tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39852306314728153472024-03-12T19:12:30.516-07:00Virtual RobidouxWhat happens when actual events are processed in the brain of Carol Robidoux and then translated through the newfangled Internet.Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-30615232775455967942014-04-23T19:45:00.001-07:002014-04-23T19:52:34.985-07:00Showdown Over Horse Manure at Lake Massabesic<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From left, Trixie Lefevre of Londonderry, Jane Mallinson of Chester, Denika Jones and<br />
daughter, Kryshanna Jones of Salem, took their message to the streets of Manchester, <br />
in defense of horseback riding on the trails around Lake Massabesic. - PHOTO/Carol Robidoux</td></tr>
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MANCHESTER, NH - A group of protesters lined the corner of Valley and Lincoln streets April 23, hoisting signs in defense of horseback riding along the trails at Lake Massabesic Watershed.<br />
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Trixie Lefevre of Londonderry said restrictions by Manchester Water Commission are punitive and unnecessary, and infringe on the rights of recreational horse riders.<br />
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Water Commissioners believe the horse manure contributes to algae blooms in the lake, which is the source of the city of Manchester's drinking water.<br />
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<a href="http://www.manchesternh.gov/Portals/2/Departments/water_works/agenda042414.pdf">Horse manure is on the agenda of the Water Commission</a> for its April 24 meeting, which begins at 4:25 p.m.<br />
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You can read more here at the <a href="http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140329/NEWS01/140339979">NH Union Leader website</a>.<br />
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<br />Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-3352334517342818602014-04-10T05:03:00.002-07:002014-04-10T19:23:12.103-07:00Queen of Arts, Meri Goyette, Honored at Awards Luncheon<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-size: large;">"We are all artists in our own way." - Meri Goyette</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meri Goyette, Queen of Arts in Nashua, NH.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Nashua NH Mayor Donnalee Lozeau recognizes Meri and Charles Goyette.</span><br />
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With much fanfare and the energy of a full house, longtime supporter of the arts, Meri Goyette, was honored April 6, 2014, at Sky Meadow Country Club. The champagne luncheon launched the inaugural Meri Goyette Arts Award, designed to honor champions of the arts annually. It was organized by <a href="http://www.cityartsnashua.org/">City Arts Nashua</a> and the <a href="http://www.gonashua.com/ArtsandLeisure/ArtsCommission/tabid/1081/Default.aspx">Nashua Arts Commission</a>. </div>
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Goyette, 88, has dedicated herself to promoting and supporting an array of arts and entertainment initiatives in Nashua over the past four decades, from the annual <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/sculpturesymposiumofnashua/menu">International Sculpture Symposium,</a> which embeds artists from around the world in Nashua to create original works, to spearheading the restoration of the historic Hunt Library. In between, Goyette has been in the thick of all things arts, organizing various committees and initiatives, penning books chronicling notable Nashuans and historical tidbits, hosting events, and most importantly, leading by example in encouraging art appreciation, support and development.</div>
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After a series of "thank yous" to those in the room for their support, Goyette summed up her sense of gratitude by saying, "You are all artists. We are all artists in our own way."</div>
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The luncheon featured live performances (see video clips below) from one of Nashua's premiere theater troupes, <a href="http://peacockplayers.org/">Peacock Players</a>, as well as a poetry reading by NH poet laureate <a href="http://www.alicebfogel.com/">Alice B. Fogel</a>, a ballet/hip/hop dance collaboration by <a href="http://nbtdc.com/">Northern Ballet Theatre</a> and <a href="http://www.positivestreetart.org/about-us/board-of-directors/">Positive Street Art,</a> and a live auction to support the ongoing arts community through City Arts Nashua.</div>
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J. Christopher Williams, President and CEO of <a href="http://www.nashuachamber.com/">Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce</a>, was recipient of the first Meri Goyette Arts Award, for his ongoing support of the arts through his leadership role within the Nashua community.</div>
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NH Senators Bette Lasky and Peggy Gilmour delivered a proclamation recognizing Goyette for her tireless efforts to establish Nashua as a haven for those who bring the creative arts to life, through music, fine art, dance, poetry and innovation.</div>
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<b>Click through the videos below for highlights from the event.</b></div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0Nashua, NH, USA42.7653662 -71.46756599999997742.6720897 -71.628927499999975 42.858642700000004 -71.306204499999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-35878418737155990032014-03-24T10:47:00.000-07:002014-04-10T18:33:22.963-07:00Know Someone Struggling With Addiction? Join the Conversation April 2 at Saint Anselm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A little more than a month ago I posted on Facebook about a movie, "The Anonymous People," asking if anyone out there would lobby to bring it to New Hampshire. </div>
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I have seen too many people lose their lives to drugs and alcohol, watched too many families crumble. I have heard the stories about the juggling act between urgency and insurance protocols that limit possibilities for those who want out. </div>
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We all know someone.</div>
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Friend Loretta Brady saw my post and said that if I did the lobbying, she'd see about making it happen.</div>
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Guess what? It's happening!</div>
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You are invited to attend this free public screening, April 2, 2014 at Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, NH.</div>
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<a href="http://www.anselm.edu/News/Psychology-Panel.htm">Link here for complete event information on Saint Anselm College website.</a><br />
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Why this matters</h2>
<a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/342545630/the-anonymous-people">Get the story behind "The Anonymous People" </a> via filmmaker Greg Williams' kickstarter page (watch the clip below). From that humble beginning, Williams created a documentary aiming to change the conversation around the need for more avenues leading to long-term recovery for drug addicts and alcoholics, and the need to step out of the shadows of anonymity and share the stories of success among those living in long-term recovery.<br />
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Click here for more on "The Anonymous People," at <a href="http://manyfaces1voice.org/#the-film">Many Faces, 1 Voice</a>.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="360" scrolling="no" src="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/342545630/the-anonymous-people/widget/video.html" width="480"> </iframe>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-30708829354757777602014-03-01T14:15:00.004-08:002014-04-10T18:33:53.122-07:00Entrepreneurial Spirits: The Magic of Djinn<h2 style="clear: both;">
<b>Open House at Djinn Spirits in Nashua is March 8, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.</b></h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andy and Cindy Harthcock, owners of Djinn Spirits distillery in Nashua, NH.</td></tr>
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By Carol Robidoux</h4>
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First things first. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Djinn</i> is another word for an ancient spirit with genie-like powers. The "d" is silent, which is why Andy and Cindy Harthcock settled on "Djinn Spirits" as the perfect name for their brand new gin and whiskey distillery, located just off Amherst Street, in Nashua, NH.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;">"I especially loved that it's a triple entendre," said Andy Harthcock, who put nearly as much care into naming his business as he does in creating each unique batch of spirits.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andy Harthcock designed the still used to make Djinn Spirits.</td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Aside from the joy of word play, there is the intrigue of a genie unleashed from her bottle, which doubles as their logo. It's an idea which comes close to capturing how it feels to unleash a signature line of spirits in a small but growing niche business, namely the craft distillery. </span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Secondly, consider the Latin root of the word djinn – <i>genius</i> – which pertains to the enjoyment of life and "the spirit of social enjoyment," particularly fondness for good living, taste, appetite and inclinations.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And not the least of considerations for the Harthcocks is that there's something truly magical about the start-to-finish process of turning murky malt mash into a smooth, potent liquor.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's a process that Andy Harthcock explains with the precision of a computer engineer – which he is by vocation – and the finesse of an artist, a role he embraces fully, as integral to the art of distillery.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He explains how, after running his home-brewed beer through the still in 150-gallon batches, the resulting 100-proof "white dog whiskey" – akin to moonshine – ages for two to four weeks in white oak barrels.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"It's magical, what a charred barrel does to spirits," says Andy Harthcock.</span></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More magical than, say, fermenting cheese, or slow-drying pig flesh, two things which almost happened, says Harthcock, as he sought to develop a viable side business that could eventually become his full-time passion.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The same still is used to make whiskey and gin.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.3;">"I knew I wanted to do something fun, and take advantage of my engineering skills. At first, we made some cheese. But cheese didn't excite me. Then, we considered meat, as in jerky. You know, there's actually a name for that industry, c</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.3;">harcuterie – but again, it felt like there were already so many people doing that, and it just didn't excite me. Then one night my wife was reading up on craft distilleries and said, off-handedly, 'Hey, that would be fun.' By the time she got home from work the next night I had successfully made my first baby still out of her pressure cooker," said Harthcock.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmu-zCrb0tAEWiPqkfVCU5ikeh-ckYOKpHQefXuOrnZMglEVHLt9Od25Jbls7VoQWU33M6eJavtSbaP1t0nUmh2-h3ngsBar2aRwojG7RwAmtH6w-3uza-yoaqUHm7QKzHfk9uTKO9oDU/s1600/whiskey6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmu-zCrb0tAEWiPqkfVCU5ikeh-ckYOKpHQefXuOrnZMglEVHLt9Od25Jbls7VoQWU33M6eJavtSbaP1t0nUmh2-h3ngsBar2aRwojG7RwAmtH6w-3uza-yoaqUHm7QKzHfk9uTKO9oDU/s1600/whiskey6.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Andy Harthcock pours a taste of Beat 3 whiskey.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since opening in December, he's kept his day job with a defense contractor in Merrimack, NH, and his wife still works as a nurse. But they devote nights and weekends to Djinn Spirits – from perfecting and tweaking the small batch ingredients, to making connections, marketing, fine-tuning their five-year plan and welcoming weekend walk-in customers for impromptu tours and tastings.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harthcock also will book private tours and tastings, and is open to special personalized on-site events. He looks forward to whiskey and gin appreciation classes, for those who have never learned the fine art and complexity of swilling high-end spirits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Djinn's Beat 3 White Dog white whiskey retails for $25 per bottle. The name is a nod to Cindy Harthcock's heritage, growing up in a dry Mississippi town – the Beat 3 voting district – where the best kept secret was the smooth, white lightning-hot moonshine underground. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Djinn's signature gin is high caliber, at $30 a bottle. But this is where the crafting comes in, as the Harthcock's have labored over a secret blend of botanicals, including </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;">juniper and grains-of-paradise with a twist citrus, resulting in a delicate yet potent gin.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, DejaVu Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;">Because alcohol manufacturing and sales are highly regulated, Djinn's products are not available at state liquor stores – yet. Twice a month they send in federal reports and tax forms, a process also necessary for state officials here in New Hampshire. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the meantime, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/413828405418435/">everyone's invited to Djinn's March 8 open house event,</a> from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring tours, tastings, prizes and giveaways at the distillery, located at <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/2+Townsend+W+%239/@42.7901537,-71.5179098,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89e3b68cb159b853:0xd6b2f6f0c44623f3">2 Townsend West, Suite 9, in Nashua</a>, in a small industrial park behind Country Tavern.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For a preview of the tour, click the video below. For more information, find <a href="http://www.djinnspirits.com/front">Djinn Spirits online</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/djinnspirits">click here to follow them on Facebook</a>, or contact the Harthcock's at </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;"> </span><a href="mailto:info@djinnspirits.com" style="font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, 'DejaVu Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.055999755859375px;">info@djinnspirits.com</a>, or <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 14.079999923706055px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">617.649.6972.</span></span><br />
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<br />Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-90649625491308585122014-02-14T07:25:00.000-08:002014-04-10T18:34:12.327-07:00Meh - Another Valentine's Day? Take Heart<div style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.200000762939453px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0.4em;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJYSQj24kcaOYSkiDyKUvzFTnw_gxbeJEuCEfbsGJ2Q4wl1_SLnumheKndq54J154V61sjPs7z0RvZ4JqlCWk1SU2vU6FFDT-ffYKbH4yFHtTzQbWeofBBbr_XWHO_N8xu1fJgB52_nI/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.23.44+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJYSQj24kcaOYSkiDyKUvzFTnw_gxbeJEuCEfbsGJ2Q4wl1_SLnumheKndq54J154V61sjPs7z0RvZ4JqlCWk1SU2vU6FFDT-ffYKbH4yFHtTzQbWeofBBbr_XWHO_N8xu1fJgB52_nI/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.23.44+AM.png" height="332" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hey you Spartan heart-breaker: I'm taking the 'meh' out of anti-Valentine's Day memes.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I'm
mostly a traditionalist, which I guess is synonymous with being a
slave to human ritual. But for the record, my dear husband of 34
years is my one and only Valentine. We will share a romantic
candle-lit steak dinner followed by some decadent chocolate dessert,
and some romance.</span></span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">I'm one of
the lucky ones, and I know it – especially based on all the anti-Valentine's Day memes I see posting across my social network.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />For
those suffering through another Valentine's Day, I only wish I'd
written this sooner.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />This, my
friends, is for you:</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Turns out
you don't have to feel any moral or historical obligation to have a loved on on this particular day, or shop for
a heart-shaped anything to bestow upon anyone.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Forget
the hearts and flowers, the pricey chocolates. There is no verifiable
connection to the vague historical <a href="http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/courses/medmil/pages/non-mma-pages/text_links/gl_valentine.html">saint
named Valentine</a> and our obsession with this emotionally
draining Hallmark holiday.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">No Cupid connection. No
candle-lit dinner for two required. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />I've done
the research.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />According
to scholars who kick this stuff around in their academic circles, it
all points back to the ancient Roman cleansing and purification
ritual of </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><a href="http://www.crowl.org/Lawrence/time/months.html#February">Februalia</a> </i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(from
which the Romans named the month of February).</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />And
that devolved into another pagan ritual, </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><a href="http://www.witchology.com/contents/february/valentines_static.php">Lupercalia</a> </i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(derived
from the Greek word for "wolf"), a three-day fest held
around the ides of February, meant to drive away evil spirits and
encourage health and fertility – mostly by bathing, and abusing
their women into submission.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />There's
more.</span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAYIp6Mt5-QvYcQU4kwGOmzyQZY4xK0__jt-OL3G9IMY0T4QviTZS9_BEW_SXqPZ4CUKBlbhxziw1lZ3hoPBJAsavMQCOdz6yvkQPLMDW3jtemsK6br0Kucsr7Ax-p68k_sO1NpydvU0/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.29.30+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilAYIp6Mt5-QvYcQU4kwGOmzyQZY4xK0__jt-OL3G9IMY0T4QviTZS9_BEW_SXqPZ4CUKBlbhxziw1lZ3hoPBJAsavMQCOdz6yvkQPLMDW3jtemsK6br0Kucsr7Ax-p68k_sO1NpydvU0/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.29.30+AM.png" height="262" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pan, the naked flute-playing god of shepherds.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Pan,
the naked flute-playing god of shepherds who wore nothing but
goatskins for skivvies, is a key figure here. The highlights reel
would include the sacrifice of a goat and a dog, followed by the
preparation and burning of salt mealcakes by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestal_Virgin#Vestalis_Maxima">Vestal Virgins</a> –
aka nun-like women who were excused from marriage and childbearing in
exchange for tending the Roman perpetual hearth fires.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Looks like it
was Victorian-era pranksters who may deserve credit for the idea of
delivering "valentines" – on Feb. 13, according to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/extra/valentines_norfolk.shtml">this BBC history lesson</a>, those in the village known to be unlucky in love
became targets of England's bully class. These twisted jokesters would
leave a huge present on their target's doorstep who, upon finding the
anonymous gift, would tear through several layers of wrapping only to
discover a nasty-gram of lovelorn mockery scribbled on paper.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Around
the same time, the historic Norfolk legend of Jack Valentine emerged.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Side
note: I'm actually shocked this one hasn't been turned into a
holiday-themed horror movie, not unlike the "Halloween"
series, featuring masked murdered Michael Myers.</span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcYBZerH3OzhKBM5mVX9j8dFdRse8EvzERB65PpD8ayk6xhUFAFQJKTTnXaeR-s7dyePobKhtboacI_7Gg3yf4XAv4FLvl9SCbLfqoilXDN1toGbElpL44FZxKehk6Mw78OSwexyious/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.33.00+AM.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img align="BOTTOM" border="0" height="320" name="graphics2" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkcYBZerH3OzhKBM5mVX9j8dFdRse8EvzERB65PpD8ayk6xhUFAFQJKTTnXaeR-s7dyePobKhtboacI_7Gg3yf4XAv4FLvl9SCbLfqoilXDN1toGbElpL44FZxKehk6Mw78OSwexyious/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.33.00+AM.png" width="201" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Be somebody else's guest, Lumiere.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />In
the Disney version, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/extra/valentines_norfolk.shtml">Jack
Valentine</a> is an AC/DC chap who can morph into Old Father
Valentine or Old Mother Valentine at will, knocking on doors and
leaving gifts for good kids. It could feasibly involve a
talking candelabra or dwarves in tights – I'll leave that
to the animators.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">However,
in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0373883/">Rob Zombie
version</a>, Jack's alter-ego, Snatch Valentine, knocks on doors of
children anticipating happy Jack, and leaves a present with a string
attached so that when said kid opens the door and reaches for the
gift, Snatch yanks on the string and the gift is pulled away from the
kid's grasp.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />That
ritual is repeated, several times, like a cruel knock-knock joke.
Kids are warned not to follow the runaway package "or else"
and so the wicked game continues until, finally, Snatch stops yanking
the string and the traumatized child can finally get his hands on the
elusive gift which, by this time, has triggered PTSD in said kid and,
likely, has diminished future expectations of gift-associated
holidays, including Christmas and birthdays.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />So as not
to be a complete Hallmark holiday heart-breaker, there is one shred of
dignity in the legend of St. Valentine's Day.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />In
one historical account that has survived the rigors of distilling
fact from fiction, there was a particular <a href="http://www.mcah.columbia.edu/courses/medmil/pages/non-mma-pages/text_links/gl_valentine.html">Valentine</a> (among
many historical Roman priests named Valentine) known for two things:
performing weddings for soldiers who were otherwise forbidden from
marrying; and spreading Christian ideals of faith and love to those
persecuted during the Roman Empire.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJAPFKZTjpPgKFdo3rm-KTp2r05uzhL6tJ6v5N_5DD8frOqgZUjLQTQGNZb5zcQHhqvrwa7PSk42IBxNg12_80sh9r9upQGiNAFKVc4lZaD9_c8q_Ed5yrWSouotA_9oFRflk5wfBGug/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.34.32+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgJAPFKZTjpPgKFdo3rm-KTp2r05uzhL6tJ6v5N_5DD8frOqgZUjLQTQGNZb5zcQHhqvrwa7PSk42IBxNg12_80sh9r9upQGiNAFKVc4lZaD9_c8q_Ed5yrWSouotA_9oFRflk5wfBGug/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-14+at+10.34.32+AM.png" height="320" width="276" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The man, they myth, the legend: St. Valentine.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">After
allegedly healing the blind daughter of Asterius, he was martyred,
tossed in prison and eventually beheaded on Feb. 14, 280 AD. He left
a note prior to his execution, signed, "Your Valentine."</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />While I
realize this debunkery of Valentine's Day may not help you all that
much, the take away is that love is not just important to the human
condition, it is the human condition.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">It's not as tangible as a heart-shaped box of chocolates.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Rather,
it's a mindset. An action word. A gift with no strings attached. A
ritual with untraceable roots that go all the way back to the heart
itself – by design the thing that keeps us alive. Strong yet fragile; vital as it is vulnerable. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><br />Today,
let your human heart feel what it feels. Set your mind on love. Take
action – whether that means buying your beloved a card at CVS, or
committing a random act of love in some thoughtful, charitable,
unconditional way for someone else who needs it.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Because,
in the end, <a href="http://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/the-end/">the
love you take is equal to the love you make</a>.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLFiMz4Hy2RuK9qjdEacc-4CMahd7NjDBjwGmTmSH8bXPNPjv4H3f2RAzW2C-UYpdv1hiAygeoD5Bu7bf9-ykZR_qBgd-ydIS3syIfKhphyn8t8Kbvk8iIlL2KaM4UgMnS0KJFERIvd_Q/s1600/daid+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLFiMz4Hy2RuK9qjdEacc-4CMahd7NjDBjwGmTmSH8bXPNPjv4H3f2RAzW2C-UYpdv1hiAygeoD5Bu7bf9-ykZR_qBgd-ydIS3syIfKhphyn8t8Kbvk8iIlL2KaM4UgMnS0KJFERIvd_Q/s1600/daid+(1).jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ken Gidge with the "Head of David," on the third floor of Nashua City Hall. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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By Carol Robidoux</div>
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<b>NASHUA, NH </b>- If you noticed the giant "Head of
David" statue was missing from the third floor at City Hall, Ken
Gidge would like to hug you.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Because you are likely one of the few art aficionados who even knew the giant statue was on display at City Hall.</div>
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And that underscores in Gidge's mind why it
was time to move the replica along. It was cast from the original
masterpiece by Michelangelo, which he bought from a shop on Newbury
Street 15 years ago.
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Gidge said it's one of only 16 of exact
replicas in the world.</div>
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Having no practical place to display it
himself, Gidge – an artist and longtime State Rep – loaned it to
the city with one caveat: that it be placed in a high traffic area, for maximum visibility.</div>
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With the exception of a brief stint on
the main floor of City Hall next to the staircase, Gidge says the statue had a nomadic existence until it was finally exiled to
the third floor five years ago, where it has been languishing,
under-appreciated and doomed to obsolescence.</div>
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"This deserves a better place, and
it's going to go to a better place. I want people to see it,"
Gidge said Friday, just before the big move.</div>
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Gidge got an offer for the statue he
couldn't refuse, from Greg Kyre, owner of Gregory J's Flooring &
Design Center on Amherst Street, who sent a crew to pick up the
statue Jan. 24.
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It's now on display his store, in the carpet room.</div>
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With no fanfare, the moving crew lifted the disembodied head from
its pedestal and covered David's face with a protective cloth, then
hoisted the statue onto a hand truck. Some city employees from the third-floor IT
department, drawn by the commotion, gathered silently in the doorway of their
office to witness what probably looked more like a kidnapping in progress. [See video].</div>
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The city's attorney, Stephen Bennett,
emerged from a nearby office and stopped to talk with Gidge about the move.</div>
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"I don't think the mayor or the
building manager knew it was leaving today," Bennett said.
"Maybe a 'heads up' would've been nice."</div>
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They carried the statue down three
flights of stairs and into a waiting van.</div>
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Mayor Donnalee Lozeau was in
Washington, D.C., Friday, for the annual U.S. Conference of Mayors.
When contacted Friday, Lozeau said she was sorry to learn the statue
was leaving the building.</div>
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</div>
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"So nice that Ken shared with the
whole city for such a long time," Lozeau said." David will
be missed."</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5RdxZ7GTp40?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe>Gidge pointed to other works of art at
City Hall he says should be more prominently displayed, like two
landscapes in the rear of the third-floor auditorium painted by James
Aponovich, "one of the best artists in this country," said
Gidge, and another painting, hanging so high on the third-floor
landing that you can't actually get in front of it to see it, Gidge
said.<br />
<br />
"This is a sad day. If you love
art, you want art to be seen, and this has to be seen," Gidge
said. "I'm sad it's leaving City Hall because this is probably
where it belongs. In fact, famous people, like [John] McCain, have
had their picture taken beside it. But most people walk right by it,
as though it doesn't exist."</div>
Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com1Nashua, NH, USA42.7653662 -71.46756599999997742.6720897 -71.628927499999975 42.858642700000004 -71.306204499999978tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-4380298249785845042013-09-12T18:09:00.003-07:002014-04-10T18:34:49.211-07:00The Shape of a Mother's Heart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigiTr5k4JjpQBQUsd0EzTdPpp7miq5NVaM6oGH2w4w-aFpH3TRDUvz8qlFHLXmDgnZR8_mHRXJoXtSBSYp9fnuZbKrazwLpQ43GMzTBTYwymzR6Yxcw4arSdWRe1Mtx8YIaHUqsXqQNxY/s1600/photo+(5).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigiTr5k4JjpQBQUsd0EzTdPpp7miq5NVaM6oGH2w4w-aFpH3TRDUvz8qlFHLXmDgnZR8_mHRXJoXtSBSYp9fnuZbKrazwLpQ43GMzTBTYwymzR6Yxcw4arSdWRe1Mtx8YIaHUqsXqQNxY/s640/photo+(5).JPG" height="478" width="640" /></a></div>
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Today is Aimée's birthday. I gave her
some gift cards and a little crystal elephant necklace last week when she came up to New Hampshire for a visit. Sounds lame,
but after 37 years, picking the right
gift is still as hard as finding the right words to express what she means to
me.
</div>
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Nothing seems to measure up.</div>
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Fortunately, the universe sent me
inspiration.</div>
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….</div>
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Pregnant at 16 is not where I ever
expected to be, but there I was, eating
for two; my future – our future – unsettled. I imagined that
there was no way for me to be a competent mother. I had barely made
it through Algebra 2. Things between me and my boyfriend had ended before I knew there was a baby coming, and there was no looking back. Without much family discussion, it was understood that
the best thing for my baby was not necessarily me – not at 16.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By June, someone pointed me in the
direction of an adoption agency, the Children's Home Society of New
Jersey. I agreed to go to counseling sessions, to fill out the
preliminary paperwork – at around the same time the boy who had planned
to be my husband professed his eternal love for me and for my baby.
</div>
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I told him he shouldn't give up his
freedom for the burden of a girlfriend with a baby.
</div>
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He still never listens.</div>
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It was also around the same time I
began to sew an elaborate baptismal gown to dress the baby in for when
she left me, and the hospital. My intention was to relay a message to the fortunate woman who was to become her mother, who would recognize the love that went into every stitch. I wanted her to know that this baby hadn't come from just any wayward teen mom, but rather one who had managed to recreate her heart into the exact shape and size of a delicate dress, fit for an angel. </div>
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It was a true labor of love.<br />
<br />
With no skills, beyond the basics of
ninth-grade home-ec, I purchased a few yards of white dotted-Swiss,
some lace and yellow satin ribbon. Not knowing if this would be a
girl baby or a boy baby, I instinctively picked up two daisies to add
to the coat of the three-piece ensemble, and five delicate buttons –
three yellow luminescent ones for the overcoat and two tiny duck
buttons for the back of the gown.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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I labored over this project for weeks,
using my mother's old cast-iron sewing machine, a relic from the
1950s. It had a sticky foot pedal, a temperamental bobbin and a dull
needle, but I was not deterred.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By August, the outfit was finished, not
coincidentally around the same time I stopped meeting with the social
worker at the Children's Home, and around the same time I'd accepted
that the boy who planned to be my husband was truly, honestly,
whole-heartedly excited about being a dad.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By September 12, my beautiful baby girl
was born, and I had never felt so perfectly suited to anything in my
life. Loving her was more than instinct – it was like we'd been
together forever. Meeting was just a formality. I already knew
everything about her, from her familiar nose to her exceptionally
flexible toes.</div>
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<br /></div>
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By December, a dear woman from church,
Debby Clarke, had stopped by with a gift from the heart – unlike me,
she actually had skills and had sewn a beautiful baptismal dress for
Aimée, trimmed in pink, with a lacy bonnet. I didn't mention the
dotted-Swiss gown to her, and accepted it with sincere gratitude. By
January, Aimée was baptized in Debby's dress, and the three-piece
dotted-Swiss, already relegated to storage.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Over the course of my life I have lost track of plenty of significant items, some I have been searching for, with no luck, for years.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So when I went up to my closet this
morning, hoping to find an old photograph that might punctuate a
birthday post for my daughter on Facebook, the swatch of
dotted-Swiss draped over the side of a cardboard box under the weight
of some stored sweaters caught me off guard. I had almost forgotten
about it.</div>
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</div>
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<br />
I tugged on the sleeve and pulled out
the dress. Next to it, a pile of once-important papers was harboring
a length of yellow ribbon. It was the little bonnet, which had
somehow gotten separated from the dress. I instinctively clutched the fabric to my
chest and started for the stairs when I heard myself sobbing. Halfway
down I turned around and went back up to the closet, tossing sweaters
from the box until I found the third piece, the jacket with the
daisies and tiny yellow buttons.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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I sat down on the floor and carefully
slid the sleeves of the gown into the jacket, noting the elastic had
lost its stretch. I snapped the snaps and smoothed the wrinkles,
running my finger along the hem, admiring the workmanship that I'd
forgotten went into this little dress that had never been worn.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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I marveled at how beautifully the yoke
was seamed to the bodice, and how both hems were hand sewn admirably
straight. Somehow, with no guidance, I managed to attach the tiny
sleeves to the flowing garment without puckering the delicate fabric,
and judged the circumference of a baby's wrist, tacking elastic in
place, stitch by stitch, turning the cast-iron balance wheel of the
sewing machine by hand.</div>
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<br /></div>
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And that's when it hit me.</div>
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I will probably never in my life be
able to put into words what motherhood has meant to me, but if
pressed, I would say that it feels a lot like holding a three-piece
antique dotted-Swiss christening dress in my hands, a remnant of a place and time that changed everything. Every
stitch, a labor of love; sewn with the best of intentions, perfect in
all its imperfection.<br />
<br />
Happy Birthday, my Beloved.<br />
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</div>
Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-40043375500937598142012-12-22T08:14:00.000-08:002013-09-07T06:04:29.136-07:00Bon Voyage: On the Edge of Certainty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihtKj2EDTB_OtOs3VY7S9HcXoPDuyCK0o35Z_cN0jhYFK1XivdhXOR81GqZrFJAF6W023cZCRFAO4oekZpi08U02n7mrmMzULHZutw-vGROnhpf7y7GtcdhpwuwgxrHzo4MGESxCWdYdE/s1600/481499_10151181836372543_1545718154_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihtKj2EDTB_OtOs3VY7S9HcXoPDuyCK0o35Z_cN0jhYFK1XivdhXOR81GqZrFJAF6W023cZCRFAO4oekZpi08U02n7mrmMzULHZutw-vGROnhpf7y7GtcdhpwuwgxrHzo4MGESxCWdYdE/s320/481499_10151181836372543_1545718154_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Nine days until Julie takes a giant step into the unknown. On Dec. 30 she will board a plane bound for <a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&channel=fflb&q=cyprus&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x14de1767ca494d55:0x324c3c807fc4146e,Cyprus&gl=us&ei=IW7UUM_0EsaQ0QGIq4DACg&ved=0CJoBELYD">Cyprus</a>, where she will be a nanny for the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/TheBradysInCyprus?ref=ts&fref=ts">Brady Bunch</a>.<br />
<br />
She will welcome the New Year with a great family that is not her own, on an island about as far from Syria as New Hampshire is from my childhood home in Pennsylvania.<br />
<br />
As her mom, I am standing here on the sidelines, as uncertain as she is about how the next six months of her life will be – unsure of what she will learn about herself, how it will feel to live so far from everything familiar. <br />
<br />
The adventurer in me is certain she will have the time of her life. It is the mother in me who is teetering on the edge of certainty.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned.Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0Manchester, NH, USA42.9956397 -71.45478909999997142.8097437 -71.777512599999966 43.1815357 -71.132065599999976tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-65906792679635283572011-07-18T12:07:00.000-07:002011-07-29T15:16:29.690-07:00Cheryl Maher: A life and death, tragic and complex beyond words<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxUE3zXshg5P_suS7WIMwaTzC12xsoK4REWV4oVExTFxu_X3LH6ASc8OGiYYCxGCWn7Y5jQbQqSfJMT2TJ00Ntubbf6O8z3aGtfXvnQ-nES7fFE7gvD1lYrMMtZhA_dyvXlXMdJ8rNMA/s1600/story-cheryl-maher-90401.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxUE3zXshg5P_suS7WIMwaTzC12xsoK4REWV4oVExTFxu_X3LH6ASc8OGiYYCxGCWn7Y5jQbQqSfJMT2TJ00Ntubbf6O8z3aGtfXvnQ-nES7fFE7gvD1lYrMMtZhA_dyvXlXMdJ8rNMA/s400/story-cheryl-maher-90401.jpeg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cheryl Maher</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><a href="http://virtualrobidoux.blogspot.com/p/cheryl-maher-in-victims-life-grit-and.html">For more on Cheryl Maher, victim of a July 10 murder-suicide, CLICK HERE </a><br />
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</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><b>Originally published July 17. 2011</b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><b>Concord Monitor Viewpoints</b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br />
</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">I know there was nothing I could have done to prevent the tragedy of Cheryl Maher's death. But something in me flickered, like failure, when I heard she was the victim in a murder-suicide who had been bound, bludgeoned, stabbed and left for speculation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"></span></span><br />
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I'd written about Cheryl in the past, after getting an SOS from her two summers ago.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She found me because I was the local reporter in Derry, where she lived at the time. We tried to meet at the always bustling Mary Ann's Diner on Broadway, but there was a wait for tables, so I followed Cheryl a few doors down to Anthony's Cucina, where there was no wait because there were no other customers.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"This is better, anyway," said Cheryl, like she was finally able to breathe.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the time it took us to walk the few hundred feet, a huddle of friendly faces greeted Cheryl by name as we passed by the Friendship Center, a hole-in-the-wall meeting place for people in recovery, positioned between the two downtown diners.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cheryl was known there as a woman who'd spent too many years retreating from life and escaping her personal pain through drugs and alcohol. She'd been down the rocky road of recovery and relapse. Over time she had discovered how the kindness of strangers who'd been down the same road had a way of helping you drop the crutch of your addiction as you learned to walk again, in hope of running one day, full tilt, toward life.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Back then, I wasn't able to solve Cheryl's dilemma.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She came to me concerned for her twin daughters who were about to enter high school. Both of them have steep learning and developmental challenges due to autism. Cheryl feared they'd be swallowed whole in the state's largest high school.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Just read through this and you'll understand why I have to fight so hard for my girls," said Cheryl, transferring the armload of documents to me as a waitress refilled our coffee cups. I paged through the records of their school evaluations, noting between the lines a pattern of advocacy -- she frequently made waves during evaluation meetings, without apology. Cheryl wanted the best for them. She understood their differences. She saw their untapped potential.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She wanted me to write about the flaws in the educational system for kids with disabilities, and the frustration it creates for parents. She wanted me to write about how her daughters weren't getting what they really needed in the public school setting. Individual Education Plans are written to protect the system and secure special education dollars, said Cheryl; they rarely elevate the child in need of real life skills.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Her biggest roadblock was that she shared custody of her three youngest kids with their father, and as legal custodian, he did not agree with Cheryl's sense of urgency, that a move to a private school in Amherst would make a difference.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Looking back, maybe they both wanted what was best for their daughters, but in the end, it was the bitterness of their divorce -- the drama of their marriage, the soap opera of Cheryl Maher's life -- that got in the way.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I wanted to help her. I tried contacting the district's special education director that same week, but summer is a tough time to find school staffers to interview.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I never wrote the story.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Because, over coffee that day, Cheryl also told me her life story. The tidal wave of turmoil she shared with me was overwhelming. It was beyond my ability to navigate in a world of daily news deadlines. In that moment I recognized that the real story was about Cheryl, an imperfect but intriguing human being who was a victim of circumstance long before she was a victim of murder in Weare.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So yes, the news of her death last week shook me hard. Tears rose up in me like a reflex as I involuntarily imagined her unspeakable suffering.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As everything went dark in her world, I imagined how her helpless, frantic heart stopped beating, and how her last thoughts settled on the pain of leaving behind four motherless children.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But the truth is, I cried for the tragic life and death of a woman too complex for anyone to capture in a single news story. I cried knowing that all the stories written in the aftermath would never be enough to solve the puzzle of Cheryl Maher, a beautiful dreamer and broken woman on the mend; a resilient survivor who was stopped dead in her tracks just as she was finally learning to run.</span></span></div>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-31119408242148712002011-07-06T05:13:00.000-07:002013-06-09T05:58:33.994-07:00Of Monarchs and Milkweeds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWU0iHcJiNzy_UVb7UIyqqRrBP_xVaya7af-S6FISKftoXcMi-8eTIL3a7A6HHXRpV6sM9dhYS0uEUJLVKxB5cSOczXUl-JuXc7N9ZRRGUErziSCcx1hDHnFpd4f4M5CBYu_qoYodIm4/s1600/milkweed.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWU0iHcJiNzy_UVb7UIyqqRrBP_xVaya7af-S6FISKftoXcMi-8eTIL3a7A6HHXRpV6sM9dhYS0uEUJLVKxB5cSOczXUl-JuXc7N9ZRRGUErziSCcx1hDHnFpd4f4M5CBYu_qoYodIm4/s640/milkweed.JPG" width="622" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In a small patch of miracles on Robert Frost Farm in Derry you might not notice that it's the season of the Monarch, a small but amazing force of nature that exists, in no small way, thanks to the humble milkweed.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">By fall this season's fourth generation of the storied winged waifs </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">will have emerged, fortified and ready to fly far from the incubator milkweeds that begat them.</span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The first three generations live only weeks. Their sole purpose is to procreate. They </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">know their place -- live and die in the garden of their birth.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihs_SROVVIRB0oklliGqKJT1DgREOA7hkMJC-qBTZWdIfc9_a1vPGkmT1oh8EwxJvWBrNUN4ZUIS51zbSzsu0j5FflrD1o_FjJT-H-1M2ms2EcPJfpveYwOsi5dLeWzStT4AbgbIQEFB4/s1600/73489094_ad1bcdc751.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihs_SROVVIRB0oklliGqKJT1DgREOA7hkMJC-qBTZWdIfc9_a1vPGkmT1oh8EwxJvWBrNUN4ZUIS51zbSzsu0j5FflrD1o_FjJT-H-1M2ms2EcPJfpveYwOsi5dLeWzStT4AbgbIQEFB4/s320/73489094_ad1bcdc751.jpeg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The autumn Monarchs are different; four times removed from the truncated life cycle of their great-grandparents, they </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">are born with loftier goals: to live long enough to migrate south to their ancestral home in the mountains of central Mexico. Here they will soak up the secrets of life, like miniature mutant Mayans seeking some force stronger than sun. Impossibly they have found their way to a place they've never been, collecting on tree limbs like a million pulsing leaves.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the spring, they head back in the direction from which they came, following the scent of milkweed blooms, breeding and dying along the way, sloughing off three generations as they journey home.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwS48ZhyakNEWiLydUNlB2MF1gcZLfRU5HuX8H8NJVZOKO2n6NxOckBEHCpDcuyw2FgyMKSaOaYbcqZAIqJi0GE58UkJDHNaFsXDhyPLjbluCBExfVcxSe39LuSZP9wm1YviGz6Vs5BGE/s1600/common-milkweed-asclepias-syriaca-monarch.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwS48ZhyakNEWiLydUNlB2MF1gcZLfRU5HuX8H8NJVZOKO2n6NxOckBEHCpDcuyw2FgyMKSaOaYbcqZAIqJi0GE58UkJDHNaFsXDhyPLjbluCBExfVcxSe39LuSZP9wm1YviGz6Vs5BGE/s320/common-milkweed-asclepias-syriaca-monarch.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is the fourth generation of these majestic flyers that will once again complete the cycle, settling among the milkweed of their predecessors, their predestined breeding ground, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">exhibiting a hard-wired instinct as inexplicable as it is magical.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Monarchs lay only one egg per plant. When caterpillars emerge, they feast on the milky weed, its sap laden with a chemical</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> that renders the caterpillars toxic to its predators, even after they morph.</span></span></span></span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpF2pHMBW2ZpO3wwRdssOht_Luo2rlx58dDhfEkL6dT1h6KSKCsBmiRvy2jtBvhVJSOoKDhdwyQPwXBy37mTDdsCIuM_5y0c3AaE19Q5QD-LR00u7rRr1vGCje7o50GwHxK5DwyFrKsGs/s1600/Monarch+butterfly+on+milkweed.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpF2pHMBW2ZpO3wwRdssOht_Luo2rlx58dDhfEkL6dT1h6KSKCsBmiRvy2jtBvhVJSOoKDhdwyQPwXBy37mTDdsCIuM_5y0c3AaE19Q5QD-LR00u7rRr1vGCje7o50GwHxK5DwyFrKsGs/s320/Monarch+butterfly+on+milkweed.jpeg" width="320" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Through spring and summer the orange-and-black insects behave just like their less-majestic counterparts. But as the leaves begin to turn, everything changes. The last caterpillar, bred to survive, has climbed from its chrysalis, dried its wings in the sun and fluttered off to find the place where its great-great-great-grandmother wintered.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And so it is that the milkweed can finally fade, having served its purpose, as well. Its leaves shrivel against October's chill. Its pods, browned and burgeoning with fluff, provide a home for lady bugs and their tiny speckled larvae, which crawl like microscopic alligators along the thin bark of the craggy, skeletal weed.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And then it happens, one by one the pods explode, their puffball seedlings strewn in clusters, some clinging to the papery shell, waiting for the right motivation; others catching the first breeze that comes along, drifting until the air-borne seed is plucked from the atmosphere by tiny fingers that know a good wish-puff when they see it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Some will be eaten by the birds; others will rot on fallow rock and stone. Those that find their way into the woods and weeds will wait for spring, to germinate and regenerate, and to beckon once again to the butterflies which will come back, because they must.</span></div>
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</span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-75739953201339329462011-07-03T09:28:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:06:41.694-07:00Maternal Magnetism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcUgz3rJfmt6ygsJWVN8ik5RQshN6_9Z6QBmnCNhLYsO73aGY0vaqWk_PIopuy6NtC2LLh8pDYFV0bomFQjl-g8QVEXa1_b2JeRJTkunQJ_-HxgD0Lr8n0-OuJ7uVEeXy_fR4FQbGboo/s1600/mom.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcUgz3rJfmt6ygsJWVN8ik5RQshN6_9Z6QBmnCNhLYsO73aGY0vaqWk_PIopuy6NtC2LLh8pDYFV0bomFQjl-g8QVEXa1_b2JeRJTkunQJ_-HxgD0Lr8n0-OuJ7uVEeXy_fR4FQbGboo/s640/mom.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">7.3.11</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> We weren't ideal together in this world. When you lined us up, more often than not we repelled, my mother and me, like certain magnets, the highly-charged space between us impossible to bridge. Only later in her life did my mother loosen her grip on my free-spirited world enough to see me in the context of who I'd become.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Whatever rebellions I'd led against her in my youth, whatever assaults on her maternal authority, were forgotten by her in those last years.<br />
In the end I was a perfect daughter, she would say. And I gratefully accepted the gift of her selective memory, relaxing my own notion of her judgemental world, once and for all.<br />
She was a lefty. Her handwriting sloped downwards and her penmanship was decipherable, at best. When the dog chewed up the Valentine she'd sent that year, I didn't know it would be the last. But something in me gathered up the tooth-punched pieces for safe keeping. Once in a while on a slow morning I'd pull the scraps from the plastic bag and strain to read the looping script. Her message was hopelessly lost to me, but it was always just enough to bring me to tears, the thought that my mother's hands would never again write me a love note, Valentine's Day or not. <br />
Anna Mary Allen was born on July 3, 1918, the daughter of Victorian parents, eldest of two. She was not like the other girls -- she moved far from home for an Ivy League education at University of Pennsylvania, mastering psychology and social work. As an aside, her brilliance led her to fluency in French and German, mainly because it enhanced her love of classical music. She knew Mozart's works by heart, and recited their Köchel chronology by ear. "Accchhh," Mom would say, uttering the sound of appreciation beyond words in any language. "That's Mozart's p<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">iano sonata K330 in C Major. First movement," as a flurry of notes spilled from the hi-fi, always tuned to WFLN, Philly's classical music station.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Her compulsions were expansive, beyond vinyl recordings of every great composer known to man loosely arranged and overflowing into a compulsive collection of storage cabinets. She also chain-smoked into the early 1970s, and collected small colored-glass vases, for rose buds, and bone china teacups, for afternoon tea. She subscribed to so many monthly magazines that the stacks were piled two-publications wide by 2-feet deep for all the 19 years we lived together. She read promiscuously and voraciously -- D.H.Lawrence to Billy Graham. She later discovered she could listen to religious cassette tapes while she read, sponging up every kernel of knowledge available. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> For all the flaws I've ever ascribed to my mother, I don't know if I ever fully understood or appreciated just how boundless her capacity for knowledge was, even now.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> I was more preoccupied with the idiosyncrasies of her intelligence and how she relied on regimentation to survive, just as she came to be tethered to an oxygen tank in the end. She had a specific way of watering her African violets, of hanging laundry to dry in the bathroom, of leaving herself copious, cryptic notes detailing everything from grocery items to affirmations from Jesus. She dusted around objects and vacuumed a solitary path through the living room. She drove to the supermarket, daily, in her old '55 Chevy to answer God's calling to find those in need of prayer, who would turn up in the cereal aisle, finding what they really needed -- a dose of my mother's spirit-filled, prayer-inspired social services.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> When my mother gave up the writings of Edgar Cayce for the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, I was relieved. At 14, my mother was so distracted by her new-found gifts of the spirit that I could finally breath the sweet air of freedom that had eluded me, under my mother's controlled atmosphere. </span></span> <br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> So if I spun a little out of control, maybe it was because my maternal string had been so tightly wound. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> I hate to think I had screwed things up for myself. </span></span> <br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Still, when I had to tell my mother that, at 16, I was going to make her a grandmother, I did not expect her inner social worker to wrap me up in a protective blanket of understanding, but she did. </span></span> <br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Looking back now, it was the best gift I could have given her at 58 -- I had apparently done enough to single-handedly wear down her sharp edges so that, when my first born arrived, my daughter could be received, completely and unconditionally, by her grandmother's open arms. </span></span> <br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> And that is when the secret of motherhood magnetism began to reveal itself to me. It is an organic, unflinching force beyond our ability to control it, obvious to me as I saw my mother latch onto her granddaughter with the subatomic urgency that had escaped us. I began to realize that it wasn't her, or me. Our mutual complexities interfered with the natural pull I thought she lacked. But reflecting on it all, here and now, I know my direction in life was set by the precarious pivot on which we intersected. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> Like a compass needle, her magnetism pointed me exactly in the direction I needed to go, whether we ever really knew it or not. Just as the invisible moon pulls at the ocean, even through a sky of clouds, my mother continues to move me. She did not fail me. I did not fail her. We were the best we could be together, and in that way, we are ideal; the space between us no longer impossible to bridge.</span></span></span><br />
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-55561429975432923362011-06-19T12:42:00.000-07:002016-07-30T12:53:22.112-07:00Reflections on the greatest gift of all -- from a daughter to her dad<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVXdkLp_FcAIgoGl1O4Iwb83YXM7ZEfDLPt4WUtb_-MRhP3zNWWa_Hx7XR5NfRtf8Z9wgg35FYKJTZRVQSodkWxcLpoTaBFH7pg42FzK-0FKSbMKyVpXhhbSYSdh6C1sIYe8kQ9JeqPs/s1600/heart+doily+valentine.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVXdkLp_FcAIgoGl1O4Iwb83YXM7ZEfDLPt4WUtb_-MRhP3zNWWa_Hx7XR5NfRtf8Z9wgg35FYKJTZRVQSodkWxcLpoTaBFH7pg42FzK-0FKSbMKyVpXhhbSYSdh6C1sIYe8kQ9JeqPs/s640/heart+doily+valentine.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Originally published September 11, 1994) </span></b></i></h3>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It's never to late to be thinking about Father's Day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It's one of those Hallmark holidays that leaves a grown woman feeling pretty small. After all, what do you give a man who has more tacky ties (thanks to his kids) than Dolly Parton has colorless wigs?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Each holiday my sister and I look at each other with that "Got any bright ideas this year?" look, and then we resort to the usual tried but true alternatives to genius -- a box of Walnut pipe tobacco, or some peanut chews.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The notion that there's anything a kid could ever give a parent to even the score is unrealistic.The years of sacrifice and heartache that go into parenting are priceless -- not as in precious and adorable; as in costly, beyond measure.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Or so I thought.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I was flipping through this week's Time magazine when an article caught my eye. And I read with an unexplainable emotion the story of Chester Szuber, a retired Michigan Christmas tree farmer. In short, after 20 years of suffering with heart disease, living through three open-heart surgeries and enduring four years on on organ transplant waiting list, Szuber's new heart arrived on Aug. 18.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It wasn't technically his turn.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But a twist of fate brought his name to the top of the list. His 22-year-old daughter, Patti, had turned up in the University of Tennessee Medical Center, brain dead following a freak automobile accident during her vacation in the Smoky Mountains. Patti was a nursing student. She was the youngest of Chester's six children. She was a loving daughter who had probably given her dad a fair share of tacky ties and novelty gifts over the years. And she was a card-carrying organ donor.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I don't know about you, but I've never seen my pancreas. I'm not even sure if I could pick it out of a line-up on America's Most Wanted Internal Organs. I know that my kidneys look something like the beans in chili, and that my heart looks nothing like the shape of the Valentines I send every Feb. 14.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But unlike other human guts, the heart is symbolic. It is more sentimental to us than any other part of our anatomy. We regard it as much more than a squishy, pulpy mass with ventricles and arteries that get clogged from too much butter and bacon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Our hearts rule us. They gauge our love. We are defined by our heart in degrees of feeling. Sometimes our hearts break. With any luck, they mend. And when it comes to big decisions, we either use our whole heart or half of it, in the follow through.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But these heart conditions are medically unrealistic. We know our hearts are basic biology. They pump blood through our bodies. If they stop, so do we.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I can only imagine what Chester Szuber thought about during the time it took for his daughter's heart to be transported the 600 miles from Tennessee to Michigan. What he said, according to the article, was: "It would be a joy to have Patti's heart."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">The parent in me has trouble with Chester's joy. I have placed my hand over my 3-year-old Billy's chest, on demand, to feel his "heart beep." The rhythmic thump has always reminded me how fragile his life – all life – is. Little more than skin and bones seem to separate our physical life from certain death. I would sacrifice myself to preserve his tiny heart.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And yet, it is the daughter in me that was so moved by Chester Szuber's story. Death came to Patti Szuber too soon. She would never get to say good-bye. No more family Christmases in Michigan. No more well-intentioned Father's Day gifts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But for every day Chester Szuber lives, he will rely on the steady pulsing of Patti's heart. He will never have to feel the permanent void felt by most parents at the loss of a child. The empty cavity in Szuber's chest, where the imperfect heart of a parent once beat, has been filled with the loving heart of his own child.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Chester Szuber's joy, as I try to comprehend it, is something too sentimental for science to explain. As a daughter, I've spent my whole life trying to give an adequate piece of my heart to my parents. But it never feels like enough.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And so it is for her final gift that a part of me envies Patti Szuber. More than the physical pumping of life-sustaining blood, Patti was able to give back to her father the precious gift of life he had first given her, 22 years ago. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I know in my heart, the real joy in that exchange between father and daughter belongs to Patti.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Postscript: June 19, 2011</span></b></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I never spoke to Chester Szuber when I wrote the original column. It was harder 17 years ago to track someone down than it is today.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Over the years I have wondered about Mr. Szuber and his heart, so today I looked him up. It was easy. I dialed his number and got his answering machine, which included his cell phone number. So I dialed again, and Chet, as he prefers to be called, picked up on the third ring.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">First, I wished him a happy Father's Day.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Then I had to ask him how he and his heart were faring all these years later.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">"I feel like a million bucks. I pretty much woke up from surgery feeling great, and I have felt great every day since," he said.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I also asked him if it's true, what I've read, that sometimes a heart recipient finds that they take on some of the qualities of a donor.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">"I don't know if it's from Patti's heart, but I have a lot more patience for people than I ever did, before getting her heart," he said.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">He is back to Christmas tree farming, and still as grateful as ever for his daughter's ultimate gift.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">"Bottom line is I'd much rather have this heart beating in Patti's chest, not mine. But she's taken good care of me over the years."</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-49721076733345120582011-06-14T10:41:00.000-07:002014-02-06T04:29:25.949-08:00The Unrefined Art of Raw Food<b style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"> If you are what you eat, then eat something full of life, </span></b><br />
<b style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;"> says raw foodie Mary-Ellen Hedrick, of Derry.</span></b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYEkknhcUt5oiBVKVJ4Eurng9AmjGvxMMZnjB0bpIM3i-7I4kWhrNJ9AGtcbu78T_FVuGSewmgIHA8126wdXgLF1298z0kv__8KwRJJvxTfFeDT7cPLFMvNUSDjbqQOiBL6GRsmb7pbU/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-05+at+1.38.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRYEkknhcUt5oiBVKVJ4Eurng9AmjGvxMMZnjB0bpIM3i-7I4kWhrNJ9AGtcbu78T_FVuGSewmgIHA8126wdXgLF1298z0kv__8KwRJJvxTfFeDT7cPLFMvNUSDjbqQOiBL6GRsmb7pbU/s1600/Screen+shot+2014-02-05+at+1.38.37+PM.png" height="424" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; line-height: 17.920000076293945px;">Eating in the raw: Mary-Ellen Hedrick has discovered the benefits of a raw food diet, and is ready to teach others. Here she whips up a batch of watermelon soup using fresh fruit, agave nectar <br />and cardamom, an aromatic spice.</span></td></tr>
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<b style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d; font-size: medium;">By Carol Robidoux</span></b><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>DERRY</b> -- </span>It's encouraging to those in the local "raw food" trenches that First Lady Michelle Obama is talking about what Americans are putting on their dinner plates.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">Last week the familiar USDA food pyramid was dismantled in an effort to adjust our bad eating habits. The push targets childhood obesity, but is meant to teach everyone some new ways of thinking about how we eat, and how what we eat affects our health.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">On June 2 the First Lady introduced "My Plate," a straightforward approach to eating -- a dinner plate with four color-coded sections. Half is designated for fresh fruits and vegetables.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">Mary-Ellen Hedrick, a dedicated raw foodie, would say that's about half right.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">Hedrick truly believes that we are what we eat. Food that is eaten "raw," or without processing, additives or cooking beyond 112 degrees Fahrenheit, provides all the live nutrients a body needs to thrive.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nFirgpNWf5Y/Tfc6H7K12vI/AAAAAAAAIkk/BqR-WD6os-U/s1600/IMG_1570.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #7d181e; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nFirgpNWf5Y/Tfc6H7K12vI/AAAAAAAAIkk/BqR-WD6os-U/s400/IMG_1570.JPG" height="400" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="266" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">Raw ingredients will become a no-cook </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">marinara sauce in minutes.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">"I realized sugary sweets were impacting me. I had no energy. I felt like I needed to take naps in the middle of the day," said Hedrick, who began seriously exploring the world of raw food about a year ago. "It's been a natural progression. In spite of myself, my palate has changed. And I can't argue with how I feel -- I have this mental clarity, and my energy is back."</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">What she's learned is that cooking food destroys enzymes which makes it harder for the body to digest. She says the process of digesting cooked food actually depletes our own enzymatic reserves, diminishing the natural energy and antioxidants in living food.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">"And that depletion is what causes aging and disease," Hedrick said.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">She is a middle school social studies teacher by day and now a certified raw food chef, by choice. Combining those two skill sets, Hedrick has launched a new business, Raw Kitchen, and is looking forward to spending her summer teaching others the benefits of raw food. </span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px 0px 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: black;">During a recent cooking demonstration Hedrick whipped up a summer meal within minutes, using only fresh ingredients and a food processor, including watermelon soup, summer squash "</span><span style="color: black;">linguine," macadamia nut and raw cashew Alfredo sauce, zucchini angel hair "pasta," and chilled marinara sauce, using tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, olive oil, dates, fresh parsley, garlic and cayenne pepper.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px 0px 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Raw food, as a movement, is growing, not only here, but across the globe, Hedrick said. With more attention being focused on what we eat, how our food is produced and the health risks associated with certain foods, she expects more people to explore the benefits of a raw food diet.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Which is not to say that she's a purist.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She has occasional lapses that may include pizza night or meat off the grill, especially when eating away from home. But Hedrick admits one deterrent has been the resulting "food hangovers," which leave her feeling sluggish and cloudy. She considers her current diet about 80 percent raw.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CkVvyaVp-f8/Tfc6IFeHs7I/AAAAAAAAIko/9BXCyWOHYnI/s1600/IMG_1572.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #7d181e; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CkVvyaVp-f8/Tfc6IFeHs7I/AAAAAAAAIko/9BXCyWOHYnI/s400/IMG_1572.JPG" height="266" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">Zucchini angel hair "pasta" with marinara sauce.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"When you think about how much Americans rely on Fryolators and food that comes in boxes, you can really understand why eating raw can make you feel so much better," said Hedrick. "Sometimes I think about what was considered 'normal' eating when I was a kid -- a bologna sandwich on two pieces of Wonderbread covered in mayonnaise, and a glass of soda -- the thought of feeding that to my daughter, given how much more we know now about good nutrition, isn't an option," Hedrick said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Despite its expanded raw food factor, reaction from hardcore food experts to the new USDA dinner plate quadrants have been mixed.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Vegan proponent Dr. Neal Barnard, who is president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, remarked that with all due respect, isolating a quarter of the plate for protein is not necessary, since many whole grains and vegetables have sufficient amounts of protein.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hedrick agrees.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She has found that raw nuts are no more expensive than meat, and way more versatile. She has learned to sprout wheat berries and lentils, which she uses to create a slew of recipes high in protein and enzymes.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When it comes to food prep, she relies heavily on her food processor, spiral slicer, and dehydrator. Her microwave is obsolete. Her oven, mostly in the way.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-Jvip2iEv8/Tfc6HdLveHI/AAAAAAAAIkc/rCiklriH13Y/s1600/IMG_1564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #7d181e; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-a-Jvip2iEv8/Tfc6HdLveHI/AAAAAAAAIkc/rCiklriH13Y/s400/IMG_1564.JPG" height="400" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-left-radius: 5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5px; border-top-left-radius: 5px; border-top-right-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 0px 20px; padding: 8px; position: relative;" width="266" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">The greatest health benefit has been boundless energy,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: xx-small;">said Mary-Ellen Hedrick, a raw food enthusiast.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"My next step toward 100 percent raw will be changing over from coffee to this," said Hedrick, reading off the ingredients from a bag of organic coffee substitute that included carob, barley, chicory, dates, almonds and figs.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #fcfbf5; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; margin: 0px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"For me, the journey began because I have such a sweet tooth. I couldn't resist sugary desserts. But then I learned that there really are so many dessert options that are free of caloric impact, using nuts and fruits and agave nectar. From there, I just started to expand my raw food list," Hedrick said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Her urge to change her eating habits coincided with the awareness that what she ate was affecting how she felt, for better or worse.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Even before raw food, I was already becoming more aware of things like consumption of animals and animal byproducts. I was trying to opt for free range chicken and eggs, striving to be more considerate of the animals and buy those raised sustainably, rather than in cages," Hedrick said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"At first, people who change over to a raw diet actually experience degrees of detox -- anything from rashes to nausea -- our bodies have accumulated so much stuff in the way of additives and chemicals. Once you get over that, you feel the difference, every day. Even starting off slow and eating raw for one or two meals, you feel a difference," Hedrick said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"After that, your body tells you what it wants you to eat -- whether it's going to be a fruit kind of day, or maybe you are craving a handful of nuts. You let that drive you, and really start listening to your body, and there's no doubt you'll naturally start to change your eating habits," Hedrick said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><i>For more information or to schedule a cooking lesson contact Hedrick: </i><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span class="Object" id="OBJ_PREFIX_DWT48" style="color: darkblue; cursor: pointer;">mehedrick@live.com</span> or 603-732-2425.</i></span></span></span></div>
Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-84448804893932403792011-06-14T06:04:00.000-07:002013-10-13T11:37:36.397-07:00Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star . . .<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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“It doesn’t matter who my father was;<br />
it matters who I remember he was.” – Anne Sexton<br />
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Perception is everything.</div>
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For example, several years ago my sister and I planned to gather up some childhood memories and present them to our dad for a milestone birthday.</div>
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After a few days of mental gathering, we conferred.</div>
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I’d come up with a boatload of happy dad stories.</div>
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Meanwhile, Jean’s Titanic collection of moments had left her with a strange, sinking feeling.</div>
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"I remember one time I was sitting on Dad’s shoulders and he was singing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle,’ to me and I couldn’t stop crying,” my sister recalled.</div>
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"Why were you crying?” I asked.</div>
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"I was sad,” said Jean in a tone that implied I just wasn’t getting her.</div>
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"Why was it sad?” I pressed.</div>
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"I don’t really know. But every memory I came up with was depressing," my sister said. "I’m no good at this.”</div>
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How could this be? We breathed the exact same evergreen Glade-freshened air, ate the exact same sugar-frosted breakfast cereals and shared the very same wonderful dad.</div>
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But her memories were evidently skewed by her own unique internal sentimental, little-girl perception of things.</div>
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Perhaps “Twinkle, Twinkle” evoked in her little preschool brain a twinge of man’s constant puzzling over the enigmatic nature of space and supernovas.</div>
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Or perhaps she likened herself to a twinkling star, high above the world from atop her father’s shoulders, and feared that no one would ever really understand her.</div>
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No matter.</div>
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Because the point here is that my sister’s inability to think happy thoughts about our dad made me wonder what my own little kids were storing in their memory banks about their good old mom.</div>
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I decided to take a survey:</div>
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<b>Me:</b> Billy, what will you remember about me when you grow up?</div>
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<b>Billy:</b> How should I know? I’m just a little kid.</div>
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<b>Me:</b> I know that. But what will you tell your children about me someday?</div>
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<b>Billy:</b> Will you be dead?</div>
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<b>Me: </b>Not necessarily. I just mean how will you explain what kind of mother I was, you know; what kind of memories will you have?</div>
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<b>Billy:</b> (swallowing hard) Do you think you are gonna die before Dad? What will happen to me if you die before Dad? I don’t want you to die.</div>
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<b>Me:</b> Nevermind.</div>
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I smiled to myself and hugged my sentimental son, assuring him that I was going to live forever. Just then, Julianna came over, wondering what all the commotion was about.</div>
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<b>Julianna:</b> Why’s Billy crying?</div>
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<b>Me: </b>I asked him what will he remember about me when he’s all grown up.</div>
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<b>Julianna:</b> So why’s he crying?</div>
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<b>Me:</b> Because it made him think about me getting old and dead.</div>
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<b>Julianna:</b> Why don’t you ask me? I won’t cry about it.</div>
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<b>Me:</b> OK. What will you remember about me?</div>
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<b>Julianna:</b> Well, I’ll remember when you weren’t an old gramma and when you didn’t have gray hair and wrinkles and I’ll remember that you were funny and nice and soft, and how you always looked at me with love in your eyes. But will I have to push you around in a wheelchair?</div>
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<b>Me:</b> Only if you want to.</div>
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The moment was oddly reassuring.</div>
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You see, my kids have been breathing the same air, eating the same breakfast cereal and loving the same scatter-brained mom for their whole lives.</div>
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Despite their different reactions I know they will end up on the same page, just like my sister and me.</div>
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Because, concrete memories aside, when Jean and I look at our dad we see a tall, dark-haired, dependable, funny man, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound; a man of much integrity and few words.</div>
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We see a man who can sing “Twinkle, Twinkle” with enough feeling to make a little girl cry.</div>
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And even though that little girl may not know it at the time, eventually she’ll figure out that what made her so sad was the accompanying thought, that one day she might grow up to be too big to sit on his strong shoulders, or to simply get lost in the sweet sound of her daddy’s song.</div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-83747563836341589342011-06-14T05:52:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:07:33.476-07:00Roving Reporter: Email scams, friendship and computer insecurities<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 22px;"></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Roving Reporter Carol Robidoux</span></b></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Maybe this has happened to you: You sit down with a cup of coffee, open your e-mail and scan the in box for something worth reading when you see “HELP NEEDED” with no fewer than 10 exclamation points, sent from someone you actually know.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You gulp your coffee as you click open the email, further concerned to learn that your “friend” is writing with tears in her eyes, having been mugged in a hotel park during her brief vacation to the UK. Bad guys took all her money and credit cards and now, to catch her return flight which leaves in a few hours, she needs money to settle her hotel bill. No one at the embassy or foreign police department is being particularly helpful.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She will take any help – as in money – you can wire. She'll pay you back when she returns.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">She signs her name. It feels like a genuine cyber SOS. So what do you do?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That all depends on how familiar you are with the increasing sophistication of e-mail scams infiltrating our personal email and social networking accounts. I know this because last Wednesday my personal email account was hijacked and several hundred people, ranging from relatives and friends to law enforcement officials and Derry town employees, received a virtual shake down from an invisible bad guy pretending to be me.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the week that followed, I learned a lot about the nature of people, the fragility of email security, the boundaries of friendship, and the network of cyber crime stoppers working to prevent the good-hearted yet somewhat gullible masses from falling prey to such scams.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Like the group of Derry town employees waiting for me on the third floor of the town hall, just hours after my email account went AWOL, most of them relieved to see I wasn't going to miss the appointment after all.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“We took up a collection for you,” said Town Administrator Gary Stenhouse, jingling the change in his pocket. Hey, it was better than nothing, I figured, given the normally hostile reception reporters get from municipal employees they scrutinize in print.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I also heard someone from the newspaper alerted the editors of my faux plight. I later found my bosses were unanimously put off that I failed to file stories in advance of my UK vacation for the next day's paper. Even Union Leader Publisher Joe McQuaid took the time to let me know that he'd gotten two internal emails and an anonymous phone call from people wanting to help me.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He said he was personally still weighing the pros and cons of donating to the “Save Robidoux” fund.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After recouping what remained of my virtual identity – and dignity – I lapsed into reporter mode and learned that this particular scam continues to swindle people across America of their cash – so far hundreds of thousands of dollars have been wired to a nameless, faceless bad guy an ocean away in the name of friendship. It's so prevalent the FBI has added “The Stranded Traveler Scam” to the Internet Crime Complaint Center's alert log.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jeannette Toscano of IC3 explained they are sort of cyber hero justice league, a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, all committed to fielding complaints from scam victims and shutting down the cyber villians.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Once you opened that email, there could have been a worm in the background that allowed the scammer to get access to your contacts, which is how they perpetuate the scam,” said Toscano.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Most likely to respond are the kind-hearted friend or particularly vulnerable grandmothers and marginally computer-savvy relatives. You know them as those who regularly forward notoriously annoying emails detailing political injustice or medical calamities or warm fuzzy animal photos that can be stopped, aided or enjoyed just by resending an email to every “strong woman,” “equally fed-up American,” or “someone in need of a smile” you know.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Still a little shaken from the feeling of vulnerability, I wanted answers. I called academic cybersleuth Gary Warner, a University of Alabama at Birmingham professor whose virtual street cred includes being a card carrying member of the <span style="color: black;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">FBI’s Digital PhishNet and Team Leader of the Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination Squad.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I asked The Terminator how this happened to me, one who regularly refers others to Snopes.com to debunk email spoofs and never falls for promises of money from Nigerian diplomats.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He seemed to want to blame the victim, who in most cases have inadvertently given up password information through ignorance. He was puzzled to learn I use Gmail, since just about all of the 1.5 million daily spam emails he mines with his spam-catching software originate with Yahoo or Hotmail accounts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then he asked me if I'd received an Evite lately – that's a popular online invitation site that has pretty much eradicated the need for paper party invitations and postage stamps.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I had. But told him I hadn't had time to respond. I'd been too busy fielding responses to my spam email and changing all my account passwords to think about developing a social life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“Just last week Evite spam was responsible for a huge amount of malware – 11,000 copies came into my spam collector alone,” Warner said. He went on to inquire whether I'd opened anything from Target or Amazon lately – two more unexpected sources that, just last week, delivered unwanted malicious software to unsuspecting computer users everywhere.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He sent me a screen shot of the Amazon scam. It didn't look familiar to me, but it also didn't look suspicious.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“The Amazon scam says something like 'thank you for verifying your new email address. Please verify it belongs to you.' Then it directs you to click a little button in the center, and if you click to start the verification process, it steals your password,” Warner said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He wanted me to remind readers that protecting your email password is probably the single most important safeguard to preserving the integrity of your virtual identity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“People tend to not think about their email password being important, yet the most common password people choose for their email account is still 'password.' Think of what the bad guys could do with your email password. How do you reset your bank password? By requesting help, which comes to your email, including a link back to your bank site, where the bad guy, who now controls your email, can easily reset the password,” said Warner.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“If a criminal has your email account, he can access your bank accounts, your credit card accounts,, any site you shop from, like Amazon or Best Buy. All those accounts are set up with the same singular point of failure. If I have your email password, I can reset every password in your life,” Warner said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Masking the paranoia I was now feeling over my computer insecurities, I asked Warner if paranoia is a plausible response to the real risk here. I was thinking about the ease with which so many of us use our email and Internet accounts for work correspondences, document sharing, online banking and Christmas shopping.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">“People ask me that all the time. As much as I know about online crime, do I still use online baking? Of course I do. Honestly, we are still far more likely to have an account stolen by the waiter who takes our credit card into another room at the end of a meal than by some unseen, online predator,” Warner said.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Needless to say, I've learned some valuable lessons in all of this. For one, that all my hard work building journalistic bridges in the town of Derry are enough to see me safely home, should I ever find myself stranded abroad and in need of airfare. Also, that email scams happen, and everyone can be a victim.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And most of all, I've learned that the next time someone delivers a meal tab to my table, I will be the one paying with cash<br />
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-32543705221097522322011-06-09T19:19:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:01:32.788-07:00The power of a wilted 4-leaf clover through 16 years of marriage<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfkliuOzPOVk9njGmueShyphenhyphenxzIPqeFru4RpKaGgZUF8IxqmmgQcDMTbepU_1Ka8oF76LRjqyi3r00JHxGTI1Idw8baO7xIBRh_8I458XLCR1FanfWIinQQLC7-OyVfthaRnm6xTRkTEArc/s1600/4-leaf-Clovers-A-Finders-Guide.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfkliuOzPOVk9njGmueShyphenhyphenxzIPqeFru4RpKaGgZUF8IxqmmgQcDMTbepU_1Ka8oF76LRjqyi3r00JHxGTI1Idw8baO7xIBRh_8I458XLCR1FanfWIinQQLC7-OyVfthaRnm6xTRkTEArc/s640/4-leaf-Clovers-A-Finders-Guide.jpeg" width="640" /></a><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What do you figure the odds are of finding a four-leaf clover without even looking?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I know -- but I'm not telling, just yet.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But I will tell you it's been more than 20 years since I plucked one from the yard at my mother's house.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And wouldn't you know, there was one sitting on my washing machine in the kitchen this morning -- just in time to remind me how lucky I was to have been in Mr. Nelson's ninth-grade honors English class at Woodrow Wilson High School back in 1974.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We were in the midst of a fascinating rotation which included Greek mythology, Shakespeare, Hemingway and public speaking. And we were just getting our final pep talk on how to speak effectively to a bunch of ninth graders (talk fast and use a visual aid), when I noticed the kid sitting next to me looked a little green about the whole prospect.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Whassamatter?" I asked him.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Nervous, I guess," said the quiet kid who lived down the street, whom I had known casually since seventh grade.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Since it was my nature to be helpful, I had a brainstorm. I reached into my 14-year-old bag of tricks. It took a minute of sifting through some other good stuff -- notes passed to me by my friend Irene in science class, pencil stubs with big rubber erasers, loose lunch change and a broken cigarette -- but I found it.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It seemed as if I had pulled a stubborn sword from an ancient stone.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Here. Maybe this will help," I said, offering a little green clover encased in Saran Wrap to my jittery friend.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"What's this?" he asked, perhaps thinking I was peddling some unrefined drug.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"It's a four-leaf clover. I found it the other day in my back yard -- without even looking. You can keep it. Really."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And my token was just in time.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Jimmy Robidoux -- you're up," Mr. Nelson bellowed in his best baseball umpire voice.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And thanks to the lucky charm, Jim hit a homerun that day.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I got an A," he mouthed the words to me, once his heart had found a normal pace again, following his dynamic speech on biblical truth and the end of the world.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Later that day, he even had the courage to stop by my house and thank me again, this time with sound.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I thought I'd better return this -- in case you needed it for your speech tomorrow," he said politely.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I shrugged it off and told him to keep the clover. I guess I had more than enough confidence in my knowledge of surrealist painter Salvador Dali, my topic of choice.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And besides, I had a really cool visual aid prepared -- a decent reproduction of Dali's "Melting Clocks" -- just in case I didn't fascinate my peers for three minutes with the content of my research.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And I would have invited Jim in for a Fresca, at that point.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But he said he'd better get back to his girlfriend, Jennifer, who was busy digging her toes into the gravel at the bottom of my driveway.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anyway, it only took us about three more years and a few failed attempts at finding true, teenage love with other partners until we were able to fully comprehend the power of a wilted weed.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Five years later we were married.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And this Friday will be our 16th wedding anniversary.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So when I saw the familiar little rectangle of Saran Wrap surrounding a green, four-leaf clover on top of my washing machine, naturally, I had to ask my husband, "Where'd this come from?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you. Aimee's friend, Kira, found a bunch of them. She said she was getting out of Aimee's car right in front of the house and she saw one -- a whole bunch of them, in fact. I wrapped one up for you. I have one in my wallet, too," said my husband, marveling, "What do you figure the odds are of finding a four-leaf clover, let alone a whole bunch of them, just like that, without even looking?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I suppose it was a rhetorical question.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But as I said, I suddenly know the answer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The chances of finding a four-leaf clover, just like that, without even looking, are probably once in a lifetime.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Unless God decides to send a simple anniversary present to a couple of impulsive teenagers who survived ninth-grade English class and went on to find each other eventually, against all odds, like a tiny miracle in a field of clover.</span><br />
<br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Originally Published June 5, 1995</span></i></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Bucks County Courier Times</span></i></div>
Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-7110168409008333772011-05-29T06:22:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:59:42.261-07:00See the Boy, Know the Man<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',Tahoma,Arial,sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">More than a decade ago I saw a television show on PBS, a documentary about a group of kids from England who were studied over several decades at seven-year intervals. It was called something like, "From 7 to 21 Up."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">For a woman who has trouble recalling her natural hair color, it seems strange that a TV show would stick with me for so long.</span><i></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">But this show hit me like a shot of permanent dye with a peroxide chaser.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The premise of the show was that the boy (or girl) at age 7 reflects the man (or woman) he (or she) will one day grow to be.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Sure enough, in most if not all cases highlighted, that’s what happened to the little Brits.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">If a boy was unstable, unmotivated, lazy, aimless or indifferent at 7, he was still struggling with life at 14, 21, 28 and 35.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">If he was focused, efficient, confident, inquisitive and hopeful at 7, he was on track at 14, 21, 28 and 35.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Sure, it was just another theory of early childhood development, like the critical “wonder years” theory, or birth-to-5 pre-conscious memory type stuff.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">But in hearing the boys’ world view at 7, then again at 14, and so on, it became clear to me that there might actually be something to this hypothesis.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Of course, I know there are many things that can happen to a boy from 7 to manhood that will affect his outcome, one way or another. But the show satisfied some questions about nature and nurture. Both matter, but without nurture, nature has no safety net.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">What prompted me to think about all this was my younger son’s 8<sup>th</sup> birthday, which was Sept. 30.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">From birth, Billy has been a catalyst in many ways. He brought me back to primal motherhood after nearly 11 years of evolving with my former baby, Neil, and the baby before him, Aimee.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Billy has always challenged me to look at the world from his point of view.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">But that’s not all.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">He then insists on answers, explanations, conclusions, balance and morals to every story.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Not unusual demands from a little kid, perhaps.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">But what other boys might only think about or barely ponder, Billy would explore in full spelunking gear.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Sadly, it’s a trait that’s suddenly waning. Perhaps that’s why 7 is a pivotal age. Maybe it’s the beginning and ending of something irreplaceable in our development.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Anyway, in all his inquisitive glory days, Billy often reminded me of the boy Neil used to be.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Of course, Neil has nearly tripled in age since 7 and certainly qualifies for manhood by most standards.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Still, he’s a work in progress.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Over time I’ve witnessed his emotions ebb and flow, sometimes lost in tidal waves of frustration.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Other times, his childlike enthusiasm takes me over like the chicken pox.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">But at 19, I sense Neil’s returning to the boy I knew at 7, the one who shared his dreams with me, always, in fine detail; the boy who sensed he was destined for something big.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The boy who held my hand in public long after it was a matter of his safety, and vowed he’d never grow too big or too cool to be my baby.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">If the boy-to-manhood experiment meant anything at all, perhaps it’s that the future is not so random as we might think and that, for everything we’re fortunate to gain in life, there are other things ingrained from birth.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Which means to me that we should be conscious of how our sons are growing up, paying attention to how we respond, or don’t, along the way.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">And if at 7, the boy we see before us is the least bit unstable or indifferent or unsettled, then we should know which way to push.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">See the boy at 7 and know the man – that was the message of the documentary, as I recall. In some cases, it was encouraging to see how each little boy grew. In others, it was disturbing, even painful, to see the boy at 7 and know – before the camera started rolling – the direction his life was going to go by the next installment of his life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I’ll never know, for sure, if that documentary affected the way I’ve raised my sons. But at this point, I’m encouraged.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">I see the boy Bill is at 8 and somehow know the man who will be honest, compromising, meticulous, confident and loving.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">And the boy in Neil I knew at 7 as wise beyond his years is the man I see now at 19 – hopeful, adventurous, determined, sincere and still growing.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: 27px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; font-style: normal; line-height: normal;"><div class="postentry" style="display: inline !important;">
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<span style="line-height: 27px;"><i>Originally Published: </i></span><br />
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<i>Oct. 3, 1999 </i></div>
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<i>Bucks County Courier Times</i></div>
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<i>Levittown, PA</i></div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-34576914069216811692011-05-21T05:28:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:08:15.247-07:00Considering Romance, Parenting and a Fruit Fly with 14 Eyes<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_KnSs-MXztlnFbSJXni7YyEzoShtOma5eMA6950aw6HkDheJIMD-yb9jwTjVGWiPyORJ2l6igmHklERuOUJSCBAAsCUyHuUgNDbCFZRSM2ylRnFef_mILnLgmguXjaW0AxBeK806PFo/s1600/Coloured+SEM+of+mutant+fruit+fly.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_KnSs-MXztlnFbSJXni7YyEzoShtOma5eMA6950aw6HkDheJIMD-yb9jwTjVGWiPyORJ2l6igmHklERuOUJSCBAAsCUyHuUgNDbCFZRSM2ylRnFef_mILnLgmguXjaW0AxBeK806PFo/s400/Coloured+SEM+of+mutant+fruit+fly.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #1a1818; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">This mutant fruit fly has two small ectopic eyes in the place of antennae, seen here between </span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #1a1818; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">the large red compound eyes. PHOTO CREDIT: EYE OF SCIENCE LIBRARY.</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">I remember reading a short but interesting science article in a 1995 Time Magazine. This kind of mutant-breeding information was right up the alley of my older son, Neil, who back then was 15 and a dedicated X-Men comic book collector and connoisseur of news stories about oddities of nature. So I figured the article might present a great opportunity for a quality mother/son conversation:</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><b>ME:</b> "Did you see there was a neat article in ... "</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><b>NEIL:</b> "I read it."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">He was, as usual, short on words and way ahead of me.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The article, <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,982751,00.html">"Jeepers! Creepy Peepers!" appeared in the April 3, 1995</a> issue of Time and described the latest scientific adventures of researches from the University of Basel in Switzerland.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">In a "serious effort to understand how nature fashions something as magnificent as an eye," these scientists created a swarm of fruit flies that had multiple eyes -- not just on their heads. These gnats sprouted eyes on their legs, antennae, wings -- the article says some of these test-tube flies had as many as 14 eyes.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Fourteen eyes! I find that as repulsive as it is intriguing,</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">I guess it could be that Neil inherited his interest in science from me. After all, I've always been one to linger just a little too long at circus sideshows featuring bearded women and dog-faced boys.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Anyway, I was just wondering what Neil thought of the whole thing. So I asked.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><b>ME:</b> "So, Neil. What did you think?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><b>NEIL:</b> "I don't really get it. What's the point?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Well of COURSE Neil didn't get it. He hadn't lived LONG enough to get it. But this mother of four and student of life saw the possibilities, even then. I understand the value of a mom genetically predisposed to actually having eyes in the back of her head, which is how I know those Alpine developmental biologists are standing in some mighty deep and fertile pay dirt.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">First, of course, it helps if you understand the origin of this scientific breakthrough.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">As the article explained, it seems there is a gene known as eyeless. Fruit flies lacking this gene don't develop eyes. That's why the gene is called eyeless. (And you thought science was so technical.) So they take these eyeless genes, insert them into teeny tiny fruit fly embryos and -- poof! It's a family of bugs with more eyes than Mississippi.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">The thing is, the experiment worked just as well when they tried it with an eye-related gene from a mouse instead of the eyeless fruit fly gene. The result was the same: Fruit flies with multiple eyes.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">This is amazing news for all of us.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">For scientists, it suggest that mouse genes and fly genes are so similar that they must share a common ancestor -- a "sea-dwelling worm that lived 500 million years ago."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">To molecular biologists, it means we are all basically just big flies.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">And while I'm not certain how you go from mice and fruit flies to prehistoric worms, I do see the mammal /worm connection. It's believable, even from a layperson's point of view.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">After all, haven't we all met our share of people we could accurately refer to as sea-dwelling worms?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">But what makes this even more amazing news is that, with just a little imagination, science can use this "eyeless" research to benefit the entire human race.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">For example, you know that guy who cut you off in traffic yesterday? The one you called "brainless?" It's not what you really called him, but it's what you meant. Scientists could simply isolate his brainless gene and -- poof! Before you know it, a new and improved breed of driver is born with built-in common road courtesy AND the ability to parallel park.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Or that person you just phoned for assistance at your favorite utility company? The one who was rude? The one who kept you on hold for five minutes only to disconnect you? One successful Swiss-scientist procedure on her tactless gene and you are practically guaranteed a Utopian world where people who answer business phones are never rude.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">But it doesn't stop there, folks.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Suppose your kids won't help around the house. Get some professional gene splicers to isolate their choreless gene and before you know it, a generation of children is born instinctively beating each other with brooms for first dibs on household chores.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">You say your husband hasn't sent you flowers or surprised you with reservations at a nice restaurant since -- well, he's just never done it? It's not really his fault. It's that damned romanceless gene. Send him off to the University of Basel so they can reconfigure his DNA.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">Oh sure -- it will take a generation or two for romantic husbands to flourish. But it's worth the wait.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;">And think of it this way: While you're doing your part to create perfect husbands for your children's children, imagine, just for fun, how it would feel to have the following conversation at a party:<br />
<b>PARTY GUEST:</b> "Where's your husband these days? I haven't seen him around."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><b>YOU:</b> "Him? Oh, he was a real nice guy, but he wasn't genetically predisposed to romance. So I donated him to science.</span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-74335048644250981582011-05-14T05:54:00.000-07:002015-09-30T15:12:36.416-07:00Of Wishes, Hoop Dreams and Simple Prayers<div class="post-23 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-columns" id="post-23" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: 50% 100%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 18px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0.1em;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6JSSXBSGAZV4hxrreTbbWCO0PvRZxz3wV63yM-Q7mEmIpHEiweL1zZkB47f4RSMZqyvg9HWOsGr1Dq9CPD9lvFA7wy2BfoV0j1KsYbp99RCIIocvoVgfm9EKfcsCULGjxFRcXoDll_s/s1600/ShiningStar+WHICH+IS+BETTER%253F%253F+Wishing+On+A+Star.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6JSSXBSGAZV4hxrreTbbWCO0PvRZxz3wV63yM-Q7mEmIpHEiweL1zZkB47f4RSMZqyvg9HWOsGr1Dq9CPD9lvFA7wy2BfoV0j1KsYbp99RCIIocvoVgfm9EKfcsCULGjxFRcXoDll_s/s640/ShiningStar+WHICH+IS+BETTER%253F%253F+Wishing+On+A+Star.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wishing stars: overrated.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Wishing stars, Y-shaped poultry bones, fountain-strewn pennies, birthday candles – my Billy’s not buying any of it, anymore.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Mommy, know what? Wishing is fake. All of it,” he declared during a recent car conversation.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At the time of his revelation he was breathing heavily on the passenger-side window, tracing the letters of his first name in the fog with his finger.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Whatcha mean, Bill?”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“I mean FAKE! You know, PHONY!?!,” my son was looking at me as though I’d just questioned the true identity of Batman.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">His emotion caught me off guard. I made eye contact and smiled generously in hopes I could head off the tears that were lodged in his throat and, by my calculations, six seconds from his tear ducts.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“No, Sweetie – what I mean is, how do you KNOW wishes are fake?,” the surety of his words still stuck in my craw.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Because all my life I been wishin’ to be a famous athlete and it hasn’t happened. So I’m through with wishes!”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And with that, Billy was smearing his carefully formed letters into a blurry fistful of car window smudge.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Billy – you’re only 5. How many famous 5-year-old athletes do you think there are?”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">All my son could do was shrug. To him, a wish is a wish. There are no loopholes or hidden clauses that should preclude a 5-year-old from becoming a famous athlete, if he wishes for it hard enough.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I had to think fast.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;">Because wishing falls into that huge vat of complication we parents concoct when we encourage</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"> our kids to believe in things they can’t slide into their pockets or hold in their chubby little fists.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And we all do it.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Like the airborne fluoride sprite who will exchange a worn-out baby tooth for its fair market value, in cold cash, at the drop of an incisor.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Or the irrational connection between bestowing your heart’s desire onto a Lincoln-head penny and tossing it into a chlorinated pool at the mall.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">We coax them to wish on stars, to dabble in dreams.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">But we fail to provide a safety net for their errant wishes – the ones that float away, leaving them to plummet, face first, into some dark place, beyond wide-eyed innocence, we hoped they’d never have to find.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Right then and there I didn’t have time to invent the right glue to mend my child’s broken spirit. First, I asked God, “Why me?” Then, I settled on a simple prayer: “Get me outta this one gracefully. Just send me the right words.” Then, I reached over and intercepted the tear stuck midway down Billy’s cheek.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Well, if you’re thinking of famous athletes like Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal – I’m pretty sure they had to do way more than wish on stars.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">They had to practice dribbling and shooting. They had to learn the rules of the game and how not to be sore losers. They had to grow up into men before they got rich and famous.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">My wisdom was falling on plugged ears. Billy’s fingers were wedged tightly into his ear canals, the thing he does whenever he doesn’t like the way I toss advice his way.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">My words landed like dead fish near a nauseated seal. They were stinking up his half of the car, too. I could tell by the sour look on his face.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I pulled out my big gun, a whopper of a phrase that sometimes coaxes sensibility from my stubborn son.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Billy – do you want to be right or do you want to hear the truth?”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And on cue, my queasy little sea mammal was getting his appetite back.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“All right, Mom. I want the truth.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“OK, the truth is that you’re right: Wishes are fake.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">He was all ears, sans the fingers.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“There’s nothing wrong with making wishes, because they come straight from your heart. As long as you understand there’s no magic; no place for wishes to go that make them come true.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And then came the words I’d more than wished for, the spiritual Krazy Glue my fragmented son needed to repair his NBA dreams of grandeur.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“You know, wishes are a lot like prayers. Only we know prayers have someplace to go. You send a prayer to God and have faith that he hears it. Then, you do your part. You wanna be a good athlete? Be patient. Practice and work hard.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“All right, Mommy.” Only Billy was distracted by a fresh batch of window fog. Still, I think he was happy to know the truth about wishes.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I sent my smile heavenward, along with a silent postscript to my earlier prayerful S.O.S.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span class="Apple-style-span">“Thanks, God. And one more thing: Next time let it be Jim trapped in the car when Billy needs the truth. I’m drained.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 23px;">Originally published Sept. 1997</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 23px;">Bucks County Courier Times</span></div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-83643438315323839942011-05-08T09:29:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:46:59.605-07:00A Mother's Day Gift Like No Other<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-k2WI3RSd4HwTE8OLby7KFfMo09Fu9JQGG6M41zs3o3AU3lu1_Gvwj2b7_Q_jIa3BNKeyxRfhH8SUPk1PXt3l3mITkCCAyXSLCbBDe63ZfvsWHZXRWBYi2yMgCpvQ_lCuGa-NUwONxVo/s1600/marturana.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-k2WI3RSd4HwTE8OLby7KFfMo09Fu9JQGG6M41zs3o3AU3lu1_Gvwj2b7_Q_jIa3BNKeyxRfhH8SUPk1PXt3l3mITkCCAyXSLCbBDe63ZfvsWHZXRWBYi2yMgCpvQ_lCuGa-NUwONxVo/s640/marturana.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amy Marturana, left, and her mom, Joan, Sea Isle City, NJ, summer of 2010.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Is this Carol?" said the voice with the familiar Bucks County twang. "You used to write for the Courier?"</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was a man named Dave Marturana, of Newtown. He remembered me from my years writing a weekly column for this newspaper. He found me, long distance, in Manchester, NH, where I've been living and working for the past decade.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He had a story to tell me, and I'm still a sucker for a good story.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Occupational hazard.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Do you remember writing something called 'Happy Birthday, my Beloved"?</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I still had one eye on the TV as I sifted through my unreliable memory banks.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Well, I wrote a lot of stories in my life, Dave," I said. "Can you give me a little more to go on?"<br />
He said it was something I'd written on the occasion of my daughter's 21st birthday.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"That makes sense, because I have a daughter named Aimee, and Aimee means 'beloved' in French, so yeah, I'm sure I did write something like that," I said, moving into the kitchen for a quiet space.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Right. I know that because I also have a daughter, Amy, only we spelled it differently," Dave said.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"When you wrote that story it really touched my wife. She cut it out and saved it so she could give it to our daughter on her 21st birthday. She said it really captured everything she felt about motherhood, and expressed all the things she wanted to say to our daughter when she turned 21."<br />
I was really starting to like Dave.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Aw, that's so cool," I said, still wondering why someone would travel across 10 years and 350 miles of airwaves to remind me that I have a way with words.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"In fact, our Amy is going to be 21 on Thursday," and as Dave went on, I did the mental math, concluding that I must have written that column back in 1997.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"My wife actually has the same birthday as our daughter. Unfortunately, she died a few months ago," said Dave, collapsing my ability to subtract in my head or wallow in the glory of my lingering fame as a memorable columnist for my hometown paper.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Oh Dave, I'm so sorry," I heard myself saying, still not sure where we were going.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then he explained how he'd come across the yellowed newspaper clipping in a box of stuff he had been sifting through, things left behind by the woman he'd married not long after meeting her back in 1981, on the job at Betz Laboratories. She was a lab technician and he was an engineer.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I was going to throw it away. My wife was a real collector. But then I started reading it, and it was like, 'Oh my god, I remember when she cut this out, and why she cut it out. I have got to give it to Amy for her birthday. I've got to do what her mother intended to do with it ."</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At this point Dave didn't really need to finish his story. My mind had already raced ahead. I knew exactly why he'd called me.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"My wife had also bought a birthday card ahead of time -- that was Joan -- and it was in the box, next to the clipping," said Dave.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I couldn't say anything. My heart was in my throat and tears were taking me over.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Anyway, the reason I'm calling is just because I wanted you to know how much it meant to my wife, how much it means to me that, even though Joan can't be here for Amy's birthday, I have this to give her, a last gift from her mother."</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dave told me that in a couple days he was going to drive to Syracuse University, where his daughter is a journalism student, and hand deliver the card.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I learned that Joan Marturana was only 55 when she died on Valentine's Day, just two years after her cancer diagnosis. She also left behind a son, 23.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I thanked Dave again for finding me, and we hung up.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now, I needed to know what it was that I had written about motherhood that was so important.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">My own four kids are mostly grown now. Yet, after 34 years in the trenches, I still find myself questioning my ability to get it right.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I knew my old Courier Times clips were in a shoebox in the basement. Despite my disorganized attitude toward most everything, I had filed the little manila envelopes chronologically before stashing them, which made it easy to find the one marked September 1997.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I unfolded my own yellowed copy of the column that, turns out, was a letter to myself. I read it and cried again -- not just for Joan, but for all the moms still in the trenches, who are never quite sure if they're getting it right.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And so, with permission from my former editor, Pat Walker, I'm sharing Dave's story -- and that old column, which seems like a fitting Mother's Day tribute for Joan Marturana, who couldn't be here this year to soak up the love and gratitude from the family that must somehow find the strength to go on, without her.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Happy Birthday, My Beloved</b></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If only I'd known then what I know now, I could've written myself this letter 21 years ago and saved myself a lot of guesswork, not to mention guilt:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">September 12, 1976</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dear Carol:</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's a girl! But then, you knew she would be, somehow, didn't you?</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">First things first: Stop looking, because there's no owner's manual, no deposit, no return and no money-back guarantee.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pick a name that seems to suit her. It should be meaningful and, hopefully, pay tribute to someone special in your life. Something like Aimee Jeanne -- Aimee because it means 'beloved;' Jeanne, for your sister who, with any luck, she will grow up to favor.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now, let the fun begin with your first bonding moment.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Take her gently, apprehensively into your arms and size her up.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Make sure you hold her firmly by her fragile pink blanketed body and kiss her no less than 10 times, covering cheeks, mouth, nose and forehead thoroughly. She will instinctively root around for anything that feels like a food source. It's OK -- let her gorge herself on your chin. It's a phase that won't last long enough.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When no one's looking, check for digits -- 10 extraordinarily long fingers, 10 incredible toes. Then, take off all that hospital garb and open up that diaper. See for yourself what a full-bodied miracle looks like at close range.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This would be a good time to thank God for your perfect, wondrous child -- and let Him know He's officially on call until further notice.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The next year will be hectic. You'll spend most of your spare time informing your friends and relatives of how truly gifted she is. They'll want to know about all her firsts. First burp, first smile, first solid food, first saliva bubble, first unintelligible babble. Write everything down in her baby book. Believe it or not, you'll forget the particulars.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Also, you'll need no less than one roll of camera film per week. It's an expensive habit, but there's just no other way for you to capture every average, expressionless moment for posterity.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In two short years you'll learn the difference between spirited and spoiled. The definition of discipline will become suddenly, strangely ambiguous. She'll destroy every theory on child rearing you subscribed to in your childless years.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Fasten your seatbelt.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At 5 she'll impress you with her maturity on the first day of kindergarten. She'll baffle you a week later when she buries her head in your lap, begging you not to make her go back.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Make her go.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">You'll cry through her first band concert, the melody of "Hot Cross Buns" barely recognizable above the din of squeaks, toots and misplaced quarter notes. But that's not what prompts your tears.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's the way she's straining to find your face in the sea of parents. It's the self-satisfied smile she flashes during the roar of the crowd. It's the indelible song she's given you that will resonate on your heart strings for life.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And just when you think you're handling things pretty well, puberty strikes.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">For the next five years nothing will look familiar, from her hairstyle to her bedroom decor.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Though you swore things would be different between your daughter and you, suddenly uncomfortably familiar one-liners are spilling forth from your gut. Once you catch your breath, you'll despise the sound of your words as much as you did the first time you heard them -- when your mother spoke them to adolescent you.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But you'll survive.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Go ahead -- enjoy her youthful spirit. Marvel as she overcomes the pain of growing -- her first romantic heartbreak, her bad hair days, her bad decision days, the days you wonder if she'll ever straighten up and fly right.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then comes graduation. As your daughter walks the walk, clutching a delicate rosebud, you'll have trouble holding back your tears. It's everything -- the road you've traveled, the road ahead. It's more a beginning than an end -- and yet, it's not easy to watch her so ready to sprout wings and fly off, direction unknown.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">All it not lost, though, because at 18 she's still your woman-child.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Out more than in, her phone messages pile up faster than her laundry.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Don't take it personally. She's just preparing you for adulthood.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Hers.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And 21 will come with no mercy.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Now, your job is done.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's time for the final, selfless act of motherhood: Accept her for who she is. Forgive yourself for the things you could've done better. Love her unconditionally. Find the strength to gently, apprehensively, let her go.</span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-60110046907033897252011-04-08T08:41:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:09:06.407-07:00By the Time He Gets To Phoenix, You'll Need a Double Snapple<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I didn't expect to hear from Cousin Katie so soon. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We usually try to get our families together around the major winter holidays. Or whenever something worth celebrating happens.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl9aXnK2oI3ZnEKup9xj1KWAifM1KhhH1CqhVWCgBC0LXGQ3oN29NkyZRF0KUc5psZJEyFSN_zMpeqpVXvCd8TjfZdsgs5GC2XXdwKoQmy5EI7lZqnTRvjDZoevOllCsxM7-EUzZR3J4/s1600/img-snapple-lemon-tea_140803914111.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtl9aXnK2oI3ZnEKup9xj1KWAifM1KhhH1CqhVWCgBC0LXGQ3oN29NkyZRF0KUc5psZJEyFSN_zMpeqpVXvCd8TjfZdsgs5GC2XXdwKoQmy5EI7lZqnTRvjDZoevOllCsxM7-EUzZR3J4/s400/img-snapple-lemon-tea_140803914111.png" width="177" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Snapple and the Stuff of Life: </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Perfect together.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So when she called in the dead heat of this off-graduation summer, I had to wonder what was bringing us to Audubon, NJ, this time.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Last summer both our families celebrated high school graduations when their Derek and our Aimeé managed to crawl across their parallel scholastic finish lines just in time to get a validated diploma. We won't be doing so again until 1998 when their Jason and our Neil get to balance simultaneous mortarboards on their little knowledge-laden heads, too.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"We're having a going-away party for Derek this Sunday." Katie's voice caught me off guard. "He's moving to Phoenix."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Phoenix. Capital of Arizona. A big dry state somewhere near California. The place Glen Campbell was headed to in the 1960s -- right before he landed that job as a Wichita lineman. Also, the home of Katie's parents.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"When is he leaving?" I asked.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Next Wednesday. It's time. I think it will do us all some good," said Katie, hinting at the mixed motherly emotions that I, too, have experienced during the advanced stages of custodial parenting.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not custodial, as in winning custody in a divorce hearing; she and Cousin Chuck are still in good standing, maritally speaking.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I mean custodial as in taking care of, guarding, maintaining and sustaining the child you've made it your business to hover over since birth.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And I say advanced stages because, when your live-at-home teenager finishes high school, turns 18, looks and feels grown up and still lives at home -- you become a terminally incredble parent.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That's right; I hate to shock those of you custodians out there still in the prime of your hovering stage. It's just part of the fine print you didn't dwell on -- along with sleep deprivation, financial ruin and chronic stomach knots. You still have to deal with losing all your credibility. And you thought you were so smart. This is something that even Doctors Spock, Drew and Brazelton can't solve for you, not even with an assist from Dear Abby.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"OK. We'll see you then," I said, remembering the last time we had spoken about Derek's future.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">His mind was set on Rider University. But that changed when the financial reality of higher education caved in around him. So he settled for some affordable night classes at the local community college and survived his first post-high school year working, studying and looking for the next step up.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Phoenix seemed to hold promise. After all, Derek could stay with his grandparents for a while, establish residency and attend a state college there for a fraction of the $18,000 it would have cost him to live at Rider, right in his own New Jersey back yard.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At least going to Phoenix is going someplace.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And someplace is better than no place, especially for a young person like Derek, whose birthright is full membership in Club Genreation X.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Cousin Chuck said he knew Derek needed some wings. The best he could offer was a choice: another semester at the community college and some wheels of his own to get back and forth -- or a plane ticket out of Audubon.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Derek took the golden ticket.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4PeWz9-qaoRJh1AebhVrEHT1HnRHSpoPLi6NTyI8RzuUxVR3Pp6iGqo-fkmGHIqF7VIpoA0_86ZqsRFtrYPxu2QJ3fJLF4gTjZx0gNzhvp1T7tWIHV5XTy4pWYzkJgmgtKrtd7xsR0w/s1600/derek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd4PeWz9-qaoRJh1AebhVrEHT1HnRHSpoPLi6NTyI8RzuUxVR3Pp6iGqo-fkmGHIqF7VIpoA0_86ZqsRFtrYPxu2QJ3fJLF4gTjZx0gNzhvp1T7tWIHV5XTy4pWYzkJgmgtKrtd7xsR0w/s320/derek.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Postscript: Derek turned out fine. Found himself</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">a great wife, Bridget, and is living happily ever after.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At the party, Derek seemed happy enough. He said he was packed and counting the days. Several of his friends stopped by with offerings of cards, gifts and bear hugs. Chuck and Katie were busy restocking the taco dip and fetching Snapples for the hot and thirsty summer crowd.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A week later, I had the unusual pleasure of seeing my cousins again, this time at Cousin Arn's house. Cousin Arn, who also lives in Audubon, is Cousin Chuck's younger brother, and three weeks my junior. He and his wife were celebrating their baby's first birthday. And in 17 summers, I suppose we will be celebrating mutual graduations for their Morgan and our Julianna. Guess it's never too soon to plan.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"So, how'd it go?" I asked Katie, sipping a Snapple.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I cried for three days. In fact, this is the first day I've been able to say his name without -- "</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"-- You talking about Derek again?" Cousin Chuck interjected.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Katie's eyes filled with tears.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I was fine until the night before he left. Then it hit me -- all of a sudden I couldn't stop crying. It's just that Derek and I would sit around at night a lot, talking about things. You know? Now he's gone to Phoenix. Then you start wondering things like, 'Did I do enough for him? Did I give him enough while I had the chance? Will he be OK?' It's just been harder than I thought."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> Katie struggled bravely under the weight of her sentence.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And for a few minutes, on Cousin Arn's moonlit deck, we cousins and our spouses sipped Snapples just to beat the hot summer night, wondering out loud about the state of parenting.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Surely it hadn't been so hard for OUR moms and dads. We marveled at the cost of living, the cost of college, the cost of taking a chance on parenthood without reading the fine print.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then, we drank another round of Snapples and I offered up a silent toast, to Derek and the future. I think Katie made hers a double.</span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-2313315990454870692011-04-05T12:55:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:09:26.783-07:00Confessions of a Prom Mom<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXEr84yEpwxD0bwEBrsF9W8YRQH6FnCDtq4pnrqwo5tauyjxMV0YQ9SDIQQh9c_skrOVUwPJL_iw88fYE92wdVqXPNduYdapjvYUnL42CWvHeFvbtpGA5YHC6cWfTcFZaRyiE3d0p0_I/s1600/promom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAXEr84yEpwxD0bwEBrsF9W8YRQH6FnCDtq4pnrqwo5tauyjxMV0YQ9SDIQQh9c_skrOVUwPJL_iw88fYE92wdVqXPNduYdapjvYUnL42CWvHeFvbtpGA5YHC6cWfTcFZaRyiE3d0p0_I/s640/promom.jpg" width="528" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Harry S Truman Prom, 1994. Andreas Scheerer and Aimeé, in blue.</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I want to start this by saying I can comfortably write a column about my 17-year-old daughter and our perfect relationship because we share a unique understanding that would make most "regular" mother/daughter duos extremely jealous.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But why resort to blatant lies?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Truth of the matter is I can write comfortably about my daughter because she's out of the country. She's in Canada with her high school chorus. And since the bus isn't due back in Levittown until later tonight, I should have enough time to curb the Sunday paper this is printed in, along with the trash and recyclables, before her dirty laundry hits the hamper.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Next weekend is her senior prom. These are the six scariest words in the Maternal language.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What's so scary, you ask? Perhaps, you, who have never been a hormonal teenager girl, would need to ask. Me? I've been to that party, pal, and I know when to pass the onion dip.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not that I don't cherish the opportunity to share this once in a lifetime moment with my daughter. But I've barely survived the Prom Mom preliminaries. I'm not sure I have what it takes to make the final cut.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">First, there was pre-decision purgatory. That was the month I spent emotionally suspended between Audrey "I Could Have Danced All Night" Hepburn and Sissy "Doesn't Carrie Make A Lovely Prom Queen" Spacek. While all of Aimee's friends were talking about prom gowns and the fashion risks they were considering, from hair to toenails, my daughter refused to throw her hat into the ring. She waffled on her potential prom candidacy with the eloquence of a young Republican.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I don't know if I want to go. I hate all that catered food. And anyway, it's really just an expensive dance. And I hate to dance."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So I get used to the idea of playing cards and eating mass quantities of Ben & Jerry's with my daughter on prom might when, out of nowhere, she says, "I want to go dress shopping on Saturday. Are you free?"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Am I free?<br />
Would Naomi come of out remission for Wynona?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We decide to hit the rent-a-dress place on Route 1. That way we don't really have to make a commitment. We can sort of scope out the fashion trends and see what styles we like. And if we should happen to find the perfect dress, we grab it. After all, with only four weeks left to dress hunt, our fashion rifles are loaded; we will shoot to kill.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Without dwelling, I'll just say that it was the most traumatic experience of my life. She tried on one dress. THE dress. Long, black, beaded, elegant, sophisticated. It was magic. it was expensive. It was already reserved for her prom night by another hunter, an out-of-town prom-goer.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I learned that in the rent-a-dress jungle, there is only one of each species. Even the assault weapons shoot blanks.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It felt like the part where Cinderella loses her shoe and the coach is a pumpkin again. I was in mourning. My daughter shrugged it off like a household chore.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Suffice it to say that four bridal shops, two major malls and one week later, I found myself hoping for some mice and birds with well-developed sewing skills to whip something up just before an ugly step-sister says, "The carriage is here."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I even considered dusting off my old senior prom dress and offering it to my daughter as more of a sentimental bonding gesture than a last resort. But I found out that the beautiful navy blue dress I left hanging safely in my mother's closet had been sabotaged by the fashion police. My daughter broke it to me gently.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"It's tacky."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I'll admit that it does have more tiers than a Richard Simmons infomercial, but tacky?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, the shopping safari finally ended when we bagged a shorter, more practical version of the dress I had loved and lost. It has cobalt blue sequins and beads. Maybe she can make a case for it in 30 years when her 21st Century daughter has trouble finding the dress of her dreams after a few frustrating trips down the fashion Information Highway.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">With one week to go, it's not over yet. There are hair and nail appointments to keep. There are still pantyhose to buy (in triplicate, in case of runners or manufacturers defects).</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And there are all those overblown, over-analyzed Prom Mom fantasies that I am about to lose.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I bet, if I asked my own mother, she would remember the kind of stuff moms remember, like how long I spent in the bathroom doing my hair, or how nice it was to see me out of my faded Levi's and in a dress for a change. Or how it felt to see me walk out the door in that navy blue layered chiffon gown with the boy she'd one day know more intimately as the father of her grandchildren.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">If I could look back, without all the romantic fuzzy edges that time adds to our memories, I would probably see a 17-year-old girl in heels too high and too uncomfortable to walk gracefully in, never mind dance. I'd see Sterno trays filled with food groups I'd never had a first person experience with. I'd see an expensive dance.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In a way I'm glad Aimee won't get a chance to read this.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I have to admit it's really not so bad, being a Prom Mom. And, quite honestly, my daughter packed most of her annoying hormones away in the same box as the New Kids On The Block memorabilia and her entire ninth-grade fluorescent wardrobe.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The scary part is really that anticipating her senior prom means she will be graduating from high school in four weeks.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It means she will be turning 18 in September, and starting college. It means she is pretty much grown up now and, the real truth be known, I would just like one last chance to pick out her shoes, or dress her in something frilly, or rock her gently when she cries.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This prom night, for her, will one day be a memory of how great her friends looked, all dressed up, without big T-shirts, baggy jeans, or backward baseball caps.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And this prom night, for me, will forever be the last ritual of mother/daughter relationships, that reminds me of what it was like to be a hormonal teenage girl.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Maybe, if I hurry, I can make it to the drug store for extra film and a big box of tissues, before the Canadian tour bus gets back to the school parking lot.</span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-42772800273842699492011-03-30T07:08:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:09:42.623-07:00Editor of the Year<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For all the witty headlines.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For all the patient plucking of misplaced punctuation.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For all the late nights waiting for deadline meeting stories.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And for all the mental gymnastics spent twisting and contorting over why a career as an editor seemed like a good idea at some point in time.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><a href="http://www.derryinklink.com/">Click here</a> for examples of Dana's editing work, ad nauseum</span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #783f04;"><b>Dana Wormald</b></span> has been named this year's </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4c1130; font-size: x-large;">EDITOR OF THE YEAR</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
overwhelmingly and unanimously by your minions<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">*</span>.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;">And <a href="http://thieveshighway.wordpress.com/">Click Here</a> to see how deep it goes.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #38761d;"> When he's not cutting, pasting and perfecting, he's thinking out loud. </span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">*</span>The Minions:</div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-70696473798630416602010-11-07T13:16:00.000-08:002013-06-09T06:10:01.615-07:00She was guardian to a 'hero'<div style="margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Henry and Me, strolling through the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I met Henry Stad on a retrofitted school bus bound for Boston Logan International Airport. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It was 5 a.m., and before I even sat down next to him, Henry offered me fair warning."My wife says I talk too much," said Henry, who, at 91, had a lifetime of stories to keep me entertained for the next 15 hours. Our journey together -- from the Bedford VA Medical Center in Bedford, Mass., to Washington, D.C., and back -- was courtesy of <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Honor</span> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flight</span> New England, which for the past 18 months has been flying World War II veterans round-trip to the nation's capital to see their memorial, part of a national network that launched five years ago.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Although I'd been on previous <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Honor</span> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flights</span>, including New England's inaugural <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">flight</span>, this was the first time I went without the usual trappings of a news reporter -- leaving my camera and notebook behind meant my professional objectivity was suspended. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;">Henry Stad</span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was there to serve as Henry's "Guardian" -- a pivotal part of the program that matches veterans with someone who will be "no farther than an elbow away," making sure they are safe and having the time of their lives.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">That would be a tall order, considering the life Henry Stad had experienced so far.He was drafted into the Army Air Corps at 22 and served in the European/African/Middle Eastern Theater. I expected his arsenal of war stories would include tales of great heroism and tragic loss. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">What I quickly learned about Henry was that the circumstances of war itself did not faze him. Rather, it was his own brush with death after contracting malaria that changed the way Henry would live the rest of his days.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"My parents died when I was just a kid, both of them one after the other," said Henry. "So I always figured my days were numbered anyway. When I got sick in Africa, they didn't know what to do with me, so they shipped me back home. I had lost so much weight nobody knew how to cure me. They said I was a goner, and they pretty much left me to die."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But Henry's wiry body wasn't quitting. For no good reason, he recovered from whatever strain of exotic disease he'd contracted. He'd come close enough to death to appreciate life, and so once he was discharged, his only mission was living life to the fullest.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I was fond of gambling," said Henry, who explained that he spent the next several years in as many tropical and exotic places as possible, chauffeuring high rollers and rubbing elbows with some of the most colorful characters imaginable during the 1940s and '50s.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I didn't think about getting married or starting a family because I really didn't think I was going to live much longer, given my parents' short lives and the toll being sick had taken on my body," said Stad.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But life went on ... and on. Henry finally came to terms with the fact that maybe life wasn't so temporary or fragile.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> That's when he met Maria, a woman who had, like Henry, given up much of her childhood to care for siblings after her parents died young. She is 10 years Henry's junior, but they are a perfect match. They have been married 52 years, and Henry says thanks to his later start in life, he still has grandkids small enough to sit on his lap.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Age has left him with little padding around his knee joints, so Henry used a cane to stroll around Washington. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">True to my oath as his Guardian, I linked arms with him and we strolled together, usually bringing up the rear during walking tours, Henry spinning tales about his worldly adventures, and me soaking it all in.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I can't give you the details -- Henry's also a fast talker -- and I didn't have a pen handy. But when I asked him what the highlight of his trip was, he skipped over standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial and counting the gold stars on the Freedom wall that represented the war dead -- including his own brother, a bomber pilot who was killed in action.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"All the fanfare, all the special treatment. To have people asking me if they could take a picture of me with their children. That's never happened to me before. I felt like a hero, and I had tears in my eyes," said Henry.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I guess the thing about being a Guardian is that, despite your best efforts to be the caregiver, you are susceptible to being schooled. I will never forget what I learned about life from Henry on our journey together:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">War is hell, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If you're lucky, you'll learn early on that life is a crapshoot: Surviving isn't enough; you gotta play to win. Gambling a little along the way might pay off, so take a few chances. And when you least expect it, you'll find what you didn't even know you were looking for, as long as you've been following your heart. Be open to love. Marry well. Tell your story to anyone who will listen.</span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">About <b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Honor</b> <b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flight</b> New England: </span></i></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Launched in June 2009 by retired Manchester Police Officer Joe Byron of Hooksett and sustained by a core group of volunteers, <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Honor</span> <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flight</span> has made 13 <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">flights</span> taking 365 veterans -- otherwise too old or infirm to go it alone -- to Washington to see the memorial completed in 2004 in their <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">honor</span>. Passengers have included a dozen sets of brothers, 18 POWs, a vet who was blinded while serving and a double-leg amputee.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Flight</span><b style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">s</b> will resume in April. In the meantime, Byron is focused on fundraising, the only way the program survives. He is hoping to find a corporate sponsor.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">His sense of urgency in making sure the program continues is grounded in the fact that WWII veterans are dying at a rate of about 1,000 per day.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Unfortunately, we have to take the winter off, due to the weather, and face the fact that in that time we'll lose some of our veterans who are on the waiting list, so it's kind of sad," Byron said. "But it's an incredible thing. I just had a call from a son whose father just returned from our last <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">flight</span>. He told me that his father cried himself to sleep, he was just so happy to know that everyone cared for him so much."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">For more information, go to honorflightnewengland.org.</span></span>Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3985230631472815347.post-12022016707508400382010-03-14T09:41:00.000-07:002013-06-09T06:10:11.804-07:00Honor Flight vets part of 'Pacific;' splash in D.C.<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Story and Photos<br />
</span>By CAROL ROBIDOUX<br />
New Hampshire Sunday News<br />
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<span class="dateline"><span style="font-weight: bold;">WASHINGTON, D.C.</span> – </span>Tonight's premiere of HBO's 10-episode miniseries "The Pacific" is the latest cinematic offering by executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, a third take on the bloody battles of World War II and companion film to their previous collaborations, "Saving Private Ryan," and "Band of Brothers." <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguxCI1cBJDzxqtBxh1Y_9AhctmqwLMl4ZG2MbfE4x_6d7rW1MXL2hbVv83UtGeFD2mba5Kf11js3NE7khxBNsZd8rTv06cm9zUxHljyJCZtAsqJ3EiCE_a4IJAl4nRBAxDW_w1K35NkGU/s1600/hanks.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456284640125642226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguxCI1cBJDzxqtBxh1Y_9AhctmqwLMl4ZG2MbfE4x_6d7rW1MXL2hbVv83UtGeFD2mba5Kf11js3NE7khxBNsZd8rTv06cm9zUxHljyJCZtAsqJ3EiCE_a4IJAl4nRBAxDW_w1K35NkGU/s400/hanks.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 279px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 239px;" /></a><br />
<text>On Thursday, when Spielberg and Hanks addressed 250 veterans from aroun</text><text>d the country at the memorial constructed in the vets' honor, 35 New England veterans were there, including five from New Hampshire. It was a journey </text><text>made possible thanks to HBO's urge to make a meaningful splash, and to Honor Fligh</text><text>t Network, a remarkable national effort that has flown more than 40,000 WWII vets to Washington in the past five years, for a proper thank you.</text><br />
Joe Byron of Hooksett, founder of the Honor Flight New England chapter, and his volunteer board had only about a month to organize the two-day trip, which was all expenses paid by HBO.<br />
Byron's now seen to it that 142 local veterans have made it to see the World War II Memorial. With a waiting list of well over 300, Byron is doing his best to schedule 10 flights this year. He has enough in the donation till for about two flights, even though there are already five on the calendar.<br />
He hopes the national exposure this week will increase awareness of the urgent need for donations, as veterans from that era are dying at a rate of 1,100 each day.<br />
James Goins of Portsmouth was thrilled to get the call about the trip. He survived the war and went on to retire from the military in 1971. Surviving cancer is his current mission. He spent much of the trip taking it easy, suffering from fatigue and upset stomach. One of the younger veterans on the trip, Goins was 15 when he volunteered for service in 1943, slipping through a huge military crack that, in wartime, was enlisting most any able-bodied male who could vouch for himself.<br />
"I had an older brother already in the Army, and I just wanted to be there, too," said Goins. "I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. I just knew I wanted to be part of it."<br />
Whereas most Honor Flight trips are whirlwind one-day affairs, corporate sponsorship allowed for bells, whistles and fanfare this time around.<br />
At Boston's Logan <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8nAPsI7tBZSvd1z9KM6vUgSKC809bKrvplhQ4RGasMKRXzKOeJ-XhXmaLhMrN0WFrBPwy6qgeWtr5svd0K_OOXfhHwAnn8u-zZ05Nf9TK5GKrpr2x2bHPmvEf4KddMNSwUzo0WhMDz64/s1600/spielburg.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5456285640324857074" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8nAPsI7tBZSvd1z9KM6vUgSKC809bKrvplhQ4RGasMKRXzKOeJ-XhXmaLhMrN0WFrBPwy6qgeWtr5svd0K_OOXfhHwAnn8u-zZ05Nf9TK5GKrpr2x2bHPmvEf4KddMNSwUzo0WhMDz64/s400/spielburg.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 222px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 192px;" /></a>Airport, New England veterans were whisked through security to a double line of American flags leading to a room jammed with family, friends and strangers, all waving flags and cheering. The U.S. Air Force Band of Liberty, from Hanscom Air Force Base, played on as cake was served and tears flowed.<br />
Paul Lindstrom of Hampton was there to see off his dad, Ed Lindstrom, whose personal story is as compelling as any character Spielberg or Hanks could conjure.<br />
"My mother was engaged to his best buddy, and he had to break the news to her, that (the buddy) was killed when their ship was sunk. That's how they got together," said Paul Lindstrom. It was a marriage that lasted 62 years. "There's a reason for everything," Lindstrom said.<br />
The group flew into LaGuardia Airport, picking up an Honor Flight group based in New York, then on to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, where the call had gone out to all active-duty military and the public in general to come and welcome the fleet of chartered Honor Flights arriving all day.<br />
Robert Curtis of Bar Harbor, Maine, walked slowly under the archway of yellow balloons that led to a path lined with supporters that snaked through the terminal as far as the eye could see, all the way to the tour bus waiting to take the vets to the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, Va.<br />
He tried to take it all in.<br />
"I've been to a lot of conventions, seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like this. It overwhelms me. Really brings a tear to my eye," he said, shaking endless hands attached to strangers, each one leaning in close to thank him, personally, for his service.<br />
"You spend a lot of years thinking about those days, and then you get to an age where you start to wonder if it mattered all that much. We never knew how much we did, until now; now we know. This is once in a lifetime, for me. It has restored my sense of how great this country really is," said Curtis.<br />
The climax of the trip came at the memorial, where Spielberg and Hanks spoke about the why of their movie-making efforts. For Spielberg, it's personal. His father, 93-year-old Arnold Spielberg, is a WWII veteran.<br />
"With each passing generation, more and more people are forgetting about World War II," Spielberg said. "This is why I made 'Saving Private Ryan.' This is why Tom Hanks and I made 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific,' because all of you are the greatest stories ever told, and we are honored to be able to tell these stories to our kids, to your grandkids, your great-grandkids and the world at large. We celebrate, we commemorate, we memorialize your stories so the world you saved will never, never forget you." <br />
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For more about Honor Flight, visit <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.honorflightnewengland.org">honorflightnewengland.org</a>; write Honor Flight, P.O. Box 16287, Hooksett, NH 03106; or call 518-5368.</div>
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Carol Robidouxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01793128612354167596noreply@blogger.com0