My father's heart surgery

 

My housemates met me as I came through Boston Logan Airport after my European holiday. "You need to go to Maine," they said. My father had had a heart attack.

I found him in bed and he told me he needed bypass surgery. He also told me he'd thrown a priest out of his room, but was impressed with the Salvation Army officer.

Neither my beloved stepmom or myself could talk him out of going back to Florida for the operation.

Uncle Pat and Aunt Alma, who had moved to Florida the week before, flanked us throughout. 

As typical of our family, we were able to relieve the tension with a trip to the hotel pool and good meals. Uncle Pat, a meat and potatoes man and ex-FBI, teased me about my love of avocados.

Minutes while waiting for my dad to come out of surgery, were hours long, but finally Dr. Patel appeared. "Let's find a room, where we can talk." The four of us followed him to filled room after filled room.

I could stand it no longer and I blurted out, "Is he alive?" 

"Yes," he said finding a corner to brief us. "You can see him now."

We were ushered into the recovery room. My Dad lay on a gurney, looking smaller and whiter than I ever remembered. They whipped off his sheet leaving the man whom I adored, stark naked. "I now see from whence I came," I said.

My Dad lived another four years and we shared more good memories. I wrote Dr. Patel to thank him for saving my father. 

Knowing my father wasn't immortal made each of those new moments together special in the same way sharing those awful moments with my stepmom, aunt and uncle as we waited for my father to have his heart redesigned, were special.

All of them are gone now but never from my heart.

 

Free Write -- What's in a name?

 

 

       Famous Thomas People and Trains

Both Geneva and Argelès-sur-mer were windy for today's Free Write. Julia was in Geneva. Rick and D-L were in the south of France. We managed to do it at the same time more or less, still not as much fun as together, but a spur to our individual creativity. The prompt was the name Thomas. The word doubt(ing) popped up for all three of us.

D-L's Free Write

Sixty-seven year old Thomas Masters Sullivan hated his name. He always had from his mother calling "Tommy-Baby" to his dad's "Tom-Tom." The neighborhood bully, Jason March started calling him Pom-Pom, which had stuck through high school graduation.

At unversity, he thought of using his middle name, but who wanted to be named for a golf tournament? He settled on T.M. Sullivan although sometimes people called him Tim. 

T.M. had a career as a thriller writer. He made sure his full name was never on any cover and never discussed.

After a doctor told him his time was limited to months, he ordered his tombstone with T.M.  Sullivan and his birthdate. "Someone will get back to you with the other date," he told the carver.

Now he was waiting for his publicist to work on his death announcement.

Part of him wondered if sometime in the future a Ph.D. student would dig up his full name.

He doubted he could control that.

Julia's Free Write

His mind was seething – a totally mixed up mumble/jumble of thoughts.

Did he want to do this, or that? Or should he let it go?

This, of course will not help a reader to understand what is going on – and that’s ok. Do we always need to understand everything we hear or see?

One thing was very clear: there was a total lack of motivation, an absence of any drive, and not a shade of ambition.

Would it be a major accomplishment? A piece of art? A story that would be translated or go down in history?

Or would it only be something that upon his leaving the world as he knew it, to be thrown in the trash along with everything else that he had accumulated, seen by no one, cherished by none?

Well, time to get a start – on something, anything. This going around in circles certainly was not productive, was it? See, yet again a question. That seemed to be his current life.

Again, his mind darted in all directions as he contemplated the possibilities. To do, or not to do.

Only a doubting Thomas could face the challenge – and Thomas he was!

Rick's Free Write

Who / what comes to mind?

Thomas the Tank Engine, with whom my grandson played for hours. Thomas’s friends were James and Percy, and I forget the girl engine’s name.

Thomas Aquinas, Catholic saint, though I don’t know why.

Tom Thumb.

Tom Selleck.

Tom Hanks.

Tom ‘Terrific’ Seaver, NY Mets Hall of Fame pitcher.

Danny Thomas.

Marlo Thomas.

Tom (cat), frenemy of Jerry (mouse)

Tom, a friend in school, last name forgotten.

Tom, who worked for me as an artist, vacationed in Alaska, and stayed.

Tom Weiskopf, golfer.

Tom Watson, another golfer.

Justin Thomas, another golfer.

Doubting Thomas, Jesus’s disciple.

Thomas the car dealer who speaks some English and who sold me the car I hate.

Thomas Jefferson.

It’s not a name that suggests stature or fame. Thomases have been mostly supporting cast in the theatre of history. At least the history I have learned.

A somewhat ordinary name, though I’m sure not to them. Or their mothers.

Tom-tom, a drum.

Thomasina, a Disney cat.

I’m reaching the limit of my memory.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com His book, the Robot in the Simulator about AI in aviation is in production.

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com Her non-fiction book 300 Unsung Women and the anthology The Corporate Virgin are at the publishers.

 

Homework

 

There's been controversy whether kids should or should not have homework, if so at what stage. I see programs and know people who sit down with their children to do their homework or nag their kids until they do it. Amazing.

I only had parental help with homework once. Then it was grandparental. We'd moved from Massachusetts to West Virginia and my mother found the schools wanting and arranged for me to go a private school. 

However, even in first grade I was way behind. My grandmother took charge and within a month I knew my times tables through 12 and was reading at a third grade level. She made the math part fun, the only time in my life.

As for the reading, I was thrilled to escape the "Run Dick. See Dick run..." for books that were interesting.

Back in Massachusetts, I never remember my parents helping me with homework or even telling me to do it. It was my responsibility and my job was to get good grades and to do the best I could.

In Boston, I was lucky my daughter passed the exam for Boston Latin, the first school in the United States. Harvard was founded for its graduates. It saved me paying for private school

Boston Latin has produced several early presidents, nobel prize winners, writers, musicians and more. Graduate John King of CNN had just begun his career when my daughter began walking Latin's hall.

The curriculum was demanding and homework was required. A lot. Even in the summer, students were given a reading list of 100 books and expected to read 10 which would be tested on in September. I'm sure many of these books are banned in the south.

Since everyone in the house read out of choice, it was never a problem. We might discuss my daughter's choice more on the "What are you reading now?" and we'd exchange titles or not, depending. 

If I asked about homework, it was more on the line "do you have time to do...or do you have too much homework."

Like my mother had told me, I told her, homework was her responsibility. If she wanted to go to university, she needed good grades. 

It might have been easier because part of the time I was in grad school along with working. One of my housemates was working on her undergraduate degree along with working and our studies were often a subject of dinner discussion.

At one point my daughter and housemate were both reading Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea for a course. They both hated the book. When they finished we bought a Cavel Cake to celebrate.

Unless a child has a problem with a subject, I still do not see a reason for parent involvement. Then they might help or hire a tutor. 

I can see a parent supplementing the studies if it is a bad school system but more like exploring historical sites, museums etc. along with movies, amusement parks, nature walks, skating, whatever depending on time and budget. 

If a child fails to do his/her homework, s/he'll have to deal with the teacher. Is s/he gets bad grades that's when a tutor or punishment steps in. It's the type of situtation the child, when it becomes an adult, will have to deal with in the real world. And that maybe the best lesson from the home.

Free Write -- Fish and Sharks

Today's Free Write, a photo of playground fish and sharks, presented extra challenges. How each of the three writers tackled it, was interesting. Two of us are still in France, one in Switzerland but Tuesday morning Free Writes are sacrosant despite any geographic distance.

Julia's Free Write and her prompt

AS HE WALKED past the playground on his way to meet someone in the local coffee shop, he was not running at his usual pace, he had more time for once in his life, to look around and take in the scenery.                                 

Parents had started to gather discreetly so obviously school would soon release its horde of children.                                                      

The odd sweater and jacket were slung over toys, left behind when they were discarded.

An old sequoia tree stood in one corner – on its own and how did it survive?

He stopped a moment and chuckled to himself: now who in their right mind would think that ceramic sharks and fish would make good playground toys?  Did the children even notice them?

A bright pink “fish” and a lovely pale blue “fish” were even kissing – wonder whose idea that was? What was the story? Who had the imagination?

He wandered on, thinking yet again of the vagaries of the human spirit – hoping that the originator of the idea was not somewhere else dealing with real fish and sharks, but that they had kept their sense of humor.

D-L's Free Write 

RUDY WAS A red-spotted fish who lived with his parents and sister Merry. She was blue and hard to see in the blue water.

Merry was always bossing Rudy around and he didn't like it one bit. His parents didn't help. "Take care of your little brother," they would tell Merry.

"Don't!" was Merry' favorite word. Today she told him "don't" leave the area and swim in the big sea.

Rudy ignored her. He loved the big sea with all the other fish, clams and even lobsters.

This day he was alone, which was strange. Then he saw Freddy, the Shark, swimming toward him.

"I'm hungry," Freddy growled.

Rudy twisted and turned and tried to hide behind some sea grass, but Freddy kept calling, "Come here breakfast."

"Ouch!!!" Freddy screamed suddenly. Rocks kept falling on his head.

From his hiding place, Rudy could see Merry pelting rocks on Freddy, who swam away.

Merry joined her little brother. "You never listen to me. I should have let Freddy eat you."

Rudy remembered his manners. "Thank you, Sis."

"Maybe next time you'll listen to me.

Rudy wiggled his fins in agreement as he thought, "Maybe not."

Rick's Free Write - 4 Fishes

Penelope Pinkfish and Bruce Bluefish loved their life swimming around the children’s playground. They adored the shrieks and laughter of the pre-schoolers who burst upon the park during the day, and who would climb on their backs, pretending to ride the fishes through the blue and turquoise ‘waves’ underneath.

One morning, before any children had shown up, they were smooching mouth to mouth, totally oblivious to anything around them – because they thought there was nothing else in their private, blissful world. They did not see Snarky the Shark lurking in the shadows, sneaking up on Bruce from behind.

Snarky and Bruce had a long history, going back to the time Bruce had warned a stray dog that Snarky was about to bite his tail.

As Snarky got closer, Yannick Yellowpuffer spotted him, and wanted to sound an alarm, but he was so nervous all he could do was blow air bubbles.

Penelope noticed something out of the corner of her eye and paused her smooching. “What’s wrong?” Bruce asked.

Just then a rambunctious three-year-old girl jumped on the back of Snarky and grabbed his fin. “Yee-haw,” she shouted.

Penelope and Bruce, realizing they had barely escaped danger, swam away to a safe distance. Yannick was still blowing bubbles. 

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com

 

 

To die for the 2nd amendment

 

We are happy to die for your 2nd Amendment rights.

The question is how many childrren have to die before sensible gun laws are established in the U.S. Thoughts and prayers are doing diddly damn to save them.

The Supreme Court seemed to forget the first three words of the 2nd amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.^" 

^{The kid killers weren't part of a militia protecting themselves by bursting into one of the many schools that have suffered mass shootings.}

^{The guns the forefathers wrote about were muskets firing a single shot and used mainly for hunting.}

^{The British militia insisted that the soldiers in the front row fired at the enemy with their one shot, then those that weren't killed by the enemy went to the back row to reload, and the second row of the militia moved to the front row and shot their one shot. The procedure repeated itself throughout the battle. The Americans tended to hide and fire, but it still was one shot, reload, one shot, reload.}

^{Not one of the forefathers would have been able to imagine an AR-15 and its ilk.}

^{I'd like to see hundreds and hundreds of ads on TV on billboards, in papers and magazines, and on social media with adorable children "volunteering" to die so people can have their guns. Maybe, just maybe, the stupidity of the current gun laws would be modified.}

^{Then again, maybe not. The U.S. is too sick as a nation to care more about rights than kids.}

Having Children

 

"Robert Kennedy has been shot at the Ambassador Hotel," the clock radio alarm said. I rolled over in bed, thinking it was a dream. 

It wasn't.

I was not a maternal type, didn't oh and ah over babies, never wanted to babysit. However, my biological time clock had erupted with the force of a volcano. I'd my degree and my first writing job. I thought I was happily married. 

It was time for a baby. 

When Kennedy was killed, I was just pregnant  something I'd been trying hard to do for a year. 

Rushing to the bathroom for the joys of morning sickness, I wondered should I bring my baby into a world so corrupt, so horrible.

Between Kennedy, Martin Luther King, racial unrest, and the Vietnam War this was no place for humans. I was later proven right in thinking how many people on all sides of the war were dying for a useless lie.

I  seriously considered an abortion.

Many of my friends had had abortions, many under horrific conditions. A couple of friends had used the Clergy Consultation on Abortion Services flying to Canada for a safe abortion. 

Eisenstadt v. Baird, where unmarried women were granted the right to information about contraception, was still four years in the future.

I didn't get an abortion. 

My wonderful daughter has had to face the problems that we all did. She was in demonstrations with me viewing them from her stroller. Her life has had the ups and downs of living. I am happy I gave her the chance for the opportunities she grabbed and the trials that strengthened her.

What if I were pregnant today? 

Ok, I'm in my 80s and it's impossible, but what if I were. The 60s problems almost look like the good old days.

CNN's Christiane Amanpour had a segment on people not wanting children. I understand.

I've never been so frightened for my birth country. The world has too many senseless wars. On a personal level there would be financial mountains. Although paying for my university was difficult in the 60s, it was simple in comparison today. 

Leaders don't lead. They make more problems than they solve. Some seem insane. Ignorance is almost celebrated and encouraged.

I think how my personal world is filled with joy against the backdrop of the horror. Could I bring a child into the world against all that is happening with wars, climate change, financial manipulations, celebratory ignorance.

Probably not, but I'm glad I  don't have to make that decision.

A no buy year

 

"They mention a no-buy year," my husband said as he read new from his phone. It was one of those great morning where we read in bed sharing miscelleanous information or clever wording before we have to start the "official" day.

"I had a no-buy year before you came back into my life," I tell him. It was about 15 years ago. I'd retired and lived in my Nest, a studio in the south of France. Part of my time I shared a house with a friend in Geneva.

I felt I had everything, and I mean everything I wanted, but still from time to time I would buy something. 

Supposing I didn't buy anything for a year, I had wondered.

Food was a necessity, of course. 

I eliminated tickets...bus and train, so I could move around. I'd not had a car for over 20 years because public transportation was fantastic. Why bother with that annoyance and costs?

I had clothes for every possible need and reason, dressy to sloppy. My laptop was new and my printer could print 100s and 100s of pages on a cartridge (no more).

I could use the library for books in Geneva and a friend in France ran an English bookstore where we swapped services for books.

Hmm...my underpants were ratty. As part of my preparation for a no-buy year in December I bought new, color-co-ordinated panties to my bras. Color-coordination makes me feel more feminine.

I started my no-buy year in January and ended it at New Years. 

What did I miss? Buying French history magazines for train trips? That was about it.

Was a special Swiss black chocolate from Auer's buying something? One time yes, then no. Chocolate could be considered a vegetable, maybe.

My mop in the Nest broke. I could wash the almost white tile on my hands and knees. Nah ...I gave in. I still have that mop and clean floors that do not involve sore knees.

I went to Stuttgart where I once lived for the Christmas market--not to buy anything but to wander around places I so enjoyed as a new bride. I didn't need Christmas gifts. I made them that year from things I already had.

And then I saw it -- a poster of a typewriter, not any typewriter, but the brand where my father once had a franchise. It was the same brand I typed on as a cub reporter. The cost was 15 Euros. Should I? 

I talked with the stand owner. I suppose I could go back to Germany and try and find him. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of mailing me one in the new year. I gave in.

When the no buy year ended did I rush to the nearest mall? Nope. There was still nothing I needed or really wanted. 

Many years later when I wander in the marchés, I might see a sweater, slippers, I like and will buy them. I've added art work to my walls and of course a special frame for the typewriter poster.

I also added a husband who is not a no-buy person. I cringe when he says "we need to buy..." I admit sometimes we do.

All in all it was an interesting experiment in non-consumerism.

One thing we do need...a better office chair for him. 

Photo by guest in the Nest, K. Barron.

President Vance

 

If you can't say "President Vance" and think now he would be a great president, and if you are considering voting for Trump, you may want a rethink?

Why?

Former President Trump, even without considering his seemingly diminished mental state, is 78. He is overweight. His diet is not conducive to good health. What if he dies mid-term?

Voilà.

J.D. Vance will be your new president.

If you are a woman, you should be doubly concerned after his archaic statements about women. 

If you're a childless teacher, would you want a president who thinks you shouldn't be in that career?

If you are a fertile woman, your life could be in danger. Even if you are pro-life, you could have a pregnancy where you might need a termination and find it impossible to get one. That is already happening in states with limited abortions.

If you are worried about Project 2025 remember he endorsed it and its earlier incarnations.

He has described the contents as “an important effort in advancing [a] conversation” about “our country’s most difficult and intractable problems.” He wrote an introduction to a book by Kevin D. Roberts, Hertitage Foundation CEO that wrote Project 2025.

Maybe, just maybe, if any of this concerns you, President Harris doesn't sound so bad.

Free Write-Geants

 

Today's free write was prompted by the geants that appear at fests regularly.

Rick's Free Write

Pierre was sweating bullets. It was 32 degrees centigrade, and he was ‘wearing’ about 50 pounds of fabric and wood, pretending to be a Catalan man ‘geant’ as part of the end-of-summer festival. He and Jacques, Emeline, and the Anglo woman, Raquel, who portrayed the queen, were spinning in half-circles in the square in front of the music school. Jacques was a sort of soldier with a metal helmet and axe weapon. Emeline, Pierre’s wife, was a rather plain peasant woman.

Finally the music stopped and they were able to set the wood scaffolding of the costume on the ground, and wiggle out of the framework for some fresh air.

“Whew!” Pierre exclaimed, wondering how he had ever let Emeline talk him into volunteering for this gig. He liked the anonymity of being wrapped in the ground-length fabric with only a mesh window to peek out to see where he was going. Or to watch the young women in their near-nakedness of summer. But he should have tried on the costume before foolishly agreeing.

There were only a handful of tourists on the square to ‘admire’ them. One old gray-beard, probably a Brit, was taking photos or video. Pierre thought about photobombing him with a middle finger but Emeline was watching, reading his mind, so he refrained.

The warrior geant signaled it was time to ‘mount up’ again, so Pierre reluctantly crawled back into the wood frame and hoisted it on his shoulders. Maybe when they got home the costume would ‘accidentally’ catch fire.

Julia's Free Write

It was a warm summer’s night, and everyone was gathered on the main square to watch an ongoing saga, whose origins are lost on me.

She was with friends, visiting in fact a village that she had never heard of, never mind known. They spent half a year here and half a year there, loving both places and not needing to decide: a perfect combination.

They, of course knew the origins and could entertain us with tales of long-gone figures.

In the growing dark, the figures took on mystical proportions, Alice in Wonderland would have found them fascinating.

Then came the night when two were to be found on a square in the Old Town, dancing, as tall as they were.

Little did anyone know that under the costumes were midgets and that they had just carried out a heist at the local post office. That wouldn’t become common knowledge until many years later – just adding to the mystery.

D-L's Free Write

Today! Twenty-five year old Rob was a Geant at last in the village Fête des Geants. 

He had been four or five, the first time he'd seen them and they terrified him.

His mom comforted him saying, "It's only geants that say 'fe, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman that are dangerous." Rob wasn't English.

Uncle Bob was a geant. He took Rob to see the geants in storage. Rob was fascinated and wooden structure inside the costumes of the king, queen, baker, peasants and baker. Uncle Bob was the baker.

After the army, after uni, Rob moved back home and joined the Sociétè des Geants. After his accident, he could no longer be the baker. Rob took his place.

Amy would be there at La Place de la Republique where the geants would be marching and dancing. She thought them stupid from another time that should stay in the past.

The geants entered La Place. Through the eye hole in the fabric of his costume, he could see Amy at a table talking to a man. He took her hand and she did not pull away.

Instead of her sharing his joy at a life-long dream fulfilled, she proved to him she was not the one.

He turned and did a little dance to the music provided by the accordian marching with the geants.

Today, he learned something, and it was okay.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends.  Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/ 

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com

 

D-L has had 17 fiction and non fiction books published. Check out her website at: https://dlnelsonwriter.com

Dempsey 's Dream

 

Today, my husband wore his Dempsey's T shirt, a gift from my daughter. We were sitting in our place in southern France.

Visions of eggs benedict, waffles and omlettes danced in my head.

Dempsey's is a Medford, MA family-owned restaurant around the corner from my daughter's home outside of Boston. It been operating since 1995. It serves breakfasts and lunch.

Whenever we visit, I've already planned the number of breakfasts that I'll eat there to match our length of stay.

It's been in business since 1995. I suspect the inside hasn't changed all that much, not that I care. A change would lose something. It's the feeling and the food.

I wonder what it is about some places that just feel right. They have an aura that makes them a come back place and come back and come...

My daughter sends us Dempsey's coupons and even the T-shirt Rick is wearing perhaps to encourage us to visit her.  I'll admit when I saw Rick's shirt, I was tempted to check Toulouse-Boston flights. Those eggs benedict are exceptional. Maybe in the spring...I could stay for the waffles, french toast, bagels and...

1000 does not equal 40,000 Plus

No one can fully feel the pain of having a loved one held hostage then killed. There has to be no grief that can match it.

The news channels are full of descriptions of the personalities of the six hostages whose bodies have been found, especially the American.

My question is why, with 40,000 plus people being killed in Gaza haven't the news channels featured their personal stories too. Maybe if they did, then maybe, just maybe, the news would be fairer to those that have lost everything in Palestine. 

I never take a shower, eat a meal, crawl into my comfy bed that I don't remember how many people in Gaza are living in rubble and have none of these luxuries.

The mess in the Middle East is a circle of faults including Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Hamas rose from that mistreatment. It became a vicious circle.

I also blame the U.S. for arming Israel. I hate that U.S. weapons are being used to kill people in Gaza. Of course, the arms manufacturers are making out like bandits, and bandits is the word.

Yes, Israel had a right to defend itself. So do the people that have been occupied by Israel often illegally. They did not have a right to build the settlements. 

No, Hamas should not have attacked Israel on October 7th. But they were fighting the occupation of their country and they have a right to defend themselves too.

The saddest part is that for those young people in Gaza, a whole new level of hatred of Israel has been created.

Can it ever end? Not with bombings. Not with starvation of a people. Not with occupation.

The leadership in Israel has scuttled cease fire attempts. The leadership of Hamas hasn't performed much better.

People on both sides die and mourn. 

Disarm Israel. Make sure Hamas isn't armed. Maybe without death toys, there could be a solution that recognizes both peoples.