Anniversary

Sixty-five years ago today, I married John Phillips Burnell, Jr. We met in the Spring  of 1948 in a lunch line at Lowry Hall at Kent State University. He was with my friend Jean Beckmann, who had met him in a journalism class. At the time I was dating my Holden Caulfield boy friend Dick, who had just bought a brand new, bright red 1948 Plymouth convertible that winter. I liked Johm's looks, tall and thin and very well dressed. I was impressed with his dark rimmed glasses, too, and there were very few people wearing that style in those days. I would see him around campus occasionally, and we would have coffee once in a while with others at the student union. I enjoyed his sense of humor and I made him laugh, too. But I was still going with my mixed up cynical boy friend.
When I came back in the fall, absence had not made my heart grow fonder for Dick, and I asked John to the dorm dance, and that was it. I must admit that I had kind of stalked him, in that I knew where he usually hung out for a smoke on a wall I walked past on my way to Spamish class. Or maybe he hung out on that wall because he knew I would walk by on my way to Spanish class. Sometimes I never made it  to the classroom, actually. The student union was close by and a person needed a snack or a cup of coffee, after all.
That was the beginning of our relationship. On our first real date we double dated with my friend Colleen and BF Chuck. Colleen was one of the few girls at school who had her own car.. We ended up that night at the Big House, which had a dance floor and a fireplace.  ( Many years later it became the hangout for the Chosen Few, a rough biker gang.) We danced and then John and I sat by the fire and talked and talked. I remember our mutual love for cats was a major subject.  Because I had to be in by 11 o'clock, the evening ended fairly early,but we fad a very fine time.
We went together at Kent State until John graduated a year earlier than I.he started grad school at Ohio State. He had switched from journalism to sociology. I had picked up  unsociology, too, along with continuing art. We both found that area fascinating, since we were interested in social issues, which at that period were creating tension by the proponents of McCarthyism and the rising civil rights movement.
Johm was a graduate assistant at Ohio State, teaching and loving it. He had an opportunity to get a research job for a year, at which point, dear reader, I married hum.
I don't intend to make this a story of our marriage, which was cut short by his death in a car accident when he was only thirty-eight. He was teaching at Kent State by that time and working on his doctoral dissertation We had three girls and a boy on the way when that happened. It was a terrible loss, of course. I had never thought that one could survive such a thing, but we did. He had given me that strength.
The portrait is one I did in 1948. I don't remember when, but it must have been the fall after we first met. I had forgotten it, but Emily found it when she was recently home. She had it framed for me. I am so glad she did.

Immigrants

I wrote some time ago that I like to read obituaries, stories of ordinary people who have led rich, meaningful lives. There were two this past week which were especially of that sort. One of the people I knew, the other I wish I had known.
I was drawn to a picture of a sweet looking, round faced woman. She was born in 1917' dying at the beginning and f her hundredth year. Her name was Sadie. She was born in Ireland, lost her mother when she was eight, and helped with her younger siblings until her father remarried. Her stepmother was a kind and loving person, and the family grew. When WWII broke out, Sadie volunteered with the ambulance service and became a trained first aid provider. She met an American G.I., and they married, staying on in Ireland for a couple of years. Then she sailed across the Atlantic with him and their first child.
The writer of the obituary tells of the effects of the trauma of war, and the marital struggle that resulted in divorce. Sadie by then had two little girls, and was living in barracks that had been converted into apartments, in a town in the northern, rather isolated part of the county. She got a job at a small rubber factory, and, until she was able to afford a car, she walked to work. She eventually bought a house, and when the rubber company closed, she took a job at Hiram College as a housekeeper, working there until she was eighty. Apparently she never remarried, raising her two daughters on her own.
When she died last week, she left many descendants, down to great-great grandchildren. The writer tells how Sadie would hold and kiss the infants, giving them an Irish blessing. An extraordinary woman. One thing was not in the obituary, perhaps because the writer may not have been aware of it: Had Sadie come to American sixty years earlier, she would have found on most places of employment this sign " NO IRISH NEED APPLY." Immigrant bias is not new, only being revived.
The other obit was for T. N.  Bhargava, who came to America  from India for graduate school.. He came to Kent State University, a newly minted Ph.D in mathematics. I met him and his then wife Rama at a Thanksgiving dinner, the week after the JFK. assassination. I remember that he was shocked that the usual college football games were going to go on as usual after such a national tragedy.  T.N. was  larger than life even then. He always carried himself like a soldier, straight posture,  chin up. He had a good sense of humor and  natural dignity.
He literally dived into both the town and academic communities. He brought international scholars to the university. He became involved in social and charitable institutions, serving on boards for the library and mental leather institutions. Over the years he contributed his time, his money and his expertise to a wide variety of f projects. We traveled in the same group that f friends and acquaintances, and I always enjoyed seeing him. He enriched the lives of so many people I'm the city
as well as the lucky students he nurtured. He has left quite a legacy.
These two immigrants led different lives, but both left their homes far away and made lives here that have enhanced their new country, and honored us with their presence.

How's It Hangin'.

The short answer is "Not so good." It started with a sore throat shortly after I sat getting my teeth cleaned for about an hour. Two days later, naturally on a Saturday, my throat was really hurting. We have these neat little things called Minute Clinics at the local CVS pharmacies, so that's where John drove me. You can even sign in ahead of time online so you don't have to wait in line. I wanted to make sure that I didn't have strep. The NP did a swab, and it wasn't strep. Told me if it didn't get better to come back in a couple of days to make sure that the lab came up with the same result.
Two days later it still hurt like crazy, so I went back to CVS. The lab had also found no strep. The NP, however, told me that my uvula was very swollen and that I should go to an Urgent Care place, the clisest of which is in a city about 6 miles north of here. We weren't even sure it would be open on account of MLK Day, but it was. And I signed in and joined the queue.
When I finally got to see a doctor he looked into my throat and informed me that I had uvulitis. Never heard the term. Sounds like some kind of female STD. IT's that dangly thing in your throat. It's one of those words like "aiglet" that show up in crossword puzzles. He prescribed a steroid and gave me a breathing  treatment because I was getting wheezy, which sometimes happens when I have any kind of upper respiratory infection.
There was another medical visit and I am on antibiotics and more steroids, but the old uvula is back to its normal size. It's the usual sinus drainage aggravating my lung and all, but at least I picked up a nifty new word:"uvulitis." No sex is involved.

Farewell to the Pufferbelly

I first saw this building almost seventy years ago, when I arrived by train in Kent, Ohio, to attend Kent State University. I came here because of the reputation of the art department. At the time I lived in Springfield, Ohio, and no one down there had heard of Kent State, and I had never set foot in the town until I got off the train.  That trip was to become quite familiar over the next four years, years when the superhighways were non-existent, and railroads were standard settings for travel.
The building dates from the late 19th century and served the Erie Railroad system for many decades. My children and I traveled to Corning, N.Y.on that line to visit my sister, and on the trip back to Kent   on the very last trip of the Phoebe Snow, one of its finest Erie  trains. Kent was a railroad town employing many workers at the roundhouse and freight yards, and the car shops. All that ended by the 1970s, and the train station sat empty for many years, until the late 70s, when a group of railroad and history buffs decided to save it from the wrecking ball. They raised funds, volunteered their labor and gradually restored the building to its original beautiful red brick self. At some point the Kent Historical Society, which has spearheaded the restoration purchased it.
The ground floor waiting room and office. area was remodeled and turned into the Pufferbelly restaurant which opened in 1981 in time for the Christmas holidays. My children and I ate lunch there the first week it was open. It was beautifully decorated for Christmas. Suspended from the ceiling are an Amish buggy and a canoe, and during the holidays they are filled with brightly wrapped boxes, and there is a very tall Chtistmas tree with silver garlands and lights. One night there is a brass band playing carols, which while festive , makes conversation impossible.
I have had dinner there once a week for years with friends. I have had lunch there frequently with my lady friends. We celebrated my 80 th birthday there and when family members come to Kent, that's where we take them. It's not fancy, but the food is varied and good. We had our annual Christmas lunch there last week, and I had my last dinner there with friends last night. Tomorrow is the last day that the Pufferbelly will exist.
The Historical Society decided that they need more money, so they have tripled the rent, making it beyond the ability of the current tenant to continue. The new management will completely remake the interior, tearing out the different levels of seating. It will become an upscale Italian restaurant with white table cloths and valet parking. Shave many Italian eateries around here, mostly for Casual dining, so I assume this one will focus on different Italian regional cuisine to be unique.
I shall miss my Pufferbelly, with its charming host, experienced servers, antiques ( all of which are up for auction) old photos of 19th century Kent and special steam locomotives, the canoe and the buggy.
We are all sad about this.

Trying to be Jolly

The tree is not up, nor is the manger. We do have bayberry candles scenting the house, a wonderful aroma for the winter solstice. We are having a laid back holiday with a minimum f gift giving, for thre main reason that none of us has anything we particularly want or need. We are not gloomy. Polly is here from Provncetown, creating great meals and good company.
Last Friday a group of friends gathered here for an evening of carol singing, which is sways a joy, since these are people with good voices and good ears for four part harmony. We covered several centuries of old favorites. In the interest of saving ourselves from reperive boredom we only sang the last verse of The Twelve Days of Christmas. We didn't use any instruments this time, relying on the very best, the human voice. It was a lovely evening. John made delicious pumpkin pie
 Which he served with Beckwith's superb cider. Paulette brought a box of chocolates to enjoy.
I have several friends younger than I who have become grandparents this past year. They range in age from sixtyish, mid seventies and early aighties. The older ones have waited for years to achieve this status and are so filled with joy that it's fun  to see the pictures and hear the stories. This might be boring to some, but I find their happiness mitigates some of the prevalent gloom of the time. My granddaughters are now lovely young  women, so I know how quickly the time flies past, and how soon those grand babies will be grown. Fast away the old year passes.
Enjoy the now.

Fly-by Fall

So I suddenly realized that November is ending today and I have not written one post. The same thing happened in October. I had spent a lot of time dealing with itch mites from my pin oak tree and a broken foot. As a result I had nothing much to write about., not that my life is usually rife with exciting adventures.
The recent election has left me stunned and confused. I have, in past tears been greatly disappointed in the past with presidential election outcomes, but not feeling horrified, a much mote profound emotion. I read the opinion pieces in the newspapers every day. Rarely watch TV News, except for Friday night's Wahington Week. I have no "friends" on Facebook  or in real life who are Trump people. Many Conservative pundits in print seem as horrified as I am. I do live in a bubble here in this university community.
I hear about the many hard working  mostly white, mostly male blue collar folks who feel left out of the mainstream, but that doesn't seem to me to account for the outcome. It won't be the first time that people have voted against their own self interest.
Oldest daughter Polly was home for Thanksgiving which brightened up our lives here. She, too, lives in a bubble, in a New England town noted for its artists, poets, writers, actors and playwrights, and others who make their livings in the creative community. We had a lit of discussions about the election and one conclusion is that as a nation, we are a people with a serious lack of critical thinking skills. We claim to care about education, but we don't really. We call educated people the 'elite," a word formerly used to describe the wealthy and aristocratic. I'm not sure what the opposite label is - knuckle-drag gears? - but somehow "elite" doesn't have the right ring to it. I remember when the word "intellectual" was used to describe educated people, usually used by pres

Free At Last

The last time I posted, I had just broken my foot and had to wear an orthopedic shoe thing and keep my weight off it by using a walker. My house is not built for that appliance, but I managed to  clomp around.
On top of the break I also had been dealing with a Job-like affliction of itchy bumps from a plague of
itch mites from the large pin oak tree in my front yard. For some reason this year has been  a big  year
for these microscopic insects which can blow through screens. There is nothing you can do about them, and it is recommended that you shower frequently, wash your clothing every day and use anti- itch cream, pop Benadryl and NOT SCRATCH.
When the broken foot happened I could not do the shower and clothes because I was not able to manage the maneuvers necessary to accomplish those tasks. At about the same time as the foot injury, that same foot developed a nasty looking scratching induced wound on the instep.
So then I started a sojourn at the Wound Care Center in Streetsboro, up the road.  I was not supposed to get that foot wet, and told to insert it into a plastic bag if I could take a shower somehow.  Well, I found out that I was eligible, through your tax dollars at work, to have a home health care worker AND physical AND occupational therapiss come to my home and do some helpful things, like give me a shower and other needed things.
So I had to get nekkid in front of strangers, but I was clean, finally. ( Until that happened I had been showerless  for over two weeks.) The physical therapy was similar to stuff I had learned at the fall prevention program I went through last year. (So why did I fall? No idea.) I didn't need the OT.
Today I had my last visit with the orthopedic doc and was pronounced  healed, bone wise. In the afternoon, at the wound care place, I was pronounced healed of the wound on my instep, and got to ring this bell they have when you are whole again. No more walker. I can now take my own shower. I can sleep without having to wear the orthopedic Birkenstock which has all this Velcro on it so that you end up with your sheets twisted around you if you move your foot.
I can now fix my own coffee and carry it into the living room. I do not have to clump around the house with the walker, sounding like someone in a horror movie.
John does not have to fix my breakfast, leave a sandwich in the refrigerator and come home and fix dinner after a day's hard work. Sally does not have to haul me to various docs.
Life is better for now.
I also had better watch my step, dammit.

My Left Foot ( Part Two)

My Left Foot

I broke my damn left foot. I broke it while falling in a graceful sort of spiral, my foot being the pivot point. I fell for no reason, other than geezerhood. My friend Carol had just pulled up in front of my house to take me to a poetry reading. Once John had hauled me to my feet, I limped out to her car, using my cane to counter the pain in my foot.
Once at The Last Exit Book Store, the site of the monthly gathering of local poets, I found a place with an extra chair on which to place my leg, thus elevating the foot. At this point I figured that I had merely twist d it. It didn't hurt. I had taken my poem about Dupree, which had won the grand prize
(of dog gear) in the WCLV Pet Poetry contest  several years ago, figuring that a prize winning piece would save me from the possible scorn of the other poets present, mostly., mostly Ernest young depressives. Actually this group is very accepting of all who attend.
I left at half time, figuring I had better come home and use an ice pack. Carol was willing to leave anyway, having read a number of her poems. Walking to the car was extremely painful. John helped me into the house, and I applied ice. It did not throb or hurt when I went to bed.
In the morning, when I got up it hurt like hell, so I decided I had better go to the ER and get an Xeay.
Our local hospital has been swallowed up by one of the mega-hospitals in Cleveland, and now goes by the awkward title of University Hospital Portage. County Medical Center.. They have instituted an ER service called InQuicker, which allows you, in non-life threatening medical cases, to book an appointment before you go so you won't sit in the waiting room for hours. It worked very well but there was nothing going on there anyway. I was in and out in an hour and a half. The radiologist even showed me the Xeay. That spiral fall fractured my third, fourth and fifth meta tarsals. A n
urse practitioner splinted the foot, and I was told to see an perhopedists as soon as possible.
I was told not to use any weight bearing activity on that foot. Hah! I am using my broken hip  walker and it is almost impossible not to use two feet to get to where I need To be, I could not get an
appointment until this coming Thursday, so I am staying off my feet as much as possible, except for staggering and dragging the walker to the bathroom. .
The NP said not to get the splint wet, and that I should keep my left leg out of the tub when I take a shower. Now, when you have an 89 year old person who lost  her balance for no reason, does it make sense that that person could manage to take a shower with one leg outside of the tub? Not gonna even try it.

Origins

This  is my original tribe, the parents and siblings. The parents,  May and Sid , lived into their ninety first years and died two years apart. She had been one of the first female draftsmen during World War I, being hired right out of high school. There she met Sid, an intern engineer, right out of college. He was from Alabama, and she from Masachusetts, where they met. They were married over 65 years.
 There were five siblings,  born from 1923 to 1936. Three of them, the boys, were born in Atlanta, Georgia and two of them, the girls, were born in New Jersey. The girls are older than two of the boys. There was a bit of moving between these births. They all ended up in Ohio in 1940 and hated it for quite a while. The younger boys considered it their home first. Only one of the girls now lives in Ohio. The other girl lives in Nrw York state.  One of the boys lives in Oklahoma. Two of the boys have passed a way and are sorely missed. One had lived in Montana, the other in Ohio. Both of these boys were doctors, one a cardiologist, the other an orthopedic surgeon. The boy in Oklahoma is a =retired public relations/advertising professional. One of the girls is a singer/songwriter who has taken her music to many countries around the world and can be heard often on WCL Weekend  Radio syndicated  program. One if the girls is a retired prevention specialist for a mental health agency and an illustrator.
The five siblings have, between them,  produced twenty-six children. All of them have become grandparents, and two were great -grandparents, and one is about to become a great-grandparent soon.
The surviving siblings keep in touch through the Internet and telephone. Travel is not so easy as it once was, and FaceTime is a poor substitute. We've been scattered for many years, but always are able to connect through our shared past. 

Visitors From Abroad

We just enjoyed a little over two weeks of having daughter Emily and granddaughter Elena (Ellie)  visiting from Germany. I had not seen Ellie for five years, and she is now an adult. Of course I've kept up with her on  FaceTime/book, but that's not the same as having her here in person. She's both lovely in appearance and bright, kind and thoughtful in personality. She is a certified Montessori teaching assistant in Munich, and hopes to get a degree in early childhood education. I think she knows more about children than I ever di even while bringing you all up. She wants to come to Kent State, and they spent some time there investigating options.
When Emily is home, so are half the people in Ohio. Well, not exactly, but it seems that way. David C. Barnett, who is Ellie's godfather and my son from another mother, was here several times, and Rich Warren, another son from another mother was here once, and they visited hum in Columbus, while also visiting a passel of Harper cousins.
There was also a day in Cleveland with a group of folks known as the Kaffe Klutsch, some former WCPN personnel, which puts together every year a Christmas CD. This CD has in the past included the Burnell Family Singers, the Petrou sisters, and presently, cousin Wille Walker, and the Corsini Brothers Trio. It is a not ready for  prime time effort, enjoyed mostly by its participants.
The weather was disgustingly dog breath, so not much cooking occurred. One of the first things Emily wanted to do was to go to Ray's Place, our favorite pub, with good eats. Emily and Ellie are vegetarians, who eat healthily back home, but had no problem downing Ray's great French fries and onion rings with their garden burgers. There were a couple of breakfasts out as well.
Since this is the corn on the cob season, we did brave the hot kitchen here at home to indulge in Ohio's finest golden treasure, along with Ohio ripe tomatoes.
We did end up once in a while with people sitting and staring at devices, clicking away texting. I don't text,  but I do get caught up in the FB vortex.
They left Thursday morning and we hated to see them go. As it does when you are with people you love, the time zipped by. The house is empty. However, as I write this post, Emily and I are having a conversation via messaging, something rather miraculous to one for whom long distance phone calls were so rare when I was a child with faraway grandparents whom I never really got to know. And they even lived in the same country as I did.

Family Business

These folks are a lilies over one-third of the Harper tribe. They are the children of my late brother Bill and his wife Eileen. They range in age from 52 to 65. Two of them live in Ohio, three of them live in Montana, and one of them lives in Alaska and Montana. Between the six of them they have fifteen children, most of whom I have met at least once. Three of them have grandchildren, none  of whom I have met.
One is a former writer and editor who recently retired as the assistant to the president of a state university. One is a nurse-practioner specializing in oncology. One is a surgeon still in private practice. One is an accountant for an insurance company, while also rearing three grandchildren. One is a TV producer whose hobby is climbing very tall trees. One started out as a theater arts professional who worked with Stephen Sondheim on the  original production of "Into the Woods" on Broadway, taught scenic design at a small college for a while, and, deciding to get a real job, went back to school and is now a nurse.
I do not see them often in person. I keep up with those who are on Facebook, enjoying photos of their families. They have all the best qualities of their parents, good looks, intelligence, generosity of spirit, and wit. They also are very close to each other, friends for life, which is the way families should be, but often are not. I am very glad to be one of their aunts.

Stuck in July

This will be a short post. We are into the third week of dog breath weather, the kind that saps my energy and causes me to lose the will to go on. I am not a field hand, or a road worker, so I feel a bit guilty for complaining. I have air conditioning. That's one of the problems, actually. They are window units, which make me feel closed in. I long for cool, fresh, real air.
I know it can't last much longer. We have had much worse summers. I remember eating the evening meal in the playroom in the basement. I remember days of over 90 degrees.  It feels right now as the the humidity is one hundred percent. I think all of this is because I am old and less tolerant.
I've distracted myself with old movies and the political conventions, but that was not a very pleasant distraction those political celebrations of themselves, and the results in one case are disturbing.
August is on the way and that means cooler weather, so I shall survive.

Luke

This is a portrait of my nephew, Luke Walker. I first saw it in the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, to which my sister took me to see it. It is by Thomas Beuchner, a New York state painter. I bought a museum catalog so I could keep a copy of this very fine portrait. I didn't see Luke at this age, and the last time I had seen him, he had been a little blond boy of seven. Our families lived 300 miles apart, and in those days when my sister and I were raising kids (her 8 in western New York and my 4 in northeastern Ohio) we didn't do much visiting.
Barely two weeks ago, Luke died as a result of an accident in his workshop in Rhode Island. An expert craftsman, a machinist, an artist, a carpenter, a restorer of antique motorcycles and airplanes, a biker, a pilot, a multi talented  man.
He had met his wife Bess at Rochester Institute of Technology some 30 years ago. They had settled in Rhode Island, in the Newport area, Bess as a seamstress and decorator, Luke as an all around genius at all of the above. They were a very important part of the community and their work was and is very much in demand. Twenty two years ago their daughter Jackie was born, now a beautiful and gifted horsewoman.
That little blond boy I knew all those years ago had impressed our family even then. It's become a family story that foretold what he would become. While we were visiting, one of the children found a dea bird  in the back yard. Luke disappeared into the basement. An hour or so later he returned with a little wooden box he had built as a coffin for that bird. If you don't know woodworking, a box is one  of the hardest things to make, requiring precise measurements and the ability to cut and join the pieces correctly. As I said, he was seven.
One of his older brothers told me that he and the others in the family called Luke whenever they had a problem with a project, for advice and he was always right on it, and knew exactly what needed to be done.
Three years ago, Luke was in a terrible accident. A woman turned left in front of him as he was on his motorcycle. He was very badly injured, and suffered the partial loss of one of his legs and a traumatic brain injury. He fought very hard to recover, with the help and love of Bess and family. It was an epic struggle, and he was strong. He took up painting and ceramics and developed his artistic side.
The last time I talked with him was last year, when he called me on my birthday. He always kept track of birthdays.
Part of a large, close family, Luke's death leaves a huge gap that there's no way to fill, but everyone treasures the impact he had on each life he touched. The world needs people like Luke, makers and restorers of beautiful things, now lasting objects of his life's work. And that's a good thing.

Old Hands

i used to have rather nice hands. I had rather nice feet, too, not that I paid much attention to my appendages other than keeping them relatively clean, considering the sorts of things they were up to. I spent a lot of my childhood barefoot. I delighted in my prehensile toed feet, with which I could, until the past few years, pick up almost anything. I treated my feet to nice shoes, owning more than I actually needed, a trait that has been inherited by a couple of my daughters.) I can still pick up a few things, but my toes on one foot are crooked, and I have shoes I can't get into now.
But back to the hands.They are showing the favages of the years I have accumulated. They  are gnarled. The joints are swollen. They are claw-like. It would be nice if contemporary old ladiies wore those lacy mitts one sees in movies made from Jane Austin novels. I can do without the bonnets and caps of that era, but those little y mitts would cover a multitude of bumpy knuckles.
Not only are my hands misshapen, but they won't do things I need to do in an average day. Doorknobs are hard to turn. Pull tabs are impossible to pull. Ubiquitous plastic lids are resistant. For jar lids I have a gadget that helps, but as my hands weaken, even that gizmo has become harder to use. Buttoning a shirt takes a while, so I tend to pre-button them to save time and slip them over my head.
These things have a tendency to sneak up on you. What was easy last year is not so easy this year. So you keep on anyway, and adjust , and hand jars and yogurt containers to someone else if they're handy. If no one is available, you can just eat an apple.

Happy Fourth and Then Some

In my family the Fourth of July was not just the day to celebrate the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of  the United States of America. It was also the birthday of my sister, Mary Lucille, or Merry Old Seal as one of our great nieces called her.  For the last seventy some years she has been known as Mary Lu, the shortened version which her siblings don't use.
This year, she will celebrate her 90 th birthday, an age she neither looks nor sounds like. She has always been quite a beautiful woman and still is. She will deny this but the description fits.
After giving birth to eight children all now extraordinary adults, she learned to play the guitar at about the same time as churches began to use the folk music genre. She  decided that there were no suitable songs of that type for children.  She had always been musical, but without any formal training, but she started writing songs about the kinds of things that were important for children to learn about, things like friendship, kindness, peace, sharing, all those positive  aspects of human behavior that enhance life. They were not preachy, the tunes were simple and easy to learn, and could fit into church or school or home. Word spread about this music and soon she was maKing recordings, traveling around to conferences and presenting workshops on how to use song with children.
One of her most popular recordings grew from her life as the mother of a large family. It's called "Middle Age, Middle Class Mama Songs." I've always thought of it as an Erma Bombeck song book. It's funny, moving, and very true. She wrote further humorous songs, and songs about nature, the environment, and frustrations of the computer age. She's written songs about peanut butter, fire flies and dandelions. She's written songs for all of her grandchildren, specific to each one. She has brought a lot of joy and laughter with her music.
So this weekend, her children and their children are gathering in Corning to celebrate a life well lived and  their remarkable mother. And it's great to have her as a sister whom I dearly love.

June Is Bustin' Out All Over

Well, actually it's just about all over. It has been a busy month in the world, not so much here on Edgewood Drive. It's not that it's been excessively hot, except for yesterday and today. It's more that there's so much going on in the world,  the election, the NBA  win by the Cav's, the Brexit. One's mind becomes dazed by it all.
Last week this area celebrated Cleveland's first big sports win in 52  years, led by a local kid from Akron. I watched the snail-like parade, but the big payoff was watching the local hero making  his speech on live TV, peppering his oration with a couple of f-bombs and other words made famous by George Carlin's monologue on the seven words you can't say on TV. But  Lebron used about half of them and nobody  really gave a s-**t. A rather crestfallen group of Channel 5 reporters, trying not to laugh, did later offer an apology for the "offensive language.
There were a little more than one million people at that parade in Cleveland, which it's now preparing itself for the gloom and doom of the Republican National Convention. The city had pledged to raise 5 million bucks for the RNC, but for some strange reason, the presumptive donors are sitting on their Swiss bank accounts, revealing a reluctance to support one of their fellow billionaires who is running for the major office, alas. The city has spent already a ton of money sprucing up the place, building hotels, widening roads, etc. Even  Akron is getting into the act, with several new hotels available, since it's only about 30 minutes from downtown Cleveland. Our friend David from the Cleveland NPR station works about 3 blocks from the convention venue, but I don't think he'll be covering it, since his beat is the arts. Maybe though; isn't there a book called "The Art of the Deal" by one of the candidates?
Brexit has stirred up the proverbial hornets' nest. My granddaughter, Katina, is a student at a British university, and although she was born in Germany and has lived there all her life, she is not, and cannot be a German citizen. She has to pay the full out- of-country fees. She recently acquired a Cypriot passport, which gives her status as an EU citizen ( her grandfather was from Cyprus)' but now that won't count. In the large scheme of things, that's not that serious. I gather from my British friends that it  is the high number of immigrants who have come  to England, causing a burden on the National Health, jobs, housing and schools. Sounds a lot like Trumptalk to me. England is not in Europe anyway, they say, so my third grade geography teacher was so wrong. As a matter of fac when I was in the third grade, the world globe in the classroom had about a gazillion pink countries all over it, all part of the great British Empire. Alas, those days of glory are long gone, even though
some of the damage lingers on.
So June has zipped by while I ponder these large issues. I think I'll go have some fruit.

The Hare

A couple of weeks ago on BBC Radio4 the book f the week was "The Running Hare," by John Lewis Stempel, an English farmer and author. Like most British writers about nature, his use of language and imagery takes you right there. This book is about his wish to develop a field where hares would settle. He leased a little over two acres of land a few miles from his own farm. His plan was to sow a wheat field interspersed with a wide variety of native species of wildflowers of many colors. (Along the way he tells us how the cornflower got its name. It seems that centuries ago the seeds got mixed in with corn seeds and bloomed along with the growing corn.)
He starts his field in the very early spring, and  describes  the process of the plowing and sowing and waiting for the hares to show up, the first being a female, which he calls a Jill. Before long, there are several pairs, and then the leverettes, the babies. He takes the reader through the seasons of the year, with the colors, the feel of the sun and the air and the scents, it is just a very fine and lovely experience to share.When asked how one becomes proficient as a nature writer. his advice is to go outside and sit in it.
Hares are related to rabbits, but have much longer and larger ears and very strong hindquarters. The first time I saw hares close up was a rather macabre experience. I was in the large central market in Florence. It was around Christmas  time and the place was a sensory feast. Strolling along enjoying the sights and sounds, I found myself suddenly confronting a counter lined with giant hares, skinned except for their furry heads. Their dead eyes were the size and color of purple plums. I could not unsee this sight. European butcher shops do not put things in little plastic packages. They know what they are eating, Inguess.
I have had rabbit before. When I was a senior in college a couple of my friends had gotten married and invited me for dinner frequently. One was of German descent. Her father would trap rabbits in his yard in Cleveland Heights and my friend Nancy would make hasenpfeffer, crumbling ginger snaps into the gravy. When she got the rabbits,  her father had already cut them up like chicken, so I never had to see a rabbit looking like the Italian hares in the Italian market with their furry little heads on.
My other married friend was from Vienna, and I learned never to ask her what the meat was. She had told me that where she was from they used every part of the animal possible. We never had rabbit there, though.
The next time I saw hares was from a distance, and was a much more pleasant experience. Emily and I were returning on the train to Erding after a day in Munich. It was late afternoon and I noticed what looked like a couple of dogs running through a field. Then I realized they were leaping, and had very long ears sticking up, and they were hares, alive and well  and enjoying a frolic. I was amazed at the size of them.
They may have eventually ended up in ginger snap infused gravy, but for that late afternoon life was good. The hares running in Stempel's two acre flower filled wheat field no doubt looked the same.

Genevieve

See that car? I have a long story about it, so get a cup of coffee. Or a shot of bourbon and settle down.
Several months ago, the Akron Beacon Journal published an article about an area man and his first car, a 1929 Model A Ford woodie. The man's name is Kirk. When he was in his teens he worked on a farm up near Lake Erie, where his parents had a summer home. He and  another teenage  boy discovered in a shed on the farm a decrepit  station wagon, with no tires, with the middle and back seats removed so it could be used to haul hay. They were intrigued, and asked the farmer if they could have it. Neither boy had a driver's license yet, but like most boys that age, they knew how to drive. The farmer let them have it, figuring they probably couldn't get it running anyway.
They scrounged around the area junk shops, finding parts they needed and soon had it running, loving every minute. They named her Genevieve. They bounced around in the fields on the tire deprived
rims most  of the summer. Somehow they managed later to find tires for it.
The older boy, Kirk, graduated from high school and enlisted in the Navy. It was 1945, and the second world war was still on. The younger boy took the car back to his hometown fifty miles south of the farm. He painted it gray.
When Kirk got out of the navy, after the war, he looked up his friend and bought the car back.  He was on his way to Cornell University, and painted it red and white, the school colors. He used it all the way through college, and finally sold it after he married. He lost  track of both the car and his fellow farm worker.
A few years ago, he tracked down Genevieve, I believe through the Ford Model A Club, and has restored her in all her glory, as shown in the above  photo.
This story was what I read in the paper. Since it was about boys who were now my own age, I  related to it, and loved their ingenuity and those days of the past, when my older brother Bill and his friends
I'm had fixed up an old Midel T Ford when they were in high school. Cars and boys!
Two days after the story was in the paper, my friend Cynthia Lynn, who helps me by driving me here and there, picked me up from a doctor's appointment. She started telling me about a conversation she had recently had with her mother. She had asked her about when she had started dating her father. Her mother said that she was fourteen and he used to come by her house in his old woodie Genevieve.
"What?"
"Yeah he had this old woodie and he''d take her out for ice cream and.."
"Wait a minute, a woodie named Genevieve?" I told her about the article. Neither she nor her family get the Akron paper, so I knew she  had no idea about the article. I knew her family had for generations summered up by Lake Erie. Also the article had said that the younger by had taken
The car to Warren, where her father had grown up.
When we got to my house I rushed in to show her the article, but, alas, it had already gone to the
recycling truck the day before. I did show her the online article, and she was sure it was the same
Genevieve her father had talked about, as well as the farm work he had done during his teen years. At this point, her parents were at their winter home in Florida. I told her to give me her father''s phone number, and that I would  e-mail the reporter who had written the article to  give it to Kirk.
Cynthia's father is one of those active, athletic men who love to hunt, fish, play tennis and perform other manly tasks. However, of late he has suffered a number of debilitating health problems which have caused depression and discouragement about having to limit himself. Cynthia called me a couple of days after the revelation  about Genevieve to tell me that Kirk had called her father, that Kirk told him he'd been trying to find him for over 70 years, and that as soon as Bob and his wife were back in Ohio, they were going to get together and take a ride in Genevieve.The effect on Bob Lynn has been a complete turnaround and given him a new lease on life.They have talked a number of times since that first phone call, and Kirk has invited Cynthia and her sister Judy to dinner and kept in touch.
I contacted the reporter again to give her an update on this remarkable result of her original story, which she did, being very much pleased at such a positive outcome for these two octogenarian men.
Last night I was invited to dinner with Cynthia by Kirk and his wife Do't at the posh retirement community where they live in Hudson. In front of their house sat Genevieve, gleaming in the late afternoon sun. We drove in it to the dining hall in style.
i felt a little guilty riding in it before the Lynns get to.
The horn goes "Ah-yooogah