What You Might Find In Google

I have a painting of Rosa Parks in my office, an inexpensive print in a plastic frame.  Everyone knows who Rosa Parks is but at the bottom of the print it says Paul Collins.  Who is Paul Collins?

He grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he flunked high school art once  and was told art wasn’t a practical career choice.  One man had confidence in Paul’s abilities and encouraged him to try various mediums.  He experimented and settled on oil.  

Since those early days, Paul Collins has painted people in west Africa, Israel, Japan, and on the Pine Ridge Reservation.  His mural of Gerald Ford is on display at the Gerald R. Ford International Airport.  His special projects have included special Olympics, famous black women, Key West Florida, Americans at work, and a long list of others.  His work is on display in libraries, galleries and museums all over the world.

I’m certainly glad I took the time to google this amazing artist.

• For those who like to read poetry….Google  this:   Deep Underground.  The Harder Side of Poetry.

  The poets here, who also write some prose,  are more engaged and serious than average.  There are quite a number of them, but they seem to be outnumbered by the lurkers.  Oh well, a writer needs an audience.  You can’t just write for other writers.  If you go to this site, you don’t have to read the dark poems, the angry poems, the erotic or drug poems, the extreme content.  There are also poems described as upbeat, spiritual, observational.   Story poems, love poems, song lyrics, non-fiction prose, and fiction.  And you don’t have to be practiced or professional to post here.  There is an audience for people who offer their sincere expressions, no matter how haltingly or faltingly.  

Christmas Cheer

People get so doggone mean and ornery around Christmas time. 30 below with the wind chill tonight and I can’t find my long underwear. I’ve figured out how to improvise by tucking sweatpants into my socks. Blocked a manipulative lard ass from my FB yesterday, who had managed to access my page by befriending 127 of my friends. She had created that identity Sept. 1 which seriously creeps me out. I could set permissions differently but I want to keep my page public. BTW that name was given her by a household member she is stalking and he usually doesn’t say things like that. He keeps a box of the stuff she has sent him in case he ever has to take action, and he calls it the Loony Bin. I wonder if she has ever heard of a restraining order.
One reason I find Christmas miserable is that the long nights give me time to reflect. I never established Christmas traditions of my own. The elders I celebrated with passed away, one by one. I know I’m inviting well-meant advice (that I don’t want) by writing this, but I AM a writer and I dig down into the truth sometimes. It’s not always pretty. Another set of thoughts is that Christmases of the past weren’t always idyllic. Sometimes they were obligatory and rife with disappointment (which had nothing to do with gifts). This year I will spend Christmas Eve at church and with friends. Christmas Day I will cook something. And I will hear my dad’s voice saying, in his Minnesota Norwegian way, “Well, another Christmas just bit the dust”.

Soul Searching

My dad told the same stories many many times. Some of his stories embarrassed me. I wish he were here to tell them again.

I remember how he began the story of attending an event at which a lecturer from Berkeley addressed the packed John Glas Fieldhouse on the campus of Bemidji State University. The man was native American. The first words out of his mouth were, “You Christian sons of bitches”.

“You could have heard a pin drop”, my dad would say. “Then the man repeated his words. You Christian Sons Of Bitches. There were some nuns in the front row, looking down at the floor”.

The lecturer went on to tell how the U.S. Army awarded 20 medals of honor to the 7th Cavalry for the shooting deaths of at least 150 Lakota men, women and children on the Pine Ridge Reservation in SD, Dec. 29, 1890. Babies were found still nursing their dead mothers.

One of his hospice nurses later said to me, “Your dad is very outspoken about social justice issues”.

I remember how he would say there would not be peace in the Middle East until the Israelis (whom he called Israelites) admitted they had taken their land from the Palestinians. “The same way we took land away from the Indians here”, he would add.

A lot of what my dad said comes back to me. He was an admirer of labor leaders John Lewis and Jimmy Hoffa. “They were roughnecks and maybe they cooperated with organized crime”, he would say, “but they put milk in stomachs of innocent babies”.

I find myself telling my dad’s stories. His truth…plain, unvarnished, sometimes hard to swallow and sometimes lacking in nuance…was far more credible than some of the spin that passes for truth nowadays.

angst?

Some infuriating remarks I discovered as written responses to Gen. Petraeus’ extramarital affair:

 

“Yep, women tend to hang up the guns early and accept old age. Men have an extra 20 years of functional and enjoyable sex drive. Too bad it’s not accepted as natural evolution. Multiple sex mates does not make a man (or woman) less trustworthy, conscientious, rational, or competent. It’s too easy for the non-players to angst over it.”

“Not to defend the actions of Petraeus, but in the news footage, his wife looks like Aunt Bea on the Andy Griffith Show. Sure, he revealed a lack of personal intergrity, but Mrs. Petraeus must accept her own responsibility. Any woman – regardless of age or disability – can buy a bottle of Clairol or go to a salon.”

“The science is when women reach around 40 they lose their figure, sex drive and start getting hot flashes. Having sex with their husband or anyone is the LAST THING ON THEIR MINDS. There are strong hormonal changes occurring and make her less able to think logically.
Now once they hit their fifties the hormonal crap finally subsides and the true women emerges. This is when they are finally able to directly duel with men in logic and reason. This also accounts why women leaders are always past menopause.
This is the way God designed it. Older deprived men will always be chasing (or open to) younger women because they are fertile. Younger women are usually only interested if the man is powerful or rich.”

Yesterday’s Gone

Yesterday wasn’t the best of days for me.  Slight headache, tired, hives, behind  on my meds and my work, and then I caught a glimpse of my pale self in a mirror.  Yes, death warmed over.  Then I got a customer.  A nice man and his daughter who lives with him in the summer.  My grandfather had gotten him started with fossils years ago.  He asked me if I was Grandpa’s daughter.  That would put me at about 92 years old.  Yes, it’s easy to get the generations mixed up.  I’ve done it myself.  But yesterday wasn’t going all that well.

Later in the day I got into a conversation with a family member who expressed a concept that he admitted was elusive but probably valid at the same time.  I agreed.  He said, “When you are a rogue or a maverick, as opposed to being institutional, you run the risk of being regarded as lazy”.

Yup. 

True Story

I remember publishing this in the church newsletter when I was secretary at Trinity. I don’t know if anybody else got a kick out of it but I sure did.

Sometimes Truth SOUNDS Suspicious

In 1993 FBI agents conducted a raid of Southwood psychiatric hospital in San Diego, which was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of reviewing medical records, the agents had worked up an appetite. The agent in charge of the investigation called a nearby pizza parlor to order a quick dinner for his colleagues.

According to snopes.com, a site dedicated to determining whether internet stories are true or merely unsubstantiated urban legends, the following telephone conversation actually took place.

Agent: Hello. I would like to order 19 large pizzas and 67 cans of soda.

Pizza Man: And where would you like them delivered?

Agent: We’re over at the psychiatric hospital.

Pizza Man: The psychiatric hospital?

Agent: That’s right. I’m an FBI agent.

Pizza Man: You’re an FBI agent?

Agent: That’s correct. Just about everybody here is.

Pizza Man: And you’re at the psychiatric hospital?

Agent: That’s correct. And make sure you don’t go through the front doors. We have them locked. You will have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.

Pizza Man: And you say you’re all FBI agents?

Agent: That’s right. How soon can you have them here?

Pizza Man: And everyone at the psychiatric hospital is an FBI agent?

Agent: That’s right. We’ve been here all day and we’re starving.

Pizza Man: How are you going to pay for all of this?

Agent: I have my checkbook right here.

Pizza Man: And you’re all FBI agents?

Agent: That’s right. Everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.

Pizza Man: I don’t think so.

** Click **