Celebration, FL
Dear All,
“So, what do you think? Is the Comcast bid for Disney symptomatic of changes in the world?” Our houseguest was an ethicist, the question was offered as something fun to play with at breakfast, but later that day, walking the Cape Canaveral National Seashore it began to haunt me. It seemed to haunt NPR, too. One commentator said “We all have mouse ears on our souls. What would losing the Disney name do to our collective unconscious?” I was mulling that one over when my nephew, Matt and his fiancé, Amy visited during the weekend the world celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Beatles first visit to the US. “Where is the creative energy from your generation going?” I asked them, thinking that the musicians of my day, Lennon & McCartney, Paul Simon, The Moody Blue were poets. “They’re creating computer art, they’re rappers…” Not quite what I was thinking when I said creativity, but …
Their answer brought me back to the Disney question. Growing up, Disney meant watching Sunday TV and a trip to the drive-in in the summer. Disney’s creativity worked then because it addressed the simple needs of a simpler time. I think children today have greater expectations. J Adults do too. The question is, what will the generation coming of age, and the next, and the one after that, be about? And will the “mouse” in their collective unconscious continue to generate the best within them, or will it be experienced as a symbol of profit and loss to be dismissed or coveted?
As you can see, Pixie Dust doesn’t just help one fly; it illuminates life in unexpected ways. Although we only know our way around the triangle that is south Orlando we’re meeting people from all over the world. I’ve been especially struck by the patience of folks from the African Continent with people like me who don’t know that Niger is not the capital of Nigeria, that South Africa is a country not a sub-continent and that Morocco is on the same parallel as Iraq. And, then there is the opportunity to learn how much we don’t know of other people’s lives - as we were eating at an all you can eat buffet in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Amy told me that she chooses not to write to the family she stayed with in Zimbabwe because she doesn’t want to put them in the position of having to write her back: they can no longer afford to buy a stamp because the country no longer has an economy.
We are so privileged! The bill for my November surgery arrived the other day: the insurance company only paid half so we called the hospital to settle the account. “Don’t worry about it, it’s a set fee, we write off the difference.” Except, not really – the people who don't have insurance have to pay the whole thing! Another example: We were given an 80% discount toward a national campground membership when we bought our RV, we decided to make the purchase because it gives us access to campgrounds all over the country, making trip planning a little less cumbersome. One of the “reasons” given to us for making the purchase was that the fees for national parks are going up as government funding goes down. One of the reasons the National Park system was established was so every one can enjoy our national treasures – We bought the package and then I said to Art, “Raise my taxes! Save our parks!”
Of course we’re thinking about important things too. A school group from S.C. had reserved the island near Italy in Epcot on Valentine’s Day so they could watch the fireworks, and Art and I were assigned to “watch the ropes.” Just as he was roping off the area he noticed a man on one knee holding the hand of a woman sitting on the wall. Art waited for a few minutes and then, as they were leaving, asked, “Did something special happen here tonight?” She gave him a big smile, flashed her ring and laughed, “We’re engaged!” Art took a Tinkerbell pin out of his pocket, and handed it to the woman. “Here’s a special gift from Disney to help you remember this special night.” She teared up, smiled again and said, “ I don’t know you, but I love you.”
On the other side of the rope a man asked if he could slip past me with his girlfriend – I suggested he go to a quiet table in England to propose to her, but he was pretty intense so we compromised. He’d wait ‘til the fire works were over and I’d let him be the first person on the island when the ropes came down. 5 minutes after the fireworks, they were on “the Island” – she said no, he got mad, we waited (discreetly) until he got his temper under control, and then went home to ponder relationships that work. Some are fulcrums – the relationship keeps them both in balance, others are like flint and rock – they spark each other into becoming their own best selves – then there are the earth and the moon people and people like Art and I; he’s the Gulf stream, I’m the Atlantic Ocean.
Art’s special ability to keep things flowing has contributed a great deal to the success of the “International Conference on ISO 9000”, since it started 12 years ago. He delivered a great paper at the first conference, moved on to speaker chair and served as chairman for several years. As we were leaving the committee dinner last night one of members said to me “ I’m really going to miss Art. He’s been my mentor for a really long time.” Art just smiled when I told him that. He’s not one to talk about feelings, but he has admitted that this year’s conference, his last, was the best one to date and that the next year’s committee is one of the strongest ever, so the joy of moving on and the sadness of leaving are pretty intense.
Intense. Comcast wants to buy Disney, Mel Gibson reveals his Passion, Johnny Depp wins the SAG award for playing a pirate (actually, that gave me a momentary sense that God’s in Heaven and all’s right with the world - then the next day Ralph Nadar announces he’s running for president) We’ve been pondering a lot lately – guess we’re settling in. J
Peace and good________,
Beth
P. S. We get to vote in our first Florida election a week from Tuesday. Again, we feel privileged, but this is a privilege we all share. Most of you get to vote first; Massachusetts’ primary is the 2nd. If you haven’t registered or need to change your registration please go to http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.vote or http://www.earthday.org/goals/c4c/voteEmail.asp Hey - go ahead and vote for a Republican if that’s who speaks for you… please do let us know why J
P.P.S. We’re not going to see the Passion – I don’t do violence on the big screen all that well - and besides, I love the book too much to have someone else’s vision in my brain. If, however, you decide to go, check out the study guide from National Catholic Reporter
http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/022004/022004a.php
March 9, 2004
Celebration, FL
Dear All,
March 9th – the 50th anniversary of the Edward R. Morrow television show that was the beginning of the end of the McCarthy Era. While I doubt that this letter will have quite the same impact, I do hope it will cause you all to pause.
On January 16, 2004 Art and I registered our car, got our licenses, registered to vote while were at the DMV, and to celebrate becoming citizens of Florida, drove to the library to get our library cards.
As I handed the voter registration form to the clerk I remember thinking “Hmmm – former resident of Massachusetts with an Hispanic surname, registering as a Democrat. I’m the kind of person whose vote didn’t count in the November 2000 election.”
And it didn’t count today, in the Florida primary either. In fact, we spent last week tracking down why we weren’t going to be able to vote.
A friend, a former resident of Florida, responding to our enthusiasm about voting in the last Tuesday letter, warned that the Florida Voter Registration process could be tricky. After reading her note, I called the Osceola County Registrar of Elections and sure enough, we were not on the roll, and were too late to register for today’s primary. I responded with shock “But, I am registered. I did register, I’m Disenfranchised!” “Well,” she said, “I believe you, but I don’t have you on the roll and if I put you there it would be fraud and I’d lose my job.” Then she said, “I tell people that whenever they do something at one agency that is to be recorded at another, they should check back in a week.”
“But, I registered, I was told I was all set, what was there to check on.?” We went back and forth for a while, and then she did some detective work: It seems that the report her agency had from the DVM dated January 16th had us on record as being asked if were registered, with our recorded answer as “Yes” so they (the DVM) hadn’t given us a form.
But I distinctly remembered filling out the form. The form asked where I’d last registered to vote. As I wrote 468 Underwood Street, Holliston, MA I realized what a huge change we’d made. I’ve been voting for 35 years and all but twice in Massachusetts. And that’s what prompted the thought “Hmmm – former resident of Massachusetts with an Hispanic surname, registering as a Democrat. I’m the kind of person whose vote didn’t count in the November 2000 election.”
We spoke to the supervisor at the DMV then, who found our voter registration forms in a pile of papers from January “to be shredded once they’d been looked over”. We had been assigned a voter registration number on the 16th she said, but because it hadn’t been recorded, we would not be able to vote today. “The woman who took your forms isn’t going to sleep for a week, when I tell her what happened.” The supervisor said. “And, we’re going to institute new procedures so this will never happen to another voter.” she assured us. I’m sure she meant what she said.
Every one we talked to at both offices seemed honest and committed to fair elections. They appeared to know their jobs well, and sincerely believed that someone else had made a terribly unfortunate mistake. We don’t hold anyone of them responsible for our not being able to vote, and we’re not sure it was a mistake. After all … We’re former residents of Massachusetts, with a Hispanic surname, registered as Democrats and we were unable to vote in an election in Florida …
Several of our friends say they vote Republican because Homeland Security is important to them. May I suggest that Nothing is more important to the security of our homeland than the right of every citizen to have their vote counted. That’s why I volunteered to work the polls in the November election. That’s why, if you register to vote anywhere but the official office, follow-up.
And while we’re on the subject: remember in the last note that Art was leaving the ISO 9000 Conference after serving on the committee for 12 years? I hadn’t mentioned that I’d been editing the programs and abstracts for the conference for several years. At our good-bye breakfast, as the woman who founded the ISO conference talked about her new project: an International Conference on Homeland Security – a place for agencies to know what technologies are available, what’s needed and being developed, how we can be secure without losing our rights etc. etc. I volunteered to edit the programs for it. We’ll see where we go from here…
We’re perusing Campground choices the way farmers look at seed catalogs in the middle of January. It’s too early to make reservations anywhere, so we’re planning to go everywhere! We thought we were going to take a camping trip to St. Augustine last weekend, but got to the motorhome to find two leaks. They turned out to be minor, but by the time we knew what we were doing about them, it was 4 in the afternoon, so we stayed in the Camp Ground in Orlando again, testing every bell and whistle. We go back and forth to the Motorhome the way people travel to their boats at a marina… yesterday we drove over so we could drive it out to get gas… I drove into the gas station, and Art drove back.
If it weren’t for friends from the north we’d just follow our route around the “Disney Triangle” –Celebration, Epcot, Motorhome - Thanks to my cousin for connecting me with her friend who was in the area and wanted to see a museum. She and I discovered that Orlando has several neat museums and a downtown that’s a cross between Williamsburg and Newbury Street in Boston. And we’re having fun with other folks, too: Paul and Priscilla from Waters were here for a few days, Kathy from Holliston stopped by for coffee, Pam our sister-in-law’s mother arrived tonight, and the pastor and her family from my church in Upton will get here on Saturday. They’ll be staying in our motorhome at Disney’s Fort Wilderness for a few days - I am not sure who is more exited about them staying a Fort Wilderness, them or Art.
Peace and good________,
Beth
P.S. I was going to vote for Senator Edwards.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Country Lakes
Pride Resorts Campground
Quitman, GA
Do you like our egret? She stood this way for minutes at a time waiting for just the right morsel, and as it swam by, her head sliced the water. In. out. Fed. I sat mesmerized, envying her focus. Our lives have been so filled with events this past month: delightful guests, Jen home from her European tour just 8 hours after I got back from a quick, refreshing visit with Merri and Easter with my family. I’d left Art alone to make the condo spit spot for Jen’s arrival and he did really well despite the time he took to deal with a leak in the motorhome and start a woodcarving class at the campground..
Jen had a quiet 24 hour trip home, but I didn’t. The man next to me didn’t wake up as his wife patted him on the face, and he looked pretty gray so I thought about starting CPR but called the steward instead – good thing too because the man came back from where ever he’d gone and was startled enough to see his wife and daughter and two stewardesses hovering over him …
On our last Saturday at Epcot Art tried to change shifts with me because he had parking lot duty for a high school prom and I’m better with kids he said, but really he thought it would be a boring night, stationed at the far end of the Epcot parking lot (3000 spaces from the entrance) to guide the kids from their limousines to their bus into the park. The school had arranged too few buses, though, so he got to chat with parents and chaperones until the last of the kids got to the dance 2 hours after the party started. Well, 2 hours after the party started in Epcot. The second group of chaperones arrived late at the dance because they spent the first half hour of their shift emptying the limos of liquor. (This was a typical night for Art – he always has interesting guests! -We’ll have dinner on Disney when we return because he was recognized for extraordinary service two weeks in a row.)
While Art was managing things in the parking lot, I was arranging for a Disney van to take a couple back to their hotel after they had gotten word of a family tragedy their first day on vacation. Art was glad he didn’t switch spots …
We took Jen to lunch in Epcot on our last day in Florida, and as we walked around the park with her she picked out snacks for Art: having traveled to just about every country represented, she knew just what he’d like.
Talk about major role reversals: Having lived as a migrant worker for over 5 years (think about it J) she laughed as she helped us pack the motorhome knowing that we have way more stuff than we need and will need a lot we can’t even imagine. She sympathized too with the tension Art and I were not hiding at all – “It takes a while to be at ease going into strange grocery stores every week, but you’ll get used to it.”
I’m sure we will. But right now we’re taking turns walking the dogs just to get experience being on our own outside the coach. When we first started planning our adventures Jen suggested that when we arrived at our first campground we stay put until Art stops sleeping. That too was probably based on her experience. I’m amazed at how much we both need quiet. Maybe we’re not resting; maybe we’re groking (grok: v. –to re-experience one’s life at one’s own pace in order to fully understand and integrate all dimensions, emotional, spiritual, physical, knowledge etc. as lived by Michael Valentine Smith in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and most children. Did you ever notice how young people talk about Halloween in January and Christmas in March? 4 year olds have a 3-month grok time.)
We closed on the condo on October 23, 2003 and left Florida on April 24th – six months of new. We’ve much to integrate before we really start on our way, and this is the perfect place to do so. There are only 8 other motorhomes in this campground that could hold 90. We’re backed up to a pond that has an orchestra made up of toads, frogs and crocodiles who hum us to sleep each night. And, although we spent the day preparing for a major thunderstorm, right now it’s raining softly, so we’ve a sweet smell of spring wafting through the coach. As our last few weeks in Florida reminded us, we’ll have plenty of storms along the way. And, we’re going to miss Celebration: it’s an easy town to live in – in fact, Jen decided not to rent a car for $500 for the month and bought a bike instead.
We head out first thing in the morning to have the motor on our bedroom slide looked at – it’s only a slight detour – instead of heading to Atlanta, Georgia we’ll go through Opelika, Alabama to get to Lynchburg, Tennessee.
Peace and good________,
Beth
P.S. Thank you all for your voting stories! I had a few good chuckles – one friend wanted to see his vote count and voted for Al Sharpton – it turns out that 3 other people in his small, lily white town had the same idea. Other stories were more complicated because voting rules vary so much state to state – and a couple, like ours – would lead a cynical person to believe that their votes were deliberately not counted in both “Democrat” and “Republican” states. Several people took the time too, to educate us on issues with which we have no experience, thank-you very much! Someday we’ll have a web-page set up so people who choose to can converse. Right now, the page is under construction, but if you’d like to see it check-out, http://home.earthlink.net/~bethramos/
Pine Acres Campground Resort
Oakham, MA
May 18, 2004
Dear All,
After we left Quitman GA we headed to Opelika, AL (pronounced Oh-pa-laaaaaaa- kaah) for a new motor for our bedroom slide. The slide opens our bedroom up 2.5 feet, which allows us to walk around the bed and access our built in bureau, so it was important to have it fixed.
The RV dealer needed to order a new motor so we stayed in the parking lot of the dealership for a couple of nights which gave us a chance to do a little touring. One of our favorites finds was the East Alabama Museum where we learned that there was a German Prisoner of War camp down the street during WWII. Soon after the war big magnetic tape companies sued one of its former guards because “No one without a college science background could know what he needed to know in order to do what he did.” i.e. develop magnetic tape. A couple of West German scientists returned to the states to testify at the former guard’s trial that the magnetic tape info was freely given to him when he was a guard because he treated them well. John Herbert Orr also developed the prototype for the eight-track tape player because his wife couldn’t figure out how to listen to her music on a standard tape player. I don’t have that problem: my challenge is getting the TV in the bedroom to show my yoga video while Art is listening to music or watching TV in the front of the coach J.
That’s our resting styles. We’re learning about learning styles while we travel too. Art, whose mechanical intelligence measures off the charts, can’t understand why he has to explain the motors and electrical system connections (including the VCR) almost every time we set up. I, however, have a more vivid imagination and am able to intuitively anticipate route alternatives – an important skill as we our tendency to talk past our exits is still with us after it showed up on my first visit to Long Island to meet his parents 32 years ago. I felt like I’d almost rolled the coach when I was driving from MI to Canada because we approached an exit faster than Art anticipated, so now he drives in and out of campgrounds under my direction, and I drive the highways while he and the dogs watch the GPS tell us where we are.
Travel days we crunch rice cakes with peanut butter and bananas while we unhook, put away and tie down everything we own. Once on the road we drive a little under 2 hours before taking a break. The dogs keep us honest about stopping. They, unlike three year olds, do not understand “hold it” nor do they feel remorse when they can’t.
I drive after our first break until we stop for a late, light, lunch: hummus, carrots and hard-boiled eggs usually, and yoga (Beth) and a nap (Art). Our longest travel day was from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls to Schenectady, NY: almost 8.5 hours, but the story we were listening to was well read (a cat mystery by Lillian Jackson Braun read by Theodore Bikel) and the road was well paved …
I do feel like we’re cheating a bit, riding in the lap of luxury over the roads carved out by our foremothers and fathers as they settled the plains. We’re developing a great deal of respect for the early settlers, especially when we arrived in Indiana and the campground had “what to do when the sky turns green and you suspect a tornado…” literature posted in all their public buildings. We were in Michigan when the storms started to roll in and we experienced a tornado, thunderstorm and /or flood watch or warning every afternoon for a fortnight until we arrived in MA for Memorial Day.
Our first big storm hit when we were visiting with Nellie Hanneford and her family at the Royal Hanneford Circus in Garden City, MI. I did an impromptu weather lesson with the girls (Cathy, 8 & Marianna, 5) while Art and Gordo (2) watched Nellie and Adrian, her husband, join the rest of the crew taking care of the animals as the rain blew across the big top and the animal shelters at 60+ mph. Later I told Adrian that I’d told Cathy that being scared isn’t a bad thing; that because we were scared we’d made a plan, so being scared helped us to be ready. Adrian agreed that that was a good thing, and then Cathy asked him if he was scared too. “No, I was too busy to be scared.”
Bing. Another bell on the humility meter rang when he said that. I’m confident that we’ve all been a part of a community drawn together by a crisis in which we acted as if in a well rehearsed ballet, each giving the best of ourselves without being asked, and then felt pretty darn good about our contribution after the fact. Adrian and Nellie just did/do it. The weather wasn’t a crisis – it was a major inconvenience – and it drew on the best of who they are because that’s their life. An hour after the storm passed, Cathy was dressed and in the parade, no longer scared, proud of herself, pleased with her life.
We’ll be traveling with Nellie et al and their horses thru the month of July to experience life on the road as we begin to develop an education support plan for families traveling with small circuses. Barnum and Bailey and the Big Apple have teachers with their units, but the people who perform in the circuses that visit small towns use correspondence courses to “home-school” their children. What we learned in the 3 days with our “circus family” is the complexity of the support they need – beginning with their learning to identify the opportunities their children have that so many of ours do not.
We have some sense of the challenge they have just because we’re on the road. Cell phones are expensive if they’re ones only means of communicating, and even they aren’t always available. The Internet is still new to most people, and even the folks with access and a working knowledge of the system often don’t have high speed (okay. I’m done apologizing for the egret.) Supermarkets aren’t convenient. Library cards only work in one’s home state and used bookstores are off the beaten path even for people who like the road not taken. It takes a commitment to find a church and even when one reads the manual and knows how to do the repair, one often needs to wait for parts.J
More learning: While waiting in the Opelika supermarket parking lot for me, Art noticed 4 high end cars pull up: all but one driven by obviously professional people, only one driven by a white person. Everyone said “Hi” as they walked by. The next night, we pulled into a campground where it appeared we’d be the only folks without tattoos or a motorcycle. Albeit a little nervous, we still had to walk the dogs and we were quickly welcomed by United Electrical Workers who were having their East of the Mississippi reunion. The campground actually was pretty empty, but the next morning it’s parking lot looked like a GM Truck Dealership. It seems that Campground was also a Marina and we were parked near the judges stand of a catch and release tournament. Instead of watching the Kentucky Derby that day, we heard the length of each one’s catch and watched them walk to the lake to let it go. By 7 pm we were alone again to reflect on our assumptions and presumptions!
But we didn’t reflect very long. Our next stop on our way to Illinois to celebrate our grand-nephew’s 5th birthday and meet his 9month old sister was in Clarksville, TN – In a county with 130,000 people, 100,000 of them live in Clarksville. We had lunch in a 5-year-old pub in a renovated factory surrounded by men and women in their 30’s finishing business lunches. We’re sure they have great plans for the city. The town calls itself “the Gateway of the New South”: we didn’t see any sign of industry, but the river front is being developed with touristy shops, and we especially liked the movie theater, once abandoned, that is home to a community theater company. It looked just like the brand new theater in Celebration!
When we finally did get to Champaign, we had great fun with Max, Claudia, and their parents. Max is into skateboarding and books, Claudia seems to know a joke that will, unlike the one the Bee Gees started, hers sets the whole world laughing. Their parents, Tara & Chris were far more relaxed than I remember Art and I being when we had little ones – and I wasn’t in Grad school and working part-time at that point in our lives.
Our next scheduled meeting was with Nellie et al in Detroit; an eight hour drive that took us almost 2 weeks. We drove Route 66 to Lewis and Clark’s “Point of Departure in IL, and left our “membership” campground a day early to detour through Gene Stratton-Porter’s home in Indiana. GSP wrote Girl of the Limberlost, a book my mother, and I, and JK Rowling all loved when we were 10, and one I hope all my friends will read to their children. GSP was a respected naturalist who took a lot of flak for writing children’s books, but she felt it was the best way to interest children in science. I don’t know the names of many plants or butterflies, but walking thru her gardens I wept because I felt I’d returned home to the Limberlost swamp. (Actually, it wasn’t the Limberlost swamp, but GSP’s re-creation if it. The original swamp is being reclaimed after it was lost to oil drilling in the early 1900’s. GSP was an environmentalist, too.)
We left the circus folk a couple days earlier than we planned because we’d word that my mom was failing and wanted to be moving closer, faster, just in case. Fortunately, that was just another dip in the roller coaster she’s been riding, and we were able to have two days to visit with Art’s family in Albany: Deanne and Doug Grimaldi-Johnson, another set of working parents with adorable children whom we would emulate if we were to do it all over again, Deanne’s mom, Betty who is going to travel the full Lewis and Clark route this summer, and Betty’s youngest child, Debbie, a guidance counselor in Albany, who’s looking to buy a home once the school year ends.
We spent Memorial Day weekend in my brother Tom’s driveway (he’s a great host) and are now at the Pine Acres Campground Resort in Oakham, MA until June 21st: My nephew John graduated from HS last Sunday, his niece, McKenzie will be christened next Sunday, and the following weekend we’ve a wedding and bridal shower for a couple of Wheaton friends. In between we’ve dentist and doctor appointments and Jen and Merri will camp with us for a couple of days. Several friends and family have visited already and several more plan to journey up here in the next couple of weeks. Of course we’d love to see everyone we know, and know that we can’t, so please keep in touch. If the link thing works, I’ll feel safe writing shorter notes more frequently. … Providing, of course, that we’ve access to email.
Peace and good________,
Beth
Check out the Alabama Museum at http://www.eastalabama.org/
Meet Gene Stratton-Porter at
http://www.in.gov/ism/HistoricSites/GeneStrattonPorter/historic.asp
Here’s a picture of Nellie Hanneford with her Liberty Horses.
http://www.gordon.army.mil/tsc/tscfin/Recent%20Events/Jan-Mar%202004/pages/040224-A-6634T-01.htm
Here’s what we’re talking about when we say “member campground” At Thousand Trails we stay for free, and it’s $8/ night at Resort Parks International.
http://www.thousandtrails.com/
http://www.resortparks.com/default.asp
The Cat books by Lillian Jackson Brown
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/series/-/105/ref=pd_sr_ec_ser_b/103-3385419-6519852
And a read that changed our perspective of time and space as we traveled
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0452284597/qid=1086745160/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-3385419-6519852?v=glance&s=books
Timberland Campground
Trenton, Maine
18 miles from Mt. Desert (read chocolate, not sand) Island on which one finds the towns
of Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor and Southwest Harbor ME, and Acadia National Park.
August 10, 2004
“There’s always fog in August, but it burns off by noon.”
Acadia Nat’l Park Brochure
We’ve had few storms since the rain followed us to Massachusetts in May, but the reality of my mother’s dying, like the August fog in Acadia, has affected our every day this summer. Mom entered her new life on July 20th, and we are winding our way through Maine and Nova Scotia, paying much needed attention to the 3”R’s”, rest, reflection and recreation.
The other day the ranger showed us a healthy looking beech tree encircled by little beeches. “This tree, a victim of a fungus entered from a hole made by a beech beetle brought in to the United States by ship many years ago, knows it cannot wait for the chance that seedlings will grow. Instead, it’s diverting all it’s energy to generate new growth, from its roots. The new growth around her guarantees her DNA will survive.” As the ranger spoke I chuckled. We’d left our circus family in Detroit earlier than planned in May because mom wasn’t eating well: she bounced back, but not very high, so we stayed an extra week for some quiet time. But quiet time at my mother’s house is/was an oxymoron. On our last visit, as my niece’s seven children (3of her own and 4 foster children) moved in and out of the living room, I whispered to Mom “You are a sun and these are your planets.” She nodded and smiled, but I think she’d have thought me silly if I’d suggested she was like the beech tree. She was so grounded in her own life I don’t think she realized that her roots run deep and far and will probably never die. (Grandchildren arrived from China, DC, NYC and Illinois. My brother Bill sent the first draft of her eulogy from Italy.)
The month of June was full of visits and celebrations. My nephew, John’s H. S. graduation and Eagle Scout award, his niece, MacKenzie’s Baptism, the wedding and bridal shower of friends from Wheaton, gave structure to our weekends, and we entertained in our new home several nights each week. Home was my brother’s driveway for a while and then a campsite in Oakham, MA that was no more than an hour away from everyone who wanted to visit. Our first overnight guests were Jen and Mer – the first time we’d been together in a year! Traveling to and from the campsite taught us a lesson in relativity: we thought nothing of driving an hour on the freeways in Michigan and New Jersey to spend time with our circus family, but fifteen minutes on the back roads of New England makes a journey!
We were in New Jersey for the circus on the Fourth of July. We’d hoped to park in the Meadowlands with circus performers Nellie Hanneford, Adrian Chapay and their children for a couple of weeks, but the lot was too tight and we didn’t know if we’d need to leave quickly, so we commuted from just north of Atlantic City. There’s More to New Jersey than the Turnpike a sign read, and when we weren’t tutoring we meandered the many miles between the teeny post office/grocery store, the slightly larger strip mall and the shopping center built entirely of antique buildings that defined the village near the shore that we called home.
We followed Nellie and Adrian et al to the Circus Hall of Fame in Peru, Indiana where they preformed the last three weeks in July. We hooked up water and electricity on the circus lot, set up our picnic table tent as a classroom and within 2 hours of arriving, I’d had our first class - 6 children from 3 families, some of whom have “Correspondence School” textbooks, others who learn from K-Mart workbooks. Teaching individualized programs in small groups is my forte and we were getting ready for another busy week (I was really psyched that one of the moms was going to join us on a field trip to the Wabash River, across the street from the Circus Tent) when we were called for Mom. Art and I have been told many times that circus folk are a tight community and it takes a lot to gain their trust, so we were anticipating a gracious cold shoulder when we left. Instead Nellie took up a collection to make sure we’d be comfortable on our way, we were given a child’s card, and every mom came to say goodbye. We took their advice and stayed at the “Flying J” truck stops on the way so we wouldn’t have to get off the highway and we’d be assured of simple, but hearty food. They’ve only known us for a few months and already know my aversion to cooking – Am I that transparent?
We didn’t get to see the Circus City Festival, an amateur circus supported by Peru, starring over 200 of its children, many of whom perform professionally after H.S., but the program was started over 40 years ago so we’re sure it will be there for us next year. However, we did have time to visit the Miami County Museum where we saw antique circus cars, Cole Porter’s Cadillac and a tribute to the NCAA 2001 Women’s Basketball team from Notre Dame. We learned that Cole Porter was born in Peru, schooled at Worcester Academy and died in Williamstown, MA and after seeing Delovely wonder how someone so creative could have lived such a boring life.
We were not bored at Red Gate Farm. For over 20 years, my humble sister-in-law Nancy has been borderline boastful when she talks about her sister’s farm, and Kathy’s a kind person, so we didn’t feel awkward inviting ourselves to stay in her yard on our way out to Indiana. Parked on top of a hill so steep that we didn’t put our bedroom slide out for fear of tipping over, we spent a good night talking about horses (hers), dogs (hers and ours) and grown-up kids (Nancy’s). In the morning we walked a short while around the farm’s 10 acres so far removed from the highway just a few miles away, and soaked up the serenity Kathy’s years of hard work and love of life have generated.
Generate, generative, generation after generation. It’s late summer in Acadia. The trees of the forest look tired laddened with brown seeds of every shape and kind; the last of the peregin falcons left yesterday after assuring their young were safely off; we can see the new wood on the old dam placed by the beavers preparing for winter. And while the stars were brilliant over Sand Beach, the air was crisp, and the fog didn’t wait ‘til morning. We were cautious as we drove down the mountain the other night, but knew that if we kept going in the same direction, the main road that circles the island would, as always, bring us home.
Peace and good________,
Beth
P.S. We will fly, not drive, out to California for a wedding Labor Day weekend and then expect to join the Circus at the “Big E” in Springfield, MA in September. Hope to see you there!
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Thousand Trails Park
Hershey, Pennsylvania
For Claudia Grace on her Christening Day
Grace is the place
From which we see
The world
From God a place
In which we see
The gifts
Of life in place
In us who are
The light
Of God
Aunt Beth 10/10/04
Dear Friends and Family,
Claudia Grace, who will have her first birthday on Halloween, is my grand-niece, and her family events were the bookends for our journey this summer (You can see her picture on our photo page). We said “Hello” to her at her big brother’s fifth birthday party in May in Illinois, our first visit with anyone we knew BMF (before moving to Florida), and said good-bye to her at her grandparents in Connecticut on her Christening Day. In between we’ve gone to the circus, four weddings and a funeral. (For details and background see our early letters at http://home.earthlink.net/~bethramos/id1.html)
The fourth wedding, Claudia’s Uncle Matt’s, was the first family gathering since my Mom, died and it was a most excellent time. We danced, laughed (and yes, some of us cried) with extended family and friends Matt had made as he traveled around the world seeking what ever it is one seeks in one’s twenties, to find “it” with Amy who grew up 20 minutes down the road.
Part of the fun of weddings is discovering how the unique spirit of the couple came to be. It’s humbling to think that one is a wedding guest because the bride and or groom want you to meet the other folks who some time along the way also nudged them into their day. Part of the joy while we ooh and a-ah over the wedding supper is sharing those stories and discovering something of ourselves in at least one other guest! And, now that we’re usually among the older crowd (albeit, the younger of that set!) we go a step further and see how the community the couple is drawing to itself might affect our lives. (Just one example: the hospitable spirit of Dr. Mike and Katie Gardner’s wedding helped me to trust the young anesthesiologist who drugged me during a bladder tumor procedure a couple of weeks ago.)
We left Maine for Nova Scotia where we took the ferry from St. Johns to Port Royal. There we traveled back in time to the deportation of the Arcadians during the French and Indian war (re-read Evangeline, folks – it’s not just a love story!) and learned the history of the port during a lantern lit tour of the graveyard. Then we moved to Truro, N.S., in the center of the island, where the tidal bore is suppose to be spectacular. While the children around us found the bore boring, (it only rages during a full moon in winter) those of us who delight in Mother Nature found the sudden backward flow of the water quite quietly remarkable.
Although we haven’t been to the ends of the earth this summer, in the month of August we got quite close to the farthest points east and west of North America. We walked the rusty red cliffs on The Bay of Fundy before it’s blue, blue water rose to meet the rich green forest. Across San Francisco Bay we saw homes built into mountains, ate in the redwoods and watched the deer graze on the meadow while we danced at a reception. We didn’t meet any of the migrant workers who would fill the plastic baskets stacked on the side of the road in N.S. and ME, but I hope the circus hand heading out west to work the Salmon harvest will be on one of the boats owned by the nice guy we met vacationing in Canada.
While we were at Mike’s wedding in California, our dogs were well taken care of by my niece’s teenage foster daughters while her young children watched the motorhome for us. (Literally! 3 year-old Kellen, who rarely sits still, sat for hours staring into our living room window as if it were a T.V., watching ”The People.”) Living in Jodi and Justin’s driveway gave us a chance to get to know their children and, through their children’s lives, re-enter the world just in time for the Circus!
We had four children in our “Circus School” at the Big E in W Springfield for the month of September, and now we’re full of ideas for programs; we’re thinking a co-operative books on tape library might be our first step, with English as a Second Language for the parents a possibility with the support of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association (read carnivals).
We arrived on the lot before everyone but the Circus producer and the Circus Tent and watched as a square mile of empty lots was transformed into a small city over two weeks. 12 hours after the fair closed, the city was gone as the vendors, carnival and circus folk moved onto their next dates. Our next date was the afore mentioned bladder procedure. We parked on Memory Lane in Medway where friends and their friends made sure we had everything we needed to relax. It didn’t take much – we felt right at home once the children’s handmade cards were hung on the window frame.
As we traveled with our Circus Family this summer I helped their 8-year daughter, Cathy, prepare for her First Communion. She’s a bit of an old soul so I wasn’t surprised when she asked if I was very, very sad when my mother died, or just sad. I surprised us both, though when I answered that I was sad and proud. Mom found something to enjoy in each day, no matter what she was facing, and our extended family of almost 40 people (Claudia is the youngest) bring her perspective wherever we go. And where will we go after such a full summer? We’re going to Disney World.” Of course! We’ll be there until the beginning of April! Come on down!
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