We got up early to drive to Vermont to one of our favorite breakfast places, and forgot that it was Mother’s Day, the restaurant parking lot was jammed, so we turned back to New York State and on the way past the Wayside General Store, one of the great surviving country stores in Vermont (They kept Wal-Mart out of most of the state, but couldn’t stop the onslaught of Dollar Generals.)
We heard about the famous Round Table there, a wide round table where locals could sip their coffee and read the paper when there were papers. The store was empty, everybody was out taking their mothers to breakfast and brunch. We had a great talk with Nancy, ordered two of their delicious and super-caloric breakfast sandwiches, and some fruit and coffee.
Nancy told us about her family, the history of the beautiful old desk where she kept track of the store, and where her husband did his business before he die. The store has been in Arlington for half a century and was a portrait subject of Normal Rockwell.
it was an unexpected change of plans, but a sweet one, we loved talking to Nancy and exploring the winding and much loved store, which sold deli sandwiches, groceries, fresh baked muffins, and even ammo. This is the real deal, the authentic and storied Vermont general store, a place of community and history.
We set out to do one thing discovered another. We’ve driven past the Wayside a hundred times but never quite realized what we were missing. We will be back at the roundtable.
I love the twists and turns of life, it is never possible to know where they might take me.
Happy Birthday, Mother Earth: Three of My Neighbors
I believe when we become disconnected from animals, and the natural world, we are broken. We we savage our own home, our own environments, we are doing harm that can never be undone. Today, I remember Mother Earth, she is the mother to all of us, and she is bleeding and calling out to us to honor her.
“As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to make the earth a beautiful garden for the human family. When we destroy our forests, ravage our soil and pollute our seas, we betray that noble calling.” – Pope Francis, January 2015.
Popel Francis also warned us that nature never forgives. “If you give her a slap, she will give you one, ” he said in a speech.
We see her slapping bak all of the time, it is her way of whispering to us, “pay attention. Keep your promises to me.”
A few days ago, Ali and I had our regular “office” meeting to plan the next week’s work with the soccer team, and the refugees and immigrants who live in upstate New York.
We turn some heads when the two of us – a Muslim and a Jew – sit at one of the table’s at Stewart’s Convenience story, surrounded by truckers and farmers and hunters. We come in, order some food, and set up shop and start laughing, shouting and arguing.
They are beginning to accept us now.
I told Ali to smile and the other men at the tables joined in, hooting at my camera, telling jokes and making faces to get Ali to laugh. I think we have been accepted there, the coffee is very good, and I favor the tuna on wheat bread sandwich. Ali has some coffee, he takes out his I phone – he is on it more than a teenager, and I take out my phone, and then my notebook, which I use to keeping track of donations, expenditures and the balance in the Gus fund, where all donations are collected and recorded.
We open the calculators in our Iphones so we can figure out the money and keep an eye on how much is left. We catch up our lives, and talk about our problems and worries. Then we get down to business.
I tel Ali how much money we have to spend – as of this meeting, it was $2,600.
Then we figure out how we can help and at what cost.
Since we both want to help everybody all the time, we take turns doing the good-guy bad-guy. We keep each other in check, and I have become skilled at saving enough so we don’t drop too low.
So far, it’s working beautifully. We had four elements to discuss at this meeting – the soccer team, help for Saad in his new apartment, urgent help needed for a Sudanese woman with two children whose husband was injured and is paralyzed from the neck down. Because she was short $75 in her rent for two months, she was locked out of her apartment with all of her belongings still inside and is now living in a women’s shelter.
We are going to see her on Wednesday. She fled the genocide in the Sudan and lived in a refugee camp before coming to the U.S. She is only asking for $225 pay up what she owes and for the shortfall for another month. She is not seeking any other help, but this money will be the difference between living in a public shelter and going back to her home with her two children. I’ll share my visit with her.
First item. Ali said he would like to take the soccer team to see the new hit movie: Avengers infinity Wars (they saw Infinity 1)I pay for this sort of thing with my own money, since I did not ask the AOG to fund it and I don’t spend donation money that I haven’t discussed on the blog.
I believe these cultural events are critical for the soccer kids, everyone in school sees these movies and talks about them, and the movies are about the only pure recreation they can afford outside of soccer. Popular culture is a seminal element in the lives of young Americans, if these kids are completely disconnected from it, their assimilation will be much harder.
Ali always blinks at spending my own money, but it’s important that I contribute also. Movies in America are not cheap, especially with 18 kids who love soda and popcorn. We figure out ways to cut the cost – discount coupons, big tubs of popcorn, I usually call the movie theater managers and can get a discount. I write a check for $265. Sometimes we can, sometimes we cant.
Second item. We discuss the need for new soccer team uniforms, it is necessary to change the names on the uniforms for next year, since I don’t really want “Bedlam Farm” on them, but more importantly, RISSE can’t sponsor the soccer team at this point, and it’s not appropriate to have their name on the shirts. Their new name is the “Albany Warriors.”
Wicked Smart Apparel in Watervliet is working with us for affordable new uniforms, they are very supportive of the soccer team and I am confident of a very fair price, Ali and I are going to see Todd Van Epps Wednesday and we’ll figure out what it costs, and if it’s affordable, we’ll order them for the Fall.
Together, Ali and I have begun to establish a network of “angels” as we call them, who support the soccer team and help us with discounts.
Third Item. Saad, the recently homeless Iraq refugee who could not find a place to live, but now has an apartment.
We paid the deposit for his apartment last week and he got in.
We have found a deal with a local cellphone company, if Saad trades in a broken and unusable cell phone he was given but doesn’t work, then for $200 he will get a new Iphone 6 Plus which Ali and me and several people around him can show him how to use it. Thanks to a generous spirit named Kathleen, we will have enough money to pay the month phone fees for one year in advance.
We will also bring some groceries.
So we will be giving Saad a check this week for $285.
I am also bringing a new 32 inch Samsung TV which I bought, a new radio donated by someone from the Army Of Good, two watercolors donated by Vermont Artist Rachel Barlow and four framed prints of classic paintings by Susan Popper. I’m also bringing a linen map of Arabia from Maria and an Arabic-America dictionary.
Ali told me about four refugee children who have been in the public schools in Albany for two years and have never been able to go on a class trip because their parents or parent don’t have the money. This is both painful and embarrassing for them. The school is taking a day-long trip to New Jersey to visit a zoo and theme park there, and once again, they don’t have the money for a fee, in this case $60 each. I gave Ali a check for $240 so the three boys and one young girl can go on the trip. I think this is a way we can support these kids discreetly on a regular basis.
The fees for these trips are usually small.
We also talked about the tutoring program, now scheduled to begin on May 23 at a local library in Albany. Our new tutor, Suzanne has found a library in Albany that will give us a conference room any weekday afternoon for as long as we need it. Suzanne will meet and evaluate each of the six children who have been singled out by parents and teachers as needing special help with English language speaking and writing.
When we all meet together (me, Ali, Suzanne and the kids), we’ll figure out where to go from there.
Suzanne a doctor and former Army surgeon, she has turned to tutoring work, and has worked extensively with refugees and immigrants as an ESL (English as second language) tutor, and we will see how long the program will take to work – how many kids at once – and for how long, and to what specific end.. We have enough money to pay her for at least six months, thanks to the Army Of Good.
We don’t have a cost yet for that.
So all told, I wrote approximately $800 while drinking coffee in our “office.” And I’m excited about the work coming up this week. I think Ali and I are putting things together, figuring out who to help and for how long. I told him we are stewards not only of the children, but of the many good people trusting us with their money.
We will honor that responsibility. I am very fond of out “office” meetings, it’s midway between Ali’s house and mine. We are both committed to this work and to doing work alive, and I like the idea of a weekly discussion of our plans and expenditures. I want you all to know everything that I know.
Mother’s Day has a lot of jumbled meaning for me and for many others. I loved my mother, but could not bear to be near her, she was always dangerous and hurtful to me and my sister. She was desperately needy for love, and sought it in all of the wrong places, and all of the wrong ways.
I also admire her for fighting the many losing battles she fought to live her very creative life despite the many obstacles thrown in her path at every stage of life by uncaring and domineering men. I am sorry she did not get to live in this time, where there is so much support for women and powerful new tools for them to use in building their lives, getting help, and making their own decisions.
None of those were available to her, which was a tragedy to see.
I think I have come to understand my mother better in the years since her lonely death in ways that I was not able to see or understand in her lifetime. But I am not able yet to forgive her. I accept that this is the reality of me and her, sometimes you just have to let go.
I spent many years recovering from her love and anger, and I hope her powerful spirit is at rest. I will always be grateful to her for supporting my creativity and urging me to follow my bliss and fight for my life.
This morning, I am thinking of a very different kind of mother, Hannah, Gus’s Boston Terrier mom who, we believe, may now be pregnant, hopefully carrying our next puppy. We’re not sure yet, but it looks good.
So I want to wish Hannah a Happy Mother’s Day and also thank Robin Gibbons, our breeder, and a person of great decency, warmth and courage.
Robin’s husband died several years ago, and Robin went to work as a bartender at our local American Legion. Then she and her son Brian decided to breed the Boston Terriers they love so much.
Maria and I were both struck by her honesty, warmth and diligence. She didn’t breed for the money, she did it for the experience of Hannah being a mother, which she thought this sweet little dog would love. Every morning, she takes her two Boston Terriers for their “ride” around town in her car.
Hannah did love being a mother, and Robin was careful to choose a gentle sire, she didn’t want Hannah to be treated roughly.
it went smoothly and as planned until Gus got sick and died, and that was as or more painful to Robin as it was for us. She thought she could never breed again.
She agonized about breeding again, but after a lot of soul-searching and research and encouragement from us and others, she bravely choose to breed again.
It was a hard decision, and I admire Robin for making it. She is full of love. We are, of course, grateful to her and have come to value her as a friend. Hannah will, I am sure, love being a mother again.
I have to think of Maria also, who did not choose to be a mother and does not care to be called a mother. But I do think of her on this day, mostly because she is the kind of person every mother ought to be in my mind – loving, nurturing, generous and fiercely independent and supportive.
Maria has always chosen her own path, not the path her family or men or others chose for her. I never think of her as a mother or as a mother figure to me, she is my lover and partner. But I have so benefited from the love and joy she has given me, I wish every child could experience it. A lot of people and many animals receive her boundless love.
Our world would be such a wonderful place.
So to the wonderful women in my life, mothers and lovers and nurturers on this day, those in the present and those in the past, I love you and give thanks for you. Love is the answer.
