I yam what I yam

Popeye's signature and confidently self-aware statement always reminded me of one of my favorite foods : the sweet potato, or yam*(click on title of this entry to learn the difference).

And today I am going to let you in on a secret that you will thank me for repeatedly if you have any taste for the orange-fleshed vegetable at all.

Grab a pencil. Tell your friends and relatives. Be prepared for "thank you's" aplenty.

I have found a man who grows sweet potatoes as a sideline - and does it organically ("I can't afford to do it any other way - plus it's the right thing to do," he says), and charges - hold onto your hat - an incredibly low price when you buy them in bags of 20 pounds of sweet potatoes each.

The way these treasures taste, that's about a three-day supply.

His name is Mr. Clifton Allen. He is one of those "good men" who works extremely hard at his regular job (he's a maintenance supervisor at Borden's Inc. in Lafayette, Louisiana) PLUS he goes home after a hard day and toils extremely hard at creating several organically-grown crops each year (okra and sweet potatoes this year).

Now his 2005 crop of okra is LONG gone, but you still have a chance to buy some of his incredibly sweet and full yams if you act quickly (and just in time for Thanksgiving).

Here's what you do :

Call (or just drop by) the Lafayette main office of Borden, Inc. (337-232-5172, 1308 Bertrand Drive = just north of University Medical Center ) during the day Tuesday through Saturday and ask to speak to Mr. Clifton Allen back in maintenance.

You might have to leave a message for him to call you back. He will take your order (the potatoes come in 20-pound bags and sell for an unbelievably low price - but he reserves the right to raise his prices - so order soon !), fill a bag full of sweet potatoes at his home overnight, and bring those wonderful spuds to work with him at Borden's the next day or two, where you can drop by, pay him, and pick them up.

This man is straightforward, honest, hard-working, and wants to do the right thing no matter what. So tip him or face eternal bad karma.

His good karma is so powerful that his son just returned from an entire year serving in Iraq with the 256th Louisiana National Guard as a Baghdad Airport road guard (one of the most dangerous jobs over there) and returned healthy and wiser (we hope wealthy one day, too, as he is studying at UL-L to enter the medical profession).

Today - I popped a few of the sweet potatoes he sold me into the over at 400 degrees and let 'em bake for about an hour after brushing them with olive oil. Testing them with a toothpick let me know they were ready - and I only added real butter but others have tried a touch of salt and cayenne pepper and entered nirvana soon thereafter.

These premium sweet potatoes are neither stringy nor dry, and their full, sweet, yet hearty taste will stay with you (in a good way) long after you have finished eating more than your share for one sitting.

I know this from personal experience.

And I yam what I yam.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SWEET POTATO AND A YAM?

Several decades ago when orange flesh sweet potatoes were introduced in the southern United States producers and shippers desired to distinguish them from the more traditional white flesh types. The African word "nyami" referring to the starchy, edible root of the Dioscorea genus of plants was adopted in its English form, "yam". Yams in the U.S. are actually sweet potatoes with relatively moist texture and orange flesh. Although the terms are generally used interchangeably, the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that the label "yam" always be accompanied by "sweet potato."

The versatile sweet potato is ideal fare for the health - conscious food consumer. With the ever-growing interest in health and natural foods, the sweet potato is quickly finding its place in the family weekly diet the year around. The sweet potato blends with herbs, spices and flavorings producing delicious dishes of all types. From processed baby foods to the main dishes, casseroles, salads, breads and desserts, sweet potatoes add valuable, appetizing nutrients and color to any meal.

As a main dish or prepared as a dessert, the sweet potato is a nutritious and economical food. One baked sweet potato (3 1/2 ounce serving) provides over 8,800 IU of vitamin A or about twice the recommended daily allowance, yet it contains only 141 calories making it valuable for the weight watcher. This nutritious vegetable provides 42 percent of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for vitamin C, 6 percent of the RDA for calcium, 10 percent of the RDA for iron, and 8 percent of the RDA for thiamine for healthy adults. It is low in sodium and is a good source of fiber and other important vitamins and minerals. A complex carbohydrate food source, it provides beta carotene which may be a factor in reducing the risk of certain cancers.

For the most food value, choose sweet potatoes of a deep orange color.

When buying sweet potatoes, select sound, firm roots. Handle them carefully to prevent bruising. Storage in a dry, unrefrigerated bin kept at 55-60 degrees F. is best. DO NOT REFRIGERATE, because temperatures below 55 degrees F. will chill this tropical vegetable giving it a hard core and an undesirable taste when cooked.

Wash cured sweet potatoes and bake or boil until slightly soft. If boiled, drain immediately. Thoroughly cool the baked or boiled sweet potatoes. Wrap individually (skins left on) in freezer film or foil and place in plastic freezer bags. Seal, label and freeze.

Most sweet potato dishes freeze well. Save time and energy by making a sweet potato dish to serve and one to store in the freezer.

Helpful Hints:

* Bake a large pan of sweet potatoes at the same time. This saves time and energy. Freeze for later use or store the sweet potatoes in the refrigerator for 7 to 10 days.
* Freshly dug or uncured sweet potatoes are better boiled and used in dishes that include fruits or syrups. The curing process makes the sweet potato sweeter and improves the cooking quality.
* Canned or frozen sweet potatoes may be substituted for the fresh form in any recipe calling for cooked sweet potatoes as the starting point. Canned sweet potatoes are generally smaller in diameter because of their better canning qualities. Six to eight canned sweet potatoes are approximately the equivalent of four medium fresh sweet potatoes. One can use the measurement relationship below as a guideline.
Fresh Canned Cooked & Mashed
2 medium
sweet potatoes 3 to 4 1 1/4 cups
3 medium 1 pound can 2 cups
4 medium
(23 ounces) 3 quart cans 2 l/2 cups
* To reduce calories in your favorite sweet potato recipe, experiment with the recipe by reducing the sugar or fat by using the next lower measure on the measuring cup. For example, when a recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar or fat, reduce the amount to 3/4 cup. For 3/4 cup, reduce it to 2/3 cup, and so on.
* Sweet potatoes make an attractive house plant. To grow a sweet potato vine, use a jar with an opening that will support it. Place the sweet potato in a jar of water with its narrow end down. Put the jar in a warm, dark place and keep the jar filled with water. New roots willstart to grow, and in about 10 days, the stem will start to grow. As soon as this happens, put the jar in a sunny window. As the vine grows, it can be left to trail or trained to climb.

Sweet potatoes can be baked, boiled, fried, broiled, canned or frozen. They can also be cooked in the microwave oven.

Before cooking sweet potatoes, scrub skin and trim off any bruised or woody portions.

If you are cutting calories, serve a plain sweet potato, cut down on margarine or butter and use skim milk or unsweetened orange juice as liquid when you prepare mashed sweet potatoes.

Remember, it is what you add to the sweet potato that increases calories.
1 small, baked in skin ...............................141 calories
3 1/2 ounces, candied................................168 calories
3 1/2 ounces, canned, syrup pack.........114 calories

A freshly baked or boiled sweet potato is delicious and nutritious. You need only to add a pat of butter or serve it plain. Don't feel that you must add high-calorie ingredients to make the sweet potato acceptable.

Rub a little fat or oil over clean and dry sweet potatoes of uniform size. Place on baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees F. until soft, 30 to 50 minutes, depending on size. Sweet potatoes that are greased before baking peel easily.

Boiled Sweet Potatoes: Drop clean sweet potatoes into enough boiling water to cover them. Cover pan and return water to boiling as quickly as possible. Lower heat and cook until tender. Drain at once. Peel and season with butter and salt to taste. Use 1 medium sweet potato per person. Boiled sweet potatoes can be used for pies, cookies, casseroles, glazed, candied or frozen.

Deep Fat French Fried Sweet Potatoes: Pare and cut into length-wise strips, about 1/2 inch thick. Heat oil in fryer to 365 degrees F. Keep fry basket in fat as it heats.

Raise basket and add enough sweet potato strips to cover bottom of basket. Lower basket slowly into hot fat. If fat bubbles much, lift and lower basket until bubbling subsides. Fry until sweet potato strips are brown and tender. Remove from hot oil and drain onto paper towels. Sprinkle with salt, if desired. Spread sweet potatoes on baking sheet and place in a warm oven while others are being cooked.

Charcoal Broiled Sweet Potatoes: Rub a little fat over clean sweet potato skins. Wrap double foil loosely around sweet potatoes. Cook in coals for about 45 minutes. Keep warm on edge of grill.

Skillet Sweet Potatoes: In large deep skillet, heat 1 1/2 inch deep vegetable oil to 365 degrees F. Add sweet potato strips to cover bottom of skillet; fry 5 minutes or until brown and tender. Remove from hot oil and drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with salt or powdered sugar.

Microwave Sweet Potatoes: For best results, choose uniform size sweet potatoes. Pierce washed sweet potatoes with a fork. Place on paper towel on shelf of microwave oven 1 inch apart. Turn sweet potatoes over and rearrange after half of cooking time. Cook on HIGH power level. Cooking time will vary, depending on the number of sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potatoes Minutes
1 - 4 to 6
2 - 6 to 8
3 - 8 to 12
4 - 12 to 16
5 - 16 to 20

Sweet potatoes may still feel firm when done. Let stand 5 minutes to soften.

Candied Sweet Potatoes

6 medium sweet potatoes
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons butter

Scrub sweet potatoes thoroughly. Drop them in enough boiling salted water to cover sweet potatoes. Cover pan. Lower heat and cook 15 to 20 minutes. Drain; peel sweet potatoes and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Put into buttered baking dish. Combine sugar, water and butter. Boil 2-3 minutes, then pour over cooked, sliced sweet potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 30 minutes or until lightly brown. Spoon syrup over sweet potatoes several times while baking. Lemon juice or lemon slices on top of sweet potatoes while baking will improve flavor and help retain their bright color. Yield: 6 servings

SWEET POTATO BUTTER

2 Garlic cloves
Freshly ground Pepper to taste
2 Sweet Potatoes
Fine Sea Salt to taste
2 medium Carrots
2 Tablespoons chopped Parsley
1/2 to 3/4 Cup Vegetable broth
2 Tablespoons chopped Cilantro (Optional)
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin Olive Oil


Put unpeeled garlic cloves on aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees F. in oven or toaster oven for about 10 minutes, until soft.

Microwave or boil unpeeled potatoes until done. Peel carrots, cut into large chunks and microwave or boil until soft.

Drain carrots, peel potatoes and put both in a food processor. Squeeze in the baked garlic. Add 1/2 cup broth and blend. With motor running, add oil and keep blending, adding more broth until puree is fairly smooth and full.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Dip can be made as long as a day in advance, covered and refrigerated. Bring to room temperature for serving and stir in the optional herbs right before serving with raw vegetables and bread sticks.

Makes 6 servings.

SWEET POTATO PECAN PIE (Makes one 9-inch pie)

1 (9 - inch) unbaked pastry shell
1 pound (2 medium) sweet potatoes (yams!), cooked and peeled
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1 (14 - ounce) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk, (NOT evaporated milk)
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
Pecan Topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In large mixer bowl, beat hot sweet potatoes with margarine until smooth. Add remaining ingredients except pastry shell and Pecan Topping; mix well. Pour into pastry shell. Bake 30 minutes. Remove from oven; spoon Pecan Topping evenly over top. bake 20 to 25 minutes longer or until golden brown. Cool. Serve warm or chilled. Refrigerate leftovers.

Pecan Topping: In small mixer bowl, combine 1 egg, 3 tablespoons dark corn syrup, 3 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar, 1 tablespoon margarine or butter, melted, and teaspoon maple flavoring; mix well. Stir in 1 cup chopped pecans.
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Rain Dance

OK - so I admit it's unusual for me to have TWO posts on the same subject so close in time to one another.

Get over it.

You see, it rained again Sunday, after previously having gone 36 days WITHOUT rain from Sept 25 - Oct 31, and the show put on by the neighborhood rain idiot was too funny NOT to report in my blog.

And what a show it is !

First, this obsessed guy sets out a bunch of 15-gallon rubbermaid containers under the eaves of his home, under the drip line.

He supplements these with a bunch of 5-gallon white buckets, no doubt gleaned from a trash pile somewhere, for he is a recycler for sure. He supplements THESE with a healthy scooping up of a dozen or so gallon-and-half plastic ice cream containers that once held giant portions of chocolate or Neapolitan or some other basic flavor.

No Ben & Jerry aficionado is he. But you can tell he loves ice cream by the extra 15-20 pounds he carries.

In addition to those three sizes of water-catchers, he has a couple of odd pieces: a blue-speckled "campfire pot," an aluminum candy dish, two twenty-gallon rubbermaid box-like containers, a two-gallon rectangular mop bucket, and a twelve-foot long and one-foot wide piece of roof tin that he saved from when he fixed up his roof a few years ago.

Now he positions this piece of tin (which is ribbed and grooved) precariously on the edge of one of those white buckets, which he's positioned on the second of his four front steps (that's why all of his neighbors can easily see it), and aligns it to catch water dripping in 12-foot long sheets off the roof - and as the water is collected it then trickles downhill into one of those 20-gallon containers on the ground, upon which he placed the other edge of the tin piece.

Now all of of this was an ingenious but spectacularly Rube Goldbergian plan just to collect a bit of rainwater.

I half expected to see mice and squirrels and birds and cats and dogs brought into his scheme before too long - as he has religiously fed all of those critters under the far edge gable of his home where water does not fall and they no doubt will feel some obligation to help him eventually.

I thought the show was over after he set up this intricate system for capturing rainwater - but no. Once it actually started raining - he went to work in earnest to maximize his catch.

First he let it rain for about ten minutes before springing into action. He had disappeared for those ten minutes inside of his home - but emerged when the gallon and a half ice cream mini-buckets were near full.

I almost laughed out loud when I saw him dressed in an old-fashioned yellow raincoat (think third grade) with cap AND galoshes AND an umbrella. No rainwater would ever touch HIS skin, that's for sure. I could see only a narrow eye slit in that yellow Mac rainhat - he looked like a poor yellow cousin of Darth Vader.

Soon he leapt into action: he poured the little ice cream buckets and other small containers that were full, into the 5 gallon buckets, which he then emptied into the larger 15 gallon containers. He seemed to be even-ing out all containers - so that at any given time all of the containers held exactly the same amount of water as measured by the distance of the water from the top rim .

I later figured out why he was constantly seeking to keep all containers at the same level level of fullness: if there were a pause in the rain, he feverishly brought all levels to be equal (again - not equal in amount of water held - but equal in terms of the distance from the top rim that the water reached).

Now, if it resumed raining (which it did, on and off), all containers would receive water without any of them overflowing (and apparently causing him visible pain as his cherished rainwater dribbled away, lost to him forever, into his soil) - and they would all end up becoming full at about the same time.

Key to note here is that - for some reason I do not understand - the rate of water coming off of his roof varied from place to place along his roof - so that his containers all filled at different rates !

Sure enough - he lost almost no water to overflowing containers - as he was constantly shifting water from the almost full containers where the water runoff was heaviest - to the less full ones. I could not take my eyes off of him during this exercise - and it WAS plenty of exercise for him, I could tell.

He even slipped and fell numerous times and even splashed water all over himself several times as he fell. That was the only water lost all day. When it had finally stopped raining - he sized up his catch and began another peculiar ritual.

He must drink a whole hell of a lot of milk. He has more than 60 gallon-sized milk jugs arranged perfectly in rows - like sentinels awaiting their call to action - under his carport.

Once it had stopped raining - or even DURING a rain, IF all containers had nearly filled up and now ALL containers were in danger of overflowing - he sprung into the action of filling those milk jugs by dunking them - two at a time - into the 15-gallon and two 20-gallon containers.

Once four jugs were filled, he scurried back under the carport with this extra catch and brought out four more milk jugs - he must have experimented with carrying more and less than four - because he always brought just four out to fill. Now the race was on to fill as many of those jugs as he could so that NO container of any size would overflow DURING the rainstorm.

More often than not he succeeded at this.

Only during an extremely long rainstorm late last summer did he manage to fill ALL containers and ALL jugs so that he had NO MORE ways of capturing any more rainwater, and once this realization dawned upon him, a look of failed dejection descended upon his countenance like I have never seen.

He sat, like a beat-up and bullied third grader in his yellow raincoat, on his front steps. I swear he was crying, but those moans could have been the wind through the trees, I am not sure.

By now I am almost certain that you have guessed the surprise ending to this story: I am that neighborhood rain idiot that loves collecting rainwater so much that I cannot help myself - I must try to catch every drop I can, and share it with my beloved plants.

Truth is, I am a rippling wind, water, and rain worshipper (try saying that five times very fast).

Have any containers hanging around your home that you're not using ?

Rock Dust: Fertilizer Supreme

TWO articles on Rock Dust as a fertilizer. First one in green, second in a brown. Want some science to back this claim up ? Here's an article and study.

Rock dust grows extra-big vegetables (and might save us from global warming)

By Paul Kelbie

Spring 2005

For years scientists have been warning of an apocalyptic future facing the world. With the prospect of an earth made infertile from over-production and mass reliance on chemicals, coupled with an atmosphere polluted by greenhouse gases there seems little to celebrate. But belief is growing that an answer to some of the earth's problems are not only at hand, but under our feet.

Specialists have just met in Perth to discuss the secrets of rock dust, a quarrying by-product that is at the heart of government-sponsored scientific trials and which, it is claimed, could revitalise barren soil and reverse climate change.

The recognition of the healing powers of rock dust comes after a 20-year campaign by two former school teachers, Cameron and Moira Thomson. They have been battling to prove that rock dust can replace the minerals that have been lost to the earth over the past 10,000 years and, as a result, rejuvenate the land and halt climate change.

To prove their point, the couple have converted six acres of open, infertile land in the Grampian foothills near Pitlochry into a modern Eden. Using little more than rock dust mixed with compost, they have created rich, deep soils capable of producing cabbages the size of footballs, onions bigger than coconuts and gooseberries as big as plums.

"This is a simple answer which doesn't involve drastic life changes by anyone," Ms Thomson said. "People don't have to stop driving cars to do this, just spread some rock dust on their gardens. We could cover the earth with rock dust and start to absorb carbon in a more natural fashion which, along with reducing emissions and using a combination of other initiatives, will have a better and faster response."

Before the Thomsons began their "good life" experiment, erosion and leaching
were so severe in the glen where they set up home that nothing had been grown there for almost 50 years. The basis of their theory is simple. By spreading a thin layer of the dust over the land, they are able to mimic the earth's glacial cycles which naturally fertilise the land.

Since the last ice age three million years ago, the earth has gone through 25 similar glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years. "We are 10,000 years into an interglacial - a hiatus between ice ages - meaning modern soils are relatively barren and artificial fertilisers are needed," Mr Thomson said.

"By spreading the dust we are doing in minutes what the earth takes thousands of years to do - putting essential minerals in the rocks back into the earth.

"Over the years the couple, who established the Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration (Seer) Centre charitable trust in 1997 to test their ideas, have slowly convinced others of their theory. They recently won a grant of almost £100,000 from the Scottish Executive to conduct Britain's first official rock dust trials.

The couple claim the technique may also play a significant role in the fight against climate change as calcium and magnesium in the dust converts carbon in the air into carbonates. Such is the interest in the theory that NASA in the US is examining it in preparation for growing plants on other planets.

The couple say that the rock dust means that crops don't need water to produce harvests of magnificent vegetables. "It would be perfect for Third World countries that are usually unable to grow crops because the land is so dry," Ms Thomson said. "This could hold the solution for them."

"There is no doubt that, when rock dust is mixed with compost, it has a dramatic effect on crop yields," said Alistair Lamont, president of the Chartered Institution of Waste Management, who is impressed by the Seer experiment. "Future waste strategy is going to rely heavily on the diversion of biodegradable municipal waste from landfill, and one of the treatments involved is composting so we need to find a home for that compost.

"Agricultural land is something we need to work on and the benefits of rock dust in combination with compost can be seen at the Seer Centre at harvest time. We need to get farming to take on board the value of remineralisation and re-fertilisation.

Mr Lamont added that evidence showed that, since 1940, the mineral contentof vegetables had fallen dramatically in this country. "We might be encouraged to eat a lot of vegetables but many don't contain the quantities of minerals that we need," he said.
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Dust to Dust
From Faultline Magazine

by Ron Sullivan

Some years ago, someone gave me a videotape called Stopping the Coming Ice Age, companion to the book The End: The Imminent Ice Age And How We Can Stop It, by the late Larry Ephron. My first thought was that I’d stumbled onto a horticultural cargo cult.

The originally rational premise of the video was that atmospheric pollution and the greenhouse effect would soon result, not in global warming, but in an Ice Age. More and more fresh water deposited in the Arctic and Antarctic by an increasing number of storms would cover North America and Eurasia with glaciers. This would cool the climates of the world’s major grain-producing areas enough to render them useless. Mass starvation, war over scarce resources, etc. etc., would follow. The root cause of all this was held to be the loss of forests worldwide; as they shrink and wither, their carbon-dioxide consumption and storage capacities go with them.

The video made a pretty good case for this part of the thesis. I myself was not convinced of every detail — phytoplankton are thought to play as much role in global climate as do forests, for example — but it wasn't insulting, nor was its tone more alarming than the news it conveyed. If its plea were to save the forests as they are, I’d endorse it heartily.

However. Here’s the horticultural part, and the scary part too. The video endorsed the wholesale use of rock dust as a fertilizer, in the wildlands as well as in the garden, and the speedy mass planting of "fast-growing trees" to replace the emaciated forests.

The rock dust (also called "gravel dust") was to be ground to powder and pumped out of trucks, airplanes, and other such Great Big Vehicles, over forests worldwide. Such dumping and pumping were shown in action on the tape. I had a sympathetic asthma attack just watching them.

Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees! A lot of what makes up a forest has lungs, folks; and some other inhabitants, notably amphibians, just absorb oxygen directly through their damp skins. Lock yourself in a room with a running fan and a few cans of talcum powder, combine the two, and meditate on the result.

Also scary was the exhortation about fast-growing trees. This is a certified crisis, after all, and steps must be taken quickly or we’ll all starve to death, die in resource wars, etc. etc. Great. There aren’t enough species being swamped and crowded out of existence by weedy alien competitors; we have to get a move on and plant fast-growing things. What grows fast? Acacias and tamarisks and such, plants that are already weedy pests all over the world, partly because they grow so fast.

The reasoning behind the rock dust fetish was this: supposedly, one big cause of the forests’ decline is that "the minerals have leached out of the soil." The glaciers of the Ice Age grind the surfaces of the rocks they pass over into dust; the dust is distributed around the world by wind and water, and in a homeostatic system all this renews the "demineralized" soil and makes it fertile enough to support vigorous plant life again. The newly revived tropical forests can again turn enough carbon dioxide into oxygen to alleviate the greenhouse effect, and the planet warms up again, and the glaciers recede.

I’m not a soil scientist, but I have a few lay questions: for example, if the minerals have leached out of the soil, what’s left? Soil consists of minerals and organic matter. I see no evidence that the world’s soils’ proportion of humus is increasing. That clay in your garden is rock dust. If the video's author's meant trace elements, it would make more sense to add compost or manures, as these would contain the same elements that went into the organism they came from: this stuff doesn’t get destroyed, or transmuted by metabolism into Something Else. Molybdenum in, molybdenum out.

Of course, it wouldn’t work well as a Grand Plan to dump planeloads of manure into all the world’s forests. I don’t want to think about what that sort of weather would do to a pleasant camping holiday. Partly cloudy with scattered … never mind.

If minerals are getting leached out of soil, where are they going? Into the sea, and desalting seawater would be a more reasonable way to recover them. Sorting the sodium chloride from everything else would be interesting, as would deciding which other minerals would be useful, and which harmful, and in what proportions. Of course, the wholesale dumping of dust wouldn't allow that distinction either.

A bigger question was the environmental impact of the proposed remineralization. Without a few more of the glaciers we were supposed to be forestalling, how was this rock to be rendered into dust, and where would it come from? Granite was the recommended rock; it would have to be quarried. Where? In some renditions of the argument, the stuff was called "gravel dust." Quarrying gravel is notoriously destructive to riparian lands, which are already endangered along with their citizens. The mining and grinding would certainly not be done by hand, and the fossil fuels used — I’ve never heard of a solar-powered power shovel — would of course contribute further to the greenhouse-gas problem, among others.

The question of whether we can or should stave off a new Ice Age by scattering rock dust is one thing. I haven’t heard much of the mass-dumping proposal lately, perhaps because its proponents voiced their sense of urgency by predicting worldwide starvation by 1995 and they’re too embarrassed to talk about it with their mouths full. There’s starvation aplenty, but also plenty of evidence that the problem is more maldistribution than global scarcity.

Craig Dremann of the Redwood City Seed Company tested some popular soil additives, analyzed their content, and reported the results in his 1988 booklet Organic Fertilizers: the Truth and the B.S. He said of granite dust (aka "glacier minerals"): "…vastly over-rated as a fertilizer or soil amendment. Useless as a fertilizer and extremely damaging [because of mining, processing, and transport impacts] to the environment."

He pointed out that at the recommended concentrations for saving the world - one pound per square foot, twenty tons per acre - just treating California would require two billion tons, two billion cubic yards. (Picture a granite cube three quarters of a mile on each side. Picture Half Dome sitting next to the cube, looking dwarfed.) Dremann suggested dryly that "a wiser plan might be to more efficiently recycle the nutrients we already flush down the toilet."

Well, yes, but isn’t it always harder to rally an excited new crusade around an old idea like housekeeping? And of course that has to be done steadily every day, and not with helicopters.
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Sick & Tired of Sick & Tired

T'aint no fun feeling low.

Somethin' or the other has grabbed my throat and scratched it up good. SO it's raw, hurts a bit, and produces a voice in a lower register. Reminds me of the old joke about a guy tellin' his girl that he loves her as he gently strokes that hollow spot in her neck. "Lower," she coos. So he tells her that he loves her in a deeper voice (rim shot).

In the fine tradition of folks who aren't sick very often (only once in the past year, and that because I am an idiot about eating things I should have either thrown away weeks ago OR added to the compost pile days ago), I am noting every little thing about my present malaise.

My head has that "filled with stuffin' " feeling (some friends, relatives, and ex-wives will be quick to add "And . . . ? " to that statement) that's not quite a headache and not quite painless. Aggrevatin' for sure.

I've spoken about the throat, but farther down there's somethin' a rumblin' around in my chest - and my alveo wouldn't lie : I am cone-jested up. SO I gulp down cough syrup / expectorant (doesn't taste as good as I recall when I was a youngin') and pop a few aspirin every six hours and am even takin' an anti-biotic (sounds like "Kee-Flex" - does that sound like a muscular antibiotic on steroids or what?).

I am forcing fluids (decaf Constant Comment tea with half-and-half is my favorite fluid after plain, cold water), and my kidneys don't cotton to that - so I'm scootin' to the restroom every so many minutes to relieve myself - but have half a mind to scamper out to the compost pile to add some of these medicated nutrients to the mix.

But in daylight hours, I won't risk becoming a guest of the county should a passerby see me giving a shot of nitrogen to the microbes at work out there. That will have to be an adventure under the cover of darkness.

My mouth is dry despite all the wet stuff sloshing around in there, so i suck on cough drops. I feel slightly sore all over, as if I had lifted beyond my normal range of weights during my exercise session in my gym (ha - at my gym they probably think I am either dead or in jail and wonder if I will ever return).

Not certain why my neck is particularly sore, but I would pay more than a reasonable price for someone to rub it for - oh - four straight hours or until I drift off, whichever comes last. What IS it about those neck and trapezius muscles, that they're always so sore ?

I have not lost my appetite, so some "Good Heavens" Blue Belle ice cream felt good going down mid-afternoon, and I ate a small breakfast and snack lunch. So this won't even qualify as a "weight-loss" flu or anything. Gotta get 15-30 pounds off somehow, and sometimes an illness is just the thing. But not this time.

Funny how we regard others when we are not up to snuff. We somehow assume they know of our plight and are ever-ready to assist us in servile ways. This is a serious misconception. If anything, others are irritated at our being slightly off our game and waste little time showing their displeasure.

Oh - such insidious behavior by others must be deftly displayed and dealt with - diplomacy is the coin of the realm in polite society - but a strain of some bug or the other that has you at its mercy creates a streak of self-centeredness surpassed only by politicians, very young children, and beautiful people, so diplomacy is out of the question.

In fact you feel more like ordering others around to do your bidding - and that attitude hardly goes down easily. More likely - others will find reasons simply not to be around you at all for as long as you are ill - and the sight of them rushing into other rooms ahead of your arrival gives you the feeling lepers must have suffered for millenia.

Of course the good side of this is that you will have more time to yourself - and that can be nice if you felt like doing anything other than wee-weeing and sleeping. Here's where I thank my lucky stars my mother instilled in me a love of reading - curling up with a good book is truly restorative, and often leads to - you guessed it - slumber.

But what a pleasure it can be building a cozy nest and surrounding yourself with all the accoutrements of ickiness: tissue paper, favorite beverage(s), candy, books, videos, tissue paper, drugs that would make a horse swoon, tissue paper, wet ones, favorite music, a computer, tissue paper, and the phone.

I guess I will be over this in a couple of days - drugs should work. But in the meantime, I have re-learned that feeling icky is not for sissies. I am sleepier, get tired sooner, so go to bed earlier and sleep longer (maybe that's one good effect) and generally am fed up with being me.

Can I be you for awhile ?

The Sexy Side of Rain

It was a long time coming and well worth the wait.

In a 6-hour period from late Monday evening near midnight to early morning Tuesday, about two inches of the life-giving moisture fell in great sheets throughout the area.

That’s more rain than had fallen in the previous 36 days combined.

And it’s not over yet.

“The forecast for your area is for the chance for more rain to return late Saturday into Sunday,” said a National Weather Service official.

“Until then, highs will be in the 70s and low 80s and lows in the 50s, with a chance of fog forming each night,” he noted.

This first good rain aftermore than a month of NO precipitation caught me about to retire with a favorite book in my cabin in the woods west of town.

Great black clouds, laden with moisture, rumbled as the front announced its coming earlier in the evening, and the promise did not go unfulfilled, as it had many, many times before, almost as a tease.

The initial cloudburst around 11:10 p.m. (I glanced at the digital clock when I heard the first drops pounding the roof) summoned me to the screen porch, where I sat and luxuriated in watching this sorely-missed weather phenomenon that transfers moisture from the oceans to the landmasses of the world.

These raindrops were hitting the trees and the ground to a reception of sustained applause, which seemed appropriate.

The harder the rain fell, the louder the applause, until it became thunderous in both a literal and figurative way.

The leaves and the blades of grass had been parched, thirsty beyond what you or I could endure, so crackled with pleasure as they were splashed with a million wet kisses.

A frothy concoction resulted, tiny bubbles celebrating the recharging of the earth’s engine, now revving up to give life where death had been stalking.

It was majestic.

Tiny crowns proclaimed each raindrop’s sovereignty as it hit puddles that were forming where none had existed for more than three million heartbeats, if measured in seconds.

The rains of Hurricane Rita 36 days ago seemed so far away, part of another story in another era, but the memory of trees is long, as long as the tap roots that dove deeper and deeper into dry earth to find water as the long hot summer wore on.

Many trees died during that hurricane, but now the silvery slices of life - dispensed drop upon drop - held out hope for healing those which survived.

Rain is the ultimate healing catalyst - it is not alive, yet nothing can live without its presence.

What the incessant sun and wind and heat had wrinkled, the rain was plumping back into juicy health.

Rain polishes, adding a glistening finish to all it touches, erasing the rough-edged textures that sucked up all light.

Liquid Diamonds

Beaded water droplets - like liquid diamonds - refracted the light into a thousand directions from each leaf, each blade of grass. The effect was one of a shimmering celebration of life, where a decorative array of raindrops mocked the ravages of drought.

The smell of life refreshed was thick : a slightly pungent aroma of sunburned hay and toasted grass bathed anew.

The wind worked the trees and bushes into a frenzy of flirting, waving to and fro in a come-on to the heavens to open up and give them its best shot.

Afterwards, when the deluge ended, the plop, plop of droplets resembled sweat from the heavenly exertion of all that rain-making.

That which could be renewed - was. That which could not - will be recycled.

Nature wastes nothing.

###

All Saints Day

I'm a little blue today.

Today, November 1st, is known as "All Saints Day" or "Day of the Dead" or by some other name in many parts of the world. It is the day from which Halloween (All Hallows Eve) evolved. And I am feeling wistful and a tad sad because it is a day I miss spending with my grandparents.

Today is the 20th anniversary (1985) of the final time my grandfather took me with him to his hometown cemetery and the 15th anniversary (1990) of the final time my grandmother took me with her to her hometown cemetery.

Previous to those two times, I had accompanied each of them, say, ten other times each over the years to those cemeteries to whitewash the graves of our common ancestors and place fresh flowers graveside.

Grandpa brought with him more than the paint and the flowers, though. He brought stories. As we brushed the fresh coat of glistening white paint onto the roughened surface of the concrete vault that held the bodies of his parents and grandparents, he talked.

"Your great-grandfather Fergus was a fair man. The saying about him was 'Fergus est juste.' (Fergus is fair) He would be called upon by others to settle disputes because he was well-known for his even-handedness.

Grandma did not have to bring paint. Her step-mother Anna (who just died in February 2005 at 101) lived across the street from the cemetery and so had the paint waiting there for us. Anna also always cooked a chicken and sausage gumbo (since it was mostly certain to be chilly on Nov 1st) and sweet potatoes and rice and tea and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Grandma also told stories about her father (who died in 1975 when I was 23) and mother, who are buried next to each other (I always wondered how Anna felt about this - and in fact she herself was not buried in that cemetery). My grandmother's mother died when my Gma was only 3 years old - she never knew her.

But she'd heard stories from her Uncle Jim, and still spoke with moist eyes and a lump in her throat about the mother she never had. (Gma was a grown woman when Anna married her father)

But today is a severe gray and drizzly, and no one will be visiting either of those cemeteries from our family, I muse, as a lump grows in my own throat at the thought of a tradition lost over time through neglect.

It is not only what we do in life that we may come to regret, but what we do not do.###

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.