Book Talk, Part 3

Arlington, Virginia, September 2024

While I was brushing my teeth yesterday morning and (simultaneously) giving myself a pep talk about finishing this article, a book title came to mind: Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River. I read this in a book club over twenty years ago. This novel has a habit of surfacing in my mind every so often. That may be because of the increasingly unruly (or is it savage?) time we live in. What always comes up for me is Hegi’s description of how the twin infections of fascism and antisemitism slowly crept step by step into the neighborhood, town, and country. Hegi shows the steps. We now can see the steps in our country and this book banning mania is one step. As I mentioned in an earlier post, that does not mean I think everyone should read every book. What I mean is that no single entity (e.g., local school board, do-gooder/know-it-all organization, etc.) gets to adjudicate for everyone else what they are allowed to read. Or, as I used to tell my children: de gustibus non est disputandum.

I feel lucky to live in Arlington County, Virginia where our Arlington Public Library supports our community–from story hours, used book sales, and providing access to free income tax help to free concerts, hosting distinguished authors (like Art Spiegelman, Jacqueline Woodson, and Jesmyn Ward), and being an official “book sanctuary.“

Now, I need to leave the comfort of my liberal bastion (see above) and go back once again to a different time and place: Page, Arizona, 1972-1973. I have written on this blog about Page before. One might reasonably think that, by now, I would have dissected this single year of my life until it is nothing but a pile of desert-bleached bones. Not so. It’s crazy, but after all my years of remembering my experiences in Page (many pleasant and all instructive), I have just recently come to a clearer understanding. As you will see from my account below, I fell into the clutches of a system that believed that I was an unsuccessful teacher because I didn’t follow the school’s rules of what I was supposed to teach. Even though I quickly realized that I was a good teacher (even in Page), I see I have some niggling trauma about my apparent failure (in the eyes of the system). I hope finishing this article may let those bones finally rest.

Banned Books Week, Arlington Central Library, September 2024

Read Whatever You Want Banner Arlington Central Library

Page, Arizona 1972-1973*

I taught eighth grade literature for one year (1972-73) in Page, Arizona. Following in the footsteps of my Milford teachers, I tried, inexpertly, to connect with the students and their lives. On a certain level, I did not prosper there. The authorities almost ran me out of town on a rail (not exactly, but they didn’t want me back). In other ways, maybe it was okay for both the students and for me.

One of my ideas was to augment the bland class textbook with a pile of books the kids might actually want to read. This is not a novel (haha) idea, but there were some complications. Although I was supposedly teaching literature, some students could not read well at all and many others were not up to what I thought was “eighth grade” reading level. Some students were (what we now call) English language learners: Navajo, Hopi, and Apache. Some were children of the construction workers who had come into town to build the Navajo Generating Station. Still others were the local Anglo kids whose parents worked at the Glen Canyon Dam, for the National Park Service, other Federal agencies, for the state, and in other, mostly white-collar, jobs. So, some kids could read nothing much and some were The Lord of the Rings aficionados along with me. My school-owned lodging cost next to nothing, so, with my schoolteacher salary, I was comparatively flush. I went to Babbitt’s (the main store in town back then) and bought paperback books such as The Green Grass of Wyoming, Wild Animals I Have Known and the High Adventure of Eric Ryback and some kind of age-appropriate book on sex. At some point, I also sent away for forty copies of Johnny Tremain, a particular favorite from my own childhood.

While we all slogged through the class text, lots of kids [and there were lots of kids– about thirty in each of my five (or was it six?) classes] read the paperbacks in the back of the room. I remember two sisters. They were barrel-racing, horse crazy girls who seemed to like The Green Grass of Wyoming as much as I did. They gave me a desert tortoise that lived and died in the closet of the barracks-like apartment I shared with a strait-laced school librarian.

I digress, but this is the most important part about the books at the back of the room I was shocked when I found that the only kind of books the school library had about Native Americans was schlock like Little Feather Draws a Bow (I made up this title because I can’t remember the actual titles). So, I put my anthropology and other books about Native Americans on the shelf at the back of the room. Some of those books disappeared and that was a good thing. I hope they were of use to the children and their families.

Somewhere, I acquired Forgotten Pages of American Literature. (Gerald W. Haslam. 1970. Boston: Houghton Mifflin). This book was an anthology of Native American, African American, Asian American, and Latin American literature. The book’s dedication, in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., quotes the dream:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.

I was so earnest back then and I loved these lines. Besides the bookshelf at that the back of the room and the poetry or song lyrics I would write on the board each day, I also tried to inject some more varied readings and ideas into class. I think (but am not sure) it was the Haslam book and some others (one of African American poetry, I think) that I wanted to use to give the students something more filling than wonder bread.

You would have thought that I would have been smarter than having one of the teacher’s aides copy the pages from my books for the kids. It turns out that some of these books had cuss words or some other “objectionable” text in them. The aide, a good church woman (although without the guts to confront me about my transgressions) ratted me out to the principal.

Let me confess here another text that also got me in trouble. I had the temerity (or congenital naiveté) to teach Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” to thirteen- and fourteen-year old students. With that story, we probably had the best class discussions of the whole year. However, I was hauled out in the middle of class one day and had my ears pinned back for presenting such inappropriate material. Never mind that I had first read that short story in sixth grade back in my little town of Milford. When I presented that defense, the principal schooled me, I guess, in the differences between Page and what he imagined was my sophisticated eastern school. (Milford, MI?) He did not fire me on the spot for my transgressions, but said I would not be teaching again in the fall. Note: It turned out okay as I received a teaching fellowship at the University of Utah for the next year.

Bottom-line: The ethnocentrism was palpable in that school in Page. Not just addled teens, but experienced teachers talked about dirty Indians and about which indigenous groups were smarter or better than others. I hated that, and I hope things have changed. I do remember, though, at our class party T____, the pretty Anglo cowgirl slow-danced with E___, the handsome and very funny Navajo boy. MLK, this dance is for you.

Forgotten Pages of American Literature

Conclusion

I find myself at the end of this third “Book Talk” with no great pronouncements about the socio-political intricacies of banning books. I do remain angry about people and entities egregiously telling others what they should read, or think, or believe. I am no anarchist: I believe in formal and non-formal institutions and appropriate, reality-based authority/ies under the guarantees of the The Bill of Rights. I love children, schools, books, and libraries–museums, too, for that matter. I want children–in sensitive, age- and culturally-appropriate ways–to learn. That means learning all sorts of things: the multiplication tables, the carbon cycle, how to swim, and the factual history of our country, world, and the universe. Especially, I want children, and all of us, to learn about how we can all be different–age, gender, ethnicity, abilities, interests, everything–and that that is the good way for our society to be.

You see, I am still naive, idealistic, and hopeful, even now.

Tom just texted that he is picking up the new Kwame Alexander book for me. I can hardly wait.

Happy autumn and please vote.

Book Talk, Part 2

Book Talk, Part 1

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In November 2023, I mentioned that I had been working on an article about book banning that I wanted to post during Banned Books Week 2023. I also wrote that, “I am still planning to complete that article, but I need to ruminate a bit more before I finish.” I have taken more than “a bit” of time, as 2024’s Banned Books Week is next month! Although I have thought about book banning and censorship through these many months, I am still having trouble focusing on my topic. Actually, I think–as a lifelong reader and proponent of the First Amendment–that seems reasonable. Figuring out our society’s rights and responsibilities is an important and complex task.

I think what complicates the First Amendment and censorship issues for me is that in real life things are complicated. I have read (and continue to read), loved, talked about, written about, and taught many books that are currently on some censored lists (e.g., Lord of The Flies, To Kill A Mockingbird, Animal Farm, The Handmaid’s Tale, Beloved, Of Mice and Men, and many others). I also believe, though, that not every book is appropriate for every person–at a certain time, a certain age, or, sometimes, ever. However, I think that that choice resides with the individual (or, in the case of young children, a caring and responsible parent or surrogate), not some self-important group of parochial culture police. Right now, this minute, I am still pained by the memory of a Readers Digest article I read as a young teenager about the Communist Chinese depredations in Tibet in the 1950s. I read that article close to 60 years ago and I am not over it yet. However, as much as I wish I had come across that article when I was older, I am confident that it helped form my world view, which empathizes with others, acknowledges and respects diversity, and seeks equity and inclusion for all humans.

Concerning the First Amendment, I have supported freedom of expression throughout my life. I am proud to have annoyed teachers and employers throughout my life standing up for my and others’ rights to speak freely. Even though I was a shy person, I got an early start on speaking up. In first grade, the teacher had we children cutting out little strands of (apparently male) figures holding hands for “brotherhood week.” I asked the teacher (something like) is there a “sisterhood week?” The teacher laughed at my question.

I have always understood, though, that there are some limits on speech, such as the cliche about yelling “fire” in a crowded movie. Or, in this decade’s prime example, inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol.

To make this large and (to me) somewhat troublesome topic more approachable, I am going to break it down into a few smaller articles. I am not sure yet whether my comments will follow chronological order. I may revert to my early penchant for stream of consciousness writing. Note: This began when I was introduced to the technique when I read Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel: A Story of the Buried Life when I was 16.

Milford, Michigan, 1960s From kindergarten through graduate school, I have had my share of uninspired, ill-prepared, and, occasionally, bad teachers. I have also had many excellent teachers. Even better for me, several of these were English teachers, and English was my favorite subject. What I really need to do here is thank my good teachers. Thinking about ongoing efforts to control what teachers are allowed to teach in public schools, I have lately thought of my eighth grade literature teacher, Mr. Dennis. I can’t remember all the books we read in his class. I do remember we read Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl, Hiroshima, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. We also probably read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and possibly Animal Farm and at least a couple others. The reason I can’t remember for sure is that I was reading so many paperbacks on my own back then (from a small paperback bookstore available before school in an anteroom of the office). For example, I am not sure I picked up PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II or whether we read it for a class.

As I have been thinking about Mr. Dennis, other good teachers, and my home, school, and community upbringing, three ideas came to mind. First, with some few exceptions, such as people who may have had learning challenges, we students knew how to read. Second, even though my school–Milford Junior High School–was no hotbed of liberality, the teachers, the school administration, and our families seemed to think we were able to learn about serious, even terrible, matters such as the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima, Third, those same teachers, administrators, and parents liked us to read. We had the aforementioned in-school bookstore, an easily accessible school library (not too big), and an easily accessible public library (not too big) only blocks away. In that one small junior high that I attended, I took three years of English, and one year each of literature, speech, and journalism. No wonder I have so many words coming out of me. Thank you teachers for helping me learn about the world that was bigger than my small Midwestern town of Milford, Michigan.

PT 109: John F. Kennedy in World War II, circa 1963

Part 2 to come soon

Roads

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After failed attempts in three successive years, Tom and I recently completed one more road trip to the western United States. While not the year-long or months-long trips of years past, it was (you may say) satisfactory. We drove 6,184 miles through 15 states. For a good part of the trip west, we tried to travel on U.S. Route 50. On the way back home, once we got through Colorado, we mostly followed U.S. Route 30 east.

early morning, Iowa farm country

We heard birds everywhere we traveled: a Baltimore oriole cheeped in the tree above our campsite at North Bend State Park in West Virginia; dicksissels and Eastern meadowlarks sang in the TallGrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas; and we saw, heard, and acknowledged the ravens at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. At the Gates of Lodore campground in Dinosaur National Monument, Tom and I camped next to a busy family of black-billed magpies, where, for hours at a time, the parents took turns quickly gathering food and returning to the nest to feed their clamoring babies. I had never seen before this intense behavior so near at hand. I feel lucky to have seen it On our month-long trip we heard and saw warblers, vireos, woodpeckers, sparrows, nuthatches, tanagers, cardinals, owls, Canada geese, wrens, and many more species. Through the weeks and miles–in the woods, prairies, canyons, and mountains–I often would hear a particularly sweet clear song. It was always familiar, but I would check my Merlin app to be sure. It was always an American robin. I love them and thank them for their companionship on this trip and in my life.

On this trip Tom and I made an effort to see not just our favorite places, but also some places we have longed to see. We sought out gardens, arboretums, forests, preserves, parks, and monuments. Some places–like Browns Park in northeastern Colorado–I had been reading about for decades. Other places–like Purdue’s Gabis Arboretum in northwestern Indiana–we searched out as we traveled. Below are photos of some of the places we visited.

cream violet, North Bend State Park, West Virginia

Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, Indiana

southeastern Colorado

Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico

roundleaf buffaloberry, Cape Royal, North Rim, Arizona

Gates of Lodore, Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado

Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado

Poudre River Canyon, Colorado

evening, Prairie Rose State Park, Iowa

bur oak, Gabis Arboretum, Indiana

Tom and I were going on a road trip, so we were also planning on finding some tasty road food along the way. In fact, before our departure, Tom had been studying The Great American Burger Book to find iconic burgers in the states we would travel through. As it turned out, we only tried two regional favorites from the book: a GOM Sandwich at Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor and Museum in Columbus, Indiana and a bierock at Runza, a chain restaurant in North Platte, Nebraska. I found the GOM sandwich pretty good and the root beer float I drank with it delicious. The fast food bierock tasted like nondescript fast food, but the staff members were friendly. If I travel through Nebraska again, I would like to try a slow cooked version of a bierock.

We did come across a handful of good restaurant meals on the road, though. Pepperoni rolls are a thing in West Virginia and we had great ones–for lunch and dinner!–from Tomaro’s Bakery in Clarksburg. If you like good bread and flavorful artery-hardening Italian meat and if you are nearby, it’s worth a drive to the old Clarksburg downtown to try these rolls. It’s a long way from almost anywhere to the generic strip mall in Minooka Illinois, that houses the Dragon Inn. We ate the best dumplings we ever had and the other dishes we had (which escape me already) were also delicious. I wish I had taken more photos, but we were busy eating.

On this trip Tom and I stayed in hotels much more than we camped. Still, one of my favorite meals was our standard camp meal of cheese sandwich, hummus, carrots, and chips.

The Great American Burger Book

pepperoni roll from Tomaro’s Bakery, Clarksburg, West Virginia

bierock, North Platte, Nebraska

dumplings, Dragon Inn, Minooka, Illinois

camp meal and game, Bandelier National Monument

The Other Road We Travel Yesterday was Tom and my 50th wedding anniversary.* As it does happen in this life, we started out young and now we are old. When we were young at the North Rim and a few years later in Salt Lake City, we flew with our friends like a flock of freewheeling birds above our uncertainties, our problems, our pains, and our setbacks. This year, Tom and I needed to get back to the the rim and Salt Lake City (and the Front Range of Colorado) one more time (at least) to where we began together and to see others of our flock.

This was the primary impetus that got us on the road. We feel fine, or fine enough for a couple of old coots, but we don’t know how long that will last. I don’t know the exact words to describe the sweetness and comfort I felt–even in this uncertain, uncivilized, and fraught era–in seeing our friends again. Laura, Art, Howard, and Mark in Salt Lake; Sally in Colorado; and Richard when we were back home in Virginia. I remember with love all our friends from those days–the ones we recently saw and the ones we didn’t. And, I just now recalled a line from Bob Dylan that gets me closer to what I mean to say: then and now, you give us shelter from the storm.

ravens over the Grand Canyon

North Rim, 2018

* Because it was our actual anniversary and the Summer Solstice, I hoped to finish this article yesterday. My excuses for others: It was hot and we went out to dinner. My excuse for myself: I was in an extended period of procrastination.

Spring Ephemera

March 2024

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Title A couple of days ago, I realized that March is Women’s History Month. This works out well for me. For the last week, I have wanted to write an article with the working title, “Cream Puffs.” Because of various slangy connotations, that title didn’t work. I really am writing about literal cream puffs, but also about my mother. So now that I realize it is Women’s History Month, I can comfortably talk about this remarkable woman under (the above) title.*

Cream Puffs I have been competent baker for most of my life. It started when I helped my mother by making date bars and apple turnovers (both from mixes). Also, my brothers and I were free to make cookies pretty much whenever we wanted during summer vacations. From my mother I learned about pie crusts, the sanitary way to drop cookies onto the cookie sheet, how to make those crisscross marks on the peanut butter cookies, and much more. One thing I never got around to learning was how to make cream puffs. That amazing woman–mother of five, school teacher, late-night reader and New York Times puzzle solver–would occasionally make us cream puffs. We’ve never forgotten the generosity of those extravagant treats or of their baker.

I have wanted to make cream puffs for a long time. I often watch television cooking shows where cooks go on about choux pastry and I wanted to try my hand. Mostly, though, I have wanted to remember my mother. Finally, last Saturday, I made cream puffs. They were easy and they were well-received.

If I ever had my mother’s cream puff recipe, I don’t have it at hand now. So, I used Marion Cunningham’s recipe from the 1984 edition of The Fannie Farmer Baking Book. Instead of Cunningham’s frosting suggestion, I used frosting similar to what I think my mother used: melted dark chocolate with vanilla and a small amount of confectioner’s sugar.

cream puffs

The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, 1984

It isn’t about the magic puffs with their rich pastry cream and dark chocolate. They are just a tasty metaphor for caring.**

Cream Puffs 1990s In the mid-1990s, I traveled to the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area for work. I stayed at my brother Dan’s and sister-in-law Jeanne’s home nearby. I arrived there in the afternoon after (the always) hectic drive from the D.C. area. Jeanne and Dan made a wonderful meal. For dessert, Dan had made cream puffs. From our mother, we learned how to bake and how to care.

*I think about titles, bylines, and datelines. I am not obsessed; it’s just an observation pattern formed back about when I was learning how to form the peanut butter cookies.

**Next time, I think I am going try Mom’s lemon meringue pie.

January 6, 2024

Autumn 2023

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In early October, I worked on an article about the current rash of book banning. My plan was to finish the post in time to publish it for Banned Books Week (October 1-7, 2023). It turns out that I had too much to think and write about books (and schools and libraries) to complete an article by my self-imposed deadline. I am still planning to complete that article, but I need to ruminate a bit more before I finish. Also, in September, I picked up a case of Covid-19 on our trip to Michigan. A few weeks later, I either relapsed or picked up a crazy bad cold/flu. I can report that I feel fine now and I am back to seeing family and friends, cranking out high intensity intervals at the gym, and transplanting seedlings at the Arlington County native plant nursery. Below are some words and recent photos from Michigan, the Washington, D.C. area, and my walk last week on Theodore Roosevelt Island.

Michigan

Tom and I try to travel to Michigan at least once a year. We enjoy visiting family and the places we love. Each year, we also try to see some places we haven’t been yet. At one of our favorite places–Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore–we hiked in a new area: Pyramid Point. There, the vistas, woods, meadows, flowers, and bugs, were just as beautiful as we have come to expect in this park. After Sleeping Bear, we headed east to Lake Huron. I went to YWCA camp on Lake Huron as a teenager. Tom and I and our children camped decades ago on the Canadian side of Huron. However, it was time to visit Tawas, a place I had heard of all my life. Tawas Point State Park, was yet another pretty and friendly Michigan park where one routinely shoots the breeze with strangers and shares a bit of early morning bird-watching.

For the first time in my life, I camped at Proud Lake Recreation Area. This is notable because the the campground is 3.7 miles by car (it would be considerably less as the crow flies) from my childhood home. The trees, fields, water, and the air itself seemed familiar and comfortable at Proud Lake. I must say, also, that I have not been bitten by so many mosquitos, since I left my lake home. The price we Michiganders pay for all that water!

There is beauty wherever Tom and I live or travel, but I always count myself lucky when I can get a dose of the pleasant peninsulas.

Empire Bluffs Trail, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore

Pyramid Point Trail, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore

meadow trail near Pyramid Point

pure green sweat bee near Pyramid Point

silky dogwood, Tawas Point State Park

Tawas Point Lighthouse, Tawas Point State Park

swamp aster, Proud Lake Recreation Area, Commerce Charter Township

Washington, D.C. Area

Reading the newspapers or watching the news, I think a person might possibly get a skewed idea about the Washington, D.C. area. I am not saying that the news is necessarily wrong, just that it isn’t a comprehensive view. Yes, I’ve seen the fences around the Supreme Court, Congress, and the White House. I was under curfew on January 6, 2021. Tom saw military gunboats in the Potomac River before the last inauguration. I saw the Pentagon burning in the days after 9/11. And on and on, but…I have attended an uncountable number of wonderful concerts, festivals, fireworks, and protests. I have visited monuments, memorials, cemeteries, libraries, and parks. Then there are the museums–still a marvel to me after all these years. I don’t forget the gardens. Tom and I walk through the gardens–spring, summer, fall, winter–through the decades. I like all the big things like the monuments and memorials, but the gardens help keep me close to the ground.

bee on tropical milkweed, U.S. Botanic Garden

buttonbush, Quincy Park, Arlington, Virginia

milkweed bugs, Bartholdi Park, Washington, D.C.

maple tree, Quincy Park, Arlington, Virginia

Theodore Roosevelt Island, November 16, 2023

Last Thursday was a lovely day on the island. It is curious to me how this little, overused island–with the jets flying overhead, the Kennedy Center peeking through the trees, and its often filthy bathroom–makes my feet happy and my soul calm(er). On Thursday, I heard many birds and saw a few. I heard one or more Carolina wren, white-throated sparrow, northern flicker, robin, song sparrow, swamp sparrow, yellow-rumped warbler, belted kingfisher, and mallard.

from the walking bridge

lower path

upper path

hickory nut and leaves

mallard

Thanksgiving

In my family we have taken to having potluck meals on Thanksgiving: bring what you want and you don’t have to tell anyone what you are bringing. We started this during darkest Covid times. We would meet outside on a picnic table at Walter Reed Park in Arlington. I was thankful that so many of my loved ones were alive and that we could share food together (alas, Robert and Rebekah were in far distant Pittsburgh). The food, while always delicious, was not the main dish. Seeing dear ones in person was better than all the turkey, dressing, and pecan pie I have ever eaten.

Even with the continuing problems of our country and the world (sometimes it seems like things are getting ever worse), I am grateful, for my family, friends, and this still beautiful world. Happy Thanksgiving.

Summer 2023

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I’ve been thinking about J. Alfred Prufrock (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot, 1915) this morning.* Specifically, I was thinking of the line, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Tom and I have had a generally good summer so far, but I do measure it out (at least partly) in coffee spoons. Summer around Washington, D.C. tends to enervate us, so we add a spoonful or so of instant coffee to our 11:00 a.m. iced coffee, made from our left-over morning brewed coffee. Every summer, I tell myself that I won’t amp up my coffee intake, but every year I do so. In the scheme of things, this is not too important. In fact, this summer coffee habit prepares us for the cold instant coffee regimen we adopt for our fall camping trips.

summer coffee

This Summer (so far)

Tom and I volunteer at Arlington County’s native plant nursery. We like to plant, transplant, and weed. Working with the native plants and like-minded staff and volunteers, we feel like we are, in a small and pleasant (to us) way, helping our community and the world. So far this summer, Tom and I have helped move native blue flag, pickerelweed, and spadderdock from Sparrow Pond to Lucky Run, both in Arlington. We also helped extract blue-eyed grass seeds from pods for winter planting, transplanted roundleaf thoroughwort and tick trefoil into larger pots, and weeded the nursery beds.

pickerel weed

Susie (a beagle), Connor (a pug/peke), and Phoenix (an orange-winged Amazon) vacationed at our condo. Susie and Connor kept us hopping on our aging toes for the ten days they visited. However, by the time they left, Tom and I loved them to the depths of their little doggie souls. We’ve known and loved Phoenix for his entire 28 years of life. Our ten days with Phoenix settled into a familiar and comfortable–if messy–routine. We shared breakfasts of peanut butter toast and banana and Phoenix harmonized when Tom played Mozart. A good time, I believe, was had by animals and humans alike.

Susie and Connor ready for a walk

Phoenix in the morning sun

As usual, Tom and I watched the 4th of July Parade on Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. We stood near the National Archives as we do each year. As usual, I cheered, clapped, and cried. This year I stood in the midday sun a bit too long. I should have taken shade breaks under the big American elm like Tom did. When I finally took to the shade, I misplaced my phone. Instead of life as I knew it ending, a kind citizen found the phone and gave it to Sgt. Ibrahim of the Metropolitan Police Department, who saved it for me. I have a lifelong love of parades and I intend to write a blog about them, but, for now, here are some photos from this year’s event.

marching band

remembering Ukraine

Vietnamese marchers

conductor, 4th of July Parade, Washington, D.C.

words

Like much of the country and the world, the Washington, D.C. area has experienced excessive heat and bad air this summer. Trying not to be old fools, Tom and I avoid staying outside much during Code Red or Code Orange days. We still make our rounds of local museums and gardens, though. We’ve had rain along with the heat, so beauty still abounds in this burning summer.

Bartholdi Park

Bartholdi Fountain, clouds, Capitol, and cannas

coneflowers and others, Mary Livingston Ripley Garden

St. John’s wort and bee

In a post late this winter, I vowed to make potato salad and have a picnic in the spring. Spring passed and I didn’t make the potato salad or go on a picnic. Things happen (or don’t happen). A few weeks ago, though, I took potato salad to a party with some old friends and colleagues, most of whom I hadn’t seen in many years. My potato salad worked out well because I used good potatoes, lots of cumin, and sweet and spicy jarred jalapenos. I had been somewhat anxious about seeing people who had once been close workmates at a job I left 23 years ago. Our work had been important. We taught English, civics, and workplace skills to adult immigrants and refugees. We had felt honored to serve these people. Those years at the Arlington Education & Employment Program (REEP) had been exhilarating and exhausting, but rewarding. There had been something elemental about working so hard alongside friends to assist our students, many whom had faced war, torture, famine, and economic calamity. I needn’t to have been anxious about attending the party. I found myself again within a caring circle, just as in decades past.

my students and I, REEP, circa early 1990s

Tom and I spent two days at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival this summer. We particularly enjoyed a variety of music including gospel, old-time Ozark, and Ukrainian choral. What mostly stays in my mind, though, is a sign and some ribbons.

Remembrance, Smithsonian Folklife Festival 2023

ribbons, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, July 2023

Things happen beyond the planting and transplanting of flowers, the walking of dogs, the marchers marching in the parade, the making and sharing of potato salad, and the hearing of music. Friends die and friends of friends die, even in summer. I tied a white ribbon here and a few days later another loved one left us. I don’t think I am too sad. I do believe like the sign says, “grief and loss are parts of life we all share.”

One more month of summer. I plan on having a picnic, making pickles, and canning peaches–if I can find some good ones for a good price. I will watch the morning sun come up as it does every day, and I will remember.

sunrise from our balcony, July 30, 2023

*It’s not just the coffee spoons that resonate with me. In graduate school, I wrote a paper analyzing “Prufrock.” I have loved the words of this poem for 50 years, but I understand them more as I grow older (but still eat peaches).

Old Growth

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I take lots of photographs of trees. I often take similar photos: I look straight up to the sky searching for the circling branches. I also take photos of leaves, pine needles, acorns, nuts, and twigs. I mostly haven’t been satisfied with my photos of trunks, but I keep trying. I’ve had a close relationship with trees my entire life and, if anything, I feel closer to them as I grow older.

First Trees I started climbing trees when I was very young at our home in Detroit. The tree–I think my dad called it a silver maple–was also quite young and I was able to shinny up it and climb pretty far up the branches. I remember being proud of my skill because I was the youngest and the girl. My parents also planted a little cherry tree of some kind in the backyard. I remember swiping a maraschino cherry from the jar in the refrigerator and sticking it on a little twig and announcing that the tree had produced a cherry! I didn’t fool anyone.* The street trees in our Rosedale Park neighborhood were elms. The trees from each side of the street met in the middle and made a comforting leaf canopy. Back in the 1950s Christmastime was still reliably cold in Detroit. One night I walked around the block with my dad looking at the Christmas lights. There was a blue spruce glowing with lights. I must have known it was a blue spruce because my dad told me its name. The magic was so strong that I feel it now, 66 years later. That mix of the cold air, the holiday lights, the blue tree, and my kind father keep me–even through many long and sometimes trying years–looking up at the trees and sky.

A few years later, my family moved to a lake near Milford, Michigan. When we first moved to our house, trilliums still bloomed nearby in the springtime and we saw deer tracks on the beach. My parents made sure that the builders did not cut down any extra trees when they built our house, so our new world was guarded by a grove of tall oaks and hickories along with the odd little sassafras and wild cherry. In most of the lawn, the grass grew a little bit thin, but the trees were almost like benevolent gods to my young nature-loving self. When I miss my home, which is often for a place that I haven’t lived in since 1972, I sometimes miss the trees as much as the people who lived there.**

brother George’s photo of winter dawn with lake and trees from our house

*These early memories are slightly fuzzy; I might not have been the only one involved in the maraschino gambit.

More Trees Through the years, I have been lucky to encounter many trees. I’ve walked through Michigan woods, Appalachian and Piedmont forests, the grand ponderosa pine forests of the Kaibab Plateau, the bristlecone pines of Great Basin National Park, the redwood and sequoia cathedrals of California, and so many more tree lands. Not every forest or tree needed to be grand for me to love it. I fondly remember the single small tree on a minuscule pull-out on U.S. Route 89A–then, the only tree to be found on the Arizona Strip between Fredonia, Arizona and the Kaibab Plateau. I can’t remember the species of that tree; it might have been a pinyon pine.

I only started taking photographs (first on little Nikons, now just on phones) about 13 years ago. Nonetheless, I find that I have hundreds of tree-related photos. Below are some of my current favorites.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore, Michigan

redbuds, Sky Meadows State Park, Virginia

Eastern hemlocks, Cathedral State Park, West Virginia

autumn, Arlington, Virginia

Mathews Arm Campground, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

sycamore, Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.

cherry blossoms, Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Utah

Widforss Trail, North Rim, Grand Canyon, Arizona

Frick Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Great Basin National Park, Nevada

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, SC

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, California

North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

red mangrove, Florida

G. Richard Thompson Wildlife Management Area, Markham, Virginia

black walnut, Ft. C.F. Smith, Arlington, Virginia

Enough photos for now, I think.

Old Growth, Part 1 In March 2020, Tom and I heard environmentalist Joan Maloof speak about old-growth forests. Maloof, “Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University, founded the Old-Growth Forest Network to preserve, protect and promote the country’s few remaining stands of old-growth forest. (www.joanmaloof.com/).” Since hearing Maloof’s presentation, Tom and I have been visiting more of these special forests, most recently last month when we walked in the Youghiogheny Grove Natural Area in Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland. I was going to make a bulleted list of the old forests we’ve hiked in, but I realized I don’t really know how many we have encountered. I don’t want to sound like a gaga old woman, but I have two ideas to share. First: not only do forests provide the earth with oxygen, food, shelter, fuel, etc., but they provide me with a sense of wonder and contentment that I don’t often feel elsewhere. Second, while I am a proponent of preserving all the old-growth forests that are left, I also want to acknowledge that a tree, a grove, a forest, doesn’t need a special designation to be awe-inspiring. I do encourage tree lovers to investigate the Old Growth Network and I still want to list a few of Tom’s and my favorite forests below:

Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
Great Basin National Park, Nevada
Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Michigan
Cascade Falls, Ottawa National Forest, Michigan
Congaree National Park, South Carolina
Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Utah
Fishlake National Forest (including Pando and Singletree Campground), Utah
Cathedral Forest, Cook State Forest, Pennsylvania
Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, Yosemite National Park, California
The Giant Forest, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, California

Old-Growth Forest Network sign, Swallow Falls State Park

Youghiogheny Grove Natural Area, Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland

Old Growth, Part 2 I realize that I think, talk, and write quite a bit about trees. I might even repeat myself sometimes. Part of that may be because I am old and prone to reverie, but mostly it is because trees (and birds, bugs, plants, and rocks) help me focus on beauty amid the terrible news that surrounds me almost daily. Side note: I once had an employer who gave me job–at least in part–because, she said, I was a life-long learner. Maybe I am. Now, though, I just want to grow like a tree–like a tulip poplar in flower or just hang on like a pinyon pine on a canyon rim.

tulip poplar flower, Arlington, Virginia

pinyon pine, Colorado National Monument, Colorado

Close to the Ground: Living Inductively

Lynda Terrill