Ghostly white pumpkins of the Lunar variety

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

GHOSTLY WHITE PUMPKINS OF THE LUNAR VARIETY

Pumpkins have become the Christmas trees of fall festivals, the Easter bunnies of Halloween. From jack-o’-lanterns to the formal centerpiece, pumpkins are a focal point of autumn.*

     The discerning autumn bride doesn’t decorate her reception table with just any pumpkin. She places intermixes floral arrangements with traditional orange pumpkins and the Lunar pumpkin, which delight and intrigue her wedding guests.

     If you’ve never seen the Lunar pumpkin you will probably

Living with OCD

LIVING WITH OCD

As told to Carolyn C. Holland by Dmitri Beljan

     I was initially going to talk to you at a local café. However when you invited me to sit down, the place I was seated was not cleaned up from the previous guest. Although tolerable to sit there, I found myself uncomfortable and distracted by concerns about the dirty table. It took away from giving you my full attention.

     Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to worry about germs. For example, how many times have you ordered a baked potato at a particular fast food place and the waitress  who handled your money then squished the potatoes with her fingers and handed it to you? I found myself several times reminding food service personnel that you don’t handle food and money both. I don’t think that’s so bad.

     However if this behavior is carried to an extreme—e. g., asking her to clean the table twice—it could be considered a symptom of OCD.

     Thus began my interview with Dmitri.

     October 12-18, 2009, is National OCD Awareness Week. Dmitri is willing to share his story of living with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, commonly called OCD. Below he tells of live with OCD.

     My genetic makeup predisposed me to OCD. This condition was aggravated by my very religious family and the paranoia of the 1950s Cold War.

     When I was a little boy the thoughts that are now called obsessive thoughts were not recognized by me as such, and with the influence of religion, I interpreted it to be that I was possessed by demons.

     This scared the hell out of me. I became more concerned about (to continue reading this story, click on: Living with OCD or  http://beanerywriters.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/living-with-ocd/

Website for the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation: http://www.ocfoundation.org/ocdawarenessweek.php

 ADDITIONAL READING:

Online Sites for Caretakers & Families of Brain Injury Victims

!¡Anger¡!

BROKEN CIRCLE

Can You Write Your Memoir in Six Words?

Her Gift

I BELIEVE GOD INVENTED DANCING

BIG CHICKEN STOLEN IN LIGONIER TOWNSHIP (PA): The “Big Chicken” Hunt

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

BIG CHICKEN STOLEN IN LIGONIER TOWNSHIP (PA)

The “Big Chicken” Hunt

    The picture of a “big chicken,” in the May 28, 2009, issue of the Ligonier Echo was eye-catching. The chicken was missing from the Dave Tetkoski’s yard on 956 Route 259 on May 25. Tetkoski was preparing to have the fowl statue restored and display it in the 2009 Ligonier Days Parade when the foul play of theft occurred. Tetkoski estimates that the “one-of-a-kind” fiberglass statue is at least 50 years old.

85 Ways to tie a tie—and tying other knots

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

85 WAYS TO TIE A TIE—and TYING OTHER KNOTS

     Shortly after 18-year-old David came to live with us he asked my husband Monte to show him how to tie a tie. Our German exchange student was preparing to attend a formal dance and couldn’t recall the technique.

   Physicists at Cambridge University presented eighty-five different tie knots requiring three to nine moves. They drew their demonstrations from topology, history (ancient Chinese to the present), fashion, examples from the movies and practicality. Of the thirteen knots that survived their aesthetic constraints on symmetry and balance, they suggest the

Dare to be a Clown: Clown Types

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

DARE TO BE A CLOWN: CLOWN TYPES

     The clown standing before me wore size 16 red-trimmed white Pony sneakers. Her horizontally striped costume was covered with multi-colored figures and triangles. It was mismatched, indicating she could not decide what style to whip up on her sewing machine: the blouse had a long sleeve on one side and a single strap on the other side.

     Her face, though not painted, was superficially masked by a painted on smile. Her hair was hidden under a nightcap covered with an oversize butterfly.

     Her entire person was hidden from view. She was quite the clown, daring to be bigger than life, and I was distinctly aware of her, “the clown.”

     Since ancient times, clowns have

From flax to linen: The Stahlstown (Pa.) Flax Scutching Festival

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

FROM FLAX TO LINEN: THE STAHLSTOWN (Pa.) FLAX SCUTCHING FESTIVAL

      The making of linen from the fiber flax plant is celebrated by the Stahlstown (PA) Flax Scutching Festival, held in September each year.

     “We actually make linen that day,” said Marilee Pletcher, publicity chairperson.  “We use flax from our own field but when necessary we purchase it from outside sources. The distributors grow their flax the same way we do.”

     When asked if flax is grown in western Pennsylvania, Kathie Plack, who lives in Herminie, said

Where were you on September 11, 2001? Part CCH

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

WHERE WERE YOU ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001? Part CCH

Today, September 11, 2009, was the Beanery Writers Group regular meeting date. I presented the group with an “oral prompt” (Where were you on September 11, 2001 Part BW),  which led to a discussion that lasted for more than an hour. The prompt contained three questions. First, Where were you when you heard about the events of September 11, 2001? Second, how did you hear? Third, how did you feel? …Before the meeting, I surveyed customers at the Coffee Bean Café in Latrobe, PA, where we hold our meetings. Below are the non-Beanery Writers Group responses.  Carolyn C. Holland, facilitator of the Beanery Writers Group

Male #1: I was driving from here to Pittsburgh. I think I heard it on the radio and called my wife…or maybe she heard the news and called me. I felt weird, amazing, spooky.

Male #2: I was in my Greensburg office, a water business behind the Hampton Inn. The television was on in one of our offices. I felt numb. Then I went to best Buy to shop, and where I saw the second tower collapse. It was surreal. It didn’t sink in. A weird day. My daughter, a student at Valley School in Ligonier Township, saw the

Flax scutching in Pennsylvania & Europe

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

FLAX SCUTCHING IN PENNSYLVANIA & EUROPE

      When Stahlstown (PA) was a settled and respected stagecoach stop in the days of the early settlers, everything a family used was either grown or hunted in their own back yard. That included the raw materials necessary for fabric production, including sheep and flax. From these they made their mainstay fabrics, linen and wool—fabrics that covered their bodies and kept them warm in the cold winters.

     Linen, made from the fiber flax plant, is a fabric dating from pre-Biblical times. Seed was brought from Europe to America by the nation’s first immigrants. In time, easier to produce and care for cotton and synthetic fabrics replaced the linen threads that were woven into linen. It was a long tedious process that included seed broadcasting, plant harvesting, retting, and scutching.

     Following the invention of the cotton gin, cotton became the preferred fabric. When synthetic fabrics became available, linen took another hit. Although the European Union subsidizes flax farmers and processors, fiber flax has not been grown commercially in North America for more than forty years.

     To view photographs of growing flax, click on:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3907672591/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3907672513/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3907672481/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolyncholland/3908451126/in/photostream/

     The Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival works to maintain the art of making the flax fibers necessary to linen production. In 2009 the festival will be 102 years old, celebrating flax scotching since 1907 (missing only 1908 and the war years, 1942-1947). (Official Festival website: http://flaxscutching.org/ )

     This year also marks the year that the European Cooperative Research Network on Flax and other Bast Plants has designated as the International Year of Natural Fibers. The network is a part of the European System of Cooperative Research Networks in Agriculture. Its fifty-two nation membership includes Canada and Mexico (but, notably, not the United States).

     If the European Cooperative network has its way, ancient times will not be so ancient. Producing linen from fiber flax plants may become as current today as it was

July celebrations: Part 2

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

 JULY CELEBRATIONS: PART 2

To read July Celebrations, Part 1, click on: July Celebrations: Part 1

      On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar landing began with liftoff from Kennedy Space Center at 9:37 a.m. And on this day, in 1999, John F. Kennedy piloted a plane with passengers Carolyn Bessette Kennedy (his wife) and her sister Lauren.It disappeared from radar at 9:40 p.m. This was the same day that the founder of Christian Science sect Mary Baker Eddy was born in 1821..

     What connects the color yellow—bright, sunny, cheerful,— pigs and mathematicians? Yellow

July Celebrations: Part 1

CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

JULY CELEBRATIONS: PART 1

     Ah, July is National Anti-Boredom Month. But what, I would like to inquire, is boredom? It sounds like something I would like to experience occasionally! To read about dealing with office boredom, click on WORKPLACE STRESS REDUCTION ACTIVITIES: MORTIFYING AND FUN

     Boredom can be reduced by celebrating National Blueberry Month. A side-member of my ancestral family, Gladys, told me she was going to kick up blueberries rather than roses. It is an apt choice, for when she died