Garden Bloggers Bloom Day June 2016 - Spring Thing

The year 2016 is speeding by, here in the Binghamton area of upstate New York.  A warm day is dawning for my zone 5b garden.

On Wednesdays, I normally have a seasonal post.  Today it also coincides with a monthly meme hosted by an Indiana garden blogger, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.

What is blooming for me on this beautiful 15th of June?   Flowers, but more than that.  In a week of sadness for our country, the garden is an escape.  For a few minutes, when you walk in a garden, worries melt away and you are surrounded by beauty.

Today, I want to surround my readers in beauty.

My perennials are between blooms.  I will show you the one I have in a minute.  But first, a word from my annuals.

I am trying to grow African impatiens again after a three or so year break due to the downy mildew I, and many others, was struck with.  New Guinea impatiens are resistant, but, for me, they just aren't the same.

But I do treasure my begonias a lot more, now.

Several of my many hanging baskets.

Geraniums are dependable for me.  In recent years, hybrids in many colors have appeared, and I take full advantage of them.  My Mom, who grew geraniums on a Bronx windowsill, would have loved this white plant.

And pink.

Now to the one perennial that is blooming right now - my yellow bleeding heart (complete with a weed stuck in the middle I have no time to remove.

Indoors, I have a couple of African violets blooming.

This beautiful white African violet has a trace of pink on the flower.

Now, if you want to see more flowers, visit May Dream Gardens and see what is blooming all over the world.

Irises of the Finger Lakes

Last week, I blogged about how it seemed everyone was growing beautiful irises this year, except me. 

My beloved Kool Aid irises have even abandoned me.  I only have one left, and it bloomed for one day.

So, the irises of others would have to suffice.  In early June, my spouse and I took a trip to the Keuka Lake area of the Finger Lakes of New York State.  It was our first trip there in many years.  At a couple of wineries, we found lovely displays of irises.

At the Dr. Konstantin Frank Wine Cellars near Hammonsport, irises beckoned.  (Their wines are excellent, by the way, and have won multiple awards).

Just as beautiful were the purple iris.

At Bully Hill Vineyards, we found these.  What an unusual color blend.  They were in many places on the grounds.  I highly recommend a visit to Bully Hill if you are interested in art or history:  you will find both there. (I plan to blog about both vineyards at a future date).

Aren't pink irises pretty?

 And then, back home, to find this in Binghamton.

One more memory of irises, from late May, Binghamton, New York.

The irises have faded now, in favor of late spring blooms such as Korean lilacs.  Perhaps next year, I will have better luck.

Have you ever had an old standby (of anything in your life) fail?

Is The Pen Still Mighty?

Everyone who writes has a fantasy. One day, we will take up our pens (or typewriters, or computers, or smartphones/tablets). We will write something that changes the world for the better.

Women have done it before.

Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (yesterday would have been her 87th birthday had she survived the Holocaust).

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, which changed popular culture forever. (How my son loved those books).

But it doesn't have to be a book anymore.  It can be a text, or a letter, or even a social media posting.

Perhaps, a long letter from a woman known only as Emily Doe will join those books.  It is a letter written by a 23 year old woman who was sexually assaulted by a young man, who was about to be let off with a "slap on the wrist" six months sentence.  Boys will be boys, after all.  And this young man was a star athlete.  And, dare I say it, white.

Business as usual, in our United States.

Emily Doe's letter may join those books on the list of writing that changes our world.  Maybe, just maybe.  This woman is powerful and strong in her telling of what happened, and how it changed her life forever.   The letter I've linked to is graphic.  Chilling.  Not just what was done to her, but the aftermath.  Sleepless nights.  Fear.  Having to quit her job.  The trial she endured, where she was asked questions straight out of 1965.  Did she have a boyfriend?  Were they intimate?

You will flinch when you read the letter.  You should read it.  Every word of it.  And flinch.

Yes, she had gone to a party.  Yes, she had drank too much.    So what happened next became her fault, while the father of the young man who did what he did to her near a dumpster referred to what his son did as "20 minutes of action". 

Thankfully, two men came upon them and acted, and were witnesses at the trial.

Athletes have been able to get away with that "action" for a long, long time.  This man claimed consent, which the facts of the case contraindicate.  Now, it is past time for this injustice to be addressed.   No more blaming the victim.  No more allowing star athletes to do what they want just because they are athletes.  No more judges judging these cases with a wink and a nod.

The Stanford letter, as it is now called, has unleashed the fury of a nation.

Over one million people have signed a petition for the impeachment of the judge on change.org.   Over 120,000 people have signed a petition to the White House for the impeachment of the judge.

I read about the judge first.   Despite the controversy, he was just reappointed for a new term. He may or may not removed.  Normally, I would agree that a verdict should not be interfered with. But, this is not that kind of case.

Whether this ends in impeachment for this judge because of this letter, I can only hope that, one way or the other, justice for Emily Doe is done.

Emily Doe, may life, going forward, be good to you.

Orlando

Today, I woke up early, turned on the computer and opened Facebook.

There, I learned about the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.  I know people who in Orlando.  Many people think of Disney properties, Sea World and Universal Orlando, but Orlando is an actual place where real people live. 

And now, where real people died, in a terrorist attack.

Facebook activated its "emergency situation check in".  A cousin hasn't checked in yet, but I know she doesn't use Facebook a lot.  Still....

I spent about 40 minutes this afternoon, just scrolling through post after post by politicians (one of whom, Alan Grayson, went to the same high school as I did), celebrities, and just ordinary people.

We in the Binghamton, New York area know what it is like to have a mass shooting.  But what happened in Orlando eclipses what happened in Binghamton on April 3, 2009, in another world that seems so far away now.  We of Binghamton know it is going to take Orlando a long time to recover.

I know that, too, as someone who grew up in New York City and worked, one summer, just steps away from the World Trade Center.

In a type of irony, it was said that the parents of the Binghamton shooter moved to Florida.  I wonder if they moved to Orlando.

There aren't words.  We in the United States ran out of words long ago.  But we all know that our world changed years ago, and the world our adult children will inhabit is not the one we knew.

Sometimes, I wonder if our country will survive.

Local Saturday - The Crooked Lake

Today, for much of the United States, weather is hot.  Even in upstate New York, it is hot and humid.

Right now, near Binghamton, New York, it is 87 F (30 C).  Hot, after several days of unseasonable cold, we are feeling the heat.  It's a great day for making solar tea and not doing too much gardening or walking.

The best thing to do is keep cool, and look at some pictures of cool nature.  Nice, cool, pictures.  So, let me show you some scenes from last weekend.

The Finger Lakes of upstate New York are a group of 11 lakes in upstate New York, running roughly north and south, formed by the scouring action of glaciers over a million years ago.  Now, breathe deep and think:  ice.  Nice, cool, ice.


They are narrow and long, shaped like fingers. 

Well, most of them are.  One of them, Keuka Lake, is more like a lopsided slingshot.  People in the area call it The Crooked Lake.

Several of the Finger Lakes have micro climes ideally suited for the growing of wine grapes, and there have been wineries along Keuka Lakes since 1860.

Overlook at Dr. Konstantin Frank Wine Cellars

On the west side of the lake, you find vineyards almost everywhere, it seems.

This area isn't quite local to me, but is less than a couple of hours away from where I live.  And, in this world of coolness last week, I found many people in lawn chairs, sitting and admiring the lake view with a glass of wine in their hand and a plate of cheese on a table next to them.

It looked so relaxing.  But I'm a bit too wound up when I travel, wanting to experience what the next stop along the road has to offer.

In a future post, I'll show you part of what we saw on the Crooked Lake.  And, maybe even offer you a Bath.

What do you like to do for relaxation?

Lessons of a Tree

We needed a new roof on our house.  It hasn't started to leak yet, but it's getting old, and we felt it was better to be proactive while both of us were still working.

Little did we know the unintended consequences.

We got two estimates.  We picked an experienced roofing company.  When their people came out to do the job preparations, we were told a tree near the house was in their way, with branches hanging over the roof.  They strongly recommended it be removed.

My baby.

It's hard to see my baby, but it is the slightly darker tree in the front of the house.  It was a baby tree when we moved into the house, nearly 30 years ago.  We protected it with a bungee cord that held it upright and helped it grow our first year or two in the house.   But now, it had to go.

Its time had come.

My spouse had worked a college summer job for a tree service so knew how to do this job, but needed help.  My grown son and a friend attached ropes to it. The saw came out, (you can barely see it but my son is in the upper floor window). 

The tree was cut away enough to allow the workmen to work.  But, the following weekend, it had to be cut down completely.

I love my plants (well, most of my plants).  I couldn't even watch it fall.

But it did need to go.  It had gotten too big, and had been planted too close to the house.  It was actually endangering our house, or would have down the road.

Sometimes, when things are small, we say "isn't it cute" and don't think about what happens when something is fully grown, and not that cute.

All gardeners need to learn how to prune and to thin - to take out excess so that surviving plants can flourish.  In a way, that is what we did last month with "my baby".

I understand that.

But I will still miss it.

Throwback Thursday - Texting in the 1930's

At some point in your life, you realize that the technology of your youth is sitting in a museum somewhere. 

I first published the following post in April of 2012.  To my delight, a quick Internet search revealed that this technology still exists.  But, finding this page about it made me chuckle, because it has such an old-school Internet look to it.  I wonder how old the page is.  It was last revised in 2005.

And am I the only one who remembers the following technology?

Texting in the 1930's

It wasn't that long ago that my (then) teenage son asked me how I had gone online in 1958. He was imaging my bedroom filled with a huge UNIVAC computer.  He just couldn't imagine a world without the Internet.

His generation probably can not imagine a world without texting, either. But, unlike the Internet, texting did exist in the 1950's.  But we didn't know it as texting.

More to the point - does anyone out there remember Telex?

I do.  In 1981, I (living in the United States) got a job with a company that did business with several companies in England.  We needed a way to communicate fairly quickly with them for confirmation of certain transactions.  Quickly, that is, for the early 1980's.

Keep in mind, there was no Internet, no email (well, there was email even as far back as the late 1960's, but it wasn't accessible for the majority of us).  We did have telephones but trans-Atlantic service was still expensive.  And fax?  This was just starting out.  We didn't have a fax machine.  What we did have was....

Telex.

Our company had a Telex machine and a trained operator.  A Telex machine (and yes, they still exist) is basically a telephone that doesn't use speech.  It has a keyboard and a printer, and the owner subscribed to a Telex network.  You could "call" anyone who had a Telex machine (they each had a number assigned to them) and type out a message.  The recipient would print out the message, and could then respond back in kind.

The service was enabled across both sides of the Atlantic back in the 1930's and still exists today.

These operators didn't know it, but they were texting, 1930's style.

I never did have to learn to use the Telex. But I bet it would have been fun.  And you know what?  Nothing in those days was instantaneous, but I don't think we were any the worse off for it.

Am I the only one to remember this original form of texting?  And, does anyone else think things were just a little "saner" back before we could do things instantaneously?

Spring Things - Azaleas and Rhododendrons

Spring is a season of renewal, of beauty, of change, of color, of longing, of rebirth.

It is a season that is fleeting in upstate New York.  Last night, cold breezes blew as we entered a cold weather pattern.  It's not even supposed to reach 60 (15.5 C) today.  It feels more like fall in the Northeastern United States.

To keep my Northeast readers warm today, I bring you some lovely flowers.

 I suspect this is what is called a Mollis hybrid. They are a European azalea, and aren't the most cold hardy.  I've never seen them as lovely in my nearly 30 years of living in upstate New York as they have been this year.  The first four pictures were taken, incidentally, on the West Side of Binghamton, New York.

This, a bit wilted, is a closeup.

Other Mollis hybrids are yellow.

This plant is so bright red, it glows.

Finally, the two rhodies I grow.  The first one is this pink-purple that is actually quite common in this area.  This plant is over 30 years old.

The other one is less common.  It, too, is also over 30 years old.

Tomorrow I will take a break from flowers to bring you something else.  Perhaps a post on fall would be in order.

Happy Wednesday!

Meet the Grancy Greybeard

Let 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 three of these trees that I know of in the Binghamton, New York area. (I'm sure there are more).  I think there should be more of these fascinating trees.  They adapt well to urban settings, I have read.

Starting out shyly - Otsiningo Park, Broome County, New York

They are just about the last trees to leaf out.  For weeks after other trees have leafed, they stay dead looking.  They are cautious trees.  People ignore them, and plant dogwoods.  But when they bloom, watch out.  Their season is short.

Their blooms look like fringes, or beards; hence the name.  They have some sweet fragrance.

Another angle.

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.

Yesterday, after the weekend, I returned to the Broome County courthouse, where most of these pictures were taken.  The fringes were dying.  The short blooming season had ended.

Be mindful, the trees teach us.  Be cautious.  And be as showy as you would like when it is your time to flower.

Good lessons, indeed.

Music Monday - D-Day and the Convoy

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.

Many of the dead remain in France.  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.

A little less than a year later, Nazi Germany signed papers of unconditional surrender.

It is fitting that, today, I revive my "Music Monday" feature to bring you, my readers, some music of the late 1930's, and the 1940's.

I was not alive in the 1940's, but this was the music of my mother and father.  First up on this mini-hit parade:  Sing Sing Sing, written by Louie Prima.  This version is by Benny Goodman.

This song will get your toes (and all other body parts) to moving.

In The Mood (1939) - Big Band leader and musician Glenn Miller,  noted for this song, was a casualty of World War II.  This is a more recent recording.  The Glenn Miller Orchestra still tours.

G. I. Jive - Johnny Mercer (1944).

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - Andrews Sisters (1941).

What were those people fighting for?  The very survival of the Western World.  If you want to get a taste of that world pre-World War II, watch the first two or three minutes of this documentary based on a memoir by the late Edith Hahn-Beer, who passed away in 2009 after a remarkable life. (I highly recommend the memoir,  incidentally.)

Every day, more and more of the "Greatest Generation", so many of whom fell on D-Day, pass away.  We thank those who fought on D-Day for our freedom - some of us, for our very existence.

My last song is not connected with World War II, but, rather, with June 6.  Yesterday, while in the car, I heard a song I hadn't heard in many years.

Years after D-Day, on an unspecified June 6, this song, Convoy, becomes a great hit (reaching the top of the charts in January of 1976).  I loved it; but listening to it now, it sounds a bit dated.  And, for my readers outside the United States, please don't use it to study United States geography.  The "bears" would have had plenty of time to stop a convoy headed from Oklahoma to Chicago to the Jersey Shore.

But it still makes me smile on this special day in history.

Iris Envy

Today, a simple, (and envious) Sunday post about a flower now in full bloom where I live in upstate New York.

Irises.

My bearded irises did poorly this year.  I used to have a yard full of them.  In the past couple of years, many seemed to disappear and more refused to bloom.  Of those that remained, only three of them bloomed this year. 

What did I do wrong?  I suspect it is because I did not divide them.  Or, perhaps, I was struck with iris borers.  Alas.  Irises are so beautiful.

My Kool Aid irises, given to me years ago, have dwindled to one.  I somehow feel I have failed it.

All around me, meanwhile, irises are blooming, seemingly just to mock me.  But I will be strong, and show some of them to you.

Irises come in so many colors, and some are even scented.  They are normally easy to grow, thriving in full sun.  The bearded irises bloom in May and June; there are some irises that bloom in early spring.  Here,  white irises bloom at a church in downtown Binghamton.

Reddish brown.

One of my two irises.  This was one of the few irises that bloomed at my house.

Still other area irises:

Bi colored peach and white.

Sort of peach.

Purple and white.

And light purple.

How can you not love irises?  I just wish I knew what happened to mine.

Slowly but surely, I have replaced my missing irises with day lillies.  But still, a part of me misses them.

We'll see what next year brings.  And, if I'm in the mood, I'll post more pictures this coming week.

What are your favorite flowers?

Throwback Saturday - Filling in a Hole

I originally wrote this post in March of 2013, during a late winter vacation.  A fellow blogger's post about a restaurant in Tybee Island, Georgia, inspired me to rerun this post.  Two different opinions about the same restaurant.  Small world.  Now, the post:

In 2006, I rode the Auto Train for the first time. I traveled with my family from northern Virginia to just north of Orlando, Florida one August.  (I've made this train trip south three times now, the most recent trip being a week and a half ago.)

I've never slept well on the Auto Train, and something happened on that first trip that has become a tradition.

I woke up from a fitful sleep to realize we were traveling through a city.  We were passing under an Interstate, and some large billboards were visible.  One billboard, lit up, advertised "The Crab Shack. Tybee Island."

I didn't have Internet access and had never heard of Tybee Island. But I researched it as soon as I could and found it was an island close to Savannah, Georgia.

The second trip, 2009.  I woke up from a fitful sleep, and as my spouse softly snored next to me, I peeked out of the window and saw - the very same sign.

It was a sign (literally)!  I was being told to eat at the Crab Shack. 

We were supposed to drive through Savannah on the way home but had car trouble, and had to take the Auto Train home.  We swore we would visit Savannah and we did (two years ago) but we never got to eat at the Crab Shack.

This Auto Train trip, earlier in March, we both woke up as we were traveling through Savannah, and my spouse spotted the sign even before I did.  Marveling at this huge (to our sleep-bleary eyes) sign, we decided that yes, we would go to the Crab Shack.  We would fill in this hole in our travels.

So yesterday, we filled in the hole.

From the outside, it looks like a "tourist trap".  But the food (noting I do not get compensated for this or any other review) was good.

Inside, I noticed the restaurant had open walls to the outside - with only a screen between diners and the great outdoors.  If only I could live in a place like that, said my winter-starved inner voice.

Not so fast, said reality, as I saw movement outside the screened in wall.  Can you see what I saw?

No, they weren't lunch

After lunch we went outside, to see some of the 78 alligators the Crab Shack owns. These are all domestic, as in "born in captivity".  The Shack does not tolerate any abuse of the gators by customers, but they were easily accessible (if someone dared) and I hope they have good lives.

Up close, they almost look fake - but they certainly were not fake.

Have you ever eaten in a restaurant because of something you kept seeing?

Falling Friday - Aging Isn't a Place for Sissies

Most of the following post was written in July of 2011, after the wife of my next door neighbor of many years passed away.  Her husband turned 91 earlier this week, and I only hope he knew it.

Why?

Because the last time I talked to him, he had no idea how old he was.  He has followed his late wife down the road of dementia, and it has taken someone who was once a wonderful person and neighbor with it.  He still has some lucid days, but is under 24 hour care at home.

Fortunately, he has a large, loving family.

And now, with some editing, that post:

Today at work, I heard that the mother of a co-worker had passed away.  When I went to the local online obituary, I saw a name I knew well.  Not her, but a different obituary.

It was my next door neighbor of over 20 years.

She had passed away yesterday.  Her death was fall related.

I immediately called my spouse.  He already knew, and, in fact, had just come from their house, where he visited with family for 40 minutes.  (I visited tonight, as out of town family started to arrive.)

Her husband....her widower....seemed to be taking it well.   He said to my husband "She died on the 4th of July.  She went out with a bang."

They had celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary less than a week ago.  In the last stages of dementia, she never knew it.

 I don't care what they say about old age.  It stinks.  It robs us of the essence of what we are.  Don't talk to me about the "golden years".  There is nothing golden about those years.  Those years took the mind and then the life of a wonderful woman, who was loved by everyone who knew her.  My neighbor was a deacon of her church.  She was a retired elementary school librarian.   She did a lot of charity work.  She raised six children and at least, tonight, her husband is surrounded by their very large family. (Her husband was an only child and wanted a large family very much.  He got it, thanks to her.)

She loved romance novels.  She had hundreds of them, and she kept trying to give some to me.  She was an avid reader. She loved to have her grandchildren over to visit.

She spent so much of the last couple of years of her life a prisoner of her living room chair.  Her husband, once a telephone lineman, aged at her side.  He told me, tonight, that "I am happy".  We talked to their youngest son, and he talked about her death.  It was a good death.  About two weeks ago, her voice became very slurred. Then she stopped eating. Then she stopped drinking.  She drifted away, asleep almost all of the time.

She died surrounded by the ones she loved, at home.

Her husband has also has a lot of health problems.    I don't want to say it out loud, but I fear for him now.

They were so much younger and full of energy and love of life when I first met them.  So was my mother in law, and my spouse's aunt who is 99, and my good friend's mother, who is 92 [she passed away in 2013], and....

Like all of us, I must come to terms with my aging.   I may be looking at my eventual fate.  And perhaps that is what is affecting me now, as much as the passing of a woman great in her own way.

As Bette Davis once said "Old age is no place for sissies."

Throwback Thursday - Top 5 Ways Not to Help People After Disasters

This is a repeat of a post from July 2012, with some minor editing.

Watching the reports of flooding in the state of Texas, something seems so familiar.

Because, on a smaller scale, it happened to my part of upstate New York in August and September of 2011.  It seems like natural disasters strike almost every week, all around the world.

I hope you, my dear readers, never have to learn the following lessons first hand.

My post from 2012:

There's a huge market, isn't there, for the "everything was horrible but I/my city/my country overcame, and now everything is hunky-dory" story.

Except, sometimes it just isn't so.

Actually, I think a lot of times it just isn't so.  I hate to be a Debbie Downer here, but the blind don't always see after miracle surgery, the amputees don't always become Paralympic champions, and people who have struggled with the terrible impact of natural disasters don't always get back to where they were before the fire/flood/tornado hit.  And, sadly, that third thing sometimes isn't because of the disaster - but because of scum masquerading as fellow citizens.

I do know a little something about the third topic.  I've gotten to the point where I can talk about well meaning people (and the not-well meaning people and the harm (or the non-help, at best) they sometimes provide.  What I am about to say may not be popular but it is what I have learned out of the truths of what my neighborhood, my town, my area, went through during a natural disaster last September.

We have been conditioned to think that it is so easy to help those in need.  Just text '12345' (or whatever) and presto, you have helped!

Not exactly.

But, dear reader, there are other ways you CAN help.  I compiled this list not that long after the flood that hit my area of upstate New York last September.  I don't want to presume, but I have a feeling this may be of help to others who truly want to help, but don't know how. They feel they have to do SOMETHING.

5.  Don't come out to see us.  No, really, don't.  First, we aren't animals in a zoo, to be stared at.  Please, give us space.  At first we are in shock but then that shock wears off - and really, we don't want you to see our tears, or some of the things we do that may seem bizarre to some, but actually make sense in context.  If you aren't an emergency worker or with a charity that knows what it is doing, STAY HOME.

4.  Don't take pictures of us.  We aren't one of those commercials where charities use pictures of sad, beaten dogs or starving children to get your sympathy and your dollars.  I got so upset at a cousin (at a family event, no less) a couple of months ago when he told me how he wasn't impacted by the flood but he had gone around and taken pictures where his city did flood.  No Kodak moments, please.  Not unless you are a journalist or a historian.

3.  Don't send clothes.  Well, sometimes we do need clothes but not the clothes that get sent so many times - clothes full of stains, holes, and rips.  If you wouldn't wear it, don't send it.

So many people sent clothes after the flood, and charities were overwhelmed with them.

2.  Don't trash our neighborhood.  We aren't your garbage dump, either.  If you carry in cigarettes, coffee, and sandwiches, please take out what they came in.   Respect us.

1.  Don't call us victims.  We are not victims!  And while I am on the topic of victimization, I hope there is a special place in hell for those who went to charities for help that they didn't need (and literally took food out of the mouths of those who needed it).  Or the "contractors" who showed up, but were really scam artists. 

Ten months ago, the people in my neighborhood were very grateful to the volunteer firefighters, who came on 9/11 to pump out basements, the Salvation Army, who served meals, and the many people who did really help: who showed up out of nowhere and started to help with the filthiest of chores or to set up tents and serve meals.  More times than you would think they had been impacted themselves.  Or, they found their workplace closed and just decided to see where nearby the need was greatest.

THAT was true help.  It will not be forgotten.  For many, the road back is long, and as I pointed out before, they may never be in the same place as they were before.

Today, in 2016,  I would add one other item:  a donation to a major organization experienced in disaster relief might be an excellent way to help, if you are moved by the TV stories.  I will never forget how some of my neighbors depended on the Salvation Army for meals.  Or the Red Cross for infant formula.  The relief organizations need money to operate, and have resources to use donations to buy the goods that are truly needed.  There are many excellent local organizations, too, but you have to do research to find them.  Be careful of scammers!

Just don't exploit us in our hour, day, or year of need. I suspect that is what someone impacted by any disaster would say.

Spring Things - A Month of Mays

Today, on the first day of June, I look back on a month of May flowers. 

May is a month where we go from no leaves on the trees to lush growth.  We go from daffodils, through tulips, lilacs, and through so many other flowers.  There is no other month like it during the year.

At the beginning of the month, it was the time of daffodils and tulips.

The month started with daffodils blooming.

Then, a tree whose identity I am not sure about - it is a cherry. perhaps a pin cherry or a black cherry.  But, on May 3 when I took this picture, its blossoms smelled as sweet as honey.

In my neighborhood, the crabapple trees were out by May 10.

White crabapples blooming on May 11.

By May 12, an amazing thing had happened.  The magnolias had come out in early April, and were cut down by a late hard freeze.  The trees sat and sulked.

May 12

And then, suddenly, they started to bloom again, like this one by the Broome County courthouse in downtown Binghamton.  And, for days after, they threw out blooms, sporatically.  You can not keep Nature down.

Creeping phlox at a Newark Valley, NY bed and breakfast May 13, taken by my guest photographer. 

Tulips in my front yard, mid month.

I've published so many pictures of dogwoods, I don't dare post another.  So here, instead, is a columbine from May 16, on the West side of Binghamton.  This purple is my favorite color of flower.

And now, at month's end?  The spireas are fading out.  The lilacs are done.  Now it is the time of azaleas and rhodedendrons.

Azalea, Westover, near Johnson City, New York 5-29

May, alas, is over.  The month of dreams fade away, and the haze of summer begins.

How was May for you?

Remembering Home

Forty two years ago today, I spent my last evening as a resident of New York City.

I was born in Queens and grew up in the Bronx, both boroughs of New York City.  My neighborhood had rapidly changed (and not in a good way) during my teenaged years. I spent my last evening, as I did with so many late spring and summer nights, listening to gang members gathering to wile away the hours under my apartment building window while I dreamed of escape.

I wasn't the only one who dreamed of escape.

The Bronx holds many memories for me.  But it wasn't what I wanted.

I was never a big city person.  While everyone I grew up with (as far as I know) left the Bronx, some never left the city.  But I did.

Although I've been back to the city,  I've only returned to the Bronx a handful of times, most recently a quick drive-through in 2004 to show it to my then-teenaged son.

Every May 31, though, I think about my old childhood neighborhood.

Thanks to You Tube, I can be transported to my old elevated subway stop, and (starting about 2:36) see the housing project where I grew up. (It also amazes me people love these train videos.)

For all that my childhood neighborhood has changed since the late 1960's (and it has changed a lot) some of the old buildings are still there, and it makes my heart ache just a little to see them in this video. 

Even if you don't play the above video, you see a still of a church.  On weekends, I, with other neighborhood children, used to throw rice at some weddings (when they let us).  One of my cousins, in fact, was married in that church.

The funeral home pictured was there when I was growing up, as was the post office.

Now, living in upstate New York, I think of the green hills surrounding me every morning, and I know I made the right decision.  But, sometimes, the urge to visit the Bronx again comes back. 

One day, when things are safer, I may be back, listening to the rhythms of the #2 train, remembering the old Third Avenue El, and walking the streets of my project once again.


Or, it may just be in my dreams.  Sometimes, you can not go back.

Throwback Monday - Memorial Day

This is a portion of a post I wrote for Memorial Day, 2012, which I've repeated a couple of times since with some new material.  Today, I repeat it, with some editing, as this is the 150th anniversary of the holiday.

Memorial Day is the holiday where we honor our war dead.  In recent years, it has expanded to honor the missing.
 
Memorial Day in the United States, sadly, has also evolved into a major shopping event for many people.  It misses the element of what it originally stood for.  I must admit, I have taken advantage of those sales from time to time.

It is also thought of as the "unofficial" beginning of summer.  In my area of Binghamton, NY, the area carousels we are famous for open for the season, as do the lakes, and some other recreation areas.

But in memory of my late father, a disabled (non-combat) veteran of World War II, I will also take some time to honor his memory and those of other veterans I know.   Which leads me to a discussion of how this holiday originated here in the United States.

This holiday, in my youth, was celebrated on May 30.  Today, it is the last Monday of May, to allow many to have a three day weekend.

There are several versions of the origin of Memorial Day.  Some of the stories depend on if you were from the Federal side, or the Confederate side, of the United States Civil War (1861-1865.).  What the stories have in common is that Memorial Day, once known as Decoration Day, originated in a desire to honor the sacrifice of those who died in our Civil War.  The Library of Congress lists several stories.  Here are what are perhaps the two main origin stories:

Waterloo, New York, considers itself the birthplace of Memorial Day, and has a federally recognized Memorial Day museum.  According to this story, Henry Wells, a local druggist, suggested a holiday in the fall of 1865 to honor the sacrifice of Civil War dead.  The idea gained traction, and the first Memorial Day was held on May 5, 1866.

But there are other stories. One takes place in Mississippi, a state late a member of the Confederate States of America.  As that story goes, many of the wounded of the bloody battle of Shiloh (1862) were taken to Columbus, Mississippi.  Columbus ended up with its Friendship Cemetery full of Civil War dead of both sides.  Eventually, the Federal dead were relocated to other area cemeteries.

According to Columbus, the first Memorial Day was held on April 5, 1866, as the women of Columbus decorated the graves of both Federal and Confederate soldiers buried in Columbus.

Mental Floss has more interesting perspectives on Memorial Day. 

Some states of the former Confederacy also have separate holidays, called Confederate Memorial Day, or Confederate Heroes Day.

Regardless of what the "true story" of Memorial Day is, I want to leave you with two modern, local stories.  First, the story of a family of a soldier from Pennsylvania lost in the Vietnam War. 

And a story about a war that has come full circle.  My mother in law's brother fought in the Pacific theatre during World War II, and was wounded at Okinawa.  And now, years later, a chance to honor more memories.

May your Memorial Day today be a meaningful one.

If you do not live in the United States, do you have a holiday to honor war dead?

No Horsing Around with These Trees

At the end of May, the majestic horse chestnuts bloom in the Binghamton, New York area of upstate New York.  This year, they are breath taking.

This tree towers over a two story house

These tall trees feature large, conical shaped, fragrant flowers.

Here is a closeup of the flowers.  These are white; there is also a pink variety grown here, and a yellow variety, which I have never seen.

And another picture.

What are horse chestnuts, exactly?

They are not native to our country, but rather, to the Balkins.  They were introduced into Great Britain in the 1600's.

One thing they are not is edible - in fact, the entire plant, including its chestnuts (in Europe, they are called "conkers") are mildly poisonous.  

Native Americans would make a mash of the nuts and use it to stun fish. They would then have to get rid of the toxins in the fish but it was an effective way to kill fish.


The nuts are edible for horses (and deer); perhaps why they are called "horse chestnuts". Their scientific name is Aesculus (with about 15 species - I don't know which one I took a picture of but I suspect it is hippocastanum).  The trees have an interesting history.

As for conkers, my spouse, growing up near New York City, would play that game.  It was a favorite game at one time in Great Britain.  Now, alas, children entertain themselves in other ways.

But maybe the cell phone-addicted children of today will grow up, and appreciate the majestic splendor of this tree.  I was surprised to learn that the population of these trees, at least in Great Britain, is declining.

And in another couple of days, in our hot weather, these flowers will be gone for another year.

Do you have horse chestnuts where you live?