Montgomery Ward Winter Catalogue

Thanks to RETURNING's piece Christmas in August, I just spent a few happy minutes reminiscing.

Winter in the Adirondacks. For a child who preferred reading and imagination over cold and wet farming activities like, oh, say, feeding the cows or banging nails backward out of boards so we could use them again, or hauling supplies up to the sugar house (this was back when sugar houses were in the actual maple stands, when you didn't have a million miles of ugly blue or black tubing weaving through the woods standing at the ready to decapitate an errant snowmobiler) The Sears Wishbook and the Montgomery Ward Winter Catalogs were the delight of my childhood.

I'd sit for hours in our back kitchen, with my feet in the oven of the wood stove, a blankey around my shoulders, and the Montgomery Ward catalogue on my lap. My favorite imagination game was, at that time, Let's Raise an Army and Go and Free All the People under Apartheid. (I'd heard an early radio broadcast on PBS or the CBC-Radio Canada, and 12 year old self was pissed off. Equal work for equal pay was a commandment, wasn't it?)

The Montgomery Ward Catalogue had clothes and boots and camping supplies. It had hard cheeses and saucages and fruitcake, rifles, hunting bows, rope, parkas, trucks, motorcycles and tools. Everything I needed to outfit my army.

I'd make long shopping lists, making sure that my army had enough food and supplies, that everthing would fit in their backpacks. I'd make sure that they had light sox and heavy sox, that their underwear would hold up over time, and that there was a good amount of candy included in their supplies. I'd order different kinds of boots so my army would have choices, and they could share and make sure that everyone had shoes that were good for them. I had worn army boots, and they stunk.

In between bouts of outfitting my army, forced to do chores, I'd lean on the clothes dryer while waiting for it to finish, and I'd read about Deitrich Bonhoeffer, and Martin and Malcolm and think about using violence to end violence.

Then I'd close my books and fold clothes and wonder why no one else was doing anything to free people in South Africa.

This compulsive planning thing would later come in handy when I decided to be a DRE... Happily, my job doesn't require guns.

Although....
Nah.

Update on Gwen

Gwen has been in Bay State Hospital Peds for 20 days. They removed her Gall Bladder, hoping that was the underlying cause of her current crisis, but although her g.b. was sick, it seems that maybe it was more of a symptom than cause.

Without all the Dr. speak, which I don't understand, I do know this... Gwen's liver is very sick. Gwen's bilirubin numbers keeps rising, and she is quite jaundiced.

Bilirubin is a break down product of red blood cells, and they check this w/ a blood test, it shows how well the liver is working. High numbers are bad. Jaundice occurs because red blood cells are being broken down too fast for the liver to process.

I visited her yesterday and we told stories. I told her stories about cats and dogs and chickens and cows and my granddaughter feather dusting the pulpit during my wedding. I told her about the time I accidentally drove a tractor into a lake, and the time I won a softball game with a big BURP, and the time my cat got stuck in the cupboard and couldn't figure out to push the door to get out. She told me about her first birthday and the candle she blew out that was stuck in a jar of honey.

She remains in critical condition in the Pediatric ICU.

Church Windows

is turning out to be a great management program for me.
Church Windows. The people who do finances aren't as happy as I am, but I just printed out a complete registration list, by grade, with phone #s and alphabetical in about 1.3 minutes start to finish.

Excel can go to ...

Fred Phelps, Tom Cruise and me: Readings

This is a sermon preached at the UU in Plattsburgh NY on July 10. It's long and therefore unblog-like. oh well. I've added some links to external sites for fun, but please remember to come back here afterwards.

Fred Phelps, Tom Cruise and Me :
Respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every individual on a free and responsible search for truth and meaning

READINGS

These excerpts are provided for educational purposes, and are re-printed here under fair use.

READING 1

The Free Church, James Luther Adams

I call that church free which enters into covenant with the ultimate source of existence, that sustaining and transforming power not made with human hands. … I call that church free which brings individuals into a caring, trusting fellowship that protects and nourishes their integrity and spiritual freedom; that yearns to belong to the church universal; It is open to insight and conscience from every source; it bursts through rigid tradition, giving rise to new and living language, to new and broader fellowship.

… It aims to find unity in diversity under the promptings of the spirit “that bloweth where it listeth and maketh all things new.”

READING 2

Answer to a Nit-picking Freak Who Pretends Not To Understand Why We Call Fags Fags

Rev. Fred Phelps

Get a grip, you presumptuous toad.

….We could [hold signs] that say "God hates dogs," but this generation of blind men has no clue about the Bible and grasps at straws on the best of days. They wouldn't have any idea what we were talking about, and we would have failed at our mission – to publish a pure, unambiguous Gospel to this world ("Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." 2 Tim. 4:2); to get in their face and make it crystal clear what the Lord God of Eternity requires of them and what their sin is ("Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Isaiah 58:1).

What I'm trying to say here is that we don't give a rat's tutu what you think about our words; we've told you plain and straight the reasons why we use these wonderfully elegant metaphors. Here is what Jesus Christ has to say about you: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!." Matthew 23:23

…Once again, I must say: GET A GRIP! GET A CLUE! These are filthy beasts, no matter what you call them! Those three letters don't change the fact that the Lord will shortly return to execute judgment on this evil, froward world – and you will have to give an accounting for your rebellion against the Lord your God (and your attempt at distracting the saints).

God hates fags. You are going to hell. Have a lovely day.

READING 3

The following is an excerpt from the Scientology Operating Thetan level three.

“The head of the Galactic Federation (76 planets around larger stars visible from here) (founded 5,000,000 years ago, very space opera) solved overpopulation (250 billion or so per planet, 178 billion on average) by mass implanting. He caused people to be brought to Teegeeack (Earth) and put an H-Bomb on the principal volcanos (Incident II) and then the Pacific area ones were taken in boxes to Hawaii and the Atlantic area ones to Las Palmas and there "packaged".

His name was Xenu. He used renegades. Various misleading data by means of circuits etc. was placed in the implants.

When through with his crime loyal officers (to the people) captured him after six years of battle and put him in an electronic mountain trap where he still is. "They" are gone. The place (Confederation) has since been a desert. The length and brutality of it all was such that this Confederation never recovered. The implant is calculated to kill (by pneumonia etc) anyone who attempts to solve it. This liability has been dispensed with by my tech development.

One's body is a mass of individual thetans stuck to oneself or to the body.

One has to clean them off by running incident II and Incident I. It is a long job, requiring care, patience and good auditing. You are running beings. They respond like any preclear. Some large, some small.

Thetans believed they were one. This is the primary error. Good luck.”

Cited in Margery Wakefield, The Road to Xenu, p. 76-77.

READING 4
The Free Mind, Ellery Channing

I call that mind free which masters the senses, and which recognizes its own reality and greatness:

Which passes life, not in asking what it shall eat or drink, but in hungering, thirsting, and seeking after righteousness.

I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith:

Which opens itself to light whencesoever it may come; which receives new truth as an angel from heaven.

I call that mind free which is not passively framed by outward circumstances, and is not the creature of accidental impulse:

Which discovers everywhere the radiant signatures of the infinite spirit, and in them finds help to its own spiritual enlargement.

I call that mind free which protects itself against the usurpations of society, and which does not cower to human opinion:

Which refuses to be the slave or tool of the many or of the few, and guards its empire over itself as nobler than the empire of the world.

...

I call that mind free which sets no bounds to its love, which, wherever they are seen, delights in virtue and sympathizes with suffering:

Which recognizes in all human beings the image of God and the rights of God's children, and offers itself up a willing sacrifice to the cause of humankind.

I call that mind free which has cast off all fear but that of wrongdoing, and which no menace or peril can enthrall:

Which is calm in the midst of tumults, and possesses itself, though all else be lost.

Wedding

Our wedding was beautiful! Friends, family, children; good food, well behaved relatives, overly warm Great Hall/short ceremony; people brought not only delicious but beautiful dishes to the potluck reception. It rained at the end, which is good luck.

Snapshots:

• The kids twirled and ribbon danced while Greg plays wonderful music for the prelude
• My dad and mom are walking me down the aisle, and dad leans over and whispers in a stage whisper "HUSKVARNA" (which I'd recently confessed to him was my new favorite word)
  
• I get to the end of the aisle and there were some of my favorite girls in the world dancing and jumping wth excitement. Lillian and Abby were delightful. I looked over my shoulder and saw Sam and Grace. I missed Gwen and Sue and Kim, but Gwen was in the hospital and her moms needed to be with her.
  
• I get to the front of the church and there was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.
• Tom lit the chalice and read with great fabulousness
  
• Our 4 year old granddaughter Cami gave us the flowers, then spied the feather duster she'd hidden earlier, and dusted the pulpit while the ring bearers, Jacob and Sopira showed us rings and our families lit candles we placed on the altar cloth Adele weaved for us..
• Beloved suggested to her that she might come and hold our flowers for us, and that got her off the dais.
  
• Rachel read an excerpt from the Riverhouse Stories

[She loved her] and loved loving her. Out past the edges of the world's agreement, beyond even her own standards, her own approval, the rules of her childhood, beyond even her own mind, she loved her and loved loving her. The loving brought forth in her all of her courage as well as all of her limitations, all of her blind desire to be lie the others, to melt in, to be invisible. It took her out of the roles she thought she would grow up to fill. It took her away from her automatic stream of pictures of what life should be and forced her to create her own version of what life could be. and beyond all of that was the woman she loved, living a life made from nothing more than her own imagination, and she was beautiful.

• My incredibly handsome sibling family, my brother and his wife and Naomi, read from Anne Morrow Lindberg

Here the bonds of marriage are formed. For marriage, which is always spoken of as a bond, becomes actually, in this stage, many bonds, many strands, of different texture and strength, making up a web that is taut and firm. The web is fashioned of love. Yes, but many kinds of love: romantic love first, then a slow-growing devotion and, playing through these, a constantly rippling companionship. It is made of loyalties, and interdependencies, and shared experiences. It is woven of memories of meetings and conflicts; of triumphs and disappointments. It is a web of communication, a common language, and the acceptance of lack of language too.... It is a web of instincts and intuitions, and known and unknown exchanges. The web of marriage is made by propinquity, in the day to day living side by side, looking outward and working outward in the same direction. It is woven in space and in time of the substance of life itself.

• We surprise each other with vows and that was nice, but neither of us now remembers what we heard. We're looking for the text papers which we know are somewhere...
  
  
• I was petrified I'd cry, as I really only have two settings-- on and off-- and on is whole-face screwed up like that old Life Magazine picture of that craggly old man with the super flexible face. (If anyone can find it on line, I'd love to link to it) A single tear escaped while I was listening to Beck's vows, but no one knows it was only because the sweat got in my eye.
• The minister shared his pulpit so that Karen, who we'd asked 5 years ago if she'd officiate when we got around to a commitment ceremony, could get a one day license to wed us in legally married broohaha. Karen did an incredible job of officiating, focusing us, leading with dignity and grace, and cooregraphing everything.
• The children, young and grown-up alike, were all beautiful.Beloved 's children, Eric and Micaela were so incredibly involved and supportive and present it was beautiful to see.
  
• The reception site setter uppers were amazing, getting so much done and making a simple picnic site so beautiful
• My brother and god-son and I'm not sure who else decorated our car w/ a big florescent orange Just Married sign and soda and coffee cans and Boosts tied on to make noise.
  
• Beloved hates parties and large groups of people doing extroverted things. She'd been telling me for two months, "Don't leave my side," "Stay with me." Well, come the day, she was a butterfly. I saw her four times. Total. Once at the actual ceremony. Once when it was time to cut the cake, once when her sister made a toast, and once I actually bumped into her.
• The kids had fun and played played played
  
• All of our relatives but one section of my biological family attended our wedding.
  
• Beloved's conservative fundamental brother came (I love my sister very much) and helped bar-b-que
• My conservative uncle didn't, which was best for all involved (my dad sadly jokes that my uncle writes for Rush Limbaugh)
  
• I had a great moment of joy and beauty to introduce my grandchildren (via Beloved) to my niece (via my brother) ("This is your cousin Naomi." "Hi Naomi. Hey Grandma Cindy, she looks like you!")
• Beloved and I drank ginger ale all afternoon out of champagne glasses that Michelle gave us, being as how she planned her life not around our wedding ;-)
• My old friends Sharon and Mags came from Philly and DC respectively. Mags was the friend who remained my friend when I came out at Eastern College, now Eastern University, in the mid-80's. Sharon and her partner Ava took me in when I had an ideological breakdown a couple of years later.
• We left as it started to rain harder, and after a couple of miles the orange florescent Just Married sign started to come de-attached, and safety wonk that I am, I immediately had visions of it blowing off my car, and causing a crash and so pulled into the hospital parking lot to take it off.
  
• The adult children, Beloved's cousins and sister and friend Marilyn (who acted as our wedding planner) stayed to clean up, and before they finished there was a deluge. They waited it out with the only party supplies not yet packed into the cars, the flower vases and a couple of boxes of wine. Apparently they had a good time, which they continued at our house when they unloaded the cars. It would seem that we missed a really good time.
  
• We went to a hotel and Beloved was asleep 10 minutes later.

A great time was had by all.

I'm getting married in 4 days

One of the two readers of this blog asked where I've been all summer and not posting... I've been visiting my new niece, preaching at the Plattsburgh NY UU and visiting my parents, and planning our wedding. Four days left.

I'll post some out of order material, bad blogger, bad blogger, when I get a chance.

For now let me use this opportunity to write out today's To-Do list:

• buy more helium
• get the kid across the street to come mow our lawn
• clean the pool (we got a pop up pool, the kind it says put it on level ground so it doesn't collapse, so we found a pretty level area, but then it collapsed in on the Mole family. oops.)
• clean bedroom
• pack overnight bag
• clean upstairs bathroom
• bundle up the linens for overnight guests for single/double and couch
  
• make sure the matches are out by the fire pit
• pack board games
• buy the hamburger
• iron muslin tablecloths
  
• watch the weather channel compulsively.