Margot Woodrough

Magic Margot Shoebox
Here is my life in a "sea shell"
Contents
Read me first - IN THE BEGINNING DON FLOYD COMMENT - BRILLIANT Margaret Mae Knopp Vollmer - my grandmother. She adored me and raised me. MEMORY DOLLS THE CAPTAIN AND THOMASINE Dresses through the years ON A ROLL MADAM DE VALCOURT MY BOOKS AT LULU Vale Road and River Bluff SWEETCAKES De Valcourt February 12, 1999 The future will know the true meaning of this day. THOUGHTS - IMPEACHMENT DAY FEBRUARY 12 1999 WHAT A YEAR - 1998 CUBA TRIP LETTER TO MY FATHER - 1999 THE MILLENIUM WOODROUGH STYLE MY BIRTHDAY JULY 16, 2000 GEORGE BUSH INAUGURAL - January 20, 2001 65TH TRIP AROUND THE SUN 66th TRIP AROUND THE SUN 6 6 9 9 11 12 15 15 16 18 19 19 21 21 24 28 36 39 41 43 46 46
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RECESSIONAL
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PROCESSIONAL MEDITATION 69TH TRIP AROUND THE SUN 2011 Sunday, December 18, 2011 TRAVEL The Florencia My Favorite THIS I BELIEVE - CARL SAGAN FLORENCIA Magic Margot Shoebox: FLORENCIA Wednesday, December 21, 2011 The Night Before Christmas read by GoGo Gingerale Story of Baby Jesus - trailer THIS I BELIEVE FAVORITE POEM Sunday, January 29, 2012 PRICELESS WORDS Abraham Lincoln and Galileo My religious creed Wise Words LUCKY ONES THE UNIVERSE NEIL DE GRASSE TYSON Friday, August 10, 2012 Carl Sagan
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Contemplate this! Mother Sandy Nature
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Definition of a Liberal Election 2012 and poem Ode to Mitt Romney The Privilege of the Grave - Mark Twain LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA POPE RESIGNS Read Andrew Sullivans comments The Dark Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI 70th trip around the Sun - update THE PLOT THICKENS AND POPE IS IN THE SOUP 71st TRIP AROUND THE SUN Friday, August 16, 2013 Friday, August 16, 2013
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Read me first - IN THE BEGINNING

Saturday, October 23, 2010
Let's start at the beginning... My very first attempt at blog was an effort to keep the family connected. It never took off flying. Then two years ago I developed a blog as a place to put interesting information on Sarah Palin. When things began to heat up and weird things started happening like fires, airplane crashes, blackmail and intimidation I became nervous and deleted "Chihuahuas for Change". During the past year I helped Don Floyd with his book "The Captain and Thomasine" and encouraged him to start a blog. In order to help him I needed to refresh my mind and "bingo" "Chihuahuas For Change" was back in action, but this time with a focus of those things I hold dear. Perhaps someday the "kidlets" will find this and be amused.
DON FLOYD COMMENT - BRILLIANT

Saturday, October 23, 2010
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/10/letter-by-journalist-on-sarah-palin.html Here is a piece written by Don Floyd. It is a brilliant piece of writing by a very astute man. 6
Don Floyd Here is my Palin commentary: There are many unexplainables concerning Sarah Palin, and I find myself trying to explain the unexplainable. A lot of what I say here is based on intuition, horse sense and perhaps a smidgen of paranoia. When Palin was first introduced to the world scene by John McCain the very act of which proved that McCain was unfit to be president I thought: Sarah Who? Who is this woman? Then my liberal friends started wringing their hands over the prospect of a bimbo soaring to political heights. I pooh-poohed the notion, saying that Palin was a flash in the pan and would never go anywhere except maybe back to a trailer park someplace in the bleakest part of Alaska. I have never been more wrong in all my years of political observation. Heres where I made my mistake. I was relying upon conventional wisdom my own conventional wisdom perhaps and saw in Palin a laughing stock in the making. I was not fully aware at the time of a strange, fearful darkness that was covering the land we call America. Something truly frightening has moved in and is doing nothing less than threatening our national security. I should have had a clue when the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill OReilly and Fox News started moving up in popularity. I should have had a clue when the Republicans chose John McCain, a known adulterer, as its nominee. Youll recall that McCains extremely loyal first wife nursed him to health after he returned from his POW experience. Well, after McCain was doing well enough to start bed-hopping with women, his first wife was grotesquely injured in a car accident. At some point after that, McCain met Cindy, whose father had a similar POW experience, and it was love at first sight for Cindys entire family. They all loved John. And, of course, his newfound wealth helped ease his conscience as he made sure his first wife was taken care of with Cindys money. After an affair with a Southern Baptist (Cindy) that lasted about a year, McCain asked first wife for a divorce, which she dutifully granted. One or two of her own children by a previous marriage are even working for Cindy now. This is way beyond kinky!!! Its a sad allegorical commentary on the depths this nation has plunged morally. No complaints from the Moral Majority, however. They glory in the fact that McCain attends a Baptist church in Arizona about once every five years and have no problem with him calling himself a Baptist which hes not. Never been baptized, and as far as I know never attends an Episcopal church where his real membership lies dormant. The Southern Baptist Convention, which normally rails against drinking alcohol, has no problem whatever with Cindy making her millions by distributing beer. I suppose she pays her tithes and more at the grateful Baptist church she is a member of. The Southern Baptists are smiling all the way to the bank. But I digress. I was talking about Sarah Palin, another immoral basket case. To repeat, I had not seen the signs when Palin emerged from nowhere to become No. 2 on the Republican ticket. She had no accomplishments to speak of as Alaskas governor, her main claim to fame being mayor of Wasilla. Oh, that, and possessing foreign relations experience by looking across the water and seeing Russia. Oh, that, and having the talent to tote babies anybodys baby. Evidence for any political ascendancy by Palin just wasnt there at the time. Sadly, there were a lot of things I did not see or know at the time. First, the news media found Palin to be good theater. Many people saw her as exciting, different, folksy, feisty, born again, and a real family woman. And the news media was happy to start earning a profit for a change thanks to Palins draw. You are aware that the news media operates on a narrative, which is drafted and modified daily even hourly for maximum suck-in power. If there is no tension, the news media creates tension. If
there is no real race, the news media makes it the most exciting race in political history. And when there is real news news that does not agree with the narrative that news is left to languish. The news media is at its lowest since William Randolph Hearst. But this is not yellow journalism. Its reactionary journalism, a calculated choice for an ailing industry facing possible extinction because of the Internet. The news media, you see, could not afford to bring down Palin because it would sorely cost them in the pocketbook. The news media and politicians are co-conspirators. The Republicans put out the lies and trash, and the news media reports the lies and trash virtually without challenge. Let me modify that. Lies and trash also are fired away daily in emails, sent to gleeful believers who then forward them to their entire address book. And that brings up another question in this Palin phenomenon. Who writes this email stuff? Is it somebody out there with nothing else better to do, or is it a serial killer who enjoys a hobby on the side? No, I believe Big Money is behind this endless array of lying emails, just as Big Money was behind those people screaming at the town hall meetings. The agenda is to halt a movement toward decency in government, because a return to decency in government would adversely affect Big Moneys big money. And if an email says what the reader wants it to say he believes it eagerly and completely. I dont know when Big Money staged a political coup and took over America, but it is now fighting for its life, and I like to think it is desperate. The lying emails and Sarah Palin herself are good evidence of this desperation. You mentioned Rupert Murdoch being in Alaska the same day Palin resigned as governor. I do think this is good circumstantial evidence of a link between the two. Hell, Murdoch may have even orchestrated her resignation after doing a deal with the rest of Alaska, that deal being to get Palin the hell out of Alaska and we dont care how and we wont do any more investigating of wrongdoing and we certainly wont prosecute. Alaska is already in lousy fiscal shape, thanks to Palin, and any long drawn-out investigation and prosecution would drain Alaskas finances even more. You never know what Murdoch has up his sleeves. I dont. Whatever it is, Palin is a key player. Why? Maybe he wants to be president after getting Palin elected. Shes too stupid to run anything, much less the U.S. government. Im hoping that Murdoch is so desperate (Big Money desperate) that his judgment has been clouded. Also, has he taken into account that Palin is volatile, likes to scream a lot at people and throw canned goods at the first dude? Can she be controlled? How many more babies is she going to have? I can see the headlines now after another baby mysteriously appears long after the first dude is out of the way, being axe-murdered by Sarah: Immaculate Conception the American Way. Dont laugh. My headline fairly well sums up the arrogant attitude of about half of Americas population: We need to save the world for Jesus. We need Christianity and democracy in every country. We are, you know, highly favored by God. We can defeat any country in war. We are the best. And those Muslims should be interned just like the Japanese in World War II. On second thought, deport them. Griffin has a highly respected doctor who is a Muslim. He was born a Muslim right here in Griffin. Should we get rid of him, just kick him out? This is how silly and frightening people are talking these days. Id like to zap them, but as Richard Nixon said, that would be wrong. Im hoping the Tea Party ends up marginalizing the Republicans, who already have come close to suicide. Big Money is hedging its bets, supporting both the Tea Party and the Republicans, and that would seem to benefit the Democrats by splitting the reactionary vote. Again, lets hope Big Money has become so desperate that its judgment has become too clouded to make rational decisions. You notice that I use the word hope a lot. Well, thats about all we have now. Obama has taken on Big Money. He is at peril. 8
But we can hope, just as he has hoped. Perhaps America can survive this horrific crisis. Yes, we can hope. Now, on Palins baby mystery, I regret that I have not followed that closely. Im certain, however, that Palin didnt get extremely great with child in just a month or two. So she lied. This is sort of like perjury, which is much worse than what was lied about. But does the country care? Many dont perhaps as much as a half of the citizens dont. They overlook things if the candidate is their kind of candidate. And the Palin supporters are overlooking a whole lot of stuff. I cant keep count. The fact that the dark side of America likes Palin is truly scary. I dont think Ive said everything that needs to be said about this mess, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what I think.
Margaret Mae Knopp Vollmer - my grandmother. She adored me and rai...

Sunday, October 24, 2010
I told you this is a shoebox and we all know that we simply put stuff into a shoebox in no particular order. That's how things are going to appear here. When something whaps me over the head you will be the first to know. Right now, I want to tell you about my favorite blog in the whole wide world - Margaret and Helen. Hope you go read their post called "I can see November" while there note their statistics. A grandson set this site up and it's been around the world several times. Margaret and Helen have been friends for over sixty years and counting. http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/ Don Floyd and I have been friends for more than thirty years and counting. We first became pen pals in the late 70's. We are cousins and share a passion for genealogy. My major project this year was helping Don get his book "The Captain and Thomasine" published. Will give you more details in later post.
MEMORY DOLLS
These dolls have been a secret till this very moment. Only two of my best friends, Margaret Fuselier and husband Steve have seen them. They are carefully tucked away as gifts for the "kidlets" when they are older. Each doll is dressed in something special from the past and each wears jewelry from ancestors. I've assigned one to each of the 10
girls and they come complete with a full description. I must design something for Stephen. You will note that there are seven female "kidlets" and yet you only see six dolls. This project was completed before Anna Margaret was born - but once we knew she was on the way, I scrambled to do a doll for her, but that was after the photo session.
THE CAPTAIN AND THOMASINE

Grew up a girl, became a soldier, dressed as a woman,defended herself in stunning Jamestown court case. Cross-dressing was not all that uncommon in the 17th Century, not among the English and not among the Native Americans of Virginia. But the Thomas/Thomasine Hall case of 1629 was not about cross-dressing as we think of it today. It was about choice-dressing it was about Americas first known intersexual, her struggle for identity in a male-female world and her choice to dress as a woman despite efforts of settlers in Jamestown to force her to dress as a man. Thomasine Hall testified during a March 25, 1629, session of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia that she was christened as a girl in Newcastle upon Tyne, named Thomasine and was raised as a girl. She considered herself a girl in childhood and a woman in adulthood. It was her wish to be called a woman, to be called Thomasine, which was her birth name.
I designed the cover and did the interior formatting including using IMFell font which was designed during the early 17th century. Book is available for download or in hard copy at Lulu.com Here is the link to Don Floyd's Blog http://captainandthomasine.blogspot.com/2010/10/captain-thomasine_19.html
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Dresses through the years

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It's hard to believe that I've sewed for the kidlets for almost eleven years. Here are some samples. These were reversible front to back and inside out. Fun to see they wore a couple to China.
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ON A ROLL
In the past 24 hours I've managed to resuscitate my blog, tweak Steve's and give Don Floyd a hand. Good weekends work. It's now 4:30 and I'm expecting a call from Shannon who lives in Japan. Since she's on my mind I feature a work of art she created.
MADAM DE VALCOURT
Monday, October 25, 2010
Quite by accident I received an e-mail from a gentleman in France referring me to some records on Steve's ancestor, Madam DeValcourt. We've had a picture of her for years, but it turn out that there is yet another by a famous artist known as Carmontelle. The new "find" inspired me to gather all the information on Madam and publish a book. It's at Lulu.com. I became fascinated with the life of Madam when I realized that her husband, his father and grandfather all served in the courts of Louis IV to VI and that the couple
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probably visited Versailles and certainly lived in Paris during the French Revolution. The book includes all the facts from my database and to put some meat on the bones I wrote a narrative. What fun. Now I have the prize of all prizes sent to me by Gene Lockwood son of Martha Lockwood. Here are the pictures of Sieur Jean DeValcourt as well as Alexandre the couple's son. You can learn all about them by visiting my web page at margotwoodrough.com Here is Alexandre
Here is Sieur Jean Baptiste DeValcourt who was ennobled by Louis XVI for good and faithful service.
MY BOOKS AT LULU
Monday, October 25, 2010
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Over the years I've published some family history at Lulu.com Here are some of the covers. My goodness I forgot how many until this moment.
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Vale Road and River Bluff

Tuesday, October 26, 2010
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SWEETCAKES
Monday, March 28, 2011
Recently I developed a new craft. I find beautiful yarn and cut into pieces and make a new mix by tying various pieces together. I created a blog for my yarn. Here is the location: http://sweetcakesyarn.blogspot.com/
De Valcourt
Friday, April 01, 2011
It has been a great year for pulling together the De Valcourt family history. It started when a stranger found a previously unknown picture of Madame DeValcourt as a young woman. The portrait is at a museum in France. The discovery of the portrait coupled with new information (in French) inspired me to write the story of the DeValcourt family. Book was published at Lulu.com and copies sent to Steve and Page. Then wonder of wonders Gene Lockwood took the portraits he owns and had them professionally photographed. I received wonderful copies in the mail. What a thrill! Alexander De Valcourt is the son
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Alexandre De Valcourt
Sieur Jean Baptiste De Valcourt
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Catherine Marguerite Frankfort DeValcourt
Catherine Marguerite Frankfort De Valcourt
February 12, 1999 The future will know the true meaning of this d... THOUGHTS - IMPEACHMENT DAY FEBRUARY 12 1999
February 12, 1999 The future will know the true meaning of this day with all its anomalies and allegories. Steve and I flew to Washington this morning and landed at BWI airport under the most turbulent air conditions weve ever experienced. The plane seemed to take an extraordinary time to find the airport and complete the descent. During the entire time it shook, wavered and dipped. Everyone was outwardly clam, but a huge unspoken sign of relief was palpable when the wheels finally rolled on the landing strip. An otherwise smooth flight from Tampa concluded with a theme-park thrill ride. Approaching Washington from the Baltimore Washington Parkway flooded my senses with memories of how delightful it could be on a bright spring-like February day. We
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rode with interesting folks among whom were the Petermans who announced that their son was a St. Petersburg city Council member. They were coming from Ft. Lauderdale to Howard University probably for some sort of Black History event. We chatted our way through the north east section of Washington past Howard University, Catholic University and the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Between chats we listed on the radio to the two roll call votes for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Our driver seemed to have some sort of bet going on the votes outcome for he mentally kept score and verbalized his delight when several of the congressmen changed their vote. The van reached the Petermans hotel just as the final tally was being taken on the first article of impeachment (the vote followed the cold reading of the charges against William Jefferson Clinton), and pulling under the portico caused static that blocked out the final announcement of the actual count. Mr. Van Driver returned from helping the Petermans with their luggage to inquire about the final score, and was disappointed to learn that we had not heard it. (Perhaps his rapt attention to the proceedings explain why he earlier failed to listen to the Petermans destination and took us first to Howard University rather than their hotel; but then this is Washington., D.C.) The second roll call reached its conclusion at exactly the moment the van carrying Steve and me approached the northern most foot of Capitol Hill. The surreality of the event and the moment will stay with us in the same way as the memory of where we were when we heard Kennedy had been shot. I said to Steve, Just think, we could walk right up there and be in the gallery for this very moment. We turned right at the foot of Capitol Hill and followed Constitution Avenue toward the FDIC building just one block west of the White House. Our route followed exactly the path of Inaugural Parades every four years and caused a vision of Hillary and Bill Clinton walking for a portion of their first parade six years ago to flash into my mind on this balmy bright February noontime. The van driver dropped Steve off at the FDIC as the surreality of the day continued. Suddenly I realized we were at a place that had changed so little since the first day he entered in 1964 as an FDIC employee. Its been thirty five years, and our life story seemed sucked into this one tiny block of the universe. As I watched Steve cross 17th street I remembered viewing the Fourth of July fireworks from the FDIC balcony, waiting in the car at 17th and New York to pick Steve up from work and watching the stabile art work displayed on the outside corner of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (in fact, I even sketched this stabile once during a wait, and later this weekend would discover it installed at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Museum). The more things change the more they stay the same. Washington is remarkably the same as it was when I was growing up. Many buildings look better as a result of cleaning, and attention to making the public spaces friendly. The Department of the Interior remains on the park filled with magnolia soulangiana, and I half thought I might see my father come out its north door as we pass it on our way to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge going to Virginia. From the bridge I see below us was the formerly serene Roosevelt Island formerly known as Analostin Island, and known even earlier as an assortment of other names by the various Indians and white settlers who once called the island home. It remains a small oasis of some calm in a vibrating town, but is no longer an island. The super-ugly Roosevelt Bridge lodged one of its supports right in the middle of the lovely natural swamp more than thirty years ago, and forever removed the unique tranquil sense of being on an exotic island that I remembered from childhood when getting to the island meant taking a boat or canoe. Today the island is accessible by a footbridge on the western side allowing visitors to walk to the Theodore Roosevelt monument a forest of upright stele that replace the thick forest of trees. Does anyone but me remember the place as it once was? So recently it was a archetypical forest of large hardwood trees interspersed with vine entangled foundations of former 22
dwellings that rose mysteriously from the shade like the ancient temples of the far east. Once a visit to Roosevelt Island was like a trip to a foreign land. The quiet amidst the city, the call of birds and rustle of leaves and sense of being alone were exceptional feelings. No summer was complete without a walk on the paths followed by a picnic beside the water. Home for this Presidents Day weekend was The Virginian Now, there is a place full of memories! It has been a hub of our lives for more than thirty-five years, and remains mostly unchanged, and is like coming home to Washington for it is so familiar. There is an enormous sense of completeness in our being here at the beginning of the closing of the Garrett case, but thats a story in itself. Its only one in the afternoon but already a full lifetime has flashed in front of my eyes. This is Abraham Lincolns Birthday now called Presidents Day and celebrated on February 15th along with George Washingtons Birthday formerly known as February 22nd. In times past both were separate Federal Holidays most welcome in a dreary month. Now they are combined and have lost their flavor and become the generic Presidents Day. Today hearing the impeachment vote brings a whole new meaning to the very bland and generic Presidents day. Clintons actions and predicament certainly put more spice into the day than anyone could possibly imagine. What would we expect? Its Washington! My goal for the afternoon was the National Gallery of Art. The day was warm and sunny, but nevertheless, I grabbed the umbrella Id bought for four dollars last October at the Istanbul market and slung it over my shoulder. Perhaps I wouldnt need it for rain on this glorious day, but then again, if I needed a weapon to defend myself it might come in handy. As I stood on the metro platform waiting for the train to downtown I heard very loud ranting and raving from a semi-street person, and nuzzled my weapon securely under my arm. I still clutched it closely as I emerged into the bright sunlight of Independence Ave. A mistake in choosing subway stations brought me up above ground right at the very old Smithsonian Institute Arts and Industry building once the home of the 1876 Centennial exhibit, and a short walk along and across the Mall toward the Capital and the Art Gallery. This walk was meant to be. The voting events of only two hours previous combined with the view of the Capitol in one direction and in the opposite direction, the Washington Monument in the traction of scaffolding brushed a sweep of history through my mind. The whole of the American experience was present in one moment and I was swallowed up in the experience. How fortunate I felt to have been born a Washingtonian and to have the experience of the city when it was my back yard. The rotunda of the National Gallery of Art is one of the most stupendous places Ive experienced. It ranks right up there with the Parthenon smaller, but in better condition. To me it is second only to the main hall of the east building of the National Gallery which is my favorite place on earth. Suddenly I was in the midst of both on this incredible day. The east building opened in 1978 just at the time my father died, and I remember coming to visit it as a break from his funeral weekend and all the necessary details of settling of his estate. He died on June 14th. The Sunday following his death we attended Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception then visited the National Gallery to see the Treasures of Dresden exhibit and have lunch in the wonderful upstairs restaurant. The building has changed very little and I still enjoy its Zen-like serenity with the super enormous Calder mobile silently swimming in the air currents. No cathedral or church has ever left me with the pure serenity that I feel in this building. Is it the shape, the light, the art? Three hours passed in bliss until I surfaced at the coat check in the west building to find that the weather was half way through its 180 degree turn. As Maureen Dowd says in her column we went from Midsummers Night Dream to King Lear in one afternoon. Outside the fierce cold wind of a February front scoured the Mall that had only recently been a springtime park. Rain came in horizontally in floods and cold buckets. The weather was a
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mirror of the past year. One moment things are well, and then they change and blow and turn cold. I found a taxi to the FDIC and huddled on a bench in the lobby hoping to catch Steve as he left his meeting; Another flashback to when the FDIC building was new and shiny and sophisticated. Now it looks dowdy and neglected with a once shining floor dull and dusty. A bored guard sits in the corner just past beeping security gates. Is he here to fend off any malcontent banker who might storm in with a bomb to put the pace out of its misery? The old glamor and majesty of the foyer has disappeared, and we are in just another government building. I watch the employees leave the elevators on their way to the parking garage. They are dull looking robots who plaintively cry out to one another have a good weekend as they slip away for the Presidents Day federal holiday. By and by a lady wearing a walking foot cast and casual clothes comes and escorts me to the third floor, and deposits me in a wing chair in the upper elevator lobby. Perfect viewing from this position so I fade into the upholstery to watch different versions of the same dull people do their time until they can leave for the weekend. These inmates serve a lifetime sentence here paying homage and offering sacrifice to the goddess Regulation with no knowledge of the outside world. Not one of them has ever had to take a business risk or worry much about the consequence of their actions. They minister to their goddess and play petty political charades and pass their lives in rapt contemplation of the rules. I fully realize how fortunate Steve and I are to be on the other side now. We escaped. The trip over the wall produced scars and hurts, but we are truly free, and live a life full of fresh air. Weve succeeded on our own merits, and by our own will and intelligence. Blessed is the fact that we can proclaim the cracks we see in the visage of her majesty Regulation. The night is as raw, cold and windy as the day was sunny warm and balmy. Like drowning city rats we scurry to the Farragut Square Metro Station right in the shadow of my childhood. Only steps away was the Farragut Medical building, home of my childhood dentist, across the park from my optometrist where I spent hours waiting for the dilation drops in my eyes to take effect, and just down the block from Louis Hairstylist home of the $5.00 permanent, and only two blocks from 1710 H. St. former home of Travelers Insurance company and my very first job. Washington is really a small town. We are hungry, but the weather is too bad to search for a restaurant. We are forced to take shelter in the train to Roslyn. The best we can do is a Chinese restaurant at the Roslyn Metro station. What a day Presidents Day February 12 1999 has been. Born in sunny Florida, it became a toddler in a stormy airplane descent, then matured into a dream afternoon, and expired after a stormy joust with a cold front. A day such as this is one to remember forever. It was full of allegories of all descriptions, and I was so full of delight at our being a part of the city again.
WHAT A YEAR - 1998

Wednesday, May 04, 2011
A YEAR FOR THE RECORD BOOKS 1998 Monica who? Just think, this time last year no one except a few friends, her parents and the President of the United States knew Monica Lewinski. What a difference a year makes. In fact, things are going so thick and fast that even one day makes a big difference. Wednesday December 17, 1998 was such a day. In one twenty-four hour stretch the nature of the past year rotated 180 degrees. At 5:15 we turned on the news to see how the House of Representatives hearing on the topic of impeachment were going and got a real surprise. World events were deteriorating by the nanosecond. I suppose even a nanosecond was a bit lengthy since events had taken a right angle turn and the 24
picture on the screen was the eerily florescent green typical of a night vision camera. Through the phosphorescent green flew shooting stars of bombs. Holy smoke I yelled, Were bombing Baghdad again. Its been that kind of year. November of 1997 was the beginning of this incredible personal and public episode. Mark was in Egypt when news came that things were not going well Iraq. We all wished he would return home soon. He did but the night he arrived back in Savannah Page called even as she could hear the planes coming in over her apartment at Mall Boulevard and started wondering if she should call off her engagement. She had arrived at that time of oh my gosh Im really going to make a commitment, and Marks imminent arrival created a personal deadline for her. A secondary deadline was the knowledge that within two weeks they would join both sets of parents in Florida in an event that would really mark the beginning of their wedding plans. It was a natural reaction that everyone feels on the threshold of a life-changing event. She pulled herself together, went to meet him at the airport and one way or another resolved that they were meant to be. Plans for a Thanksgiving family get together proceeded nicely, and the event was all it was meant to be. Within three weeks of Thanksgiving both Mark and Page made the decision to find other homes for their dogs Rio and Elvis. Dogs are like children and as much as one might wish to get rid of them, the actual act is wrenching. Elvis went to the mid-west and Rio traveled by plane to Tampa and a meeting with her new owners who have young children as well as a yard. Tearful good-byes at the airport and then joyful reunion with grandmothers and parents and on to the cruise. Christmas 1998 was a family reunion on the S.S. Veendam for a Caribbean Cruise. December 18 was the big day, but before leaving for the port in Fort Lauderdale the group went to the photographer for a family portrait and to celebrate Gee Mas 88 birthday. At the party everyone received holiday gift shirts of the eight tiny reindeer as well as Santa, Mrs. Clause, Rudolph, the Grinch and our tiny elf, Mark. Annette, Page, Margot, Steve, Elena, Steve, Laurie, Jerry, Jane Ashton, Susie and Beth all traveled to Fort Lauderdale to meet Eric, and all thirteen boarded the ship for a week cruise into the Caribbean. We ate, drank, talked, danced and explored. Susie and Margot walked their legs off to get punches in their exercise cards and Page and Mark concentrated on earning Veendam coffee mugs. Santa arrived by boat just off St. Johns in the Virgin Islands. The trip was memorialized by a group shot in the grand staircase with everyone dressed in their reindeer shirts and antlers. We returned spoiled, but knowing each other better. The trip on the high seas cleared our thinking and by the time we returned it was clear that Page and Mark needed to change their wedding date. (Having their wedding on June 20 would mean an unnecessary separation while Mark took his new assignment in Pittsburgh.) We unpacked our bags from the cruise and immediately started making plans for an April wedding. It took a number of phone calls and resulted in the loss of one bridesmaid and one groomsman (what luck were still even), but April 18th was selected. Now the real planning could begin. Organizing the cruise for thirteen had been like moving troops overseas, but it was only a minor exercise compared with the all out war mode we went into planning for the wedding. Suddenly everything was urgent with the dress being the only certainty since it had been selected right after the engagement was announced. All else was to-be-done. The wedding in combination with the resumption of Steves Missouri case meant we went into all- out attack mode. Page and I did some preliminary planning by phone, then scheduled face to face meetings with all the vendors. We lost the Cathedral with the change of date and we got cold feet over having a reception in the park since it was an El Nino year and the weather super erratic. In the midst of all the changes and planning Steve discovered that the selected church didnt have an organ. Well, --no daughter of
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his was going to get married without both an organ and a trumpet. We scratched that church and went on the hunt for a suitable edifice. The new selection turned out to be perfection. Not only was the church lovely, but full of Easter flowers the likes of which $5,000 couldnt have purchased. Not only was the church wonderful, but the organist was a wealth of contacts and information - a real pro - and with the help of organization, good luck and a cell phone Page and Margot arranged most of the details in one small weekend in January. While Margot and Page were planning the perfect Savannah wedding Mark concentrated on selling his home. Luckily it sold fast, but then everything including Pages furniture had to go into storage while Mark went to Kansas for training. (The furniture had its wedding before Page and Mark.) Page was left with rather skimpy furnishings made up of a large popcorn can with a glass top for a table and one small lamp. It was on this table that she addressed all two hundred and fifty invitations in perfect calligraphy. A train trip to Clearwater in February for a bridal shower added a party to a special weekend of planning the flowers and selecting the veil with her grandmother. Gifts started to stack up in my foyer and everyday brought another pile of responses, and the need to shuffle people around at the reception tables. Two of the nicest responses came from former neighbors. We were thrilled that the Valentines and Bensons would be attending. It certainly doesnt seem possible that more than twenty years have elapsed during which time the Trowbridge Trawlers have all grown up. Margot and Steve had planned a trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show long before the wedding speedup up, and so right in the middle of wedding plans they took off for a week in Pennsylvania seeing glorious sites. From Philadelphia Steve went directly to Missouri for another round of hearings, and did not return until two weeks before the wedding. Time was getting shorter and shorter. The wedding was perfection. Everyone stayed at the De Soto Hilton. We arrived five days early giving us time to meet and enjoy Marks family as they came into town. We had several dinners together and walked around the lovely town for hours. April 18th was a perfect day and all of the plans pulled together beautifully. Savannah is the most romantic city and the wedding with its military honor guard was a most romantic event. Page and Mark left on Sunday morning, and we partied on going to Clearys for breakfast and revisiting all the Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil haunts including a trip to Bonaventure Cemetery for cemetery dirt to bring bad luck to the FDIC in their hearing against Glen Garrett. On Monday following the wedding we delivered the presents to Pages apartment and showered the empty place with confetti as we left. In this year of party party we couldnt leave July 4th untouched. Susie, Beth, Page, Mark, Margot and Steve joined Eric in Boston for a real July 4th celebration. There were two highlights. First, the walk through the old cemetery (at dusk) where Samuel Adams is buried followed by fireworks on the Esplanade accompanied by The Boston Pops. We used our cell phone to call all those who were not with us to let them know we were thinking about them.. We all decided that we simply had to return to Marthas Vineyard again. Our goodbyes were short lived as we knew we would meet again in Atlanta on July 25th for Elena and Steves wedding. Margot and Steve were terribly relieved not to have the planning project for this event. As Lyn Schlaug said, Just show up, wear beige and keep your mouth shut. The wedding was lovely and we were so glad we had met many of Elenas family at earlier events. The day was perfect and the reception was delightful at Rivermont Country Club. My best memory was the sight of Steve and Mark sitting on the sewer lid at 5690 Cannonero Dr. smoking cigars just at dusk following the reception while Elena packed to go on their honeymoon. It brought back all kinds of memories of past years on Trowbridge Cove with the kids sitting on the sewer lid at dusk talking about life. August was not a quiet month; just different. We traveled to Ft. Lauderdale to the 26
Community Bankers convention and to see the opening of Home Federal Bank, then returned to prepare for our Greek and Turkey Odyssey, but first there was a side trip on Labor Day to Pittsburgh to see Mark and Pages new home. Pittsburgh is a wonderful place. Forget all the negative things Pittsburgh might bring to mind. It is a perfectly charming town full of very intelligent looking people and beautiful neighborhoods. The absolute highlight of the trip was an expedition to East Liverpool in search of the elusive James Blakely. We stopped at the pottery museum and saw some Blakely items as well as learned the details of the old family story that began with Blakely Looses Millions. We walked the town, scouted out the old Blakely property, found the bridge, cemetery and yes, the hospital all the players in the Blakely history. Even met a Vodry descendant of a former Blakely partner. What a thrill to be back in this place where so much family history occurred. As an extra treat we went to the library in Pittsburgh and found revealing new family information in a random book that Margot picked up just on intuition. Back in Florida for a quick wash of clothes, trip to the bank and on September 25th headed to Atlanta for Robin Valentines wedding. We left under evacuation orders as hurricane Georges was bearing down on Florida. The neighbors all asked if we were evacuating and we said yes, - to Turkey. Everyone thought that was a bit of an overdo, but given the kind of year its been not completely outrageous behavior. There was just enough time for Margot to get sick with an infection in her thyroid that made her very tired and achy. Somehow she squeezed in time to get to the doctor who determined there wasnt a thing to do for it except take aspirin and the choice was either to stay home and be sick or go and be sick. We went with a bushel basket of aspirin. Robin Valentines wedding put a nice top on the year of the wedding and gave us a chance to reacquaint with the Moores and the Gunns. There was even a photo opportunity for a regrouping of the Trowbridge Trawlers. Page was there without Mark and slipped away to party with the old gang one more time. What fun. September 28th was the beginning of the six week odyssey that took us to Turkey and Greece and we left no stone unturned. We saw every important city in western Turkey and Attica Greece. Steve kept copious diaries giving full details, and we recorded every step on video for posterity. It was a large and wonderful trip, but we missed our home and started thinking fondly of it about half way through the expedition. Once home we were amazed that the United States is such a lovely clean country and each day give thanks for the opportunity we have to be in St. Petersburg, Florida where things are practically perfect. Mama is back using her computer. She checks her stock account ever day and marvels at how rich shes become. Her days are full with playing Mahjong all night and watching impeachment hearings and bombings of Baghdad by day. A phone call to her is certain to start her on those damn Republicans, but she wont have Newt Gingrich to kick around anymore. Miracle of miracles he resigned while she was on her trip to Greece. Today is December 17th and there are two more weeks to go in 1998. One wonders what they will bring. Iraq bombing continues, the Republicans continue to debate impeachment even while the bombs roar, the media continues to chew on the same old stories and the stock market continues to make everyone rich. Where will it end? December 20th is Jane Ashtons 89th birthday and a dinner is planned for the Wine Cellar. Susie and Beth arrive on the 22nd for Christmas and the group will see Beauty and the Beast on December 23rd. Duff and Sharron are coming on January 6th (the one year anniversary of Monicagate) and we might just start planning a trip to Mexico to see them. Cant let those suitcases get mildewed in the closet. Postscript written on April 18, 1999 Page and Marks first anniversary. Things have continued to hum along at an even faster clip. We took Gee Ma to dinner at the Wine Cellar and the service was horrible. Mama said, thats what happens when you have full employment, Bill Clinton was impeached and acquitted, Monica had her fifteen minutes
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of fame and wrote a book, Mark made Major, Page got a raise, the daffodils Page planted came up, the stock market passed 10,000, and we are now bombing Kosovo daily with lesser shots at Baghdad. Steve settled the Missouri case and declared a win and got a great report card from the client. Mama talks on the internet daily and has made a killing in the market and Steve and Margot are planning a trip to Iowa for the fourth of July. All seems well in the family as the 20th century winds down. We just hope Gee Ma doesnt run her scooter off another curb and get killed. If she does her death notice would say she died after being thrown from her horse. John Blakely died Good Friday April 2, 1999. The Washington Monument is swathed in scaffolding for repair.
CUBA TRIP
January 1998 Its been fourteen months since we went to Cuba. I kept a notebook, but it is skimpy. Before I put it away I am going to reconstruct our trip and our feelings. Wish I had done it earlier because some impressions and emotions fade with time. However, its an indication of the depth of feeling the trip aroused that causes so many memories to be with me still. First I remember that for weeks after I returned and sometimes even now when things are not going well, I remember the expression I made over and over on my return home: Ill never complain again. Ive been to Havana and seen people with nothing and yet them seem reasonably happy. Are they simply numb after all the years of deprivation? I dont think so; rather, I think it is an innate spirit. Music is everywhere and a general air of contentment or is it resignation? I dont mean to say that there isnt suffering for there obviously is a great deal. The remarkable state is that somehow humans are able to adapt and even rise a bit above. The most moving evidence of suffering is the willingness of women to prostitute themselves. The second most obvious evidence of suffering is the total lack of upkeep for all the buildings and roads. Havana demonstrates quite clearly the effect of no one pays taxes for forty years for even buildings and roofs built to last will eventually melt to nothing when basic upkeep is neglected. All along the Malecon are fabulous homes weathering to dust. Through wide open or non-existent doors I glimpsed hallways and interiors reveling the worse deterioration that Ive ever seen. Yet, people live here. Look at the second floor and you see people, chickens and laundry on the balcony. Do they have running water and a sewage system? Who knows. Coming upon these fabulous buildings with their unparalleled view of the water is a great surprise that makes one gasp. What a place this must have been. Perhaps that makes the present situation even more horrible. This is not a backward third world country, but rather a highly civilized place with educated people living amidst rubble. How do they do it.? We left Isla Meujeures Mexico bound for Havana on a beautiful morning, but as we traveled the rolling of the water increased. Losing site of land aroused emotions of unexpected uneasiness. The mind starts to cook up scenes that flash from inconvenient trouble to life threatening disaster. Gradually the realization dawns that this isnt the Disney-safe inter coastal waterway on the west coast of Florida, but rather real life, and the phrase from the Navy Hymn perils of the sea becomes reality. Who would come if we called on the radio? Who would hear that kind of thing?. We traveled all day without seeing another boat or even a plane. My mind rolled back and forth tossed by fantasies of trouble and yet soothed by the sight of the endless water and prospect of our destination. It was almost simultaneously that Al Krueger our engineer and Yergan the owner of 28
Explorer noticed a vibration and slowed the engines. Suddenly the comfort of the puffing engines was quieted bringing on a real sense of aloneness. Al threw up came the interior hatches and descended into the engine room to inspect. The boat rolled lazily with the waves. Al declared he couldnt find anything and the engines were revved up. Same vibrations. Now it was time for discussion. What could it be (Al said it couldnt be a prop or a shaft as all had been serviced recently. And yet, there it was a vibration at the half-way point of the trip.) If the destination was anywhere but Cuba we would have continued on, but not knowing what type of service Cuba might offer, we turned back at 4:00 in the afternoon and slowly made our way back to the point of beginning. A full day of traveling and were simply returning to port in Isla Mujares. Just past midnight we backed into our slip and managed to waken most of the marina. The process of backing evidently caused whatever had wrapped around the shaft to be dislodged and thrown off because the diver who went down in the morning found nothing. Our second departure for Cuba was a bit later than the first since we stayed up talking to a neighbor from the marina. Our late return brought him down to see what was wrong, and he accepted the offer of a drink, and one thing led to another until he told the tale of the pirates who attacked his sail boat while he was anchored off Guatemala. Such hair raising stories full of blood and death are common in movies, but none of us had ever heard of a real attack. He had escaped only by hacking the pirate to death with a machete. Now our minds really had a fantasy to toss around as we set out on the high seas for a second try at reaching Havana Today the seas are calm and the voyage smooth. almost boring. The engines drone all day and all night and we wake the next morning to see off the starboard the mountains of the west end of Cuba hazy in the distance. All day we cruise along the north west coast never seeing a boat, plane or even a fish. (Al had his lines out all day and caught nothing.) We estimate that we will arrive in Havana late in the evening, and decide to call on the radio when we get closer. The day is uneventful and pleasant interrupted by pleasant conversations and naps. Night comes and we continue to push forward, and a new aloneness creeps back into our minds for we are about to enter Havana harbor and no one knows we are coming. We do not have a detailed chart of the harbor, and it lacks the obvious red and green markers that serve as landmarks to a stranger. Overlaying the whole is a sense of uneasiness about how our arrival will be received although wed been told there would not be a problem. When our instruments indicate we are near Havana Harbor we turn south and try to hail Marina Hemingway. No answer. We try again and this time are told to call back as we get closer. (Well, at least they know were here and dont seem intent on shooting us out of the sky.) Except for the far away voice on the VHS radio there is no sign of life at all - not another boat of any description. How strange not to see any fishermen out at night. Slowly, we see a glow and then slowly it becomes individual lights along the shore. What a feeling to see this place develop out of the darkness. We get a sense of what Columbus must have felt when he visited the area five hundred years earlier. There isnt a clue about which direction to take, and its only after communication is established by radio that we are given dubious directions. The Cubans patrol the harbor with radar and once they pick us up talk us in by saying head for the white light. The whole shore line is white lights making its hard to pick our exactly the white light they have in mind. (How dependent we have become on the lovely red and green channel markers at home.) Jergan steers the boat and Steve, Al and I strain our eyes for the white light among many as well as keep a look out for any possible obstruction in the bay. Slowly, we approach the shore guided by the Cuban with only the essentials of English, but none the less more than our knowledge of Spanish. Bit by bit we steer and turn and chug along until we find the particular white light and head toward the immigration dock, a concrete sea wall topped by a wooden hut with a tall radio tower. We tie up with the assistance of
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the many Cubans who come from the hut and from the picnic table beside it that is lit from a nearby street lamp. All else is very dark. The hut and table are the only island of light, and yet we know there is a marina nearby. We are greeted like visiting royalty. Music is playing on the radio and the officials are lingering in the very dark yard smoking and looking a lot like the officers in the first scene of Carmen. (The ones who watch the people come and go and comment on how funny they are drole de la gens que ce gens la.) As we tie up the boat, Al and Jergan, who have declared their lack of concern, betray themselves by acting nervously cordial to the officers. They seek solace from their anxiety smoking endless cigarettes, and Yes sirs fly like moths under a light as the various officers approach and board for their turn of stamping and inspecting. One cannot help but think that the immigration officers inspection is designed more to satisfy curiosity than to serve any particular official purpose. (They greet gifts of liters of coke as though they were champagne.) They are very cordial and sensitive to the fact that they shouldnt stamp our passport and as I washed the third round of glasses in preparation for the serving of yet another round of soft drinks to the next clutch of officers, it occurs to me that our arrival has brightened a night that had been lit only by a couple of bare bulbs and a lot of nothingness. We are objects of delight to them. Finally, after serving drinks to half the population Havana in the first hour off our arrival, we are issued our pink paper visa and told we are welcome to stay for ten days since there is a storm coming. Its official we are welcome. Jergan starts the engines and we find our way through the blackness to our berth for the night feeling just like we had landed on the moon and been greeted by friendly Martians. Its midnight and two of us fall into bed exhausted. I awake in the middle of the night to find Yergans door closed and have the spooky feeling that he is not alone in his room. It was eerie to think that within a couple of hours of our arrival he left the boat, found a girl and she was there amongst us. Truly I am on another planet. As I lie in my bunk only a few feet away from Jurgans door, I think about the girl and begin to contemplate what would make a creature follow a man home to his boat like this. Eventually I fell back asleep very thankful I did not have to meet her face to face. Dawn brought a different picture of Cuba. It was grey and solemn and there were no cars. Lots of people traveled up and down the marina street, but they were on bicycles not in cars. Explorer lay alongside a concrete wharf just in front of a huge sailboat. Electricity was the first task of the day. Al and Yergan were both testy. To celebrate our arrival they each had three shots each of Tequila to prime them for an evening of bar hopping. During the evening Al had lost both his money trying to buy $30 worth of sandwiches in a bar. We never did really know all the details, but somehow Jergan got back to the boat with Al and a girl. (Guess Al was upset because he didnt have a girl and lost his money). Our eyes were barely open when someone knocked on the boat and offered to wash it. Al was less than friendly to the offer since he was still sore over the previous nights loss. (He kept muttering about Yergans bad manners, but he simmered down when Yergan gave him $50.) The boat washer came back to a better reception and made it plain with his limited English that he had a son who would like to be our guide and show us around. We settle on a price and later the son Frederico arrived back at the boat with a driver and a car and we take off to see Havana, stopping along the way at Fredericos house to let him get a clean shirt.
Going for the shirt allowed us a glimpse into a middle class lifestyle in the Havana suburb of Miramar. It looked like rural Georgia of one hundred years ago. Fredericos home was on the water looking north across Havana Harbor. In the U.S. this would be prime 30
waterfront property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. We didnt go into his home, but peaked in the door to see a pathetic dried up plant and worn linoleum. Outside the wires were hung like wash lines criss-crossing the court yard. The sides of the building were anything that would keep out rain including pieces of corrugated metal slipped into the siding where holes might have been. There was a dirt court yard with one poor pathetic childs truck stuck in the bare ground. Frederico didnt seem to mind that we saw the place, and probably he doesnt even understand how wretched it looked to us. I asked about an outbuilding I saw out toward the street covered with a palapa roof. He said it used to be his restaurant until the government shut it down. For the moment we didnt understand the meaning of his remark, and thought if very strange that he should have a restaurant in his front yard. After he was cleaned up with a fresh shirt we took off in the battered car with six of us crammed together. The Windows were open and unclosable since the handle was missing. Missing that is until the driver passed one handle back so we could adjust the window. Guess he kept it in the glove box. The main road from Marina Hemingway into Havana passes through the Miramar neighborhood skirting the former Soviet Embassy and arrives along the Malecon in downtown Havana. It is called 5th avenue. The sights along the way are breathtaking. First, there are the old cars. Everywhere the cars are 1950 models. They are all up and running full blast although obviously not everyone has a car. Many people take a bicycle and many others hitch hike. On reflection, probably the hitch hiker girls we saw were prostitutes although I took them for citizens just needing a way around. Our first stop was an open-air market of artist selling their works. Frederico and the diver accommodated us by stopping, but seemed nervous and wanted us to come along. Quickly we purchased painting of a worker. The artist come out of no where with the rolled up canvas that stilled smelled of paint. He thrust it into Steves face. Instantly, Steve called Marg and showed me the picture. Within seconds we purchased it for $40 and moved along. It might just qualify as being the fastest art purchase in history, and it has become one of our treasures. The style is rather cubist and seemed to express so much about what we were starting to see in the place. We longed for time to shop for more. Next stop was the Castillo del Morro and a start on our Cuban history lesson. Both Steve and I arrived as blank slates needing to be imprinted with local history and lore. By now the wind blew fiercely blowing form the south. We are told that a high south brings strong north or in other words, a front was coming. We climbed to the top of the fort for a view of Havana Harbor and the beginning of our realization of the continued importance of this land and city in history. Looking back at the visit to the fort makes me think of a later trip to Nassau in the Bahamas where we found people quite accustomed to the tourist dollars and not the least afraid to demand money at every turn. They are like trained seals who perform for a fish. Here in Cuba there is a reticence. I offer a dollar tip to a lovely gentleman who poses with me for a picture. He is appreciative, but not demanding. Perhaps the government makes him afraid to be too open about soliciting tips. In time this will change and unless human nature is rewritten later tourist will find the same trained seals in Havana. For now one has a feeling of genuine delight in being with people from the outside world.
Next the jalopy takes us to the old town square where we park and walk through narrow streets full of incredibly picturesque buildings to the map vendor. Yergan wants to buy navigation charts and we understand that it is only recently that such things can be purchased. Previously they were guarded for security reasons. We walk around the town a bit, and its obvious from the answers he gives to questions, that Frederico doesnt know too much about the history of the place, but Steve and I are already enchanted with the
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town. We meet our driver back at the park where he is lined up with all the other drivers. One gets the sense that they know one another. We keep pausing to take pictures, but Frederico seems a bit nervous and hurries us on. Dinner is planed to be at a private restaurant and we have invited Frederico and the driver to accompany us. As we approach the car at 8:00 for our dinner plans we are stopped in the darkness of the marina and Frederico is taken off to speak privately to whomever had been watching us. He returns to tells us he will take us to dinner, but must come back and talk to the person who was observing us and join us later for dinner. The restaurant is in a neighborhood near his home and the streets are dark. It is possible to see into the houses through open doors, but so easy for residents to see us. We feel like intruders.. We park and approach a home and Frederico goes first knocks, inquires and returns to tell us to walk around the block. Evidently the person at this restaurant did not have the lobster that we had told him we wanted. We enter another restaurant and take our seat under a canvas tarp that had been strung between trees. The garden is strung with Christmas lights and the scene is enchanting. Behind a bush a man cooks on a barbecue. At first it seems like a regular restaurant until gradually we realize we are in someones front yard and they are cooking on their barbecue. The food is good, but selection is limited. Later we learn about these private restaurants where food is purchased at the dollar store. This food is not affordable in the pesos ordinary workers earn, but is available only for dollars and is resold for dollars in the front yard of a home. We have a lovely meal marred only by Fredericos failure to return promptly as promised. Its a bit disquieting to realize we dont know where we are and seem to have just lost both guide and driver. Eventually Frederico arrives in a shaken state of mind. Evidently, his conversion with us on the boat during where Steve explained to him about our legal system and showed him his computer was observed and taken for mischief. A cold shiver of apprehension and disbelief crosses us as suddenly we feel a very small taste of the kind of government under which these people live. Frederico delivers us home and promises to return the next day for more sight seeing. In twenty four hours we have been flooded with impressions and experiences. Our second morning arrives with incredible surf crashing over the sea wall just across the gravel roadway on our port side. The waves hit the sea wall and spew big clouds of water and mist straight up into the dull gray morning. Frederico doesnt come as scheduled so Steve and I walk around and examine the hotel near the marina. The outside is dingy, but inside is quite nice. Its a far cry from the Marina showers with their soap-stiff towels and on and off hot water. We learn that the name of the hotel Is Old Man and the Sea" and its guests are German and Canadians. It is here that we find the only CNN television station Finally giving up on Frederico we take a taxi to town. This time we ride in style in a government taxi. The price is higher $15.00, but its a Mercedes. We are dropped at the same spot as yesterday and since we know the area we wander around enjoying the sites. Lunch at La Mida is in a delightful court yard restaurant with peacock roosting on the second story ledge and chickens gathering scraps from the floor. The music is grand and we eat (what else) a Cuban sandwich. Since we only brought $500 cash with us we decide to be frugal and people watch in the park. Our park is located just in front of old governors home and the portico of the mansion is full of book vendors. One of them is particularly charming and wants to have a cup of coffee with us. He sells me a book about the black history of Cuba and says people call him Sammy Davis (and in fact thats who he looks like. All the time there is music playing in the background. I go to watch and listen and for $5.00 buy a tape of the music. As we sit in the park we are approached by a man who doesnt speak much English, but 32
nevertheless wants to talk, and insists on telling us that Castro should be (and here he makes a slashing motion across his throat). Steve is horrified and moves away. I smile and hope this isnt a set up to throw us in jail. The man talks and talks and seems mostly to want us to take the message home that if the US would drop the embargo Castro would fall. We hear this message over and over so much so that I decide to write the State Department when we get back home and express what Ive heard.. After this encounter (and we never were completely sure of the mans motive) we were approached by a gentleman who said he overheard us speaking English and wondered if we wanted a guide. Both Steve and I were skeptical about his motives and yet at the same time he seemed to be trustworthy. In fact, I had been taking pictures of the governors palace and had seen him through the viewer of the camera and included him in a shot because I thought he looked intelligent. We were getting low on money and yet his fee was reasonable so we decided to blow $15.00 for three hours of touring the town. What a tour it was! We were with a walking encyclopedia of information. Our brains couldnt assimilate everything fast enough. We walked up one street and down the other. We were told the whole history of a most fascinating city. Both Steve and I could hardly believe our luck. When the day was over we took a taxi back to the boat and dropped Feilipe off on the way. Evidently he does this every day in order to make ends meet. He told us that in order to keep his family together he needed to earn $100. American dollars each month. He has two boys and a wife who was Russian. He is an engineer and spent some time in Russia in training. He has no love for the Russians or for the system, and is not particularly guarded in his conversation about either. We plan to meet the next afternoon at the same spot and invite Felipe for dinner with his wife. By now we are starting to run short of money and need to call home which turns out to cost $40.00 cash. We have dinner and try to charge on our Visa, but have it denied. Visa from other countries is OK, but banks dont honor American Visa. This is an eye opening experience for us. Dinner this evening is weird. We share the meal with Al, Jergan, Frederico and the two girls. Its was funny because I didnt quite know what to say, and couldnt have said anything anyway since neither girl spoke English and I do not have any Spanish. By now the weather is getting dicey and one front after another comes down the straits of Florida. I must note that I am resuming this in September of 1999. I have made up my mind that today I will finish these notes. In some ways this is good since I have the advantage of time and hindsight, and since I have notes and the aid of the video that Al made I probably have a good remembrance. In addition, the New Your Times for Sunday August 8 carried a story that I saved and attached to my remembrances because it article so closely mirrored our experience. No doubt one day Cuba will be just another tourist island in the Caribbean, and over time the memory of these more than forty years will grow dim. For now though even in September of 1999 things have not changed at all. The Miami Cubans still wield enormous power to keep Cuba even to the detriment of their own brothers. Its curious how those who escaped and thrived can continue their vendetta over such a long period of time. But, speaking of escaping, our escape from Communism was a real trip. After five days we were ready for home. The weather office at the Marina was very vague about conditions and only open sporadically at that, but the weather seemed to have improved, and after all, how many fronts could fall down from the north in quick succession. We decided to go based on timing and bright sunny conditions in Cuba. An accurate weather report would have been a better indicator for action. We left the marina in bright, calm sunshine after making the obligatory stop at customs. They checked to see if we were leaving with all the electronic equipment with which we arrived, and I certainly expected them to search for stow-aways, but they didnt (Frankly,
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I wouldnt have been too surprised to have seen at least one of the girls emerge from hiding either). Departure was quiet heightened only by our crossing in front of a very large freighter. I was topside when Ad decided to cross (why not go behind Ill never know) and the crossing was close enough that I left my topside post so as not to have to see it. After that we chugged right along for several hours as the seas increasingly swelled larger and larger. Soon, the sight of the wall of water in front of the bow, and then the ride up and straight down the wave became completely unnerving. I retired to the salon in order not to have to see. I tried to sit then lie and it was impossible. The boat rose and fell like an elevator. If you were not braced against or under something you rose and fell with the boat. I looked at the clock. It was 3:00PM. We would not finally get into Key West until midnight so there was nine hours of hell ahead. Steve became sick. I saw him go out on the stern and worried he would be swept overboard, but there was not a thing I could do except hope for the best. Finally, I drug myself to the Galley surrounded by sofa cushions and wedged myself in. It was the most secure I could feel. I must have dozed some. One of the most terrifying moments was when in the dark, I suddenly hear a tremendous roar of the engines and see a very bright light. The hatch to the engine rooms was in the Galley and Al had lifted the door and gone down (how I dont know) to inspect for something. Not only was the noise overwhelming, but also the thought that something might be wrong with an engine was scary. At this moment, I dont recall why he checked the engines, but they continued to function and slowly we plodded along. The incident though made me aware that the life jackets were all stored topside, and if we lost one engine we might be broached, something I learned about in Coast Guard school. Never have hours drug so slowly as they did that night. The most incredibly thrilling sound was the throttling down of the engines, and the accompanying ability to hear voices from the cock pit. We were approaching harbor and the seas were smoother. I left my cubby hole to go to the engine room to see the lights of Key West on the horizon We were saved! It was rainy and cold (as it always is behind a cold front). Slowly we pulled up to the dock. We had n slip so we tied up at customs. Al was angry that Yergan had only guessed at the weather. I was thankful and mad at the same time. I told Steve that in the morning I was leaving the boat and getting a rental car even if I had to buy it! We crawled into our bunks for the last time. Dawn was gray and solemn. Al was mad at Yergan and I was mad at everyone for having put us through such a night. Customs was slow, but didnt seem to mind too much that we had come from Cuba. Yergan was off doing paper work, and I announced that I was leaving immediately. Al came with us leaving Yergan to deal with getting the boat back to Clearwater. Never had home looked so good What a wonderful place we live in. Once we started to recover from the ordeal of the previous evening we started to think about all of the refugees who have crossed the same stretch of water in open rafts. If we in our 45 foot yacht were in danger and uncomfortable, then what must have been the plight of the refugees? Certainly, things at home would need to be terribly awful to prompt someone to make the voyage. Ninety miles doesnt sound like much unless conditions are horrible. In the Florida Straits conditions are frequently horrible and without radar and communication there is really no reliable way to know what the crossing will bring in the way of opposition from mother nature. Since our return, our hearts and minds have been with the Cuban people. We wish there were a way to help, and in fact, I wrote a note to our friend Felipe just to say hi thinking that if he replied I would send him some cash with the next note. My note was returned unopened nine months later. I wonder what has happened with him? Just after our return the US government tightened restrictions on travel so that a trip like our became almost impossible to duplicate. Steve and I both agree that the experience was probably one of the most significant of our lives. We far preferred Cuba to Costa 34
Rica, and truly intend to return as soon as we can do so in a more legal way. The country is incredibly rich in architecture and culture and the music is superb. The people are delightful, and admirable in their long-suffering. Perhaps when the next revolution happens (and it will) we will go back and write again of our experiences. In the meantime we have a wonderful new daughter-in-law who is first generation American of Cuban ancestry. We are forever connected to this lovely country. I just looked over my notes and decided they are rich with detail. I reproduce them here as an appendix to my story. Live off your stores how you can exist in Cuba without spending money High South brings strong North (wind) Havana like Atlanta center of commerce for world Police Firing of 23 at the Marina ??? Closing of small private restaurant day after we were there Man in park who came to talk citizen or more? Black man selling books called himself Sammy Davis and indeed looked like him. Wanted to have coffee with us. Being out of money could sell my earrings and necklace Street children and people Offered woman orange Citzen-Itza Ride in claptrap car stop every so often on deserted road to walk around car and kick tires Taxi three kinds Private, leased from Govt. and Government Woolworths where time stopped. Looked just like the 40s. Escalator not working Cars still running Everyone blames current problems on US Embargo All seen to like US Citizens and be interested to talk, but not much English or at least pretend they dont speak it Met two who have taught themselves English Asked two people about O.J. Simpson (which had just been hot topic neither ever heard of him and his murder of wife) Frozen in time one day government said, You own where you are today trouble is they dont have money to keep up and cannot sell. Can trade and pass down. Hard working entrepreneurs seem happy in spite of sparse life. If ever they get free theyll give Florida a run for its money We arrived in darkness City full of old American cars and old Russian trucks Everyone rides a bicycle Marina slips have painting memorializing previous visitors. Adjacent hotel called Old Man and the Sea Visit to the map store and old city Incredible ruins Very much restoration going on. Government agency in charge of it called Havaniguana. Most work done in cooperation with other countries or investors. US seems to be the only country NOT there. My feeling is place is gearing up for major tourist trade. Curious that Castro went to Vatican seeking support (to enrapture the common people)? Wonder what Castro is thinking now? How does he plan for the future? Is he worried about succession? Who is his heir? What does Castro think of the city hes created? People have health care but no medicine Have housing, but cannot afford to fix Have jobs, but inadequate pay Have rations, but not enough to survive. We were told they must earn $100 American dollars to survive (and they do everyone has a wad of American Money) There is a whole capitalistic economy that has developed as a sub level beneath the party system like a layer of smoke under a heavy cloud. Place seems to function well (people know and greet one another with subtle handshakes and body language (Remember customs man who wanted to accept the Coke and CD, but was scared) Remember feelings about girls that Al and Yergan picked up. One very young (like Page) one mid 30s neither spoke English . why would they get involved in such a short-term dead end relationship? Are they being paid? Are they hoping for rescue? Al keeps saying dont panic so sure hes cool and clam when in reality hes like a scared rabbit fussing and fretting. He cannot tolerate discomfort in someone else. The marina had a bath house that sometimes had water and never had soap. It did have attendants and tattle tale gray towels that were folded in a different shape each day. Once day like a heart and one day like a swan. No AC anywhere. It must get hotter than hell in the summer. If black market vanished overnight there would be no American Dollars and the economy would dry up. It depends on American dollars.
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LETTER TO MY FATHER - 1999

My father was a strong influence in my life. He died in 1978. I wrote him to bring him up to date. Margot Woodrough4801 Osprey Drive South #604St. Petersburg, FL 33711727-9068102 727-906-8102 Fax 727-906-8302 margo4it@tampabay.rr.com May 4, 2011
Attention: Herman C. Vollmer Dear Dad, For many years you and I kept up a letter writing relationship. Ive saved all of them both yours and mine, and someday one of my heirs, if I ever get any will go through them. At the moment your lineage stops with Page and Steve, but there is still time for them to have children. I missed writing to you in the twenty-one years since you died. I havent written, but that doesnt mean I havent thought of you. I think of you often as you are the reason I have so many diverse interests in life. In fact, Im a bit like you. I know a little about many things and can talk to anyone about almost any topic. I do go blank when it comes to sports, but that wasnt your big interest either was it? Why, just last year I was standing in the Smithsonian Castle building looking at a display showing the city of Washington. Beside me was a young black boy who seemed interested. I engaged him in banter then told him the story about Tunlaw street being Walnut spelled backwards. Page and Mark, Mark is her new husband, were there and heard the story as well so you see one never knows what will get passed along through the generations. Lately, Ive been telling everyone the story of how you always told me I was so lucky because I would live to see the Millennium. I remember thinking when you said it that that was fine, but I would be so old (57) when it happened that I wouldnt care and probably couldnt even breath enough to celebrate. Well, here we are at T-29 days and counting and Im still very much alive. I dont feel much older than a wise thirty-five, and still zip around fairly well. I walk two miles everyday. I am a bit pudgier than I ever have been, but keep thinking that Ill take care of that one day. Steve and I are still married and both Page and Steve are grown and successful. You are in their hearts and we continue to speak of you. A few years ago Stevie went to Washington and visited 4740 Bradley Blvd. Its still there, but just as you suspected it went condo. Guess that means you got out just in time. The big news is that Steve and I just returned from a trip to Washington and I though you would like to hear about it. It was on this trip that I thought to write you a Millennium letter since Im sure you would want to hear the news of Washington. We flew into National airport. You would be amazed at how much it looks the same. Actually, it is just about to change dramatically as the old terminal is completely gutted with only the shell remaining. Our flight arrived at the old north terminal. Just a ghost of the old place is there for those who once knew it. A stranger would think the whole place new. Actually, most of it is new and glitzy. The most incredible thing is that its no longer called National Airport. No kidding, they renamed it Ronald Regan National Airport! Bet you wonder why they named it after an actor and a third rate one at that. You missed the 1980s when we actually elected RR as president for two terms. No kidding and everyone thought he was wonderful. He is still alive today in body, but his mind is shot. He suffers from Alzheimers 36
disease (dont think they had invented that when you were here) so that he doesnt know which end is up. Some say hes probably had the Alzheimers longer than we know as he tended to drift off even while President. I must say though that the drive from the airport looks just as it always has, and in fact, in many ways the city is unchanged. We flew up the Potomac River on the Virginia side crossing the bridge that carried 301 south. The approach took us up to Little River Falls where we turned south east and followed the river down to the airport. We passed over Roosevelt Island (had they built the memorial to him when you were here?) It was a lovely trip up the river as we could see the city below, but it looked so small. I could pick out landmarks but only because I knew what to look for. The biggest landmark, the Washington Monument, it not its usual self so was a bit blurry more about that later. Steve dropped me off at the Library of Congress for a bit of research while he attended his meeting. You wouldnt believe what I had to do to be admitted to the research room. Red tape and bureaucracy and more of the same. I had to sit at a computer and enter all kinds of data about myself to get a researchers card. You dont know about computers either do you at least not the ubiquitous ones we have nowadays. I never thought I would get a library card from the Library of Congress, and if Id know that was what they were up to when they took my picture I would have smiled. As it was I glowered since I was tired of being harassed. Our first night in Washington we had dinner at The Monocle which is THE place to be on the hill as they say. Neat place with red walls and lovely witty phrases written like a border around the cornice of the room. (I was dying to copy some of them down, but didnt want to look like a tourist.) We definitely felt like insiders dining here. We drove from the hill to Arlington to The Virginian for the night. Washington is such a lovely town especially at night. I am so glad that I grew up here and know the place. The next day I returned to the Library of Congress then walked from the Capitol (pass the Botanical Gardens which by the way are completely gutted and in a state of renovation) to my favorite building in all the world, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. Whenever I am there I feel the closeness of your spirit. What do you know of the building? I doubt you ever visited it when it was finished, but I bet you lurked around at some part of its construction watching. I am with you so much in the building because its interior is like a Cathedral. There is an essential atmosphere of serenity and order in this place as Ive not found in any other building Ive experienced. It is particularly dear to me since your family went there on the Sunday after your funeral. The building had just opened and was sparkling new and fresh. We toured an exhibit called Splendors of Dresden and had lunch in a wonderful little caf tucked in the back of the uppermost level. From the restaurant we could watch the Alexander Calder mobile turn silently on its axis in the breeze. It was a beautiful building in 1978 and remains so today. Last February I was there with Page and introduced her to the delights of the architecture. We took a creative picture at the glass pyramid that stands between the East and West wing. I use this as the cover picture for my family web page. Web Page thats a new term for you isnt it? How you would have loved and hated the concept of the WWW. You would have loved the technology that brought the WWW to us, but would have been quick to point out how it intrudes on our freedom. Yes, it does and I fear that one or two generations in the future there could be significant intrusion onto our liberties. I doubt you would have wanted a computer for you were too happy just reading the Encyclopedia Britannica one by one. I remember when you died and I went to your apartment I found that some volumes were right side up and some upside down. I know that the upside down ones were the ones you had read. We dont have books any more. I doubt its possible to buy them. Now the encyclopedias are stored on CD-ROM which are tiny little silver disks that can hold a whole shelf on one little disk. Annette has a computer and uses it rather well. She is still very opinionated, bright, and interested in politics.
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Steve set her up a little stock account and she loves watching her money grow. She cannot get around too well, but she manages. I try not to baby her but to be there when she needs help. Her sister, Shug will turn 100 years old next March. The family is remarkably long lived. Speaking of family, Ive been dabbling with genealogy for over twenty years now. I found a researcher who took the Vollmers back to the 1600s. Last year I framed the shoe making tools that the Vollmers used for their shop in Annapolis. Best of all I visited Georgetown and spent the day soaking up its charm. Let me tell you about a truly splendid fall day. Since it was Sunday we decided to attend Mass at Holy Trinity. Ive never been there and this seemed to be a good opportunity for a visit. We parked just north of Visitation Convent and walked several blocks to church. The day was one of those blue-sky brilliant fall days that stick forever in ones memory lying just below the surface ready to surface at the slightest whiff of damp fall leaves. We were not alone walking, and watching the other pedestrians made me think this must have been how you and your neighbors reached church each Sunday on foot. Since it was the Sunday before Thanksgiving there was a large food drive being conducted on the sidewalk in front of the church. Inside there was hardly a seat, but we were able to sneak in right on the aisle. What a glorious church we saw. The coloring of grey and white is elegantly restrained and the stained glass windows truly glowed in the fall light. On this last really superior fall day of the 20th century we felt truly excited to be in this church , a place that had been important to the Vollmer and Ogle family for close to two hundred years. The best was yet to come though. I remarked to Steve about the beauty of the crucifix and the man in front of us turned to say, be sure you see the one in the restored old church today is the dedication day. Well, just how lucky could we get? I wonder what you know of the old church. Obviously it was old when you were young for its described as the oldest church in Washington, D.C. There it sits about twenty-five feet above the street and behind the newer church. The old church has been exquisitely restored with a very modern flare. The beams are exposed above, it is lit with small intense track lights and on the floor is an exquisite Turkish carpet. What a jewel it has become! I wish you could have been there to see it. Afterwards we walked up to Whiskey Ave (as you used to call Wisconsin Avenue) and found a hole in the wall place for breakfast to get energy for sightseeing. The Ginko trees were all in full yellow and we picked up leaves and pressed them in the church bulletin as souvenirs of our day and as a gift to our Thanksgiving hostess next Thursday. What a joy it was to walk the streets of Old Georgetown as the leaves drifted to the street in breeze. This was the perfect culmination of an almost perfect year for us. Somehow, the earth seems more at peace than ever. Yes, there are places that are horrible, but I think we are making slow progress. Im even told that our population explosion may reverse itself before it does us in. For the Woodrough family it has been a good time. Steve finished his big case against the FDIC in March with an unprecedented settlement. For the balance of the year he has been employed with a follow-up lawsuit. The stock market has been doing very well and both Page and Steve seem happily married. Annette continues to be herself and except for not being able to walk well is in great shape. Yes, it is the last quarter of the 20th century, and every indication is that we will make it through to the new year. Well make it through if the Y2K bug doesnt get us that is. You dont know about that bug do you. How could you, since computers were not that big when you were here. Let me keep this short by saying that computer programs were written with little thought as to what a computer would make of a date ending in 00. About five years ago we started worrying that computers might think this was 1900 not 2000 and shut down. Let me tell you, it turned out to be a really big problem. Do you remember how you told me what big parties would happen at the year 2000? Well, there will be 38
some big ones thats for sure, but the younger people wont be there. All the young workers are standing by their employers computers on New years Eve 1999 waiting to go into action if things start collapsing. No kidding! Talk about your basic kick in the head. As for us, we now live in St. Petersburg Florida where it is warm. We have a boat and plan to celebrate in the towns First Night party which is an incredibly big street party. Page and Mark are coming as are Marks parents. Oh, I forgot to tell you that Mark made Major this year. By the way, some other crazy things are happening. Our last president of the 20th century is about to leave office after two terms. I could write a book about him, but will keep it simple by saying that this time last year he was impeached and acquitted. Now, catch this, his wife is about to move out of the White House to New York to a place she calls my house and she is running for the Senate from New York. I have wandered a long way from Georgetown trying to give you a flavor of the times. We spent the whole glorious afternoon of November 21 walking the lovely old streets using the little Washington guidebook you sent me years ago. Finally, at 2:00 we entered Dumbarton Oaks, my second favorite place in the world. We felt as though we had the gardens to ourselves, and wandered and sniffed and stared at the glorious colored leaves. The pebble garden is there. I remember when it was once the tennis court and I remember you taking me there as it was being built. I almost cried to have to leave. In fact, I found a wonderful house where I would like to live and took a picture of it. Im sure we couldnt afford it, but what fun to think about it. I scheduled a trip to the Folger Library to see a play. At least I thought that was what I was doing. When we got to the Folger we discovered that fifteen years ago the old Lansburgh building was turned into The Shakespeare Theater. What fun! We had dinner at a restaurant right next to the theater. In fact, our table was right inside the former display window of Lansburghs. I told Steve about how Mom Mom would come downtown to shop before there were K-Marts and Wall Marts and suburban Malls. Speaking of Malls, you wouldnt believe the one across Lee Highway from Tyson Corner. We dropped in as we were out touring the places we lived when we were in Washington. First we went to Kent-Lincolnia where Stevie was born. Its all black now. Then we went to Colony Road.
THE MILLENIUM WOODROUGH STYLE
THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY WOODROUGH STYLE The Woodrough family celebrated the end of the 20th century in grand style The party started with Thanksgiving and continued to the end of January, and was a time of looking forward as well as backward. Thanksgiving day was spent at 503 Poinsettia Belleair Florida, the home of Margaret and Richard Fuselier. It is a special place since it was once owned by Annette Kaplan then by her daughter Margaret Woodrough who renovated it and then sold it to the Fuseliers. Dinner was like a family reunion since both Annette and Margot were invited along with dear friends and next door neighbors, Owen and Lyn Schlaug . Just the week before Thanksgiving Margot and Steve traveled to Washington D.C. and while there made the rounds visiting all of the homes they owned in Northern Virginia before the move to Atlanta in 1973. It was quite a trip and great fun to see how the homes had survived the thirty years.
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In addition Margot and Steve spent one spectacular Sunday exploring Georgetown, Margots fathers home. First they attended Mass at Trinity Church where the Ogle and Vollmer family worshiped for many years. Since it was a picture perfect fall day Margot and Steve scuffed through the newly fallen bight leaves of Georgetowns bumpy sidewalks and then to add the perfect touch they spent several hours in Dumbarton Oaks gardens. The weather was very mild for late November, the sun was brilliant and the gardens nicely uncrowned. Since Dumbarton Oaks is one of Margot most favorite places, this was truly a special event. The Washington monument was still shrouded in the delightful scaffolding designed by Michael Graves, and at night it looked for all the world like a glowing Japanese lantern. The Washington weekend was particularly special as Margot was able to spend two afternoons in the Library of Congress and while there found a publication written by Laurie J. Blakely which she copied. Since family stories have always declared that Laurie Blakelys works were lost in a fire at a publishing house, this was a particularly exciting find. Naturally, she copied the entire book for her file. After Thanksgiving a trip to Atlanta gave us time to help Steve and Elena decorate their Christmas tree then it was back to Florida for the beginning of a very busy holiday season. On December 20th Annette, Jane, Laura , Steve and Margot took Jane Blakely to dinner to celebrate her 90th birthday. Page and Mark arrived on Christmas Eve in time for dinner at Laura Glasss home. The whole family spent Christmas Day at 4801 Osprey Dr reading their letters to their grand children and exchanging gifts. Two days after Christmas Steve and Margot had a party for the neighbors at their home, and just when that dust settled the McDermott family arrived from Iowa. The Millennium celebration centered around St. Petersburg Floridas First Night event. Margot and Steve took their boat, Motion Granted to a marina within walking distance of St. Petersburg. Mick and Joan McDermott, Matt and Mike McDermott joined Page, Mark, Steve and Margot for the evenings celebration that started with dinner at the Ovo Caf. The fireworks over the Vinoy Basin were spectacular and the evening was mild. All of the out of town guest left by January 4, and Steve took off for Missouri leaving Margot to rest for a week. Then it started all over again. Steve and Elena made their Christmas visit in January and it included a trip to Walt Disneys Animal Kingdom where Margot and Steve purchased their wonderful water buffalo carving. One day after Steve and Elena left Margot and Steve took off for San Juan Puerto Rica for two days before joining a cruise ship for a weeks tour of the eastern Caribbean. The cruise was very special since Larry West (Steves roommate from law school) and his wife Susan were along. The trip included Barbados, Antigua, Martinique, St. Lucia and St. Thomas. We liked Barbados and Antigua best. The trip home from San Juan through Atlanta was an adventure for the town was in the middle of an ice storm on the 40
eve of the Super Bowl. Margot and Steve might have been very lucky to have been one of the last planes in and out that night before the airport was virtually closed down for weather. How lovely it is to be home at Dolphin Cay that certainly resembles a cruise ship that never leaves port. We have decided that St. Petersburg Florida is the best Caribbean Island there is, and we are certainly looking forward to a lovely boring February. Steve and Elena are moving to Chicago and Page and Mark to Germany, but that is their problem not ours thank goodness. Already we are planning an extended trip to Chicago in July and to Germany next summer.
MY BIRTHDAY JULY 16 2000

My Birthday 2000 Im a day late with my birthday essay, but youll see whats kept me busy in a moment. First lets set the stage. For years Ive tried to write a reflection on my birthday. Youll never find all 58 of them for several reasons. First, I could not write until I was at least five or six years old. Second, computers didnt come into widespread use until about ten years ago. I know that has nothing to do with writing, but still, one is more inclined to write when one can save, spell check and edit with ease. Someday when a descendant is going through my things they will find some birthday essays. Hope someone thinks they are fun. Now to the birthday at hand. This is the big one the year 2000. When I was young my father would remind me from time to time that I would be alive for the Millennium and how wonderful that will be. Well, yes I am and it was and youll find that described in another piece I wrote and stashed. However, when my father would tell me the alive and wonderful part I would always flinch and think, yes, but Ill be an ancient 58 years old. From the lofty vantage point of 2000 and 58 Im here to say, It aint so bad. My children are grown and married to folks who love them and care for them no longer do I worry if they will come home late from a date. (Now I just worry if their plane will make it across the Atlantic Ocean.) My mind thinks Im 39 years old. Now, let me tell you about my 58th birthday present. Several months ago I idly turned on the TV and watched a sewing show in which a wonderful machine was demonstrated. Not only would it sew, but also embroider as well. I was smitten and rushed to my three closest sewing machine dealers for a demonstration coming home laden with enthusiasm and brochures. SBW did his typical SBW thing which was to declare that considering the cost of the machine I could buy an awful lot of clothes etc. etc. I pouted for a day or two then resolved to campaign some ore after we returned from our trip to Detroit scheduled for late June. The moment I got back I dug out my brochures and decided it was time to start the battle from a new front, but first I had a few other life details to attend so the process was delayed until the third week in July. Saturday July 15th we awoke with the sound of lightening and thunder that resembled the show when Baghdad was bombed in the early 90s. Florida a state that had not seen rain in months and was parched beyond recognition was about to get its whole rainfall deficit wiped out in one day. It rained longer and harder on July 15th than many people could remember. We spent the day doing such necessary tasks as cleaning computer files and catching up on unread back issues of magazines and being very grateful that we lived here all the time and were not visitors to the beach who had paid $150 for a waterside room that was about to be flooded. In the middle of the afternoon during a break in the rains I suggested to SBW that he
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dash out and rent The Talented Mr. Ripley for our evening entertainment. As usual SBW said he would then refused to budge. I said, if you are going to go, then go NOW while its not raining. Still he sat. I returned to my computer and soon the sky darkened and the wind started to blow. I heard him pick up the car keys and I yelled, NOT NOW ITS TOO LATE to which he responded, Its not raining and left. True, it was not raining at exactly that moment, but before he could descend six floors and get to the car the heavens dumped buckets and sheets of water on South Pinellas County. I started to pace and mumble things about how dumb can one get etc. Right in the midst of the pacing and ranting there was a feeble little tap tap tap on the door. Reluctantly I opened the door half expecting to find a neighbor there to announce that Steve had had an accident in the rain. (Who else would be out in this kind of almost hurricane weather?) Instead I found myself nose to nose with a woman who handed me an envelope and introduced herself as the birthday bunny. It was the closest Ill ever get to having the Publishers clearing House Prize Patrol on my doorstep. Behind the birthday bunny was a man with a huge moving dolly who pushed right past and rolled into my foyer then quickly went back to retrieve two big beautifully wrapped boxes. Mind you the wind was blowing, the rain was falling in giant amounts and here stood these apparitions with their gifts. Both the gifts and the apparitions were dry and unruffled. All I could say was, Wheres Steve? No one seemed to know and I couldnt figure out how these people got in, and for a long time I thought they had the wrong place. Gradually I realized they were delivering not only my sewing machine, but my sewing table as well. I thanked and hugged them, closed the door and thought, Wheres Steve. Forty five minutes passed as I worried that he had an accident and was on his way to the hospital. Finally, he bustled in carrying the DVD for our movie. He had been watching movies at Blockbuster waiting for the storm to pass and had entirely missed the wonderful surprise of his birthday gift delivery! My new sewing machine is wonderful and soon everyone I know will have everything they own embroidered with lovely designs. I spent the whole day of July 16th learning to thread my new machine, and even think that in my lifetime I can master the whole process sure glad Im only 58 years old! Once again SBW pulled a surprise on me! (Remind me someday to tell the story of the Mothers Day mirror he decided to hang at 2:00AM and woke the whole building with banging.) Its been a lovely birthday week. Page and Mark called from the plane as they left for Belgium, we followed their flight all night on the computer, within 24 hours of their departure we started getting lovely messages via e-mail, Steve and I had a wonderful dinner at Chateau France on July 14th in honor of Bastille Day, we cleaned out all our computer files on a rainy Saturday, saw a great movie Talented Mr. Ripley, and then to top it off I had a visit from the birthday bunny. What fun! Im so glad I lived to be 58! Its now 8:00 AM on Monday the 17th of July. I just have time to spell check this and send it off to Page before my sewing show comes on TV at 8:30.
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GEORGE BUSH INAUGURAL - January 20, 2001

Life is made up of strange twists and turns. On December 18th I was in the hospital in St. Petersburg Florida about to undergo surgery for a Belgium accident of two days earlier. One short month later I was on a plane to Washington DC to attend the inaugural of Present-elect Bush. Truly modern medicine is wonderful for it had patched me back together in less time than it took to determine the outcome of the election of 2000! My recovery was supported by many friends who generously contributed flowers, food, cards and physical assistance to my recovery. Many of these same friends are Democrats, and it is to them that I dedicate this short description of the gala events that I attended in Washington. First, let me say that Steve and I went to the inaugural from a sense of curiosity. We sought a catharsis to remove the horrible memory of my accident as well as closure for the most bazaar presidential election of the twentieth century. We flew to Washington on Juary 18th through Winston Salem where our plane was twice delayed in take-off caused by air traffic back-up at National Airport (now named for Ronald Reagan). When we finally landed we saw acres of tightly packed private jets huddled in the early gloom of a January evening. Obviously, the Texans beat us to town in time for the opening ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial scheduled for 6:00PM. However, we were the beneficiaries of the festivities that shot a huge display of fireworks over the Potomac just as we crossed the river. If we hadnt known better we would have thought that the fireworks were a special welcome for us alone. (Theres more rejoicing in heaven over the return of one lost sinner) could it be that the Republicans thought we had joined their fold and were celebrating? When Steve and I decided to attend the Inaugral we realized we would be like whores in church, and I realized that more than one glass of wine at any function might cause me to blow our cover. Here we were the only two Democrats in town whose arrive was announced with fireworks! Life is indeed strange.
Our hotel was located just steps from The Hill as the Capital building is affectionately known by insiders, and appropriately enough the hotel was named The George! What wonderful irony was beginning to unfold? The lobby of The George was clotted with good Republican ladies snuggled in their full length mink coats. Over the beds in our room was a huge Andy Warholisque copy of two thirds of a dollar bill featuring the standard picture of George Washington upon which was superimposed a portrait of a younger George Washington. The whole was done in lurid reds, greens, yellows and fuchsia.
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First there was the sudden announcement of the Jesse Jackson love child and then the rains started. At first the weeping was soft with just a tear or two running down the cheek of the windows. By morning the whole of Washington was awash in a flood of tears that collected in cold dark puddles. The sun stayed in bed the whole of Friday January 19th claiming symptoms of general malaise and depression. In order to preserve our Republican image we ordered Continental Breakfast in our room at the Republican price of $20.00 per person and dressed in our finest for the first official event which was a luncheon reception at the very prestigious Hay-Adams Hotel overlooking the White House. The party was given by Phillip Morris in honor of congressman Roy Blount with no expense spared. The entire rooftop of the Hotel had been enclosed with Plexiglass windows, satin tenting, huge bouquets of roses and patriotic blue paneling decorated with overlays of gold stars. We ate their food, smoozed with the congressman and admired the view and left feeling sure that our performance as Republicans would certainly receive a nomination at Academy Award time. The city continued to weep all afternoon and the Washington Monument hid its head in fog. Steve made an attempt to attend the swearing in ceremony, but returned damp and cold to the George just in time to watch the ceremony on television. Even the television cameras seemed to shed a few tears as they recorded the ceremony. The day grew even more cold and dark as we left the hotel for the parade. It took a bit of looking, pushing and shoving using Margots wheel chair as a battering ram, but eventually we got through the street protestors and into the warm confines of The Texas Cattlemans Association office on Pennsylvania Avenue. Once again we found ourselves locked in the embrace of Republicanism as we enjoyed the buffet lunch and front row parade seats offered by this lobbying group. Everyone in the room was from Texas and spoke with the Texas twang we tried so hard to imitate in order to keep our cover. The accent might have worked, but certainly our clothes gave us away for we were not wearing the huge silver jewelry inlaid with cabochons of turquoise that is so favored by the Texas natives. Some wore belts that could never have allowed them to pass through a metal detector. They alternated watching the parade out the window and watching the Clinton long goodbye on television. They threw verbal epithets at the television and would have thrown tomatoes had there been any handy. Steve and I were keenly aware at that moment that if they discovered that we were Democrats they could easily have turned their wrath to us. Like Brer Rabbit we lay low. Our vantage perch was directly above the protestors so that we had both views of the parade. The weather became colder and wetter and still they carried their signs and marched back and forth. Inaugural evening was crowned by the balls. The one we attended was decorated the way one would expect to find for homecoming at an affluent college. Cavernous tents stretched from the building to the street in order to protect guests from the weather. Inside the white tents were draped miles of Smylax vine to soften the edges. The National Guard Armory building that is roughly the size of a football field was entirely carpeted in soft blue. Drinks were a la carte after waiting in a long line. The photographic line was longer still and seemed to be the main occupation for those who chose not to dance and in addition provided a perfect place to people watch. Margots long gown hid her ankle cast but she certainly enjoyed the convenience of having a wheel chair for resting in a long line. George and Laura arrived around 10:00 PM and danced a step or two before leaving. We stayed until almost midnight, collected our commemorative gold embossed Champagne glasses and headed for the car. The great torrents of tears were lessening and in fact had changed to soft sobs of snow as though the city itself sought to disappear. Sunday morning was a miracle. At last the indefinite was over, the deed was done and with a sigh, Washington put on its brightest face and sought to smile its way to the future. 44
The sky was bright blue and every surface was covered in heavy white snow. We must go on no matter what and we must put on the brightest possible face in order to do it. In an act of Democratic charitableness we took our Republican friends on a whirlwind driving tour of the city. First we visited Arlington Cemetery then down the Potomac to lunch just before Mount Vernon followed by a drive through the old city of Georgetown, past all the memorials and a final run up the Virginia side of the Potomac along the Mt Vernon Parkway to its end at the CIA complex. Everyone knows the CIA is in Washington and everyone knows where it is, but it is so typical that the sign at the entrance reads George Bush Center for Intelligence No kidding. We tried to take a picture, but were seen by the guards who ran both drivers license and tag through their computer and told us that if we ever came back we would be arrested for trespassing. Remember, you heard it here first, George Bush does have Intelligence and its hidden at the end of the George Washington Memorial Parkway in McLean Virginia. Is this Washingtons best kept secret? We returned to The George Hotel, slept peacefully beneath the Andy Wharolisque George Washington picture and departed from the Ronald Reagan airport eternally grateful that Clinton said he would be with us always! June 5, 2008 While cleaning up my computer I found this piece, and since it is the historic day after Barack Obama received enough votes to be the Democratic nominee I thought it appropriate to write the end of the story. Surely Mother Nature could see what we only dreaded. Indeed she wept bitterly on January 20th 2001. Is it possible that the events of the past eight years can have been so bad? Our suspicion of George Bush was more than confirmed. We knew he was an idiot from the beginning, but put our hopes in his receiving guidance from Vice president Cheney. How could we know that the Vice President would come to be called Vice and was truly just this side of a mad man. The Bush presidency has been a complete disaster, more than can be told here. I cannot recall a single thing that he did right. Only last week his press secretary Scott Mc Clellen released a book detailing what we knew all along about the conditions in the White House. In addition in 2004 John Dean wrote a book Worse Than Watergate again revealing all the awful occurrences during this presidents administration. How can people fail to see the harm that has been done to our country? The coming election will be between John McCain and Barack Obama. We are hoping that Barack will give a lift to the countrys standing in the world and will be a tonic to start the healing of our nation. We have been torn apart by people like Karl Rove who practice just this short of treason. They get people all stirred up over gun control, a womans right to control her own body and gay people who want legal protection for their commitment. All the time they ignore our economy, health care, the awful damage we have done in Iraq and our failure to resolve disputes with enemies before resorting to force. Our environment is probably past the tipping point and our gasoline costs $4.50 a gallon. Is it any wonder that Mother Nature wept so bitterly on January 20th 2001 and then hid herself beneath the blanket of snow? I am now 66 years old and will probably survive just fine, but my heart aches for the tribulations that await my children and the 6.5 grandchildren. What a dismal outlook for their futures. Barack Obama is our only hope. May Mother Nature smile on him.
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65TH TRIP AROUND THE SUN

65TH TRIP AROUND THE SUN The days seem to spin around so fast that I find myself wondering where the time goes. Its been a busy and happy year except for Mark being sent to Iraq. I was so angry to learn the news that I knew I had to do something physical so I tore into the closets. Pulled everything out and reorganized. In one week Page and the girls will be here for a month. We have a busy schedule with activities for the girls. Shannon is in stage camp at American Stage and Bridgie is doing art at the Art Center and Harbor Mice at the sailing center. I started my year off with a surprise party at Bella Brava. All of my friends came and the surprise of the evening was having coffee served from Martha Eugenie Devalcourts sterling silver coffee pot. Talk about surprises. Steve bought it for me and how we found it is quite a topic for a future writing. Steves 70th birthday was a giant party (not a surprise) at the St. Pete Yacht Club. He introduced the GTX1 to everyone. This is well-documented in pictures making a long description superfluous. The Chicago Woodroughs came for the event and we took the children to Weeki Wakii Springs. They loved it. Steve took a cross country drive in his GTX1 and made a second trip to Las Vegas to the SEMA show. Late in November we left Miami on a three week cruise up the Amazon river to Manaus. It was an experience of a life time and also is well documented with photographs. We returned home just before Christmas and Page came with the girls for a three week visit. Of course, we did the usual Build A Bear expedition to get a bear for Molly and new clothes for the older bears. The end of February was the opening of the new wing of the Museum of Fine Arts. By special request Mary and her father came for the event. I spent the weekend teaching Mary the rudiments of sewing and bought her a small sewing machine. The big surprise was Steve honoring me by arranging to have the grand staircase of the museum named in my honor. This is perhaps the biggest surprise of my entire life. It truly is one of the best gifts I can imagine. It is now mid June of a wonderful year. Next year we are planning a cruise of the British Isles. And This Thanksgiving we are planning a family reunion in beautiful Death Valley. We have managed to have some interesting family reunions. Last summer we were all at Spirit Lake with Harold and Joan McDermott. The previous winter we took a family cruise to the Caribbean and the girls had a wonderful time. Of course, there was the family reunion to beat all our trip to Italy for Shannons baptism. In 2005 Steve and I took a Baltic Cruise and visited St. Petersburg Russia for three days. And, who can forget the cruise down the Nile in 2002? I think that I am starting to see why time has flown. We been rather busy.
66th TRIP AROUND THE SUN

8/28/2008 4:23 PM It has been my custom over the years to write a piece on the occasion of my birthday. This past year I turned 66 and it was marked by an extraordinary event. Page and the girls were with me for six weeks. I say extraordinary because its not often that a grandparent gets to participate so fully with the grandchildren. For a full six weeks we lived together, car pooled, played tourist, drew pictures, did loads of laundry and tried to
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sort out the pecking order for pushing elevator buttons in order to minimize the bellowing in the hall. Today is the 27th day of August and I have yet to complete the housekeeping even though the girls have been gone for a month. The 27th is also its own extraordinary day for tonight marks the acceptance speech of Barack Obama for president of the United States. How well I remember this same date forty-five years ago when we lived in Washington, D.C and experienced the Martin Luther King I have a Dream speech. Who could have predicted that we would be at this place in history? I feel that my adult life has been book-ended by these two August 27ths. Our country has endured the most horrible eight years of the bush administration. This morning I sent a Tom Friedman column to my friends and encouraged them to read it and forward to everyone. I hope one day it will come back to me from a stranger after having passed around the world. It seemed the least I could do. I feel so helpless for our country. As one gets older the thought that there are more days behind than in front is a natural experience. It is also unsettling. Ive had a copy of Emily Dickinson biography around for twenty years and picked it up to read. As everyone knows Emily was a bit obsessed by death. She explored her feelings in great depth with bitterness and wonderment. In the process she became one our most important poets staring death in the face and challenging it. Of course, she knew that she couldnt prevail, but nonetheless she stared at it with steely eyes. That book was a bookend too, and I must say one that offered very little hope for reason. Another bookend emerged that brought a great deal of peace and meaning. About three and a half years ago Steve and I were introduced to a movie script called Misconceptions by our friend Ron Satlof. We invested some money in the project and served as extras for the fun of observing the process. Misconceptions premiered at the Montreal film Festival last weekend and we were in attendance. The film is sweet with a very timely message and we were pleased with the project. In the process of attending the Festival we had an opportunity to view other works. I chose one called Grief Walker and it changed my life. Grief Walker deals with the subject of death. The essence is that while we can control pain in death there is still a hole that causes fear. That hole is the failure to create a good death. We think that death is what happens to everyone else and thus fail to recognize its importance to our lives. There cannot be new life without death and we must face and embrace this daily; not in a morbid way, but in a fulfilling way. The best analogy I can give is that the message of The Lion King is a sugar coated Grief Walker. We are part of the circle of life. To this end Ive decided to embrace the idea that one day I will be gone, but to leave a message for the family that will help them through what can be a difficult time. This is not scary to me as my genealogy has brought me face to face with mortality for years. I like to think that all of the ancestors I have discovered are very lucky to have me give them new life and meaning. They are not forgotten, but are part of the fabric of life. I give thanks for them, but I also want my life to carry forward for the enlightenment of the future. My plan for this my 66th trip around the sun is to write my autobiography in words, pictures and music. On Sunday my friend Margaret and I are going to a doll workshop in which we will create a creature that best expresses our selves. I was lucky to find a little lace and satin ladies night cap that my grandmother game me when I was about eight years old. From it I fashioned a doll dress. This is going to be the garment for my doll. I am busy filling the hole that is my soul so that when the time comes there will be no fear. This is a most liberating experience and one I hope that Emily experienced through her poetry.
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RECESSIONAL For my memorial service

Candide - Voltaire Let dreamers dream what worlds they please; Those Edens can't be found. The sweetest flowers, the fairest trees Are grown in solid ground. We're neither pure nor wise nor good; We'll do the best we know; We'll build our house, and chop our wood, And make our garden grow. And make our garden grow.
PROCESSIONAL For my memorial service

From the day we arrive on the planet And blinking, step into the sun There's more to see than can ever be seen More to do than can ever be done There's far too much to take in here More to find than can ever be found But the sun rolling high Through the sapphire sky Keeps great and small on the endless round It's the Circle of Life And it moves us all Through despair and hope Through faith and love Till we find our place On the path unwinding In the Circle The Circle of Life It's the Circle of Life And it moves us all Through despair and hope Through faith and love Till we find our place On the path unwinding In the Circle The Circle of Life
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MEDITATION For my memorial service Humming Chrous Madam Butterfly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mIrDN8XmdA&feature=relatedhumming chorus Madam Butterfly
69TH TRIP AROUND THE SUN 2011

Saturday, July 16, 2011
69th TRIP AROUND THE SUN Its been several years since I wrote my thoughts. Mostly because Ive been terribly anxious. Looking back I recall the anxiety of July 2008 seeing the upcoming election between Barack Obama and John McCain. John McCain was simply too old and getting rather peculiar. I really didnt know just how peculiar until august 29th 2008 when he announced his running mate Sarah Palin. Within six hours of his announcement I knew that there were serious rumors that she was not in fact the birth mother of Trig Palin said to have been born April 18th 2008! Its much too much to go into now, but full details are available at Palingates.com and Immoral Minority blog. I regard both of these bloggers as highly ethical, truthful and dedicated. Also, there is a dormant blog called Palinsdeceptions that is highly detailed. On May 10th Geoffry Dunns book is set for release, The Lies of Sarah Palin and there is enough evidence to convince a jury that she in fact faked her pregnancy. In addition, the intervening years have shown her for the true devil incarnate that she is. One of the greatest sorrows of my life is the fact that both of my children supported her when she was announced in spite of what I told them. Why? Because she reportedly was anti abortion (She wasnt just asked what do you want me to say and spouted the party line.) At the time she was announced I was in the process of getting Steve and Page admitted to the George Washington Society as they are descended from the Washington family. Its a lengthy process and I dropped it cold when they professed allegiance to Palin. I dont think George would be the least bit proud. In hindsight, had McCain and Palin been elected our country would be ruined. Consider the financial meltdown and all it entailed. We are so enormously fortunate to have Barack Obama as our President, but the Republicans have said nothing since his election over two years ago except that they hope he fails. In fact, the Republicans have become an anathema to our country. I suggest you read Republican Gomorrah, Family of Secrets and Worse Than Watergate should you doubt my words. Daily I see our system of government chewing up the little person. If you doubt that take a plane trip and experience Gate Rape where six years old girls are groped by security agents. Watch Michael Moores movie Capitalism A Love Story. Who is behind this? Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers through their media monkey Fox News. We have become the laughing stock of the world with the Tea Baggers (Google Tea Baggers for a shock they dont even know about). As I approach my 69th birthday Ive become cynical and have lost faith in the American way. Weve seen people lose houses, pensions, jobs, and savings. My own daughter is living in Okinawa as that is where the job is. I miss the McDermott kidlets ENORMOUSLY. Were all victims. I take solace in the education they are receiving in Japan, but they will be on the verge of their teens when they return. I have so much to teach them and it kills me not to be able to do it.
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Fortunately, the Chicago Woodroughs come frequently to visit. I suppose I should be content with those five, but guess Im greedy and want all ten. A sign of my feelings is the experience I encounter every morning when I open the obituary page. I dont read them, but do pass through the section. I always think it wont be long and Ill be there. Frankly, I do not dread it, but embrace it. Ive done all I ever wanted to do and its getting to be time to move along. This past year was not all bad. I published a fine book on the De Valcourt family, received the second DeValcourt tea pot and donated both to the Museum of Fine Arts. They are beautifully displayed in honor of our wonderful director, John Schloder. The very fine Dali Museum opened and we took part in the opening week. Great fun. Ive rediscovered creative knitting and found some new friends. The A list continues to do fun things and everyone is still alive. Libby still flits around all over the house and Steve enjoys his car. Today I decided to upload all my reflections to my blog. In doing so I read my previous thoughts. Ive had an interesting life full of rich events and only few regrets. One of the most unusual facets was the opportunity to travel with the kidlets. How many can go to Rome, Caribbean Cruise and Disney Animal Kingdom with kidlets. Of course there is the continuing day trip to Disney which never gets old. I am very grateful that both children are married to people they love and support. That is priceless. This past weekend was a significant milestone. If you want to experience it, watch the White House Correspondents dinner of April 30th 2011 knowing that the calm as a cucumber and even very funny Barack Obama was keenly aware that he had just ordered a very daring raid to kill Osama bin Laden. Still waters run deep. Obama is not perfect but hes damn good and still the Republicans cannot get behind him. They are like middle school bullies. If it were not for the straw men issues of marriage and choice they couldnt raise their base. Their base is IGNORANT and angry mostly ignorant and dont get me started on the Catholic Church which just put a pope on the road to sainthood in spite of the fact that he presided over the church during the biggest sex scandal ever. We are told he didnt know. Well, if not why not? He was in charge. I will continue to put one foot in front of the other until my time is past, but with global warming and all the other ills I feel like Im just getting out in the nick of time. My heart bleeds for the kidlets.
Sunday, December 18, 2011

As 2011 comes to a close I want to remember the highlights. Of course the biggest highlights were the kidlet's visits. The Woodroughs were here twice for a total of two weeks and the McDermotts were here for a month. I have to say we had a lot of fun and using a whole bottle of glass cleaner I have almost removed all the finger prints. Memorable moments: Watching movies and operas especially Les Miserable with Brigid doing the drunk scene. Speaking of scenes I must mention the wonderful plays that the McDermott girls wrote and produced. Their level of cooperation was amazing. Mary is becoming a very charming young lady and still reads with enormous enthusiasm. Katherine is called "tumble weed" as she somersaults rather than walks across the room.
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We watched the DVD of the McDermott trip to China. It is thrilling to think they have had that experience and that the older girls can write and read Japanese. I am always up for new things so last February I found two knitting buddies. We've had a sustained friendship for a year and as a result I took up yarn spinning. Our group grew to about twenty and we now have to meet at Book Lover's Cafe rather than here at home. Last week I sent some of my heirloom fabrics including the 100 year old wedding dress to a very creative dressmaker who will make heirloom treasures for the girls. I am so happy
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for find a good use for the wedding gown as it worried me that it might get lost over time.
Shannon, Brigid and Mary all took to sewing with great enthusiasm. They all loved learning to spin yarn.
TRAVEL
Amazon River crossing the equator
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We have traveled to many foreign places. Here are a few. The lady above makes cloth from plant fiber. Below are a few Amazon River pictures.
The Florencia
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My Favorite
http://youtu.be/4fqb7j6Ux54
THIS I BELIEVE - CARL SAGAN

Wednesday, December 21, 2011
As always Carl Sagan is right. THE MOST COMPELLING VIDEO YOU WILL EVER WATCH
FLORENCIA
https://picasaweb.google.com/106840711541474788068/FLORENCIAFINAL02?authkey =Gv1sRgCMqjk96Ul-X93AE
Magic Margot Shoebox: FLORENCIA

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M a g i c
M a r g o t
S h o e b o x :
F L O R E N C I A :
https://picasaweb.google.com/106840711541474788068/FLORENCIAFINAL02?authkey =Gv1sRgCMqjk96Ul-X93AE
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margotwoodrough.com This is all my genealogy. Must pay server. Info in my will and in Outlook.
The Night Before Christmas read by GoGo

Gingerale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=MnOQj2-eVb8 Right click then choose open in new window.
Story of Baby Jesus - trailer

http://youtu.be/4fqb7j6Ux54
THIS I BELIEVE
Friday, January 13, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8P1Y1a7-L4
FAVORITE POEM to be read at my memorial service

Monday, January 23, 2012
The Chambered Nautilus
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sail the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings 56
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
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And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past years dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn; While on mine ear it rings, Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by lifes unresting sea!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
THIS PUTS THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE
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PRICELESS WORDS Abraham Lincoln and Galileo

Sunday, February 12, 2012
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. - Abraham Lincoln If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will. - Abraham Lincoln To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. - Abraham Lincoln Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. - Abraham Lincoln I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei
My religious creed
Saturday, April 14, 2012
If you are hungry, I will offer food, If you are thirsty, I will offer water If you are cold, I will offer warmth If you are in need, ask and I will give If you are in trouble, ask and I will help. I do not do these things in the hopes of being rewarded, or out of fear of being punished. I do these things because I know them to be right. I set my own standards and I alone enforce them.
Wise Words
Thursday, April 26, 2012
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LUCKY ONES
Thursday, April 26, 2012
THE UNIVERSE NEIL DE GRASSE TYSON

Monday, June 25, 2012
What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe? The most astounding fact... The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures. These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form... the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself. 60
So that when I look up at the night sky
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and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up -- many people feel small 'cause they're small and the Universe is big -- but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There's a level of connectivity. That's really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant you want to feel like... a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you. That's precisely what we are, just by being alive...
Friday, August 10, 2012

YOU ARE THE PRODUCT OF 4 BILLION YEARS OF EVOLUTION. ACT LIKE IT You have free will, use it. You possess the most highly developed brain on the planet, take advantage of that. You are the product of your ancestors greatest hopes and dreams, make them proud. And do not forget that the next generation is looking to us for guidance, don't let them down.
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Carl Sagan
Sunday, August 12, 2012 "The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides." - Carl Sagan
Contemplate this!
Monday, December 03, 2012

It gets even more exciting when you consider that the earth is traveling around the sun at 60,000 mph, and the solar system is revolving around the galactic center at 568,000 mph. On top of that the Milky Way galaxy itself is traveling through space at 190 miles per second! So even when we are sitting still, we are anything but.
Mother Sandy Nature

Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Mother Sandy Nature Grew tired of old farts Messing with Lady Parts. She threw down her cool Just to show the old Fools Proof of Global Warming MVW Election 2012
Definition of a Liberal
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
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Election 2012 and poem

Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Yesterday Barack Obama was given a second term in office. I watched the coverage in its entirety and wish Annette could have been here to see it. He is an amazing person and I predict will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. He has tolerated so much opposition from the Republicans and finally today in his address he laid out an agenda that Fox News called "take no prisoners". In my opinion Fox News is the culprit behind much of the division in our country. Fortunately, the American people could not be fooled and voted Obama back in office with an overwhelming majority. Our country is at last safe from the Koch Brothers, and assaults on our civil rights. Here is a poem written by a Cuban American the expresses why we need to come back together: One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows. My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: pencilyellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights, fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save livesto teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem. All of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming, or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light breathing color into stained glass windows, life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth onto the steps of our museums and park benches as mothers watch children slide into the day. One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes. The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind - our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line. Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains 64
whistling, or whispers across cafe tables, Hear: the doors we open for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom, buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos dias in the language my mother taught me - in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice, as these words break from my lips. One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands: weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report for the boss on time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience. One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work: some days guessing at the weather of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give, or forgiving a father who couldn't give what you wanted. We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always - home, always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window, of one country - all of us facing the stars hope - a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it - together.
Ode to Mitt Romney

Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Generations to come will find a good summary here of why Mitt Romney lost:
On this day of celebration when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, I offer to Mitt Romney, who must be having a very bad day a little salt in the wound. You pursued a cutthroat game plan, In your brutal Primary fight. Wherever your opponent stood, You scurried to his right. You thought youd shake the Etch- a-Sketch, And start again anew. And thats why were not inaugurating you. When a soldier in Afghanistan, Asked if you had your say, Would you reinstate Dont Ask Dont Tell? And told you he was gay. You stood there without speaking, When the crowd began to boo.
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And thats why were not inaugurating you. You didnt speak when Sandra Fluke, Was called a slut by Rush. You were silent when your party, Tried to take our votes from us. You said nothing when Todd Akin, Claimed that not all rapes are true. And thats why were not inaugurating you. When asked if you would sign, A womans Right to Choose away, Youd answer women only cared, How much was in their pay. You made Ann your link to women, When she never had a clue. And thats why were not inaugurating you. You embarrassed us in Europe, Wherever you would go. Anns horse made the Olympics, But you didnt even show. Youd have let Michigan go bankrupt, From Detroit to Kalamazoo. And thats why were not inaugurating you. You thought, like you, that everyone, Loved nothing more than money. And shaving off a classmates hair, Was your idea of funny. You like your women bound in binders, Unless theyre pregnant in a shoe. And thats why were not inaugurating you. You gave millions to the Mormons, To Fund Proposition Eight. You may have called that charity, Gay couples call it hate. You threatened to kill Big Bird, And youre married to a shrew. And thats why were not inaugurating you. There are forty-seven percent of us, For whom you had no care. You claimed it wasnt our concern, If you were taxed your share. In your heart, you didnt love us, And we didnt love you too. And thats why were not inaugurating you.
by JEAN ANN ESSELINK
The Privilege of the Grave - Mark Twain

Thursday, January 31, 2013
This is an excellent essay that explains a universal phenomena. It was written in 1905, but only published for the first time in 2008 by "The New Yorker". I saved it and rediscovered it January 31, 2013 as I was housecleaning my files on a blustery January day. I am now inspired to do some creative writing of my own.
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The Privilege of the GraveMark Twain Its occupant has one privilege which is not exercised by any living person: free speech. The living man is not really without this privilege strictly speaking but as he possesses it merely as an empty formality, and knows better than to make use of it, it cannot be seriously regarded as an actual possession. As an active privilege, it ranks with the privilege of committing murder: we may exercise it if we are willing to take the consequences. Murder is forbidden both in form and in fact; free speech is granted in form but forbidden in fact.By the common estimate both are crimes, and are held in deep odium by all civilized peoples. Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always when committed. Which is seldom. There are not fewer than five thousand murders to one (unpopular) free utterance. There is justification for this reluctance to utter unpopular opinions: the cost of utterance is too heavy; it can ruin a man in his business, it can lose him his friends, it can subject him to public insult and abuse, it can ostracize his unoffending family, and make his house a despised and unvisited solitude. An unpopular opinion concerning politics or religion lies concealed in the breast of every man; in many cases not only one sample, but several. The more intelligent the man, the larger the freightage of this kind of opinions he carries, and keeps to himself. There is not one individual including the reader and myself who is not the possessor of dear and cherished unpopular convictions which common wisdom forbids him to utter. Sometimes we suppress an opinion for reasons that are a credit to us, not a discredit, but oftenest we suppress an unpopular opinion because we cannot afford the bitter cost of putting it forth. None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned.A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbors pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound. This custom naturally produces another result: public opinion being born and reared on this plan, it is not opinion at all, it is merely policy; there is no reflection back of it, no principle, and it is entitled to no respect.When an entirely new and untried political project is sprung upon the people, they are startled, anxious, timid, and for a time they are mute, reserved, non-committal. The great majority of them are not studying the new doctrine and making up their minds about it, they are waiting to see which is going to be the popular side. In the beginning of the anti-slavery agitation three-quarters of a century ago, in the North, it found no sympathy there. Press, pulpit and nearly everybody blew cold upon it. This was from timidity, the fear of speaking out and becoming obnoxious, not from approval of slavery or lack of pity for the slave; for all nations like the State of Virginia and myself are not exceptions to this rule; we joined the Confederate cause not because we wanted to, for we did not, but we wanted to be in the swim. It is plainly a law of nature, and we obeyed it.It is desire to be in the swim that makes successful political parties. There is no higher motive involved with the majority unless membership in a party because ones father was a member of it is one. The average citizen is not a student of party doctrines, and quite right: neither he nor I would ever be able to understand them. If you should ask him to explain in intelligible detail why he preferred one of the coin-standards to the other, his attempt to do it would be disgraceful. The same with the tariff. The same with any other large political doctrine; for all large political doctrines are rich in difficult problems problems that are quite above the average citizens reach. And that is not strange, since they are also above the reach of the ablest minds in the country; after all the fuss and all the talk, not one of those doctrines has been conclusively proven to be the right one and the best.When a man has joined a party, he is likely to stay in it. If he changes his opinion his feeling, I mean, his sentiment he is likely to stay, anyway; his friends are of that party, and he will keep his altered sentiment to himself, and talk the privately discarded one. On those terms he can exercise his American privilege of free speech, but not on any others. These unfortunates are in both parties, but in what proportions we cannot guess. Therefore we never know which party was really in the majority at an election.Free speech is the privilege of the
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dead, the monopoly of the dead. They can speak their honest minds without offending. We have charity for what the dead say. We may disapprove of what they say, but we do not insult them, we do not revile them, as knowing they cannot now defend themselves. If they should speak, what revelations there would be! For it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life; that out of fear, or out of calculated wisdom, or out of reluctance to wound friends, he had long kept to himself certain views not suspected by his little world, and had carried them unuttered to the grave. And then the living would be brought by this to a poignant and reproachful realization of the fact that they, too, were tarred by that same brush. They would realize, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be and never can be.Now there is hardly one of us but would dearly like to reveal these secrets of ours; we know we cannot do it in life, then why not do it from the grave, and have the satisfaction of it? Why not put those things into our diaries, instead of so discreetly leaving them out? Why not put them in, and leave the diaries behind, for our friends to read? Or free speech is a desirable thing. I felt it in London, five years ago, when Boer sympathizers respectable men, taxpayers, good citizens, and as much entitled to their opinions as were any other citizens were mobbed at their meetings, and their speakers maltreated and driven from the platform by other citizens who differed from them in opinion. I have felt it in America when we have mobbed meetings and battered the speakers. And most particularly I feel it every week or two when I want to print something that a fine discretion tells me I mustnt. Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take to the pen and pour them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then all that ink and labor are wasted, because I cant print the result. I have just finished an article of this kind, and it satisfies me entirely. It does my weather-beaten soul good to read it, and admire the trouble it would make for me and the family. I will leave it behind, and utter it from the grave. There is free speech there, and no harm to the family.
LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Tuesday, February 05, 2013
This was written August 29 2010. In light of the recent reelection of the president I think we have finally turned the corner. MVW Feb 5, 2013
Margot Woodrough
100 B e a c h Dr . # 1 8 0 1 St. P e t e r s b u r g , Fl. 3 3 7 0 1 7 2 7 - 8 9 8 - 9 0 0 3 m a r g o 4 i t @ t a m p a b a y . r r . c o m m a r g o t w o o d r o u g h . c o m A u g u s t 29, 2010 President Barack Obama The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NE Washington D.C. 20500-0004 Dear President Obama: I am sixty-eight years old and desperately worried for the future of our country. Above you see a picture of my two children and seven of the eight kidlets they have produced. I know your family is just as precious to you as mine is to me. In fact, your family is precious to me as well. When I saw you give the keynote address at the convention that nominated John Kerry, I knew you were destined for greatness. You still are, and its time to take action. Its been obvious to me for some time that there is a subversive element in our culture seeking to undermine our country. Recent articles by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker coupled with the two recent (enclosed) editorials by Frank Rich have made it crystal clear what is happening. Im sure you are aware of the phenomena, but doubt you realize the seriousness of the situation. Mr. Richs final sentence in todays editorial says
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it all. Please stand up and fight Rupert Murdock and the Koch brothers attempt to hijack our country its for your children and mine. Lastly, the vitriol and hatred spread by Sarah Palin is backed and bankrolled by Rupert Murdock. Ive followed Sarah from the moment she was nominated and in my opinion everything shes ever said is untrue including the story that she gave birth to the Down syndrome baby. (I would be happy to discuss this further or wait for Joe McGinnis book due out in February.) Our press has failed us miserably on this issue. Why? Money. Our country is being torn apart by powerful men exploiting people disaffected by the economic crisis and stalemated war brought on by a previous administration. Its time for you to have a Fireside chat with the American people in short you need to get back on the campaign trail in small towns and reconnect with the citizens. If you dont do it, the likes of Murdoch, Koch and Palin will. The same elements that tried to bring President Clinton down are hard at work attempting to do the same to you. Sincerely,
Margot Woodrough
POPE RESIGNS Read Andrew Sullivans comments

Monday, February 11, 2013
Alex Gibneys new documentary on the child-rape epidemic in the Catholic Church that raged for decades (and maybe centuries), Mea Maxima Culpa, debuted tonight on HBO. Ive watched it twice. It is both an inspiring testament to faith and truth as well as a devastating indictment of pride, power, and lies. The former come from four boys who attended St Johns School for the Deaf in Milwaukee in the 1970s. The latter comes from the Vatican and everyone in its power structure then and ever since. It really is a story about how the real church finally stood up to a hierarchy that has betrayed us and committed crimes of such gravity and magnitude they beggar belief. The story begins as long ago as 1974 when four boys put fliers on the windshields of the cars in the parking lot of the church run by the man who raped them. They simply said Wanted with the priests name (the more explicit flyer in the video above came later). Instead of being listened to, the kids were disciplined. Eventually, in Murphys psychiatric record, Gibney finds Father Lawrence Murphy confessing to raping over 200 boys over a long period of time. He raped them in their dorm rooms; he raped them in the confessional, using the small window as a glory hole and granting absolution based on rape or masturbation. The detail I cannot quite recover from is that he picked out for abuse those deaf boys who had parents who could not use sign language so that even if the boys had the courage to say what had happened to them, their parents would not understand. Its things like that that simply chill you, haunt you, force you to confront the pre-meditated, profound assault on human souls that the Catholic Church, from the Pope on down, enabled, perpetuated, and lied about for so long and still hasnt been held fully accountable for. And what this documentary proves beyond any reasonable doubt (like Gibneys examination of the Bush-Cheney administrations decision to torture prisoners in Taxi To The Dark Side) is that all of it was known throughout the hierarchy for decades. There is even a network of Church-operated psychiatric clinics for serial child rapists that dont use traditional psychotherapy or report criminals to the cops or sequester the rapists from the public (let alone defrock them). These clinics simply enforce spiritual discipline and then recycle the
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priests to rape more children. We know from public documents that as far back as the 1940s, pedophile priests were showing up at these centers. Father Gerald Fitzgerald founded the order. And he was not yet corrupted by the Vaticans insistence that no scandal ever become public and no priest sacrificed for the sake of mere children. As early as 1947, he is writing letters to his superiors about the problem: I myself would be inclined to favor laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young, my argument being, from this point onward the charity to the Mystical Body should take precedence over charity to the individual, [...] Moreover, in practice, real conversions will be found to be extremely rare [...] Hence, leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal or at least to the approximate danger of scandal. Or in 1957, this letter to his Bishop: We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the cura animarum (guardian of souls). The systematic rape of children was then obviously not a function of some kind of major cultural shift in the 1960s and 1970s, although that era might have sent a permissive signal to the global network of child rapists the Vatican was already hiding and enabling. It has been a core problem with the celibate priesthood in the US for decades, and every single bishop and every single Pope knew it. Fitzgerald personally met with Pope Paul VI to try and get him to act. Yes, the good folks in the church tried to do something as early as the 1950s and were stopped in their tracks by the Vatican. The number of souls violated by child-rape in the coming decades would not have happened if all the Popes since Paul VI had acted with more moral sense than most maximum security murderers. (Even the worst prisoners regard child-rapists as the lowest of the low. Popes? Not so much). Were not talking about priests who are drunks, or priests who fall in love, or break their vows in fallible, victimless ways; were talking here about priests committing one of the most heinous felonies imaginable: the systematic rape of children using the authority of the Church as cover. John Paul II emphatically cannot be somehow removed from this picture. He personally protected one of the worst offenders, Marcial Maciel, who was a serial rapist, drug trafficker, bigamist and rapist of his own son. In fact, John Paul II elevated Maciel to the highest honors of the church backed by the theocon wing of the American church, fromRichard John Neuhaus to Bill Bennett and Mary Ann Glendon. They all adamantly denied that Maciel was anything but a living saint and he was never prosecuted, merely allowed a gentle retirement from running his order, The Legion of Christ, which continues. Joseph Ratzinger, when he was Archbishop of Munich, personally signed off on sending a priest to therapy, after that priest had raped several children, never notified the police, never told the parents of the children at the parish the priest was then assigned to, and because of this negligence, was, in my view, complicit in the rape of several more children before the priest was finally caught, arrested and sent to jail. Let me repeat that: the current Pope enabled and abetted the rape of children and his only way out was to blame a lower official, who subsequently said hed been pressured. More than that, no one else in the church knows more about this long record of child-rape than Ratzinger. From 2001 onwards, all cases of child rape or abuse were ordered to be sent to his personal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And all of it had to be kept completely hidden from the outside world. In the words of Hans Kung, Ratzingers former modernizing ally in the Second Vatican Council, Ratzinger himself, in a letter on grave sexual crimes addressed to all the bishops under the date of 18 May, 2001, warned the bishops, under threat of ecclesiastical punishment, to observe papal secrecy in such cases. He knew everything and had the goods on every Cardinal, in whose dioceses thousands of complaints had been filed. And one wonders why it was a surprise he was elected Pope. When youre the J Edgar Hoover of the Vatican, who is going to challenge 70
you? If those of us are asked why we still believe in the salvation of Christ in the Catholic community, in the midst of all this, we do not have a good answer. All we can say is that we are, in some ways, trying to live in a parallel church, finding those many, many good priests who have been unfairly tarred by the pedophile brush, and living by one simple moral standard that the Pope himself does not agree with and has not done: if you find out someone is raping children, you call the cops. But, for me, the most powerful moments in the documentary come from one simple fact. The four primary victims are deaf. They are grown men now and when they express themselves on film, they do so with sign and sounds of anguish and grief. One of the victims, now dead, sat down in front of a video camera and laboriously recounted every single act of abuse Father Murphy committed against him. He knew he was dying, and wanted to leave a record of the crimes and the corruption. Then in the most riveting raw footage of the film, he goes to confront the mass-rapist, whose crimes were by then beyond the statute of limitations. He finds him in the backyard. He signs and yells as coherently as a deaf person can; the priest seems utterly unmoved, telling the man he serially raped that Thats all over now. And disappears into his modest house, with a deaf-house-cleaner who had previously worked at St Johns. In the Catholic Church, mass rapists get retirement homes with maids. She confronts the rape victim. She keeps asking him: Are you a Catholic? He keeps replying that this has nothing to do with Catholicism and everything to do with rape. She just comes back at him with rapid-fire repetitions of Are you a Catholic? Are you a Catholic? Are you a Catholic? Its a good question. I can hear my devout Irish grandmother who also worked as a cleaning lady for priests, scrubbing her floors day after day till they looked like glass asking the same question whenever I questioned ecclesiastical authority. Its a question that simply tells you: do not disobey a priest; do not malign a priest; do not question a priest. And it is that deference, that lingering, profound subservience to the priestly office that also allowed this to happen. Where, after all, were the nuns at St Johns School? Did they seriously not know what was going on? Where were the parents of the deaf boys, when they warned them about Father Murphy as early as 1974? Where are we now as a church if we vaunt one of the biggest enablers of child-rape, John Paul II, to the status of sainthood without a thorough investigation of these matters? For me, Jesus must always be with the victims. He is the victim. When a priest rapes a child, Jesus is raped. When an archbishop covers up the crime, Jesus is raped. When successive Popes are told of the problem and assign total secrecy to it and fail to prevent future abuse of children, Jesus is raped. And there is a particularly appropriate ending to the tale of Father Murphy: faced with the possibility of a church trial for a canon law crime which has no statute of limitations abusing the sacrament of reconciliation by raping children as absolution, he appealed to Pope Benedict XVI himself. And this Pope granted him a reprieve because of failing health. We have the documents to prove all this. Many argue and it is undeniable that this Pope has done more than any predecessor to investigate the horror. But he did so only as the abuse stories began to break into the open and his first response was to blame the media. This quote is from 2002 when Ratzinger was head of the CDF: In the church, priests are also sinners. But I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower. In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than one percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information or to the statistical objectivity of the facts. Therefore, one comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church. Again, you notice one thing: his first priority then and now was to protect the institution,
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not protect the children. This is not an old story either. Just last week, the former Cardinal of Los Angeles, Roger Mahony, was stripped of his duties for enabling and abetting the rapes of countless children. This was proven by key documents finally pried out of the churchs hands by a legal case. What we need access to is the entire Vatican archive of priestly sex abuse of children. But perhaps, case by case, we will begin to understand better the nexus of authority and accountability that made this global conspiracy to hide and abet rapists so durable and so horrifying. There was a slogan in the years of AIDS. It was Silence = Death. What is unforgettable about this documentary is that the loudest voices come from the most vulnerable of all deaf children who are now deaf adults. The loudest voices were those who could not speak. If I have hope for my church and I sincerely believe Jesus will never finally abandon us, however corrupt and sinful we become it is because of this fact. The power of the powerless is what helped stop this mass violation of the souls of children. The change came not from the top, which remains foully corrupted, but from the very margins of the margins: the consciences and courage of those who could not hear evil until it was upon them, but who were surrounded by it. And spoke up. As children. And, then, as adults. When will the rest of us do the same? When will we Catholics insist in the prosecution of this Pope and this hierarchy for what can only be called given its duration and gravity and sheer scale a crime against humanity. When will we lose the deference to a clerical elite that has become its own selfperpetuating clique of sexual dysfunction, that has lost even the most basic moral authority, that even now refuses to hold itself to account. What, one wonders, would Jesus do? My answer to that ultimately unanswerable question is simple: listen to the survivors. Even those who can only speak in silence and sign: So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. Andrew Sullivan
The Dark Legacy of Pope Benedict XVI

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 I've been meaning to write this myself, but Matthew Fox has done a far better job.
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SHARE THIS STORY 14 4 7 Submit this story The pope has chosen to step down, the first pope in seven centuries to do so. As a Christian, I witness his legacy, and that of his predecessor, with profoundly mixed feelings: outrage over the crimes committed against the people of God, and relief that the masks covering the corruption of the papacy have at last been removed. I see that the 42-year reign of the past two popes has so destroyed the church we once knew that now the Holy Spirit can give birth to a community far more attuned to the revolutionary Gospel of Jesus than the current and dying structures ever could be. More than ever, we recognize the warning of historian Lord Acton after Vatican Council I defined papal infallibility: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." We have witnessed how Cardinal Martini on his deathbed, issued a damning call to action to a church "200 years behind the times." We have witnessed the retaliation of the past two popes against theologians and pastoral ministers who have dared to dissent for the sake of social justice, eco-justice, gender and gender preference justice: 105 and more have been and continue to be hounded, silenced and expelled. So as one of these dissidents, speaking now from outside the Vatican's punitive reach, I offer a short list of some of the issues for which history will hold Ratzinger accountable, both as cardinal and as pope (I offer page numbers of my study on his life and papacy in my book, "The Pope's War: How Ratzinger's Crusade Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved," to see the backup evidence). 1. His silence for years about the notorious pedophile priest Father Maciel, who was so close to Pope John Paul II that he was often invited on the papal plane -- and who sexually abused dozens of his seminarians, had two wives on the side and sexually abused his own children. Fr. Maciel was not fully investigated until 2005 even though a New York bishop reported his actions to Ratzinger's office in 1995 (125-130). 2. His attacks while head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly "Office of the Holy Inquisition") on theologians and pastoral leaders the world over who dared to do their job which is to think (they are listed on page 238-241 but the list keeps growing). 3. His (and his predecessor's) bringing back the Inquisition and dumbing-down the church, educing theology to 1) a catechism and 2) agreement with the dictates of the pope and his curia. History does not remember Torquemada as a theologian; neither will they remember Ratzinger as one. 4. His unrelenting attacks on base communities and Liberation Theology even though this movement, like the civil rights movement of the U.S., was the most Christ-like movement for democracy and justice and freedom in centuries (41-62). 5. His (and the previous pope's) promotion of neo-fascist sects as the new "religious orders," including Opus Dei, which is now embedded in places of great power including the financial headquarters of E.U., the U.S. Supreme Court, the CIA (especially under George Bush the first), FBI and the U.S. mainstream media (106-124). 6. His and the previous pope's support for extreme right wing groups from Maciel's Legion of Christ to Communion and Liberation to Opus Dei (130-144). Opus Dei members are being placed as bishops and cardinals in Latin America and now in North America: Los Angeles, the biggest North American diocese, is run by an Opus Dei bishop. Likewise the diocese of Kansas City, whose bishop is convicted of covering up for a predatory priest but refuses to step down. 7. His destroying the integrity of the canonization process by eliminating the role of "devil's advocate" in pointing out the shadow side of the candidate. With this obstacle out of the way, Ratzinger pushed through the canonization of the founder
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of Opus Dei, Fr. Escriva -- a recognized fascist who praised Hitler -- faster than any saint in history (106-125). 8. His covering up the scandal of pedophile clergy and putting the image of the Catholic church ahead of the rights of young children in the U.S., in Ireland and elsewhere. The recent HBO film "Mea Maxima Culpa" tells the facts about some of these horrors and how the buck stopped with Ratzinger (134-174). 9. His public disrespect for other faiths and disavowal of religious ecumenism. Ratzinger as pope managed to insult Islam, Judaism, all Protestant churches (saying they are not churches) and the mind-body-spirit practice of yoga. As cardinal he presaged this anti-ecumenical attitude, unbelievably calling the globally revered Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, "the anti-Christ" (260). 10. His absolute reaffirmation of a "morality" of sexism (no women priests ever; Catholic sisters in America are now being subjected to inquisitions as theologians have been; priests who support women are dismissed -- but pedophile priests are not!). 11. His un-Christlike diatribes against gay persons, borne out in not one but two documents: his ignoring scientific research on homosexuality has created another Galileo moment in church history. 12. His irresponsible positions against condoms even in an age of AIDS and against birth control in a time of excessive human population on a crowded planet. His positions on sexuality are all about St. Augustine's antiquated ethics and not anything Jesus ever taught. 13. His interference in the presidential election of 2004, wherein Ratzinger instructed American bishops that any "Catholic politician" (i.e. Kerry) who did not denounce gays and abortion could not receive communion. This resulted in three states having very unusual Republican votes from Catholics -- if just one of them had had a more normal Catholic vote, Kerry, not Bush, would have been president. With such a track record as this, Father Ratzinger is right to retire. Unfortunately, because he and his predecessor appointed only yes men as cardinals, one should not expect any improvement in the next pope. Instead, we should recognize that history has passed the papacy by. Now is the time for the Holy Spirit to push the restart button on Christianity -- both Catholic and Protestant versions -- so as to strip down to the essence of Jesus' teaching and the Cosmic Christ tradition. Christianity can be rebuilt without basilicas on our backs but mere backpacks. Travel lightly. Walk humbly. Do justice. And peace will follow.
70th trip around the Sun - update

Thursday, February 21, 2013
May 24, 2012 My upcoming 70th birthday has been on my mind for at least the last six months. Ive been keenly aware that the end is near at least I hope it is. When I look at pictures of the kidlets taken six short years ago I come face to face with the fleeting nature of time. In one of my most recent projects, translating Allas book from French, I can see a huge picture of humanity that staggers my mind. Allas book traces her ancestors back to just before the first millennium detailing thousands of people and their struggles to live and order their lives. Each was born struggled and died. I remember when my dear father got close to the end he had a desire to divest himself of possessions. My thoughts are in that direction as well. My world is closing in and I am happy with that. I really do not want to go anywhere except home. I am happy doing my projects, knitting, spinning, writing and tidying up my lifelong genealogy project. This morning I finished reading Carl Sagans book Contact. I think I needed it at just this time 74
in my life. Its been on the shelf unread for years, but as always Sagan has helped put things in perspective. I am a mote on top of a pile of motes going back and forward forever. My life has been much better than most and my problems pale. Just as I needed the words I found the above quote from Anne Frank. The past year has been emotionally tough. No good is served by rehashing a story that everyone knows. As always, I have sought to know the truth. Ive also tried to share hard won knowledge. Its inconceivable to me that Sarah Palin and Fox News still represent information to so many individuals. The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is stupdifying. I fear for our country and the future for the Kidlets. I fear the divisiveness of the Catholic Church that has no business interfering in government and would do well to govern themselves. An institution so full of the rot of child molesters has no standing in my eyes. Ask yourself what would Jesus say or think to see the pope, bishops and priests marching around in splendor will ignoring the poor and abused? I fear that relying on The Bible as the unerring word of God will ultimately be civilizations undoing. The Bible is an anthology of tales written by people with little knowledge of science and it is used to control people and marginalize a huge segment of the population. It is full of hatred and wrath. Thomas Jefferson discovered that over two hundred years ago. My faith is rooted not in fear of punishment, but rather in seeing how I can be helpful. I get great pleasure performing good works in secret. I have no idea how many more birthdays lie ahead. I know for sure that Ive accomplished all Ive ever dreamed of doing and if this is my last birthday I am content. I could leave this life easily. I am certain that I will never seek to cling to life. I guess I am getting ready. I am sure I will never win the lottery as Ive had my chance at luck and struck gold. Lexus gave me a brand new car this year. Quelle surprise! I am enormously grateful to have had the advantage of computers and the internet. When I look back at how genealogy was done in 1976 when I started I am amazed at the technology we have today. One last item. Im reading The Edge of Infinity and it suggests that huge leaps are on the horizon. We must drop our fear and hypocrisy as we march forward. We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. - Anne Frank Today is October 12th 2012 and I am three months into my 70th trip around the sun. I have survived, but it has been a roller coaster ride and I am hoping to coast gently to the end from here. A great joy for me was helping Mark and Page find a home that appears perfect. I always like doing this and the personal experience was fascinating and rewarding. Weve come a long way from the old days of MLS when all information was controlled. Now it is possible to almost buy a home sight unseen on the internet. Page and the children came for a six week visit while they await their furniture. It was a magical time to see the three oldest girls so enthusiastic about sewing and knitting. The baby is very sweet and no trouble at all. Daniel almost killed himself by pulling over a heavy lamp and my house is a chaotic mess. Add to that the virus we all developed and the days of misery and its fair to say the visit was not uneventful. The girls are thrilled with their new rooms and eager to decorate them. While they were here I completed my Doodles Cute Wair knitting book and the girls made several successful pieces. I sought something momentous to mark July 16th2012 and it was that day that I signed my non-disclosure agreement with Audrey in anticipation of helping her publish Freds book on Sarah Palin. (looking back from October I must report that the project withered on the vine.) However, a new memorial raised its head in the form of the Coral Reef Project. When I learned that it was to be dismantled and sold off piece by piece, I offered to buy a large section and donate it to the Great Explorations Childrens Museum. This is a very suitable marker for my 70th birthday. Kelly was born July 9th. It was a difficult situation for me, but it seems that was more in my mind than in fact. She is a lovely child and may be the best of the bunch. This summer I pulled my spinning project together and sent it off to Vermont. Havent had any door buster sales yet, but I am
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having fun imaging solutions to tags, advertising and display July 4th was a red letter day with the confirmation of the Higgs Boson particle. I am greatly saddened to hear my daughter say she doubts the theory of evolution, but I must press on. Science not superstition will be our savior if there is any. I finally pulled the Affaired dArt Chihully project off to benefit the Museum of Fine Arts and some of our finer glass pieces have been on six month display celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Art Glass movement. I continue to read with one of my favorites being Catherine the Great. In addition I discovered that I have a better knowledge of French than I realized. I interpreted Allas genealogy for her. As is my habit I looked for another human being to help someone from whom I expected nothing. This year is was Mark Guidici the gentleman who came to repair appliances and was a bit depressed. I wrote his resume for him and suggested advertising tactics. I continued to encourage Dena my manicurist and she continues to hold on. Of course the visit last fall of Page and the children was a blessing and a strain but that is life. The surprise of it threw my life into a tornado that only now six months later has seen the debris settle. Her unexpected pregnancy and the secrecy of it caused me to seek professional help. Through my doctors and friends I learned that her actions were based on the sure knowledge that I would never abandon her. In a way I suppose my sufferings were a privilege that only a mother can receive. The pregnancy caused me to reexamine the issue of birth control and the Catholic Church. I intend to write extensively on the topic elsewhere as I am in the process of research. The most revealing and shocking is In The Name of God by David Yallop My health is good but each day I note obituaries and know that one day my time will be up I am ready. My biggest regret is the emotional trauma the kidlets will suffer when they come to know, as I did, that their religion is full of politics and corruptions. I do not say this lightly, but after six months of intensive readings Ive come to know that the truth about the papacy is disgusting and thats before you talk of the child molestations. Our election is in less that six weeks and things are not looking good for our president. He is an honest man who seeks reconciliation. He simply cannot believe that Mitt Romney would stand on stage and lie through his teeth. Unfortunately many Americans watch Fox news and believe all of the vitriol that is spewed. Case in point is that four years later Sarah Palin is still a very potent force for evil. I think this will be my last birthday commemoration. Page and family are back and settled, Ive had many opportunities to know all the kidlets and they to know me. Update February 21, 2013 I am in the process of cleaning up my files and in doing so found an opportunity to reread my comments. Since there have been significant events I feel they need to be included. Most significant is the fact that the pope resigned!!!!!!!!!!!! Being my usual curious self I sought to find the reason. In a nutshell it seems that the child abuse scandal is about to blow sky high. A California judge ordered the release of 12,000 pages of documents that show how Bishop Mahoney begged and pleaded with the pope to take action even going so far as making a personal visit to Rome. The pope did nothing. Meanwhile Mahoney is accused in civil actions of continuing the cover up and will be deposed before he can go to Rome to vote on the new pope. Think of it as a circular firing squad. Benedict has been deep in the cover up since before he was pope and things are starting to unravel. It first came to light with his butler leaking private papers last spring. It really reminds me of Watergate. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube it cannot be put back. Unfortunately this scandal of scandals concerns the spiritual well-being of many people. As a child in Catholic school I was taught by the nuns that the worst sin one could commit was to bring scandal to the church; the next worst was hypocrisy. I can say no more. The next significant event was the reelection of President Obama and his realization that there was no way he could bargain with the present Republican Party. I predict that Obama will go down in history as one of our greatest presidents. The Republicans lost the election and the party is dead on the vine. It appears that Hillary Clinton my run in 76
2016 and her thinking is described as being similar to that of the former Republican Party before it was hijacked by the extreme right wing tea party. The very vile Sarah Palin is no longer on Fox News, but still no one will call her on her stunning fake pregnancy. Recently scientists suggest that the Higgs Boson may indicate that in several billion years the universe will cease to exist. I guess it just comes and goes endlessly and why not? I wonder where heaven fits into all of this. Perhaps I am right heaven is within each of us all along we make our own heaven or hell and experience it daily. I hope to make a bibliography that might interest someone exploring the same idea. I continue to spin yarn and sold my entire inventory last week at FAB.
THE PLOT THICKENS AND POPE IS IN THE SOUP

Thursday, February 21, 2013
Pope Benedict retired after inquiry into 'Vatican gay officials', says paper Pope's staff decline to confirm or deny La Repubblica claims linking 'Vatileaks' affair and discovery of 'blackmailed gay clergy' Share582 inShare3 Email John Hooper in Rome The Guardian, Thursday 21 February 2013 12.27 EST
The Vatican is awhirl with rumours about the pope's decision to retire. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom the report said were being blackmailed by outsiders. The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica. The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair. Last May Pope Benedict's butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and charged with having stolen and leaked papal correspondence that depicted the Vatican as a seething hotbed of intrigue and infighting. According to La Repubblica, the dossier comprising "two volumes of almost 300 pages bound in red" had been consigned to a safe in the papal apartments and would be delivered to the pope's successor upon his election. The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were "united by sexual orientation". In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some Vatican officials had been subject to "external influence" from laymen with whom they had links of a "worldly nature". The paper said this was a clear reference to blackmail. It quoted a
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source "very close to those who wrote [the cardinal's report]" as saying: "Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments." The seventh enjoins against theft. The sixth forbids adultery, but is linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts. La Repubblica said the cardinals' report identified a series of meeting places in and around Rome. They included a villa outside the Italian capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian archbishop. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said: "Neither the cardinals' commission nor I will make comments to confirm or deny the things that are said about this matter. Let each one assume his or her own responsibilities. We shall not be following up on the observations that are made about this." He added that interpretations of the report were creating "a tension that is the opposite of what the pope and the church want" in the approach to the conclave of cardinals that will elect Benedict's successor. Another Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, alluded to the dossier soon after the pope announced his resignation on 11 February, describing its contents as "disturbing". The three-man commission of inquiry into the Vatileaks affair was headed by a Spanish cardinal, Julin Herranz. He was assisted by Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, a former archbishop of Palermo, and the Slovak cardinal Jozef Tomko, who once headed the Vatican's department for missionaries. Pope Benedict has said he will stand down at the end of this month; the first pope to resign voluntarily since Celestine V more than seven centuries ago. Since announcing his departure he has twice apparently referred to machinations inside the Vatican, saying that divisions "mar the face of the church", and warned against "the temptations of power". La Repubblica's report was the latest in a string of claims that a gay network exists in the Vatican. In 2007 a senior official was suspended from the congregation, or department, for the priesthood, after he was filmed in a "sting" organised by an Italian television programme while apparently making sexual overtures to a younger man. In 2010 a chorister was dismissed for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting. A few months later a weekly news magazine used hidden cameras to record priests visiting gay clubs and bars and having sex. The Vatican does not condemn homosexuals. But it teaches that gay sex is "intrinsically disordered". Pope Benedict has barred sexually active gay men from studying for the priesthood.
71st TRIP AROUND THE SUN

71stTRIP AROUND THE SUN - July 16, 2013 When I was a child, before television, I listened to a radio program called No School Today that used a song called Teddy Bears Picnic as a theme song. This was a special birthday. I was serenaded by the kidlets with Teddy Bears Picnic. Earlier in the year I recalled the song and looked it up and found several renditions sending the cutest to the McDermotts. They remembered and rehearsed it as a surprise What fun! The past year has been very interesting; The McDermotts returned from Okinawa in March; Kelly was born July 11; and on the same day Mark found a job in Washington D.C. Shannon celebrated her 11th birthday while at our home this year in St. Pete. I asked her if it was the best birthday ever and her reply was that this year was the second best. Her 10th birthday was the best ever since that was the day her father learned about his new position and their move to Washington D.C. The special treat this year was the arrival of the kidlets for a month long visit and their participation in the sailing program at the SPYC. In between sailing lessons they learned to spin fiber to their great delight. The McDermotts have lived in their new home for almost a year. I havent visited, but dont feel the need to be there as I know every inch from seeing pictures when they were considering buying and seeing pictures since they 78
moved in. I dont do stairs as easily as before and the only full bath is upstairs. However, I am so happy for them. My best accomplishment this year was introducing the kidlets to Wagner in particular The Ring Cycle. I was fortunate to find a book written for children detailing the complete story. I read it to Shannon, Brigid and Molly and they loved it. I also showed them a bit of the Mets most recent production. They were simply enchanted with the story. As they mature this will be a treasure that will only get deeper and more significant. My second best accomplishment was getting a large portion of the coral reef project to a permanent home at Great Explorations. I have a gnawing sadness for our country. So much could be accomplished if it were not for the stubborn Republican Party that is determined to thwart the President no matter what the cost. We continue in two ill thought out wars that drain our treasury. We barely escaped a financial meltdown and nothing is being done about global warming. I regret the mess we are leaving for our kidlets to clean up. The possibilities for the future could be so bright with our wonderful technology if only we could get past our age old hostilities. And, dont even get me started on religion. The Bible is a bunch of Fairy Tales written by ignorant old men. The Jews invented guilt and Catholics perfected it. I am tired of living. Perhaps this will be my last trip around the sun.
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