My Friend Sammy

Since I've been holed up in my house writing for two days, I was determined to be outdoors today. The weather was perfect - low 70's and sunny - and I was missing it all. I called my sister-in-law to see if I could borrow Sammy, their elder dog. She said yes, that Sammy loves to go in the car. So I picked him up (I swear the dog is psychic - how did he know I was coming to take him somewhere? He ran right to my car and stood there til I opened the door) and off we went to Northmoreland Park. This is where I normally fish, which I haven't done lately. As soon as we arrived, Sammy was more than anxious to get out. My niece told me before we left to be careful because as soon as the door opened, he'd jump out and take off. Sure enough, he pushed between me and the steering wheel before I could get the leash on. I pulled the door shut just in time, got the leash on, started to open the door again, and out Sammy went. The leash wasn't too long, so out I went, as well. The door shut. Inside the car were my car keys and cell phone! The door didn't completely shut, but I couldn't open it, either. A half-locked door. I could see the darn keys hanging in the ignition, so near yet so far. I thought that we'd take our walk first and figure it all out afterwards. This is my Scarlett O'Hara persona.

The brick paver path is 1.1 miles long, and is a lovely and fairly easy walk. Sammy was a happy little dog, smiling at everyone and wagging his tail. One lady said, "What a happy little mutt that is!" Sammy just smiled and looked back at me to see if I heard that. He was very obedient, didn't chase any other dogs, geese or ducks. Didn't growl or bark at anyone. When we finished and went back to my car, he stood there facing the door and looking back over his shoulder at me, like "come onnnnn already!". Now I had to get the car open. I saw some fishermen nearby so we walked over to them and I asked if anyone perhaps had a coathanger I could borrow? No one did, but they all came to my car to check it out. Another guy in the vehicle parked next to mine offered his pipe wrench to break the window. *Gee, thanks, but no thanks!") Pretty soon, there were about 12 people standing at my car! I asked, "Where are all the car thieves when you need them?" Everyone laughed, especially the teens.

One of the guys divulged the info that he owns a used car dealership and has to get into cars almost every day. He just happened to have a broken fishing pole (I have one, too -- in the trunk of the car, along with a coathanger). While one teenager held a tree branch between the door and roof of the car, the used car guy was able to hook the car keys, but they fell off the rod onto the floor before he could bring them out. So he kept trying, and finally pushed the manual lock open and voila! The door opened. Sammy couldn't have jumped into the car any faster. He sat there looking at me as if he was saying, "What are you waiting for?" I thanked everyone and off we went. Sammy was happy when we reached his home! I may ask to take him out again one day, but he may refuse. He is good company, though. My niece told me before we left that walking with a dog is a good way to meet men. Yup, it sure was! But they were all teens or married. Just my luck!

You will notice links to my e-How articles to the right. If you check them out and rate them, I would greatly appreciate it! I am doing a lot of freelance writing in order to make my way in the world, and e-How is one of the many ways in which I am trying to do that. Of course, you could also purchase some art from me if you like. :) Just inquire as to pricing, etc.

One negative to all this creativity: I am gaining weight from all the sitting. This is not a good thing for a diabetic, so I have started to use my work-out equipment again. I would rather just use them in the winter and walk outdoors in the summer, but with the cost of gasoline these days I have been limiting my trips. My fishing expeditions have become fewer for the same reason - as well as because the trout aren't biting in all the heat.

Blackberry Days

In August, I always think of the days when our mother sent us out to the fields and woods to gather blackberries. We each carried a pail and didn't go home until they were full. Most of the berries were small, but there was one spot where the canes grew up into the trees and yielded huge oval berries. The pails filled up quickly with those berries!

Seeing blackberries growing along roads or trails always reminds me of those lazy, hot summer days. The sounds and colors of August in western Pennsylvania are so distinctive. Locusts singing in otherwise still days, grass and tree leaves beginning to dry and brown, high humidity and heat, and days beginning to shorten -- all contribute to the feel of August.

I recall my mother taking some of the blackberries to make Blackberry Cobbler, her version that had dumplings cooked on top of the sweetened blackberries. Served with milk poured over it, this constituted the evening meal. Today, it would seem outrageous to serve something so simple and so full of carbs for the evening meal. It was surely a treat when I was a child.

The rest of the blackberries were used to make blackberry jelly or jam, and sometimes a pie or two. I always preferred jelly because it didn't have all those dastardly little seeds in it.

Other berries we picked were blueberries. My father planted several blueberry bushes and they were always prolific. We never had a lot of raspberries, but collected what we could find. My mother favored the chokecherry trees and their fruit. She made jelly from those every year, and we used that jelly on her homemade pancakes, rather than maple syrup. There was also a quince tree way back in the woods, and Mom would pick that fruit and make quince jelly. I never cared for the flavor of quince when I was a child, and haven't tasted it as an adult. Who knows, I might love it today.

Happy Birthday, Baby Brother!

Today is my baby brother's birthday, and I feel older somehow. He shouldn't be 47 already because it was just yesterday he was born.

I had just finished my freshman year of college when Brian was born. A year later, I was married and had my first baby. My eldest daughter and my youngest brother grew up more like cousins than uncle and niece!

Today, Brian is not only my brother, but my best guy friend. I can count on his advice and opinions, though sometimes his opinions differ from mine. We have both been through coronary artery bypass surgery and because his was some time ago, I have been able to ask him about symptoms or problems.

He is one of the few, if not the only, person with whom I can "discuss" politics without either of us becoming angry when we disagree. He has a lot of interests -- metal shaping, learning to play guitar and banjo, drag racing (he owns a Camaro), computers, machining car parts and equipment, repairing engines, etc. He is very intelligent and creative.

What he is best at, however, is being a truly kind and genuinely good person. He is well-liked by friends, loved by his family, adored by his grandchildren, respected by his co-workers. I am proud to be his big sister. Happy Birthday, Brian!

From Whence I Came or Alpha

For about the past twenty years, I have periodically immersed myself in family genealogy. I began with notes I took from my paternal grandfather when I was in high school. I had the names of his parents and his grandmother, as well as my paternal grandmother's parents. Also, they both gave me names of their siblings. Most of these names were familiar to me, as I heard my grandparents talking about family members over the years. I found out a book had been published about my grandmother's paternal ancestors, so I went first to the Armstrong County Library and copied all the book pages. (It took forever!).

As I began to trace my grandmother's family, I soon discovered that my grandmother and my grandfather were the descendants of the same couple who came to America in 1731 from The Palatinate in Germany. They were of the Dunkard faith. Needless to say, the blood connection between my grandparents goes back many generations and so I cannot blame my sometime weirdness on that!

As I gradually searched out more and more, I found that on my father's side, most of the ancestors came from The Palatinate in Germany, all around the same time. There were a few Irish ancestors, as well, and my surname comes from one of them.

The Dunkards were an Anabaptist sect, closely related in faith and nationality to the Amish. So I could just as easily have been Amish. I don't think I would have remained welcome in their community, though, and would have been shunned early on.

Huh? I was what?

Recently, a childhood friend unexpectedly passed away at the age of sixty after receiving a bee sting. This friend who I babysat when I was a teen (well, it was more babysitting his younger brother and sister), grew up to become a real mover and shaker in the community. He was a happy soul, with a big smile for everyone he met through the course of a day.

When I visited the funeral home, I was speaking with his younger brother who I hadn't seen for probably forty years. He said, "Suellen? This is Suellen, the wild and crazy one?" I said, "Huh?" To say I was surprised at his comment would be an understatement. I don't recall being wild or crazy. Maybe just a little off-the-wall, but certainly not crazy. Wild? Maybe when I ran, which I did everywhere I went, with hair flying and feet scarcely touching the ground. (I was a FAST sprinter, but that's another story.) This started me thinking about what I thought of myself when I was young, as opposed to what others thought of me.

I recall being very sensitive, very concerned about what others thought of me, at least most of the time. I was also extremely modest. Very shy with boys, painfully so. Swearing, drinking and smoking were not part of my life, either. Drugs were unheard of then, except in New York City according to my health teacher. My physical self-image wasn't that great, either, mostly because of my coke-bottle-bottom glasses. (That didn't change until my first pair of hard contact lenses when I was twenty-three. Contact lenses were the latest technology in ophthalmology at the time.)

So why would anyone think I was wild and crazy? I recall when I was editor-in-chief of my high school yearbook planning a "record hop" with the yearbook staff members. Because our high school was smaller than surrounding schools, I knew we needed a hook to get people to come from surrounding areas. We made posters which said, "Come and hear "so-and so" sing "such and such" and posted them everywhere. To me, I was aware that there was a catch there -- I knew at some level that people would automatically substitute "see" for "hear", but I brushed that off because of the potential financial success of the dance.

The night of the dance came and the gym filled up fast, most of the kids from our school and loads of kids from neighboring schools. We were ecstatic -- until people started asked where "so-and-so" was. It was beginning to get a little uncomfortable. So I grabbed a most unlikely overweight and nerdy kid who was on the yearbook staff and coaxed him to lip-sync the song. I knew he had a crush on me, so I guess I took advantage of that. He practiced the song in the library. Now the actual recording artist didn't bear any resemblance to our substitute, so when he was introduced and came out on stage and began to lip-synch the song, the booing started and the gym emptied fast. People were angry. I was embarrassed. Needless to say, I learned a valuable lesson about advertising that night.

Other than the way I used to boss my brother around, I cannot recall anything else crazy I did. I will think about it some more, though.

Out of Sorts or Out to Lunch?

Well, today I am on a rant -- not a state particularly unusual for me -- but this time it is for the benefit of all you stay-at-home moms out there. It seems that no matter how many bras my generation of women burned or refused to wear in the name of equality, nothing much has changed. Though women make up over half of the workforce in America, they STILL do not earn as much as men. Granted, some do, notably those who belong to unions. Female professionals such as doctors, nurses, teachers, and attorneys make a great deal more money than the average woman. This we all know. We also know that in the majority of marriages, the working wife/mother does the majority of the housework, shopping and child-rearing in addition to her paying job.

However, where the inequality REALLY shows up is when a woman reaches retirement age. A married woman who has never worked receives one-half of her husband's social security amount. So together, a couple would receive 50% more than the husband's social security when both have reached full retirement age. If she has worked and has earned more or an equal amount as her husband, then she might receive her own benefits, rather than her husband's. The government is saying that a woman who has stayed at home raising her children isn't worth as much as her husband. (I know, I know....she didn't pay into the system.) Raising children is not valued by our predominantly male government officials.

The only thing worse, and which I and many other women of my age are experiencing is this: we were divorced and now are only permitted to receive one-half of our ex-husband's social security, if the marriage lasted ten years or more. The figure social security arrives at is one which takes the ex's social security amount, divides it in half, then subtracts the woman's social security amount from that number. The most a divorced woman can get, unless she has been lucky enough to earn substantial wages over her lifetime, is only half of what her ex is receiving - the same amount as the wife who never worked. The difference is that the latter still benefits from her husband's full social security income. If you have been a stay at home mom, as women in my generation and the ones before me were expected to be, you are, in effect, penalized because of it. It means you either live in dire poverty, or you must work until you drop dead.

I also have some acquaintances who have never been married and have always worked. These women have not held high-paying jobs, and find themselves in a similar situation where they cannot afford to retire and will have to work for the rest of their lives. Conversely, a single man will normally retire with plenty of money coming in. I suppose there isn't any solution for this, given the mess our social security system finds itself in. After Medicare benefits are subtracted from the social security check, there isn't much left with which to survive.

The point of this is to tell younger women to work as much as possible. Personally, I believe mothers should stay home with their children at least until the children are in school, but I realize that may be impossible in today's world. Even if day care costs as much as your wages, you are building up social security wages. In the event the system is still in place when you retire, perhaps you will see some equality.