Ben I would try to remember what I liked best to remember about him and I could always pick one day.
One morning after getting punched and slapped around pretty good for who knows what reason, I ran from the house and threw myself on the clay piled beside the ditch. In the single minded despair of a child I ignored Ben and lay sobbing into the dirt.
Pretty soon I tried to quit crying and scrubbed at my eyes with my shirt tail until I realized Ben was cussing. I didn’t know Ben could cuss and I was very sad because I thought he must have heard what had happened in the house and was mad at me too. But when I lifted my head and stared over the side of the ditch into Ben’s face I knew that it was not me he was mad at. I didn’t know who he was mad at but as long as it wasn’t me I didn’t care. I laid my check against the cool, cool clay and Ben began to sing. I think he was singing for me and it was so beautiful.
The song was about someone who could fly, fly away and the sound rose over the side of the ditch, sang across the hollow and filled my head, and my world, and I was alright.
And that’s how I remember Ben.
Ben became my friend the year the Ford plant came. I really needed a friend that summer, the year I was eleven. Suddenly the house, which had been so chaotic and overcrowded with sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews, emptied out like an October seed pod. In that strange lull of abandonment I really struggled. I read a lot but you can only read so much. I particularly missed my 13-year-old brother who had moved on to friendships and activities with other boys that could not include a pig-tailed girl.
But Ben made up for a lot.
Ben was there because we had the good fortune to be in the path that ran from the existing utilities to the new Ford plant location. This was a windfall as they paid Mom $500 for the right-of-way to ditch right through our place. It was a fortune to her and she put it to good use by having Fred Simmons put in some in-door plumbing. But that was later.
All that summer and fall a crew dug and mucked their way through Missouri clay from the highway a mile west, up the gravel road to our house, across the side yard, down to the crick, across the hollow and up the opposite slope toward Grandma’s. When the crew moved on Ben was left to watch over large piles of pipe and to continue widening and squaring off the ditch, shoulder-high to him, that snaked down and away across the yard. I liked to stretch out on the side of the ditch and watch Ben. To me he was bigger than life with skin so black his arms, glistening with sweat, glowed blue in the July sun. I chattered away to him, satisfied to get an occasional “hmmph or chuckle out of him.
I told him about my cat that died of worms and how I caught my shirt on fire at the stove and about the possum my brother and I caught in the box trap last winter. I recounted all the plots from the books I was reading. I told him about the time my sister cooked hotdogs wrapped in cheese and a piece of bread with a toothpick stuck in them to hold them shut. I said they didn’t taste all that good to me and they looked like dog turds.
He stopped shoveling that time and looked me in the eye and told me not to talk like that. I asked him what for and he said, “That’s no way for a little lady to talk.” Well that was something for thinking about. I wasn’t sure any ladies lived at our place but I didn’t mention that to Ben. I figured maybe his mother was a lady. I tried to imagine Ben’s mother and the lady she would be. I kept thinking up this really large, very black lady in a slinky dress and a cigarette in a long cigarette holder. So I asked him about that.
I waited ‘til he got back in the digging rhythm again; jab with the spade, stomp with the foot, swing up and out over the side of the ditch, and asked him right out. “Ben, was your mother a lady?” He stopped digging again and looked at me kind of funny and then looked over the side of the ditch like he was looking a long way off and said, “Why yes, I ‘spect she was.”
I asked him what all a lady did and he said it wasn’t so much what ladies did as what they DIDN’T do. And he wouldn’t talk anymore about it.
Also Ben sang. He sang mostly hymns I didn’t know and it was not like any singing I had ever heard on records or at our Methodist church or at the country music shows. When Ben sang it was like the sound came from everything in the earth. Like the grass and the trees and the dirt he was shoveling all got mixed up with the clouds in the sky and came out of that great chest of his and echoed across the hollow in the most beautiful sound I ever heard. I loved it when Ben sang.
Ben was still there after school started that fall and even when the first snow came. He had stretched a little tarpaulin out from the back of his pickup and kept a fire going on a pile of rocks by the tailgate with a coffee pot on it. It was early for snow, wet and way over the tops of my shoes when I left for school that morning. Ben hollered at me when I got almost to the corner and asked me where I was going. “”Well, I’m going to school,” I said. “Clear to the highway?” he hollered and I said, “Well, yes”.
I waved at him and went off down the hill but before I got to the bottom I heard his old truck coming behind me and he stopped and said, “Get in chile, you got no boots for your feet. Get in, I’ll carry you to the bus.” And he took me the mile to the highway and stopped just this side. I could look across the highway and up a ways and there were all the other kids waiting at Leimkuhler’s Gas Station for the bus but Ben wouldn’t go any further. I said, “Why, Ben, we’re supposed to go right over there.” And he said, “No, little girl, I’ll just be letting you out here. Now be careful crossing the highway.“
It was many years before I realized the risk to that gentle man, of being seen “carrying” a little white girl in his truck. When I got home from school that night Ben, his truck and the diminished pile of pipe was gone. Snow covered the long serpentine bulge of the newly covered ditch. I had known he would be gone. He had told me they were finished and he would be gone. But I missed him very much.
Sometimes when I thought about Ben I would try to remember what I liked best to remember about him and I could always pick one day.
One morning after getting punched and slapped around pretty good for who knows what reason, I ran from the house and threw myself on the clay piled beside the ditch. In the single minded despair of a child I ignored Ben and lay sobbing into the dirt.
Pretty soon I tried to quit crying and scrubbed at my eyes with my shirt tail until I realized Ben was cussing. I didn’t know Ben could cuss and I was very sad because I thought he must have heard what had happened in the house and was mad at me too. But when I lifted my head and stared over the side of the ditch into Ben’s face I knew that it was not me he was mad at. I didn’t know who he was mad at but as long as it wasn’t me I didn’t care. I laid my check against the cool, cool clay and Ben began to sing. I think he was singing for me and it was so beautiful.
The song was about someone who could fly, fly away and the sound rose over the side of the ditch, sang across the hollow and filled my head, and my world, and I was alright.
And that’s how I remember Ben.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
How Festus the Pig Came to the Farm
How Festus the Pig Came to the Farm
I was in the pig business. That is, I had two young girl pigs (gilts) that wanted to be momma pigs. More accurately, I wanted them to be momma pigs. But we needed a father pig. This is a biological fact I learned in Animal Husbandry 101 my seventh year of college. This was definitely a problem. No father pig, (boar) was to be found or at least none anyone local wanted to part with. Most had already been offered employment or sent off to become breakfast bacon or Easter Ham.
So I mentioned it to my ex husband who would still, at that time, take up my causes occasionally and as good luck would have it, he knew a guy who knew a guy. Purely coincidentally the guy lived down in Henry County where a lot of old friends still attended the same watering hole they used to frequent when we lived down there. It was mutually understood that he would have to make first contact at this location therefore it might take some time. I had learned this lesson well during our marriage.
Even so I was grateful and looked eagerly forward to the arrival of such an important addition to my pig business. Well, I kept eagerly looking forward and by the third day my eyes were beginning to dim up from looking forward so much and my temper was fraying.
Gretchen and Gertrude, the pig girls, were alternately running in nervous piggy circles and listlessly slumping by the barn door. They needed a fella!
As some girls longed for jewelry or great clothes I pined for that hog. As some girls would pout and sniff over a missing birthday gift I was furious over the non-existent pig companion. But at last, one crisp morning four days later, my ex's old pick-up rattled into the yard. He was only slightly more disheveled than usual and his beard hadn't grown too badly but it was still pretty obvious to the educated eye that he had had a good time reminiscing with all his old friends.
I ran straight to the back of the pick up and there he was. My great white hope, the expected progenitor of my great pig venture, lay stretched out the width of the truck bed. He was young and perfectly proportioned with sleek sides and good length. His skin glowed pinkly in the morning sun. His rump was plump..his back was broad..in short, he was a beauty.
But he wouldn't get up! No, he COULDN'T get up! He tried. He got his front part up. He got his front part up several times only to drop back. I got a pan of corn to coax him. He tried harder. Surely my ex would not have bought a sick pig!
"Well, no," my ex explained, "It was probably something he ate at the barbecue." "What barbecue?" I shrieked.
Well it seems that the watering hole friends had moved the party to somebody's house in honor of my ex's visit and the pig had survived for three days on left-over barbecue and the remains of a keg of beer.
The pig was drunk!
I named him Festus because of the limp and stagger thing that afflicted him for a few days but when he sobered up sufficiently he made the piggy girls very happy.
I was in the pig business. That is, I had two young girl pigs (gilts) that wanted to be momma pigs. More accurately, I wanted them to be momma pigs. But we needed a father pig. This is a biological fact I learned in Animal Husbandry 101 my seventh year of college. This was definitely a problem. No father pig, (boar) was to be found or at least none anyone local wanted to part with. Most had already been offered employment or sent off to become breakfast bacon or Easter Ham.
So I mentioned it to my ex husband who would still, at that time, take up my causes occasionally and as good luck would have it, he knew a guy who knew a guy. Purely coincidentally the guy lived down in Henry County where a lot of old friends still attended the same watering hole they used to frequent when we lived down there. It was mutually understood that he would have to make first contact at this location therefore it might take some time. I had learned this lesson well during our marriage.
Even so I was grateful and looked eagerly forward to the arrival of such an important addition to my pig business. Well, I kept eagerly looking forward and by the third day my eyes were beginning to dim up from looking forward so much and my temper was fraying.
Gretchen and Gertrude, the pig girls, were alternately running in nervous piggy circles and listlessly slumping by the barn door. They needed a fella!
As some girls longed for jewelry or great clothes I pined for that hog. As some girls would pout and sniff over a missing birthday gift I was furious over the non-existent pig companion. But at last, one crisp morning four days later, my ex's old pick-up rattled into the yard. He was only slightly more disheveled than usual and his beard hadn't grown too badly but it was still pretty obvious to the educated eye that he had had a good time reminiscing with all his old friends.
I ran straight to the back of the pick up and there he was. My great white hope, the expected progenitor of my great pig venture, lay stretched out the width of the truck bed. He was young and perfectly proportioned with sleek sides and good length. His skin glowed pinkly in the morning sun. His rump was plump..his back was broad..in short, he was a beauty.
But he wouldn't get up! No, he COULDN'T get up! He tried. He got his front part up. He got his front part up several times only to drop back. I got a pan of corn to coax him. He tried harder. Surely my ex would not have bought a sick pig!
"Well, no," my ex explained, "It was probably something he ate at the barbecue." "What barbecue?" I shrieked.
Well it seems that the watering hole friends had moved the party to somebody's house in honor of my ex's visit and the pig had survived for three days on left-over barbecue and the remains of a keg of beer.
The pig was drunk!
I named him Festus because of the limp and stagger thing that afflicted him for a few days but when he sobered up sufficiently he made the piggy girls very happy.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Great Mouse Safari
One of the little exigencies of life in a hundred-year-old farm house in North Missouri is the Great November Mouse Migration. At this time all the mice pack up their little mouse bags and take the shortest route into the first available residence. They bring all their relatives and invite any other mice who might have been visiting at the time. Mice who have lived very happily and quite comfortably all summer and fall in the tall grass beneath the apple tree or under the propane gas tank or under the corner of the shed, are compelled to check out more substantial housing.
I am never ready for this and this year was no different. One night I could sit comfortably in my living room watching TV and the next you could hardly hear over the scratchings and goings on in the corners. I opened the drawer that held my important documents, (bits of old poems, calendars from 1999-2001, registration papers of cars smashed into tin foil years ago, etc) and out jumped a mouse. I was not quick enough and by the time I got down off the wall he had escaped.
A Great Mouse Migration can only be countered by a Great Mouse Safari.
So I geared up. The question was, how best to drive them from the house without endangering the legal residents, namely myself, my daughter, my son and Bingo the terrier? Hesitant to risk the side effects of all the available poisons I gave it serious thought.
I decided that the list of side effects were not as hair raising as those listed for Viagra or most blood pressure medication so I bought everything I could find. I brought home a sack full of mousetraps, four little bags of tiny pellets, two bigger bags of bigger pellets, a pack of big round cakes of green stuff supposed to be irresistible to mice and most interesting of all, a pack of little oblong things with stick 'em stuff on it that is designed to literally stop mice in their tracks.
Well, I am glad to report that all of this effort has been a resounding success in more ways than a dozen! I have been motivated to clean out all the cabinets and closets, (thanks little mice people) that haven't been touched since last year, just in case they had left their little calling cards behind. A good deal of effort has been put into finding little entry holes or gaps and all have been stuffed with steel wool or covered with carpenters cloth. Bingo, the terrier, was so inspired by the mouse trap thing that she would come running to tell me "we had another one". Mousing is one of her favorite things but obviously she never knew it could be this easy. She seldom catches anything on her own.
The only glitch was the little sticky things. I thought they worked great but Sarah wasn't too pleased. It seems the little mice people get stuck alright but tend to surf around the house for quite awhile on their little sticky surf boards. I personally have not seen this happen but she and Brian did as one of the mice people decided to surf clear into the dining room while they were eating their tenderloin sandwiches and french fries.
Anyway, I think my Great Mouse Safari has been a great success.
I am never ready for this and this year was no different. One night I could sit comfortably in my living room watching TV and the next you could hardly hear over the scratchings and goings on in the corners. I opened the drawer that held my important documents, (bits of old poems, calendars from 1999-2001, registration papers of cars smashed into tin foil years ago, etc) and out jumped a mouse. I was not quick enough and by the time I got down off the wall he had escaped.
A Great Mouse Migration can only be countered by a Great Mouse Safari.
So I geared up. The question was, how best to drive them from the house without endangering the legal residents, namely myself, my daughter, my son and Bingo the terrier? Hesitant to risk the side effects of all the available poisons I gave it serious thought.
I decided that the list of side effects were not as hair raising as those listed for Viagra or most blood pressure medication so I bought everything I could find. I brought home a sack full of mousetraps, four little bags of tiny pellets, two bigger bags of bigger pellets, a pack of big round cakes of green stuff supposed to be irresistible to mice and most interesting of all, a pack of little oblong things with stick 'em stuff on it that is designed to literally stop mice in their tracks.
Well, I am glad to report that all of this effort has been a resounding success in more ways than a dozen! I have been motivated to clean out all the cabinets and closets, (thanks little mice people) that haven't been touched since last year, just in case they had left their little calling cards behind. A good deal of effort has been put into finding little entry holes or gaps and all have been stuffed with steel wool or covered with carpenters cloth. Bingo, the terrier, was so inspired by the mouse trap thing that she would come running to tell me "we had another one". Mousing is one of her favorite things but obviously she never knew it could be this easy. She seldom catches anything on her own.
The only glitch was the little sticky things. I thought they worked great but Sarah wasn't too pleased. It seems the little mice people get stuck alright but tend to surf around the house for quite awhile on their little sticky surf boards. I personally have not seen this happen but she and Brian did as one of the mice people decided to surf clear into the dining room while they were eating their tenderloin sandwiches and french fries.
Anyway, I think my Great Mouse Safari has been a great success.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the World
According to Gallup Polls, Eleanor Roosevelt was the most admired woman in the world for fifteen consecutive years, from 1946 to 1961. That admiration was hard earned.
A homely, introverted child born to a family of wealth and influence her childhood was a miserable one. Her mother disliked and ridiculed her as being “ugly” and “clumsy” and upon her death when Eleanor was eight years old, her grandmother continued the same. Being sent to England for schooling as a young teenager proved to be a real opportunity for her and she blossomed both emotionally and academically.
At seventeen, she returned home and soon resumed her acquaintance with, and married, a fourth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt who later became our 32nd President. Eleanor had six children in ten years, one of whom died in infancy.
During this time, Eleanor also became active in politics and social causes. She campaigned for Alfred E. Smith for president, and worked for the Women’s Trade Union League, which promoted a 48 hour work week, minimum wage, and the abolition of child labor. She also worked with the League of Women Voters and taught literature and American history at the Todhunter School for Girls in New York City.
In 1920 her husband, Franklin, became ill with Infantile Paralysis and was crippled for life. She became his legs…and nurse..and secretary..and number one supporter in his run for the presidency. She suffered through his extramarital affairs and never put her good above his and the children. She began to travel, on his instructions, to see people and places around the world that he could not, carrying messages, encouragement and sometimes threats from the presidential portfolio without portfolio. She constantly juggled the “little woman speaks” thing with the power of the presidency that spoke through her in ways that no official portfolio had.
She became the conscience of the New Deal recovery program. While the federal government was developing big and complex programs to turn around the depression, she became, quite literally, the liaison between the government and individuals who were suffering. She would personally visit the slums of cities, talk to miners and destitute farmers, sit with widows and orphans and hear their stories. She was the conscience of the government by showing the human face of sympathy and concern, rather than simply an impersonal government program. She was the human face of the New Deal.
Of two political cartoons from the midst of the Great Depression, one showed dirty coal miners discovering a woman entering the mine wearing a miner’s hat. With astonishment, one says to the other, “My gosh! There’s Mrs. Roosevelt!” The other showed a shipload of immigrants in New York’s harbor. A mother and her young son were looking at the Statue of Liberty, and when the mother asks if he knows who that is, the boy responds saying, “Of course I know who that is. That’s Mrs. Roosevelt!”
After Franklin died, President Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as our first delegate to the new United Nations. In that capacity, her main focus was protecting human rights. She became co-chair of the UN’s Human Rights Commission and the person most responsible for getting nations to approve the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone on the road of civilization.
She was a staunch defender of the separation of church and state. It was perhaps her active role in racial civil rights and citizen civil liberties that caused J. Edgar Hoover to suspect her of being a communist. At the time of her death, Eleanor Roosevelt, the voice of our national conscience, had the thickest F.B.I. file of anyone in the country. In hindsight, this was an achievement worthy of respect.
Ref: Rev. Bruce Clear, Indianapolis, Indiana for some of this content and www.whitehouse.gov/about/first-ladies
A homely, introverted child born to a family of wealth and influence her childhood was a miserable one. Her mother disliked and ridiculed her as being “ugly” and “clumsy” and upon her death when Eleanor was eight years old, her grandmother continued the same. Being sent to England for schooling as a young teenager proved to be a real opportunity for her and she blossomed both emotionally and academically.
At seventeen, she returned home and soon resumed her acquaintance with, and married, a fourth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt who later became our 32nd President. Eleanor had six children in ten years, one of whom died in infancy.
During this time, Eleanor also became active in politics and social causes. She campaigned for Alfred E. Smith for president, and worked for the Women’s Trade Union League, which promoted a 48 hour work week, minimum wage, and the abolition of child labor. She also worked with the League of Women Voters and taught literature and American history at the Todhunter School for Girls in New York City.
In 1920 her husband, Franklin, became ill with Infantile Paralysis and was crippled for life. She became his legs…and nurse..and secretary..and number one supporter in his run for the presidency. She suffered through his extramarital affairs and never put her good above his and the children. She began to travel, on his instructions, to see people and places around the world that he could not, carrying messages, encouragement and sometimes threats from the presidential portfolio without portfolio. She constantly juggled the “little woman speaks” thing with the power of the presidency that spoke through her in ways that no official portfolio had.
She became the conscience of the New Deal recovery program. While the federal government was developing big and complex programs to turn around the depression, she became, quite literally, the liaison between the government and individuals who were suffering. She would personally visit the slums of cities, talk to miners and destitute farmers, sit with widows and orphans and hear their stories. She was the conscience of the government by showing the human face of sympathy and concern, rather than simply an impersonal government program. She was the human face of the New Deal.
Of two political cartoons from the midst of the Great Depression, one showed dirty coal miners discovering a woman entering the mine wearing a miner’s hat. With astonishment, one says to the other, “My gosh! There’s Mrs. Roosevelt!” The other showed a shipload of immigrants in New York’s harbor. A mother and her young son were looking at the Statue of Liberty, and when the mother asks if he knows who that is, the boy responds saying, “Of course I know who that is. That’s Mrs. Roosevelt!”
After Franklin died, President Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as our first delegate to the new United Nations. In that capacity, her main focus was protecting human rights. She became co-chair of the UN’s Human Rights Commission and the person most responsible for getting nations to approve the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a milestone on the road of civilization.
She was a staunch defender of the separation of church and state. It was perhaps her active role in racial civil rights and citizen civil liberties that caused J. Edgar Hoover to suspect her of being a communist. At the time of her death, Eleanor Roosevelt, the voice of our national conscience, had the thickest F.B.I. file of anyone in the country. In hindsight, this was an achievement worthy of respect.
Ref: Rev. Bruce Clear, Indianapolis, Indiana for some of this content and www.whitehouse.gov/about/first-ladies
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Family History
Well, it's almost Thanksgiving and our thoughts turn to a day of cooking or a day of eating, whichever end of the stick you're on, but either way it's nice.
Also we might pause and adjust our thinking a little bit about that original old American holiday and the people responsible for it. If you believed everything they taught in school, that totally Godly, warmly dressed, well tooled and well armed men and women stepped off the boat, bid fond farewell to the captain and immediately joined a feast of turkey, venison, succotash, (that's a corn thing,) and pumpkin pie all over the place, Not So!
Starvation, disease and ignorance killed far more than were ever saved by pumpkin pie and family prayer. I just want you to know that our family was well represented during those hard times and the following centuries before we were finally liberated by the invention of frozen pizza and instant hair remover.
So lest we forget:
Our grandparents were Lewises, Lambs, Allans and an unknown. These predecessors had been infiltrated by the Bakers, Shaws, McDonalds/McDaniels and Wiskersons/Wiskerchen/Whiskersons.
Our first Lewis's got off the boat in 1628. This trip included a sixteen year old young lady by the name of Mary Lewis but she was so obstreperous she was threatened with a dunking. Yes, they actually dunked people, mostly women who did not act godly or talked too much or criticized someone's stupidity, and they had Mary's tank ready. But in her defense, her old Dad, Tom Lewis, had been co-owner of a thriving tavern in London Town and what sixteen year old wants to leave a party place like that for a bunch of dancing savages and pickled succotash ?
But in a document still readable in the Winthrop papers,a kindly and godly older gentleman was moved by her, (how so moved we can only guess) and petitioned Governor Winthrop for her hand in marriage, notwithstanding the age difference , in order to save her from perdition and subsequent lawful punishments.
Permission was granted for her release and marriage to the gentleman. He spent the next several years in the new world's courts trying to protect her from a multitude of defamatory charges against her "character and reputation", one of which was inspired by a gentleman who stated publicly that she "lifted her skirts" for him on several occasions. This particular defamation charge was thrown out of court because the judge said, "there can be no defamation if all statements are true and fact." Well, what can a girl do? Ultimately the nice gentleman gave up and took his girl back to merry old England where heaven only knows what trouble she got into.
So begins our family saga in the new world.
And for all you unbelievers out there..these transactions are documented in 17th century court records, the Winthrop Papers and a wonderful historical publication:,
Appendixes of the Real Founders of New England, Appendix A page 155
Also we might pause and adjust our thinking a little bit about that original old American holiday and the people responsible for it. If you believed everything they taught in school, that totally Godly, warmly dressed, well tooled and well armed men and women stepped off the boat, bid fond farewell to the captain and immediately joined a feast of turkey, venison, succotash, (that's a corn thing,) and pumpkin pie all over the place, Not So!
Starvation, disease and ignorance killed far more than were ever saved by pumpkin pie and family prayer. I just want you to know that our family was well represented during those hard times and the following centuries before we were finally liberated by the invention of frozen pizza and instant hair remover.
So lest we forget:
Our grandparents were Lewises, Lambs, Allans and an unknown. These predecessors had been infiltrated by the Bakers, Shaws, McDonalds/McDaniels and Wiskersons/Wiskerchen/Whiskersons.
Our first Lewis's got off the boat in 1628. This trip included a sixteen year old young lady by the name of Mary Lewis but she was so obstreperous she was threatened with a dunking. Yes, they actually dunked people, mostly women who did not act godly or talked too much or criticized someone's stupidity, and they had Mary's tank ready. But in her defense, her old Dad, Tom Lewis, had been co-owner of a thriving tavern in London Town and what sixteen year old wants to leave a party place like that for a bunch of dancing savages and pickled succotash ?
But in a document still readable in the Winthrop papers,a kindly and godly older gentleman was moved by her, (how so moved we can only guess) and petitioned Governor Winthrop for her hand in marriage, notwithstanding the age difference , in order to save her from perdition and subsequent lawful punishments.
Permission was granted for her release and marriage to the gentleman. He spent the next several years in the new world's courts trying to protect her from a multitude of defamatory charges against her "character and reputation", one of which was inspired by a gentleman who stated publicly that she "lifted her skirts" for him on several occasions. This particular defamation charge was thrown out of court because the judge said, "there can be no defamation if all statements are true and fact." Well, what can a girl do? Ultimately the nice gentleman gave up and took his girl back to merry old England where heaven only knows what trouble she got into.
So begins our family saga in the new world.
And for all you unbelievers out there..these transactions are documented in 17th century court records, the Winthrop Papers and a wonderful historical publication:,
Appendixes of the Real Founders of New England, Appendix A page 155
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