Category: musings

SoCS: growing up in the sticks

I grew up in the sticks.

It’s an expression I don’t hear much anymore. OK – I don’t hear it at all anymore. I’m not sure how widespread its usage was but it means to grow up in an out-of-the-way place. I grew up in a town of 200 people, give or take, in western Massachusetts along the Vermont border. We had a little general store which had the post office in it. We had a paper mill where most of the people in town worked. We had a school that went up through eighth grade. We even had a little bar/restaurant called “The Club.”

Everything else – big grocery stores, clothing stores, the high school, doctors, banks, etc. – was twenty miles away.

So, to me, where I lived was the definition of  “the sticks.”

I was surprised after I moved to Broome County NY – aka Greater Binghamton – that the definition of “the sticks” was different. In New York State, it seems that everything gets compared to New York City. There is The City, its suburbs and Long Island – and everything else becomes “upstate,” mashing together large cities like Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, with smaller cities, towns, villages, and very rural areas, such as the Adirondacks.

So even though I live on the southern border of the state, just a few miles from the state line with Pennsylvania, I am “upstate.” I live in a town that is a hundred times larger in population than my hometown, about the size of the twenty-mile-away city that we used to go to for shopping and services when I was growing up. My current town is a suburb of Binghamton, which is a city with its own opera company, symphony, minor league baseball and hockey teams, and all kinds of other amenities that were much further afield when I was growing up.

Yet, because we are small compared to NYC, we are considered to be “the sticks.”

Go figure.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is: “stick.”  Come join in the fun! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/15/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1615/

socs-badge
badge by Doobster @MindfulDigressions

 

when things come in threes

Three has been an important number for me.

I was one of three sisters.

Trinity has been one of the themes in my life, from church to a high school friend to the name of my younger daughter.

There are lots of sayings about events – good or bad – happening in threes.

“The third time’s the charm.”

This afternoon, on the third day since the events of the stream of consciousness post I wrote this morning, I read this call for submissions from Silver Birch Press, making it the third instance of dealing with the meaning of names in as many days.

I have to write a poem for this. It was meant to be.

I’ve already been through several drafts in my head and two written ones. I think I will be bringing it to my poetry group this week rather than what I had planned to bring so that I can have it in shape to submit.

Here’s hoping that this poem will be a good-thing-that-comes-in-threes…

SoCS: Accepting compliments

It seems that it should be the easiest thing in the word to graciously accept compliments. Someone says something nice about you or something you have done and you smile and say thank you.

Somehow though, if you tend to be the self-deprecating, or perfectionistic, or even the humble sort, it can be difficult not to go on with a “but” … it was really a team effort, or I made a mistake in the third movement, or it was just a little something – or it was nothing at all.

Sometimes, we don’t feel worthy of the compliment. It may help to look from the point of view of the complimenter instead of reflexively rejecting the substance of the compliment.

Next time, maybe, it will be just “Thank you.”  With maybe an extension of the gratitude, like, “I’m so glad you liked it.”  “It means so much to me to hear you say that.”

A gracious acceptance of the compliment with no “but”s.
*****
The prompt for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is: “compliment/complement.”  Anyone can join in!  Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/05/01/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-215/

socs-badge

because

Why is it that I never seem to be able to type the word “because” accurately? I know how to spell it, but somehow my fingers always seem to rush the U in before the A. Is it just me? If you have a word you can’t seem to type right, please share in comments.

One-Liner Wednesday: Ignorance

“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”
– Albert Einstein

Join us for Linda’s One-Liner Wednesday. Find out how here:  http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/15/one-liner-wednesday-end-of-story/

theater organ

I just saw a piece on the Today Show about the only remaining theater organ in Seattle, which in the 1920s had fifty in silent film and stage theaters. The organ in the piece was a Wurlitzer, which was one of the most common manufacturers of the day.

It reminded me of the Roberson Museum in Binghamton, New York, which housed a Link theater organ, built by the firm of a local family. Edwin Link went on to found Link Flight Simulation, which used the technology of the organ business to craft the first mass-produced flight simulators, the Blue Boxes that trained many pilots in World War II.

When we moved here in the 1980s, I studied organ with M. Searle Wright, who was an enormously talented classical organist, teacher, and composer, and, at an age when most people are retired, then the Link Organ Professor at the State University of New York-Binghamton. He also was one of the few remaining masters of theater organ, able to sit at the console and accompany silent films, bringing to life the sounds of the world and the moods of the characters.  It was an amazing experience to hear him accompany a film!  Talented younger organists would travel up from New York CIty to study theater organ techniques from him.

We more often heard Searle’s theater organ talents when he played a 45 minute prelude of classic American songbook and Broadway tunes before each Binghamton Pops concert on the Morton theater organ at the Forum. On the music stand, he would have only a list of the pieces (perhaps with the key structure, he planned to include that day and would weave those songs together, showing off the fun aspects of theater organs, the literal bells and whistles.

A magical art, which is, thankfully, still being kept alive by those to whom an older generation of organist like Searle Wright passed on to them.

SoCS: delightfully short

I should be delighted that the SoCS prompt is so open this week. It was sweet of Linda to take into account people who are doing the A-Z challenge so that they can double-dip with the letter D and SoCS. Of course, I am not disciplined enough to do those every day kind of things, but more power to all those who are participating!

I guess I could ramble on SoCing with whatever is Top of JC’s Mind, but I should work on some of the backlog of posts I need to write. Well, at least the Holy Saturday post which expires today…

The prompt from Linda for Stream of Consciousness Saturday: use a word, anywhere in your post, that begins with the prefix “de-.” Extra points if your word ends with “ed”! It’s all about the fun – have some!

http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/03/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-415/  Anyone can join in!  Just go to the link above for the rules, which include linking back to that post so others can find your contribution.

socs-badge

April fool

It’s April first, also known as April Fools’ Day, when pranks and practical jokes abound.

I am not participating and am attempting to avoid as much of the folderol as possible.

I have never enjoyed pranks and let’s just say that I am not known for my sense of humor. Or maybe more accurately, I don’t have a broad sense of humor, which most April-Fools’-Day-ness requires.

My natural resistance to it is only part of the story. There are just too many serious circumstances and happenings right now – both on a national/international level and among family and friends – for me to spend time dealing with jokes and false news stories and such.

So, I’m opting out and trying to get my head together to deal with the remainder of Holy Week and Easter amidst the challenges of winter-becoming-spring.

JC

Out like a llama?

In the Northeast US where I live, people often say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. This year, March certainly did begin with cold weather.  Later in the month, we did get enough time above freezing that we had thawing so that we could see grass in sunny patches where the snow was not shoveled/plowed/piled up.

Today is March 31st and it is snowing and sticking to the grassy areas and accumulating, so March is not going out like a lamb. I am proposing that it is going out like a llama – still soft to the touch, but with a bit of spit and kick to it.

Ten years later

2005 was a difficult year. I lost a great and good friend, my long-time church community, and my father-in-law all within a few months.

Today is the first of the major tenth anniversary dates. Ten years ago today, which was Good Friday that year, my friend Angie died from cancer, leaving behind a husband, two sons, a daughter, her mother and siblings, extended family, and many, many, many friends.

I’ve written about Angie before, including here, so I won’t go on too long about her awesomeness. Her legacy includes not only her wonderful family and friends but also a charity fund that gives scholarships, supports cancer patients and their families, and supports The Discovery Center, our local children’s museum, which Angie blessed with her artwork. There is an art gallery, memorial tree, and butterfly house dedicated to her there, as well as an art gallery near the African Road/Vestal Middle School auditorium, which I will always think of as Angie’s Auditorium because it was a long-time dream of hers that she helped fulfill when she served on the Board of Education.

What I am thinking about today, though, is the ten years we have been without her physical presence.  The high school graduation of our daughters, the college commencements, her son’s law school graduation, passing the bar, getting married. All the little moments – hanging out in the kitchen, going out for lunch, taking the dog for a walk, attending seemingly endless committee meetings.

Because I do believe in the eternal life of the soul, I believe that Angie is still able to be present in our lives spiritually.  For those who don’t believe, Angie is still present through her role in shaping the people whom she loved and who loved her, as well as through the art she left for us to enjoy and the legacy projects I’ve already mentioned.

In some ways, we have been without her for ten years. In other ways, she has been with us all along.