Home is the Country of the Heart

One Part Starbucks

2012-02-10T15:24:00.000-08:00

Places I wanted to circle back to and visit later were spotted early as I wandered the wonderland of big name shops.

Spread out in front of me were the makings of a perfect afternoon.

I could peer into high end stores and look to my heart's content. I could consider what I might be missing by taking my credit card usually no farther than the neighborhood mall.

No serious shopper envy was likely to break out. But then you never know. When the whiff of luxe is in the air instinct takes over.

We were in Naples, Florida, which is a lovely place to be in the winter. The sky was blue. The splash and spurt of fountains were restful background against the bright light. The promenade of shops beckoned.

I fished into my handbag for sunglasses. The gesture felt full of glamor. All that was needed was a Hermes scarf and some gold flashing at the wrist. A few props, called accessories, and I could stalk seamlessly into the well dressed crowd. Be one of them.

But first Starbucks Coffee. I was in the area and wasn't going to hike back later. Better to stop while the coffee shop was in sight.

I checked the outdoor seating. Every table was in use. It's the way it so often is. Hardly anything beats being outside with your coffee and the sunshine, or the shade as you prefer, as you shift your chair into one or the other.

A table emptied as I stood at the door. With a bit of luck the table might be available when I came out. I sped in to place my order.

My face is very good at registering dismay. It doesn't have the look often. When it does it shows the world that here is the most disappointed person you'll likely ever meet.

That's the expression I suspect carried my face as I came out with my coffee. Someone with a laptop computer, and not necessarily with a Starbucks drink beside him, held the table.

A woman with a benign look (the look of someone who has snagged a table) sat nearby. The second chair pulled up to her table was empty. She sat alone. She had a look of repose.

"Would you mind if I join you?" I invited myself to the table. I waved towards the table which otherwise would have been mine.

She was a comfortable looking woman. She was some years older than me as I glanced at her across the table

There was a polite exchange."Oh please do," "Thanks, so nice to sit outside," "For sure, who wants to be in when you can be out." We sipped awhile in companionable silence.

The quiet didn't last long. Perhaps it was the beautiful weather that got mentioned. She was, she told me, nearing the end of a three week stay. She was sad at leaving the good Florida weather.

Her cat was at home in Cincinnati, checked on by a friend while she was away. Because of the cat she was anxious to get back.

"Cincinnati," I commented. "We've visited Cincinnati. We like your city," Thinking to reach her in her own territory I mentioned seeing a Skyline Chili in Naples. It brought a big grin.

"Yes, I think I've seen it too," she said. By this time we were fully introduced, first names exchanged. Skyline Chili is Cincinnati's signature dish. It's spaghetti and chili together. If you're from Cincinnati the restaurant is a cliche for home.

"Naples is getting Graeter's too," She referred to another Cincinnati institution. Graeter's ice cream, a premium brand made in Cincinnati, has been picked up by the Publix grocery chain in Florida.

I've heard about Graeter's, I was glad it was familiar to me. It strengthened our common ground. "It's been made for 142 years," the sixth-generation Cincinnatian informed me.

Cincinnati is gray in the winter she said. She doesn't like the winter gloom. Somehow the conversation had gone back to the weather. Naples does her so much good. She and her husband have been coming for eleven years. It's a couple-hour flight.

They stay at the same hotel every year The place is faultless she said. Same staff year after year.

This year, she was compelled to add, housecleaning wasn't up to its usual standard. Rooms were sometimes not made up by four in the afternoon. It can be hard if you're dressing for dinner or wanting to take a nap she explained.

She said she thought I might be an athlete. Our coffees were well below the midway point by this time We were chatting away like friends.

She was way off in regard to my being an athlete. "I walk," I said, which at least explained the tennis shoes. I was neither elegantly shod nor just off the beach in sandals.

"You look like you might be a gardener," I guessed in return. She had a nice tan, picked up in the Naples sun, and also the crinkles around the eye of someone who spends enjoyed hours outside.

She wore a pleased look. " I love to garden,"she affirmed. "But I don't garden much any more. I had polio when I was young. I got over it and did fine all these years. But I'm starting to have troubles. I lose my balance. I don't dare get down on my hands and knees. If I can't get down to pull weeds I don't call that gardening."

I said it appears to me when we lose something we have to add something to keep things even. If something is taken away then we need to put something new in its place.

She gave that some thought. "I like that," she nodded. "I'm going to tell that to my friend." She went on to tell of her friend. She had plans to visit this friend before going back to Cincinnati.

The friend sounded like someone met over the years of her winter residence in Naples. She didn't specify and I didn't ask. There's a lot we aren't required to know. Not knowing all doesn't hinder grasping the essential story.

"She's always been so cheerful. She's the one brightening everyone else up. She's had her share of problems but she keeps bouncing back. But I don't know now. She's awfully down."

Osteoporosis had so worsened her friend is confined to a wheelchair. She can't get out and she can't get around. It's taken away her fire.

"The last time we talked she told me she can't get her hope back this time. This is it. She doesn't feel she has anything more to live for. I'm shopping for a book for her. Something that might be uplifting. Not a book to read. I don't think she wants that. But something that might give her some hope."

"She used to love to shop," she mused. "She can't even do that. I don't even want to tell her I was here. It might make her miss things all the more."

"I think not," I said. "If shopping has been taken away then give her something else. Tell her what the new colors in the stores are, Tell her what you're seeing, what we're wearing and what we're doing as we come over here to shop."

"That's a good idea,," she said. "I'll have to go back to the stores and really look."She laughed. "That's just what she might like to hear about."

We got up to go off in opposite directions. I was headed for J. Crew. She went off on a search for a book, The hope she wanted to give her friend was in her voice as we said goodbye.

All told, our conversation was not especially long. It was a refreshing break. We came to shop but were fortunate to make time for more. Our visit helped each of us. Additionally, I believe, it went on to give some new assurance to her friend.

Our meeting was one part timing, one part opportunity, one part chosen fellowship. One part was Starbucks and that's a very big part. It's the part that let things begin.

Ro Giencke - February 10, 2012

Sugar Crow

2012-02-04T15:59:00.000-08:00

Wild birds can be aggressive warned the sign advising not to even think of feeding the birds that were thick around us.

We noted the sign as we took our hamburgers, ordered in the shops inside, to eat on the pier. Despite the wind off the bay tearing at us it was good to be in the fresh salt air.

Grackles and crows pressed in at the first appearance of food at our table. They didn't flinch when shooed away. They stood practically atop the paper wrappers cradling the meat on bun and toppings. They were without fear.

Our dismissal gestures served as a challenge. They came closer with each wave of the hand. Al stood up meaning business. This finally got their attention. Briefly. But they weren't going anywhere while something was to be had.

I could see where feeding the birds might count as an act of desperation. You hope to distract them with morsels thrown as far away as possible. You try to beat them at their own game. Your aim is to finish your meal before they come back for more.

You know, however, that doing so encourages the behavior. It isn't something you're going to do. We hunched over as if guarding treasure. We managed to protect our lunches from their encroachment.

We trusted heartburn wouldn't show up this particular day as we ate and retreated in record haste.

The pier we were visiting accommodates shops on the ground level. The topmost story has a restaurant and outdoor viewing platform. The restaurant has several tables with outdoor seating for those who prefer the open view.

Off to the side are the black plastic tubs for bussing the tables. Napkins and other supplies for this outdoor section of seating, such as the plastic containers holding salt and pepper packets, are kept there too.

As we stepped back from the viewing platform rail, having admired the city skyline from that landward side, a crow swooped past.

The dark shadow of its wings startled me. Cool as a jewelry thief it headed straight to the condiments container. The crow picked out a packet of sugar. It flew with it to land on the rail near the spot we had stood.

Expertly it poked open the sugar packet.. The beak made short work of the paper container. Only a peck or two was necessary to break through.

Sugar spilled from the packet. Granules of sugar blew in the wind. The crow got its share, enjoying the sweet treat.

The entire operation was so fast and slick we suspect it's been done before. The crow has become accustomed to a sugar high.

The crow seemed quite human caught in its sugar moment. We'll long remember the prowess, and liking for sugar, shown to us by the sugar crow.

Ro Giencke - February 4, 2012

Sea Grapes

2012-01-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

Sea grapes have become, along with coconut palms and the blue curling waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the idealization of Southwest Florida to me.

The pretty sea grape shrubs, which grow wild at the edge of the seashore, are tropical arbors delighting the eye. The distinctive foliage is set off by its light-gray wood.

The color of the slim trunk and branches can vary based on degree of sun and salt exposure. Sea grape branches twist in interesting shapes as if not sure how they should properly grow.

They frame sea views as you stand incredibly moved by the union of water, sky and sandy fringes. They block out the beach parking lots from which you've just come, finally managing to snag a space when the car lot is full.

They're the background for millions of vacation photos, the kind that are turned into screen savers or made into Christmas cards. If a picture is worth a thousand words a picture of white beach sand and sea grapes almost says it all.

Sea grapes are hardy. They handle wind and the strong gales that can buffet the coast. They're drought resistant. They're tolerant of salt which is important in their proximity to the ocean. They provide shelter and food to wildlife.

Like other native plants, including the sabal palmetto palm, the Florida state tree, they're protected under Florida law.

Their adaptive qualities make them popular in residential and commercial landscaping. The island road we travel could in fact be called Sea Grape Boulevard.

Homeowners use sea grapes as hedges along the Gulf. The shrubs function as lot lines and noise buffers for traffic. They add a seashore look to the neighborhoods, even those not directly on the water.

Sea grapes (also spelled seagrapes) are most attractive in their natural settings as we see it. My friend Rebecca is of the same mind.

She and I agree that sea grape leaves, which are variously described as round, circular, heart shaped and kidney shaped (and I throw in fan shaped) are attention worthy.

Sea grape leaves are broad. They're eight to ten inches wide. Variation in the color of the leaves makes them very picturesque.

In the winter months leaves can be copper, spicy gold, brown, red, pink, fiery orange and green freckled with red. These various colors, and shadings of colors, ripple in the sun for gorgeous effect.

The colored leaves may be new leaves replacing old foliage. They may be leaves getting ready to fall.

Sea grapes appear to have the same tendency as deciduous trees to shed leaves, based on the piles of leaves on the ground. Dry conditions are possibly stressing the leaves causing them to turn color more readily.

We don't have this part figured out yet. You can pick any guess. We wonder about so many things. All we can say is that in January the leaves are remarkably beautiful.

The fruit of the sea grape is edible and actually very tasty. The berries are in clusters like grapes (hence, I suppose, the name sea grape).

It's pointed out that sea grapes aren't grapes. They're not wild grapes either. Sea grapes are a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family.

The berries ripen through the summer turning red and purple as they mature. They can be made into jelly and wine. Rebecca was the one who told me about sea grape jelly. This was new to me.

She says it's hard to find sea grape jelly. She's been lucky occasionally. She mentions Southwest Florida International Airport as a place where she has bought it.

She likes to bring sea grape jelly home with her. It makes great gifts for those with whom she wants to share a taste of Florida.

I suggest to her that possibly she can buy sea grape jelly online. She brightens visibly at this.

Rebecca is my age. Our children can be relied on to use the internet like a shopping cart. They know what's there. They click and buy.

We're getting more comfortable with this concept. It still doesn't tend to be our primary shopping strategy. This is why I felt quite current to so casually toss out the idea. It sounded as if online purchasing is something done all the time.

Rebecca's interest in sea grape jelly passed to me. Some investigating was in order. Without even checking it's reasonably safe to assume sea grape jelly recipes can be found on the internet. Of more interest to me was a recipe from a local cookbook.

I was certain local bookstores, or the cookbook sections at libraries, would have church or community cookbooks with a sea grape jelly recipe in them.

It's always worked this way before. Old time methods of conserving and preserving are tucked away in lovingly compiled cookbooks sold as fundraisers by women's groups,community organizations and dedicated members of the congregation.

In the meantime I asked around. Was anyone familiar with sea grape jelly? Had they tasted it?

Almost all the answers were no. Several who grew up along this area of the Gulf had never heard of sea grape jelly.

The woman at the beach bookstore knew her inventory so well she could confidently advise me. I wouldn't find the recipe there she said. Sensing my disappointment she gave me some information.

She hasn't tasted this specialty jelly but she knows of it. Sea grape jelly is part of the workings of her community. The women's group picks the berries, cooks them and sells them.

It was neat hearing her tell this. It gave piquancy to the jelly which, for all I know, has no piquant taste at all. Perhaps it has just the sweetness of the mystery to it. Although Rebecca assures me the jelly is very good.

One person remembered sea grape jelly sold years ago at many of the fruit stands. They had sea grape jelly for sale then but not now I was told.

One woman, in Florida since the 1960s, had never seen sea grape jelly for sale but suggested visiting a fruit stand or asking the volunteers at the nearby park preserve.

I didn't do the first but I did find the park volunteers. One in the small group, busy that morning with an information program, knew just what I was asking about.

She even has a sea grape jelly recipe. She offered to share it with me. I thought Super. See how easy it can be. It shows up just like that.

I turned to help someone who needed assistance. It was important and it took a little while. When it was taken care of the docent group had dissolved, my sea grape jelly recipe lady along with them.

It makes me happy that this cherished recipe is in this person's home file. The jelly must have important association for her.

I was struck by the unhesitating way she was willing to give the recipe to a stranger. Not securing it at this opportunity, however, the search needed to go on.

Pulling a dozen books on Florida cookery off the shelves of the library, the quest for sea grape jelly came at last to successful conclusion.

Directions for Seagrape-Key Lime Jelly are printed on page 18 of Randy Wayne White's Gulf Cookbook (published 2008).

The cookbook comes with memories and photos of Sanibel Island which makes it more than a book of recipes, delightful as a cookbook is in its own right.

It's the kind of book every vacation time share unit, condo or cabin should have on its coffee table. It's a reminder of the ease of life that once was the mainstay of paradise locales like the Gulf.

There was less then but more. And it goes double for the way love was expressed through homemade cooking.

The sea grape recipe isn't included here. I've listed instead some of the titles from the Florida cookbooks gone through. I wish I had time for each one. Perhaps with this roster I can. (Titles include date of publication and author or publisher).

THE FLORIDA COOKBOOK (Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart, 2003)
SEMINOLE INDIAN RECIPES (Joyce La Fray, publisher, 1996) There wasn't a sea grape jelly recipe but two heritage recipes, sassafras jelly and ascerola cherry jelly, made me feel I was closing in on my search)
GULF COAST KITCHENS (Constance Snow, 2003)
A TASTE OF OLD FLORIDA (Florida Media, 2006)
SIMPLY FLORIDA (Florida Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences, 2007)
COUNTRY COOKIN' (Joyce La Fray, 1990)
FLORIDA'S BACKYARD (Carrie Hanna, 2002)
THE SUNSHINE STATE COOKBOOK (George S. Fichter, 1985, 2002)
BEST OF THE BEST FROM FLORIDA COOKBOOK Selected Recipes from Florida's Favorite Cookbooks (Quail Ridge Press, 2004)

Sea grapes were the inspiration for this story. Sea grape jelly was the start of the quest. Perhaps Rebecca's interest, which has become mine, will keep the jelly pot boiling.

It's a great pastime to appreciate local tastes. It goes from pastime to passion to write down and share our recipes, rituals and our times.

Ro Giencke - January 28, 2012

Dolphins, Ospreys and Fighting Crabs

2012-01-22T15:02:00.000-08:00

Walking the beach the other day there was commotion out from shore. Bottlenose dolphins were hunting fish.

Here weren't the playful antics applauded at marine parks. This was concentrated bullet- fast pursuit.

The dolphins weren't performing for treats or entertaining audiences in the stands. This was instinct. This was natural and living free.

Fish jumped and came down as the dolphins tore through the water. The fish could be clearly seen. They might have been in flight ahead of the predators or were the food at the end of the chase. We stood and watched and marveled.

The dolphins surfaced and dived. They barreled back and forth. The bathtub waters of the Gulf became aquatic theater. It was one of the recent interesting moments at the shore.

Bottlenose dolphins are the subject of a signboard at the next beach. Dolphins are in the Gulf of Mexico all year long but this isn't considered the season of best sightings. That's May, June and July.

Adult dolphins can eat up to thirty pounds of fish a day. The fish they commonly feed on are sea trout, mullet and snook. They find prey through echolocation, which might be described as sonar detection.

Later Al had a different kind of wildlife encounter. He was swung at by a blue crab on Sanibel Island.

The crab had been washed onto the beach. It was a live crab. Al, more curious about sea creatures that come with claws or fins than I happen to be, found this out.

It proved to be a pugilistic crab. This is maybe how crabs are and why we have the word crabby. It looked ready to deliver a quick undercut.

It struck a boxer's pose. It extended its claws. Its clamp would be hard. It glared at Al. It had no fear of this Goliath whose giant shadow was thrown across the sand.

A woman came along the beach. "That would make someone a good lunch," she said, which told us this was a crab you could eat.

Perhaps knowing you're always someone's possible dinner is enough to make even the mildest mannered crab cranky.

Florida at this time of year sees migrations of snowbirds in flip flops and wrinkled beach wear, as a letter to the editor in the local newspaper alluded to the annual influx.

While some look upon snowbirds as the ones to put the binoculars to the real interest should be the teeming bird life. Florida is a bird watcher's paradise.

We've not visited the places with the birds with bright plumage or had in our sight the familiar home birds who winter here.

We've seen plenty of white birds, many of which are new to us. We called them water birds but shore birds is a real classification into which many of the birds fit.

We recognize sandpipers, egrets, ibises and terns. There are others. They wade in ditches, at the edges of tidal marshes and along the seashore. They hop or pitch forward on long skinny legs.

Some have long sharp bills. Some speed through the beach shallows like skitterbugs. They make us laugh. They hurry to go nowhere - like many of us.

Ospreys are everywhere. We've become adept at spotting their nests. It's easy. Just look up. The nests are atop poles and high in trees. The nests, formed from sticks and other materials including seaweed, are built up over time. They get quite large. This is a sign the ospreys have been there awhile.

Al has his camera trained on a particular pair of ospreys. Their nest is near the pier. The father brings fish to the nest. At least once the mother has sent her mate and the fish away. In this instance he flew to the pier and made the fish his meal.

We have pictures of the pair together on their nest. They could be any hardworking couple with a few free moments to hang in each other's company on the front porch.

The most hilarious of the birds in appearance are the royal terns. We think we have their identity correct. Before we knew their name we called them the birds with the eyebrows in back. And such eyebrows. Groucho Marx comes to mind.

Perhaps it's the association with the bushy brows of the Hollywood funny guy that makes royal terns supremely comical to us.

Birds on the beach have made peace with the joggers, shell hunters, yoga classes on mats, bikers, dog walkers and sunbathers. They take human encroachment in stride.

They see the seashore as their sandy garden abloom with beach parasols. Beach picnickers are viewed as their pass to supper. Signs prohibit feeding wildlife but with birds, as with humans, where there's a will there is a way.

They brush off our presence as I did the biting insects which I now wish had been given a hearty swat. They caught me unaware at sunset where scrub and dune meets the beach.

A tern brooded in a nest of its own making on another beach visited by us. It rested in the sun-warm sand where shells lay thick.

Its weight pressed lightly into the shell detritus. It got up and moved before we reached the spot. A shallow contour, a slender imprint of its presence, remained in the sand where it had been.

Ro Giencke - January 22, 2012

Shellmania

2012-01-16T04:39:00.000-08:00

There's no scoffing among the initiated. This was my thought the other day as the intended morning walk on Sanibel Island faltered after only a few sandy strides.

Sizing up the busy beach it looked a feasible plan. Simply walk wherever the seashell hunters aren't congregated. Wide as the beach is, it should be easy enough to do.

Failure of plan was as unexpected as it was immediate. A seashell carried to shore came to rest on the wet sands near me. It demanded a look.

This is habit forming I thought as I bent down over the shell. Here I am already mimicking the Sanibel Stoop.

My hand went out toward the cute little colored scallop. The instinctive reaching gesture may have been a copycat gesture. It doesn't take long to follow suit on shell loving Sanibel. More probable there was a deeper response governing me.

Our family took several beach vacations when the kids were young. Some of the best vacations were on beaches like this. In fact some were on these very beaches - the lovely Gulf shores of Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel and Captiva islands.

We tracked white powdery sand into the car, poured it out of beach buckets brought half full to the parking lot and shook it out of wet swim suits and damp beach towels.

The collections of sea shells picked up on the sea side of the sand dunes inevitably came home in the car trunk as vacation souvenirs.

The seashells weren't thrown out once home. Or only once when the lot of them developed an unholy smell along the way.

Some of the shells were turned into landscape edging. They were put in discreet out-of-sight places in the yard. Seashell decor has a tendency to fight with with Midwest taste.

The more striking ones were added to the shells shown off in a woven basket in the bathroom. These shells provided the bathroom motif at our place for many years.

When we moved a few years ago the collection was close to being tossed, "We're starting over" was the reasoning. "Same with some of our stuff. It's time to move on."

Seashells picked up on family vacations do not release quickly we found out. The shells were gently transferred into a double-sacked paper bag and made the move with us.

They were set up in the new bathroom. They're a continuing reminder of family time spent in water and sun.

Beach trips faded as quickly as a September suntan once the kids got older. There were other places to see and other things to do. But there are places you don't forget.

Southwest Florida with its Gulf shoreline and warm winters present now with a different kind of appeal. Shelling, however, wasn't on our long list of things to do.

Shell discovery firmly in hand on that day of the beach walk I resumed my pace. Another interesting shell lay to the side. I scooped this up too. Soon I had several.

They were stacked in my hand, one neatly within the other. This way I could keep picking up without running out of holding capacity. It got trickier when the other hand was put to use as well.

My walk, hardly six steps into it, thoroughly broke down. Concentration was only for the new treasures the washes of the tides were bringing ashore.

The incoming water, eddying, surging and sucking, several times swirled over my sandals as I scoured the margins of the beach. This happened despite judging myself well clear of the incoming floods of water.

A couple times I had to fish my sandals out of the surf with my toes (both hands tied up with shells). The power of the sea was evidenced. It had enough strength to pull the sandals off my feet in mere inches of turbulent water.

Each new spill of water onto the sand had excitement with it. The seashells, rolled by the action of the waves onto the sand, glistened with wetness.

We hastened over. We pounced to the prize. The shells, perhaps never before seen by other eye, were ours to claim as first finders.

Visits to the Captiva Island and Ft. Myers Beach libraries gave chances to identify the shells which my husband and I found separately and together. (The Bailey-Mathews Shell Museum on Sanibel Island is another place to get informed but wasn't visited on this recent trip).

With the help of the library displays our seashells sorted themselves into names which thereupon facilitated our efforts to further differentiate between the various types.

Spreading our finds on a towel we could view them on a somewhat scientific level. They had become more than curiosities and beach time diversion.

We identify Florida fighting conchs, junonias, lightning whelks, tulip shells, coquinas, calico scallops and a dainty specimen charmingly called kitten's paw among our array.

The tulip shell and and conch specimens displayed in the libraries are my favorites. Our casual beach hunts have yielded more modest finds.

It makes small difference. As you stoop and ponder each shell you come upon each seashell is a discovery which somehow makes each shell special.

"My, you've got some pretty shells" a shore fisherman remarked as I ducked, with his permission, under his cast line. (It was either doing that or wading into the water or making a big sandy detour around him.)

I said something agreeable back, two people enjoying the fine day and beautiful setting. The comment about the shells stayed with me, however.

Pretty, as in shells, is in the eye of the holder even more than the beholder. Carrying my shells like precious cargo I felt like a mother with many children. You can find some quality in each that sets it apart. While each is perhaps ordinary as viewed by the world, each is unique because it's yours.

Al and I went along gathering a few more shells. We took in the sea breezes. We absorbed the freedom inherent in the complete ability to bar any thought other than the sensation of capitulation to uncontested outright enjoyment.

The great litter of shells scrunched under our feet as we sank into the shells with each forward step.

This, we knew, with a tact that doesn't require stating the obvious, is the relaxation we came for.

Ro Giencke - January 16, 2012

Jewel of the Coast

2012-01-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

We like to stop at public libraries as we travel. It's a continual appreciation of the services offered in the heart of our communities for the improvement of all.

These libraries, with wealth of information, diversity of resources, professional staff, comfortable seating, often good views, or perhaps a historic setting, add to the understanding and perception of the places visited. Whatever its size a good library makes you feel right at home.

Yesterday's library was on Pine Island (Florida). Talk about an open door policy. Doors were open on both the side and main entrances as we walked in. The equalizing nature of libraries seems to apply here in a special way. The outside, as we interpreted it, is put on the same footing as indoor space.

This idea is reinforced by the plantings around the library building. The different shrubs have identification markers. It's like an arboretum comes free with each library visit.

The Pine Island library was pleasantly busy. A patron new to the island was applying for a library card. Retirees read the local newspapers, a young woman studied in one corner and the book section for kids, as in most libraries, is a favorite place.

This obviously popular island library is fifty this year as incorporated within the Lee County library system. But the desire for access to books and information precedes that time.

These Gulf shore islands were previously served by book boat. (And if that isn't romantic what is?!). Volunteers later loaned out books before the present library system was up and running.

Another Lee County library we'd like to visit, but haven't so far, is at Ft. Myers Beach. In my books it gives the beautiful sandy beaches on which it's located a run for the money.

Others must think so too. The library is presently undergoing an expansion project which will make it even more a jewel of the coast.

Ft. Myers Beach library got its start in the mid 1950s. The first library was miniature in square feet if not in its aspirations. It was a tiny cottage.

It was so little that if more than five were inside one stepped out. Stories like this, learned while traveling, is what for me gives travel much of its appeal.

Ro Giencke - January 11, 2012

Peaceful Side of the Street

2012-01-01T16:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! Happy 2012! We're a dozen years into the new millennium which long ago lost the luster the start of a fresh batch of years brings. There's been a lot of water over the dam as you consider all that's happened since.

Yet in some ways, if you don't think too hard, it can seem just yesterday that 2000, with all its zeroes to challenge the computers, was ushered in.

Those millennial celebrations were watched on TV to huge audiences. I recall the relief as the lights stayed on, first in New Zealand and Sydney, and then west across the time zones as the new year eventually arrived on American shores.

This year has its own set of watchers but most of us aren't in that particular audience. We're not looking for the end of the world with 2012 but the start or continuation of better times.

Among those in the latter camp, perhaps, might be our neighbors. They lit off firecrackers at the stroke of twelve.

The salvo of salutes was a compact display. It was circumspect but with a distinct sense of merrymaking which pleased me.

This morning, the ground covered in white, it occurred to me that last night's falling snow possibly muffled the sound effects from down the street. Snow can act as a blotter giving a sense of quietness to even a New Year's Eve party scene.

Absorbing the picture today's white yard makes I caught movement in the tree boughs. A white feathery bird with wide wing span came out of nowhere to alight on a branch. My mind identified it as a snowy owl even though I don't think this area is in its range.

It gave the impression of being soft and feathery. It seemed such a creature of winter and snow.

It flew off before I could come to any further decision about the bird. I'll stick with it being an owl. I like to think it came to bring wisdom for the new year.

Maybe it was the peacefulness embodied in the strong confident flight of this unknown bird that caused the word peace to stand out in a story I read next.

I was skimming through the Parade supplement of our Sunday newspaper, dipping into articles here and there as you do when at your most leisurely. I was willing to stop when something sounded relevant. The article, "Up Your Gratitude," had that kind of promise to it.

The article was written by John Kralik, author of A Simple Act of Gratitude. The book, published in 2010 and now in paperback, tells about his year of writing thank-you notes. This ambitious project followed a resolve Kralik made in 2008 to write a thank you note to a different person every day.

That's 365 thank yous in one year - or even 366. (The year 2008, like this year of 2012, is a Leap Day year.) A thank you a day for a year is a lot of gratitude being expressed.

This is the line that caught my attention. Kralik writes, and I quote him, "I can say I keep learning that gratitude is a path to the peace we all seek."

I can't think of anything better than using this profound observation to shape our new year. Gratitude most certainly is a path to the peace each one of us, at some level, even perhaps hidden from us, hungers for.

Peace, in this upside down, topsy-turvy and beleaguered world, is too often regarded as an unobtainable goal, an impossibility or a dream. It will be if we don't each of us do what we can to steer the world to the peaceful side of the street.

If peace begins with each of us gratitude is an excellent place to begin. What are you thankful for? Who are you thankful for? See it. Say it. Write it.

When one begins to wonder when and how peace will ever come we can look at it as a personal investment. We do well to take it as our responsibility -not someone else's.

Peace begins inside, with gratitude and certainly with hope. We start with ourselves and work outward for peace to come.

Ro Giencke - January 1, 2012

Colorful times

2011-12-21T07:57:00.000-08:00

As one whose 4th grade idea of joy was a set of 64 Crayolas to open and have all for my own this fashion moment of neon colors and color block clothing closely parallels the experience.

The paper-wrapped Crayolas, with their sharp tips for bold strokes of color, tantalized with their expanded color range.

I would take them out of the box one by one just to read off each color and absorb the mystique its name evoked. I repeated the names, so much more interesting than just red or blue or green or yellow, as I recklessly blazed trails into new color land.

The collection encouraged me artistically and indulged my sense of playfulness, which an appreciation for color can engender.

Crayola art was as unlimited as one's imagination. If instructed by the teacher to color a picture I filled the page industriously. It was deeply and richly crayoned for handing in.

My Crayola school days are long in the past but the vivid wardrobe they seem to have portended has been growing and evolving through the years.

We who are color hounds instinctively reach for a punch of color to warm us up. For us color is the wow factor. It's what we gravitate toward to make us look and feel good.

As classic as muted and natural tones are (think camel and winter white), and as quintessential as black is, and also helpful to the clothing budget by being suitable for almost every situation, some of us prefer to opt for color whatever the occasion.

While clothing designers, stylists and fashion bloggers dictate, direct or sum up the fashion looks through the seasons (a/w and s/s/ in fashion parlance and don't forget cruise) my radar stays pretty consistently on the pieces I know for sure will make me happy.

Some of these items, truth be told, are bright enough they can be found in my closet without the light turned on.

I look at it like this. Each of us responds to color according to our own perspective. House exteriors, interior wall colors or home accessories are all ways we take a stand on color. Some of us like to be surrounded and drenched in vivid hues. Others find comfort in the quiet, more earth-based and natural colors.

What we choose to put around us is who we are. We can tell this by how we respond to a given room or certain well appointed furnishings. For color-sensitive types this holds true especially in what we like to wear.

Let me tell you about a friend. She'll remain forever anonymous because vivid colors, the shades I turn to as an oasis in a desert, are anathema to her.

She favors mossy greens and woodsy browns for her outfits. When I suggest an injection of - let's say - red she smiles politely. A gift of a spring green wool scarf actually caught her with her guard down. She took to its perkier shade of green.

Spring green scarf aside, she makes me (beside her as we walk along) look like one dressed for a circus in my exuberant pieces.Then she gets into her loud-colored car and makes a blindingly bright exit.

"Go figure" I say as I slide behind the wheel of our ho-hum gray car. We have a tendency to go gray when we buy cars. Gray is a neutral color which wears well on the road.

Gray colors don't look very interesting at the speed traps we've learned. We're yawned over as we sedately go by. And I would say that's a good thing.

As I swing into the traffic, turn lights blinking as I merge with the medley of vehicular colors, my black car coat gives me away as a suburban sort of gal intent on errands.

Underneath, however, sends a different message. An outfit of purple t-shirt, flame-colored pullover and dark blue denims says here's one who mixes purpose with poetry.

Color will always have a place for one whose fashion education is gained through Crayolas.

Ro Giencke - December 21. 2011

December Birthdays

2011-12-07T08:06:00.000-08:00

Blessings on December birthdays, celebration cakes aglow with candle flame,
Brightly affirming life in seasonal days shaped short and dark and cool.
Lit candles speak of hope through the passage of time,
They represent the reality of change allowing new hopes in.
As you blow out the candles on the old year, so do we with you.
Close your eyes and make your wish, and may everything good come true.

This is an eventful week. It holds special birthdays, one even today, with more this month to follow.

I love looking for birthday cards as a switch from the focus on getting the Christmas letters in the mail. By this time we're usually underway with the holiday cards. We're slow out of the gate this year but it will happen. Holiday clockwork has its own perfect motion. One generally gets to the proper place in time.

There was a small setback because I thought we had Christmas cards on hand. A few remaining Christmas cards were located when the search was actually conducted. But they lacked envelopes. There must have been some profound belief that a thorough straightening up at a future date would produce them.

The envelopes, over the ensuing year, very likely were found. By that time they wouldn't have been associated with the Christmas cards. They no doubt were used or put into the recycling bin (feeling virtuous as this mission was carried out). So it goes in a not quite - but still working at it - organized household.

Since my Christmas list is on track, and my birthday card list is almost so, there is time for some of the other preparations that make the weeks rushed but so lovely and right.

Holiday time notwithstanding, thank you to all December birthdays. Born in the season of hope, yours is a special light.

Ro Giencke - December 7, 2011

Twelfth Month

2011-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

The yard was white at bedtime last night. It was a quiet surprise. While watching To Catch A Thief (and pondering the cycle of fashion which refreshes looks for new generations of wearers - see red polka dot neck scarf Gregory Peck sports in the film, then flip forward fifty five years to the Fall 2011 style pages) it had begun gently to snow.

The dusting gives the first of December a clean sparkling note. A skim of new snow can look very inviting.

November was pleasant as entered into the weather books. The month ran five degrees above normal. Temperatures continued above average for a sixth straight month. Parkas remain in the back of the closet.

We've been encouraged to water trees and shrubbery before winter. Fall precipitation didn't occur. It's been a dry spell going back as far as this summer. One can wish regular replenishment for the ground and greenery. On the other hand the lovely sunny late fall days have been thoroughly enjoyed.

The grocery trip made yesterday took me on a local road that bisects wooded tracts of land. Fallen leaves have collected into random piles in the woods which are deeply leaf-strewn.

In their spiraling descent, or as determined by the scattering proclivities of our strong fall winds, the leaves have come to settle like drifts against the bases of tree trunks. Leaf drifts today. Snow drifts tomorrow. This was my thought as the woods with their autumn tones registered on me.

Today's light snow cover makes me glad for the moment of extra attention paid to the November woods.

It's time to look ahead to holiday baking and other seasonal preparations. Mexican wedding cakes and cranberry bread are favorites out of the oven at our house as the chill of the seasonal air descends on us.

Other yummy things get made too as the weeks fill with festivity. Ideas for treats for sharing have me checking the cupboard for requisite ingredients as a new grocery list takes shape.

Holiday Shopping goes in large letters at the top. It's not that the purpose of the list will be forgotten. It simply affirms to me that I'm putting down important stuff.

The sweetness of the season is in this list. Blended, stirred and baked as cookies, bars or bread, or as stovetop candy confections dropped by heaping spoonfuls onto yards of waxed paper, the tasty results speak for themselves.

Wrap the gifts, trim the tree, pass the plate of goodies. Listen to your heart's song as the carolers greet merrily. December, twelfth month, is here.

Mexican Wedding Cakes

1 cup butter, softened,
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chopped walnuts.

Form the dough (chilling dough in refrigerator helps with this first step) into small balls, about 1 inch in diameter. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes. Remove to cooling rack. While wedding cakes are still warm gently shake, a few at a time, in paper sack of powdered sugar. Repeat process later again when cool.

Ro Giencke - December 1, 2011

Good Morning Meditation at Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

Good morning new day!! The exclamation marks are all mine as, with the stealth of sunrise, you come bringing the strengths, vision and enjoyments which daily renew us.

Help me to tend wisely to the things given to do today. It's a busy time. Things get done by going at them one by one. It's like a countdown. Each specific task lines up after the one before and blends at length in another completed preparation. It's a good feeling with an energy all its own.

Thank you for our homes and communities. Thank you for the beautiful word homecoming. Thank you for lively expectation which feeds the desire to make festive. Bless the baking, cleaning, traveling, arriving. Bless those who await their loved ones. Bless all travelers. Bless the welcoming. Bless the gathering in.

Thank you wonderful Thanksgiving Day. Thank you as we prepare the gifts of the table. Thank you for Thanksgiving appetites and the folks who sit down to eat. Thank you for the stories that will be told and the stories that will be repeated.

Bless my family wherever we are. We scatter so far. Let the Thanksgiving table extend to include all who cannot pull their chairs in beside us this holiday.

Thank you for the laughter and the listening. Thank you for the memories that are the sweet dessert. Let us pause and quietly remember the ones not with us, by dint of loss, today. Tears are the unbidden guests for which a chair must also be found on Thanksgiving Day.

Thank you for dear friends in all the places I've found them. Sometimes they're the ones who found me and called me friend. Tenderly I count each by name. Places at the table are reserved for them if only they knew it.

They can't see the napkins folded or plates set out. But it's all right. It's something we all instinctively know, that we're invited to sit at many tables today as heads bow in gratitude.

Thanksgiving reminds us we are relational in spirit. We're made to care about each other. We're made to build each other up. We're made to not stand alone but to reach across divisions that are often simple misunderstandings that come with solutions if we allow it.

Let us do all we can to remove separation from out of our midst, if this difference of experiences should be the barrier. Let us strive toward trust, peace and friendly intentions. Certainly these qualities were at the first Thanksgiving feast. May the clasp of understanding be firm and gentle as we hold hands around our Thanksgiving tables.

It's a holiday to fill us through and through. We eat and find our hearts are replenished. Help us appreciate and respect resources used. The resources are of the earth - the food foremost - and also the resources of time. Time gives us a day, set aside from the others, to honor the harvest friendship tradition. We use our time to celebrate today in the same fitting fashion.

Thank you for the people in our lives who satisfy our hunger for acceptance, respect and kindness. Let us be truly thankful. Yes!! Let us be.

Good morning my thoughts. You formulate into expression like a friend who lights the way. You direct me to gratitude. You help me start this Thanksgiving Day.

Ro Giencke - November 22, 2011

Perfect Pause

2011-11-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

The newest Midwest Living is on the counter. It's on its way to my daughter. It's a joy to pass along good reading. With this magazine in particular there are recipes and articles to comment on. It's good to have folks who share your reading interests.

The article on St. Charles has been pointed out. Al and I enjoyed this old Missouri river town when we visited St. Louis last summer. The snowy scenes in the holiday story are far different from the warm August afternoon of our brick stroll through old town.

While there we called our daughter from one of the restaurants along the leafy and inviting sidewalks. We were at the outdoor terrace. It was an ideal spot.

Our seating was a fact we were celebrating, and you'll understand if like us you're not always ushered to the premiere spot. We sat back from the street but in position to see the action along it. She may remember St. Charles for the happy Sunday sounds of our voices as we visited with her.

The Little Hills Winery, covered in the December issue, struck a familiar chord. Little Hills is a name you see on signs in that part of town. It's a lovely name. It has a pleasant ring.

How can you not want to live in an area with the name Little Hills. The name promises green rises of land where the lift of river breeze saves you on a sultry day. Prominent slopes catching sun rays on crisp fall mornings come to mind. It's easy to picture venerable houses built on tiers of land with puffs of smoke curling from the chimneys.

The payoff in traveling is that any place once visited is yours. Regional magazines understand this and plan accordingly. They lay out places we can easily get to and explore and come back for more.

As I write a white utility truck is drilling in the opened manhole in our street. It's making such a racket. The drilling reminds me of my dental appointment. I count on it being a routine checkup. I don't want to exceed my twice yearly visit with the need for follow-up dental work. The noise outside has me keeping my fingers crossed. I want an appointment that ends with a free toothbrush and a grateful quick exit out the door.

Pleasant November weather continues. A couple cold days in the 30s are coming. (Well, winter in its entirety is coming if you want the whole perspective.) It's been a mild advance through the month.

Some plants appear unscathed by our light frosts. Hard freezes haven't happened. The black-eye susans in the front yard must sit in a colder spot. They've folded for the year.

A few maples in the otherwise bare neighborhood continue in full leaf. They shine like gold towers when the sun is on them. Their leaves may well be pasted on. Their lasting power is phenomenal.

I'm enjoying the days. They're get out and walk days if that's your preference. They're also perfect for cozy times inside. No apologies for not being outdoors are required.

I'm current with my magazine reading. It's too early for holiday shopping. Thanksgiving preparations aren't yet consuming me. Mid-November may be the perfect pause. All is well as the seasons go.

Ro Giencke - November 15, 2011

Home is the Country of the Heart

2011-11-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

It must be the influence of the season. It's a couple weeks to Thanksgiving and the December holidays are in the air. It's as explanatory as anything for why the words "home is the country of the heart" popped into my head just like that.

One minute the table was being cleared of the scattered newspaper sections. The next you know, the words lining up in my mind, I am diving for a pen.

The thought grabbed hold. I couldn't set it down. It has so much truth. It needs to keep going. It's the new heading for my web site. It puts into focus the aim of my writings.

The thousands of words already written have mirrored this concept all along without my quite recognizing it. Home is the country of the heart. This is the field, the thought tells me, in which my engines hum.

Thoughts come to all of us. Many are in the form of spontaneous advice or encouragement. We didn't even know what we're going to say until it's said. The right words and right thoughts show up because they come from a deep and caring place.

Unsolicited and freely appearing, either in conversation with others, or in quiet periods when our brain can pay attention, there's much wisdom to tap from others or our own selves.

This is an anniversary month for me when it comes to wisdom words. I first began writing down, on loose lined notepaper, compelling thoughts read or heard on TV or on the radio. My first entry is from 1986. It came from Glamour magazine.

"Listen to your inner voice," the article recommended. "Many experts on creativity believe that we're 'brainstorming' good ideas of all kinds (innovations for work, plans, gifts, decorating schemes, moneymaking ideas ...) all the time, but don't pay attention to them. Carry a notebook and jot down useful ideas as they occur. You'll see your creative self more clearly - a wonderful ego boost!"

It happens that I do carry a notebook with me. I like the comforting feel of pen in hand and the concept of pen and paper working together as a kind of team to keep me on track.

My notebook is more my mobile to-do list than anything. It's where what's needed from the store gets jotted down as I grab my handbag and head out the door at a run. On its tattered pages, slewing around in the depths of the purse, along with the eggs and milk reminders, are things to look up on the computer when I get home. Very occasionally something else gets noted down.

No brainstorms have arrived via the notebook as far as I can ascertain. This doesn't lessen its importance as a recorder of ideas. It's all part of training your mind to intercept, to use a football term, the ideas that show up unannounced. And most do come that way, no matter how much groundwork of thinking or preparation for the idea you've put into action.

Jotting down ideas - even if it's a note to match fuchsia scarf with your tweed jacket as seen on the person walking by - nudges your brain to observe and record useful information. Along with imagination, information is basic to harvesting the successes waiting to happen.

Profitable ideas don't need to materialize as dot-com enterprises. They can be, as with me, thoughts that make you smile or give a certain light to something or open a door to yet another thought.

Here are some thoughts recorded recently. Some come from other sources. A few are my own.

"Any small thing can save you" -title of book by Christina Adam read May 2011.

"Here's to getting lucky" -store sign at mall. I love the insouciance of this, especially as balance to catching my windblown image in the window glass on a blustery October afternoon.

"Life is better in a sweater." This is from The Limited, also seen at the mall. It's a favorite new thought. Life really is better in a sweater. They got that so right.

"Italian music even seems to understand where your heart is at the moment." This thought, which is mine as are the next three, came from a wonderful Italian restaurant complete with New York City ambience. I read the line and it's like the table is newly set to enjoy all over again.

"A good life is the cheerful adaptation of what comes along."

"Things have a way of being a little more interesting after you've had a little more experience."

"Happy times are meant to be shared." Happy start to the holidays everyone.

Ro Giencke - November 10, 2011

Dreams and Roots

2011-11-03T07:33:00.000-07:00

A Norwegian royal visit to this country last month put me in mind of my grandfather whose birthday is today. Royalty and roots - I weigh the concepts in my mind.

King Harald and Queen Sonja were in Minnesota in October as part of a Midwest tour preceding their visit to New York City. During their visit we learned that one in five Minnesotans has Norwegian in their background. This includes me through my grandfather.

As time passes, separating us further from our original homelands, our heritage can become of mild interest or not at all. Our cultural reality is the present day. We shape ourselves by our choices and interests as much as by the guiding environment that first forms us or the rituals of belonging to any certain group.

That said, an allegiance of sort ties us to places carried in our blood. Whether our ancestors fled for reasons of persecution, hunger, opposition to current authority or for opportunity of any kind including economic gain or plain simple adventure, some of their reasoning for starting over rides in our veins.

We continue to bring forth and bring out the realization of the hopes they brought to this country. Whether our immigrant forebears are a generation removed or as ancient as the land bridges from Asia we all come from somewhere. We're headed to dreams we call our own. These dreams are our preferences for the life we wish to lead. Nevertheless they proceed from what comes before.

Their majesties bring with them a renewed sense of the importance of ties. We keep and honor ties because of their value. It's a value based on no mere thing.Ties are stronger than the casual connection on which we base many of our relationships or loyalties these days. It implies an essential attitude of allegiance based perhaps on nothing more than respect and good will. This is enough.

My grandfather, born a year after his teenage mother came to this country, grew up American. Norwegian might have been spoken in the home in the first years. Norwegian traditions and foods went into the makeup of the ethnic community in which they lived. But all in that farm community had dreams. They put down roots so their dreams could flourish and the families born here could take new strength from the land.

Vision is passed along through the decades. It alters as it will and as we make it happen. Our part is to choose our dreams well. Our decisions will describe our future. We are wise to borrow from the past to build our dreams. Experience serves us well. In the testimony of those who've gone before it offers the abundance of hope.

When grandpa was born the farm neighbor women came to visit. Fruit soup, a Christmas Eve tradition and a gift to the sick (and new mothers it would seem), was brought. This old recipe, copied down, handed along and surely modified at some time, is below.

Fruit Soup

2 cups raisins
2 cups prune
1 cup dried apples
1 cup dried apricots
few slices lemon
pinch salt
cinnamon stick
5 cups water

Boil until fruit is tender. Add 3/4 cup sugar (to taste). Add 1/2 cup tapioca, some grape juice and 1 can mandarin oranges, drained, and cook until tapioca is tender. Remove cinnamon stick.

Ro Giencke - November 3, 2011

Red and Orange Extravaganza

2011-10-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Apples and pumpkins are a potent combination. They have a pull at this time of year which leads us, as if by instinct or some ancient ancestral longing, in search of nature's bounty in the beauty of the countryside.

Offered together in one big October extravaganza they make it sheer joy to drive beyond the city limits as you look to reap your own harvest of happy times.

The recent breezy sunny weekend was perfect for indulging in the annual fall ramble. The parking lot of the apple orchard - an apple farm across town not visited for many years - was the first giveaway of the popularity of a stop like this in the weeks before Halloween.

Young families with wind-nipped rosy cheeked toddlers were in the majority. They were transporting some of the tots by wagon. The wagons, with space to accommodate purchases when the time came, trundled over the uneven ground in an approximation of a bumpy hayride.

The smell of fried apple treats followed us up the hill through the apple trees. Apple fritters we said. Our knees, like our resolve, buckled under the temptation. It turns out it was apple doughnuts that had its hook in us, as confirmed by comments of others who had surrendered to the olfactory invitation.

An old apple storage barn caught our attention. We learned that the rustic barn is now called the theater. It is used for the school field trips that bring hundreds of elementary students to the apple orchards every fall.

The vintage barn with its wooden seating lets the children soak up the atmosphere of apple farming and a taste of apple lore - as well as samples of apples, as we ourselves had afterwards.

A grocery store visit can be different for students after their trip to the orchards. Apples in the store have an association and a background thanks to the orchard experience. The youngsters can better grasp food in the context of its journey from tree or field to table.

The understanding may only lightly sink in at the time. Even taken as it is - time out of class in a different setting - is enough to spark new concepts best taught on location.

The pumpkin alley lay beyond the orchards as we went further along. Pumpkins in all sizes and shapes composed various groupings as far as we could see. It made the hunt for pumpkins interesting.

The golden globes, from tiny to huge, and great numbers of them, weren't stacked neatly by size or weight. They weren't put together so that all it took was a cursory glance to make a decision. This would have been the easy way. Changing things up a bit, making you look if you wanted to play the game that way, was a lot more fun.

The pumpkins, distributed in various groupings along a cleared strip of ground, stretched to an adjacent cornfield.

You could walk to the end if you preferred. You could hold off on a selection until you were practically in the next county. Or you could choose from pumpkins set closer to the smell of the donuts, which many chose to do.

Watching folks wrestle their pumpkins back to the start point was interesting. The weightier pumpkins were lifted and lugged with maximum effort. Those with wagons had a decided advantage. Their pumpkins rolled out almost regally under wheeled escort.

Down in the corn maze all was warm among the shocks of corn. As we breasted the hill between the rows of laden apple trees, retracing our route to the apple store, the wind was more raw than bracing.

We looked forward to getting inside. Apple stores, with their apple operations onsite, tend to be cool places. Our jackets felt as good in there as outside but at least we were out of the brunt of the wind.

Past bottles of apple cider, stacked cartons of cookies, the department with the ready-made pies, a conveyer with a bobbling parade of apples claimed our attention from the glass domes of apple slice samples.

A viewing platform had us mounting the steps, which stairs get you you do if you're curious and want to see more.

It doesn't take being mechanical to stand quietly before a working conveyer. There's something admirable in its brisk efficiency. It's natural response to be at least momentarily held fast. A business at work with all systems running and the product in view is worth a glance.

Employees stood at intervals sorting or grading apples or whatever their responsibility was. The apples skating along in front of them are this year's crop. The 2011 harvest will bring health and hearty touches to fall snacks, meals and desserts. It's as satisfying a thought to chew upon as the apple bread set out on tables all wrapped and ready for purchase.

A visit to the apple orchard lets you be seasonal baker whether through the fresh or frozen pie you bring home or the apple recipes you're inspired to try. Our trip to the apple farm reminds me of an apple cake introduced by my sister-in-law which has been a family favorite ever since.

APPLESAUCE SPICE SQUARES

Mix together 1/2 cup butter, softened, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg and 1 tsp. vanilla. Add 2 cups flour, 2 tsp. baking soda, 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. cloves, 1/4. tsp. nutmeg. Stir in 1 1/2 cups applesauce. Add 1 cup chopped walnuts and 1 cup raisins (optional). Pour into greased 13 x 9 inch pan.

Bake 35 minutes or until golden brown on top in preheated 350 degree oven. Cool. Ice with penuche frosting, below.

EASY PENUCHE FROSTING

Melt 1/2 cup butter in saucepan. Add 1 cup brown sugar. Boil over low heat two minutes stirring constantly. Stir in 1/4 cup milk. Bring to a boil stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm. Gradually add 1 3/4 to 2 cups powdered sugar. Beat until right consistency to spread.

Ro Giencke - October 17, 2011

The Hero and the Hoop

2011-10-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

If you're not into earrings this story isn't for you. If accounts of resourceful endeavor are up your alley, however, you may want to hang on. We'll get to that part.

But first we start with earrings. I had my ears pierced after I became a mom. This puts me in the class of late starters as far as earrings are concerned.

I quickly made up for lost time. For years earrings were the most enjoyable part of shopping at the mall. My purchases also came from artisans at art fairs and venders in cruise ports. The silver dolphin earrings are from such a stop.

Mostly they were inexpensive pieces. Friends told of losing precious earrings - diamond or gold earrings which had been big occasion gifts. Besides the sentimental loss they were a cost to replace.

My tastes were more basic for the active life. When scrubbing toilets or washing dishes the sparkle you want to see is not the diamonds at your ears but the gleam of porcelain or the shine of dinnerware rinsed clean.

For a long time my earrings were sturdy and stayed on. They clicked into the post and were unshakable through all I put them. The first lost earring was a big deal. This kind of mishap was new to me.

It was an intricate filigree hoop. It was discovered missing with a glance in the mirror after returning from getting friends at the airport. Both earrings were on when I left the house. Where, I asked in dismay, could the earring have gone?

I retraced my steps through the house. I looked in the car. I dug into my purse. On hands and knees I felt under the hidden recesses of the bureau. There was the possibility the earring fell out right away and rolled out of sight.

No one commented that I was sporting one earring. In itself this isn't strange. We're often oblivious to details about each other. Preference in personal appearance is a subject largely left alone. This is a good thing until those times when it isn't. I'd have been wildly appreciative of someone pointing out the missing earring. The search would have started right there.

The lone earring was unfastened and dropped in a drawer. It was the first of now a number of earrings set aside in the slim chance their partners will be recovered.

Many of us have a place for our orphan earrings. They're the ones which resolutely stay attached while their mates go missing. Lost earrings are almost never found. In effect we build earring museums. Sometimes I come across the left-behinds. They remind me of the pleasure in wearing them when the earrings were a set.

For of course it's only favorite earrings that get lost. It's a rule of thumb among earring wearers to expect that the earrings which mean the most to you won't go the whole distance. Put on a so-so pair and you'll have them fifty years from now. They aren't going anywhere. But the earrings you love - ah! they're the ones that get away.

About a year ago I bought a pair of sparkly hoop earrings. They were modestly expensive. They were bling but I was ready for some bling. Diamonds ("diamond dust" the jewelry department salesperson told me) encircled the mid-size gold hoop. They had a beautiful gleam in the right light.

"Want to come with me?" Al asked one recent morning. The boating season is at its end and he wanted to try a nearby lake not visited before. Temperatures were mild. It made some lake time, while not planned, a great detour in the day. I threw on a denim jacket and joined him before the invite was out of his mouth.

The diamond earrings were surely shining as the sun beamed down on us. We circumnavigated the smallish lake in our rendition of a farewell tour.

A young woman in a canoe skimmed the waves near us. We exchanged greetings. The changing foliage as seen from the lake was pleasing on the eye. It was a relaxed last outing as we pulled into shore.

I stayed with the boat while Al went to get the truck. I crouched close to the metal post to which the boat was tied. Suddenly I heard ploof, a sound so small it sounded like a sigh. From the dock I looked down into the water. A bubble was rising to the surface on the water.

Some piece of grass must have fallen off the dock was my first thought, judging the tiny bubble that formed. Oh oh was the subsequent reaction. My hand went to my right ear. The earring was gone.

"My earring fell into the water!" were not words Al imagined he'd be hearing when he innocently came back to hook boat to boat trailer. The water, while not murky, was deep enough, and the water cool enough, that my impulse to look for it made no sense.

This pair of earrings had fast become a favorite. I put them on this morning not dreaming we would be boating. I'd never had an earring just fall out and sink into the water. It put a crimp on the boating excursion.

Earrings are earrings after all I said. I tried practicing a resigned shrug. But then it came to me. Al is inventive. Could we devise a scoop? With a scoop we could return to the lake. We could check the area where the earring fell in. The hoop was light. I reasoned it would have settled like a feather on the sandy bottom by the dock.

Al went to work making a screening gadget. After supper, and before it got dark, as storm clouds threatened in the west, we drove back to the lake. Our earring finder was in the back seat. It was a garden rake fixed up. A square section of wire mesh was wired to the teeth of the rake. The screen would sift the sand.

In the car trunk were the duck waders Al knew he would need. At the dock he pulled on the waders. Dressed in waders and wielding the rake he was a figure of curiosity for the occupants of the only other car in the parking lot.

He waded in, up to his chest in water by the time all was done. From the dock I gave suggestions for where my hero should try next. In his mesh screen he picked up small rocks of varying sizes and fragments of dark red glass. No lightweight circle of bling was found. After many attempts to locate the earring we gave up.

At some point in the day disappointment over the lost earring became the adventure of a plan to try to find it. Al was a good enough fellow to rig up a screening tool, don waders and take on the October waters because he knew the earring was important to me.

As we drove to the lake, not knowing whether the earring would stay lost or we'd get lucky, I was reminded of how easy it can be to give up on anything. Al's attitude of being agreeable to look for the earring, as long a shot as it was to find it, says something too.

His help with this told me there can be a changed net result, without the original thing changing an iota, when two work together on something.

Teamwork can be a definition of adventure. This kind of adventure comes when two or more decide to make something matter.

It wasn't the sparkly earrings that ultimately meant the most to me. It was the desire, and the effort put into it, to do our utmost to locate the earring. We worked from the oldest of principles. What is lost can be worth looking for.

Ro Giencke - October 14, 2011

Flame and Fire

2011-10-08T08:03:00.000-07:00

I crossed paths recently with a large gray squirrel. It was hightailing it across the street. The squirrel had nice bounds. Its form was good. But the series of springs over the pavement - paws set down and body arcing into the air for another leap - were as if filmed in slow motion.

"You've gotten heavy, pal" was my thought as it made the other side. We're noticing that squirrels are well padded this fall. They're packing noticeable poundage.

The squirrel was hobbled by more than weight issues. Its cheeks bulged. it was presumably in the middle of an acorn heist. It was hauling its booty to safety. All the way around it was being forced to clock a slower speed.

The litter of fallen leaves is in swirls and deep piles on the ground. In the dry weather the leaves seem to pulverize as they drop. Our yard still has an abundance of golden leaves mixed with green. The wider views, however, are opening up. Gracious distances, screened by summer's glory, stand revealed like a curtain pulled back on the months to come.

It's been several weeks of bright full sunshine and fall color. Some of the best color has been right around us. That doesn't stop us from checking out other places.

There are many pretty places of seasonal color at this time of year. It does good to go out and take in these larger areas. One can more appreciate nature for experiencing it in the fuller spectrum. The hills with their flame of color, and the color reflected in our blue lakes, can be viewed as our stored treasures towards winter just as the stash of acorns supplies the squirrel.

This is why we happened to be in Finlayson the other day. Finlayson is about a two-hour's drive north of the Cities. It wasn't where were were headed on this particular drive. I call it the serendipity of the road. Sometimes you wind up in places you're meant to be.

As signage started announcing Finlayson up ahead there was a flash of connection. Finlayson is where an elderly woman I visited, years ago and in another town, was born.

Let's call her Eva. Her real name was a pretty, old-fashioned name. I don't remember how we came to meet. There were regular visits over a period of about three years.

I often brought something homemade. It wasn't ever anything much - banana bread, a few cookies on a platter. She liked the slice of pumpkin pie I brought her. It pleased me that she enjoyed the simple gift so much.

On these visits Eva talked of her growing-up years. They sounded happy times. She put Finlayson on the map for me. I was not, otherwise, acquainted with that area of Minnesota.

She talked of the closeness of families. Relatives lived nearby, on farms I imagine, as it was a rural population. They got together frequently. Cousins grew up like best friends. She spoke of Christmastime and dances when she was older. She told of the Hinckley Fire, a to-this-day respected fire tornado which killed many area residents in 1894.

She was born after the awful fire. She referred to it as a child who hears the stories from her elders. She may have lost family members in the fire or neighbors or friends. Fire survivors, whom she would have known, with the memories of fear, flight and searing heat as the flames raced, provided an oral history for Hinckley and surrounding communities.

What is recalled specifically from these conversations with Eva has nothing to do with her girlhood. She innocently showed me something of herself which was an insight into human nature which was eye-opening to me.

She said she wasn't on good terms with another woman in the building. Perhaps, more forcibly, she said this person seemed to go out of the way to not be nice to her. Maybe the woman made a hurtful comment I remember thinking. Or it could be (trying to pinpoint the source of the apparently mutual ill will) that Eva felt snubbed in some manner.

"Wow," I breathed inwardly. "Ninety years old and you can still have your feelings hurt." Ninety was Eva's age. From our first meeting I was amazed at how active and engaged ninety can be based on Eva. That fact that relationships can fester among the elderly was a revelation to me.

I assumed that by ninety the slings of life would long be in the past. You've laid down the crutches and masks. You've put behind all the props and disguises for salvaging your pride or pressing your advantage. You've made peace with the obstacles strewn along the way, or by sheer will power have vanquished them. This ideal of ninety is easy to picture when ninety is far away.

Eva's perturbation at being at odds with this fellow high rise occupant brought home an important point. To some extent we forever wear our hearts on our sleeves.

Our feelings are major components of who we are. An intrusion into our equanimity can leave their scar, stain or mark however old we may be. Just as the Hinckley fire left lasting traces, our run-ins with other can have similar effect on us.

Eva didn't offer forgiveness or have a solution for making things better with this woman. In the honesty of her sharing she let me see the actuality of the hurt as felt by her. All this came to me as we entered Finlayson.

In this town which gave Eva her start my thought for her was the hope that peace eventually came between these two.

Ro Giencke - October 8, 2011

Leavetaking

2011-09-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

Gusty winds are a vigorous change maker after yesterday's ideal summerlike weather. This is the day we'll really lose the leaves.

So far it hasn't seemed many leaves have dropped. Our lawn contradicts the statement. The tree canopy, however, is still thick. It's on this fact that the impression stands.

The leaves fill the air as they spin to the ground. They're a symphony of yellow parachutes. Today has no room for doubt. Soon the woods will open up.

The fall color change, both around here and up north, where leaves typically turn earlier, is starting to take hold. Over the weekend we were in the maple hills of west central Minnesota. The orange maples were more bold splashes than a continuous blanket of color. It was sufficient bold display to satisfy us.

Crimson sumac and field grasses in their different tints added to the sense of the change of seasons. Lakes sparkled like diamonds in the low angle of September sun. There was a lake or slough with almost every rise or curve of the road. It's a well-watered area we commented.

Pelican Rapids was a stop as we headed to Maplewood State Park. This charming town puts me in mind of new London in central Minnesota, another destination getaway.

New London's charm, in turn, has been likened to a New England village. Hereby runs the chain of connection from the small Minnesota places to scenic counterparts back East.

At Pelican Rapids the Pelican River tumbles over a small dam. At the base of it is Pelican Pete. The pelican statue, which I think dates to the 1950s, is a beloved icon. It brings its own set of visitors.

Smaller pelican statues line the streets calling attention to local businesses. The pelicans - Pete and his cohorts - remind residents and visitors alike of the creativity and contentment engendered by small town life.

As I bowed into the wind, buffeted by its force as I walked quickly from car to grocery store this afternoon, the skies were dark. Clouds were a contrast of light and deep shades of gray. They were torn about as the wind pushed them along.

I bring the groceries into the house. It feels good to be in. Raking is for another day. Last weekend's color trip feels like perfect timing to me. I watch from the window the leaves get stripped away.

Ro Giencke - September 29, 2011

First day of Fall

2011-09-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

The day is starting out gorgeous. It's great to have sun back in the picture. It's been a string of cloudy days.

The start of the month was warm. The final part has run cooler. Today we'll be about right on target as far as average temperatures for this time of year. That's mid or upper 60s around here. Sunset this evening is 7:09. It's ever forward to winter.

September has been full. One can wonder how the third week can be here. But then I look at the notations on the calendar. Almost every day has had some kind of busyness attached.

Fall is not my favorite time. I appreciate, all the more, the serene or sensational weather which comes along, and less typically stays, in this third season.

The pleasant days are a reminder to enjoy the shorter daylight hours. It might be taking in the fresh air as one rakes leaves, shopping for antiques in small interesting towns or preparing a picnic drive with blanket along to spread your feast upon.

Wherever we are is a chance to enjoy the dazzling blue of September sky as given to us, and to find beauty in the color beginning to brighten the fall landscape.

As we steal moments to pay attention we help to make each day shine like a polished apple.

Ro Giencke - September 23, 2011

The Last Bloom of Summer

2011-09-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

It's absolutely cool when you sit down with a book you know nothing about and find it starts out in the same month you're now in. This is the case with No Fond Return of Love, a reissue of the 1961 novel by English author Barbara Pym.

The story begins at a weekend conference being held in rural Derbyshire. Dulcie Mainwaring, introduced to us right away, gets to thinking (as she settles for sleep in the iron bedstead of the rather cell-like room at the girl's boarding school where attendees are gathered) about her suburban garden full of dahlias and zinnias.

September is Dulcie's favorite month we learn. I think this is true for many. They're worn out by summer heat. September is bounty of plums and apples as Dulcie thinks about, and the loveliness of late season flowers, blue skies, the tang of lighter air and changes that come in seasonal activities. September has a number of folks sighing in relief and in peaceful remembrance.

The sentence about dahlias and zinnias jog my memory as well as reminding me that several friends look forward to fall. In a makeshift pile of papers which I intended, at the start of summer, to go through, is a small envelope with tightly folded sheets of paper. The handwriting goes back a long time as I unfold the pages to review what they have to say.

The contents of the envelope take me back to an interest shared years ago with my mom. The 1970s were a time of all things natural. Euell Gibbons and Adelle Davis, along with Prevention magazine's Bob Rodale, were proponents for healthy eating and healthy living. We found their books at our local library and incorporated some of their thoughts and recipes.

It was a time to be in touch with the earth and the living things from which we get our sustenance and have essential connection. This is when herbs became important to me, something written about before.

Making your own breakfast cereal like museli or Adelle's granola (whose recipe, in her book, mom and I made for years), and putting up your own jams and jellies (like the recipe for sumac jelly given me by a neighbor) were the new hobbies.

"The Last Bloom of Summer" is in red marker at the top of the first sheet in the envelope. As I glance through this page, and the second, they prove to be directions for making potpourris. There were many recipes for potpourris in those years. Potpourris were part of the appreciation and preservation movement that defined the era.

"Potpourri is that happy blend of color, fragrance and design that captures the essence of summer, and promises with each savored scent, to release summer sunshine through winter's long sleep."

Whether this is a quote from some magazine or book, or my own introduction to the potpourri directions that follow, I have no idea these several years later. It sounds like my writing. I can almost see my head bent over paper and the intent to put important things down.

Potpourri-making is quite easy. Start with a large wide-mouth glass jar. (We used washed-out peanut butter jars which were the right size for holding the mixture.) In the storage container place 2 cups flower petals. Add 2 scant teaspoons crushed or ground orris root. (This helps to preserves the potpourri by retarding evaporation of volatile oils.) Stir in 2 teaspoons crushed or ground spices. Add a few drops, a drop at a time, of aromatic oil.

Seal and store for six weeks to allow the various fragrances to mix. Shake the mixture every few days. After six weeks you may divide the mixture to make individual potpourris or as bath sachets or herb cushions.

In the envelope, along with The Last Bloom of Summer notations, are a pair of folded half-sheets of notepaper. They are directions for potpourris which mom had written down for me. They date from this same period of potpourri interest.

Lavender Potpourri (from mom)

3 cups lavender flowers
2 tablespoons dried lemon peel (see note above for drying citrus peelings)
2 tablespoons dried sweet basil
2 tablespoons dried rosemary
4 tablespoons orris root
4 tablespoons dried spearmint leaves
1 teaspoon benzoic acid powder
6 drops oil of lavender

Combine all ingredients but the oil. Add the oil a drop at a time, tossing as you add. Seal in dark dry warm place for 6 weeks - shake often.

Rose Potpourri (from mom)

8 oz. dried rose petals
4 oz. granular orris root
1 oz. ground cloves
2 oz. granular patchouli
2 oz. benzoin (broken up)
2 oz. geranium leaves

Mix all ingredients and let them blend for some time

Suggestions for potpourris (from the list found in the envelope)

flowers: aster, baby's breath, calendula, cornflower, garden violet, goldenrod, hollyhock, larkspur, lavender, lily of the valley, nasturtium, pansy, peppermint, rose, rose geranium, stock, tiger lily, wild daisy, zinnia

leaves: basil, bay, garden violet, lavender, mint, rose, rose geranium, rosemary, sage, sweet marjoram, thyme

fixatives: gum benzoin, orris root, patchouli oil, sandalwood

spices: allspice, caraway, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, ginger, mace, nutmeg

miscellaneous: anise seed, coriander seed, lemon or orange peel (dry the citrus peelings and coat with a powdered fixative before adding), pine needles, rosebuds

aromatic oils: caraway, carnation, dill, gardenia, honeysuckle, lemon, lilac, lily of the valley, orange blossom, patchouli, peppermint, rose attar, rosemary

Finding the potpourri directions (The Last Bloom of Summer) was surprisingly like uncapping a jar of preserved rose petals. The fragrance of summer blooms, obviously not detectable as the notes were extracted from the long put-away envelope, still seems to reach me.

I'm revived by them just as autumn can revive a person after summer. They awake memory. My mom's hand, and my additional directions, didn't preserve actual blooms. They were able to retain, instead, the sense of the old good times as they were.

As the final note indicates, "if you keep your potpourri in a tightly stoppered jar and open sparingly, the fragrance can last for years."

Ro Giencke - September 13, 2011

Gamely

2011-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

Evening baseball at Target Field is cool. Ballpark temperatures last night were not. The sticky heat is actually a bonus, I thought, as I happily wandered the concourse with my husband prior to the game.

At the time we were on the prowl for food. Getting to the park early, shuttled there by one of the convenient Express buses, and having a bite to eat onsite before finding your seats, is part of the package deal for many of us.

"This is great," I thought. "It's real summer baseball." The light wrap brought along was obviously not going to be needed. There was no reason to reach for a sweater, which is often appreciated when temperatures drop with sundown this close to September.

The sun slid away, leaving shadow in the stands. A plane flew overhead. It diverted my attention from the game, going badly for the Twins. It was 4-0 in the first inning. The Baltimore Orioles were taking a decisive lead.

"This is the same as last time we were here," we groaned. We slumped back in numbed silence. We're having sheer bad luck in our choices of games to attend. Absence of victory when we go explains why it's been awhile since our last game.

Following the slim line of the plane out of sight I commented on how neat to be on that plane right now. It must be awesome to peer out your window and realize you're looking directly down into a night baseball game.

From your window seat the action is briefly all yours. It's ball under the night lights. You likely have the rush of one who gets in through the gates for free. The playing field is green and manicured for the precision moves which wins depend upon. In the stands there appears to be a sea of navy and red. Ah, the faithful fans!

Navy and red, the colors of the Twins team, are worn by many fans, generally as tee-shirts with player numbers on them. Little kids come with their Twins baseball caps. You look around and there's someone you recognize. Then it sinks in. It's the #7 or #33 or #41, numbers widely seen on fan jerseys, that gives a block party feel to the parade of humanity around you.

As the game went on there wasn't much to cheer about. Lester Oliveros, the new guy traded for Delmon Young, proved to have solid stuff in his pitching. There was a double play or two which we spontaneously applauded (needing no help from the electronic prompters). Closer Joe Nathan came in and competently closed down the 8th inning. That was about it.

Fortunately a losing effort at the ballpark can be recompensed to some degree by other things. The three-ring circus, once Barnum & Bailey's domain, has moved to the modern ball game. Fan favorites like Circle Me Bert perk up the crowd. We rally at the cheerful (and loud) promotional and advertising fill-ins. It makes me surmise that fans aren't so much fickle as starved for any feel-good emotion they can get.

The highlight of the game for me was having my picture taken with Tony Oliva. It'll take someone else to explain who he is. I'm unsure as to his position on the Twins staff. But if you're a Minnesota Twins fan he needs no introduction.

I'll call him a goodwill ambassador for our team. He's unbeatable in his courtesy, his integrity, his accessibility and for his undisputed place at the heart of the Twins franchise since its beginning years in Minnesota.

The Twins arrived here when I was a youngster. Neighborhood pals Jim and Bill were wild about the new team from Washington D.C. They were the Senators there. Here they were our Minnesota Twins. They took their name from the twin cities of St. Paul (state capital) and Minneapolis (largest city).

The two brothers talked a lot about the Twins. My siblings and I got acquainted with the new team through them. Foremost in their adulation, as I recall, was Harmon Killebrew. (The Hall of Famer died of esophageal cancer this past May.)

We came to know Jim Kaat, Earl Battey, Bob Allison, Camille Pascual. And then, later, there was this rookie by the name of Tony Oliva.

Tony O he was affectionately called. Whether the nickname was given him by the press, or this is how the neighbor boys referred to him, it's by this pleasing moniker that I think of him. They were all heroes of Metropolitan Stadium, the Twins field at Bloomington, the largest suburb.

It's possible these two brothers never attended a Twins game. We certainly didn't. My first game was at the Metrodome. This was well after it was built.

Folks didn't travel much out of their area then. Not even for a baseball game when you lived that far away.

Radio was best friend to fans from a distance. Announcers, describing every play vividly and in detail, and with consummate zest for the game, were about as important as the players to the legions of baseball radio listeners. Baseball was on TV but it wasn't the means by which those we knew kept track of the scores.

The Minnesota Twins bridged differences between the small town/rural experience and the metro region. It brought us all closer at a time when the interstate system had yet to be built. The baseball team helped form a new Upper Midwest alliance. This entity had less to do with geography than with pride through the power of sports.

I didn't think of any of this as Tony Oliva gamely posed with me, as he did with others, all basking in his greatness as we stood alongside him for that one quick shot. But it's there in my smile. And awareness of his part in establishing Twins Territory, I believe, is there in his kind eyes.

Ro Giencke - August 24, 2011

Serenading St. Louis

2011-08-19T19:51:00.001-07:00

We got back from St. Louis to lovely late sunshine over the Twin Cities. The neighborhood was deep in restful shade by the time we pulled into our yard.

It was the end of a good road trip. We even managed to stay off interstates most of the time which is quite a feat considering the desire to get to places directly.

For this vacation we deliberately chose a slower pace. We opted for winding roads with colorful byway signage. We passed through towns held together by nothing more than quirky names. It made us speculate on how places come to be called.

There are towns we found a route to simply because, looking at the map, one of us liked the sound of the name. Blooming Prairie, Rose Creek, Coralville, Muscatine and Nauvoo are among the tracked down locations. This doesn’t get to Missouri where pert and peculiar names go with the wide-skied prairies and Ozark scenery. If there’s music in the name, and poetry in the image of the name, this is enough for us to seek off the main highway.

Vacationing in St. Louis felt both new and old. We visited several years ago. The present trip was an undertaking to properly finish what was missed the first time.

Specifically we wanted to visit historic St. Charles. American explorers Lewis and Clark began the arduous expedition to the West from this rivertown settlement in May 1804.

The St. Charles historic district has handsome brick buildings which house shops and restaurants. It's a reasonable comparison to call St. Charles the Williamsburg of the West.

Another idea prompting the trip was appetite for some serious St. Louis dining. We wanted to dine at more of the excellent restaurants we came upon the first time.

It also was a chance to revisit Forest Park and do it thoroughly.The 1904 World’s Fair site offers a host of recreational and cultural choices after the obligatory stop at the Jefferson Arch and St. Louis Riverfront.

The city and surrounding area have many other places of interest. Hotels have brochures and maps if your planning is as spontaneous as ours can be.

Numerous attractions make St. Louis quite removed from the Gateway to the West it was in early days. In the fur trade era, and succeeding decades of westward expansion, it was a starting point. Today it’s a magnet drawing people in. We come, many of us, over road systems which lie atop or approximate the routes of the original pioneer trails that once led out from St. Louis to the Missouri and Platte Rivers and beyond.

We packed expecting St. Louis to be hot. Missouri can sizzle in the summer. August can be the steamiest month of all.

As it turned out a cool front rode into town with us. A dew point of 60 is considered fall-like there. The weather was pleasant throughout our stay if not exactly autumnal by our standards.

Two outdoor evening concerts along the way were bonuses. This is so often how it is. What you don’t plan for, but stumble serendipitously into, emerge as favorites among things done and enjoyed.

The concerts, one night apart, coincided with full moon. The rising full moon made the settings – historic Nauvoo on the Mississippi River in Illinois, the second concert along the Missouri River in Missouri - quite remarkable. The rivers, each with their own lore and mystique, rippled nearby, with strong currents to them, in the silvery moonlight.

At Nauvoo we were entertained by Synthesis, a jazz ensemble from Brigham Young University. The energy of the young musicians is amazing. Electric is the best way to describe the performance. It was the vitality of students wrapping up their summer with perhaps the best presentation of the season. They were off for home at 6:30 the next morning.

We came home through Missouri wine country. The fruitful hills, on the Missouri River as you head west from St. Louis, support a series of vineyards and destination towns.

Defiance, Augusta, Washington, Marthasville and Hermann all have their charms as well as providing services for bikers and hikers on the adjacent Katy Trail. The trail, known as Katy Trail State Park, is the longest developed rail-to-trail corridor in the United States.

Along with signs for wine tasting, and Katy Trail trailheads, Highway 94 is lined with Lewis and Clark markers. The road keeps close to the course of the river traveled by the explorers setting out to investigate the great uncharted territory which lay to the West.

One roadside sign indicates how much the Missouri River has changed since Lewis and Clark embarked on these waters. Proximity of bluffs to the present channel, the presence of wooded islets, even the very width of the river, is profoundly different from when the exploring party navigated the river.

Missouri crickets definitely have a Southern voice. Their booming choruses were the synthesis as well as personal backdrop to the enjoyment of our St. Louis getaway.

Ro Giencke - August 19, 2011

Eleventh of August

2011-08-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

We've stepped aside from the heat of July. The change is considered providential by most. Morning shadows reach later into the day. Temperatures cool after supper as quickening dusk sets a pace leading to fall.

August reminds you to enjoy each summer day as it comes along. With that in mind Al went fishing today. Yesterday I took a long country drive with a friend. We enjoyed the farm fields and sparkling lakes and maybe most of all the clean blue skies overhead.

We came to the conclusion that small towns are made for August. They catch the restful gait of late summer in their leafy residential streets, kids biking down sidewalks and pretty flowers fronting well-tended yards.

These towns of modest populations have it figured out. They have an understanding that time is a commodity to use well. There's time in an August day to sit on the porch watching the cars go by, or to play ball in the park which is the pride of small towns and rightfully so. The compact little communities we went through caused us to propose that everyone stands to benefit from spending some August time in America's home towns.

The black-eyed susans at our mailbox look every bit as cheerful as the blooms noticed on the drive. The sunny patch is a friendly grouping transplanted from the back yard to a more showy presence at the curb. It's nice to think they may register as pleasantly on those who come along as on us when we were the passersby.

The letter carrier pulls up his truck to the flower bed every afternoon. His route must go past so many interesting lawns. He picks up impressions of our places as readily as he picks up mail put out for him and all becomes part of his day.

A piece of mail recently left for us was fun to open. Our former neighbor is getting married this fall. We've known this young man all his life. He was a baby brought home as the firstborn to the neighbors next door.

We watched him grow up. He trick or treated at our Halloween door, fiercely drove basketballs to the hoop in their driveway, went off to grade school, got his first job, driver's license, graduated and headed to college. We were, in a neighborly way, part of those formative years. We wish the young couple well.

The moon, full on Saturday, has been beautiful this week. It reflects in the pond behind us. There must be a gap in the thick foliage of the tall trees. The moon spills through this hole. The pond, with the moonshine upon it, strikes me as a skating rink lit up for night skaters to use.

We were at the Arboretum the other day. Late summer flowers boil with color. I have an affinity for the burning reds, oranges and yellows of the season. They're certainly August colors - Leo colors in terms of the zodiac.

At a distance from the seasonal flower beds, with their fiery colors like the August sun, a grouping of plants in shades of lavender and deep purple seemingly sinks the mercury by several degrees. This arrangement - a contrast to the salvias, coxcombs and zinnas - has a nuanced beauty which is captivating. Someday I'd like to have gardens like both of these.

The herb section at the Arboretum is never hurried through but savored as I bend to touch the scented leaves and feel the imprint of their essence.

The lemon thyme with its white flowers caught my eye. I was reminded of a recipe in my files for a cake made with thyme. I made the recipe one fall when the recipe was new to me. It was very good. It was commented on. I'm not sure why it wasn't made again. Maybe now I will.

Lemon Thyme Tea Cake

Mix together 1 3-ounce package cream cheese and 3 tablespoons butter, softened. Add 2/3 cup granulated sugar, 1 egg, 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 cup milk, 1 tablespoon snipped fresh lemon thyme and 1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel.

Pour into a greased round cake pan. Bake 25 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. While still warm drizzle with glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar and enough lemon juice or milk (about 1 teaspoon) to drizzle.

Ro Giencke - August 11, 2011

Blueberry Days

2011-08-01T05:22:00.000-07:00

The first day back from seeing my folks was a continuation of the pleasant weather enjoyed with them. The visit had been relaxed days of time together and plenty of swimming and fishing for the kids and playing with their cousins who lived nearby.

When you return home after a period of being away, and there are children with hollow legs in the midst of growing spurts, the first thing is almost always a big run to the grocery store.

You're essentially out of staples - the items you use every day and sometimes often through the day. The refrigerator is allowed to go bare as you plan your time away. You come back to shelves without milk. Gaps in the cupboard indicate where favorite cereals should be. You've forgotten what an excellent job was done of using things up before you left.

This is how it was for me that August forenoon several years ago. A trip to the grocery store (possibly even before tackling the vacation laundry) was mandatory.

My two kids walked alongside the grocery cart, or took turns pushing it, as I worked off a lengthy list. There were only minor heel scrapes if I happened to get ahead of the cart as they trundled it generally beside me.

Our usual track led from the produce section to meat and dairy and so on, but the first stop was always a foray into the bright and healthy rainbow of colors of beautifully presented fruits and vegetables.

The Michigan blueberries in their section looked so good. The deep blue color was a refreshing sight after the hot walk across the store parking lot. You could feel the cool waters of Lake Michigan in these Midwest blueberries stacked within range of the carts trawling the berry displays.

As I put my selection of blueberries in our cart a light went on in me. Prior to vacation I clipped a recipe for blueberry pie. The name of the pie hooked me. Five minute blueberry pie - it sounded a miracle.

To make blueberry pie this speedily was a dream come true for this gal who seldom makes pies and doesn't touch the oven dial in the warm season at all.

The recipe was from some magazine. It didn't call for much more than blueberries, sugar and cinnamon. The pie is made in the microwave and takes exactly five minutes.

As we moved along, a slow procession past the grapes, peaches and bananas and lettuce, carrots and avocados, my mind was on the pie to come. It hardly gets better than August and blueberry pie.

We ran down a prepared graham cracker crust for the pie in the baking aisle. Plans for the pie made pleasant visual images as we pulled into our cul de sac with bags of groceries to unload.

Getting right down to business the blueberries went into the colander to rinse under running water. Water, meanwhile, was put on to boil. This was for the Kraft dinner which was going to be our lunch. It was getting to be that time.

The big mixing bowl came out of its Pyrex nest (I still have the set but the handy smaller bowl has been broken). The bowl, with its Spring Blossom Green pattern, was the workhorse of the kitchen. On top of its practical size, so good for making chocolate chip cookies and beating cake batter, it was microwave safe which doubled its usability.

I remembered to step to the stove and add the packaged elbow macaroni to the now-boiling water. Juggling a dozen things was so easy. I managed to turn out a pie and call the kids to the table almost simultaneously. It was my five minute scheduling masterpiece.

The blueberry pie has been made many times since then. It's almost always made in August as a sort of commemorating the month it got its start with us.

A wisp of recall is served up with each appearance of the family-famous blueberry pie. Windows are open to August breezes. Nicer even than that, two barefoot kids in shorts and t-shirts, treated to a taste of the cooled blueberry pie, flash me their blueberry grins.

The day and year are noted at the top of the pie recipe. I hardly have to consult the recipe anymore except for the friendly sense of reuniting with this earlier time. Dating something makes it somewhat a time capsule. It's fun to think how long we have some things.

Five Minute Blueberry Pie

In large bowl combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1/4 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 cup water. Cook on HIGH 2 minutes or until mixture boils 1 minute. Mixture should be thick; stir.

Stir in 2 pints fresh rinsed blueberries. Cook on HIGH 3 minutes, stirring once. Pour into 9" prepared graham cracker crust.

Ro Giencke - August 1, 2011

Benched

2011-07-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Late July is a favorite time. I can back it up a bit and say all of spring and summertime fit this category. Late July, however, has an unrushed quality that is especially alluring. It's simply a beautiful time of steadiness and fullness in nature. I like that.

Al and I have been out enjoying the fine warm days and things to do. The other day we were at a coffee shop near one of the city lakes. Within sight of us, across the park boulevard, was a ball field, backstop and bench.

"That's a great summer scene," I commented, pointing particularly to the bench. I'm always on the lookout for benches.

The plentiful placement of benches in any given location practically guarantees a welcoming spot. Benches invite. They graciously permit you to sit and rest and enjoy - and please take all the time you want, they seem to urge. My approval for any park goes up whenever a generous sprinkling of benches is part of its plan.

My husband surveyed the ball field. He had a doubtful expression. He was trying to ascertain what I was talking about. He's learned my idea of things can differ from his.

"It would be a summer scene if someone was playing baseball. It's empty" - added as if he thought I might have missed that key element. "If someone was actually playing ball, then you'd have a summer scene. The ball players are missing."

His lack of agreement was no surprise. He and I can sum up, in dissimilar terms, the reality we see.

"It's empty but it's still a summer scene." I held to my position. "The bench is just waiting for someone to come along and use it. The place being empty doesn't make it any less a summer scene."

We lingered long enough that we were able to watch a young man in long-sleeve dress shirt (from some nearby office no doubt) go into the coffee shop and come out again. He carried his purchase, a prepared sandwich, which obviously was his choice for lunch.

He crossed the road to the shady green space bordering the lake. "He's going to the bench to eat it," I guessed.

Al had an alternate destination for the young man. "He's going to eat the sandwich by the lake," he said.

The fellow did seem to have the lake in mind. He wasn't angling close enough to be making towards the bench. It was disappointing when I felt so certain the bench is where he would go. I gave Al his due - he appeared to have plotted the course correctly.

Perhaps the hungry office worker had a change of mind. All of a sudden he slowed, did a kind of half-turn and proceeded to the bench, seating himself squarely upon it in the midday sun.

The bench received the occupant as if patiently expecting him. The summer scene, in all details, made a pleasing impression as we got up to leave.

Ro Giencke - July 26, 2011

No-Bake Brownies: Summer Remedy

2011-07-23T12:55:00.000-07:00

I looked up the meaning of antidote as a first step. Antidote is a word that's been going through my head lately.

Remedy is a word listed when I checked out antidote. It's not the first explanation but it's the one that suits my meaning best.

Remedy is a good word. When we're in a really tough place a remedy bails us out. A remedy can put us on the right track. It can get us well. It can resolve conflicts and problems. There's tremendous power in the simplicity of the word. It gives promise to any situation.

This striving, contentious world is in sore need of an antidote to its troubles. That's why the word has been hanging out with me. There has to be a remedy for what ails so many areas of our living. Something is needed to counterbalance the confusion of strange situations everywhere.

It's wishful thinking to imagine remedies are as easy to come upon as dandelions in the yard in the spring. In truth it's you and me who are the remedies.

It's our brains, our good will and our determination which we combine to address the different needs. Mutual effort and willingness to work together are essential to solve the messes, heal the hurting and make everything okay.

Remedies are so often tied with our opinions. They're part and parcel of the politics we embrace. How we see things is how we're apt to pitch our remedy upon the world. We regard our remedy as merchandisers do who sell women's pantyhose. One size fits all we can mistakenly believe. It's never that easy and not with pantyhose either.

To be remedy people we have to look around. We do what we can. We start with concern for children or housing or parks. Our accomplishments can seem so paltry stacked against all that requires to be done.

Maybe that's why those of us who still read newspapers find respite in the sports pages. The sports section is escape and reprieve and also inspiration and hope. The pressing issues are on the other side of the paper for the brief time we consume the sports news.

Hobbies, certain activities, friendships and travel are other means of putting distance from the daily grind or the harder things that weigh us down. They act as an antidote to all we take in. They counterbalance the prosaic or sterner edges of life. They soften or realign the reality that each of us deals with.

When a national budget compromise seems an impossibility, when heat index talk wilts you further, when your work project is red-flagged for lack of funding, or anything else that challenges your equanimity, if only in a slight degree, an antidote can be extremely helpful.

The remedy is whatever you make it be. You get to create your own satisfactory balance. You are free to smooth out and create anything away from the circumstances over which you have no control.

Making something in the kitchen is a no-fail remedy for me. Even if the recipe itself fails from time to time there's pleasure in the food preparation process. You make some order out of the ingredients you choose.You do something and present a result.

For me it's never anything fancy. That's why it probably works so well. The only stipulation is that it's relaxing and real. The easy recipe below fits the bill. It takes mere minutes and there's little clean-up. It's a great antidote to the present widespread summer heat.

No-Bake Brownies

In saucepan cook over low heat till mixture is smooth 2/3 cup evaporated milk and 1 -12 oz. package chocolate chips. Remove from heat and add 3 c. graham cracker crumbs and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. Spread in greased 8 x 8" square pan. Refrigerate till firm. Cut into squares.

Ro Giencke - July 22, 2011

Heat in the Bushes

2011-07-13T16:59:00.001-07:00

Sunday was blistering hot. Blistering as in what happens to the skin where the sunscreen doesn't reach. It was well into the 90s. We're starting to expect it of this summer once it has established its position as a latecomer.

That evening I happened to look out the window. A rabbit lay for all the world dead on the ground some distance from the house.

It was stretched out looking horribly lifeless. Its long skinny legs were stiffly pointed this way. It was facing the bushes as if hightailing it to shelter before it went down. "Heat," I fumed. "I bet the temperatures did it in. Poor thing."

"Or wait! Another idea occurred. "Could some neighborhood dog have chased it and wounded it and the bunny ran with its fatal injury to this very spot to expire? How very sad."

The furry body would have to be disposed of. It was too uncomfortably warm to think about doing the responsible thing immediately. The bunny had possibly been there awhile. It wasn't going to be going anywhere. In the cool of dusk, that barely imperceptible lightening of the heavy air by a degree or two, then possibly I was up to taking action. Not now.

I went on to other things but shortly chanced to revisit, with my eyes, the same spot. And then, oh my goodness.

The rabbit was all turned around. The head, unseen before, was switched to my side. This was clearly one breathing bunny I was seeing. You could practically see the nose twitch.

The bunny must have been been lying down as if in a deep rest or swoon. When it got up and moved I was able to take note of something not detected before. The spot it occupied was a bare patch (in our not quite perfect lawn). The warm soil, by now in shade, must have felt good to the bunny. It picked that spot because it was a soothing place to be.

Thinking it might be thirsty I brought out a bowl of water. The bunny bounded away at my approach. Later it returned to the shaded area. It nibbled at grass blades. It didn't seem to be aware of the nearby bowl or interested in the water it held.

Rabbits probably don't have the same water intake requirements as humans. On a scorcher of a day as this was, and out in the elements, I'd be plenty thankful for a free bowl of water. I could only offer what would have been appreciated for myself. That the bunny didn't need the water was a bonus. It was doing fine on its own.

I'm very happy the rabbit proved to be exceedingly alive. Pretty clearly it was creating its version of a siesta as it lay long and flat on the ground. I like to think it favors the bald spot in our lawn. It's a good place for the bunny to hang out. Quietly it communes with nature, of which it is a part.

Ro Giencke - July 13, 2011

July!

2011-07-09T18:29:00.000-07:00

It's July and this is my happy time. Warm weather is very agreeable to me. Everything is so open and free at this time of year (except our State of Minnesota, shut down for the ninth consecutive day amid a quagmire of politics and pettiness. But that's another story and not a tale to be told for this entry.)

It was a wonderful 4th of July. We were up north with family. Horseshoes, bocce and cribbage were played. The different arenas of action used fluid rules. Sufficient players were found by rounding up anyone willing at the moment to pitch a shoe or aim a ball.

There was time at the river for floating and swimming. We whiled away lazy afternoons in the yard. Among other things we watched was the seemingly last nesting turtle of the season. She lay her eggs surprisingly close to the house.

The July 4th noon spread was delicious. There's always something for everyone. As with every year there's some new dish or salad to comment on and inquire how it's made.

Desserts were a smaller category than previously. This was compensated for by fruits and fresh-picked berries. My sister-in-law's popular banana cake (the secret is banana in the frosting) became the birthday cake as we sang the birthday song to my niece. I hope her ears have repaired themselves following our valiant attempt at choral presentation.

The two black Labs - one old with its only ambition to snooze in the shade, the other young and alert with energy - were the faithful canines rounding out our numbers. At one point both dogs were at rest on either side of the porch steps. The scene said something about our time together. All found comfortable spots near one another to reside and relax.

A cow went over the dam and the recovery efforts brought out various official local units. A strategy was reviewed for removing the dead cow from the river. We didn't stay to watch the full recovery operation but did take in the scene of red fire truck and other equipped vehicles.

It looked like either the start or finish of a parade or emergency backup for a very scary accident before being given an explanation of what what was going on. A suiting-up scuba diver, part of the recovery squad, assessed the situation from the perspective of the job he was called to do. It might be just another day's work for him. Nevertheless, a cow in the river must be a somewhat unusual situation.

Thankfully (if not for the cow) it all turned out to be just another page in the story of the country summer.

Talking with a neighbor the next day she wryly referred to it as "hoopla at the dam." In reality there wasn't much hoopla to it. It was at best subdued drama. The early forenoon hour had few onlookers about. But the stench of the cow as it was grappled to the surface was forceful reminder of the potential treachery of water.

The neighbor, a year-round resident, was unaware of any farm immediately upstream reporting a cow missing. The hapless creature was likely in the water for some time. Perhaps it took a misstep in pastureland near the river, lost its footing and fell in. Almost by any theory it was a victim of heavy seasonal rains and rapid river currents.

Church on the July 4th weekend was full. The pastor talked about vacationers taking time to attend services when vacationing away from all the other set things in our lives. He talked of the need for Sunday rest - ditto the need for holiday rest.

We concluded with America the Beautiful. My gaze moved to outside views of pines and farmland as voices raised in song. The stirring stanzas fluttered our hearts as surely as the flag causes us to stand and salute it with pride. The song's "spacious skies" and "amber waves of grain," powerful words of natural grandeur, create as real a picture of America as anything.

My brother and I commented that the basswood must be a little late this year. The blossoming we come to expect at the start of July hadn't yet happened. Back home here the basswood trees are in bloom. The heady aroma comes in the opened windows. It's the smell of summer to me.

Ro Giencke - July 9, 2011

Isabelle

2011-06-14T19:29:00.000-07:00

We spent the winter after our marriage in New Mexico. It was for work but it felt like adventure. Everything was new.

We learned about Hatch chilies for one thing. It maybe sounds a small thing but it signifies that we were exposed to a whole different culture. The Southwest desert was compelling, colorful and infinitely interesting in every way to this couple with deep Midwest roots.

We came back in the spring to a new location. Al's career moved him around and this was one of those times.

There weren't many rental options in the small town. There were few apartments. Houses were out of the question. A young couple then didn't dream of owning a home right off.

"Better than nothing," we said, renting a trailer home to make do while the rental search continued.

The first summer was a wild season with many tornado warnings. I was uneasy in the trailer. Tornado sirens sounded frequently. There wasn't a nearby shelter to head for.

Rain made a heavy drumbeat on the trailer roof. It sounded eerily like hail. Even the gentlest of rains could sound ominous on that roof. We would think we had a gullywasher only to find it had been hardly more than showers.

Fishing, boating and work friends saved us from a none too sterling start. A trailer court wasn't our idea of a first home. The locals we met weren't especially friendly. I missed the shopping and interests of bigger places.

Early in the spring we used the lengthening daylight to fish from shore in the evening. Many came to try for pan fish at this popular spot where the river, which flowed through town, formed a lake.

Al enjoyed getting in a few practice casts before the fish opener. The fish opener was always in May. It coincided with Mother's Day weekend. Until then it was illegal to catch the game fish - walleye, muskie, pike - for which Minnesota is known.

Although I didn't fish from shore I enjoyed the mild sun, the river, keeping Al company and being with others also enjoying the start to spring.

After the fish opener we had the boat in use all summer long. We were fortunate in living in lake country. There were several great area lakes from which to choose.

One of the lakes we particularly liked had June roses growing on the gravel road to the boat ramp. The lake had a reedy shoreline. There was great serenity to the lake which made it different from some of the others, such as the lake closer to town that was our swimming beach.

In this town, and the next places we lived, I came to know some very special elderly women. Meeting senior mentors was one of the rewards of our mobile career life.

Being in a cramped trailer (it measured 10 x 55 feet), we spent as little time in it as possible. We couldn't always be fishing. Al missed a place to put in a garden.

There was no Craigslist for launching a query about garden rental. I imagine we found our garden via a bulletin board at the local store or through some small printed sign noticed when driving by.

This is how we were led to Isabelle. She had garden space for us on her property. She was in her seventies or eighties. She was a widow. She wore her white hair in a bun atop her head as her generation did then.

She was born in Scotland. She came to this country as a war bride. I suppose it was the first world war although I didn't think to ask.

We found we went to the same church, a nice bit of common ground when you trade information as you break the ice.

From our experience of being new in town, feeling measured up by some of the locals, I wondered how she was received all those years ago when she came here so young and full of love.

People in small towns know the same families over several generations. Someone new can be considered a calculated risk.

When you know practically everyone you can't help but notice the faces you don't know. The unknowns are curiosities. It's part of the way of a small town to watch and puzzle newcomers out until they're a proven pattern or they show they can fit in.

I wondered if Isabelle had difficulty in settling in. The handsome soldier in uniform - who did he become when he came home? Did she ever sigh inwardly at how romance can sweep you off your feet to put you in a totally foreign place where you then spend the rest of your life?

Did the strangeness of life in America recede over time as she got busy in her church, raised her children and brought zucchini and garden mums to her neighbors? Or, after awhile, did the pride of being different take precedence over the desire to blend in and be conventional?

The Bridges of Madison County hadn't yet come along to address or at least suggest answers to these questions. My experience was limited enough at the time to not think much about it.

It did dawn that there must have been some bravery on Isabelle's part to make life work here. Certainly gardening was one of the tools she used to make it home.

One thing Isabelle said registered with me. She said she hated to listen to the news. Whether on the radio or TV the news upset her. "The news is all so bad," she said. "I don't want to hear it anymore."

"That’s the world, you have to take it as it is” I said to myself, thinking that here was a narrow view. "You can't close yourself off from the world" is what I almost told her.

There was a strong wish to counter her comment. Her sweeping indictment against the news sounded unfair to me. There's something to be said about paying attention to someone without blurting out your mind's words. If I said anything I picked the words a little more carefully.

These days, when the world appears to be in crisis with every new headline, I think of Isabelle.

I can imagine saying to her, if we were to stand again in the garden where I've come to pick our Swiss chard or carrots or tomatoes, “I’m with you, girl. I don’t like listening to the news either. It's gotten so bad.”

Today at the store the newspaper grabbed on the way to the cash register was the first item rung up by the young cashier.

He was friendly. He made some comment about the news I'd find inside the paper. Without giving much thought to it I found myself practically echoing Isabelle.

"There's no good news in there," I said. "We have to make our own good news because it's sure not going to be found in there."

"The Twins won," he ventured. I laughed, inwardly pleased that here was someone who aimed to see the glass half full.

"And we have two Minnesotans running for president," he added, pressing his advantage on the good news theme.

"Of course, that can be good news or bad news depending on whether they're your candidates," he clarified, an example of Minnesota nice if ever there was one (sounding impartial may be dull but it can save a lot of ruffled feelings or worse).

"But they're Minnesotans," he emphasized, as if that was all the good news you needed in one day.

It was a pleasure to hear this young man talk up the tenor of the news. Habit had let me speak with disenchantment of it. He had the young person's optimism to see it in a different light.

The few remarks with the cashier left me trying to recall that visit with Isabelle, the visit of the "bad news."

I trust I did for her what this pleasant cashier did for me. He bolstered my attitude and readjusted my day.

As she lamented the state of the world I can only hope I came with a response as helpful and pleasant as his. There was a need for comfort, I believe this now, in the view she shared with me.

Ro Giencke - June 14, 2011

Summer Things

2011-06-09T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's nice to be back to summer things. Summer is when I best like to read. I like to read outside. This year again a stack of books and magazines has been gathered for just such reading leisure.

Tuesday's 103 degrees, which made us the hot spot of the nation, and beat Death Valley that day by six degrees, wasn't a good time to be out reading. Same could be said of today, some forty degrees cooler and considerably windy.

Yesterday was busy with the errands that can fill a day. I got outside finally last night to weed around the mailbox.

The mild air and low sun were pleasant. You think of all the time in the winter you're inside because of the cold or the darkness by suppertime.

It's joy to be outside, even on hands and knees, as you reach to pull quack grass that threatens to overrun your hostas.

The white lilacs are fragrant as they grow haphazardly in the shade. Insufficient sunlight may be the reason for their small blooms. Or perhaps they're a species content to stay more petite. They put their effort into lavishing us with intense scent.

I picked a bouquet of these white lilacs for our table. I brought in some irises too. Irises were picked from the garden for my brother's wedding many years ago.

I brought the irises into the house tonight forgetting (at the time) that it was their anniversary. Irises to me will always be their flower. What we choose as background and setting for the I Dos we say indeed do become lasting symbols of our vows to committed love.

It was a late season for lilacs. Even with the slow start they're almost done blooming. Or enough so to say the lilac show is over. Some hang on as if wanting to see what comes after. It's the peonies with their claim to early June.

Their flamboyant colors collect fans as devoted as those to roses. Visit the peony walk at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum when the peonies are in bloom and you understand the draw.

My new favorite flower at the Arboretum are the coral bells. They're very pretty. I like their tall spiky cheerful note of color. Where they edge the pathways they were what I noticed first.

Azaleas in corals and pinks are bright patches in the Arboretum woods. The late-summer flowers, replacing the tulips in their yellow, red and orange color arrangements, were being put in while we were there.

It was beautiful in the Arboretum as always. It's been interesting to follow the progression of growth and change from early this spring.

All things have their time and season. This must have been a thought worked out in some garden. The truth in this gives each of us chances to pause in the moment and enjoy as we take it all in.

Every trip to the Arboretum I learn some new plant, or what I've come to know is reinforced. It's a good feeling to know you can learn in small ways.

Minnehaha Falls in south Minneapolis was as tumultuous this weekend as we've ever seen it. The fellow next to us, learning over the balustrade as we were, to better see the spectacle of the falls, mentioned that his parents met in Minnehaha Park in the 1920s.

He pointed to the grassy upstream bank of Minnehaha Creek. That's where they met he said.

His dad was a soldier. His mom had been told by her parents not to speak to soldiers. Maybe she didn't speak to him. Maybe she only smiled. But the rest of the story speaks for itself. I enjoyed hearing about this.

Every couple has special stories that go on.

Ro Giencke - June 9, 2011

The Hjemkomst - One Man's Dream

2011-06-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

It was through friends that we learned about Kathryn, North Dakota. Once visited we were ready to see it again.

The first trip was made on the strength of photos this active couple showed us of the little white Lutheran Church and the beautiful surrounding bluffs of the Sheyenne River Valley. The twisting roads through a quiet and timeless land of hills and vistas make this scenic stretch a real getaway.

We spent the next day in Fargo. We intended to do some sightseeing. The sunshine which made the drive along the Sheyenne River the day before so pleasant was gone. Rain started the day and it never let up or not by much.

Between rain and wind it wasn't going to suited for outside activities. We needed to pick our choices carefully. The more time inside at our places of interest the better.

Don't ever underestimate word of mouth to make something known. As with Kathryn, the visit to the Hjemkomst Center was a direct result of another recommendation. A friend had been there, enjoyed it and happened to mention it as we visited.

The Hjemkomst Center is on the Moorhead side of the Red River. That puts it in Minnesota. In this flat agricultural valley of the Red River, prone to flooding, recent springs have been tense. Residents on both sides of the swollen Red swing into action preparing millions of sandbags to save their towns in what has become their annual rite of spring.

They were spared this year because weeks of chilly temperatures allowed snowpack to melt gradually. During the time we spent in this metropolitan area along the Red we thought about what it takes to live where you're up against nature year after year.

As we drove the leafy residential streets of Fargo, admiring blocks of venerable architecture, we sometimes caught glimpses of two white peaks cresting the treetops on the northeast horizon. The white double peaks stood out in luminous comparison to the drab grayness of the day.

More than once, as they came into view, they reminded me of the outline of the Brooklyn Bridge. Did they build a bridge here that duplicates the Brooklyn Bridge I asked myself, even as I knew I was seeing the waterproof canvas that protects the full-scale Viking ship we were headed to see.
The Hjemkomst, which is its name, has become a Moorhead drawing card.

The high tent-like cover indeed gives a sense of a bridge floating high above the city or even the mast of a ship sailing the prairie. The imagery to the landscape that his ship gives would have tickled Robert Asp.

Robert Asp was the man who built the Viking replica ship the Hjemkomst. He was the one with a dream. A Moorhead teacher and guidance counselor, he came up with the idea forty years ago to construct by hand the ship of his Norse forefathers.

From its beginnings the Hjemkomst was a labor of love. Oak trees from along the Red River were carefully selected. An old potato warehouse in nearby Hawley was found as a place to put the ship together. The warehouse became known as the Hawley shipyards.

The local potato and sugar beet farmers, many of them descendants of Norwegian immigrants as was Robert Asp , as well as many other supporters in the Fargo-Moorhead area, took pride and interest in the work underway.

In that sea of grass, and those chessboard-flat fields of the Red River Valley, it wasn't difficult to believe that a ship could rise from Robert Asp's dreams and sail away.

Robert Asp was diagnosed with leukemia at the onset of construction. it didn't deter his dreams or distract from progress on the construction of the ship. His family and friends entered the dream with him.

It was christened the Hjemkomst, which means Homecoming, upon completion. Now it was ready for its sea test.

TV coverage recorded the momentous journey as the Hjemkomst was transported to Duluth. The ship was launched in Duluth harbor. It was an exhilerating maiden voyage on Lake Superior for Asp and his crew. For the ailing Asp, the honorary captain, it was his shining hour.

The builder of the Hjemkomst died four months later. He had worked nine years on the project. To fulfill his dream to sail it to Norway the project took on an even more earnest tone. Family, friends and the community rallied to fulfill his dream.

New vision and the help of experienced Norwegian sailors steered the way. Eric Rudstrom, one of two Norwegians added to the crew, was named skipper. In May 1982 the Hjemkomst crew felt sufficiently trained to make the Atlantic sailing to Norway. It was time to let the Hjemkomst return to the land of Asp's heritage.

The ship left Duluth in May 1982. There was a 28-day voyage across the Great Lakes. Cheering crowds and welcoming dignitaries met the ship at stops at Detroit and Rochester, New York. At Albany, New York, the Hjemkomst sailed down the Hudson River to New York City.

There was no turning back now (except for one crew member who, realizing the dangers in the Atlantic undertaking, chose to leave after they arrived in New York).

Three days out to sea a terrific storm had the crew scrambling. The ship, sturdily built as it was, was pitched heavily about by gales and waves. The crew had another thirty days at sea before the ship came into Bergen harbor, arriving on a Saturday in the middle of July.

The smell of land greeting them, while still not within sight of land, raised their spirits tremendously. They had done it. They had sailed the Hjemkomst across the Atlantic back to Norway.

At the Hjemkomst Center we joined the tour group a minute or two late. We were, as my dad would say, the cow's tail to the little bunch being shepherded around by a volunteer. He was taking the group to the replica Norwegian stave church, also part of the Hjemkomst Center, when we caught up with them.

The stave church, built in the late 1990s, is a replica of a basilica church from southern Norway from the 1100s (by which time the Catholic religion prevailed in the land of the Vikings). The smell of the wood and the sturdy construction makes you think of the endurance of things - of faith for one thing, but of all the things in life we put our hopes in, and our hands to, as important to us.

At the end of the tour Al and I went back to see the short video on the Hjemkomst which is shown. Late for the tour we had missed the earlier film showing. But first we simply walked around the ship, as did others. We gazed high into the mast with the tent above it between ship and open sky.

You can't help but be in awe of the spirit of the Vikings and the spirit of the man, Robert Asp, who had a dream.

One of the volunteers pointed out the dragon head which was a feature of Viking ships. The sea monster, or dragon head, at the front of the ship (there's a nautical term for the front and I think it's prow) literally put the fear of the Lord into the populaces that the Vikings raided when their ships sailed their coasts.

"A little boy, here on a field trip, asked why the dragon's ear is missing," the volunteer said. My eye went to the missing ear. I hadn't noticed its absence before she called attention to it.

The young, with their alert curiosity, don't miss a trick. The schoolboy, pointing out the missing ear, made this volunteer realize it could be part of the education on the Hjemkomst. "The ear came off in the storm," she explained. "You'll see the storm in the movie."

As we filed into the theater room, and the movie was about to begin, she told us, "I've seen this five times and I still don't see it with dry eyes."

I could see what she means. You get misty-eyed. A dream achieved inevitably brings tears of happiness. Incredibly sad moments bring tears too. This little film has footage to cover both the high and low points but it's the high points, like the ship's high canvas tent seen over the treetops, that remain as the central message of the video.

Robert Asp was a man with a dream. He was fortunate enough to have ones who loved him who stepped into his dream to make it his. And theirs as well.

Ro Giencke - June 4, 2011

Urge to Write

2011-05-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

As early as age seven my inclination to write was noticeable. I wrote letters to my grandparents as soon as I was able. It seemed natural to sit at the kitchen table with a sheet of paper given to me like a prize and put down something interesting to share with them.

Even though my grandparents lived far away and we saw them rarely I was connected to them the instant I picked up my pencil and later the pen. My letters were included with mom’s weekly mail to them. I like to think there was kindly amusement on their part in the receiving of these faithful missives from me, the oldest granddaughter.

Getting a little older I kept notes of our trips when we traveled West. It was exciting to describe mountain scenery - the precipitous crags and the antelopes that you could see in bounding herds in those days. It was all strange and unfamiliar. There was a need to catch that beauty. I enjoyed recording the details of the sightings and experiences along the way. There was something infinitely satisfying in all of this.

I began to dream of becoming an author. All one has to do to be an author is write a book. It seemed quite simple. Twelve-year-old logic grasps the essentials very quickly. I began writing a story which I suppose was based somewhat on the premise of Nancy Drew the girl detective. It was either a mystery or an action plot based on the adventures of a girl detective.

The name I gave my heroine was Cassandra – Cassie for short. Cassie was such a cool name. I was at an age when you learned there were cool names and not cool names. I didn't think my name was cool. But Cassie was as good as gold. It was neat being able to pick a name, decide a character, give life to her.

Eventually there were several typed pages. The plot was interesting to me. I used my younger sister and brother as my review team. I read them newly written portions. As I read aloud to them I paid attention to the flow of the words with an ear to the "sound" of the conversations I contrived for my heroine.

I could spot the rough places in the text, or unnatural sounding conversations, in a way that doesn't happen when you read your work or scan it quietly on your own. This was a first valuable lesson in writing. It helps to have someone critique or suggest changes even though it can be very painful to eliminate, delete or start over.

It was fun developing the story. It made the summer pass quickly. The typing was done on a manual typewriter. I typed on the screen porch. It was heaven combining two of the things I like most, writing and being in touch with warm nature.

The typed pages, or manuscript as it seemed good enough to be called, had a special place. The cardboard box which held the writings was stored in the lower cabinet of a built-in bookcase. At the end of each writing session I stowed my continuing story on the shelf in the cabinet. It was as good as locking my book away. No one else claimed that particular space of the house.

The story was left behind as I went forward into the teenage years. It was forgotten or perhaps casually deserted as something to get back to some day.

Years later I came upon the box in the cubbyhole. The manuscript looked intact. I thought momentarily about saving it. But I was in clean-up mode that day. It was a time of looking ahead, not behind. The pages were ripped in half and thrown away. I don't even think I looked the story over first. The writings seemed long ago and no longer relevant. Poor Cassie. She didn't have a chance.

I must have figured, at that ripe age of twenty-two or twenty-seven or so, that there wasn't a future for this manuscript. It didn’t dawn on me that I might someday enjoy reviewing my incipient book or admire the youthful ambition it represented.

The story would have served as an example of early writings. It would have let me see the style of expression I favored then. But perhaps it serves better by being lost. It's a reminder that many of our efforts seem to evaporate but are never entirely absent. Each thing done adds to the whole of what we do.

I ditched Cassie but went on to create another work of fiction. Unlike the detective techniques I was trying to master in the first work the next story borrowed much from my own life. Even then I understood I came from an interesting family. The peaceful setting of our summer home, and Italian heritage adding a lively twist, gave many possibilities as a writer.

The summer home was given the fancy name Bella Vista or Bella Pino in the second story. I don't remember which. At some later time the chosen name seemed too made up (which was originally the whole point of course).

This became another lesson. You have to write honestly or what is deemed honest to you. When you fail in that the writing falters. That book too was eventually set aside. But from its imagery, much of it saved, has come inspiration that continues to take me farther down the writing road.

Ro Giencke - May 31, 2011

Trip to visit Lambs

2011-05-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

The pleasant days have led to many short drives. We have coffee where we stop. Yesterday we were on the lake in the boat. It felt wonderful.

An operational farm, part of our excellent park system, was visited the other day. We go to hear the chickens cluck I tell my brother. He understands. We grew up with our neighbors keeping chickens, including a rooster that crowed at the crack of dawn. The big red barn satisfies something within Al and me. Farm buildings with their bright paint are in our pasts.

It was restful on the farm except for the disturbed small rustlings from the chicken coop. The sun had a good sleepy kind of mildness to it. A rock conveniently placed near the grazing sheep became my footstool as we sat awhile and watched. It was so quiet the sheep cropping the succulent blades of grass could be heard. It was pastoral and timeless.

Most of the lambs are somewhat grown. A few are smaller. They're the cute ones we particularly come to see.

Perhaps the smaller lambs were born later in the season. Occasionally one of them baa-ed as it realized its mother had moved away out of sight.

The lambs as a lot seemed content to leave the foraging to their elders. They lay for great periods of time, looking like they were nodding off (surrendering to naptime it occurred to me), at peace in the sun-warm hollows at the bottom of their green hill.

The sheep caused me to think of our old pals Mickey and Pepper. The two sheep were from two different summers in the country. My dad, probably thinking sheep could solve the constant need to mow lawn, "rented" these sheep from a neighbor. We had Mickey first. Pepper came another year.

The experiment with either wasn't wildly successful. I don't think they were super whizzes at what they were borrowed to do. Neither was with us very long. We kids, who liked the sheep very much, adopting them as pets since we didn't have any of our own, parted with them with sadness and pats of affection. They returned to their owner not much fattened up on our grass I'm afraid.

Mickey wasn't a favorite with dad. Mickey outdid the neighbor's rooster in the noise department. He was just as loud and earlier. He woke dad up. This went on each morning of Mickey's rather short time with us. Mickey also bleated and cried if it didn't have company around, as when the bunch of us went swimming.

The two sheep haven't been thought of for ages. My brother says he forgot Mickey and Pepper altogether. It makes him want to walk down the road with his wife where sheep are kept, a road they haven't taken recently.

Meanwhile, spring is in more than sheep folds and the ardent desire to be out and doing. The flowering trees have bloomed all at once making a lovely spectacle. It's what I imagine springtime in England, New England and North Carolina all together would look like.

Al has devoted time to cutting grass and tackling dandelions. He enjoys having a project and the yard gets to be definitely that at this time of year. Everything is looking nice. The bleeding hearts are in bloom. They are beautiful.

Ro Giencke - May 19, 2011

Wacky Cake

2011-05-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was remembering the old woman who lived across the street from my grandparents. She became my friend the winter of my West Coast stay.

It was an interesting time. I was young. There was so much to do. A hiking club introduced me to some weekend treks along coastal streams and along the bay. It's a very beautiful area there. I also did what I called urban hiking, walking extensively to explore the city on my own. The streets and sidewalks, free of snow, delighted me in my first experience away from the cold.

Some evenings, comfortable at home with grandma, I studied Swedish with her. We used beginner books which were either checked out from the library or were hers. I cherish the memories of our sitting together over the books. She patiently listened as I read aloud and tried to make progress in the language into which her parents were born.

Just as the hiking club introduced me to the wonder of the coastal terrain my grandmother was opening new views for me too. She introduced me to Nellie across the street.

Nellie was aged and crippled and completely housebound as I recall. It was probably not a visit I wanted to make. I accompanied grandma as part of the respectful manners I thought I better display. I knew I was reflecting, by my actions, the job her daughter had done in raising me.

Initially I felt out of place as the two old neighbors visited. I averted my gaze from Nellie's legs. They looked withered as if with disease or simply the aging process. It can be hard to face physical realities of this kind when at the other end of the age spectrum. I made an effort to focus on Nellie instead. It was, as I found, surprisingly easy to do.

She was kind. She had the generous interest of someone who stays linked to life. Her body might have the signs of degeneration but all her youth was in her attitude and the stories she told. Yes, that's where she had me. When she began talking about her past she had me spellbound.

It's regrettable how little we retain when the good stories flow. I listened rapt as she described bits and pieces of growing up as either a rancher's or farmer's daughter near Spokane.

Despite the concentration given to the stores I'm left with only one picture from all she shared. The picture is hazy in its details but the overall impression as as vivid as when she left it with me.

She talked of crouching alongside her father, beside haystacks for cover, under full moon nights in the dry farmlands of eastern Washington. It was rabbits I believe they were hunting. Nellie told how big they were. They were maybe a Western species, not like the cottontails back home.

I could sense the excitement in being out late with her dad. It might have been her first, fifth or fifteenth time. She was surely a self-sufficient little girl.

Maybe she was her dad's right hand, taking the place of a son who might otherwise have joined him as silent hunters of the summer night. Maybe Nellie was the oldest with the expected responsibility to help her father and learn from him. As likely, she was the born tomboy soaking it all in.

The full moon brightened the fields as Nellie peered from the shadow of the haystack, perhaps leaning around her father's shoulder in a quiet moment of taking in the scene.

Nellie gave me an experience of what it was to grow up as she did. Their river valley was filling with farmers and the prospect of irrigation, or the project already operational, was promising them prosperous futures. Her girlhood was one step removed from the pioneer era. Possibly some of that was sprinkled in, too, as she opened her background on those winter visits of long ago.

One visit I took home a recipe from her. It was for Wacky Cake, a favorite of hers. It's super uncomplicated. It doesn't require eggs or a mixing bowl. The recipe has been in my file ever since.

The recipe may have been a lifesaver for Nellie and those of her generation. After all, there's always a reason for cake. In good times and in lean times there's a call for a dessert to bake or bring for a family occasion, school party, church festival or community get-together.

When your chickens weren't laying eggs, or if hard economic times meant eggs weren't in the house at all, there was reliability in this recipe that lists no eggs.

Eggs went on my grocery list today, being nearly in the boat that past cooks have been. But in the meantime I went ahead and made Nellie's cake. No eggs, the top of the recipe card says.

Wacky Cake

In ungreased 8 x 8" pan put 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 Tablespoons cooking cocoa, 1 tsp. baking soda and 1/2 tsp. salt. Mix thoroughly with fork. Make 3 holes in dry ingredients and pour in 6 Tablespoons salad oil, 1 tsp. vanilla and 1 Tablespoon vinegar. Over this pour 1 cup cold water. Mix well with fork and bake at 350 degress about 25 minutes.

Ro Giencke - May 13, 2011

May Madly Alive

2011-05-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Long daylight, birds singing and flowers starting to pop have us smiling. It’s been a long while coming. But oh wow when it does. May, as it pulls out all the stops, becomes the serene and truly special time of the year.

It’s so nice for one thing, with the sun up early these days, to have sunrise with my coffee instead of the sun poking up seemingly halfway through the day.

The daffodil bulbs bought at the Arboretum last fall and planted on the back banks are cheery in their scattered plantings. It’s good to see the season take sure hold everywhere.

The sage and lavender in the garden were a surprise to find on the first inspection tour after the snow was gone. They weren’t covered for protection in the fall. Our assumption was they were annuals.

The herbs appear to be healthy and growing and no worse the wear for the winter they went though. One can marvel at how plants, and wild creatures too, can tough it out through harsh conditions and come back ready to go.

The rosemary bush, an acquisition from last May – the one purchase at the street art fair on the lake – is flourishing. It’s been set out on the deck after the shelter given it inside over the winter. The sun and rain coax out the fragrance of its needles, an additional pleasure.

A chipmunk on the doorstep is the new king of the hill. I say new but likely it’s the same chippie as claimed the spot last year. Advantageously positioned on the highest point around, it knows it has a marvelous lookout. It scurries off, but barely, at our approach. Its cheeks bulge. It's eating well.

In the country growing up we regarded chipmunks as pets. We fed them, seeing them only as adorable. The handouts are over at this house. You start to realize how potentially destructive cute little animals can be around the place.

Garage sale signs have sprung up like dandelions. I’m not a garage-sale kind of person but today, after errands downtown, I obediently followed the arrows as they pointed different directions in the neighborhood.

The tables were quite bare and picked over. Later-comers like me need to shake a leg if we want the buys. I was told at one of the sales that the crowds were out in force. They showed up well before start time.

It makes sense I suggested to the owner, left with a small collection of Christmas ornaments, sofa pillows and bric-a-brac. No wonder the garage-salers were out en masse. We’re all crazy to get at activities which cool temperatures and wet weather have kept us from.

May, as I see it, is made to slow us down even as the outdoor pace spikes. We need to let restful thoughts breeze through our heads. We need to allow the mild sunshine to work its magic on us. It will if we pause long enough to surrender to it.

No matter how busy in our gardens or briskly pedaling our bikes or limbering up our swings on crowded golf courses the intent this spring – maybe more than ever – is to pause and take May in. May gives freely. Let's live it fully.

Ro Giencke – May 6, 2011

William and Kate - a Wedding for the World

2011-04-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

No early TV viewing for me today. Not by choice I wish to add. A good night's sleep and look what happens. You miss the wedding of the century, as the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton has been called.

The TV was warmed up in time for me to get in on the royal kiss from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. Actually, there were two kisses unless one was an instant replay held a shade longer. But it looked like a fresh kiss to me, a more practiced one as if it came easier. It delighted the crowd and with one tender look behind her the bride, in step with the royal groom, slipped within the screen of sheer draperies where a lovely spread indubitably awaited.

As much the happiness radiating from the balcony I was caught by Kate's natural beauty as she and William rode together from Westminster Abbey in the festive carriage. Although I didn't much follow their courtship, to see this day come for them brings a surprising amount of emotion for me. And that's even before seeing the replay of the exchange of wedding vows.

Many of us have felt invested in William and Harry. In part it's because they were young when Diana died. We watched them grow up and do well for themselves. They showed their mother's graces and compassion as well as definite interests and tendencies shared with Prince Charles, their father.

And because this royal couple - William Arthur Philip Louis and Catherine, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - are in the age bracket of many of our children, there's an additional wish for collective happiness for these young adults settling themselves into the world as time moves them into their places.

Tough conditions, economic and otherwise, face Britain as in 1947 when Princess Elizabeth married her handsome Philip. William and Kate's wedding brings cheer and lifts spirits as weddings are meant to do. I feel that in some way, everywhere has absorbed the joy felt in Great Britain today. You see what can be and it inspires all.

Ro Giencke - April 29, 2011

Once upon a Southern April

2011-04-26T11:21:00.000-07:00

Somewhere I read that to write a Southern story you have to put a mule in it. Since I'm lacking a mule for my story it can't be classified as such. But it's a story of the South nevertheless.

More specifically it's a story that comes about by our timing in going South. We were there when the shots fired at Ft. Sumter made the news. I'm not referring to that April day in 1861 when, as every schoolkid used to learn, and probably still is taught, the American Civil War began in Charleston harbor.

Taking ourselves to Georgia recently, in part to enjoy beautiful springtime weather, we were paying little attention to anything other than the lovely sunshine. Then the headlines told of a reenactment event at Ft. Sumter. We were gearing up for home, making our way north, as we skimmed the article over coffee and motel breakfast. We were leaving the South just as commemorations for the Civil War's 150th year, such as they will be, began.

The newspaper article made us realize the Civil War is getting some new focus. It caused us to recall things from our Southern visit that struck us as out of the ordinary. Confederate flags flew in roadside cemeteries. We marked this as different from previous trips. The tall poles with the Civil War-era flag at the top did something to alter the landscape.

From the car, in that week of moving about, we saw what looked like hand-painted signs alluding to the Confederate States of America. We couldn't explain it but it felt funny. It was as if veneration to Civil War times was being set before us.

Therefore, it was an Aha moment to pick up the Montgomery, Alabama newspaper and read about the Ft. Sumter ceremonies which had occurred earlier. The visual clues along the road which we weren't able to make sense of, because we didn't know the context of their presentation, now collected into one picture.

I admit that seeing the Confederate flag makes me uneasy. The flag looks out of place as if the past has returned.

The flag makes me fidget for various reasons. The first reaction many have to the Confederate flag is that slavery equates with the Old South and the Confederate flag is the symbol of the determination to uphold Southern rights. I can't think of anyone who finds it valiant or honorable to commemorate a system that holds bondage as acceptable and even necessary.

Even more so, in the justification of slavery, to devalue a person based on the color of one's skin or any other consideration, seems so wrong. Did then, does now.

The Confederate flag makes me restless because it makes me face my prejudices. My forebears came to this country after the Civil War. I could say, along with millions of others whose families arrived after the Civil War, that the Civil War is old stuff - not our business.

It turns out that where you grow up, and the facts you absorb at an early age, shape you more than than where your family comes from. My great-grandparents chose to attach themselves to a culture that, coincidentally, was the victor in the war between the states. As children and students we naturally pick up the view of the story that approximates the closest interests of our own culture.

Pondering the disquietude the Southern flag has for me, it comes to me that it zeroes in on the guilt at having escaped so lightly. Our part of the country was spared the huge physical losses of a nation torn in two. It was a war basically fought on Southern ground, its conclusion in April 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse eradicating segments of the Southern lifestyle as then known.

It's like having something flourishing yanked up and left beside the gaping hole with no one much concerned one way or the other what happens next. It takes years to mend such wounds.

The experience of being in the South at the commencement of commemoration events has led to discussions about how proper is it to fly the Confederate flag. "Let's agree to disagree" said one friend following my attempt to explain why some Southerners may want to raise their flag through this memorial period. She wasn't having any of it. The flag, with its connotations to slavery and the old regime, shouldn't be flown she stated emphatically.

I've switched back and forth arguing for and against the Confederate flag as commemorative symbol as I try to establish my own position on it. If the commemorative activities are done within the framework of giving honor there are valid reasons to pause wherever we are and note this 150th year event.

In some places, as in cemeteries where those who fought under the Southern colors are buried, it perhaps brings a sense of peace or purpose to those who tend the tombstones, visit or have family interred there to identify the resting ground with the Confederate flag.

When we aim to put ourselves in everybody's place, both 150 years ago and now, we may find we have conflicting opinions on many aspects of the war. This is healthy. It means we're debating something pretty important here.

We may wind up with no one firm opinion and this can be good too. Sometimes the more irresolute we are about something the more it is a show of respect for all sides involved. This study of the Civil War may bring us farther along the road of understanding. We may consider in a new light something once considered from a narrower view.

Driving home through the rural Georgia and Alabama countryside was to see April at its most winsome and gentle. The rolling hills, the greenness, the pines pressing to the farm fields, red soil being worked by farm machinery, was as pretty as a dream.

Was it a spectacular April day like this that the small-scale farmers and plantation owners, the slaves working the fields, the village merchants arranging goods in their store fronts, and the boat captains with their crews loading bales of cotton awoke to, stretched and commented favorably on?

Did the news, as it trickled in, that war was started with the North, hit like storm clouds to darken their horizons? Surely the war news would have been seen as that, had they surmised the pain to come.

The tornadoes tearing up the South this past week, with loss of life and horrible destruction, echo the pain of the years of civil strife. Fierceness of fighting has been replaced by damaging winds and lightning strikes eerily reminiscent of the clash of arms across the embattled countryside.

Seen in its quietude as we drove the beautiful hill region, and experienced in the roar of tornadoes wrenching hold of the land, one can better appreciate the flag as an emblem but not the ultimate glory. The glory is the human spirit that puts us all on one side, and this is to protect, respect and advance for the sake of all. In this we are one.

Ro Giencke - April 2011

Anemones

2011-04-21T17:52:00.000-07:00

I fell in love with anemones today. The last load of laundry was being taken from the dryer when my husband mentioned a trip to Home Depot. With several days of rain in the forecast he had it in mind to buy lawn fertilizer and apply it. The yard will have a good watering and he wanted to be one step ahead of it.

I'm game for a trip anywhere at anytime. Home Depot constitutes a very small trip but here was a perfect break from the chores. There wasn't anything on my shopping list for Home Depot. That never stops me. You walk around, get ideas and generally wind up finding something you need anyway, only you've forgotten to write it down. My jacket was on even before Al got around to inquiring if I wanted to come along.

There have been enough trips to Home Depot to have very precise expectations of the visit. Casual outdoor furniture is set up in one area. Lumber can be found on the far side. There are aisles and aisles of funny-looking doo-hickeys I seldom walk down.

There's the carpet section, window treatment department, paint, kitchen center, bath, doors, windows, lighting, tools and cleansers. There are enough areas and products for me to circulate widely and come home with a dozen great plans for the house.

The strong wind hurried us through the doors. I felt blown in. I stopped inside as if arrived at the wrong address. My eyes filled on the glorious show in front of us.

Home Depot was turned into an arboretum. Large carts on wheels, arranged with Easter lilies, hydrangeas, every blooming beautiful flower possible, were lined up one after the other along the aisles.

Tier upon tier of flowers on carts wafted their humid green aromas through the store. Easter was in every breath you took. Spring is stumbling in getting established in the Midwest this year. But at Home Depot it's a flourishing certainty.

Chilly weather is making businesses that raise and sell tender plants extra solicitous over their care. Snowfall (as recently as yesterday), windy conditions and a lingering chill are adding a difficult twist to their operations.

Nurseries and places like Home Depot, whose seasonal shops are usually bustling with traffic at this time of year, have been forced to play nursemaids to plant inventories that wouldn't survive if left outside.

Home Depot has become a virtual greenhouse. Its big building, with acreage as big as a farm it can seem, is giving overnight protection to myriads of plants. It gives the store a fantastic new look. It does a great job of reminding customers that spring is really here.

Instead of studying paint chips, or checking out the Roman shades for windows I want to dress up, or scanning the cleanser aisle in an effort to kick-start my spring housecleaning I followed the flower carts like one enchanted. I went along as if turned out in the best formal gardens with nothing more to do than appreciate the spring blooms on display for the public to enjoy.

The anemones were on a cart in a far corner of the store. All open-flowered and showy they dazzled me right off. I turned back to look upon them some more.

You can't describe first love and that's what it was. Anemones swept me off my feet. They have a look of liveliness. They're made for dancing and singing and taking it all in.

That's my idea of a flower. A flower's function should be more than to stand tall and ornate or be cute and cozy next to the ground. My admiration is for flowers that look about and say "Hey, here I am. What's going on that I might be missing? " Anemones are what happiness looks like if described by an object of the natural world.

I could have passed up the trip to Home Depot. The rendezvous with the anemones might never have happened. A quite easy response could have been "I'll skip Home Depot." It wouldn't have seemed to matter one way or the other.

But I said yes and this brought me to the anemones. A garden full of anemones is now my summer wish.

Ro Giencke - April 2011

River Idyll

2011-03-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

With a degree of comfort I listened to the weather people predict big amounts of snow to fall north of us. Since we've been in the heavy snow bands all winter long I felt justified if our locale, this one time, sat on the sidelines for this most recent storm.

The snow maybe did accumulate elsewhere as was forecast. The snow zone, however, wound up including us. The amount of snow that came, and the water content determined from it, adds to this year's impressive totals.

Last week, fortunately, gave us lovely spring weather to hang our hopes on. Given today's residential streets, a mess of drifts, tire tracks and compacted snow, we're glad we fit in a Saturday drive.

We went down the Mississippi River looking for eagles. You can spot eagles easily along the river in late February and into March. Eagles are most visible at this leafless time. They're around in large numbers in part because northward migration has started. Some eagles are breeding pairs who hang around all year, liking the open water.

I've written about Highway 61 before. The beautiful summer route between Red Wing and points downriver has been described. We use this same stretch when we go in search of eagles. The road is equally scenic with trees bare and the river ice gray and ready to go.

The National Eagle Center at Wabasha is an interesting stop. It puts you in contact with eagles both up close (it's home to rehabilitated birds) and through educational and eagle viewing opportunities.

The beautiful building, rather new to town, seems eagle-poised. It soars above the river on the river's west bank. Its glass facade faces the river where the spring torrent madly flows.

Inside, the sun streaming in, it's all warm and cozy. It can make you disbelieve that March in Minnesota can be blustery and cold.

We eventually joined the huddle of visitors on the outdoor platform. One of the center's bald eagles was brought out. It was tethered to its handler's wrist. It screeched as its big pale eye fastened on a bald eagle, wild and free, circling above the river.

"Get out of my territory!" it railed at the eagle. It was a speedy first lesson. The American bald eagle is notoriously territorial.

The tethered eagle was at least four or five years old. Its white head and tail feathers indicate it has reached maturity. Bald used to be a word that meant white, which may explain why these feathery denizens of the wilderness have their name.

The birds are big as seen in the air or in trees at a distance. Squaring off eyeball to eyeball they're huge. The distinct coloration, hooked yellow bills and yellow feet with sharp black talons all call attention to their fierce magnificence. As was said of General George Washington, the American bald eagle has a commanding presence.

Typically the birds weigh 7 to 10 pounds. The bones are hollow which is an odd concept to me. Females can weigh a few pounds more. They can also have wider wing spans - up to eight feet across - than male eagles.

We headed to the parked car discussing eagles and enjoying the sun on us. It wasn't warm near the river and our jackets felt good. It was also good to be going back to the car. We knew we would find it warm, something the sun does free of charge as it climbs higher in the sky approaching the vernal equinox.

A shadow swooped down as the car doors closed. A bald eagle had left a nearby tree.
It went out to the middle of the river, not a great distance away. It landed on a floating block of ice. As the ice breaks off upriver it comes down in all sizes and shapes. The eagle had singled out one of the smaller ice chunks.

The current continued to carry the ice and its passenger downriver. I expected the eagle to fly but it stayed where it was.

Suddenly I pictured the eagle as Huckleberry Finn. I could just see the eagle pretending to be Huck, floating his raft down this same Mississippi River (though several loops and bends and a couple states south).

The brilliant imagination of writer Mark Twain might possibly have created a fictional hero of greater stature than Huck if he had considered putting a bald eagle at the helm of his raft.This bald eagle, emulating Huck and Jim's plucky path to freedom, far from where they started, might have been dreamily navigating those dangerous waters for himself.

If not Huck Finn, perhaps my eagle friend was Sinbad the Sailor. The seventh voyage of Sinbad would be a most appropriate reenactment for this seemingly literature-loving bird. Like Sinbad constructing a raft to float down the river, the eagle was constructing its own flight of fancy as it drifted further away from its land base.

Possibly Eagle Friend, as I already thought of it, was assuming the persona of tyrannical Captain Ahab. It hunches its shoulders to portray the driven captain of the Pequod in the Herman Melville novel Moby-Dick.

With harpoon to the ready, it scans the ocean washing high waves across the prow of the ship. It stands on constant lookout, inward-focused, giving thought to nothing except exacting revenge on its nemesis, the great mythical whale.

Al broke into my reverie. Images of Huck Finn, Sinbad the Sailor and Captain Ahab swam away, leaving only the reality of the steadily diminishing form of the eagle atop his floating ice cube.

Al offered an observation. It was laced with practicality as usual. "The eagle is using the ice like a tool" he pointed out in his calm, scientific manner.

I could see this was true, when put this way. The bird didn't have to be high in a tree being alert. It didn't have to swoop down. It was where the fish are. The ice, like a boat, did all the work.

Chalk one up for science I said to myself. I commended my husband on his astuteness. "A tool - yes. That's good," I said.

No doubt "eagle using tool" will be entered as a note with Al's photo collection. Let it be so. I have my own thought to record.

I'm thrilled that the bald eagle, our noble emblem, selected as the American icon over a wild turkey in 1782, feels secure enough in all it represents to take a day off.

An American bald eagle playfully floating down a river - there has to be an element of native wisdom in this. Take it on trust from the eagle. Construct your raft and let it carry you away. You do the important stuff. You also have to dream and play.

Ro Giencke - March 2011

Goose Bump

2011-03-20T16:32:00.001-07:00

It's the first day of Spring. It arrives right about now although it wasn't my intention to catch the first euphoric moments of the new season. The ushering in of official spring has a right to its euphoric overtones whether recorded or not. We're ecstatic after the endless winter put to bed.

When you have nothing to measure your winter against you don't think much about it. But if you happen to catch the Weather Channel and your eyes pop at the readings in Texas or Florida - or even Rapid City for goodness sakes - you start to grow alarmed. Spring is everywhere. Is it forgetting us?

It came to a head last week watching video from out of our neighboring state of Wisconsin. When the green Capitol lawns at Madison were shown I realized I was about that same shade in envy. And this was before St. Patrick's Day when at least I could say I was doing my version of green for my Irish friends.

When even our sister state sports about without its winter mantle and preens in the green of the new season I say this is unfair, this is for us way too long.

Our immediate neighborhood must be the last holdout for snow. We alone seem to be left with snow cover. Our area got hit early (November 13), hard (a foot of snow in that first snowfall) and often. It didn't go anywhere but up, as in ever higher piles of white, and down, as in deeper drifts with every step.

The recent run of mild temperatures has mostly erased the snow pack in other parts of the city. Freeway embankments are bare and frankly unbeautiful. Last year's grasses are scraggly and beaten down from the previous weight of the snow.

Residential yards are free of snow too. The bare lots reveal all sorts of things. They're like the open pits at archeological digs. Rubbish and lost items are scattered as left - mittens, toys, sections of newspapers blown by the wind, covered up all these months.

Hard snow ridges persist at the curbs, particularly on shady streets where the sun can't penetrate. These were deposited by the city plows as they open the streets (our winter warriors - "we can get out, we can get through!") or made into roadside piles by our own driveway-clearing efforts. The dirty unlovely snow hillocks are vestiges of their staggering former intersection-view-blocking powers.

The houses on our block sit in a sea of white. There's not a thought that, below the snow, the cold soil we're anxious to reach with rake and trowel will any day soon bring forth crocus or daffodil.

The surface snow - the snow on top which warms in the sun's rays - is crusty and soft. I'm a pushover it suggests. I'll be gone soon. But underneath is another story. That snow layer is like glacial ice. It has no thought of evaporating away.

This is okay, perhaps. It may result in slower seepage into the ground and eventually into the local streams and rivers forecast to flood. Maybe we should regard our yards as having a role in the prevention of the rising waters. They are, so to speak, our thumb in the dike.

A pair of cardinals perched in the front yard tree, welcome notes of color to the gray Sunday start. They're our harbingers of spring along with other consistent signs. They give hope and reason to look around with interest and delight.

A car in front of us today stopped abruptly on the road. Fortunately we and the car ahead were able to brake in time. The reason for the sudden stop was soon apparent. A Canadian goose was being given the right of way as it zigzagged a course to the other side.

One hears of a speed bump. Al says this was a goose bump. Would have been - I counter. It'd have been a bumped goose - except for the alertness of the first driver.

Spring is here - cardinals, geese and yes, even the leftover piles of snow. It is good to move ahead into the season. Spring is stretch time. This year we'll throw in a sprint or two.

Ro Giencke - March 2011

It started with floor plans

2011-03-18T09:51:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when some snatch of memory from the far past comes out of nowhere and sets you musing? This is how it was for me recently. From nowhere a remembrance of my mom and her interest in collecting house floor plans came to me.

I thought of how much she enjoyed studying floor plans. She kept a file. They were clipped from newspapers and magazines.

Mom had comments on whether a plan had practicality and good flow. Sometimes she showed us one of the house plans. They weren’t my interest but I politely looked.

I was never into dimensions. Give me a house to walk into and I can tell you right away if it’ll work. A blueprint or floor plan, an artistic concept mathematically set down on paper, is something else.

Sometimes she wrote her comments on the margins of the plans. She saved the plans she liked. Reluctantly, after time, she got rid of others.

I didn't say anything but in my mind I had a question: Why are you saving them? She wasn't going to build a house. No renovation was going to happen either. She wasn’t going to knock out a dividing wall and say to her builder, "Refer to this plan which I just happen to have."

Now I realize the floor plans were for her a wonderful escape. They were her hobby even if it wasn’t thought of as such. Personal pastimes are our interest and our interest alone, another dimension of our life which is often lived out in the mind - where maybe some of the best living is really done.

In a subsequent email to my sister I mentioned being reminded of mom’s liking for floor plans. She was glad I shared this. It caused her also to think back on them. She noted they were such a part of her life.

"Makes you wonder what our kids, years later, will think back on and say - this is where mom curled up in her head and had her own separate life," ended my next email to her.

My sister wrote back. She'd given thought to what her kids might say of her interests and, in the email, listed the interests which they might single out.

The self-summary, as might be supplied by her children, prompted me to want to make a similar inspection of my interests.

A personal assessment turned outward, as if the work of others, can make you look at yourself differently. Visualizing what others see of us can make each one of us consider the picture we give out.

We're in the act of describing ourselves at every moment whether we know it or not. Actions and interests very accurately communicate to others. They suggest what commands our time and what we, by choice, lend ourselves to.

Somewhat like scanning the mental impression I have of myself, here’s what I came up with that might be said by those who know me best:

“She loves sunshine. She gravitates to sunshine at all times. She has her favorite places in the sun and sits in the full strength of its light. She avoids the shade if she can. Sun nourishes her. She needs hot weather and has never liked the cold.

She loves to walk and read and write. She’s good at writing letters. She can talk and philosophize at length, and just as easily curl up with a magazine or book and be so quiet you have to go look for her.

She loves going anywhere in the car. Being in a car, like the action of walking for her, helps her think. Decisions fall into place with wheels under you she says. Decisions, ideas and the simple enjoyment of all there is to see from a moving car make her appreciate the open road very much.

She loves to travel. She has a lifelong curiosity about geography. Place names fascinate her. She studies maps and atlases and pores over street maps as if they're clues to treasure, which for her they are.

She marvels at local gems tucked away in the neighborhoods. These places of interest, revealed by maps or – more adventurously found by car or hiking through – make her an urban explorer. She’ll take any new street. Any place that leads off the main track has her attention.

She notes the parks, trails, creeks, churches, retail centers and pockets of historic homes or beautiful residential gardens which many entirely miss. She assesses each visited spot for its good points. When she especially likes an area she adopts it enthusiastically as an extension of her own neighborhood.

She’s animated by quirky place names. She is amused by the quaint place names common to Appalachia, the Ozarks, New England and the West. The sparkling names of coastal Florida and the heritage-rich Spanish names of California quicken her pulse. She ponders and searches out the background of all place names new to her, digging out their provenance like an excavator for gold.

She loves her coffee. Breakfast is her favorite time of day. Breakfast out is her spin on a fun shared meal. She is at her happiest making spaghetti sauce. She is partial to her daily glass of wine. She likes to sip it and know life is good.

She likes steak, hamburgers and salads with her own homemade Italian dressing, heavy on the olive oil and seasoned with the sunny herbs of oregano and basil.

She’s enthusiastic about many things or the idea of them. She likes the New York Times daily crossword puzzles in the local paper, and the local paper for its news, comics, general information and local perspective. She’s an avid daily newspaper reader. Life is interesting to her.”

My file turns out to be different from mom's. No doubt, however, the same conversation will ensure. Out of the blue the kids will recall facets of who I am. They'll trade comments and laugh as they review. "Funny how it came to me" they'll say. "Those things are such a part of her."

Ro Giencke - 2011

The day it never warmed up

2011-03-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

In this story the laugh is on me. Which is, I think, a great way to tell a story. It happened like this. There was a chance to accompany my husband when he had some work to do out of town. This was a few years ago. It required staying in that city a few days.

It was early February and bitterly cold. Being a good Midwestern city it had enclosed skyways for walking in comfort high above the blustery streets of downtown. The skyways linked our hotel with shopping. I couldn't wait to get started.

It was great fun rambling the the sky walks. There were shops in every building linked one to another. It was blissful to be snug inside moving smartly along. The big glass windows of the walkways let me look down and observe how bundled up everyone was. They looked miserable huddled in their small groups at the intersections waiting for the lights to turn green.

A temperature sign was visible from one of the glassed-in corridors crossing to another building. It read -012.

"That's about what they said it was going to be," I nodded, thinking of the TV meteorologist who with such glee forecasts the expected brutal weather conditions.

I shivered deliciously, aware of how unwrapped I felt in my light layers. The heavy parka was out of sight and mind, cast aside back at the hotel as if it would never be needed again.

Around noon I happened to pass the temperature sign again. I made a point of seeing how much it had warmed up.You call that warming up? I said to it. It had gone up to a miserable -06.

Product of a small town, it's my nature to believe that a conversation opportunity awaits with every next person you see.

"Can that be the temperature?" I asked a woman approaching from the opposite direction. Arctic blast or not, it seemed that by the lunch hour the sun should be warming things better than that. The number seemed like a very poor effort on someone's part.

She turned and looked at the sign with me. A businessman, striding by, heard the question and wheeled around. With a smile on his face he said, "That's not the temperature, that's the Dow Jones."

The purpose of the sign made clear, a small detail previously missed registered on me. The marquee for the investment banking firm connected with the sign might as well have jumped across the street and joined us, so clearly did it show up now.

The woman and I looked at each other and laughed.We figured our helpful friend had a pretty funny story to bring back to his office.

And for the record, if anyone asks if I know anything about the Dow Jones I can modestly answer, "I've had my experience with it."

Ro Giencke - March 2011

Scene from a Summer Porch

2011-03-09T17:58:00.000-08:00

I was nine when my grandma died. I didn't know her very well.

We lived in different states. This is part of the reason she's not recalled as a grandma of cuddles and bedtime stories.

She and grandpa came every summer to spend a month with us in the country.

Being part of our family for several weeks each year, and the annual trip to see them, were our only times together. We weren't together at Christmas or Easter or birthdays.

Grandma was busy summers at our place. She helped mom with things around the house. I preferred to tag after my older boys. They did fun stuff outside. I wanted to be with them and not inside.

Mom and Grandma were companions for each other in the daily tasks. Grandpa was generally fishing when dad was at work. My grandparents were helpful easy company. But as a grandchild I seldom entered their world.

There's little I remember of my grandmother. My picture of her is formed from what others tell. The one vivid memory is a reprimand received from her. It was said sharply or that's how I interpreted her tone of voice.

It caught me off guard. It happened like this. My grandparents were in chairs on the porch. They sat side by side on that side of the house in the cool of the evening.

Grandpa was content to enjoy the quiet that settled wherever we kids were not. Grandma, more accustomed to having her hands occupied, kept the fly swatter handy. Flies could be pesky and most vexing as the season moved toward late summer.

I hurried past them that evening. I was either coming in or going out the door, trying to do so without letting in flies as we'd been instructed. I noticed that grandma had killed a number of flies.

“It looks like World War III” I said of the flies that lay where swatted. This was the cold war era of the 1960s. We and Russia were watching each other closely. Tensions were high. Kids don't miss much. We knew the buzz words, the worries and the threats.

It was intended as a commendation of grandma's accurate aim. It did look like a battlefield to me but it wasn't of real lives sacrificed that my comment pertained.

"Don’t say that,” grandma reproved me. “Don’t ever say that.”

I went away as if verbally swatted. I smarted from the sharpness of her retort. I didn't feel the harmless remark merited a rebuke.

Later I must have taken my hurt feelings to mom. She told me that grandma hated the word war. She lived through the first world war as an American caught in Europe by circumstances which kept her and her family there the duration of those hostilities. The experience had a lasting effect which I for the first time had come upon.

I believe this is where I started to understand that what we say to another is important. No matter how much we believe our words are without malice or injurious intent we don't know how they can register on someone else.

Watch what you say. Think before you say it. I learned that from grandma's response that summer evening. She died before the next summer's visit. I’ve never forgotten that moment on the porch with her.

Her reaction to my comment startled me but it taught me. Words you use even in joking can provoke pain in someone else.

Slow down and think before you speak, while not hilarious as a philosophy, may make us more attuned and aware. And overall that's a very good thing.

Ro Giencke - 2011

Hurrah for George Washington

2011-02-21T13:38:00.001-08:00

February when I was nine years old was a favorite month. For one thing it came with cherry pie for George Washington’s birthday.

Log cabin motifs were colored and cut to hang on the walls at school to mark Abe Lincoln’s birthday on February 12. It was Groundhog’s Day (Feb. 2) and Valentine’s Day. After the dark days of December, and January’s often numbing cold, February stirred with events and activity.

February 22 the year I was nine was unusually mild. The holiday was celebrated then as George Washington’s Birthday and not the more generic President’s Day (although the holiday sales in the newspapers are the same.)

Dad was home that day. He, my mom and little brother, not yet in school (the term preschooler wasn’t invented yet), decided to have an outdoor picnic.

They roasted slices of hard salami on sticks over a fire. They put the fire-seared salami on bread. Everything tastes good out in the open doing something spontaneous like that.

A winter picnic was practically unheard of, the season being what it is in our parts. When I came home from school and was told of the picnic I could hardly believe it. How lucky they were, I thought.

Later checking, this particular holiday got up to around 50 degrees. Snow was gone. At least it’s conspicuously absent in the photo dad took of the picnic. We owned a fair-sized property and the picnic spot was on a south-facing slope some distance from the house.

My brother has his aviator’s cap on. He’s pictured in it in a lot of the photos in that particular album.

Mom wears an apron under her coat. She's in a dress or skirt. When the decidedly non-picnic attire was pointed out years afterward, while looking through the albums, she commented “We didn't wear pants back then, did we.”

A thermos of coffee is on the ground at the bottom of the photo. I imagine my folks sipping the hot coffee, holding the warm mugs and savoring the February afternoon. The picture is a black and white classic. Photo albums bring everything back.

There was always cherry pie for George Washington’s birthday at our house. Mom was a born pie maker. Her crusts were light and fluffy and her double crust pies were something to behold.

When a juicy cherry middle puddles warmly between two crusts – and a container of vanilla ice cream is in the freezer to top things off – you’re not ever apt to forget who the first president of the United States is. “George Washington,” we might very well have said between bites, “you’re the best.”

Not a pie maker I find I don’t even have mom’s cherry pie recipe in my files. Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, an edition I’ve had since I was married, has the following recipe. The directions are mine. I’ve never been able to read a recipe without wanting to figure out a different way to say it.

CHERRY PIE

Pastry for 8 or 9 inch two-crust pie

2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons shortening, 4-5 tablespoons cold water. Measure flour and salt into bowl. Cut in shortening thoroughly. Sprinkle in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing until all flour is moistened and dough almost cleans side of bowl. One to 2 teaspoons water can be added if needed.

Divide dough in half and shape into two slightly flattened rounds. Using a rolling pin (floured stockinet-covered rolling pin is advised) roll the first round of dough on lightly floured surface. Roll out two inches larger than inverted pie pan. Fold pastry into quarters, unfold and ease into pan.

Roll out the second ball of dough, setting aside until time to place over filling. Lightly fold in quarters for easy transfer to the assembled pie.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. (This is given as the first step but knowing how long it takes for me to roll out crust this seems like turning on the oven too soon. But go ahead if you want! You’re probably smarter to trust Betty Crocker than me).

Pie Filling for nine-inch double crust pie

Stir together 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar and 1/3 cup all-purpose flour. Mix with 2 l-lb. cans of pitted red tart cherries, drained. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; sprinkle with 1 teaspoon almond extract and dot with 3 tablespoons butter.

Place top crust over filling and unfold. Trim overhanging edge of pastry 1 inch from rim of pan. Fold and roll top edge under lower edge, pressing on rim to seal; flute. Lastly, cut slits in top crust to let steam escape. Seal the edges together and flute.

Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning. Remove foil last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake 8- and 9-inch pies 35-40 minutes or until crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in crust.

Enjoy!

Rooting for the King's Speech

2011-02-02T19:24:00.000-08:00

Clues that the film The King’s Speech was headed to the top came quickly. Our local metro newspaper had an article referencing the movie on the Opinion Exchange page. This was the first hint which registered with me.

It was one of my mornings for a quick scan of the headlines. I must confess the gist of the article was missed on me. However, when I noticed another reference to the movie shortly thereafter I started to feel Oscar vibes.

When articles about films move from the entertainment section into what I call the thinking part of the paper there’s a logical assumption that here no light fare is being discussed. Curiosity piqued, I sought information the easy way.

I picked up the phone and called a friend who follows movies pretty closely. Asked if he knew anything about The King’s Speech he said, “Not really. It was being discussed at work. They were talking pretty highly of it.”

The reason I was poky in doing my own research is maybe because, as Americans, a title with the word King in it doesn’t entirely set us on fire. We threw in the towel on kings nearly 250 years ago as some of us recall.

Among our grievances, mostly against Parliament, in a clash that eventually took us to war with England, was the issue about taxes. We didn’t want to pay import tax on their tea. We tossed the tea into Boston harbor and have been a nation of coffee drinkers ever since.

Anyone growing up since the mid-twentieth century has had only the experience of a Queen on the English throne.

We’ve known Queen Elizabeth all our lives – her family, the corgis, the royal estates and Buckingham Palace too. We don’t have any immediate association with the word king. There's a sort of blank when it comes to that.

We’re very struck on the English monarchy as long as there’s a pond between the throne and us. We’re conscious and tender about our preemptive strikes for freedom way back when. The right to worship as we choose (or not at all), no taxation without representation – that sort of thing.

So we can’t sidle up to the monarchy too cozily after all this time. We fear the English would soon have us sitting down to crumpets and tea. We’d be right where we began. We’d have to answer to those Revolutionary boys in homespun cloth and colonist women who won our Stars and Stripes for us.

On the other hand, the English did us a huge favor about seventy years ago. We, and the democratic world, owe them big.

They were the strong defense against the mortal enemy as the United States held out for peace, choosing to remain neutral. Armies for war marched across Europe. War planes brought terror to citizenry never before so caught in the crosshairs of destruction and doom.

The English dared and defied Hitler. It was a courageous stand built on the deathly calm conviction that there was no other choice.

This is where the man who truly would be king – Albert Frederick Arthur George – makes his appearance. The film opens when he holds the title of Duke of York. His brother is heir apparent and their father George V is still the wearer of the crown.

Events unfold as even the most casual student of history knows they will. David, or Edward as he becomes when he is crowned king, has fallen madly in love with socialite Wallis Simpson from Baltimore. He forfeits the throne for the love of his life leading to the impromptu succession of his younger brother.

The new king becomes George VI. He has no wish to be king. He would shirk from it if he had that instinct in him to shirk from royal obligations, which he does not. As a member of the family he calls “the firm” he is above all willing to shoulder kingly duties.

It’s not the responsibility that paralyzes him even though – as he points out in a moment of despair - he has no training, no education, no credentials to show the world he is prepared for this position as countries, including his own, teeter at the brink of war.

He is cowed by the stammer that has affected his speech since he was four or five. As the monarchy joins the modern age, and BBC airs royal speeches into every home in the United Kingdom, the new king is at a standoff with himself.

He is forced to face and do something about the speech impediment that has cast a shadow, larger than the shadow cast by his older brother, over his full potential as an effective modern monarch.

The King's Speech, which of course deals about this very matter of George VI’s speech difficulty, is a movie must-see. It’s not only superb from the historic context (which fascinates from that perspective for those who like history).

The interpersonal aspects are acted out brilliantly. It’s a psychological thriller as the relationship between the king and his speech therapist develops.

The Harley Street clinician, an Australian who has just the right combination of compassion and prodding insistence, keeps working patiently with the king who flings a stimulating mix of obstinacy and embarrassed male pride into their sessions.

The men grow in respect for each other but you can feel it being hammered out. Trust has to be established. The instinct for knowing when someone is genuinely caring towards you has to be acknowledged and acted on.

Colin Firth as the needy but touchy monarch and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, his speech tutor trying to open his shuttered past, do justice to roles that require consummate restraint and passion.

There's the inner struggle as the king works to master the stammer. The facial contortions as he battles to get the words out, the anguish felt by his wife and the disappointment of his British audiences grip you. You can see the panic he just barely keeps contained as he struggles in front of the microphone.

You find yourself rooting for him as the poor man literally writhes in turmoil as the words die on his tongue. You realize how awful it is for him. He must sound the decisive monarch of the English Empire that rules a quarter of the globe and he can’t make his words march to his own tune.

In a bit of irony the film shows the king and his family watching tape of Hitler haranguing the German crowds. Hitler holds them with effortless mastery. The speech is a torrent that runs on. The crowds soak it up, responding wildly as if they can’t get enough.

Ultimately this film, with messages at many levels, left me with two particular thoughts. One is the power of choice. Civilization at times rests on thin threads. How fortunate for threads spun on resolute choices for good at critical times.

The second point I took home underlies the importance of teachers and all who work in teaching or mentoring situations. The film shows a mentor's dedication to a difficult student. Even when the student is a king.

The royal wardrobe is worth some attention too. Helena Bonham Carter as George VI’s loyal and loving wife – the Queen Mum of post-war England – holds her own in this film which is correctly focused on the king and his speech therapist.

Ro Giencke - 2011

Candles for Anna

2011-01-27T07:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the birthday of a railroad widow I came to know. She's been dead a long time. She comes to mind every January 26. It's my way of honoring a friendship not sought out but inevitable as I spent time in her sweet presence.

Her name was Anna. She was in her 80s when we met. Her last name was Irish but I learned she was born of parents from central Europe. She was Bohemian she said. She shared the same Catholic faith with the young Irishman she fell in love with and whose name, along with his two sons, she bore.

In writing the church history she was a name given to me as being a font of information. I interviewed her at her apartment and then went back to see her as a friend.

She was kind and interesting. Hers had not been an easy life. Her disposition mirrored her peaceful acceptance of events. She made me so welcome on every visit.

She told about a railroad accident which her husband, on a rare free day from work, had had to respond to. This happened probably back in the 1920s. They were all set to leave on a picnic when the news came to him that he must get to the rail yard fast.

She was left with the picnic lunch, into which she’d put such care, and two disgruntled little boys who had their hearts as set on the outing as she had.

All of us go through a remarkable number of small disappointments. I could imagine her sitting there with the picnic basket and no place to go on a lovely summer day.

The train wreck needed her prayers and thoughts. She could quickly and naturally respond to the gravity of the situation. She put her disappointment as a small thing compared to that. But she must have wondered about life’s timing. The train mishap, as if on cue, happened at the very moment to prevent the anticipated picnic.

There were other memories she shared with me, such as the excitement every summer among the ladies of the church as they got ready for the annual festival.

Pushing their babies in strollers they visited the downtown shops selling tickets for raffles and promoting the fundraising efforts of the little parish church. She had a special friend who made the expeditions a lark. They must have relished the chance to be out for a cause, taking sensible advantage of this chance to pair up and be out on the town.

There was insane enjoyment in their volunteer work. It gave them reason to dress up a bit. It let them briefly be part of the civic scene. They visited with the store owners not as customers but as the sales people they were as they came to boost the parish festival.

Sadly, the friend died at a young age. Anna's story, vivid with animated recall, quietly ended.

In life we meet truly lovely people. Sometimes it’s for a short time. Sometimes it’s for a long while. We don’t know a lot of people a whole lifetime. Luckily they can stay with us through memory, such as my thoughts of Anna, and Anna's that day of her friend.

If living, Anna would be well over a hundred. The light of her memory is like her birthday candles. They shine with the fire of love that has eternal glow.

Ro Giencke - 2011

Winter with Ernest Hemingway

2011-01-23T20:24:00.000-08:00

Blue skies and white banks of compacted snow print a January scene on the retina while the brain, disregarding the message it receives, goes on searching for a blaze of tropical color for eyes to latch onto.

My friend is spending the month in Arizona and she has made a good decision. I recall how sunny and mild the Southwest can be from winters in Texas and New Mexico. Mesas, cacti and the turquoise vault overhead would be perfect antidotes to the Minnesota winter this has turned out to be.

One can deal with persistent cold even though it gets to be a strain. It’s the wind and the constant spurts of snow – falling in amounts just enough to gum up the roads for commutes – which have put the Winter of 2011 into the high nuisance bracket.

Maybe it’s the cold weather which is keeping the squirrels out of sight. I do remember there was a period last year when they disappeared. Then all of a sudden they were all over the place.

Some were in the high branches of the trees the other day. So we’re still spotting a few. Like last winter, we wonder how they dare jump from limb to high limb. A strong gust, as has been blowing lately, could surely throw their light weight off.

The rosemary shrub we brought in from the deck has amazingly flourished. It has bright green growth at the tips. The sprigs smell so good when rubbed through the fingers. The plant, in its pot close to the window, must feel the nip of outside air.

No doubt it puzzles how it ended up here. What tweak of fortune, it ponders, prevented it from the destiny it had in mind for itself, to be an ornamental bush trimmed with pretty blue flowers, giving definition to some residential corner lot two skips and a hop away from the sea.

January is a good time to visit on the phone. It’s easier than warming up cars and driving in frozen state across town. I recently had a good conversation with a friend on the other end of the line.

We were enjoying the sunshine as we talked. It’s been a rather cloudy period. We agreed that a cold day full of sunshine is a pretty good deal.

I said I'd finished some ironing. Certain pieces of clothing are really helped by the touch-up an iron gives. I don’t iron often. Once in awhile a burst of ironing commitment comes over me and then it’s a rather enjoyable job. A pressed shirt or pair of slacks can look so neat.

Interestingly enough, even when we don’t like the snow, cold and blow, we’re trained from childhood here to deal with it. A surge of coping comes along, lifting us when we most need the energy to handle it. Coping is done by connecting in my book. Communication of all kinds bridges the season for me.

Al catches fish and this adds to the variety of winter meals. We’ve been eating well and simply. We stock up on items on our grocery trips. It’s nice to save a trip or two to the store at this cold time.

I remind myself, when my eye can’t fasten on hibiscus and I clomp out of the house in my warmest boots to the road salt-grimed car, that this has been a shorter winter for us than for some. We did get away after all. It already seems far in the past. But we did have a break from this.

We were in Key West over Christmas. It was a wonderful time. A highlight for me was a visit to the home of writer Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway reaches into me. He’s one of my first picks as a novelist. It made settling on a book, once we were home, very easy. Across the River and into the Woods –not considered one of his great books but one that suits me – is on the reading table now.

Hemingway, we learned, as the tour led to the final stop, and several of the forty-five resident cats were pointed out, had an upstairs studio. It's separate from the house. It's set amid palms and reached by an outside staircase. The swimming pool his third wife put in while he was away in Europe stretches out blue and inviting below.

The studio has been left intact. His work space is as he used it and as it was arranged. His Royal typewriter is on the table. The author often wrote standing up. Shrapnel from WWI was never fully removed. He was often in pain from that.

The upstairs hallway of his home has a glassed-in bookcase. It interested me to see his personal collection. Imagine someone coming into your house and standing in front of your selections, whether music, books or any other topic of private interest. Disconcertingly, complete strangers evaluate your selections, scanning the rows of titles.

It could make you not want to strive for greatness, just knowing this could be in the works for you. Fleetingly I thought of the mishmash of personal articles in almost anyone’s home. More than we suspect, the objects we surround ourselves with or collect reveal us.

Pardon me, Hemingway, I said, looking over the titles as I could make them out. I just want to know you – the full and complex man whose writings still hold us. As he clacked away on the Royal these very books must have helped shape the stories he set down to tell.

Bibles or hymn books, old tomes which were likely family keepsakes, were shelved with what must have been, at the time, a current detective novel. I smiled to see The Adventures of Tom Sawyer among the reference volumes and other books.

I pictured Hemingway at the bookcase hunting for a book – a certain book according to mood or frame of mind. The shelves would be scoured for something that gave solace or provided entertainment or escape according to the whim.

Even in Key West, where winter is no problem, books while away time, add richness to the day and help craft a writer’s creativity.

While vacationing, we tried to establish how many trips to Florida we’ve made. I’m not sure if we ever came to an exact number. There have been several air flights and driving vacations. There were fun times with the kids with all the things in Florida for a family to do.

Thinking about Florida pushed memory all the way back. At ten it would have been impossible to regard Florida as in my future. It was beyond the reality I could take in. Moreover, it was in the opposite direction of any vacation trip we took, which was West to the Pacific Coast.

But that year, my tenth year or so, my cousins went to Florida. They went to the Everglades. They drove all the way to Key West. As if that wasn’t epic enough, they ended their road trip not by going home to Missouri but my looping way north to visit us.

After hot Florida the thought of the cool waters of the lake region worked on their notions better than aloe vera on sunburns. There was still beach sand in the car when they arrived. It was on the car mats. It was white and soft as powder. They laughed as they shook it out.

It could have been grains of magic for the effect the beach sand had on me. I was so impressed with my aunt and uncle and cousins. To me they had seen the world. The spirit of adventure that informed their vacations added to my desire to travel widely too.

None of us knows with certainty who plants the first seeds of our longings. Admiration for people or places derives from deep places as well as coming upon us full-blown. But many aspirations certainly are formed in our early years.

I gave a silent thank you to my relatives as we enjoyed the Key West vacation. In a big way, without knowing it, they helped bring this about.

The seeds of my longings were in the soft, white stowaway sand. Sun, sand and travel have proved to be the trio that spark my ambitions, shape my interests and soothe my inner being. They put all the rest into context, including a lumpy, bumpy January soon coming to an end.

Ro Giencke -2011

Martin Luther King: 25th Anniversary Tribute

2011-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

This is the 25th anniversary of the Martin Luther King holiday as a Federal holiday. I trace back the long thread of those years to that first designated holiday. It was 1986 as both the arithmetic and memory inform me. It was our first winter in our new home. The day itself, I believe, was mild enough to comment on.

We did what a lot of young couples do when a day is given to you free to fill. We used it on ourselves. We went out for breakfast which we happen to like to do. We ordered bacon and eggs and pancakes which we ate with gusto. We read the paper, sipped our coffee. We came home the scenic route which took us along an iced-over river, snowy banks rising on either side.

The memory of the mild gray morning, snowy fields and the breakfast date with my husband is so clear, after such a span of time, because of one specific thing. That particular Monday was speaking to us, carefree as we were. The creation of our own ritual within the new holiday has held as a lasting image because loosely we understood the intent of the day.

It was a baby start but a start. In schools, in the years when our kids were small, the King holiday often served as an opening for studying and celebrating diversity. This, too, was a good start. Many wonderful things start small. They build upon themselves and evolve as a kind of test of time.

The twenty-fifth anniversary is a milestone of sorts. The King holiday is in our makeup. It's in our soul. I wonder, on this occasion marking going forward into the next twenty-five years, what Dr. King would want us to take into the future as his continuing legacy.

His greatness is never in doubt. His stirring words will move the generations. His natural leadership, in the speeches that sang with poetry and rang with passionate oratory, rallied and repelled. Standing to the crowds Martin Luther King shook the country's conscience.

He was a lightning rod for change. Racial inequalities needed to cease. They needed to be corrected and this seemed feasible only by something close to social revolution. Oh yes, the man had mountains to climb.

When he scaled those heights, like the prophet he was, he called out. I have a dream, he said. I have a dream.

Like a shaking off of slothfulness, or as rising from a deep slumber, a purposeful rumbling grew. It got stronger and spread. We Shall Overcome, the marchers sang. The dream was received into the world.

America and its people went through birth throes in the loss of innocence that began with John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

By the year 1968 there was no naivete left. Within months of each other King and Robert F. Kennedy, impassioned voices for the unclaimed and the unheard, vital men at the height of their powers, were dead. And people wept and wondered as they fell.

Many use today, the Martin Luther King holiday, as a day for volunteerism or service. Some take time to reflect. We look up his speeches. We study the quotes. We inspect our attitudes in the light of his light. We have learned. As a nation we continue to grow.

-honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-68.

Community of the Mind

2010-12-18T18:42:00.000-08:00

December is the holiday time of the year whether one is involved in religious observances or not.

You only have to pay attention at five in the afternoon to pinpoint one of the reasons we almost demand celebration now. At this dark season there is such a need to make merry. We feel it in our very bones.

Human bodies require light and warmth. We have the need to reach out hands and be touched by the comfort of extended friendship.

Days are chilly almost everywhere at this end time of the year. Snow or cold rain drive us in. By instinct we seek the shelter of the cozy home or the good cheer of other folks.

I look out at the quiet neighborhood as early dusk rubs out the last of another cloudy day. The December night waits for this exact moment.

When it’s just dark enough the outdoor lights twinkle on. At house after house, block after block, strings of lights come on. They unite us up and down the street.

It’s like a chain of hope. You can’t help but be soothed by the magic of the soft glow.

The lights enter deep into you as you stand before their spell. You can almost hear the night scene passing an eternal message. “Never fear. Peace is here. If not in the world, in this moment – now”

It’s as if the holiday-lit trees and shrubs, deck rails and roofs of our snow-covered houses have figured out something we still struggle to grasp.

“Look at us,” they say. “Not one of us is the same. But here we all are, dressed to the hilt, of like mind if you wish to call us that, to make festive the long December night.”

The panorama of winter lights is an excellent example of what it is to be a community of the mind.

Inanimate objects can’t function as community as community is reckoned to be. But their steadfast light, night after night through these weeks which bring us to some of the year’s best-kept holy days, can nudge us to act accordingly.

Being of like mind is easier than it would seem. Think hope and proceed with hope are a couple helpful approaches to likemindedness.

We’re a community of the mind when concentration and efforts are aimed toward the intention of living harmoniously or in good spirit as best we can with everyone else.

Community of the mind is continually formed when we work to understand each other.

Our actions come out of respect, for others as well as self-respect. Likemindedness strengthens community. It has the energy behind it to become the norm.

Zip code or address has nothing to do with shaping a community of the mind.

We can live anywhere. Our residence might be in one country. It may be in another. We can live in town, on a mountaintop, in the most remote valley.

If we place our mind on peace, and gently but insistently return to that focus when distracted from it, we live with a purpose wide enough to bring everyone in.

Living peacefully with good will to all has its greatest impact in the community we call home. But make no mistakes. The broadening effect of likemindedness touches hands across the world. The community of the mind begins with each of us.

We grapple today with all sorts of issues. So many things divide us. They divide us to the point of virulent name calling, violent dissension and even war.

We wrestle with the same old stuff which generations past to ancient times did.

Wise men and wise women from the beginning have pondered the meaning of life. They’ve mulled on it, debated it and went after it.

They searched for it with decisive belief. The drive to be our best selves, with human dignity and justice for everyone, rests at the core of our earthly existence.

This is the wisdom against which issues critical to community are weighed.

One thing is for certain and it is this. Community of the mind doesn’t come into being simply because everyone thinks the same.

If group thinking is destructive or hurtful in nature it can’t possibly be this thing we call community. Community strives for higher things.

The mind is too precious a place to harbor the self-defeating germs of anger and revenge, jealousy, greed, pride, bigotry, untruthfulness or prejudice. These germs seek to anchor in the fertile and intelligent spaces which we feed by what we take in.

These damaging seeds cannot possibly be elevated to the status of builders of community. Community makes no alliance with anything that isn’t intrinsically of a constructive nature.

When each of us sees in ourselves, and in all others, the wherewithal to create environments of love and trust we’re on the track to developing global society into a community of the mind.

It’s a place where children can learn and be safe. The elderly can leave the security but also the isolation of their homes to go out into the streets. There they will find even perfect strangers vigilant for their care.

The outside lights which shine at the holidays tell us this world is here. It can be here even more fully as we let ourselves shine as like-minded beacons of hope.

December is a month to reflect as well as to purchase gifts and to party. It’s a time to be happy and to be more than happy. Holidays ask that we fill our hearts with joy and let them not be contained or constrained.

We fill our hearts with joy and give from the fullness. In like-minded generosity we find the peace hungered for in the world.

Going Green for Green

2010-12-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

Almost every newspaper or magazine has an article on going green. I'm behind these efforts.

The media have stepped up to educate consumers to the reality that this is exactly what we're doing - consuming. Then they show us how we can balance our consumption and even turn it around.

The green approach might, as a side, help sell green products. It is media's reason for pitching green some cynics suggest. I say hurrah to the endeavor whatever the intention that lies behind it.

There will always be marketing. If some products pitched to the public actually have gentler agents in them or appliances are engineered to require less electricity or water I say more power to the process.

Niches are continually being created for the new. Right now green is an effective niche. It plays to the need for all of us to seriously examine our right to consume without regulation even if it's only self-regulation.

Turning off lights and TV when not in use, walking or biking to cut some necessary car travel (yes, Starbucks coffee counts as necessary trips at times) and reworking and rethinking how we use energy pays back in terms of responsibly conserving.

The commitment to recycle, reuse and reinvent saves in the pocket. More importantly it adds to the global movement to treat our Earth more kindly.

In our household we work at being diligent in returning grocery bags to the store. We use the bags until they're in sad condition. Limp and thin from wear their next journey can only be to the recycling bin.

We run in streaks. Sometimes we get the bags along with us every time. Just like that. Then we go through a period of not remembering. As I tug the store's brown bags out from under to fill with groceries I try not to think of trees being cut. "Sorry," I tell the bag. "This time we forgot."

For quite awhile I've watched people bring their own totes. Many of the totes have store logos on them. They're used for shopping at that particular store. But some totes are taken all around town.

It looks crisp and very European to have a shopper tote dangling from the arm. It makes the shoppers look like thinkers and planners. I'm going shopping and I'm prepared is their mantra as they set out toting their totes.

The idea of joining the shopper tote people grew on me. The other day a dark-green tote caught my eye. It was selling at a check-out counter at the local store. It appeared durable. It had a classy look. It was a size I like, not overlarge but big enough to hold the food items I often run in for.

I turned to the fellow who was filling the nearby candy racks. "I really should buy this," I said to him.

"You really should," he answered agreeably, looking up.

"I will but not this time," I told him. I wheeled the cart to a counter that was open. Since I had to wait in line anyway I followed my original impulse. I went back for the tote.

"You convinced me to buy it," I told the man still shelving Snicker bars and other favorites which my resolve not to buy had made me feel virtuous.

"And I don't even work here," he said with a grin. He appeared happy to assist the store that gives his company business.

I was happy to finally own a shopper bag. So everybody was happy and I only had to pay $1.50 for the green save-the-world-this-is-a-start grocery tote.

Sprinkle of Memories shot with Gold

2010-11-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

When my daughter phoned the other night I was at the computer putting down some thoughts regarding her grandpa.

We were ten days away from the second anniversary of his passing. In the last few days I had been made aware of something. Memory, as if it had its own eye on the calendar, was retrieving recollections of dad for me.

Perhaps the recollections were surfacing because of the discovery of the salt and pepper shaker set.

A year and a half into our new home and there remain a few boxes not fully emptied. Last week I was looking for a set of plates that hung on a wall in our former home.

They didn’t fit with the new place when we began filling the space. Treasured objects can look oddly out of character in a new environment.

At the time I wasn’t sure what to do with the plates. They were reboxed and then forgotten. When a spot opened for them to be displayed they suddenly were valuable again. I went in search of them.

Thankfully the plates were in the first box pulled out of storage. When we packed for our move we strived for efficiency. Boxes were marked with their contents. Along the way, however, as items got jumbled in, not everything got marked down.

You close your eyes to the confusion you’re almost surely creating for yourself. If one end of the move is to be easier than the other, you settle the matter by saying, it might as well be the portion of the move you’re currently involved in.

The box located and plates lifted out, my curiosity was piqued by the other items inside. All were swaddled in newspaper. I began unwrapping the pieces one by one wondering what each would be.

The salt and pepper shaker set, with Hawaii stamped on the pedestal, stayed cradled in my hand. Dad’s presence felt very close.

Dad brought the shakers back from Hawaii years ago. We were in our first home then, which helps me estimate the date.

My mom didn’t go on this vacation with him. It strikes me that one of the grandchildren may have been about to be born. Grandmas don’t have a desire to go junketing when there’s an imminent grandchild to welcome into the world.

Whatever the reason, dad went by himself. It had to be winter. I can see him with a twinkle in his eye at the audacity of his plan come to fruitful achievement.

The Minnesota cold was traded for the Hawaiian paradise. Dad visited the USS Arizona Memorial and must have done other things, none of which I remember he went into much telling about.

All I know is he came home tan and happy with a desire to visit Hawaii again. Perhaps as soon as the next year – at Easter I recall – he and mom went to Hawaii together. They had a great time.

They never went back to Hawaii, or anywhere as far, again. But this one really big vacation of their marriage stands out as exceedingly satisfying. The family was happy for them. We actually were rather amazed at the jet set patina our parents now possessed.

I reflected on all this as the salt and pepper set rested in my hand. Dad brought it for me on their next visit. I was touched. He had given thought to the rest of us while he was having the time of his life far away from family or responsibility or any binding ties.

“Here’s something for you from my trip,” he said. It’s the only gift I recall my dad buying for me. There might have been something else – but nothing comes to mind.

When Al and I and the kids visited home dad liked to take us out for coffee or to McDonalds or Burger King or for a noon meal out. He liked to treat. He was a generous host at a restaurant.

But he wasn’t one, ever, to whip out his wallet and pass over a crisp bill and say “Here, go shopping.” He wasn’t the shopper at Christmas or any other time, which in those days may have been considered quite normal. Many family things were for the women to take care of.

Gift giving isn’t how he operated. I don’t think he ever quite perceived the value in gifts. This pertained to the receiving end as well as in the giving.

So the salt and pepper shaker set was huge. That he shopped, selected and carried back on the plane a souvenir from Hawaii as a gift for a daughter meant a lot.

Gently I finished unwrapping the other pieces in the set and brought them all upstairs. Suddenly, along with the plates, I knew where the salt and pepper shakers would go.

In the way one idea feeds another, a second memory of dad came to me. This occurred after Saturday’s snowfall, which laid down nearly a foot of snow.

The weather turned damp and dreary. I looked for some bright color to put myself into. Color is my answer every time gray skies go on.

I tend to wear a fair amount of black. More black than I need to wear Al will say. But I like the versatility of black. Black can make you feel pulled together and professional which is therefore a marvelous color to have in your closet.

Many of us like to dress casually but still hope for some sort of fashion impact which wearing black can help give.

While there’s contention that my wardrobe is heavy on black my take is that my hangers teem with color. Sporting an array of hues my tees and sweaters aren’t exactly the neutrals which stylists recommend.

I must have been in my thirties when I realized dad had an appreciation for color worn on a person. He commented on the color of a top I had on, singling out the shade as cheerful.

It was uncharacteristic of dad to compliment us on what we wore. He disapproved when something looked sloppy and would tell the boys so as they were growing up.

He didn’t like us going barefoot in the house. He thought winter’s cold floors weren’t good for bare feet but, as importantly, bare feet were uncouth. I can’t remember now if that was his term or just the effect his disapproval gave it.

But there was little commentary for the way my sister and I dressed. He either gave it no thought or marked it as mom’s province.

Dad’s compliment on the bright-colored top sank in. Dad, like me, was lifted by color. I probably knew that in a broader sense. We all knew, for example, that he was partial to yellow (as I am).

But a daughter has other thoughts to pursue. It’s not till much later that you see a parent for what they continue to show of themselves, that you didn’t notice so long ago.

Dad commented about some of my gold jewelry too. When I say gold jewelry these are the moderate priced lines found at Kohls or Target. Both stores had opened nearby and suddenly we had amazing shopping right at home.

It was so much fun looking at and being able to afford pieces that spiffed up outfits. I was in a jewelry stage for a long while.

At a Fargo department store, in those same years, I bought a black knit cardigan. I thought it looked very classy with embossed gold buttons.

Eventually I tired of the gold buttons. The sweater probably looked dated after the gold button trend went out.

I decided it was either replace the buttons or get rid of the sweater. I was discussing this with mom on one of our visits home.

She had a button jar with every kind, color and shape of button. I was just able enough to sew on buttons. If mom had the buttons (or even if they had to be bought) I could handle the job.

“I like the sweater,” dad said from his place at the dining room table. “Why would you want to take the buttons off? They make it look nice.” That he was listening in on the conversation surprised me.

Dad had a penchant for things military. I think he saw the gold buttons as making the sweater look sharp and precise which was part of his fascination, I believe, with things military.

In respect to his opinion I left the sweater as it was. It became my knock-around sweater. It’s a stay-in cardigan, worn so much it’s not quite suitable for any place but home.

It comes along on cool evenings to the lake or is grabbed for a wrap when going out into the yard.

The warmth of the cardigan settles on me like a smile. It’s my go-anywhere black sweater even if that going-anywhere is limited by its appearance.

Even dressed down as the sweater gets to be, the gold buttons dress it up. Dad would have approved.

Ro Giencke - 2010