Christmas Joys #1 - Sweet Little Jesus Boy

I'm beginning my Christmas Joys this year with a song. I first heard "Sweet Little Jesus Boy" at a high school Christmas music program 50 years ago.  I had enjoyed the seasonal selections sung by the various choral groups and ensembles and was probably thumbing the program to see what was coming next.  I heard her voice -- softly, sweetly, hauntingly beautiful -- as if she were singing a lullaby.  My attention shifted and I was there with her and the child to whom she was singing, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy."

As I write this, I am struggling to explain the effect this song had on me then, as it does today.  It stopped me in my tracks in the middle of the Christmas season when, even 50 years ago, so much was going on -- holiday concerts, shopping, parties, music, anticipation, stress -- all the good and not-so-good about that time of year.  Margaret Green's beautiful voice stopped me and her words spoke to me, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy; We made you be born in a manger; Sweet Little Holy Child, We didn't know who you was."

Today, hearing those words brings me back to the real meaning of Christmas -- not just to the manger scene, where the baby Jesus was born, but to the cross where he died:  "You done told us how, we is a tryin'!  Master, you done show'd us how, even when you was dyin'".

That's the point that this song helps me remember, to celebrate Christmas and to be thankful for that Sweet Little Jesus Boy, but that even during this season I'm going to fall short: "Just seems like we can't do right; look how we treated you."  But I know that the greatest gift he gave us is forgiveness, for all of our lives.  All we have to do is ask, and accept.

To provide a musical link, I listened to several artists' versons of  "Sweet Little Jesus Boy".   I was led back to Mahalia Jackson's.  I hope you enjoy it.

Annie

The Night the Martians Landed: A Family Story from 1938

I am reposting this story in memory of my Grandmother and Aunt Lona Mae, both of whom were born on October 31.


My Aunt "Sister", who would have been 101 years old on Halloween, shared this story at her birthday celebration the summer of 2010. Those who can remember the night of October 30, 1938 are becoming more rare, and it was a true gift to hear her first-hand account of family members' responses to a phenomenon of wide-spread panic and fear as a result of the radio broadcast of an adaptation of HG Wells' novel, War of the Worlds.

I had heard and read about the broadcast and its effect on individuals and families across the country. It was planned as a 60-minute Halloween radio drama, an episode of the Mercury Theatre on the Air, and was directed and narrated by Orson Welles. The first two-thirds of the broadcast was presented as news bulletins which suggested that an actual invasion by Martians was taking place. There were no commercial breaks, which added to the sense of realism. The use of the news bulletin format also contributed to the believability of the story, as well as to the resulting panic, since people were accustomed to legitimate newsflashes, but not those used as part of a work of fiction.

According to Wikipedia, historians have calculated that six million people heard the broadcast, 1.7 million believed it to be true and 1.2 million were genuinely frightened. According to my aunt, a number of those who believed it and were frightened resided in southeast Missouri, and were outside that Sunday evening, gazing toward the sky.

Aunt Sister, Uncle Jesse, and their three children stayed home from church and were listening to the radio, probably doing the equivalent of today's "channel surfing" between the Chase and Sanborn Hour, featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and singer Nelson Eddy, and the Mercury Theater. The first comedy sketch on the Chase and Sanborn Hour ended about fifteen minutes into the program and was to be followed by a musical selection, presenting a good time to change the station. This would have taken them directly into the middle of the Martian invasion on Mercury Theater, with no reassurance that what they were hearing wasn't really happening.

This is a part of what they heard:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. . . . Wait a minute! Someone's crawling. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . . good heavens, something's wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake. Now it's another one, and another one, and another one. They look like tentacles to me. There, I can see the thing's body. It's large as a bear and it glistens like wet leather. But that face, it . . . ladies and gentlemen, it's indescribable. I can hardly force myself to keep looking at it, it's so awful. The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate.

How many of us have thought about what we would do if the world was coming to an end? Their instincts were to gather with other family members, so they left in their car to travel the few miles to the my grandparents' home.

On the way there, my aunt noticed that baby Sandra's shoe was missing, that she must have dropped it or left it at home. Uncle Jesse reassured my frightened aunt, that Sandra "wouldn't be needing her shoe."

She also noted that people standing out on the dirt roads as they travelled, looking at the sky and exclaiming, "They're coming! They're coming!"

When they arrived at Mom and Pop's, the house was empty. Mom and Pop had gone to Arkansas to church and hadn't yet returned home. After a short time, they and the rest of their children arrived, asking what was going on.

According to Aunt Sister, Pop didn't believe a word of the story. He also scoffed at his oldest child's fear, declaring, "I didn't know that I raised a child who would be afraid to die."

Little brother Earl, then stepped up and joined forces with his sister, put his arms around her and said, "You raised two of them!"

The family story ends here, and we can imagine the relief they and others like them felt when they learned the truth. We can also understand their panic and fear in a time when modern communication was still in its infancy. We might also want to temper any thoughts or comments we might have about naivete or the willingness to believe the unbelievable -- at least until after Halloween!

Annie

p.s. You can hear the Mercury Theater broadcast on YouTube. It is in multiple parts, so I am not including links.

Pre-Surgery (Halloween) Shopping is Done -- Be Back Soon!

This little Halloween Witch is helping to take the sting out of my upcoming surgery on Monday.  We bought her from the hospital gift shop when I went for my pre-op appointment.  I will be back to blogging soon.  In the meantime, here are some photos of Halloween and autumn decorations. 

Note:  Framed graphics and cards are from The Graphics Fairy .

Black Hole Decorating Challenge: Large Screen TV

I knew that it would be a big, flat, black presence in our living room when we purchased our large screen tv.  Tom has no man cave, so we really had few options for its location.  Especially in our downsized home, the mantel has always been a favorite decorating spot, particularly for holidays and seasonal decor.  I was willing to make the sacrifice, though, to make my hubby happy during his retirement years.  (And, I must admit, I'm enjoying seeing the programs and movies on the large screen, too.)  So up it went, and it has been a continuous presence in our living room ever since.

I believe in "use what you have" decorating and am doing what I can to integrate the black hole into my scheme.  This is one option:  use its capabilities to bring more visual celebration of and to the times of our lives.  Ours came with instant access to Flickr and I have put together seasonal slide shows to play to coordinate with my mantel decorations.  Here are a few from my Halloween show.  I have used about 20 photos of my granddaughters in their costumes through the years and some pretty shots from free photograph sources on the Internet.

Works for me, with my resources.  Maybe you have some other ideas for the tv or other decorating black holes.  I'd  love to see your solutions, if you do.

Saving My Place with My Bookmark Collection

I started collection bookmarks at the same time I started collecting books.  As a new librarian, I had opportunities to attend conferences, book fairs and festivals, book signings, and other events where bookmarks were given away.  Our libraries also provided bookmarks to our customers celebrating our summer reading programs, special author visits and other events, such as the Red Dirt Book Festival and Pioneer Library System's 50th anniversary (50 special bookmarks highlighting the progress of the system, such as the year we first reached circulation of 1,000,000 items, the year one of our librarians was selected one of the New York Times Librarian of the Year, the year our system won the American Library Association John Cotton Dana Library Public Relations Award, and the year one of our branches won the Outstanding Rural Library Award from ALA).

My bookmark collection was much easier to transport home than the books I found myself buying when I traveled and they provided reminders of the accomplishments of our libraries and others across the country in guiding people to the best in reading and information.  I found myself looking for bookmarks in museums and other places I visited on vacations and found they served as miniature pieces of art and history.

My collection grew as I received bookmarks as gifts and enjoyed the expression of love they represented.  Those that are handmade are the most precious, as well as those produced as commemorative of special days in family and friends' lives.

Now that I'm retired and we have downsized, I find myself "weeding" out some of the books that I carried home from conferences.  I no longer have room for 1,000 books (although I have room for thousands on my Nook and my Kindle).  I also continue to use my hometown library and use my bookmarks to mark my place.

I'll keep my bookmarks until books are obsolete; that is to say, I won't ever give them up.  I don't believe books will ever become obsolete, but if they do, my bookmarks will be even more collectible!



I Have Sirius Envy, but Stitcher Helps!

I'm talking about radio; specifically talk radio.  I don't have a SiriusXM subscription in my car, and probably won't purchase one.  NPR keeps me happy for the most part, with a mix of CD's and favorite commercial radio stations for music.  But I have wished for more radio stations that focus on my individual interests and have found that Stitcher is a wonderful source.  I discovered it while exploring apps on my smartphone and feel like I have struck gold.

Stitcher is like Pandora (music internet radio) in that you can select talk radio stations based on your own preferences and create your own station.  Then you can choose the particular program and podcast from your own station's menu when you are ready to listen. 

My own Stitcher station has a mix of programming about books, health, gardening, politics, writing, food, travel, and news.  When I go to my station, I can choose the program and the most recent podcast, or other podcasts that I may have missed.  I can also choose live radio by state or front page news.

I usually listen to my own station.  It was created by selecting programming from broad categories including Comedy; Business and Industry; News and Politics; Education, Society and Culture; Entertainment, Games and Hobbies, Lifestyles and Health; Local; Music Commentary; Parenting, Family and Kids; Science and Medicine; Spirituality and Religion; Sports; Technology; In Spanish; and World and International.  Many of these broad categories are broken down into subcategories, so that you can find just the kind of programming you want to put in your own station.

The problem may be that you will need to winnow your list down, there are so many choices -- but that's a good problem!  For example, there are about 40 programs about books and authors alone!

My radio listening has been pretty much limited to my car in the past, but now I am listening more often on my smartphone as I get dressed in the morning or work around the house.  I can also listen to my personal station on my computer through Stitcher's website.  I think that radio is pretty much like tv in that the deciding factor is the quality of the content.  Of course, "quality" is subjective, so if you want to listen to 18 hours of talk about sports or even just football, that's your call.  I can accept that, while I listen to hours of talk about books!

You might want to give Stitcher a try.  The smartphone app is free, so you could add it and explore the possibilities.  You can also download Stitcher to your computer through their website at  http://www.stitcher.com/home.php 

In future posts, I will tell you about some of my favorite Stitcher programs.

Happy Listening!
Annie

 

Why We Cook the Way We Do



Please visit Beth Fish Reads for more weekend cooking.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend



My mother had an interesting recipe for strawberry shortcake.  I never questioned the fact that there was no cake involved; it was simply the way she prepared a fresh strawberry dessert -- with pie crust.  She rolled out pie crust squares and baked them on a cookie sheet and layered them with the syrupy sweetened strawberries and topped it off with freshly whipped cream.  It was delicious, and to our family, it was "strawberry shortcake."

Recently, a mention of strawberry shortcake on Facebook led me to ask my cousin if his mother (my aunt) prepared strawberry shortcake with pie crust.  It turns out that she did, and he had grown up the same way I did, thinking that the absence of cake wasn't unusual.  I also determined that the recipe must have come from my grandmother on my Dad's side.  Dad confirmed that he had been the source of my mother's strawberry recipe; he had always had it with pie crust and had asked Mother to continue making it that way.  In other words, "It's a family thing."

Cousin Terry Joe also mentioned that his mother had always baked a pie with sweet potatoes and called it pumpkin pie.  Same spices as pumpkin pie, but made with sweet potatoes.  Another "family thing".

I began thinking about why we cook the way we do.  Some of us are Food Channel followers, may have developed into vegans, or have espoused other dietary traditions.  The Internet makes thousands of recipes at our fingertips, and many of us experiment with newly available food choices, or we grow our own.

During our earliest cooking experiences, we may have looked to our family members for advice or ingredients.  That's how we may have come up with pie crust strawberry shortcake or "pumpkin pie" made with sweet potatoes.  It's also how we may have a family tradition of "American spaghetti" (without Italian seasonings) or removing the skin from chicken before frying, years before healthy eating dictated it. (Both of these are further examples from my childhood.)

I have never been known as a great cook.  I'm the person who puts together a holiday meal for a large group, who provides the meat and most of the side dishes, and wishes for that specific compliment, "This is really delicious."  Sometimes it comes; more often, it doesn't.  My corn bread dressing will never measure up to my stepmother's, and my chocolate cake and fudge will always take second place to my mother's and my sister's.

I do have the edge with two dishes, though.  The first is what our family always called "gunk".  Gunk is that pie that you make with Eagle Brand milk and lemonade.  I like it best with a graham cracker crust that I make myself, with extra butter and sugar.  It's called "gunk" because my kids could never wait until it set up into a pie (and because it was calling me, too).  So we spooned it into bowls and dug in.  And it was really delicious -- really!

The other dish has been designated the best meatloaf my husband ever had.  That's a recent designation.  My mother's meatloaf recipe is a mixture of ground beef, chopped onion, ketchup, egg, oatmeal, salt and pepper, with ketchup poured over the top.  One day I was watching Paula Deen and noted that her recipe was very similar to mine, except that she mixed ketchup, brown sugar, and honey dijon mustard for the glaze.  I tried it and the rest is history -- I have joined the ranks of complimented cooks and now I am adding ingredients everywhere!

Back to the subject of this post:  some reasons we may cook the way we do -- to please our families and because our mother (grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.) did it that way.  You may have heard this story, or a variation:

Alice was baking a ham for Sunday dinner, and called her mother for the recipe.  Mom told her to first cut off the ends of the ham.  She did so, followed the recipe, and the ham was delicious.  Later, she asked her mother why she needed to cut off the ends of the ham.  Her mother said that Grandma did it that way and Alice should ask her why.  Alice was visiting her grandmother in the assisted living center the next week and asked her why it was necessary to cut the ends off the ham before baking it.  Grandma gave her an odd look and said, "I always cut off the ends because otherwise, it wouldn't have fit my roasting pan."

What odd recipes or food preparation traditions are in your family?

Annie

Learning to Savor is Worth the Effort

I recently posted about words that I have installed on the walls in our bathroom and living room to remind myself and, hopefully, to define myself.  I have added another word to my personal lexigon, one which may be most important to those of us who now understand that we don't (and never really did) have all the time in the world to decide what is important and what kind of lives we want to live.

The new word is "savor".  I'm adding it to the other words -- believe, learn, listen, touch, dance, sing, relax, imagine, touch, trust, teach, dream, and "enjoy", which is listed as a synonym in the dictionary.

Maybe it's my age, but "to savor" means much more to me than "to enjoy."  It's probably because the primary definition of "to enjoy" in the dictionary I consulted was "to have a good time."

I remember being asked, when I was a child, if I had a good time at a birthday party or a school picnic.  The answer was usually "yes", but I didn't have the capacity to describe what it was that made the event notable.  (This was before today's often outlandishly expensive children's parties, which will be the subject of a future post.)  If nothing went wrong at the parties I attended (such as falling off the swings, or being chosen last for one of the games); if my friends were there and the food was good, then I had a good time.

"Savoring" an event, or even the daily routine of our lives, puts much more responsibility on our adult selves, but the reward is much more satisfying than simply "enjoying ourselves" or "having a good time."  Savoring implies that we take the time and employ our senses to seek out exactly what it is that flavors the event -- what it is that makes it special.  Call this mindfulness if you will, and we are told that the more mindful we are, the happier our lives will be.

"Savoring" isn't limited to an expensive cruise or a once-in-a-lifetime gathering; it can be experienced with a really outstanding cup of tea.  It's a practice, and it requires practice.  I love to hear and read about people who have mastered the art of living and I believe that savoring each positive moment is a part of their lives that they have cultivated.  I appreciate the examples they set for the rest of us, especially when I note that the "good life" they demonstrate is within the grasp of most of us.

What do you savor in your life?

Annie  

"Odd Girl Out" or "One of a Kind"?

Dear Friends,
When I first posted this, I left out an important point.  It is now included in red print.  Thank you to my Facebook friend who reminded me of his own experiences and to Nance for her comment.

I imagine that most females in our culture have experienced the pain of exclusion.  Maybe we've been the "odd girl out" in a friendship trio; maybe we've been rejected by the Queen Bee and Wannabes; or maybe at some point in our lives, we've been outside the charmed circle of sorority or club membership, or that happy little group of women who lunch, shop, or play cards together.

If you haven't been the excluded one, you may be just a generation or two away.  The probability of being the "odd girl out" is high for our daughters and granddaughters.  The shifting sands of "best friends forever" and junior high and high school cliques may be a training ground for self-doubt in adulthood. That self-doubt may promote that same behavior of exclusion in ourselves and our children.

Probably most of us have been on the giving as well as the receiving end when it comes to exclusion.  In my mature years, I can now see where I have been guilty.  I congratulated myself on being open to friendship when I was a girl and actually described my "group" that way.  But the fact that we were a "group" has implications; there were girls I didn't know, girls I didn't make the effort to know.  The loss was mine.

There's another term that I like: "One of a Kind".  It implies, to me, the type of person who sets herself/himself apart.  It's an internal quality over which the individual has control.  You can make yourself "one of a kind" by paying attention to your own special gifts/interests/values and developing that part of yourself that is like no other.

"One of a Kind" is an insurance policy.  I believe it protects us from feeling "less than" because of someone else's determination that we are the odd girl out.  It transcends friendship because we are always centered in ourselves, but it can enrich friendships because it recognizes the unique qualities that we treasure about ourselves and others.

It is important for adults to guide young people in finding and developing that "one of a kind". Some young people are fortunate to have that special adult in a teacher, counselor, or older friend. When that isn't the case, some (rare) young people are able to nurture themselves; others can turn to bad substitutes.

We can ask ourselves the question, the next time we feel like an outsider:  Am I the odd girl out or one of a kind?  And whose decision is it?  Whose decision should it be?

Annie

Father's Day and Birthday Gift Report - Ice Cream and Appreciation

Some of you may remember that I posted at Christmas about our gift to my Dad.  He has been having some age-related problems with his vision, which have interfered with his reading.  As a librarian, I have always taken pleasure in selecting books for him, but had decided to buy something else until his vision problems were addressed.  For Christmas, we gave him 13 12-packs of Caffeine Free Coke Classic.  CFCC is hard to find in the small town where my dad lives and he really appreciated receiving a good supply.

When Father's Day came, I decided to repeat the purchase of something I knew he would really appreciate and enjoy.  Sometimes when we go to visit Dad, we stop by the local Braum's and pick up a pint of his favorite ice cream, Braum's butter pecan.  In Oklahoma and some locations in Texas, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri, Braum's is the local gold standard for ice cream.  (They have really good hamburgers, too.)  Since Dad lives in a town without a Braum's, he didn't have a regular supply of his favorite flavor.  We fixed that (temporarily) at Father's Day with a dozen individually-packed pints.

Dad's birthday is in early July, and I was again thinking about his gift.  This was to be his 90th, and I wanted it to be special, but I knew it would be difficult because he has everything he needs and most of what he wants (except good vision, hearing, and the stamina he used to have).  He is also planning to move soon and is trying to divest himself of most of his household possessions.

I asked him how his ice cream supply was holding up and he replied, "It's gone." 

We decided it was time for another supply of ice-cream and made plans to stop at Braum's on our way to his birthday party.

The other part of our gift was appreciation.  We were the messengers of greetings from several people who had known Dad during his business life in my hometown.  Dad was a building contractor and I had several photographs of homes he had built in the 1950's and 1960's, at the time of their construction and more recently.  I had posted the photos on my hometown's group page on Facebook.  I had originally posted them for the enjoyment of the group, but was elated at the comments of appreciation for my dad's work and the homes that several group members had lived in over the years.

I decided to share that appreciation with Dad at his birthday party.  He was moved to tears by the comments and good wishes from the kind people from our hometown.  I felt good that we were able to give him a special moment, just by being the messenger, and am grateful for the wishes sent for that special day.

Ice cream and appreciation:  I guess it's a pretty good gift for any of us, isn't it?

Annie