Venus & Professor Todd

I suspect if you are reading this blog, you are aware that I have been in the process of writing a book about Hog Island in Muscongus Bay, Maine, for some time now.  

Currently, the island -- just about an hour’s drive north of Portland -- is home to the Audubon Camp in Maine.  (The camp’s name has gone through a series of changes over the years, starting as the Audubon Nature Camp for Adult Leaders when it opened in 1936, through the Audubon Ecology Camp in Maine when I got there in 1981, to its current iteration.)  

The primary focus for my book project is Mabel Loomis Todd, the first editor of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, who in 1908, started the process of buying tracts of Hog Island to save its mature stands of spruce from being harvested for making wooden boxes.  

Theodore Roosevelt, who was the US President at the time, was promoting the newly-minted idea of conservation on a nationwide scale.  America must not waste her resources.  Use raw materials wisely.  Did Mrs. Todd save Hog Island’s primary growth because of Teddy Roosevelt?  As an educated woman and lover of Nature, she was most certainly aware of such developments.  I look forward to making some of those connections clear in my book.

Following her purchase of about three-quarters of the 330 acre island, the family created a summer camp on Hog where they spent many warm seasons when they weren’t traveling to other destinations.  It was there, in fact, in the fall of 1932, where a 75 year-old Mrs. Todd suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died.  

For all of the years I’ve told the island’s story and through all of the articles written about the place, Mrs. Todd and her daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, get top billing.  Mabel may have saved the place from cutting, but it was Mrs. Bingham who sought out the Audubon Society and witnessed the formation of the Camp for Adult Leaders there.  Except for a few summers ever since, the camp has been teaching folks about birding, the sea, and the interactions of ecology.  Audubon will be at it again summer 2012.  [see:  Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine]

Today, however, I would like to turn attention away from the girls and onto Mrs. Todd’s husband, David Peck Todd.  Mr. Todd hardly gets a mention in island history, but it is clear when looking at the family’s camp on the west side of the island that there was a lot of testosterone expended to make the place as comfortable as it was.  We know David was responsible for ordering roofing & nails, lumber, and keeping the boats sea-worthy, because of assorted notes and receipts preserved in the family archive at Yale.  

And on this very day --  5 June 2012 -- David Peck Todd deserves a special mention in astronomical history. 

As you have most likely heard, a transit of Venus across the face of the sun takes place this evening, visible from across the United States, cloud cover permitting.  This event is special because it happens so rarely.  

As it turns out, Venus’s orbit around the sun is not on line with ours.  It’s orbit is tipped about 4 degrees different from Earth’s, so as a result, eyes on our planet can’t see Venus pass between Earth and the sun except for every hundred years or so.  If you miss seeing the event tonight, you won’t see it again on this planet until 2117.  

Last time the transit of Venus occurred, photography was barely 60 years old.  David Todd was working at the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC at the time and had a stellar track record observing eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.  His boss, renowned astronomer Simon Newcomb, liked David’s work and put him in charge of photographing the transit of Venus to take place on 6 December 1882. 

David Todd was a technical wonk.  He loved creating stuff.  He loved playing organ, too, and whet his mechanical chops on keeping those instruments up and running.  By late fall 1882, David was developing a thing for photography, as well.  [As an aside, transits of Venus come in pairs when they occur, separated by 8 years.  When the 1874 transit came along, David took copious notes and made sketches.  By 1882, he was ready to try his hand at photographing the event.] 

Story goes that David Peck Todd was the first person in astronomical history to succeed in photographing Venus’s transit across Sol from Earth’s perspective.  He traveled west to Mount Hamilton in California to accomplish his feat, where a solar photographic telescope was prepared for his use.  In all, Professor Todd took 147 “superb” exposures on glass negatives.  But as good as his work was, astronomy had turned to other techniques for determining the size of the solar system.  His transit negatives were stored in a mountain vault beneath the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton and remained largely unknown for over a century.  [For a piece on the animation of David Todd’s transit photos, see the July 2012 issue of Sky & Telescope:  David Todd's photos of the transit of Venus]

Hog Island is about some great stuff.  I feel blessed to have found it in my life.  Along with birds and sea critters and island habitats, though, it was the first place I ever saw moons at Jupiter -- one clear night through somebody’s birding scope.  Astronomy has a story to be told on Hog Island, too, right along with Audubon, Mabel Todd, and Emily Dickinson.

Today’s Elder Idea:  Earth, air, and water are always with us.  We touch them, handle them, ascertain their properties, and experiment upon their relations.  Plainly, in their study, laboratory courses are possible.  So, too, is a laboratory course in astronomy, without actually journeying to the heavenly bodies; for light comes from them in decipherable messages, and geometric truth provides the interpretation.  

David Peck Todd

from A New Astronomy (1897)

Venus triptych by David Peck Todd (1882).

Some Dayton history

So much has been going on lately, including some family travel south, that I have (once again) been remiss in writing much here at The Back Porch.  My apologies.  And if I have it figured right, this summer looks to be pretty distracting, too.  So it is with a full life, I suppose.  Thanks for stopping by.  

***

Friday, 1 June, is an interesting day in Dayton history.  

Following the city’s slow embrace of the Wright brothers’ accomplishments in flight, the local community staged a huge area-wide celebration in mid-June 1909.  During the centennial of flight festivities in 2003, the 1909 parade and celebration feting Orville and Wilbur was reproduced regularly at Dayton History’s Carillon Park.  Special angel-clad monuments were recreated to duplicate the ones set up on Main Street, downtown, the century prior.  From all accounts, 1909 Daytonians were mighty excited to celebrate their then world-renowned native sons. 

But just three years following that celebration, the Dayton community faced a painful reality:  Wilbur Wright, age 42, had succumbed to deadly typhoid fever.  It was on 1 June 1912 that Dayton came out to help put Wilbur to rest in the family burial plot in Woodland Cemetery.  Story has it that Dayton ground to a halt for part of that day.  Industry assembly lines stopped, telephone switchboards went unswitched, and twenty-five thousand locals lined the streets leading from First Presbyterian Church downtown to Woodland Cemetery.  Such a contrast, indeed, between this and the huge celebration held just three years prior.  

So on this 1 June, the centennial of Wilbur’s interment, Dayton gathered once again to celebrate her fallen native son.  Special guest for this year’s event was Ohio-born hero and flight/space icon, Neil Armstrong.  

Maybe a couple hundred people made it to Woodland yesterday for the commemoration.  Two fly-bys were scheduled, but due to rainy conditions and a low ceiling, neither the Wright B Flyer nor the WACO bi-planes (flying in missing-man formation) risked the trip.  Still, being there with Mr. Armstrong was powerful stuff. 

Unfortunately, the sound system set-up by the cemetery folk failed to amplify voices well enough.  Some speakers, too, including Mr. Armstrong, didn’t understand that their voices weren’t being heard.  By the time we could hear something of Mr. Armstrong’s remarks, he was into his second paragraph.  From what I felt at the time, his words sounded pretty poetic to me.  Wish I had a copy of what he said to share with you here today. 

Along with Neil Armstrong, Stephen Wright and his sister, Amanda, addressed those gathered.  They are grand-nephew and grand-niece of the unmarried, childless brothers.  Also speaking was a representative of United Theological Seminary, the Dayton establishment first headed by the Wright’s father, Bishop Milton Wright.  Thirty minutes into the commemoration, at 3:30, all stopped for a moment of silence.  Though we could not hear any from the cemetery, church bells around Dayton pealed in memory of the loss of Wilbur a century ago.

I’ve been to the Wright’s Woodland Cemetery plot lots of times, taking any number of visitors with me.  Yesterday I was glad to have son-in-law Bill Bryant, his son Alex, and my other grandboy, Noah, with me.  We shivered a bit and the boys were disappointed the flyovers were cancelled, but all of us were struck by the dignity of the event and the significance of how Wilbur and his brother changed the world forever.  We felt ourselves proud native sons of Dayton, too. 

It was first time the boys have seen Neil Armstrong in person.  Seeing the first man to set foot on the moon standing over the place where one of the guys who invented flight was buried was enough for this grandpa to think the day had gone just right. 

Today’s Elder Idea:  ‘A short life, full of consequence.  An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadfastly, he lived and died.’ 

Bishop Milton Wright

written in his diary the day of Wilbur’s death

Spring rain

As I near blog entry #150 here at The Back Porch, I am aware that some of the topics I elect to tackle have close connections with other entries written at earlier times.  My intent is not to repeat the same message, but just the same, re-treating an idea that has stuck with me must say something about what I hold valuable.  

Such surely is the case with spring.  

I mean, how can a writer from the Midwest not be impacted by the amazing greens produced this time of year in our ‘blessed to be rainy’ climate?  I have a couple of sibs who travel South every fall to enjoy winter activities in Florida.  Cindy Lou and I have been down to see their lovely winter places, and we both admit, shirtsleeves in January is a fine situation to deal with.  

Still, hanging out up here -- up North -- for winter allows the change of seasons to really get inside a person’s head.  I truly love fall and winter.  Hands down, both are favorite seasons for me.  But by the time leaves fall and autumnal color turns to crunchy brown, we who stay are in for many indoor winter hours that have a tendency to get inside our bones.  No back porch sitting or garden tending. Birds are still pretty good, though. 

It’s always exciting, for me, to see the first flowers of the season blooming.  Crocus, hyacinth, daffodil, spring beauties, dutchman’s breetches -- all first of season blossoms -- are colorful indicators that we’ve made it, that winter has passed. 

But that’s just March and April.  By the time May comes around, hold on to your seats.  I’m talking green coming out of the natural woodwork.  Ferns pop up and unfurl; day lilies erupt into full size, waiting to extend flowers later;  dogwood and forsythia pass blooming and get on with the task of new hard growth; hostas come back from their winter retreat and tower over the leaves left on the beds as water-retaining mulch.  

Such continues to amaze every year. 

The pictures accompanying this image were taken just this morning at our place, which some loyal readers know we like to call Wild Grace, following an entire night of light rain.  And, of course, we slept with the windows open so we could hear the continuing patter of raindrops on the trees just outside our bedroom window.  

Wild grace, indeed.  Wild spring!

Today’s Elder Idea:  Spring also means tending and renewing house plants.  Here’s a poem by Lynne Sharon Schwartz from a recent Writer’s Almanac.   

Repotting

The healthy plant outgrows its pot

the way a healthy child outgrows its clothes. 

Don’t let it suffer constriction.  Spread the Sports 

or Business section of the New York Times 

on the dining room table.  Find a clay pot 

big enough for fresh growth.  In the bottom 

place pebbles and shards from a broken pot for drainage. 

Add handfuls of moist black potting soil, 

digging your hands deep in the bag, rooting 

so the soil gets under your fingernails. 

Using a small spade or butter knife, 

ease the plant out of its old pot with extreme 

care so as not to disturb its wiry roots. 

The plant is naked, suspended from your hand 

like a newborn, roots and clinging soil

exposed.  Treat it gently.  Settle it 

into the center of the new pot, adding soil 

on the sides for support -- who isn’t shaky, 

moving into a new home? 

Pack more soil around the plant, 

tapping it down till you almost reach the rim. 

Flounce the leaves as you would a skirt.  Then water. 

Place the pot back on the shelf in the sunlight. 

Gather the Sports section around the spilled soil

and discard.  Watch your plant flourish. 

You have done a good and necessary deed. 

‘Repotting’ by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

from See You in the Dark.  Curbstone Books, 2012. 

Used here without Ms. Schwartz’s permission.  I hope she doesn’t mind.  

Foreclosed

When I was a kid growing up in Dayton’s Belmont neighborhood, I didn’t know what a vacant house was, let along a foreclosure.  

To be sure, not all neighborhood abodes looked all that good.  Some most certainly could have used a paint job and more yard work, but all the houses I delivered rubber-banded Shopping News papers to every Wednesday had somebody living in them, at least as far as I can remember.  

These days, though, quite a few neighborhood houses I drive by have really tall grass this early May, and upon a closer look, windows without drapes and driveways without cars.  It is obvious that whoever called that place home no longer does.  It doesn’t take long to make an ‘eyesore’ out of such places, either. 

Last Saturday for the Rebuilding Together Dayton annual event, my team worked on a house down the hill from the Veterans Administration compound and tucked back into a rather well-tended neighborhood.  Upon first look, the house appeared pretty tough because most of the exterior paint was removed to expose lots of board feet of bare wood.  Such was the case, though, only because the homeowner had done extensive sanding in anticipation of the paint job.  Be the time we finished on Saturday, even despite a mid-day thunderstorm, much of the exterior had a coat of paint and a whole slough of interior projects completed, including installation of a brand new shower in the bathtub.  

I must admit, the neighborhood where we worked last weekend isn’t one I frequent very often, so as I drove through it while on runs to Lowe’s for something else someone on our team needed to complete a task, I tried to pay attention to what I was seeing.  

So many houses on blocks around the house where we worked looked really good:  grass well tended, nice front porch set-ups, good-looking paint jobs and roofs.  

Still, too often I saw completely derelict buildings with windows not just broken, but complete removed.  Grass, as you might imagine, was three cuts past acceptable already this early in the season.  I can only imagine how discouraged a neighborhood homeowner would feel about having a piece-of-crap house like that just down the street from the property they are trying to keep looking good.  

But I suppose that’s the world we live in now.  A new book by economist Paul Krugman makes it clear that the economy in our world isn’t just in a recession, but a depression.  I don’t know what data he used for that conclusion, but seeing empty, beat-up houses on the same block as well-cared for properties tends to have me believe such an assessment. 

Let me just say that I wish that all who need one had a job that paid enough to keep their neighborhoods looking good.  The stark truth is that that part of Dayton has a closed-down mega-printing operation and more than one shut-down and abandoned General Motors plant.  Jobs those neighbors used to enjoy have since moved on to places like Mexico and China -- away from where personal and family incomes make a local difference. 

All of this pretty much bums me out.  True, there are still good local jobs in Dayton, but not like the ones we used to have.  Now, it seems, all of the good ones require a college education.  The days of graduating from high school -- or dropping out -- and being hired on for a good assembly line job that paid enough to raise a family while leaving enough money for vacations and entertainment, are harder and harder to find.  

I was blessed to be able to afford attending Wright State for enough years to not only graduate with a teaching degree, but to finish with a masters.  Such a difference this has made in my life.  I doubt that many kids from lots of local neighborhoods have the resources to work through post-high school education to achieve the skills necessary to have a successful career these days.  

Seems to me as I drive down streets and witness so many untended yards and vacant houses, it is obvious that way too many families are struggling to make a go of it in this tough and demanding world.  

My heart goes out to so many who have so little and to those who try to do the best they can, despite the limitations brought on by change. 

Today’s Elder Idea:  In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of.  In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of. 

Confucius

Sand lessons

When I was a kid going to Catholic elementary school in Dayton, the only spring break we ever got, as I remember, was Good Friday, Easter Monday, and the somber/happy weekend in between.  

The concept of taking a week off from school or work in the spring of the year to have fun didn’t catch up with me until I was going to college.  And frankly, all spring break really meant then was that I could get a whole week of work in at Rike’s warehouse, my place of part-time employment.  

Even with the advent of my teaching gig in Huber Heights in 1972, spring break didn’t really mean anything more than a week away from teaching kids.  If the truth be told, I didn’t really have any more money to spend on seasonal fun then than I did while in college.   

Not so much with the lovely Cindy Lou, who tells the story of her driving to Florida one spring in her Austin American with a crew of Ohio University girls who loved to play softball.  Can you see it?  Oh, it hurts just to think I didn’t even know her then!    ;-)

In any case, Cindy Lou has loved heading to sunny sand at the very tail end of winter for some time now.  First time she took me along was twenty-odd years ago when I Pricelined five nights at the old Radisson in Fort Walton Beach for 50 bucks a night.  The room wasn’t much, but the setting was terrific.  

By mid-week I could see a change in Cindy.  Her skin had transformed before my eyes.  She came to radiate a warmth that, well, I found downright fascinating.  And sexy, too, I might add. 

So, being the wise man that I am, I determined that we should make a concerted effort to get to Florida every spring break.  While in Fort Walton Beach, we found a condo down the road with a pool and beachfront that rented by the week for a heck of lot of money, but not so much we couldn’t afford it.  The Nautilus became our spring beach place the next few springs.  

With that in mind, about the time Cindy Lou retired, we started talking about the idea of buying a timeshare.  Guaranteed beach time seemed a no-brainer.  My brother and his wife have a couple timeshares, in which they get to spend weeks in cool places a couple times a year.  Joe took us with him once to Williamsburg where we had a lovely time.  Finally, last winter Cindy Lou and I bought our own timeshare.  Which is one heck of long introduction to the whole point of this blog:  

Last week the Cooke Schaefers had our first timeshare week -- at Hilton Head, South Carolina -- and we took along my 91 year-old mother.  

And a good time was had by all!  

The Barony Beach Club, a Marriott Vacation Club property on Hilton Head, was downright amazing.  When we first entered our villa, Cindy Lou stopped in the middle of the living room, soaking in the prolific use of her favorite colors and recognizing how clean things were, and said, ‘This may be the best place I’ve ever stayed in.’  Trust me, it was light years ahead of the Radisson!  

Oh, what a week we had.  I toted the slow-cooker and fired it up for a pork tenderloin one night and a whole chicken another.  My, my.  Amazing stuff.  The girls just crowed about how good things were.  They liked the store-bought peanut butter cream pie, too, and the two half gallons of ice cream! 

The day before we left, Cindy and I decided it was time to get Mother out to the beach for at least a short walk.  We would go at low tide when a solid, very walkable beach -- even with a walker -- appeared right out of the ocean!   Mom agreed, and braving loose sand and unsure footing -- she held on tight -- she made it all the way down to the edge of the ocean.  

As my sister Martha wrote, ‘Sometimes the image speaks for itself.’

I am now a proponent of taking annual spring vacations in warm, sandy places near big water.  Can you tell?  ;-) 

***

On the way to Hilton Head, Mother checked an item off her bucket list with a visit to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.  One exhibit on marriage there ran a clip from an old late-night television show in which Rev. Graham’s wife, Ruth Bell Graham, was asked if she had ever considered divorcing the often-traveling preacher.   Her response: 

Today’s Elder Idea:   ‘No, I never considered divorce, but I did consider murder!’ 

Howls of laughter followed.  

images:  Hilton Head Island (April 2012)

Sound

If you know me well, you probably know how important recorded music is in my life.  

Ever since I had a paper route when I was a kid, I have spent a share of my earnings, regardless how meager, on an ever-growing collection of recordings.  Learning about pop music via WING radio’s Lou Swanson, Eddie Gale, and Gene ‘By Golly’ Barry, then buying some records, was the hip thing to do in the 1960s.  Whenever we went downtown, we’d walk by the studios on First Street to pick up the weekly top 40 survey and watch the jock behind the picture window spin wax and work his radio magic.  

Later on I graduated to recording music on reel-to-reel tapes.  First it was just albums, or maybe an evening session of ‘Wax Museum’ on WVUD FM.  Soon I realized I could create my own special mixes.  

Not long after, most music migrated to the eminently more portable cassette tape.  Played with those, too.  Then came digital where one listened to a silvery CD spinning away out of sight, inside a drawer, that produced near perfect sound.  No scratches.  Remember?  

Then music uploads onto computers and the ability to burn our own playlists in the CD format.  Find the right songs, mix liberally into a pleasant sequence, burn to CD, share with friends...  Now, of course, there’s iTunes and podcasts and internet streaming and, well, other stuff that even I don’t get.  

I know I’ve written about about my love of recorded music here at The Back Porch before, but today I’d like to focus on the actual listening to music.  

Much of the time, I think, we hear music in the car while conversation and traffic tension make it a challenge to actually listen.  Not optimum, to be sure.  Still, listening to music and riding in cars just kind of go together, you know?

Yes, I listen to music much here in my office while working, but I’ve taken up a new practice of listening to my music collections while reclined in bed.  I’ve got to tell you, I like it a lot. 

At times when I’ve shared one of my playlist collections with friends, I’ve encouraged them to wait to listen until an undisturbed hour is available for a sit in a comfortable chair, in the dark (candle recommended) -- maybe in a headset -- to let the music wash over them.  To me, the congruent message of the whole collection is like explicating a poem:  One listens to find ideas and melodies that dance inside that side of our brain that resounds in music.  Listening to a playlist at the computer with iTunes visualizer playing is pretty hip, too.  

But for me these days, it’s the dark room and sound.  Cindy isn’t so nuts about music and sleep, so I’ve set up the guest room with a couple of decent little speakers placed next to the bed.  I turn things down pretty far, yet high enough to feel the richness of instruments and voices.  I get comfortable and just listen.  In the dark, warm, and in the moment.  As you might imagine, I often fall asleep in the process.  I recommend it.  Works great mid-afternoon.

My newest cool thing is recording my original poetry in a song format that will play with the rest of my music collection.  Now I can insert my poems into collections of meaningful songs.  More on that later.

I do my best to stay grounded in life.  Listening to music in bed is part of that process for me these days.    

Today’s Elder Idea:  Learning about sex from porn is like learning about firearms from action movies.   

from ‘The absurd myths porn teaches us about sex’

Noah Brand and Ozy Frantz

AlterNet / posted 26 March 2012

Big stuff (misc)

Such a time last week for my life and my writing practice.  Let me count the ways... 

On Monday I submitted an essay to a little magazine in Colorado looking for thoughts on what it means in our hearts to help ‘the other.’  Seemed like a good opportunity to revisit our church’s two mission trips to post-Katrina New Orleans five+ years ago, and so I did.

The majority of the dozen or so adults who traveled south to work shared their thoughts about how it felt now, so many years later.  The essay, entitled ‘Katrina’s reach,’ totaled out at 2500 words with my first explaining what we did, then letting those who went tell their stories.  

Then I got word yesterday that the little Crestone magazine, Desert Call, will indeed publish ‘Katrina’s reach’ this summer.  I had also asked about having it published in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Ohio newspaper, and got a ‘yes’ on that, too.  Lots of pictures will be included in both publications. 

**

Most of you are aware, I hope, that I am in the process of writing a book connecting Emily Dickinson to one of my favorite places in the world, Hog Island, Maine, through the work of Mabel Loomis Todd.  It was Mrs. Todd who took on the arduous task of sorting and recopying Emily’s poetry into the three earliest editions that made it to the public between 1890 and 1896.  

Much has been written about Mrs. Todd’s work with Emily’s poetry and letters, while little has been written about her love of Nature.  It was that love that encouraged her to purchase large tracts of Hog Island c. 1909 in order to save it as one of the largest untouched wilderness islands on Maine’s coast.  By 1911, the Todd family had built a rustic family camp where they spent many summers thereafter.

Last week a couple of very special things happened re: my Hog Island project: 

First, I received an email from a woman in New York City who moderates the Facebook page for Jerome Charyn’s book, The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson.  ‘LenoreNYC’ and I chatted via email a bit, and then on Sunday she posted links to my Dressy Adventuress blog for all of their 8,000+ readers to follow.  (Deep gulp...)

For the Secret Life... page, see: http://www.facebook.com/SecretLifeOfEmilyDickinson

Scroll down a bit to find the entries about my Dressy Adventuress blog; or find that blog @ http://thedressyadventuress.blogspot.com/

Second, Chris Speh, who spent many summers on Hog Island as guest of Mabel Todd’s daughter, Millicent Todd Bingham, gifted my writing project with a great new picture of Mrs. Bingham and a series of remembrances by another Bingham family friend, a woman known in the writing only as Willow.  Thanks so much, Chris!  A handful of Hog Island lovers have read it and have thoroughly enjoyed the observations of life on the island that Willow tells.

My writing on Mrs. Todd’s Hog Island continues...

**

Back when I was a kid, I was smitten with the science fiction genre at a time when the Russians launched Sputnik and the US space program was not yet named NASA. 

As I recall, the book that grabbed me was Robert Heinlein’s Have Space Suit Will Travel (1958), a coming-of-age novel about a kid who just wants to go to the moon.  He gets his big chance in a soap contest, and even though he wins, he loses due to multiple winners with the same answer.  His consolation prize?  A real, working space suit.  Ergo, have spacesuit, will travel.  Sounds a bit like the old Paladin television show, eh?  

What makes this book so engaging is the real science about space travel -- written at a time before anybody ever went up there.  I’ve been taking a few notes on the science and will share copies with grandkids for summer reading.  The book is proving to still be a real favorite of mine.  

**

Do you know about TED, the website?  I encourage you to find it:  http://www.ted.com/index.php

Though TED stands for technology, engineering, and design, speakers they gather to talk to live audiences go off on all kinds of great topics.  Last Friday they posted a brand new lecture by Dr. Brene Brown (University of Houston) from the latest TED conference in Long Beach held earlier this month.  

As far as I know, this is Brown’s third speech with TED in which she focuses on wholehearted living.  For those of us trying to figure out what makes us tick, Brown has some definite ideas based on her years as a behavioral researcher.  Don’t be put off when I tell you her newest TED entry is entitled ‘Listening to shame.’  Cindy and I watched it three times over the weekend, and my guess is we’re not done with it yet.  Great stuff for those of us trying to make sense of our lives.... 

**

And then, of course, it’s really spring!  Noah and I had a great extended look at a pileated woodpecker on our walk at Englewood Reserve on Friday.  Then yesterday I put up the canopy over the back patio for the another season of porch sitting and Nature watching.  I sat out there for a couple hours last evening just to get back in touch with the world of Nature I’ve largely seen only from inside windows since November.  Oh, so grateful! 

I’m telling you, the invitation is open:  come on over for a back porch sit and conversation.  Love to have you!  ;-)

Today’s Elder Idea:  When advised it was time to leave her beloved summer camp on Hog Island behind because of her advanced age, Millicent Bingham wrote, ‘For me it feels more like pulling me up by the tap root, which goes down to the very source of life itself.  This is how I feel about the island...’

in a letter to Chris Speh’s Aunt Gertrude Sorel

21 May 1962

There are others who feel that way, too, Mrs. B....