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Posts Tagged ‘Memoir’

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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One Giant Leap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on July 21, 2015| 2 Comments »

Yesterday was the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and last night Bob and I watched the “Apollo Wives” documentary on PBS. It was a fascinating trip down memory lane for anyone old enough to remember where they were on July 20, 1969.

I was in a basement apartment in Cambridge, MA with a my roomie Alicia. My own wedding was on the horizon, and the moon landing was on a small black and white TV in the corner of our apartment. I remember feeling awed and wondering if the footage had been slowed down, because the effect of zero gravity didn’t translate to my brain.

Bob called me soon afterwards, to see if I had watched. There were no DVRs or recording devices to play back such a monumental moment in time. If you missed it, you’d have to wait for the next day’s evening news show. I had to remind Bob I was marrying someone else. I wonder if he remembers?

That August, Bob had to chase his own stardust at Woodstock:

The story of Woodstock, slice it how you will, is anti-Darwinian; nature suspended her processes of selection, and everyone more or less lovingly muddled through. Such menaces as there were seem to have been collective—the dodgy brown acid, the lack of sanitation, the rain that left concertgoers huddled under (packaged in?) sheets of clear plastic. When Sri Swami Satchidananda, ochre-robed, inaugurated the proceedings on August 15, he proclaimed the imminent oneness of everything: “America is becoming a whole!”  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/woodstock-nation/307611/

America became whole when a man landed on the moon, but we didn’t know much about the military/astronaut wives back in the day. The press paraded their pretty faces in the back pages of newspapers. The drinking, the Valium and the divorces were kept under wraps. It was a watershed year for women, do you go all “Stepford Wife” or do you continue your education and put off marriage? Burn your bra, or pull up your girdle and soldier on?

Well there was a little known woman, an MIT scientist, behind the design of the software that made that Apollo mission possible. Margaret Hamilton and her team wrote the code for the computer’s guidance system on board the rocket. When NASA thought they may have to abort the landing, she figured out the computer’s memory was being overloaded with too much inconsequential data – she taught them how to prioritize! Landing went to the top of the list – isn’t it ironic?!

And this was when computers used “core rope memory” which was woven in a laborious process by hand, by women in factories…hence the male engineers called these memory programs “LOL Memory.” And it wasn’t because it was humorous. LOL stood for “Little Old Ladies.” http://www.vox.com/2015/5/30/8689481/margaret-hamilton-apollo-software

So here’s to you Margaret Hamilton! For going where no woman had gone before. And here’s to every girl who takes a science or a math class and loves it! In Catholic school, and later in high school, I was never given that opportunity. It wasn’t until college that I discovered I loved science. Back in 1969, I thought my future was secure. I’d be the wife of a Harvard lawyer and create cocktail parties to beat the band. Luckily, I woke up.

Margaret Hamilton

Margaret Hamilton

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Smoky Mountain Drive

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 12, 2015| 2 Comments »

Here we are again, on the road to Nashville. Trucks pulling into the left lane just as I approach another hill, Dollywood in the rearview mirror. And I know y’all are wondering what in God’s name is she listening to now, in that wilderness between Cville and Nville, what’s the latest podcast all the young’uns are tuning into?

While loading up the car this morning, the Bride called me to say I just HAD to download Marc Maron’s WTF podcast. She said that time would just fly by, and I had to listen to his interview with Terri Gross. Maron is a comedian, granted one I’d never heard of, but I love Terri Gross. Her voice could put me into a catatonic state, and I mean that in a good way. She is arguably one of the best interviewers on the planet; little did I know her life story would mimic mine in so many ways.

Terri is a bit younger. Hailing from Brooklyn, I had no idea she was Jewish. She graduated high school just two years after me, in 1968. But she dropped out for awhile to hitchhike across the country! Now I used to hitchhike up at Camp St Joseph in the Catskills, but to San Francisco for the summer of love? She talked about being on the forefront of the feminist movement; her first radio job was on a feminist radio station. She had a starter marriage too. She even tried teaching – check, check, check!

I found it interesting that she chose not to have children, because she felt she couldn’t accomplish her career goals. I vaguely remember those days; young feminists thought you couldn’t have it all, the fantastic career and a family. It was either one or the other. We thought children were our responsibility alone, that marriage was a construct with little chance of success. If we wanted the whole package, it was best to give up our dreams for awhile and work at supporting our spouse, Stay barefoot and pregnant, baking cookies. For alot of women, the dream deferred ended in divorce.

Remember that crack about cookies from Hillary? Not every woman had a Harvard law degree and nonstop childcare.

Listening to Terri talk, it took me back. My brother, sister and I were just on a conference call last Sunday talking about what our lives might have been like if our Father didn’t die in 1949, and our Mother wasn’t hit by a drunk driver later that summer. Would we all still be living in PA? Would Kay have been an early airline stewardess/lipstick feminist? Would Jim have become a psychologist? Would I have chosen to stay at home with my children, and write for a local newspaper? Would I have raised a daughter who thinks she CAN have it all? Or a son who wants nothing more than to make music?

Ms Cait and the Rocker sent me an interesting test to gauge my political persona and help me decide who I should vote for next year. I thought for sure I’d be a staunch Hillary supporter, but surprisingly my political leanings are toward Bernie! Now  Bernie Sanders is not even on my radar since he continues to sound like an NRA lobbyist; and even more than feminist issues, gun control in 2016 will be my litmus test. Still, if you have the time the test is fun – http://www.isidewith.com

And to find out more about Bernie’s life in the Green Mountains of Vermont – http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/bernie-sanders-vermont-119927.html#.VaGtoYuCaFI

Bob in the Blue Mountains

Bob in the Blue Mountains

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The Hat Trick

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on July 7, 2015| 2 Comments »

When the Rocker was two years old, we moved back to our home state of NJ. It was a tricky transition. I loved and still love New England. I love the kind and fiercely independent people; I love the weather, a little like the Emerald Isle; I loved Martha’s Vineyard in the Spring and Tanglewood in the Summer. And believe it or not, I loved the Winter. We would ice skate on frozen ponds and go cross country skiing out our back door, through a bird sanctuary. And the Fall foliage was like no other.

It’s true you can’t go home again, but I wanted to keep something of the Berkshires for my transplanted babies in NJ. Instead of driving to the Big Apple Circus in Lenox, we took the train to Lincoln Center. And instead of skating on a frozen pond, I signed the Rocker up for ice hockey when he could just barely carry his own equipment bag. I would sit and freeze at the Jersey Shore rink, watching him skate like he was born with blades on his feet.

That was the first time I heard of a “Hat Trick.” And for the rest of my days I thought it was a hockey term.

Until Sunday night. World Cup Soccer was the cap on a dismal Fourth of July weekend – my Fourths are almost always dismal – (Bob working the Fourth and our Year of Living Dangerously culminating on the Fourth with the Flapper’s car accident combine to make this holiday less lovely for obvious reasons).

Anyway, I was kvelling over Carli Llyod’s third blistering mid-court goal in the Women’s World Cup Soccer game, and I heard the term again. She had scored the first three goals in the first 16 minutes of the game! I missed the first one because I was feeding Ms Bean, but immediately caught the replay. Bob then returned home from the hospital to find me hopping around the living room, twirling my dish towel like a banshee!

The U.S. was the superior team through and through. Not content with four, it scored yet another goal — an easy finish by Tobin Heath in the 54th minute. It had had seven shots on goal to Japan’s four.

Much of the credit goes to the U.S. goalie, Hope Solo.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/06/football/womens-world-cup-final/

Before ice hockey, I was the Rocker’s pee wee soccer coach. I cut up the oranges before games and tried not to act like ALL the other male soccer coaches. Sometimes cruel, often not fair, and loud as only NJ coaches can be, I was the Yin to their Yang. Since I had to look up this complimentary Chinese philosophy, to make sure I was using the phrase correctly, I was amused to find the feminine form “Yin” is the negative force?! Huh? “Yin is negative, dark, and feminine, Yang positive, bright, and masculine. Their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it.”

Believe it or not, the term Hat Trick originated in 1858 by Brits playing Cricket, whenever someone got three wickets, whatever that means, they scored a Hat Trick. Fans would collect money to buy the champion Hat Tricker a new hat back in the day. http://mentalfloss.com/article/65863/where-does-soccer-term-hat-trick-come

Well ladies, my hat is off to you! To the Scarlet Knight from Rutgers, Carli – to the Huskie from U of Washington, Hope, – to the Gator from U of Florida, Abby. To the two UVA Cavs on the team, my heart has been officially won! And anyone with a little girl in love with soccer, here are the top colleges for future World Champions, and UVA is number 2! http://college.usatoday.com/2015/02/20/these-are-the-10-best-d1-womens-soccer-schools-in-the-u-s/

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The Art of Living

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , on June 6, 2015| 4 Comments »

Every now and again we go all out. Usually it’s for a big event, like our wedding anniversary. To celebrate our early years in the Berkshires, we would travel across state lines to Hillsdale, New York for an excellent French meal at L’Hostellerie Bressane, a country inn. According to a review from the 80s, the rooms had a “rustic charm” and the kind of attention to detail that is similar to a French “auberge.” Of course I thought of an eggplant, but auberge comes from an old Germanic root and means an inn or tavern.

Now I was not entirely new to this type of laid-back luxury. When I was young, some of my earliest memories are of my older sister Kay taking me out to “dine” in New York City’s finest clubs and restaurants. Long before food network stars, there was a certain understanding that Lutece was the best of the best French bistros. It was THE place to be seen in the 60s, and has been recreated on the set of Mad Men. I always felt like such an impostor, a country mouse taking the bus from NJ to my big sister’s upper East Side apartment; being scolded corrected about my burgeoning Jersey girl accent; being taught what fork to use when, and how to eat a baguette like a lady. She was my Auntie Mame and I was her willing student.

Lutece was in business for 43 years, but alas has fallen prey to the new cuisine of a new world. Andre Soltner was not just the chef, he was the owner and greeter at the door. He swept the floors and ordered the flowers. A choreographer in the kitchen, he never opened another Lutece, there was only one and will be only one. Maybe it closed because of that, because its entire existence depended on just one man.

I could never have opened a second restaurant, though many people suggested it,” said Mr. Soltner, who missed a grand total of four days of work between 1961, when Lutèce opened, and 1994, when he sold it. “I had to take responsibility for each person’s pleasure and well-being. It was my job.”

http://observer.com/2013/04/an-evening-at-lutece-andre-soltners-famed-restaurant-resurrected-for-one-night-only/#ixzz3cI7cpZu0

A luxurious meal of old may be hard to come by today, with restaurant “themes” and chemical gastronomies of celebrity chefs who open multiple eateries around the country. But Bob and I managed to find that old world charm again for our 36th wedding  anniversary dinner in Virginia. From the moment we pulled up to Chef/Owner Patrick O’Connell’s The Inn at Little Washington, we knew. https://www.theinnatlittlewashington.com

We were greeted at the door, by name, and asked if we’d like to sit in the dining room or on the porch overlooking the garden. I could imagine secret liaisons between the ghosts of political power couples lurking in the corners, so I chose the garden room because I loved the light. Chef O’Connell transformed this sleepy town into a world-class destination, in the most gorgeous rolling countryside an hour from Washington, DC, just a year before we were married.

O’Connell has been referred to as “the Pope of American Cuisine”. His orientation is different from most chefs today primarily because he considers himself to be a restaurateur and as the title implies, his goal is to actually restore and heal people – the preparation and presentation of food being but a single element in the process. Selecting The Inn at Little Washington as one of the top ten restaurants in the world, Patricia Wells of The International Herald Tribune hails O’Connell as “a rare chef with a sense of near perfect taste, like a musician with perfect pitch.”

What an inspiring, delightful tastings menu! My palate and nearly every one of my senses was awakened The service was impeccable. Our waiter appeared just as we thought we might need something, as if he could read minds. He was professional but not stuffy, prompt but not intrusive. He asked about allergies because the chef was preparing an amuse bouche – it wasn’t called that, but occasionally we’d be surprised by a small bite between courses. Silverware was replaced immediately, and water was poured simultaneously; like a French Foreign Legion drill team. Bob chose the Menu of the Moment and I chose the Enduring Classic Menu, without the wine pairings:

A Shot of Chilled Minted English Pea Soup

Chilled Maine Lobster Salad with Marinated Hawaiian Heart of Palm

Carpaccio of Herb-Crusted Baby Lamb Loin with Pistachio Ice Cream

                          Pan Seared Rockfish with Braised Baby Bok Choy and Softshell Crab Tempura

Huckleberry Marinated Squab Breast with a Crispy Potato Galette

Veal Shenandoah: Local Prosciutto Wrapped Loin of Veal with Country Ham and Fontina Cheese Ravioli

The Inn at Little Washington is a member of the famed Relais et Chateaux. http://www.relaischateaux.com/en/search-book/hotel-restaurant/washington/#.VXMNgKaCblI Long before we heard of “farm to table,” small, exclusive restaurants were practicing and cultivating partnerships with local farmers. Created in France in 1954, today there are 520 establishments that bear the esteemed fleur de lys around the world. “Relais & Châteaux is an association of the world’s finest hoteliers, chefs and restaurateurs that has set the standard for excellence in hospitality. Relais & Châteaux has redefined luxury hospitality by emphasising holistic experiences that transport its guests, taking them on a sensual journey and introducing them to a deeper, truer understanding of the Art of Living.”

IF you were married in June, I wish y’all a very happy anniversary! And feel free to tell me what you do to celebrate your anniversary. IMG_2717

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Take Your Medicine

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on April 17, 2015| 4 Comments »

What do you do when you’re sick? Take to your bed and yell for “Mommy,” or ignore it and go about your business? Well when you’re married to an Emergency Physician, and you’ve given birth to another, your response to an illness pretty much doesn’t matter. After all, you are NOT dying, so it’s not a true emergency – like say, anaphylaxsis, septecemia, or a gun shot wound to the belly.

It’s only a virus. Antibiotics won’t help. In fact, my doctors rant about how other doctors overprescribe antibiotics, which is why we are in a drug-resistant pickle. You’ll be better in a few days. So you’d best go about your business; take Tylenol every four hours, force fluids and try to rest. Because as Daniel Tiger says, “Rest is Best.”

When I was young and caught a cold, Nell would rub my chest with Vick’s. Then she’d wrap some sort of gauze around me and tuck me into bed. In hindsight, she grew up when a small splinter could turn into an infection and kill you. Penicillin wasn’t invented until just before I was born. Growing up in the first half of the twentieth century meant you were isolated when you were sick, people took a cold seriously. As Adelaide would say in her Lament, a person can develop a cold, or La Grippe, La post-nasal drip…with the wheezes, and the sneezes, and the sinuses really a pip!
In other words,

Just from worrying whether the wedding is on or off,
A person can develop a cough.
You can feed her all day with the Vitamin A and the Bromo fizz,
But the medicine never get’s anywhere near where the trouble is.
If she’s getting a kind of a name for herself, and the name ain’t his,
A person can develop a cough.
Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/actors-broadway/guys-and-dolls

But I digress. Back to the 50s, once an illness had passed, Nell would make me an eggnog. I know, sounds disgusting, but it was so good. Guess she didn’t know about salmonella in raw eggs? Oh and to keep me healthy, she would shove a teaspoon of cod liver oil into my mouth every morning, followed by a chaser of orange juice. It took me many years to like the taste of orange juice.

Still, this spring cold is a bad one, it starts off deceptively simple enough – a headache followed by a runny nose. You are lulled into thinking you’ll be fine by the third day. Then your larynx closes up and you can barely croak, a fever sets in and after awhile your eyes get all gucky. If you have children in preschool, or you have a spouse that is routinely seeing infectious disease every day they go to work, then it’s likely you’ll catch  it. In other words, “You can spray her wherever you figure the streptococci lurk,
You can give her a shot for whatever she’s got, but it just won’t work.” The cough will linger, you’ll want your Mommy, and someone to bring you chicken soup.

On my way home I listened to the TED Radio Hour “Believers and Doubters.” http://www.npr.org/2013/11/18/245949211/believers-and-doubters

And I thought about the time I nearly died from septicemia after a miscarriage. Lying in a hospital bed in the Berkshires, I prayed the rosary with my Polish room mate because she asked me if I would in broken English. I found her beads in her bag, and the words came back, they flowed through me like a salve. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket and tucked into bed.    CLR in Bathrobe

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Take a Leap

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on December 24, 2014| 2 Comments »

Muscle memory is something dancers take for granted. We hear a certain music, and somehow our limbs begin to move to a primal beat, its choreography imprinted through hours and hours of practice. Lengthen that arm, stretch that foot just beyond its limits. The difference between a technically perfect performance, and a truly inspiring, transformative performance is nuanced and certainly cannot be explained with words.

One takes skill, while the other takes art. It will move the the audience. There will be tears. If you have never cried while watching the ballet, you may not understand.

One ballerina in the Nutcracker hesitated. She didn’t leap into her partner’s arms. I turned to the Bride and we both looked bereft. Sorry for her, and feeling so sorry for him. I could see it on his face, I could feel it in my heart.

It’s got something to do with trust, but not just in your partner. In order to let go, and truly fling yourself into the air, you must trust in yourself and then let go. And trust in God. Because we all fall at times, and it’s how we get up and do it again that matters.

A friend asked if I had any pictures from thirty years ago. Here I am looking over my shoulder before going out on stage. Bob caught me in the wings, in the dark with gingerbread soldiers and reindeer.

I want him to know I’m glad I took that leap into his arms.
21551_1194777985859_3581712_n

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true

Jackson Browne – Fountain Of Sorrow Lyrics | MetroLyrics

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Revelations

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on December 7, 2014| 4 Comments »

Yesterday I attended a writing seminar on the art of the memoir. Putting one’s family on the page can be a daunting task, and yet it seems I’ve been doing this my whole life. It started when I was a young wife, and found myself alone on a mountain with a baby girl. From that first published piece in the Berkshire Eagle, “Guns in the Woods,” writing has been my salvation, a revelation of sorts.

Don’t bother trying to Google it. The Bride was probably around The Love Bug’s age, a toddler in a time before the Internet. We lived such a simple life when I look back. The memoir instructor asked us to draw a map, but I was puzzled. Where was home for me? Home. It’s not so much a place, as it is a feeling. Maybe because I was never quite at home with my foster parents, always traveling back to the Flapper in Scranton.

One house alive with brothers and a sister and ideas! Another house solemn, asleep and afraid of the dark.

Another early Eagle essay described what the Flapper must have felt when she learned we were at war. I had asked her once how she found out about Pearl Harbor on December 7th in 1941. She told me she was pregnant with my brother Jimmy (Dr Jim), and she was listening to the radio on a stool at the ice cream fountain in my Father’s drug store with her stockings rolled down around her ankles. I always loved these details. Details are the building blocks of a writer’s life.

By writing, I could somehow paint a picture of that scene in the drug store.

I wish I too could have read those comic books after school at my Father’s store. I wish I could have helped him compound medicine in the back room. I wish I could have climbed up on his lap while he was reading the newspaper.

But my life, my memories of Victory Gardens are different. Being stung by a bee on the foot, underneath Nell’s clothesline. Riding down the hill in Daddy Jim’s car to Mass, and then on to Zanelli’s for a Rocky Road sundae. The dreaded tick tock of a grandfather clock in the hall. I was too young to remember that Year of Living Dangerously.

Maybe I write to reclaim it. IMG_1849

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“How Fragile We Are”

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged on September 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

“Nothing comes from violence”

On this day, we remember the fallen.

On this day, we remember the innocent.

On this day, we will never forget.

We remember our neighbors from Rumson and Middletown, NJ

We remember Michael Patrick Tucker

We remember…

“Lest we forget how fragile we are”

 

 

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Pandemic

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2014| 5 Comments »

This is my 500th post as MountainMornings. I did start out in 2010 under a different pseudonym, trying to make sense of the wedding industry and how it would apply to my family. I wanted to stay in touch with friends I’d left behind when we moved South. There was a snarky edge to my writing.

And then I took a different course, and here we are. More than weddings, and more than 500 subscribers later, I’m not famous for food or mommy blogging; I lost my camera and take pictures with my phone; in fact I’m not famous period. I haven’t monetized myself or even considered branding, in fact, I’m pretty sure any babyboomer/emptynester/grandmother brand would fall far short of anyone’s ideal business plan.

Bob tells me whenever people ask what I write about, he says, “Anything that’s on her mind.”  And like most writers, it just feels good to sit down and type away. I can’t wait for inspiration, I learned that lesson writing for a newspaper (remember those?) with a deadline. But lucky me a little perspiration always pays off. Very rarely will I sit and look at a blank screen, and that never lasts long. The world is always throwing zingers my way, and my mind is always trying to connect the dots…connect my family and friends… and now you, my “followers.”

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

This is what’s bothering me today – the news out of the CDC and Doctor’s Without Borders that the Ebola virus is not being contained – did anybody else hear this news or are we all worried about nudie pictures in the Cloud? Here is the headline that is one day old already:

“Global Bio-Disaster Response Urgently Needed in Ebola Fight” http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/global-bio-disaster-response-urgently-needed-ebola-fight

Yesterday I watched a PBS short of a man with Ebola dressed in a red shirt escaping his clinic, running around a town while men in Ebola protected spacesuits were trying to capture him. It seems the clinic had no food or water for its patients so he made a run for it.

Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it,” said Dr. Liu. “Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat. The WHO announcement on August 8 that epidemic constituted a ‘public health emergency of international concern’ has not led to decisive action, and states have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/press-release/global-bio-disaster-response-urgently-needed-ebola-fight

We are a part of the coalition of inaction. We are leaving this crisis to the NGOs with church affiliations to trust in the Lord and pray that everything will turn out for the best. Well maybe praying will help, but it was that special serum and a ride back to Atlanta that saved Dr Kent Brantly and his colleague. And now another missionary doctor has the disease in Liberia. Are we going to wait for another “miracle?”

Both Bob and the Bride have received instructions on identifying the Ebola virus, containing it and reporting it should the virus show up in the US, in their hospital, and yes the new ER has 4 of those infectious disease rooms that can be sealed off with the air only going one way.

I used to worry about the threat of HIV/AIDS from needle sticks when Bob and I were first married. Often he would be called in to draw blood or start a line on these emaciated patients in the 80s because techs were either afraid or couldn’t stick a vein. It seems so naive now.

Here is another wedding picture of the Bride and Groom, with Grandpa Hudson, their officiant. He was once a medical missionary in Ghana.  J&M 0622

 

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