tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57431141790428354192024-03-02T12:30:01.833-05:00Sunflower Rootspoetry, personal reflections and musingssgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.comBlogger562125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-63238923264473126632023-07-06T10:15:00.003-04:002023-07-06T10:15:38.116-04:00The Writing Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk3pQt3f3vmUcnzkGnqyY7jOy_xY4uTQ6QXJkd2YLbq8w5eqmJjf8CNw2y9JpFGJbma6sHf-gKhSHZrb1gYSZswNzieUMaIQtYREAs5rGAfOCTKEPCsd63kdE_agankjVqpFaPf7FFUXa_kI7VSb9Nbgh0YANY3CppJVc5EBxVcyaE7j5XE1TMKYYTd-pV/s3255/2018-watercolor-sunflower.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2463" data-original-width="3255" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk3pQt3f3vmUcnzkGnqyY7jOy_xY4uTQ6QXJkd2YLbq8w5eqmJjf8CNw2y9JpFGJbma6sHf-gKhSHZrb1gYSZswNzieUMaIQtYREAs5rGAfOCTKEPCsd63kdE_agankjVqpFaPf7FFUXa_kI7VSb9Nbgh0YANY3CppJVc5EBxVcyaE7j5XE1TMKYYTd-pV/s320/2018-watercolor-sunflower.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In April of this year I made a big leap from occasionally writing a sociological blog here on blogger that got viewed by one or two friends, to writing a sociological blog/newsletter on Substack. I did this to push myself to write more and to have a chance to reach a wider audience with the things I wrote. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The result, so far, is that I am finding the motivation and interest in writing a couple of times a week, and am aiming for more as time goes by. As for readership, I currently have 20 subscribers and each post (which are all free) is read by not only subscribers but also additional casual readers. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I feel like I am thinking clearly again, and having some small impact on the world again. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">I have discontinued my Sociological Stew blog, but plan to keep this one, Sunflower Roots, for more personal writing, memoirs, poetry, artwork and such like. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">If you are reading this and want to check out my Substack here is the link. There is no paywall, and the subscriptions are free (and always will be). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://reflectionsofasociologist.substack.com/">https://reflectionsofasociologist.substack.com/</a></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-45213005587498456102023-05-08T13:26:00.000-04:002023-05-08T13:26:00.909-04:00Everyone Has a Story <p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> Meditations upon reading Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.'s <i>Gay Poems for Red States</i>:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Everyone
has a story. Everyone has pain. Everyone has fear. Everyone gets scared.
Everyone has doubts. Everyone has obstacles. Yes. Some people’s obstacles and
pain are objectively, measurably worse than others. Being unable to walk in a world
built for walking people. Being black or brown in a society so deeply based on
whiteness that white people never have to think about being white. Being LGBTQ+
in a world where every religion every society is grounded in the idea of
male/female dichotomies and relationships. Being non-Christian in a society that is
drenched in the forms (if not the deep ways) of Christianity. These are objective
obstacles. But they are not the only obstacles. They are not the only pains. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Everyone
has a story that should be heard. No one story should be <i>privileged</i> over
any other story. Giving others the right to be heard, to be seen does not silence
other stories. Stories can co-exist. So much of what we see now feels like people
whose stories have been privileged for hundreds of years, are feeling that
somehow their story will be erased by new ones. They won’t be. The fear is baseless.
We are all richer by having more stories, more flavors, more colors, more modes
of being.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
best thing about hearing more stories, is suddenly discovering that there are
many, many people out there with similar (and yet unique) stories. Women discovering
“me too” was a revelation. Adults finding similarities to others childhood stories
and realizing, ah, that’s why I was different as a child (previously
undiagnosed neurodivergence, or PCOS, or gender dysphoria, or many other
obstacles).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">We
learn about others from their stories. We learn about ourselves by being free
to tell our stories and by seeing little pieces of ourselves, our emotions, our
fears, our anxieties, in the stories of others. Our enemies have stories. We
need to hear our enemies’ stories too. We have to know them as people with
stories. We do NOT have to privilege their stories over ours, but their stories
have a right to exist. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Everyone
has a story. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">A
good society is one that is open to all the stories. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-38093407591359050672023-04-21T13:56:00.005-04:002023-07-06T09:57:40.095-04:00How grooming for motherhood backfired<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
mother Josie was the fourth of six children. She had two younger brothers, but
she never had the opportunity to help with their care. First, her mother (my
grandmother Lillian) was not well most of her childhood and she had little
patience with supervising a child caring for another child. The family was
solidly middle class and hired in home help with cooking, cleaning and child
care. The help, as was true of many middle class southern families, was black women, who left their own children at home, to care for the children of
white women. Second, my grandmother Lillian died, probably due to complications
of childbirth within two days of giving birth to her last child. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4bTfo9KZSdN_ewZZT7BVBNCjuUddbI3IlaEDVOWRdtiWfRowU6rQdrk4QrSxg2AqnD6w-d8Ei7FjK6JFvCFgxfTPPb4NlJrEODcPxb72ST4u7CiGCv0cud02-9Ir_dwtjAQ96j3czinorOpDhRA_z9eXkQGN4GyKbIYd2BpGSucH1urx1GnEnXZujA/s1808/1972-Drawings2%20006.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1808" data-original-width="1191" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4bTfo9KZSdN_ewZZT7BVBNCjuUddbI3IlaEDVOWRdtiWfRowU6rQdrk4QrSxg2AqnD6w-d8Ei7FjK6JFvCFgxfTPPb4NlJrEODcPxb72ST4u7CiGCv0cud02-9Ir_dwtjAQ96j3czinorOpDhRA_z9eXkQGN4GyKbIYd2BpGSucH1urx1GnEnXZujA/w264-h400/1972-Drawings2%20006.png" width="264" /></a></div><br /><br /><o:p></o:p><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">The
baby, Thomas, was immediately adopted (officially) by one of my grandfather’s
brothers. He and his wife were childless. Meanwhile my mother, just short of
her eighth birthday when her mother died, was quickly farmed out to live (not
officially adopted) with her aunt Sue whose farm adjoined her fathers.
Aunt Sue already had three children older than Josie. As a result, my mother
never had any experience with babies and small children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Josie’s
lack of experience with babies and children, left her unprepared for
motherhood. She was absolutely terrified to bring me, her first child home from
the hospital. She spoke of this fear she had several times to me when I reached
adulthood. I’ve also found letters and diaries that she wrote at the time, the
speak of the overwhelming fear of making a mistake that she experienced.
Consequently, Josie decided that I, her daughter would learn about babies and
small children and how to take care of them while I was young. Something that
she told me explicitly when I was middle aged. Oddly enough, however, she did
not do that by expecting me to share in the care-taking of my two younger
brothers. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">While
I did not know her reasons at the time, Josie’s approach to teaching me how to
care for babies and children, was to start me in the babysitting business when
I was 10 years old. She essentially began grooming me for motherhood. My first job, completely arranged by my mother, was with
the family next door to us. They had recently moved in and were composed of a
young couple in their early twenties and a baby under 6 months of age. The
couple went out to dinner or a movie, not sure which, and were gone for at most
two hours. I stayed in their home with their baby sleeping in his/her (?)
crib.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember the awesome sense of
responsibility I felt for this tiny thing in the white crib. But I otherwise
remember very little about it. I don’t remember if I had any trouble, if I had
to call my mother, or if everything went smoothly. I do remember how nice it
felt to be given a crisp dollar bill (fifty cents an hour was my fee). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
mother arranged a few more jobs for me, taking care of babies, in homes that
were within view and earshot of our house – one of the advantages of growing up
in a new suburb during the baby boom, lots of work for babysitters nearby. By
the time I was 13, however, I was managing my own work. I was a popular
babysitter, mostly for older children (2 to 8) because I liked playing games,
singing songs, and watching kids TV with them. I began to work for families
that lived several miles away (where either my dad or one of the parents would
provide transportation before I got my license). I liked being with children. I
liked the money I earned (officially still fifty cents and hour, but regular
families often added a little extra). But most of all I loved being able to
stay up late on weekends, and watch late night TV and late-night movies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was not allowed at home. At home we went
to bed at 9, and the TV was never on in the evening. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">In High School babysitting was a doorway to adult life, to money of my own, to being up
late, to watching adult shows. While I liked children and enjoyed playing with
them, that was secondary to the pay and independence babysitting afforded me as
a teenager. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Continuing
babysitting was not something that I had thought consciously about when I went
away to college. However, when the directors of my dormitory turned out to be a
young couple with an intelligent and interesting five-year-old, I volunteered
to babysit. The dorm directors also had friends living within walking distance
of the dorm that had small children and would refer me as a babysitter. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">One
family (let’s call them Goodfolks) in particular became regulars. Babysitting
for the Goodfolks over the next four years offered me something that was the
opposite of what I had found in babysitting as a teenager. They offered me a
warm and welcoming family life and a respite from the “adulting” of college. I
became part of the Goodfolks family, a bond that continued at least 15 years
after I graduated. I would come back and visit them many times over the years
as a family member rather than an employee. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
also continued babysitting as a source of extra income in college, and although
I continued to state my fee as 50 cents an hour, the majority of families
simply paid me a flat five or ten dollars per session depending upon the amount
of work involved (more for cooking meals, getting kids off to school etc, less
if I was just watching TV while the kids slept). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Then
one summer I got a job as an <i>au pair. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another student who had worked for a wealthy
family through an agency was asked by the family to find someone to work for
them (they did not want to go through the agency again – I should have taken
that as the red flag it was). She knew I did a lot of babysitting and
recommended me. The family like my phone interview, and they liked my
references. For ten weeks, I got an insiders view of the domestic life of the
corporate elite. I spent most of my time in bucolic Greenwich, Connecticut. An
easy train ride to NYC and art museums, although I only got two chances to go
as my “day and a half” off, wasn't always honored (remember the red flag). The
family also took me with them on vacation to Maine, and I have longed for the
coast of Maine ever since. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Somewhere
along the line, in college spending so much time with young families and their
children drastically changed my own personal views about having children. It
wasn’t that I came to dislike children, quite the contrary. But I came to be
more and more cognizant of how hard it was to raise children in the modern
world, and to balance family and career. I saw this playing out in the families
for whom I worked. I began to question whether or not I wanted children of my
own. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">I
made the mistake of bringing this up once with my mother while visiting during
a holiday. That’s when I began to learn about how getting me started in
babysitting had been her plan to groom me for motherhood. Now I was telling her
that my experience made me question whether I wanted motherhood at all. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
babysitting experiences in graduate school expanded my doubts. In graduate
school, I had a half dozen friends who were divorced, working (or grad student)
mothers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a friend, I would look after
their daughters (they all had daughters), to give them a break. Sometimes they
paid me, sometimes they just fed me, sometimes I fed them. These weren’t jobs,
they were expressions of solidarity among friends. They were also a telling insight what life as a single female parent was like, and how none of these women had gone into parenting with the expectation of becoming a single parent. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Between
all the years of experience with scores of children between 1 and 10, and multiple
courses in development psychology and family sociology, I became quite the
expert on childhood development and child behavior. I developed the confidence
and knowledge that my mother had hoped for, but I also developed a healthy skepticism
about my ability (and desire) to be a parent. My career seemed more rewarding. Some
times too much knowledge is an impediment. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">My
first husband wanted children. His family was large and loving and very
supportive. So we tried. But as fate would have it. I couldn’t get pregnant. The
marriage ended within a couple of years before alternatives such as fertility
treatments or adoption even became something to discuss. Had I gotten pregnant
easily, then I would have become a parent, but I did not. I suspect that I
would not have wanted to put in any extra effort to become a parent, even if
the marriage had lasted. By the time I met my present husband I was already
experiencing menopause, and he was not interested in having children. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes
I think about my mother who passed away more than a decade ago, never having
any grandchildren.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was so anxious
for grandchildren that she began grooming me at age 10 with babysitting jobs, but
she never did anything to prepare my brothers for parenthood. None of us had children.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-7618558991933575802023-04-12T17:06:00.000-04:002023-04-12T17:06:02.385-04:00What Got Me Here<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">When
I read Cheryl Strayed’s memoir <i>Wild</i> several years ago, it affected me as
no other piece of writing had done before or since. There was one paragraph in
particular that really struck me a chapter or two before the end of the book: <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“What if I forgave myself? I thought. What if
I forgave myself even though I’d done something I shouldn’t have? What if I was
a liar and a cheat and there was no excuse for what I’d done other than because
it was what I wanted and needed to do? What if I was sorry, but if I could go
back in time I wouldn’t do anything differently than I had done? What if I’d actually
wanted to fuck everyone one of those men? What if heroin taught me something?
What if <i>yes</i> was the right answer instead of no? What if what made me do
all those things everyone thought I shouldn’t have done was what also had got
me here? What if I was never redeemed? What if I already was?” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Except
for the reference to heroin, everything in that paragraph struck against my mind
the way a clapper does on a bell, causing my mind to reverberate for days, the
vibrations echoing through my life in a way that changed the way I saw everything,
felt about everything both past and present.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I
had sex with a lot of men between the ages of 20 and 40. How many men? How much
sex, well it depends upon whether you accept Bill Clinton’s definition (“I did
not have sexual relations with that woman…Ms. </span>Lewinsky<span style="font-size: 12pt;">”) or the definition of Bill Clinton’s
detractors.</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Until the late 90’s my
definition of “having sex” was pretty much on par with President Clinton, but
after his impeachment I found it necessary to revise my list of men I’d “had
sex with” upwards by 3 or 4 names. And it wasn’t just the sex, it was the emotional
attachments, the stalking behavior; the men, often friends, that I wanted to
sleep with but couldn’t who sometimes got hurt because of my impulsive behavior.
I am genuinely sorry for pain that I caused. Yet I’m still glad for the
experiences, because they all taught me something. They made me into the person
that has negotiated this wonderful yet turbulent, nearly 30 year marriage to my
soul mate. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-31612039804067396752023-03-21T18:07:00.002-04:002023-03-21T18:07:19.395-04:00Getting Work Done is Hard These Days<p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The pump in our dishwasher died weeks before we realized what happened, what alerted me finally was noticing white hard water stains on the kickboards of our cabinets, where small, but daily overflows had been soaking in. Once we realized it on February 4th, we turned off the water and power to it and began hand washing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We had the plumbers come to diagnose whether we had leaky pipes or leaky dishwasher, and they verified our suspicion that the pump had failed. I did some research on-line, decided on some highly recommended models and we went that weekend (February 12th) to Lowe’s to buy a new one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We did not realize the extent to which the pandemic had changed the way Lowe’s operated. We’ve bought appliances there before (most recently a new stove in 2021), where within a day or two a Lowe’s truck and Lowe’s employees would show up to install the purchased item, for little or no additional cost. Now Lowe’s contracts with a 3rd party installation company (which turns out to not be an installation company but a company that then hires 4th party local businesses/workers to do the actual installation). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was a week before we heard from the installation company, and then another two weeks before they could come and make the measurements (why they had to do this and could not trust us on the measurements I don’t know). The (4th party) installer (a nice feller) told us for the installation contract (and payment), which Lowe's never did. So I called them and discovered that because of an illness/accident the young man who sold us the dishwasher was out on leave, and no one really knew what was going on with our order. It took 24 hours to find someone who could get access to all the documents and write up our installation contract, which added another $150 on to the original cost of the appliance (only 15% of the original cost but still unexpected). </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">We had to wait again for the installment company to contact us with an appointment to actually install. The first appointment we were given was March 15 (at this point we had been without a dishwasher since February 4). The day they were suppose to show up we got a call to reschedule, because the local (4th party) installer had one truck and it was broken, so they rescheduled for today March 21. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">First thing this morning the young man who was suppose to do the install called us from Lowe’s to tell us that the store had somehow misplaced/sold/lost/never gotten (??) our dishwasher and he had nothing to bring to install. He said the appliance department at Lowe’s would reorder the dishwasher and let him know when it came in and then we would get another appointment to install. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">This afternoon, someone from Lowe's installation department called us. Now this is one of the things that really annoys me in all this. Lowe's has a department called "Installations" but they don't actually DO installations any more. They just contract with 3rd parties to do them. I realize that this has to do with protecting their workers from COVID or other things, and that it does provide jobs for small local businesses. But, often those small local businesses are overwhelmed with more than they can handle, and they don't get all the money paid by people, because Lowe's takes their cut first. And workers in small businesses don't have the same benefits or rights or opportunities that Lowe's workers do. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Lowe's installation department worker was very apologetic and promised to provide us with information within two business days about what happened to our dishwasher and when they would get one for us. But, in all likelihood, given how busy the (4th party) installer is, things will be pushed </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">at least two more weeks! Which means that we might end up with them wanting to install the same week that my husband has surgery. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was no ill intent or willful stalling involved here. Some of the problems arose because a key worker got ill, or a key piece of equipment (truck) broke down. These are things that happen. What is problematic is that current business practices involve skimping on redundancy in labor and equipment, there are few if any backstops. Ground between the demand by stockholders/owners for more profit and the demands of consumers for cheaper goods and services, the costs of doing business are pared to the quick. So it is not surprising that it takes one persons illness or one truck breaking down, to cause the hold structure to come to a stand still.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-55332522890952903072023-01-02T13:47:00.005-05:002023-01-02T13:47:46.764-05:00I Secretly Love Global Warming<p> In recent weeks I have been thinking a lot about why we as a society are so reluctant to seriously fight to eliminate carbon emissions. I am an environmental voter. I look for and vote for candidates that take environmental science seriously, who appear to understand climate change, and understand that the only real solution is to dramatically cut emissions of green house gasses, and that our carbon economy. As an individual I purchased well insulated housing, use energy efficient heat pump, keep my thermostat at 67 degrees (60 at night) in the winter and wear extra layers. We bought Priuses more than ten years ago, and before that sought out the most fuel efficient cars possible. I recycle, reduce, reuse. Never replace items (including electronics) until they completely give out. As both and individual and a citizen, I try to be environmentally conscious about all my decisions.</p><p>But...you knew there was a but coming! But, I love having 60 degree weather the first week in January. I love that our winters here in eastern Kentucky are overall so much warmer and milder than they were twenty-five years ago. Yes, I absolutely know all the reasons why this is problematic. I understand how extremely mild weather in January, creates problems for plant life cycles, and how plant cycles can get out of sync with animal life cycles of hibernation, migration, mating and new generations. But I love it. My nearly 72 year old, arthritic joints love it. </p><p>I also know that we are not only getting warmer winters, we are getting hotter summers (which I don't like quite so much). Moreover, we are getting much frequent weather extremes, including the horrific flooding event that devastated eastern Kentucky in July 2022. I know all this. I know that the long term problems are going to be even worse. That the underpinnings of modern agriculture and modern society are threatened by climate change. Yet I still love these mild winters, I find myself cheering when I see that the NOAA three month climate predictions show high chance of warmer than usual weather this Jan/Feb/March. It also shows higher chance of precipitation, but as long as it's not snow...</p><p>All this suggests to me that the crusade against climate change has a significant problem, because I can hardly be the only person who intellectually grasps the problems of climate change, yet still on a personal day to day business enjoy its fruits especially in winter time. Which means that there are many of us, regardless of well we understand the problems created by climate change, might balk about making real sacrifices in the comfort and convenience afforded by a fossil fuel economy that are really needed in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-3481151645272953822022-12-27T12:25:00.002-05:002022-12-27T12:25:35.416-05:00New Things<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> </span>I started writing journals when I was 12. I had read The Diary of Anne Frank and decided like her to create an imaginary friend that I wrote to regularly. My friend was named Margie. Like Anne I wrote a lot about my feelings. Unlike Anne I did not do a very good job of describing what was actually going on in my real life. No one reading those "Margie letters" today would learn much about what life was like in suburban California in the early 1960's. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span> The "Margie letters" were written on binder paper, making it easy for me to write the letters during class periods when I was bored. I stored them all in a large three ring binder. I started in 1963, and continued that practice through my sophomore year in college. I still have the binder with all the letters packed away in a box somewhere. They may have been cathartic to write, but they hold little content of interest to me as I aged.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span> </span>At the end of the summer of 1971 just before my junior year, I made a change. I purchased a hardbound record book, 12" x 8.5" format, and began writing a different kind of journal. There was still a lot of internal emotional reflection, but I began to write much more about the world around me, observations of the world, people, events, and activities. Writing in a bound journal seemed to me a much more serious undertaking than my "Margie letters" had been. It suggested permanence and the possibility that others somewhere in the future might read what I had written. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span> </span>That December (1971) in my first bound journal I began what became an annual tradition that lasted for the next two decades: my firsts or new things list. Each December I would think back over the year and write down everything that I had done for the first time, every new experience I had encountered. In my twenties, thirties and even early forties, my lists of new things were quite lengthy. I traveled quite a bit in the U.S. visiting far flung friends and relatives, attending scholarly conferences, doing research. I moved from one state to another, from my parents home in California, to college in Ohio, a summer job in Connecticut, graduate school in Kentucky, professorships in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. I worked a variety of jobs, went to graduate school, started a career, got denied tenure and started career jobs. I married, divorced and married again. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span> </span>Then at some point in my fifties, I stopped doing this recording of new things. Part of it was because there weren't as many new things. As we age, we generally have fewer novel experiences, things we've never experienced before. Moreover, the new things I began to experience in my fifties and sixties were generally not fun things: hysterectomy, cataracts and surgery, developing rheumatoid arthritis, and type 2 diabetes. I got out of the habit not only of my annual new things list, but of journaling in general. </span><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><span> </span>This year, however, was an eye opener. A very big "new thing" happened, not just to me but to all the people around me: a great flood that devastated vast stretches of eastern Kentucky. While this is not a "good" new thing, it is important, significant, and affected us in profound ways, even those of us who lost little or nothing directly in the flood. It has made me want to pay closer attention again, journaling again, even my year end chronicle of new things. </span></span></p><p><span> </span><br /></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-28542362966027960072022-12-09T11:37:00.003-05:002022-12-09T11:37:27.606-05:00Christmas/Holiday Cards<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-Mlj4ejSh_iI6-sidn1WdrG1SLJXm-AwOM7oq7Lw0tZphQFRGFbSki52gWaXV7BJiAbHIkS_PEmsUFsaXOZYiupSKSUFrEYdXdCheggCvVnqON1ZbtBXRd__VXNfXIbEGv1jufgNMgqprebnHv2GDwN8WRBXL3XBzTYoCLTdrWpKo3QosyhWZzaUAQ/s3255/2018-watercolor-autumn-snow.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3255" data-original-width="2502" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf-Mlj4ejSh_iI6-sidn1WdrG1SLJXm-AwOM7oq7Lw0tZphQFRGFbSki52gWaXV7BJiAbHIkS_PEmsUFsaXOZYiupSKSUFrEYdXdCheggCvVnqON1ZbtBXRd__VXNfXIbEGv1jufgNMgqprebnHv2GDwN8WRBXL3XBzTYoCLTdrWpKo3QosyhWZzaUAQ/s320/2018-watercolor-autumn-snow.png" width="246" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Well I did it. I set out to send a Christmas/Chanukah/holiday card to every single person in my address book before December 15. I completed that task yesterday (December 8) and put the last batch of cards in the Jenkins, KY post office. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Now oddly I'm feeling a loose ends.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">When I retired I thought that I would have the time to get back to keeping up with correspondence, like I did in my twenties and thirties. Back then I wrote letters every month, had dozens of people that I corresponded with regularly. These days there's only two people that I correspond with regularly, and they (my brother and an old college chum) vastly prefer to use e-mail so that what I do for them. There are two or three others who e-mail a couple of times a year. My oldest friend from junior high prefers Skyping for communication, so we do that at least once a month. One sweet college friend is very good with cards and notes on all the major Jewish holidays. But no one writes letters like we used to do. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">So it all comes down to Christmas/holiday cards, which I had gotten lax about for the last decade or so of work life. But it turns out that having plenty of time in retirement, does not translate into have "wherewithal". I have struggled most of the past five years to just simply reply to everyone who sent me a card. So I made this promise to myself, and back in October ordered two types of cards, matching stickers and address labels, and set to work on the first of December writing cards. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I've gotten to an age where I don't know if all the friends and family whose addresses I have are still alive. Most are in their 70's or older. The ones who spend time on Facebook I know are still there, but with some of the others our only contact is holiday cards. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">Facebook gives us an illusion that we know what is going on with each other. But I know I don't post much about what is actually happening in my life, and I suspect that most people leave lots of stuff out of their social media. All the details of life that we used to share face-to-face, or even in letters, gets washed over. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">I may never do this again, at least not at this level. It was expensive, and it took almost two weeks of working on it for several hours a day. At least I can say I did it once. <br /></span></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-58211411726503104792021-12-01T10:58:00.000-05:002021-12-01T10:58:21.802-05:00Give me that old time mountain music<p>This past August 2021 marked the 85th annual Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, Virginia. The Galax Fiddler's Convention is the oldest and largest music festival of its type, celebrating traditional mountain music. Galax is an incorporated "city" at the southeastern edge of Grayson County. My father was born about 20 miles away, in the small town of Troutdale, also in Grayson County. He grew up in Troutdale and other Southwest Virginia communities. As a child we frequently spent summers in Troutdale, visiting with Aunts and Uncles. </p><p>Oddly, not once in all my childhood and adolescence of being around my father's family and being in southwestern Virginia did I ever hear traditional mountain music or even bluegrass or country music. I have concluded that this was a social class issue, my grandfather was a shopkeeper, a politician, battling to make his family "middle class" and above the "riff-raff". He once castigated my eldest Aunt Mary for her association with Sherwood Anderson (the great American author, who also lived in Troutdale in his last decades) because Anderson wrote scandalous tales about moonshiners and hillbillies in his newspaper, and my grandfather did not want his daughter associated with "ruffians". So my father and my aunts all listened to classical music and big band music, and never once that I knew of listened to traditional mountain music, bluegrass or country music.</p><p>It was not until I was a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Kentucky that I heard and fell in love with traditional music. My first introduction to it was in the winter of 1977-78, at a fundraiser concert for the union coal miners of eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia who were engaged in a major strike against the Bituminous coal companies in Appalachia. From that moment on I was in love with the music of the mountains. </p><p>One of my most precious memories from grad school came during the August of 1978, while I was living and researching my master's thesis in my father's home town of Troutdale. A group of friends piled in the hay-filled back of a farm truck and drove to Galax for the Fiddler's Convention. Some of my friends were musicians and they also knew many of the traditional musicians in the region. While we spent a little bit of time in the arena listening to the contests, we spent most of that very long night wandering about the campsite, where dozens of small jams of musicians occurred. </p><p>This video, from August of 2021, reminds me so strongly of that wonderful night and how much amazing music could be found just wandering from campsite to campsite. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kjd0EjVYf88" width="320" youtube-src-id="Kjd0EjVYf88"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-3313128405043474952021-11-28T14:11:00.001-05:002022-12-27T12:34:49.904-05:00Being PoliticalMy parents were fairly political, especially for a working class family. I doubt that they made many political donations when I was a child because money was very tight, but they discussed political and social issues a lot, wrote letters to their representatives, signed petitions and voted in every primary and election. I can remember going to the polls with my mother or father and standing along side them when they pulled the various levers on the big mechanical voting machines that were used in California in the 1950's and 60's. <div><br /></div><div>The issues that my parents cared about and talked about constantly with us included civil rights and racial equality, economic inequality and workers rights, and in the 1960's they were opposed to the Vietnam war. So it seemed only natural that when I started college in 1969, that I would march against the war, engage in sit-ins at a selective service office, and work for anti-war political candidates. </div><div><br /></div><div>The voting age was still 21 when I started college, but that did not prevent me from working for a political candidate. The house director for my freshman dormitory was married and her husband was the areas' elected Democratic representative to the Ohio House of Representatives, and I worked on his re-election campaigns in both 1970 and 1972, doing things like stuffing envelopes, and making phone calls. </div><div><br /></div><div>Back in the 1970's voter registration rules were specifically designed to keep college students from voting in the communities where they went to college (unless of course their families lived in those communities). So when I first registered to vote in 1972 at age 21 (the same year that the voting age got lowered to 18), I had to register from my parents address in California. Through an interesting quirk of the times, I actually registered the first time as a Republican. </div><div><br /></div><div>In 1972 Richard Nixon, whom I hated with the white hot passion of youth, was running for his second term. The local Congressman for San Mateo, Paul Norton "Pete" McClosky Jr. was a liberal Republican. I know, a liberal Republican seems crazy these days, and in fact, according to Wikipedia Pete McClosky switched to the Democratic Party in 2007. However, back then, such a thing was actually fairly common. McClosky stood up and opposed Nixon and the war in Vietnam, and decided to try and "primary" Nixon in 1972. So I and all my family registered as Republicans so that we could vote for McClosky in the primary against Nixon. Of course, that challenge was unsuccessful, and in the summer of 1972, I was "clean for Gene" and voted for Eugene McCarthy in my first presidential election. </div><div><br /></div><div>Between 1972 and 1975, I voted by absentee ballot as a Californian in every primary and election, but was not engaged in other ways in politics. Then I moved to Kentucky in 1975. As a graduate student living year-round in Lexington, and considered an "in state student" by virtue of my assistantships and researchships, I registered to vote in Kentucky. </div><div><br /></div><div>I still remember the conversations. All the life-long Kentuckians made it very clear, that if one wanted to have any real say in elections in Kentucky one had to register as a Democrat regardless of what one's political leanings actually were. Kentucky had been and continued for some decades still to be so dominated by the Democratic party that all the real political decisions for local offices, state offices, and federal representatives like senator and congressmen, were made in the primaries rather than the elections. We can still see the effect of that reality in Kentucky in 2020, where registered Democrats still out number registered Republicans, even though both houses of our legislature are dominated by Republicans, both Senators are Republican, and the state went overwhelmingly for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Yet in eastern Kentucky, most of our county and town leadership are still Democrats. Politics in Kentucky have always been "the damnedest." </div><div><br /></div><div>Professionally and personally I became much more interested in local politics in the late 1970's and early 1980's. As a sociology graduate student I was reading Floyd Hunter's <i>Community Power Structure</i>, John Gaventa's <i>Power and Powerlessness</i>, Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz <i>Power and Poverty</i>, Arthur Vidich and Joseph Bensman Sm<i>all Town in Mass Society</i>, and Robert Dahl <i>Who Governs? </i>All of which used community politics and decision-making case studies to develop theoretical perspectives about the exercise of power. I was doing my own research on political conflicts in southwestern Virginia (my father's home community). My dissertation focused on conflicts between local communities and the U.S. Forest Service over recreational developments in the Jefferson National Forest region. Also during that same time, I had a paid job as a research analyst over two years on a huge community survey of Kentucky municipalities. Personally I was also paying more attention to Kentucky's gubernatorial races and Lexington school board issues. Nonetheless, I was more observational than participatory during those years, limiting my participation to voting in every primary and election, but did not work for any candidates or make any donations. </div><div><br /></div><div>After graduate school during the 1980's, my first full-time professorial job was in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. I paid close attention to national politics. I raised money for Mondale and Ferraro, and helped the local democratic party plan a visit by Ferraro who did a press conference at the local airport. The idea of a female VP was intoxicating. Four years later, I fundraised and worked for Michael Dukakis who visited Johnstown on a cross country train stop. During the same years I donated to and worked for Republican Senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, probably the last of the great liberal Republicans. However, I am ashamed to say that I have no idea who was mayor of the city, or how the city was governed, and I paid little if any attention to who were my representatives at the state level, or even my congressional district. </div><div><br /></div><div>I didn't change much when after seven years in Johnstown, I moved to Wise, Virginia to teach at another branch of a great university (this time UVA). I put my focus on presidential politics, senatorial politics, and maybe on the governorship, but not much else. I did at least know who my local congressman was, but that was about it. I was taken by surprise when my blue district "suddenly" went red, in the 1990's. </div><div><br /></div><div>This I believe is the great failing of liberals of my generation. We looked at the big issues we felt were important, such as the environment, civil rights, reproductive rights, and we decided that the best way to attack those was at the federal level and through the courts, rather than trying to fight in each and every statehouse. Most of us failed to think about the role of the statehouses in controlling access to voting, to defining districts, and setting the ground rules. We never thought about a day when the Supreme Court would strike down major parts of the voting rights act giving free reign back to the states. The Republicans never made that mistake. They worked the local and the state offices and came to dominate state politics even in states where ostensibly the majority of voters were liberal, and elected Democratic presidents and Democratic senators. </div><div><br /></div><div>Part of the problem comes from the fact that many highly educated liberal voters of my generation (Ok Boomer), held jobs that often involved major moves. In academia, I taught at three different institutions. People in business and finance often had to make major moves to advance in their careers. Local politics is so much about who you know and how long you or your family have been in the community that it is hard for more transient residents to get to understand how it works. </div><div><br /></div><div>Moving to Kentucky for my final academic position (that I was in for more than 21 years), finally gave me the roots to get firmly involved. I know who all my county and community leaders are, I can stop them on the street and talk to them. I know who my representatives in the Kentucky legislature are, and feel free to chat them up when I run into them in the grocery store, or the local farmers market. I know the people in my community, not just those that I worked with at the community college. I know the sheriff and many of the deputies and town police in the county (many are former students). The local level is far more important than I realized when I was younger, despite the fact that as a community sociologist I should have recognized that. </div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><br /></div>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-39062288846602970182021-11-28T13:19:00.001-05:002021-11-28T13:19:36.204-05:00A Panic over Memory<p>One of the things about aging that scares me is that I will lose my mind the way my mother lost hers, becoming entirely delusional and thinking that it is the rest of the world that is crazy. The day I wrote the material below (April 7, 2021) was one of those scary days. However, it turned out there was nothing wrong with my memory at all. Instead I had stuffed my drawer so full that several shirts, including the one that I was looking for had fallen down behind the drawers and then under the bottom drawer. My husband figured it out and rescued my missing shirts, and I calmed down. It is useful for me to remember this, so that I don't panic the next time something goes missing.</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p></p><blockquote><p>Yesterday was a difficult day. Early in the morning, I went to my dresser and pulled open the drawer with all my graphic t-shirts to get the newest art tee that I had purchased last week. It wasn't there. I pulled everything out of the drawer and it wasn't there. I looked in every other drawer in the bedroom and in the closet just in case I had hung it up. I searched all the laundry baskets, and went through the trash. I l looked on the shelves with the towels and in the containers where the sheets are stored. No art tee. </p><p>Next I completely tore apart my office, moving boxes and books, checking the drawers where art supplies, tools, and medical supplies are kept. I looked in the sewing box and the art project box and the bag of knitting. Then it was on the kitchen, where I checked cabinets and drawers and shelves, trash beens and garbage. I went outside and pulled bags from the trash cans and searched them. In the living room I shifted through all the blankets and pillows and baskets where things are stored. </p><p>Then I involved my husband, and we checked his study and his closets, his laundry baskets, his drawers. He went with me and we went back again over the bedroom and all the dressers, pulled clothing out of all of them, both mine and his, unfolding and refolding every black t-shirt, to make sure it wasn't the missing one. </p><p>At the very beginning when I first opened the drawer to get the tee, I had been certain that it would be there. As the day went along, I became less and less certain. I could remember the box arriving and opening it. I could remember getting the shirt out and showing it to my husband. He could remember me showing it to him. But now I was no longer certain that I actually could remember taking it in the bedroom and putting it in the drawer. </p><p>Every few hours throughout the rest of the day, I would go through the search process again. There was no sign of the tee anywhere. It caused me to think that I had done something irrational like put it in the garbage. Even on the very rare occasions that I throw away any clothing, I always put it in the trash cans, not in the garbage - i.e., food waste and used cat litter. But since the shirt had vanished and I had searched the trash both inside the house and in the outdoor cans, I began to think that some how I had walked into the kitchen and thrown a brand new t-shirt in with the wet, smelly and disgusting garbage. This was so out of character that it was disturbing. </p><p>But then a lot of disturbing things have been happening with my memory in the last few years. I have always had a poor memory. When I was in the first grade, my teacher Mrs. Davis, repeatedly told me, and not in a kind or kidding way, that "Sue Greer, if your head wasn't screwed on tight you'd forget that too." I was an absent-minded and disorganized child, but I wanted to do well in school and I was disciplined so I taught myself a whole host of tricks and techniques to remember and keep track of things. I lived by lists even when I was seven years old. As a college freshman I immediately realized that without a system I would always be looking for my keys and my id (essential if one wanted to eat). So from the time I was 18 I always had a clearly specified place for keys and other essentials, and always made sure that I left things in that place. To this day I do not misplace my keys because they belong in one place and always go in that place.</p></blockquote><p></p></blockquote><p>Growing older is not for the timid, it is a scary country! </p><p><br /></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-60714024841700400852021-01-30T01:29:00.000-05:002021-01-30T01:29:10.857-05:00The End of January - almost<p> It is closing in on 1 am, my husband has been asleep for hours, but my brain won't shut down. I worry about getting up in the night, it might disturb the doggies, and if they get restless they would wake my husband, and he needs his sleep. I can always take naps in the daytime, one of the many benefits of retirement and aging. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbpiJYWL6M56SfEf3Yfbgj3vbh9n7ufUqJc2kFxjn90jAjO5oV-OgMofWUBRn7S7yXgd20OCHZAyQcVllDW4Beqpj0O8ie8nLVKT-hCHjKuDYUFo7hMTHfDiaaLUnHqNuhDX5o6k5rw2an/s2048/January2010+035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="snow and trees" border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbpiJYWL6M56SfEf3Yfbgj3vbh9n7ufUqJc2kFxjn90jAjO5oV-OgMofWUBRn7S7yXgd20OCHZAyQcVllDW4Beqpj0O8ie8nLVKT-hCHjKuDYUFo7hMTHfDiaaLUnHqNuhDX5o6k5rw2an/w400-h300/January2010+035.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />It is cold tonight but not so cold as to require a trickle to be run in the tub. The thermometer on the back porch read 25 degrees F, when we went to bed at ten. There is still snow on the ground from Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but not much. We have not had any long stretches of deep cold this winter so far. Only two nights in December when the temperature dipped into the teens, and exceedingly few days when the afternoon temperatures have stayed below freezing. Just Tuesday the afternoon high was 62 degrees F. <p></p><p>I am very ambivalent about this. There was a time when I loved winter. When I walked a mile from graduate housing to the Patterson Office Tower in 20 degree or lower weather and found it exhilarating. I had a whole hierarchy of clothing depending upon temperature. Below 20 degrees I set aside the jeans and got out ankle length lined wool skirts with long johns underneath. Age, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma triggered by cold air, make walks in temperatures below 40 degrees no longer feasible. I no longer enjoy the cold weather. But I know that these milder winters are not a good sign. No one mild winter of course can be blamed on climate change, but the pattern of milder winters that we've seen in the last couple of decades most certainly shows the influence of global warming. </p><p>Moreover, while winters have become more pleasant and less harsh, spring and summer have become hotter and more humid. The fleas and ticks have boomed in recent years with mild winters. As a family with dogs and cats this has become a major expense issue. We can no longer stop flea treatments in the winter months, with so much mild weather. The lower costs for heating do not offset the higher costs of flea treatments when one has 11 cats. </p><p>Eastern Kentucky, on the northwestern flank of the Appalachian mountains, is well situated for a changing climate. While our summers are definitely getting warmer, we are higher in altitude, surrounded by forests, and living in hollers which provide shade. The prevailing winds bring eastern Kentucky plentiful rainfall, rainfall that has been increasing over the past couple of decades. While there are occasional periods of drought (in late spring or early fall), they are both rare and short. </p><p>The population here is declining and aging. The coal industry has been in decline since it peaked in the 1920's, but it has become nearly non-existent in the past decade. Environmentally this is a good thing, but little has replaced those jobs, so communities and families are struggling. The biggest employers in most eastern Kentucky counties are hospitals and schools. However, I suspect in the long run, if we manage to maintain our society (and I sometimes have my doubts about that), eastern Kentucky is likely to become a very desirable place to live, not too cold, not too hot, and plenty of fresh water available. I do not know if I will live to see that day. </p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-14893316772370240432021-01-25T17:51:00.009-05:002021-01-25T17:51:58.460-05:00What is old? <p> I keep waiting to feel old. </p><p>I'm not talking about my physical body. That's been aching and creaking, and dysfunctional since my early 50's. Between osteo-arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, type two diabetes, asthma and obesity my health has been rocky for some time. </p><p>But my spirit, my being doesn't feel old. I thought maybe when I reached 65 and got on Medicare I'd feel old. Nope. Or when I retired a few years after that, but no. Nor do I expect turning 70 in less than two weeks will make me feel old either. </p><p>I spent most of my life working with young people, college students (most, but not all, younger than myself). I always felt more akin to the students than the "grownups" I saw around me. Took me some time to realize that many of those "grownups" really were not, any more than I was. There were some faculty, almost always men, who seem to have completely lost touch with what it was like to be 19 or 20 and in college. Who were always grumbling about "what's wrong with kids these days." So maybe some people do feel old, and lose touch with their young selves. </p><p>But I think that maybe I'm never going to feel old, never really going to feel like a "grownup," and never really going to know for sure what I'm going to be when I grow up. </p><p><br /></p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-63012715670073841982021-01-21T12:45:00.001-05:002021-01-21T12:47:22.016-05:00This Day<p> This feels the beginning of the new year to me, January 21, 2021. This is the day I feel like making resolutions, starting fresh, shaking off the doldrums of the past 10 months; to do more than just float through the world on a sea of anxiety. </p>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-47935495442148155822020-07-23T10:52:00.002-04:002020-07-23T14:33:12.394-04:00Shedding TearsA sad thing happened this morning. I was driving one of my cats, Tippecanoe, to our vet to have his stitches removed. About 2 miles from the vet's office on a stretch of four lane I felt a sudden thud under one wheel and in the rear view window I could see a small black cat with legs flailing.<br />
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Living in a rural area I'm very consciously always on the lookout scanning the shoulders for animals, everything from deer and bears to cats and dogs may suddenly dash across the road. This time I didn't see anything before the sickening thump. There wasn't a good place to turn when I saw what happened so I quickly drove on to my vet where I could leave Tippecanoe and go back to the scene. Every moment that I had to wait before the receptionist got off the phone and I could tell her what I needed to do was torture. </div>
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I hopped back in my car and flew back to the scene. I did a u-turn across the four-lane and pulled up on the shoulder next to the little cat. It was immediately obvious that the poor thing was dead, but I couldn't just leave it there to be run over again and again. So watching for a break in the traffic I ran out and scooped the little limp thing up in a towel and brought it back to the car.</div>
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Right there on the side of the road holding that limp little body in a towel I began to sob uncontrollably. I climbed behind the wheel and shook and cried for several minutes before starting the engine again. I probably wasn't really in any shape to be driving, but did so anyway, tears running down my face, sobbing and moaning. </div>
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And I realized right away, that as sad as the situation was, I wasn't really crying for the dead kitty. The death of the little cat had just simply been the mechanism to release all the pain, fear and sadness of the past four months. I was crying for Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and for all the more than 140,000 people that we've lost to COVID 19. I was crying for the losses of connection and dislocations that the pandemic has caused all of us, and I was crying for all the fears and uncertainties that we face about the fate of our democratic society. </div>
sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-1217163671663674492020-01-25T14:26:00.002-05:002020-01-25T14:27:12.809-05:00My brief life as a farm worker Part 3<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">What was
most important to me about working at Yoder Brothers during the summers of 1970
and 1971 was my fellow workers. It is also the hardest thing to write about. One
reason for that is that 50 years later I recognize how self-absorbed I was at
19 and as a result I did not learn very much about the women with whom I worked,
nor did I do much to keep in touch with them when I went back to college. Yet
those women touched my life and my ways of thinking much more deeply than I
realized at the time. It was their fellowship that brought me back to the job
for a second summer, not the $1.30 that we earned per hour. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">This is
something I haven’t mentioned yet. Minimum wage in 1970 was $1.65.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">At college working as a waitress and in the
cafeteria, I earned federal minimum wage.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">
</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I knew what it was. When I applied for the job, I was told we’d be paid
minimum wage; when the first paycheck came, I was flabbergasted. We were being
paid $1.30 an hour. My first thought was that this was illegal, that they were
taking advantage of the fact that most of the workers were immigrants who only
spoke Spanish and could not really advocate for themselves. I called the same
Cooperative Extension agent that had told me about the job in the first place, and
he explained reality to me. There was a separate, lower, minimum wage that
applied to farm workers.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Therefore $1.30
was completely legal, but my view that it was exploitive and taking advantage
of immigrant workers was also true.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I
learned later that the men who worked there earned $1.65 because they had more
options as to jobs and would have left to work somewhere else if paid less than </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">non-farm</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> minimum wage.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<h3>
The First Summer<o:p></o:p></h3>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">When I
started work there in June 1970 all of the other women who worked there were
Hispanic in that they were all native Spanish speakers – despite significant
differences in dialect. They came from several countries. The largest number
were from Mexico, but there were women from both Central America and South
America, the four countries that I am sure about are Guatemala, El Salvador,
Columbia, and Peru. All but one of the women had come to the United States as
either teens or adults. That one woman, Conchita, had come to the U.S. as a
very small child with her parents and had attended school entirely in the U.S.
While she had grown up speaking Spanish at home with her parents, she was truly
bi-lingual and spoke unaccented, colloquial English like anyone person who went
to school here.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Connie as
she was called, was my life-line in the beginning, helping me get up-to-speed
in my Spanish. Like most kids growing up in California in the 1950's and 1960's
I learned some Spanish vocabulary in grade school, and by middle school was
taking formal classes in Spanish every year. I studied Spanish in school
for 4 and a half years (middle school, high school, and a semester in college)
and earned mostly A's (except in college) but really wasn't fluent until
working at Yoder Brothers. Connie helped me with the work specific vocabulary,
that hadn’t been covered in my classes. She also helped ease me into the social
network by inviting me to her home for dinner twice, where I got to meet her
mother, husband, and six-year-old son – and have my first truly authentic
Mexican cuisine! Yoder Brothers was a temporary stop for Connie who with a high
school diploma and other skills soon found a less physical office job somewhere
else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">It was
harder to be part of the group after Connie left since everyone else spoke only
Spanish, but nothing teaches a language faster than necessity and total
emersion. I soon made my best friend at Yoder Brothers, Gloria. Gloria had come
to the U.S. because her brother suffered from a congenital illness than could
at that time only be treated properly in the U.S. Like the vast majority of immigrants,
she had not really understood how difficult it would be for her to find skilled
work like she had in Mexico, especially lacking English language skills. She
was having difficulty saving up enough money to bring her brother to the U.S.
working as a field hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gloria
was breathtakingly beautiful. She looked like the fairy tale description of
snow white: ivory pale skin, ruby lips, shining dark hair. One of the things
that I was quick to observe at Yoder Brothers was that “Hispanic” covers a very
wide range of racial and ethnic groups. Gloria looked like she would have been
at home on the streets of Madrid. By comparison the oldest, most senior worker
at the plant, Irene from Peru had the deep bronze skin and high cheekbones that
we Americans associate with native Americans. The rest of the women ranged somewhere
in between those two poles, representing a wide mix of indigenous people and
European invaders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In many
of their home countries these differences in racial and ethnic heritage
mattered a great deal, social status and opportunity varied based on a person’s
degree of European heritage. Here in the United States those differences were largely
obliterated; from the point of view of the larger society and employers they
were all Hispanic immigrants, they could not speak English, and they were
vulnerable to deportation, even documented immigrants though the undocumented
were especially so. Here tenure in the U.S. and knowledge of how the system
worked were the primary forms of status, not racial and ethnic differences within
the group. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Sitting
and talking with Gloria before work, at lunch, and after work really pushed my Spanish
fluency. Unlike the other women whose conversations revolved around their
families or their relationships, food and clothing, Gloria wanted to talk about
music, politics, and religion or perhaps more properly about beliefs. She
wanted to tell me about her life in Mexico and her family and learn about my
life and my family. We explored our similarities and differences and we taught
each other songs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can only remember
one of the many songs she taught me, because I have sung it often over the
years to cheer myself up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ven a
contar conmigo,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Si
tristes estas.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Cuando te
sientes deprimido<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ven a
contar conmigo<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Y el sol
saldra</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Translation:
Come sing with me if you are sad. When you are feeling depressed sing with me
and the sun will come out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">One of
the funniest things that happened to me that first summer was due to an odd
lacuna in my Spanish vocabulary. Gloria lived in an apartment with Bonita another
one of the Yoder Brothers workers, about a mile and a half from the Yoder
Brothers plant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was walkable, there were
sidewalks the entire distance. But there was heavy traffic and in the summer it
was hot. So early on, I suggested that I at least give them a ride home at the
end of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was on my way and not
at all inconvenient. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our first ride was
quite comical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither Gloria nor Bonita
knew the name of the major cross street where I would need to turn, so I told
them to let me know before we reached the intersection. So I’m driving along,
and the first major intersection is coming up so I ask <i>izquierda</i> [left]
or <i>derecha</i> [right],<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they replied “<i>derecho</i>”
which I took to mean I should turn right, so I started to signal and make the turn
and they started yelling “no, no, no” and pointing straight ahead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We went through this two more times. Finally,
I stopped the car and looked at them and gestured to the left saying “<i>izquierda</i>?”
they nodded, then I gestured right and said “<i>derecha</i>?” they nodded. Then
they pointed straight ahead and said “<i>derecho!</i>” In all my years of
studying Spanish I had learned left and right, but I had never learned that “straight
ahead” is<i> derecho</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For days
afterwards this was the subject of much discussion and laugher at lunch time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
addition to providing Gloria and Bonita rides every day, I several times invited
them to come to my parents’ house (where I lived) for meals, providing
transportation to and from. At least once they both came, but two other times
only Gloria came. They would invite me to eat with them, and I would accept
their hospitality as to do otherwise would have been rude and insulting, but I
would try to eat very little because they had so little. I felt very close to
Gloria and I think she also felt close to me despite all our differences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiU2R856zug-0EtdWFI6IjbhLDxzdvNZNHE_rcUgAmNrds2nKyBb5BcN1NxNXv3PdXqH7XG2jIHSK-0vPmYgxgmmbvTPbFp1i_cMZf9ZA7Bi1PKs34hjOKDYNKk-K_UzdOAvOziudlDaoI/s1600/fairy-stone-cross.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="556" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiU2R856zug-0EtdWFI6IjbhLDxzdvNZNHE_rcUgAmNrds2nKyBb5BcN1NxNXv3PdXqH7XG2jIHSK-0vPmYgxgmmbvTPbFp1i_cMZf9ZA7Bi1PKs34hjOKDYNKk-K_UzdOAvOziudlDaoI/s200/fairy-stone-cross.jpg" width="185" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">fairy stone crystal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At the
end of the summer of 1970 when it was time for me to go back to school, Gloria
and I exchanged lots of hugs and tears. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She also gave me an amazing gift one that I
felt terribly guilty about accepting but knew that to refuse it would hurt her
immeasurably. We had talked a lot about our religious beliefs, and one of the
difficulties that I encountered in doing so was that for Gloria, a Spanish
speaking Catholic, no distinction in her conversation was made between Jesus
and God, she referred to both indistinguishably as “<i>Dios.”</i> As a
consequence, I had been unable to explain to her satisfactorily how while I had
a deep and abiding faith in God, I was not a Christian. This was probably made
more difficult because I wore a necklace</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that had a small locket and a fairy stone
cross on it.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wore the fairy stone not because
it was a cross, but because it was given me by my favorite Aunt and reminded me
of trips on the Blue Ridge Parkway.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">I was
overwhelmed when at parting she gave me the exquisite gold crucifix that she
wore all the time when not at work. It had been a gift to her from her deceased
mother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">At that
point in my life I was pretty sure I wanted to be a Jew even though I was still
ten years away from formal conversion to Judaism, I would have felt sacrilegious
wearing a traditional Catholic crucifix with a tiny Jesus impaled upon it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In response I removed my own necklace, removed
the small locket, and gave her my fairy stone cross, explaining how it was a
natural mineral that grew in the shape of a cross, and who had given it to
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept Gloria’s crucifix close to me
for the next 12 years, never wearing it, but holding it often and thinking
about her. In 1975 my first graduate school roommate was a physician from
Belgium, Arlette Lepot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arlette’s primary
language was French, but she was fluent in Spanish and German. We discovered
quickly that I was marginally more fluent in Spanish than she was in English,
so we sometimes spoke Spanish together rather than English. For a variety of
reasons Arlette reminded me of Gloria and I ended up telling her the story of
Gloria’s crucifix and gave it to her, because she would wear it and honor it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">Gloria
was the only woman at Yoder Brothers that I kept in touch with after I went
back to college. We wrote letters to each other in Spanish. Mine were pretty
simplistic. So I learned that after I left that she and Bonita had been able to
get better paying (but still very hard, hot and miserable) jobs at a laundry. Then
the letters stopped and my last letter was returned. I lost touch with her and
it was not until the next summer that I was able to learn why. Both Gloria and
Bonita were undocumented so an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service)
raid on the laundry where she worked, caused her to go underground and leave
the area. I’ve always wondered what happened to her after that. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-69046520664099781872020-01-20T16:16:00.002-05:002020-01-20T16:42:34.222-05:00My brief life as a farm worker Part 2<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">During the summers of 1970 and 1971 between years of college I worked at Yoder Brothers commercial horticultural plant in Redwood City, California as a farm worker. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I wrote in my previous post the primary work that we women did at Yoder Brothers was take cuttings of 2 and 1/2 inch shoots from chrysanthemum plants that were then shipped to other Yoder Brothers plants to be rooted. This constituted about 80 percent of our work load. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But before the plants could grow to a point to have their shoots harvested, it was necessary to plant them. Planting was also a job that women did. The beds were prepared by the men. Preparation included sterilization of the beds. Each bed was tightly covered in plastic and scalding steam was piped under the plastic. Fertilizer, fresh top soil and other chemicals were applied to the sterilized beds by the men. Then the women went to work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Taking cuttings was a job that could be done standing up, but planting could only be done kneeling. The beds were about a foot and a half high, so that even kneeling we sometimes had to lean over to work in the soil. The packed dirt isles between beds were about 3 feet wide, which was enough to comfortably kneel perpendicular to the edge of the raised bed. We were given thick rubber cushions to strap over our knees, however, the isles were always dusty and often muddy so the bottoms of my pants, my socks and the tops of my shoes were usually filthy after a day of planting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course, I did seem to get dirtier than everyone else. Probably because I didn't mind getting dirty, because I was luckier than most of my work mates for whom this job was the difference between survival and starvation or homelessness. I had a home with my parents and was earning money to pay for college. Also I could afford to have clothes (even if only old ragged jeans and work shirts) that I only wore for work in the greenhouses. When I got home I could dump my clothes into the washer and put on something fresh. Many of my fellow workers could not afford separate sets of work clothes and home clothes; a lot of them would cover up at least their tops with old, worn, over-sized men's shirts to prevent staining. Some of it was a matter of choice - the young women did not want their <i>novios </i>or husbands to see them in dirty work clothes. I on the other hand had no one to impress with my femininity at that point in my life. Also many of them lived in apartments where they had to pay for laundry while I did my laundry for free in my parents' washer. Note that I did do my own laundry and did not leave it for my mother to do. I was often teased about getting so dirty. They said I was like their </span></span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>niños</i></span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">, who loved playing in the dirt. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While the beds as a whole was three feet wide, thick wooden sides left the planting surface was about 30 inches. The surface of the bed was marked off in 5 inch squares by wire, so there were six squares across the width of each bed. We were given huge plastic trays of seedlings, each in it's little square of soil similar to the tomato or pepper seedlings at your local greenhouse or Lowe's in the spring. We had to make sure that the wooden stake labeling our tray of chrysanthemum seedlings had the same type name and number to the wooden stakes labeling the bed we were planting in. Rarely two women worked together on the same bed, one to a side facing each other, but most often we worked alone doing first one side and then the other. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">The soil was soft so we used no tools, only our fingers and hands. There was always dirt under my finger nails during those summers. We began with the square closest to the middle (the third square in from the side), so that we would not crush plants closer to the edge as we leaned out to reach the middle. Three seedlings were planted in each square in a triangle, the apex of the triangle pointing away from us. I would gently pull a little seedling with its attached soil out of the tray with my left hand, while I simultaneously created a thumb sized hole in the bed with my right. I would plop the seedling in, and use my thumb and fingers to pinch the soil of the bed around it. Then reach for the next seedling and poke the next hole. I would usually do all of the third row squares I could comfortably reach from one kneeling location first, then the second row, and finally the first row, before "walking" on my knees to the next location. The pressure to be productive meant that there really wasn't time to stand up and straighten out between each location, just scooting on our knees. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">Physically planting was far more difficult than taking cuttings. Even with the thick rubber pads being on my knees for hours hurt. I'd get cramps in my calf or my thigh sometimes. In the early mornings there was greater risk of burning oneself on the heating pipe running around the bottom of the bed. But mostly it hurt my back to lean out over the bed to reach the middle rows. And yet, I actually liked planting more than cutting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">When you were cutting even though the job was really repetitive and boring you always had to pay close attention because you had to be counting the number of cuttings. The quality control was really strict, your 200 cuttings per box had to be exactly 200, not 199 or 201. If you let your mind wander while taking cuttings and lost count, you would have to stop and carefully count every cutting in your hand to make sure you knew where you were. Of course, stopping to recount cost time and that cut into your production which you couldn't afford to do if you wanted to keep your job. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 18px;">But planting required almost no thought at all, it was a purely mechanical process. So my mind could wander wherever I wished. Sometimes I sang softly to myself. Sometimes I composed letters or stories in my head. One could just simply daydream while planting, so time spent planting generally passed far more quickly than the hours spent taking cuttings. On those uncommon occasions that two women were working across from each other on the same bed one could actually have conversations, something not at all possible while you are counting cuttings. Too bad that planting was such a small part of the job during the summer months. The permanent workers did much more planting, being responsible for getting all the beds started in the late winter and early spring. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Taking cuttings was the biggest part of the job, next in frequency and importance was planting, and finally w</span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">hen the productivity of plants had ended, we had to rip dead
plants out and clean up the beds so the men could come in and prepare them for the next round of planting and harvesting
of cuttings. This was the only job that was truly social. It was always done by at least two women at a time, and sometimes a whole crew of women might be assigned to work on cleaning up an entire greenhouse. Since all we were doing was yanking plants out of the ground and piling them in huge piles there was plenty of opportunity for conversation, joking and singing. It was working on ripping crews that taught me all my best Spanish curse words, most of which are unfit for publication. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 13.5pt;">Most of the time ripping out and cleaning up was a very short lived task centered on a few beds in an otherwise active greenhouse with many other rows of green, growing plants being actively harvested for cuttings. I have very vivid memories, however, of one afternoon in my second summer (1971) a crew of six of us were set the task of ripping beds in a greenhouse where everything was dried, brown and dead or dying. This was a large task that was going to take the six of us the entire afternoon to complete. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In an active greenhouse full of green, growing plants it was very humid and the high temperatures were usually in the high eighties or low nineties. That's not particularly pleasant, but its bearable and one becomes adjusted to the heat. This particular greenhouse we were sent to work in was dry as a bone, and the temperature in that greenhouse when we started was 110 degrees Fahrenheit. It would reach 124 degrees before we were finished. We knew this because there were thermometers hanging from the overhead pipes. It was awful! As the heat rose and it because harder and harder to work, I had a sudden inspiration. I stood up on one of the beds and turned on the faucet of the overhead water pipe and stood under it. I soaked myself completely my hair and clothes were dripping wet. Most of the others followed my example. We could then work in reasonable comfort for a period of time enjoying the coolness of the evaporating water. Within about 20 minutes I would be dry again, and need to soak myself once more. This tactic allowed us to complete the task without anyone </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">succumbing</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> to heat stroke or heat exhaustion. The only downside was that all the dust and dry leaves stuck to us and we were totally filthy from head to toe by the time the work day ended. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We were required to be on the job site by 6:45 AM, but could not
clock in until a minute or two before 7 AM. We were luckier than most open
field workers in that there was a toilet with running water on the property,
but we were only suppose to use it before we clocked in, during the 10 minute morning break, and during the 30
minute unpaid lunch period we were given. Most of us found ways to slide into
the bathroom when nature demanded, especially when moving from one greenhouse to
another without getting into trouble. The end of the day came at 3:30 PM. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Yoder Brothers and Scientific Horticulture</span></span></h4>
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The job was hard, hot, dirty and mostly tedious, but Yoder Brothers (now Aris
Horticulture, Inc) as a whole was a fascinating business. Begun in 1920 by two
Mennonite brothers Menno and Ira Yoder of Barberton, Ohio, Yoder Brothers had
grown by the 1970's to dominate the chrysanthemum market in the US. Some
eighty percent of all chrysanthemums blooming in the U.S. in the 1970's had begun their life
in one of Yoder Brothers' greenhouses. Even in 1997 the greenhouse in Letcher County, Kentucky where I got my autumn mums bought their chrysanthemum seedlings from Yoder Brothers. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the reasons I think that the plant manager hired me was that he wanted someone he could talk to. He was proud of the organization and its "scientific" techniques and found me a willing listener. So I learned many details about the Yoder Brothers corporation and its operations that the other workers knew nothing about. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Yoder Brothers was engaged in plant research, and had developed a highly
systematized, rationalized, program to maximize chrysanthemum output and quality. They collected extensive data from each of their plants on temperature, moisture, and production, then developed complex formulas and programs to predict the most efficient and efficacious was to produce chrysanthemums. Each
week the plant in Redwood City California received computer printouts mailed from
the company headquarters in Ohio. The printout dictated precisely which beds in
which greenhouses would be targeted for harvesting that week, which beds would
be uprooted and cleaned out, which would be sterilized and treated for new
planting, and which would be planted with new varieties.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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We greenhouse workers often made fun of these printouts as they </span><span style="font-size: 18px;">frequently</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"> dictated harvesting from beds that were producing almost no new shoots, while telling us to
tear up beds that still had days if not weeks of production left in them.
However, it appeared over the two summers that I worked there that on the
average the computer program optimized their production.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Each day, at the end of shift, the precise number of boxes (each with 200
cuttings) of each variety of mum and each bed in each house, would be tallied on a sheet. Because the first summer I
was the only employee other than the manager for whom English was a first
language, I was tapped to report each day's production to the home
office. I had to make a long distance call to Ohio and recite pages and pages of
variety names, location identifiers, and numbers of boxes. These numbers would then be fed into the
computer program that determined what the activities for each bed would be the
next week. For some reason the need for concentration and accuracy on this task would trigger a yawning reflex in me. Halfway through the task I would start to yawn, which would make me struggle to continue reading the numbers. Just writing about this has triggered a bout of yawning for me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Towards the end of my first summer, the home office sent a huge
teletype machine to California to be used for reporting the production
information. The plant manager (who spoke little Spanish) trained me how to use the teletype, and then it
was my responsibility to teach the process of typing the report to my fellow worker and friend
Gloria, an immigrant from Mexico who had been a executive secretary in a large
corporation in Mexico and could type much faster and more accurately than I
could, but who had no English at all. At that point I spoke Spanish fluently but my vocabulary was limited in odd ways: I knew the word for push, but not the word for button! But Gloria was smart and a quick learner and she filled in the gaps. I was glad to give up the job of reading all those numbers every day and the weird yawning fits that it brought on. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stay tuned for part 3, where I will talk more about the women I worked with, made friends with, and cared about. Also I'll talk more about the Hispanic immigrant community at that time in that place. And at one funny story about speaking Spanish. </span></span></div>
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sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-71263682346645793202020-01-19T20:40:00.002-05:002021-01-30T11:27:32.075-05:00My brief life as a farm worker Part 1<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">About a year and a half ago, I saw an interesting article about a 1965 program that attempted, unsuccessfully, to replace temporary migrant workers from Mexico with American high school students:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTpQ5HEClXDfGp9hhW6y3TtQ5-hpTNnNd7rBXLLq7kI1extjpOQPe1gafHwSPqQsTG6itZ61VSmyiBc7_jw6fBDcR_-oek-ObnAH4syFFtGh9wTkAmHjfmFi4SMFx8PdcekDI_dvDhg_BC/s1600/highschoolers-as-farmworkers.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="732" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTpQ5HEClXDfGp9hhW6y3TtQ5-hpTNnNd7rBXLLq7kI1extjpOQPe1gafHwSPqQsTG6itZ61VSmyiBc7_jw6fBDcR_-oek-ObnAH4syFFtGh9wTkAmHjfmFi4SMFx8PdcekDI_dvDhg_BC/s320/highschoolers-as-farmworkers.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This article reminds me of my experience as a farm worker during the summers of 1970 and 1971 between years of college. Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) which I attended between September 1969 and May 1973 expected students with financial aid to earn income during the summers to contribute to their own education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unlike the young men described the NPR article, the job I worked on was not out in the open fields, but in greenhouses; the workers lived in their own homes and commuted to work every day, so we did not experience the dreadful living conditions of most fieldworkers. Nonetheless, the work was physically hard, very hot and humid, very low pay and seasonal without any benefits or security.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">How I Came to Become a Farm Worker</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the end of my freshman year I was really tired of being cooped up indoors, so when I returned home to California for the summer in May 1970 I decided to inquire about outdoor jobs. San Mateo County on the peninsula just south of San Francisco was a mixture of very urban/suburban and rural farms. The urban/suburban belt was on the east side of the peninsula along the San Francisco Bay. Up the spine of the peninsula was the low coastal mountain range that in the 1970's was mostly forest and open land, including a large protected areas such as state and county parks and the large Crystal Springs reservoir sitting right on top of the San Andreas fault. The western side of the peninsula facing the Pacific Ocean was in the 1970's mostly agricultural land with a few very small towns. There was vegetable farming (brussel sprouts and pumpkins I remember in particular), but most of the farm land in San Mateo County was devoted to the growing of flowers. The floral industry was a major economic factor in the county. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I contacted the Cooperative Extension program staff in my county about outdoor jobs, such as working in agriculture. They did not keep any type of systemic clearing house, but the man that I talked to happened to know that a large commercial horticultural company, Yoder Brothers, was hiring summer workers for their greenhouses. He gave me the number and I put in an application. I was surprised to discover that Yoder Brothers plant was not in the western, agricultural part of the county, but situated right in the middle of Redwood City, the county seat of San Mateo County, surrounded by shops and businesses, and residential areas. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The manager of the Yoder Brothers plant in Redwood City didn't quite know what to think of me. <i>All</i> of his other workers were Hispanic immigrants, most legal, but some illegal (as I learned later that summer). Many spoke no English, and only one woman I met there was fluent in English having immigrated as a child. The manager never had anyone who was not from the Hispanic community inquire about employment before. But he was willing to take me on. I think he looked on me as someone to talk to, as his Spanish was limited and his wife who worked in the business was deaf. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I started work the second week in June 1970 and worked full-time until time to leave for Ohio again at the end of August 1970. Despite the physical demands and discomforts of the job, I liked the people I worked with enough to come back the next summer between sophomore and junior year. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Description of the Greenhouses and the Workplace</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Redwood City Yoder Brothers' plant was located off one of the city's major arteries Woodside Road, between two major north/south routes El Camino Real and the Alameda de las Pulgas. The plant had about 10 large greenhouses made of wood and glass lined up along a central narrow paved road off Woodside Road. Six greenhouses were on the west side of the road into the plant and four were on the east side. The east side also had a large, blue, metal building near the entrance to the plant that contained the offices, the shipping dock and provided storage for some of the machinery used. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the greenhouses were about 60 feet wide and 80 to 85 feet deep, front to back, a couple were slightly smaller. A wide isle perhaps 5 feet ran across the front of each greenhouse and a slightly narrower isle at the very back of the greenhouse. The greenhouses had from six to eight raised beds running from the front of the greenhouse to its back, a distance of about 70 feet. Each bed was about 3 feet wide and raised about a foot and a half above the ground. There was a 3 foot isle between each bed. The isles were packed dirt, which could at times become very muddy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Insulated pipes </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ran along the bottom outside of every raised bed </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that carried hot steam to warm the beds during winter time and chilly, foggy summer nights. Even though the heating pipes were insulated, I had to be careful not bump bare ankles or calves against them in the morning because burns were possible. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Water pipes ran overhead about 5 feet above each bed to provide water for the plants. Thermometers dangled from the water pipes in several places around each greenhouse. I was often obsessed with seeing if I could guess what the temperature was and checking my guesses against the thermometer. I got so that I could accurately perceive very small differences in temperature change. An afternoon that was 84 degrees felt different (and more bearable) than one that was 86 degrees. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cooling for the greenhouses on sunny days was provided by six huge 5 foot diameter fans across the back of the greenhouse. In front of of each fan was a fiber mat through which cold water trickled continuously; the moving air from the fans was cooled by passing through the mist of water on the mats. This is a cooling method that works well in dry climates like the California coast. I learned to my dismay many years later that a swamp cooler (smaller version of the greenhouse cooling system) did not work at all well in humid Pennsylvania. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The outside temperature in Redwood City in the summer could range from the low 40's or 50's 6:30 AM when we arrived for work to high 70's and occasionally low 80's by the late afternoon when we clocked out. Inside the greenhouses, however, steam heat overnight meant that the morning temperatures were always </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">at least</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">in the mid-60's and then as the sun rose through the day interior temperatures were normally between 80 degrees to 98 degrees with 100% humidity in greenhouses filled with living, productive plants. It would be marginally cooler at the very back of the greenhouse within a few feet of the fans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My first summer (1970) at Yoder Brothers I was also taking an evening class in cultural geography at community college in San Mateo. The professor in that class was a big fan of "environmental determinism" and spent some time talking up a book he'd recently read titled </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Hell is a Hot Place. </i>One particularly hot and difficult day working in the greenhouses I decided that hell was indeed a hot place, but "heaven is the back of the greenhouse". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Organization of Work in the Greenhouses</span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Work at Yoder Brothers was segregated and assigned by gender. A small crew of six or fewer men operated the machinery that tilled, prepared and sterilized the growing beds. The men were </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">also </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">responsible for the frequent, heavy applications of pesticides and herbicides to the beds and the growing plants (more on this later). Men also monitored and recorded the temperature multiple times a day in each section of each greenhouse. They turned on and off the sprinkler systems that watered the plants on a precise schedule, and they monitored and maintained the fans and water mats that were used to cool the greenhouses. About half of the men worked year round, the other half only in the summer months. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The primary production jobs at Yoder Brothers belonged to women. The number of women varied during the summer months (May to August) from as few as 10 women to as many as thirty women. Less than six of the women were kept on during the winter months. Those women were all documented immigrants and slightly older than the seasonal workers. They had all been working at Yoder Brothers since the previous year, and all of them were still there when I came back again in the summer of 1971. The summer workers were far more transitory and a number were undocumented, only a couple of the summer workers I knew in 1970 came back to work at Yoder Brothers in 1971. One important example was Rosa, who had initially been a seasonal worker but in the autumn (after I'd left for Ohio and college) was hired on permanently. Not only was she there when I returned in 1971 but she had been promoted to greenhouse supervisor. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The women's jobs involved more physical labor than those of men, but no machinery. The women spent more time in the greenhouses with fewer breaks outside in cooler air compared to the men who came and went from the greenhouses frequently. The men were provided with protective gear, the women were not. All of the women's work was done with bare hands. We could have brought our own gloves, but then we'd lose much of the dexterity we needed for the task and have had to wash the gloves ourselves. It was quicker, easier and cheaper just to wash our hands. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The fact that we women had constant contact between our skin and the plants meant that we had far more exposure to the pesticides and herbicides that were sprayed on the plants than the men. They may have done the spraying, but they work protective gear, including gloves and respirators, and left the greenhouse as soon as they were finished spraying. The women frequently walked into a greenhouse to begin production work within 15 to 20 minutes of the plants being sprayed. One of the several pesticides used by Yoder Brothers was DDT which was not banned in the United States until 1972, a year after I last worked there.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYED717MZW1MzPp6-aatDp9FtZvDfi6rcc0ehM3-tN1spDW6OjwNtKWYqwB4nmtXEd2-ZwiDHDQU9mvg6YZF9KbGXMyMVEZW4MWgtP05LY3x6FoueKebNs8DFgVVGupXMbxqhzYgzwg0U/s1600/HenryGibson-DDT.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1060" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieYED717MZW1MzPp6-aatDp9FtZvDfi6rcc0ehM3-tN1spDW6OjwNtKWYqwB4nmtXEd2-ZwiDHDQU9mvg6YZF9KbGXMyMVEZW4MWgtP05LY3x6FoueKebNs8DFgVVGupXMbxqhzYgzwg0U/s320/HenryGibson-DDT.jpg" width="211" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">An aside: In 1972 I purchased a lovely poster for my dorm room, the art was by Teresa Woodward and the poem by Henry Gibson went thus:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have DDT in me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Inside of me is DDT</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you could see inside of me</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then you would see DDT</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Which is okay, I guess, if you like</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to swallow live bugs...)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The women's primary task to cut small shoots from non-blooming chrysanthemum plants for eight hours a day. If we were lucky the plants we were working with were full grown and we could stand upright to take cuttings. But mostly plants were at various earlier stages of growth and so that one had to lean over slightly to access the plants. Sometimes we would help each other out with shorter and taller women switching beds so that each of them could work without leaning over. But this was not generally approved of by the management as it was viewed as cutting into our productive time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
The cuttings all had to be precisely 2 1/2 inches in length measured from the top leaf bud excluding leaf length (see the red arrows on the photo) to the bottom of the cut stem. We each had a small metal plate (no sharp edges) that was the precise length needed and about 1 inch in width. We slipped the first three fingers of our dominant hand (for me the right hand) into an elastic band on the back of the cutter. We placed our fingers with the cutter behind the tip of a small flowerless shoot, lining the top edge up with the tip of the shoot, then closed our thumbs on top of it and flipped our wrist to snap it cleanly off. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cuttings went into plastic lined cardboard boxes. Each box was suppose to have exactly 200 cuttings in it. If at the end of a row you could not find exactly 200 healthy appropriately developed cuttings, you were allowed one incomplete box, but it must hold some multiple of fifty: 50, 100, 150. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The quality control was very exacting. Boxes were inspected by the manager's wife. If you had too many cuttings that were not precisely 2 1/2 inches, or too many boxes that did not have precisely 200 cuttings you were in trouble and if you did not improve quickly you would be let go. Moreover there were quotas for the number of boxes you produced. When I first began I needed to be sure I produced at least six boxes per hour to remain employed, then the expectation rose to eight boxes per hour which was considered the minimum to retain employment. The experienced, year round workers could produce from 10 to 12 boxes per hour. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The combination of the requirement for precision and production was very stressful at first. There was no time to carefully line up each cut. I had to learn to be able to reach out, grab an appropriate shoot precisely lined up and snap it off all in a single smooth move. Each new cutting would be transferred to my left hand to hold until I had exactly 50, then I would take a moment to walk forward to box stand and put the cuttings in. After a while I got so that I could hold 100 at a time securely but without crushing them because walking back and forth to the box took time away from production. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the head of each row or section of a particular type of chrysanthemum was a post with a white plastic bucket filled with 1" x 6" flat wooden stakes. Each stake had the name of the type of chrysanthemum in that row or section printed on it. The stick had a place to write your employee ID (a 4 digit number) and the number of cuttings in the box (preferably 200). When you filled a box, you penciled in the information and slid the stake into slots on the box as a label. Then you dropped your finished box on the ground in the isle. One of the women, usually someone who had trouble making production quotas consistently was given the task of running up and down the isles collecting the boxes and putting them in a rolling cart. When the cart was full, the gatherer would roll the cart from the greenhouse to the office building where they would be inspected and then placed in a large walk in cooler. The gatherer would pick up and empty cart and wheel it back to the greenhouse and begin gathering up filled boxes again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the end of each day hundreds of boxes of cuttings were loaded into refrigerated trucks and taken to other processing facilities and greenhouses where they would be placed in chemical baths to grow roots. These about half of these rootings would then be sold to commercial nurseries to produce hundreds of varieties of mums for gardens, homes, and offices - the rest would be cycled back to greenhouse facilities like ours where they would produce new cuttings. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the Yoder Brothers greenhouses in Redwood City the plants were never allowed to flower. The flowering of chrysanthemums is triggered by the declining length of days (which is why the majority of chrysanthemums are sold and displayed in the late summer and autumn. To prevent any of the plants from flowering growing lights automatically came on before sunset every day and stayed on until past sunrise. The plants were fooled into thinking it was perpetually mid-summer so they never bloomed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This was the most frustrating aspect of the job, all that hard work and we never actually saw a chrysanthemum blooming! I wondered then what the bloom of the variety called Fuji Mefo looked like, because the name intrigued me. Today, because of the miracle of Google and the internet, I finally know what the flower looks like. </span><br />
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This is a good stopping point. Stay tuned for Part 2 of My Brief Life as a Farm Worker! </div>
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sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-28779564324005932982019-06-30T13:07:00.003-04:002019-06-30T13:09:37.744-04:00A Concerted Cultivation ChildhoodSociologist Annette Lareau developed the concepts of "concerted cultivation" and "the accomplishment of natural growth" as two different patterns of child rearing practiced by different social classes with "concerted cultivation" being the preferred child rearing style of the middle and especially upper middle class parents, and "accomplishment of natural growth" the preferred child rearing style of working and lower class parents.<br />
<br />
Although I grew up in a blue-collar, working class neighborhood, where my father, a machinist, was one of the lowest earning workers, both of my parents had come from middle class families. My father was the only one of his siblings who did not go to college (due to his having graduated high school in 1930 just after his family was financially devastated by the stock market crash), and my mother had gone to college and gotten a teaching certificate and spent seven years teaching school before marrying.<br />
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The result was that my childhood experiences were highly controlled, scheduled and focused around education (concerted cultivation), while those of my neighborhood peers were unstructured, largely free of supervision and centered around fun (accomplishment of natural growth). This was most obvious in the summer time.<br />
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When school ended each June, my neighborhood friends were usually pushed out of the house each morning by their mothers, who didn't want their children in the way while they were cleaning house and watching soap operas. This was California, in the SF Bay Area, where rain was non-existent in the summer time, so bad weather never forced kids inside during the summer time. The children were left to entertain themselves and only grudgingly allowed back in their houses to use the bathroom, get something to drink or eat, then encouraged back outside. Every child had a bike, most children had roller skates (the metal kind that clamped on to shoes) and the neighborhood had excellent level, continuous sidewalks on which to ride and skate; games of tag, hide and seek, four square, kickball, catch, and many others spontaneously erupted. Girls also played jacks, hopscotch, played with dolls outside. Boys had comic books, and some access to tools and wood to build things like skate boards and other small items.<br />
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While our friends spent their summers in almost total freedom of unstructured play, our summers were quite different. Our mornings were always organized into some type of educational activity. My mother's obsessions changed from year to year. One summer she focused on math, and we spent several hours doing math problems. Another summer our lessons focused on learning Spanish. Another year we spent a lot of time reading the Bible and memorizing Psalms. Whatever the focus, two to three hours of every summer morning were organized around some type of learning activity.<br />
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Every summer involved substantial time for reading. My mother took us to the public library near us (about 3/4 of a mile away) at least once a week, if not more often. Each of us selected books that we would read ourselves, and my mother selected books that she would read aloud to all of us in the evening - all of the books by P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins and more), Beverly Cleary's books (Beezus, Henry and Ramona, etc.), as well as classics like Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, etc.<br />
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Even when we were allotted playtime, we rarely had the same degree of unsupervised freedom as our friends. My mother would recruit the other children to come to our yard and teach everyone games from her childhood. She taught us Red-light/Green-light, Simon Says, Duck-Duck-Goose, Puss in the Corner, and many more whose names I've forgotten.<br />
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Unlike the other mothers in the neighborhood, my mother had little interest in housekeeping (beyond the necessities of cooking and laundry). Moreover, our household furnishings were old and shabby second had pieces, and we lacked carpeting. So unlike the other mothers she did not mind having dirty, noisy, children tromping in and out of the house. She encouraged other neighborhood children to play in our yard, and to join us indoors for afternoon for organized arts and crafts activities.<br />
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My father was also unlike most of the other fathers when he was at home. He cared little for having the perfect lawn and put little energy into yard work. As a result he did not mind having children digging holes in our yard, or building forts or other things in the yard. He preferred to spend his time at home in his workshop building things, and liked showing children how to use tools and make things.<br />
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My family's relationship to television was different from the other neighborhood children as well. In the other households the television reigned supreme in the evening hours, with both adults and children watching programs during prime time. Our television was almost never on in the evening. My father took classes at the community college through our entire childhood and he was often studying in the evenings. He had little interest in situation comedies or the other staples of 1950's and 1960's TV. My mother on the other hand loved TV and comedies, but in deference to my father did not watch TV in the evenings. Instead she watched TV during the mornings when the popular situation comedies of the day were "stripped" five days a week. Almost all of my familiarity with television in my childhood came from watching with my mother on summer mornings. When I was really little we watched things like O Susannah (Gayle Storm), George Burns and Gracie Allen, and George Benny; as I grew older her favorite shows became the Dick Van Dyke show, Bewitched, Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, etc.<br />
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As a child I was often envious of my friends and their freedom in the summer. It was only as an adult that I came to appreciate the was in which my mother shaped our time around learning.<br />
<br />sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-84848946312894183642019-03-09T21:36:00.004-05:002019-03-09T21:37:51.562-05:00In Memory of Mat<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My cousin Matilda was 8 years older than me. Growing up she was an exciting, awesome figure in my life. I didn't get to see her but every couple of years, but each encounter was fraught with significance. She was smart, funny and sassy and I admired her enormously.<br />
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I have a number of extremely vivid memories of Mat from childhood.<br />
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One summer when we were all together in our parents' childhood home of Troutdale, Virginia, Mat (then a young teen) took a whole troop of children including me and my little brother Charlie as well as several local children on a hike down to the creek and the swimming hole, without telling the parents where we were going. We came back hours later, hot, sweaty, sunburnt, our legs scratched from the brambles, and deliriously happy with great memories of water striders, newts, crawdads, and wading in the cold stream. I think the grownups yelled at Mat for scaring them.<br />
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A couple of years later, also in Troutdale, I remember Mat showing me how the neighbor's baby goats like to climb on things by getting down on the ground and letting the goats climb on her back.<br />
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When Mat was 18 (and I was 10), she had a VW Beetle - a convertible VW Beetle! This was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen. This was about the same time that I learned that Troutdale a little town I knew and loved was in located in "Appalachia" - a place that took on mythical proportions in the early 1960's. I made a vow about that time in my life that when I grew up, I was going to be a school teacher in Appalachia and have a VW Beetle (maybe even a convertible!). It was by no means an accident that my first car (in 1975) was a VW Beetle, and I drove it all over Appalachia while I researched my Masters Thesis and Dissertation.</div>
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One of my best Mat memories is from when I was 18 (Mat was 26) and I graduated from high school. I had my very first trip on my own as an "adult" to visit Mat in San Diego where she was a Navy nurse. She took me all over San Diego, to all the tourist spots (Marine World, the San Diego Zoo, etc.), in her sporty little MG convertible. The best part of the trip was the party she and her roommate threw: they invited not only their nurse friends but a whole bunch of young Navy men! Men, dancing and beer! How could one not idolize a cousin like Mat.<br />
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As we got older the age difference mattered less. We became friends, who wrote, called, and visited. Mat's the reason I got on Facebook, she kept bugging me because she wanted to share pictures. Another way that we were able to keep touch with each other. I will miss my cousin Mat. May she rest in peace.<br />
<br />sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-90955428796390226832018-12-19T17:57:00.000-05:002018-12-19T17:58:43.296-05:00A 100% Legal Home Insurance BoondoggleAbout one year ago, our regional electric utility Kentucky Power (a subsidiary of American Electric Power) sent out mailer reminding everyone that home owners are financially responsible for any repairs necessary to outside electrical lines from the point where utility maintained lines attach to the home and to weather heads, risers, meter base and the service entrance conductor that attaches to your fuse/breaker box. This was something of which we were already aware, since we had to pay for the installation of all those things when we bought our new house just eight years ago.<br />
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What was new, was that Kentucky Power was offering all customers an "inexpensive" insurance provided by another independent corporation HomeServe to cover the cost of repairs to those outside electrical elements between the lines that were the utilities responsibility and the interior electrical system of the home. HomeServe would provide the services, but for convenience the cost of the insurance could be paid monthly with a couple of dollars added as part of your utility bill. Our recent experience with setting up a new home, made us aware of how expensive those repairs might be, so it seemed like a good deal.<br />
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Unfortunately, I like many other people did not read all the fine print and details as carefully as I should have. When I was thinking about the possible need for repairs I was thinking about damage that might occur during a storm, due to wind, hail, ice, falling trees etc. I was thinking about accidents that might cause a failure of the components, such as when there was a lightening strike, or even a power overload or transformer going out. Well it turns out that NONE of those things are covered, as I learned yesterday.<br />
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Yesterday, we received a mailer from HomeServe thanking us for being customers and informing us of a rate raise in the next year: a 100% rate raise, from $2.49 to $4.99. Which immediately caught my attention, part of the appeal of the service was that it was so cheap. Suddenly it was not going to be as cheap.<br />
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There was also included in the mailer information on what is covered and not covered by the policy. I'm usually pretty good about thoroughly reading information about coverage on insurance, so I'm not sure how it was that I missed this. It turned out that this policy explicitly excludes damage from nature (storms, ice, wind, snow, falling trees, etc.), or accidents including power surges, power outages, and damaged transformers. The ONLY thing covered by the insurance is "normal wear and tear."<br />
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Normal wear and tear? We previously had a 30 year old home that never had any "normal wear and tear" on its electrical components. I am almost certain that they have prescribed time periods for each, so that any damage or failure short of those time periods would almost certainly NOT be covered. After doing a little research, it would not be at all surprising if HomeServe were to determine that a metal riser and weather head should have a life of 40 years or more, meaning that any problem with it, prior to that time could not be considered "normal" wear and tear, and therefore not covered.<br />
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So today I cancelled the insurance. I suppose if a person had an old house, with electrical equipment that was already more than 30 or 40 years old, they might consider such insurance, but for most of us, we would pay in for years and years and never be covered for anything that happened to our external electric supply components. I strongly suggest that anyone that has agreed to such insurance, rethink the likelihood that it would ever pay off.<br />
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<br />sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-4139325312994558942018-11-03T16:32:00.000-04:002018-11-03T16:32:14.430-04:00Peaceful People<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"There is only as much peace as there are peaceful people." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I first encountered these words by by A. J. Muste (Abraham Johannes Muste) in the spring of 1972 in long poem "Staying Alive" by Denise Levertov a British born American poet. It was only decades later with the advent of the internet and Google that I finally learned about A. J. Muste a Dutch born American clergyman and activist. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">[Both Levertov and Muste were immigrants who contributed much to the development of this country - it should never be forgotten that so much of what we are as a country comes from immigrants and their descendants.]</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Muste began his work for peace and justice as a young clergyman in protests against U.S. involvement in World War I in 1916 and 1917. Two years later in 1919, Muste with two other clergyman helped the mostly immigrant textile workers many of whom spoke no English in Lawrence, Massachusetts organize a strike for better wages and better working conditions. For the rest of his life until he died in 1967 Muste was engaged in social justice and anti-war/peace causes. It was A. J. Muste who introduced a young </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">college student and seminarian named Martin Luther King, Jr. to the notion of nonviolent activism.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Recently I came across another quote from Muste that reflects my own evolving sense of what it means to be an activist for peace:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"In a world built on violence, one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Muste did not mean "revolutionary" in the sense of engaging in violence against violence, but rather one must focus on ending social injustices first. In the same essay as the above quote, Muste went on to say:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“There is a certain indolence in us, a wish not to be disturbed, which tempts us to think that when things are quiet, all is well. Subconsciously, we tend to give the preference to ‘social peace,’ though it be only apparent, because our lives and possessions seem then secure. Actually, human beings acquiesce too easily in evil conditions; they rebel far too little and too seldom. There is nothing noble about acquiescence in a cramped life or mere submission to superior force.” </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This hits home strongly to me. I think of all the people I know who don't want to talk about or think about "politics." Because it is contentious and disturbing and hardly "peaceful." Moreover thinking and talking about politics includes risks of disagreement with people we care about, family members and friends. Many people want to vote in elections and then turn their minds off and let someone else (elected officials, etc.) take care of everything. There are times when I find this appealing, to just turn off to politics and power. But that is not the way to peace, because genuine peace is not "social peace" as Muste said. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to Muste, the foremost task of pacifists:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> “is to denounce the violence on which the present system is based, and all the evil — material and spiritual — this entails for the masses of men throughout the world…. So long as we are not dealing honestly and adequately with this ninety percent of our problem, there is something ludicrous, and perhaps hypocritical, about our concern over the ten percent of violence employed by the rebels against oppression.” </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Muste concludes with:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Those who can bring themselves to renounce wealth, position and power accruing from a social system based on violence and putting a premium on acquisitiveness, and to identify themselves in some real fashion with the struggle of the masses toward the light, may help in a measure — more, doubtless, by life than by words — to devise a more excellent way, a technique of social progress less crude, brutal, costly and slow than mankind has yet evolved."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> When I read this I think of Colin Kaepernick, who did not know when he first took a knee that he would end up with a Nike contract, he took a risk to identify with victims of police violence, to condemn a system that does violence to minorities. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Working for peace requires risks. May we all be willing to take some risks in the year to come in the cause of peace. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-76872928922259664262018-10-03T20:40:00.003-04:002018-10-05T10:21:25.689-04:00Beautiful, Useful Things<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
father made beautiful, useful things with his hands and his tools. As far back
as I can remember he had a well-equipped workshop in the garage which included
a 1949 Shopsmith, an amazing multiple purpose woodworking tool that could saw,
drill, sand, and best of all be a lathe on which he turned many intricate smooth
objects like the posts and spindles on my brothers’ bunk beds, table legs, chair
legs, candlesticks, and other decorative but useful items for our home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I liked spending time with him while he worked,
especially when he turned some blocky 4 x 4 post into a smoothly rounded, fluted,
curving piece of beauty. I loved the smell of sawdust mingled with oil and the
faint burning smell as his chisel cut into the swiftly turning block of wood. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I enjoyed the task of using fine sandpaper to further
smooth the objects he turned on his lathe, luxuriating in the feel of the wood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After
thirty years of knowing my father, I should have realized when I asked him drill
9 holes in a block of wood as a makeshift Chanukkiah* for my first Chanukah that
he would not pay attention to my instructions, but instead create something incredibly
beautiful that violated all traditional Jewish rules for a Chanukkiah. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Baptist turned Methodist by marriage, my
father knew nothing about my adopted religion. I think he wanted me to know that
he supported me as I made this major change in my life, unlike my mother who
took my conversion as a rejection of her and my childhood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I
sent my dad (in California) a sketch of a plain, flat, block of wood with nine
holes in a row. A few weeks later, I received (in Kentucky) a large box in
return. Carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper and newspaper was a work of
art. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">My first discovery was
that he had chosen to use some of his precious chestnut wood instead of a scrap
as I had suggested. The wood had been scavenged in the late 1970’s from his
childhood home in Virginia. In the late 19th century before the blight destroyed most of the
American chestnut trees, my grandfather had built the family home with chestnut
paneling, stairs, railings, doors, molding, and other adornments. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Within the box was a
block of wood, but unlike my sketch it had been carefully laminated in half
inch layers of decreasing size, creating a double staircase effect with four
steps on each side and a ninth platform at the top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were nine holes drilled, one in each
step. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, those holes were not for candles,
for in the box, individually wrapped were nine perfect wooden cups, each with a
stem to sit in the stair-stepped holes. Each cup had been turned separately on
the lathe to perfect smoothness. They were all the same size, same diameter,
same depth. The bottom of each cup had been curved like fat brandy snifters. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of those little wooden cups had to be
turned on the lathe separately; checked and rechecked to make sure they were
the same diameter, the same height, the same, length stem, so that when set in
the stair-step block they would form a perfectly graduated holder for candles
rising on both sides to a point in the middle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I lifted each cup, turned them in my hands feeling the smoothness of the
fine wood grain and placed them in the block one by one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">My father had carefully
cut green felt and glued it to the bottom of the main block of wood, so that
the bottom of it would not scratch or scar any surface it was place on. Then in
the center of the bottom, he had left an opening in the felt, and in it he had
burnt the words:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To SUE/from DAD/DEC
1981. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Thirty-seven Chanukahs have
come and gone. Sometimes I consider getting a “proper” Chanukkiah. Jewish law
and tradition say that all the candles in a Menorah or a Chanukkiah should be
at the same height, because no day, and no person is more important than
another. Also, Jewish law and tradition call for a new candles every night or a
total of 44 candles, so most Chanukkiah are designed for small candles less
than ¼ inch in diameter and only about 4 inches high. My father designed his candle
holder for regular sized candle tapers - 2/3 of an inch in diameter and eight
to ten inches in height. The cost of 44 regular sized candles is getting to be
a little prohibitive these days even at Walmart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">But in the end, every
year I use this cherished gift from my father. It may not meet the standards of
Jewish law, but it is still beautiful and a product of love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">______________<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">*Most people refer to these as Menorahs.
However, a Menorah is a seven branched candle stick used in synagogues and
homes on the Sabbath. A Chanukkiah is a nine branched or holed candle holders
used only for the eight days of Chanukah.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-75988527803765350072018-08-23T14:02:00.004-04:002018-08-23T14:02:39.613-04:00Bureaucracy and CryingI was having difficulty sleeping last night, something that seems to occur fairly often to me, and started thinking about something that happened a little over eight years ago. Here's the story:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We were getting a new house. I was 60 years old and buying my first new house, taking on my first conventional mortgage. The whole situation was fraught with anxiety from the start. My husband was terrified of taking on a mortgage, but our current house – a thirty-year-old, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">improperly installed double wide - which we owned outright through a completed land contract, was falling apart. There were gaping holes in the floor covered with a patchwork of boards and other places where the particle board sub-floor was so damp that it sagged in great wallows. The roof leaked in six different places. The stove top and oven had all died, and the dishwasher had never worked. Only one of the two toilets functioned. Renovations were out of the question. So we bought another, new, shiny, double wide manufactured home, to locate on another part of our property from the original falling down double wide trailer. This is important to the story: we were moving into a new house, but it was only 10 feet away from the original at the same 911 street address.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The new house was delivered two days before Thanksgiving 2010. It took three weeks more weeks before it was properly installed, tied down, underpinned, skirted, with steps and stoops front and back. The next week the plumbing was begun and the electric utility arrived, on exactly the date and time scheduled. The electric utility was a marvel. Our utility company had a centralized office which coordinated all the activity on the job and we had one contact with a single person who managed all aspects of the job – and it was a big job. They had to run a new line from a completely different direction, get right-of-way permissions from other homeowners, have trees cut down, and install a new pole and transformer. Everything worked like clockwork. The electricity was turned on. The house warmed up, the heat pump company came and installed the heat pump. Then with heat in the house the plumbers came back and connected the water line and finished the septic connection. The old house was disconnected and the new house had functioning water and sewage in less than 6 hours. We only had to use the porta-potties twice. It was breathtaking how smoothly everything went, until we got to the telephone service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-KkCVqWTsgPrHh39fBF9LLCpr-zMfj848TTO0goKw_f008A4FTRdHJnhp9i6HqZMvhbUgY2NqfqYxD_w-mkmfMMpR1CtdD4iNLxYfgbtuuoC8Lgg8o3hxvRJcIhu7qf_fOTp6Su5UzyS/s1600/2010-12+Winter+019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-KkCVqWTsgPrHh39fBF9LLCpr-zMfj848TTO0goKw_f008A4FTRdHJnhp9i6HqZMvhbUgY2NqfqYxD_w-mkmfMMpR1CtdD4iNLxYfgbtuuoC8Lgg8o3hxvRJcIhu7qf_fOTp6Su5UzyS/s320/2010-12+Winter+019.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> We had a land line from AT&T. Because we live in the mountains with some pretty harsh weather both winter and summer, electrical outages are fairly common. We averaged five to ten power outages a year (varying from an hour to ten days) and not even one land line outage. Phone lines can come down without shorting out, unlike power lines. I didn’t want to trust our lives to an internet connection for phone. Those mountains also made (and still make) our property a dead-zone for cell phone service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> I contacted AT&T several weeks in advance of our move. The problem began with that first conversation. I told the person in customer service that we were “moving” from one building to a new building on the same property at the same address. The service rep typed “moving” into the computer and started taking information. That’s when the trouble began. He needed two addresses one for service to be terminated and a second address for new service to be started. No matter how many times I explained it, he couldn’t understand why I didn’t have a different address for the new service. I couldn’t just ask for a stop/restart, because work crews were going to have to come out and string entirely new line in a different direction for the new house. The service rep’s bright idea was to use our current address 136 and then change it by 1 number making it 135. The computer would accept that when it wouldn’t accept the same number. Then it turned out that the earliest that we could get this service change would be January 21, almost a month after we moved into the new house. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> On our own we came up with a brilliant solution for that month. The houses were so close together that we bought new wireless phones, plugged the based phone into the still working old house phone lines, and set up the wireless extensions inside the new house. It worked like a charm, until January 21<sup>st</sup> when AT&T cut off the old service, but no one showed up to hook up the new service. They’d told us the guy would be there in a window between 8 AM and 5 PM (you know how that goes). I took off work, on a bitter cold day with snow and ice on the ground to wait for the truck to show up. It didn’t. The next day, during customer service hours, I drove two miles from my home where I have no cell service and sat in the car to call AT&T. They could not explain why we had not received a service visit, but rescheduled one for the next week. The next scheduled visit came and went without anyone showing up. The next day, I needed to call customer service but it was 10 degrees above zero Fahrenheit and with two feet of snow on the ground. I wasn’t going anywhere in my car. I walked around outside and finally found a spot where I could get 2 bars on my cell phone it was in the middle of snow covered road where I, bundled up three or four layers with hats and gloves and scarves, dialed customer service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> If you’re not an AT&T customer or have never called their customer service, you probably don’t know that AT&T has dozens of customer call centers in widely separated geographic locations. Every time you place a call you end up with another call center and another customer service agent. It is never possible to call back to someone you’ve talked to before. Each time you call you have to explain the entire story from the beginning all over again. On that day, I talked to six different customer service agents in at least five different call centers. I would explain my story and get put on hold and then after holding for 10 to 20 null the phone would go dead. They kept asking me for a number for a call back later that day or the next day. And I would explain once again, that I had no phone at which they could call me back, because I had no phone service in my home, and my cell phone only worked in the middle of the road, and I was not going to sit outside in 10 degree weather on the off chance that someone might call me back in a few hours or “sometime tomorrow.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On the fifth call I was in the middle of a call out there in the road in 10 null weather, with someone who actually seemed to be sympathetic and helpful, and I slipped on the ice, fell in a snow bank, losing hold of the cell phone in a snow bank. By the time I recovered it the connection was gone. With my hands increasingly numb I dialed the service number again. Of course, I got yet another call center and another service rep, and had to begin my explanation all over again. She too wanted to know if she could “check into it and call you back later today.” At that point, 3 PM with the sun and the temperature dropping, having been without phone service for 10 days, I began weeping hysterically. I sobbed uncontrollably. Suddenly, the service rep entire manner changed, and she immediately transferred me to some supervisory person, who stayed on the phone and talked me down from my hysteria until I was able to able to choke out my story one more time with some degree of coherence. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> This supervisor, without putting me on hold, contacted to work crews in my area. She was able to ascertain that 99% of the problem was that the address of 135 (that the initial pencil pusher put in the system) was “not a legitimate 911 address”. The supervisor then directly linked me to the field workers so that I could give them directions to my home, and guaranteed that they would be there within the hour (they were there in 50 minutes) and that I would have telephone service before the day was over. Over a period of 10 days, I had talked reasonably, clearly, and respectfully to at least 8 different customer service agents. None of whom had been able to tell me why we weren’t getting the scheduled service visits, none of whom was able to solve my problem. But with one totally unplanned, spontaneous, break down into hysteria and tears got me hooked up with someone who had all my telephone problems solved within 8 hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The workmen who showed up at 4:00 PM as twilight was falling, who had to climb poles and crawl under my house in temperatures hovering just above zero degrees Fahrenheit, were not at all happy about the situation. They grumbled a lot, but they got the job done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> There was one really odd note in the evening. Not long after it got dark, one of the workmen came to the door to ask me if I knew whether my neighbor’s “German shepherd dog” was friendly or not. He said the dog was sitting up on the hillside and staring at them, and it made them nervous. I told him that he must be mistaken. No one in our neighborhood had a German shepherd. One neighbor had an old coon hound that spent a lot of time in the hills above our house, and another had a black lab, but there were no German shepherds. I told him all the neighborhood dogs were friendly. He did not seem to be fully reassured but went back to work, and nothing more was said about the dog. They finished the work and left about 11 PM that night. It was two or three days later that I realized that the unfriendly “dog” they had seen on the hill was probably a coyote because quite a number of coyotes live on the old strip jobs in the hills above us. They come down into the neighborhoods looking for stray cats and other small animals to kill for food. I was really glad that they had not realized they were being scrutinized by a coyote! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: small;">I am still astounded by how quickly I got service and assistance after my breakdown into tears and hysteria. Why couldn't I have gotten that kind of service long before things things reached such a state?</span></span></div>
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sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5743114179042835419.post-31645449655843191272018-07-25T13:59:00.004-04:002018-07-25T14:02:29.661-04:00The turning of the leaves: Ohio buckeyes<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The changing climate affects our forests in many ways. One particular effect that I've been following now for about 25 years, is the seasonal color change that affects most of the deciduous trees in our central Appalachian forest. In particular I've been interested in the Ohio Buckeye, a tree that turns a brilliant pumpkin orange in fall - or at least it used to be autumn.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemibJQmGD-MzW1n1Wk4-ob4-_S9OgzitUybgyPZ-OY9tn0NSiEVJkx_IExWk-97QNJb4lWCTEMr-pyJzeLFEMcZkwiOrAw2h3fbXI5PfHzPxBaLkhxf6z6p0vKEnvkPc1T0SLf3MSiRhL/s1600/sm-buckeye-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1037" data-original-width="1383" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgemibJQmGD-MzW1n1Wk4-ob4-_S9OgzitUybgyPZ-OY9tn0NSiEVJkx_IExWk-97QNJb4lWCTEMr-pyJzeLFEMcZkwiOrAw2h3fbXI5PfHzPxBaLkhxf6z6p0vKEnvkPc1T0SLf3MSiRhL/s320/sm-buckeye-001.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">July 5, 2013</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I first moved to central Appalachia (living in Wise, VA), the Ohio Buckeye changed color at the beginning of the normal autumn season in late September or early October. Between 1989 and 2005 I observed the Ohio Buckeye beginning to show it's brilliant color earlier and earlier. The first time I wrote about this in a different blog in September of 2005, the first signs of color appeared in early August. I wrote about it again in 2013 noting that the Ohio Buckeye color change had shifted even earlier to the first week in July and included a photograph showing the beginnings of color change. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRIAy-4yDr7LndjHC7BHXOF__7I6uXlDu_Biz4Ni7R66ClIuWeGxxwDjMs4k3GNV4RPd7HDrUSByTCbfnzA9zTG0Dk8s0H6ACl0AcVWyH1Bv536CrQf7SLGT7bse7Zb3oQNUflO-udxRfb/s1600/DSCN3371.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRIAy-4yDr7LndjHC7BHXOF__7I6uXlDu_Biz4Ni7R66ClIuWeGxxwDjMs4k3GNV4RPd7HDrUSByTCbfnzA9zTG0Dk8s0H6ACl0AcVWyH1Bv536CrQf7SLGT7bse7Zb3oQNUflO-udxRfb/s320/DSCN3371.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">June 14, 2018</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This year first signs of color in the Ohio Buckeye appeared in mid-June, which I noted while attending a week-long watercolor class at Cowan Community Center. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have been unable to find anyone who knows why the Ohio Buckeye would be shifting to increasingly earlier displays of seasonal color. It is particularly puzzling since most of the other trees in the region are developing and holding color later in the autumn due to warmer temperatures. Last autumn (2017) we saw one of the latest peak-color dates ever recorded in the region, with the most brilliant color occurring here in late October into early November.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ouF8MiuWIZSSrvIHNCk4thZUkbVSmdKJDk5eLNhGvsVzIxvCx6x6JM2yOiPpwvuQuhMBq_EeqO2PA6vLPAqQ06Mm1wKw0CrDqnNarZWJ5JUCrvVXxodsL4NY7vgVssmzREoBtMMrK0fp/s1600/DSCN3428.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1008" data-original-width="1600" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4ouF8MiuWIZSSrvIHNCk4thZUkbVSmdKJDk5eLNhGvsVzIxvCx6x6JM2yOiPpwvuQuhMBq_EeqO2PA6vLPAqQ06Mm1wKw0CrDqnNarZWJ5JUCrvVXxodsL4NY7vgVssmzREoBtMMrK0fp/s320/DSCN3428.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">July 23, 2018</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This week I caught a picture of at least one Ohio buckeye (at the left of the picture) in our neighborhood that was nearly in full color even though July is not yet over. You can see two other Buckeye trees that have substantial color, but that none of the other trees in the forest are showing any sign of color - as one would expect in July. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One day I really hope that I encounter a botanist or naturalist who can explain to me what is happening to the Ohio buckeye. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRIRzkhWV31xf9rO7Gw_yHXsjMrQFiHI6SzGwbTwMiym4jy-fSGUmZkHT-36AbOZE4UHCXC4qonpL-9dBTxelOUZJ3jtI6LYD4SMZwAcGx6aRfDCCaBvM8x7kuH3BUATkbXvCd7-cUIbxJ/s1600/DSCN2897.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRIRzkhWV31xf9rO7Gw_yHXsjMrQFiHI6SzGwbTwMiym4jy-fSGUmZkHT-36AbOZE4UHCXC4qonpL-9dBTxelOUZJ3jtI6LYD4SMZwAcGx6aRfDCCaBvM8x7kuH3BUATkbXvCd7-cUIbxJ/s400/DSCN2897.JPG" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ohio Buckeye July 15, 2017, Whitesburg</span></td></tr>
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sgreerpitthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07764262558160301061noreply@blogger.com0