The Botetourt County Chorus

Saturday night my husband and I went to the D. Geraldine Lawson Performing Arts Center, home of Attic Produtions, to see the County Chorus present its "Parade of Hits."

The Arts Center is located less than a mile south of Fincastle on US 220.

The Botetourt County Chorus has been around for over 30 years, maybe closer to 40. My husband remembered them doing a bang-up job in 1976, during the county's Bicentennial Year.

The "Parade of Hits" consisted of songs from the 1940s or thereabouts. Many of them I knew and enjoyed. The chorus sang 25 songs.



The Chorus with its 23 members.



Loren Bruffey, Sr., who is also my father, sang a solo of Merle Travis's song Sixteen Tons. I can remember him singing that when I was a little girl.



Nancy Duffy, a neighbor whom I had not seen in many years, turned the Wheel of Fortune on the song of the same name.



Emilee Duffy, Jordyn Duffy and Abigail Crowder as the Three Little Kittens (they lost their mittens!).



Lisa McCray as Mother Goose and Tommy Duffy as Father Goose. Father Goose drew a lot of laughs.



The Three Little Kittens were joined by the Cat and Fiddle (Jordyn Duffy) and the Cow who jumped over the moon (Emmy Divers) along with the Dish and Spoon (Ainsley Burks) and Humpty Dumpty, Caleb Divers. They were later joined by the Three Blind Mice (Susannah Harris, Seth Harris and Rachel Crowder).



Zoe Bruffey, who is my niece, hammed it up as Li'l Bo Peep.



Father Goose and the gang!



Brent Watts, weatherman on WDBJ 7 and a Buchanan boy, was emcee. He rarely was still enough for a good picture!



Reta Bogess was the Doggie during How Much is that Doggie in the Window.



My father danced with his wife, Rita, during Vaya Con Dios, the last song of the evening.



Another picture of my niece, Zoe, because she is so cute!

And the doctor says...

I'm doomed.

Well, she didn't really say that and I suppose we all are doomed in that we shall all perish and make our way towards the pearly gates or the hell fires or the worm food or become one with the universe or whatever one thinks may happen when the eyes close and the soul departs.

She did say that the outlook according to my blood work simply is not pretty. So I feel doomed.

High blood pressure.
High cholesterol.
High bad cholesterol
Low good cholesterol.
High triglycerides.
Low potassium.

On the plus side my thyroid and sugar look good. Yay for me.

This is a hereditary thing; my brother has the same issues, and all of my mother's family has high blood pressure. My father's family is in California and while they are old folks I don't think any of them are in good health.

I worry more about the high blood pressure than I do the other issues, but the other issues obviously are a concern.

Last month I switched doctors. For many years I saw an old gentleman named Max Bertholf. He was a great doctor. He would pat you on the head when that is what you needed, kick you in the butt when that was what you needed, give you drugs when that was what you needed. He retired in 2005 and unfortunately my health care has suffered in the last five years.

The doctor I was seeing in the same group is nice enough, but I didn't feel cared for. The doctor never asked what I did during the day or what I did for a living or anything that might add to stress or other concerns. The doctor gave little information about diet or exercise and what was provided was no better than reading a book (which simply does not work for me, I need something else but I don't know what), pushed pills, and seemed to take a very hands-off approach to health care.

The last straw was over my blood pressure. Back in the winter the doctor changed my drugs. I started having mood swings. I looked up the drug and it said it could cause mood swings and to call your doctor immediately.

I called the doctor.

The doctor said the drug didn't cause mood swings and since my blood pressure wasn't where it should be, the drug should be doubled.

I didn't take the new dose. Instead I sought out a new doctor, who seems to be listening to me, if nothing else. She changed the blood pressure drug and then I had a physical with her last week.

Aside from the bad blood work, the blood pressure, and the fact that I am way too fat, the physical turned up nothing else.

This is quite frustrating because I don't drink or smoke. I drink soft drinks infrequently. Mostly I drink water. I walk on a treadmill 4-5 times a week for at least 20 minutes, frequently 30. I do Tai Chi twice a week or so. Obviously not a lot of exercise but not nothing. I eat too much chocolate but I am working on cutting that out of my diet completely.

I take fish oil and flax seed oil.  I don't eat much red meat. I cook with olive oil or safflower oil if I use oil at all. I eat very little bread, usually only when I eat out.

Still, I must be doing something very wrong.

Nothing like a little doom to ruin a lovely day.

Thursday Thirteen #135

On Tuesday I finished up a six-week seminar called Life Planning at Hollins University. The idea was to figure out where you've been, where you're going and what you're going to do.

Here are 13 things I have learned in the last six weeks.

1. A roomful of introverts leads to very quiet conversation and very little discussion.

2. My Myers-Briggs designation (free test at the link!) is INTJ. That means I'm Introverted, INtuitive, Thinking, Judging, or a perfectionist, imaginative, reliable, scrupulous, even-handed, and I want people to make sense. No wonder I feel so lost most of the time in this "new world order" we've been experiencing since the new millennium.

3. I need to consider finishing my masters' degree at Hollins. I am four classes and a thesis short of having another piece of paper on the wall. It might open a door. Or not.

4. The Hollins campus calls to me. Aside from my own home, there is no other place in the world that reaches out to me with open arms and says, "Hey, you belong here!" (I already knew this but I liked being reminded.)

5. Talking in front of people is not my forte. I can do it if I absolutely must, but my face turns red, my blood pressure rises, I get the internal shakes ("wind," my acupuncturist calls that), and I am basically terrified.

6. I can make a heckuva cheeseball when the facilitator decides we should end the seminar with a potluck.

7. Traveling is a dream or desire but when I think about the logistics of it - the packing, the worry about motel accommodations and bedbugs, etc., I'd just as soon stay home and look at places on Google Earth.

8. I have a very difficult time with personal "vision" and "mission" statements. Not to mention goals.

9. My knees are wearing out and climbing steps has become difficult (the seminar was on the basement level of Moody Center; thank goodness I remembered there was an elevator).

10. The number of women in the seminar who were interested in books and writing was astonishing. Nearly half the class wanted to do something in that field. Good luck, ladies! It's a dog-eat-goat and goat-trounce-on-dog sort of life.

11. A successful life can be whatever you want and however you define it. Societal definitions tend to lean towards being financially successful but personal definitions were more along the lines of being content and happy, having love, cherishing friends, and having a spiritual life.

12. One of the weekly exercises involved listing five plans you made for the future, which could be anything. Most of mine were things like haircuts, dinner with a friend or relative, and when I would wash the colored clothes and white.

13. I feel most content when I am at home writing or staring out the window. Lately I've done a lot of the latter and little of the former.

Lots of people play Thursday Thirteen. You can read about it here and find more Thursday Thirteen's to read if you  want. This is number 135 for me!

Books: Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart

Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart
By Jane Lindskold
Copyright 2002
754 pages

The second installment in Lindskold's book about Firekeeper, the young girl raised by wolves in a land of enchantment, is a good sequel.

The story picks up where the first left off. Three enchanted objects have been stolen from Bright Bay, the kingdom newly-aligned with Hawk Haven. Firekeeper is summoned to a council of Royal Beasts, who give her history and background that was missing in the first book.

Firekeeper's friends, Derian, Elaine, and the doctor, stumble across clues that send them all off on a merry chase into a new realm as they seek out not only the enchanted objects but also a mysterious cousin who shown herself a proven evil in book one.

There is much political intrigue in Lindskold's storytelling, and she breathes life into entertaining and unique characters. Firekeeper's growing up and finding her human self; book three, on my shelf awaiting my attention, should prove interesting.

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

It saddens me that as a nation we need a month to draw attention to the plight of abused children, but we do.

Most people deny that children are abused. It happens "someplace else." People do not realize (or maybe they don't care?) that it is happening to their child's best friend or the kid next door. They may even be abusing their own child but because "that is the way I was brought up" they think is is perfectly okay.

It is NOT okay.

Child sex abuse is one of the most abhorrent crimes on the planet. Yet look at these statistics:

1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18.

1 in 5 children are solicited sexually while on the internet.

Nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults (including assaults on adults) occur to children ages 17 and under.

An estimated 39 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse exist in America today.

Even within the walls of their own homes, children are at risk for sexual abuse

Shocked? You should be. Those are horrible numbers. Break it down. One in four girls. In a classroom of 20 girls, that's five children. In a classroom of 24 boys, that is four boys. That's 9 kids in a group of 44. And those are the ones that are reported. If most kids never tell, just imagine how much horror is taking place in this country AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Want more numbers?

30-40% of victims are abused by a family member. 

Another 50% are abused by someone outside of the family whom they know and trust.

Approximately 40% are abused by older or larger children whom they know.

Therefore, only 10% are abused by strangers.

Sexual abuse can occur at all ages, probably younger than you think

The median age for reported abuse is 9 years old.

More than 20% of children are sexually abused before the age of 8.

Nearly 50% of all victims of forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object, and forcible fondling are children under 12.

Most children don't tell even if they have been asked.

Virginia has over 1.8 million children. Over 13 percent of those live in poverty (more than 1 in 10). In a classroom of 30 children, at least 3 are living in poverty.

In 2006, Virginia had 56,360 total referrals for child abuse and neglect. Of those, 29,141 reports were referred for investigation.

In 2006, 6,828 children were substantiated or indicated as abused or neglected in Virginia, a rate of 3.8 per 1,000 children, representing a 5.5% increase from 2005. Of these children, 4,204 were neglected, 1,904 were physically abused, and 950 were sexually abused.

In 2006, 20 children in Virginia died as a result of abuse or neglect.

In 2006, 7,843 children in Virginia lived apart from their families in out-of-home care, compared with 7,022 children in 2005. In 2006, 24.9% of the children living apart from their families were age 5 or younger, and 26.9% were 16 or older.

The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) reported an estimated 1,760 child fatalities in 2007. This translates to a rate of 2.35 children per 100,000 children in the general population (or one child in Botetourt County - is that acceptable?). NCANDS defines "child fatality" as the death of a child caused by an injury resulting from abuse or neglect, or where abuse or neglect was a contributing factor.

Research indicates that very young children (ages 3 and younger) are the most frequent victims of child fatalities.

Children are not objects. They are not things parents own. They are people, human beings in their own right.

Love them, discipline them, raise them, but don't abuse them.

It is never okay to hurt a child.

Eagle Rock Library Dedication

On Sunday, April 11, 2010, also the beginning of National Library Week, Botetourt County dedicated its new library in Eagle Rock.

This makes the county's fourth library. It is also the largest facility, coming in at 9,600 square feet. It boasts a dividable meeting room, a computer lab, a reading area, a genealogy area and a smaller reading room.



About 200 people turned out to welcome the new building to the north end of the county. The Eagle Rock area, which is the most sparsley populated part of the county, has been underserved for some time.



The building is made of a material called "Hardy Board" and local stone.



Library Board of Trustee member Genevieve Goss has represented the Fincastle District, which encompasses Eagle Rock, for almost eight years, and prior to that represented the Amsterdam District until the boundaries changed. She is a strong advocate for the libraries.



The dedication began with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, sung by Jayne Vest, wife of Library Director Steve Vest.



The crowd was most attentive during speeches from Ms. Goss, Supervisor Chairman Terry Austin, Fincastle District Supervisor Donna Vaughn, and the Library Director.



Library Director Steve Vest has spent the last 18 months working to make this facility a reality. He was the hot point man for county officials, the Library Board of Trustees, the architect, and many others. His hair whitened considerably in recent months.



The building was designed to fit in with a rural terrain. It has a backdrop of mountains. The day was absolutely perfect with brilliant blue skies, wonderful temperatures, and not a single cloud to mar the sunshine.



Mr. Vest introduced the new library branch head, Mike Hibben, and other staff members to the public.



The building inside features exposed beams, clear story lighting, and all new furnishings. It cost the county about $1.1 million to build and furnish.



Local civic groups provided refreshments for the event.



The library is opening with 17 computers available for public use. Some of the kids couldn't wait and were on the computers as soon as they could get in the building.



The shelves are not all full but they will be in time.



The genealogy collection.



The plaque with the name of the Supervisors and Library Board members on it. I have represented the Amsterdam District on the Library Board for eight years.

Walking Can Be Hazardous

Last Monday I made the courageous effort to go to the mailbox. I took the car down my very long driveway because I was headed out to Daleville.

I like to walk - I try to walk on the treadmill everyday and I enjoy the track at Greenfield, though I don't get to it nowhere near as often I'd like. I enjoy Cherry Blossom Trail, too. I would hike more but I don't like to go alone.

Anyway, I parked the car and headed across the road to fetch the mail. I removed the envelopes from the box and turned around. A car was coming, so I did a little hop/skip/jump to speed myself along. About midway across the road, I developed what felt like a cramp in the back of my left leg.

I remember thinking, "Oh, what a place to get a charlie horse, I hope I don't fall in the middle of the road," when this happened. I made it back to the car and massaged my leg. The cramp did not ease. I even tried the ol' "pinch the space beneath your nose" trick to make the cramp go away, but that did not work (it's an acupressure point and it does work, usually).

Oh well. I went on to the Business Expo at the high school, where I limped around for over an hour. I even stopped at the physical therapist's booth. "How do you get rid of a cramp?" I asked. They advised stretching it out. I found a wall and did a few stretches before heading off to the grocery store, where I limped around a bit more.

The cramp remained. I went home and put ice on my leg. By the next day my leg was swollen and you could see that an entire band of muscle was involved. The muscle was very tight and painful. I could barely walk. I began alternating heat and ice and that seemed to help a little.

Friday I visited my new doctor for an unrelated issue but asked her to take a look at my leg. At first she was concerned I had an embolism, which scared me, but she determined that was not the case. She advised me to keep using heat and ice and use an Ace wrap when I walk.

The Ace helps.

I had no idea that just getting the mail could be hazardous to my health.

You Can't Go Home Again

Even though I am a Botetourt girl through and through, and despite the fact that I can count back many generations to ancestors who settled here when Native Americans roamed the land and cougars scared the deer, I have not lived every single year of my life here.

The first seven years of my life were spent in Salem, mostly in the house you see above. My mother and father moved the family to Botetourt in 1971, to land just minutes from my maternal grandfather's homeplace.

My memories of the little house in Salem are fragmented. Sometimes they are funny, frequently scary, and often things I'd rather forget.

That tree on the right, for instance, holds a memory of terror for a four-year old. I was playing house around the tree. I vividly recall my doll (called my Grandma Doll because she had white hair) and a little chair that I sat her in. The tree too played a role in my little imaginary game. For some reason I determined it had been a very bad tree indeed and therefore must be whipped. As I stepped around to give the tree its due with a little limb from itself, I glanced down.

A golden snake had curled itself around the tree trunk. I panicked and raced inside. My mother was getting ready to go to work. I was so terrified I could not speak. Surely the word "blathered" was invented for such moments.

I remember my mother's anger and fear. Anger because I couldn't get out what had frightened me and fear because I was so terrified. Finally, I blurted out, "Snake!" between my tears and fits of crying. She went outside to look and then called my father. He was a policeman at the time. He came home and dispensed of the snake, which apparently was in such a state of bliss that it had made no move in all the time that took.

Earlier this week I cruised with a friend in search of my old house. It had been over 20 years since I'd last gone too look for it and I wasn't sure I would remember it. I drove by it once and wasn't 100 percent sure it was the right place, but on the second drive-by I viewed the tree from an angle that made it familiar. The snake memory came roaring back to me as if it were yesterday.

Other memories from this house involve red carpeting, hands being slammed in doors (not on purpose), learning there was no tooth fairy or Santa Claus (I figured that out at the tender age of five, alas), having my eyes burn from sand in them from my sandbox, eating a wild onion in the backyard (and then not eating onions again until I was past the age of 30), my brother eating a box of aspirins, my dolly getting burned up on the stove, box-kite flying, blood, a ghost sitting on my bed, my mother passing out in the floor because she was ill, and an assortment of other wild visions that race through my head when I consider my childhood.

But it is Botetourt that has my heart and my soul, though some might consider me a transplant in spite of  my family roots here, long, deep and strong as they may be. Still, I suppose I owe some allegiance to that tiny little girl who once tried to spank a certain tree.

Thursday Thirteen

Can't get enough of Spring after that awful winter!

1. Robins herald a new beginning.















2. Flowering trees bring great visual pleasure...


3. And pollen! (achoo!).

4. See how lovely the forest is? Nothing like a little color!



5. Majestic redbud!


6. Bradford pears. They've been spectacular this year.


7. Dandies and clover!


8. More redbuds, up close and personal.













9. My green lawn. (There is a turkey in this picture but it can barely be seen.)


10. Daffodils!

11. Early sunrise.



12. Barrels of blooms.


13. Early newborn.



Lots of people play Thursday Thirteen. You can read about it here. This is number 134 for me!

My Book Club

A number of years ago I joined a book club at what was then the Blue Kat Art Gallery in Fincastle.

The gallery, the brainchild of artist Dreama Kattenbraker, closed, much to my dismay, but the book club continued. We've been reading books together for a long time now.

Dreama, the heart and soul of the book club.



For a long time the group met monthly but attendance dwindled, so we changed it to bi-monthly. We met on April 1 and discussed Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange.

This book is a coming of age story about a young girl in the Carribean. It's a lovely tale and we all enjoyed it quite a lot.

Our club meetings can sometimes ramble and we often get off-topic. But we enjoy one another's company so much that it doesn't seem to matter.

For June we are reading The Help by Katheryn Stockett.

Books: Dance Upon the Air

Dance Upon the Air
By Nora Roberts
Read by Sandra Burr
Audio
Unabridged
Copyright 2001

Nora Roberts hits another homerun with this trilogy. Dance Upon the Air is the first book and I will be looking for the next two for sure.

Nell Channing has fled an abusive husband. She's run as far as possible - all the way to the other coast of the U.S. She ends up on Three Sisters Island, reputed to have been created from the sea by three witches during the Salem Witch Trials.

She meets Mia, a bookstore/cafe owner who gives her a job and a place to live. The energy between the two gives Mia, an established witch, an indication of the power Nell does not know she possesses.

Zach is the local sheriff. Nell is wary of him at first, for her flight from the west coast involved false information, faking her own death, and doing everything in her power to leave no trail. Eventually, though, sparks fly and romance begins.

Ripley, Zach's sister, also has a power of her own. Together the three women form an incarnation of the Three Sisters. Will they be able to work together to break a prophecy of doom?

Well-read with a strong plot. The character development was excellent.

Spring, I say! Spring!

Tiny grape hyacinths in my front yard!




The wood anemone is carpeting the leafy floor of the forest behind my house.




Forsynthia, you are my hero!

Happy Easter - Random Easter Thinking

I was raised without religion so when I was growing up this holiday was all about bunnies and chocolate. I don't recall attending an Easter Service until I was adult.

At my grandmother's house, we would fill plastic eggs with candy and hide them around her yard and then go seek them out. We took turns hiding them from one another and occasionally an adult would oblige us and hide them for us so we could all go hunting at the same time. The kids around would have been myself, my brother and my two uncles, who ranged in age from a year younger than I to four years older, with various cousins dropping in from time to time.



I remember getting up and seeing big Easter baskets a la Santa Claus on Easter morning. Some years they came with little garden tools or plastic lawnmowers but always lots of candy.

Our eggs came from chickens on the farm and they were mostly brown so we didn't dye them. Brown eggs simply don't dye that well. I remember my mother purchased white eggs a few times simply so we could dye them. I don't recall being all that excited about the process of watching them turn colors. I do remember being warned about being sure we found them all because otherwise they would stink if we left them lying about.



Because we raised chickens, I never wanted to receive a little chick on Easter.

Easter is a time of promise and renewal. A time of new beginnings. Outside my window I see green fields now where only a few weeks ago there was nothing but brown grass. In the far field the mustard has sprung up, leaving a yellow streak among the green. Daffodils dance in the wind. The trees have hints of green and the mountains are no longer dull. The leaves aren't out yet but their buds tint the landscape. The redbuds are opening, dogwoods are venturing forth and the birds are singing lustily from the trees.



I celebrate Easter and God's glory in the wonders of nature and the joyfulness of life. The sky is my cathedral, the trees my columns, the landscape my stained-glass windows, the damp earthy my pew. The Word of God is whispered on the wind if one only stops to listen and the Words are written all around us if we only open our eyes and look.

Life and Love.
Life and Love.
Life and Love.
Amen.

Thursday Thirteen

April Fool's! This is not my favorite day; I am too literal. But you jesters enjoy!




1. The most recent full moon is called the Full Worm Moon. This is because the ground is thawing and worms are showing up just in time for the robins to appear. Northern Native American tribes called this the Full Crow Moon, because you can hear their raucous noise now, or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow crusted over as it froze and thawed. Some call this the Full Sap Moon, because it is time to tap maple trees for syrup. It has also been called the Lenten Moon, last full moon of winter.

2. Many full moon names date back to Native Americans, who tracked the seasons by giving names to the full moons and using those names for the entire month thereafter. European settlers adopted the custom and in some cases created their own names.

3. In January, we see the Full Wolf Moon, so named because this is when the wolves howl. It is also called the Old Moon, Moon After Yule, or Full Snow Moon.

4. Full Snow Moon is seen in February, when there are usually the heaviest snows. This is also called the Full Hunger Moon (empty bellies).

5. In April we will see the Full Pink Moon, which comes from phlox, a spring flower. It is also sometimes called the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and the Full Fish Moon, because this is when shad swim upstream to spawn.

6. In May we will see Full Flower Moon, because those April showers brought those May flowers. Other names are the Full Corn Planting Moon or the Milk Moon.

7. In June we will see the Full Strawberry Moon (yum!) among Native Americans but in Europe they called it the Rose Moon.

8. In July we will see the Full Buck Moon, so named because this is when bucks begin to grow their antlers. It is sometimes called the Full Thunder Moon (for obvious reasons) or the Full Hay Moon.

9. In August we will see the Full Sturgeon Moon, because this is the best time to catch sturgeon. It is also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.

10. September brings us the Full Corn Moon, because this is when corn is ready for harvest. This is also sometimes called the Harvest Moon.

11. The Full Harvest Moon is also the name of the moon in October. It has something to do with autumn equinox dates as to why this moon occurs in September or October.

12. In November, we will see the Full Beaver Moon, so called because this is the time to set beaver traps and bring in furs. This is sometimes called the Frosty Moon.

13. December brings the The Full Cold Moon, also called the Full Long Nights Moon or Moon Before Yule.


Thanks to my friend Inga for giving me the idea and information for this entry!

Lots of people play Thursday Thirteen. You can read about it here. My other Thursday Thirteens are here. This is number 133!

Turtles

Last night in my Life Planning seminar at Hollins, the facilitator brought in Aretha, a massage therapist and inner light sort of lady.

Aretha's message to us was to find our inner purpose. Find our rhythm, our bliss, our peace.

She then played a CD with the sounds of the ocean and lead us through a short guided imagery so that we could all then pick up our pens and paper and begin the hard work of figuring out who we are and what we want out of life.

During the imagery I slipped into something akin to a trance. I have long used imagery techniques and can quickly fall into my "safe place" when I am feeling frustrated and upset, provided I remember to do it. Sometimes I forget.

As I listened to the sounds of the waves, images of turtles came to me,* totally unbidden. Dark green and serene, floating along in the water. They were safe in their shells, carrying their homes on their backs. They had no worries for everything they needed was with them or right in front of them. They were smiling.

Perhaps I then fell asleep, because suddenly there appeared a turtle without a leg. No blood, but no leg, either. And that turtle too was swimming along, but not doing quite as well as his peers. He was missing a back leg, after all. And then as I looked I noticed that others were missing parts, too. Some had no front leg. Some had cracked shells. One was missing an eye. They were all injured in some way.

The turtles continued to forge through the water, their turtle faces still wearing what I was interpreting as a smile.

I came back to myself with a start, feeling bewildered and confused. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote "turtles without legs?" on it so I wouldn't forget. Shortly thereafter, still feeling as if I were in a dream, I wrote "Lose the Fear" and circled it. And then I wrote "Find Your Courage" and circled that.

This morning as I look over my page, written while I rested in a different space from that which I normally dwell, I see other things:

Time for myself
Just be
Be Love
Beloved
Love
Leave it all
Start anew
Create my own dance
Laugh
Live because you must
What does the heart say


*The facilitator said absolutely nothing about turtles, so I don't know where that came from.*

A Blog Award

Alice Audrey over at Alice's Restaurant gave me this blog award, for which I thank her.

Alice is a Thursday Thirteen participant and so we visit one another weekly.

I truly have no idea what an "Honest Scrap" award is. Am I a scrapper in my writing? Do I hammer home my points (based on the visual in the award). Do I have thick arm muscles?

There are rules about these things, and here are the ones for this award:

Honest Scrap

You are supposed to nominate seven other bloggers for it, who can then do with it
what they will. The other portion of your assignment is to blog ten little known and interesting facts about yourself.

I am just going to say if you think you're an honest scrapper and you'd like this award, please take it! Instead of nominating anyone I am simply going to shout out to some of my favorite blogs. There's June over at Spatter, Colleen over at Loose Leaf Notes, Amy at Virginia Scribe, Becky at Peevish Pen, Diane at Blue Ridge Gal, Ginger at landuvmilknhoney, Beth at Blue Ridge Blue Collar Girl, and Lenora at Journal of Days. Check any of them out if you're looking for interesting reading.

Now for the important part. Those 10 facts.

1. My hair is brown and gray. I started going gray in my 20s. I do not call the color "gray" when I speak of it but instead consider it a "soft white." You know, like a light bulb.

2. My eyes are hazel. Sometimes they are blue. Sometimes they are green. Sometimes they are gray. Once someone told my eyes looked like cracked ice.

3. I have a scar on my chest that is 4 inches long (I just measured it). When I was in school, I used to be sure my gym teacher saw the scar. Then, if I didn't feel like running or whatever, I would simply lay my hands over my chest and say I didn't feel well. I was always automatically excused. I knew they thought I'd had some kind of heart surgery even though I would never lie and call it that. It wasn't heart surgery. I had a huge mole removed from my chest when I was five years old. If they'd asked I would have told them but they never did.

4. I would be better off today if I hadn't lain out of gym class so often when I was younger. This is a fact.

5. I knew from the first grade that I would be a writer.

6. In the second grade I was the best reader but the teacher would not give me an A because I did not read with inflection in my voice. She embarrassed me in front of the class by telling me this was why I did not get a better grade, and then demonstrated it by reading in a monotone and making the class laugh.

7. I used to chew my fingernails very badly. Now I just keep them clipped back very short. Occasionally, particularly when I am reading, I might still take a chomp.

8. I grind my teeth at night.

9. I once started to write a book on Mary Johnston but when I went to do the research, I discovered I was severely allergic to the boxes of her papers at the University of Virginia Library. I abandoned the project.

10. I do not have a favorite book or a favorite author.

The Power of Words

Language is the way we communicate and it is the way we persuade.

Word usage can make the difference between positive and negatives, good and bad, black and white. It can make things clearer or it can muddy the waters so much that the reader (0r listener) will never see the bottom of the pond.

The media today is full of language that, as far as I am concerned, are disingenuous twistings of meanings. The words are meant to convey one thing while meaning something else.

Sometimes words even lose their meaning because no one really knows what they are talking about.

Examples:

Cost-Recovery Program for EMS. This is a local program wherein you have to pay when the rescue squad comes and gets you. The county charges insurance companies only and if you have no insurance, supposedly you do not receive a bill. When I was writing about this for the newspaper, I insisted on calling it "pay for service" because that is really what it is. Cost Recovery is just a bureaucratic way of hiding what the program really does.

Death tax v. estate tax. Calling a tax on a multi-million dollar estate a "death tax" strikes fear into the heart of the little fellow who will never have a million dollar estate, much less a multi-million dollar estate, regardless of his hopes and dreams.

Death panel v. end-of-life counseling. Death panel? Really? Come on. End of life counseling is a great thing. It is greatly needed in this country. As I understand it, end of life counseling in no way precludes someone from getting care but it does make sure that a person making decisions has all the information.

Bank bailout/ Wall Street bail out. Let's call 'em what they are, shall we? Redistribution of wealth and class warfare.

Middle class. Who is middle class? Does anyone know? Working class? Upper class? Lower class? Poor? Apparently everyone is middle class these days. But they aren't. Can we have some honesty here and acknowledge that the USA has a large number of poor people and working class people and these folks are struggling?

GM Bailout. This was no bailout. This was a government takeover of a privately-owned business, and it is the reason why Toyota has been appearing before Congress.

USA PATRIOT ACT. This is a good example of giving something an acronym or name when it really means something else. The name implies this Act is good for America and anyone who opposes it is unpatriotic (which is a really bad thing to be in this country). In reality, this thing took away rights, allowed the government to peek at the books you check out in the library, and went a long way towards creating the climate of police state that we now have here.

Iraq War, Afghanistan War. Are these really wars, or are they police actions? Are they police actions, or are they grabs for oil? Why are we there, really? Can we have a little truth?

Terrorist/Terrorism. This is a word that has lost its meaning for me because it has so many meanings. I think the folks who throw rocks through government windows or slash gas lines of brothers of folks in Congress are domestic terrorists. Militant Christians can terrorize just as well as a Muslim. We need new descriptions.

NIMBY. The Not-in-My-Back-Yard acronym angered me recently when someone used it with me. It is a pejorative used to immediately imply that those opposing an issue are wrong and have no reasons for opposition other than "because."

Pro-life, Pro-abortion. The left lost this one when the right adopted a "pro-life" stance and the media continued to use it. NPR just issued a new policy that will remove the use of these words from its language on the radio and in its writing. They will use abortion rights advocates and abortion rights supporters. Many folks in the comments at the link are objecting to these changes, mostly from the right. To their mind saying "abortion rights" implies that NPR is leftest and supporting abortion rights. I guess the commentators could get even more ungainly and say "those who support lack of choice when it comes to abortion" "those in favor of choice when it comes to abortion" or something. I am not arguing this issue so please don't take me to task for it; I'm not stating my thoughts on the issue but on the language used to describe the issue. I am not publicly saying where I stand on this as it is no one's business but my own.

What are other language uses today that are torturing and twisting the tongue and bruising the mind as we try to understand one another?

What can we do to speak clearer and say what we mean?

Do we really want to be messaged to death instead of understanding?

The Living Room Bed

Last week Peggy Shifflett, author of The Living Room Bed: Birthing, Healing and Dying in Traditional Appalachia, presented me with my very own copy of her self-published book.



The author, Peggy Shifflett.

I edited this book for her back in January and early February. I really enjoyed working with her and learned that this type of work, that is, editing for folks, is something I desire. I like editing. I think I do a decent job and Peggy seemed pleased.

I really liked being able to hold the finished product in my hands. I stood salivating over it for the longest time after I returned home with it. It is a bit memoir, a bit history, a bit nostalgia, and partly social commentary. I understand from Peggy that she already has quite an audience for her books in the Shenandoah Valley.

She also thanked me in the acknowledgements, which was very kind. This is the fourth book that has mentioned me in the acknowledgements and I am always quite flattered. I also suspect that being mentioned in a book acknowledgement is not something that happens to anyone very often, so I feel very humbled by that.



The cover of the book.



The back of the book.

With chapters such as Midwives of Hopkins Gap, Gender Mattered, Recovering from Childhood Illnesses and Courtship and Marriage, a reader can obtain a historic and eye-opening understanding of the hard life of Appalachian mountain folk prior to the 1960s (and some of these people still live like this today).

Peggy talks about how difficult it was to sleep three or four children to a bed, what it was like to have to go outside to the outhouse, and how horrible it was to be a girl in a patriarchal and overly religious society. Her insight into these kinds of social mores is fascinating. She also interviewed a wide range of folks in Virginia, covering a stretch from Grayson County to Rockingham County, so the book offers up numerous perspectives of the hard life of mountain folk.

If you have any interest in Appalachian history, folk life, or folklore, I urge you to look for one of Peggy's books in gift shops in the Shenandoah Valley. You can also order directly from her. She is in the process of putting up a website but you can email her for ordering information at pshiffle@radford.edu. The book lists for $22.


Disclosure: I'm not receiving any money for promoting this book, but I was paid to edit it.