I was ready to give up and call it quits. Still at my post, I yelled, "We need an exterminator!" If you have a pet, it should work for you. Growing up, we had lots of cats and they would frequently bring a prize to our back patio. I miss my cats, but someone in our house is allergic to them. So as a married adult, I have always had a dog. Usually we have had two dogs at once, but since our little dachshund died, we've had just our pit bull mutt, who doesn't do anything. But the dog before him was quite a worker. He caught things all the time. We lived in a ranch house then with a large back yard which housed an oak tree where Japanese ardisia grew around it as ground cover. Richard, our dachshund, spent most of the day chasing squirrels and rooting out toads and lizards. You'd look out and see nothing but his tail flicking above the ardisia. One day I was in my son's bedroom looking out the window when I noticed a large mama squirrel disappearing through a newly chewed hole under the eaves. I reported my findings to Hubs and that weekend we had the Great Richard Adventure. I was posted inside my son's bedroom to keep lookout for the squirrel while Hubby chased her out of the attic. I hollered when she evacuated. Hubby then scampered down the inside attic ladder and ran outside and around the house to where the newly chewed hole was located. I could see through the window that he had wisely placed his gardening ladder there. After I hollered and the squirrel ran away, I patiently waited for Hubs to arrive at his second post. While I waited, the mama squirrel hopped up on the gardening ladder. I watched as she gingerly tried each new step with gathering confidence. When she was near the top of it, she hopped up and on back inside our attic. I thought I should go tell Hubs this news since he was not yet at his outside post. Through the house and around the back I went. When I arrived at the location of all the activity, Hubs was up on the ladder. I could see he had his tools and board ready to close the opening in the eaves. He saw me round the corner and said, "I need you inside. You're supposed to watch for the squirrel." Something in his voice told me lay off asking him what took him so long to report to his station. I decided I should just mind what he said. So I reported back to my station inside the house. When I was safely at my station inside my son's room, I knocked on the window at Hubs who was still up on the gardening ladder. "She's gone back inside!" "What?" "The squirrel. She's back inside." He couldn't hear me through the window. I tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. So, I went outside, around the house again to tell him. "The squirrel went back inside the house." " What?" He dropped his hammer. Why didn't you scare her away?" We did the whole thing over. Me at the window. Hubs up in the attic chasing out the squirrel. Except this time I had a sauce pot and stainless steel spoon in my hand in order to make noise to scare the squirrel away should she attempt reentry. We managed to open the window so she would hear the racket. She not only reentered, she brought some acorns with her. That squirrel was determined. But so was my husband. Round and round and round we went. He chased the squirrel out of the attic and ran outside. I banged on my pot and hollered. The squirrel reentered. I was ready to give up and call it quits. Still at my post, I yelled, "We need an exterminator,!" When I got no response, I yelled it again louder. Where was that man? No longer on the gardening ladder, I thought he had gone back up in the attic. I went to the bottom of the attic ladder. "Hello?" I yelled. When no one responded, I climbed up it. The view from the top was impressive. You could see all the way across the house from here. But I saw no husband, and no squirrel. "Have we called a truce?" I wondered. I climbed back down, and went outside. I could see nothing. And then from around the corner of our house I spied my husband with our small dachshund, Richard, in his arms. He was entering the house through the back patio door. "Hey! Where are you going with that dog?" I queried. READ MY NEXT POST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IN "THE GREAT RICHARD ADVENTURE"...COMING SOON!Maybe Boo, as a young man, ran with the Cunninghams, because they were the only ones who would accept him. Or maybe there is something more sinister at play here. There is so much going on in the great American Novel, To Kill a Mocking Bird. You've got your basic rape trial. You've got your Jim Crow South. You've got your racial prejudice. And you've got a great historical document about small town America in the South in the 1930's.
It is also a coming of age novel. It is a mystery. Pretty much it is everything. Take it out of it's time period, rewrite it with the same story and employ the same suspenseful elements, and I don't think it would be as riveting or as great. When people talk about this novel, they generally refer to how the trial and all that went with it are such a great reflection of what was wrong with our country during this time period. To some degree, the same things are still what is wrong with our country. But one huge part of this novel that is frequently overlooked is the Radleys. They were a white family living in this setting, yet they were somehow shunned from the community. Some would say they suffered from self-inflicted shunning, as we are told that the community always welcomed them. But, I wonder, what kind of welcome? Superficial, most likely. Take for example, Miss Maudie's over zealous sharing to the children about the story of when Boo stabbed his father in the leg. That shows how even Miss Maudie was not only prone to gossip, but willing to speak ill of her immediate neighbors. At a young age, Boo Radley ran with the wrong crowd. He fell into trouble and was put under house arrest, so to speak, by his own father. Many people have written great critiques of this novel and what Boo Radley represents. And sure, I know that Boo represents a kind of foil to Tom Robinson. Boo is rumored to be insane. His father uses the weapon of "religion" to keep him in his place. I don't know which character has a sadder existance in the novel, Boo Radley--alone and looking for connection, Mayella Ewell--alone and looking for connection, or Tom Robinson--on trial for a rape he did not commit. Tom Robinson suffers the most, as he ultimately looses his life. But who's life is sadder? In the movie, "To Kill a Mocking Bird," you want to think that after the movie ends, Boo Radley finds the connection with his community that he has been looking for. However, that thinking would be so incorrect. Most likely, Boo goes back inside his house and nothing else happens to him that makes the community news. That kind of ending and existance is in keeping with what we know about mentally ill people in the 1930's. Largely warehoused in institutions, the mentally ill and the intellectually disabled were discouraged from any kind of mingling with the neurologically normal beings. I think that the Radleys always knew that something was unusual about Boo. Perhaps a diagnosis, some meds and therapy would have made life for him much more productive and interesting. But those were not choices for them back them. At the first sign of trouble, (his arrest for "assualt and battery") Mr. Robinson steps in, promises the judge that he will keep Boo under lock and key. He therefore avoids sending Boo to the industrial school where the other boys were sent. Why don't Boo's parents let him take that opportunity to attend the industrial school? Harper Lee makes a strong point of telling us that this school is the best of its kind in the country. The other boys all learned a trade, and one of them became an engineer. What if Boo Radley had an intellectual disability? He may have looked "normal" as many with intellectual disabilities do. He may have even been able to keep up with his peers academically to a degree, or he may have been able to cover his deficits by having fairly good social skills. I surmise Boo's parents didn't allow him that opportunity because they knew what would happen. The knew he would not be able to keep up academically. Or, they had perhaps seen his hot temper or loss of control. Or they knew he vehemently was opposed to change. Or perhaps they knew about his lack of ability to fit in and follow the normal social code. Maybe Boo, as a young man, ran with the Cunninghams, because they were the only ones who would accept him. Or maybe there is something more sinister at play here. Maybe the Cunninghams knew Boo was vunerable. Maybe they pretended to be his friends to see what they could get him to do. Maybe the assault and battery was on a female. Or a person of color. Or a female of color. It would fit that the Cunninghams thought they could get away with something against a person of color. What if the Cunninghams were looking for a female they could do terrible things to, and befriended Boo to get him to help them get said female to trust them? What if Mr. Radley got the charge of rape reduced to assault and battery? Maybe it wasn't even a female they were after. This was the time of lynchings, after all. Would a lynching be something to keep the townspeople from talking about the terrible Cunninghams? What I find fascinating is the link of the Boo Radley back story to people's attitudes today about the mentally ill and intellectually disabled. If you are among the fortunate with q mental illness or intellectual disability, you have a family who is willing to risk everything to keep you safe. And perhaps the Radleys, by keeping Boo a prisoner in his own home, were risking everything they had. However, what about all the other characters in this novel? Who besides his own family acts benign toward Boo? Atticus and the Sheriff Tate seem offer Boo Radley the respect he deserves. But so many of the characters do not interact with him at all. For example, on the night of the fire, Scout does not realize until much later in the book that Boo was the one who put a blanket around her shoulders. Yet, the whole neighborhood was outside that night. Wouldn't they all have seen Boo, even if Scout did not notice he was there. But no one acknowledged him at all. And like so many characters in the town of Maycomb, many people today will not risk engagement with someone who is mentally ill or intellectually disabled. I have found that people will often choose to ignore them rather than communicate with them. And we all pay they price for their ignorance. It felt so strange to stand on that wooden porch at night like that. We were completely isolated and alone. Yet maybe not so alone. A few years back, my family took a summer vacation to Dollywood, located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It is the theme park owned by singer, songwriter Dolly Parton. Many adventures occured on this trip, due mostly to our decision to stay in a mountain top cabin high in the Smoky Mountains.
Our cabin offered a beautiful view -- and precarious drive to get to it. One night, as we enjoyed the shaded back porch, we noticed black storm clouds rolling in. Hubby went inside to watch the news on television. Later, when it was dark, I also went inside. "They are predicting a treacherous rain storm with possible landslides." I could tell he was worried, but we prepared the children for bed as usual. After they were in bed, I stepped back out on the porch. Looking out from the railing, below, all I could see was deep ravine. The foilage was thick. No telling what kind of critters were lurking just below those brambles. I shuddered a little, knowing that the night before our outside garbage can, although properly locked, had been dumped over by something. Was it a bear, a coon, or a cougar, and would the same creature prowl tonight? Or would he be more inclined to look for someplace nice and dry this evening? There was no moonlight due to the heavy cloud cover, but I could feel the looming mountains over us. They felt so close, I thought I could reach out my hand and touch the one next door, although I knew that wasn't possible. It felt so strange to stand on that wooden porch at night like that. We were completely isolated and alone, yet not so alone. Hubby decided to sleep on the sofa in the living room that night. He said I had been snoring, but I knew he wanted to keep watch on the weather. The communication power in that remote cabin was sketchy at best. How he was able to get the cable television to the local news earlier is a mystery. For most of our stay that week, any television watching was only through DVDs which the cabin owners had provided. There was a library full of oldie, but goldie family movies. I turned in for the night and stretched out in the big queen bed that I temporarily held all to myself. I as drifted off to sleep, the rain begin. The cabin creaked when anyone walked on certain boards. I awoke a few hours later, heard my husband up, probably checking on things. As a matter of fact, I kept periodically waking to hard, pounding, driving rain and roarous claps of thunder. I don't remember a thunder storm sounding so close before. We were at a much higher elevation than our house at home, but this was a hurricane level rain. And much to my surprise, I slept well. Not everyone did that night. But this was such a small and cozy cabin. And there was so much nature all around us. And I knew that we were together, and in spite of the danger of mudslides, and of our cabin breaking off its supports and sliding down the mountain, I felt no fear. When I watch the news about some tragedy or another, I often wonder, why didn't they...? Or did the see it coming? Why didn't they try to get out? There are often so many unanswered questions left for survivorsof natural castatrophies and tragedies to ponder. I don't want to be naive. I know we were in a bad spot that night. Leaving to drive down the mountain to safety might have been more alarming on those steep, slick, wet roads then remaining in that remote cabin. And it was dark. It gets really dark in the wilderness. Like outer space dark. And our car was not equipped for mountain driving. As a matter of fact, during that trip we wore out the brakes and had to get them fixed when we got home. All I know is that I felt protected and safe as I slept through the squall that night. And I hope that my feeling wasn't something I conjured up in my head. I remember thinking somehow that the hand of God was right next door on that other mountain. When I appeared at the breakfast table the next morning, my husband looked haggard and spent. "Wow," I said, "you look like you didn't sleep well." "Of course I didn't sleep well. Did you not hear that storm last night?" "Oh, I heard it," I replied. "I just didn't worry about it." Just then we heard a small voice. "Mommy, last night the sky went bump." "People should feel safe to use the beaches as before." Galveston, Texas. Scientists at the UT Science Center in Galveston, Texas believe they have found a genetic link to the legendary Big Foot, a mysterious furry monster rumored to live among the East Texas Pines. After Hurricane Harvey, authorities recieved several reports of mysterious rock formations washing up on the beaches near Galveston.
On West Beach in Galveston, the same rock formations were found as close together as ten feet. One beach house homeowner reported that his driveway was covered in them. The Galveston County Sheriff's Department investigated and eventually turned everything over to the University of Texas Health Science Center in Galveston. "The is no danger in the rock formations," reported Timothy O'Leary, head of the Unidentified Objects Division. "People should feel safe to use the beaches as before." The scientists have removed most of the rock formations and have scrubbed them for DNA evidence. Teaming with NASA's Department of Unidentified Objects, they discovered that the rocks held trace amounts of DNA, as if someone or something had handled them. Furthermore, the DNA samples were was put into an international data base and all samples were the same. Futhermore, they matched the DNA of the legendary East Texas monster, Bigfoot. However, the DNA match with Bigfoot is only part of the problem. The scientists also discovered other DNA that matched the bottlenose dolphin, a common dolphin found naturally in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists theorize that the bottlenose dolphin may have aquired the DNA of Big Foot from trace amounts of metaamphatamines found in gulf waters due to common, yet secretive, drug trafficing from boat to shore. If that is case, then the Galveston dolphins would be among the first genetically modified mammals in the gulf. "We found genetically modified sea turtles after the B.P. Oil Spill, but there have been no reports of genetically modified mammals in this region," spoke O'Leary. At least one drug cartel and/or street gang has been known to use the blood from the East Texas marsupial as a initiation rite. And the image of Bigfoot is often seen tagged on buildings where gangs are know to hideout. However, the unanswered question is who put the rocks in the strange formation all over Texas beaches after Hurricane Harvey and why? O'Leary answers, "We may have stumbled upon Bigfoot's cousin. A swimming, nocturnal creature related to Bigfoot by DNA, but also, perhaps, related to the dophin. It may be nature's first cross section of cetazeans and bipeds." When asked if he was ready for the notoriety that his scientific findings might bring, O'Leary related that it would not be the first of such fame in his family. "My great grandmother was the owner of a cow that started the Chicago fire of 1871," he said. The booths seemed awfully close together. It was like we were all in school and told to take a test. Except this test was given to us in the janitor's closet. I early voted. And while I enjoyed my American privledge, I noticed that the other voters were like children behaving rather badly. I am under the impression that voting should be a sacred experience. Apparently, I stand alone in this idea.
First of all, there was no sign posted about cell phone usage that I could see, but people were using their cell phones while waiting in line, even inside the building where the voting was occuring. In my hometown, we voted at the local library. It was pretty big. You could probably use your cell phone there, but not in the same room as the voting occured. In the place where I early voted, it was all one room--line, sign-in, and voting booths. The line snaked around and squished up nearly against the sign-in table. The only evidence that we should not have our cell phones out was a kind lady telling people to put them away. People ignored her like high school students with a substitute teacher. However, soon I was at the voting booth. The booths seemed awfully close together. It was like we were all in school and told to take a test. Except this test was given to us in the janitor's closet. You could, if you wanted to, look right at your classmate's test paper to see what his answers were. I thought my vote was private. I guess no one looked at mine, but the lady next to me stage whispered to me, "I can't move my page ahead." Then, when I did not reply, she said it again only not in any kind of whisper. With my eyes straight ahead and my mouth not moving, I whispered back, "Raise your hand and ask for help." I haven't felt that sly since taking algebra. She did raise her hand, and someone came over and helped her. I thought it was going to be Mrs. Lebuff, my blue-haired senior English teacher, who you did not mess with. However, it was only kind lady again who did in fact help her. I imagine the cell phones of the people in line during that interlude were at an all time high. So please, turn off your cell phones and go vote. The adults do not know what is really going on or what to do about Ramona. But Ramona and the reader both know the truth. Good old Ramona Geraldine Quimby. She's the girl that made me love books. If you do not know her, she is the main character in a series of books by Beverley Cleary, the acclaimed and award winning children's literature author. Ramona Quimby was the first of her kind in that she was the first children's book heroine who could behave badly, but garner the reader's sympathy at the same time. She was a spin-off from another book series by Cleary , the books based on the character, Henry Huggins.
My brother introduced me to Henry Huggins by showing me the book he had checked out of the library, Henry Huggins, when we were both kids. I read it and went on to read the entire series. But somewhere during the course of that series, I came upon the first in the Ramona series, Ramona, the Pest. Told from another character's point of view, Ramona's antics could appear to be quite annoying. But told from her own point of view, Ramona behavior seems quite logical. She is just the misunderstood youngest child. I fell in love with Ramona, the pest. The irony is not lost on me that I was first introduced to these books by my older brother. Brothers and sisters have always had a unique way of relating to each other. There is often one upmanship, showing off, name-calling, and (O.K., I'll say it) downright meanness in sibling relationships. There is a whole body of research on sibling rivalry. So, I fell in love with Ramona Quimby for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is Cleary's writing. But why I really think I loved Ramona is because she often saw what was unfair and acted on it. Just like in Ramona, the Pest, when Ramona is suspended from school for pulling another girl's hair, but, much to the adults' dismay, Ramona refuses to return to school. The adults do not know what is really going on or what to do about Ramona. But Ramona and the reader both know the truth. They know that the girl who got her hair pulled called Ramona 'a pest.' So Ramona pulled her hair in retaliation. Only Ramona got caught, not the name-caller. And this frustration is what lies behind every single younger sibling's outraged cry, "He started it!" Do you suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder? Read my blog to learn how I made peace with it. Today I am most thankful for the color gray. It is the tone of winter twilight, the hue of shorter days. I was able to sit in my 'studio' gameroom behind our house today and work on some overdue projects. With one child away at college and with the end of the longer, lighter days of summer, hardly anyone uses that room anymore. I have claimed it as my she-shed.
Normally, I think I would have regretted the creeping darkness, the dimmer daylight. I think at some times in my life November dusk actually depressed me. But today I was master of all I surveyed. And I found the shadows and approaching gloom extremely restful. From my perch behind an old desk, I could see the lights inside the house. I knew that in a little while dinner would be ready, and we would all gather round the table again. Meanwhile, I kept at it. I was working on a scrapbook project. I listened to NPR on the radio. My faithful dog lay nearby. All the while the day was fading. I occasionally glanced up. Yes, it was darker than it was a few minutes ago. There is no clock out there, and my phone was in the house. I counted out how many more parts of my book I would complete before returning to the house. Just one or two more pages to finish. I regarded the world around me a final time. Wow, it is really dark out there now. How did that happen so fast? Eventually hunger took over and I went inside. But still I wondered. What is it about the grayness than entices? Some say that gray is not even a color. Just a blending of black and white, both light and darkness. It is the in-between. Some people do not see gray. All ideas to them are either black or white. I think the purpose for November is for us to remember the gray. There is and always will be light. And paradoxically, the absence of it. We soon lost jacket number three. I had purchased that one at Walmart to save money--figuring it may not return anyway. I hope you have enough jackets. We live in a warm climate, so what we usually need is just a jacket or a thick sweater to get us through the fall and winter mornings, and then the day warms up. People shed their outer garments. And I suppose that is why so many of these things get lost.
I would always put my children's names in big black permament marker on anything they took out of the house. Shoes, coats, jackets, sweaters, backpacks, lunch boxes, show-and-tell items, the class pet that came home for a weekend--nothing was exempt from my magic marker mania. I could never phamtom why so many things from our home never made the trip back. And the item that was the most frustrating of all was the winter-wear wardrobe. In the wee small grades of elementary school, my son went through five jackets in one year. On cold mornings, I would send him to school in a jacket. And he would come home without it. The first time this happened, I Told him to bring it home the next day, and I figured he would. I figured wrong. The next day he went to school with the second jacket. It also did not come home. Now we were down two coats. That week I went to his school and inquired about lost and found items. The school office lady showed me a room full of discarded school day items. Jackets, t-shirts, eye glasses, old sack lunches that had seen better days, and two shoes that didn't match. It was astounding to behold. "Why doesn't anyone do anything about all of this?" I queried. Office lady only shrugged. Sadly, none of my son's missing items was among the rubble. One warm day deep into the winter semester, I picked my son up early from school. The class was in Motor Skills, a fancy name for P.E. I found my son and told the teacher he was leaving. She checked him out and turned back to watching an in- progress game that looked fairly chaotic to me. In the corner of the small elementary gymnasium, I saw a pile of coats. "What's all that?" I asked. A small girl who was standing on the sidelines told me, "People just leave them there. They get hot during the games." Of course I went over there and dug through the pile. We left that day with only the light jacket he had worn to school that morning because I marched him back to his classroom to make sure he got it. Since his teacher was on a break, I expressed my concern about the lost jackets to her. She told me she always turned in everything left behind to Lost and Found at the end of each week. By now I was visiting the school's Lost and Found fairly often. Her confession sounded a bit strange. Then there was the march to P.E. to consider. If a kid wore a jacket to P.E., then shed it during physical exertion, my son's lost jackets should have been in the gym. They were not. He is my first child. I chalked all of the lost items up to novice parental thinking, "That's just the way kid's are." We soon lost jacket number three. I had purchased that one at Walmart to save money--figuring it may not return anyway. The next two jackets I bought at Goodwill. The second time I did this, I actually looked through all of the children's jackets to see if any of my son's jacket had mysteriously made their way there. Then one day in the spring, there was a class field trip to a nearby farm. I took off work to attend as a parent volunteer where I enjoyed chatting with the other class moms. The topic of missing items briefly came up. But what the moms were mainly concerned about was the presence of an extra kid. The teacher had brought her own three year daughter on the trip. "I'm sure bringing your own baby on a field trip is against the rules, somewhere," spoke one of them. "She must have wanted to save money on her baby sitter," said another. The days had been sunny and bright, but during the course of the afternoon, the wind picked up, and ominous clouds began to gather. Some people brought out rain garments. I had not thought to bring any for my son or me, as it was already mid-March. We were out of child size jackets anyway. I never replaced the fifth lost jacket, as it was almost Spring, anyway. However, I miscalculated the spring rainy season. As we all headed to the big red barn before the buckets came down, I fell instride with the teacher. Her little daughter ran a few feet ahead of us. We exchanged pleasantries. I complemented her daughter's attire. She was wearing a bright red wind breaker. "My son used to have one just like that," I said nonchalantly. Then as we closed in on the small child, I noticed the strings in the hooded hat had been chewed on. And the bottom was frayed in the exact same places as the one we owned that had been lost. "Hey, wait a minute!" I exclaimed. "That is my son's jacket." I gently raised up the hood that was dangling on the little girl's back. "Look it even has his name in the hood. " And there was my son's name in bold black marker. "It was left in the classroom," the teacher said with a shrug. Just then a huge clap of thunder sounded. The air began to turn cool. People began running toward the barn. "Give it back," I commanded. "Right now?" the teacher asked as rain began to pelt. "Of course right now," I said looking up ahead. "He's starting to get soaking wet." So there and then, in the middle of a spring storm, I gratefully collected jacket number one. Are you wrapping way too many Christmas Gifts? Do this instead.Dear November,
I hope you go by really slowly because the following is a list of all the things I must get done by the end of you.
November, you can see that I have so many things to do before you go away this year. It is imperative that I get my do to list done so that during the month of December I can practice the three P's, Party, attend Perfomances, and Park my Petunia--all month long. |
AuthorKaren Schwabenland--Keeper of a daily blog of written matter, reporter of events large and small, and charlatan extraordinaire Archives
September 2022
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