Reading for Insight after 45 years

              Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a collection of stories about his decision to comply with the notice from his draft board, though he was no more a soldier than “a man in the moon.”  Within a few months, he and Company A were assigned to an area in southeast Vietnam. Their losses and their lives while in Vietnam, provide the characters/individuals for the stories of memory, imagination, catharsis, and some semblance of truth. 

June, 1968- Tim O’Brien’s draft notice arrived.

The little I know about the Vietnam War can be summarized somewhere between the grief-filled silence within the Henderson State student union and the deafening WHOPWHOPWHOPWHOP of helicopter blades providing background for the evening news report.

            One of HSTC’s ROTC commissioned 2^nd lieutenants was listed under casualties in the morning newspaper that was being passed from table to table. He had been a handsome fellow with fraternity leadership skills and a beautiful sorority girl for his bride He died, anyway.

            Stories and letters, news reports from reporters in the trenches catapulted legions of soon to be college graduates into the long lines to join the National Guard or the US Reserves. Grades stayed high because repeated appearances on the academic probation list brought an immediate exit along with an invitation to enlist rather than be drafted.

            My ex-husband's ability to improvise and exaggerate his skill on the typewriter sealed his next four years in a Reserve Ordinance Unit. His brother enlisted and became a door-gunner on a rescue helicopter. I had briefly dated a guy who said he was a Vietnam veteran, in college with the GI Bill, having just returned from Nam and serving with the elite Green Berets, a fact I doubt. My best friend’s husband spent his years in Vietnam as a Texas A&M commissioned officer. I never asked Pat or Bill or Jim how they felt or what they experienced. Vietnam was mysterious, malevolent, and murky in politics. 

            My brother's age group was part of the draft lottery and his birth date was drawn in the last numbers, the war ending before “his number came up.” He had once told Mother he did not want to grow up and go to war and get killed. She said she’d drive him to Canada herself. 

           I watched the final caskets come home and watched the war declared "over" 1975. I've participated in Welcome Home, Vietnam Veterans activities and paid respect at the Vietnam Wall memorial but after reading O'Brien's collection, I find myself embarrassed by naivete.

        Returning veterans did not want to talk and, it's highly probable I did not want to know.

Magic of Simplicity vs. Packratitude

"Isn't living with simplicity suppose to be...simple?"

When a newsletter article reaches out and grabs me with its words, I take time and take note. Soliciting for The Magnolia Journal, dear Joanna spoke to me as I thought of my sewing, craft room. It begs the question. To paint, I must remove boxes and crates of saved memorabilia. What stays? What goes?
Joanna's words: "I need to be aggressive in my pursuit of simplicity. 
Left to their own devices, these seemingly small things have a way of spiraling out of control. The paring down is worth it. As painful as it sometimes feels, there's nothing quite like the feeling of a lighter load, particularly when you see in hindsight that you were never mean to carry all that stuff anyway."
Choosing simplicity gives room to breathe. It is a personal thing - We intuitively know what areas of our lives need pruning. I am not sure what is in the boxes under the counter. The cabinets are filled. Not one empty space.
These boxes contain relics, archival items saved from three purges. Sentimentality creates "pack-rat-itude."

Junior English classes require students to read portions of Emerson and Thoreau. I designed lessons that would be engaging and personal for my students, even if they read only the portions I selected for group interaction, Agree/Disagree, etc. The students identified most when asked to "go camping like Thoreau at Walden Pond." 

I struggle to pack one "overnight" bag.

Thoreau's statement resonated with them: Why I Went to the Woods - to live deliberately, and not to find that when the time came to die, I had not lived at all.  

"Simplicity may not be magic, but it is a little bit magical," says Joanna.

I'm subscribing to Magnolia Journal - I have a discount and a sticker for free stuff!

The Thrill is Gone - It Happens

At a birthday party at my house when in high school. a group of friends and I swooned over the songs and the album cover "A Song for Young Love" The Lettermen. Through college, I listened to this group along with The Association and others as they poured their hearts out with "Come Back Silly Girl, Come Back to Me," and "The Way You Look Tonight." Ooooo.

It happens to me all the time. I'm a hopeless romantic. A nostalgia junkie. Expectation is destroyed by reality.

My first album for The Lettermen

I age, but my memories don't.
I change my hair style, but everyone else remains as they were in the 1960's.
Funny.

In 1964, I latched onto the singing group The Lettermen. I swooned over Jim Pike, tall, dark, handsome and a fabulous ballad singer. The Lettermen albums contained all kinds of love songs and these three handsome dudes wore Letterman sweaters, Of course.

Lucky me - my family had connections to the big time in New Orleans. Their high school friend had made it big with Louisiana Land and Exploration. While there on vacation, staying with the Phillips, we had a stage side table at the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel.Headlining - The Lettermen. I was done for - too shy to do much other than sway, swoon, and sigh...deeply.

I collected their albums and listened to their love songs through early 1970's.

Last night - yes, 2020, last night, I looked on YouTube (TV) for this singing group and found live concerts. I was thrilled. It was time for a time warp journey. See the Lettermen from the 60's. In Concert - live, before me yet again.

WHAT! They had changed their hair, their clothes, even sang some new songs. They reflected the 70's and 80's and I was shocked. Long hair. Blue leisure suits with ruffled shirts and tied-in-a-bow neck wear. Platform shoes.

I'm glad I did not follow a hunch in 2000 and set out on a quest to see The Lettermen in concert. I would have been undone to see them OLD. Or not at all. Gradually, the Lettermen morphed into name only and attempt at same harmony. THREE OTHER GUYS held microphones and sang.





I did see the video of Lettermen: the Reunion.
They were not on walkers (hallelujah) and they sang Cherish/Precious and Few along with Going Out of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You,
Put Your Head On My Shoulder, When I Fall in Love, etc.

While the closely knit blend, the signature harmony, was there, the thrill was gone!

My heart-throb, Jim Pike , co-founder of The Lettermen, died in 2018, at the age of 82. He had Parkinson's disease.

Photo Stick - The Scoop (my experience) - UPDATE

I'm a picture taker. My kids will attest. They fussed at one time, but now I just tell them, "There will be pictures." When the photos are arranged and organized, everybody says, "Let's see."

For Christmas, Rich gave me a wonderful photo capture device, just what I wanted. But when I started to work with the device (had two USB connections) it would not work on my computer and turned out to be a photo Saver, able to collect photos from my computer and phone. Nice - but it was a major flash drive or thumb drive. It did not contain the organizing software.

Packaging

Photo Stick

I researched and waited and then bit the bullet and purchased the Photo Stick with organization software.
The large memory photo stick afforded me well, because by the time the software had captured EVERY PHOTO, downloaded jpeg, photo of a document, photo from forever ago, it had stored over 55,000 photos. WHAT!!
Just press GO! and the device seeks, finds, and stores everything.

Photos appear like this.

Folders I created

 Here's the thing, though. It's up to me how the photos are organized. I name the folders and select the pictures that should be placed into the folder. Otherwise, the items remain arranged from newest to oldest or oldest to newest.
Imagine organizing 55,000 photos.

Yes, duplicates are removed.
But, there are many that look the same, but I took so many photos to get a good one. all are saved. I'd advise purging BEFORE allowing the device to work and certainly BEFORE organizing. I didn't because I did not want to look at 55,000 photos twice.

Another thing I did not realize is this: EVERYTHING is captured - that would include documents as photos. Also, the photos are loaded in in somewhat of a random order - phone, computer, documents as photos, downloads, scans, etc. That is part of the reason for 55,000 items.

I should have deleted thumbnails before I started creating folders and placing the pictures - I learned that.

I am now at a small number of photos yet to file - still over 400. Been focused on getting this project completed and during the Covid-19 Crisis/Pandemic - I have had the time.

I will have a place where all my photos are located and they will be grouped/organized.
I still have multiple flash drives and two external hard drives, one from work days in Bartlett.

Photos are important to me and I'll tell you this - I've worked to save them and keep them organized.

****GOOD NEWS - none of my photos are deleted from phone or computer.
****BAD NEWS - Bumped the extended Photo Stick going out to my office this morning. USB is catty-wompas and when straightened, it now will not "read." All that work. No one to scream at. Just frustration and lesson learned. Beware. Amount of work = one ooops = ???????????

A Basket Case

One of my hobbies when watching movies set in the 1930s and 1940s is observing the setting dynamics. Looking for relics in the background,,,watching for life-style tid-bits. Tons of vintage props and nostalgic screen doors with Coca-Cola push plates fascinated me in our Saturday night Netflix movie.

Vintage Market Basket

We watched Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson as former Texas Rangers with Kathy Bates as the Texas governor who disbanded the Texas Rangers. These two were called into service for their superior skills and bravado. Costner and Harrelson starred in The Highwaymen, the untold, true story of how Hamer and Gault brought down Bonnie and Clyde.

Of special interest to me was the scene with Costner and his wife in which she and he unloaded purchases from her car. She had been driven to the market. Everything was carried in a woven basket.
"Hey, I have one of those," I said.

pine straw and cone basket

Mother had a propensity for baskets and kept several from "vintage days," collecting a few more - such as a small basket made entirely of pine straw.

I have laundry baskets, both deep and shallow.
The shallow laundry baskets were the ones Thomas and I used as sleds. We'd sit down in the basket and get a push from the sibling, making our bumpy run down the stairs at 134 Harrison Street in Camden. We'd wreck but didn't say a word.

flower/garden basket

flower/garden basket

I have flower and garden baskets. One is in the story "Lost," the initial story in House on Harrison Street. It is the basket that carried the pruning tools and the garden scissors and rested on the back seat in my grandmother's Buick. I was encouraged to go with Mother and Nana to tend the Gordon cemetery plots at Old Greenwood Cemetery. That's where I got lost...but that's another story.

Other baskets are put away, but I'll always stop and think about their origin. I have learned that Freeman Gatewood made willow baskets at some time in his later years.

I'll treasure baskets, as did my mother.

It IS a Wonderful World

The movie Good Morning, Viet Nam was not filmed until 1987 but was set in Saigon, 1965. If not for Robin Williams and the story line involving pop music vs Lawrence Welk’s orchestra, I could not have sat through it. The humor relieved tension as specific images brought me to tears: the convoys, the jungle attacks, the napalm bombs, the screaming civilians. The movie’s action was early depicted against Martha and the Vandellas’ classic “Nowhere to Run” and concluded by juxtaposing Louis Armstrong’s “It’s a Wonderful World.”

Today, amid news of coronavirus and COVID-19, I hear number of cases, number of patients on ventilators, number of dead, refrigerated trucks serving as temporary morgues. It's so dire, it's hard to comprehend, such as the depth of the Vietnam war as I dropped by tween classes at the Henderson State student union, 1966-69.

This week, some say, data may show the “apex” in NYC. While Arkansas’ results have been far below prediction, medical professionals suggest the peak in states sparsely populated is not far off. I am both encouraged and wary. It is a wonderful world, but the world is in a pandemic.

Here I sit on the deck with a slight breeze and the buzz of bumble bees begging to be swatted into next week. An iced beverage to my right and trees of green before me. Robins hop through the clover in search of supper where I just plucked several of the four-leaf variety for my collection. I revel in the vibrant pink and purple Wave petunias I planted yesterday. This morning, a hummingbird checked on my supply of nectar and a walk provided time for reflecting on the beauty of the day against the trials of Holy Week.

And then, I came face to face with a gorgeous dogwood tree, its blossom the symbol of Christ’s cross. Holy week spirals headlong into despair and shudders at that moment Jesus gave up the ghost. Saturday, though, I will pause, I will wait because I know that Sunday’s coming.

It is a Wonderful World.

A novel approach to Esther's story - FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

Hadassah: One Night with the King

·       While not a book I'd choose again, this novel was recommended after I posted the beautiful phrase - Perhaps you were born for such a time as this Esther 4: 14 

A novel based on Scripture in Esther – Tommy Tenney from Louisiana – has several similar novels.

·       Take-away about the novel (fiction – or historical fiction)

1.     The author adds details of a ‘back story’ and weaves an enriched story-line into the scriptural passages in the Book of Esther.

2.     The author describes festivals, palaces, homes, people, and adds fictional characters such as Jesse, Jacob, and Rachel who populate the narrative.

3.     The story is from a letter made into a book that is read by the “next in line” of the women to come into a position of power as in married to an influential man. The story is supposed in the hand of the true Queen Esther, told in her voice.

Historical time period

1.     486-465 B.C.

2.     Code of Hammurabi has been in effect

3.     King Darius and King Xerxes

4.     Queen Vashti

5.     Grecian Wars with Persia

6.     Feast of Purim

7.     Time after the story – Xerxes murdered within 4 years and the Palace burned within 6 years

Scripture and Lineage

1.     1 Samuel 15 – about King Agag and the Amalekites

2.     The Chronicles (public record, record of the kings and the city)

3.     Esther 2: 7 – Hadassah, daughter of Abehai

4.     Esther 3: 10 – Haman son of Hamnedatha the Agagite

5.     Esther 3: 2, 4 – Mordecai – son of Jair

6.     Remaining chapters conclude the story with Haman’s demise

Culture

1.     Royal extravagance and opulent beauty

2.     Code of Conduct strict at penalty of immediate death

3.     Ritual role of boys and girls – even in disguising themselves (Yentl – Barbra Streisand movie)

4.     Hedonism

5.     Savagery, torture, ferocity, ruthlessness

6.     Death penalty involving gallows

7.     Palace concubines and eunuchs (how did we suppose these people came to be who and what they are. The author gives his researched take on this cultural institution.)

Discourse on these topics:

1.     The presence of God

2.     Discerning the Voice of God

3.     God’s overall plan for Good

4.     Questions of Why? And God’s response

5.     Relationship with God as Father

6.     Conversations with God

7.     Intimacy

8.     Marriage

9.     Health and Dietary laws

10.  Sexual love

Concepts that persist through Christianity

1.     “My heart broke with you…” in the midst of your pain.

2.     “I simply conversed with God.”

3.     “A reason that would reveal itself over time.”

4.     “God’s Law guides our choices but does not guarantee our outcome.”

5.     “Make godly choices within the course available to you. He will guide you.”

6.     “God walks through disappointments with us.”

7.     “God goes before me and prepares the way.”

8.     “What we purpose in our hearts…”

9.     “God has a different path – Trust Him.”

10.  “Please, LORD, Give me wisdom.”

11.  Page 194 in the novel – FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS.

Incongruencies in dialogue (sounds too modern to have been written or spoken by Queen Esther)

“literally and figuratively”     “I bit my tongue.”   “going off in my head.”  “good old-fashioned disgust.”

Private parts, slop bucket, tip-toed, puffy eyes, “Well, girls…”  “butterflies”  “Give me 10 minutes.”

“From the looks of things…” How Hadassah became Esther (name change, etc…totally contrived)

To me, these words and phrases sound too colloquial for something supposedly written in a scroll and then transcribed into a book.