Some of the others are gaining on it, but they are still dwarfed by Little Shop of Horrors

 The marigolds are finally thriving -- rain helped tremendously!

We had rain and thunderstorms yesterday and in the night -- the first truly "beneficial rain" we've had in quite a while. Hail was predicted in some places, and the lightening was terrific at times (almost had forgotten what it is like! See here) but we didn't sustain any damage and the plants loved it. I ventured out this morning and took the top two pictures of the tomato patch. It's a little soggy (not as much as it would be if we were not in such a dry spell otherwise).  Assuming it is a dry day, later I will check to see if there are any green beans to be picked. They were on the cusp of being ready Sunday night.

I am reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. A friend gave me the book for Christmas (I didn't see him until early July so that's when he actually gave it to me). I had to sit in the waiting room at Albany Med yesterday while Bob was having a test (he's fine) so I took my Kindle and started it.  So far it is an easy read, almost a page turner. My only criticism is that there are too many sentence fragments. They are intentional; that's the style. I follow that form myself sometimes in creative writing, but in this book it is excessive, and the fragments often come in a string, such as: "He stared into the dark. Squinted his eyes. Searching for movement. Turned slowly. Blinked." (This is not an actual quote, btw -- it is my approximation, but not that much of an exaggeration.) I am taking the train to Buffalo for a few days next week, and I plan to finish or at least make a dent in it then, so I'll have more to say after that trip.

Something I have been intending to share here but keep forgetting, a few weeks ago I received an email at my university account* about this blog post from 2003. Myrtle's great grandnephew was doing genealogy research on his paternal ancestors, and all he could find about her was my blog post. One piece of information I got from him is that her maiden name was Pemberton.

I wanted to help out, so my mother and I talked about Mimmie's stories, went through old pictures, and checked census records, and found that Lawrence McSpirit is listed as 13 years old in the 1910 Census (the page is dated May 11). Myrtle McSpirit's dates are March 9, 1905 - February 8, 2003. This is from the Social Security Death Index.

Ma said that Lawrence had moved from Hurley to Albany for work. This was at some point after the Ashokan Reservoir was constructed. He met his wife Myrtle in Albany. She also remembers that Mimmie said Lawrence disappeared after being paid on a Friday. His body was found sometime later in the Hudson River. The speculation was that he had been robbed, murdered, and thrown in the river. His father came up to Albany to identify the body and make the funeral arrangements.

The picture is of Alice McSpirit Krom (Mimmie's younger sister). The little girl on the left is her daughter Frances. The little girl on the right (blond hair) is Myrtle, daughter of Lawrence McSpirit and his wife Myrtle. Frances was born in October 1927. Our guess is that this picture was taken in the early '30s; Frances was probably 4 or 5. Myrtle looks to be about the same age. My mother remembers Mimmie telling her that this photo was taken after Lawrence's death. Little Myrtle stayed in Hurley for a while with her grandparents and Aunt Alice.

I wonder what happened to little Myrtle; all we know is Mimmie's note, where she wrote "married and living in Albany." This summer I will try to do something I have been thinking about since 2003, which is go to the Albany Rural Cemetery and visit the mother Myrtle's grave.  Perhaps Lawrence is there too.

*It's interesting that when strangers email me because of this ejournal or the Gully Brook Press website, they nearly always google my name and choose to contact me through the university, rather than the AOL or gmail email addresses I have listed here -- and this is true not just of academic and consulting inquiries, where it might be expected, but of correspondence of a more personal nature as well.

Later: I decided to do another knotweed assault. But the guy who cuts the steep part of the hill behind our house already did it!  He's awesome. So I just had to pull the stray ones that were coming up in the curcurbit patch. It was a humid 90 degrees, so I especially appreciated not having to weed whack the rest of the battlefield.

And: the weird round bruise on my shoulder from July 4 that turned into an itchy insect bite after a day and eventually went away has returned! Not the bruise but the itchy welt, exactly the same size and in exactly the same spot. What is it with me and freakin' bugs?

Here's an interesting article that calls into question whether one of the Titanic survivors featured in a Times Union article was not the survivor (who had the same name).  This is a good example of something one often encounters when doing genealogy research. Now that I have a website that can be edited, I am going to finish the virtual museums that have been under construction since my old AOL site went dead (thinking specifically of the Genealogy and Immigrant Roots pages.)

I am up to the end of 1864 in Team of Rivals. When I got to the summer of 1864, I was curious about the exact date and other details of my great grandfather's enlistment in the Union Army, so I went on ancestry.com and did some searching. Since genealogy research is an interest of mine, I've had a subscription for a long time, but it has been a while since I last searched it. The search utility, and access to the original documents has improved a lot. They are always adding more databases. After I discovered he enlisted in October 1864 and did some reading about Company F of the 15th NY Volunteer Engineers, I decided to search for a few other folks. My paternal grandparents died when my father was a kid, which of course was long before I was born. I had seen them in the 1920 Federal census for Philadelphia a while ago, and more recently I had located the ship manifest for when they came over to the United States from Sicily in 1913. But a few days ago I found my grandfather's WWI draft registration, it must have been newly added, or at least was only made easily searchable recently. This has us all very excited. The information is interesting - including his exact birthdate, address and that he worked at Hog's Island shipbuilding facility, but what seems to be most touching to all of us is that his signature is on it. His handwriting was nice! Aside from a few pictures, we have nothing this tangible. Seeing something so personal from nearly 89 years ago makes him more real, more vibrant.

Last night, Ma emailed to let me know that someone had responded to my last letter in the Olive Press. The response letter is here, scroll down.

I couldn't sleep after reading it. I couldn't believe how personally, and specifically, the writer attacked me. So, I got up and wrote a response. The paper comes out every two weeks, so it won't appear in print or at the website until then. Today I sent two additional emails on the subject to the paper, not for publication, but just to express my concern and outrage. All three follow. The letter for publication is not a nutjob manifesto. The two emails are more emotional, but I needed to vent. I don't think there could be a greater insult to me than to call me unethical.

When I Googled his name, I did learn a few other things about him than what I mention in the second email. The most interesting, he's a landscape designer. Bob joked, maybe we should call him up and ask him if he wants to mow our lawn this summer. What else would someone with that title do in Denning? So much for Yale degrees. (I can be elitist too, you see.) He's gay. He's from NJ. His partner is from Puerto Rico and writes plays. His mother died earlier this month. (That is the one thing I feel bad for him over. But it still doesn't justify attacking my character.)

Something I didn't include in the part about theft from indigenous peoples, since the letter is more important in the print edition: Click here. Go to page 2. Scroll down to "Andrew Eckert," the picture is on the right. His mother was named Betsy North. Now, do you think maybe there was some of the Algonquian-speaking people's blood in his veins? (Somehow I suspect it is more likely than Ward Churchill's claim.)

To The Editor:

Imagine my surprise, upon opening the Olive Press after its recent hiatus, to discover a letter that attacks me, and in such a personal way! Apparently this person is not even a district resident, yet he has been annoyed enough by my words to take the time to write to the Olive Press. The letter writer challenges me to answer the questions he poses honestly. Well, I'm not sure who he thinks he is, to demand an accounting, but as all who know me are aware, I am never less than perfectly truthful, and so I will oblige.

Mr. Thayer wonders if I support compensating indigenous peoples (since he freely labels himself "clueless" he will not mind my pointing out that "Native American" is not the preferred term) for lands that were "stolen" by Olive natives, with roots that go back generations? His question makes two assumptions that must be scientifically solved before a thoughtful response can be mounted; first, that there were indigenous people settled in what has been known since 1823 as the Town of Olive; second, if the first assumption is correct (if it is not, this next part is a non-issue) that all of those Olive natives I referenced do not descend from indigenous peoples. How does Mr. Thayer know this? Because he judges based on surnames that sound European? What about matrilineal genealogy?

He then wonders if I support reparations? This question is not as easy to address as his assumptions about Olive's history and residents, but it is one that I have spent a great deal of time studying (not because of Mr. Thayer's letter, however; at the risk of infuriating him once again due to mentioning my advanced degree, I cover the subject in one of my classes). There are persuasive viewpoints on both sides of the reparations issue and I am not sure exactly where I stand. (Or at least I don't care to fully elaborate in a letter to the editor that is already too long; there are a lot of variables to sort out, such as who exactly would be the beneficiaries, who would do the paying, who would administer it, and how to figure out the amount to be paid.) Specific programs, including affirmative action and underrepresented student fellowships, while not precisely reparations, are efforts in our society to address this past injustice. So there is some precedent for taking historical "theft" into account when deciding contemporary "fairness." On the subject of eternity, the jury is still out.

Next, he describes the situation in the Tri-Valley district, but even given the advanced degree that so irritates Mr. Thayer, I was left scratching my head. In the first place, the comparison between districts is flawed. In the OCS district and in the county, it is Olive that does not have the votes, and we have been told that in no uncertain terms by our elected representatives.

Then, according to the NYS Education Department, in 2002-03 Tri-Valley spent $8,614 per student for general education and $19,607 per student for special education. Onteora spent $9,106 per student for regular education and $26,567 per student for special education. Both are considered "Average Need/Resource Category" schools, and both districts spent more than did similar schools ($7,111 per student for general education and $17,042 per student for special education). Also, both were above the Statewide average ($7,595 per student for general education and $17,818 per student for special education). Even if Neversink pays nothing and Denning pays it all, there is no way the disparity between towns in Tri-Valley could be what Mr. Thayer asserts ($33,500 per student).

At first I was not sure why he wasted his time writing an attack letter so specifically directed at me, instead of a more productive endeavor - you know, maybe getting involved in his own town and school, or looking at the beautiful view outside of the window or something. I wondered if he could be one of the Olive Press editorial writers? No, the name did not seem familiar, and although it could be disguised, it is doubtful one of the local journalists would be so personally vindictive. Then I decided that it is because of his extreme hostility toward his neighbors in Neversink due to his taxes and their not implementing the large parcel, coupled with an irrational jealousy over my having the nerve to "show off" my doctoral degree by (gasp) putting the letters after my name. If that upset him, oh well. I was a first-generation college student, and it took me 22 long years to walk across that stage and receive my PhD. I don't "flaunt" it most of the time, but if I want to advertise it on occasion, that's my right. There are a large number of folks in Olive who are pretty d-mn proud of me for earning it, I am still unspoiled enough that I consider it to be a significant achievement, and if that ain't humble enough to suit Mr. Thayer, that's his problem.

Certainly the most personally offensive thing he wrote was to question my ethics. That's a laugh. Now there's the mark of a sore loser - when all else fails, suggest that someone who disagrees with you is immoral, evil, a bad person. Upset the game board, make all the pieces fall to the floor, and run away. Why stop at unethical - why not call me a commie too? (How about "coy commie?;" then he could even use alliteration.) I don't know who Alden Thayer is - frankly, I don't care who he is - he may even be a she - but one thing is for sure. Them's fighting words. Is that plain spoken enough?

Mr. Thayer may scoff, but it does sadden me that some of our neighbors are so resentful. We never knew before the large parcel ripped open these old wounds. (However, it does make it much easier to justify voting with our dollars…what I mean is, don't shop outside of Olive.) In the end, I have concluded that if he is sparing the good people of Neversink his poison pen, I guess I am happy to be of service.

This morning's first email:

This is not a letter to the editor - it is not for publication. I am writing because I am concerned about a recent letter you printed in the current issue of the Olive Press and I wonder if you have any guidelines for what you are willing to publish, or if you include disclaimers.

The letter was signed by Alden Thayer and it attacks me in a rather personal manner. My mother (a pillar of the community, and one of the Olive natives whose family lost land that Mr. Thayer so disdains) was very upset, and emailed me late last night to alert me, so I visited your website and read it. Try as I might, even after taking a sleeping pill, I could not sleep after reading it, and so I got up and wrote a response (I used the "Contact the Olive Press" link on your website which directed it to the Phoenicia Times email address rather than this one that is listed with your masthead, I think). Probably I would not have bothered if I had been able to sleep on it - but I'm not sorry I did. It isn't a post in some obscure online forum - it is printed in a paper that is distributed free of charge to everyone in Olive. Now, the many people who know me and my family certainly won't think less of me because of Mr. Thayer's pointed attack - they will just think he is an AH because (this might be uppity) I am a nice person in an upstanding family.

I even received personal notes and thank you cards, and people called and emailed me and my parents with gratitude when I wrote my original (very long) letter to you on the large parcel subject some time ago. Many people who knew me as a kid said that I had captured exactly the way they feel about the Reservoir and Olive, but could not put into words. They wrote notes that said how proud they are of me for my accomplishments. That might be corny to some people but it wasn't to me. The sincerity of the folks in Olive is what has made me the person I am. They could have given me no greater compliment than to say that my writing expressed the way they feel. That is my goal as a writer.

I really don't care if Mr. Thayer questions me about the rights of indigenous peoples or reparations for slavery, and I also believe that he is entitled to disagree with me on the large parcel issue. It is a free country. On the other hand, I think taking a swipe at my level of education is a pretty cheap shot, but I write that off to jealousy from someone who always wanted to get a PhD but for some reason was unable to earn one - failing the dissertation defense or being unable to write one at all, not getting accepted to a graduate program, or having life circumstances such as raising a family or something of that nature intervene (and instead of making peace with it, always having regrets as a result). I do wonder if he would have so personally attacked me if I was a man, but that is beside the point.

What concerns me is that he calls me unethical. I pride myself on living according to my beliefs and not being a hypocrite. I opposed the construction of a Target that resulted in tearing down the historic Defreest Church House in Rensselaer County. We lost that one (as we may lose the large parcel battle, as our ancestors lost the valley), and the sad day the wrecking ball decimated that gem I vowed to never set foot in any Target - that was two years ago and I have not. I don't believe in extreme consumption, and so I do not drive, I grow organic produce, I recycle everything, and I do not buy something new unless what I have is totally shot (the homeless shelter would not even take my furniture). My tiny capital district house is in a working class neighborhood, and I have no interest in moving to a McMansion in Saratoga County like so many others. I hold my university students to a very high standard, and I am not afraid to take the time, or the professional risks, and report all instances of cheating and plagiarism to the university level.

To call me unethical equates me with scum like the jerks at Enron or even Martha Stewart. I was not unethical as a kid in high school when I lived in West Shokan and I am not unethical as a professor. It has nothing to do with my doctoral degree, it has to do with my moral compass, my upbringing, the fabric of my soul. I firmly believe in doing what is right. In fact I teach courses on Social Morality, Social Responsibility, and in the fall I will teach a course on Tolerance. It has been my life's effort to mentor and energize future K-12 teachers to be models, in the academic and the moral senses, for their students.

Maybe people today watch too many cable television shows where shouting is entertainment and they don't know the difference between TV and real life. But I would never individually attack another letter writer in your paper, and why he singles me out of the dozen letters in every issue that you print about the large parcel frankly scares me. I have wracked my brain about why he would choose me - did I know him in high school? (No, and that doesn't make sense anyway because I was a nobody in high school, not in a clique, apart from strong academics, I was not the darling of OCS - not at all someone others worried about, much less disliked). Does my family know him? Not that I know of. Was he a student of mine (which would be strange, as I am pretty popular with students) who didn't do well or was caught cheating or something? No, and I am sure, as I have only been teaching 5 years and I still remember all my students.

Could he have encountered me somewhere in the community and taken a dislike for some reason? Well, I sort of hide at my house in Samsonville when I am there on weekends, I just want to be with nature, get away, and see my family so that is doubtful. I do go to Olive Day but I don't have a booth or anything, I am a trustee and volunteer for the Historical Society, I take turns with my mother volunteering once a month so the museum in the Olive Free Library can be open, and I am secretary for the Mt. Pleasant Rural Cemetery (I wonder if as the result of the large parcel, we should dig everyone up (for some of them, again) and move them from Shandaken to Olive? hmmm now there's an idea) but I have never had anything but positive interactions in any of those organizations. I simply don't know anyone by that name. I don't think I even know anyone in his town. So his attack springs solely from my letter that you printed that objected to the tone of your editorial? Is Mr. Thayer somehow connected to your newspaper? That seems hard to believe. It is puzzling.

I am not a public official, I am not a member of your staff, I am a private individual and Mr. Thayer's so directly insulting my character is libel - or if it seems too trivial to rise to that level, then it borders on it. In the olden days (which if Mr. Thayer actually knew me, he would know those times are quite real to me), his remarks about my integrity would have earned him a slap in the face and a challenge to a duel.

Thank you.

This morning's second email:

An addendum to my earlier perplexed missive, this is also not intended for publication.

I couldn't take wondering whether Alden Thayer will be lurking in the woods near my house this weekend, or making crank calls to me or my parents, so I finally Googled his name and now the reasons for his irrational libel become clear. He's the head of Denning's planning board, and a weekender or fairly recent NYC-metro transplant. Probably hates locals and spends all his free time in Woodstock grooving with the other Olive haters. Maybe didn't know West Shokan's taxes were so much lower when he bought a place on the other side of Peekamoose and has been furious ever since.

His partner is a Yalie, we all know that means silk purse, while SUNY grads like me are cut from a burlap bag. Probably Mr. Thayer is not a big supporter of public education in general. That one of the rednecks had the nerve to go get a PhD and then write letters where she brags about it! What an outrage! I'll show her. She must be an ignorant racist to champion the rights of the folks in her hometown (witness his reference to White theft from so-called Native Americans and reparations for slavery).

Well, one thing he is right about. He is among the clueless I criticized, he may look at it, but he does not "see" the Reservoir at all, and he never will. He can't, he is small and it is big. It is beyond his comprehension. So I guess that sums up why he took my general letter as a personal affront. Well, I have a long memory. I'd advise Mr. Thayer to refrain from writing any more attacks on my character - if he does I am going to call the police over his harassment. I am not afraid of bullies.

Thanks, I feel better already.

Another thought about the Thursday Threesome question on life after death. I am so interested in the past, I feel connected to it. It isn't just an abstract interest in history, as an academic subject (although that is another important part of the connection). Loving antique furniture, volunteering at two museums, doing genealogical research and memoir writing, serving on a cemetery board and living in an old house near another cemetery...these are all a part of my connection.

Once I wrote that genealogy research isn't just about names and dates on a dusty old page, it's more personal. It starts with seeing a baby's name in an old census, and following that name as it ages, through the decades; then it's locating a tintype of that person, all dressed up in Sunday best; next, it's finding a newspaper clipping in a scrapbook, announcing the marriage with great fanfare and exotic descriptions; then seeing the house, where the couple lived; and finally one day it's standing near a gravestone, displaying the name and dates. The person, who lived 150 years ago, is not some distant figure from the past. That experience spoke to me.

This virtual museum from some time ago is about The Battle of Saratoga. Standing in that battlefield is an other-worldy experience, very powerful. This was another experience that spoke to me.

Both times it spoke about life after death.

Saturday will be the one year anniversary of this website and ejournal.

It has been an interesting year. I get occasional emails from folks who stumble here. The majority are genealogy inquiries. Among the non-genealogical, the one that stands out was from Officer David Lim, because of my story about Sirius.

There are so many electronic journals on the Internet, and more now than a year ago. It is hard to make generalizations about something so huge. In fact, that's about all one can say with certainty. But why should that prevent me from elaborating?

I’ve exceeded my expectations, in terms of maintaining the online journal. When paper journaling, I’ve always had gaps of weeks or months where I put it aside and didn’t write anything. That hasn’t happened here. But I do think, for the next year, I will make an effort to write almost every day, rather than once per week, which was my original goal. I update the remainder of my Gully Brook Press website, namely the newsletter and virtual museum, every other month, and so far that seems to be working. Originally I had planned on once per month, but I couldn't manage it. I think the March-April 2003 focus will be on historic preservation.

My ideas about electronic journaling have evolved, but some of my early impressions contained a bit of truth, too. There is an aspect that I noted early on, this is just another forum of ignorance, the kind of thing that makes me turn off the radio and television, that leads to flames on discussion boards, the sort of reasoning that I struggle to get students not to embrace. There are too many psuedo-journalism rants and not enough well-crafted writing. Everyone’s a commentator. I am reminded of a line of Kathleen Turner’s in “Peggy Sue Got Married;” she was under the stars with the rebel from high school, and he was showing off, trying to shock her, spouting crappy poetry. Her “yuck” is very elaborate, and then she advises him about his future career: “try to write something beautiful.”

I am struck by the anger. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, as I have noticed it for about the past decade or more in other aspects of life too, there’s plenty on NPR and Fox News. Whether the media is influencing the culture or vice versa, I don’t know. But there are too many hateful lyrics in songs, too much sarcastic dialogue on television sit-coms, too much shouting in cable news. Sure, it’s all part of our rights, and it’s good to express thoughts and have dialogue. There is something exciting about communication, and how it has changed, and at the same time remained the same. (See yesterday's entry.) Personally, though, I am sick of loud, ignorant people on the so-called left and right. To me, this isn’t art, or even news.

Certainly there are way too many angry drivers on the road; this became more apparent in my quest to get a license. So I gave up. I think I’m just not mad enough to drive. Sometimes I click randomly at weblogs.com; I like the recently updated list because it isn’t sensitive to popularity. I find interesting things this way, often a lot more interesting than the usual suspects. But I find anger too. Do people only feel inspired when they are upset about something? Are they just spoiled? Or is being happy out of fashion?

A few days ago I was listening to the NPR station. Local commentator Paul Elisha was so angry I had to stop and take note, instead of tuning it out or turning it off, as I usually do when my private thoughts are more interesting than the speaker. Sparked by a pro-life rally in Washington, he argued in an editorial even more irrational than what’s now commonplace that abortion opponents are responsible for - well, just about every negative policy and belief in society you can name. One that comes to mind that made no sense at all was environmental destruction. I was speechless; too bad I can’t say the same for Mr. Elisha. At that moment, I resolved to never make a donation to the station again. We’ve never given huge sums but we do listen and enjoy some of the programming. We have contributed here and there during fund drives. So another place will benefit instead. My favorite charity - the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society - is more worthy anyway.

Part of the "shouting" problem may be the whole millennium idea; that people become obsessed with doomsday logic when centuries change - Y2K being even more scary. And there may be a tinge of the fear of death; the majority cannot imagine that times before, or after their own lives mattered as much. It is an unthinkable concept, that life goes on - do we matter?

Back to the Internet diaries, the whole idea of an A-list surprised me. That isn’t something I predicted. Again, I don’t know why, because why should the electronic world be immune to petty cliques and mob mentality? It’s only another social grouping, albeit using modern tools. Sometimes I amuse myself by thinking of the whole A-list concept, that I suppose it is payback time in a way. Seems to me that there are a lot of ejournalists who are or were geeks or nerds or whatever label is appropriate. Former dot-commers who now have a lot of time on their hands. Some consider themselves writers (which I mistakenly assumed would be the majority when I started) but many do not.

I think 90% of nerds probably were wishing to be included with the popular kids in high school, if only they had better clothes, cooler parents, a car and maybe tweezed eyebrows and a few less zits. They really weren’t above all that, most were as shallow as the jocks, they just had better grades. So now they are empowered by a keyboard, and well, it could be that aging has been kind (if not there’s always Photoshop). I'm not exempting myself from the nerd label by the way, although the truth is I've always been closer to that vast group that occupies the unremarkable middle, in spite of my being fairly studious. And not once have I wished to join a clique.

I'm still not sure about self-censoring, and how much is a good idea. The public nature of ejournaling makes that question even more complicated. I'm also not certain if the time it will take me to write here frequently would be better spent writing short stories, query letters and working on a book. As long as I remain productive, I have always thought journal writing is good practice, keeps the words flowing, and encourages more writing. So it will be important for me to keep track of whether that is true.

Another surprise, and my final thought on the year (at least for now), is that I believe I received more feedback when I sent essays via email to a group I called “test readers.” But using that method there were no anonymous visitors from Google. I dug out a bound journal that I bought at Borders & Books last year and have started to do a bit of writing in that, too. I guess some things lend themselves to paper.

Oh! My sister, maker of Annie McSpirit soap, has many talents. She sells some of the folk art she makes on ebay. Lucindy is one of her more ambitious pieces (I think the link won't work after the auction ends on March 6).

Myrtle McSpirit
SCHENECTADY Myrtle McSpirit, 98, died Saturday, February 8, 2003 at Kingsway Arms Nursing Center where she had resided since 1975. A former resident of Albany, she had worked as a seamstress and as a factory worker in a bottling plant. She had no known surviving relatives. A service will be held 11 a.m. Wednesday, February 12, 2003 at Zwack & Sons, 633 Central Ave., Albany. Interment will follow in Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands. (Copied from the Albany Times Union, February 11, 2003)

Yesterday a new Chronicle of Higher Education came in the mail, and the cover story about disposing of old computers caught my eye. I thought it would make a good basis for a journal entry. But Myrtle McSpirit got in the way. I couldn't wait for Blogger; I whipped out my bound green volume (where I cheat on the ejournal) to scribble my thoughts on paper. Sometimes typing isn't quite the same.

I'd seen Myrtle's obituary in the paper yesterday, and I decided I would look up that name in Mimmie's genealogy notes. I vaguely remembered that Mimmie's brother had moved to Albany, and that Myrtle was his wife's name. I thought, after I confirm this, I'll send the obituary to my mother. And isn't it interesting, if Mimmie was living she would be 98, so she was the same age as her half-brother's wife.

As I re-read the death notice, it struck me: how sad. Not that 98 years is anything but a good long life, but the part about no living relatives, and the fact that the obituary was so brief, with no mention of Myrtle's mother and father, husband or daughter. Or even her birth date. Others on the obituary page have lengthy columns, mentions of churches attended, club memberships, hobbies, colleges degrees, names of beloved pets. And then there's Myrtle's: no relatives, she worked as a seamstress and as a factory worker in a bottling plant, and she spent the past 28 years in a nursing home.

I remembered the trip to St. Ann's Cemetery, sparked by finding Mimmie's genealogy notebook and by my sister's trip to Ireland, and the markerless graves. I had a good thought for my query, which must have arrived at the publisher by now. There are too many books and page-long obituaries on the Marilyn Monroes and Eleanor Roosevelts (though I mean no disrespect to either), and too few on the Mimmies and Myrtles of this world. I don't know a lot more than the obituary, but here is what I found in Mimmie's notes: Myrtle's husband was Lawrence McSpirit, who drowned in the Hudson River and is buried in Albany. Their daughter's name was also Myrtle.

Dancing around, reminiscing about childhood. In Dear Abby recently, someone wrote in to ask what is the next line in an old nursery rhyme they remembered. Yesterday and today, response letters were printed. I didn't recall the quoted fragment from the earlier letter, "if "ifs" and "ans" were pots and pans," but a reader yesterday said the following line is "there would be no need for tinkers." They also reported that the beginning of the poem is "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride; if turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side." That part rang a bell, and got me hunting for an old book. (Yes, hunting, not looking.) Most of the people who wrote in to Abby probably are older than me, and they recalled their mothers or grandmothers quoting the verse to them. The book I am seeking is called something like Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes, and I think it was second hand at the time it was given to my mother by her grandmother. This is not precise, because the hunt was stalled by the sudden memory of the book on a bookshelf at the other house in Samsonville. As I recall, it was in need of TLC even before I read it many times as a kid. And even then I knew that a few of the rhymes were not PC (we didn't call it that, though). Anyway there's something else I will do this weekend besides swim!

Tidbits on BlogSisters about children's freedom and safety in the past and today; about playing sports as a girl; also about children's fantasy stories in books and popular movies. Then, Elaine wrote a couple posts on related subjects - vintage copies of children's literature, and the innovative sharing of books. I love everything about the idea of bookcrossing.com, but my attachment to my volumes makes it hard to part with all but duplicate copies (except for Mark Twain, where I jealously guard the dupes too), even if this obsession makes it hard to fit anything bigger than a loveseat in the livingroom (it's tight, but two humans, two canines, and a feline manage fine). Unless I weeded books I didn't care for much; but who wants to spread those?

Anyway, I expanded my hunt somewhat and came up with five children's books from days gone by. Three my mother gave me as a gift for my birthday last year: Little Pets Pleasure Book (n.d.), The Three Little Kittens (1922), and Noah's Ark (1889). The latter belonged to Edna Merrihew, a distant relative that we discovered by accident in our genealogy quest. Some papers of hers were among the contents of an old house that my cousin, who sells antiques, acquired. The illustrations are gorgeous! A fourth is Peter and Polly in Autumn (1918); this is a book that my mother and her brother read at the Bushkill School. It is for more advanced beginning readers and I liked it a lot when I was a kid, too. The last is from my own carefree, headed to the general store on a spider bike without a helmet days as a supremely "non-jock," also "non-girly" girl, and it is Pinocchio, a very brief, but wonderful living story book version from 1960.

I don't know what became of the longer Pinocchio story that my father read to me over and over when I was small, but last year I bought a 1986 English translation of the original and read it through. It had lost none of its charm. I am remembering the pair of marionettes, Pinocchio and Gepetto, that Daddy would dance around, acting out the story and other adventures. How much I protested when they had to go to sleep in their shoe box home, to have their strings untangled the following day. They now are suspended from the rafters in the garage at my parents' house, and over the years those two have acquired some peers in a pair of puppets my brother got in Mexico, and a space man complete with green lightbulb head that my father made as part of a Halloween costume. The puppet who wanted to be a real boy and his woodcarver father, after a long break, expanded their repertoire a few years ago, and in the company of the other marionettes (sans the space man, however) they made a couple of appearances on a cardboard stage that once was a washing machine box, taking part in a parody of the puppeteer's favorite show on the Nashville Network.

A while ago I posted on BlogSisters about my feelings on the past, and I followed up here with something lighthearted. I enjoy researching family history; sometimes I hear from people all over the country who have encountered my name in their own searching and wish to make a connection. Most recently someone related to my grandmother Mimmie's family contacted me, and since I have spent since 1996 writing a book about Mimmie, this was especially thrilling.

Also, I am interested in U.S. history in general, and I subscribe to (and love) American Heritage magazine. In the current issue, a letter to the editor about an article from the October 2001 issue on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the author's response, sparked me to hunt through my magazine stack (one more time I was glad to be a packrat, and yes, I do have to "hunt," rather than "look") and read the story in question.

It is kind of surprising that I didn't read the story at the time. Also back in October a person researching genealogy - this time on my grandfather's family - got in touch with me. Recently they emailed me again and I had to go through my records to figure out who they were! This would be no big deal except that I am blessed with a really great memory. But, I guess after 9/11 things were blurry for quite some time. (No, it wasn't because of turning 40!)

Anyway, back to September 1857. The American Heritage story has been haunting me for days. Then, yesterday I discovered that the article has also been posted on the Web here.

Since jf is away, the Tuesday Too was up early this week, but I decided to wait.

1.) What is the most important thing going on in your life this week?

This is a fairly routine week. I guess most significant is evaluating my students' discussion and journal assignments, and giving them a mid-semester idea of how they are doing on those areas of the course. Seems odd to do this after only three weeks! On the trite side, working on the pool this weekend will be the most important fun thing.


2.) Tell us about your quintessential faux pas.

Several years ago, after I got serious about being published, I sent one of my still-favorite (and still unpublished) short-shorts, "For Sale," to House Beautiful. A few weeks later, I received a letter from an editor, saying the story was lovely, but too short for their magazine. A telephone number was listed, and an invitation to call and chat was included. Now, as all writers know, any sort of personal and positive letter, even if it is a rejection, is a big victory for an aspiring author, and I was thrilled.

I gave it some thought, then picked up the phone and called. In my world, higher education administration, that number would have gotten me the editor's secretary, and this is what I expected. But when I asked the person who answered for the editor, it turns out the number was the editor's direct line. I had developed a confidence in my profession as an educator, but as a hungry would-be writer, taken by surprise, I had somewhere around zero self-esteem. I stumbled over what I planned to say, then finally made my pitch, which was to increase the length of "For Sale" to be within House Beautiful's guidelines by adding in some elaboration on - oh, I can't remember exactly what any more, but this was the general idea. She replied, "that story was perfect the way you wrote it; I don't think adding to it would be appropriate. I was thinking maybe you had some ideas for other stories you would like to tell me about." I was speechless; felt like a greenhorn; I had absolutely nothing prepared. I said I didn't have any, I can't remember doing a thing to close any sort of deal or even leave the door open for future exploration, and so -- feeling humiliated and pretty silly, I let a major market opportunity slip through my fingers. But I did learn from that experience.


3.) Why would you most likely be nominated to speak your mind, and what is it you're going to say?

I do speak my mind about educational issues when teaching the Social Foundations of Education, but I try to be fair and as unbiased as possible in my approach, and open to the students' varied perspectives, as I don't believe the lectern should be the bully pulpit. Also, I am interested and experienced in online delivery, the status of adjuncts, and student ethics; these are topics I sometimes share with others.

As an administrator, I made presentations on a regular basis, about mathematics assessment and student preparation level for the study of college mathematics. I continue to be asked, on occasion, to speak on these topics. (In recent years, I don't always agree to do it.)

In terms of personal interests, I have made presentations about various aspects of history: primarily local/regional, and genealogical research, and these are the subjects about which I am most likely to be asked to talk.

What do I say on these subjects? Too much to list here, and some of it is rather dry! I have information on my Gully Brook Press website about history (one room schools), genealogy (here and here), and mathematics assessment (the latter is an excerpt from my dissertation); the July updates that are in the works will focus broadly on education.

It's late and I have an early day planned; Ma & I are going to do a little cemetery research in the morning, part of our genealogy quest. Tonight I had to download my course database on this computer, because the schedule is intense, and for the first week or so the students need a lot of help navigating the whole idea of online delivery. I think during summer session I am going to have to spend a lot more time on the computer on weekends when I'm here, even with the dial-up connection instead of the cable one that has spoiled me, and even though outdoors calls me. So, I thought I would take a few minutes to make an entry in my ejournal (I can never go with the flow, and I prefer that over what I consider to be the very ugly b-word) from this house, which is something I have wanted to do for a while. The garden here is doing great! The borage in particular is thriving. I picked some lettuce. I did my volunteer stint at the museum room today; there are never many visitors, and on a beautiful day like this, what with all the high school graduations scheduled, people weren't exactly pouring into the library. So I passed the time by reading; first a chapter or two in John Adams (I got it for Christmas, but my interest waned a bit when I heard the plagiarism allegations). Now I am up to his election to President. Then, the library was having a book sale, so I bought two paperbacks (as if I need more books; already there is almost no room in either house for anything else) - Ethan Frome, which I love but did not own, and a book by Margaret Atwood that I hadn't heard of before. Right now, reading is more appealing to me than typing...'night.

Over at Testzone, jf has been doing some beautiful and bittersweet writing about her parents' aging, and a related issue, death. When I have written about wondering whether it is good or bad to be introspective and self-conscious, this is one important part of the consideration. I read jf's entry and asked, "How do we learn to navigate between the paralysis of a depressing awareness and the freedom of a shallow denial?"

I did a lot of reading on the subject when I was a teenager; recently I unpacked a box of books that had long been in storage, and there were Life After Life, On Death and Dying, The Evidence for Life After Death, and Death Be Not Proud, among others. More recently I read the supremely comforting Embraced by the Light. In college I took the anthropology of death, and music and death. And my connection to the past, to history and genealogy, to cemeteries, objects and records, is related.

Of course I've done some writing on the subject; from Gully Brook Press there's Compost Pile, and my tributes Bus Ride (privately printed), Howie and Penny at Dogstar and Sirius (or go to Sirius' memorial webpage from the Port Authority).

I like lists. I've been blessed with a sharp memory, but I still jot things down so that I won't forget to buy trash bags, cat food, or soap for S'ville. I always made "to do" lists for work, but lately, working at home, I become so focused in a project - contract work or curriculum updates that I haven't been good about keeping a prioritized work list. It hit me last night that some things are slipping through the cracks; I may forget to pay a bill, or send a card for someone's special day. In the past, working elsewhere, the bi-weekly payday was the trigger to pay bills, and the lunch time stroll took place near a Hallmark shop.

So, I resolved to make a to do list today, and in the process realized I needed to complete my faculty activity report for 2001-02. It is optional for adjuncts, but encouraged, and with the dismal state of the budget in post-9/11 New York, it is a good idea to trumpet one's activities. Computer forms still leave a lot to be desired. I first downloaded the form and intended to complete it in a word processor. Any time I share a document with others, I use a Microsoft product, since it is the "standard." And so - of course! about halfway through, Word crashed. I had saved the document, but when I went to reopen it - I got that lovely message about it being already in use and available solely as read only. After cursing Bill Gates, the heat (I had neglected to put the A/C on because it makes special needs dog Sophie uncomfortable), and Bill Gates again, I thought, I'll try the PDF version, and use USPS to send it. When I opened it, I discovered that the Word version had some differences in format; in other words, in the word processor, there were tabs etc. that were getting in the way. At this point, I figured, I'll get out my old Smith Corona typewriter for the top of the form, and I'll cut and paste the remainder from Word Perfect.

I can't remember the last time I used the typewriter, but I had been thinking about it fondly, as I reviewed my old writing recently. It was coated with dust, as well as Rudy's and Edna's hair (and probably Howie's and Penny's too - my beloved late dogs) [Sophie is hairless]. It still worked, but the ribbon and correction tape didn't, and I couldn't find a spare. In those cash poor days, I doubt I stocked up they way I do now, with printer cartridges and other office supplies. So I snapped the case shut. Oh well.

I proceeded to cut and paste the entire report, listening to Five for Fighting compete with my box fan. Glue stick in hand, I remembered how many times, pre-computer, I used my exacto knife and cutting mat to make magical layouts, how crude was the procedure, but how much tangible pleasure those simple tasks generated. Mind wandering, I mentally skipped to the next item on my list, which was locating Anne's address in time to get a card in the mail so she can receive it on her birthday on Monday.

I met Anne on the first day of kindergarten. I am the baby of the family, and at the time my oldest brother was 17. He drove me to school that day; I ran up the steps and into the school without looking back; I couldn't wait to go to school, like the big kids. Anne is also the baby of her family, but she spent that first day, and much of the next few weeks, sitting on the teacher's lap, crying.

We became fast friends, Anne and I, despite our differences. For the remainder of our young years, we were best friends. I remember riding our bicycles to Skin's, the general store, and sitting there on the porch, eating ice cream and candy and pepperoni. I remember long, carefree summers spent swimming and playing with our dogs, swinging on the swingsets at the town park, and setting up tables at the end of the driveway, where we sold our mothers' old costume jewelry and made $7 each. We talked on the phone and wrote many letters to each other, even though we spent nearly every day together.

At the end of 8th grade, Anne and her family moved about 300 miles away. We stayed in touch, writing letters, with occasional phone calls and more infrequently, visiting. The differences between us remain; I pursued higher education, she chose not to. I married young; she waited. I have no children; she has two girls. But our views and values remain similar, and our friendship continues, strong and unwavering through 36 years. The shared experience of trips to Skin's, our beloved and beautiful small hometown, reverence for our families, and hating gym class in school will bind us forever. Interestingly, we both are involved in education; she works at the school that her daughters attend, and I teach and write on the subject. Perhaps, even for someone like me who intended to pursue a field that was not female-dominated, the societal pull of so-called "women's work" cannot be denied. Or perhaps school is just so comfortable.

Due to my interest in history and genealogy, I have copies of old letters, between my grandmother and her sister; between a distant relative whom I did not know and some of her friends and relatives; and between another distant relative and her future husband. People with little formal education wrote beautifully, regularly, poetically. Several years ago, when email was fairly new, I remember reading somewhere that it was resurrecting the lost art of letter writing. That's so wonderful.

Sadly, Anne does not have a home computer, or use email. So our correspondence follows the predictable pattern I have observed in my grandmother's and great aunt's letters: Christmas, birthdays, other occasions, and thank you notes. A yearly chronicle of milestones. Last year, when she turned 40, I was all set to attend her surprise party, but my body refused to cooperate. My schedule was hectic, and I came down with bronchitis, nearly pneumonia, and was lectured to stay home, or else, by the doctor. I had a low-key celebration for my 40th, which turned out to be a wise plan, since it arrived exactly one week after 9/11, and no one, including me, felt like celebrating anything. In her letter at that time, she told me about her new house, and sent me her soon-to-be address.

I didn't hear from her at Christmas...this never happens, and so I have been a bit worried ever since. I neglected to enter her new address in my database. I calm my worries by thinking that in her move, she probably misplaced my address, also. An internet search turns up only her old address and phone number. So sending a card meant searching through a box of old papers for last year's birthday card, a task I detest. I'm happy to report that I just checked that item off my new to do list...good thing I am a pack rat! Happy 41st Birthday, Annie!

Welcome to Gully Brook Press

The website of freelance writer Gina
Giuliano

I spent a few days making updates to my website, some technical and some content. Content-wise, I focused primarily on genealogy research, and a little on spring. I am continuing to sort through old papers, and I find some real gems, and some embarassments. I have the feeling this site is going to crash or freeze of something, so I am not going to devote any more time to writing this entry...