From Insects to Prohibition

I’ve had a fly in the house for at least two weeks and no matter how many times I’ve tried to smack him, he gets away. Finally, I googled how long house flies live and learned it’s 28 days. At least I won’t have to put up with him much longer. I don’t like killing things but there are two more critters on my hit list if they don’t find their way out from between my window pane and screen soon. One is a daddy longlegs and the other is an inch long beetle. They are in my view whenever I’m at the computer and they’re rarely more than five inches apart. They’re like the neighbor you don’t know but you’d notice if he changed his routine, a stranger that makes you feel less alone because you can see him across the street doing similar things that you’re doing on your side of the street. Ohmygod, am I so bored that I’m making up back stories for insects trapped by my screen? I wasn’t sure if they’re buddies or if one was stalking the other for dinner. I got my answer yesterday when the beetle was half hidden and the spider walked over top of the beetle and they both lived to tell their friends about it. But the drama of watching that happen was a nail biter.

I miss seeing birds outside my window. I quit feeding them last spring and won’t start in again this winter because the seeds falling on the ground were attracting mice in the basement. Knock on wood, I’ve seen no signs of them moving in this year. I’ll put out my heated bird bath soon, though,  with hopes that I’ll wake up some morning to see a pair of mourning doves sitting in the water like they’ve done every winter since I’ve lived here. 

I’m sitting here looking at a tin sign on my kitchen countertop that says, “Keep and enforce Prohibition.” I don’t have a lot of prohibition memorabilia to sell on e-Bay---a few pledge cards not to drink, a box of pinbacks that proclaim things like: My vote goes wet, Vote Dry Vote Yes, No Saloon Vote No, California Dry, Ohio Dry and I’m Against Prohibition. I have always loved our prohibition collection that also includes a full bottle of Temperance Beer which is actually a ginger drink, non-alcoholic from the turn-of-the-century. That whole era of our history is fascinating which is the reason why people collect Prohibition stuff. The federal law against making, selling or transporting liquid only lasted from 1920 to 1933 but the campaign to get that law passed in the first place started way back in the 1800s with groups like the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and other zealous religious groups. As far back as 1851 they actually managed to turn Maine dry for a few years. So many interesting things happened during and/or because of Prohibition---the speakeasies and underground tunnels connecting them, the Age of Jazz and Al Capone, the beginning of the Great Depression to name a few. 

A lot of the same women who fought for Womans Suffrage (our right to vote) were also involved in the temperance union. Like Susan B. Anthony. I stayed in the very room she stayed in at a Bed & Breakfast in my favorite town on Lake Michigan. How's that for my meager claim to fame? She led a group of women up Main Street who were determined to close down the bars (and did for a day). It was an impromptu march. She was staying at the inn because she was giving a suffrage speech the following day in the town where I live. I often wonder what it would be like to be my age and have a life-time of dedication under my belt to a passion project like she had. Was she sad that by the time she died, women still hadn’t achieved her goal? She came close, she died in 1906 and the 19^th amendment giving women the right to vote was added to our constitution in 1918. But did she see it coming that soon, or did she feel she'd wasted her life on an impossible dream? History always tells a story that the present can’t possibly do.

I guess we all can’t be leaders in a cause that’s near and dear to our hearts. Some of us have to be the foot soldiers, the water boys, the ones who keep the home fires burning. And some of us have to be the storytellers and documentarians who write the folk songs and tell the stories to remind us all to respect the accomplishments of past generations. And the value of remembering the past is to give us the patience and strength we need to continue to fight today for what is right in our moment on the timeline of history like environmental protections or sensible gun control or whatever else is calling your name today.

Okay, for all the non-collectors who might still be reading this, I hope this post gives you some understanding of why a framed, I-will-abstain-from-the-use-of-all-intoxicating-liquors pledge card sat so long on my bookcase. It’s more than a piece of cardstock, it’s a storyteller’s queue card. All collectibles are story queues whether in homes or museums, they are objects that spark conversations and, hopefully, an interest in learning about the past and the people who lived there. ©

Up Date: I wrote this over a week ago and had it in my scheduler. Since then the spider and the beetle disappeared when it snowed. Don't know where they went or if they'll be back. It's one of life's little mysteries the occupies a bored mine.

August is Coming and I've Got Places to Go!

I need a name for the community I’m moving to. I’m thinking of calling it The Lake Apartments. Its actual name is _____ on _____ Lake which obviously I'm not sharing with the blog community because that’s just the way I roll here in cyber space. I share a LOT but not my name, rank and serial number so to speak. Nothing that would help the trolls track me down. Anyway, the Lake Apartments people have get-togethers for those of us who signed up early. They call us---the first 45---the Admirals Club but that sounds so pretentious, I don’t like using it. It makes us sound like we’re a bunch clueless yachting types like Thurston and 'Lovey' Howell on Gillgan’s Island. 

Yesterday I got my second Admirals Club invitation in the mail…. a cocktail party in August before a classic car show that is taking place on the grounds around the lake. Then later in August they’re having a fashion show. I haven’t been to a fashion show since the ‘70s but I’ll play the game---can’t wait to see if it will be age appropriate clothing. No cut-to-the-crotch play suits for me! I’d be over the moon if it turned out to be a trunk show of muumuus and bathrobes, and sweatsuits for more formal attire. They’re also putting an email list together for those of us who want to stay in contact in between these planned events. I’m guessing they’re doing all these things to keep us in the basket labeled “Still Enthusiastic.” With so long to wait for them to break ground on building the place it would be easy to get impatient and start asking for our sizeable deposits back to go elsewhere. So far, my enthusiasm isn’t waning. But I wish I could fast-forward and get past the downsizing, get past selling my house, get past the physical move and just be free to start anew. 

Speaking of downsizing---yes, I know, that’s all talk about lately---I found three manuscripts in a box of creative writing box and I made the mistake of reading the first chapter of one of them, however I stayed strong after that and I ripped the rest of my book up. But bless my self-indulgent heart, I’ve decided to copy the first page into my blog to preserve the story-line somewhere other than inside my flaky head. It started like this:

“Katherine Abbott sat in the back row of the packed auditorium fidgeting with the braided trim on her wool traveling suit. Lord, there would be hell to pay if her father finds out she’s in a town fifty miles short of where she was supposed to get off the train, let alone at a Woman Suffrage meeting, of all places! He’d be so angry he’d pop the buttons off his waist coat ranting and raving about how a woman's brain is too small to be burdened with the task of entering the political arena. He's just like the anti-suffrage people handing out tracts outside the auditorium, she thought, and the longer she sat there the more she regretted the split-second decision that brought her to the meeting.

“With a round of applause from the few gentlemen in the crowd, a sea of white handkerchiefs waved in the air as the black-clad speaker crossed the platform to take her place behind the podium. It was a silent tribute to the illustrious Susan B. Anthony from progressive women who all across the across the country have come to believe that hankie waving is a far more lady-like greeting than loud hand clapping. (Inserting a 2019 edit here to cut out a bunch of bull crap about Katherine’s frazzled nerves and naiveté, both of which were annoying me.)

“Leaning against the side wall of the auditorium, Thomas Whitmere’s face split into a wide, devilish grin. His hands were tucked in the pockets of his finely tailored frock coat and his long, sinewy legs were crossed at the ankles. He’d been watching the prim little morsel sitting in the back row for the better part of an hour. When he’d first noticed her she was shut up tighter than a jar of jam sitting on a cellar shelf. Now she was perched on the edge of her seat completely captivated by the words coming from the platform. ‘Miss Anthony,’ he shouted in a tone his friends would recognize as teasing. ‘I’ve heard it said that if a woman had a ballot she’d sell it for a bonnet. Is that true?’

“’Perhaps,’ the speaker shot back. ‘As my good friend, Anna Shaw, so aptly once put it, a new bonnet is a fine thing, and most women hanker after new bonnets. But a good bonnet costs more than a glass of whiskey and that, sir, is the market price of male votes nowadays.’”

Well, that’s enough of that. Fast forward to the end of my manuscript and be assured that the guy gets the girl and they lived happily ever after, but all the details in between are headed to the paper recycling center. Mostly what I got out of reading that first chapter were good memories of how fascinated I was by researching the Suffrage Movement and that explains why my library is still filled with women’s history books some forty years later. My heroine was not atypical of historical romances back then but I doubt I could write a silly, afraid-of-her-own-shadow type woman today. Not that I’d want to try my hand at writing fiction again. I’m perfectly happy being a blogger who blogs slice-of-life Seinfeld style who is also looking forward to August. But be forwarded, I did set aside some of the poetry I wrote back before menopause and a few of them might make it into my blog if my 'slices of life' get too thin.  ©

Airports and Suffragettes

What a busy week I’ve had! It included a Thanksgiving luncheon at the senior hall where the food was great and it was the only opportunity I’ll have, this year, for a traditional holiday meal. The next day was a Red Hat Society tea and I was supposed to go to their craft show crawl, today, but I was beat, so I canceled. Thursday I had three major things going on that kept me running from morning to night. First was an airport tour in the morning followed by a lecture on Kennedy conspiracy theories in the afternoon and in the evening a Write and Share MeetUp. I didn’t actually sign up for a crazy day like that. The airport tour and the MeetUp were both moved around the calendar after I signed up and it was either go along with the changes or not go at all.

The airport tour was awesome. The airport covers 3,000 acres and the tour started out with us traveling the entire distance around it, doing a fence check of sorts. We found a flock of wild turkeys trying desperately to find their way back out of the airport. They probably heard our tour guide talking about the wild animal wrangler. Then we toured the fire station on the grounds where we learned the extensive differences between regular firehouses and equipment and those at airports. After leaving that building we went to another, the winter maintenance building where they keep twenty some machines for pushing, sweeping and blowing snow. Most of them are twenty feet wide and not allowed on public streets. Their newest blower cost one million dollars and it’s the largest model available in the world. Ever since my husband saw the 1970 movie, Airport, he was fascinated by airport snow removal so on the tour I soaked up every bit of information I could in his honor, asking all the stuff I thought he would have wanted to know including the fact that their giant sand pile is heated. After leaving there we drove around the other outbuildings at the airport, the private plane hangars and FedEx was the most impressive complex. It was mind boggling, actually, to see all the containers filled with packages ready to get shipped. 

Friday was my Movie and Lunch Club. There were 14 of us for lunch but afterwards we broke into two groups. Eleven went to see Secret in their Eyes and I was one of three who went to see Suffragette, a movie based on real events in England in 1911 to 1913. Here’s the synopsis as it appears on the movie’s official website: “A drama that tracks the story of the foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State. These women were not primarily from the genteel educated classes, they were working women who had seen peaceful protest achieve nothing. Radicalized and turning to violence as the only route to change, they were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality - their jobs, their homes, their children and their lives. Maud was one such foot soldier. The story of her fight for dignity is as gripping and visceral as any thriller, it is also heart-breaking and inspirational.”  

Maud worked in a laundry under deplorable conditions that included low pay and sexual assaults and she gets caught up in the Vote for Women Movement and the story ends with her friend throwing herself under the king’s horse on Derby day. The friend, Emily Welding Davison was a real-life suffragette whose death at the Derby earned her a place in women’s history. It also earned her a funeral procession attended by thousands and the movie showed actual newsreel footage of the event. Another famous real-life suffragette was Emmeline Pankhurst who was played by Meryl Streep in a two minute on screen scene.

I went into the movie expecting to like it and to be reminded of the price that the suffragettes paid for the freedoms we enjoy today and I wasn’t disappointed. One review I read, however, took the screenplay to task for telling the story from the viewpoint of Maud instead of from the viewpoint of the well-known women in the historical events the movie covered---the beatings, bombings, imprisonments, hunger strikes, and forced feedings. etc. I didn’t have a problem with that. It wasn't a documentary and if it had been, less people would go to see it. If I have a criticism to share it was the fact that I wasn’t crazy about the sepia tone and extreme close-ups used in much of the film. It was hard on my eyes. (Maybe we just sat too close to the screen?) I will say this too: It’s the only movie I’ve ever gone to where total strangers were talking with one another as we walked out and the general consensus was that film made us appreciate how far we’ve come as women over the past 100 years....and yet we still don't have full equality. If I had granddaughters, I'd take them to see this movie. ©

 This is an great video for anyone who might want to know about the making of this movie and the research..

A Mouse in the House

`Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not ever a mouse. Nope, I caught the little sucker and I didn’t even need to rent that flame thrower I was vowing to do. It’s been decades since I’ve had a mouse in the house and when I went to the store to buy me some traps I could only marvel at the new invention d-CON had come up with. Bait it from the bottom, turn the dial and in theory the mouse goes in the side door, it slams shut behind him and you never have to see the little squatter again.

A few hours after setting it, I heard a clicking sound come from the trap. Sure enough the red mark had moved indicating that a mouse was shut inside. But worry wart that I am I got to wondering if maybe a vibration could have caused the trap to spring and it was mouseless inside. I was wishing there’d been a window where I could see the little varmint mouthing the words, “Help me!” So I got out my postal scale and weighed a trap I hadn’t set yet, then I weighed the other. Sure enough it registered just under an ounce difference. But wait! That was on the heavy side for a mouse according to the internet. Oh, my God, I’d probably killed an expectant mother and broke up a family just before the holidays! In case I was right, I set the second trap where the first one had been thinking if there a daddy widower mouse was wandering around I’d see to it that they got buried together in the same batch of trash. It’s the least I could do.

When I was growing up my folks had a summer cottage and it wasn’t unusual to find mice when we cleaning it out in the spring. My first memory of seeing a mother mouse with a litter of nursing babies was a teachable moment for my mom. The nest we’d found was in a dresser drawer and the panic-stricken mother mouse was so devoted to her family that she didn’t even try to run away when she saw three pairs of eyes starring down at her. My mother, though, didn’t have the heart to kill them. No, she told us kids to take that drawer out to the woods and find a safe place to transfer that nest. “All baby creatures deserve a chance to grow up,” she said. Over the years there were other nests with babies that got transferred to the woods and there were many more adult mice who died by d-CON. But of all the memories of have of my mother, one of my favorites is of her chasing mice around with her trusty, mouse killing broom.

When Don and I first met he had a cracker box of a house that was so “porous” there were tons of places mice could walk right in and hang up their Home-Sweet-Home signs. He was brought up on a farm and barn mice, to him, were no big deal. I’d tell him, “Don, you need to get some d-CON. You’ve got mice in your house” and he’d say, “They don’t eat much.” This went on for a few weeks until one day when he was lying on the floor reading the newspaper and he finally decided it was time to declare war on the mice. Two of them chasing each other had run right up his pant leg! His cat, seeing them go up was determined they weren’t coming back out the same way they’d gone in. It was off to the hardware store within minutes of stripping off his pants and Don set up a trap line that would have made Grizzly Adams proud.

Another memory my mouse-in-the-house triggered is one of an old bachelor Don knew from work. He lived on a farm that he’d inherited from his folks and he was a postcard collector. At the time I was trying to build a set of woman’s suffrage cards and had been at it for several years. I had just one card left to complete the series and Don’s work friend claimed to have several of them. He wouldn’t sell one, he said, but he’d let us come look at his 1909 Dunston Wellers.

This guy turned out to be a hoarder---but a hoarder with a purpose to his madness. Every room in that old Victorian farm house was filled with filing cabinet after filing cabinet full of postcards. In many places you had to turn sideways to pass through but sure enough, he had a whole drawer full of the exact, elusive card  I needed and lusted after. At the time they were valued at upwards of $100.00, but even the offer of $200.00 wouldn’t get that guy to sell us one. After the haggling ended unsuccessfully he invited us into the kitchen for coffee. Oh, crap! And I’m not cursing; it’s a statement about what we saw. There was mouse droppings every where and it was thick from lord knows how many months/years of build up. Mice were running back and forth on the counter top and when the guy saw me watching the mice he said, “Oh, don’t mind them,” and he pointed to a white sheet of 8” x 10” paper, adding, “as long as they leave that place for me to eat on, they can have the rest.”

I woke up this morning with a start. I’d been dreaming about a mouse that had moved a baby Jesus out of a manager in nativity set and was giving birth in it with a bunch of plastic animals watching. The first thing I did when I was fully awake was check the second trap that I’d set last night and I was ever so grateful to find it empty. ©