Brown Park

I'm a little surprised I've never blogged about Brown Park in Binghamton, New York.

It's a small green place without facilities - it's too small.  It sits towards the beginning of Grand Boulevard, a shady, basswood lined street.  Some of the sidewalks aren't concrete, but huge slabs of shale.

At this time of year the basswood (aka linden) trees are blooming.

On one edge of Brown Park, wild roses bloom.

Brown Park isn't big at all.  In fact, you could imagine a house once stood on this property, with a smallish yard.

If you did, you would be right.  The reason it isn't there anymore is tragic.  Between two benches, you will find a small marker commemorating the deaths of part of a family in a fire in 2006.  There was a mother, age 38, and three children, aged 16, 15 and 10, who died in the fire.  The father and another child escaped.

The cause of the fire was never discovered, as far as I know.

There are no words.

Peek-A-Boo Sunset #SkywatchFriday

Today is the first day of summer and the last day of spring.    And, no doubt, it will rain.

So much flooding to the north of us - I have to think, when will it be our turn?

On June 18, I had a distraction.  The weather had been rainy (surprise) but in late afternoon it cleared up.

I was so tired - as much as I love late spring sunsets, their arrival usually sees me pretty tired - but I went outside anyway.  I stayed near my house.

Trees partially blocked the view but that was OK.

I walked a little further to the west.

Still further, wishing I could escape the power lines.

And then back to the trees, where I got one more peek-a-boo view.

Well, maybe two.

Want more?  Join Yogi and the other bloggers who watch the sky each Friday on #SkywatchFriday.

Living Memories - Privet 2019

The privet is blooming.

To me, the scent of privet is summer, distilled.  It is the flower scent I remember the most from growing up in the Bronx in the 1950's and 1960's.

It seems to have become a tradition of sorts for me to blog about privet at the end of spring or the beginning of summer, so why mess with that theme?  Today, after all, is the last full day of spring.

I learned, recently, that privet is considered invasive in the southeastern United States.  But not here - not yet, anyway.

Here's a post from 2015, which incorporates a post from 2014.  In memory, I can visit my late mother in law's house - she sold it in 2015 and passed away last November - and, perhaps, sniff the privet one last time.  The neighbor I speak about is still there,though - one day I hope to go down and visit her.

The Last Full Day of Spring (2015)

Last weekend, we visited my mother in law's house.  The privet hedges were blooming, and the heady fragrance lay heavy in the warm, humid air.

Saturday night, my mother in law's next door neighbor came over to visit.  She let me look at her Facebook page and I saw something amazing - she went to my local high school, back in the Bronx.

We exchanged notes and I remembered we grew up less than 1/2 mile, and 20 years, apart.  But I never knew she had gone to my junior high school, or my local high school.  (I didn't go to my local high school, but I learned to swim in its pool, the pool she remembered so well.)

Ah, childhood memories.

Today is the last full day of spring, and I want to bring you back perhaps 60 years (OK, a teeny bit less than 60 years) for a special memory brought back by the scent of the old fashioned privet hedges in front of my mother in law's house.  This is a post I wrote after a different visit to her house some years ago:

Privet and Bees, Scent and Memory (2014)

I grew up in the Bronx, a borough of New York City, in a city housing project.  All green spaces in the project were carefully fenced away behind chain link fences.  We children would get into trouble with the maintenance men who cared for the project if we climbed the fences and dared to play in the greenery.  So, of course, we did it as often as possible.

It's a scent I love to this day.

The boys would catch the bees in glass jars.  That's not something we girls really got into.  Instead, we would look for ladybugs to catch.

Yesterday, I visited my mother in law, who lives in a suburb of New York City.

It was warm, and humid, and privet hedges were blooming in front of her house.

They were swarming with bees.

The heady scent brought me back over 50 years in a matter of seconds.  I was a little girl once again, climbing chain link fences while we looked out for the project maintenance men, so my playmates and I could have a few minutes of interaction with nature.

Scent and memory. A living time machine.

Has scent ever brought you back to a favorite childhood memory?

Three Plant Mysteries #WordlessWednesday

I need your help, dear reader!

Do you happen to know what any or all of these plants are?  These were all photographed in Binghamton, New York over the last four days.

First up is this mystery bush growing in a yard.  I love it!

Here's a closeup of its flowers.

Mystery #2 is a tree. I suspect is some kind of maple.  What beautiful seedpods.

Our final mystery plant is on the edge of downtown Binghamton.  It could be a weed or maybe not, as there were some hostas planted nearby.  But I've never seen anything like this plant  Weed? Cultivated?

Any guesses?

Linking up with Esha and Natasha for #WordlessWednesday.

A Distant Memory

Sunshine has been rare in many parts of the United States, including where I live.  But we had some sun over the weekend.

The light on these petunias can be stunning when it isn't raining.  

Verbena..

It's been so cool, our pansies are still blooming.

The rain has returned.  Now this is a distant memory.

Linking up this week with NC Sue's image-in-ing.

More Cowbell At Last! #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday and it's time to ROCK with Music Moves Me.
Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only on this music train, please!)   First, there is XmasDolly, whose birthday is coming up,   Her co-conductors are:   Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy of Curious as a Cathy and (finally) me.  Callie of JAmerican Spice blogs from time to time. 

Our guest conductor is also the engineer of this train - Xmas Dolly and for our theme today she has picked:  "YOUR PICK".


In the past few weeks, life has not been kind to many of the guys and gals of Music Moves Me so I thought I would pick some random songs that I happen to like.  Some are outside the normal genres of music I feature.

Like this one from the Backstreet Boys, a group my then young son enjoyed.

May I bring you - Everybody (Backstreet's Back).  I think the video is pretty awesome, too.

Woke Up This Morning (made famous by The Sopranos)- Alabama 3 (note:  this is not identical to the theme played on The Sopranos).

Living with a Hernia - Weird Al.  Warning:  You must watch every second of this video to get the full enjoyment.

The song that led to a million rickrollings:   Rick Astley and "Never Gonna Give You Up". Guess what?  I like this song!

Haddaway - What Is Love, the song that led to a SNL skit and a movie.  This is an extended club mix, to give you a couple more minutes of dancing. 

MFSB - TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia), to give you some more dance time.

Last but not least - I found it!  It hasn't been taken down yet!  The famed "More Cowbell" skit from Saturday Night Live which keeps disappearing and reappearing from You Tube for some unknown reason. 

(That song really did need more cowbell, don't you agree?)


Danced out?  I am.  It's a wrap, boys and girls.  See you on the dance floor (with or without cowbells) next Monday, hopefully!

The Fathers of the United States Civil War

My father, who passed away over 30 years ago, loved history.  He would have been proud, I think, of his daughter blogging about the United States Civil War during its 150th anniversary 2011-2015.

For Father's Day, here is a reworking of my Civil War Sunday Post of Father's Day, 2011.  

Have you ever thought about Civil War figures as fathers?  Enough of them were.   Further, fatherhood was and was not like being a father today.

1.  Infant mortality was high, and even if your child made it past infancy, the father was rare who did not lose at least one child in childhood or young adulthood.

2.  Fathers could forbid their daughters from marrying a prospective suitor - but then, it didn't always mean the daughter would obey. (and, obey was the word for that cultural context.) Jefferson Davis faced this decision with his daughter, Winnie, when she fell in love with a Yankee, the grandson of an abolitionist.  Just like today, sometimes parents must watch their children as adults come to tragic ends.

3.  Then as now, many fathers had to be absent from home frequently, leaving their wives to be both mother and father.  (this hasn't changed, sadly, as many spouses hold down the "Home Fort" while spouses serve in the military - both men and women).

4.  Many fathers found themselves as single fathers when their wives died in childbirth. The solution, in many cases, was to marry again as quickly as possible.

5.  Although losing children was a fact of life, it caused great sorrow to the grieving parents.  Sometimes they didn't recover.  (One example: Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of Abraham Lincoln.)  There was not much that could be done in those days for depression.

6.  It was not uncommon for Civil War generals to bring sons to visit them at camp.  This is hard for a person of today to imagine, but then again, there was no such thing as email or video chats.

The following information is taken in part from "After The War-The Lies and Images of Major Civil War Figures After the Shooting Stopped" by David Hardin.  

Abraham and Mary Lincoln had four sons.  Only two outlived their father.  One son, Willie, died while Abraham Lincoln was in the White House and both Abraham and Mary took the death very hard. 

Abraham Lincoln's oldest son Robert Todd Lincoln grew up to be a Secretary of War under President James Garfield, who himself was a Major General on the Union side of the Civil War.

Although he did not witness his own father's assassination, Todd Lincoln was at the event where Garfield was assassinated, and also McKinley's.  Lincoln has no direct descendents alive today (the last one died in 1985) but does have living cousins, including actor Tom Hanks.

Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina had six children, four boys and two girls.  None of the boys outlived their parents.  Jefferson Davis' son Joseph, died at the age of five in April of 1864 from injuries suffered in a fall from the Confederate Executive Mansion.  Jefferson Davis does have living descendants.

William Tecumseh Sherman and his wife, Ellen, had four children.  As with Lincoln and Davis, Sherman lost a son, Willie (was this a bad luck name?) in 1863 at the age of nine. (There is interesting speculation concerning how this impacted Sherman.)  A third son, born in 1864, died at the age of six months. Still another son, Tom, became a Jesuit priest but later descended into insanity and died in Louisiana.  Quoting from "After the War":  "The son of the despoiler of Georgia lies in the Jesuit cemetery in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, next to the Jesuit grandnephew of Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy's vice-president."

Ulysses S. Grant, Union General and later President of the United States, and his wife also had four children.  Unlike many of the time, their children all lived to adulthood.  His great grandchildren are all deceased now (the last one died in 2011) but Grant does have living descendants.

Finally, it's time to discuss Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee and his wife Mary Custis Lee (George Washington's granddaughter) had seven children.  Unlike the other major figures above, Lee's children all lived into adulthood.  One, Custis Lee (a Major General in the Confederate Army), lived into his 80's.  Lee does have living descendants today (as does his Union counterpart, General U.S. Grant).  It will interest you to know of the various political directions Lee's descendants have taken.

On today, Father's Day, we should all be thankful that modern medicine spares many modern parents what these people of some 150 years ago had to go through as fathers (and mothers).

With that, Happy Father's Day to all my readers who have, or have had, fathers, or father figures, in their lives.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June 2019 - A Pause From Rain

Welcome to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  Each 15th of the month, bloggers gather at May Dreams Gardens (virtually) to show what is blooming in their houses or yards.

This post should mark my eighth anniversary of participating every month since at least June of 2011.   Sneakily, I've built myself a once a month garden journal.  Here's this month's entry:

The rain festival that has hit my zone 5b Binghamton, New York area garden has paused.  I was afraid I was not going to have good photographic conditions today for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

I was wrong.

It's June, and despite the rain (or maybe because of it) our area has had an explosion of flowers.  In the morning light, this petunia basket given to me for Mother's Day shone.

A purchase from the Memorial Day weekend at a plant sale sponsored by our local botancial gardens, these Black Eyed Susans have just opened up.

Allium.

Fun with collage #1, as there is so much to see.   Here, marigolds and petunias.

I took other pictures last night, just in case, and had some fun with collages.  Here are double flowered impatiens and sunpatiens.

Pansies, with a sprinkling of geraniums.  It's been so cool, the pansies are thriving.

A petunia basket I made up.  It's funny, both me and my son picked the same petunia (the purple one with the white border) for baskets.  I guess he knows my tastes by now.

Here's another basket. Yes, in the back are black petunias.

I

In golden hour light, sweet alyssum.

Calibrachoa, a geranium and (lower right) annual phlox.

One more.  This includes (counterclockwise from upper left) another calibrachoa, a heuchera, yellow bleeding heart, what's left of my brunneria, what's left of my columbine and a geranium with variegated leaves.

Want more flowers?  Click on the links of the other bloggers participating. You'll be glad you did.

Blue Skies Came Our Way #SkywatchFriday

It's been an effort to get nice sky pictures this spring in upstate New York.

Last week, we had a several day break from the rain.

Last Friday night I saw a beautiful sunset starting up, but there are a lot of trees where I live, and the angle was wrong.

I took these at a different angle from where the sunset was. 

The next day, the sun was out again and spouse and I went on a tour of gardens put on by our local preservation society, PAST.  This year the tour was of seven gardens in the small town of Maine, New York. 

The clouds put on a show for me, just so I would have some pictures for you.

If only...if only we could have days like this more often.  But if we did, we would take them for granted.   Today, it's back to the cool and rain.

Do you love to watch the sky?  If so why don't you join Yogi and other devoted sky watchers each Friday and share the love at #SkywatchFriday.

Tomorrow, please join me again for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

Fringe Free #ThursdayTreeLove

I've blogged about the fringe tree several times through the years, including at least one #ThursdayTreeLove.  You will have to forgive me, but I love this tree so much, I had to share this year's photos.

If you don't remember my previous poasts, please allow me introduce you to a tree native to the southeastern United States, Chionanthus virginicus. (Chionantus means "snow flower").

Some call them fringe trees, others Grancy Greybeard. 

Despite this not being the southeastern United States, there are at least five of these trees that I know of in the Binghamton, New York area. (I'm sure there are more).  Two are in downtown Binghamton, two in Otsiningo Park and one on the West Side of Binghamton.  The trees below are in downtown, near the Broome County Courthouse.

Like many blooming trees, it has a short season.  These pictures were taken May 30-31 and June 3.

The tree is smaller than it looks.

The fringe tree comes in male and female trees.  The males have showier blooms but the females bear small fruit in the fall, which wildlife loves.
  Be mindful, the trees teach us.  Be cautious.  And be as showy as you would like when it is your time to flower.  That time is gone now, and I hope to be there again next year.

Join Parul of Happiness and Food and her tree loving bloging friends each second and fourth Thursday of the month for #ThursdayTreeLove.

The End of the Circle of Life

My heart goes out to a family we've never met - but then again, we have met, in a way.

Monday, my spouse called 911 because something was going on with his heart. (To reassure my readers: there is a problem, but it is treatable, and hopefully he will be getting out of the hospital today).

This hospital's ER is cramped and the people there work hard (and give good care) but everyone is on top of each other, almost literally.  The day we were there, so many people were coming in that there were people waiting in the hallways, on cots.

We were one of the lucky ones - we had an actual room, which was shared with another bed.

When my spouse arrived in the ambulance, he was wheeled into a room and the other bed in the room (separated from us only by a curtain) already had a patient.  Several minutes later, the other person was told "we have to move you somewhere else - a critical is coming in."  They moved him and shortly, the "critical" was moved into the other bed.

 I got a glimpse of the man's face as he was wheeled into our common entrance before the curtain cut off my sight. 

"Critical" was an understatement.  ER people rushed in. I heard talk of "crash cart" and "epipen" as they began work.   A man  called out names of what they should do.   It was obvious that the patient was dying.

They didn't save him.

I heard some more information as the team got ready to leave the area.  Then, several minutes later I heard crying as the family arrived. Not even three feet from us, this grieving family was grieving in as much privacy as the ER setting could allow.  We were unwilling spectators to their pain.  A hospital chaplain arrived and prayed with them.  The family shared some personal details and the chaplain offered comfort.

One of the family members said, more than once, "It's the circle of life."

There was no where to go to give them space because the small hallway was jammed with equipment and people waiting their turn in the hallway.  We were separated only by that curtain.  And, there was my spouse, leads on his chest, an IV in his arm.  He couldn't leave even if he wanted to.

I saw this man's obituary in the paper this morning. He lived in a small town in our county and I know three people who live there.  It's a small world sometimes.

Through my various ER visits due to my late mother in law, I'd become somewhat accustomed to them, and I admire the people who work in them, day after day (or night after night).

But sometimes...one could wish the system was different.



Wordless Wednesday should return next week.

The Final Odyssey of the Rosemary

Back in 2011, I wrote a post about growing an evergreen herb called rosemary.





Sometimes I really envy zone 7 and zone 8 gardeners.  They can grow so much that we can't here in upstate NY.  Plants such as camellias, one of my favorite flower.  Also, they can grow plants outdoors all year that we have to take in, or plant as annuals.  Plants such as paperwhites.  Dahlias. And 0 yes, rosemary.

To grow rosemary in upstate NY you have to have a strong back, and a good sense of weather timing.  Let me explain....

In the late 1980's (I forget the exact year), we went somewhere and saw rosemary plants for sale.  At that time, it was not that common to find herbs for sale, at least around here.  We bought two plants.

Our local neighborhood groundhog quickly took care of one of the plants.  But the other one thrived.

Problem:  we knew the plant wouldn't survive the fall.  So come fall, dear spouse potted up the plant and brought it inside.  Little did he know of the odyssey he was embarking on.

Rosemary is not that easy to grow indoors (it tends to get too dry) so the first quest was to find out how to keep it moist, but not too moist. And, we had to find a sunny place for it.  At that time, we didn't have any nice sunny windows.  So spouse had to rig up a lighting system.  All for one little plant.  But spouse loves to use rosemary in his cooking.

That winter was a type of hopscotch.  If it warmed up, the plant went out.  If it was cooling off the plant went back in.  Out, in.  Out, in.  A lot more in than out, because our winters tend to be very snowy, cold-and long.  But we noticed that the plant looked better if it could spend even a few hours outside.  We knew, though, that it wouldn't survive much of a frost.

The plant made it, and the next year it went back into the ground once danger of frost was past. (For us, that's usually early to mid May.)

Then in the fall, back into a (larger) pot, and back indoors when our first frost threatened to hit in October.

Sometimes, when we brought the plant in, spouse would accidentally knock off a branch.   One time, (this was before the Internet, so we couldn't just run to our computers and look stuff like this up) spouse got the idea to put the sprig in water and see what happened.  To his delight, it grew roots.  He potted it, and now we had two plants. And then three.

Over the years, the original rosemary plant got larger and larger.  It bloomed, beautiful little purple flowers.  Its trunk was like wood, gnarled, like a large bonsai. There were some close calls with cold weather.  Spouse experimented with various types of overwintering.  For some years, he used the basement (with a grow light).  As our son grew older we had the use of a former bedroom, and the plant did better there.

The plant got larger and larger.  Fortunately spouse is very strong and (unlike me) a strong back.  It was no problem to transport the matriarch rosemary plant in and out.

The years passed.  The babies were adults now, in large pots, too.  And the matriarch kept going.

Finally, a couple of years ago, the unthinkable happened.  We left the plants out and it got down to about 28 degrees.  The younger plants were frostbit, but we were able to nurse them back to health.

It was too late for the matriarch.

Almost the entire plant died.  One little branch survived, but it was obvious the plant wasn't going to make it. Spouse finally clipped off the last little branch and put it in water.

The matriarch lived, we think, about 18 years.  The oldest "child" now was 18 years old, too, in 2011.

Fast forward to 2019. My spouse took a fall in 2017 that makes it difficult for him to lift and transport those pots.  We did have some help, but we couldn't move the plant in and out of the house during mild spells.

A couple of days ago, the last direct descendant of that matriarch plant died. 

RIP.

It's Almost Her Birthday #MusicMovesMe

 It's Monday and it's time for some MUSIC! Sing it loud!
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Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only on this music train, please!)   First, there is XmasDolly, whose birthday is coming up,   Her co-conductors are:   Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy of Curious as a Cathy and (finally) me.  Callie of JAmerican Spice blogs from time to time. 

Our guest conductor is also the engineer of this train - Xmas Dolly and for our theme today she has picked:  "YOUR CHOICE  It’s a Birthday song – then, a song that starts with the first letter of your first name."

Happy birthday on the 13th, Xmas Dolly, from your Early Bird!  I hope your computer issues are resolved by then and that you are feeling better, finally.  I wish you a better coming year than parts of the last year were for you.

I hesitated a little before posting this birthday song, but I figured that so many people would choose "Birthday" by the Beatles. I first heard this at a Sweet 16 party I was invited to (and, by admitting this, I'm also dating myself).  So, I'm not going to use that song.  Instead, this is my pick:

Weird Al Yankovic is one of my favorites, and this song from 1983 is not the Weird Al we listen to today.  If you listen to the lyrics, it's a little...um, different.

As for a song that starts with the first letter of my first name, I am so glad my name doesn't begin with "X".

Of, course, it's "A".

This is going to be a song from 1981 my favorite musical decade - Genesis with Abacab.  So, Xmas Dolly, I am giving you not one, not two, but three As.

Speaking of lots of A's, do you remember the scene from the movie A Christmas Story where Ralphie gets an A plus plus plus, plus (etc) on his composition? (Ralphie, you'll shoot your eye out!)

Marie, here's a bonus song for you:  Queen and Don't Stop Me Now.

One more thing - for those of you who are fans of Music Moves Me, and in particular, the blog of Michele at Angel's Bark - her mother passed away earlier this week.  Could you please send some good thoughts and/or prayers her way during this difficult time.  

So it's a birthday wrap.  Come back next week for more music - same time, same place!

From The Past With Awe

You Tube is a treasure trove of videos.  I could (but don't) spend all day on it, and not even watch a single cat video.

I was amazed to discover this restored footage of a total eclipse of the sun from 1900.

Yes this footage is 119 years old.  Here's the story behind it.

I've been fortunate enough to have seen three total eclipses of the sun in my life - on the Campus of East Carolina university in 1970, along a highway in Oregon in 1979, and in Columbia, South Carolina in August of 2017.

But seeing this video took my breath away.  The photographer is long dead, as is everyone who watched.  But, for us, thanks to modern technology and the Internet, it lives on.

And, to me, the most amazing thing is living in a time where I can see something like this.

Sustainable Saturday - Failing in Falling

I've written various blog posts on falling, and today, a dear friend sent me a link to an article that is absolutely horrifying to read if you are a senior citizen - or even if you are not, given that a man I went to high school with lost his 39 year old son.  The son died from injuries suffered in a fall.  My spouse lost an aunt from injuries she suffered in a fall.  And my late mother in law's mobility and quality of life were ruined from injuries suffered in several falls.

What is sad is that many of these falls are preventable.

I fell while exercise walking in 2011.  Several years later, my spouse ended up in the ER tripping on a sidewalk crack, missed several weeks of work, broke his nose, and permanently injured both shoulders and a wrist.


In December of 2015 I attended the wake of an 83 year old woman, my brother in law's mother in law. She fell in the bathtub, back in February, and hit her head, beginning a nine month nightmare for her and her family.
That, in a way, we can understand.  People grow old.  We all will.  For too many of us, falling is part of that process.  We have come to recognize that in the United States, and are trying to work on seeing if it is possible to educate people into being more aware of falls.

We can educate people about vision, about the risk of various medications in relation to falling.  But what do we do about streets unsafe to cross, or crumbling sidewalks?

Years ago, a series of commercials for a Life Call device ("I've fallen, and I can't get up!") became classics.

Now, they aren't so funny. 

So, why am I blogging about falling today?  Because I went on a garden tour today, in a small town of upstate New York.  The gardens were amazing, but the sidewalks were less than amazing.  After the falls my spouse and I have taken we are so careful.  And these sidewalks are on the main street of town.

So people drive.   If they drive, they don't get exercise.  And if they don't get exercise, they are more prone to drive.  Until they can't because their aging reflexes and vision make their driving a hazard to others.

Upstate New York has an aging population.

It only takes one misstep for a tragedy.

Crumbling intrastructure.  The next fall could belong to someone you love.

How do we begin to solve this?

Cotton Ball Skies#SkywatchFriday

So many overcast days here recently.  When the sun comes out, it's a reason for celebration.

Puffiness written large.

In downtown Binghamton, New York, a Grancy Greybeard tree blooms across the street from a historic building.

Over another historic building (Phelps Manson) more clouds, looking like cotton balls.

Lines, cotton balls, and more cotton balls.

Come say "hi" to Yogi and the other bloggers of #SkywatchFriday.

The 75th Anniversary

Memories of World War II were still recent when I was young.  I played with plastic toy soldiers of World War II.  I watched reruns of Hollywood movies on the local New York City TV Channels - everything from Guadalcanal Diary to Twelve O'Clock High to Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo.

As an adult, I made the acquaintance of more movies - Casablanca, The Best Years of Our Lives,and even the German Das Boot made long after the war was over.

But now, as memories fade, it's time for the last important World War II anniversaries.

On June 6, 1944, over 160,000 Allied troops landed on a 50 mile stretch of French beaches at Normandy to begin one of the greatest invasions of all time.

There are many stories written by survivors of World War II.  Possibly few of those stories would ever have been written if not for D-Day, which celebrates its 75th anniversary today  On that day, some 160,000 Allied soldiers stormed beaches on the coastline of France.  Although some 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded on that day, others began the march across Europe to liberate the people.  Today is the 75th anniversary of that landing.

Now, the surviving soldiers of World War II are elderly, and dying.  Less than 3% of World War II veterans are still alive. Just in the past month, we have lost three Navaho code talkers. 

Many of the remains of the combat dead remained in France, where one of my cousin's spouses (of part French ancestry) makes a point of visiting cemeteries to honor them.  These are memorials to American dead but there are other graves and memorials for British, Canadian, Australian, French, Greek, citizens of New Zealand, Norwegian, Polish and others who gave their lives that day.

Women?  American women worked in various war factories back home, and we need to remember them.  My spouse's 107 year old aunt, who died last month, was one of them.

Normandy will be remembering throughout this summer.

This will be the last major D-Day commemoration.  To someone my age, this is sobering.

In my lifetime, the last Civil War veteran died (1956), the last Spanish-American War vet (1993), the last World War I veteran (2012) passed away. (Note, there are some veteran claims that are disputed - these dates seem to be the most reliable).   If I live long enough, I will see the last member of the Greatest Generation pass from our Earth.

That makes me sad.

Lesson of a Garbage Can #WordlessWednesday

I was checking out a garbage container downtown, in the smallish New York State city I work in, when I saw this.


What goes in a public garbage can.  Trash, right?

Except here.  Look down and you will see flowers.  It's one way to revive a downtown.

Expect the unexpected.  Delight in small surprises.  The lesson of a trash can.

Take a break from writing! Join Esha the Skygirl and Natasha for #WordlessWednesday. 

Hidden Inside

This past weekend, our county had its first county wide "art trail"--an open studio weekend for our local artists.  Some displayed in museums or other public places, and others opened up their studios.

I prefer studio visits because the artist is in her or his native environment, at ease, and eager to reveal the creative processes.

So, there we were, parking our car in a village where I worked long ago.  As we walked to the house the studio was located in, a woman came out and greeted us like long lost friends.  "Welcome, welcome!  Good to see you!  Come in!  Welcome!"

I was taken a little aback - did I know this person?  I'm not the best at recognizing people in setting where I normally don't see them.  But she did seem vaguely familiar.

When she asked "how is [my autistic brother in law] I realized who she is.  Her hair was a different color than when I last saw her, about 18 months ago, but I knew she was a person who had worked with my brother in law at a program he used to attend.

Turns out this person is also a fiber artist, and she showed off her art.  Then she showed us her garden.

She bought the house less than two years ago.  The house was built in the 1920's.  The back yard had been totally taken over by knotweed, one of the most invasive weeds there is.

She had hacked all the knotweed out (and will have to keep on top of it), and planted both plants friends had given her and plants she had bought from clearance racks.  One, a hibiscus, was thriving in a pot.   Another, a daisy, bloomed in her front yard.  Both had responded to her love and attention.

Then, there was this columbine,  in her hidden back yard.

All of us have talents we may not share with those we work with or, sometimes, even the people we call friends.  It's hidden inside of us, but one day we find it and make it bloom.

On the art trail, I met a retired product engineer who now works with cherry and black walnut wood.  I met a real estate agent who saw a You Tube video and was inspired to make art from discarded aluminum cans and a woman who makes art to fight the lupus she suffers from.

We all have talents.  Some of us hide them and only share with certain selected people.  Others share them with the world.

Which type of person are you?

Time for Another Tribute #MusicMovesMe

It's Monday, the start of another work week for me, and for all of us, it is time for Music and the weekly gathering of the #MusicMovesMe bloggers.

Who are the #MusicMovesMe bloggers? We are bloggers who blog about music each Monday and if you have music to share with us, you are most welcome to join! (Music Posts Only on this music train, please!)   First, there is XmasDolly,   Her co-conductors are:   Stacy of Stacy Uncorked, Cathy of Curious as a Cathy and me.  Callie of JAmerican Spice blogs from time to time.

Our guest conductor for the month of June is none other than our head engineer Xmas Dolly, our soul and inspiration. Our theme for this week is:  Your Pick!  So here's mine.

Singer Leon Redbone passed on to the big Musicians Home in the Sky last week, at the age of 127 (or so he led us to believe).

As today is a "free" week for us who participate in Music Moves Me, it is a perfect time for a tribute

Lazy Bones, a song written by Johnny Mercer with music written by Hoagy Carmichael.  This has been covered so many times, and I remember it well from my childhood in the 50's.  Leon Redbone nailed it.

Another song I remember from my childhood and covered by Leon Redbone was his 1977 cover "Shine On Harvest Moon", a song dating from.  Although an article I read online talked about Redbone changing the lyrics from "I've had no loving since April, January, June or July" to "January, February, June or July", I remember the later lyrics from my childhood.

I wonder if I am remembering the 1961 Rosemary Clooney cover, as my Mom was a huge Rosemary Clooney fan.  The timing would be right.

Speaking of timing....Time waits for no one at all, wrote Justin Heywood in the Moody Blues song "Driftwood".

Finally, as someone who has experienced a flood (actually, three of them), my thoughts have been with the people in Oklahoma and Arkansas.  Years ago, I lived in Northwest Arkansas, and visited some of the places that are now underwater, and in grave danger.  A fellow blogger on the above linkey, Driller AA (who lives in Northwest Arkansas) posted this yesterday, and I invite you to read his thoughts.

When my area of upstate New York flooded in 2011, someone posted a video on You Tube with this song by Led Zeppelin (a cover of a song from 1929 about a tragic flood event on the Mississippi River in 1927) as the soundtrack.  The video was taken down, but the song remains the same.

I reviewed some of my posts from the 2011 flood yesterday.  I continue to have much to be thankful for.  I hope that you, my reader, have been spared.  My flood was so small in comparison to what is happening now, there's no comparison at all.

It's a wrap for this week.  See you again next Monday for more music.

Can Purple Be the Color of Hope?

I wish purple could be the color of hope.

Maybe there is hope, given the good news recently released about the health of beloved Jeopardy host Alex Trebek. 

He is responding well to treatment for his stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

But the news isn't all good.  Pancreatic cancer has struck again.  This time, it took a talented woman I did not know personally, but others I know (through blogging) knew and loved her.

In the past several months, pancreatic cancer has taken the mother of someone I know, and someone I knew of as a great advocate for eldercare issues in our community.  I got to meet her less than a year before her death. 

Alex Trebek gives much of the credit for his cancer shrinking to the millions of people who have been praying and thinking of him.  But prayer is not enough.  We must help ourselves.

Pancreatic cancer, and other "rare" cancers needs to be "brought up to speed".  This cancer needs to have some type of early detection, the way breast cancer and cervical cancer have.  It needs  publicity.  It needs marathons.  All cancers need funding.  It is true that pancreatic cancer is only about 3% of cancer diagnoses in our country.  But isn't it strange that, for its 3% rate, so many of us seem to know someone who has had it.

Yes, having had three relatives die from this cancer (my late aunt was the youngest), makes it personal.  While the survival rates for some cancers have (thankfully) increased, the rates for pancreatic cancer have not.

I do wish recovery for all patients with this dread cancer, whether or not they have extensive support systems.  And I am cautiously optimistic about Trebek, because I also know how quickly good news can turn to bad when it comes to cancer.

I seriously want him to return to Jeopardy for season 36 in September.

So, pretty please....

I want purple (the color symbolizing pancreatic cancer) to be the color of hope.  Besides hopes and prayers, what can we do to make it happen?

A Cardinal in a Time of Hate

I've been to Virginia several times over the past five years, but have never visited Virginia Beach.  Today, although my body is in New York, my heart is in Virginia once again.

Virginia has joined the horror roll of cities changed forever by mass shootings.  Yesterday, 12 people (all but one City of Virginia Beach employees) were killed in a mass shooting by (allegedly) a disgruntled longtime City employee.  Four others were wounded, three of whom are in critical condition.

When you enter Virginia at various points, you see something like this.  Maybe Virginia used to be for lovers.

In that horror roll, Virginia Beach, you will find many other communities.  You are in the best company.  Let me name some of them:  Las Vegas, Nevada.  Orlando, Florida.  Aurora, Colorado. Edmund, Oklahoma.. Blacksburg, Virginia.  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   Parkland, Florida.  Killeen, Texas.  And, yes, at least one more.

Binghamton, New York, about a mile from where I took this picture of a Columbine today in a peaceful garden (not mine).

What can be said that hasn't been said already?  All I can send is more love but today, that is not enough.

I don't know what is enough. But this one thing I do know.  This spring, I've seen a lot of male cardinals, a bird I normally don't see many of.  I think one must have taken up residence in my back yard,  But as I was typing this blog post, he appeared.  Because I've done research on the symbolism of male cardinals,I've learned what they symbolize.

Comfort from a loved one in Heaven.

Virginia Beach is going to need a lot of cardinals.