tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63948579198188075892024-03-13T12:42:25.641-05:00Musings on Route 66Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.comBlogger92125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-8394123798421412352013-11-19T12:10:00.000-06:002013-11-19T12:10:14.012-06:00Commemorations don’t seem to matter as much right now<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today is the 150<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the
Gettysburg Address. Friday is the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the day
President John F. Kennedy fell victim to an assassin’s bullet. Normally, as a
history buff, I’d be all over those stories. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This year, though, keeping history alive just hasn’t
held the passion for me that it usually does. Part of that may be that I felt I
was facing my own personal tragedy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For the first time since I entered the workforce a
few days before my 16<sup>th</sup> birthday, more years ago than I will admit
here, I am unemployed. That word is one that usually goes with statistics. I
never expected to be one. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet, in mid-August I learned that the long-term
contract editing position I’d hoped would take me to retirement was ending Oct.
1. Try as I might, I haven’t yet found a position to replace it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Until Sunday, Nov. 17, my situation felt disastrous.
The things I enjoyed—reading, writing, studying history and engaging on social
media—just didn’t call to me as they once did. It was as if the air were let
out of my balloon of passion.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">More
than one reason to give thanks</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I traveled with my husband to an early
Thanksgiving celebration late Sunday morning, I began to see posts on my phone
indicating that central Illinois, which we called home for many years, was
hunkering down against a swath of bad storms. A welfare-check phone
conversation reassured us our family was okay – whew! Once at the hall where
our dinner was held, we learned even the Chicago Bears game was delayed due to
the weather. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We said our thanks, ate our turkey and cranberry
sauce, and made a new friend or two. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When the last fork was washed and put away, we
headed home. Our smartphones and the TV told stories of the devastation in
Washington, Ill. and other communities. We began to think of the people we knew
whose homes may have been in the path. We made another phone call, learning
that a new friend had lost his home and a former coworker’s was surely in the
path as well. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Over the last couple days, we’ve watched and read
stories of survival, faith and resilience. We’ve prayed. We’ve cried. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What
really matters</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Losing a job doesn’t seem like a disaster at all
anymore. Unlike our friends, some acquaintances and hundreds of families in
central Illinois and other states, we still have our home. Our loved ones are
safe. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think Washington resident Steve Bucher captured
what really matters in life as he talked to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/18/us/midwest-tornadoes/">CNN</a> about the
home he lost and the wife with whom he weathered the devastating storm. Bucher
says their home is “rebuildable,” but he couldn’t replace his wife. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sometimes it takes getting “hit up the side of the
head” to know what is tragic and what isn’t, what is important and what’s not
so much so. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where we live in mid-Missouri, Sunday’s winds didn’t
carry planks through the air as they did in Illinois, but getting hit with the
images of devastation did give this blogger some much-needed perspective: I may
not have a job right now, but I have a home and a family. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As much as I love history, being thankful for my
blessings just matters a little more to me right now than writing posts about
Lincoln at Gettysburg or watching hour upon hour of film about JFK. One thing is
constant when it comes to anniversaries of historic events—there’s always next
year, maybe not as big a splash, but an anniversary none the less. And, in this
day and age, there are Facebook posts, YouTube videos and online news stories to
keep stories of milestone commemorations alive.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m not at Gettysburg today, as I was during the
Lincoln Bicentennial year, and I probably won’t spend much time watching the
Kennedy coverage this week. I’ll still say a few prayers and fill out a
few more applications in hopes of landing my next job.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those things pale in comparison, though, to the
prayers I offer in thanksgiving for the lives spared as the tornadoes hit and
in supplication for families uprooted when their homes were destroyed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That seems to matter most right now. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-88394027599959937392013-10-20T12:14:00.000-05:002013-10-20T12:14:18.252-05:00A return to Lincoln’s haunts<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4mW9RaBoVzg/UmQOoXu5nHI/AAAAAAAAA9Q/mx0tDe13s6k/s1600/LincolnWalksMidnight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4mW9RaBoVzg/UmQOoXu5nHI/AAAAAAAAA9Q/mx0tDe13s6k/s320/LincolnWalksMidnight.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nearly 100 years ago, Springfield, Ill. poet Vachel
Lindsay penned a poem, “Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight.” In 32 lines of
verse, the poet spoke of the President stirred from his grave, walking the
streets of the city he called home for more than half of his life, restless
even in death because of unrest in the world. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The central Illinois poet was troubled himself by
the discord in the world in 1914. World War I had begun. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Lindsay’s poem is powerful, but many of us who
frequent Springfield know that it wasn’t just on a night a century ago that
Lincoln’s spirit walked the streets of the capital city. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those of us who spend much time there, who study the
16<sup>th</sup> President, his life and his legacy, know that, ghost-like being
or not, the aura of Abraham Lincoln lives on in the town to which and the home
of the people to whom he said he owed everything. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the rooms of the Old State Capitol or the
Lincoln-Herndon Law Office, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in his home
and along the streets he walked, if you stop, close your eyes for a second and
open yourself to the possibility, it’s not at all hard to see this tall, lanky
prairie lawyer in the city he called home. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Because I live in mid-Missouri now, instead of an
hour from Springfield, as I did for more than a decade, I don’t get to return
to Lincoln’s adopted hometown as often as I once did. On Oct. 18, I returned for
an opportunity of which I’ve dreamed for nearly two decades. I visited
Springfield to speak about Abraham Lincoln. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The occasion was the national conference of an
organization in which I found tremendous value and through which I met vibrant
leaders, encouraging mentors and brilliant communicators, when I was a member
early in my corporate career—the Association for Women in Communications (AWC).
The Springfield chapter of the organization served as host of the event, which
has been held in a number of large communities across the nation through the
years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my bucket list items was to speak on the
national level sometime, somewhere. Another was to deliver a speech about
Abraham Lincoln. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
I’d fulfilled the second of these wishes on a small scale on a number of occasions
when I lived in the Bloomington-Normal area. I’ll bet if you asked them, you’d
be surprised at the number of Sunrise Speakers Toastmasters members who could
tell you that I opened their eyes a number of times at our 7 a.m. meetings with
information that inspired them to learn more about Abraham Lincoln. As I shared
my lifelong passion for his story, I guess I whetted their interest in him a
little, too. If so, I did what I hoped. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But, I’d never spoken about Lincoln in Springfield,
the city where his legacy lives and inspires every single day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On Friday afternoon, nearly 100 professional
communicators gathered to hear “What Communicators Can Learn from Abraham
Lincoln.” As I’ve studied Lincoln, I’ve noticed a number of similarities
between things he did in his life and things communicators do in theirs. I
believe there are 10 lessons that we can take from his life and example that
can help us in our own social media efforts, our careers and our lives. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I won’t share them all here today, but will give you
a hint. For the last few minutes, you’ve been practicing one of them. To be
like Lincoln, read. Read every day – and share what you read. Share it in a
conversation over lunch or dinner, in a blog post or on Facebook, in a tweet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This weekend, more than 100 women from across the
nation gathered in Springfield to hear speakers, ranging from a Paralympic
champion to this communicator who is more than a little bit nutty over a
President from the Prairie State. I’d like to think they left with a bit more
enthusiasm and knowledge about Lincoln than they had when they came. I do know
they left inspired by the example, enthusiasm and nurturing of this dynamic
group of women – and thankful to the efforts of the Springfield Chapter who
showed them why the community and its people meant so much to the development
of the president whose legacy is honored there.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yes, Lincoln does still walk in Springfield – and not
just in the light of the moon. </span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-76614035823799372013-06-27T22:18:00.000-05:002013-06-27T22:18:49.443-05:00The emerald dream: Planning an Irish adventure<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TyzNdg3sQW8/Ucz_WHsvaCI/AAAAAAAAA78/ZJPKum_GHkQ/s300/PotatoFamineCropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TyzNdg3sQW8/Ucz_WHsvaCI/AAAAAAAAA78/ZJPKum_GHkQ/s300/PotatoFamineCropped.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ever have one of those way-out-there dreams—something
you wished for a lifetime, but never thought would come true? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me—and for my octogenarian mother—the dream was
a trip to my maternal grandmother’s ancestral home—Ireland. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mother and I first talked of the trip a couple decades
ago, but the stars didn’t align to make the trip a reality back then. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This time they did. Accumulated airline miles
helped. A trip such as this is easier to finagle when airfare isn’t in the
budget. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I knew several things going into the trip. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First, we were limited in our choice of dates. We
needed to schedule our flight quickly once we decided we were going so that we
could arrive in Ireland in decent weather, but before higher in-season tour
rates and lodging prices applied.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Two, I didn’t want to drive in a country which
allegedly had narrow winding roads (ironic considering I live in Missouri,
where such roads are commonplace), some big cities and where people drove on
the “wrong side” of the road. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Three, we knew that we didn’t want to miss seeing
County Limerick, from which we knew some of our ancestors emigrated during the
potato famine of the mid-1800s. (The accompanying photo is of the Famine
Memorial along the River Liffey in Dublin.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A diligent researcher, I spent hours on the
Internet, pouring over train and bus schedules, looking at hotel and bed and
breakfast websites, and pondering over tour company itineraries. The more I
looked, the less confident I felt that I could plan the trip and the more
overwhelmed I became. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“What if I booked a trip or a room and the website I
chose was a scam?” I wondered. “How on earth would I know from here in the
States what company over there was legit?” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finally, I cashed in a “Who Wants to be a
Millionaire” chip—I phoned a friend. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my high school classmates has made several
trips to Ireland, with her dad, her mom, siblings and friends. If there was
anyone I trusted in steering me right, it was my Irish classmate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her advice: “Mom and I went on a CIE bus tour. It was
great, especially for a first-time visit.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Whew! I had that decision out of the way. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now I was back to the drawing board to find a trip
that went where we wanted to go—along the coast of southern Ireland and to
Limerick during the dates we’d be in country. The coastal trip wasn’t a
problem. We could see the sites we wanted to see—the Cliffs of Moher, the Ring
of Kerry, Blarney Castle and County Cork—but Limerick wasn’t on any itinerary
that would fit our schedule. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So what did I do? I planned a side trip—on my own. I
just had to find a little village in Limerick that was easily accessible using
public transportation and that had the charm we always imagined our “homeland”
to hold. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I found it—the village of Adare—and it didn’t disappoint.
I also scheduled one extra day on our own in Dublin before we left the country.
I was glad I did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In my next post, I’ll share what went into preparing
for the trip and some of the ways we found to make our travel easier—here in
the States, in the air and on the Emerald Isle. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013 (Words and image)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-78066009031619041712013-05-13T21:42:00.000-05:002013-05-13T21:42:00.528-05:00An emerald dream come true<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e1hecO5QeO8/UZGjoypNucI/AAAAAAAAA7E/9o3KTtiM_QM/s1600/IrelandOne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e1hecO5QeO8/UZGjoypNucI/AAAAAAAAA7E/9o3KTtiM_QM/s1600/IrelandOne.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s on your wish list? Are there people you want
to meet, things you want to try, places you want to visit? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me, it’s all of the above and more. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Some people say dreams are more likely to come true
if you write them down. I tend to believe it. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few years ago, a friend of mine created a ‘50 at
50’ list. Over the next few years, I watched as she made one after another of her
dreams reality. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It took me a while, but eventually I created my own
list. Each year, I cross off the dreams I’ve seen come true, replace the ones
that aren’t important to me anymore and add enough to make the number of dreams
equal to number representing my most recent birthday. I’m working on 60 at 60
for a couple more weeks; then it will be time to look at the list once again. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently, I crossed off a big one – one of the
biggest, perhaps. I went to Ireland – and so did my mother. We talked about
going a number of years ago, but one thing after another seemed to get in the
way, and we didn’t make the trip back then. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This time, thanks to lots of free airline miles, my mother
and I were able to cross the Atlantic for nothing. Once there, we had expenses,
of course, but the overall cost was considerably less than it would have been
had we had to pay for our air fare. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think both of us have held a little piece of this
dream in our hearts for most of our lives. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My mother’s mother, full-blooded Irish, was always proud
of her heritage. Her ancestors had come from the Emerald Isle, most during the
potato famine. One young married couple lost their first-born daughter on the
overseas journey. Like many of her day, little Mary was buried at sea. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mother grew up hearing this and other stories from
my grandma and great-grandmother. Grandma and mother shared them with me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Through the years, I think Mother and I imagined
that Ireland must surely have been a magical place. We longed to see it and painted
it in our imaginations brighter than the gold in a leprechaun’s pot. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From the moment we stepped off the plane, and I
suggested we kiss the ground for Grandma’s sake, (we didn’t, though) to the time
when we stepped from the Dublin airport floor back onto the ramp to our Boeing 767,
we felt as if we were living a dream. And, indeed we were.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In coming blog posts, I’ll share snippets of the
places we visited, the sites we saw, the people we met. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Was the dream worth the effort, the experience all
we’d hoped, the time the gift we thought it would be? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Absolutely! </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s your dream? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">First, imagine it. Then, put it
down on paper. Next, work to make it come true. All you’ve got left to do after
that is to savor it. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We sure did. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013 (Words and image)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-67951340157733053572013-04-23T13:36:00.000-05:002013-04-23T13:36:20.874-05:00Little things are bigger in a place called home<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was in my hometown the past few days—getting to
see people I love, do things I enjoy, visit places I cherish. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I spent time with my parents and my young adult
grandson, I attended a writer’s workshop and concert at Carl Sandburg’s
birthplace, and I visited two libraries that helped in many ways to nurture my
interests and provide resources as I completed my late-in-life college degree. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s funny how such things, which appear small on
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My parents, as do I, continue to grow older – no
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My grandson, once in our lives day in and day out,
has grown up and no longer lives in the same community in which we do. It’s a joy
to get to know the older him as he discovers who he is and where his life will
take him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Sandburg Days writer’s workshop, an annual
affair for me for a number of years, has become with distance a rare treat. Yet
each time I attend, regardless of presenting author, I grow myself as a writer
– and remember with renewed clarity how much and why I love what I do – putting
words on paper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Something that I find most encouraging about
Galesburg’s event in honor of its hometown poet is the way the “Festival for the
Mind” celebrates a diversity of arts, from poetry to photography, from
encouraging budding writers to showcasing gifted musicians. It’s a special
treat when one of those musicians happens to be a high school classmate come
back to the ‘Burg to play a few tunes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can’t remember a time I didn’t love books or
libraries – from the first ones my mother read to me as a small child, to the
ones I chose from book order forms in elementary school, to the diversity of
genres I’ve savored as an adult. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One thing is certain. No matter what community I
called home through the years, one place always made it so – the library. And,
of all the libraries I’ve visited in the past six decades, two stand out above
all others – the Galesburg Public Library and Seymour Library at Knox College. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At tables in the corners each of these repositories,
I took sanctuary so I could study in tranquility. In the stacks I found books
about subjects I was assigned and those I enjoyed. I savored and used as
reference volumes about regional topics, looked with longing at names of people
from West Central Illinois who worked with words – Carl Sandburg, Earnest Elmo
Calkins, John E. Hallwas, Martin Litvin and more. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I did, I often mused, “Someday, perhaps, my name
will be found upon these shelves.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though it still doesn’t appear as author, today I delivered
to the archives at each library a volume I had the privilege to see even before
it was a book – “Abraham Lincoln Traveled this Way: The America Lincoln Knew“
with photographs by McLean County’s Robert Shaw and narrative by Lincoln
scholar Michael Burlingame. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Way in the back, on a line that credits those who
helped to edit the copy, you’ll find this name: Ann Tracy Mueller. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s a little thing – that string of 15 letters and
two spaces – but gigantic to a former Galesburg resident who hoped for a
half-century to add, if even a little, to the literary tradition of her
hometown. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a way, perhaps, I have. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/808946">via</a>)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-46729378150476027312013-04-13T22:12:00.002-05:002013-04-13T22:26:54.267-05:00Flames, passing can’t snuff out memories<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The first bit of sad news came in a text from my
husband as I sat, late Easter afternoon, writing in my home office: “Ted’s
Garage burnt down.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The next appeared in a Facebook post a week later:
“Ozark Opry catches fire.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The third was another text from hubby, as he sat in
his recliner watching TV: “Annette Funicello died.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My text response to that one? “Aw-w-w.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Facebook post I
wrote a few minutes later, linking to a YouTube video, read, “RIP, Annette Funicello.
A little of me died today. “<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The flames that
engulfed Ted’s Garage and Lee Mace’s Ozark Opry took a bit of me, too, it
seemed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I mused over these
three—two landmarks and one lady—I dug through the rubble of the losses for
some memories I could hold tight and cherish forever. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Here’s what I found.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
common bond</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Clinton, Ill.
eatery, the Osage Beach, Mo. music hall, and the Mouseketeer had something in common.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Each of them had a way
of beaming us from the 21<sup>st</sup> century back to a place and time, when
we were younger, more idealistic, perhaps, and less distracted by a 24-hour
news cycle and the technology that keeps it and other interruptions in front of
us. When we stepped through the doors at the 50s-style diner, sank into our
seats at the Opry or watched Annette on the black-and-white TVs in our parent’s
wallpapered living rooms, we left distractions behind and lived in the moment. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ted’s
transported with classics</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Classic food and
classic cars—that’s what you’d find when you stepped into Ted’s Garage. The </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">retro eatery next to the community’s Chevrolet dealership was known for
its décor and oldies menu reminiscent of Arnold’s on “Happy Days,” and for classic
cars at the front of the restaurant and in a glassed-in showroom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My hubby and I didn’t
visit it often—maybe a half-dozen times or less in the 11 years we lived
nearby—but each time we went there was a special time. Maybe that’s why we
went infrequently—to keep it special, to make each visit a step back in time—to
make us feel young at heart, to help us remember those days when kitchen tables
were of Formica, chairs were covered in vinyl held on with silver thumbtacks
and when a burger, fries and a chocolate shake, cherry Coke or Green River were
a really big treat.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When my husband and I
moved from our house in Central Illinois a year ago, we knew we were also
leaving favorite places. Some we’d see again, some we wouldn’t. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ted’s was one
of those. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, gutted by fire,
it’s less likely we’ll return, but we can still close our eyes, look back and remember the taste of a tenderloin, the sound of Chubby Checkers on
the jukebox, the shiny chrome on a ’57 Chevy. A wind-fed fire on Easter Sunday
can’t burn those records on the turntables in our minds.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 340.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mace’s
mesmerized with music</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When my husband and I first started vacationing at
the Lake of the Ozarks more than 20 years ago with several members of our
extended family, we were looking for kid-friendly activities. He remembered visiting
a music show a decade or so before. He said it was comical, entertaining and
fun. He thought the rest of us might like it, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though I always hate to type these words, that day
hubby was right. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We didn’t just like Lee Mace’s Ozark Opry. We loved
it. Everyone on the stage—from the piano player pounding out “Great Balls of
Fire,” to the guitar,- sax-, harmonica-, fiddle-playing, banjo-picking talent
in the band, to Goofer, the comedian—looked as if they enjoyed entertaining as
much as the full house enjoyed being entertained. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It wasn’t just that way the first time we visited.
It was that way every time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As annual visitors for a number of years, we came
to notice several things about the Ozark Opry—for instance, the way the parking
lot attendants, ticket agents and popcorn servers seemed to enjoy what they
were doing as much as the cast. It was as if they were all family. I learned
later, some of them were, by blood. The rest were, I think, related by their passion
for the magic that was Mace’s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I also noticed that Joyce Mace, widow of the founder
and man for whom the show was named, could always be found in the same seat
when the lights were dimmed and a spotlight shone on a big bass fiddle as a
recording played of Lee Mace singing “Ragged Old Flag.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, I came to learn that if you told the ticket
office attendants who you were, where you were from and that you had little
kids or guests new to the Opry and asked politely, they’d do their best to get
you a seat up close to the front. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When we moved to the Lake of the Ozarks full-time
last year, we lamented that the show had closed its doors a few years earlier,
but were grateful the building still stood, much like a monument in a cemetery,
a sentinel standing guard, paying tribute to the times so many cherished. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I drove past the charred building the other day, leaving
the window rolled up to keep out the smell of smoke and keep inside the car the memory of the late Steve Tellman singing “Forever and Ever Amen,” Helen Russell
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>clogging, Goofer wearing his comical
collapsible cardboard hat—and the warmth we felt each time we entered there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mouseketeer
kept us kids</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Seems like forever ago sometimes, like yesterday
others, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the era of black-and-white TV,
when the number of channels was only three, when up too early or awake too
late, all that looked back at us was the test pattern.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In those days long past, TV time was limited. If we were
lucky, we watched Captain Kangaroo in the morning, Lawrence Welk and Mitch
Miller on Saturday nights, The Wonderful World of Disney, Lassie and Bonanza on
Sunday, and the Mickey Mouse Club of an afternoon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The years have wiped away the memory of most of the
Mouseketeers, but if there’s one name most Baby Boomers remember above all others,
it’s Annette Funicello.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What was it about Annette that made her every young
boy’s sweetheart , the girl each young lady longed to be—her big brown eyes,
the bounce in her step, or the way she seemed so wise and full of life? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even before she became a beach movie babe, she was
one of a handful of girls who epitomized her day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We watched her grow to a teen, remembered her locked
somewhere twixt the two—Mouseketeer and movie star—until the day, when growing
older, she shared with us her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We wished well for her, remembered her in our
prayers and shed tears on learning of her passing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With us always</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One thing’s certain, though—until we join her and
Walt Disney at the Mickey Mouse Club in the sky, we’ll remember her ever. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To those who don’t know better, it looks as if a
restaurant and an empty building burned and an aging has-been television star
died. These are the kinds of stories that are texted, tweeted, posted on
Facebook, buried in newspapers and read by an anchor on the local news nearly
every day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To this Baby Boomer, they’re more than that. They’re
pieces of my past. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A fire may have claimed the buildings and death the
star, but just as I died a little hearing of their losses, remembering them
helps me to relive moments I’ll never forget. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Each of them—Ted’s, the Opry and Annette—leave a legacy
that can never be extinguished. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-82332694673518837332013-03-22T07:54:00.000-05:002013-03-22T07:54:54.439-05:00The power of words and music: Dan Fogelberg remembered<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8-UHw1WsIS0/UUxTKadSszI/AAAAAAAAA5U/sN6_R14OFLw/s1600/FrozenFoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8-UHw1WsIS0/UUxTKadSszI/AAAAAAAAA5U/sN6_R14OFLw/s1600/FrozenFoods.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I was scrolling down my Facebook page on a recent
evening, I stumbled across a post on late singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg’s
tribute page. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The post included an image of a letter a young girl
had written to Fogelberg, asking the meaning of a line in one of his songs.
What made the image all the more exciting, all the more powerful, was
Fogelberg’s handwritten reply in return. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He answered, that yes, though the words were
literal, the related metaphorical meaning was much as she had suspected. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The song in question was my favorite Fogelberg tune,
“Same Old Lang Syne.” It’s a song reportedly based on a real event in
Fogelberg’s life—a chance encounter with an old girlfriend in the grocery store
on Christmas Eve. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The tune captures all the surprise, awkwardness,
giddiness, memories, regret, warmth and more that such an encounter elicits. It
has an uncanny ability to draw its listener into the song, to invite her to
watch as a silent observer as the two experience more emotions than they must
have imagined possible in such a short time. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps the reasons it struck me so strongly, years
ago when I first heard it, and as I listened to it on tapes, CDs or car radios
through the decades, are twofold—I’ve seen the song from the outside looking in
and inside looking out. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I spent nearly 30 years of my life in a grocery
store, from the high school days when I met my first steady boyfriend in the
check-out lane until I was a middle-aged mother and grandmother, watching much
younger coworkers re-live those same excitement-filled moments. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Grocery store clerks see and hear a lot. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We witness those hugs and “Oh my gawds” when parted
lovers home for the holidays see each other—sometimes after months apart,
sometimes years. We watch warmly as widowers or divorcees bump into someone
from long ago, and we can see a spark, long smoldering, begin to re-ignite.
And, yes, we see those who have their regrets, bumping into old flames they let
slip away, those who have built a life with someones </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">new</span>. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, too, because I lived in a rather small
community, it wasn’t unlikely for me to have my own “Same Old Lang Syne”
moments. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On more than one occasion, I’d look up and see,
across the counter, someone I’d met years earlier in the check-out lane, the
library, the old neighborhood, or in a small town nearby—and had dated a time
or two or a season. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As with Fogelberg and his “old lover in the grocery
store,” it was awkward at first, giddy at times, and sometimes warm—for the lives
that touch ours, no matter how fleeting, often do bring with them memories
worth remembering. It doesn’t take a six-pack from the liquor store or a
songwriter’s recollection to warm us with memories of days gone by, even when
we’re ever so thankful of the love we know today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though Peoria’s Dan Fogelberg, singer/storyteller to
the world, didn’t have his encounter in the frozen food aisle of the store
where I worked all those years, I saw scores of Dans and lovers meet again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Through his words, from time to time, as the song
played in my mind, those others faded and Dan came into view. Tonight, writing
this, I see his face again and, as I do, the music plays anew. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Image </span><a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/26111" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">via</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-6483512369705365732013-03-19T19:43:00.000-05:002013-03-19T19:44:40.498-05:00A funfetti kind of night<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1jzhGwBIGa0/UUkFZVWA7dI/AAAAAAAAA5E/pEmShZcB7PI/s1600/FunfettiNight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1jzhGwBIGa0/UUkFZVWA7dI/AAAAAAAAA5E/pEmShZcB7PI/s1600/FunfettiNight.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my young family members loves funfetti birthday
cake—a white cake full of hard candy sprinkles with even more sprinkles in the
frosting than on the cake itself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There’s something about that kind of cake that just says
“happy,” don’t you think?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last year, Barry Manilow came to the community where
we lived. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We’ve never been big Manilow fans, but the guy is a
music legend. So were Elvis, Liberace, Frank Sinatra. We weren’t particularly
big fans of any of them either and never saw any of them in concert; yet, when
they were no longer, I always regretted not seeing them in person. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s why I bought the concert tickets first—and
told my husband later. If I had asked before ordering tickets, I thought he’d
think of every reason why we couldn’t go. I envisioned him saying things like: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You never listen to Barry Manilow. Why would you go
to his concert?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We’re too busy.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The tickets are too expensive.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Shouldn’t you be packing (or writing a blog post,
or doing the laundry, or grooming the dog)?” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Oh, wait, we don’t have a dog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Get the picture? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I ordered the tickets, though, dragged hubby along
to the concert, and noticed as we looked around that we were among the youngest
people in the audience. It hit me that night, as it does every time my husband
and I go somewhere in the community of seniors where we now live, that our
peers aren’t as young as they used to be, nor are the artists of our era.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I watched the guests filling the arena, though, I
noticed an aura in the room, an air about its occupants</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—</span>and it wasn't from the glow sticks we received when we arrived. The concert-goers may have looked
“old,” but they acted young. These were the same girls who screamed for the
Beatles and begged Elvis to grind his pelvis, and the same guys who rolled up
their sleeves and cruised in muscle cars for that cool guy-look of the 1950s
and early sixties. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Although Manilow was recovering from hip surgery
when we saw him in concert, the almost-septuagenarian put on a show that would
have many people half his age panting for air. The evening was a nice mix of
storytelling and song, with such signature tunes and crowd favorites as “Mandy,”
“I Write the Songs,” and “Can’t Smile Without You.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Looking back on that night of nearly a year ago, my
husband and I have to agree that, though Manilow wasn’t on our bucket lists, we
know now each of ours would have been a bit less full without the experience. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">From the oldsters-turned-young-again to the
gotta-sing-along tunes to the entertainer-extraordinaire, our night with
Manilow was one we’ll long remember. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the concert drew to a close with one of Manilow’s
most energetic classic tunes, the performer had one more trick up his sleeve.
In some sort of super-stage magic, confetti-like streamers of at least a
half-dozen different colors shot from the front of the arena to almost the back
of the crowd—a spectacular end to a back-in-time kind of night, one that made
us greater Manilow fans than we’d imagined possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When we go places where large crowds congregate, my
husband is one to say, “Wait. Let the crowd thin out before we leave.” I’m not
one to just sit, or even to stand and wait, so I used the time to gather a big
batch of the streamers, making sure I had one of each color. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When we got home, I took this picture to capture the
essence of our funfetti night—and to remind me to stay always young, to live a
funfetti kind of life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What about you? Do you maintain the youthful
exuberance of Manilow and his fans? Are you living a funfetti life? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Believe me—that kind of outlook makes life as sweet
as a cake with sprinkles, no matter how many birthdays you’ve got behind you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-44729914466868621772013-03-16T09:14:00.003-05:002013-03-16T14:35:53.242-05:00Richard Bach pens another soaring adventure tale<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZL8W97Hy1F0/UUR-zzlfG4I/AAAAAAAAAzU/0meY9ngKaII/s1600/TravelsPuff2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZL8W97Hy1F0/UUR-zzlfG4I/AAAAAAAAAzU/0meY9ngKaII/s1600/TravelsPuff2.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It first happened around 1970 or so. I was 18 and
impressionable and into my life walked (or was it flew?) the words of a man on
the wings of a bird. Not a cardinal, the bird of my home state, or a robin, so
common in those parts, or even a mallard, which flies overhead each spring and
fall. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The bird that flew into my life and the man, whose
carefully crafted sentences were to touch it again and again for 40 years and
still counting, were Jonathan Livingston Seagull and his creator Richard Bach. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Since that day—specific date on the calendar left unremembered
back in those days of tie-died t-shirts and bellbottom blue jeans—Bach has
flown into my life again and again, each time bringing me new characters to
love, new words to entertain, new thoughts to inspire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just when I needed them they found me—his books and
his characters. Donald Shimoda in “Illusions,” little Dickie in “Running from
Safety,” Budgeron Ferret in “Writer Ferrets: Chasing the Muse,” and more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">About this time last year, Bach, whose path had crossed
mine in real life (IRL, in cyber terms) while he was on Twitter for a short
time a couple years ago, embarked on an adventure. As he did, he chronicled it
on a website, now inactive. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The adventure was a cross-country flight with a new
love, a character not unlike Jonathan Livingston Seagull. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This love of Bach’s life had wings like Jonathan,
could touch down on the water like the illustrious gull, and had the ability to
inspire, just like that prodigy-turned-mentor in Bach’s first bestseller. Her
name is Puff. She can swim. She can fly. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mortals would call her an amphibious airplane, a SeaRey.
Bach would call her a spirit, for that she is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those posts Richard Bach first shared with a family
of readers in cyberspace are now available in the pages of a book, one I held
in my hands this week, so hot off the press that I can smell the inks used to
bring it to life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In “Travels with Puff: A Gentle Game of Life and
Death,” the author pours onto the pages a love story, an adventure chronicle,
an inspirational work sure to warm the hearts of his most avid family of
readers and strong enough to draw into that family a new band of members. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the early pages, we see a dance of courtship,
reminiscent of some ritual of nature’s precious creatures, as Richard and Puff
take steps, cautious at first, elegant before long, falling one for the other,
earning trust, growing in love. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bach’s adventures with Puff begin near the lakes of
Florida, Puff’s birthplace and first home, but the author’s dream is to get her
to his hangar in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the pair court, the author and long-time pilot
begins to prepare for the journey. He and Puff cavort in the Sunshine State’s
skies and splash in its inland waters. Richard does all the practical things
seasoned aviators must do before embarking on an adventure across the land, purchasing
essential items and getting Puff all gussied up for her big dance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Richard Bach, the storyteller, has always been a
master at word pictures. Because of this, he could have told Puff’s tale in
words alone and it would have been a magnificent work. But, just as Russell Munson’s
images of flight brought Jonathan to life in the pages of his book, another wayfarer's lens shows us Puff in all her<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>sojourner’s finery. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A fellow aviator, Dan Nickens, a man with a passion
not only for flight and for adventure, but also for geology, joins Bach on the journey,
capturing in photos what Bach paints in words. The marriage of words and images
makes the magnificent even more glorious. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nickens’ own <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SeaRey, Jennifer, becomes a comfortable friend
for Puff on the cross-country double date, and as the photographer sees the
country and life through Bach’s eyes, Bach discovers wonders of the earth’s
surface visible only through the lens of someone with Nickens’ loves. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In “Travels with Puff,” the seasoned reader of
Bach's work will see reminders of his earlier stories</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">—</span>a bit of Jonathan
Livingston Seagull, glimpses of the iconic feather from “Illusions,” reminders
of his Ferret Chronicles, images first shared by little Dickie in “Running from
Safety,” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In this work, Bach also weaves morsels that pay tribute
to books that drew him in years ago and warm his heart still today—Kenneth
Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, the work of Mark
Twain. It’s a nice touch.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Nothing on the dust jacket says, "Only read
this if an experienced lover of Bach's books," just as nothing warns,
"Beware, at the end of this book, you'll be in love, too—with the words on
these pages and the freedom of flight." The first warning is unnecessary,
as this book is sure to draw new readers. The second warning, I am certain,
holds true.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Richard Bach hasn't lost the ability he has to pull
us in on the very first page, take us flying toward his dreams and our own, and
inspire us to find our passion and pursue it with the same child heart he shows
us each time he puts words on paper.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As did Jonathan and Puff, with his latest book,
Richard Bach does soar. And, as he did with each of his earlier books, Bach still draws me in, entertains me, and inspires me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Travels with Puff” is published by <a href="http://www.nicetiger.com/?page_id=10" target="_blank">Nice Tiger</a> and available through
major online booksellers. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.nicetiger.com/?page_id=10" target="_blank">via</a>)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-79450027145505909522013-03-11T08:28:00.001-05:002013-03-11T08:28:44.851-05:00A shower of words<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MdwxqvBOwro/UT3bKmAjolI/AAAAAAAAAys/_EA1x8w9pXo/s1600/RainforestShower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MdwxqvBOwro/UT3bKmAjolI/AAAAAAAAAys/_EA1x8w9pXo/s1600/RainforestShower.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you’re a writer or someone who whips up dreams or
solves problems, you know how the best brain blasts always come at the most
inopportune times—such as when you’re in the shower.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For me it never fails, I’ve slept like a rock,
exhausted from writing for days on end, or I’ve tossed and turned all night,
listening as my muse tell me where it’s taking me next in my latest written
work. The ideas either come or they don’t, but one thing is for certain. As I
stand in the shower, the words come pouring down faster than the drops of
water. I’m there with no pen, no paper, and a shower of words and ideas that
would drown a cruise ship. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To celebrate a special anniversary last year, my
husband tried hard to get me to go to Hawaii—the real place—but because we were
planning to move at the time, making job changes, and more, I said, “No, not
now, please.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The week of anniversary rolled around and I drove
from our new home in Missouri to the apartment he was renting near his job in
Illinois until his pending retirement date. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We left the apartment one morning to go out for a
nice lunch, run some errands, and leave for our destination. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Remember how I said, “Not Hawaii. Not this year.”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He took me anyway. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We opened our motel room and saw a rainforest
shower, a volcano pouring into our hot tub, a sauna, and a room with thatched
roof and tiki torches. We were in Hawaii—on the prairies of Illinois. He’d
rented us one of those themed hotel rooms. The atmosphere of the islands was
there—for a whole lot less money. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We, both in our sixties, were like a couple of
little kids in that room, hoping from one attraction to the next, giggling when
we discovered a bidet in the Jack and Jill bathroom. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We were having a wonderful time, until I decided to
take a shower. This rainforest didn’t just have trees and tropical vegetation
painted on the walls, it also had shower heads with all sorts of knobs and
spouts and sprayers. I turned it on, and the next thing I knew water was coming
at me from everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was pounding
my yes, drenching my hair, beating against my body. It was liquid sensory
overload. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, it was a lot like those word showers I have at
home, when the story or blog or news article ideas come when I don’t have a
waterproof pen and paper, a bucket in which to catch the ideas before they are
lost forever down the drain. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A big fluffy towel helped me to wipe the water from
my eyes, to see my Hawaiian room again on that special vacation day. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Maybe that’s why the torrents of words come pouring
down on me at home, so that as I step from the shower, and pat myself dry, the
best ideas have soaked through to my core, to fall as thoughts onto a page,
helping me to bring my readers to our destinations in the posts within this
blog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://mrg.bz/r4H6aY">via</a>)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-21860053931989300722013-03-04T23:05:00.000-06:002013-03-04T23:05:20.362-06:00Pioneering 2013: A no-electricity adventure<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RSt2fXVv5xs/UTV6_A5pudI/AAAAAAAAAyc/aBBtSXRC-GU/s1600/Fireplace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-RSt2fXVv5xs/UTV6_A5pudI/AAAAAAAAAyc/aBBtSXRC-GU/s1600/Fireplace.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When my husband and I lived on the prairies of
Illinois, we were without power occasionally, but never for very long. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Normally, when we lived near Galesburg, we could
hear the transformer “pop” or look out our family room window and see it hanging
askew. A call to the power company with the exact location of the problem would
bring the sound of a power truck to the road outside our home without much
delay.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Later, when we lived south of Bloomington, our power
was supplied by a main feeder line that apparently ran somewhere along Historic
Route 66 near Lincoln. We were without power once for 36 hours in the dead of
winter. It was COLD out. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We retreated for a while to my brother’s house almost
an hour away, and returned home a few hours later to see if the power was back
on. Just as we were to head back to my brother’s, the house lit up. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Believe me, electricity is something we take for
granted. Go without it for 75 and three-quarters hours sometime, and you’ll know
what I mean. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s how long it took our rural Missouri electric
co-op to get to our outage and repair it last week. We were lucky. Some were
without power for a day or so longer than we were. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You know what, though? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t regret the experience. It brought out the tough
in me and in my husband. We survived and we learned from our adventure. Still, we’re
not ready to relive it anytime soon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m a farm kid, so I grew up with occasional power
outages, times when the pump on the well malfunctioned, or snows that had us
housebound for several days. You learn to prepare if you have time, adapt
whether you have warning or not, do without the things you want, and get by
with the things you have on hand. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The culprit responsible for this power outage was a
winter storm. It dumped several inches of very wet snow and a bit of ice on
mid-Missouri and was accompanied, in some instances, by nasty winds. It knocked
out more than half of the power in the 2,300-square-mile area served by our
rural electric cooperative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the five days the power company worked to repair
all the storm’s damage, its linemen were joined by workers from nearly 20 other
utility companies, some who had completed repairs in their own areas before
coming to ours. Through it all, the communications team from the coop used
social media to keep us apprised of the status, inject a little humor, exude a
lot of compassion. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What did we do to survive, to stay in our home without
freezing, suffering the potty woes of the passengers on the recent cruise ship
disaster, dehydrating, or starving? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We planned for it—thanks to the advice of some
farm-bred neighbors, my experience as a country kid, a bit of good old common
sense, and a dose of Girl Scout preparedness. We had the right stuff—from water
and batteries to muscle and persistence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our home has a gas furnace, stove, and water heater,
but each of them works in conjunction with electricity. Fortunately, we have a
wood burning cast iron stove in our living room, too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Our home overlooks a really big lake, but our
running water comes from a community well with its pump powered by—you guessed
it—electricity. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, not only were we without heat and lights, we
were without water. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a plan, though. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For heat, we’d use our wood burning stove. We had
some wood cut, split and ready, and more that could be firebox-size with just a
little work. We had plenty of matches and, even better, several of those
lighters designed for gas or charcoal grills, candles and the like. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We had a stockpile of candles, several flashlights
and a battery-operated camp light or two. We also had extra batteries. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">To cook our food, although the electronic igniter on
our stove wouldn’t work, we could turn the burner switches to “ignite” and use a
match or lighter. We did. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanks to the advice of a neighbor, we filled our
bathtub with water, which we used to flush the toilets. We also had several
gallons of drinking water and a little more than a case of individual bottles
of water. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I had books to read and hubby, though he much
prefers television, spent time watching the flames in the fire and reading
magazines—when he wasn’t splitting or carrying in wood. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are a couple things we now have in the house
that we didn’t before—larger bottles of hand sanitizer and a tub of diaper
wipes for sponge baths. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This time, we were fortunate that the roads were
cleared after a couple days so that we could leave our neighborhood. We were
able to shower at a friends’ home and to eat some warm meals at local
restaurants when our refrigerated and frozen food began to go bad. Though we
had plenty of things like peanut butter, canned foods, crackers and chips,
after a couple days, we were longing for a warm meal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By the third day, our originally half-filled bath
tub was running low, so I’d begun to melt snow on the stove so we could flush
toilets. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The best thing about our adventure was that it gave
me a chance to read—an entire book. I chose “Tales from Two Rivers I,” a
collection of nostalgic essays written by Illinoisans who were born and grew up
in the late 19<sup>th</sup> and early 20<sup>th</sup> century. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I read of young school teachers traipsing through
snow, mud and wetlands to get to school in time to fire up the furnace for
their students, of people traveling by horse-drawn carriages or in Model T
automobiles on rut-filled roads, sometimes overturning or having tires explode,
and of all the other trials and tribulations people like my grandparents faced,
our little power outage seemed more like an adventure or minor inconvenience
than like a catastrophe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I realized I had a lot to be thankful for—a roof
over my head, a warm home, a hubby willing to split wood and keep the fire
stoked, water for flushing and for drinking, and friends who opened their home
for a warm shower on a cold day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They offered a bedroom, too, but even when the
conditions aren’t optimal, there’s just no place quite like home. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/724249">via</a>)</span></div>
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Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-89003901837395017232013-02-20T14:32:00.000-06:002013-02-20T14:33:09.285-06:00About that Lincoln movie<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBIPTO1eIfA/USUxOijz6YI/AAAAAAAAAyI/v03iihYoZDk/s1600/Movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-xBIPTO1eIfA/USUxOijz6YI/AAAAAAAAAyI/v03iihYoZDk/s1600/Movie.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Other bloggers, Lincoln scholars and movie critics
wrote about Steven Spielberg’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lincoln </i>months
ago. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, why didn’t I?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Good question. Life, I guess—or maybe I just needed
time to think about what I wanted to say. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As with any book or movie which I plan to review,
though, I did not read a review—not a single one. Oh, I listened to a couple of
question and answer-type sessions—one with Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis, one
with Sally Field, and another, a Google+ Hangout with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Team of Rivals</i> author Doris Kearns Goodwin, but I kept my vow of
letting no one else’s opinion of the movie influence mine. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By way of introduction, here’s my role in the
Lincoln world. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not
a scholar</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m not a trained academic scholar. I’m not a
published author.</span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have, though, admired the 16<sup>th</sup>
President since I was a small child, for as long as I can remember. I was born
a block from the site of his Galesburg, Ill. Lincoln-Douglas Debate, held at
Knox College’s Old Main. As a child I soaked up all I could learn on field
trips to Lincoln sites; as a parent I was excited when my children had the same
experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a late-in-life college student, I studied Lincoln
and his force on the history and literature of Illinois in as many courses as I
could. Upon graduation, I reviewed several Lincoln-related books for the
Springfield, Ill. newspaper. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was the seventh person in line to see the Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on the day it opened to paying
customers. In the Lincoln Bicentennial year, I attended Lincoln scholarly events
and visited Lincoln sites in Springfield, Washington, D.C. and Gettysburg. I
met most of the leading Lincoln scholars, reviewed books and events, and wrote
more than 200 blog posts related to the Bicentennial. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Though I’m not a Lincoln scholar, I am a Lincoln
enthusiast. I’m not an expert on Lincoln and politics, Lincoln and the Civil
War, or Lincoln and his presidency. But I can say that I know an awful lot
about young Lincoln, Lincoln’s Illinois years, and his wife and family. Few who
know me will dispute that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In looking at the film, I’ll speak to the things on
which I’m most qualified to comment and leave the things that are beyond me to
the experts who understand those things. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not
much for movies</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m not much of a movie watcher either. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m a reader and a student. Give me a good book any
day and leave the film viewing to people who like those sorts of things—that is
unless it’s a Steven Spielberg film. He can make me put my books down for a
couple hours—and, even better, can make me glad I did. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember hearing years ago that Spielberg was
planning to make a movie about Lincoln. As did the rest of the Lincoln world
and movie lovers, I waited … and waited … and waited. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was worth the wait. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
well-woven work </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Spielberg’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lincoln
</i>we see a story carefully woven, images powerfully presented, directing and
acting done as none but Spielberg and crew could have done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In selecting Doris Kearns Goodwin’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Team of Rivals </i>as the foundation for his
film, Spielberg got off on the right foot. There are many scholars in the
Lincoln world, some good, some not-so-much; there are poetic writers and
ever-so-boring scribes; there are narrators and there are storytellers. Goodwin
is a storyteller. Few equal her gifts in that realm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How, though, do you take a book like hers, and
condense its more than 900 pages into a film of a couple hours or so? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank goodness, Spielberg got Tony Kushner to do the
job. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I can’t help but think back to Lincoln and his early
days in Illinois. Imagine the legendary railsplitter, turning a huge tree into
rails to make a fence. Then, imagine that same tree again, but whittled into a
likeness of that railsplitter, a spitting image, not too large, not too small,
a statue that captured a man so real that the wooden image appeared as the man
himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s what Kushner did. He took that massive tree
of Goodwin’s, whittled and whittled and whittled just so, painstakingly, for
years, until he gave us a Lincoln story so real we felt as if we’d stepped back
in time and were there watching it unfold in person before our very eyes. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Again and again as I watched the movie, I had to
stop and remind myself, “Ann, this is not the 1860s, you aren’t sitting in that
room or walking down those streets. These aren’t the people of Lincoln’s times.
They’re actors.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Perfect
casting</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The right actors, in the right roles, directed by
only director who could pull it off so well—Steven Spielberg. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I heard Daniel Day-Lewis was to play Lincoln I
thought, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Last of the Mohicans</i>, yes.
Lincoln—really? I just don’t know about that one!” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Boy, was I ever wrong. From his in-depth study of
the man and his mannerisms to the way Day-Lewis brought a voice quieted nearly
150 years ago to life as no one has ever before, Daniel Day-Lewis was Abraham
Lincoln. He brought the storyteller, the father, the worry-worn, grieving commander-in-chief
to life so well that I often forgot the actor was not the 16<sup>th</sup> President
himself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, as for Sally Field—I’ve admired the woman since
I was a youngster watching that nun fly across the tiny black-and-white screen
in my parents’ living room. When I heard she was to play Mary Todd Lincoln, I
was sure she’d nail the role, and it’s not an easy role to play. Yet, Field
played it with a passion, intensity, and believability that will long sear Mrs.
Lincoln in the memory of those who watched her. I am convinced no one could
have played that role as well as Field—or interacted as well with Day-Lewis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If there were one thing Kushner and Spielberg could
have done better, it would have been to give us a better portrayal of Robert
Todd Lincoln. His character seemed rather shallow and his relationships
portrayed only as they were known until recent years. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After publication of Goodwin’s book and as Kushner
worked on the screenplay, author Jason Emerson was wrapping up his seminal
work, a biography of Robert Todd Lincoln that shows us Lincoln’s oldest son in
a depth previously unexplored.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What a shame Emerson’s work wasn’t done earlier or
Spielberg’s project later. I would have loved to see the depth this would have
added to the story. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The good news is that we can still study Robert and
Mary and the President—and, if we’re so driven, the Civil War, the politics of
the day, the presidency, and more. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s
a winner</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And when we do, whether this film gathers to it
every Oscar for which it is nominated, or not, it is a success, nonetheless. It
has achieved all that Spielberg, Goodwin, Kushner, the cast, and all of us who
study Lincoln wish for—it has awakened in its viewers a desire to learn more
about Lincoln, his life and his legacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Doing so, this film and all who helped to create it
truly are the winners.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image </span><a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/7267"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">via</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-62790858630563819112013-02-18T19:20:00.000-06:002013-02-18T19:20:27.055-06:00I’d love to see the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile …<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v2SLcCOO1CA/USLR0ODHLlI/AAAAAAAAAx0/yESqubj6thI/s1600/WienermobileCrop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v2SLcCOO1CA/USLR0ODHLlI/AAAAAAAAAx0/yESqubj6thI/s1600/WienermobileCrop.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">… ‘Cause everyone would wish that they were me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">C’mon. Admit it. You know it’s one of those things
you never put on your bucket list because you didn’t think it would happen.
Neither did I, but guess what—it did!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few years ago, as my husband and I were driving on
an Interstate highway, in the oncoming traffic we saw it—a 27-foot-long hot dog
in a bun. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I figured that was as close as I’d ever come to the
Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was wrong.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Earlier this week, I saw a post on my regional
electric coop’s Facebook page. Rural Missouri’s note read, “The Wienermobile,
Oscar Mayer's Hot Dog of a Car, is coming to central Missouri…” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That was all I needed to hear. My bucket list is
fluid, and at that moment a new item was added. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Isn’t it something every kid wishes for, after
all—to see the Wienermobile and get his or her own whistle shaped like the
magnificent machine? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The kid in me held that wish from the time I learned
there was such a thing and put the likelihood at “highly improbable.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet, here it was—the opportunity of a lifetime. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I was certain my husband would be on board for the
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My otherwise not-so-privileged-child hubby had done
what other kids only dream of. He’d not only seen the Wienermobile as a youngster
in Chicago in the 1950s, but he even had a hot dog-shaped whistle all his own. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you’re a Baby Boomer, you remember how cherished
those whistles were. They were right up there with Daniel Boone coonskin hats, Betsy
Wetsy dolls, and Hopalong Cassidy cap guns and holsters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At first when hubby told me of his childhood
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wow, was my man ever a lucky little boy!</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At first, he led me to believe that once was enough
for that lucky boy. All evening and part of the next morning, he had me
thinking his child heart was packed in a box someplace with a tattered
cherished baseball card of the same era, that he had no desire to join me in
seeing the vehicle again. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Up early getting ready on Saturday morning, though,
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“What are you doing?” I yelled. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I may as well go with you,” came the water-garbled
answer. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We rounded curves, drove through hills and hollows,
and crossed a few bridges on our way to the capital city. After more than an
hour and fifteen minutes on the road, we came around one more curve and there
it was—a six-month-old gargantuan hot-dog-on-wheels proudly sporting license
plates that read, “Our Dog.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Climbing the steps beneath the open door of the
Weinermobile that morning was a 60-year-old woman turned six-year-old girl
again, looking longingly into the bag of whistles Hotdogger Cookout Kelly held
in her hands. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Do I get a whistle?” I asked. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You know what you have to do, don’t you? Can you
sing the jingle?” was Kelly’s reply.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As I began to sing with Kelly and her fellow
Hotdogger Deli Eliot, I heard another male voice chiming in behind me. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Hubby and I both earned our Wienermobile whistles
that day. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As we stepped back out of the vessel that took us
back more than half a century without firing up its engine or moving a foot, I
think we both grew a little younger.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">On the way home, I blew the whistle and sang this little
ditty: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m glad I saw the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, ‘cause
all my friends will wish that they are me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And from the number of “Likes” on my Facebook post
when I shared the picture, where I was holding my cherished treasure in front
of a jumbo–sized dog in a bun, I’m pretty sure that they really do. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-27863950224750160132013-02-14T21:59:00.000-06:002013-09-23T00:36:59.841-05:00Sal Litvak’s 'Saving Lincoln': Innovative and entertaining<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SJC9HFqLq6M/UR2w2xtzC4I/AAAAAAAAAxg/HzMILtBYcDc/s1600/SavingLincoln_Still12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SJC9HFqLq6M/UR2w2xtzC4I/AAAAAAAAAxg/HzMILtBYcDc/s320/SavingLincoln_Still12.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When you want to make a movie about a big topic, but
have a small budget, how do you do it?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You get innovative. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you do it right, it works. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Saving Lincoln” works. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Director Salvador Litvak got innovative. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Litvak and his wife, Nina Davidovich, have long
wanted to create a film about Abraham Lincoln. They faced a couple of
obstacles, though. Another filmmaker, a little better known, was also working
on a movie about the 16<sup>th</sup> president—and Steven Spielberg had just a
few more financial resources to work with than the Litvaks. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As Litvak and Davidovich did their research for the
film, they were drawn into photographs from the period. Knowing that shooting
on location was probably not financially feasible given their budget, Litvak
wondered if he couldn’t use the photos as the setting —and that’s exactly what
he did. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The movie’s scenes were shot against a green screen,
and Litvak used a process he calls CineCollage to make the scenes come to life
against real 19<sup>th</sup> century backdrops. It works, and I suspect we’ll
see more of this process over time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Saving Lincoln” tells a Lincoln story that has not
yet been told on the big screen—the tale of the relationship between Lincoln
and his colleague, a fellow attorney and business partner from the Illinois
Eighth Judicial Circuit, Ward Hill Lamon. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the days when the two practiced together in the
Danville, Ill. area, they bonded in the courts by day and the taverns by night,
where Lincoln’s storytelling and Lamon’s banjo picking helped to fill the long dark
evenings and mesmerize the prairie folk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In actor Tom Amandes, we see a Lincoln, young at
first, worry-worn toward his final days, and actor consistent in his depiction
of a man who could cackle from the depths of his being at a good joke,
including his own, and carry the burdens of a nation upon his shoulders. We see
a father’s relationship with his children and his mourning at the loss of one
during the White House years. We see the power of the president’s relationship
with his complex wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Because this film is not as much about Lincoln’s
relationship with his wife as it is with Lamon, in Penelope Ann Miller’s
portrayal of Mrs. Lincoln, we see a mother’s love for her children, a wife’s
worries about her husband. One of the strongest bits of writing in the play is
not in the script itself, but the way Mrs. Lincoln’s anguish is portrayed from
a distance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t remember seeing Lea Coco, who plays Lamon,
on screen before, but he’s got a new fan. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Every once in a while you met someone whose eyes
help to capture the essence of their character, who pierce you, saying, “I am
this character and all he represents.” Lea Coco does that with Ward Hill Lamon.
Many times in the film what he doesn’t say is as powerful as what he does. It
takes a knack as a film writer to create those scenes and a gift as an actor to
pull it off. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In addition to these three key characters, I can’t
fail to mention Bruce Davison’s portrayal of William H. Seward. Though I’ve
always enjoyed his work and loved his role as Nick Anderson in the 2009 film, “Christmas
Angel,” Davison was Seward come to life in this film. I like the actor even
more now than I did before. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, as for Saidah Arrika Ekulona as Mrs. Lincoln’s
dressmaker Elizabeth (Lizzie) Keckley—she had me so spellbound that I forgot
she wasn’t really Lizzie. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Over the past few years, I’ve been as anxious to see
this film completed and showing as I was to see that other Lincoln movie—and in
different ways I liked each as much as the other. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyone comparing Litvak’s film with Spielberg’s does
both artists an injustice. The films aren’t the same, as either director will
attest—yet Litvak and his wife and Spielberg and his writer have some things in
common in creating these film, and the films themselves share a commonality. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Like Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner’s, the
Litvaks’ writing is engaging, enlightening, and entertaining.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The filmmakers/writers share a thirst for knowledge
about Abraham Lincoln, and they share a desire to create that thirst in others. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In this respect, both films are spot on. Just as “Lincoln”
does, “Saving Lincoln” leaves its viewers with questions about Lincoln and his
legacy. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If those of us who study Lincoln or share his story
in our work or artistic endeavors can light a spark of interest about Lincoln
in others, we’ve been successful. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Because it does this, “<a href="http://www.savinglincoln.com/" target="_blank">Saving Lincoln</a>” gets my
accolades. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">See
the film:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I had the joy of seeing the inaugural public
screening of “Saving Lincoln” on Feb. 11. The viewing was sponsored by the
Abraham Lincoln Association and shown at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Don’t miss your chance to <a href="http://www.savinglincoln.com/screenings.html" target="_blank">see the film</a> this weekend (Feb.
15-16) and next week at select theatres throughout the country. If it doesn’t
come to your city, watch for the release of the film soon on iTunes and DVD.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Blogger’s
note:</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> I also had the privilege from early on to serve as
an historical advisor and to help to connect Nina Davidovich and Sal Litvak
with others who could answer their questions about Lincoln and Lamon. I loved
their excitement. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I expected them to deliver a project worth paying
attention to. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They did. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-87069796588397890662013-02-13T21:23:00.000-06:002013-02-13T21:23:08.428-06:00It matters. Here’s why<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple weeks ago, as I was wrapping up my day as a
writer and editor, I mentioned to a colleague that I was going to grab a bite
to eat, and squirrel away in my room with my laptop and a cup of coffee to
begin reading more than 70 newspaper articles for a press association contest I
had volunteered to judge. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She wrote back, “GEEEEZ! Why are you volunteering to
judge?? That sounds like a nightmare!”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Immediately, my fingers went into defense mode. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You want to know why?” I thought. “HERE’S WHY!” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ask any seasoned communicator and they’ll tell you
that using all capital letters is shouting, so as much as I wanted to shout, I
left those thoughts off the page. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Instead my answer went something like this: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I vowed when I moved to my new community that I’d
volunteer where my talents matter most, doing things others can’t. Much of that
will be communication-related. I follow an area press association on Facebook.
They are judging an award competition for another association, just as someone
else will volunteer to judge for their awards. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“In the past, I’ve also done this sort of thing for industry
organization award programs and scholarship competitions. I’m working with a
local organization on its leadership program, too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It’s my way of giving back for all the support I’ve
received from others through the years. Without the example, guidance, and
encouragement of other professional writers and editors, I wouldn’t be doing
this for a living today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“It matters.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I guess I shocked my colleague as much as if I had
“shouted” at her, for she wrote back right away, “You’re exactly right. It does
matter.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Then she wrote, “I hope you weren’t offended by my
question,” and suggested that perhaps I had a story here, about why volunteering
matters. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gee, do you think? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After all, I’d almost written the thing already,
hadn’t I? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yeah,” I wrote back. “I probably should.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I thought back to the touch others’ volunteer
efforts have had on my life and my career. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a writer—absolutely. And in other ways, too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I submitted my first paid book review to a
contest sponsored by my local chapter of the Association of Women in
Communication, it was a volunteer communicator somewhere who judged it. The
award encouraged me to keep writing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Later, I submitted other entries. Again, volunteers
judged my work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When the appeal came to our chapter to judge entries
for another state, I didn’t see it as an obligation. I saw it as a privilege.
How rewarding to see the work of other writers and to play a part in acknowledging
them for their works of excellence.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But even before that, there were volunteers at work
in my life—the fourth-grade teacher who gave up some of her nights and weekends
to lead our church choir, the high school student who spent a week in the
summer and one afternoon a week during the school year working with my Girl
Scout troop, the parents and teachers who chaperoned our high school dances. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My life was touched by each of them. From the choir
director, I learned to appreciate Latin. From the Girl Scout, still a friend today,
I learned that dreams are worth pursuing. From a pair of chaperones who loved to do the polka,
I learned you’re never too old to live life with gusto. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Fifteen hours of reading later, the newspaper
articles are judged. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Those small town journalists painted pictures of
their communities that made me feel as if I knew their residents and made me
wish I lived where they did. They entertained me, amazed me with their talents
as writers and storytellers, and made me feel as fortunate to read their work
as they will feel when they receive their honors. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">We all need a little encouragement through life, a
nudge to go after the things that matter to us, a pat on the back for a job
well done. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been blessed again and again to be on the
receiving end when people volunteer their time and their talents. When asked,
I’ll volunteer mine. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Why? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It matters. That’s why.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/83361" target="_blank">via</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-48682857373844444202013-02-08T08:57:00.001-06:002013-02-08T08:57:37.554-06:00A legacy of laughter—and of love<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rHK7xMWlFZQ/URURKcOQscI/AAAAAAAAAw4/oEocAnCUkk4/s1600/Toaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rHK7xMWlFZQ/URURKcOQscI/AAAAAAAAAw4/oEocAnCUkk4/s1600/Toaster.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was my first experience with death. I was 10, and
our cousin was living with us for the summer, a city kid working on the farm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I awoke that morning, this 15-year-old, had-to-grow-old-too-soon,
was bearing the news that our grandfather had taken his last breath as he sat
down on the edge of his bed after the 10 o’clock news the previous night. At
71, Grandpa’s life was over in an instant, due to a massive coronary. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My cousin was in charge for the morning, while my
dad took my mother to their hometown to be with my grandma. Together, this
young man and I tried to comprehend our loss.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In talking recently with some of my cousins about
that time in our life and the days following our grandfather’s death, I found we
all have different memories. And, no matter our age at the time, we all saw
life a little differently after that day. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My strongest memory of those days is of one of my
younger uncles, who was then in his early thirties. It was a couple mornings
after Grandpa’s death, a day or two before his funeral. A number of us were
sitting around the big table in Grandma’s even bigger kitchen, with its tall
wooden cabinets, often-whirring treadle sewing machine, and heavy iron hand
pump. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t remember for sure, but I wouldn’t be
surprised if, over her housedress, Grandma was wearing a homemade,
flowered-print bib apron, a few straight pins stuck into the front of the
straps, ready and waiting for the next sewing project. She usually did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It was breakfast time, and the old two-slice toaster
under the window on Grandma’s counter was working overtime. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What a toaster it was! </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’d never seen one like it before and I’ve never
seen one since, but this toaster popped the toast high out of the slots and sent
the slices soaring through the air. As kids, it was as exciting to watch that
toaster as it was to walk to the small-town Ben Franklin with Grandma, crisp
dollar bill clutched in hand. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This uncle was always quite a clown. My mother tells
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push the paten under her chin to try to make her laugh as she received Holy Communion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, yes, even in grief, he knew how to bring joy to
the moment. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As we sat around the kitchen that day, my uncle took
my grandmother on his knee. We children had never seen anyone bounce our
grandmother on their knees. Soon all three generations were in stitches—and not
from the treadle machine on the far wall. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few seconds later, the next two slices of bread
flew through the air. As my uncle caught the flying toast, his tiny Irish
mother balanced on his knee, we giggled more, and all knew that, even in our
loss, we had each other. We’d be all right. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I learned a couple of lessons that day—how much
comfort can be found in a family making memories and that a little laughter can
go a long way toward soothing hurting hearts. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yesterday, my uncle left us to join Grandpa and
Grandma. As I stop to remember his life and his legacy, the laughter is once
again the thing I remember most. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He didn’t leave us as quickly as Grandpa did. Cancer
took its time in claiming my uncle’s life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He fought it with courage, and I’ve no doubt one of
the tools in his arsenal was his sense of humor. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">More than 50 years later, hearing the news of a loved
one’s passing isn’t any easier, though. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I love you, Uncle Lyle. Godspeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">©
Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image </span><a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/32509"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">via</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-12913044918371012602013-02-07T09:11:00.000-06:002013-02-07T09:11:05.397-06:00A man of many hats<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-asTOOF0SuB8/URPC-hbCjJI/AAAAAAAAAwk/V_EGMkTUf0o/s1600/Hats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-asTOOF0SuB8/URPC-hbCjJI/AAAAAAAAAwk/V_EGMkTUf0o/s1600/Hats.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A few months ago, a new guy moved in with me. He
shares my office. Sometimes I talk to him. Sometimes I don’t. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He’s a quiet fellow, with a solemn look on his face,
but he seems to have fun, too, donning appropriate hats by the season. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Earlier this year, when we wanted to cheer a friend
who has cancer, my office buddy wore a tie-died baseball cap. Here’s why.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The friend and I once worked in the same office.
When we did, she and several of our co-workers wore plastic tiaras once a week,
carrying over a tradition begun on someone’s birthday. They called the day
“Tiara Thursday.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Not one to get all prissy and foo-foo, I refused to wear
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Instead, I declared, “The day I retire from here, I
want a tie-died baseball cap that says, ‘This ain’t no freakin’ tiara.’” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have good friends. When I left that job, I got my cap. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My office buddy borrowed it. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another day, I came to my desk to find that the
buddy and my grandson had been up to some tomfoolery. My office mate sported a
wide-brimmed straw hat.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At Christmas, upon his head was a Santa hat with the
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Any day now, I expect to see him with a new
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It will bear the words, “Happy birthday.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My office buddy makes no annoying noises, doesn’t
borrow my office supplies or use my chair without asking. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He feels at home in my office, surrounded by books,
where words bounce both on and off the page all day long and often into the
night. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His copper-toned flesh isn’t flesh at all. It’s
plaster. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His name is Lincoln—Abraham.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I have a feeling he’ll wear a lot of hats through
the years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I suspect that once President’s Day is passed, upon
his head I’ll find a leprechaun’s headwear, and, soon after that, an Easter
bonnet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Someday, though, I must get the guy his own
stovepipe hat. After all, he needs someplace to store his important papers,
doesn’t he?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">©
Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image
<a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/31771">via</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-78880541189696650442013-02-04T22:39:00.002-06:002013-02-04T22:40:13.803-06:00A balancing act<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDZUbk_u4YQ/URCKPl9qerI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/CTA-tSH9v-4/s1600/Balance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDZUbk_u4YQ/URCKPl9qerI/AAAAAAAAAwQ/CTA-tSH9v-4/s1600/Balance.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Early last year, I wrote a blog post
titled, “<a href="http://musingsonroute66.blogspot.com/2012/01/looking-for-balance-have-you-seen-her.html" target="_blank">Looking for balance—have you seen her?</a>” In it, I talked about how I’m not a
resolution setter, but said that, if I were, the one thing I hoped to find during
the year was balance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m a person prone to
obsessions—blogging, studying Abraham Lincoln, working out to excess—or not. Sometimes
I’m really into something, to the exclusion of all the things “normal” people
do—things like socializing, making day trips, shopping, or even just chilling.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Rarely, through the years, have I
taken time to enjoy doing things with my hubby, friends, and family, to savor
time in my home, to visit local sites of interest and attend community
festivals. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When I wrote that post in January
2012, I’m not sure I really knew what “balance” would look like, feel like. I
just wondered if perhaps it might be an interesting, perhaps even a worthwhile
thing to try.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As it does many years, the “year
of balance” didn’t turn out quite as I’d planned. Sooner than we expected, our
home sold, my husband retired, we moved out of state. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Looking back, I barely remember the
first three months of the year. The rest of it was so busy that first quarter
feels like a fog, as if I were a player who lost memory of the early part of
the game due to a concussion. I worked at my job, I tackled odd jobs on two
homes, and I worked on my blog. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By April, though, it was evident my
life was completely out of balance for the time being. Our Illinois home had
sold, and we’d begun moving our belongings to our new home in Missouri. By the
end of the month, I was in the house with boxes and boxes of books, what seemed
like tons of furniture and household belongings, and no husband. He’d stayed
behind, renting an apartment in Illinois until his retirement date later in the
year. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was just as well. I didn’t have
time for a hubby right then anyway. I was putting things in their places,
painting walls, and supervising tradesmen who were making the older home into
which we moved “new” to us. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By the time hubby moved down, the
house was nearly in order—inside, at least—and, because he was retired, we were
almost beginning to live like regular people. I’d work during the day and we
could actually do things together on nights and weekends. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We hung out with neighbors, joined
some organizations in our community, found a church home, had guests a time or
two, went to visit our kids and our extended family, and attended an apple
festival, a turkey festival, and a fly-in. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">About that resolution I mentioned,
but refused to make, in fear of breaking it, at the beginning of 2012—a desire
to find balance in my life—I think I’m actually almost finding it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Our home is coming around. We’ll
tackle the outside tasks and some storage-area organization next year. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We enjoyed time with loved ones and
made new friends, and sometimes just sat on the porch relaxing. The winter holidays were the most stress-free ever, yet
extremely pleasant and heart-warming. I’ve begun doing some volunteering in
efforts where I feel I can be of most help.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I think I can say my life had
balance by the end of the year in all but one thing—my writing. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Though I write and edit nearly every
day for my “real” job, in the search for balance and in putting our new home in
order, I seem to have misplaced my personal words. They must not have been
packed with the work words. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Do you suppose if I imagine them
springing out of my desk drawer as a jack-in-a-box each day, that some of them
might find their way onto the page? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Perhaps—but just in case that doesn’t
work, I’ve got a sticky note on my daily calendar. It says, “Did you blog
today?” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With a reminder such as that one, I’ve
got no excuse, right? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">©
Ann Tracy Mueller 2013</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If
you liked this post, see my earlier Musings on Route 66 posts <a href="http://musingsonroute66.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image
<a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/39318" target="_blank">via</a>)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-54663877486421165422012-12-10T22:46:00.000-06:002012-12-11T09:58:20.941-06:00A 60th birthday gift to my high school classmates<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2INGfDsncX4/UMa4KZn9tmI/AAAAAAAAAvs/eQJfBQ9ZMWs/s1600/Birthday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2INGfDsncX4/UMa4KZn9tmI/AAAAAAAAAvs/eQJfBQ9ZMWs/s1600/Birthday.jpg" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week, the youngest member of my high school
class turns 60. That’s right—the entire Costa High School class of ’70, a bunch
of Central Illinois Catholic kids who grew up in the ‘60s—are now a couple
decades older than those teachers we thought were “older than dirt” were back
when we were raising Cain in our gender-segregated high school classrooms. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When I celebrated my 60<sup>th</sup> birthday
earlier this year, it looked as if I were going to be spending the day alone.
My husband was still living and working a state away, and my daughters and
families both lived hours distant. I planned to eat a frozen Weight Watchers
cake for breakfast, work, and mope about being alone on my big day. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My family had other ideas. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Using some sort of social media magic (the Facebook
event function, I suspect), they threw a surprise card shower for me. I got
birthday cards in the mail and greetings on my Facebook page for days, some from
a few of those long-lost classmates. It was a day to remember. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even better, instead of 60, I felt about 16. We
aren’t 60 the way our parents and grandparents were 60. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Baby Boomers don’t get old, do they? I know, there’s
probably some kind of saying about that somewhere: </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span>Old Baby Boomers don’t die,
they just … </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">”</span> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As the rest of my friends turned 60 throughout the
year, I often posted messages such as these: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Happy
birthday, So-and-so! We’re going to rock 60 like it’s never been rocked before.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Or </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Welcome
along as the Class of 70 rocks the sixties once again.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Every time I shared a greeting, I wished I could
give each of my friends a gift of some sort. Like many, my budget just doesn’t
allow for 70-some gifts for classmates and other friends my age. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A
rite of passage</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One day, I realized that, as a health care
communicator, perhaps there is a gift I can share with my fellow Friars and
friends. It’s a reminder that it’s time for another rite of passage. We’re old
enough now. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as we once reached an age when we could receive
our First Holy Communion, vote, be drafted, or drink, we’ve reached the age
when we can get a <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/shingles/vacc-need-know.htm" target="_blank">shingles vaccine</a>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What, you wonder, is the big deal about that? If
you’ve ever known anyone who suffered through <a href="http://www.shinglesinfo.com/shinglesinfo/index.jsp" target="_blank">shingles</a>, you’ll
know. If you haven’t, <a href="http://youtu.be/a2OajHvQ0gY" target="_blank">this video</a> will help you understand. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/a2OajHvQ0gY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I
did it</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I got my shingles vaccine a couple months ago. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s not a cheap immunization. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was lucky. My health insurance covered it in
full. Coverage varies by insurer, but one thing’s sure. You can’t put a price
tag on pain—so this preventative measure is worth the cost. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Class of ’70, as we turn 60, happy birthday! My gift
to you is this reminder: Protect yourself. I don’t want to read a message like
this on Facebook:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span></span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Crap.
Sure wish I would have gotten my shingles vaccine. This itching and burning is
killing me. I feel so miserable can’t go golfing (fishing, dancing, hiking) or ride
go karts (bicycles, Harleys, jet skis) or play baseball (basketball, soccer,
pool) with my grandkids</span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">”</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After all, you can’t feel 16 if you’re hurting like
a sick 60-something, can you? Get that shot, Class of 70. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Happy 60<sup>th</sup>!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/580686" target="_blank">via</a>)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-53896651571662327312012-11-13T20:14:00.002-06:002012-11-13T20:14:36.805-06:00Porch sitting déjà vu<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Between the porch and the highway was a sidewalk of
brick—the sort of walk that had to be weeded each season or the vegetation
growing between its bricks killed with gasoline or some chemical concoction. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mr. and Mrs. B weren’t unlike others of their World
War I-era generation—grandparents in their late sixties in the early sixties.
They were much like many other porch sitters in cities big, towns small, in the
hills of the southern US or on the banks of rivers and lakes across the land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kids raised, grandkids dropping in for an occasional
homemade cookie, Popsicle or board game, they had more time now to while away
the hours, linger over a slowly sipped beverage, watch the activity in front of
them, and reflect on that behind them. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This summer, Hubby and I moved to our retirement
home—the first house in our four decades together that has a porch. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A screened-in porch,” I thought, when we looked at
the house. “How old-fashioned—why not a deck? That’s what they put on houses
these days.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t like it,” I told my husband. “I don’t want
to be all closed in.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You might be surprised,” he said. “You might even
want to replace the screen with windows so you can enjoy it longer.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I hate it when he’s right. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I moved to the house a couple months before my
husband, while he worked to his retirement date. I found myself on that porch
morning, noon and night—and most of the hours in between. My work as a writer
and editor allows me to work anywhere that I can get a wi-fi connection and
plug in my laptop computer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I went out on the porch first thing in the morning toting
coffee and breakfast and watched the hummingbirds and chipmunks. I went back in
to shower, grabbed my computer and worked on the porch until lunchtime. I ate on
the porch while I read a chapter in a book, then spent the afternoon out there
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Even on the nights when I had a zillion unpacking
and renovation tasks, the porch beckoned I visit it for supper. I heeded its
call. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A couple weeks ago the workers finished converting
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last week, I finished painting the walls and the
trim, and the carpet was installed. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week, my hubby and I became the 21<sup>st</sup>
century version of my grandmother’s neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. B. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The popsicles are in the freezer, the board games on
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come to visit to create another round of front porch memories. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Never thought I’d see the day, but the two of us are
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I like it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Image </span><a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/833923"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">via</span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">)</span></div>
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Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-80366224152957683442012-10-08T19:03:00.001-05:002012-10-08T19:03:46.951-05:00As the scene changes<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mUBso7-kYCY/UHNoF24tDSI/AAAAAAAAAu4/eqL-lyDK9Hc/s1600/Fiddle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mUBso7-kYCY/UHNoF24tDSI/AAAAAAAAAu4/eqL-lyDK9Hc/s1600/Fiddle.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dorky title, huh? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sure, it’s a play on that old soap opera title, the one
where the globe went spinning across a starlit sky at the beginning of each
episode and the writers had the power to hold viewers spellbound five days a
week for more than forty years. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But after more than forty years in Illinois, our scene has
changed – my husband’s and mine. We left the prairie where we spent all of our
years together and moved to the hills of Missouri, a couple hours from the
rocky, tree-filled, creek-crossed landscape my grandfather left behind almost a
century ago. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a lot I looked forward to in moving down here –
the slower pace of life, great neighbors waiting to welcome us, wildlife who
believe they’re neighbors, a lake we love, and rocks, trees and creeks like
those my grandpa left behind. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there were things I knew I’d miss – family still in
Illinois, friends from work and the community, events related to the history
and literature of Illinois and to the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Illinois has history</b></div>
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The Bloomington, Ill. area where we lived the last decade and
a half is in the heart of the Eighth Judicial Circuit in which Lincoln
practiced law and was encouraged to run for the Presidency. It’s close enough
to Springfield that I could attend daytime events and evening lectures at the
Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Lincoln’s Home, the Old State
Capitol, or the University of Illinois at Springfield, and near enough to
Galesburg for me to make Sandburg Days activities most springs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I knew I’d miss those things – the intellectual stimulation,
the camaraderie, the sense of pride in those communities rich in history. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over the past few weeks, though, as our scene has changed –
from that of the prairie to the hills and waters of Missouri and from the green
of summer to the panorama of color I’m capturing in my journal each day – we’ve
found our cultural enrichment scenery changing, too. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Twice in the last few weeks, I journeyed south a couple
hours to Mansfield, Mo. to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home and Museum. The first
time was to take a friend, a fellow writer, so she could get a sense of where
Laura was when she wrote her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Little House</i>
books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second time, my neighbor
joined me for the community’s Wilder Days festival. The day’s rain could not
dampen our enthusiasm nor make flat the sounds pouring forth as Mansfield
native David Scrivener played Pa Ingalls’ fiddle and a seasoned local performer
accompanied him on the guitar. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Missouri’s got talent</b></div>
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Last week, my hubby and I traveled to Eldon for the
community’s Turkey Festival. There, we listened – for free – to local musicians
playing blue grass and gospel music. We heard an inspirational singer from
Kansas City, a great classic rock band, complete with trumpet player, and
15-year-old “America’s Got Talent” quarterfinalist, Jake Wesley Rogers of
Ozark, Mo. This young man is amazing. He may not have taken top honors in the
television competition, but Jake is a winner. We’ve surely not yet heard the
end of this young man, who made his parents ever more proud that Saturday
afternoon as he entertained the crowd in the small town where the couple grew
up. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Are you wondering if we were becoming tired of music after a
day traversing a small town with stages at each end and in the middle of one of
its main streets? </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nope, not at all. </div>
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<br /></div>
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We went directly from there to the Octoberfest at a Laurie
church, where one man played accordion by the outside beer tent and a band
inside (with another accordion, of course – and a sax) played polkas, German
tunes, some classic rock and the chicken dance, with many of the dancers donning
chicken hats.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This week, we headed out again on a Saturday morning, for
the Apple Festival in Versailles. I had but one thing on my agenda for this
weekend adventure – attending the fiddle contest at the community’s Royal
Theatre. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we arrived in Versailles, we first hit another
Octoberfest, this one without music or a beer tent, but with a gooseberry pie
so good it made up for the lack of auditory and alcoholic accompaniments. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Once downtown, we made our way up and down the streets and
around the square. We were pleased to see the same Kansas City singer that we’d
heard the week before beginning to warm up on one stage. Warming up on this
Saturday was just that. With temps in the 40s, it wasn’t just the singer’s
vocal chords that were cool. The audience, hands in pockets, huddled for
warmth, felt the chill too – so much so that they ran most of the vendors out
of hot chocolate as the day danced forth. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Spreading good news
with blues </b></div>
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As we waited for the fiddle contest, we made our way to one
street-end stage, where a blues band played, but not just any blues band. The
t-shirts on the table near where Springfield Blues played read, “Using Blues to
Spread the Good News.” These guys were good – from the lead singer to the
harmonica player – and I couldn’t help but wonder if the four Harleys parked
near the band weren’t one more way they reach out to an audience sometimes
resistant to the news they wish to share. </div>
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We were sure the fiddle contest would be the highlight of
our day and we weren’t disappointed. The talent ranged from two young female fiddlers
as different as night and day – one looking like the soft-spoken girl next door
and another with an awesome Mohawk – to the senior division fiddlers – two
women, including 82-year-young spunky fiddler Gertrude Hunt (who also is a heck
of a yodeler), to the open division with one woman and a gentleman whose fiddle
and skills said, “I’ve been at this for decades.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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We tapped our toes, swayed with the waltzes and wished at
the end that the music would keep on playing. We learned that, a few years ago,
when the contest was at risk of being discontinued, a family came forward to
sponsor it, saying something like, “That’s part of our heritage. We can’t let
it die.”</div>
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We’re glad they didn’t. </div>
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Near the end of the chilly afternoon, we had one more treat
– listening to another Missouri native who is making music her profession. We
sat on freezing cold bleachers and watched former Stover resident, now
Nashville entertainer, Shelly Bush, and her all girl broadBand, perform on an
outdoor stage.</div>
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“Heck,” we thought, “if they can stand out here and sing and
play, we can sure listen.” It was worth sitting in the cold for, and as they
sang the Zac Brown Band hit, “Chicken Fried,” Little Big Town’s “Pontoon,” and
more, the music made the day just a little warmer. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Yes, our scene has changed – not just the view outside our
window, but the culture we take into our hearts. But, as the family sponsoring
that fiddle contest says, “It’s our heritage,” and in learning about it, this student of regional history is adding another page to her
life’s chapbook. </div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-36923180528597039952012-09-26T22:22:00.001-05:002012-09-26T22:22:22.626-05:00Not quite a new coat of paint<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Years ago, a guy I knew had a pretty cool car. It
wasn’t the first cool car I’d known this guy to have, nor was he the only guy I
knew who had a cool car, but I digress here. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Back to the story…</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">One summer, the guy with the cool car decided he
could make the car even better, and when he did, he’d be even prouder of the
vehicle on which he’d spent more than a lot of his hard-earned money and a bunch
of elbow grease and love. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He took that car – a 1962 Impala, if memory serves
me right – for a brand-new paint job. When he got it back, it looked as if it
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Back then, I’d never had a vehicle of my own or
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fully understand the pride he had in his vehicle or the care he took to keep it
looking good. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s funny what the years will do, the way your
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t have a classic Chevy, though don’t think I
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Another
labor of love</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I do, though, have a blog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s my labor of love. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as that teenaged boy put a lot of hard work and
caring into his car that summer, I’ve been sprucing up my blog. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you’re one of my newspaper readers, reading
online through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The State Journal-Register</i>
or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Register-Mail, </i>you may have
missed some of my early blog posts and the landing pages on my blog, where I
share the stories behind why I write about the things I do.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This week, I took a little time to “put a new coat
of paint” on my blog. I went through all of the articles I’ve written over the
past few months. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, when you select a specific category on my blog,
<a href="http://musingsonroute66.blogspot.com/">http://musingsonroute66.blogspot.com/</a>,
you can find all the stories I’ve written related to that category. And, yes,
you’ll find some posts in more than one category, because my interests, my
passions, my experiences overlap. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What
you’ll find</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Wonder what you’ll find there – what my interests
are?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m a reader and a writer, so if you like books or
writing or reading about writing, you may enjoy the stories in “A book is
perking,” “Books worth reading” and “Wanna be a writer.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I love life – little moments, big dreams, and
words from others that capture joy and inspire people to soar. Musings along
these lines normally fall into “Been thinkin’,” “Found a quote” and “Simple
things.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Born on the prairies of Illinois, I loved my native
state, yet trips to Missouri, which my grandfather left for the Land of Lincoln
nearly a century ago, always left me with a pull to its hills and lakes and relaxed
lifestyle. As I traveled from one state to the other off and on for more than
20 years, often on the interstate highways or railroads along Route 66, the Mother
Road, its history and its slower pace called to me and led me to the musings
which birthed this blog. You’ll see my affection for these two neighboring,
alike yet different states and the road which ties them together in “Inspired
in Illinois,” “Mother Road” and “Missouri Minute.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are two other things at play in creating the me
I am today – I, like 79 million other Americans, am a Baby Boomer. And, as are
all humans, I’m who I am because of the people who have crossed my path – in my
case, many incredible, inspirational, courageous souls. Boomers, you’ll
probably relate to my “Boomer Banter” stories. And, may you all cross paths
with and feel the touch in your lives of “Sensational Beings.” I can’t wait to
have you meet some of the ones in my life. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Come
and sit a spell</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If you like what you read in my newspaper posts or
online, and you wonder about the rest of my words, stop by the blog, dig around
a bit, leave me a comment if you’d like.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I think I’m a bit like that guy I once knew. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I spruced my blog up for me. It makes me feel good
to think it’s all nice and shiny. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But I did it for you, too. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You can’t tell me that guy didn’t like it when
someone walked past and said, “Wo, cool car.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t admit I
hope you say, “Cool blog posts.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Image <a href="http://musingsonroute66.blogspot.com/p/inspired-in-illinois.html">via</a>)</span></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-7042473340298581472012-09-24T23:57:00.000-05:002012-09-26T19:16:01.088-05:00Jennifer Niven does it again with ‘Becoming Clementine’<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XCjuNI8E-qk/UGE4ojPYxfI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/nIihWs5zUMo/s1600/clementine_large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XCjuNI8E-qk/UGE4ojPYxfI/AAAAAAAAAuQ/nIihWs5zUMo/s320/clementine_large.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I first heard the name Jennifer Niven back in the
early ‘90s, about the time her mother Penelope Niven’s nearly 900-page biography
of Carl Sandburg was published.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In a lecture at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg,
Ill., Niven shared a story of her young daughter, growing up with a mother “obsessed
with a dead guy” as the elder Niven studied the prairie poet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m not sure if it were the mother’s pride, her
storytelling abilities, or her optimism, but I was convinced that day that not
only the elder Niven, but the younger one, too, were to leave marks on the
literary world. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My suspicions were correct. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, Sept. 25, is the release date for Jennifer
Niven’s latest novel, “Becoming Clementine.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jennifer’s name was splashed across a page – a screen,
actually – shortly after her mother’s Sandburg biography was published. The
daughter’s first work was an Emmy award-winning screenplay, “Velva Jean Learns
to Drive.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jennifer followed that with a non-fiction arctic
adventure story, “The Icemaster;” the biography of an Inuit adventurer, “Ada
Blackjack;” a memoir of her own high school years in the big hair days of the
1980s, “The Aqua-Net Diaries; “ and two novels, “Velva Jean Learns to Drive” and
“Velva Jean Learns to Fly.” </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems as if life itself is an adventure for
Jennifer, and it shows in her books. A diligent researcher, Niven leaves no
pebble unturned, yet gifted storyteller, she knows how to weave a tale without threads
that go astray. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In “Becoming Clementine,” Jennifer continues the
story of Velva Jean Hart, the character who endeared herself to us in the first
two novels. In the series, the author invited us along with the young girl from
the mountains of North Carolina as Velva Jean learned to drive, to sing,
to fly a biplane, to serve her country as a pilot. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The latest novel adds to the adventure in ways most
of us would have never expected when we first met the young girl. In a quest
for her missing brother, the pilot Velva Jean finds her way to Europe. Once
there, as she enters the field of espionage, it may seem as if we’ll lose our Velva
Jean when she becomes Clementine Roux.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Yet, be she Clementine or Velva Jean, the
adventurous spirit we grew to love remains ever determined, gutsy and inspirational.
Just as she’s done in each of her previous works, Jennifer Niven holds her audience
spellbound from the first page to the last and sets the stage for Velva Jean’s
next adventure. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s that? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">How does 1940s Hollywood grab you? Guess what Velva Jean wants to be next. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Isn’t Jennifer lucky that she can help make Velva
Jean’s dreams – and her own – come true and keep us entertained in the process?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Image <a href="http://www.jenniferniven.com/books/clementine/">via</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-27909829266345547842012-09-24T07:07:00.000-05:002012-09-24T07:11:20.831-05:00Galesburg’s native son celebrated on PBS special tonight<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUacUCFRWao/UGBLueTqjoI/AAAAAAAAAt8/R498D3nVIKY/s1600/SandburgFilm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUacUCFRWao/UGBLueTqjoI/AAAAAAAAAt8/R498D3nVIKY/s320/SandburgFilm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">About a year ago, while I was still living in
Central Illinois, my husband and I drove one evening from our home south of
Bloomington to Champaign for a long- anticipated viewing of filmmaker Paul
Bonesteel’s documentary, “The Day Carl Sandburg Died.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A student and enthusiast of Sandburg’s work for
several decades – one who has two Sandburg Days trivia contest trophies to
prove it – I’d eagerly awaited the film since I first learned of Bonesteel’s
work on the six-year project. My husband, not a Galesburg native, became a new
Sandburg enthusiast that evening, thanks to Bonesteel’s magnificent rendering of
the poet’s life and legacy.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tonight, Monday, Sept. 24, at 9 p.m. Central Time,
you, too, can see this film. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At the Champaign screening last year, Bonesteel
announced that he’d just learned the film would be featured on PBS’s American
Masters, something the filmmaker had hoped for since he first began work on the
project chronicling the touch of the Galesburg-born poet, author and Lincoln
biographer, and troubadour. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sandburg, the son of Swedish immigrant parents, born
near the railroad yards where his father worked dawn to dusk seven days a week ,
captured a great deal of Galesburg history and the story of his early years in his autobiographies, “Prairie Town Boy”
and “Always the Young Strangers.” He also captured the living, breathing soul
of early 20<sup>th</sup> Century Chicago and its people in his poetry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Early morning walks across Galesburg’s Knox College
campus, home of an 1858 debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas,
where he’d stop “in winter sunrise, in broad summer daylight, in falling snow
or rain, in all the weathers of a year” to look at the plague commemorating the
debate, aroused an interest in the 16<sup>th</sup> President so strong that it
led Sandburg to write a six-volume Lincoln biography.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And I’ve only touched upon the man and his work…</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Whether you’re a Sandburg enthusiast as I am or know
as little as my husband did before our trek to Champaign last year, you won’t
want to miss the film this evening. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Paul Bonesteel is also a lifelong Sandburg enthusiast,
one with roots not in the prairies of Central Illinois, but in the mountains of
North Carolina, where Sandburg made his home for several decades at a home called
Connemara. The large Civil War-era estate where Sandburg did much of his later
writing is a National Park Service site with trails, mountain overlooks and
goats descended from Sandburg’s wife Paula’s herd. It’s a delight to visit. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What impressed me most about Bonesteel as he worked
on this project for more than six years was his diligence, moving ahead with
the project though he didn’t have a stamp of approval, commitment or funding
from any major network, capturing interviews with creative legends such as
Studs Terkel, Pete Seeger and Norman Corwin, connecting with Sandburg’s
grandson John Carl Steichen, who shared never-before-seen family video footage. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What impressed me once I saw it was Paul Bonesteel’s
gift as a filmmaker, his ability to put a storyteller’s story on film with a
depth of detail, passion and artistic talent that parallels that of the
Galesburg-born poet we both admire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Day Carl Sandburg Died” airs tonight, Monday,
Sept. 24 on PBS at 9 p.m. Central Time. Watch the trailer and learn more here: <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/carl-sandburg/homepage-the-day-carl-sandburg-died/2267/">http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/carl-sandburg/homepage-the-day-carl-sandburg-died/2267/</a>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The film is sure to create a new appreciation for
Sandburg and his work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Don’t miss it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/211504">via</a>)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6394857919818807589.post-70694003304893177682012-09-21T09:54:00.002-05:002012-09-21T11:24:59.851-05:00Immersed in words<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v3qg1Ao8rUQ/UFx-PCbQBXI/AAAAAAAAAto/qyYi-h1Ndq8/s1600/Words.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-v3qg1Ao8rUQ/UFx-PCbQBXI/AAAAAAAAAto/qyYi-h1Ndq8/s1600/Words.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ever feel as if you were drowning in something,
anything, but that whatever was drowning you was a good sort of immersion? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s how it’s been for me recently. On the Friday
before Labor Day, after working together at my home all week on the news site
we produce, my co-editor and I took a road trip to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home
and Museum in Mansfield, Mo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though we
didn’t read that day, other than book covers, museum wall plaques and the
skimpy menu at a luncheon stop we’ll not include on another trip, or write, it
was, nonetheless, a literary adventure. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Honestly, how can you be surrounded by Little House
memorabilia and not feel connected to words, to storytelling? </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The following week, I was off on my own adventure—embarking
on a homecoming to the region where I lived for more than four decades, sifting
through old family books and papers at my parents’ home, and taking my first
biplane ride. I couldn’t wait each day to do my own storytelling, and I whipped
up a number of blog posts to capture the joy of the experience.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Back home again, I spent a great deal of time
keeping in touch with members of a different family—one I’ve never met, kindred
spirits who share an admiration for the author Richard Bach and an appreciation
for the magic he makes with words.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Just as Richard and his more-real-than-fictional
character Donald Shimoda gathered around a campfire each evening, I’ve enjoyed
time spent catching up with Richard’s family of readers who, like I do, miss
his blog as he spends time in one of his least favorite places, a hospital, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>after an Aug. 31 plane crash.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Instead of manuscripts and blog posts, we’re using
our words to comfort each other, talk about Richard’s touch on our lives and
the stories we all hold dear. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But, I can’t be around literary spots, literary
sorts, and not feel that tug that’s pulled at me since I was a child—that of a
good book, so I’ve read, more than usual. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A friend led me to the work of Andy Andrews. If you
haven’t read “The Noticer” or “The Traveler’s Gift,” I recommend them. They
help to remind us of the things that are most important in life, provide a
roadmap for our adventure here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And, because of an online bookseller’s mailing
error, I received my copy of “Becoming Clementine” early. It’s the third book
in Jennifer Niven’s series about a can-do-anything woman named Velva Jean. If
the last name sounds familiar, it’s because Jennifer’s mother, Penelope Niven,
wrote a 700-page biography of Carl Sandburg, the most comprehensive look at his
life ever. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Jennifer, though, is not riding on her mother’s
coattails. With a nonfiction arctic adventure<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>story, a biography, a memoir and three novels to date, she’s an author
worth paying attention to. She’s got a lot more up her sleeve—and it all
promises to be bestselling material.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So, yes, when that book arrived on my step, I took
it as a sign that I should stop everything and read it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>I did. It was
worth it—more on that in another post.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Last Saturday was Wilder Days in Mansfield, so
I was back on the road again for another dose of Laura. I had the privilege
that day of meeting William T. Anderson, who has done a great deal of research
and written or edited a number of books about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her
daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">You guessed it! I am now immersed in Wilder. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">These two women could take everyday happenings
across three generations—Laura’s parents, hers and husband Almanzo’s, and Rose’s—and
turn them into something enchanting, educational and entertaining. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pull a dictionary off the shelf, open it to any page
and what will you find? Words—standing alone, waiting to be called upon.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But put them in the hands of a gifted writer, be it Laura
or Rose, Richard or Andy, Jennifer or Penny, or William Anderson and what do you get? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wonder, adventure, inspiration.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Oh, words—the magic they make when woven well. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Tis no wonder I get immersed in them so. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">© Ann Tracy Mueller 2012 </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(Image <a href="http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/234030">via</a>)</span></div>
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Ann Tracy Muellerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07858866489224167041noreply@blogger.com0