Renaissance of Heart, Soul, Body

Yesterday, the 31st annual Texas Renaissance Festival completed the fifth weekend of its eight weekend run in its medieval village setting an hour north of Houston.

I was there helping my sister sell some of her handmade Sea Glass jewelry and thoroughly enjoyed the whole outing.

As usual, what I enjoyed most was not what could be seen or heard or tasted or smelled or touched (and there was a heckuva lot for all five senses to enjoy), but what I felt about the whole experience : a renewed belief in the necessity of rebirth, or renaissance, in our personal lives.

I worked as a hawker for my sister's business there. I dressed up as a Johnny-Depp-style pirate and tried to motivate fair-goers to visit her booth. Then my sister's partner would sell them the one-of-a-kind jewelry on display. Notice the piece at my neck.

For those considering going, don't miss the Ded Bob Show and the French Performer (cannot spell his name - it begins with an "A"), both of whom performed at the Odeon Stage in Pirate's Cove section of the Festival.

Also of note are all of the gardens added over the past few years, most notably the Sherwood Forest Garden Walk, a canopied respite along a babbling brook that takes you away from the hustle and bustle of the Festival for a few minutes.

AS is true every year, the single most absorbing aspect of the Festival is the people watching. Remarkable as the official workers were in their authentic costumes and regal bearing, they held not a candle to the inventive, spontaneous, unpredictable, and wholly refreshing creativity of the paying public fair-goers.

Fabulous costumes of every ilk were represented, from the basic almost-naked characters (both male and female) to the fully-outfitted warriors, wenches, knights, royalty, clergy, preternatural (fairies, centaurs, elves, satyrs, etc) and even other-worldly (aliens) characters.

As the famous saying goes about standing in one place on a river and seeing the whole world go by, so too could you stand in any one place in this medieval village and see the whole panoply of people performing in one way or the other as their "reborn selves," even if only for this weekend.

And there's the rub.

I am one of those folks who believes in the search for personal rebirth. Each time we begin anew in some way or the other we enter upon the arduous task of making a personal renaissance.

This is not for sissies. Most folks would simply rather stay exactly where they are, doing exactly what they are doing in the same way they have been doing it, and doing it with exactly whom they have been doing it. And as Jerry Seinfeld once said "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

In fact most folks will choose that path because it's what's best for them. And I am envious that they know what's best for them, because I keep searching.

For me, exploration is where it's at. I am most fulfilled setting about to discover what's around the next bend, and I am certain I would have found a way to join explorers from days of yore had I lived back then. Truth is, though, that there's plenty to explore in today's world as well, you just have to be open to it.

So I constantly placing myself in situations where I am forced to undergo a "rebirth" in one fashion or the other, learning what I must so that I might keep exploring this fabulous, abundant world.

And it was a delicious way to spend a weekend - participating with others enjoying their own brief "renaissance" at the Texas Renaissance Festival.

Go if you can. There's three weekends left. Dress up in costume. Become yourself. Or at least explore who that might be !

###

The Way Organic

Monday and Tuesday of this week I attended an Organic Farming Insitute of sorts at Southern Unversity in Baton Rouge. Though most of the first day focused on the official definitions and regulations concerning what IS "organic" and how does someone get to call their produce "organic," other parts of the program were thoroughly enjoyable and edifying in a different way.

Organic farming / gardening is not only the wave of the future, but also a rich legacy from the past - and get this - the present, because most of the world is simply too poor to use any other method.

The Lesson of the program seemed to be along these lines:


Nature is perfect as it is.

When we observe the mountains and forests we see beautiful flowers and trees which have grown without man’s interference or help. Materialism has influenced agriculture. Because we want to grow more food and to grow it bigger, man has resorted to the use of fertilizer.

In these modern times we use chemical fertilizers which end up adversely affecting the land, the environment and our physical bodies. The overuse of these chemical fertilizers causes many side effects in the land and poisons the soil, just as the use of medicine causes side effects to the human body.

This causes the land to purify itself, just as the human body does, and the result of this land purification is increased insect damage and problems with weeds. As a consequence, the farmer uses chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides to control these problems.

This in turn causes the poison of chemical pesticides and herbicides to be introduced into the soil, which exacerbates this vicious cycle. The introduction of the organic agriculture movement was believed to be a solution to this problem. Instead of using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, organic counterparts of these were developed to combat the problems of poor soil, insects and weeds.

But organic agriculture is becoming a big business as well, and the focus has been on making money. As long as the guidelines are met for organic farming, the farmer is free to use whatever methods he chooses as long as they meet the organic standard.

The original spirit of the organic movement, such as care for the environment, human health, and quality of life is becoming lost in the big business of organic farming. If we do not change our perception, the organic movement will also not be enough.

Sadly, the only difference between organic and conventional farming is whether organic materials or chemicals are being employed. Instead, we have to change our core awareness of agriculture, which means that we must include and focus upon the spiritual component so that Natural Agriculture does not become merely another method of growing food.


My favorite presenters were Tom Dana (The Dana Farm) of Lumberton, Mississippi and Paul Davidson (Equiterra Farms) of Clinton, Louisiana. Dana was a man of straightforward, simple language that was inspiring to listen to, while Davidson was a gregarious extrovert of a guy whose enthusiasm for his farm was exceeded - in terms of creating excitment in his audience - only by the actual farm itself, which we visited Tuesday morning.

Favorite fellow attendees included Azeez Mustafu, his wife and his granddaughter of Sumter Cooperative Farms near Sumter, South Carolina; Isaiah Cline of Pine Bluff, Arkansas and his partner L. Doolittle; Lacey Dupre Baque, a graduate student in Organic Farming at LSU; Kathy Rivette and Robert Williston of Avondale Plantation in Clinton, LA; and Danica and Cheryl of the Holy Rosary Organic Garden in Lafayette, LA.

Here are some sites that feature information about The Way Organic: 1. Don't Panic Eat Organic ! 2. The Garden Spot 3. Organic Web Ring

My First New Orleans Tour Since Katrina

My Brother's home in uptown New Orleans suffered almost no damage

My first sight of New Orleans since Katrina was mid-afternoon Saturday, October 22, 2005.

My sister and I drove in from the west, having chosen the faster, shorter, safer route from Lafayette via US 90 (rather than I-10), through New Iberia, Morgan City, Raceland, and Luling, crossing the Mississippi River on the new I-310 bridge near Saint Rose.

We entered New Orleans on the old River Road, near Oschner Hospital. Although this ground is the highest in New Orleans (being near the natural levee of the river), and therefore received no water damage from flooding, trash was piled high everywhere.

Refrigerators were ubiquitous. Many had funny messages scrawled on them in large print. "Loot this," one said. "Sir Stinky," said another. Most simply stood curbside as silent sentinels to the storm's damage, their doors duck-taped or tied securely shut.

Work crews were out, busy with measuring, sawing, replacing shutters and windows and other renovation efforts. Many were piling trash, hauling away trash, or seeking to do same.

We arrived at our brother's home in uptown and saw how lucky he had been: the only things destroyed were a backyard patio plastic roof, a bamboo fence covering, and a single roof panel on his backyard shed. Whew !

The tree canopy visible at the top center of this July 2005 photo is no longer there. Neither was the bamboo fence covering to the right, until it was replaced October 23rd.

One glaring difference, though, was the profusion of full sunlight in his backyard patio area. The huge, old oak tree with its 30-yard-long diameter of a canopy spread in every direction had been stripped back to a few branches spreading out no more than 15 yards in only a couple of directions. A 98 per cent shaded area was now splashed in 75 per cent light.

My brother decided we needed to pick up some groceries and replace the bamboo fence covering. He had previously replaced both the patio's pitched plastic roof AND the shed's roof panel.

The stores that were open (less than a fourth of the pre-Katrina total) were doing brisk business. We picked up some groceries and a new bamboo fence covering and the mood in the stores was one of muted shock but preternatural courtesy, as if everyone was so raw with pain that they respected that you might be as well.

The sharing of survival stories and "what's next?" buzzed as small groups of people gathered in aisles to commiserate, then go their separate ways after catching up briefly with friends and neighbors not seen since the storm.

A clear plastic roof covering the back patio area (to right) was blown away, as was a bamboo fence covering that hid the tin sheds on the neighboring property to the left. Plants were saved indoors.

After running errands, we brewed some fresh coffee (to which we added half-and-half) and worked on the bamboo fence, then relaxed into the evening with a meal and a long conversation before calling it a night, early. Tomorrow was another day.

Sunday we arose to the same eerie silence that had accompanied the night - this was a strange atmosphere for New Orleans, which I had both lived in and visited for more than half a century.

After stretching, meditating, and a breakfast of ham and 2-egg "Holy Trinity" omelets (minced onion, celery, & bell pepper mixed in), toast, and jam, we grabbed an extra cup of our cafe au lait brew and headed to Canal Street.

My brother is a first-rate tour guide to his hometown, and we started the tour by driving to the Mardi Gras Parade route of eastbound St. Charles Avenue heading toward Canal. No water damage from flooding here either, though the lack of electricity for a few weeks and no garbage pick-up for more than a month produced the expected piles of refrigerators and trash along every single curbside on the way downtown. There was little traffic, and NO streetcars running. Buses plied the famous avenue.

When we hit Canal, I noticed that most of the newly-planted palms had survived upright, but some were toppled. Once we crossed under Interstate 10 just north of Rampart, the marks on the buildings were clear: water was here.

The neutral grounds had been designated as trash-dumping areas, so they were both piled high and smelly. Amazingly for New Orleans, no ragpickers were perusing the piles. Sunday brunch was the priviledge of birds and vermin only - few people were stirring even at the relatively late hour of 10am, save for the occasional military vehicle scooting along on security duty.

We swung by City Park, and the dried mud, watermarks, downed trees and tents everywhere gave the impression of a city still under siege. The sound of chain saws now punctuated the still air. Only certain streets were passable and then only in certain areas - you had to pick your way through to see all you wanted to see of this beloved City Park.

Lakeview was next on our agenda - and I was not ready for the complete devastation I saw there. The streets had that "washed with mud" look. Watermarks on the houses reached 10 feet above street level (which was several feet below sea level). See www.nola.com for post-Katrina photos.

Cars were at odd angles as they were floated by rising floodwater and set against trees, houses, other cars. Trash was being piled up at curbside, but many properties had not been touched since the levees broke. Streets were one-lane wide and littered with bits and pieces of unrecognizable stuff.

Thirty minutes of surveying the death of the Lakeview neighborhood was enough for me. Off we went to take a Sunday morning walk around Audubon Park near my brother's home in uptown. The walk worked wonders on my mood.

That 1.87 mile oval, full of life (though less than the normal crowd) this sunny beautiful cool morning, was just the tonic for resurrecting the feeling of hope deep within me after my tour of Lakeview. Couples jogging, parents with baby strollers, senior citizens strolling, all brought back to me the belief in rebuilding a Newer New Orleans.###

Sillymorphing

The fall festival season blew in on this latest cool snap, and brought with it many fine memories, mainly of my Uncle Mose (short for Mozart).

He claimed there was something in the crisp air and chaotic scramble of activity at a fall festival that inspired some folks to become “sillymorphs,” and he was all for that, inasmuch as he was one of that ilk.

He believed evolving into a “sillymorph” - the word is from the Latin silliomorphus , “to undergo a change from the overly-serious nincompoop you usually are to the lighthearted, child-like, fun-loving nincompoop you should aspire to be” - greatly increases the chances that you will laugh more, love more, and live a more interesting, if not happier or longer, life.

Here are what Uncle Mose felt were the signs that you may be on the cusp of such a change:

• You act before you think. You find yourself pulled toward following your impulse to attend a festival, any festival, before you think about all the things others feel you should be doing instead.

• You choose instant gratification and rationalizations. You make up reasons why this particular festival is a must-go-to event. Keep in mind, your reasons may not be convincing or make sense to anyone but you. Then, you go.

• You enlist a co-conspirator. Not everyone can enjoy a festival with the unselfconscious abandon of a sillymorph, so you don’t bother asking those who are above such nonsense. Uncle Mose loved bringing children between six and 12 years of age (as a favorite nephew I was often asked to go) and those adults who felt as he did.

• You keep rules to a minimum, choosing just two. Safety. That’s the first and most important rule. No other rules appeal to you except this: smile at everyone as if you know them well and are really glad to see them.

• You make plenty of funny faces. You avoid under-reacting. When the kids get excited about something at the festival, your face tells all, and is uninhibited in its expression of allegiance with them.

• You eat something known to kill lab mice. You realize that festivals are no place to pretend you’re on a diet, so you eat with gusto.

• You eat a lab mouse. The ultimate in culinary delicacies, if properly prepared (just ask Chef Pat Mould, who's eaten a few).

• You make up songs and sing them with gusto. The sillier the better (even better if they relate to your time spent at the festival). And just who is this guy "Gusto" we keep planning to eat and drink and sing with, I once inquired of my Uncle Mose? He sounded like a fun guy. Mose just grinned.

• You try to win a stuffed animal for a child or your co-conspirator. Yeah yeah, the games at festivals are over-priced and rigged against you, so it's hard to win, but try anyway.

• You go on one of your companion's favorite amusement rides just because. Casting off fear or impending nausea, you give in when a child or companion implores you to go with them on a ride you would usually avoid.

• You throw up on them. There are consequences of being with a sillymorph, and your co-conspirators must accept them with gusto (that guy again).

• You buy a balloon and let it go, watching it as long as you can. If conditions allow, you might even give chase. I once caught up with such a balloon, miles away, after chasing it in a car and then on foot through a field. The resident bull did not appreciate this, but I retrieved that balloon.

• You do silly walks. Long before Monty Python had a Minister of Silly Walks, we had Uncle Mose urging us to do even the simplest things in a different way. Just for fun.

• At the end of your day at the festival, you find a deserving child (one being silly) and give her or him the rest of your unused tickets to rides.

Uncle Mose always talked about his favorite part of the festival on the way home and asked about ours. This was a wonderful way to fix the memories in our heads, having both lived through them and talked about them.

To those of you who are not and never will be on the verge of such silliness, take heart: we need you desperately to keep the lives of the sillymorphs in your family on track. They simply cannot manage on their own.

As for the sillymorphs themselves: yours is not to take heart, but rather give it. We all benefit from your generous spirit and example. ###

p.s. Enjoy this article as well. And here's a great website about FUN.

The Magic of a Second Chance

Another chance to create magic.

These words can create magic in people’s hearts: “You have another chance.”
Aren’t there times we all need to hear those words spoken?

It implies not only forgiveness for a past failure and encouragement to do better, but also that the human spirit can rise above a bestial level of existence. How many animals grant “another chance” to fellow animals?

Punishment of some form or another, where “getting another chance” is not an option, will always exist. And in some cases, “another chance” is not warranted.
More often, though, saying to someone, “You have another chance” is precisely what’s needed to create an atmosphere of renewal and the confidence to try again.

• Getting another chance does not mean erasing an earlier failure, it does something much more important: It means transcending it, rendering that failure as a relatively unimportant event in the grand scheme of things.
• Getting another chance elevates hope over fear, faith over doubt, optimism over pessimism.
• Getting another chance makes the future more important than the past, and the present the most important of all.
• Getting another chance requires inspired vision, and cannot survive short-sightedness. One must be able to see clearly what good another chance might produce, then go about using the opportunity to realize the vision.
• Getting another chance creates feelings of gratitude and responsibility, for who wants to squander “another chance”?
It puts the pressure where it belongs: On the person getting another chance. Now they must make the most of it.
• Getting another chance is, after all, what we want for ourselves and grant to ourselves all of the time, whenever we can manage it.
We go from one diet and/or exercise program to another. We stop and start bad habits over and over. We make a mistake and it goes unnoticed.
In each case, “another chance” was achieved.

This is a good time to say “you have another chance” to someone you care about, so don’t miss the opportunity. A new season is just under way, and you will feel better because you reached out.

Here are a few examples where it might be not only an appropriate thing to say but also a desperately needed one:

• To a child who is struggling to learn about how the world works and makes plenty of mistakes along the way. Whether five or ten or 15 years old, they need lots of “other chances” to show that they can overcome the obstacles and realities life throws at them.
• To children struggling through another school year, who need to be reminded that they always have another chance to earn better grades or make new friends. It might take special effort to help them accomplish this, but no child should ever be left with the impression that making low grades or having few friends is a permanent condition. The start of each new grading period creates “another chance” to wipe the slate clean from past grades and form new study habits and friendships.
• To a brother or sister (no matter what age), who, after all, is the blood relative you will have for the longest period of time (usually) in a life. Siblings often need another chance to work out a relationship with each other beyond that of when they were children together.
• To a friend who has done you some wrong, who needs another chance to feel welcomed back into your circle of warmth and friendship. Most often, the most basic of misunderstandings is at the heart of a wounded friendship anyway, and all that’s needed is another chance to talk about it.
• To a boyfriend or girlfriend who hurt your feelings but now more fully accepts and understands you and needs another chance to prove it. There’s so much to learn during a courtship, and so many opportunities to make a mistake. Two people learning how to love one another is perhaps the most difficult challenge in life.
• To a husband or wife who has made both lots of little mistakes and a few big ones over the years yet still keeps a flame burning for the love you shared through that time. Getting another chance can pave the way for a redefining of the relationship in the glow of true affection.
• Getting another chance is spiritual, not temporal, in nature, and therein lies its power to transform lives.

“You have another chance.”

It’s powerful magic.###

On Second & Third Thought

Today, by the time it got to be noon, I thought there would be no blog entry. Then I read a couple of emailed letters from friends, and although i seldom enjoy chain-type letters, both of these were above average.

Enjoy.



I want to thank all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me your chain letters over the past two years. Thank you for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy

Because of your concern:

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or Fed Ex since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a stupid number for which I will get the phone bill from hell with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer go to bars because someone will drug me and take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.

Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an email to 10 friends and make a wish within three minutes.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who has been dying for the past seven years.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I will now return the favor.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next 60 seconds a large bird with diarrhea will fly over your head and the fleas of a thousand camels will infest your armpits. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of a friend of a friend's neighbor's cousin. and she's a lawyer.



15 Things You Probably Never Knew or Thought About

1. At least 5 people in this world love you so much they would die for you. But don't count on it. Learn either how to defend yourself or how to make a quick and clever escape.

2. At least 15 people in this world love you in some way. But you DON'T want to know all those ways, believe me. At least 5 of them are perverted.

3. The only reason anyone would ever hate you is because they want to be just like you. Yeah right. Or it could be that you screwed them over so royally that that's reason enough right there.

4. A smile from you can bring happiness to anyone, even if they don't like you. It can also bring sexual harrassment charges in the office; a 911 call to police by a mother watching you smile at her child in a city park; and a lifetime of enmity from someone who just suffered a misfortune that benefitted you.

5. Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep. Uh-huh, just hope it isn't that person in the cell with you.

6. You mean the world to someone. Only if your name is Atlas.

7. If not for you, someone may not be living. Just really try to keep the second "not" in there, ok ?

8. You are special and unique. Since EVERYONE is, doesn't logic suggest that NO ONE is ?

9. Someone that you don't even know exists loves you. That's only because her/his mother made up stories about you that depicted you as a hero who died bravely after she/he was conceived but before she/he was born.

10. When you make the biggest mistake ever, something good comes from it. Especially if your spin doctors are better than theirs.

11. When you think the world has turned its back on you, take a look: you most likely turned your back on the world. The Atlas thing again.

12. When you think you have no chance of getting what you want, you probably won't get it, but if you believe in yourself, probably, sooner or later, you will get it. This applies to everything but a raise.

13. Always remember the compliments you received. Forget about the rude remarks. Except if they are so naughtily good you WANT to remember them to use on somebody else.

14. Always tell someone how you feel about them; you will feel much better when they know. See #1 above, because in most instances you will be risking some kind of attack or death if you do this.

15. If you have a great friend, take the time to let them know that they are great. Anyone who is genuinely "great" knows it, so if you have a great friend, use them while they are still "great," for fame is fleeting, and ignominity lasts a lifetime.


A Minute: They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them. This is the best warning I have ever seen about choosing your lovers, spouses, and friends wisely, or suffering the consequences.

Take the time .. to live and love. . . to cover your ass so you avoid blame . . . and to smell the garlic bread browning perfectly before it burns in the broiler !

I think this second chain letter could also work as humor if certain post scripts were added to each one - but that's for you to have fun doing - if only in your imagination.

P.S. I finally could not resist. The added comments (in blue) are mine. Intended for Entertainment purposes only - no offense intended in any way. Send me the additions YOU would add to make the original comments in red funny !

Radiohead

Ah, the pleasures of listening to the radio.

Now is the time that National Public Radio stations all over the country are in the midst of their semi-annual pledge drives, and I am apt to contribute to several (in fact I already have).

One of my very first memories (I was 2 or 3) is one of listening to an old radio while sitting in the living room of my paternal grandparents' home at 308 South Conception Street in Mobile, Alabama (Interstate 10 - right before it takes a sweeping turn into the Bankhead Tunnel - runs right over where their home used to be).

My father had an old brown portable radio (filled with tubes - transistors were not included then) that he lugged around with him during his professional baseball days in the minor leagues of the 1940s and early '50s.

AS I approached my teens, I stayed up late at night listening to my dad's old radio to station KAAY in Little Rock and their late-night show "Bleeker Street." Loved it.

Later (in highschool and just after), I thoroughly enjoyed my stint working in news and as a DJ in my hometown radio station KSIG 1450AM in Crowley, Louisiana. For thousands of people, listening to KSIG's Bill (Williams) and Shel (Kanter) Show each morning during some part of their 5-8am program was a south Louisiana ritual for almost 50 years.

Since radio has been in my blood for quite some time, I decided to do some research on the history radio.



In the 1920s, only the affluent could buy radios; each one cost $120 or more. If you could afford it, you usually had to assemble it yourself. In 1921, the radio station WJZ of Newark, New Jersey, was the first to broadcast a baseball World Series, but it wasn't until the 1930s that most sports fans began to turn regularly to radio to hear contests live.

After the Great Depression descended, factories churned out radio consoles and tabletop versions for as little as $5, and automobile manufacturers added them to their cars. The market for radios grew even larger when President Franklin Roosevelt passed legislation in 1936 to bring electricity to the nation's farmlands, where one quarter of the population lived.

Floor model radios became the new hearths in homes, and family members crowned them with cherished family photos. Any form of entertainment that could convey itself with sound alone used the medium to reach its audience.

Families gathered around their radios to laugh at comedian Jack Benny or ventriloquist's dummy Charlie McCarthy -- or to try to solve a murder mystery. Daytime radio became dominated by soap operas.

After school, boys and girls would listen to radio dramas such as "Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy" or "Captain Midnight." On October 31, 1938, Orson Welles spooked many listeners when he broadcast the radio drama "The War of the Worlds," which reported that Martians had landed in New Jersey. A year later, 20 million listeners tuned in regularly to "The Lone Ranger."

In 1935, when the racehorse Seabiscuit started racing, two-thirds of the nation's homes had a radio. A few years later, at the height of the horse's popularity, 90 percent of homes had one.

Newspapers reached thousands, movies reached even more, but radio was different because millions of people all tuned in to the same live event at the same time all over the nation. One of the most radio-friendly events in the world of sports was the horse race: unpredictable, dramatic, and over in only a few minutes.

"Radio was, in the period when Seabiscuit was around, the center of a family's existence," says author Gene Smith. "The radio was practically the size of today's refrigerator. It was burnished, with terrific wood, walnut or mahogany, and the dialing of it required great finesse, which was the province of the father of the house.

"There was one radio per house, no matter whose house it was, and people saved for their radio, and it was delivered, and it was a miraculous thing, a miraculous, wonderful invention. It could bring the sound of Jack Dempsey beating [Georges] Carpentier to a Montana rancher.

"It could bring Franklin D. Roosevelt saying 'my friends' to Louisiana plantations, and it could bring ballplayers Joe Dimaggio and Lou Gherig and Jackie Robinson to listeners all over the United States."

Even my father's career after baseball included radio: he fixed and sold them until TVs hit the culture, then focused on selling those and other electronic entertainment gadgets from 1954-94.

Radio. I can't imagine my life without it. Donate something to your local public station.

A Constant Gardener

Life began in a garden.

Probably was in the Pacific Northwest, because apples certainly did well there. My present garden is also in the northwest - the northwest corner of an intersection of two streets in the town where I live.

There the analogy abruptly ends (sigh).

Anyway, after I moved from the Pacific Northwest not too long ago, I started a garden. I did this because I grew up in the wonderfully garden-friendly town of Crowley, Louisiana, or zone 9, for you zone-obsessed folks.

I carefully went about establishing my garden in the finest tradition of nilly-willy gardeners everywhere. I was ferociously efficient. I spent only, say, five minutes deciding to locate five east-west running rows that were 15 feet long by two feet wide.

The ends of the rows abutted a small bush-and-tree line to the west and my home to the east. How proud I was of that placement - using up most of my tiny backyard with a "productive plants" design !

In the completely barren front yard, I created a bed running north and south that was four feet wide and 20 feet long right in front of the east-facing picture window. Pretty soon, I figured, I would looking out upon amber waves of grain - or something like that - each and every day.

Now my front yard, I found out, had been used for 13 years as prime real estate - for parking broken-down cars. The back yard suffered no such abuse, as it was obviously the primary source for excavating the finest blackjack clay in a three-state region (no brag- just fact).

So my gardening adventure was a wonderful challenge and opportunity right from the "git-go," as old- khaki- pants- stuffed- in- the- tops- of- white- boots gardeners everywhere will appreciate.

First thing I did was amend the soil, because my soil's constitution demanded it. This was not easy, because - as with the United States Constitution - amending something so firmly entrenched is a slow process that takes years. I did not know this.

Merrily I hoed the blackjack rows in the backyard while adding, say, a few dozen shovels full of dirt transferred from a front-yard pile delivered 10 years ago to the owner of the home (and my landlord).

"Sold to me as topsoil . . . " the owner bragged to me, when describing the dirt. He neglected to finish that sentence as " . . . for a nuclear waste facility I had planned."

What it amounted to was hardpan clay that Crowley's rice farmers would kill for, to use either at the bottom of their flooded fields or as a liner base for their backyard swimming pools.

After hoeing this amalgam of clays into submission over two weeks of lumbar-shredding work, I planted myself in a recliner and grew tipsy, imbibing a favorite beverage and dreaming of plants in the Jack- in- a- beanstalk category.

Be careful - as my English teacher would say - for what you wish.

I soon reaped all of the horrifying results that Jack achieved without any of the fun (or golden egg- laying geese). Giants (swamp mosquitoes) chased me, women (neighbor ladies) slapped me, and I was - for a time - trapped in an oven (more on that later).

Anyway - despite the soil, despite my over or under watering, despite no fertilizer of any kind, despite the bugs, despite the meager 4-6 hours of sunlight a day, these gardens actually produced stuff !

These caretaker-challenged gardens triumphed over their creator's (me) lack of intelligent design and gave me spinach, dill, parsley, basil, cucumbers, cantaloupes, pumpkins, tomatoes, bell peppers, giant sunflowers, sage, birdhouse gourds, and jalapeno peppers.

On the ornamental side, they gave me brilliant red fairy trumpets, creamy white roses, sky blue, white, periwinkle, and purple morning glories, yellow calendula, blue flax, snowy white achillea, red/ orange/ yellow daisies, purplish bluebonnets, cerulean bachelor buttons, lavender lavender, and did i mention a giant sunflower that was 12 feet tall and had a head that was more than a foot across !?

If this is not evidence of evolution interacting with the life force, I am a monkey's uncle !

But that bombardment of braggadocio in the preceding paragraphs does not the whole story tell. I learned a heck of a lot about what to do next year because most of my garden would have been adjudged an abject failure had you compared it to an LSU Master Gardener's blue-ribbon winning efforts !

Where I over watered, mold grew. Where I planted too closely, plantswerecrowded and produced stunted fruit. Where I did not water enough, plants wilted. Where I didn't break up the clay deep enough and prepared a more shallow bed, plants toppled over.

Where the sun did not shine long enough, plants were small. Where I did not build up a raised bed, plants drowned. Where I did not mix in lots of organic material, fruit was pygmy-sized.

But all of these hard lessons learned did not my enthusiasm lessen. I was as proud as a papa could be about my foot-long cucumbers; baseball-sized bell peppers; juicy, tasty tomatoes; shot-put sized, juicy and sweet cantaloupes; birdhouse -to -be gourd; seven -foot tall and two -foot wide monster dill; 30 -inch tall basil; bushy big sage; frilly, full parsley; blue-green, bold broccoli, screaming orange, basketball-sized pumpkins, and did i mention that flagpole - sized giant sunflower ?

Life, as they say, began in a garden. My life was renewed there.

Walkabout

On most days ( but those like this one are my favorite - a cool, sunny fall morning ) I love to go on a walk.


Perhaps I shall take an hour's walk this morning (most of my walks are for an hour or less )

As I place one foot in front of the other, I always marvel at the feeling of the fullness of life that's in the very air, and resolve to never lose sight of how precious just an hour's walk can be.

Will I see or hear a favorite bird (I have many), or smell a favorite odor (I have many), or touch an unusual surface with my foot or hand (there are so many out there) or taste a favorite herb growing wild along the roadside ?

Ah, but mostly, will I be able to feel the glory of the life force all around me - and will I make plans for a longer walk ?


Perhaps I shall walk for an entire morning -

Now we're talking. A whole morning's walk will give me a chance to explore more without settling for a "catch-as-catch-can" experience during my brief hour perambulating.

I now will make time to veer off of the path and take chances and make guesses and ramble and wander and wonder a bit. I will be certainly take care to carry a few things with me : water, binoculars, a staff or two, a snack, a small journal and pen, a small camera, hats, good shoes.

I will have time to do that most sumptuous thing on a walk: stop walking; to watch a bunny feed, to locate the source of a bird's call, to see a caterpillar inch up a stalk for her breakfast.

This is my favorite type of walk, as it blends length and do-ability - I just need a whole morning !


Perhaps I shall walk for a day or more - ah - the luxury of it !



A whole day or more ! Surely I will have planned this walk to maximize the pleasure and chances of a fantastical experience. Even if the walk is for a week - it's done in day-tight compartments - so a day's walk is what I shall describe.

I can do all the things mentioned previously PLUS a few more things a whole day or more's time makes possible : I will have researched and so know what to look for, what to smell for, what to touch (and not !), what to taste, what to listen for; all that's left is what to feel - and that is at chance's door - how fabulous !

I am pre-dispositioned to want to feel the full measure of the life force as it courses all around me in naked nature. So I will look for ways to fit it seamlessly: I may sit in a tree for awhile, or wade through a brook, or sit in tall grass, or lie on the ground.

I will have time for an afternoon nap or a spate of writing in my journal after a sumptuous lunch. Food tastes better on the trail.

I will make the time for long stretches of what others might dismiss as "doing nothing" - whether that means watching nature or wandering aside the main path or simply stopping by the path to soak in the surroundings.

I will be making a place to stay for a bit - whether it's just for lunch or overnight or over several nights. That brings a whole set of challenges/opportunities, each one to be relished and realized for all it's worth.

I will prepare a meal - and indulge in all of the sensuality that involves (I love the whole process - the gathering of the food, the preparation, the cooking, the eating and sharing during the meal, the cleaning up, and, finally, the deep satisfaction of having re-created this ritual of life in a way I shall cherish in fond remembrance.


Here's the first couple to walk across the USA on the Discovery Trail - 4,900miles in eight months; they just finished up Saturday Oct 15 ! Here's the newstory about them.

Several cross-country walks are definitely on my list of things to do in the next 20 years. I know I want to walk across not only the USA but also France, England, New Zealand, an African Country, Japan, India, and parts of China.

The longest walks I have completed so far are only a week or so in duration, so I know I have a lot of training to do. But I did love my walks on the Appalachian Trail near Bryson City, NC; the Green Mountain Trail near Middlebury, Vermont; the Pacific Coast Trail near both Mammoth Lakes, CA and White Salmon, WA; and many walks on lesser-known trails in different parts of the USA and a couple in Ireland.

I remember so many walks from 1,2,3,5,10,20,35, and 50 years ago and many times in between that I know I shall write about them all one day.

Like fingerprints - no two walks are the same - and each has created its own stamp upon my body, mind, and soul.


So what am I waiting for ?

Harvest Festival of Fun

Crowd of 300,000 on October 15, 2005 at Crowley Rice Festival

Yesterday - October 14, 2005 - was one of those "Perfect Days" about which I wrote earlier in this blog (Perfect Day) .

My sister Jackie and I left Lafayette area early in the morning and traveled over country roads to the Iota State School where we found and purchased several plants from horticulturalist Greg Meche of Crowley. He's created paradise at Point-aux-Loups (an old place name in Acadia Parish near his nursery).

An entire post could be written about just that visit (and will be - look for it when ISS holds it annual fall plant sale). Suffice it to say for now that the Iota State School, under Meche's direction, has a phenomenal variety of high-quality, first-rate plants for sale at phenomenal prices.

We chose, among others, a few sweet olive, gardenia, cypress, weeping willow, spago palm, hummingbird, and day lilly varieties, and made out like bandits at those prices. Meche was especially helpful in sharing tips about the planting and caring for our new plant-world friends.

Then we were off to Crowley, where we found our 80-year-old father Emile sitting on his front porch, scowling. But he managed a grin or two when the conversation turned to the Rice Festival and especially a famous RF all-day party at Kenny Keigley's home.

Keigley, who truly loves our father as a fifth son would (Dad has four biological sons but has earned the lasting love of hundreds of other "sons" in a 20+-year career as a baseball coach in Crowley), recently purchased a lovely home a block from downtown Crowley (site of the festival) and

invites friends over to relax in the shade, use a first-class bathroom, share a bite to eat and a cool drink of your choice and perhaps visit with hometown folks you may not have seen in 15 or 20 years - right alongside those you saw last week.

This was a special highlight of the day - because Dad loves going there and it was obvious he was enjoying himself talking to Robert Habetz - with whom he played Fast-pitch softball 40 years ago on the Crowley Knights of Columbus team that was perennial champions in its SW Louisiana league.

2005 Children's Parade October 14, 2005 at Rice Festival

My sister Jackie and I also enjoyed a walk up and down Parkerson Avenue downtown, and each ran into several friends whom we had not seen in several years (in one case for me - 20+ years), stopping to briefly catch up and exchange hugs or handshakes and contact info.

One, an evacuee from New Orleans who had never been the Rice Festival, even walked with us for an hour before she had to return to her temporary job in Lafayette. Ironically - she had performed in Crowley in early1985 at an event in the Rice Festival Building - but had never attended the festival itself until yesterday.

This was exhilarating. Some longtime friends can pick up right where you left off with them with astounding accuracy and perfect emotional pitch. I was falling in love all over again with many of the ladies and also feeling that powerful "buddy" relationship re-bonding with the guys.

Laced all through our walk were sweet remembrances of our recently-deceased Mother "Sis," and how she loved her hometown's festival. Sis attended last year (2004) with Jackie, and she shared some classic quotes and behavior mom dished out during her final Rice Festival fun time.

"Good grief, people are fatter !" Sis deadpanned to Jax as they walked up and down the seven-blocks of food booths and games and rides and exhibits (mom weighed less than 100 pounds at the time but spent most of her life with shapely curves and post-baby [she had eight!] weight).

Jackie recounted that Sis would also motion "come here" with an index finger to children, pointing out candy left lying on the street after the Grand Parade's treat-tossing float riders had passed. After the child would capture the unclaimed sweet stuff, mom would say "you keep it," as if she were bestowing a gift on them.

Along the way - we bought a "poke chop sammich" from a famous booth that slathers two pieces of white bread with BBQ sauce and plops a pork chop down between them that hangs over the sides all around. Yum. We washed it down with lemonade chocked full of cracked ice and floating lemon slices.

We enjoyed watching the children's parade, and a school at which Jackie is assistant principal (Mermentau Elementary) won first place with a Two-Story Mardi Gras Float lookalike, complete with a New Orleans-style street lamp atop it all and plenty of youngins flinging purple, green, and gold beads. They deserved to win.

It all ended way too soon - but inspired me to do this again.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again - if you time it right !

We did.

, . ? ! ( ) " " : ; ' - ~ A * . . .

Check out those commas ( , ) ~ seen here at top of that circle in a group of four.

That's what I am, expressed as punctuation : a comma !

Oh, I used to feel that I was an exclamation mark ( ! ) ; but I'm not, and now doubt whether I ever was (except for brief amounts of time).

Definitely a comma
,
yep. that's me.

A comma signals that there's more to come. That characteristic, in one of those eerie coincidences, also is a feature of the meaning of my formal first name, which supposedly means "one who adds," or so I've read.

The comma conveys the feeling that the thought or action or imagining or hope or joy expressed is just one in a series, and not,





like the period,the end of things ( . ), or,
like the question mark, an interrogation ( ? ) , or
like the exclamation point, an indicator of emphasis or surprise ( ! ) , or
like parentheses, a clarifier or whisperer { ( ) } , or,
like quotation marks, a sign of attribution ( " " ) , or,
like the colon, an equalizer or set up for examples ( : ) , or,
like the semi-colon, a connector ( ; ) , or,
like the apostrophe, a reducer or owner ( ' ), or,
like the hyphen, a compounder or co-joiner ( - ) , or,
like the dash, an interruption or change in direction ( ~ ), or,
like the CAPITAL LETTER, an indicator of prominence ( IMPORTANT ), or ,
like the asterisk, a wild card that can mean many things ( * ), or,
like the ellipsis, an indicator of missing things ( . . . ) , and, finally,
speaking of missing things,

I trust I have not left out any punctuation commonly used in the English language.

Anyway - I now feel that many of us are commas, save for those moments when we find it necessary or unavoidable or just plain fun to venture into being more like those other realms of punctuation, but those times are marked by their celerity.



Yet we all know people who are most akin to periods - those folks whose primary activity in life seems to be stopping things.

The question marks are relentless in their questioning of everything.
As for the exclamation marks, they can be exhausting to be around, with all of their enthusiastic drama constantly on display.
Parentheses are a curious type, with all their furtive asides.
Quotation marks are in a never-ending quest for legitimacy by using others' words.
Colons (no potty jokes here) are pedantic, giving us plenty of examples.
Semi-colons (no half-potty jokes here) are joiners.
Apostrophes are ownership-oriented or reductionists.
Hyphens are multi-tasking over-achievers.
Dashes can be - what's the word - distracting, what with all the changes in direction.
CAPITAL LETTERS are so obviously screaming for our attention.
And those who are primarily ellipses are forever leaving out more than they ever include.

At one time or another, I admit I have been all of these, but try to live as a comma most of the time; I am simply more at home there, more "me" as a " , " than anything else. So there ! Make of that what you will ~

P.S. Here's a cute article along the same lines. Here's a quiz that's fun but limited.

Say Cheese

Michaela York, with John Folse (far right) and guest on their WRKF Radio Show

Phew ! (or is it Whew ! ? - I never know.) Can you feel the rush of air from my lungs as I sigh in relief ?

Seventeen straight days of blogging to start this exercise was fun - but, ultimately, I knew I would settle into a natural rhythm where some days I blog and others I don't - just like 99 and 44/100ths percent of all bloggers.

Tuesday October 11 was just "one of those days" where so much was happening that I simply did not get to sit down and create an entry. But today's' another matter. Let's start with yesterday.

After making my early-morning rounds in the fall garden (pumpkins, broccoli, cantaloupe, dill, parsley, basil, green onions, chives, spinach, sunflowers, fairy trumpets, morning glories, roses, wandering jew, flax, and several perennials plus the wonderful volunteers of various kinds that keep coming up), off I went to Baton Rouge to have lunch with my brother John.

He's senior paralegal for a New Orleans Law firm that's had to relocate to Baton Rouge for awhile, but the strain of his personal refugee status has only put a small dent in his effervescent personality.

Lunch was nice: just a sandwich, but he's good company and is the sibling who travels the most, so I got to enjoy - albeit vicariously - his travel adventures through his re-telling of them.

Then it was off to spend a fascinating 90 minutes with Michaela York, Director of Communications with The John Folse Company, in nearby Gonzales.

Michaela is one of those prized people who gives you a hug once she gets to know you, and I was the beneficiary of her good-natured affection to start our visit.

As a regular listener every Saturday morning from 11-noon (central time) to John Folse's radio show "Stirrin it up" (listen to it here)

(and also here) - I wanted to see the facilities about which he was always talking - and I was lucky to have Michaela as my guide / host. Although she is often wrestling an octopus in terms of a to-do list, she is unfailingly upbeat and fun !

If you need or want any info on the company's products or services, she's the one to contact.

The John Folse Company makes many fine things to eat - but the champion product has to be the cheese. His Fleur-de-Lis and Fleur-de-Teche cheeses have won several well-deserved awards, and deservedly so - they are way beyond delicious all the way to sumptuous, heavenly, and to die for !

During my grand tour - I began to understand why his whole company has succeeded. He has stayed close to his mission of spreading the culture through its tastiest expression : food and cooking.

The difference is John Folse takes the extra effort to provide the historical background and setting, and explains the heritage of many of the numerous variations on any one theme or dish that he prepares.

Visit his web site.

It's a twelve-course treat in and of itself !

Legends of the Fall

One of my Legends of the Fall with his trophies

The finest gift I ever received from a student (back when I was teaching) was a shadowbox made by the student and the student's grandmother. Inside, there were five leaves of various fall colors arranged pretty much like you see above in the photo, a few feathers from moulting birds of various kinds, a drawing of a meteor streaking through the constellation Leo, and this inscription:

To my fourth grade teacher, thank you for teaching me much more than math and reading and science and history as you were charged to do. Thank you for also teaching me how to catch leaves falling from trees in windy weather, what to do to attract birds to our classroom feeder, where to look to see meteors during the Leonid shower, and why certain groups of stars have names and telling us the stories attached to them. You have inspired a lifetime of learning.

Well, you can imagine how that made me feel. Years later, one of the lessons I learned from those fourth-grade students still motivates me:

Create Legends of the Fall (or any other season) by encouraging others to dream big, think big, feel big, learn big and most of all believe in something bigger than yourself - and do it all in the spirit of having the most fun you can have.

Another illustration: When my own son Christopher was only four, he asked me if he would ever have a trophy of his own in his room. He must have seen one in a cartoon and it caught not only his eye but his imagination.

Since we had this ongoing game where we used ever-increasing superlatives to tell each other how much we loved each other, I knew immediately what kind of trophy he would get.

"I love you more than all the raindrops in a thunderstorm," I would say to start the game. "Well I love YOU more than all the leaves in the forest !" he would shoot back, and the game was on, as we each tried to out-do the other in the choice of our superlative.

To signal the end of the game, I would always finish with "You are the best boy in the whole world !"

So a few days later, I brought home his trophy of Atlas holding the earth on his shoulders with this inscription:

Christopher
Best Boy
Whole World

He loved it. He's earned many trophies since then (he's 11 now), but that's still his favorite, earning center placement on his top shelf, with the other ones flanking it to either side.

With all the mass communication of TV, movies, video games, and who knows what else bombarding us with their images of who is a legend or a hero, it's more important than ever to create our own Legends and Heroes from the events of everyday life.

That young man at the top was recognized as "World's Greatest Leaf Catcher" that day, and he was, for there was no greater catcher of leaves on that certain day, at that certain time, in that certain place, in that certain school yard, than was he.

The title made him beam (as you can clearly see above), and you know what ? It didn't matter to him one bit that he might not be the World's Greatest Leaf Catcher the next day, because he just might be the World's Greatest Bug Catcher by then !

Bestow a fun, superlative title on someone you love today.

Pentimento

See head of a deer (esp black nose), center 3/4 down ? Pentimento !

Pentimento is an Italian-derived phrase used to describe what happens when evidence of an earlier painting becomes visible on a canvas where the paint from a subsequent painting has become transparent.

The most famous use of this wonderful word occurred when Lillian Hellman chose it as the title of one of her autobiographies. Here's what she had to say about the word:

"Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter "repented", changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again." (Pentimento, Little, Brown &Co., 1973)

That's when I became intrigued by the word pentimento, and wanted to know more about it. As I researched the word, I came to a greater appreciation for its existence in all of our lives. Here's what I mean :

We each have one canvas upon which to paint our life's experience.

We continually "paint" on it as we experience life in all of its sundry and wondrous forms. Sometimes, evidence of our earlier "painting" shows through. Sometimes this has a startling effect, sometimes soothing, sometimes sad, sometimes confusing, sometimes illuminating.

Pentimento is an opportunity more than anything else. A chance to learn from what shows through from our "earlier painting(s)."

Now the very thing that this beautiful word describes is happening in my own life more and more often.

Just recently, I began gardening again after its absence from my every day life for more than 40 years. It had "reappeared" on my life's canvas even after so many years of having been "painted over" by other activities.

It has now become one of the greatest joys I experience. And I am by no means as successful (yet) as was my maternal grandfather, who introduced me to gardening a half-century ago and encouraged me to help him in his garden (which I did), located in his backyard, across the street from my own home. He soon established a second garden - this one in my backyard - and I assisted him in both gardens for several years.

Cooking is another example. Though I once helped my maternal grandmother and mother cook (I was the oldest of eight children and they simply needed my help), I drifted away from the frequent preparation of meals after leaving home for LSU in the fall of 1969, and cooked a meal only occasionally for many years.

That earlier experience, though, "shown through" many years later, when I became a father late in life and began cooking on a regular basis again. Suddenly I became aware of my preference for "certain ways of doing cooking-related things." Another "pentimento" had shown through subsequent behavior.

The pentimento I love most in my life has to do with human relationships.

Recently my mother died (August 6, 2005). During the final months of her life, most of my siblings came together around her. To my deep satisfaction (and surprise), this group of brothers and sisters who gathered around Mom grew closer together than we have ever been - even as children growing up together and certainly since then.

But the relationship template was there upon which to build : a "pentimento" from an earlier experience as siblings growing up together.

The same thing has been happening with friends from an earlier era in my life. As I reconnect with them, the "pentimento" of experience from our earlier friendship has shown through and helped us appreciate what we had then and how we might build upon that to create an even deeper friendship now.

This has been a very fulfilling and enriching experience for me, and I trust for my friends as well, even though the "repainting" can often be messy and impossible to foresee or control !

Pentimento.

Have some fun finding, then exploring, your pentimenti. Take them in. Learn from them. Go from there.

And don't be concerned with the messiness, or impermanence, of paint.

Just get busy painting !