Welcome to CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

 IT’S A NEW YEAR…WELCOME, 2012

     January: time for trying out the resolutions we made sincerely while 2012 was experiencing its birth pangs. As the month flees by we will discover if the resolutions were sensible for us or not, and we will discover if we have the stamina and wherewithal to follow through on our resolutions.

It’s January: Am I Stressed Out?

    We here in Southwestern Pennsylvania are experiencing a temperate climate—temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Will it continue? Punxsutawney Phil will inform you on February 2.

PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL, WEATHER PROPHET EXTRAORDINARY

His Highness, Punxsutawney Phil

    Valentine’s Day will soon be here. As you consider who you will “Valentine,” consider shut-ins and veterans.

Preparing for a First Date with Carmena

To Andrea Bocelli: A Valentine

Valentine’s Day: Bah, Humbug

Valentine’s Day

CANDIED VIOLETS: Remembering My Mother on Her Birthday

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      Carolyn Cornell Holland  www.carolyncholland.wordpress.com

Shooting Snapshots: Terroristic Activity?

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SHOOTING SNAPSHOTS: TERRORISTIC ACTIVITY?

     I want to thank George F. Will. A recent newspaper column he authored, A snapshot of our times*, has me concerned.

     Will cites examples of photographers questioned about their terroristic tendencies due to the subjects included in their photographs. One was photographing controversial new turn styles in the Los Angeles subway. Another was photographing industrial scenery at night.

     Still another was taking photographs to accompany a news article. The issue about his photographs was the presence of a courthouse in the background.

     Why do these examples raise a concern?

When the Los Angeles Police Department developed a Suspicious Activity Report program, the federal government encouraged local law enforcement agencies to adopt its guidelines for gathering information “that could indicate activity or intentions related to” terrorism…From the fact that terrorists might take pictures of potential infrastructure targets (“pre-operational surveillance”), it is a short slide down a slippery slope to the judgment that photography is a potential indicator of terrorism and hence photographers are suspect when taking pictures “with no apparent aesthetic value” (words from the suspicious-activity guidelines).* (bold print mine)

     Deputies detained and searched the turn style photographer, and asked him if he was planning to sell the photos to al-Qaeda. When the photographer claimed his right to remain silent the deputy said You know, I’ll just submit your name to TLO (the Terrorism Liason Officer program). Every time your driver’s license gets scanned, every time you take a plane, any time you go on any type of public transit system where they look at your identification, you’re going to be stopped. You will be detained. You’ll be searched. You will be on the FBI’s hit list.*

     The industrial scenery photographer finds aestheticism and occasional monetary value in depicting nighttime industrial scenes on film. One night, however, while on a public sidewalk photographing an oil refinery with a large camera on a tripod, deputies ordered him to stop taking pictures, lest they put his name on a troublesome FBI list.*

     A journalist, writing a story on drivers distracted by texting and use of hand-held phones, was taking illustrative pictures at an intersection. A courthouse was in the background. Deputies called the courthouse a “critical facility” and labeled his picture-taking as “suspicious activity,” gave him a pat-down search, and demanded to see the pictures he had taken.

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     In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, the United States has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of

Is Your Table Big Enough? If not, add a leaf…

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

IS YOUR TABLE BIG ENOUGH?

If not, add a leaf…

     Are you seeking persons to whom you can demonstrate God’s love?

     STOP! You don’t have to seek. In fact, if you are seeking you might just miss the persons that God intends you to give love to.

     Unless you are a hermit living in a cave, isolated from communication with any other human being, a multitude of opportunities to express God’s love crosses your path each day. You don’t have to seek them…they are ever present: the grumpy waitress, the mother maneuvering two young children and multiple shopping bags, the bored face in the doctor’s waiting room, the person in a wheel chair who is unable to reach the item on the shelf, the isolated and the lonely, the overworked and overstressed…

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     Recently, I was in Cleveland Heights “window” shopping at an upscale mall. I wandered into a store to be greeted by a clerk asking if I needed help.

     “No,” I said. “I’m just passing through.”

     Then I hesitated.

     “You know, there is one thing I’m looking for. I don’t know it you have it, but I’ve looked everywhere for it, and just cannot find it.”

     “Well, perhaps I can help,” she said. “What is it?”

     I paused before answering:

Lung Cancer in Non-Smokers

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

LUNG CANCER IN NON-SMOKERS

     Aah, the crisp autumn weather, the warmth of a fire created by the autumnal festival of burning the formerly colorful but now deathly-brown leaves and debris that fell in plentiful amounts off the oak, maple, and apple trees.

     Aah, the homey smell of the cigar smoke as my grandfather read the evening newspaper.

     Aah, the feeling of being grown up as I trooped to the corner store to pick up cigarettes for my mother.

     The not-so-aah smell of cigarette smoke while riding in a car with one or more smoking adults, windows closed against the cold air.

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     These were typical experiences in my life as a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I’m certain I was not alone in having these experiences of existing in extreme circumstances of air pollution.

     People who have never smoked, but who live in areas with higher air pollution levels, are roughly 20 percent more likely to die from lung cancer than

Such Balmy January 2012 Weather—Enjoyable and Frustrating

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SUCH BALMY JANUARY 2012 WEATHER

—ENJOYABLE AND FRUSTRATING

     January 15^th, 2012…is the first month of the year almost history? Like the twelve months in 2011, 2012 is zipping past almost without notice. Until January 11^th the weather was wonderfully temperate here in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Then it dipped down to ten degrees. On Friday we woke to snow—you might know, that day I had to travel to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where I facilitate the Beanery Writers Group. I didn’t want to cancel since we hadn’t met since December 9^th—we cancel the second meeting in December due to Christmas celebrations.

     That said, the temperate climate somewhat irritated me. I know—I should have enjoyed it—and so I did. However, my annual January

Smiles Wanted!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

SMILES WANTED!

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SMILES WANTED!

You don’t have one? I’ll give you one of mine.

You seem so sad.

Just smile.

SMILE!

PRACTICE SMILING!

SHARE A SMILE DAY IS COMING

ON MARCH 1st IT WILL BE HERE!

Every day you spend without a smile, is a lost day.  ~Author Unknown***

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     March first is six weeks away, which provides significant training time to get your smiles in not great but fantastic shape.

     Of course, it’s seems slightly incongrous to me that Share a Smile Day shares March 1 with Pig Day and Peanut Butter Lover’s Day.

     Thus, the first order of business is to get you to smile. : – )

     With that in mind, I offer you a quiz with seven questions about pigs and three about peanut butter (the answers are at the end of this post)*,**,***:

1. What do you call a pig that does karate?
2. What do you call a pig that won the logger?
3. What do you get when you cross a pig with a dinosaur?

Warning: Do Not “Smile Someone” Today!

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

WARNING: DO NOT “SMILE SOMEONE” TODAY!

Wipe that smile off your face…!

Replace it with a frown!

 

     I realize that this command is counterintuitive, the opposite being told SMILE! After all, we smile out of happiness, and we frown out of sadness. And who wants to be sad?

     However, there are other reasons, besides sadness, to frown.

     Experiments show that the simple act of frowning makes you

January 3: A Death, A Birth, and A Flat Tire

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

JANUARY 3: A DEATH, A BIRTH, AND A FLAT TIRE

   It is said that the days of yore a person recalls is connected with an event of great impact. And so ‘tis true of my January 3, 1998, recollection.

FLYING INTO AN ICE STORM…

MY MOTHER’S DEATH: JANUARY 3, 1998

   My husband Monte spent much of January 1^st on the phone, purchasing a plane ticket for me to fly to Bangor, Maine. It was the year of the great ice storm that hit across the northern United States and Canada, and I wondered if it was wise to fly. But my mother was in the hospital in Bangor with serious heart problems.

     January 2^nd found me on an airplane, landing in Boston to transfer to a smaller plane to Bangor. I took a taxi, over icy roads, to the hospital, arriving in the evening. My sisters Jane and Cynthia were there, as was their father Hugh (my stepfather).

     During our visit my mother said she felt so loved.

     I managed to visit with my mother alone for a few minutes. She spoke of the

Mud, Carrots, Drama: Remembering Todd James Jay

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

MUD, CARROTS, DRAMA:

REMEMBERING TODD JAMES JAY

Todd James Jay 

September 11, 1969 to January 2, 2008

    Four years ago today my nephew, age thirty-eight, left us. Below are three of my favorite stories about him.

MUD PLAY: 1979

     Strip down! I firmly told the two boys in front of me.

     On a hot August afternoon my nine year old son, Nolan, and my eleven year old nephew, Todd, had spent the hot summer afternoon at the bottom of the hill where a pond was being dug. There, Nolan and Toddles (a nickname only I was allowed to call Todd), abandoned themselves so unmercifully to the mud that I barely recognized them. Toddles was the taller one…but where was his blonde hair?

     If we weren’t living so isolated in the country I might have mistaken the mud-covered boys, about nine and eleven years old, for neighborhood children and sent them home where their mothers could deal with the clay-mud clinging to every square inch of their clothing and bodies.

     But there was no mistake. These boys belonged here, at my house. And I had to deal with the situation.

     No way could I let them

Planning for the New Year: 2012

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

PLANNING FOR THE NEW YEAR: 2012

Oops…I goofed…I’m among the many persons who are still typing 2011 instead of 2012…

     Planning for the future…The time to plan for your future is now…

     The title of the article—actually, an advertisement—drew me in: Plan for the future. I’ve always tried to work on a long-term, intermediate-term and short-term plan on whatever projects I’m working on and in whatever stage I am in my life.

     I’ve moved through my childhood stage, early adult life stage, parenting stage, midlife stage and am currently in my late life stage.

     Each stage had its activities. For me

• early life was learning the ways of the world,
• young adult life was preparing for a work future,
• early adult was marriage, children, working for an adoption agency while operating a child care home,
• intermediate adult life starting a three-year craft business and raising two teenagers while moving into domestic violence work,
• later life was working with domestic violence issues, and
• my current life is founded on writing.

     My three-stage plan can be demonstrated by using my novel writing plan:

• Short term goal: write a