All three pieces of this BRAMBLES issue are about jigsaw puzzles: NEW BLOG ABOUT PEACE ISSUES TITLED “PEACEPUZZLE,” ABOUT JIGSAW PUZZLES…, and CREATE A JIGSAW PUZZLE PIECE (CHRISTMAS) ORNAMENT

NEW BLOG ABOUT PEACE ISSUES TITLED “PEACEPUZZLE”
     A Beanery Writers Group member, Joe, has a passion for developing peace. As a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ligonier, PA, he leads a small group of others who also have an interest in issues of peace.
     His latest endeavor is a blog, which is designed to engage its readers in a dialogue on peace issues.
     He presents the concept of approaching peace like one approaches a puzzle, starting the process somewhere, it matters not where, and finding a place to fit in.
     “The symbol for the Peace Puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces for the puzzle are there. One just has to find them and put them together in the proper order to form a complete picture. Where one starts this process doesn’t matter. It can be on an edge, in the middle—wherever one chooses. One just has to keep looking until all the pieces are found and put in the places where they belong. At some point the puzzle will be complete and whole. There is no doubt of that. How long the process takes depends upon the diligence and dedication of the people who are looking for the pieces. But sooner or later it will happen.”
     Welcome Joe’s blogsite. Click on www.peacepuzzle.blogspot.com , and don’t be shy—add a comment!   

ABOUT JIGSAW PUZZLES…
     According to the Rev. Fred Vanderhoff (Feb. 12, 2006 at Heritage United Methodist Church, Ligonier, PA) each piece of a puzzle has a place.
The question is: What happens when the picture is completed, or when it is perceived to be completed? Many churches act that way. They act as though their work is done, and having accomplished that, they can sit back, like the retired person, and rock their lives away.
     I contend that isn’t true. There is always work to be done, and the church can always be busy being God’s representative to the poor, the weak, the downtrodden. Because, no matter how much progress society accomplishes, these people are always with us.
The same with “retired” persons. There is almost always something retirees can accomplish, pieces of the puzzle that can be fit in.
     The conclusion: we must always be piecing away at the puzzle, but it will never be completed.

CREATE A JIGSAW PUZZLE PIECE (CHRISTMAS) ORNAMENT
     Each year I create a tree ornament and send it out in lieu of a Christmas card. One year I came up with the bright idea to paint faces on nice sized jig saw pieces, with the theme “We are a piece of the puzzle for someone.” I enjoyed the project, which gave me experience with a paint brush—moving it from being an arch enemy to a bearable enemy.
     There is much truth to the theme “we are each a piece of the puzzle for someone.” I had to laugh during one of the family support group meetings, which I facilitated. We had someone new come in, and I was giving my spiel about confidentiality, not taking the information out of the meeting and gossiping about it, and how the meetings functioned. Another group member was there and interrupted me.
     “Let me tell her about this.”
     “OK,” I said, leaning back to listen to her give the information.
     She did a great job. And since then, she has taken the knowledge she learned at the meetings and used “rippled it along” to other victims of abuse that she meets.
I provided pieces of her puzzle for her, and she continued on to do so for others. Insomuch as this occurs, we all become a piece of the puzzle for all others.

Additional reading:

BLACK FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS: Then and Now

LOGGING IN MAINE AND ON THE PERU-BRAZILLIAN BORDER

OF FIREFLIES AND LIGHTNING BUGS

BEAR STORIES ACROSS THE NATION

KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY

WATCHING CORN GROW

HAIR UNAWARE

THE KILLER KITTEN

REACH OUT

SHALIMAR

AND NOW, THE FORECAST

On April 24, 2005, I was privileged to attend the Myers Lecture at the Church of the Savior United Methodist Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio (I happened to be in the community for my grandson’s birthday). The guest speaker was the Rev. Peter Storey, a renowned peace advocate and former Methodist bishop of South Africa. The following is taken from his notes, which he so graciously gave me.
This is the first of a three-part article. The second part will explain how peace after apartheid was accomplished. The third part will speak about the 2008 Lake Junaluska Peace Conference.

In 1990, South Africa’s new president spoke words that shook the world. As leader of the white, racist regime, he stated that he had come to realize that apartheid must end—Nelson Mandela must be freed, the black people must be free, and there must be a new democratic future for South Africa. It was a time for transition.

This happened in a country where the church role was divided. Prominently supporting the racist regime: the Dutch Reformed Church. Prominently speaking against the racist regime: members of the South African Council of Churches, including the Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists.

The opponents of the racist regime were put on trial by the state as members of international communism. The terrible trials they endured culminated with the bombing of their headquarters by the secret police, an action that was sanctioned by the State.

It was an amazing event. People working at the headquarters arrived to find their offices blown apart—but in the midst of the devastation a mural from the lobby was hardly damaged. Visible for all to see was Jesus with open arms welcoming all who came to Him.

After the bombing, the South African Council of churches staff went into exile, taken in by the Central Methodist Church, which met with them for prayer, and they recited the 23rd Psalm.

It takes more than a bomb from a dictatorial ruler to silence Jesus’ church. It was the church that would help guide South Africa’s transition to a new realm.

The result of the bombing could have been civil war with its power grabs and violence, with soldiers sent from both sides to do violence and blame the other side. There could be no turning to the police or military for support, since they were part of the power structure responsible for much of the problem.

HOW DOES A PERSON KEEP PEACE IN A COUNTRY WHICH IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE?

The church and business community formed an alliance with a common mission—to save South Africa from war and unite it. They launched a peace initiative.

But first, for the church to work for peace, it had to unite itself. Having been divided, it had to heal the wounds in the body of Christ.

A conference was held in November, 1990, with leaders from both sides. The Dutch Reformed Church had betrayed Christ’s Gospel by being responsible for death, torture and other horrors. When its leader confessed to personal guilt and accepted responsibility for the wrongs, he also confessed in the name of the entire church and pleaded for forgiveness.

Other churches, eg. the Pentecostals, had been silent during the apartheid. They asked forgiveness for that silence.

Finally, there was the righteous ones, who realized they were not sinless, that their guilt arose from not supporting their leaders.

Everyone had to confess his/her sins in order to change.

Amidst many leaders of the South Africa Council of Churches who responded like Jonah (who refused to forgive the Ninevahites), not wanting their enemies to repent and be forgiven by God but wanting them to be punished, Desmond Tutu stood up and spoke.

“My faith tells me that when someone repents, I must forgive him.”

A National Peace Accord formed, standing up for South Africa. People came and signed a document committing political parties to certain codes of conduct. The National Peace Secretariat was a council of business and church leaders, an alternative peace service for the entire country.

The process took over a year. The council trained 26,000 youth to be peace monitors, going out into the countryside to mediate between warring groups in an attempt to lower the temperature of violence. To do this, they needed eighty cars—and convinced Honda that if they didn’t supply these cars, they wouldn’t have any customers, since the country was headed for anarchy. The bought the first cell phones in South Africa from the British, and when customs detained the batteries, the British Royal Air Force flew them in. Trained trauma counselors from Sweden spent two years in South Africa, counseling peace monitors who had seen too much violence. Scotland Yard trained additional people to keep the peace.

This was all accomplished without government or politics.

Thirty million people voted in the first free, fair and peaceful election. Although they used computers for checks and balances, in some parts of South Africa there was no electricity to run the computers, making the tallying of ballots too complicated and in need of simplification. Rev. Storey received an urgent phone call in the middle of the night, asking if he could gather nine hundred church persons “overnight” to help count votes. Although a thousand volunteers reported for duty, there was still arguing, so they were sent home. The second day twelve hundred volunteers were trained and went to the countryside to count votes, which saved the election.

The question still remained: HOW SHOULD THE COUNTRY DEAL WITH ITS PAST?

Watch this site: How South Africa dealt with its past will be posted soon. 

NOTE: A Beanery Writers Group member, Joe, has created an interactive blog on peace issues. Visit his site at   www.peacepuzzle.blogspot.com

For additional reading:

VOICES OF WILDERNESS: PEACE MEETING

CHILD ABUSE AND SCRIPTURE

CHILDREN LEFT HOME ALONE (or in cars alone)

ANOTHER HORRIFYING HEADLINE

KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY

A FATHER-DAUGHTER REUNION

I BELONG TO MY FAMILY

SEVENTY YEARS OF LOVE

CHILDISH IMMATURITY

LOGGING IN MAINE AND ON THE PERU-BRAZILLIAN BORDER

BLACK FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS: Then and Now

OF FIREFLIES AND LIGHTNING BUGS

THE ICE CREAM MAN

BEAR STORIES ACROSS THE NATION

—written by Monte:

     One of my tenants said “It’s a small world,” after I related to her a few of our experiences on the New England trip. Later I thought to myself, “No! It’s a world in which God brings some real surprises to remind us that He is still in charge, that ‘Behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow keeping watch above his own,’ as James Russell Lowell wrote in a familiar hymn.”

     The surprising events—let me tell you a few of them, starting with the most amazing situation. A year ago Carolyn had sent out a note to the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church, letting them know I was available for guest or fill-in preaching during our vacation. Rev. Karen Munson, pastor of the Readfield: Torsey Memorial United Methodist Church in Readfield, Maine, responded, scheduling us on September 7 in this small community northwest of Augusta. At the beginning of worship, during a greeting time for the forty-five to fifty worshipers, I went down from the pulpit side and Karen descended from the lectern side. Soon she approached me. “You need to come over here and meet someone who went to grade school with you,” she said. Elma Wilson Poole had recognized my name during the announcements and told Karen we’d attended school together in DeKalb, New York, at the District 11 one-room schoolhouse. I was shocked. She had recently married Gordon Poole, also a DeKalb Junction native. He had lived in Maine since 1960. Was this a chance meeting or was God in the midst of it all? We made the most of it, having a wonderful time with the Poole’s at the Litchfield Fair and at dinner afterwards. Thanks be to God for wonderful surprises like “bolts out of the blue!”

     During the summer we stayed at a number of motels, cottages, cabins, etc. In rural Maine there’s a little community called Liberty, the location of Cozy Pines Campgrounds. The couple that run it are retired from the Navy. We stayed there three different times, since the price was right for their waterless sleeping cabins, some with stove, refrigerator and dishes (still no water). Carolyn, especially, had got acquainted with them on our stays.

     On our way home we stayed two days in Newport, Rhode Island, researching some of Carolyn’s early ancestors who’d lived there in the 1600’s and 1700’s. We stopped in a parking lot so we could go to the visitor center. A car pulled up beside us and the man kept staring surrepticiously at us, making Carolyn uncomfortable.

     After a few minutes the man left his car and rapped Carolyn’s window. It was the owners of Cozy Pines who were parked exactly beside us and recognized us. Was it a coincidence that at exactly the same time and almost exactly the same spot our paths crossed again without either of us knowing that the other was to be there? Or was God smiling in the shadows, as he brought us one more surprise?

     God wasn’t done yet. A couple of days later, enroute home, we pulled into a parking place at a Motel 6. A truck with a trailer hauling a new Thunderbird was parked near our spot. Its owners stood nearby, holding a cute, little dog that Carolyn stopped to admire. In the conversation the owners said they summer at Southport, an island we had visited on the Maine coast. Carolyn said she had walked the beach there and in May I had preached (on Mexico missions) at Southport United Methodist Church.

     Dana, the pastor there, had told me about two parishioners from Texas who visit Mexico a lot, but I missed meeting them because they were away. This was the couple. We ended up meeting them after all.

     Another coincidence? My statistical mindset says, “No!” What do you think?

For additional reading:

BLACK FLIES AND OTHER INSECTS: Then and Now

OF FIREFLIES AND LIGHTNING BUGS

YOU MEAN THIS NEW ENGLANDER IS A WESTSYLVANIAN?

THE AMAZING BEAVER

OH, TO CLIMB SCHOODIC MOUNTAIN (Maine)

SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS DRINK MOXIE: Do They Like It?

LOGGING IN MAINE AND ON THE PERU-BRAZILLIAN BORDER

—written by both Carolyn and Monte Holland

When considering child abuse from the Scriptural perspective there are some important questions. Below is an attempt to answer some of them.

First: Children must be MADE to OBEY (their parents), right?
Obedience IS important. Ephesians 6:1, 4 and Colossians 3:20-21 instruct children to be obedient. However, this directive does not stop there: it continues on to instruct PARENTS not to PROVOKE their children. Implied is a mutual respect, and respect begets respect.
Furthermore, “Nobody ever hates his own flesh, but rather nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does for the church…” (Ephesians 5:29) Our children are born out of our love, part of a continuation of our flesh. We should, therefore, not treat them with hate or hateful actions.

Second: Does not the Bible, in Proverbs 13:24, state that to “spare the rod is to spoil the child?” 
Nowhere in the New Testament—the “new law”—is abuse justified. Rather, the opposite is expected: “that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) We are directed in the “Great Commandment” (Matthew 22:37-40) that “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Our family members—our spouse and children and parents—are our closest “neighbors.” Hebrews 12:7-11 is one scripture that instructs us on discipline. It states that if you are without “discipline” “then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” The key word here is DISCIPLINE. Discipline differs from PUNISHMENT. The goal of discipline is to teach, to direct; it is a time consuming process. The goal of punishment is to control, often through fear; it usually has immediate results. LOVE is demonstrated in guiding a child via discipline into the ways of the Lord.

Third: Why shouldn’t a person abuse a child? After all, they need to be made civilized.
Humans are made in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-27) Would we not think it improper and even sinful to violate or deface someone who bears the likeness of God? Since every person is made in God’s image, when anyone treats another individual with disrespect, when any one of us is being intentionally hurt, there is a violation of the divine image of God.
Furthermore, I Corinthians 3:16-17 instructs us that our bodies are the “temple of the Holy Spirit.” Is anyone justified in damaging or destroying God’s temple?

Fourth: Doesn’t a person who is abusive recognize their wrongness?
Not necessarily. A person who is abusive (or being abused) may not see the behavior as antagonistic to Christianity or human caring. They may be unclear of how little basis such conduct has in Christian truth, and needless unjustifiable pain may be inflicted partially because of fuzzy Christian thinking, or even a lack of this teaching. Furthermore, they may have grown up themselves in an abusive environment, and may believe that this is a cultural norm. Their own perspective, thus, may be warped due to the abuse THEY received.

Fifth: Did “the Devil make me do it?”
“Look what you made me do!” and “I would not have done that if…” are words that run throughout our child rearing. The abuser places blame for their abuse and his/her loss of control on some outside force—drugs, alcohol, the child’s (wife’s) behavior, etc. The Bible leaves no doubt that evil is a powerful force. Temptation is real and often ferocious, but “with every temptation is provided the way of escape.” (I Corinthians 10:13) Trying to “pass the buck (of blame)” and excusing behavior is to ignore the fact that the way of escape is available. Recall Adam’s excuse? Eve was his cause, and his excuse, for disobedience! Adam was the original “buck passer.”

Sixth: Is not the abused person being punished for some sin? Isn’t God trying to teach the abused person a lesson? Doesn’t God have a purpose in this abuse?
There is such a thing as reaping what one sows, but that is not all the reaping one does. We reap a great deal that we do not sow—both bad and good. Matthew 5:45 states “…for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” God does want us to grow and we may do s as a RESULT of terrible experiences. But it would be a despicable God who SEEKS this growth through lessons caused by others harming them. The hand that hurts is never a Divine hand. Yet, God is not absent from any situation, and it is in order to look for his supporting and healing hand even in the midst of an abusive situation. But this is a long way from thinking of abuse as either the will or the work of the Lord.

Seventh: Won’t praying solve the problem?
Sometimes well-meaning pastors and friends offer this advice to persons who are suffering from abuse or who are being abusive. Prayer is always in order, but it may not be in order to urge harder and more persistent prayer in an abusive situation. This will serve to increase the guilt that the abused person has already. “If my prayer life were what it should be, or were I not guilty of other failures (or the failures I am abused for), this would not be happening to me.”

Eighth: I have been so abusive (or abused) that there is no forgiveness. There is no God for me!
God forgives ALL sin! Full repentance, seeking God and accepting Him into your life, then following through in Christian fellowship and teaching (and even counseling) can lead to God’s forgiveness. And who are we to decide that we are not worthy of God’s healing grace when it is offered to us?

Ninth: Is self-respect compatible with humility?
The Bible values humility very highly. We are called to be humble in the presence of God and to have a humble spirit in our relationships with other human beings. It is not contrary to Christian teaching that we are of “infinite worth.” (Matthew 10:29-31) It is very likely that the abuser in a situation has low self-regard for self. The right kind of self-respect will not allow one to degrade one’s own self in such a way.
The abused will also have trouble with self-respect. Both the abused and the abuser bring into question the basic Biblical view of the high valuation which God places on each man.

Tenth: Is assertiveness compatible with love?
Assertiveness is defined as “inclined to listen, confident, positive.” Assertiveness is what allows us to confront a person with love; it involves respect of the other person balanced with respect for ourselves. It does not mean to pamper, cater to another person’s whims, or to allow the other person to degrade themselves. It does not mean to push the other person around, either. To love is to want what is best for the other person, and that best cannot be the hell that abusive behavior creates. I Timothy 6:13, 17 instructs us to “instruct with authority.” Being a Christian does not mean to be a doormat, nor does it mean to be aggressive and controlling. It means to assertively, with authority, love another person.

For additional reading:

CHILDREN LEFT HOME ALONE (or in cars alone)

ANOTHER HORRIFYING HEADLINE

KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY

A FATHER-DAUGHTER REUNION

I BELONG TO MY FAMILY

SEVENTY YEARS OF LOVE

CHILDISH IMMATURITY

BEAR STORIES ACROSS THE NATION

FLASHY MOON EXPLOSIONS

BRAMBLES 1-4 includes pieces titled WEATHER IS RELATIVE, YOU’RE TOO OLD TO DO WHAT…?, and LOST DREAMS

WEATHER IS RELATIVE
   In mid-June the temperature was just under forty degrees. As I prepared a hot cup of tea, wrapped up in a cozy robe, and hunted for the book I am reading, I thought back to the time not long ago when forty degrees seemed such a relief from below freezing weather that I was searching for shorts and short sleeved tops to wear while I worked outside in the yard.
   Recently, there was a woman from India at an event at my home. Others were sweltering in the eighty-degree weather, but she was cold, having come from a country with a one hundred degree climate.
   The following is an excerpt on weather relativity from a book by Allis. It compares the weather in Downeast Maine, Boston and the Carolinas during the 1790s.
   “From their vicinity to the sea the (Maine) inhabitants enjoy the benefit of those saline particles which meliorate the air, and make the climate much less acute than it is far inland. Altho the degrees of cold exceed those experienced in Boston, yet from the regularity of the weather, and the fitted state of the body to the situation, the people do not suffer more from the cold than the do about Boston…So that we are not to estimate the evils of cold entirely by the degrees, thereof, but with our ability to bear it. (I, Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, suffered as much from the cold in Carolina as I ever experienced in Mass. The weather is not so cold as the weather farther north, nor (are the people) fitted to bear it.”
   Thus, whether it’s warm or cold, the perception of weather is relative. So offer your visitor from India a sweater in eighty-degree weather and your visitor from Alaska shorts in forty-degree weather. After all, weather is relative.
 
YOU’RE TOO OLD TO DO WHAT…?
   You think you are too old—at 50, 60—to accomplish great things? What about 70? or  80? or even 90?
   In February, 2008, there was a peace conference held in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. The event featured the Rev. Peter Storey, a renowned peace advocate and former United Methodist bishop of South Africa.
   The Lake Junaluska Peace Conference was begun by a grass roots group of peace advocates headed by 95-year old Rev. Wright Spears, who started dreaming of an annual peace conference to examine why the church is too often silent in a world of violence.
   The group is planning ten more years of conferences and has already begun working on next year’s schedule. 
   What does Rev. Spears have planned for his one-hundredth year?
   And what do you have planned for your 50th, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th, or 95th year?
   As for me, I relish the perk of being formerly young, the association of wisdom and age.

LOST DREAMS
   Speaking of age, it seems people can begin with one plan and end with something totally different.
   I didn’t start off to be a historical writer, having the titles of “independent historian” and “colleague”—of a college history professor. In fact, the subject I disliked most was history. It was boring.
   I also didn’t start out to be a medical laboratory technician. Or a human service worker. Or a business person. Or a photo-journalist. What I wanted to be, in the whole world of occupations, was a teacher.
   Then I was rejected by the teacher’s college, someplace anyone was expected to be able to get into. I wasn’t savvy enough to explore why. I was just rejected.
   I also did not start off with the desire to birth only one child. Coming from parents who together birthed two children and separately each of my parents birthed at least five more children, infertility was the furthest thing from my mind. In fact, my desire was to be mother to twelve children. (However, I did dream of adopting children. That is how we came by our oldest child.)
   Dreams, especially childhood dreams, seem to get lost or altered by life. Although my childhood dreams did not materialize, I have been able to develop my gifts to, I hope, benefit humanity. And in some alternative ways, my dreams did come true. Through my work as an abuse counselor, I’ve taught numerous classes. I also taught during my ten years as a family childcare provider, developing and presenting preschool programs.
The family childcare and other circumstances also allowed me to act as a surrogate parent to numerous children of all ages.
   The alterations of my dreams has caused me to creatively become who I wanted to be.
I began with certain dreams. And I fulfilled those dreams. For that I am grateful.

For additional reading:

BEAR STORIES ACROSS THE NATION

FLASHY MOON EXPLOSIONS

AN ADOPTION EXPERIENCE

RIVER (Specifically, the Youghiogheny River)

SOCKATORY

KILLED STRANGELY: A NEW ENGLAND MURDER STORY

RUSS’S ASSIGNMENT: WRITE CAROLYN’S EULOGY Lent Devotion

A REVIEW OF RESPONSES TO CAMPBELL’S BEST BUY LAWSUIT: Part 1

A REVIEW OF RESPONSES TO CAMPBELL’S BEST BUY LAWSUIT: Part 2

OBITUARY FOR BLUE BUOY (A Blue Lobster)

IN SEARCH OF THE ARABELLA: A STORY OF TWO BOATS

Through the years, the logging industry has played a major role. Below are four scenerios, from the Peru-Brazilian border; Sullivan, Maine; the Penobscot Million lands in Hancock/Washington counties, Massachusetts (Maine) in the 1790s, and Maine’s unorganized territory in 2008.

SCENERIO 1

The amazing pictures were beamed around the globe: a handful of warriors from an ‘undiscovered tribe’ in the rainforest on the Brazilian-Peruvian border brandishing bows and arrows at the aircraft that photographed them. These photographs were published to make a political point, to perhaps reduce the tribe’s danger of their losing the habitat in which they have flourished for hundreds of years. The publicity from the photographs will hopefully lift the threat of logging to the tribe’s existance.

José Carlos Meirelles, 61, a sertanista (expert on indigenous tribes) working for the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency, Funai, took the photographs.

Survival International, the organisation that released the pictures, and Funai, which is dedicated to searching out remote tribes and protecting them, conceded that they’ve known about this nomadic tribe for around two decades. Former Funai president Sydney Possuelo agreed that the invasion of the tribe’s privacy was necessary to prove that ‘uncontacted,’ isolated, tribes still existing in the area, are endangered by the menace of the logging industry. Loggers, closing in on the Indians’ homeland, are threatening their isolation. Peru’s logging has sent many Indians fleeing into Brazil, according to Meirelles.

International media attention forced neighbouring Peru to re-examine its logging policy in the border area where the tribe lives. Funai has shut down 28 illegal sawmills in Acre state, where these tribes are located.

As yet, there is no logging on Brazillian side of the border.

Building paved roads also creates tree cutting. A new road is being paved from Peru into Acre, which will likely introduce hordes of poor settlers to the area. Other Amazon roads have led to 30 miles of rain forest being cut down on each side, according to scientists.

SCENERIO 2

Sullivan, Maine, already has  “logging,” or “tree cutting,” regulations, to protect the value of its ocean-side properties. Thus, when William Badyna, of Brooklyn, clear-cut his 1.2 acre, heavily wooded seaside lot (legally owned by his wife, Angelique) on Flanders Bay he blamed it on a “misunderstanding” and the hiring of local workers who did not adhere to the local tree-removal ordinance. Sullivan’s Shoreland Zoning Ordinance bans the cutting trees within 75 feet of the property’s shoreline (that is 250 feet) and limits tree removal beyond that 75-foot setback to 40 percent of the parcel’s area (including a house lot). Badyna publicly apologized and agreed to pay a $5,000 fine and foot the bill for a tree-planting plan to be overseen by a forester.

However, the couple’s assets have since been frozen by the order of a New York Supreme Court. Badyna was among eight people arrested in July, 2003, and charged with running what was described at the time as “one of the largest prostitution rings in New York City.”

On March 4, 2008, Badyna pleaded guilty to the charge of money laundering in the second degree. He is facing a prison term that could range from 5 to 15 years. His wife will appear before Hancock County for a hearing re the damages owed to Sullivan. And the parcel in question is being marketed for $350,000, the same price paid by the Badynas in 2005. Other Oceanside lots are less expensive, but none has an unrestricted view of the sea.

SCENERIO 3

On May 20, 1793, Madame Rosalie de la Val expressed concerns about the land she was hoping to purchase in Trenton (now Lamoine), Maine (part of the Penobscot Millions). Due to an extended delay in obtaining a land survey, she had “not yet been able to enforce her rights against those of the inhabitants who…waste her forests”— lumber thieves were pillaging her lands at will.

Madame’s problem with the pillaging was a major source of irritation to the Penobscot land proprietors in the 1790s. On February 6, 1793, William Bingham wrote to land agent Henry Jackson: great depredations have been committed in the course of the winter upon the Penobscot tract, by cutting immense quantities of timber, to which they are prompted by the high price of lumber.

Perhaps this was due to the most widely practiced occupation of east Maine settlers, lumbering. Maine had an abundance of was timber, in that era when wood was in high demand for fuel, houses and ships. According to land baron xxx Baring, “Wood for fires near the large towns is dearer than it was in France and Germany and from a total want of any system of preservation of forests, the country is daily exhausting.” In fact, lumber prices and its transport costs were controlled largely by Boston.

The particular wishes of the land proprietors was that the entire lumber resource on his land be preserved, because it increased the value of the land they hoped to sell. David Cobb, Bingham’s land agent, wrote “The people must certainly be convinced that it is high time that a stop should be put to their depredations upon lands not their own.”

He told Bingham that the loggers habits in cutting wood was “So strong…acquired by long usage, that they think it is depriving them of one of their dearest rights, to be prevented from cutting timber wherever they please, and to demand of them to pay for it, is an insult added to the injury. This opinion I have been combating ever since I came here.” Since their custom and habit was to “plunder” lumber, “if they are denied the priviledge of log cutting upon these lands, they would be reduced to the utmost distress.”  Thus, Cobb suggested that charity be used—that the proprietor could consent to giving a lumberman the privilege of cutting his land’s lumber on condition that the log cutting does not destroy a single tree that is fit for masts, that an eighth part of the boards that are cut from the logs are delivered to the proprietor, and that if any other timber is taken, the logger would pay the customary proportion of the country.

Bingham responded that the interest of every landowner was to cooperate in resisting the claims of the loggers, since no property can be secure without the right to the timber and the right to the soil.

“The people must certainly be convince’d that it is high time that a stop should be put to their depridations upon lands not their own,” Cobb wrote. By November 1795, he had the log stealing business “in part already placed in good order…by repeated visits and conversations to and with those who have had the greatest share in this kind of plunder.” Bingham was pleased that Cobb had been able “to combat with success the dangerous prepossessions of the inhabitants relative to the right of plundering timber. It is necessary to crush this practice in its bud; as the object is one of the most valuable resources of the country.”

However, the goal wasn’t reached without threats. Donald Ross, hired to deal with the trespassers, was occasionally threatened by loggers who thought it was a great grievance to pay anything for the lumber. One mill man told him “that I had better not attempt paying them another visit this winter in their camps as I might depend on meeting ill treatment and that binding me foot to a tree I might rely on.”

The matter of taking free logs was a principal topic of conversation at Union River until years later when John Black, land agent, seized all illegally-cut lumber on the landings. The trespassers were “pretty much brought…to reason” after losing a winter’s work.

The problem of loggers trespassing persisted. On November 19, 1799, Ross wrote to Cobb: “On the lower part of Trenton here has been a very open and barefaced trespass, committed this last week on your lands by John Gilpatrick and a certain Berry. They hauled 100 logs, and I think ought to be made an example of, either by law or making them settle at a higher (rate) than the others, as they now can have no colour of excuse.” Later he wrote that he had “called on Gilpatrick and Berry and took their obligation for $17.50 payable in six weeks.”

SCENERIO 4 

Some Maine citizens oppose developing the state’s unorganized territory, some of which the Massachusetts government and land proprietors in the 1790s so anxiously speculated on settling. Other Maine citizens are anxious to get on with progress.

The current debate is between entity Plum Creek Timber Co. and timberland owners. Plum Creek Timber Co. proposes rezoning 20,000 acres around Moosehead Lake, to create the largest subdivision ever proposed for the North Woods. It includes at least 975 homes and two resorts.

The Natural Resources Council of Maine recognizes the development pressures in this territory, but advocates controlling these pressures. The council is a powerful environmental group.

Maine’s ten million acres of unorganized territory serves as the “wood basket” for Maine’s pulp, paper and timber industry. It stretches over half the state, encompassing what people refer to as the North Woods and wildlands of Maine and touching twelve different counties, but is largely contained in eight—Aroostook, Penobscot, Somerset, Piscataquis, Washington, Franklin, Oxford and Hancock. According to Diano Circo, the council’s North Woods policy advocate, “It is the last, largely undeveloped forest in the Eastern United States.”

Meanwhile, the Land Use Regulation Commission, or LURC for short, recently began a formal public review of its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, a review the law requires to be updated every ten years. Its most talked about exemption, which landowners say the plan appears to want to modify, if not to eliminate, is the so-called two-in-five rule—a statewide statute allowing landowners to split off one lot from an existing parcel once every five years, thus creating two lots over five years time. This rule allows building lots to be created without subdivision review.

CONCLUSION
Today’s lumbering and tree cutting problems are a continuation of the lumbering problems through the ages, tied in with the economic value of lumber. Currently, lumber prices have increased due to a spurt of homebuilding, the need for lumber to rebuild the damage done in the mid-East, and the increasing energy costs.

As long as lumber holds this value, there will be plunderers, and forests will be cut down, often irresponsibly.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES WERE USED FOR REFERENCE:

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/91536
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/21/amazon?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront 
http://www.hispnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=802:brazil-reveals-uncontacted-amazon-tribe-to-alert-world-to-threats&catid=377:060508&Itemid=76 
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14814&Itemid=1)

Eight years after purchasing our retirement home, and five years after moving in full time, I finally am doing some very belated “landscaping” work.

Lest you consider us slothful, we had done some outside work in previous years—two years ago my husband, Monte, and son, Nolan, removed big rocks in our woods, then  made a path between my daughter’s house and our house, enabling us all to scoot back and forth easily—and making true the words, “and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go.” Last year we enlarged the path, which now circles around half the perimeter of our acre and a half lot, and meets with the first path. Also, my husband wheel-barrowed numerous wood chips to cover it.

I began this year by starting to trim a wild rose bush, which proved to be so overgrown that we ended up removing it totally (or so we thought, but new shoots are now reaching skyward). It cleared out a corner of our property, so that after trimming a few pine boughs we had an opening for a shortcut to the neighbor’s house.

As I continued around the property, hand-digging dandelions for the third year, I came to a pine tree planted by the former owner. Her husband was from Massachusetts, and the pine was transplanted from some site in that state. Since I’m a New Englander, this touch pleases me.

As I worked around this pine tree I became bugged. I mean this literally. Small black bugs swarmed about me, in my eyes, nose, mouth. Needless to say, I didn’t work long in that area. However, the experience reminded me of a series of conversations I had with a chat room member, Topforester, during early 2003, when Monte and I were planning a major vacation in New England following his July retirement. The Topforester was a forest ranger, I believe, from the Calais, Maine, area. He warned me about traveling to Maine in late spring, early summer, when the black bugs were prolific. He also gave me advice on a helpful product to combat the bug with, and where to get it, but I cannot find that reference now. (Topforester, if you happen by chance to be reading this, let me know in the comment box what you directed me to get!)

The May/June 2008 issue of Yankee Magazine (page 46), written by Francie Von Mertens, states the following:

New Englanders take a perverse pride in their blackflies—claiming them as their state “bird,” naming softball teams after them—but behind the bravado is a certain dread. As a birder, I note that blackflies return to our backyard almost to the day that barn swallows return to our barn. One is a favorite species; the other is endured with a sense that you can’t have one without the other.

Wildlife species—whether mammal, bird, or insect—hatch their young when their favored foods are most abundant. One of the earliest nesting birds, the great horned owl, for example, hatches its young when rapidly multiplying rabbits and mice are out and about. A few months later, when insects emerge, migrating birds return to begin their breeding season. Then, as our summer bounty ripens, fruit-eating cedar waxwings hatch their young.

When we swat at blackflies or mosquitoes, or steer clear of wasps under house eaves, it’s easy to forget that human comfort isn’t the point. We’re just one part of a complex, interdependent system. Perhaps those blackflies pollinate the blueberry blossoms that produce the berries that attract elegant cedar waxwings to your backyard…a very pleasing silver lining.

I’ve read numerous 1790s journals and letters pertaining to New England, especially the area known as the Penobscot Purchase (or Penobscot Millions)—Hancock and Washington counties, Maine. OK, perhaps this is “drab” reading, but I’m doing it for background research for my historical romance novel, and historical journal article. 

In the process, I’ve discovered interesting references to the black bugs and other insects. Certainly, the writers didn’t agree with Von Mertens. I suspect they could have done away with the entire population of these obnoxious insects. Below are some samples.

Annually, between the years 1632 and 1673, the (Jesuit) superiors (in Maine) made up a narrative, or “Relation,” which they forwarded to the Provincial of the order in France…consider that the “Relations” were written for the most part in Indian camps subject to every conceivable distraction. Myriads of mosquitoes tormented the writer…

Settlers periodically lost entire harvests to invasions of grasshoppers and “army worms,” so named because they marched in a direct line like the ranks of a voracious army. In November 1779 Lincoln County’s magistrates lamented:

After having struggled through the miseries of a hard and pinching winter, the people’s countenances pale, and their bodies become feeble, through want and hunger; they were in the spring of the year, from the first appearance of things, in great hopes of a fruitfull summer, but their early hopes were soon cut off, by amazing swarms of grasshoppers, and other insects which in many parts of this county almost covered the face of the ground, and distroyd a great part of the grain and grass and almost all vegetables that grew out of the earth.

Another devastating infestation occurred in 1793, when, in the words of one settler, the grasshoppers “destroyed almost every green thing.” The infestations were not more serious on the frontier than elsewhere in rural America, but the settlers felt them more severely because they rarely possessed any surplus of grain to draw upon in adversity. 

Often farm work in the settlers’ forest-surrounded clearings became unbearable. William Allen Jr. wrote:

We had hard times during the winter, 1792-1793, but suffered more intensely the next summer, under our severe tasks and privations, and from the torment of black flies and mosquitoes. Our camp was near a large swamp that swarmed with these pests, which tormented us day and night. We could scarcely see, our eyes were so swollen. Sometimes the boys had their necks bitten till there were raw sores with flies imbedded in them.

In search of some surcease from the biting insects, settlers maintained day and night “smokes,” straw and brush fires, at their doors, which Allen Jr. stated:

…filled their cabins with a dense, almost choking smoke that, even in the hottest weather, was preferable to their tiny but innumerable foes.

Early in the summer of 1793, Park Holland was surveying the Penobscot region. He wrote, from Sandy Point, Maine, enroute to the site:

We passed one night only in the house of Colonel Shute. The weather being so extremely warm, the fleas were so troublesome that we were obliged to camp on the shore. We found out before our return, that we had evils to contend with, of some greater magnitude than the bite of a flea….

I didn’t continue on to read what the additional evils were, but obviously the fleas were of some evil.

In July 1795, William Bingham, a land proprietor, was informed by his land agent, David Cobb, that smaller predators—black flies and mosquitoes—fed on the settlers’ blood and often drove them from their work in the spring and early summer. Cobb wrote:

The surveyor and those who came to view the country…have as frequently returned almost blind by the bites of flies and musketoes. You have no conception of the hosts of these devils that infest the thick forrest at this season.”

The modern world has studied “better” bug repellants, according to a May 27, 2008 AP article headline published in the Latrobe (PA) Bulletin. The article states:

Researchers have identified seven possibilities for the next generation of mosquito repellant, some of which may work several times longer than the current standard-bearer, DEET. The next step: safety testing to make sure they’re not harmful.

While the new repellants aren’t likely to be available commercially for a few years, early tests on cloth were promising with some chemical repelling mosquitoes for as long as 73 days and many working for 40 to 50 days, compared to an average of 17.5 days with DEET, according to a study in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…Several of the new chemicals “were just phenomenal,” said Ulrich R. Bernier, a research chemist at the Agriculture department’s mosquito and fly research unit in Gainesville, Fla. “I was so surprised…” makes repellants work, and then to use that information in finding more effective ways to chase away disease-carrying insects, Bernier explained in a phone conversation.

“We thought, can we do a better job of designing repellants?” Bernier said.

(The researchers funded by the Defense Department, focused on) a type of chemical known as N-acylpiperidines, (narrowing) the study down to 34 molecules—23 that had never been tested before and 11 that had—Bernier explained.

From those, the 10 most effective were narrowed down to seven, with elimination based on concerns about toxicity and high cost to produce.

The tests were done on cloth treated with the chemicals and then placed on the arms of volunteers.

According to Bernier, safety tests will be done the seven chemicals this summer in order to determine if they are safe to use directly on the skin.

While the military is paying for the research, any success is expected to benefit the general public too. The current standard for repellants, DEET (N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) was also originally developed for military use in 1946 and was registered for use on civilians in 1957.

DEET may have a good safety record, but some people dislike its odor and others question its safety for some individuals, especially children and pregnant women. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, DEET has been implicated in seizures among children, although there is insufficient information to confirm it as the cause of these incidents.

Bernier, a co-author of the study, said he regularly receives new repellants from people and he ends up writing them back to say they don’t work.

One such measure was observed by a person I’ll call Morton, who was at a deck party where the bugs were feasting on everyone. When a man sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, the little demons disappeared.

The next year Morton filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around his seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. Voila! It worked as well.

It worked at a picnic where Morton sprayed the area around the food table, the children’s swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, Morton didn’t leave home without his spray bottle full of Listerine.

Morton’s experience was confirmed by another Internet reader, who stated that the Listerine killed the insects instantly, and was financially feasible. This reader stated that the procedure lasted a couple of days, and warned not to spray directly on a wood surface, but to spray around that wood.

I must experiment with this the next time I am working around those pine trees from Maine. The result will either prove that something finally works, or that Morton and the reader own stock in the company that produces Listerine.

Nonetheless, it is important to avoid being bitten by insects such as mosquitoes, ticks and black flies, which can spread diseases such as encephalitis, Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, malaria, and dengue Fever.

As for the statement in an E-mail I received, “Now these are Good Mosquitos!!!,” do not believe it—unless you are a critter who survives by a diet of insects!

NOTE: Some references are from Sprague’s Journal of Maine History, Vol. II; Liberty Men and Great Proprietors by Alan Taylor and Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Volume 37.

Thank you for visiting my writing site. I welcome you to make comments. Please visit the Beanery Online Literary Magazine at www.beanerywriters.wordpress.com

For additional reading:

OF FIREFLIES AND LIGHTNING BUGS

PARIS CAFE’s

FLASHY MOON EXPLOSIONS

PLANT FOOD RECIPE: Making Compost

THE AMAZING BEAVER

FERAL BIRDS: THE LATEST COMMUNITY HAZARD

BEAR STORIES ACROSS THE NATION

DEFINING GOD

HAIR UNAWARE

I BELONG TO MY FAMILY

SEVENTY YEARS OF LOVE

HIS KIND

SUPPLIES
One 4 foot x 4 foot x four foot container
Pitchfork
Watering can or hose

INGREDIENTS

2-3 wheelbarrow loads of green stuff such as grass clippings, weeds, kitchen plant material
2-3 wheelbarrow loads of brown stuff, such as fall leaves, corn stalks, dead plants, chopped grasses
Water

DIRECTIONS:
Lay crisscrossed branches, cornstalks or woody wastes in the container
Add a six-inch layer of green stuff (large items should be chopped)
Add a six-inch layer of brown stuff
Mix layers, from the outside in, with a garden fork or compost turning tool and moisten dry materials
Repeat steps 2 to 4 until the container is full

OF FIREFLIES AND LIGHTNING BUGS

A FATHER-DAUGHTER REUNION

DAVID Part 4 of a 10 Part Romance Story

RIVER (Specifically, the Youghiogheny River)

LOBSTER-TALES

TO MATTIE

SOUTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIANS DRINK MOXIE: Do They Like It?

YARD SALES UNSETTLE ME

PERTAINING TO THE SPIRIT

According to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper article, “If coffee is the fuel of France, then the cafe may be the soul of France — a place to gulp an “express” in the morning or sip a leisurely cafe creme in the afternoon, to rest or flirt, to gossip or debate politics; in short . . . to be French…(the cafes are) the stomach, lungs, liver, bad conscience and — oh yes — soul of the city. You buy tobacco in some, gamble in others, philosophize, write or surf in yet others, and drink and eat in all — sometimes well. Romance buds, hatred flares, revelation dawns, violence erupts, fortune smiles upon lucky winners, smoke gets in everyone’s eyes…If nothing else, cafes animate the city — that is, they keep it awake with noise and stimulants. They’ve been around for centuries…”

Cafes are a part of the urban Parisian landscape, according to Anne Rohan, which contribe to the city’s charm. Another site states that cafes on every corner on every street in every neighborhood, serve their communities by offering their patrons a “living room” outside their small apartments, to which they rarely invite guests. Cafes also offer a cozy, heated place to escape from small, freezing apartments. The patrons use the cafes as their living rooms, rarely inviting guests to their homes. Cafes are the palce to sip coffee, read, write, and argue.

Although historically, the roots of the cafe are tied to coffee, one internet writer stated, that “Admittedly, the coffee itself is often pretty bad.”

“For the coffee? Good heavens, no, I don’t go to a cafe for that. Coffee is simply about the cheapest thing you can order while occupying a table for an hour or so …”

Coffee, exotic beverage quickly became fashionable among the well-off population, was reputedly brought to France in 1644. According to Mike Nachaj, it was introduced by traders who had grown used to drinking the beverage in the Middle east.

While Turkish ambassador, Suleiman Aga, was in France during 1669, he introduced Turkish-style coffee to the court of Louis XIV and to the numerous Parisians he entertained “at the most extravagant coffee parties, held in opulent castles hired especially for the occasion. The haute société of Paris soon fell under his spell and everything Turkish came into vogue.” However, even though many aristocrats quickly adopted coffee, others found it rather distasteful—it’s said that the German wife of Louis XIV’s brother compared it to the Archbishop of Paris’s breath (ugh!). After an initial flirtation, Madame de Sévigné  rejected coffee as violently as she had rejected chocolate. Another nobleman used it only as an enema and remarked that it did the job very well.

Another web site stated that coffee consumption was initially centered around Marseille, and it took nearly twenty five years for the beverage to became popular in France. Some “cafés” opened in the capital city a few years later.

A search for the oldest café existing in Paris today was conducted by Phil Chavanne, the Senior Editor of a Paris guide who knows the city’s secrets in and out, and Arthur Gilette. Their were two competitors.  They discovered the Le Procope Café on Odéon square. It sports a plaque that affirms it as “the oldest café in the world., having opened in 1686.

The other candidate and the winner is the St. Nicholas Tavern, which pre-dates Le Procope by a wide margin. It was named for the patron saint to whom local clergymen had erected a statue which replaced an earlier pagan statue nicknamed “The Man with Doves.” The statue of St. Nicholas was torn down in 1792 during the French revolution. It used to be affixed above the door of No. 4 rue de la Colombe.
The tavern itself is attested to 1240.

My interest in Paris cafes is focused on the La Procope Café, which will be a setting for a scene in the historic romance novel which I am writing, circa 1789-1790s. To fans of French history, this is the holy grail of Parisian cafes, according to. Watch for my post exploring the La Procope Café, its history and its current presence in Paris.

Web sites used to research this article:
http://joe-ray.com/ajc/starbucks.html
http://paris.showcity.info/articles.php?art=5
http://www.parissweethome.com/parisrentals/art_uk.php?id=112
by BeatChick
http://home.att.net/~sakal/pages/procope.htm
http://home.att.net/~sakal/pages/procope.htm
http://joe-ray.com/ajc/starbucks.html
http://dir.salon.com/story/travel/feature/1998/09/21/feature/

TV talk shows often feature “reunion” experiences, usually between adopted children and their bio-parents, but sometimes between children of divorce and their “lost” parent. My experience is in the latter category.

My “excursion” only lasted two days. The bus left Butler, Pennsylvania late Friday afternoon, and left New Jersey to return to Butler late Sunday. But this two-day “vacation” enriched—and overwhelmed—my life more than I expected.

My parents divorced when I was very young. Unfortunately, all I knew about my father was that he was a retired Navy man; he had remarried and redivorced; he was father to five children in his second marriage, and he lived in New Jersey. Not much.

In my mid-thirties I wrote the Navy department and requested information on him. They forwarded my letter to him. I answered my phone one day and it was him—and I, for once, was speechless. 

We talked several times, exchanged letters, and we were anxious to meet.

I chose a weekend in October to take a trip to New Jersey for a surprise visit. I learned from a friend there was a chartered bus traveling to New Jersey, taking a group of local people to a Catholic charismatic convention. She arranged for my purchase of one of the few remaining seats. This set the atmosphere for the trip—and what an atmosphere it would be!

Transportation solved, I now had to locate a room. As luck would have it, all the Atlantic City area hotel rooms were filled with conventioneers. Through the La Leche League, I located a room in a private home, which was far more convenient for me than suburban Atlantic City.

Travel and room arrangements made, I contacted one of my father’s sons—my half-brother—Dan, who Dan was willing to do anything that would make things easier for me. We decided it was best to surprise my father, whose bravado in meeting his second daughter might waver and cause him to disappear. I too wanted to disappear—but the desire to meet my father was stronger than the desire to disappear.

It seemed everything about this vacation was coming together like a well-cut jigsaw puzzle.

The bus was filled with singing and conversation. The other passengers were intrigued with my journey. We arrived in Atlantic City on schedule, and I took a cab to my hostess’s home. The cab cost me $25.00, $5.00 more than the eight-hour bus trip!

I arrived at my destination just as my hostess was leaving to attend the convention which all my busmates were headed for. As she hurriedly walked past me she called out that the room was ready, food was in the refrigerator and the house was mine. Her husband and children were there, so I introduced myself and made myself as comfortable as possible in this strange situation, trying to calm the jitters as I thought about my upcoming adventures.

Saturday morning brought a sports car to my door. Two good-looking young gentlemen lifted their tall bodies out of the vehicle and introduced themselves before I entered the front seat of the car. Dan and Jeff then whisked me off into the unknown, laughing all the way. I was certain if they could have they would have picked me up and tossed me over their shoulders and carried me to the car.

Our first stop was to meet their mother, indicating to me they had fully and immediately accepted me as their sister.

We shared time coffee-klatching and then headed out to find my self-employed father, always seeming to be one step behind his morning activities, a parade and the post office. Meanwhile, Dan and Jeff stopped at a drugstore, handing me the sports car keys and instructing me to drive around the block. I’d never driven a sports car before. Wow!

We began the search for my father. Each place we asked about him, we’d just missed his presence—at the drug store, the liquor store, inquiries of persons on the street. We finally caught up with him—he was installing carpet in somebody’s home.

I waited in the car while my brothers went in to talk to him. Within minutes, all three exited the house, my father dressed in work clothes, not prepared in any sense to meet the daughter he’d not seen for over thirty years. He was truly surprised but truly pleased. We were finally meeting, after numerous, lengthy phone conversations!

We drove around for a while, mostly quiet, enveloped in the emotions of the moment. We finally returned my father to where he had to finish installing the carpet, but not before we shared lunch at a local restaurant. The remainder of he afternoon was spent with my two brothers, meeting brother number three (Paul) and their sister, Kitty. There were eight nieces and nephews I could add to my family.

That evening we had a party at Jeff’s home. During this time, we were able to share our histories, and began to view ourselves as a family unit. The warmth and acceptance into this part of my family, as well as seeing my father, made this vacation to a small New Jersey town unique and memorable.

The nature of this vacation also answered many questions, some of which I never knew existed. I learned I was one-fourth Swedish, which added a new dimension to my life. Since then I’ve been writing to a distant relative in Sweden and have a special bond to a Swedish member of my community, who translates the letters that arrive in his native language.

As I prepared to leave for home, my host family refused to take any payment for housing me. While there, I learned they were from a small town in Pennsylvania, 15 miles from where I lived.

I settled back in my seat on the bus for the return ride home, sharing very little with the other passengers. The time was needed to absorb the experience, to discover its meaning, and to relish the acquisition of a new family.

The family bonding that began on that October weekend continued to grow threw the years. I saw my father only once again before death. Kitty has become as much a sister as possible considering we didn’t grow up together and we see each other rarely. However, we look so much alike—and she always wanted a big sister. On our infrequent visits we relate easily to each other.

My reunion experience with my father and his family turned out to be a very positive experience. However, I know of others, mostly adopted persons, whose experiences in attempting reunions have gone less well.

Thank you for visiting my writing site. I welcome comments. 

For additional reading:

THE HOLOCAUST STORY OF A TEENAGE VICTIM (Part 6)

BLANCHARD: THE FIRST PROFESSIONAL AERONAUT

DAVID Part 1 of a 10 Part Romance Story

DAVID Part 2 of a 10 Part Romance Story

DAVID Part 3 of a 10 Part Romance Story