Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!

This weekend my niece participated in the multi-show, many-hours long Floyd Ward Dance Recital at the Roanoke Civic Center. The thing begins on Friday night and continues into Saturday evening. It is a massive production involving hundreds of people, with dancers ranging from three to 18, plus the fathers of some of the dancers in a special "daddy daughter dance."

My brother this year decided to do the "daddy daughter dance," so I went Saturday to see both of them. Zoe danced in seven dances during the three hours I was there.

One of the local TV stations did a story on Floyd Ward's work with special needs students, which I think is spectacular. You can see that at this link.

Flash photography was not allowed at the recital, but I had my pocket Nikon and turned the flash off to take some photos. I have had to crop these significantly and many failed because of the low lighting and movement. So while these are not the best shots, they are all I have of the event for reasons not within my control.

The show began with a series of dances that told the story of Beauty and the Beast (Disney version). Zoe was not in those dances but she was in a number about children of the coal mines ("Children of the Coal"). Then it progressed into "Night at the Museum." The "daddy daughter dance" featured the fathers dressed as night watchmen at the museum, with the daughters in masks being the little thieves.

Zoe in costume, the one time she slowed
down long enough for me to try to get a picture!

My brother is third from left.

Opening of Children of the Coal. This production one awards. The placards say, "1906, West Virginia Coalfields. Boys, as young as 6, started their careers in the mines. Young girls were hired to follow the track lines and pick up fallen coal. Many boys lost limbs or were stricken with black lung. Poverty was the driving force pushing child labor in the mines. For those that survived ... love of family and faith in God, helped them carry on.

Children of the Coal. Zoe is the girl on the far left, in the floor.

End of Children of the Coal.

I don't know the name of the other dances (I didn't get a program.) Zoe is the third from the left.

Zoe is first on the left.

Zoe in the middle.

Zoe is the one on the floor.

Zoe is first on the right.

Zoe is first on the right.

My brother is second on the right.

Zoe is second from left.

My brother and his daughter.

Daddy Daughter Dance

My brother and niece.

I don't see my brother on a knee very often. :-)

My brother after the dance.

After the Storm

Yesterday the area experienced severe thunderstorms. We were under a tornado watch. My friend Cathy, with whom I used to work and who is a reporter for The Roanoke Times, caught a picture of something that looks like a tornado. Click on the link to see it.

After the bad weather passed through, I went outside to take photos of the storm as it was heading off into Bedford.

My favorite fence with dark skies in the background.

The storm moving toward the Peaks of Otter and into Bedford.

My rock lilies (or yucca) with the storm as a backdrop.

An hour or so later, a rainbow.

Making a Cake - A Poem

By Anita Firebaugh



"Beater!"
"Bowl!"
My brother and I jostled for position
hearing that whirr of the mixer
knowing Grandma was baking.
Her mixtures of sweetness dripped
with egg and sugar, softness against
delighted pink tongues.

Not once did we ask.
We claimed.
Not caring if she might want a taste,
not knowing if she wanted to keep bowl
and beaters close and for herself.
The mixture was ours,
our alchemic summer delight.
She gave the gold over to us.
Willingly. Every time.

But I am old now, and I tell you the truth.
She wanted those beaters, my grandmother did.
She yearned to cover her fingers
with the batter coating the bowl sides,
stuff those sticky digits in her mouth,
taste that sugary sweet mix,
feel it ooze against her teeth.

She ached to break the moral code,
keep that treat for her own.
And when the government said
"Do not eat raw batter," she breathed
a deep sigh. Now she had a reason,
she could tell those grandkids
"You cannot eat the cake mix."
Another voice had said, "No."

Thursday Thirteen

I have had, for some time now, a major procrastination problem. I have a lot of unfinished projects, ideas, ... stuff ... that I look at, move around from place to place on my desk, or otherwise ignore.

I thought I'd list 13 of them. That there are more than 13 is rather scary, but there you go. These are things that pertain to my writing career, so I am not including stuff like clean out the attic or paint the bathroom. That also needs to be taken care of but it would be a terribly long list if I added household items. Maybe I will list household items another time.

These are not in any order of importance, just as they come to me. In all of these projects, my options are to keep procrastinating, do it, or decide it isn't viable, and finally let go of the darned thing.


1. Revise my thesis and turn it into something for publication.

2. Finish my research and the book on the history of Cloverdale.

3. Do my genealogy. Some of this is done. This is rather a time consuming project, and one I was saving for when I was old. Am I old now?

4. Listen to and transcribe some cassette tapes I have of dead relatives and turn that into books for family members. I have had this on my desk since 2006. Apparently I am just not ready yet to revisit those voices. Maybe I should give this to another relative.

5. Gather up the poetry I have written over the years and turn it into a chapbook.

6. Revise the first novel I ever wrote to completion (which is sitting on the shelf by my desk). It's a Gothic romance, which is pretty much a dead genre.

7. Finish the fantasy book I started that reached 100 pages before I abandoned it. It has magic in it, is a quest book, and has a number of characters, like Lord of the Rings.

8. Finish the second part of that fantasy series, which I also started and abandoned. This one is more focused on a single character, and is actually the story of a secondary character in the first book.

9. Write that other book that would also be a fantasy of sorts but is also historical, the one that keeps floating around in my mind from time to time. This one would cover hundreds of years and start out in Dr. Johnson's time in London, which is to say, the 1700s, and progress forward. There is moonshine involved.

10. Write that other story that is apocalyptic, which might be a short story or a novel, not sure. The one about garbage.

11. Write that other novel that is apocalyptic (yes, I like those kinds of stories), the one that starts out in the Greenbrier bunker. This one also has magic.

12. Write a 20th century history of Botetourt County. It needs to be done before the information is lost (meaning before the stuff I have gathered gets thrown out when I have turned to dust).

13. Read all of these books I have laying around. I have never had such a backlog of reading as I have now. Maybe next week I will list 13 books I have on my shelves to read. Or not.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 244rd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Like A Rose

My flowers this spring have suffered from an abundance of rain and not enough attention from me.
The rain has been a bit more constant than normal; I think it rained for nearly 18 straight days in May. That, combined with an unfortunate spate of poor health on my part, has meant my flowers have been left to their own devices more often than not.

My roses have bloomed but rain quickly blemishes the rose petals. Plus rain washes away insecticides, dust, and plant food before any of it does that for which it was made and applied.

However, we had a few days of sunshine and the rose above bloomed out. It is the only one blooming at the moment.

It is my special orange rose, given to me in 2001 as a birthday present from a friend.

I have mentioned before that I took it as a sign from my mother, who had passed away the previous August from pancreatic cancer. We had a conversation about the after life a few weeks before she died. She had promised to send me something orange as proof that there is something more than what we see.

And so came this rose, which blooms around my birthday (and usually in August) to remind me of my mother, my friend, and our souls. (Today is not my birthday, though. That is next week.)

You might note that in this photo there is an inch worm hanging from the side. It was in the other photo, too, but I cropped it out. I didn't see the worm when I was shooting the pictures or I would have removed it from the plant.

For some reason the little inch worm amuses me and I decided to share it, too.

I'm No Decorator

Every now and then I have a hankering for something new around the house.

I don't redecorate often. We are simple people. Once we find a good spot for the couch, there it stays. Besides, the house is small and there isn't a lot of room for maneuvering things around.

But it is time for a little updating.

This is my current bedspread:

This is the bedspread and matching curtains:

I like that they match. I don't like that they are almost 20 years old.

I bought them from Sears and they have held up remarkably well, considering I didn't pay that much for them to begin with. They are machine washable, and I wash the curtains about twice a year; the bedspread much more frequently. I like that I can wash them whenever I like.

But the fabric is starting to look washed out, and some of the stitching in the bedspread is coming out.

Neither my husband nor I like comforters, and comforters are all I can find in the local stores. No one carries these bedspread and curtain sets any more.

A few of the major department stores have them online, but I am unimpressed with their offering. Not to mention the lack of quality available. Some of the comments make me cringe; they certainly aren't conducive to making a purchase. Apparently most of these are supposed to be washable but they shrink.

So I am thinking I might need to find separate items. Maybe a solid bedspread and different curtains. But finding the bedspread is the hard part.

I hate redecorating!

Memorial Day

"It sure takes a lot of rough knocks and fall downs for a man to learn how to live and get along. And about the time you learn how to live and what is important in this old world, you are about ready to leave it and pass on to a higher plane of life as God has chosen for you. And each of us no matter how great or small leaves behind a part of our self in one form or another. I want to leave a good image of myself to all of my kids and grandchildren. I think I have or I hope I have."  - Joe Bruffy

My paternal grandfather, before he passed away in 1989, sent me an old, small book that my mother had given him. The book was a little series of short stories. He had written all over the white space in the book and he wanted me to have it.

The above words are on page 12, right before a short story entitled "Tennessee's Partner" by Bret Harte.

I have letters from my grandfather, too, that I have kept. Some of his stories I have shared here before, along with one of his poems. You can read them here, here, and here. Unfortunately, I have no digital pictures of him.

He served in World War II. That experience was one of two that defined him. The first was his birth, which killed his mother. Apparently he was blamed for that, and he never forgot it. There are traces of his pain about his orphaned upbringing throughout his letters.

But the war - that was something else again. My grandfather was a spitfire liberal, and he believed in things greater than himself. He loved his god and he loved his country, but he did not love greed. He saw the way the nation was turning and despaired to me in his letters. They were written in the 1980s.

The war taught him what happens when a country turns together, when it looks outward instead of inward, and how strong a society that gives to one another can be. He fought for his community and for his family, for good or ill.

When he wrote of the war, he often did it in the third person. He had a hard time personalizing his experiences. I think it was too painful.

In his stories, he talked about how it was during the war that his asthma began, how laying on the ground set off arthritis in his back, and how it felt when his friend died in his arms, his belly blown open by a German gun.

War is gruesome, nasty business. Death is never pretty. Today is a day to remember great sacrifices and debts unpaid. It is a lot more than the unofficial start of summer.



My grandfather's uniform, dog tags, and honorabilia.
Photo courtesy of my brother.

I asked my brother if he would like to contribute something about our grandfather to my blog for Memorial Day. I thought a different perspective might be interesting. This is what he sent me:

By Loren Bruffey, Jr.

My one regret in life is to have never participated in any branch of the Armed Forces.  Most of my family from my past served in some form. Growing up, my grandfather, Joseph Eugene Bruffy, instilled a deep respect in me for freedom. He was a WWII Vet. I got the privilege to spend my 15^th summer with him in California. It was during those 60 days that I really came to understand what it meant to be an American. I also learned that freedom is never free. It always comes with a price.

My Grandfather was born June 10^th, 1917 in Nettie, WV. He was raised by his Grandmother in hard times. The stories of his youth have always left me in tears, be it laughing or crying. He was a coal miner and an auto body repairman and finished his life as an automotive appraiser.

On August 28^th, 1944, he was sent to fight in Rhineland, Central Europe. He spent time all over the war zones.  He was a lead Infantryman with Company K, 397^th Infantry. He was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge, Good Conduct Medal, European African Middle Eastern Theater Ribbon and WWII Victory Ribbon.  He spent about 18 months or so in the war zones. He had no days lost even though he was wounded by some grenade shrapnel in a fire fight.

He would sit and tell me stories, good, bad and other, of his escapades in the war. He had two that always came up. The first was the time he was with a scouting party of 4 guys and they were ambushed. There were two foxholes and the team dove for cover. His three buddies in one hole, he alone in another.  A mortar shell dropped into the other hole killing all of his friends. In his hole was a large machine gun nest so he took up the weapon and opened fire. After killing many men, the rest surrendered. He was responsible for single-handedly capturing 24 Germans.



German swords my grandfather brought home from WWII.
Photo courtesy of my brother.

The second story tells of survival. Scurrying the countryside searching for food.  Stealing rabbits from local farmers and crops. One night his team had taken refuge in an abandoned church and a fire fight broke out. A grenade landed on the exterior wall of his hiding place and when it detonated, the interior wall crumbled away. Hidden inside the wall were jewels and money. Using his canteen, he placed all he could get into his canteen and sent it home. Some of the jewelry is still in the family.

During his talks, he always came back to the fact that most people really did not understand what it meant to be free, as they had never experienced what he saw in other countries. They did not experience the death and hatred he saw towards Americans while overseas. The crying children with no food.  The torture of anyone who stood their ground.  In his eyes Freedom is our God given right, but we always have to be ready to fight anyone who would try to tame this great country. So even though Free is in Freedom, there is always a price to be paid. Usually paid with the ultimate price . . . death.
 
Looking back now, at age 46, I fully understand what he was trying to say to me. Love your country. Appreciate what you have. Be glad for family. Help others before helping yourself. Be the better person. But above all, trust in God and trust in the USA!!!


"Every man and woman should take thirty minutes a day just to be alone with their self and enjoy the company of their own mind and thoughts, and to learn about themselves. For each one of us is our own best teacher. " - Joe Bruffy

Books: Voices: Words From Wise Women

Voices: Words From Wise Women
(Leadership Tools for Work and Life)
By Kathryn L. Jordan, PhD
142 pages
Copyright 2011

It is no secret to me that the workplace experience is different for women than it is for men, and often not in a good way. But finding books that deal with the gender gap and that speak directly to women is often difficult.

Local author Kathryn Jordan, a professor at Radford University, has filled in some of that gap with her new book.

Each chapter addresses various issues or methods of being a more upwardly focused employee. If you are looking to make a lateral move in your employment, or seeking a promotion, or just looking for work in general, this book will help.

The chapters discuss the need to be positive and embrace change, how to build various skills, and how to understand workplace dynamics, particularly with regards to money, among other things.

In particular, most women will find the chapters on finding balance helpful. How do you balance your career, your personal life, and taking care of yourself? It is a hard juggle sometimes.

The author, who is also an executive career coach, advocates an annual review of your resume, and a review of your life goals no less than every two years. I think that is very good advice.

A series of worksheets in the back of the book, which I plan to utilize, should also be helpful in finding focus and creating a plan.

Dr. Jordan has a website, The Success Associates, with information about her work in helping women find good career matches. The website offers a few links to youtube videos with job-hunting tips.

The site offers a list of job-hunting resources at this link.

She also has a blog but it is not updated very often, only about once a month. In my opinion this is not often enough to be useful; I tend to forget about sites if I visit and do not find new information.

I was disappointed that I wasn't able to find a .pdf of the worksheets on her website. That would be a good and valuable addition for her readers, and, given that the book is a little on the expensive side for its small size, a nice tip of the hat. If she didn't want to give it away to the masses, she could make it accessible with a key in the back of the book or something.

As it is, I don't like to write in my books so I will be hunting up a photocopier for about 30 pages of worksheets.

I think any woman with ambition and a little drive, regardless of where she works, will find this book useful, but it is directed more at the educational and large corporate fields. I don't think she had small entrepreneurs or grocery check-out clerks in mind when she wrote it, but there is enough useful information in the book regarding the work world and working relationships that I feel comfortable recommending it to nearly any woman who is looking for a change in her working environment.

Growing Up

I spied this little buck with antlers showing in the front yard the other day.

I think he is going to be at least a four-point buck.

He is not very big in body so I don't think he is very old. But I do wonder how big his antlers will grow.

Thursday Thirteen

Today I offer up 13 random photos from my archives.

Cannons at Williamsburg, VA

Stylized photo of Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The remains of a barn built in 1859. It was demolished a few years ago.

The rear end of a strutting turkey.

The grounds at Hollins University

The farm.

A bee on a zinnia. Buzz!

July 4 fireworks.

The view when it snows.

A bear in the alfalfa.

Like a rose, under the April snow.

The Town of Fincastle as seen from Godwin Cemetery.

A photo of a painting by an artist friend.

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 243rd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday.

Mellow Yellow



What's Next?

Almost as soon as I had the diploma in my hands, the thought hit me: what's next?

Others echoed that. "What are you going to do now?" asked my stepmother.

The truth?

I don't know. I have considered more school. I love college. I enjoy learning. I like the atmosphere. I like big ideas. I like being able to discuss books, theories, and facts with logical passion. I find the young people stimulating, the professors exhilarating.

Hollins offers other advanced degrees - MFAs in creative writing or children's literature, and something called a Certificate of Advanced Studies. That is 10 more classes - or over $13,000 - for a higher degree.

The children's literature MFA is offered during the summer only. The creative writing MFA is quite competitive, but to be honest I've never really wanted the creative writing MFA. That sounds odd, perhaps, coming from someone who considers herself to be a writer, but the truth is as a Hollins undergraduate I had many writing classes, and many of my recent Hollins MA classes were writing classes. I don't know that either of these MFAs would offer me anything more.

That leaves a degree from some other university. Locally, Virginia Tech and UVA are the closest with PhD programs. Radford University has a number of masters programs and one PhD program in psychology.

When I was a very young girl, I wanted to be many things. Those I can remember include geologist, archaeologist, investigator, newspaper reporter, psychologist, rock star, historian, lawyer, and writer of mysteries a la Nancy Drew. Somewhere along the way I realized that writing gave me the opportunity to explore any career I wanted. It also allowed me the freedom to take part in things without actually being a part of them. The anonymity of being a newspaper reporter was something I quickly embraced. As a reporter (at least the way I have always been a reporter) I sat in the back, I observed, and I wrote the facts of what I saw. I seldom embellished - I had no need to - because the words of others generally speak for themselves. I didn't see a need to explain what was so obviously already said.

I know that other reporters thrust themselves into the stories - they became a part of it, rather than an observer. That was not - is not - my style. But it slipped into the industry, and soon became the rule. My way became antiquated. I still think it is better.

In the last two decades the landscape has changed. Newspaper writing is not what it was - the industry has shot itself in the foot by giving away its news on the Internet and by allowing greed to run amok among the upper levels of management. Newspapers were never meant to be for-profit businesses and those who wanted more than a decent salary and breaking even should have looked elsewhere for their dollar bills.

For me, it has never been about the money. It's been about the story, the self-satisfaction, and what I could live with.

Which brings me back to today. I look at the current landscape and it looks like something from another galaxy. Self-publishing looms large and I suspect that is the way of the future, though it scares me. I am not big on the self-marketing aspect of that - the social networking, the push to sell.

I have read a few self-published ebooks on my Nook, and all of them have suffered from a lack of editing. They had typos, places where they repeated themselves, trains of thought that went on and then ended nowhere, or gave too much information. Every single one of them would have been a better story if the author had taken the time to review the work with a critical eye, or had someone else do that for them. Sometimes stories need to sit for years before they see the light of day. But now it is easy to put something up, place a price on it, and hope it sells. Few people have the patience to wait for perfection.

Putting up something for sale that is less than it could be scares me. I suppose in that regard I am anal, a perfectionist, a book snob. Just last night I was in Barnes and Noble. I picked up a book on writing that looked interesting. I turned to a random page. There was a misplaced period and a poorly written sentence. I put the book back and didn't buy it. It might have had the greatest advice ever but if the author, editor, and publisher couldn't figure out that a sentence needs a noun and verb and that periods do not belong in between clauses, then it wasn't advice I wanted to read.

So what's next? I don't know. I don't know where I am going. I can look back at where I have been. I have made mistakes, of course. I wouldn't be human if I hadn't. And I will make mistakes in the future. We all do.

For now, I am going to take a little time to enjoy life. It is almost June, and in a few weeks I will be adding another year to the chronicle of my life. I will be 49 years old. I am at an age when finding work, changing careers, and reinventing yourself is not as easy as it was at 20, or even 40. My hair is graying, my face is wrinkling, and parts are wearing out. I'm solidly middle-aged. And I am okay with that.

I'm even okay with not knowing what is next.

For surely, something will come.

You May Call Me Master

So today Hollins University held its 170th commencement, and conveyed upon me the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Degree.

Today I took the ring, and I became the master! (A little paraphrasing of Lord of the Rings there.)

Finally! I have that diploma.

Me in my graduation get-up.

Me, Katy and Joyce. we had a writing class together.
You'd think I could have smiled!

The line up!

Friends and family watching as we march along.

Hollins University President Nancy Gray gives the welcoming speech.

The piece of paper that brings it all together.

Thank you, dear readers, for putting up with my self-indulgence in blog posts over my weekend of commencement exercises. One doesn't graduate from college every day and I wanted to document the experience. I hope that everyone who has ever considered continuing their education will take the steps to move forward. Learning is a life-long endeavor, and I heartily encourage it.

Follow your dreams!

Baccalaureate Service 2012

In the United States, colleges and universities hold a baccalaureate service to honor the graduating class. It is more for the seniors receiving their degrees than for the graduate students. However, any graduating student is welcome to attend, and several of us who will receive our advanced degrees tomorrow took in the service Saturday afternoon.

Lining up in our black gowns.

Marching to the chapel.

Katy and Anita. We had a class together.



An interpretative dance left me speechless
and near tears.

One of the student speakers talked about the "bubble" that Hollins creates. My husband told me after the service that he had heard me say the same thing many times. Hollins is a nurturing and safe place for women, a place where a girl can grow and find herself, returning to the world a brave and strong woman. I will miss that shelter.

Graduation Rehearsal

The beautiful Hollins campus. I love it.

Lining up in alphabetical order. The Master of Arts in Liberal
Studies students are all the way at the back. You would think
a bunch of people with degrees would know their
ABCs!

Chairs in a line, waiting for parents and loved ones. They will
all be full tomorrow morning for commencement.

Staff watches the show as the graduates try to find their seats
and make sure their names will be pronounced correctly.

Trees in Fog

Fog rolls in silence
Trees loom like fingers from ground
Time stops. Day begins.