March 24 is THE day we get HIGH SPEED internet!!!!
I can not wait! Then look out blog readers cuz this will be full of stuff!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
I want this on my "to read" list
During my early years in college. I took several sign languages classes. I don't remember many signs now but can still finger spell. I never learned to be proficint at reading the signs even though a deaf man from class would help me study. I could not grasp the idea that ASL uses concepts instead of word for word as in oral language and writing. The various body language that always accompanies signing determines what the word means. One word could mean many different things varying from impish playfulness to something horrific depending upon the body language that accompanied the sign. ASL takes concentration to all of the body language and I just didn't want to work that hard to decipher the meanings. I still find it facinating and a beautiful language.
I listened to this man on the radio and found the exerpt on the link listed. The author is now 70 years old and talks about the deaf/hearing worlds vividly. Enjoy...
Excerpt: 'Hands of My Father'
by Myron Uhlberg
Being a printer was the only job my father ever had, and he loved it. He would work for the newspaper until he retired over forty years later. In all that time he worked side by side with hearing co-workers, but he never really knew them. Like most in the hearing world, they treated him as if he were an alien — primitive, incapable of speech, and lacking human thought: a person to be avoided if possible, and if not, ignored.
After an apprenticeship of many years, my father was issued a union card. It was the proudest moment of his life. It was tangible proof that he was as good as any hearing man. Even in the dark days of the Depression, when one out of four men were out of work, he, a deaf man, could support himself.
And, he reasoned, he could also support a wife. My father was tired of being alone in this hearing world. It was time, he thought, to create his own silent world. A world that would begin with a deaf wife.
One bleak winter day, while we were sitting at the kitchen table, the rain sleeting against the windows of our Brooklyn apartment, his hands told me the rest of his story, in which began my story:
"Sarah was a young girl. She had many friends. She liked to have fun.
"I first noticed her at the beach in Coney Island. She was always laughing. "All the deaf boys were crazy about Sarah. Even the hearing boys.
"There were many handsome boys on the beach. All the young boys had muscles and chocolate tans. They could jump and leap over each other's back. They could do handstands.
"I was older. I didn't have muscles. I couldn't stand on my hands if my life depended on it. I didn't have a brown tan. I would get sunburned. My skin turned red. And then I would peel.
"It didn't matter. The handsome young boys with their chocolate skin and big muscles only wanted to have fun with Sarah. They were not serious boys. They had no jobs. So they had plenty of time to play, and make muscles, and get brown skin from the sun.
"I was a serious man. I had a job. A good job. The best job. I was no longer an apprentice printer. I had a union card, just like the hearing workers.
"I didn't want Sarah just to have fun. I wanted a wife for all time. I wanted a mother for my children. I wanted a partner forever. We would be two deaf people in the hearing world. We would make our own world. A quiet world. A silent world.
"We would be strong together, and strong for our children."
Then, just as the rain stopped and thin rays of sunlight striped the tabletop, my father smiled to himself, his hands thinking … "Maybe we would have a little fun before the children came." Lost in reverie, his hands, bathed in golden light, now lay silent on the kitchen table. Time passed. I sat and watched his still hands, waiting patiently for them to continue his story. I loved the quiet time we spent together, and I loved the stories his hands contained.
Then my father's hands came alive again, eloquently describing a warm spring afternoon in 1932 Brooklyn.
"I knew I had to make a good impression. I had to dress well. I wore my best suit. Actually, it was my only suit. The big Depression was still going strong, and I watched every dollar."
He tells me his suit was a fine wool serge that cost him two weeks' salary. Its jaunty design was at odds with the feeling of dread that grew in him that day as he set off for the apartment where Sarah lived with her family, having written to her father asking if he might pay a call.
The scene unfolds with cinematic vividness as my father's hands recount each stage of his quest.
He descends with the crowd, down the stairs from the subway platform, sweat dampening his armpits, and exits the station into the frantic gay activity of Sabbath shoppers rushing about, making their last-minute purchases for the evening meal.
The salt scent of the Atlantic Ocean hangs over every shop awning, every outdoor stall, reminding my father, as if he needed such a reminder, how far he had traveled this warm day from his familiar home in the northern leafy village reaches of the Bronx, after one trolley ride and three subway transfers, to the very end of Brooklyn, on the honky-tonk shore of Coney Island. And why has he come here on this warm spring day, sweat pooling at the base of his spine, palms moistly clutching now-wilted store-bought flowers? Today, this very afternoon, my father will meet, for the first time, the family of the girl he has chosen to be his wife.
Unfortunately for him, my future mother, waiting at home, believes he is hopelessly boring and much too old for her; besides, she feels, she's too young to be married, there being so much fun to be had with all the good-looking boys who flutter around her like bees around a hive of honey every weekend on the hot sand of Bay 6, their hands gesturing wildly to gain her exclusive attention. And she could not banish from her mind the image of the hearing golden boy whose attentions she enjoyed so much and who said he loved her.
Glancing nervously at the written directions, my father marches down the broad bustling avenue, so unlike the uneventful Bronx street where he lives. His hands at his sides rehearse the arguments he will employ this afternoon to convince this dark-haired young girl and her father that he is the one to whom she should commit her future. He has been marshaling the arguments in his favor for the past two weeks. He has a steady job and a union card. He is mature and serious. He is a loyal and dependable fellow, calm in an emergency. He can read. He can write. He can sign fluently. And if she will have him, he will love her forever. He finds himself impressed with his qualifications as he cycles through them. He is an up-and-comer. Besides, he has a full head of hair parted perfectly down the middle and a dandy mustache, and is altogether a fine-looking fellow.
Excerpted from Hands of My Father by Myron Uhlberg Copyright © 2008 by Myron Uhlberg. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
I listened to this man on the radio and found the exerpt on the link listed. The author is now 70 years old and talks about the deaf/hearing worlds vividly. Enjoy...
Excerpt: 'Hands of My Father'
by Myron Uhlberg
Being a printer was the only job my father ever had, and he loved it. He would work for the newspaper until he retired over forty years later. In all that time he worked side by side with hearing co-workers, but he never really knew them. Like most in the hearing world, they treated him as if he were an alien — primitive, incapable of speech, and lacking human thought: a person to be avoided if possible, and if not, ignored.
After an apprenticeship of many years, my father was issued a union card. It was the proudest moment of his life. It was tangible proof that he was as good as any hearing man. Even in the dark days of the Depression, when one out of four men were out of work, he, a deaf man, could support himself.
And, he reasoned, he could also support a wife. My father was tired of being alone in this hearing world. It was time, he thought, to create his own silent world. A world that would begin with a deaf wife.
One bleak winter day, while we were sitting at the kitchen table, the rain sleeting against the windows of our Brooklyn apartment, his hands told me the rest of his story, in which began my story:
"Sarah was a young girl. She had many friends. She liked to have fun.
"I first noticed her at the beach in Coney Island. She was always laughing. "All the deaf boys were crazy about Sarah. Even the hearing boys.
"There were many handsome boys on the beach. All the young boys had muscles and chocolate tans. They could jump and leap over each other's back. They could do handstands.
"I was older. I didn't have muscles. I couldn't stand on my hands if my life depended on it. I didn't have a brown tan. I would get sunburned. My skin turned red. And then I would peel.
"It didn't matter. The handsome young boys with their chocolate skin and big muscles only wanted to have fun with Sarah. They were not serious boys. They had no jobs. So they had plenty of time to play, and make muscles, and get brown skin from the sun.
"I was a serious man. I had a job. A good job. The best job. I was no longer an apprentice printer. I had a union card, just like the hearing workers.
"I didn't want Sarah just to have fun. I wanted a wife for all time. I wanted a mother for my children. I wanted a partner forever. We would be two deaf people in the hearing world. We would make our own world. A quiet world. A silent world.
"We would be strong together, and strong for our children."
Then, just as the rain stopped and thin rays of sunlight striped the tabletop, my father smiled to himself, his hands thinking … "Maybe we would have a little fun before the children came." Lost in reverie, his hands, bathed in golden light, now lay silent on the kitchen table. Time passed. I sat and watched his still hands, waiting patiently for them to continue his story. I loved the quiet time we spent together, and I loved the stories his hands contained.
Then my father's hands came alive again, eloquently describing a warm spring afternoon in 1932 Brooklyn.
"I knew I had to make a good impression. I had to dress well. I wore my best suit. Actually, it was my only suit. The big Depression was still going strong, and I watched every dollar."
He tells me his suit was a fine wool serge that cost him two weeks' salary. Its jaunty design was at odds with the feeling of dread that grew in him that day as he set off for the apartment where Sarah lived with her family, having written to her father asking if he might pay a call.
The scene unfolds with cinematic vividness as my father's hands recount each stage of his quest.
He descends with the crowd, down the stairs from the subway platform, sweat dampening his armpits, and exits the station into the frantic gay activity of Sabbath shoppers rushing about, making their last-minute purchases for the evening meal.
The salt scent of the Atlantic Ocean hangs over every shop awning, every outdoor stall, reminding my father, as if he needed such a reminder, how far he had traveled this warm day from his familiar home in the northern leafy village reaches of the Bronx, after one trolley ride and three subway transfers, to the very end of Brooklyn, on the honky-tonk shore of Coney Island. And why has he come here on this warm spring day, sweat pooling at the base of his spine, palms moistly clutching now-wilted store-bought flowers? Today, this very afternoon, my father will meet, for the first time, the family of the girl he has chosen to be his wife.
Unfortunately for him, my future mother, waiting at home, believes he is hopelessly boring and much too old for her; besides, she feels, she's too young to be married, there being so much fun to be had with all the good-looking boys who flutter around her like bees around a hive of honey every weekend on the hot sand of Bay 6, their hands gesturing wildly to gain her exclusive attention. And she could not banish from her mind the image of the hearing golden boy whose attentions she enjoyed so much and who said he loved her.
Glancing nervously at the written directions, my father marches down the broad bustling avenue, so unlike the uneventful Bronx street where he lives. His hands at his sides rehearse the arguments he will employ this afternoon to convince this dark-haired young girl and her father that he is the one to whom she should commit her future. He has been marshaling the arguments in his favor for the past two weeks. He has a steady job and a union card. He is mature and serious. He is a loyal and dependable fellow, calm in an emergency. He can read. He can write. He can sign fluently. And if she will have him, he will love her forever. He finds himself impressed with his qualifications as he cycles through them. He is an up-and-comer. Besides, he has a full head of hair parted perfectly down the middle and a dandy mustache, and is altogether a fine-looking fellow.
Excerpted from Hands of My Father by Myron Uhlberg Copyright © 2008 by Myron Uhlberg. Excerpted by permission of Bantam, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Some songs just bring back happy memories.
Some songs just bring back happy memories.
Growing up I was (and still am) a fan of John Denver's music. Annie's song was a hot 45 record one summer. The flip side was Cool and Green and Shady. I must have drug the record player, the extension cord, blanket and pillow out front under the maple tree for over two weeks. I played those songs over, and over, and over, and over for hours. I'd make cloud pictures, give myself a manicure with outrageous colors in bright reds, blues, purples, and any color that had sparkles in it; or just watch the cars pass by. Those songs can still invoke that sense of peace and joy today.
Cool An' Green An' Shady
(Denver/Henry)
Saturdays,
holidays,
easy afternoons,
lazy days,
sunny days, nothing much to do.
Rainy days are better days for hanging out inside.
Grainy days and city ways make me want to hide
some place
cool and green and shady.
Find yourself a piece of grassy ground,
lay down close your eyes.
Find yourself and maybe lose yourself
while your free spirit flies.
August skies, and lullabies,
promises to keep,
dandelions and twisting vines,
clover at your feet.
Memories of aspen leaves trembling on the wind,
honey bees and fantasies,
where to start again,
some place cool and green and shady.
Cool and green and shady.
Cool and green and shady.
Cool and green and shady.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Canning time again 10-13-08
It's been a busy weekend canning. Over two days I did the following canning.
24.5 quarts of frozen veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, onion, green pepper, garlic, green beans, and brussel sprouts)
21 quarts of spaghetti sauce
15.25 quarts mild salsa
9.75 quarts of V8 juice
35.5 quarts of tomatoes
6 quarts dilly beans
4 quarts dill pickles
It sounds like a lot but it sure goes quickly during the winter!
24.5 quarts of frozen veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, onion, green pepper, garlic, green beans, and brussel sprouts)
21 quarts of spaghetti sauce
15.25 quarts mild salsa
9.75 quarts of V8 juice
35.5 quarts of tomatoes
6 quarts dilly beans
4 quarts dill pickles
It sounds like a lot but it sure goes quickly during the winter!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Our nephew Bo
Here is an article in the local paper about my brother's son, Bo! He's a supererb athelete. He was awarded a scholarship to college but decided to go locally.
http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/SPORTS03/806170328&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
June 17, 2008
SLL tops SBC 12-7 G'burg's Faunce, Hobbs aid Suburban Lake's win News-Messenger reports
GENOA -- Gibsonburg's Bo Faunce caught a 38-yard tipped touchdown pass from Elmwood's Nathaniel Fitch late in the fourth quarter as the Suburban Lakes League defeated the Sandusky Bay Conference 12-7 in a senior all-star football game Monday.
The SLL has won two of eight meetings in the series.
The Golden Bears' Ben Hobbs recovered a fumble in the end zone for the SLL in the third quarter.
Clyde's Justin Cook caught a 30-yard scoring pass from St. Mary Central Catholic's Ryan Heath late in the second quarter. Heath, who was named SBC offensive MVP, completed 7-of-13 passes.
Oak Harbor's Spencer Skinner (a co-worker's son), who was defensive MVP for the SBC, forced a fumble to set up Cook's touchdown.
Fitch was offensive MVP for the SLL while the Comets' Josh Teet was defensive MVP.
Cook caught four passes for 66 yards while Clyde's Ethan Ott added three for 28.
http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080617/SPORTS03/806170328&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL
June 17, 2008
SLL tops SBC 12-7 G'burg's Faunce, Hobbs aid Suburban Lake's win News-Messenger reports
GENOA -- Gibsonburg's Bo Faunce caught a 38-yard tipped touchdown pass from Elmwood's Nathaniel Fitch late in the fourth quarter as the Suburban Lakes League defeated the Sandusky Bay Conference 12-7 in a senior all-star football game Monday.
The SLL has won two of eight meetings in the series.
The Golden Bears' Ben Hobbs recovered a fumble in the end zone for the SLL in the third quarter.
Clyde's Justin Cook caught a 30-yard scoring pass from St. Mary Central Catholic's Ryan Heath late in the second quarter. Heath, who was named SBC offensive MVP, completed 7-of-13 passes.
Oak Harbor's Spencer Skinner (a co-worker's son), who was defensive MVP for the SBC, forced a fumble to set up Cook's touchdown.
Fitch was offensive MVP for the SLL while the Comets' Josh Teet was defensive MVP.
Cook caught four passes for 66 yards while Clyde's Ethan Ott added three for 28.
Alex isn't here yet...!
6/16/08
Mom- Still no MAJOR contractions, I had a few last night in the early evening but nothing compared to what I've exprienced already. I am feeling really crowded lately, seems as though I'm not able to get comfortable for the life of me. lol. Alex has been doing his fair share of pushing today....not just out but on my bladder as well. My next appointment in tomorrow moring at 945, so we shall see what happens. Chip is working in Perrysburg today, yet has to go back to Marysville the rest of the week. The girls are going home Tuesday then coming back Wensday night until Friday. Call me tonight after 0700 & maybe we'll get together sometime this week. Have you had a chance to look for a dresser for Alex yet, the only reason why I ask is because I've ran out of room to put all his clothes....blankets....other baby items. It seems as though the UPS man has been to my house like every day since last week. lol. Hugs
Katrina
Mom- Still no MAJOR contractions, I had a few last night in the early evening but nothing compared to what I've exprienced already. I am feeling really crowded lately, seems as though I'm not able to get comfortable for the life of me. lol. Alex has been doing his fair share of pushing today....not just out but on my bladder as well. My next appointment in tomorrow moring at 945, so we shall see what happens. Chip is working in Perrysburg today, yet has to go back to Marysville the rest of the week. The girls are going home Tuesday then coming back Wensday night until Friday. Call me tonight after 0700 & maybe we'll get together sometime this week. Have you had a chance to look for a dresser for Alex yet, the only reason why I ask is because I've ran out of room to put all his clothes....blankets....other baby items. It seems as though the UPS man has been to my house like every day since last week. lol. Hugs
Katrina
18 years strong - July 27, 2008
we celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary yesterday. it's hard to imagine it's been that long. it's gone by in a blink! we just hung out saturday -went to the genoa faremer's market, the hayes museum and toured the house, ate ice cream, went out to eat for supper at appleby's, just had anenjoyable day. he surprised me with a ipod nano. i've been so busy i haven't had a chance to load more music on my 'puter. yesterday i canned what we got at the farmer's market then later jo and the kids then even later katrina and kids came over to visit. ken was hilarious! the girls were breastfeeding the babies in the living room - nothing indecent was showing. we were hanging out having adult time when he started to come into the living room, saw them feeding, turned and walked right on past. he was blushing and shaking his head.
it's amazing how little things can put lives into perspective. jo and juan were arguing and neither was talking - texting a ton but not talking - toeach other. jo and jordyn went down to the golf course to pick up supper.there were a couple of guys in there being jerks. the wife of one of themen called on the cell phone and he handed it off to his buddy. they were giving the wife grief. she kept calling but not getting her hubby - onlythe his friends. jo came back and had to text juan that even though they were arguing at least he wasn't a jerk. i laughed when she told me she had to tell jaun he wasn't a jerk. perspective is a good thing...:)
jayme's now 7.5 months old. he army crawls everywhere! he gets so excited about buster (the dog). buster just loves having kids to watch over! the cats weren't as thrilled. tinkerbell was hiding under the kitchen table and chairs. jayme crawled over and the looks on tink's face was cute. you almost hear her thinking..."how did this kid get down on my level!" jayme cried when she'd had enough and ran away. pumpkin just hides when they come. he doesn't like being picked up and given "elmira" hugs. (elmira hugged her pets until they strangled to death. it's a bugs bunny spinoff.)
it's amazing how little things can put lives into perspective. jo and juan were arguing and neither was talking - texting a ton but not talking - toeach other. jo and jordyn went down to the golf course to pick up supper.there were a couple of guys in there being jerks. the wife of one of themen called on the cell phone and he handed it off to his buddy. they were giving the wife grief. she kept calling but not getting her hubby - onlythe his friends. jo came back and had to text juan that even though they were arguing at least he wasn't a jerk. i laughed when she told me she had to tell jaun he wasn't a jerk. perspective is a good thing...:)
jayme's now 7.5 months old. he army crawls everywhere! he gets so excited about buster (the dog). buster just loves having kids to watch over! the cats weren't as thrilled. tinkerbell was hiding under the kitchen table and chairs. jayme crawled over and the looks on tink's face was cute. you almost hear her thinking..."how did this kid get down on my level!" jayme cried when she'd had enough and ran away. pumpkin just hides when they come. he doesn't like being picked up and given "elmira" hugs. (elmira hugged her pets until they strangled to death. it's a bugs bunny spinoff.)
Sunday, July 6, 2008
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