Moo Hoo

This is a story about a fugitive cow named Cincinnati Freedom. If there was a Brave Cow Award, she would definitely qualify. In February, 2002 just moments before she was going to be slaughtered, she took matters into her own hooves and scaled a 6 foot tall fence and made a run for it. She managed to elude police and officials from the SPCA for eleven days. The media got wind of the famous escape and news spread around the whole world. News outlets from Canada, England, France, Germany and Australia touted her bravary , her courage and her determination to live. She was offered the key to the city by ,then Mayor Luken.

As a result of her notoriety , an internationally renowned artist , Peter Max "adopted" her. The 2000 pound Charolais was housed in an animal sanctuary in Watkins Glen, N.Y. She made many bovine friends at the farm and lived a relatively contented life until a short time ago when she became unable to use her legs and was diagnosed with spinal cancer. There was no hope of recovery so the decision was made to euthanize her.

During her last hours, her closest pals, other slaughterhouse escapees, Queenie from Queens,N.Y. Maxine from New York and Annie Dodge from Vermont, along with the rest of the herd stayed with her and surrounded her during the night. One of the oldest steers, Kevin, licked her face and Iris, an older female, licked her back in her final minutes. They remained with her until she was buried.

She found life to be so easy at the sanctuary that she had gained about 500 pounds during her stay there. Nevertheless,up until her sudden illness she could clear a 5-foot fence from a stand still. "It was an amazing thing to see," her keeper said. She was considered quite a celebrity and had many visitors. Coston said she understands why people wanted to visit "Cinci".

"She symbolized the will to live, to enjoy life and not be messed with. We can relate to that."

R.I.P. Cinci !

January Thaw

I was lucky enough to get to go to Sarasota for a week of temperatures that did not chill my bones. I went down there on the day before New Years so I got to see the New Year in once again in Florida. I think this is about the 4th or 5th time I've done that. Doc and I both went down for three years in a row. He loved the beach and especially loved to be there on the beach when he knew how cold it was up north. He maintained a tan year around. He would sit on the front porch or the back deck here at home clad in his winter jacket and heavy gloves no matter what the temperature was because he loved the sun, but to go to Florida when it was warm and sunny was heavenly. Last year I went down alone because Doc was at Klondike and unable to travel. It was just as well because we had one warm day and then it turned so cold that it was so invigorating that I could hardly stand it.

The kids were not used to having cold weather and they do not have the clothing for it, I had the clothing for it but it was left in Louisville. Who knew? How could I come back to Louisville and admit that it had been freezing in Sarasota?

One day we decided to brave the elements and go to the beach weather or not! The kids piled on extra sweaters and searched drawers and closets for gloves and scarves and Ang and I did our best to bundle up also. I had my Jeans jacket, a sweater and my ever present gloves and my
jeans Ang also had a jacket, hat and jeans. We took the camera and headed out to Lido Beach. The car was nice and warm on the short trip out there.
Did I mention that the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour and the sky looked very ominous and angry. A buttermilk sky?

We got out of the car and walked out onto the beach, not surprisingly, the beach was totally abandoned. There was not one single human being in sight. The sand was blowing furiously and the biting sting when it hit our unprotected faces was a thing to remember. Angela took pictures as the kids and I huddled tightly seeking any warmth we could generate. We laughed and shivered and shook and had lots of fun. I finally decided that I would pose for one picture that I could show my friends when I got home. It's January and I am in Florida , sunny beaches, sunshine and all that, right? I sat on an empty bench and relaxed back with my arm thrown over the back of the bench and smiled and did my best to look warm! Once the camera clicked I was up and stomping around and hanging on to the kids and went back to hearing my teeth chatter and hoping my toes and fingers would survive. I loved it! We spent about 10 minutes at the beach.

Whole different story this year. The night before we planned to go to the beach, we watched a video about how to build a sand castle. It was very detailed and entertaining. There were lots of items used in the film that were needed to make an elaborate castle. Angela and Conor knew exactly what was needed and got busy the next day and gathered up the utensils needed. Ang had to saw the bottom out of a five gallon bucket (plastic) and raided the kitchen drawers for utensils such as a melon ball er, various sized spatulas, and other tools that were featured on the video. We loaded them up in the back of the car along with beach towels, snacks, a sand chair and umbrella and off we went.

The weather was perfect. It was about 78 degrees, sunny, warm and the cerulean sky with white puffy clouds hanging over the ocean blue waters made it a picture perfect day. We set up our "camp" and I lounged under the umbrella and watched. Bridget was anxious to get into the water, Ang and Conor were chomping at the bit to get going on their project. They used their shovel to dig a site on which to build. Conor supplied the containers of water to firm up the sand in the open-ended bucket. Sand, water, pack, more sand, more water , more packing and tamping. Finally they were ready to dislodge the cylinder of sand and begin their sculpting. It began to take shape in a very short time. They pretty much followed the demo video instructions and put all of the sculpting tools to good use. The basic castle had a tower on top of it with gun sights, turrets, and steps leading up from the ground to the parapet, it had an arched bridge over the moat that surrounded the castle and the castle had windows, balconies and doors with elaborate lintels. It was truly a thing of beauty. People stopped to look and remark about the sand castle. I'm sure there will be many kids trying to achieve the same design but without the proper tools and instructions they will fall short.

As I sat there on the sand chair, under the umbrella I had so much to entertain me , it was like a three ring circus. Bridgetswimming and cavorting in the ocean waves, Conor and Ang constructing their castle and a boat on the horizon towing a para-sailor, actually it was a parachute with two people in chairs, being pulled by a fairly large boat. And as if that weren't enough, the pelicans, seagulls and terns were gathered about ten feet above the water and would dive into the water with big splashes and a lot of flapping and screeching and then they would fly back up and do it all over again. They were about ten or fifteen feet away from shore. They must have spotted food fish or something that interested them. They would fight with each other and make quite a racket. All together there were about 20 or 30 of them. They put on quite a show. Our time at the beach was fabulous!

I'm going back down to Sarasota next week to be with the twins while K. and A. go to D.C. to attend the inauguration. I don't know whether we'll get to the beach this time or not. Maybe Siesta Key if we do find time to go.

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

On Christmas eve quite a few members of our family attended the Children's Mass at Epiphany Church. It was a beautiful experience. The children had an active role in the Mass and the celebrant made the Mass appropriate for all ages but with the accent on the children. The priest is very exuberant and quite a showman but very devout and sincere. I have heard him speak before and his 'sermons' are so unique and creative that he captivates the entire audience. The church was packed beyond capacity so one glass side of the building was opened up and huge tents were assembled so that they abutted the church sanctuary. Chairs were set up out there for the overflow crowd. I may have been colder at sometime in my life but I could not recall when while sitting there with the bitter cold air flowing in and the tent walls bulging and my hands turning blue, then black and finally dead white. (And we were inside the church in the front row.) Nevertheless it was still an awe inspiring experience. After we left Mass we stumbled out on frozen feet and sought the respite of the warm car. Ahhhh! We proceeded to Kristin and Tim's house for a great meal.

During dinner the people at our end of the table got into a discussion about the absurdity of some of the offensive commercials on TV. We touched on most of the more outrageous ones and even mocked the messages that bombard us at every viewing. We even sang snatches of some of the songs now quite familiar to all. We discussed the person who feels compelled to tell us that she has 'just one body' and we talked of the two bathtubs in the woods and others. We ended up laughing so hard that we became almost raucous.

Our hostess, Kristin, facetiously asked if she needed to ask us to leave! We were a little over the top. Remember, these were prime time commercials that we were discussing. Meanwhile, out of the corner of my ear, I could hear snippets of the conversation going on at another table or part of the room. They were commenting on the three point BILLION dollars that just one group of Wall Street CEO's had received in salaries or end of year bonuses. Now that is what I call obscene.

We had a great time at our gathering though and I look forward to future good times with all of them. Happy New Year to all!! Shalom!

Where's the Gas-X ?

A few years ago there was an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease in England. We eventually got a few cases of it here too. When the media got onto it they were ever so glad to tell us about each and every case and scare us into eating chicken. The media takes one news clip and shows it over and over again, sometimes two or three times during the report. They had one clip of a cow falling down! That was so depressing to me that I would close my eyes every time they started to talk about cows. Cows are not supposed to fall down! Cows are so peaceful, they don't fight with other cows or with humans, they stand around, eat grass and moo. They are outstanding in their fields!

Well now, guess what they are being accused of? While peacefully standing in their fields it seems they are burping and gaseous and this has become a concern of the government. Cows and hogs are now considered air polluting animals. There might be a "cow tax" in the future.

The Environmental Protection Agency report after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases from motor vehicles constitute air pollution, someone latched onto the fact that so also, do animals standing around eating grass emit greenhouse gases. Frankly I don't see the connection.

In Congress, today, Harry Reed got in a little trouble for pointing out that in the summer when Washington, DC is besieged with tourists standing in lines to visit the historical sites ,"You can smell them." Hark, is there a 'standing in long lines' tax coming? What about all those guys,(and I suppose some gals) guzzling beer and eating hot dogs at sporting events, are they emitting greenhouse gases?

At the end of football season at Papa John's stadium is it possible that the crowds emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions per season? Especially a season like we just had? Ticket prices may well be on the rise. Our concern for this problem falls under the federal Clean Air Act. This stinks!

If they do begin to tax cows, the farmers say that they would go bankrupt because it would cost $175.00 for each dairy cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and $20.00 for each hog. A moderate sized cattle or hog farm could cost $30,000. to $40,00 dollars a year. Vegetarians rejoice!

John Millett, a spokesman for the EPA's air and radiation division, said that there has been an oversimplification of the EPA's document "to the point of distortion." Whew, that's a relief!

Never mind!!!

LUNCH WITH...

The Courier has a feature in the paper once a week now, that I usually like. It's called "Lunch With..." They choose individuals from the community and invite them to lunch and interview them while lunching. They have a variety of people and not people with celebrity status necessarily. As an example, one of the people they interviewed a while back was the man that turned O.J. Simpson away from his restaurant on Derby Day. Neither O.J. nor his party were allowed in.

Today they interviewed MeShorn Daniels, a name very unfamiliar to us. He, however is a crusader. He is with a company that is called GARMY. GARMY is an acronym for God Ain't Released Me Yet. MeShorn is 47 years old and says he is a baby boomer in the middle. That means, according to him, the young baby boomers who are in the middle of those who are older than them, who went through the civil rights of the 60's and lived through the 70's while still very young. They are older than Generation X, the hip-hop culture, the saggy pants and all that.
He says that the deal is they are still trying to hold onto some of the values that they had to deal with, that the older baby boomers put them through...he said they are going to try to mandate some things in this 21st Century.

He is advocating a "Pull Up Your Pants "campaign. He wants to get a dialogue going with anyone that wants to participate. He spoke to the Metro Council and ask them for a show of hands of how many of them were affected by seeing the sag pants and talked about the "Pull up your Pants" environment . Everybody raised their hands and he heard murmurs of agreement from the audience.

He was asked if he thought there should be laws against sag pants. He said he is not advocating laws but thinks it can be handled by dialogue and proposed a resolution that would encourage discussion. He made it clear that he is not just targeting African Americans (he is African American) he wants it talked about across the board.

I know that at Meredith-Dunn we had a dress code and absolutely no sag pants was in the code. Even though the uniform pants were khaki, some of the boys pulled them down as far as they could, to the point that their underwear showed, and then had to be sent to the office for dress code violation. As soon as they got out of the sight of the office, they pulled them down again. So much quality teaching time was spent trying to get them to obey the rules that I did a pants ,belt, tuck- in -shirt check as they entered class and if it had to be addressed again there was extra homework assigned to make up for the lost teaching time. I didn't see too many sag pants during my classes.

MeShorn said he wants to empower people to say, listen, I see something I don't like and I want to effect change. He wants to encourage people that they can effect change by saying something. He mentioned the Dooney "Da Priest" CD that inspired him to get involved. The rap version that explains the different talking points of saggy pants piqued his interest. The sag pants style was started in prisons by the homosexuals and it was to indicate to fellow prisoners that the prisoner wearing sag pants was already "taken" by another.

MeShorn says his intention is to bring the issue of "saggy pants" to the whole community, state or country as public indecency awareness,to encourage more responsible and accountable adults, men, women, parents, mothers, fathers, wives or girlfriends that this is unacceptable form of expression.

I applaud his idea and hope it gets results. He has an e-mail address : ) pullyourpantssup@ garmy.com

I wonder what happens when the saggy pantsers have to run out of the way of harm or danger. Do they leave a trail of pants in their wake?

Ciao

Worst Job

One of the more remarkable changes in the social and economic life of the nation over the last two centuries (1800's and 1900's) is the minimal role of child labor in the United States. Congress passed an amendment in 1924 (the year of my birth) but conservative groups feared that the Federal Gov. would have too much power in areas related to children so many states failed to ratify it.

The Great Depression changed political attitudes in the U.S. significantly , and child labor reform benefited. In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act placed limitations on child labor. However, that was not soon enough!

When I was about 11 or 12 years old we were still in the throes of the Great Depression, the NRA had not yet accomplished full recovery and money was very tight or nonexistent in my realm. We had a neighbor that ran a small dairy out of their home. The dairy was in the back part of the house. The dad had a milk route and the mom ran the dairy sales there at the house.

The Valley's had six children that were all just a year or so apart. Rosalie, the mother, was about 30 pounds over weight, she had red hair and she was a jovial, happy go lucky woman who most of the time looked like a slattern. She had no concept of organization or discipline. Everyone loved her and enjoyed her company but her house keeping skills were nonexistent. She decided she needed help so she appealed to my mother. She said she wanted help with the dishes after supper. I was the sacrificial lamb. Doesn't sound too daunting does it? BUT... (note the ellipsis)

The house was actually very large, especially the kitchen. The kitchen was huge and they had remodeled it to accommodate their large family. A door opened out of the back wall of the room into the dairy. The stove and counter space was on one side of the door and the sink and more counter space was on the other side of the door. The counter extended around the corner of the side wall for about six or eight feet. The cupboards above the counters contained the dishes etc.

Rosalie, good mother that she was, cooked oat meal for breakfast each morning, the pan that she cooked it in stayed on the stove for the rest of the day, the dishes that she served it in were placed on the counters along with the milk glasses and any thing else that was used. Lunch could be soup, sandwiches etc. and same deal, leave all the implements and serving dishes on the stove or counter, dinner... you get the point. By day's end dirty dishes, cutlery, pots and pans and garbage filled all of the 10 or 12 feet of counter space plus the stove surface and the sink.

My job, first ever job for money, was to wash all of the dishes, pots and pans, mop the floor, (had to be done on hands and knees) scour the sink, clean the stove, dry the dishes and put away in the cupboards, which I could not reach other than by chair or stool and if any dairy customers came I had to alert Rosalie, and some nights I had to babysit the kids while I was there. I was a scullery maid, at the age of 12. Sounds Dickensian, doesn't it? I started the job about 5:30 or 6:00 and finished around 8:00 or 8:30. My pay? One quarter a night! .25 measly cents!

One time the two older children, maybe eight or nine years old, went out into the dairy and got pounds of butter, butter came in one pound chunks, and had a competition to see which one of them could throw it up to the ceiling and make it stick! I must admit it was on my watch but I was busy scraping dried food off of pots and pans and doing my other odious tasks. When the parents came home they were a little mystified at the grease marks on the living room ceiling. Oh well.

One of the six children was named Gregg and he was my absolute favorite! Incidentally,he was not one of the butter throwers. I vowed at that time that I would name one of my children Gregg when I grew up. True to my plan, I did.

I saved all of my quarters until I had enough to go down town and pick out a skirt and blouse that had never been worn by anyone else! I had to go shopping with Mart, she was three years older than I. We walked down town. We shopped at Wren's and I still remember my outfit. The skirt was powder blue wool and the blouse was yellow silk. I paid for it all by myself!! Life was tough and we didn't even live in a river town.

Fortunately, we finally moved to the other end of town and my job ended. Thank God.

Rosalie was the person that said Mart was a true Irish Beauty but I was just cute. The nerve! Come to think of it maybe she was 40 pounds over weight!

Thanksgiving Memories

There is an article in today's paper about Thanksgiving dinners and the dynamics of the family get together. They even had a list of subjects to avoid, seating arrangements, a list of possible reactions to certain member's outbursts, suggestions for limited alcohol consumption all good advise. Rather interesting, that the writers felt a need for guide lines.

My memories of Thanksgiving go back a long way. During FDR's regime the date for Thanksgiving Day was changed to the fourth Thursday of November. It used to be a week earlier.

We always went to London, O for Thanksgiving because that's where all of our relatives lived. My grandparents lived back to back. Mother's parents lived on Fourth St. and Dad's lived on Fifth St. When I was very young we used to take the train to London and then walk from the depot to Grandma Morrissey"s house. We didn't have a car until I was in the 6th grade. Dad worked for the Big Four Railroad so we had free passes and used them almost every Sunday and on all holidays to travel to London.

Back in the day, it was not uncommon in big Irish families to have a few unmarried uncles and aunts. They were included in the family get together, of course. So at Grandma Morrissey's two of my mother's sisters Agnes and Catherine (who still lived at home) were present and my grandma's two brothers Uncle Ben and Uncle Tom, who lived on the family farm with another brother's family, were present. Our immediately family consisted of my mother, dad, Joseph, Martha, Paul and me. Grandma and Grandpa made twelve. My two brothers, my sister and I were the only grandchildren despite the fact that my grandparents had ten children.

My Great Uncle Ben raised turkeys on his portion of the farmland so he always provided the turkey for dinner. Great Uncle Tom provided the bourbon for the before dinner highball. We children did not partake of that ritual. Nor did we get to sit at the big table. We sat at a side table in the dining room so we were privy to all the conversations etc. but children were seen and not heard at that period in history. "Speak when you are spoken to." Okay.

The table was laden with turkey and all of the trimmings. Most of the vegetables were grown on the surrounding farms, the fruit for the jellies and jams, the pickles and relishes were all made by Grandma, the oysters were purchased from a store that had them in large crocks and measured them out by the quart or pint as you wished. The desserts were all home made and all delicious. The setting was very formal and the conversations were interesting and low key and there was a warm feeling of conviviality and love.

We spent a big portion of our time at my Grandma Charters' house too. My dad's unmarried sister,Mary Louise still lived at home and two of his brothers, Adrian and Coe were still unmarried and both had jobs that required them to travel. They were always home for the holidays though. Things were very different at that house. Grandma roasted a turkey, made dressing and side dishes and it was left on the stove and you could serve yourself. The oysters were not in a casserole they were raw, served with crackers and again you helped your self. Mary Louise was the baby of the six Charters children and Coe and Adrian were much younger than dad too. They were free spirits. There was a lot of laughter, teasing and fun along with a lot of disapproving looks from Grandma but the beat went on. Grandpa loved it, he sat back and watched all the activity. Dad joined in with his two fun loving brothers and of course we children were included in the high old times. Mother visited for awhile and then went back to be with her family. The bourbon was not limited to the before dinner highball. The convivality and love was there also, just presented at a different level.

I cherish the memories of both family celebrations and know the important lesson that I took away from my youth. Family is the most important aspect of life. We are all different and have different ideas and different personalities but bottom line is: WE ARE FAMILY. Be thankful!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING !!