WIC, The Black Panthers and Marion Wright Edelman

People tell me things, and I want to know whether they are true. So I look them up. 

The latest statement that I have looked up is that the Black Panthers began the W.I.C. (Woman, Infants and Children) Program. The person who told me this suggested I watch the movie, Panther, so I did. The link is the 1995 free online movie, in its entirety.

My curiosity was not satiated. I consider myself an advocate for social justice, and I like to know the truth, and the story behind these statements. For one, I had never been aware that the Black Panthers began as a community help organization.

After spending the last couple of hours looking it up, and getting sidetracked by looking up a lot of other things I ran into, and posting and commenting some partially related finds on Facebook, I can say definitively that the Black Panthers did not single-handedly begin the W.I.C. Program. They may have been instrumental in it starting, but even that is really difficult to discover in the murk of Google searches and link-following. That statement is not to diminish the real possibility that they may have inspired the W.I.C. program. It very well may never have begun if it had not been for the organization.

Most of my acquaintances who are mothers have benefited from W.I.C.. I benefited from it as a new divorcee in 1993, with children aged 1, 3 and 5. I might never have bought Juicy Juice if it weren't for W.I.C., although back then, I did not like that it was the only juice option I had to buy. I wanted the canned juice, which was cheaper. I did not like them sticking my daughter's finger for blood, and the nutritionist telling me to limit her milk intake because it was affecting her iron levels. I nearly quit the program because it upset me so much. But years later, I must admit the nutritionist was right. I did not quit. Free peanut butter was too convenient.

For years, I erroneously have believed that my grandfather's second wife's sister-in-law, Emily Cooper was instrumental in starting the W.I.C. program. I even had the page bookmarked in her husband, Wilmer A. Cooper's book, "Growing Up Plain". When Grandpa remarried Wilmer's sister, Sarah, we all received copies as gifts. However, Wilmer's wife merely helped open their first clinic in Wayne County, Indiana in 1979, and helped grow it. Because Quakers do things like that. She did not help begin the actual program. I set out to find out who did.

 At first, I followed the Black Panther trail. I found a meme that never made it onto my Facebook feed about the Black Panthers starting W.I.C.. I found this Forbes article that claimed to have the dirt on the "sanitized" film. It was interesting, but given the state of the U.S. in the 1960's, I have trouble believing the stated facts in the article.

And then I found Marian Wright Edelman. Oh my. 

According to this "Freedom" article by George Michelson, Marian was arrested in 1960 in an Atlanta, GA sit-in, and was inspired to go to law school. She was the first woman to pass the Mississippi Bar. Dr. King inspired her to coordinate the Poor Peoples Campaign, and in D.C., she began the public interest law firm, the Washington Research Project, an entity which created the Children's Defense Fund in 1973. 

What does this have to do with W.I.C.? In 1967, according to this YouTube video uploaded by Maryland WIC  Marion Wright was an attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). As such, she testified for the Senate Poverty Subcommittee. Nick Kotz, a prize-winning journalist, wrote about it. As a result of the publicity, a study was launched. Senators James Thornton, Hubert Humphrey and Robert Leonard drafted legislation to create the WIC program.

Did the Black Panthers inspire the W.I.C. program? The NAACP is much older than the Black Panthers, and differed from them, as an organization, regarding self defense. However, some in the NAACP did have connections with the Black Panthers. The Black Panther's 10 Points spelled out clearly a mission to end poverty. They certainly drew a lot of attention to their cause. They began food programs in Oakland, California in the early 1960's, before Marian Wright became politically active, and she likely heard about them.

While they did not legally begin the W.I.C. program, they may very well have inspired it. Marian Wright Edelman might be the one to answer this question. She is still living, and writes for the Huffington Post.

O Tannenbaum

Our high school German teacher, Vibike was a little crazy, which also made her sometimes a lot of fun. But after three years, she got pregnant and had Heidi, and she did not come back. I was one of those high school students who loved foreign language. so took more than required even for college prep. The school could not find another German teacher, so they hired a retired French professor to teach French. I took a year of French my senior year. He was not as charismatic as Vibike, but he was also fun in his own way. He was especially fun when he let me knit in class, but told the underclassmen that they could not knit also until they were carrying an "A" like I was. This inspired me to knit even more than I might have. 

The German stuck enough to test out of two classes in college. I remembered enough after a year of not practicing it much. Taking three years of high school German saved money and satisfied the college foreign language requirement.

Vibike's native tongue was Danish, and she informally taught us a little bit of that too. When we adopted German names, mine was supposed to be Greta, but she usually called me Gwenchen instead. In German pronunciation, that sounded like Gvenchen. In fact her default was all of our real names with "chen" at the end, which made us all "little" us's. At Christmas, we made black forest German chocolate cake and had a party at her house. She taught us German Christmas songs, and we serenaded our fellow boarding school students, even when she was not around. 

It was not uncommon for students to break out singing at boring moments like standing in line waiting for the last food bell to ring. Things like that happen at boarding schools. Food bell means dinner bell. There were 3 leading up to dinner to help boarding school students make it on time - the 15, the 5, and ready, set, go. If you went over at the 15, you had to stand around and stare at people, so it was more fun to sing sometimes.

Particularly, my friend and classmate, Imi worked out harmony with O Tannenbaum, and I sang melody. We bee-bopped around campus singing it together when the inclination took us. Sometimes we sang it in line waiting for the last dinner bell to ring. By our Junior year, this was a three-year tradition, and when we met up years later after high school, we sang it some more, for fun, even though it wasn't Christmastime.

I had to take a resident's vital signs the other night, and administer some medications. She happened to speak German, and I happened to know this. I asked her if she knew "Die Gedanken Sind Frei." She did not. I asked if she knew "O Tannenbaum." Her face broke into a big smile, and she began to sing it. I joined in, while I finished her cares.

Night Shift Discouragements

"It takes a special kind of person to be a nurse." 

 Huh. I must be that kind of person then. It has been 18 years, and I'm still in. I went back to nursing in August part-time to supplement my income because the specific medical copy editing job I took did not pay well in comparison with nursing. On October 1st, regretfully, I left the editing/advertising job altogether and went back to being a night shift nurse full-time.On the whole, it was a good experience because I discovered that I was very good at something. My parting thoughts are that there is corporate exploitation and personal competition everywhere. If I go back to that work, I expect to be payed the going rate for my experience and skill, and I will be careful to work with those who understand what that skill requires.

You know, there really isn't that much good reading out there for night shift nurses. Many articles focus on students. Light-hearted blogs and articles give the same statistical rundowns, and it is not helpful. There are a lot of studies that tell us discouraging statistics. We're going to get more fat. We're going to be depressed. Our family life will suffer. We will get into car accidents on the way home, and will die or become permanently disabled. The administration will not see us, and so will not care about us. When they do see us, it will nearly always be for a negative reason.

The truth is, I am 51, and my idealistic days are long over. The aspirations I had fresh out of nursing school have met many brick walls of reality. At the grocery store parking lot, I walk across empty handicapped spaces after work, on my way in to buy groceries - and wine - at 8am, and my gut instinct tells me to walk around the blue paint as if it is a grave. I defiantly walk across it. No superstition is going to mame me. I took care of those people all night. I am allowed to walk across the blue paint. Out of respect. They are my charges.

The past two years have been a little heartbreaking for me. I have 15 or so years before retirement. I was only going to be a nurse for 5 years. I was going to work in pediatrics or OB. I was going to move on to another career. My honesty, my hard work, and my integrity would see me through. Not so, all of it. Do not let that part of you jump out and say, "But..." because I get that I am worthy. That is not what I am talking about here. 

The nursing profession does not work in that way. It is a problem that I care. It is a problem that I have integrity. It is a problem that I work hard, and am thorough. It is a problem for all of the wrong reasons, and it always will be one. I am pretty certain that any night shift nurse who has been a nurse for five years or more who is reading this will understand. Corporate interests and ethics do not mesh in a good way. They pay lip service, and they like to think they do, but they just don't. For the rest, I am not going to explain, because I am just too plain tired, after 18 years, of trying to make things better. Things are worlds worse, for everyone in a hospital or a skilled facility, than they were when I started. Nearly everything I have done to try to improve things has backfired on me, mostly in the form of others' need for self-preservation. No matter how one avoids finger-pointing, someone always feels pointed at. I do too, even when I try not to. After a 12 hour shift, when you are bone tired, that is when the day shift staff comes in, and wants to talk with you about all kinds of shit (excuse my language, but I earned the right to use it), and has a list of charting for you to fix, and you just want to go home and go to bed. That is just the way it is.You did a lot of things wrong.

I find this extremely sad. I have heard, "It is getting better," and "It is going to get better," so, so, so many times; and have watched it get worse instead, so, so, so many times. 

What keeps me there is the faces of the people I have cared for, and their families. And money. It is not just the paycheck though, but the paycheck is certainly a big part of it. Faces keep me from quitting. I see them. They wake me up at night.

There is supposedly a way to go about nursing, and to go about improving things. I have found this to be mostly false. We try, and that is all. Hope is ever in our favor. I work with some excellent nurses. Some of them do not think that I think this of them (that they are excellent), because I am sometimes a little light on the compliments and heavy on the complaining. Most nurses are the same way. 

This is not a disillusionment. This is an attempt to discuss the reality that has gone on now for 18 years, and to not sugar-coat it. Sugar becomes pretty icky after too much of it.


 

Alfie is a Big Red, the Japanese Snow Monkey Escapee Who Traveled to Bellaire, Ohio

       My mother, Martha Giffen, was a schoolteacher in Bellaire, Ohio in 1987. She taught Chapter Reading in West Bellaire Elementary School, in the community that Alfie chose for his winter home. Her students came to school telling stories about the snow monkey. He chose the high school guidance counselor’s yard as one of his favorite places to sun himself. My parents hosted a Japanese student, Kyoto Katsura from Wheeling Jesuit College around that time, and she created artwork to decorate t-shirts, mugs and hats that the children sold, when Alfie was finally captured, so that they could go visit him at the zoo on a field trip. The teachers all collected newspaper clippings. My mother’s Chapter Reading students wrote, illustrated, and published a small book. She even tried very unsuccessfully to get the school district to change their mascot from an Indian to a Snow Monkey. A few years ago, after retiring, my mother handed me the flattish shipping box full of news stories and student art, and said, “I don’t know what to do with this.” I accepted it. I stored it away for a few years. 

     Last month, I pulled it out, and began attempting to put together stories and a timeline for a blog post. I had not realized how extensive Alfie’s story had been. An entire book could be written about his adventure. The zoo must have mapped his travels not unlike I began putting news articles together. If only I could interview the zoo officials, the journalist, and the capture company! The creative headlines alone might make up several pages. This is what I have put together from those clippings and postings online.

     At the Highland Park Zoo in Pittsburgh, On July 23^rd, 1987, a veterinarian was doctoring a macaque, a Japanese snow monkey, in an exhibit area, and several of the other snow monkeys became agitated. Three of them became so excited, that they climbed the wall and escaped. Two returned shortly afterwards, but the alpha male from the habitat, nicknamed, “Alphie,” for his social position, did not return. He went on a very long, 6-month adventure, before being captured 70 miles away in Bridgeport, Ohio on January 27^th, 1988. Most newspapers spelled his name, "Alfie" during his time away, until the zoo made the announcement upon his return, that he had returned to his machismo social order, so his name was returning to the proper Greek spelling. I have attempted to write this blog story respecting what his name was, when.

     Snow monkeys come from an area of Japan with similar weather to the temperate climates around Pittsburgh, PA and eastern OH. They are adapted to cold weather, and are accustomed to snow. They enjoy bathing in natural hot springs at home in Japan. It is not uncommon for monkeys of all breeds to outsmart their captors and escape for long periods of time. Alfie was very social, though. He endeared (and outsmarted) nearly everyone he met. 

     Pittsburgh Zoo is near the three rivers area of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is sort of like a mini-Manhattan, a long peninsula between two large river tributaries that join to form the third. There are bridges everywhere. The Allegheny River and the Monongahala River meet in downtown Pittsburgh, to form the big Ohio River. The Ohio curves northward from Pittsburgh toward Lake Erie, but then curves over toward the state of Ohio, and travels back south again. The south side of the river, caught in the loop is the northern panhandle of West Virginia, which is only 15 miles across to Pennsylvania by the time the river is as far south as Wheeling. This is the tri-state area where I have lived most of my life; and where Alfie made big news. It was the same year my first child was born. I was away in Columbus, but I heard the stories.

     Alfie never entered West Virginia that we know of. Newspapers reported his escapades more widely the longer he was at large, until he eventually made the national news. The reports followed him along the Allegheny northward, then back south on the western side of the Ohio. He may have never crossed that big river, but instead, followed the loop around, and back south. 

     I have figured out a rudimentary map route of Alfie’s travels based on newspaper articles. From Pittsburgh, to Beaver County, PA, Columbiana County, OH, then Ohio’s Jefferson, Harrison, Guernsey, Belmont and Monroe Counties, journalists worked with local police and county sheriff departments imploring the public to close him into an outbuilding or garage, and to call and report his whereabouts. They published where he was to alert the public, so they might keep track. The sightings and stories poured in. They were entertaining, until the social macaque was entertaining the nation. In each article, residents were asked not to feed Alfie by hand, (they ignored this), not to grab him because he might fight back (he never did), and not to chase him (lots of people chased him). They wanted him to stay in one area. When he was returned, he was given a clean bill of health, but months later, he tested positive for Simian B virus, which can be transferred to humans through bites and scratches, and can be deadly to humans. He was transferred to a wildlife park in Florida soon after.

Alfie’s timeline:

Jul 25-26         Shadyside, Pittsburgh, PA

Jul                    Morningside, Pittsburgh crossed the 62^nd Street Bridge

Jul 30^th             Etna, PA (Stop n Go); Shaler, PA

Jul 31^st             crossed Route 8, spotted at Giant Eagle

Aug 1^st             North Park, PA (in a deer pen)

Aug 3^rd            McCandless, PA

Aug 10^th          Wexford, Bradford Woods, PA

Aug 17^th          Franklin Park, PA

Aug 19^th          Marshall, PA

Aug 24^th          Bell Acres, PA (jumping back and forth from bridge to an apple tree; was seen on another garage roof; swinging from an antennae of yet another home)

(crosses out of Allegheny County)

 Aug 25^th          Economy, Beaver County, PA (seen sitting on a barn roof)

Aug 26^th          Bell Acres, PA

Sep 23rd          Brighton Township, PA (crossed the football field, ate from a bird feeder)

Sep 30th          Industry, Beaver, PA (chased by police, residents and two dogs)

Oct 9^th             Ohio Rt 213 and Austin Lake, OH

Oct 11^th           State Park Rd, Richmond, OH (eating apples from a tree)

Oct 12^th           Jefferson County, OH Sheriff’s Department reports calls for past 2 weeks

Oct 14^th           Hopedale, OH

Oct 16^th           Cadiz (East Market near Harrison Community Hospital in am; Park Ave near Harrison County Fairgrounds in pm)

Oct 17th          Deer Ridge near Cadiz, Harrison County, OH

Oct 20^th           Warren St., Cadiz, OH

Oct 21^st           Smyrna, OH (crossed Ohio 800 between Smyrna and Freeport)

Oct 22^nd           Chapel Hill Rd west of Rt 250 between Cadiz and Tappan Lake

Oct 24^th           between Belmont & Morristown, OH

Oct 25^th           Bethesda, OH (Glenwood Apartments, was seen crossing a field)

Oct 27^th           Gorey Mill Rd of Rt 26, south of Bethesda, OH

Nov 3^rd            Woodsfield, OH (Moose Ridge Rd, sitting on a fence pole)

Nov 5^th                        OH Rt 26, Monroe County (sunning on a roof of a building; was chased by vet and Monroe County Sheriff’s Department and dogs, treed; his foot was grabbed, but he got loose)

Nov 14^th          Barnesville, OH (Doudna’s Orchard eating apples in trees, woman called Belmont County Sheriff’s Department wanting it off the property)

Nov 15^th          Speidel, OH (between Barnesville and Bethesda, on farm of Barnesville Recreation Director)

Nov 17^th          Jacobsburg, OH

Nov 20^th          Neffs and Bellaire, OH (chased off a trash pile in Neffs; Rock Hollow Rd, broke a bird feeder and ate birdseed, 2 sightings on Rt 214)

Nov 23^rd          Bellaire, OH (dog chased up a tree on High St., swung from tree to tree, later sighted in BelHaven)

Nov 26^th          Bellaire chase: Police report he was at Cervelli Motors, was chased by several Police Dept officers into Phillips Stamping building, escaped by climbing on beams and getting out through garage; residents and children chased him back toward Cervelli Motors and RR tracks, and one resident chased him up a hill, where Alfie played stop and catch up, and go, until the resident gave up. Screamed in the woods outside of town all night.

Nov 29^th          Avondale, Shadyside, OH

Dec 3^rd             Pinch Run, between Bellaire and Shadyside, OH, lays low in woods outside of town

but visited one residence regularly here since Nov 20^th for birdseed and bananas

Dec 5^th             Belmont County 214, Mt Calvary Cemetery

Dec 11^th           Bellaire, OH, Pinch Run, newspaper reporter chases him into the woods trying to get a picture; he has been following Bellaire’s Alfie stories closely

Dec 14^th           Bellaire, OH resident photographs Alfie eating a banana

Dec 22^nd          Shadyside resident trees with his dogs, and drugs Alfie with both dart gun and fruit, drugs provided by a veterinarian; was in tree for 12 hours; drugs don’t work and too many people hear commotion and show up to watch; attempt abandoned. He climbs down and gets away again

Jan 8^th              West Bellaire, romping on rocks above big curve in road; videotaped by a resident pulling down a bird feeder and eating the birdseed

Jan 9^th              Zoo hires Capture Company; they set up a trap at guidance counselor’s home that Alfie frequents; has resident tree Alfie so he can shoot him with a dart gun but can't get a good shot; Alfie climbs back down tree and leaves

Jan 12^th            West Bellaire, sighted regularly

Jan 16^th            Capture company brings a new trap with an electronic door; Shadyside dog trainer agrees to move trap around to sighting areas with his son’s assistance

Jan 18^th            Bellaire, seen on 26^th St, then near Bellaire Clinic on Washington St, then Monroe St, then 41^st St; then on the north end of town. Police found him on 48^th St running around.

Jan 21^st            West Bellaire, establishes trust from guidance counselor, suns in his yard, takes fruit and chocolate from his hand on regular basis; resident cannot keep up with chocolate habit; gives him caramel for amusement and Alfie can't get it out of his teeth; Alfie puts nose on neighbor’s door waiting for her to get food for him

Jan 21^st            Bridgeport, OH, Jacquette St, sat on resident’s porch bannister, and peeped in window while she got him food; ate birdseed off the ground

Jan 25^th            West Wheeling, OH, spotted by pastor of Riverview Bible Church; spotted in Boydsville

Jan 26^th            Bridgeport, OH, Kennon St., checks over trap with birdseed and fruit inside

Jan 27^th            Bridgeport, OH 12:15 Bill Youst pushed the button to close the electronic cage on Kennon Ave with Alfie inside.

     After Alfie’s capture, Bellaire Police Chief, Roger Woods, had arranged to have him brought to the municipal building in Bellaire, OH while waiting for zoo officials to come retrieve him, so that residents could say goodbye. Over 100 people came to see Alfie off, including bank presidents, city officials and business people. He was about 35 lbs, 19 lbs heavier than when he had escaped. He had no cuts, but he did have some fleas. News crews arrived, and there was an impromptu arrangement for him to return to the zoo via a news helicopter instead of the van that was on its way, but his cage would not fit. The crowd was moved to the football stadium in view of Route 7. Traffic along the 4-lane highway backed up as people stopped to watch the commotion. Some people yelled to set him free. Some people cried. Some people became angry because they could not get pictures. Alfie left Bellaire, Ohio at about twenty-to-six that Wednesday Evening.

      Back at the zoo, he was put into isolation for 30 days, and was given medical tests for diseases and parasites. The zoo decided to build a new habitat just for Alfie in the children’s section. They sold shares of “Monkey Business” to fund the habitat, which opened that spring. West Bellaire School, The Times Leader newspaper, and the Pittsburgh Zoo all sold Alfie memorabilia. West Bellaire’s money went to charter buses for a field trip to the zoo to visit Alfie that spring. The newspaper’s money went to the local Belmont County Animal Rescue League. The zoo’s money went to a new, and a more secure habitat for the Japanese snow monkey who made history. Several female companions joined him there. Wheeling and Oglebay’s Good Zoo near Wheeling, WV made offers to give Alfie a home. They even offered to buy another Japanese snow monkey to replace him, but the zoo stated that they had signed a contract with Alfie.

     Kyoto Katsura, a design artist from Japan, created the artwork for West Bellaire’s memorabilia, stating, “Alfie is a Big Red” in both Japanese and English. The school had difficulty keeping up with the orders. Vivid Graphics in St. Clairsville filled them as they came in.

     My mother privately did not want Alfie to be a “Big Red.” She wanted the school district to change their mascot from a Native American, an icon depicting Native Americans as savages and a reminder of the bloody wars fought in this valley, to the Snow Monkey who found refuge and company here. She is a diplomat though, and a leader. Our village is enmeshed with an identity they cannot part with; and so she embraced that as a compromise. So many people connected with this macaque in his travels of freedom, and cheered him on. We are Alphie.

Migrant Deaths, Where is The News?

This is my husband's tractor. It has a cutter bar for hay attached to the back. It has been raining for most of the past few weeks, so the tractor sits idle, and the hay grows.

We are so lucky to have the lives we do, to have roots, to have established families. Sometimes I feel trapped by that. 

I have not written for six months, because I arranged to have my hot spot home internet turned off, and switched phone companies from Verizon to Credo. Making blog posts from a tablet is difficult. Home internet is now back on, and this is where things are.

The past two weeks have brought quite a lot of news and activity. Most notably in my mind and world, there were shootings in Mexico of two different groups of immigrants, amounting to around 210 people. Only about 60 escaped for sure. Joel Smith, whom I have mentioned in previous posts during my trip to the border in November of 2013 posted that he had heard about the shootings when he was in Sasabe, Mexico. He goes to Sasabe when he fills the water stations in the desert on the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, the run I went on when I was there. Joel was the first to post an article on the shootings. There have only been three articles, one in Spanish, and no other news: 

El Daily Post
telesur
El Diario

I remembered that he had posted that morning before leaving. Arizona is three hours behind Ohio. I leave for work around 8:30 am, and he was online before I left. That was 5:30 their time. 

Last week, I flew to Texas for training for my job. In April, I left my nursing career, and began a position as a medical copy editor. More specifically, I annotate advertisements that need to comply with FDA requirements for health care products. This requires reading numerous research papers, and matching pieces of them to advertisement claims. 

In between locations, and in between work days, I read a little in two books on my Kindle. They were "The Postmistress," by Sarah Blake, and "Enrique's Journey," by Sonia Nazario. Upon arriving home, I was overly sensitive to any racism against the Hispanic community. Okay, I was oversensitive to any racism at all. 

This morning, a fellow Friend (Quaker) posted a long journalism story on two wetsuitmen found on the coasts of Norway, and of the Netherlands. The investigation into the deaths led back to "The Jungle" refugee camp in Calais across the Dover Strait from Great Britain. Combine that with an online acquaintance from a breastfeeding forum 9 years ago who lives in Australia, posting about the refugees from Indonesia and Manus Island. Add in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya. The global migration problem becomes much more ominous when one combines all of these places. 1 in 122 people in the world today lives with no country. Private prisons have become a for-profit industry, and the military industrial complex profits have probably never been better. 

In two weeks, I will travel to Frederick, Maryland to give a slideshow on the trip the border two Novembers ago. I hope to stop off at Harper's Ferry, where distant cousins, Edwin and Barclay Coppock participated in John Brown's Raid before the Civil War. There were protests in Frederick County two months ago, after the death of Freddie Gray. This was around the time I began my new job. Whether people are African American, Muslim or Hispanic, police and border patrol brutality against the "other" happens increasingly with impunity. It is justified by much of the public, and it should not be. A couple of days ago, a young man shot and killed 9 people in a church service in South Carolina. A large portion of the news media is attempting to state that this was not racially motivated. 

Meanwhile, our local school district continues on with the mascot of a "Big Red" Indian in full regalia, whilst complaining that the local school levy will not pass after 6 times on the ballot. I have been told it would be too expensive to change the mascot, but no attempt has been made to phase out the emblem to ease such a change down the road. Entitlement and selfishness are the primary accusations against the public for not passing the levy. Most in the local community are unable to make any connection between entitlement, privilege, and the use of a Native American symbol to embody their team and local identity. Even as they pretend to be "Indians," many decry the invasion of "illegal immigrants," not understanding that it is they who are illegal; or that the ancestors of this area committed genetic cleansing against the mascot they pretend to be.

I do not think we can afford any sort of racism right now. None. We cannot afford to criminalize refugee status of the country-less. If we continue down such a path, what will our world look like in 5, 10, and 20 years from now? The population of the world is growing. Borders are breaking at the seams of the "haves," and the "have nots" are pouring in. All of the evidence base on what works is being tossed out with the garbage, and profit is the primary motivation for how we address these issues. More prisons, more walls, more drones, more tanks, more bombs. It is not difficult, given these scenarios, to understand what the world might be like in the future, and it is not pretty. It is high time to become humane. 

Day one. Winter Solstice 2014. The day began cloudy, and is still cloudy. At 3:30pm, it is about 40 degrees F. Happy solstice, everyone! It is a good day to begin a new project!
222-3-60

Prayer Books, Meditations, and Devotionals

June Sunset in Ohio

I've kept them all over the years, even the ones I never thought I'd read. Prayer and meditation books of all kinds, from pagan, to New Age, to Christian. Yesterday someone posted on Facebook that this month was Ramadan. I get other-than-Christian religious holidays confused, especially Jewish and Muslim ones. I grew up a Christian, after all, and although I have tried to educate myself over time, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan are interchangeable enough that I still have to look them up to remember what they are about.

Fasting is a bad idea for a nurse who works 12-hour shifts, especially night shifts during middle age of a woman. The body is going through all sorts of subtle metabolic and hormonal changes in which the lack of any certain kind of food can unexpectedly throw one of them into overdrive. I recently found this out, profoundly, the hard way. But there is a quiet pull to honor a holiday that is not mine, somehow. If I am going to sacrifice something, or even to observe something, I like doing it for short periods of times. Lent is about six weeks long. Ramadan is a month long. I haven't been making it to Quaker meeting often lately. For personal reasons, some of my usual venues for personal fulfillment have some blocks in the road. What to do, what to do. It occurred to me that I might try a small devotion, or meditation each day of Ramadan. 

Most, if not all of them, are on my bookshelf. My daughter put them there when she unpacked the boxes after we moved here, and my nieces rearranged them when they helped me clean. I found the small prayer and meditation booklets of like size in a row together. The most appealing is "Celtic Prayers," by Alexander Carmichael, spiritually, personally, and aesthetically. I have long forgotten who gave this one to me, or whether I bought it myself. I don't know who the author is. I Googled him, and he became even more appealing - a Celtic folklorist and scholar. I'll begin with that one. 

In the same little pile is "Wings of Prayer, Baha'i Prayers for Women," "A Selection of Baha'i Prayers, Holy Writings," and "The Hidden Words, selected writings of Bah'u'llah," given to me by the sister of a former significant other. There is "A Little Journal of Devotions out of Quaker Worship, An experiment with 104 entries across two thousand miles," by Francis D Hole and Ellie Shacter, and "Expectant Listening, Finding God's Thread of Guidance," by Michael Wajda. I haven't looked these people up yet, but the 104 entries sounds interesting. Then there is "Bible Puzzles, Quizzes and Games," by Helen Pettigrew, that I've been carrying around without actually using since I was a teenager. There are a lot more, but these are the ones that jumped out at me today. 

The problem with me and a meditation time is that my schedule is so upended, and energy levels so unpredictable, that personal commitments, especially those geared for self-support and self-healing, generally work for only a few days. It is pretty predictable, however, that I will get on Facebook every day, since that has become my primary means of communication and self-expression. So why not type out an entry every day in a post? Then I will actually read it. I am going to give it a try.

Where the Butterflies Lay Their Eggs: A story of Immigration, Scotland, Germany, Quakers, and Native Americans

The view of the cluster of residences of my husband's family, past some milkweed in the field.

This is where I live now. It is probably where I will live until I'm 80. Maybe until I die. My home is dead center, just over the hill from the trees. At first glance, it looks like a ridge in eastern Belmont County, but it is so much more. 

It is the site overlooking an ancient Indian settlement. It is the top of a ravine called Whiskey Run, where moonshiners took barrels down to the river for delivery. It is the hay meadow. It is the Indian path to spy on the settlers on Wheeling Island. It is a Revolutionary War land grant in the 7 Ranges. It is a pre-Civil War general's dream farm. It is near where my husband ran for help as his grandfather died of a heart attack. It is near where my husband's tractor rolled over on him and permanently deformed his clavicle. It is where coyotes chew on toy dolls they stole from someone's barn or yard. It is where the turkeys and deer feed. It is where my husband has found numerous flint and stone tools. It is a spiritual Native American ground. I am likely the very first Quaker to live here. I often feel somewhat misplaced. I also feel honored; abandoned; discontent, and some sort of content all at the same time.

My husband, Bruce, has worked this farm for most of his life, from childhood, minus about 20 years. During the time away, he was a hippie, traveling with friends, hitchhiking, helping his brother round up and brand cows in Colorado, walking barefoot in California, being a vegetarian. For most of his life, he was here, in Ohio, two high ridges in from the Ohio River; two high ridges over from Wheeling, WV.

Wheeling Island from Kirkwood Heights before 9/11, taken by me.

If one drives along this ridge until it descends into the river valley, one eventually comes to this view, looking up the river, at Wheeling Island, Martins Ferry on this side, and Wheeling, WV on the other. Bridgeport and National Road (Route 40, where it crosses the Island) is directly below. I grew up with panoramic scenes like this each morning, going to school in Bellaire, which is further south from this view. In the autumn, the river is shrouded with fog in the mornings, and the hilltops look like a wonderland above marshmallows. 

The little clip of the flat to the right is near where the Wheeling Slave Auction Block sat. The hilltop to the right of the river is likely near the vicinity of Fort Henry, the first settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains. The other side of the that hilltop is the steep cliff where McCulloch's horse took a great leap down into the Wheeling Creek valley when he had arrived to Fort Henry, and was fleeing from the Indians. He and his horse survived the leap; one of the great Ohio Valley legends. This was Lewis Wetzel's favorite stomping grounds.

I travel down this hill to Riesbecks to go grocery shopping, or when I want to go up the river to the Pittsburgh airport, or to Wheeling. 

The Allegheny's are the eastern "Great Divide," where the water runs into the Mississipi and to the Gulf of Mexico, instead of into the Atlantic Ocean. The lip you see here along the West Virginia side of the Ohio River is the trail where settlers traveled south from Pittsburgh before the Revolutionary War. Now it is the path of WV Route 2. Ohio's lip houses OH Route 7.

This picture is the setting for several books: Zane Grey's trilogy, "The Spirit of the Border," "Betty Zane," and "The Last Trail;" Allan W. Eckert's "That Dark and Bloody River;" Alan Fitzpatrick's "Wilderness War on the Ohio," John S. Cochran's "Bonnie Belmont," and Susan G. Hall's "Appalachian Ohio and the Civil War, 1862-1863." All of these books are in my library, and I've read all but the last cover-to-cover. Hall's book details the religious sects that settled this area. I have an early American family tree consisting of mostly pre-Revolutionary War families; the Quakers on my mother's side, and the Presbyterian Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch German Lutherans on my father's side. I am all of this. So I belong here, whether or not I feel like I belong. I embrace it all, in its entirety - its violence; its inhumanity; its refuge for those who refused to participate in the inhumanity; what it means for the past, the present; and the future. And I don't belong. I am not a Native American; yet I live where they made their tools probably for a thousand or more years before my people arrived. 

How incredibly relevant that the seeds pictured above will grow plants that feed a butterfly species, pictured below, that will likely migrate to Mexico. 

Monarch Butterfly on Scottish Thistle, with a Praying Mantis

 My favorite song about the area, about freedom, and the dedication to insuring human rights for all people:

"Ohio" by Patty Griffin