169. Idaho Potatoes

 

In case you don’t know it already, I am from Idaho and live in Idaho. Of course, many of the things I am grateful for come from right here at home, as it should be. No one should be surprised then, that something I am grateful for is Idaho potatoes. It’s true that Idaho potatoes are not grown in northern Idaho (except the back yard garden variety) so finding them for sale in supermarkets here is not as easy as it is in much of the rest of the country. I certainly eat a lot of Washington potatoes since they are the predominant tuber sold here and I live much closer to those spud farms than any in Idaho. But even when I’ve lived in southern Idaho I’ve found that finding the grade A Idaho Russets was not common because most of our potatoes are exported. The times I spent in England were when I appreciated our spuds the most because there they were available, though quite expensive. But that’s when I grew to appreciate them most because I had a taste of home in the land of the Angles.

Someone told me that McDonald’s only used Idaho potatoes for their fries, and I do love their fries. I’m not sure I really believe that because there are a lot of McDonald’s in the world. But maybe. I know in Washington, D.C. I went to a Five Guys and they had bags of potatoes out with a sign saying what farm in Idaho they were from. But I enjoy potatoes in chip form, fries, hash browns, baked, cooked in casseroles… So, when I have been abroad there has been a sense of comfort to just step into a McDonald’s and have some fries. There’s a huge amount of irony in that because I don’t eat at McDonald’s all that much when I’m at home.

Some things you just take for granted, so much so that you don’t realize what an integral part of your life it is. Now is the time to take stock in those things and remember them. Idaho potatoes are a big deal for me and I’m grateful for them.

168. S'mores

 

When the nights get longer in the fall and the air gets a bit of a chill to it, it’s common to build outdoor fires. Usually the autumn rains gave begun, so if you’re safe with that fire, where you build it, and how you manage it, you’re fine to have a fire. And one of the things that goes with a campfire is a s’more.

Toasting marshmallows on a stick is an age old North American tradition that had a twist put on it with graham crackers and chocolate bars. You toast the marshmallow and, while it’s still piping hot, you sandwich it between graham crackers with a bit of chocolate bar on them. This little trick is so good that you are naturally going to want some more and that is where the name s’more came from. I didn’t think s’mores were a thing before my lifetime because as a kid in the seventies I remember it being a new thing. But you know how childhood memories are, and how we often think old things were new with us. I was wrong because with a little internet research I found they started way back in the 1920’s, so they’ve been around for about 100 years!

For me, marshmallows are too sweet and they aren’t good anyway except in some sort of recipe, or pretty crisped over an open fire. And I can’t really say that the name s’mores, for me, is appropriate because I never want more than one. I like to set my graham cracker as near to the flame as possible without burning it, place the chocolate on it so that it gets melty while I am then toasting my marshmallow. I also want dark chocolate, not some ordinary Hershey’s milk chocolate but that Special Dark chocolate. I want the whole thing to be sticky, melty goodness sandwiched between two warm graham crackers. I think the truth is that I like an open camp fire, and while I’m fine just hanging out alone and warming myself by the fire and studying the stars, the added pull of a camp fire dessert of some decadence draws others to come stand by the fire. There is more to the sweetness of the s’more itself, but the shared warmth of friendship around the flames. That’s why I like s’mores.

167. Snowfall in the Mountains

Most of Idaho, where I live, except for the Snake River Plain, is mountainous, and because it is in the north the winters are snowy. There’s no doubt that snow can be a drag. You have to shovel it continuously and dig your way around. It slows everything down and you have to just hunker down and work to stay warm. But that is something I love. Granted, by spring it gets old.

Snowfall in the mountains is beautiful. All the colors of the world are muted into blacks, whites, and grays with surprising flashes of color popping through here and there in vivid blue cloud breaks or bright red rose hips frozen on the bush. The brilliant colors of autumn leaves have fallen to the ground and begun their moldering descent into brownish compost to be mercifully covered by a mantle of white. If you’re high in the mountains that mantle can be twice the depth of your own stature or more. Tall trees can become white mounds with their evergreen boughs peeking through as bits of coal.

Snowflakes fall through the air like feathers drifting down at their own pace. They can be big and puffy like cotton or tiny little single flakes that find their way into any crevice, including the gap you didn’t even realize was there at the threshold of your door. If you are inside you can stoke the fire and just watch mother nature put the world to sleep, tucking it in with a big white blanket. If you are outside, the silence the snowfall commands will cause you to also hush yourself to listen to what you can hear of the creek gurgling somewhere beneath all that ice and piling snow. I don’t have a preference as to where I want to be while I watch the snowfall in the mountains, though I always want access to a warm fire at some point. (It’s certainly not yet my desire to be put to sleep by the snow!) I’m content to swish through the icy blanket on a set of skis or to sit at the window with a cup of coffee and just wonder at the beautiful display of snow falling in the mountains. 

166. Pacific Madrone

I love trees. I grew up in the forests of Idaho and it took me a few years in the desert to even begin to appreciate a landscape without trees (and that was also in Idaho…). I’ve been reading about Solomon in I Kings and the trees that fascinated him were the cedars of Lebanon. I’ve never been to Lebanon, but I imagine it to be a little drier than my part of Idaho but maybe not as dry as the part of Idaho that has Juniper trees. So, in my imagination the cedars of Lebanon must be something between a juniper and a Western Red Cedar. Anyway, those are exotic trees Solomon used in building the temple.

An exotic tree for me is the Pacific Madrone. For one thing, it’s only found on the Pacific coast from California to British Columbia—only the coast. As often as I am in the Northwest, I don’t go to the coast frequently. While the tree has been used for a variety of things by the natives, it isn’t typically used for its wood except maybe to burn. When the wood dries, it warps so it doesn’t make good lumber.

Anytime a tree goes outside the normal bounds of trees I am amazed. The thing about the Madrone that amazes me is that it’s an evergreen but it has leaves. It has a light reddish bark that peels off like paper and turns a sort of green. Some of them can be quite tall. They remind me a little bit of Eucalyptus without the pervasive aroma. Their leaves are oblong and grow in groups that form a sort of fan. To me, they are just a really unique tree that kind of bounces out of my ideas of what a normal tree is.

I always think my capacity for categorizing things into what I consider ordinary is a little annoying and occasionally I just want those bounds to be increased or broken. I love trees and the Pacific Madrone sits right on the edge of breaking my ideas of ordinary. It grows on the Northwest coast, just on the edge of my reality, my ordinary imagination, making me realize that there is a world beyond my ordinary world and that maybe within my own world there are some extraordinary things. It might not be up to Solomon’s Temple standards, but it would certainly be up to his exotic standards. That’s why I’m grateful for the Pacific Madrone.

165. Grains and Legumes

Where I live the forest meets the prairie. You can see the deep greens of the forested hills against the seemingly endless rolling Palouse hills of the amber waves of grain. At this time of year, the harvest is complete and the fields have even given their straw stubble up to a muddy golden mix. The evergreen forests have taken on a menacing darkness that makes them seem black. Soon the frosting of white on those mountains will descend to the prairie and it will all be covered in white.

But when spring comes and the hills are giving up their frosted sides to a chocolate brown you will see a slow transition from a mint-chocolate look to a full on verdancy of endless golf-course beauty. That green will ripen in July to those amber waves and the bread basket of the world will soon be ready for harvest. This is wheat country and the dry pea and lentil capital of the world, rich in canola, peas, and garbanzo beans.

There are all kinds of reasons to love grain and legumes. First and foremost is its sustenance for everyone I know. At this time of year, we eat all kinds of cakes and cookies and breads, all of which come from the flour of the wheat that covers all of these rolling hills around me. I’m also a fan of beer and that comes from the barley so abundant here. It isn’t really the normal food of people around here as far as tradition goes, but humus is a middle eastern food made from the chick peas that we have around here. Then there are all those alcohols that come from grains. It’s decadent. But grains are also humble with simple things like split pea soup, lentil stew, or beef barley soup. And just plain bread. And, of course, fried food can easily be cooked in the canola oil that comes from those golden flowering fields.

Grains and legumes grace our hills around here with beauty. They sustain the farmers that grow them and they fill the bellies of the world. So yes, I’m grateful for all the grains and legumes. 

164. Zucchini

So, this morning I’m sitting at my table just after Thanksgiving. It is snowing lightly and looking a little more like Christmas than Thanksgiving. Nevertheless, I’ve been going through my list of gratitude and I hit upon summer squash, especially zucchini. I haven’t picked any from my garden for six weeks and I had enough at that point that I certainly don’t want to buy any from the store because it’s the season of pumpkin and winter squash. But the spiciness of a nice zucchini bread seems like something for autumn or winter and because we had so much of the summer squash in August and September I have plenty in the freezer for that. While I may not be grilling zucchini at this time of year, I have plenty of zucchini relish to put on my hot dogs or hamburgers that I can still grill on the patio even when it is snowing.

We live in an era where you can buy food from anywhere in the world, so if you want watermelon in November you can have watermelon from South America in Idaho in November. But for the most part I’m a traditionalist. If I’m going to have zucchini at this time of year it’s going to be preserved from summer. That, of course, means I’m going to be eating zucchini bread and zucchini relish at this time of year. I like that. I think that’s the traditional idea of Thanksgiving: gratitude for the harvest that will allow you to survive another winter and early spring.

This year, because my freezer is full of frozen summer squash and my cupboard is full of preserved summer squash I have one more thing from the harvest for which to give thanks. And even in other years when I might not have so much summer squash—that little squash that Americans and Italians call zucchini while the French and British call them courgettes—I am thankful for it. I love that little saying that if you don’t have zucchini you don’t have friends. I’m thankful that I have both. 

163. Hummingbirds

I plant flowers in pots around the porch and in flower beds around the house. I have annuals and perennials and I enjoy them, not just for their beauty, but also for their ability to attract bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. I especially enjoy the hummingbirds that seem plentiful in the late afternoons and early evenings of August and September. They especially enjoy the petunias—red and purple petunias. They will also hover in front of me for a few moments if I’m walking across the grass or if I have a bright red t-shirt on. I guess the color of the shirt piques their curiosity. I love it when they just hover in front of my face and look at me. Of course, it’s never for very long, but when it happens time pauses briefly and two sentient beings closely observe one another. I have no idea if those tiny little birds are as grateful for me as I am for them, but I do enjoy their presence and that they would pause and recognize me in their constant movement is a blessing inexpressible.

I can’t typically tell one type of hummingbird from another, though I do search books and the internet to see if I can identify them. Perhaps that’s what they’re doing when they’re hovering and looking at me. I do know that in my part of the world the Black Chinned, Rufous, and Calliope are the most common in summer. They are considerably smaller than their cousins I’ve seen in winter in the Bay Area of California which were bigger and darker. But you can always tell a hummingbird from another bird because of its tiny size, its quick flight, and then the ability, unlike any other bird, to hover while at a flower or at a feeder or while observing someone or something. They always seem to be on the go and it is a rare occasion, indeed to see one sitting on a limb or wire. When you see that, don’t bother trying to photograph it because it will last mere seconds and unless you already have the camera prepared, the bird will fly away.

They are amazing little creatures unlike any other bird and I am so grateful for their presence.

162. Food Abundance

While it may be true that there are many people in the US who are food insecure, as a nation we are food abundant. I don’t live in a wealthy community but it is an agricultural community that gets its livelihood from farming and timber. Right now, during the pandemic we have sporadically closed and reopened various businesses, but we still (with federal assistance) are able to feed all of our children through our school closures. Our local food bank remains open for business and is taking care of our community members who are now dealing with food insecurity.

Personally, I have noticed that we, as a family, have filled our pantry and freezer with enough food to get us through the winter and any possible temporary closures of businesses. We will be able to celebrate Thanksgiving and share our bounty with others because there is not a food shortage in our country. After necessary quarantining our immediate family will be able to gather and have the traditional American harvest celebration with turkey and all the traditional trimmings that go with that dinner.

I know that doesn’t cover all the food insecurity and I think it’s a little crazy how everyone does not have enough to eat when our country is a regular cornucopia. While I’m thankful that we, as a nation, have all this food, I also think we need to work to share what we have with those who don’t. There are all kinds of organizations that help to feed those of us who don’t have enough food or who are struggling right now in this economic downturn and the pandemic. Consider giving to one such organization in your community if you have the means. I really believe that gratitude is something to share and that’s a big part of these blog entries. This is the season to give thanks and I am so thankful that I and my family have enough to eat and the means to share some of that. I won’t be able to have a big gathering for Thanksgiving but I can still share and I plan on doing just that.

 

161. Cool Summer Mornings

There are certain negative aspects in the US when an electoral cycle ends and new offices are filled. I felt the last four years to be crazy, but the two choices for President were not so great. That, and a Time magazine article focusing on good things gave me purpose in my blog. So I continue to write about things for which I am grateful. Gratitude is what make life worth living, so I continue to share that here.

The chill of this morning at a brisk 12F is a huge contrast to the experiences I felt just a short few weeks ago when summer was rounding the corner into autumn. Then the morning was cool and I would step outside with my coffee and listen to the birds sing. I could watch them in the sunflowers of the garden, flowers which were still blooming in bright yellows. The contrast with this morning’s frigid chill and the seed heads remaining of my sunflowers could not be more stark. Yet still the birds are feeding on the seeds that remain in those sunflower heads.

While part of me is content with this early window into winter, I will miss those cool summer mornings that have a way of separating themselves from the day’s later oppression of heat. There is something that separates the sanctity of a summer morning from the other seasons. Part of it is that it was the sun that woke me. Part of it is the birdsong when doves coo to one another. And part of it is simply the natural cool separate from the rest of the day.

Something about a cool summer morning is just as fresh as was the entire experience of living when I was a child. There are few preconceived notions about how things should be, they are all just beautiful the way the are without comparatives, let alone superlatives. The world is new and beautiful, your mind is clear of sullied thoughts of cold, anguish, or any troubles of the day. Behold, all things are new.

Yes, there is still beauty and newness in the mornings of autumn, winter, and spring, but they often are dark and cold and you have to build a fire or wear a heavy coat. Those mornings require something of you, but the cool of a summer morning asks only that you observe and feel its beauty unsullied by any cares.

160. Sturdy Construction

I live in a house that was built over 100 years ago in 1910. The construction is solid and I appreciate that. It was built to last and so it has. I know it was put up in haste as the foundations of the town of Potlatch were put into place, but the construction is solid and the people who have cared for it over the last 110 years have kept it solid, remodeled it in tasteful ways and caused it to have its own unique look apart from its cookie cutter neighbors. We have also just had built an adjacent garage and patio with a connecting deck.

Americans typically take pride in their building construction and you can trust our buildings to last. We have put codes in place to honor stability and to protect people from faulty construction. I realize that sometimes those codes seem onerous but they insure solid, safe construction. That has been true throughout the centuries as my own home stands as a testament. I appreciate that pride in construction and the workmanship that goes along with it—construction that withstands the ravages of time and storms.

Of course, there have obviously been some shoddy constructed buildings in the history of the country but most of those have fallen into disrepair or been completely destroyed. I know when you go to buy a home in this country you will know how sound the building is because it will have to pass inspection before you will be able to get a loan to finance it. Houses on the Gulf coast are built to withstand heavy winds. Houses in the Midwest are built to protect so if a tornado hits they will have a storm cellar. Homes on the west coast are built to withstand earthquake tremors. While certainly no building is made to withstand all the ravages of time and weather, Americans seem to work hard to insure the construction is sturdy and that our buildings are shelter in times of trouble and comfort in times of need. This isn’t true everywhere so I’m thankful that we Americans have sturdy construction that provides us with safety and comfort.

159. State Identities

State identities are something I really appreciate, even if I don’t know the reason behind half of their claims to fame. There are fifty states with unique identities and some of those are as different as can be—almost as if the states themselves were on different continents. I live in the Northwest and the five northwestern states would seem to have strong similarities because of their shared geography, but in reality, all five of those states even have their own internal divisions because of geography.

Washington is the evergreen state because of its vast evergreen forests, yet if you are in the Columbia Basin you would be hard pressed to even find a tree, let alone an evergreen tree. Oregon is the beaver state and the only reason I think that might be the case is because of early trappers. It is also famous for the Columbia River (Oregon being a supposed early name of that river) yet the Columbia only flows along its northern border with Washington. Probably its greater fame should be from all of its berries and fruits and abundant farmland in the Willamette River valley that requires little to no irrigation—a rarity in the vast arid lands of the west.

My own Idaho is the gem state because of its mining history and the gems such as the star garnet that are found here. Yet it is probably best known for its potatoes, and I personally think it should be well known for its abundant forests as the most wooded of the eleven contiguous western states. But sometimes the secrets a state holds are just as much a part of its identity as are those aspects of fame.

Of course, Montana is known for its copper and mountains and Wyoming for its cowboys. Massachusetts is the Bay State, Vermont is the Green Mountain State. Alaska is the last frontier and Hawaii is the Aloha State. Ohio is the Buckeye state and I don’t even know what that means. I have been to all fifty of the states and each holds a unique identity. I love them all but of course I have my favorites and they are all right around Idaho where I live. I enjoy each state’s claim to fame and I appreciate their unique identities that help to form our e pluribus unum. 

158. Philanthropic Organizations

America is full of philanthropic organizations that provide a great deal of help to our population. Many of these organizations have been started by religious groups or churches, others have been started by people who have financial resources and see needs, while others have been started by people in need banding together to work toward a common goal. These organizations are a great part of our country.

There are so many small community libraries that were founded by the Carnegie Corporation. Much of what we know about diseases has been funded by philanthropic foundations made up of people who have often been affected by that particular disease such as the Mitochondrial Disease Foundation which I support because my son has a mitochondrial disease. The food bank here in my home town was started by an Eagle Scout and continues to this day through a foundation directed by the local churches. These philanthropic organizations are designed to meet individual needs and collective needs to better our society and our individual lives.

Here in my own community there are a couple of homes that were built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers, an organization that helps families buy their first home through volunteer labor and donations. The organization believes home ownership is the best way to escape poverty.

There are also plenty of established organizations that contribute to philanthropic missions. Churches often make contributions to the public good. Labor Unions frequently support worthy causes such as firemen supporting the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. My own local teachers’ union helped build those Habitat houses I mentioned.

The United States is filled with good people who support worthy causes in a variety of ways and I am very thankful that they band together in philanthropic organizations that make themselves known to be available to assist in a variety of causes. They are not government entities but organizations that support life to its fullest made up of wonderful American people. 

157. The American Election Process

For the past twenty years or so here in the United States the national elections have often been very close, sometimes so close that they have been contested at the Supreme Court. We have had foreign powers do their best to persuade the American people to vote one way or another, sometimes to great effect. But every time the election has been peaceable, the transfer of power has been accepted and ballots have been recounted over and over. I love this process, no matter how contested it may be at times because we, the people, have agreed to it.

Each state has conducted its election process in slightly different manners from the other states. Some can make the process rather onerous, making voters stand in lines for hours at polling places. Some ballots have been punch-cards that can be easily read by computer scanners, though I believe after the Florida hanging chad fiasco in the Bush-Gore election most states have done away with that type of ballot. Some states require photo identification when you vote. Some states now vote only by mail. Some states require that you register to vote well before the election while others have same day registration.

All states allow absentee voting, though that makes no difference in the states that only vote by mail. Some states require that you declare an acceptable reason to vote in absentia while other states have no such requirements. Certainly, the least restrictive laws regarding voting seem to me to be the most likely places to have the higher turnout.

We also have primary elections to determine who the final nominees from each party will be for the general election. This, of course, makes the voting process long, somewhat annoying, and definitely tiresome. But I think all of this is necessary because of the size and scope of our country. I suppose before all of the media blitz in the old days it was not really so ever present on people’s minds as it is now.

One thing that can be concerning about the election to me is all the focus that gets placed upon the president and vice president while the local offices—those that have the more dramatic effect on people where they live—can be overlooked. Of course, the national media is never going to take the time to cover county commissioner races or even state legislative races, but those offices can wield a great deal of power over the national scene so it is important to stay on top of those local issues. It is always a challenge to keep the public aware of issues so that obfuscation doesn’t blind us to what is really occurring and that’s why staying abreast of the issues is so important to the American democratic process as is the freedom of the press to keep us informed.

I love the American electoral process, though there are things about it that clearly were a compromise by the founding fathers, such as the electoral college. I don’t know how we could do much better with the size and diversity of our country. I also believe that our democracy rests upon the knowledge of we, the people, and it is absolutely essential that we bolster our education system and support our news outlets because any attack against those institutions is likely a subtle way to perform voter suppression which erodes the foundations of this nation.

156. Flowers

I like flowers. Not floral prints, but real flowers. I spend a great deal of time gardening and I love it. Much of the joy of gardening comes from the flowers. I spend hours pruning rose bushes, fertilizing them and cutting them to bring inside. I plant old wheelbarrows and whiskey barrels full of alyssum, lobelia, pansies and petunias. My vegetable garden is interspersed with sunflowers that attract honey bees and then go to seed and attract birds. Those same flower seeds fall to the ground and become sunflowers themselves the next year. I don’t ever have to replant sunflowers. The same is often true of pansies and alyssum. In fact, some years, in this land of winter, the pansies don’t die at all but continue to slowly bloom if they are in a sheltered place.

Other flowers that I enjoy growing are tulips, daffodils and crocus. The spring is resplendent when those flowers announce the end of winter. Other flowers that require a little less tinkering that I enjoy are lilies and lavender. If you want to lose every care in the world, sit amongst the lavender plants—but be careful because they will be full of bees. The scent of lavender transports you to another world where there are no worries (but, like I said, don’t be deceived or you will get stung) and any of the troubles that you harbor will vanish like the ripples of raindrops on the surface of a still lake.

And then there are peonies and iris. Peonies—I like the blood red ones—grace the garden for only a few days at the end of May around here. Their leafy green shrubbery lasts all summer long but their flowers herald the beginning of that glorious season and disappear with the end of spring. And the iris fall quickly behind the peonies lasting but a little longer and leaving their flat leaved verdancy well into winter. Vincent Van Gogh was also a lover of his and painted many still lifes with iris as the central figure.

Another flower that fades in mid to late spring is the lilac. Those flowers are so popular around here that Spokane has taken the moniker of Lilac City. Of course, I love to hike and observe the many wild flowers. A shrub that grows almost everywhere in Idaho and has given itself to our state as the state flower is the syringa. This is another flowering shrub that transports you to another world with its beautiful fragrance. When syringa fades, ocean spray graces the mountain sides around here. It doesn’t have the heady scent of syringa but it still has the ability to carry you downstream from the Idaho mountains to the Pacific coast in a heartbeat.

While the fireweed is fading its purple pink into the coming onslaught of snow and the golden rod has heralded the brilliant reds, oranges, and yellows of the fall, the flowers are beginning to fade away and their fruits are ready for harvesting. Huckleberry, elderberry, strawberry and serviceberry are all ripe or finished. Apples are ripening and ready for harvest. Soon we’ll be mulling cider and baking apple pies. But there will still be flowers. I might have to get some dried straw flowers or some of my roses but the variety, while slightly diminished, doesn’t go away. And the seasonal heralds of nature’s bounty and beauty are always just a melted snowflake away. I think what makes me happiest about flowers is their effervescence that sparkles throughout the year. They have sustained me through this year of disease and they will continue to do so. I am, indeed, grateful for flowers.

 

155. Morning Coffee

 I have never been an early riser, though as I age I tend to do fine with a little less sleep so I am always up by seven, or at least awake. If I go to bed earlier than midnight I’ll wake up between five and six. I like to be slow and contemplative in the morning, designing my day but not rushing the plans. I gauge that planning by cups of coffee. I always buy my own beans and grind them. My favorite roast is a medium dark and I’m very fond of Starbucks House Blend, but I buy the Costco variety because it’s cheaper and basically the same product.

I don’t just have a single cup of coffee, I drink three every morning. I like it black and fairly strongly brewed—none of this weak western pioneer crap that is brewed so frugally you would think it was dishwater. I savor each cup and on the rare occasion I will add a little half and half. While the coffee is brewing I shave and get dressed. While I am savoring the first cup I read some verses from the Bible, usually in German, and write in my journal. Generally, the worst writing I ever do is with my morning coffee because I find little inspiration at that time of day when my mind is still pondering the day as a whole. It is my least creative point in the day. Coffee does little for me in the creative realm—in fact, I don’t typically feel any effect from coffee beyond the pleasant taste and the comfort of a morning routine.

When I’ve made it to the second cup I begin taking my vitamins. Typically, I no longer eat breakfast because I’ve learned that intermittent fasting reduces my cholesterol. Black coffee helps keep me from being too hungry—and I’m used to the morning fast. I usually finish that second cup somewhere in the pages of my journal writing and make it onto my third cup just as I begin to be more physically active.

I’m well aware that coffee is the national drink of Americans, though not every American may be so enamored of it as I am. You find it everywhere in this land. There are coffee stands of every variety in every little burg here in the Northwest, even if they are too small to have a franchise like Starbucks. While we have definitely been influenced by the Italian espresso, we staked our claim to coffee during the Revolutionary War when colonists threw the tea into Boston Harbor as a protest to the high British taxes. Apparently, we could get coffee at a much lower taxation rate from our South American brethren. So coffee represents much more than the drink we have with our donuts or our bacon and eggs. It is our national drink of independence.

So this morning as I sit here writing and drinking my favorite cup of joe, I am reminded not just of my day ahead, or how I just can’t seem to get a decent image in my head to make a poem, but of who I am as a person, as an American. With a few cups of coffee in the morning my joints get loosened up, the day gets planned, and maybe a little creativity creeps its way into my brain with the routine of those morning rituals that have become a part of who I am. I am an independent American with a strong connection to my ancestry that I taste and feel with every drop of coffee I drink. I am thankful for that and I am thankful for my morning coffee.

154. Friendships

A few days ago, a former student asked me what it is that motivates me. I told him that I think people motivate me. More often that not, I feel like a salmon swimming upstream against the flow of public opinion, yet I still feel motivated by people (even when I’m going against them). And I am one to cultivate friendships. Of course, my closest friends are people who I share commonalities with, so that would be teachers, coaches, and family. But because I am now a teacher recently retired, I have always been interested in people and getting to know them where they are. Friendship is very important to me as a person and as an American. I have made friends all over the world and I work to stay in touch with those people to maintain our friendship.

What I love about my friendships is that I know people from so many different backgrounds and I have learned that we are all more similar than different. We all sleep and eat and breathe and work to maintain those functions. We all love our families and work to protect them from harm. I believe that when we look to those similarities and foster friendships based upon those things we will create fewer barriers between one another and we will help each other to stay safe. We can work to create good food, peaceful rest, and clean air for one another. Friends share things and throw aside their greed realizing that sharing makes things more pleasant and easier to get along with one another.

My best friends are my fellow teachers and my family because we share so many common interests that when we have our own eccentricities we can share those with others without feeling shame. Most friends share so many common interests that the few deviations they have from those interests lead to tolerance. So it is so important to establish friendships so that we can, in fact, develop tolerance.

Of course friends aren’t just people who tolerate one another, they love each other. My friends are people to whom I can go for help, for a laugh or for a beer. I have climbed mountains with my best friends, ran marathons with them, sat to dinner with them, prepared lesson plans with them. My best friends are those people who I call to go on trips with, to help me make a wheel chair ramp to make my doorway handicap accessible. My best friends motivate me to be a better person, someone who understands them and someone who understands me. This is true of all friends and their friendship. Friends are people who strive to help one another, who enjoy each other’s company, who share each other’s joys and sorrows and make even life’s unbearable moments bearable because they don’t leave you alone.

I believe the best people are the people who have lots of friends. I am motivated by people and making life better for all of us, but I am motivated primarily by my friends. I have several years left in me and I plan on spending those years cultivating the friendships I have and developing new friendships so that I don’t end up leaving this world lonely or alone but that I leave it a better place than when I found it. There is no doubt that is an impossible task if I am intolerant and lonely, but with friends it is more than just a possibility, it is a reality. I am so thankful for all of my friendships. My American dream is to be a friend.

 

153. Backyard Sanctuary

The world has always been a crazy, frightening place with famine, disease, and greed, but our country has had a slightly more charmed existence between the second world war and now. Still, individual families and every American at one point or another suffers from something whether it be physical or social-emotional. The current pandemic has added unbelievable stress to us as Americans and as the human race. If we are wise we learn how to create our own spaces, our own sanctuaries, where we can go to enjoy reprieve from some of those problems. I have piddled around for years making my own little backyard sanctuary.

I am by no means a landscape architect, but I have dabbled in gardening all of my life. I have also experimented with a little mechanicing and carpentry, two other fields far away from my own areas of expertise, when it comes to my own yard. Currently I am even hiring a construction company to build us a garage and patio. When it’s not raining (as it is this morning) I love to sit on the porch in the morning sunshine and drink my coffee. Hummingbirds will come to the flowers I have planted, as will hummingbird moths, dragon flies, butterflies, and honeybees (and the unmentionable mosquitos and wasps!). I have even had bear and moose in my lawn right here in town (though I try not to invite them). It is a space where I can contemplate nature and almost instantly forget the problems I am dealing with. It is a place that can help me forget or it can bolster my creativity or the courage I need to face the problems I am encountering (and I do believe creativity and courage are often synonymous). It is my sanctuary.

All of my favorite artists from Van Gogh, Gustav Caillebotte, Georgia O’Keefe, and Monet seemed to have similar sanctuaries on one scale or another and you can still reflect on their sanctuaries when you view their paintings of flowers, water lilies, and gardens. Mine will appear on Instagram and Twitter in photographs, or in my poetry. I often think my back yard is not anywhere as grandiose as those works of art, then when I visit their spaces I realize that the scope comes across as grand in their work because it was grand in their minds and grand in their renown, not so much in size, but in sanctuary. Sanctuary is what my back yard is.

From a distance the sunflowers look to overwhelm the corn, tomatoes, and squash, yet up close I still have all my vegetables but there are finches eating the sunflower seeds and honeybees in the flower centers yellow with pollen. I too get lost in iris and peonies and out of my roses come photographs and poetry and fresh air. Even now, as my backyard is a construction zone for a garage and patio, the flowers are blooming and there is zucchini and winter squash ripening. I will pick tomatoes and basil this afternoon and bask in the sunshine with a drink, all the while forgetting about my impending retirement and the mixed emotions that brings. I’ll just be able to sit and breathe. The only reason I’m not out there now is because of the morning autumnal chill that reminds me it is now September.

There are many places in America that I love to go to and enjoy the splendors of nature and I’m thankful for them all, but some days I just have to be at home. At home there are thousands of little things that need to be done always, but if I just step outside and sit in a lawn chair, and look at the flowers and breathe, they all melt away for just long enough to bolster me so that the thousands of things I need to do become a little less important and much less burdensome. No matter who you are or where you are such a backyard sanctuary is possible, so find it, breathe and give thanks in your own space.

 

152. Snoqualmie Falls

 

As things ramp up again with the beginning of school there’s a part of me that feels a little regret that this summer went by without any of the big trips I usually take, without any camping trips, without any big hikes. But I did replace a great deal of that with reading, reminiscing, experimenting with recipes, and enjoying just what I have here. Still, the end of summer always leaves me, as a teacher with a few pangs of regret. This summer is no different, except, perhaps, the additional stress of starting a new school year with entirely new forms of teaching and new safety protocols, some of which leave me doubting how much actual safety there is and how much artifice is in the mix. So, after taking a moment to get myself centered and calm, I realized I needed to cash in on my retirement. All that brings a mix of emotions, so to stay centered and calm I usually look to water.

 So, while I continue to express my gratitude for things about America that I love, I want to reminisce about a beautiful waterfall. More often that not, my family travels to Seattle a few times a year for some medical reason. Lately it has simply been appointments, nothing traumatic. But we started taking time to appreciate things about the Seattle area to dissociate some of the trauma that we have also associated with the area. One place we knew about, but never went to, was a place called Snoqualmie Falls. I guess I thought it was probably some tourist trap just off the freeway that I wasn’t so certain I wanted to get stuck in (and I’m sure there are times when it is). But, like all the Northwest, there is intense beauty formed of the mountains and the rain that can’t be overlooked even near the intensely populated area of Seattle.

 If you go there on a weekday you won’t see a big crowd of people. You can eat at the restaurant that sits at the top of the falls and look over it. You’re going to see houses lining the banks of the river below, it seems isolated from the view almost as if you were in a hotel in a national park. And, yes, the restaurant is part of the hotel called Snoqualmie Falls Lodge. It’s easy to get to, just a short drive from interstate 90 less than an hour east of Seattle before you climb Snoqualmie Pass. It’s beautiful to walk along the terraced viewpoints at the top of the falls. While you’ll see the mist of the crashing waters with its accompanying rainbows—assuming you’ve come on a sunny day—you are far enough removed so you won’t need to worry about getting wet from the mist. It is still western Washington, so quite possibly you will be there on a day when mist is falling from the sky and in that case, you will need to wear some form of rain gear.

 I’ve said this before in other entries but there is great calm to see such turbulence of water and land that is perfectly outside of your individual realm of control. It could seem quite violent but the natural aspect of it creates intense beauty that I find mesmerizing and soothing. I find that sense of comfort in a crashing waterfall of an immense river or just a small stream. As I sit here contemplating the intensity of retirement, I find myself bolstered against uncertainties. Snoqualmie Falls is an American landmark that brings me solace during times of trouble and I’m thankful for it.

151. Lewis and Clark

There are lots of things that have happened throughout history, many of them being unpleasant. All of them have brought us to this moment right now, and, of course, that is a good place even with its terrifying emotions and its pleasant emotions. One of those historical events that has put me here at this point is the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Corps of Discovery.                                                                            

All through childhood I knew about these two great explorers because I live right in that part of Idaho where they journeyed. They and their crew were the first Americans to traverse the continent and cross the continental divide to make it to the Pacific. They were commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and because of that willingness to explore the unknown expanses of the northern Great Plains, the northern Rockies and the Pacific Northwest I am living in this part of what is now the United States. The whole discovery is a connection of peoples from the King of France who gave a good deal to the United States with the Louisiana Purchase to the willing explorers, the friendliness of the indigenous peoples, to those of us living here in the present. Of course they were all human beings as are we. We are filled with complexity and because of that, not everything from what we do works out for the best just like that journey of discovery. It is the existential crisis of being human but it is also what got us to where we are. I very much appreciate the struggles that Lewis and Clark endured, the sense of responsibility that they carried and the huge gift they gave their posterity, one of which is me.                              

Among the Corps were such people that legends are made of. There was the French Charbonneau and his Shoshone wife, Sacajawea who was born in what is now Idaho and graces her name to several things in this state. The man York, who was enslaved by William Clark, probably experienced the greatest freedom of his life in those two years of exploration. Others in the Corps returned out west later to gain fame as the mountain men. And the journalists themselves, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark themselves, left us amazing drawings during their time fording great rivers, crossing the divide of the continent with all its struggles, spending a dreary damp winter on the shores of the Pacific, meeting with the many amazing tribes of indigenous people who befriended them, and then returning all that distance back to the little outpost of St. Louis. All of these men and one woman formed an indelible relationship with one another and the land that has enriched these United States and the peoples of the northern states of the west.                                                                                                        

I have such admiration for the foundations of our country, in spite of all it’s heartache, and the great men and women seeking independence and freedom with all their baggage of wrongly preconceived ideas. In spite of all their flaws they created this country out of pain and struggle and they left their unfinished work for us to continue to be “We, the people of the United States…” I am overwhelmed by pride and admiration for these amazing people of the Corps of Discovery.

Wear Your Mask

This is what a child on ECMO looks like: my son at three and a half.

             

About 18 and a half years ago our youngest son got some childhood virus, Roseola, as kids will. He was three and a half and had never really been very sick before. At first, he didn’t seem to get too sick from this one either, but we now know that it takes him much longer to recover from viruses than the rest of us because his cells go into an energy deficit due to what we now know he has, mitochondrial disease. After about a week of just being tired, but no longer sick, he began to revert in his walking patterns, using furniture to hold himself up. He ate continuously, sat around and did very little even falling asleep at the table in the middle of eating, and within a couple of weeks he had gone from a little over forty pounds to another ten pounds in weight gain. Remember, he was just over three years old. We became frantic, taking him to our doctor every day as he began to struggle with breathing. He had blood tests, a terrifying MRI from which he struggled to wake (as mito patients will do from the wrong anesthetic), and finally our doctor sent us to Seattle Children’s Hospital, where at the end of the weekend he grew even more sick to the point of both lungs succumbing to complete diffuse hemorrhaging. That Sunday night and into the very early hours of Monday he was, with our permission, put on a ventilator and then ECMO (extra corporeal membrane oxygenator), a heart lung bypass machine used to oxygenate the blood in absence of working lungs. Our son was drowning in his own blood because of an energy deficit and organ shut down caused by a virus that for most is typically benign. He was on ECMO for a week and the ventilator for two weeks and we stayed in the hospital for three months, bringing him home with a jog stroller and orders for tons of rehabilitative therapy to get him to eat and walk on his own.

Now, during this COVID-19 pandemic we are becoming more and more wary of people, knowing full well that we can not bring this disease home to our son. Wen this all began I thought it seemed a bit overblown since there was no evidence of the disease in our very rural area. We have typically been vigilant against other known viruses such as Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus just using insect repellent and avoiding buggy areas, but we have not enclosed our son in a bubble because we believe in living a full life. Now that everything has been shut down and people are tired of going half a year without vacations, normal shopping, movies, school, etc. the disease has made it here, as I discovered by possibly being exposed in my quest to start our school year responsibly. People here have had no evidence of the severity of the disease and they no longer have the capacity to take it seriously. I cannot be one of those people. I must take all viruses seriously in my home, even as we have always resisted living in a bubble. My son endured another bout of illness, probably contracted on an airplane, and again was hospitalized when he was in the third grade and we had returned from a summer vacation in Europe. This second bout seriously made us rethink how we expose him to the outside world, yet he has continued to live his life as an active member of our community, constantly raising awareness of mitochondrial disease.

Now that the country wishes to return to school, now that I have missed two weddings for important people in my life, now that I have to evaluate what I am going to do this year as my final year of teaching I will be physically distanced and I will wear a mask and shield. I will cause my students grief when they poo poo my vigilance. And I don’t want to be vigilant only for my own family, but for others as well. Remember that I lived for three and a half years blissfully ignorant that anyone in my family was so vulnerable to seemingly invisible opponents. I know that so many of us are unwittingly vulnerable to this very real disease and I wish to protect those people as well. So I implore you all to wear your masks when you are with others outside of your immediate circle. Protect yourself. Protect us all.

150. Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes

“Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean

And so betwixt them both, you see, they licked the platter clean.”

           

These random little rhymes were taught us from infancy. Sometimes we learned them from parents singing to us, sometimes we learned them from teachers at school, and sometimes we never really learned them until we got older and read a few books. There are zillions (or seemingly so) of them but we, here in America, got most of our nursery rhymes from a very clever, real person living in colonial Massachusetts (which explains references to pound, pence and London Towne in distinctly American rhymes) having been born in England. In reality she is a conglomerate of mothers of the Goose name in Boston and she is sometimes credited with being a woman named Mary Goose. I don’t know much about her, but I’m a cemetery fanatic but once upon a time I encountered her grave in the cemetery next to the Boston Commons.

            Sometimes I find an odd comfort in those old nursery rhymes, “Wee Willie Winkle runs through the town in his nightgown…” They come from a place of safety in our minds from long ago and, more importantly, they are the reassurance of our ancestors from ages back letting us know we would be okay. Who knew that there were fad diets even in the 1600’s? Mother Goose as she aptly wrote of it in Jack Sprat (if indeed that is one of her rhymes…) And here we are renaming old diets with things like the Paleo Diet or the Atkins Diet or whatever. It’s either a no fat or no lean diet, isn’t it?

            I would venture to guess that more English-speaking people quote Mother Goose than the Bible or William Shakespeare. Maybe I’m giving her too much credit. So what if she was just a collector of folk verse? I am pretty sure she made up a few of her own and those were collected, then redone for new children and originally penned by dear old Mother Goose? She’s as much a fairy tale as her rhymes.

            Even here as I write in the summer sun and notice a spider, I can’t help but think of Little Miss Muffet on her tuffet breakfasting on curds and whey (I’m not a fan of whey, but curds are wonderful). “Along came a spider and sat down beside her and frightened Miss Muffett away.” Like Miss Muffet, I’m not a fan of spiders but I’m a more modern American, so when I see a spider I just smash it.

            I find it easy to slide back into childhood with one of those little rhymes, and also an imaginary earlier time of innocence where little pigs go to market and stay home and eat roast beef (!) and cry whee whee all the way home. All periods of life have had difficulties, yet when the plague raged we inherited “Ring Around the Rosie,” so now while we’re being plagued by a new virus I find myself returning to the age old comfort of Mother Goose rhymes and the snippets of another age that was also tough, yet mothers and fathers still loved and comforted their children, and now we, their grandchildren still love and comfort our children with the same rhymes. Funny how comforting our children comforts us. Funny how we think so many things are new, yet really they are simply reiterations of the past. Funny how that is comforting.

            “Little Jack Horner sat in a corner eating his Christmas Pie. He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, ‘My, what a good boy am I.’” While most of us don’t have plums in our Christmas pies, its fun to think of it, isn’t it?

149. American Chain Restaurants

            There are certain things that everyone uses out of convenience but they might grumble a little bit about it. For me that’s chain restaurants. Sometimes I grumble about them not being healthy enough. But, of course, that’s not always true because there are plenty of choices. In reality, the consistency of American chain restaurants is great comfort. I love the fact that I can pick up a sub sandwich with some chips and an icy cold drink and picnic it on the spur of the moment. I don’t have to go into a chain restaurant and pore over a menu asking questions of the waiter because I already know what to order before I even open the door. Of course that’s not always what I want, but when I want easy comfort an American chain restaurant is there to fill that role.

            There’s no doubt that it’s a little disconcerting to drive the streets of a European city to find a KFC crammed into an old Tudor building, but after a few days of mushy peas, dried out roast dinners and cold “jacket potatoes” (we Yanks call them baked) or soggy schnitzel, a nice crispy chicken leg with a biscuit and honey and a coke with ice is a real treat. It just seems wrong that when you order a coke and specify that you would like ice, the waiter returns with a warm coke and a single, rapidly melting ice cube. So, yes, I think a KFC in Zurich seems wrong but I’m not going to complain about that coke at TGI Friday’s in Bristol when they set a proper icy coke in front of me with a slice of lemon. And, yes, of course, I appreciate the quaint pubs and the restaurants of Europe, but sometimes it’s just nice to have a moment on the Grand Canal to collect yourself and get over the fact that you would have saved five bucks at the pizza place had you ordered a bottle of wine instead of said coke that was warm without ice. No, I wouldn’t go to Pizza Hut in Rome and I really don’t think they should have them there, but it must not just be Americans looking that comfort in knowing what’s at an American chain restaurant. And I confess to having stopped by a Burger King in Oxford after maneuvering my way around a zillion international touring teenagers to get a nice icy coke that had no guarantee of a free refill, always bemoaning the fact that they didn’t offer root beer.

            I realize that American food is too packaged, too everywhere sometimes, but I also realize that there is great comfort in a nice biscuit with sausage gravy that you can’t really seem to find anywhere outside of North America, because who would eat gravy on their Oreos? (Biscuit in British English is that American hard dry cookie sort of thing.) And the comfort of knowing exactly what you are getting is what the American chain restaurant offers. I may be the first to grumble about the McDonald’s in Exeter’s city centre being a crowded mess, but I might also wait twenty minutes at lunch time to order my kids a Quarter Pounder with fries at that same crowded McDonald’s while wondering how such a place could ever be considered fast food.

            It’s no different here at home. When I don’t know what they serve at Mabel’s diner in Detroit and my other option is Burger King when I’ve been craving a grilled burger, the choice is obvious. I’ll try Mabel’s when I’m not tired, when I’m ready to experiment, when Burger King sounds too ordinary. But I’m so thankful for the American chain restaurant for its comfort and knowing what I will get.

148. Salt Water Taffy

            Summertime is the time of year when Americans go on vacation. This year is different because we need to shelter in place to stop the spread of the Corona virus so fewer people are taking those trips. Of course, we are Americans and it is built into our national character to bristle at someone (God forbid, the government!) telling us what to do, so people who haven’t seen the devastation of this virus—the people who don’t believe in science, the people who have to see it to believe it, the doubting Thomases, the people who think it’s the flu, the people who believe you are a liberal wuss if you wear a mask—seem to be going out and spreading the devastation of their disbelief to the masses as the numbers and death tolls increase. But, lest I digress too much, it is vacation time in America. One of the best parts of a vacation for me is indulging my sweet tooth and I don’t eat salt water taffy many other times than summer vacation.

            Since I won’t be taking any vacations this year aside from some daytrips and maybe an overnight camp out (where I am alone) I guess I’m just going to have to imagine walking a boardwalk in Seaside, or even Sherman Avenue in Coeur d’Alene, and stopping in a candy store where they make fudge, serve ice cream and pull salt water taffy. I love a nice chocolate taffy, soft and wrapped in wax paper. Fresh huckleberry or blueberry is also a luxurious escape from everything but heaven. People are milling about on the streets of that mountain town where the heat is dry and short lived of a summer afternoon. Sunglassed mothers are pushing chubby little babies in strollers while their bearded, tank topped husbands are walking beside them holding the hands of an older child gazing into the windows of a sweet shop. At this point my indulgence runs toward the soft taffy with just a little black spot in the center. Licorice is the flavor I can buy that will be mine. The kids won’t walk off with more than one of those before realizing it’s not for them. Or maybe a spicy cinnamon starburst center. How do they get those designs so perfectly centered in those little candies?

            I can see the machines stretching and pulling the taffy reminding me of winters as a child when family and friends would gather for a taffy pull. It makes you forget the sunglasses you’ve perched on top of your head and you enter another world. Maybe now you’re out in an Adirondack chair in a hayfield at the base of one of the Green or White Mountains of New England enjoying the breeze of an afternoon as you indulge in a little maple gem of a taffy you just purchased at some little shop with a quaint name like Sleepy Hollow or something like that. Their flavors in that sweet, chewy stickiness can take you anywhere in this country of ours without really needing to go any further than your back porch. Do you feel that relentless sun in the heaviness of humidity from a thunderstorm as you try to gain relief by putting your feet in the warm bathtub of the Gulf of Mexico? The only possible relief is that little Key Lime taffy to get away from the oppression of a Florida summer.

            You know, I think I can get to all those places I’m thinking about with a quick masked trip to the grocery store where I can find a nice bag of salt water taffy (probably from Salt Lake City) and I will be able to transport myself anywhere with just a quick taste of somewhere else. I really love a vacation in a staycation bag of salt water taffy. I’ll be saving some money this year…

147. Sharing Ideas and Information

            I am an educator who has been teaching students from the ages of eleven through adulthood for over 35 years. Of course, my profession is disseminating what I know to others but it’s also a process of learning a great deal from my students and other people. I love that and how we do it here in the US. No, I don’t really like the trained poodle hoop jumping that I have to do to get certificates or proof of training, but there is a little fun in learning shortcuts. And I love sharing ideas and learning how to do new things.

            This past year when the pandemic shut school down, I had to learn a great deal about teaching remotely. I’m 58 and have never taken any classes remotely except for a few video training courses that have more often than not seemed like time wasters—poodle hoops. As an English teacher who has always specialized in reading and reading instruction, I quickly learned that for my high school English courses I needed to be focusing on literature and writing because those are the key components of what students are expected to take away from those courses. The quickest way to get literature across to my students who might struggle with reading is to simplify how they read. So I lead them to audio books. Short cuts do not prevent you from learning, they just need to be recognized as short cuts and many of the incidentals—the emotional attachments—you would gain might be lost. Duh! How could someone who has taught for so many years not know that? I did know it, but crystalizing it to the exact skills lost through my teaching was not something I could have articulated so well before this era of remote learning. It’s another thing I’ve learned: how to articulate why face to face learning is so much better than remote learning. Nevertheless, I love that we have ways to communicate and share ideas during this time of physical distancing.

            I think that it is also true that we can learn remotely from the people of the past. Of course I think that! I teach literature. Our ancestors have so much to tell us about living. The American ideals began hundreds of years ago and they were expressly written for us to see and to emulate. The very handwriting of men and women from the past is still visible for us to see, just as are paintings and physical structures which we live in and conduct our business and gatherings. To read a journal or letter from hundreds of years ago in the very building in which it was written can carry you back to a particular time and that presence of humanity from such a long time ago is both inspiring and haunting. I love that.

            I love how ideas are exchanged and how we learn. The importance of communication and leaving record of how to do things, how people feel in certain spaces, how they have felt—all of that is so very inspiring to me. As I grow older I know that what I do now does have an impact on others. Yesterday I ran the last five miles of a fifteen-mile training run with one of my cross-country athletes who is training for and running a marathon for his senior project. I know he got the idea of doing that from me and running those last difficult miles with him is such a privilege because I know he will accomplish it. I know how he feels. Sharing that in a way that can’t be fully articulated is an honor and a joy that I feel privileged to do. How we share our ideas and our living with one another is very important. It is how we love one another.