DUCKS, DOGS, AND PENNY CANDY

My grandmother had a cottage on Lake Erie, where I spent lots of time every summer with my Mom and Dad....and two gigantic German Shepherds. I spent my days there on the beach playing in the sand, or riding my tricycle up and down the sidewalk which was shaded by enormous poplar trees whose leaves would rustle in the breeze and put me to sleep at night when the lake was calm. Other nights I 'd listen to the waves...wondering sometimes if they were really as big and ferocious as they sounded.

My friend in the cottage next door had a duck...and even with my steel trap memory, I can't remember which one of them was named Margaret. We played together every day, ate grilled cheese sandwiches, fed her duck, and made sand castles with the two dogs who liked to dig in the sand.

One of the highlights of those summer days was the penny candy that they sold in the tiny grocery store that served the three rows of cottages. We spent lots of time there...loaded with a few dimes and nickels, and ate our sugar watermelon slices and red fish on our way back home. The lady who worked in the store was named Nellie, and she came north every summer from Biloxi Mississippi just to work at the store. Nellie was a big lady, always patient , and always huffing and puffing when she had to stoop almost to the floor to add our selections to the little brown paper bag. I think Margaret ( unless that was the duck's name ) was kinda indecisive...because Nellie would keep asking her "what else"...Sometimes we'd leave there and go into the attached area that we called the "shack". They had a juke box there, and a dance floor and a soda fountain. We'd climb up on a stool, and pretty soon Nellie would appear behind the counter...she worked the counter there too. If we were going to be big spenders that day we'd have a chocolate coke. My friend Carol still drinks them...I never heard of anyone else who did.

Years ago I discovered an old clock in our attic...turns out it was the one with the Westminster chime that sat on the mantle in my Grandmother's cottage for as long as I can remember...it used to keep people awake when they visited, but it chimed away every summer. Now it sits on my mantle, and I wind it every Tuesday, and sometimes late at night I'll her it chime the hour...and I'm right back on the warm sidewalk...heading for a the penny candy, with no more to think about than how many peanut butter bars I wanted, or where the duck could have gone, or if my dad had gotten the inner tube blown up.

THE FRONT PORCH

We live in an older neighborhood with lots of homes that are around a hundred years old. When Woof and I go for a walk in the evening, we notice all sorts of different things....and we discuss them. Almost every old house has a front porch....some grand and elaborate with expensive looking furniture, lots of hanging ferns, and maybe a swing. They all look like wonderful places to spend some time on a beautiful night. Even the simple ones look private and comfortable. Woof brought it to my attention that as beautiful as these cozy places look, nobody is using them. What I noticed was that what was common was the glare from the TV inside.

When I was growing up we spent a lot of time at my grandparent's home...in fact we even lived there for awhile, and spending the evenings on the front porch is one of my clearest memories. That porch had wicker furniture with big soft cushions, and big beautiful awnings that kept it cool. When we'd take a walk there we'd stop and say hello to lots of people who were sitting on their porches and they'd do the same when they strolled around the neighborhood.

Woof and I are on our porch every night...sometimes waiting for my mate to come home from a late day in the salt mine, or all three of us are there discussing our day...maybe it's about chasing a cat, or closing a deal, or why the gardenia isn't blooming. I've had our porch furniture out since March...the warm spring pushing me to rush the season this year. My friend Bill told me that I have so many plants that I'm starting to look like one of those crazy people you see being led away on TV. I'm undaunted. He seems to put up with it when he's sitting there with his big lab having a glass of wine. ( Bill that is).

The front porch means a lot around here. Its big enough to set up a round table for dinner...a great place for those few remaining smokers to puff away during the Christmas party, and a great place for a crazy person's tropical palms and plants. Most of all it's a break from the noise of life...from politics and the latest news. The magic words around here are " lets go out on the porch"......We're lucky.

WHAT THE HELL ?

I never remember hearing from so many right wing extremists in my life. I also never remember so much silence from the more moderate voices. The crazy panels of men trying to control what women do with their bodies and their health is so out of sync with the real world that they just sound like they're nuts. From the lunatic from Virginia trying to force women to have ultrasounds, to Corbett in Pennsylvania telling them they can just close their eyes during the unwanted procedure, to the HANDFUL of Catholic Bishops suing the government because THEY want to stop women from using birth control...it just keeps escalating.

While the Canadians are attempting to curb bullying by providing their schools with "gay/straight" alliances...the bishop there is fighting to stop them.

The money that people are putting in the collection baskets in many dioceses is also being used to fight equal marriage laws according to the National Catholic Reporter. Donald Wuerl in DC has been ferocious in his attempts to fight Washington's acceptance of equal marriage, and the Vatican is out to get the nuns.  (Can't wait to hear more from the Butler).

I've heard pastors telling their congregations not to vote for Obama, and to punch their gay kids, while another wants to round up all the gay people and fence them in until they "die out". The whole blurring of the church and state boundaries and protections is extremely fuzzy these days. I hope the IRS starts doing it's job.

I thought the idea that Sarah Palin might end up in the Oval office was scary..that the non witch Christine O'Donnell winning a GOP primary was unbelievable....that Billy Graham's son turned out to be nothing like his Dad was disappointing....that Michelle Bachman who wanted Congress to take a loyalty test while her husband (the Swiss Miss) flits around like the gayest thing since Liberace when he's not "curing" the gays was hysterical...and that Donald Trump still flings back his orange bouffant and insists that Obama isn't an American is mystifying (as is his choice of Marigold Just for Men).

Well....just the times we live in I guess....great for conservative, white, rich, conservative Catholic, racist heterosexual men...but for lots of other folks...ummm not so good.

Memorial Day...the show must go on.

  Watching Colin Powell at the National Memorial Day concert from DC last night was disturbing...as was the announcement by the weather service telling everyone to leave and seek shelter because severe weather was approaching.  It was then announced that the show would go on.  Reminded me of when the Bush/Cheney crowd was busy lying about why we had to start the war with Iraq and in spite of reliable doubts about Iraq's intentions and capabilities, Colin Powell agreed that the show had to go on.  Thanks to all those neo-cons led by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield there are thousands of people who had their hopes and dreams shattered because of a series of lies. People like Joe Wilson and his wife were punished for telling the truth, while "reliable" sources who proved to be liars as well kept drumming the beat for a war.
  Colin Powell may have been duped with lousy information, but I still think he's got more explaining to do...especially when he visits Walter Reed hospital.  Far too many people died...were injured...or lost their precious loved ones for reasons that will never make sense or make the sacrifice worthwhile.  Just as the show had to go on last night....the disaster that never had to happen in Iraq might not have happened...if those who knew better had simply listened to the warnings from people who knew better.

RAY

Ray seemed to drop out of the sky one day and he ended up in my seventh grade class. That was the year that Sister Marie Elise was our teacher, and we experienced how a truly kind and beautiful woman could counterbalance the Sister Alberta's and Sister Evarista's of our grammar school world. Ray was quiet, and seemed to have just entered the world recently, as he didn't talk about much of where he had been before. I think it was actually Shadyside via Atlanta. Ray and I became friends that year...we were both 12 years old, and he's still one of my best friends all these years later.

My parents always loved Ray...and somehow if I was with him, they didn't worry about me. (little did they know). Ray actually talked ME into doing things like leaving the school at lunchtime to hang out at "Greasy Nick's" Deli, where he knew the girl behind the counter who would let him take anything he wanted. She also let him feed the jukebox even though it had an "out of order" sign on it because it was stuck on " Happy Happy Birthday Baby" which played over and over again all the while we were there drinking chocolate cokes. Ray would eventually lead us back to school where we were now prisoners of Sister Alberta who would simply hold her had out when we sauntered in..saying "notes please". Ray would mumble something and we'd all sit down while she'd stand there staring at him.

Ray's mother was Italian, and as unforgettable as they come. She would often invite us to their house for an Italian dinner and serve us wine. Now remember we were now 13 years old. I'd stumble home with my newfound buzz and garlic breath. Ray's mom also liked to redecorate...especially when his Dad was out of the country for business for extended periods of time. On entering their home one might enter an Oriental palace...or a Danish inspired living room, or a Maharaja's salon....new paint, new carpet, all new furniture.

She also said Mass in a little closet for Ray when  they didn't feel like going to church. I remember her putting her foot down once however when Ray called me to read one of his dirty poems that he'd written...and she was on the extension. After something about "while walking through the strawberry patch"

 she just softly said " Raymond"...and Ray said " I gotta go".

His mom was wonderfully kind, fun, and really different. There was something actually innocent about those days...drinking wine in the new Tuscan dining room....surrounded by artificial grapevines....eating lasagna...and being 13.

MEMORIAL DAY

I think there's something incredibly sad about Memorial Day. I still remember when it was called "Decoration Day". My cousin called the other day to get some information about my Dad's service in the Air Force during the second world war, and I got to thinking about him leaving his family and new born son for almost two years way back when. While he was one of the lucky ones who returned in one piece mentally and physically, some of his buddies weren't so lucky. There were a lot of new young widows in those days.

I don't like to visit battlefields, war memorials, or places like Arlington. All of those white crosses that stretch as far as the eye can see just crushes my spirit. Somehow all that suffering overwhelms me. I grew up watching the body bags coming back from Vietnam, and went to school with a lot of the guys who died there...part of the fifty thousand.

I guess I'm pretty much of a pacifist...although that tends to be seen as a dirty word. Although Ghandi, and Jesus and their likes spoke of the peacemakers as being blessed, my views of war are often portrayed as cowardly or at least unrealistic and naive. It just seems that after all these thousands of years, and millions of deaths, that the world ought to be able to find better ways to solve conflicts that to kill one another. Maybe the lessons we learned in kindergarten about not hurting other people were the most important ones that were ever taught. Too bad we didn't pay better attention.

MORNINGS IN MY GARDEN

Woof and I tend to get up early...usually around the crack of 9. My partner is long gone by then....he loves to get an early start on his day, make the coffee and sail out the door whistling all the way. I've always believed in that old saying "early to bed..late to rise". Woof and I head to the backyard to survey the kingdom. She checks the perimeter for traces of overnight visitors, and I wander into my new little greenhouse and turn on the fans, and wonder again why the banana tree seeds still haven't sprouted. Last year I planted seeds and ended up with gigantic six feet tall ornamental banana trees.

Next we check out the garden...me with coffee in hand and her with her sniffer in high gear. The primroses are about finished, but the pansies and impatiens have taken their space. I have one of those late "lilacs" blooming now...they sure look the same but I don't like their scent. Word has it that there's a new type available...that blooms all summer...like the "endless summer" hydrangeas that really do bloom again and again. I'll believe it when I see it...and smell it.

The foxgloves are really tall and beautiful this year, which is surprising. They seed themselves, and sometimes appear but usually don't. The Iris are in full glorious bloom...my friend Mark loves the "Steeler" variety...gold and nearly black. I love the sky blue and white ones. My big old crepe myrtle died suddenly a few years ago, but now I see shoots coming up from the old roots.

My garden is a series of winding paths, and what I see blooming around each corner even surprises me. There's something about walking through a garden rather that looking at it that has always been my favorite way to experience these wonderful havens of nature. I end up on my old stone bench where noone can see me, while Woof sits beside me in the cool grass  path and we talk about all the things we ought to get started on for the day. Most of the time she convinces me to just sit there for a little while longer. Her idea is not to sit there and think...but just to sit there.