a little red hen

Visitors from Baltimore and Beyond

Judy Lombardi called one night from Baltimore, "We're coming in this weekend.  Can we see you Sunday brunch?  My friend Heidi from London--I've told you about her--I'd like to bring along, maybe her kids will be with her.  Talk to Carol about people she wants to invite."

Talking with Carol I learn that a couple she knows are making a move to New York similar to ours twelve years ago.  Except he's already retired, spouse still working.

Sunday morning, Judy on cell phone.  "In Soho, on the way.  Where should we get food?"  Judy and Carol had never been to Zabar's, definitely the place.  Always a treat to have Judy in the kitchen.  I remember her making spaghetti and sauce at our house in Baltimore.  The tomatoes used were ones she and Ron grew--twenty-eight plants?--in the backyard.

Heidi brought the cerise-colored tulips behind Judy's head and her two children.  I thought they were going to be little, but was wrong.  They were amazingly mature post-teens.   Because she used to do work about HIV/AIDS, Heidi was interested in the Condom Amulets.  I showed them the ones still with me and not lounging on the wall at Knitty City.  Gave the three of them New York City's 2007 condoms.  I have to move theses along because they are dated; the 2008 model has a musical video

Carol is a dedicated bird-watcher and as she looked out our window was rewarded by a visit from a sparrow hawk who enjoys the plentiful community of pidgeons in the neighborhood.  She has been a longtime vigiler in Baltimore with Women in Black, a worldwide peace network.  We spoke about our frustration, how we were once in the minority.  But even with the majority of Americans  believing the U.S. should be out of Iraq nothing changes the administration's position.

Susan and Jamie, the recent NYC arrivals, brought a delicious flan she had made.  One of my favorite desserts.  We talked about how joining The Transition Network and one of its peer groups might be a useful way to get integrated into the City.  As she began to look at Clara Parkes' The Knitter's Book of Yarn sitting on the coffee table, we found a pattern we both liked.  "Baby Soft Cardigan" is the one I'd like to make for Zoe in Portland from bright green yarn Ron has spun.

All in all  a perfect afternoon for us semi-homebounds and covered all the bases of our concerns.  I told Judy how her advice to get a Canon digital camera like hers (SD850) has been a fine addtion to my life in images.  Ron even spoke Yiddish with Heidi who  originally migrated to England from Germany.  Her children, also fluent in German, could understand him but were surprised by the relationship of the languages.

Women, Our Books, Our History

Once upon a time, there were many women's bookstores in the U.S.  In Other Words, the spacious Portland, Oregon space pictured above, is one of the few remaining.  Self-described as a "community center,"  it lives up to that with a remarkable range of offerings --performance, book readings, Spanish classes, childbirth education--and a DIY (do-it-yourself) section. 

"Eco-friendly personal products" also have shelf space; I'd heard about but never before seen GladRags, reuseable, cotton menstrual pads.

As I walked around, explored the extensive zine selection, sat comfortably to read and daydream, I was reminded of the halycon days of the 1970s and '80s when enthusiasm for women's literature and women's space led to feminist bookstores coast to coast.  There were brave, small places like the tightly-packed storefront in Beloit, Wisconsin, where I once presented a workshop--now gone.  And bigger ones, especially Amazon Books in Minneapolis, founded in 1970, still "fostering the strength, wisdom, beauty, diversity of women, girls and their families."   

In the heyday of the second wave, I'd drive to Waverly, the left-of-center Baltimore community, to 31st Street Books, a non-profit collective.  It was begun by women who thought its street location was a safer name choice than its purpose.  Baltimore, sleepy little rusting industrial city, famously racist, was a curious location for feminist thought and action.  But there it was in the late 1960s, 1970s.

Women: A Journal of Liberation started there and The Feminist Press..  In 1969, Florence Howe bought a large house in Mt. Washington, another Baltimore neighborhood where housing prices had dropped sharply after the riots following the death of Martin Luther King in 1968.  Her partner, Paul Howe, was denied  tenure at his university as a result of his anti-war activity.  The two of them took The Feminist Press to New York where it thrives to this day a a unique publisher of books by and about women's.

Though we did not know them, Ron and I were told the house was for sale by a friend in the alternative education movement.  Even cheaper two years later, 5504 Greenspring Avenue became ours in 1971--all leaky pipes and antique wiring, and more space than we needed.  But we found ways to make it our own, raise our children.  In 1976, I began my practice as a feminist therapist.

The history of 31st Street Books seems lost but I might have to search more deeply into an online resource I've just found, Women & Social Movements in the U.S.  If you or I have our own remembrances of events/people to add, it seems to be possible to do so in the section on The Second Wave & Beyond.  We have the women's movement and women's studies programs in high schools and universities to thank for our progress so far.  Supporting women's bookstores is an important way to sustain voices not heard elsewhere on issues still unresolved--control by us of our bodies, for example. Readers here can add others--spouse and elder abuse, among many.

And Baltimore, once dubbed, "Charm City," continues to surprise.  Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse  (a hat tip to Emma Goldman, famous anarchist of the early 20th century) opened in Waverly a couple of years ago.   Like Bluestockings in New York City, it' s  not on the current list of feminist bookstores, self-describes as "radical," with an emphasis on cultural events.  Just as in my recent visit to In Other Words, where I reconnected with Off Our Backs, the feminist journal that once was a newspaper, Red Emma could offer other unexpected small publications and zines.  Have to check it out the next time I visit.

Life-After: What's Out There, Elders?

[After reading post by Time Goes By, July 30, 2007]

My final photo of a favorite view from my kitchen window, autumn, Baltimore, 1995.  We had made the decision to retire to New York City.

Why would we do that? Large attractive house, now all to ourselves, children gone. Elsie Ferguson, artist and shop owner, said we were crazy.  From her perspective-- native Baltimorean, began life there, morphed from high school graduate to department store exec to hugely successful entrepreneur in her own business (an inside view of her Something Else shop, listed by Frommer's-- there was no place else.  A person could travel elsewhere but Baltimore was home.      

Native New Yorkers too, longing to go elsewhere, anywhere but the City, also questioned our decision once we moved here.  So, when we started to look into CCRCs (continuing care retirement communities), we were not surprised by edgy responses from peers.

Even in The Transition Network, the organization I belong to for women 50-plus, there has been reluctance to have a conversation about what's next.  Thanks to Ronni Bennett at TGB; I urge you to read what she writes. Last summer an effort on this blog met with little response.  The coments at TGB indicate many are now ready to look out that window.

[Check out the Kendal Corporation CCRCs, "...integrating Quaker values...fostering continued learning, outreach programs in the field of aging... "   Many are connected with colleges.  We are particularly drawn to their idea of programs for residents developed by those who live there rather than "activity directors."]

Travel Southward

If you take the word of Arianna Huffington, "With each passing day, Washington, D.C. is turning into the Land That Time Forgot."   But personally,  a different story.  It can also be a respite from megacity.  Here's an homage to greenery from the car window as we left NYC to drive south.

Many agendas were ahead.  First, a visit to Ron's 85 year old sister recently moved to an enormous retirement community in suburban D.C.  We brought in Chinese take-out to her apartment.  She appreciated a respite from the usual task  of taking a number to await  a place at dinner.  She had resisted leaving her home of 40 years.  This is always a hard decision but serious physical problems made it necessary.

Spending time with her made me think again about how I'd make that choice...a discussion few are willing to have.  This became clear when last summer, when a little red hen tried to facilitate a conversation about where to live in what might be called "post retirement."  The following day we visited friends not seen in many years on a farm near D.C.  The matriarch here is the same age as Ron's sister, in far better physical shape, aging in place.  Grown children live with her in a modest house.  Another option for some.

In the 1970s our family had wonderful times here.  Our children learned how to bring in the cows, Ron drove a tractor, and my favorite memory:  crushing apples in an outdoor press for cider.  We were honored to be their "city cousins" from Baltimore.

On to the District and looking at pictures in The Phillips Collection where we met up with Mary Ellen Carew who blogs at Xtreme English.  We could exchange more this time than on her April visit  to New York.   Additional programs have been added to her cochlear implant device.  I took this picture of a Calder mobile mostly to see how it would turn out.

More talk over coffee then on to meeting up at a Thai restaurant with friends we'd be staying with. Food was fine but the place was too noisy for M.E. and me.  But the rest of our tour was a respite from New York's increasingly ringing sounds--from kneeling buses (ping, ping, ping) to brakes on the tourist buses as they slow down at Amsterdam and 125th.

Chester, the cat, greeted us from his imperial post at Steve and Jonathan's.  They live in a large, early 20th century row house in Mt. Pleasant.  Saturday we walked two blocks to the Farmers' Market where everything on sale was grown locally--including these stumpy carrots--delicious in our vegetarian feast.

How about this bakery that makes "D.C.'s best baguette," calls itself "Bread Line." Not sure if that's post-modern or what.   Other favorite sign, only one we saw on their dignifed street, belonged to our friends.  We talked politics late into the night. 

Final stop: Baltimore, our old neighborhood, Mt. Washington.  Was it a 19th century conceit to name high spots in the landscape "Mount"?  We brought the rain to the delight of Judy and Carol.  Here's my attempt to memorialize the end of a dry spell.  More political conversation, exchanges about aging.  Carol told me about a book by Jane Jacobs, "Dark Age Ahead."  I've ordered a used copy and will write about it later.

Judy, who knows much about things digital, sat me in front of her Mac--effectively moved my thoughts along re departing the PC environment.  Ron and I decided we could not leave the talk and put off our visit to Baltimore's best, the American Visionary Museum.  Next time.

Solara Interviews Us

The universe is pretty amazing.  Unstructured in my life as an aging public artist, where I go next is free form.  Who arrives?  How will this person/email/phone call shape the work?

Solara Calderone  visited us yesterday.  In her last year of high school, she needed subjects for a jounralism class interview.  Solara's mother is Gwen, my knitting guru, who has held my hand through many traditional knit projects.  I think we first met when I was deep into the Corn Cob Baby Bunting for my first grandchild.  She helped Ron in his early learning-to-purl struggles.

That she suggested us as subjects for Solara was flattering.  We share a neighborhood  and craft; our lives and interests diverge.  Poised and confident like her mother, Solara asked about how we chose our respective crafts.  Her questions gave us a chance to consider what would engage a younger person.  We talked about the urge to return home and our decision to move back to the City from Baltimore--where she'll be going to college next falland leaving home for the first time.

Ron spun during our visit, explained his journey as described in the article, "The Accidental Spinner: Husband Discovers Wheel," I wrote for this book.  Solara chose the small version of my 1991 No War patch which marks the beginning of my political activism outside feminism--though peace and women's issues are inextricably related in my mind.  Looking at the Condom Amulets, she asked if I'd thought about my next project.

After she left, I read how Dr. Gao Yaojie, the 80 year old Chinese AIDS doctor, will finally be allowed to visit Washington D. C. for an award ceremony in March.  Aha!  Decided to knit a large amulet in red with a yellow design, colors of the Chinese flag, and figure out how it might be presented to Dr. Gao--with NYC's new condoms.

Solara's question is answered.  Her visit was a kind of proto-grandparenting that enriched our day.  We wished her well in the years ahead--and thank Gwen for thinking of us.

Social Control, city and suburban

Visiting Maya's Granny, I read that she had gone to some effort to disable the verification function on her blog.  That's a good idea.  Upon entering the world of blog-reading, I was really put off by these.  I still am--especially the ones with wiggly letters on mesh (?) backgrounds. 

It was a while before I figured out, once I began my own blog, that every service has a style to decipher when commenting.  At Blogger, I am "other."  Please!  At TypePad, the one I use, visitors with limited knowledge of the internet may be put off by the request for a URL.  It's not required and a better idea are those services that place the word "optional" next to that box.

But back to signs.  Was keep off the grass too direct for whoever thought up this one?  Bought in a vintage store in Baltimore in the 1980s.  Balto, a city with great climate for growing; gardens and trees flourish.  Ron believes this is the reason he had success, though casual, with tomatoes. 

I'm always amused by the level of literacy expected of trespassers, non-conformers to THE RULES.  In the 1960s, I bought this discarded subway sign in a store on east 8th street,  or St. Mark's Place in New York City.  At the time, this juncture of a main thoroughfare was becoming a center for cutting edge art galleries, vintage stores, tiny shops with handmade clothes. It was morphing from lower east side to the "east Village," as the Greenwich Village rents to the west pushed people toward the East River.

These signs were posted, definitely through my post-college days in the 1950s, on a beam about 10 feet from the subway platform.  It was dark out there and you'd have to squint to see it, even though the type was large and commanded attention. I'd thought the sign was amusing for a long time:  no one ever spit!  Fast forward to my return to the City in 1995.  Volunteering as a docent for The Lower East Side Tenement Museum, I learned that the sign was part of a serious public health effort begun in the early 20th century with the ravages of tuberculosis and especially the 1918 influenza epidemic.  Spitting was a source of transmission of both diseases.  One of the re-created apartments in the Museum was where a family had lived as the husband/father was dying from T.B.  I would show a pretty little blue glass container similar in color and shape to this one and ask visitors what they thought its purpose was.  They were surprised to learn it would be carried as well as kept in the home for people to use--instead of spitting on the street or into handkerchiefs. This particular bottle's label reads--

Tablets of SODA MINT Use for Indigestion, Diarrhea. Heartburn.  Dose: 1 or 2 tablets.  Put up by Kent Drug Co. Balto., Md.

Recently in New York, tuberculosis has returned, easily brought from less developed countries. Many of these places are comfortable with public expectoration, as it is more formally known.  But I doubt the NYC Health Department will reinvent these signs in various languages.  I could be wrong. 

Our Hippier Selves

Audrey, in a comment recently posted wondered what Ron and I looked like in our earlier life when the world was different and we appeared to match it in our dress and hairstyles.  A search produced images from early years in Baltimore. 

The summer of 1976, after I got my MSW at 42, we motored to Canada, camped, and spent a week on a farm near Frederickton, New Brunswick.  In the group picture are our two kids in the front. Ron's in back wearing his alltime favorite hat.  Dark green felt fedora someone had abandoned in a park in Frederickton.  Here he contemplates the wonders of the suny Bay of Fundy.  Setting up our tent in a pouring rain the night before influenced a later decision to abandon camping on our next summer outing.

About Maplevale Farm.  It was a homesteading venture by Judy (sunbonnet) and Hal (reddish beard) Hinds.  She was a French major at Oberlin College where I'd graduated a few years before her.  She ran a notice in the alumni magazine to invite people to visit, help with chores, learn about farming--for a fee.  The instrument she's holding looks like a lyre?               

Hal was a geologist, had built this sunpit to extend their very short growing season.  Our son, Nick, learned to ride a two-wheeler on the dirt road leading from the Farm to the main road--where a small shed would protect the Hinds' older son as he waited for the school bus in the harsh winter.  Rachel, our daughter, loved collecting eggs from the chickens.  Our family was always drawn to farm life.  Ron and I were realistic enough to know our limits--whatever our fantasies.

Judy Hind, always busy with butter-churning, transferring gray water from the house to water the garden, cooking, had these activities and childcare to more than fill her time.  The last time we heard from her two years later, the strains of isolation and weather (huge black flies in summer) had diminished the romanticism of this life. Judy and Hal went their separate ways, having lived out dreams few of us would dare to try. 

On the return home, we visited the re-created ambience of an earlier time in a logging community at King's Landing, an historical settlement in New Brunswick.  Wish I had notes on this woman's knitting, our exchange.  Our family loved Canada where the public parks provided chidlren's and family activites.  I recall delightful silliness as all ages watched old movies and sang.

My own knitting was put aside during two intense years of graduate school.  My goal was to lead groups for women; I had not a clue what was ahead.  But, even with the war in Vietnam, what the Vietnamese rightfully call "the American war," many of us elders believe it was a more hopeful time than the present.  Then we call ourselves up short:  we have to work for a better future for younger families.  They are entitled to the idealism we once had.      

   

What's the Distance between New Orleans and San Leandro?

                   This morning's Comment from Joared, lively responder in Elderblogland.

"is anyone writing about New Orleans? .... it would be quite challenging to capture everything that needs to be said. Wonder if August Wilson, whose plays are so well written, would have undertaken such a script?"

Tapped into my guilty feelings: need to post something besides this one.  Could I lay off some guilt on viewers; only response to it came from knitting friend Njoyia of the Harlem Knitting Circle.  Do only black Americans continue to feel the pain?  Do those who are not black really understand the pain of racism?

Not according to Brian Copeland, whose powerful one-man show, Not a Genuine Black Man, we saw last night.  He brings humor to his terrible, personal story.  Not what we've seen in Richard Pryor:  this is more about us, the white Americans who think we get it but never can.  Because there are not enough of us trying to make a difference.  Sorry, readers, but it is Sunday and you have happened upon my soapbox, a little red hen. 

Let me make it more personal.  It is 1969.  Ron and I have already lived with, as Jews, housing discrimination as others in two places outside New York City-- Oberlin, Ohio and Baltimore. We'd observed the "illness" of racism and its impact on African-Americans and on us.  My hair is very long, Ron has almost as much on top and a bushy beard.  We sit at the after-dinner table in suburban St. Louis with my father and his wife, longtime civil rights activists around school integration.  I asked, "Wouldn't it have been a better strategy to go for housing integration right after WWII...when everyone was feeling positive about "the other"?  They were incensed; I was their hippish, smartass child who thought open classrooms would be a good idea for my child. 

Look at Brian Copeland's website.  Look at the video clip from his hometown, San Leandro, California, a 1971 CBS-TV special.  This was not the South.  How he survived is a very powerful story.  But at what cost to him--and to us?  If you're in New York, the show is on till July 16.  Or, you can buy his just-released book, "Not a Genuine Black Man."

By the way, Eleanor Roosevelt also believed that housing integration was the place to begin.  I'm honored to be in her company.  New Orleans?  Send a check to Common Ground or one of the black colleges, Xavier University of Louisianna. 

 

Identity Found in New York Times

Every now and then someone has added to my collection of hen paraphernalia.  This photo was a gift from Baltimore artist, Joan Erbe.  An admirer of her intense, highly-colored work, I was surprised when she handed me this "found" photo from her own collection.  Whoever this farmwoman was, she had written--"Chas would say two old hens."  I'm not sure if the "Huh" is a comment or her signature. 

We women have a history of being described disparagingly in relation to female chickens.  For a long time, I've claimed the hen persona as a badge of honor, an image of myself that fits comfortably.  Sometimes it's about nurturance, sometimes it's about cleaning up the world's barnyard, sometimes it's about my penchant for clucking about what attracts my attention. 

Last Sunday, I found this headline in the New York Times.  Surely, the writer had me and all the other little red hens in mind

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Let's hear a cheer, a yell, a lot of clucks for peace from                                                             HEN ACTIVISTS on Mothers' Day!  And, please, take on this label with me whether you are vigilling, marching, or sitting in your home and thinking,  "Yes!  Peace Now!"  We need all those energies.                                                

Knee Deep in Wool, TWO

Only two spun yarn buys at Maryland Sheep & Wool: a personal record.  Early in the day we visited busy Nanney Kennedy at Seacolors.  Garrulous, energetic, creative designer and shepherdess to about 100 sheep on the coast of Maine.  Sampling the wool a few years ago, Clara Parkes of Knitters Review noted,

The colors are one-of-a-kind, limited-edition dye lots, spanning the rainbow from lime to raspberry to sage and everything in between. Just picking a color presents a challenge... lanolin-rich double-ply, similar in appearance to a traditional Shetland wool but markedly softer and more resilient.  [See Knitters Review tomorrow for a comprehensive picture of the entire Festival.]

For two years  thought about making one of her funky sweater designs, usually two or three colors.  (This one being held up by Ron is unusual-- one color.)  The Seacolor wool I bought is a springish green, knit here on #7 needle in 3 x 2 rib.  It will work with the dark purple and blue Seacolorshave in my stash, and an earlier green.  Stay tuned.

Toward the end of the day, my resolve faltered at the sight of this Berry Blue yarn, 55% hemp, 45% wool.  From Flying Fibers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (no website).  Thinking about a shawl.

And then there's the hen made from recycled sweater by a woman who calls herself Pear Tree Studio in Harrisville, New Hampshire.   How could I resist this environmentally-correct addition to my collection? And so much to wonder about--this Navajo woman demonstrating "lap spinning,"two young girls engrossed in needle-felting, gorgeous sweaters beyond my skill.    Blog challenge:  how to get pictures & text working together.

As we drove to dinner with friend in Burtonsville, Ron and I realized we had not sat down the entire day!  Thanks to Fred and Debbie Shultz, we had a great dinner and more fiber talk.  Fred has taught a number of men how to sew garments that will fit the women in their lives.  We're waiting for his website about that.  Visiting from Colorado Springs was their friend and star-knitter, Judy C, who impressed us with her side-to-side tee.  A missed-photo opportunity on my part.

Sunday we had brunch in Baltimore with Judy Lombardi who teaches Sociology at Villa Julie College.   Much talk--public versus charter schools, anti-war demonstations in Balto. She showed us the controversial Stephen Colbert speech at the recent Washington correspondents' dinner.  We were appalled by the unresponsive audience.  Tells us everything about why the media is "out-fishing" when it comes to hard news.  At Donna's restaurant in Cross Keys, we had a chance encounter with an old friend in the Baltimore women's movement, Betty Scott, who lives in a new retirement community enlivened by many peace activists.  All this plus great weather!