Falsifying

Yesterday: The former President of the United States (I thank God every day that he is indeed the FORMER President and pray to God that he will never, ever be returned to that office) was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a court of law in New York State. Falsifying business records is a felony. The former President of the United States is a convicted felon.

Arthur came in from the high tunnel late afternoon with the news that the jury had come to a decision. We sat down on the couch in the living room to await the news, flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News when PBS was not providing special coverage. We settled on MSNBC and it was stunning to watch as each of the 34 counts was read, to see the expressions on the carefully-curated personalities on the screen. We looked at each other "Thank God. Now what?" 

And now the analysis, the endless speculation about how this will affect the coming presidential election with this man - a felon convicted of falsifying business records to keep his tryst with a porn star (when his third wife Melania was recovering from childbirth) out of the public eye just before the 2016 election - will likely be the nominee of the Republican party.

I wrote the following many months ago and it's been sitting in the drafts folder and every time another story drops about how horrifyingly immoral and depraved this man - Donald Trump - truly is at his core, I pull it up again but then back it goes in the drafts folder.

But today, pondering again, I'm clicking on publish.

Our former president is the man who was recorded as he uttered these words when meeting a young woman for publicity and as we have been forced to observe, he is always first in line for publicity. "I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."

This is the man who was elected as President of the United States in 2016 and continues to hold so many in his grips - perhaps by the pussy. 

A long time ago,  just entering the working world, I went to work for a small company that published weekly magazines distributed free of charge at supermarkets and newsstands. My boss was a woman and she ran the small organization although I knew there was a man behind the scenes who occasionally checked in at the office though he lived a hundred miles away. The first year there was a company picnic at a small amusement park and he was there with his wife and a couple of kids. A nice guy, and so was his wife. But then there was the time I happened to visit the office after hours only to discover this nice guy and my boss tangled up on the sofa. Family man, successful businessman but ...

Flash forward to the time I was sitting in another office in a business setting, waiting for a meeting to begin, having to listen to two men bantering about some other man - a business acquaintance - and whether or not he had ever had sex. It wasn't long after that when I shared that uncomfortable experience with female work colleague and she remarked that those men were not of the caliber we expected in our workplace - or any workplace.

I have often thought about her observation in the years since. What exactly defines the caliber of person fit to be the leader of a business or organization or church or our country? 

Am I idealistic in thinking that the leader of our country, at his or her core – the soul that we all confront in the wakeful moments in the night - is a person who is motivated and driven and guided by the greater good, by compassion, by love?

In his own words, Donald Trump has told us, time and time again, who he is and still folks - even our other elected legislators - put that aside and instead focus on some kind of manufactured personality - almost Christlike if you believe the hype - carefully curated, polished and propped up to divide and conquer - yes, conquer, this big country of ours.

And, if the majority of voters decide to make him President of the United States, then what?

   

A Small Serendipity

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savor you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so." -- Mary Jean Irion

That was the writing prompt for my online writing group yesterday. "Go for 12 minutes," said the moderator. I was stopped by the name of the person to whom the quote was attributed. And then I wrote this ...

Mary Jean Irion – Gracious, soft spoken, beautiful, well-coiffed hair, bearing that calm demeanor I so admire and aspire to. Our paths crossed at Alumni Hall at Chautauqua Institution. Institution is a hard, harsh word for this place, this Chautauqua – going by CHQ these days as a nod to the youngsters. A magical place for me, this little arts community I've visited so many times I cannot count, often dreaming of immersing myself full time there instead of just a week or a day in summertime. "That rare and perfect tomorrow."

Perhaps Mary Jean Irion wrote those words from the porch of "Fernwood," her cottage, one of the so-called historic cottages, in other hands these days.

Mary Jean welcomed writers to Chautauqua each year with Writer's Day, launched on a Sunday when admission to the gated grounds is free. My little writing group planned a day there – two carloads of us making our way through the foggy morning along the interstate that borders that long lake.

Somehow we all missed the weather forecast - those days before the Weather Channel or cell phone weather apps and it was cold with a stiff breeze coming off the lake.

We shivered through the morning offerings and at lunch, Mary Jean reappeared, her arms loaded with all matter of sweaters, sweatshirts and afghans to make our way more comfortable.

Genetics

 My maternal grandmother, known to all of her grandchildren as Danny and to her friends as Steve, had a thing about revealing her age. That, of course, was a thing about women of her generation but she took it to great lengths as I remember her cautioning my mother not to reveal her own age as that might tip people off that she (Danny) might be a bit older than the 39 years she claimed. 

It was such a thing that her obituary, which I looked up today, did not mention her age nor her year of birth.

It was then I remembered my mother telling me that Danny had threatened to haunt her if she published her age in the newspaper obituary!

I went in search of the year of my grandmother's high school graduation because of this.

Grace Winifred Stevens

This is her high school graduation picture, found in a box of old family photos I maintain custody of. It reminded me of this photo, also a high school graduation marker.

Jane Elizabeth Heimel
1969

Pep! Punch! Pith! Piffle!

My grandfather and his first business partner published this little magazine "Writ, Printed, Done Up and Mailed by Arch Bernard and Bill Fish in the Wilds of Potter County."

It made its bow in January 1919 and as far as I can tell, lasted until early 1922.

From October 1921: Excerpts from 'A Sermon on Humbuggery.'

"I have a great respect for true religion; but for the brand of holiness that's put on with the Sunday shirt and laundered collar – that makes a man cry amen with unction, but doesn't prevent him selling five and ten cent cigars out of the same box, oleomargarine and creamery butter out of the same tub, benzine and bourbon whiskey from the same barrel; which makes long prayers on Sunday and short weights on Monday...

Too many people presume that they are full of the grace of God when they are only bilious...They put up long prayers on Sunday and they bombozzle a green gosling out of his birthright on Monday. They are doublefaced, they have one face to confront the Lord and another with which to beguile their brethren; one who worries over the welfare of good looking young women, but gives the old dames the go-bys."

Each issue features pages of 'Hammer Gloom Chasers." 

• There are some worse things in the world than the man who thinks he knows it all, and one of them is the man who seems to be proud of the fact that he doesn't know much of anything.

• The chap who said truth is stranger than fiction died before fiction reached its present state of development.

• If women could make up their minds as easily as they can their faces they'd be the fastest thinkers in the world.

• If men paid more attention to the home brood, and less to the home brewed, times would not be so bad for a lot of families.

And I leave you with this:

Potter County Leeks

March 24. Just one more week and then - April!

Even now we are dreaming of April showers, May flowers, spring peepers, and nature's spring tonic - whew! How can one be so incongruous to mention May flowers and leeks in the same breath!

It seems Golly was NOT a fan of leeks! Every spring through the nearly 50 years he piloted the community newspaper, he shared his opinion! 

We have evidently shot off too much about those stinking greens already, but every day we get wind of them – they won't let us forget!

Along with the end of the maple sugar season and the beginning of trout season comes the odor of leeks. That's one of the unpleasant features of the springtime.

All through the thousands of acres of woodland down in the leaf mold, roots are stirring, They are rootlets of the famous Potter County leek – as well as other plants. On mountainsides, sloping to the north, there is still a covering of ice and snow, but the rootlets are struggling just the same to reach the surface and drink of the sun's rays.

Some old timers still believe that eating leeks in goodly quantities in the spring season will ward off various diseases that trouble humanity. To get ample protection they stuff themselves day after day

The breath from such a person is exceedingly offensive. It is even described by some as "effluvium." To really be punished by bad breath, one should come in contact with a man who not only has become saturated with leeks, but for good measure has become beastly drunk on cheap whiskey. Boy, oh boy, that is something!

St. Patricks Day Memories

From my Golly Files:

It makes us happy when a Jewish store owner gives this old protestant scribe an emerald green necktie to wear on St. Patrick's Day.

Some of the best friends Golly has ever had have been of Jewish and Catholic faith.

Golly is reminded of the story of the farmers of the different faiths taking their grain to the same mill for processing. The miller did not ask by which route they had arrived. his only question was –

"Is your wheat good?"

perhaps this is the St. Patrick's Day Tie

Golly wrote this in 1957:

Fifty-five years ago –

Quite a spell –

Golly made his first sojourn in Coudersport on St. Patrick's Day - 1902.

For a month he was employed by the Potter Democrat as a printer. His salary – we like that word 'salary' - was $14 per week and the week was 60 hours of work.

The late John B. Coulston was the editor and publisher of the Democrat. The employees were the late Arlie Corwin, the late Mrs. Effa R. Beaver and Miss Cora Buck, later Mrs. Willard of Schenectady, N.Y.

Golly boarded at the Hotel VanBuren that stood where the Potter County Garage now stands at East Second and North East Streets. Of his $14 weekly stipend, five of it went to Landlord VanBuren.

It was 12 years later that Golly again came to Coudersport. He then went to work for the late M.J. Colcord, editor and publisher of the Journal, but this trip he received $20 a week, the week was still 60 hours.

From that day to this – more than 42 years – he has called Coudersport his home, and there's no other place on earth where he would rather live.

Dreamscapes

In my dream last night - actually it was in the predawn hours, when I'd decided to settle back into bed just after my trip across the creaky floor to the bathroom - I was at a public event. It was a very public event on Potter County's courthouse square, and there were people milling about everywhere. I was at a table, under a canopy, likely hearkening back to the days I'd be at our table at Farmer's Market on summer Friday afternoons. 

A woman who looked Katie Britt-like stopped and looked me in the eyes before unleashing a torrent of hate. There were no understandable words and I didn't even grasp what she was talking about in my dreaming state. But it was hate, brutal, cutting, sharp, darkening the air. Hate that made my stomach clench and brought my shoulders - still a little sore from a strenuous orchestra practice last night - up to my ears as I tried to retreat much like a turtle into its shell.

I looked at her and said, "You're an asshole." Now at this point in my recount, I will tell you that I am not one to talk like that, especially in public! While you might be thinking hey, that's not so bad, I am the woman, while  laboring in the transition stage, was saying "gosh, gosh, gosh," a story my midwife has often repeated.

As happens in dreams, everything stopped, complete silence in what had been a hum of activity. One of my brothers (who shall remain un-named) came up behind, gently moved me aside and spoke to this woman, "You'll have to forgive her," and I felt a flame of embarrassment, like a menopausal hot flash.

Dreamlike change of scene and I'm offering my own abject apology in front of some kind of court or tribunal.

But then I was back in my dark bedroom, under the covers with the aroma of morning coffee making its way up the stairs. This time I did decide to get up, but reaching for my bathrobe, looking forward to my waiting coffee, I still felt the sting of the shame, and even now, hours later, writing this.

But here's the thing: I had nothing to be sorry about. I am only sorry I didn't offer a nearby pie to the face of that woman in my dream.  In my dream, fighting my dream battle, I was speaking out - confronting - what I saw and felt as hate, powerful, evil, dark. But even so, it is not without risks - both internal and external.

In the real world just a few days before, I had used my personal writing practice to share my reaction to Senator Britt and her mis-statements and outright lies. Sometimes putting my reflections out there feels uncomfortable - as evidenced by my subconscious bringing that discomfort forward in a dream.

Many friends and  acquaintances have communicated privately to me that they have read my words and share many of my thoughts but are too uneasy or scared to react in any public way that might tip off other friends or neighbors.

There are many layers here but I am fully aware that Potter County is a small place, a conservative place and it's impossible to remain completely anonymous. I publish my blog for a public audience and I announce a new post on social media. I want people to read my words and I want people to think about what I choose to share in my writing.

The post on my blog which received the most hits is this one, followed closely by this one, and then this. And while I've hit the orange publish button on 77 blog posts since beginning this blog, there are 38 in draft form - some nearly ready to publish when I choose and others that will likely never be offered to the public. 

This is my choice and my blog - out there, in public, in writing, part of the writing practice that has become a daily part of my life since the pandemic lockdown.  Thanks for reading and do leave a comment - you can remain anonymous!