Ten Turkey Day

Our family Thanksgiving will happen next weekend, due to conflicts and scheduling issues.  Since Thanksgiving is a day to be shared, we did not want to stay home alone today.  Therefore, we signed up as volunteers to work in the kitchen at the Cortland United Methodist Church.

We have had the experience before of volunteering, where there was not really much work to be done.  That was not the case for Gerry and for me today.  We got assigned to a very important task!  Cutting, de-boning, pulling apart the turkeys!   All ten of them.   I guess we were so good at it that no one else got assigned to take over that particular job, so we had to keep at it until they were all done.  To be honest, by that time,  both of us had terrible back aches and pain from the lifting,  bending and standing in the same position.   I am still recovering!

I did see some folks I had not seen in a while, and got a big hug from a young woman whose wedding I conducted quite a few years ago. (that makes me a special person in her life, I could tell).  She was there with her daughter volunteering.  There were also people there from the community that we knew.  We got to eat our meal there, which we helped to prepare.

It was hard work.  Still it was infinitely better than staying home and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

So many blessings.  I'm really glad to be able to de-bone ten turkeys!

Socialization

Conversation in the car today, on a long drive, led Gerry and I to an interesting discussion.  We were talking about going, or not going to some particular community event.    I made the observation:  "You are probably more likely to seek out groups of people than I am."

Of course, some of that can be accounted for because I am definitely an introvert and Gerry is an extrovert.  But he had another theory, harkening back to childhood.   Gerry grew up on a farm, that was quite a few miles out of town.  Therefore,  his existence was pretty isolated,   probably lonely sometimes, with not many people around.   He said it was exciting to go into town where there were lots of people.

My childhood experience was quite different from that!  My first reaction was:  I mostly had to be on display as the preacher's kid.  Growing up in the south back then, that came with a heavy dose of expectations.  You had to smile and shake hands;  you had to be pleasant;   you could not swear or spit.  You had to make a good impression.  Often, I had rather hide in the closet.     In fact, I once did exactly that!

One parish built us a new parsonage.  So, of course, it was always Open House.  Anyone who came for a visit would have to be shown the whole house.  If someone came, and I knew that my mother was going to be showing them around, and I was in my room,  rather than be on display and pleasant, I would hide in the closet!

I do really like people, but need far less socialization than Gerry seems to need.  That's why he goes into his office all the time, so he can hang out with his colleagues  (university/academics).  Then in the winter, he hangs out with the Geezer Skiers.

I really don't mind being at home, reading a book, cooking, doing laundry.  I get socialization several times a week,  but do not need it every day.

I wonder if our childhood experiences really have much influence on our patterns of socialization?

Ebenezer Orphan Home

A friend passed along a book, a quick read.  It is actually the reflections of two brothers who recall the years they spent at the Ebenezer Orphan Home in Flat Rock, Ohio.  True story.

Their mother died of tuberculosis when they were young.  There were five children. The father could not manage all that by himself.  The other three were placed in relatives' homes in or near Geneva, New York, but no place was found for the two boys, who were sent to Ohio to live in the Orphan Home.

It was a sad sad story, and I often found myself shaking my head in disbelief at the poor treatment of the children.  They had to work extremely hard, were punished very harshly, and never really had enough to eat.

One thing I did not really understand was why the children's shoes were taken away.  They had to go barefoot in the summer, and did not get their shoes back until winter came.  They were shoeless while they worked in the fields, shocking and stacking wheat, pitching hay, cutting corn--walking in the stubble---all while barefooted!

One image I think will always stick in my mind.

It got very very cold and the brothers still did not have any shoes.  They were working in the fields and it was bitterly cold.  The boys would wait for the cows to drop a plop.   Then they would stand in the cow plops because they were so warm.

Incredibly,  the brothers' conclusion, looking back, after a lifetime of living was:  "I don't think those six years did us any real harm.  And not one child died while we were there.  And that was remarkable because the doctor was a veterinarian!"

British Home Children

Today I heard a presentation about British Home Children.  It is, of course, a story I have never heard before,   being unaware of Canadian history.

 This is a true historical account of children being emigrated to Canada from Britain between 1870 and 1957.

100,000 British Home Children (alleged orphans) were sent to Canada by over 50 British Child Care organizations.  These 4-15 year old children worked as indentured farm laborers and domestic servants until they were 18 years old.  The organizations professed a dominant motive of providing these children with a better life than they would have had in Britain, but they had other motives.  These organizations profited when they sold these children to Canadian farmers.  Siblings in care in Britain were separated from their families and each other.  Siblings were separated from each other when they were sent to Canada.  Most never saw each other again.  Many spent their lives trying to identify their parents and find their siblings and most were unsuccessful.

  

There was a somewhat similar effort here in the United States when 200,000 orphaned and abandoned city children were distributed on the Orphan Trains to families in 45 states, also often used as farm laborers.  This movement took place between 1853 and 1947, run by the Children's Aid Society.   I can only hope they were not sold for profit, as the British Home Children were. I can find no evidence that that is the case.

On Canada's part,  this is a historical past that plays heavily into  the makeup of the population today.  The estimates are that at least ten percent of the Canadian population are descendants of  British Home Children.

At this point in time, there is also a BHC registry that helps these ancestors try to find their original family members.

This is one of those windows into the historical past that is very sad indeed!

Linemen Vote

 Recently, I had lunch with "Suzie".  Suzie is a candidate for ministry and I serve as her Mentor.  In the context of the conversation,  Suzie mentioned that she had not seen her husband in eleven days!   Then she went on to tell how he is a utility lineman and volunteered to go to NYC/Long Island to help out following Hurricane Sandy and her damage.

My first reaction was to thank her for all the work they are doing to restore power to people without  (which also included my own family for quite a while.)

Suzie learned from her husband that the thing that upset the men the most was the fact that they could not vote, as Election Day was soon approaching.  I admire what Suzie did, and am amazed that it was even possible, under the circumstances.  There were two different Board of Elections involved, both in the general area of Ithaca.  Suzie collected absentee ballots from both of the Election Boards, which  opened after hours in order to accommodate their need.  She drove the ballots to the city, gave them out, had the workers fill out the ballots and sign them.   The signatures were already on file at their polling places, but they needed to receive the the original absentee ballots with signatures to compare.  Suzie then brought them back--a trip down and back in a day, so all the volunteer linesmen could vote.   I appreciate so much the fact that ways were found for the affected people to vote in such extenuating circumstances.

My hat is off to Suzie, the Boards of Election, the linesmen.    Now that is ingenuity, and flexibility, not to mention dedication, and democracy, at its best.

God Bless America!

Animal Friendships

Last night I happened to watch a Nature show on television.  The subject matter focused on unlikely relationships among animals----even cross species.   There have so many "stories" of this kind, that some scientists are now doing research on "animal friendships."   Some are really astonishing---a lioness and a cayote, for instance.  Also, there was a tortoise and a duck.

One in particular really caught my attention.  It was the story of an old horse "Charley" and an old goat "Billy".

When I decided to blog about this,  I searched for a horse and goat picture, and "googled" horse/goat.   To my surprise,  there were a number of articles on the compatibility between these two animals.    Having identified this compatibility traces back thousands of years in Chinese culture.

The story I saw about Charley and Billy was about how Billy, the goat, became the guide for the blind horse, Charley.  It seemed to be a choice Billy made.  At first, Charley was blind in only one eye, and Billy led the horse to his favorite pasture on the side where Charley's good eye could follow.   Then, when Charley lost sight in both eyes,  Billy led in front.  Charley knew the sound of Billy's footsteps, from all other sounds.

I had an experience similar to this as a child.  I had a pet chicken named "Doodle".   She was free to wander about the yard.  One day a brown chicken appeared in our yard, and both of her eyes had been pecked out.  Doodle because her seeing-eye-chicken.  I saw that with my own eyes. The brown chicken followed close behind a cheeping Doodle who led the way.   Both of those chicken had no hen-house, and thus, no nest, so they would both lay their eggs wherever they were in the yard.   One learned to watch where you stepped!

I found the unlikely animal friendships downright moving!  A sweet motherly black lab "adopted" an abandoned baby fawn.  Their friendship lasted throughout their lives, even though the deer returned to the wild..  The grown up doe even brought her own babies back to meet her dear friend.

It was clear from these odd pairings that animals do have emotion;  they feel empathy;  they grieve.

I couldn't help but wish we could manage such caring relationships "across the aisle" between Democrats and Republicans.   Charlie and Billy give me hope!

Too Close, So Fortunate

I am posting this picture so family members (and friends) can see how scary it must have been for this tree to fall in front of V's house.   Hers is the second house, with the higher roof, in the middle of the picture.  The tree limbs blocked her front door.  She was there alone, as Matt, volunteer fireman, was at the fire hall.

So so grateful that it wasn't any worse!   Thank you Lord!