Hello

16 Feb 2010 - Thank you, little sparrow, for coming to check on me. But why must you always fly away? Sometimes I think that I, too, must be a sparrow so probably we have a lot in common.

If you should happen to find this spot and look in on me, I wish you would leave a record of your visit. Just open the comment box below and write your name and address; and also a message if you so desire. I hope you will come again someday.

I Is What I Is

21 Feb 2010 - I'm often reminded of a little ditty written in my Autograph Book by my grade school teacher Miss Bailey. She wrote:

Don't be what you isn't
Just be what you is
Cause if you is what you isn't
Then you isn't what you is.

I have found this to be very true. I've tried so many times to become something better or more like someone else. There is nothing wrong with trying to improve one's self, but I still have to retain my own identity. I am who I am.

Poem, Trees

Trees
by Joyce Kilmer
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I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Me, Myself, and I

I lay awake one night and this Title came to me. It might be bad grammar, but what the heck, I'm pretty sure that I will be the only one to read it. Now to compose something that refers to me.

Who am I? They say (who is they?) that everyone has a double in this world, but I truly believe that I am one of a kind...a very unique person. I kind of hope there would be someone just like me. I'd like to meet him. I wonder what I would think of him, and he of me.

I rather suspect that we wouldn't like each other that much. As I've grown older, I've developed some phobias--social phobia, telephone phobia, as an example. I've probably had them for most of my life but just didn't have a name for it. Really, I'm an outgoing person who just happens to feel more comfortable being a loner. I am now 78 years old, and if I ever get organized, I may get out and about once again. I really enjoyed my activities in middle life -- singing, dancing, bowling, crafts, gardening, heritage activities, genealogy, my church. Of course, there were quite a few "up's and down's" along the way. I've tried to put the bad behind me, and cherish the many memories of the good times.

I think the social phobia developed mainly because of my inability to become an "expert" at anything and not having the knowledge to express an intelligent opinion or fact on any subject. I just can't remember accurately what has happened or what I've seen or what I've been told and be able to talk about it. This refers to everything -- medical, religion, politics, farming, my naval career, family history, jokes, just everything. I know that I am not stupid, but to be able to talk about what I have learned and be able to participate in the conversation is not one of my strong points. I can't even readily tell my left from my right. So I would just as soon sit back, listen to what others have to say, keep quiet, and not broadcast my shortcomings. That's when I become very self-conscious and wish I were not even there.

The phone phobia results from much of the same reasoning. I don't really know what bothers me, but I usually don't have that much to talk about and wonder sometimes if what I do know is of any interest to the person I am talking to. I do, however, like to hear if the other person is well and what he/she has been doing.

If you did happen to stumble onto this page, and have read this far, you've probably already have concluded that I am a very boring person. EXCEPT: I like me, myself, and I, and I think many people--maybe most--probably agree to some extent with my self-evaluation but think I am too sensitive, and much too hard on myself, but like me anyhow. I guess my smile and cheerfulness and friendliness helps get me through most situations.

(To be continued)

Throwing Out The Garbage

22 Feb 2010: I've been working on simplifying my life, and I am disposing of things that needs to be removed from my daily life.

17 Mar 2010: I might amend that to read "from my daily life and from my after life." It is very difficult to dispose of items that I have kept for many, many years, but if I don't do it now, someone will have to do it after I'm gone, and I would prefer to make that decision when I'm still around.

Over the years I have entered many documents on the computer, and saved them to Carbonite; so although I have destroyed many precious documents and memories, I should have no fear of losing everything that was a part of my lifetime.

5 Apr 2010: The day after Easter. Time to start anew!!

Poem, Paul Revere's Ride

Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
>From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.