The first trip

To say I was overprotected growing up is an understatement. In grade school, I couldn't even go on school trips to the fire department down the street. Later in high school I wasn't allowed into Boston 12 miles away.

The year to the day before I sailed for Europe on the U.S. America to join my bridegroom in Germany, my mother would not let me go to Attleboro, MA about an hour away with my then boyfriend to meet his parents.

My father and stepmom took me to New York. Even third class was luxurious with all kinds of entertainment: movies, games, library, dances and wonderful food. Many other Army wives were on the trip and we quickly bonded. Despite a storm, it was a good and fun trip.

Docking in Le Havre, France, there was a boat train to Paris.

For a girl where Boston was unknown, Paris was overwhelming. I needed to buy a train ticket to Stuttgart and arrange for a transfer of my trunk. Fortunately at the train station, the man in charge of the transfer was a British cockney who took pity on me. He also helped me buy a ticket for a train with one change.

It was 2 in the afternoon. The train left at 11 at night from a different station. The man put me in a cab and told me he told the driver not to do anything but take me to the correct train station and he was telling me that the fare should not exceed X francs.

Driving through the streets of Paris felt like being in a movie. I even had a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.

At the train station with hours to wait I managed to buy myself something to eat. I told a Frenchman who said something to me, "Je parle français, vous ne parle pas français." He walked away shaking his head probably thinking how stupid Americans were. Only later did I realize what I'd said.

I was confused that my train was leaving at 23:00. I'd never heard of a 24-hour clock. That too I figured out and found the correct train, correct car at the correct time.

I was the only one in my six-seater compartment. The wooden door had a window and I could see through the window to the corridor as people walked by. After the first stop, a man joined me, probably not much more than my 20 years of age. He spoke a little English and tried to convince me to get off at the next stop. 

He did. 

I didn't.

I could not sleep. I was terrified and kept singing, "Whenever you feel afraid, just whistle a happy tune," to myself. I didn't sleep.

We pulled into the Stuttgart train station early the next morning. I noticed the Mercedes-Benz circle on top of the station tower. It would become my point of reference for the next two years that I would live there.

I grabbed my suitcases praying that my husband had gotten the message about my arrival that the nice man in the Paris station said he would send.

People were rushing to the exit.

And then I saw my husband.

Looking back about how I've learned to run all around Europe, where Paris has become familiar and easy to get around, where I speak French, I laugh at scared little me back then. 

But even then I knew being scared was okay. It isn't okay to let it stop you doing things you should do or want to do.

German Lesson

Stuttgart, Germany January 1963

I wait for the electric coil to heat the water so my bridegroom and I can wash before going to Kelley Barracks for the day.

We rent a room in apartment with three other renters: an engineering student, an actor and his wife who is a secretary for Disney. We share a toilet but have no bathroom.

The Strassenbahn takes us from downtown Stuttgart to near by Möhringen and drops us near a field we have to cross to get to Kelley Barracks. 

Once on base, we separate. He heads for his unit where he will spend the day playing music with the 82nd Army Band.

I go to the canteen and buy a honey-glazed doughnut and black coffee as I do every morning before going to my German class. I nibble and sip on the way. The coffee and doughnut have a different taste in the bitter cold. 

I am the only civilian, the only woman in the class. Max, a Spec4, is the teacher. He's bald, from Chicago and has a masters degree in English Literature, which had been my dream, my goal before putting it aside to marry my high school sweetheart. Moving to Germany where he is fulfilling his service obligations was a surprise, but also an adventure to embrace.

At the end of the day where I've spent the time learning verbs and speaking in simple sentences, I finish before my husband. I go to the well-stocked base library to wait. I never have to worry about running out of books or magazines.

Max comes in and we talk books, not just current, but the ones he plumbed for his thesis. I've missed these discussions that gave me so much joy at university. My husband and I may speak music, base news, and people we know.

As we leave, "Taps" is played. We become statues as everyone on the base freezes in place. Even cars stop, drivers get out stand by the doors in the cold as the flag is lowered for the day.

The trumpet stops. We head home where I will do homework and prepare for tomorrow's class.

Number challenged

 

All through school I had problems with math with the exception of geometry which was visual and I could draw. It took me two years to get through algebra 1. To this day I don't care what X is.

Because I function at a base level, it was only in later adulthood that the truth revealed itself. A friend, who worked with children with learning disabilities gave me a test to use as a baseline for a project she was developing. She discovered I had a learning disability when it comes to numbers. 

This has caused me some problems throughout life.

When taking a statistics course I was in tears more than once trying to understand how to... I had no problems understanding the significance of the figures, but how to get them???? As my mother used to say when she couldn't do something, "If God came down to tell me to (fill in the blank) or I'll take you" she would reply, "take me now."

The French have a complicated way of expressing higher numbers. 97 is quartre-vingt-dix-sept. When I hear a clerk at the bakery tell me the price, it takes me a while to visualize what they want me to pay. The Swiss French and Belgians make it easier at nonante-sept. German is siebenundneunzig. Even then and in English someone says 97 and for me to understand takes longer than it does other people.

The solution when the price is 97 centimes is to slap down a franc or Euro.

And never mind trying to copy numbers. I was a nightmare for the receptionist at the last company where I worked when I gave her a fax to send. More often than not, I had copied the numbers wrong. I would just be back in my office and she'd call to tell me the number wouldn't go through or she'd reached some perplexed stranger.

"Oh Rosy, I'm so, so, so sorry."

She did say I was one of the few employees who admitted my errors making me feel better at a two level on a scale of ten.

I was in Paris for the umpty-umphth time with a girlfriend. I knew the Metro as well as a native or so I thought. She said we needed to take the M1 line to get to our destination.

M1 line? The Metro had numbers? 

I used the destination names: Stalingrad, La Defense, Châtelet, etc.

I've had my place in France since 1987. I've lived in Switzerland and France since 1990. My husband of five years recently referred to autoroutes by number. 

Autoroutes have numbers? 

These roads I've been up and down all around for 31 years?

"How..." he asked with a strong emphasis on how... "did you get around?

"The destination? The signs say things like Narbonne, Grenoble, Zurich, etc. in France and Bernn, Neuchâtel, etc. in Switzerland." 

The next time we are on one of those routes I need to check if the directional signs have numbers.

Multicultural Punctuation

 

 

Living where English, many versions of English, are spoken, I know all English is not the same.

It goes beyond windshield/windscreen, hood/bonnet, sneakers/trainers etc. 

It goes to punctuation as well.

In English novels, I see this when it comes to a period/full stop. 'Jane, did you ask Terry, "Terrry, where are you going?" ' Whereas in an American novel it would appear as this: "Jane, did you ask Terry, 'Terrry, where are you going?' " Of course, there would be no space ' " which I put in for clarity.

Then there's the question of Mr./Mr or Mrs./Mrs  and Dr./Dr -- Somewhere when English crossed the Atlantic, a period appeared in these titles. Never mind that in the UK, doctors are often addressed as Mr without a period after the R. 

I was taught that Mr was an abbreviation of Mister, Mrs. was an abbreviation of Mistress and as an abbreviation it needed a period.

Ms is another issue. It is not an abbreviation of anything but was promoted by feminists in the 1970s to erase the difference between a married and unmarried woman. Sometime, and I don't remember when it changed. My paper edition of the Chicago Manual of Style is in France and I'm in Switzerland. The same with the AP Stylebook. I don't want to pay for an on-line subscription. 

I don't want to get into other languages such as the double triangle quote marks laying on their side in French, the upside down question marks in Spanish or the umlaut in German. 

Nor do I want to get into the Oxford comma debate, a discussion my husband (also a writer) and I have frequently. Both of us are entrenched in our opinions. Nor why should the American Z zzz be an English zed?

I worked at one company where the language was English/English except when it was American and sometimes Canadian, spellings and punctuation was included.

I use it as an excuse on why my language, spoken and written, is messed up.

 

Out of control

 

 It's happening again only this time with Florence DuBois.

She was going to be a walk-on character in my book, Lexington, about a British soldier that died at the first battle of the American Revolution.

It is not the first time this has happened. In Murder in Caleb's Landing, a woman who came for a quick coffee and ended up with her own subplot and running an underground railroad mirroring the slave underground railroad of the early to mid 1880s.

And Brenda in Day Care Moms was going to be an exercise for me to explore the characters of my four moms. She turned out to be the central figure.

I am not a writer that pre-plans my work. 

I have an idea.

I start.

I stop.

Words appear on my screen, but I'm unhappy with them. 

Facebook, computer games, newspapers on the internet draw my attention. 

Tomorrow, I tell myself.

And then it happens. At some point I become consumed by the characters or my characters consume me.

It wasn't happening with Lexington, mainly because I would have to stop and research some little detail. The internet, Ranger Jim and others helped. But then it was hard to get back to work.

Now I'm consumed, not just with Florence, that pushy wife of the French Consul in Boston. Daphne, wife of the British Consul, tells me to listen to her. James, the baker, is busy adapting to his new life as a private in the 43rd regiment paroling the streets of pre-Revolution Boston.

This is the way my books are born and grow. My thoughts are on the story line, a sentence, a paragraph. When I'm in the shower, James may be hankering after Molly whose father is a member of the Sons of Liberty. When I make avocado toast, I think of beer foam used for leavening in the bakery in Ely. 

I resent being interrupted by dentist and doctors' appointments and as we drive into Geneva the day's color of the lake (it can be anything from brown to royal blue) makes me think I should do a better description of the sea as James sailed from England to Boston.  

I'm writing this blog in bed before getting up. Today, while I do research into stolen cannons and rearranging my 50-odd pages of historical notes, Florence will probably be in the room mumbling about her American Harvard professor father and her French mother, her insistence on going to art school and how, because of her multi-cultural background she always felt like an outsider.

James may stop by. He is asking me if I want to do the scene with the dysentery or the one where he is part of the search party for a deserting soldier. I've a few sentences scrawled about his growing relationship with Molly. Do I need to write an article as it might have been written in Boston Gazette in April 1775?

I'm not worried about chapter arrangement yet. I do go back to add to what I've already written and if there's a problem with new work, I go back to polish previous writing.

It is time to shower, eat and get back to work.

Bar shampoo

 

In an attempt to use less plastic I went to bar shampoo over two years ago. It comes in paper. Some brands were better than others and now we use Lush when we are in Geneva and buy the brand above in Argelès. 

This past week I was amazed to see bar shampoo advertised on an ITV (a British station). Hopefully, at some point bar shampoo will be sold where shampoos are sold.

Not using plastic is difficult at best. It often comes to a choice when a desired item is in a plastic bottle or cup--do I want it enough to use the plastic OR do I go without. More often I will choose to go without. Some things we must have and buy them anyway.

Will my using bar shampoo solve the problem?

No.

But it won't make it worse.

Writing Home

 

I don't mean writing home like I did to my folks when I lived in Stuttgart in the 60s nor the emails I sent back to my former housemates when I moved from Boston to Switzerland.

This writing home is environment where I developed my craft in the warmth and safety that helped me each step of refining my craft.

They say you can't go home again, but last night I did on Zoom, featuring Susan Tiberghien, founder of the Geneva Writers Group (GWG) where monthly I attended her workshops for two decades.

The Zoom meeting was Mc'ed by Mohamed Tawfik, who had been a GWG member along with me. He brought together people from the group, including my writing mate, (we shared almost every word of our early writing) with writers from Egypt where he now lives and writes.

Those monthly sessions brought together writers in English from all over the world. Mornings were a workshop, afternoons were critiquing. Whether being critiqued or doing it is a way to improve one's own writing.

The workshops included information on how to publish, contests and more. I learned about my masters in creative writing at Glamorgan University in Wales from the GWG.

Besides honing my craft, the workshops provided another value--being with like minded people who cared about words and their placement.

In the Zoom meeting, Susan shared her story of an American who married a Frenchman, lived within the French language until 50 when she attended a workshop in the U.S. on writing. She returned to her native tongue, became not just a writer but a teacher and a one-woman role model for inspiring writers.

Listening to Susan speak, I was carried back to those workshops, which had become my writing home and saw some friends from that time. There were also Egyptian writers, which reinforced my experiences with the GWG where, although most writers were English mother tongue, many were dual language speakers.

The 90 minutes was like a visit home where the furniture people sat on had been converted to tiny squares. It recreated the moments of hope that the next sentence would work. It reinforced that language and stories need to be shared.

When I shut my eyes and listened to Susan's voice, I was transported back to the Café du Soleil and the Press club where the GWG has met. 

Back then if and perhaps when I was struggling with a certain piece of writing a GWG workshop gave me the same kind of push and confidence that my family had done--a you can do it moment.

Last night I went back to my writing home from the comfort of my couch.

My thanks to Mohamed and Susan for being you.

Tea time

 

Years ago when I lived in Boston my housemates and I would often have tea when we first came home. We would chat about our day and plan whatever we would do for dinner.

On weekends it might include a neighbor with something special to nibble--anything from a sweet to a delicate sandwich. 

A ritual to look forward to on a bad day and a mini celebration on a good one.

Although Rick and I both write at home often within a few feet of one another, around four many afternoons we will have a cup of tea and some kind of sweet, especially during the winter. 

Rick had found the most luscious strawberries when he was at Co-op. We also had chocolate in the closet. A mini chocolate fondue was the answer for afternoon tea.

Today we have a special chocolate cake which we will have after Smerconish. Not sure yet what kind of tea. It doesn't matter what kind. It is the sharing.

 

Christmas in February

 

We celebrated Christmas February 17th with my former housemate, good, good friend and family member of choice (all one person).

Over the years, because of our travel, work, and social schedules Christmas has been celebrated anytime from early December, on the day to now. This is the latest we've done it.

Our exchange of gifts is always modest but thoughtful. She does everything possible to meet my criteria for things:

• Beautiful
• Useful 
• Is a memory

She found some dog-shaped paper clips. I had had five animal paper clips, but I lost one. Now I can replace the lost one and have a few in both France and Switzerland. The paper clips are part of my goal of not have anything extra but to make even ordinary things special.

A glass penguin will be beautiful in the nook in Argelès next to an almost matching penguin given to me decades ago. They make a mother and baby.

But her genius gift was for my husband. An English place mat of the St. Andrews golf course, found at a vide grenier (flea market). Playing that course a couple of years ago was a highlight of my fanatic golfer husband's life.

He has no intention of using it as a place mat. It is now his mouse pad, his much beloved mouse pad.

Long ago we discovered gifts do not have to be expensive to be appreciated. Thoughtful is more important.

Our Christmas celebration meal was sushi...with the lockdown and closed restaurants being able to do take out for a food that was impossible to get was a real treat.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

 

Flower apologies

Most of the US is under snow and incredible cold and snow. Places like Texas are paying the price for sloppy regulations and privatization. I wish them heat, electricity.

I'm a New Englander by birth and spirit. I love winter and snow. 

I've such good memories of snow days when school and work were cancelled. We'd hopped back in bed with hot chocolate, put on sweats, spent the day reading, writing, playing games, doing chores that usually took up weekend free time. We would watch out the window at the white veil creating a silent, magic land.

I love the sound of the crunch of snow under my feet, cold nibbling my cheeks, the softeness of falling white flakes, icicles hanging from the windows.

Geneva often gets less snow than the rest of Switzerland. Hopefully, we will be able to drive to it in the next couple of weeks. Sherlock, our dog, who hates water, doesn't consider frozen, white stuff water and loves it.

In our garden today, I saw a brave little flower. It was warm enough that my sweater kept me warm.

Spring is wonderful, but I'm not through with winter.

Spring talk to me in another month.

Telephones

 

Because our flat has such thick walls we have a land line. The alternative is to go outside to use the mobile.

This morning I needed to change a dentist appointment so I used the landline. There is still snow on the ground making a mobile call less than pleasant. I could dial. Sometimes it went through, sometimes it didn't. Even when it did, the call would disconnect.

A little investigation showed a loose wire and it worked.

It seems today with all the technology it is a lot harder to make a phone call. There has to be enough bars, signals, etc, Sometimes I feel even with the landline, I need to make an offering to the telephone goddess before reaching my party.

One of the interesting parts of being old, is seeing the evolution of things.

My first experience with telephones was picking up the phone and giving the number to the operator who placed the call. Young women thought this job was a guarantee of lifetime employment. Oh well.

Sometimes the operator was a friend and you'd chat. The day I got my driver's license and was calling to tell a friend, the operator, who had been to driving school with me, asked if I got it.

We had a private line, although party lines were less expensive and involved consideration with those who shared your number.

Dial was a huge advance followed by all kinds of phones: wall, colored, princess and even characters like Snoopy. I was given one by a friend to make sure that I didn't take myself too seriously.  It worked.

Moving to Switzerland in 1990 every call one made was charged even if it were next door. It was almost necessary to sell your first born child to afford a call to the States or at least rent her out. 

As technology advanced upward, prices marched downward.

Different services over the internet reduced calling anywhere in the world to almost nothing or nothing. My stepmom in Florida never grasped this and on our regular calls she always said, "this is costing you a fortune, Dear" when there was no charge at all.

I am not a big fan of phones. They are interruptions and if I want to continue to qualify as a COW (Cranky Old Woman) I complain. I do try to refine my complaining.

Send me email or Facebook message. I'll get back to you. 

I do love my mobile though. It takes great pictures.

Socks

I make no secret that I like things that are a little different, things that can amuse me, things that can make my eyes happy with their color and design rather than the same old, same old boring whatevers.

When I found a company that did interesting socks www.joyofsocks.com  I ordered pairs designed with books, Klimt artwork, popcorn and several other things. Unfortunately, their Ruth Bader Ginsburgs were sold out. 

 No more pulling the same dull socks on my feet each morning. I can open my drawer and decide which fits my mood instead of looking at a sea of white, black and brown.

In the photo above, I was trying to get a photo of my socks which has books and book shelves when Sherlock decided my mission was to provide him a lap. 

At one time I thought laptops would become more interesting when they were in different colors. One HP even had pretty purple swirls. However, the most important quality about any laptop I own is and always will be can it withstand my heavy usage.

The solution to get that extra little pleasure when I go to my laptop in the morning to start writing was stickers. My beloved husband bought me three dimensional butterfly stickers. Not only do they amuse me, they stimulate my creativity in a way boring boring boring boring black never would. 

Some of the wings are becoming a little tattered so I'm looking for a new look. I'd love to do a mountain scene, but who knows.

In the meantime, every time I look at my laptop of my feet, I get a little shiver of pleasure.

Women to know

 

 

Ordinary women doing extraordinary things or extraordinary women doing ordinary things. Or maybe a bit of both.

Young women, do not need to be in Switzerland to appreciate this book. It tells of real women, a doctor, politician, athlete, writer and more who were able to achieve their dreams against various degrees of odds. 

It is the story of hope beating the reality of artificial societal standards over and over.

Put together by five talented women writers and published at the same time Swiss women celebrated 50 years of being able to vote.

If my daughter were a teenager, I'd make it required reading--that is after I read it myself--a reminder of the possibility of making my dreams real.

https://www.bergli.ch/

I love snow

 

The word snow for many of my New England relatives is synonymous with the word Florida. My father felt when the first red leaf fell from a tree, it was time to head south. Aunts, uncles, cousins were not far behind.

Not me.

Although, when I lived in Boston, to escape the cold for a few days and visit my folks in Florida for walks on the beach, bridge and early bird specials, was great. I was always happy to get back to mittens and scarves. Boston in the snow has a different beauty.

Geneva does not have a lot of snow in comparison to the rest of Switzerland. Thus, when it snowed yesterday, I was thrilled. We'd been planning to go up the mountain so Sherlock could play in the snow. Strangely, the dog won't go near water unless it is white and frozen which he loves.

The photo is of the garden outside our flat. In a few weeks it will be a rainbow of yellows, pinks, purples as flowers bloom. In the autumn, a tree in the corner will be fire engine red. The changes bring joy. I adore them all.

In summer the bench is a great place to watch birds fly to their nests to feed their babies, for Sherlock to run around and for me to read.

So today, being in sweats, planning tea, reading, writing and even watching the end of the impeachment trial with trips into the garden with the dog seems to me to rate a 15 on a scale of 10.

 

Designer body

 

I've occupied my body for decades and it has served me well overall. 

 

Now some parts are wearing out, and in the shower this morning looking at my legs, I thought, if I were reincarnated and I could redesign my body and me, how would I do it. 

 

And how would I change other aspects of my life if I have had a chance to do it again. 

 

Here's how. If it is in green it is different. Black type is how I am now and don't particularly want to change.

 

Physical:

• Height: 5 foot 1 or 153 cm.
• Weight: 85-120 as an adult
• Hair: Russet instead of dirty blond and going white at a young age. It would be thick with lots of body.
  
• Eye color: Hazel and I'd even keep that hunk of brown in one eye
• Shape: The same but my legs would be better.
• Breasts: I'd fill out an A cup all my life. And my breasts would have a DNA factor that would kill any cancer cells that decided to set up housekeeping.
  

 Situation:

I would be born in another place: Switzerland, Scotland, France, Sweden, Germany into a family that loved me and valued women and education. It might be nice to have a sister instead of a brother. This is with apologies to my late adopted sister whom I loved.

I would like to be slightly better in math, but would want my interests to stay the same only broader. I would like to do more with the sciences; biology, geology. I did enjoy my chemistry courses and general science in school. I would want to delve deeper into anthropology and archeology.

Professionally, I would still want to be a writer but would track more into journalism rather than dipping in and out of it over my career. I'd avoid the corporate life although I am grateful that it provided me with many opportunities and a chance to earn a decent living.

I am probably the least sporty person you will ever meet. Forced to take golf lessons as a kid, I might want to pay more attention in another life--or not. As a kid I loved ice skating, but I would like to learn to ski. And I'd want to learn to swim. 

 

Whatever gene made me afraid to be carried on someone's shoulders and my body not being in its proper upright position on its own would not be in my body.

 

I'd have a gift for languages instead of fighting to learn French and German. My goal would be English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Russian.

 

Now, if I were reincarnated how many people that have been in my life would I want to be in my next life. 

 

The answer?

 

A majority.

 

At the moment I'm here in my old body, my old life. I realized in writing this, overall I'm satisfied with my life without being smug.  

 

As it says in the song "My Way" 

Regrets I've had a few

But then again too few to mention

Writing Frustration

 

There are novelists who work out the entire plot before putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

I'm not one of those.

My characters come first. I put them in a challenging situation. Often, I am surprised at what they do and who they meet.

In Murder in Caleb's Landing, I discovered when I finished the first draft, the person whom I thought was the murderer wasn't. Not only that, when I went back to foreshadow the murder, I already had done so. In that same book, a person who had a walk-on part and dropped in for a coffee became a sub-plot that mirrored the main theme of the book.

I suppose you could call that the creative process. Since I tried the complete planning routine, it never worked. All these other characters and ideas would crop up, sometimes in the middle of the night. Other times, the Word Fairy would take control of my fingers and events would happen that had little to do with me.

At the moment I'm frustrated. I'm writing Lexington, the fictionalized life of an unknown British soldier killed in the first battle of the American Revolution. 

I've called him James. He was a baker before joining the 43rd Regiment of Foot. The research has been fun. I've met incredibly helpful people, especially with the National Park Service in Lexington. 

In writing a prologue in modern times, Daphne appeared. Several times when I sat down to write about James, Daphne reappeared and then she met Florence and before I knew it, there is a modern component that mirrors the 1774-1775 period. 

Thus the novel has become a historical/modern novel. I'm happy with that but surprised so surprised.

Some of my frustration is when writing about James, I get bogged down in historical accuracy. I wanted him to read a newspaper, which meant I needed to find a newspaper published at the time. And when I continue my research of a real event that if I included it would add to the depth.

Thus progress is slower than I would like. As always life gets in the way. Today was the first time in a week that the sky was blue. It made more sense to take Sherlock for a run at the reserve and let him visit the château ruins in Meinier. 

Because I have a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, and because restaurants are closed, I made a lamb stew so when we get home lunch will be ready. In the afternoon, I needed to apply for a new passport, assuming travel is safe again.

I didn't get down to writing until late in the afternoon. The next three mornings I have appointments.

Sometimes as we are riding to this or that place, it seems as if my characters are in the back seat, throwing ideas out of things they might want to do. 

There is a point when something has been written, polished, rewritten and repolished umpty up times, it becomes final. My characters are happy with their roles and I am happy with them. We all agree.

www.donnalanenelson.com has a listing of all my books.

Sahara Haiku

 

Windshield wipers turn

The Sahara dust to mud 

The sky is orange

Virus similarity

 

 

The most frightening part of reading about the Spanish Flu of 1918, is not the virus pandemic itself, but the similarity of mistakes made in trying to treat it between 1918 and 2020 on. The book Pale Rider, chronicles the history of the flu and other pandemics around the world and through time. The first recorded one was by Hippocrates. 

I turn a page and find information that could be broadcast on CNN, FR24, Al Jazeera, BBC or any major news station any where in the world now. 

A Spanish Bishop, thinking science was invalid turned to God and held repeated masses. He was no different than the ministers who bring their congregations together because "Jesus will protect me." 

Jesus didn't in Spain 1918 or the U.S. now and deaths soared.

Than there is the naming of the flu. Seems each country named it -- AFTER another country. It really didn't matter whether it was called the Belgian, Japanese, French, etc. in 1918. It still doesn't matter if we call it the China Virus or Covid-19. It is as deadly.

The book goes into depth on most aspects. 

The virus knows no borders. It goes where it wants. It does what it wants. 

People who pish-posh the danger of crowds last year are no different from those that did the same in the last century. The results are the same with the common denominator being crowds.

Science deniers exist(ed) in both centuries. People refused to wear masks.

It seems that the saying "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Tom RIP

 

Tom Moore1920-2021

An old man, his cane on his walker is saluted as he walks between two rows of saluting soldiers. 

He is living embodiment of proof that one person can make a difference. 

This was Tom Moore, a WWII veteran, who wanted to raise £1000 pounds for the British Health Service by walking 100 laps around his garden for  his 100th birthday. 

He didn't raise £1000. 

He raised over £30 million and captured the hearts of the British people.

In his last years he was showered with honors including:

• Pride of Britain Award
• Honorary Colonel of the Army Foundation College, Harrorgage
• Yorkshire Regiment Medal
• Point of Light 
• Blue Peter Badge
• Freedom of Keighley
• Freedom of London
• Knight Bachelor bestowed by Queen Elizabeth
• Honorary Doctorate Cranfield University.

Moore did not do it for the honors. He did it because he wanted to show appreciation for the National Health Service, NHS, giving it more love than perhaps those in government who decree what funds should do there.

When the fund reached £5 million, he said: "When we started off with this exercise we didn't anticipate we'd get anything near that sort of money. It's really amazing. All of them, from top to bottom, in the National Health Service, they deserve everything that we can possibly put in their place. They're all so brave. Because every morning or every night they're putting themselves into harm's way, and I think you've got to give them full marks for that effort. We're a little bit like having a war at the moment. But the doctors and the nurses, they're all on the front line, and all of us behind, we've got to supply them and keep them going with everything that they need, so that they can do their jobs even better than they're doing now."

Moore died of the Covoid virus. 

He made a difference -- one old man walking in his garden.

 

 

 

3 Happy couples

I was never a fan of marriage, thinking how many unhappy couples there were. And likewise even when I saw a happy couple, I was content that it wasn't me. I was having a great life much better than my youthful marriage which ended in divorce. I didn't want a mate. I didn't think I was good at it.

I've mellowed.

This will be the story of three happy couples all of whom found each other late in life.

Couple No. 1

He was my client when I was still working and later we were both members of a writing group. Freed from corporate life in retirement, he found another writer and they didn't exactly ride off into the sunset, but into the countryside. He claims this is the happiest time of his life.

Couple No. 2

She married young. Her first husband was older and when he died, it left her devastated. We watched her recover slowly and bravely. Her new man had sat next to her on the beach, but they didn't notice each other. Later they did meet and love bloomed. Each benefit from the other's world.

Couple No. 3

We met each other and were instant soul mates, at the wrong time and wrong place and ignored it. Decades later it was the right time, the right place over a fondue in Geneva. Had we given in earlier, maybe we wouldn't have been as successful. In the intervening years while we raised our daughters and developed our careers.

Maybe age brings a realization of what is important. We went through earlier years sweating the small stuff. Maybe we've learned how to help our mates find their dreams without sacrificing our own, because they are doing the same thing with us. Whatever it is, how lucky we are to come to the last part of our lives knowing the warmth of love and support at least I never expected to find and didn't know what I was missing until I found it.