Columnist John Merchant thinks that the trend to seek isolation in American society is increasing.
Certainly these devices allow the participants to express themselves in ways they would not in face-to-face encounters. Stereotypically, clowns and for that matter, stand-up comedians, whose shtick is to make us laugh, are morose people, sometimes suicidal.
Psychological experiments with mice who were allowed to breed without restriction in a confined space, showed that once the concentration of mice had reached some critical mass, they ceased to interact with each other. So it might be supposed that over- population could be at the root of the current tendency to withdraw, but I think not.
In the US, the major cities, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco have concentrations of population beyond what many people would consider tolerable, but outside of those places, population density couldn’t be more sparse.
Unlike the UK and Europe, where cities tend to run together in a contiguous urban and suburban sequence, US cities are easy to get away from, with the possible exception of Los Angeles’ spread, so if one desires some space for relief, it is quickly available. One can be in downtown Manhattan, and 20 minutes later on a good traffic day, be in rural New Jersey.
Recently, I heard two iconic statements that pinpoint what I am saying. The first was a phone call, in which the caller said, “Oh! I just wanted to leave a message. I didn’t actually want to speak to you.” The other was a response to an announcement that the tolls on a major highway were being automated for those who purchased a transponder. “That’s great,” the person said. “Now we won’t have to interact with the toll collectors!”
Personal electronics also are playing a part in separating us from each other. Once upon a time, the suburban commuter train was a wonderful opportunity to meet people and make friends on the ride to and from work. Now, there’s no sound of dialog, and if you look down the car, all you see are passengers with ebooks or cell phones in their hands, or some device stuck in their ear, or ears.
If you have need to speak with someone, with barely concealed irritation they will unplug one ear, or raise their eyes momentarily from their Kindle or iPad just long enough to provide the minimum information to silence you.
In the course of the thousands of hours I spent on airplanes when I travelled for business, I met many interesting people and heard fascinating stories about their lives and work. Now, on the rare occasions that I use air travel, all I observe are the devices that ensure there will be a minimum of conversation, if any, with your seat mate. Just imagine spending eight, ten or fifteen hours separated from someone by only the clothes you and they are wearing, and not exchanging a word. It happens.
The folk who don’t possess an iPod, iPad, Earbud or mobile phone have other means to isolate themselves: the thick file of papers to be poured over, the spread sheet filled with business minutiae that must be checked and scrutinized, or, on one of my trips, a play or film script that must be memorized.
So if population density isn’t the cause, why is it that we’re increasingly trying to avoid one another? My theory is that we are so overloaded with information of one sort or another that we are saturated by immediacy. And it’s not just the media; it’s the electronic billboards, retail signage, highway signs that also now include “smart signs” telling us of traffic conditions ahead, and even the distance to the next exit.
So in the end, conversation and personal interaction are the only forms of information flow over which we actually have control. When the US Congress passed the “Do Not Call” law that allows citizens to list their number if they do not wish to receive telephone sales calls, millions of people signed up within the first few days of the Law’s existence. Surprise, surprise!
# # #
For more of John's incisive columns please visit
http://www.openwriting.com/cgi-bin/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=1&search=john+merchant
And do visit his surprising Web site
http://home.comcast.net/~jwmerchant/site/
“Surely that requires onions, too,” Leon grinned at me. “After all, it is quite a serious swear that you’re swearing.”
If the inclination to use foul language becomes a habit, it can cause offence to those within hearing. The movies are full of offensive words, with cops referring to people as ‘sons-of-b…..s’ and ‘mother-f….r’. Indeed, the ‘F’ word, as it has become known, is liable to offend someone even when referred to as ‘The F Word’. It slips out without a thought if one isn’t careful, particularly in the heat of the moment, say, when a toe is stubbed, or one drops a plate of soup. As for ‘s...t’, well, it’s almost lost its verbal smell, it’s used so often.
The strong language that my father studiously avoided using in front of my mother and I: ‘bl…y’ and ‘b…er’ are almost tame when compared with some of the horrid expletives people use these days, but still jar on a sensitive or prudish ear.
When my 3-year-old daughter innocently came out with a good, strong, ‘Damn it!’ after her doll fell out of its pram, I resolved to replace all swear words with other words that could, as easily, become habitual, but be totally harmless when uttered in public.
So I resurrected ‘fiddlesticks and onions’ for serious occasions. This is an exclamation used by a good friend of mine which struck me as amusing when I first heard it. As it begins with a good, explosive ‘ffff’, it immediately releases tension, and often ends in a giggle, dissipating the annoyance that called for an expletive to be uttered in the first place.
Instead of the ‘b’ words that Dad controlled the usage of, I now exclaim, ‘Bother!’ ‘blow!’ or ‘dash!’, or all three at once in extreme cases. I ‘blast’ things that annoy me. Instead of ‘damn’, there’s ‘darn!’ Sometimes, when frustration gets the better of me, I’ll say, “Oh, for FIVE six seven eight nine….”
The purpose of swearing, unless it has become a habit, is, after all, to release tension caused by pain, anger or frustration. There are plenty of inoffensive words one can use in place of the very unpleasant terms that seem so popular today. Just make them up as you go along, or borrow from previous ages: ‘goldarn!’, ‘oops!’, ‘snakes and ladders!’ are a few that spring to mind. ‘Phooey!’ is good, and ‘shiver me timbers!’ can raise a laugh and defuse many a nasty situation.
There are few situations that call for hard-core swearing, after all. In conversation, talking about an ‘f….ing beautiful car’ is completely unnecessary, while talking about a car that is a master-piece is so much more imaginative and intelligent. Or it could be a ‘fabulous’ car if ‘F’ is on the tip of your tongue.
Of course, there are times when nothing else will release the tension, such as the moment I was videoed climbing the steepest of steep serial hills on the Otter Trail, my back-pack weighing down each step. The thankfully silent version clearly shows my mouth repeatedly forming the notorious ‘F-word’ as I crest the top of the hill only to be faced by another and another… It is a moment I have found hard to live down.
And I have to say that Hugh Grant’s opening line in Four Weddings and a Funeral has me laughing uproariously each time I see and hear him cursing a blue streak as he realises how late he is…
Swearing should be used only in extreme emergencies, when normal, acceptable words fail us, otherwise we will be in danger of offending everyone we know, including ourselves.
Until next time…. ‘here comes Treble!’
© Copyright Reserved
by Isabel Bradley
Brockhampton Estate, Herefordshire
Family Outdoor Trail, 11-19 February 11am-4pm
Dust off the winter cobwebs and make the most of the great outdoors at Brockhampton. Enjoy the early signs of spring with an outdoor trail, and keep an eye out for the rich variety of wildlife on the estate, along with historic farming breeds such as Hereford cattle and Ryeland sheep.
Normal admission charges apply, plus £2 per trail including prize.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01885 482077.
*
Brownsea Island, Dorset
It's a Bug's Life, 18-19 February 10am-4pm
Get creative with the creatures on Brownsea Island! Find us in the Visitor Centre during February half term and make the most of our free bug trails and make and take craft activities.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01202 707744.
*
Cragside, Northumberland
Water Wizards, 11-12 and 14-19 February 11.30am-3pm
Get hands on and investigate the wonder of water for yourself, experimenting just as Lord Armstrong once did. Take a walk around Tumbleton Lake and join our volunteers at each water station for interactive fun.
No admission charges apply*, there may be a small charge for some activities.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01669 620333.
*
Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden,North Yorkshire
School Holiday Heraldry Fun, 11-19 February 11am-3pm
Follow the clues on our trail and join in with drop-in craft activities in Swanley Grange. There are loads of things to see and explore at this World Heritage Site; play hide and seek in the Abbey Ruins, spot the different breeds in the medieval deer park or search for the grotto in the Georgian water garden.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01765 608888.
*
Hanbury Hall and Gardens, Worcestershire
Family Activity Days, 14 & 16 February 11am-4.30pm
Enjoy a trail around the garden and art and craft activities. Explore the grounds and surrounding countryside, or simply run wild in the children’s play area.
Trail only also available 13 & 15 February. Normal admission charges apply, plus a small additional charge for activities.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01527 821214.
*
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire
Children's Half Term Nature Trail, 11-19 February 11am-4pm
Explore the parkland and spot plants and wildlife on our self guided trail. Pick up a tracker pack and see what else you can find in the extensive house and parkland.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01332 842191.
*
Rufford Old Hall, Lancashire
Traditional Games & Snowdrop Trails, 13-15 February 11am-4pm
Join in traditional family games including draughts, Nine Men’s Morris, dominoes, snakes and ladders and ludo in the magnificent 16th century great hall at Rufford. If weather is fine Giant Chess, skittles and skipping will be on offer. Snowdrop walks at 1pm each day.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01704 821254
*
Scotney Castle, Kent
Bugs in the Rugs! 15-19 February 11am-3pm
Become a bug hunter in the Scotney mansion for half term. Old country houses are full of weird and wonderful bugs and beasties. Join in the fun and see if you can hunt down some of our creepy critters!
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01892 893 860.
*
Springhill, Co. Londonderry
Bird Box Day, 19 February 1-5pm
Help us rejuvenate Springhill’s bird boxes and discover which ones have been used. Build your own bird box to take home. Families welcome.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 028 8674 8210.
*
Stowe, Buckinghamshire
February Half Term at Stowe, 13-17 February 10am-4pm
Youngsters can enjoy teddy bear fun at Stowe this half term. Activities include teddy hide and seek (indoors and out), colouring sheets and create your own teddy bears' picnic.
Normal admission charges apply.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01280 822850.
*
Studland Beach and Nature Reserve, Dorset
Pirate Week, 13-17 February 10.30am-3.30pm
Join us at Studland for Pirate Week. Over the week there’ll be lots on; including a trail, sand sculpture fun, talk like a pirate lessons, den building, design your own pirate flag, make your own edible 'pieces of eight' and Studland stories.
Normal admission charges apply, plus small charge for some activities.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01929 450259.
*
Wallington, Northumberland
Wake Up at Wallington, 13-17 February 11am-12.30pm and 1.30pm-3pm
Join us to celebrate the start of spring with wildlife themed art and craft activities throughout the week, from bird box making and crafty creatures to leaf mask making and wild art.
No admission charges apply*.
Booking not needed.
For more information, please call 01670 773600.
*Cragside and Wallington, both in Northumberland, are waiving admission fees for the house and estate over this February half term.
]]>Ashes mingle with the earth
Earth lives for ever in Time
It takes the heat of the Sun
As it does the flood water
A seed is planted in the soil
In the womb of Mother Earth
To sprout and bloom in splendour
In God’s own time, Time Eternal
Ashes do not have any time
They merge with whence they came
Ashes have no voice, no ashen word
They merge and mingle with the dust
Ashes never matter in Life
Life is what this life is about
My own life is for a micro-second
A life is lived once - never again
*
Hariharan Balakrishnan
283 Shaheed Nagar
Bhubaneswar 751007
INDIA
Tel.: +919338246725
If you wish to purchase a copy of Hariharan's wonderful book of poems please contact him by clicking on fabalas02@gmail.com
All profits from the book will be donated to the cause of educating and improving the welfare of children.
Dear Pat,
So sorry not to have written before (I plead insane) in bluebottle voice. Exit right amid deafening applause.
I do hope you're very well.
We have survived yet another glorious English Winter. I wonder which day Summer falls on this year?
Oh but my dear I have been soooo busy since Christmas beside working at school. You know I was keen on Chuck Berry and I thought I was the only fan for miles but one mornin' on Dartford Stn. (that's so I don't have to write a long word like station) I was holding one of Chuck's records when a guy I knew at primary school 7-11 yrs y'know came up to me. He's got every record Chuck Berry ever made and all his mates have too, they are all rhythm and blues fans, real R&B I mean (not this Dinah Shore, Brook Benton crap) Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Chuck, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker all the Chicago bluesmen real lowdown stuff, marvelous. Bo Diddley he's another great.
Anyways the guy on the station, he is called Mick Jagger and all the chicks and the boys meet every Saturday morning in the 'Carousel' some juke-joint well one morning in Jan I was walking past and decided to look him up. Everybody's all over me I get invited to about 10 parties. Beside that Mick is the greatest R&B singer this side of the Atlantic and I don't mean maybe. I play guitar (electric) Chuck style we got us a bass player and drummer and rhythm-guitar and we practice 2 or 3 nights a week SWINGIN'.
Of course they're all rolling in money and in massive detached houses, crazy, one's even got a butler. I went round there with Mick (in the car of course Mick's not mine of course) OH BOY ENGLISH IS IMPOSSIBLE.
"Can I get you anything, sir?"
"Vodka and lime, please"
"Certainly, sir"
I really felt like a lord, nearly asked for my coronet when I left.
Everything here is just fine.
I just can't lay off Chuck Berry though, I recently got an LP of his straight from Chess Records Chicago cost me less than an English record.
Of course we've still got the old Lags here y'know Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and 2 new shockers Shane Fenton and Jora Leyton SUCH CRAP YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD. Except for that greaseball Sinatra ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Still I don't get bored anymore. This Saturday I am going to an all night party.
"I looked at my watch
It was four-o-five
Man I didn't know
If I was dead or alive"
Quote Chuck Berry
Reeling and a Rocking
12 galls of Beer Barrel of Cyder, 3 bottle Whiskey Wine. Her ma and pa gone away for the weekend I'll twist myself till I drop (I'm glad to say).
The Saturday after Mick and I are taking 2 girls over to our favourite Rhythm & Blues club over in Ealing, Middlesex.
They got a guy on electric harmonica Cyril Davies fabulous always half drunk unshaven plays like a mad man, marvelous.
Well then I can't think of anything else to bore you with, so I'll sign off goodnight viewers
BIG GRIN
Luff
Keith xxxxx
Who else would write such bloody crap
**
Author: Keith Richards with James Fox
Title: Keith Richards - Life
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Date: Copyright 2010 by Mindless Records, LLC
Pages: 77-79
Life
by Keith Richards by Back Bay Books
Paperback ~ Release Date: 2011-05-03
If you wish to read further: Buy Now
http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?1876
Should you use the above link to purchase a book, delanceyplace proceeds from your purchase will benefit a children's literacy project. All Delanceyplace profits are donated to charity.
Dan is a freelance writer based in Taiwan. His hunch that reading on paper is superior in terms of brain chemistry to reading off screens has yet to be proven or dismissed, but he hopes future reserach using fMRi and PET scans
will help explain the differences in terms of neuroscience.
The pioneering neuroscientist analyzes brains in their most enthusiastic reading state, hoping to understand the differences between reading off screens and reading on paper surfaces.
Like me, Dr Marker feels that her studies will show reading on paper is superior to reading off screens in terms of
retention, processing, analysis and critical thinking.
But first, let’s see what the scans will be like.
Dr Marker asks me to put myself into an fMRI machine so she and his team can study which areas of the brain are activated by reading text on paper compared to reading the same text on a computer screen or a Kindle e-reader.
And this is why I’m here. Today I will donate my brain scans to science.
Among the things that Market has discovered so far is that reading on paper might be something we as a civilization should not ever give up.
“Even though reading on screens is useful and convenient, and I do it all the time, I feel that reading on paper is something we should never cede to the digital revolution,” Marker, 43, says. “We need both.”
On the day I climb into the brain imaging cocoon, I am thinking about what it all might mean. But since I am just a guinea pig and not a scientist, I will have to wait for the results.
I enter a sterile lab, and Marker and her four associates greet me, all in white lab coats.
As they hand me my a pale blue gown to change into, I have
second thoughts — “How can I read while lying down horizontally my back, not my preferred reading mode?” — but decide to push myself.
Science needs me!
The scientists load me into the machine and I’m off.
Next step: They strap my head down, because any movement distorts the brain imaging. Ever try to read a book without facial movements?
I feel as if I’m being shoved into the middle of a toilet paper roll, the walls so close my eyelashes almost graze them.
Then I hear a voice through the earphones I’m wearing. It’s Dr Marker.
“You okay in there?” she asks.
Graduate student Dan Smith, 52, tells me to relax before
running around to join the other scientists in the control room.
With the invention of the fMRI only 20 years ago, along came the ability to look at brain activity. Marker says that by understanding a function as gigantic as reading, how the reading brain does its magic dance, a response that hijacks all of one’s attention, she might also learn how reading on screens could be inferior to reading on paper.
“The more we understand how the brain works,” she says, “the more we will be able to help people modulate its activity.”
As the machine switches on, it sounds like a jackhammer. I follow Marker’s instructions and as I do, the group watches my brain on their computer monitors. I will read passages from a novel, and then later I will read the same passages on a Kindle. I just hope the Kindle does not blow up inside the brain scan machine!
Research and teaching take up most of Marker’s time, but when she has a spare moment, she thinks about what all this might mean for the future of humankind.
During my first hour in the fMRI machine, researchers map my brain’s reading paths to find out which parts correlate to which regions of the brain.
“You have 10 minutes,” Marker says through my earphones near the end of our test. “Keep reading.”
On the other side of the glass pane, the scientists can see my brain lighting up as I read on paper and as I read on a screen. Regions light up in different ways, Marker says.
Komisaruk discusses what her research could do for the future of humankind. “We need to know if reading on screens is going to be good if it replaces all our reading on paper.”
Marker’s lab has paid me a $100 subject fee, so I want to give them their money’s worth.
After all, it’s not easy to get funding for this stuff — Marker
says she spends at least half of her time applying for grants.
“There’s no premium on studying paper reading modes versus
screen-reading modes in this society,” she tells me as Smith murmurs, “What do you expect? The gadgetheads want to take over.”
When the tests are over, Marker tells me the data takes two hours to convert, but it can take much longer to make sense of it.
“We’ll be at this for a while,” she says.
One of the biggest conundrums turns out to be a nagging
question for all mankind: What if reading on screens is not good for retention of data, emotional connections and critical thinking skills?
Marker begins slipping more and more into her thoughts. “Neurons, little bags of chemicals, create
awareness,” he says, “but how? How does the brain read?
What is reading, really?”
I see that at the heart of all her research, there is a
philosopher trying not only to understand reading, but also figure out the nuts and bolts that make up the reading brain.
“It’s the hard question I want to answer,” she says. “What is
the reading brain really all about?
“I find that,” she adds, “and I find the Nobel Prize.”
]]>Better hurry. The park’s in Shanghai, which resides on the same latitude as San Jose, California, so it’s only open from late-December to mid-February. It’s like our own Ice Alaska in terms of duration and amazing sculptures, but our ice melts harmlessly and beneficially away, and I fathom how the Chinese go about their annual clean-up.
“Fathom” has several meanings. It’s long been a naval measurement of depths and has meant “get to the bottom of” since 1620, according to Online Etymology Dictionary. It’s origins extend to the truly ancient Proto-Indo-European root term “pete-,” meaning “to spread, stretch out,” and from there it became the Proto-Germanic “fathmaz,” meaning “embrace,” and eventually the Old English “faeðm,” pronounced “fathom” and meaning “length of the outstretched arms (a measure of six feet).”
Outstretched arms, especially those of promising pitchers, are of steady interest this time of year to baseball fans. Fortunately, there’s a slew of new and fascinating baseball books at our library that have arrived just before major leaguers report to their spring training camps; for true fans, it’s the perfect time to read about baseball. Chad Harbach’s “The Art of Fielding” came out last September to rave reviews, but that’s an awful time for the release. By then fans are either disgusted with their teams or too engrossed in the final games.
I began “Art of Fielding” after New Year’s, when the anguish of my team’s collapse during the World Series had faded, and count me among the ravers. Harbach tells of a tremendously talented fictional college baseball player striving for perfection, weaving in, Herman Melville, contemporary college life, and, according to the NYTimes, “the Human Condition.” Time reviewer Gregory Cowles says baseball and literary fiction are comparable: “the charges against each are familiar and overlapping: too slow, too precious, not enough action. … You may as well complain that lemons are too yellow. The indictment amounts to a kind of category error; detractors went looking for entertainment, and found art instead.” Cowles adds “Harback makes the case for baseball, thrillingly, in his slow, precious and altogether excellent first novel.”
Novels aren’t for everyone, but how can any fan pass up the library’s new nonfiction baseball offerings, like “Big Hair and Plastic Grass:A Funny Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s” by Dan Epstein, “High Heat: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbable Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time” by Tim Wendel, or “Satch, Dizzy & Rapid Robert: The Wild Saga of Interracial Baseball Before Jackie Robinson” by Timothy Gay?
I couldn’t resist reading Jason Turbow’s “The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, & Bench-clearing Brawls: the Unwritten Rules of America’s Pasttime.” Examples of unwritten rules include not “showboating” or embarrassing opponents, not stealing a base when your team has a large lead, and running hard every play, even when it appears hopeless. The last one invokes a coach’s verbal retribution, while the others often leads to seeing some scary pitches close to your neck very soon.
The library’s rules are written down and posted by the doors, and repeatedly breaking them leads to banishment rather than beanballs. They boil down to personal safety and treating those around you with respect. Running through the library worries others, who wonder “What’s wrong?” Talking in the “no conversation” areas breaks the concentration of those nearby. Leaving children under the age of nine unattended in a public building visited by nearly a thousand people a day is dangerous.
Fortunately, most library patrons love and respect the institution. Me, too, along with baseball, and as Al Pacino pointed out once in a movie, “Biochemically, love is just like eating large amounts of chocolate.”
Harriette, who is looking foward to celebrating her 100th birthday on April 19, has written a breezy column for Vermont's Bennington Banner for the last 16 years.
James Therrien, editor of the Bennington Banner, says, “Harriette has always been an amazing columist regardless of her age, one who rarely needs editing and who learned how to write and how to produce a newspaper back in the old days of lead type, early manual typewriters and many aspects only she could fully describe.
"She writes now on an infrequent basis, and just when we have begun to wonder if she is finally going to retire from journalism completely, a batch of two or three columns will come in, well written and interesting.”
Daughter of a Nebraska newspaperman, she began her column writing career at the age of 14. She worked because of “not being able to go to college” and has been in the business almost her entire life.
She married George A Lerrigo, amd then she and her husband bought a weekly newspaper in Overbrook, Kansas. During World War II she was a linotype operator in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
In Massachusetts, one of 10 states where she has lived, she had a mimeographing business and was editor of an award-winning newsletter for the League of Women Voters.
She writes her column on “an old trusty typewriter” from home, where she lives alone. “I had a computer installed,” she says, “but I just couldn’t grasp it.”
Owning the papers led to learning more of the business, Leidich said. "I learned the whole printing trade. I could put ads together, I could fill up the forms and run the Linotype and did the bookkeeping," she said. "We had one devil, one printer's devil [an apprentice], and he really was a big part of the organization. That was primitive. That was really, really primitive back then.
"When you own a newspaper you have to be the whole thing. You have to be the man on the street. You have to be whatever. You have to go to all the little town affairs," she added. "After five years my husband decided that it wasn't his thing. So, he went into health care."
Leidich would remain involved in publishing, though. She worked for another paper running the Linotype.
And over the years she would publish several different newsletters for various organizations. "I always had some little newsletter going somewhere," she said. "I've always been dibbling and dabbling in publishing."
It wasn't until 1995, when Leidich moved to North Bennington, that she began her Banner column. "I had another name for it, but [former Editor Robin Smith] chose "Senior Moments," and it stuck. I began sending in columns. They used all of them. They weren't very discerning then," Leidich said.
Leidich's column is typically a collection of several thoughts. And it is almost always focused on matters of interest to those in a small town. "I'll tell you, there's more stuff that goes on in a little town that people don't know about that's very important," she said.
"Maybe that's because I learned to be gentle as I got older. I probably was a very feisty person in that little country newspaper," she said.
It was Leidich's doctor who first began to wonder if she might be one of the oldest working columnists. It was her son, Charles Lerrigo, who then picked up the ball and took to the Internet to investigate. It wasn't long before the National Association of Newspaper Columnists was interested.
"It's exciting and yet it's kind of scary to have all this happen when I'm so old," Leidich said. "It just kind of mushroomed. The whole thing kind of mushroomed and I'm just blown away by it."
At 99, Leidich said she still uses a typewriter to put her thoughts on paper. "I don't have a computer."I had one put in when I moved here. I absolutely could not make it go through this head," she said.
Her son, George Lerrigo, says, “Living in a small town she learned the ‘neighbor’s story’ is a news story and is constantly on the prowl for newsy items of a local nature.”
The National Society of Newspaper Columnists recently honored
Harriette with a gift membership.
President Ben Pollock said: “Harriette Leidich is an inspiration to aspiring columnists as well as to seasoned professionals who might be tempted to give up when the going gets tough. We are pleased to welcome her as our newest member.”
Pollock noted that Ms. Leidich “began her current column when she was about 84 years old.” He added: “Newspapering was in her family and she began as a young teen.
"Her bio notes she worked outside the newsroom — in the next room over running a hot-lead Linotype but also working communications for non-profits like the League of Women Voters.
"The kind of career that 21st-century columnists and other journalists worry won’t be a true ‘career’ — a bit of this and that — is not new at all, and she proves it can be wonderful.”
Ms. Leidich is the author of “Awful Green Stuff and the Nakedness of Trees”, a collection of her writings, and “It’s a Slower Waltz: Memorable Days from a Long Life”, a personal memoir published in 2001. She also co-authored with her sons “Our Family Miracle”, an account of a stem cell transplant for Charlie, with George as the donor.
Any advice for younger columnists? “Get a good education and spend time doing what you like to do.”
The NSNC extended an invitation to enter its annual column writing contest and attend the 2012 conference in Macon, Georgia, May 3-6.. Although she has traveled to all of the states except Alaska and Hawaii, she said she doubts she’ll be joining other conference attendees.
Here's a typical example of Harriette's writing, published on
February 7, 2009:
"I was excited the other day as I returned from a trip to town when alongside my car at a stoplight was a Smart car. I had seen them on TV but never around our area. I admit it seemed very small, but it pulled out smartly into traffic and continued on its way.
"The driver of that car was beating the high cost of gas and seemed indifferent to my staring. Soon I noted other small cars and was almost ashamed of my blunderbus of a car, which was using so much gas to get me around on my errands.
"Little cars were lined up for taxi fares into the city and we were soon packed into one with our luggage and two other people. I knew then what a sardine must feel like as we were driven into Rome.
"I could hardly believe and protested that we couldn't all get in that vehicle, but the driver packed us all in and deposited us at our hotel. We were a bit crumpled and out of breath but were ready to see Rome.
"Little cars were being manufactured in Europe in the '60s, so why has it taken us so long to get to a cheaper way of transportation? "
Previous story: http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=384822&rel_no=1
Photo, Harriette Leidich:
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/portlet/article/html/render_gallery.jsp?articleId=19890526&siteId=509&startImage=1
He hadn’t seen the broadside but he knew a chap who had. He didn’t know the names of the ships or of the fishermen either, nor was he familiar with the original poem but all was not lost because the oral tradition had come to the rescue. Late in the nineteen-fifties a retired sailor sang the song and somebody, my informant didn’t know who, liked the song and wrote down the words and started to sing it at folk clubs and sessions.
It caught the imagination of the duffel-coated intellectuals of a small but growing popular folk movement and became a part of the standard repertoire and travelled far and wide to bring the thrill of melodic seaborn danger to many who wouldn’t know a yardarm from a bull’s foot.
During its journey through the folk process, from the 1890s to the 1960s, the work lost six verses, gained one verse a tune and a chorus. When I acquired a version of the song, printed in a book rather than on a numbered stack of beer mats, I made a discovery. The new verse, the last, had a dating glitch. It starts: October night...in my presentation I have changed October to winter in the cause of historical accuracy. Other than this modification the words here are reasonably true to the version commonly used in Britain and in Australia from the nineteen sixties and through to the millennium.
Methinks I see a host of craft spreading their sails a-lee,
as down the Humber they do glide, all bound for the northern sea.
Methinks I see on each small craft the crew, with hearts so brave,
going out to earn their daily bread upon the restless wave.
And it’s three score and ten, boys and men, were lost from Grimsby town,
from Yarmouth down to Scarborough many hundreds more were drowned.
Our herring craft and trawlers, our fishing smacks as well,
alone they fight that bitter night and battle with the swell.
Methinks I see them yet again, as they leave the land behind,
casting their nets into the sea the fishing shoals to find.
Methinks I see them yet again and all a-board’s alright,
with their sails close reefed and their decks cleared up
and sidelights burning bright.
The winter’s night was such a sight as never seen before,
there were masts and spars and broken yards came floating to the shore.
There was many a heart of sorrow, there was many a heart so brave,
there was many a hearty fisher lad did find a water grave.
The Hull Times, 2nd of March 1889, reported that the gale of the 8th and 9th February had proven one of the most disastrous on record with many vessels listed as missing and with all hope now being abandoned for at least seven of them:
Sea Searcher—5 hands, John Witterington—11 hands, Eton—8 hands, British Workman—7 hands, Sir Frederick Roberts—5 hands, Kitten—5 hands, Harold—5 hands.
The Hull Times further reported that parts of the wreck from the Kitten had been picked up at sea and brought into port, and that the British Workman was seen to be reduced to a mere wreck by a heavy sea on the morning of the gale. It also sadly noted that many of the men lost leave wives and families and that great distress had come to the fishing communities. In an end note the prediction: ‘The total number of vessels lost will, it is feared, be near to 15 and between 70 and 80 lives of men and boys will be claimed by the sea.’ So, if you are visiting Yorkshire and buying a fish supper at Harry Ramsden’s, spare a thought for the true cost of fish.
© Dermott Ryder
*
Dermott writes for Bonzer magazine www.bonzer.org.au
]]>One of the first things I learned in school was the value that teachers obviously put on daily prayer. You could actually be asked to leave the room if you chose to cut-up during Morning Prayer. Had a boy committed such an offense twice, I rather imagined he might be asked to leave the planet! And the thought of not participating in the Pledge of Allegiance was beyond anyone's wildest imagination. The strangest thing of all was that every single kid was actually expected to improve his or her studies with the passing of months. And teachers, not merely content to take a kid's word for it that he or she actually was improving, also gave strange, actual things called tests, followed by other curiosities referred to as grades, just to make sure this was the case! Imagine, for crap sake! In retrospect, such odd notions are just extraordinary! I might mention also that every last one of the kids always had clean clothes, good lunches (they were checked to be sure), actual uniforms when they played sports, free textbooks, dedicated teachers who never went on strike, and principals who ran things like truly benevolent monarchs should. I am, of course, thoroughly embarrassed by such naivete today. What in hell were we THINKING?
Pittsburgh had its pitfalls, though. A boy named Russell Ritchie lived down Broadmoor and just around the corner to the left. He never bothered us, but most grown-ups thereabouts had the impression that he was some sort of seven-year-old rowdy. Accordingly, Mom got on our case — inspired, I guess, by a few other mothers — gently lecturing us on the perils of fun with Russell. (What? Knock off another kid's lemonade stand? Utter disregard for "Do not walk on grass"?). I never understood the whole thing, and Mom never pushed it. Both Gordie and I continued to choose our own company, and never had problem one. And anyway, Russell had the neatest, slickest wagon in the entire neighborhood. He's probably a retired judge or something now. Or maybe an ex-headmaster at a private all boy's school with a name like Beauford or Billington Academy or some such. (Probably with a lousy football team, although this may just be a personal thing with me. I've never really warmed up to private boys' schools).
Mom kept in touch with Auntie Beal for more than thirty years - until the proud Scottish lady finally died, I think in the mid-70s. We had visited back and forth countless times through the years. Even today, her memory is a blessed one, and I can still hear the brrrr of her Scottish brogue as if she were breathing on my manuscripts.
Pittsburgh also was the place Dad picked up a lifelong friend named Frank Shaw. Frank, considerably older than Dad, was a world traveler, and was always popping in to visit us {whereverwe lived!) while enroute from one exotic location to another. Frank was one of two male heroes in my life, the other being my second cousin, Johnny Singer. The two guys shared a few things in common. Both, for completely different reasons, traveled the world a lot. And both were almost famous in their respective fields.
Frank Shaw was a private sector civilian engineer. He had worked at one time on the Panama Canal, and spent a good bit of his time in exotic locations - Egypt, the Amazon, even Antarctica. I wasn't sure
exactly what he did, but you would see his name in the papers from time to time, and that was more than enough for this impressionable kid!
Knowing of my interest, Frank was kind enough to send postcards to me personally from any number of exotic locales I couldn't even imagine. Nor were his cards merely of the "having a wonderful time" variety; Frank's cards {and letters) were actual lessons for a young boy, going into detail about all sorts of fascinating topics — the pyramids, the Jivaro people of Amazonia, the horrors of yellow fever, the vagaries of Red Sea travel. (I assumed, given a three-month dry spell, that they had no mail-drops in Antarctica; nor, in my voluminous collecting, had I ever seen an Antarctican postage stamp. Only later did I find out that they didn't have coins or paper money either! I thought Antarctica must be a strange and backward place indeed! To this day, when asked where he or she might be from, I have never once heard a person answer simply, "Oh ... I grew up in Antarctica." Anyway, I later found that Frank wasn't actually IN Antarctica. It was more like Tierra del Fuego or something).
Additionally, Frank always would bring us kids special surprises, although the shrunken head he brought from New Guinea on one occasion was clearly not what Mom would have selected as an Easter surprise for her boys! (I hadn't seen her react with a shudder like that since the time she ordered us to release a captured garter snake outside, only to discover that we had set it free in her small rock garden. I don't think I ever saw her in that rock garden again).
The aforementioned Johnny Singer was a hero of a different stripe. He was my Dad's first cousin, and had shortened his name from the original Mensinger. As Johnny Singer, he had been a society bandleader for many years, later alternating country club sets in and around Cleveland, Ohio, with the finest of the early cruise ships. Decades later, his son Eric would be the drummer with the famous rock group, Kiss (father-son musical tastes had parted company years before). Far from Eric Singer and the raucous rock of Kiss, Johnny Singer played accordion, saxophone, and violin. Moreover, his orchestra was known for its ... polkas! Egad!
To be honest, I never cared for polkas as a boy. Nor, as an adult, do I enjoy rock. So just how did this polka-packin' Johnny Singer guy become one of my heroes? Well, think about it. He knew Perry Como when the guy was still a barber trying to break into show biz. He knew Frankie Laine early on. He knew Ella and Satchmo. He was on a first-name basis with nearly all of the jazz and orchestra names of the day — Benny Goodman, the Dorsey boys, Krupa, McPartland, Gillespie, Teddy Wilson, just about all of them. Eventually, it was enough for me to almost overcome the fact that he played accordion and violin, for crap sake! Andpolkas! Plus, of course, the fact that Johnny traveled to many overseas locations - primarily to Europe, South America, and the Caribbean.
The fact that he knew musical stars and traveled a lot were certainly points in his favor. But the thing that elevated him to actual HERO status in my young eyes was the fact that I always saw him in the company of beautiful women. Always! Johnny remained a bachelor well into his fifties, at which time he finally met Bess, the beautiful woman he would marry. The marriage didn't last much beyond ten years, but it did produce some sons, one of whom was Eric. Simply put, Johnny was my hero because he knew and was surrounded by great chicks! And he knew how to treat them! What sophistication! What class! Next to cool and dapper Johnny Singer (with white shoes yet!), Cary Grant was a fair-looking, rather clumsy dweeb!
Ronnie Bray recalls working in a large psychiatric hospital.
I often sat next to George on Male Ward Eighteen dispensing cigarettes to patients who would smoke twenty in under an hour if left to their own devices. Mr Conway was one who would, not because his nicotine addiction was severe, which it was, but because once he had finished a cigarette he could not remember having it, even though the stub was smoking in the ash tray besides him.
“Nurse,” he would say. “I haven’t had a cigarette all day.” His tone was pleasant but pleading. If the magic thirty minutes has passed since his last extinguishment, I would dole out another cigarette and strike a match as his effusive thanks interfered with getting the end lit, such was his excitement.
I learned that he had once been a friend of my Father, who spoke warmly and well of him for having been, as a husband and father, all that he himself was not. But he would not have recognised the man by whose side I sat engaged in futile conversations laced with confabulations that seemed accurate to George, but were remote, if at all connected, to his life experiences.
I knew that I was in the presence of tragedy. Not entirely for George’s loss of selfhood, because in whatever world he then found himself, it seemed settled and tranquil. His tragedy was that he was deprived of connection to his family and former friends. I say ‘former friends’ because very few associates continue to take interest in or visit a patient considered ‘lost’ in the mists and vapours of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Family members in despair often relinquish interest in the stranger who no longer recognises them, and whose memory of their years of love, intimacy, and common pursuits has been plundered by unseen hands that erases the marks of their unique personalities just as completely as a teacher wipes clean a chalkboard at the end of the days lessons, leaving no trace behind.
And yet George continued to exist. He was changed, but he was still George. Not the George everyone knew and loved, but still George. He was the George I knew and appreciated. A man whose end years I could sweeten by little acts of kindness and an almost continuous flow of hospital cigarettes.
It occurred to me as I listened to him day after day, interacting with him, joining in his conversations as seemed appropriate, that perhaps dementia has a language and semantic vocabulary all its own, that we must learn to get back on terms with our loved ones and former friends when they are led down that path by processes we do not understand but rightly fear.
Perhaps then, we shall see the reason and sense in confabulations when they are set against the background of who the George were, and become capable of understanding them as they have become. Until then, let us neither forget nor abandon them. Who knows what they comprehend but are unable to express?
“Cigarette, George?”
“Thank you, nurse. I haven’t had one all day!”
]]>
In the morning I went early to give Mr. Hawly notice of my being forced to go into London, but he having also business we left our office business to Mr. Spicer and he and I walked as far as the Temple, where I halted a little and then went to Paul’s School, but it being too soon, went and drank my morning draft with my cozen Tom Pepys the turner, and saw his house and shop, thence to school, where he that made the speech for the seventh form in praise of the founder, did show a book which Mr. Crumlum had lately got, which is believed to be of the Founder’s own writing. After all the speeches, in which my brother John came off as well as any of the rest, I went straight home and dined, then to the Hall, where in the Palace I saw Monk’s soldiers abuse Billing and all the Quakers, that were at a meeting-place there, and indeed the soldiers did use them very roughly and were to blame. So after drinking with Mr. Spicer, who had received 600l. for me this morning, I went to Capt. Stone and with him by coach to the Temple Gardens (all the way talking of the disease of the stone), where we met Mr. Squib, but would do nothing till to-morrow morning. Thence back on foot home, where I found a letter from my Lord in character, which I construed, and after my wife had shewn me some ribbon and shoes that she had taken out of a box of Mr. Montagu’s which formerly Mr. Kipps had left here when his master was at sea, I went to Mr. Crew and advised with him about it, it being concerning my Lord’s coming up to Town, which he desires upon my advice the last week in my letter. Thence calling upon Mrs. Ann I went home, and wrote in character to my Lord in answer to his letter. This day Mr. Crew told me that my Lord St. John is for a free Parliament, and that he is very great with Monk, who hath now the absolute command and power to do any thing that he hath a mind to do. Mr. Moore told me of a picture hung up at the Exchange of a great pair of buttocks shooting of a turd into Lawson’s mouth, and over it was wrote “The thanks of the house.” Boys do now cry “Kiss my Parliament, instead of “Kiss my [rump],” so great and general a contempt is the Rump come to among all the good and bad.
*
Do visit http://www.pepysdiary.com/about/
]]>Author and journalist Richard Donkin has reservations about the newly refurbished Watts Gallery.
And yet..... I remember visiting before the restoration began. Buckets were spread around under the leaking ceiling and every chair was decorated with a sprig of holly to deter anyone from sitting on it, in case it broke. There was a charm to the place, but it was clear that something needed to be done.
The workshop of Victorian artist George Frederic Watts was dusty and eccentric with plaster casts of arms, legs and torsos hanging from the walls. Today it's much tidier and the gallery looks pristine with its restored wooden tiled floor and rich emerald and red wallpapers. But so it should. The place is only the size of a very large house and when you see all those quality builds on Grand Designs for a fraction of this project's costs it does make you wonder where all the money was spent.
Pre-restoration, entry was free with voluntary donations. Today it costs £6.50 with an extra £1 "gift aid" donation, so that's £7.50 each unless you have the brass neck to decline the voluntary bit. I was keen to take photographs as I had in the past and made the mistake of asking first; no photography allowed, said the lady at the door.
I hate these policies. I can understand that galleries may not want flash photographs; I can even go along with the idea a clicking camera might disturb people in the main gallery. But down in the once dusty workshop I could see no harm. It didn't bother the trustees pre-2008, so why now? "You can take a picture from outside looking in to the workshop," said the lady. Well that's big of you, I thought.
With one or two exceptions, I'm not a big fan of Watt's paintings. It strikes me he spent most of his time sucking up to Victorian sentimentality and, indeed, he was a highly successful artist in his own lifetime. Watts was a hot number on both sides of the Atlantic.
Even today Watts has his admirers. I was surprised to discover that Barack Obama had declared Hope, a painting by Watts, his favourite work of art. And, even though I'm not too keen on his work, I will admit there is much to admire about Watts, the man. A small exhibition in the gallery explained how Watts was at the forefront of a national campaign in the UK to outlaw the 19th century plumage trade that was destroying populations of exotic birds to supply a big demand for fancy feathers in women's hats.
Campaigning against this destructive trade appears to have been every bit as organised as that in the 1980s and 90s against the fur trade. Yes, there's much to admire about Watts; his wife, Mary, too since she was an equally gifted artist whose energy was largely responsible for mobilising the skills of Compton's villagers in reviving neglected pottery-making skills. It was the villagers who built and decorated the nearby chapel to Mary Watt's designs.
To my knowledge Watts never declared himself a socialist, but he was a champion of the working class, commemorating in Postman's Park, London, the sort of tragedies, such as a tradesman dying in a boiler accident, that might otherwise have earned a paragraph in a local newspaper. I wonder what he would have thought to the plaque inside the gallery that divides those who have given generous donations in to "Gold Patrons" and plain bog standard patrons who obviously didn't give as much as the golds.
I detest this trend within the charity sector. I doubt if it is welcomed by many donors either. Yes, it's fine to record donations, where people have not requested anonymity. But creating a hierarchy based on the size of donation is simply crass. I can't believe that either George or Mary Watts would have put their names to that.
**
To purchase a copies of Richard's celebrated books please click on
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Sweat-Tears-Evolution-Work/dp/1587990768/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214554429&sr=1-2
and
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Future-Work-Richard-Donkin/dp/0230576389/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260983216&sr=1-1