Words from the Wise: On Starting Over

"Starting over can definitely lead to an exciting new adventure."
Ellie Rutigliano

"There's no such thing as a fresh start. We bring much of our old selves to our new enterprises."
Susan Bono

SOUNDS OF CHILDHOOD by Shirley Johnson

First a distant, high-pitched note far away wailed octaves above the rhythmic  rumble that accompanied its approach.  Not melodious, but insistent, gaining in force as it came nearer, changing from an announcement to a warning, and from a single note to multiple tones like a bellows.  Soon all the dogs in town howled mournfully, none more than our two Chesapeake retrievers who heard  all the mortal warnings of mankind and  dogdom as the heavily loaded cars rumbled through the town.  In the days of my young childhood, seventy-five to a hundred boxcars loaded with hematite ore bound for the steel mills of Gary and Pittsburg thundered along the way to the port of Duluth two or three times a day, leaving the pictures on our walls askew and the keening dogs quiet after their service as town criers. 

For those of us who lived in the small northern Minnesota town, the trains became the background noise of our lives, hardly noticed unless a stranger called attention to them.  “Oh, that’s an ore train from the Iron range,"  we’d explain with a certain pride in the reflected glory of being part of the power that fueled the great industries of our country.  How mighty those trains were, dangerous and exciting as they declared their importance in that cold land.
 

The open-pit mines of Minnesota (“The largest open-pit mines in the world,” we often heard repeated)  represented great wealth like the oil of the Mid-East in the next industrial revolution.  My father often said with slightly bitter humor that his grandfather left northern Europe to walk across the state, bypassing the riches of the iron range to settle on swampy forested land.  ( Golda Maier said something similar when she explained that the Jews couldn’t be as smart as was claimed having had the whole desert to settle in and choosing a place with no oil.)

I didn’t realize I had carried the sound of the ore trains in my memory. For years after I came to live near the Pacific, I accepted the ocean’s roar as part of the orchestral background of my life without questioning its source.  These rhythms were totally different but I didn’t stop to listen until one cold night when I paused on my front steps and hearing the pounding of the waves at last knew that these were not echoes from my childhood but the sounds of the new world I was to live in from that time forward.

Light and Lively Limericks

Oh, once there was a baby born
Her parents named her Polly
Expecting a boy
They howled with joy
Isn't she sweet; the family's complete
And so it was, by golly!

          Joyce Cass

There once was a girl called Kira
Who always looked in the mirror
But never when she got older
Because she would not believe
What the mirror told her.

         Bernice Schacthter

Varenna Writers' Ukiahaiku Contest Entries

Karin Fitzgerald alerted the club to the Ukiah Haiku Contest, deadline, February 26, 2010. Here are some of their entries:

the wet water flows
over the silver blue fish
in the little pond

Ellie Rutigliano

real snow, some fake snow

ice skates, ski poles, dark goggles

Winter Olympics

haiku can be fun

I’m glad for a chance to try

it may lead to more

Inger Larsen

SLL a bles are hard

to write in Writing Class today.

I will try another time

Bernice Schachter

the earth is warming

roses pushing out and up

sunshine caused all this

the silly white dog laughs

prancing about to be loved

a pat will do it

water rushing over rocks

foam appears at the rushing

our feet are cleansed

it was that moonlight

made everyone so looney

a hypnotic sight

awake, awake, called the seeds

frigid cold, the pounding wet

calling all to be

Sally Tilbury

raindrops spilling down my windshield. somewhere
soldiers’ mothers’ tears are mine

pebbles of unrest
are not washed away
by forces of the main stream

something is sharing
my morning muffin
a mousie in the pantry?

summer pleasures
ice tinkling in glass
cool contemplation of navel

Joyce Cass

the things that I love

are always close beside me

home means happiness

you might cover me

with bubble wrap so I don’t

break my bones falling

Shirley Johnson

step, slide, step, step, slide

whirling skirts and do-si-do

square dance melodies

light bursts from the sky

the thunder gods are bowling

electricity

please remember this

no black cats under ladders

even catching mice

Look, bare feet dangle

Ten toes wiggle, splash, and play

Then little fishes nibble

Karin Fitzgerald

Words from the Wise: On Friendship

"The most valuable gem you can own is a precious friendship that allows you to shine on your own."
Bernice Schachter

"Friendship is the spine that keeps me rightside up.
Friendship fuels the engine that is my heart."
Karin Fitzgerald

More Words from the Wise (on Love)

Love is a renewable resource.
Shirley Johnson

Love: the best show in Vegas.
Bernice Schachter

Love: the best show anywhere.
Dolores Fruiht

There's always enough love to go around, even when you don't know where you've misplaced yours.
Susan Bono

Love is a strong emotion; when honest, it improves those involved.
Sally Tilbury

Helpless: A Drabble by Sally Tilbury

Two large men wearing green scrubs placed her on the gurney and began to roll toward the surgery. Our four-year-old daughter appeared to be a small bundle on the cart. I was terrified. She had been born with strabismis, or crossed eyes. Early surgical intervention was so that her eyes and brain could work together. This was her second surgery.

As the doors of the scary elevator closed, the small bundle raised her finger toward one of the men and said, "I'm not going to do this today, but I'll come back tomorrow."

The elevator door clunked shut.