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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Spaghetti Western

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on August 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Granted I’ve been alive a long time now, and for some reason, I never knew what the term spaghetti western means. Is it a bunch of movies made in Sicily? Does it refer to cowboys who will only eat pasta? Is it a genre or just a passing fad?

Turns out spaghetti westerns are a sub-genre of movies about the wild wild west, mostly filmed in Spain with Italian directors in the 1960s and 70s. Here are its most common characteristics according to Urban Dictionary:

1. Level of Violence (Usually more than American made westerns).
2. The Music (Often scored by Ennio Morriconne and Bruno Nicolai).
3. Sound Effects (Particulary the gun and horse sounds are different from the ones used in American made westerns).
4. Religious imagery, symbols and names.
5. Filmed in Almeria Spain.
6. Italian and Spanish names in the credits (It is highly likely the director will be named Sergio).
7. Out of sync dubbing (Even the Italian versions are dubbed).
8. Stereotypes (Mexicans as theives, women as whores).
9. A shitload of alternate titles.
10. Banned in several countries.
11. Often they star Franco Nero, Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Klaus Kinski, Luigi Pistili, Mario Brega and other spaghetti regulars.

It should be noted here, that as a girl I remember distinctly running out of Dover, NJ’s Baker Theatre to throw up on the street during the chariot race in Ben Hur. And it was the gruesome depiction of dying horses that did it for me, and we all know this was long before they started running “No animals were hurt during the filming of this movie” credits. Between that, and my big brother, Dr Jim, scaring the life out of me by taking me to horror movies at the fancy Community Theatre, where we had to wear our little white gloves, it’s a wonder I ever went to another movie again.

On the bright side, Dr Jim and I spent some great Saturday afternoons at the Baker watching 007 double features! This helped me develop a certain taste in films, long before censors or a rating system developed for parents. I hated violence, which meant I missed lots of the great Vietnam films, but thought sex was totally normal and fine. Bob and I have been called “outlier” parents before, and this may be one of the reasons. The Rocker’s friends knew I’d sneak them into “R” rated films anytime.

Come to think of it, going to the movies was one of the many “action and adventure” dates I’d plan with my son. I dressed him up like a little Ninja Turtle for the premier of that movie, much to his bigger sister’s chagrin. When he was thirteen, I picked him up from his one camp experience in PA, and we stopped to see the first Men in Black movie on our way home! Long before that, I’d catch him working with his best bud Alex for hours in our garage on a stop-action film with their tiny Star Wars action figures. Alex later became the drummer in his first band.

Cut to today. Since moving out to the Left Coast, my son has been determined to score music for the film industry, while flying back and forth to NJ to fulfill his commitment to his band of brothers. And this week, he and his collaborators at Ignition Creative in LA have released the trailer for Tarantino’s eighth movie, “Hateful Eight,” in the style of a spaghetti western. I’m guessing the horses were treated well. http://variety.com/2015/film/news/hateful-eight-trailer-quentin-tarantino-1201568499/

Sometimes the universe just aligns.

Twelve years old and his big sister goes to college

Twelve years old and his big sister goes to college

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Bad Girls

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 11, 2015| Leave a Comment »

While watching part of the GOP debate, I started to feel like that Angry character in the movie Inside Out. The one with fiery hair and a voice like Lewis Black. In the continual news coverage of Trump’s performance, I thought something is missing. Now we hear Hillary calling it out, the unbelievably, unimaginable gall of Rubio to tell us all that his Catholic faith informs his public policy – ie sorry no abortions ladies, life begins at conception, oh and btw, that he would make no exceptions for rape or incest.

And so we see again, ten men discussing womens’ private parts. But as Elizabeth (yes we’re on a first name basis) said, did they fall down and hit their heads and wake up in the 1950s? Because I lived through those years, when young women were butchered in backyard alleys, when they were sent away in shame to deliver a baby and hand it over for adoption, when they were rendered infertile and sometimes died. When women had no voice at all, none. Some women did the “good” thing and married the guy at 17, if he was amenable.

Today, young women are supposedly given condoms in school at a certain age and told how to use them. Of course this is all according to a state-sanctioned sex-ed/health curriculum, that varies from California to New York. Some states prefer to teach about waiting for marriage. But, girls can walk into a drug store and buy a Plan B pill if the condom failed…in fact, they still could walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic and get a shot a patch or a pill to prevent conception. But not if these ten men on stage have their way, clinics will cease to exist for reproductive health care – in other words, it’s the poor, the marginalized, the girls who could never in a million years talk to their parents about sex, these are the girls who will suffer.

Then this morning I read this: “Letter to Our Daughters: Do Not Be Good.”  The author, Megan Bergman, is writing about becoming a teenager to her pre-school daughters: http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/letter-to-my-daughters-do-not-be-good/

You are entitled to the Dark Poetry Stage, and although it’s going to hurt like hell when you push me away, it’s necessary. (I hope I’m there to be pushed, and return doggedly.) I’m raising you to be independent beings, not fleshy basement-dwellers who play video games and pound energy drinks while the sunny world goes by. Or girls who try to appease my ego by being conventionally “good” and who then have to forge a secret rebellion. No! Rebel in the open.

I want you out in the world getting the good stuff. I want sun on your skin and banned books in your backpack, and when I’m old and diapered I want you to walk into my house, turn down the George Michael songs, and tell me about all the incredible discoveries you’ve made about the planet and yourself. I want you to tell me about your mistakes, heartbreaks, dreams, and plans. Those things are your engine. In my life, failure has been a much better engine than success. Artistic and personal.

George Michael doesn’t do it for me, maybe the Stones? My generation of women wrote the Book “Our Bodies Ourselves” because if we can’t control our body, how can we take control of our own lives?  We don’t need to cover our hair, we can dye it blue. We can go to a movie like Trainwreck and celebrate our badasses.

Because being good isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: when it limits our choices; when it keeps us subservient; when it cancels our dreams.

We don’t have to take typing in school and end up in a Mad Men office anymore. We may even get equal pay for equal work soon! I went to Catholic school AND camp. I was taught to be good above all else. And believe me, throwing off those shackles felt amazing. Rubio and his ilk would like to put those chains back on, but he doesn’t know that young women today will never allow that to happen. After years of being dressed in a beanie and uniform, I allowed the Bride to wear whatever she wanted to school. It was the late 80s, think Dirty Dancing, and she was killing it!

Note to my daughter – remember your grandmother was a Flapper, remember this when the Love Bug turns 11, it’s a magical age.  Cute Kids

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A Midsummer Morning

Posted in books, Wedding, tagged , , , , , on July 31, 2015| 2 Comments »

Ms Bean has treed a couple of wild turkeys just to start this morning off right! In other news, a brand new Costco store has opened up on Route 29, near Stonehenge (my pet name for a “new” shopping center in the area). It was supposed to be an upscale shopping experience, and I was hoping for a Nordstrom/or Macy’s/or Bloomies, but Costco will just have to do. All good progressives, I’ve learned, prefer this to Sam’s Club. I’ll most likely steer clear of the place this weekend, besides, do I really need a five year supply of chili powder?

If Bob were not working, we might take in The Albemarle County Fair! Some big rain and thunderstorms have moved through our hills and taken out our modem…again…and left us with some refreshingly cool air for these parts. Today is the first day of The Fair and it’s nearby, on the grounds of Ashlawn Highland, President Monroe’s beautiful estate. But going to something like this, alone, just doesn’t make sense. Meeting an 18th Century furniture maker, exploring the livestock tent, and watching handspinners in the peacock yard would be infinitely more fun with a partner in crime. Someone needs to share your fried dough, right?  http://albemarlecountyfair.com

But tomorrow night I am going to a vineyard in Madison County to celebrate the life of a dear friend and neighbor, Bill Greer. We met Bill and his lovely wife DeeDee at another fair, a Fiber Festival at Ashlawn right after we moved here from NJ. They had a tent for their alpacas, and DeeDee sold some of the softest, finest yarn I’ve ever had the pleasure to knit. alpaca scarfFBBob’s arm was in a sling after shoulder surgery, which got the conversational ball rolling. Then we found out, quite by accident, that we had just bought our land less than two miles up the road from their Rivanna River Alpaca Farm.

After a long building stage, and an exhausting two day move, they had us over for dinner with the Bride and Groom. That night on their deck was perfect. We were both Yankees, they had moved here from Chicago. And we fell into a friendship that wasn’t forced or contrived. I immediately felt like I could tell DeeDee anything, like we had known each other in another life. Once you get to be an empty-nester, making new friends, the kind who know where the spoons are in your kitchen, doesn’t come easy. I’d join a knitting group in DeeDee’s studio, and bring visiting children over to see new alpaca babies. I even toyed with getting some alpacas, or goats, or chickens!

Like us, DeeDee and Bill had one of those second chance love affairs. They’d been married before, and were really newlyweds when we met, blending a large family of adult children all over the world. I’ll always remember Bill sitting out on our deck, just gazing at the sunset over the Blue Ridge mountains, telling us we had the best view. Bob would maintain that Bill’s access to the river was even better. And his face, when he saw his wife, was like a kid at Christmastime. I wish I could channel DeeDee’s zest for life, her energy is contagious, and her compassion is a thing of beauty. I know she’ll be fine, but I also know this kind of loss is a palpably heavy weight.

Bill was only 68 when he passed away this past March, much too soon. I’m hoping Bob can leave the hospital early, for DeeDee, and for me. We will always remember his glad hug, his smile of recognition when a joke hits home, and his absolute devotion to DeeDee. She lost a prince of a man, and he will be sorely missed.  http://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/article/20150330/NEWS/150339921

Bob and Bill

Bob and Bill

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Travel Writing

Posted in books, Wedding, tagged , , , , , , , on July 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Today I’m off to take a workshop on Travel Writing! I’ve been thinking about the topic since I managed to find an email about the class yesterday. Bring “pen and paper” the instructor said, since we will be passing our work around the class.

Learn to write compelling and engaging travel narratives (personal essays, articles ,or memoir pieces), which combine the eye of a journalist with the flair of a storyteller. In-class readings and exercises will address pertinent craft issues, and we’ll also discuss the practical matters of how to submit your work for publication.

I’m off to a good start since I already have the “…eye of a journalist,” but what kind of stories should I tell? Should I write for the soon-to-retire Boomer generation, the grandparents among us with more free time and a long bucket list? Or should I focus on memoir, and write about our trips to Martha’s Vineyard with friends when the kids were very little?

After we moved back to NJ, and because we could never travel in the summer – all those newbie residents in July needed Bob’s attention – we fell into the habit of visiting one island in the French West Indies over and over again nearly every winter. It was perfect for Bob because he could lay on a beach and decompress from his intense and busy work life. It became less than perfect for me. Being Irish, with red-headed skin, I wanted to avoid the sun, and…

I wanted action! I wanted adventure! I’d listen longingly to friends who were biking in Vietnam, or hiking across Ireland. I know, complaining about going to the same island every year sounds like a First World problem, but believe me, I was done with the beach. Here are some of my ideas for our next chapter:

A riverboat cruise along the Danube

A cooking school in Tuscany

A photographic safari in South Africa

A hot air ballon trip over France

A writing workshop in Iowa (OK, that’s just me)

A knitting excursion to farms in the UK, or maybe Wales

And I just want to see Iceland!

But for now our next trip will be to Charleston, SC this Fall. Before the devastating mass shooting at the AME church, Charleston had been voted the best US city to visit in Travel and Leisure’s survey, and the second best in the world!! http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/30/travel/tl-worlds-best-cities/

We’ll be going with the Bride and Groom to check out the city and have some fun with the grandbabies. I’ve rented an ocean view home on Home Away, so I guess it will be cooking and sunscreen for me all over again. Still, I love to cook with the Bride and could never complain about combing sand out of the Love Bug’s hair. It will be like deja vu all over again.

The next island generation

The next island generation

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

EE Cummings

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A Clarion Call

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on May 12, 2015| Leave a Comment »

After finishing up my Mother’s Day essay, I settled myself on a heating pad and read this: http://www.aww.com.au/latest-news/lets-talk/lesson-to-my-daughter-20482

Annabel Crabb, an Australian writer, gives her daughter the gift of an important life lesson. Now we all know, once our daughters have hit about age 16, there’s pretty much nothing we can do to influence them. OH we can try. We can bash our heads against a wall with cajoling and bribery, and occasionally they may listen. If I had a 16 year old today on social media, I’d pretty much raise my hands in surrender.

But a funny thing happens when they grow up and start a family of their own, they actually ask you for advice! It may not happen often, and sometimes it’s after all other friends and Google searches have left them needing more, let’s say, sage wisdom from the one person in their world who knew them when. And normally I’d say wait for this to happen. The one golden rule of grandparenting is never to offer advice, unless and until you are asked for it.

But there are times when your tongue just has a mind of its own, like after Happy Buddha Baby (let’s call him Happy Bud) was born. I remember leaving Nashville one time and telling my daughter that,

“…cleaning up just isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things,” on my way out the door.

Now for those of you who know the Bride, them’s fighting words. She is an organizational genius, a Type A+ personality who can make dinner, include the Love Bug in food prep, nurse the baby and do her patient notes all in the same evening.

I am the opposite. Multi-tasking was always beyond me, a dream that might happen at any second but usually, nah. The Flapper once told me that housekeeping skills usually skipped a generation, and now I believe her. But I think it’s because we grow up either in clutter chaos and can never find anything, or we grow up severely regimented under the thumb of a neat freak. And so we rebel, and become the opposite of our Mother in that regard. Once the Rocker’s friend came over to borrow a pair of his boots for Halloween in Middle School and was dumb struck when I replied i couldn’t find them. Seriously, she was one of six and her Mom knew where everything was, every single thing at every minute of the day!

And so I was prepared to like this essay from Australia about why a Mom wouldn’t change anything at all about her “untidy life.” Except for her premise – we should do less instead of “whining and moaning” because the men in our lives don’t pull their weight; “…women still do about twice as much housework as men.”

And guess what, in America we do three times as much housework as men! http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/22/women-better-at-housework-men-better-at-avoiding-it

But is doing less the answer to a happy marriage? Because if we start to do less and still expect him to do more, to pick up the slack, we might be surprised. So complain all you want ladies – and let his socks sit at the foot of the bed because they haven’t grown feet and walked themselves into the laundry basket. In fact, let that basket founder for a few days and see what happens. In other words, men cannot intuit what we want – we must tell them!

I am happy to report that the last time I walked in the door, after a 9 hour journey, the living room looked like a toddler fun house had exploded inside. I was so ecstatic!

"Cleaning up after a toddler is like trying to shovel snow in a snowstorm" Old Berkshire saying

“Cleaning up after a toddler is like trying to shovel snow in a snowstorm” Old Berkshire saying

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The Original Nerd Prom

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on April 24, 2015| 2 Comments »

The Bride's Prom

The Bride’s Prom

It’s that time of year again. Limos full of teens will be dashing around town, hair and nail salons will be booked far in advance. Some girls will go in a posse, some will ask a boy to go with them, some will wait to be asked. Oh, the humanity; it’s Prom time!

A friend of ours sent his youngest off with a hail and farewell. It was touch and go for awhile, should she get highlights? Would anybody actually show up? Because we all know it’s not the Prom itself that’s the draw, it’s the After-Prom Party.

And the party for the White House Correspondents Association dinner is this weekend. Lovingly called the Nerd Prom, it’s a place where the POTUS can get gently roasted, and the press, legislators, big business and Hollywood types get to bask in the glow of some jolly good fun at their own expense. I would love to be a fly on the wall this week in DC. And I love that for just the second time in history, a woman comedian, Cecily Strong, will host the dinner.

The daughter of a journalist herself, she made her name on SNL with this sketch character, “Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party,” and she is an improv veteran which should stand her in good stead. Maybe she will read this Salon article and hit up some of the big money to donate to the scholarship programs for budding journalists. Although being in journalism today can be tricky, and even deadly.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/white-house-correspondents-dinner-117287.html#.VTpTRaa4k1g

Some of you may know that Great Grandma Ada saved my Prom picture with her son. Our group was the lunch table of future engineers, doctors, lawyers, brokers and yes journalists, aka nerds. We had no idea what the 60s would bring to each of us. I married in Boston, Bob went to Woodstock. But in 1966, we drove a convertible to the Jersey Shore for the night, never knowing we’d later – much later – marry and live in Rumson. Then send our daughter off to her Prom. Sometimes life really is stranger than fiction.

Our Prom 1966

Our Prom 1966

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Earth Mother

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on April 22, 2015| 2 Comments »

Happy Earth Day everyone! It’s a blustery, sunny morning on the Blue Ridge, and life is almost back to normal. Bob left late for the hospital, so we had lots of time to discuss that five year old boy, you know the one. The parents “allowed” him to identify as a boy since the ripe old age of two, even though biologically he’s a girl. Mia or Jacob, you decide. It seems we have different opinions on that one, but I’ll just let you guess. Because I hate judging parents, I really really do.

Then before I had a chance to head outdoors and plant a rhododendron, the Bride sent me this Salon article because all her friends were talking about it: “What a Horrible Mother” by Kim Brooks:

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/19/what_a_horrible_mother_moms_arrested_for_leaving_their_kids_in_the_car/

So many touchy issues here. First of all,, I don’t believe this is an absolutist argument. There are many shades of grey, so if you’re of the opinion that one should never, and I mean ever, leave a kid in the car, you should stop reading. Same goes for those of you who believe, like the Scandinavians, you can always just plop your child alone, in public, while you run into a coffee house. Grandma Ada’s generation believed that fresh air was essential for a child, so they parked the pram on the porch and went about their housework every single day.

Today, if you run into the dry cleaners and leave your sleeping, sick child in his carseat, windows cracked open, parked and locked in the shade for a few minutes, on a 50-60 degree day, you may come back to your car and find yourself arrested!

For Dawn, a young mother in New England, it was the same: a moment of convenience followed by one of shock. She had just picked up her daughter from daycare when she remembered she was out of toilet paper. Her daughter, worn out after the day, was strapped into her car seat and busily enjoying what was her first ever Happy Meal to boot. Dawn pulled up in front of a Rite Aid, locked the doors, and sprinted inside. By the time she returned to the vehicle, three minutes later, a woman was standing by the window, beside Dawn’s daughter, who was still waiting comfortably.

“You’re disgusting,” the stranger said. “What a horrible mother. I’ve called the police on you. I have your license plate number. I’m waiting here to make sure they arrest you.”

There is a kind of moral vigilantism that has resulted from our “See something, say something” culture of fear. Perfectly normal, educated women are being arrested for a judgement call. The kind of thing I, and my generation, did all the time. Yes, I left my babies sleeping in the car in the garage when we got home from a long morning. The garage door was open and i could see them through the family room and hear when they started to stir awake. I’m pretty sure I left them in a locked car for a few minutes while running into a store, in fact it was such a commonplace thing, we didn’t think twice about it.

I remember feeling good that I had never actually locked the keys inside the car with the baby, something a few of my friends did. But when that happened to them, bystanders would help pop the lock, not call 911.

This was over 30 years ago, and in New England. But have stranger kidnappings increased since then, NO – only sensational media stories of car-jackings, and sleep-deprived parents forgetting their child in the car while they spent the day at work. Yes, we hear about the parent who walks into Walmart, leaving the baby in a car that quickly heats up over 100 degrees, resulting in death. That is ignorance, that is depravity, and it is a crime. Just like the parent who leaves guns around for that toddler to pick up…these are not accidents. I can get pretty judgmental about it.

Instead of pointing a finger, I would hope that I would react more like the woman at the end of the article. The one who helps a young mom empty her cart and plays peek-a-boo. Because the oceans are rising and mother earth needs all the help she can get, here are some free Earth Day games for your children. http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/earth_day/earthday.php

Be kind to each other.  IMG_2489

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When Evil Looms

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 20, 2015| 2 Comments »

Last week my half-brother Brian was buried in Germany. He was laid to rest on Yom Ha’Shoah, the day Israel honors the victims of the Holocaust. Unlike the rest of the world, surviving European Jewish people were living with the grief of their systematic slaughter by Nazis every day and every night after WWII. It was a nightmare that came true with each new dawn. So they chose a different way to remember this evil; not by calling it International Remembrance Day, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, but by placing it on the Jewish calendar, in the month of Nisan, a week after Passover.

“Holocaust and Heorism Remembrance Day” was chosen to commemorate, to honor the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Since the early 1960’s, the sound of a siren on Yom Hashoah stops traffic and pedestrians throughout the State of Israel for two minutes of silent devotion. The siren blows at sundown and once again at 11:00 A.M. on this date. All radio and television programs during this day are connected in one way or another with the Jewish destiny in World War II, including personal interviews with survivors. Even the musical programs are adapted to the atmosphere of Yom Hashoah. There is no public entertainment on Yom Hashoah, as theaters, cinemas, pubs, and other public venues are closed throughout Israel.

My brother Brian married a wonderful German woman, Hildegarde. He adopted her family as his own, and although I know nothing about her, I can assume she was touched by the War. Was her first husband or father killed for resisting, or were they collaborators? I know she loved my brother very much, and that she was an excellent cook. She never really learned to speak English so that the two times I met her, I had the feeling she understood more than she could say. I never visited them in Germany primarily because Bob had no wish to go there.

Brian was almost 20 years older than the Flapper’s sixth child (me). Even if our family hadn’t been torn apart in our Year of Living Dangerously, I probably would not have known him well. But he was the one who got me to question the Catholic Church, because I have a vague memory of him asking me if I thought it was fair that only Catholics went to heaven. When my widowed Mother married a Jew, my status as a lapsed Catholic was complete at age 16. Remember, at that age we think we know everything, and certainly I did. But my ideas about faith, redemption and heaven have changed over the years.

This morning I was reminded that a great theologian left the safety and security of the US to return to Germany. Seventy years ago In April, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis at a concentration camp. He was a Lutheran pastor, a Nazi dissident and a true Christian martyr – a spy for the German resistance. A pacifist at heart, he nonetheless helped plot to kill Hitler, while the other Christian churches had opted to collaborate with his evil plan.

And I wondered what would I do. Would I have sent my children off to Hitler youth meetings? Of course not, we would have been rounded up and sent to our deaths. I like to think that church and state should forever be separate, but at that time of pure evil, should we not have seen more morally righteous pastors standing up for the Jews, the handicapped and homosexuals? What did they preach on their pulpits?

When evil looms, what would you do? CCIytTJWIAAUV78

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Nine Acres of Guns

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on April 11, 2015| 2 Comments »

NRA Annual Meeting Comes to Nashville Along with All the GOP Presidential Candidates 

I could say I want to try skeet shooting. It’s not a real bird, it’s a clay pigeon after all, and it looks like fun. I woke up many weekends to the sound of guns across the Shrewsbury River in Rumson. Skeet shooting was de rigeur at the country club. My friend from Rumson, the editor of my old newspaper, has a farm up the road in Madison, VA. She’s a pro and could teach me. Plus, think about the great outfits on Downton Abbey when they go off on a hunting trip for pheasant.

I could tease my hair and wear lots of makeup. The Bride said I don’t have to dress down, many Republican women dress well. I guess that makes sense. When you feel superior, when you either belong to the upper crust or are constantly striving to arrive there, you must look the part. I remember my day on the Historic Downtown Mall petitioning for the Affordable Care Act. By the afternoon I could spot a Republican coming a mile away. Sometimes I’d ask them anyway. Of course, they didn’t believe every American deserves health care.

I could purchase a membership today to the NRA at the convention center for just $25, which would get me in the door. It’s very easy, so they say. We went to the Frist Museum yesterday and the parking lot was filled with NRA members trying to help us find a parking spot! They were happy, and in a festive spirit. Luckily I have laryngitis. But what if I return and once inside, I’d oogle and gape at all the different guns, some of them rhinestone encrusted! I’d mix and mingle with more than 70,000 gun-loving people and get plenty of free swag at the Colt concession.. With my membership, I’d get a newsletter every month, keeping me up-to-date on the latest school shootings and “accidental” child killings. Oh wait, that’s probably wrong.

Or today:

I could meet thousands of women who belong to Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense at the park by the river, and march with them to promote background checks and gun sense in our country. Nashville, you know I love you but sometimes you make it hard. Become a double agent and learn the tricks and trade of the gun lobby vs walking with like-minded women? You decide.

Moms at the Museum

Moms at the Museum

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Brotherly Love

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on April 5, 2015| 3 Comments »

The Seder went off without a hitch. Except for one of the ten plagues; tornado sirens were shrieking when darkness descended and then, hail! What, you were thinking locusts? After 36 years, I have finally seen my daughter make the haroses. I made the chicken soup with explicit instructions on making matzoh balls from Grandma Ada and they were delightfully soft!

Then the next day I heard that my half-brother in Germany had died. Brian was the Flapper’s second child, her first born son. She was widowed soon after he was born, returning to PA where she met my father. And since I was the last of six children, raised by foster parents, I never really got the chance to know my oldest brother. But I do have a few memories.

I remember when Dr Jim, my closest in age sibling, was pinned with his First Lieutenant bar in the Army. Jim was the first to finish college, Columbia University, and later he would go on to a doctoral program in psychology. Jim would also be going to Vietnam, but no matter. We were all there to celebrate his officer status, and Brian and Michael, who passed away recently, had to salute Jim. Even I could tell, there was some malicious Irish humor in that subservient salute.

He and his wife Hildegarde found it difficult to travel from Germany, but he did get to meet the Bride at Walter Place when Mike and Jorja hosted a wonderful Lynn family reunion. He and Mike were the last remaining smokers of the crew, but sometimes I could catch one of them early, before they were confined to the smoking porch. And I would hear stories of my parents, stories that I treasure to this day.

Brian was born in 1929 and he was Air Force all the way. Exceedingly confidant, tall and straight-talking. He actually taught avionics and radar technology, and after retiring from the service, he had a great job with Texas Instruments. I imagine he looked like his father, the handsome Italian the Flapper married on a dare at the age of 16.

We lit three yartzeit candles, never knowing it should have been four.

Last night we all went out for some delicious Nashville barbeque, and I helped the Love Bug climb her first tree. It was a stately, old magnolia that spread her limbs low and invited children into the natural world. I see a flash of the Flapper’s resilient spirit in my grand daughter’s eyes. Taking risks, we see it early. Will this child be the one running headlong into the ocean? Or will this be the one clinging to your knee at the water’s edge?

I’m sure Brian’s fearless, joyous spirit will live on in his children and his grandchildren and in generations to come.

(from L to R) Dr Jim, Kay, Brian, me and Mike

(from L to R) Dr Jim, Kay, Brian, me and Mike

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