What frightens you most

 

Christ and His Angels 

During this Memorial Day weekend, the scheduled television programs/movies are expected to be monstrous about monsters, not about heroes.

How about King Kong movies--lots of versions?  Sharknado movies, all 8 of them? 

The meaning of "scary monsters" is some kind of something that doesn't have a beginning and evokes terror when discovered. But, what monster scares me? Unless you know my disdain for standard horror flicks, you would not know the answer.

On Dr. Who has given us all so many strange monsters and evil things that it was a buffet from which to choose one that scares me.  (You might be or not be a fan of Dr. Who.  We have enjoyed him since the 1980s. The most recent Dr. Who was worthy of being ignored.)

The Weeping Angels

                  YouTube, about 4 min. long.  Watch it, okay? It still scares me.

Can you see why they scare the daylights outta me? So many questions of "Why didn't you..." to the characters make perfect sense to me. 

Why look at their eyes ? How about looking at their teeth?  Crawl along the ground, looking down  the entire time? Cover your face with clothing that is somewhat transparent? Run like hell? Why didn't you have a torch/flashlight? It is a dark cavern, with no electricity ?

 This is one scariest parts:  "you told me my fear would keep me alive, but you were wrong. I died alone, afraid, and in pain."

YouTube, about 2 minutes

 

 I will be watching The Longest Day, Saving Private Ryan, Windtalkers, Iwo Jima, Battle of Midway, Pearl Harbor....I love the classics. 

On the Run

source

The struggle to find an equitable and humane resolution regarding immigrants, vetting, legality, and on and on is a wildfire raging through America.  Do you have any idea of anything near a solution?  Nothing is simple, nothing can be easy.

In my teaching days when about 70% of our school were Hispanic, no questions were asked.  Our students were there to be taught, loved, encouraged, and see growth in their languages.

Even so, given our goals, we still found so many reasons to worry: The parents were afraid.

One mother came for parent conferences, and between us, we had enough language to communicate.  The problem, and it is a mighty big problem, was that this mother was here illegally, but her husband had a green card.  He held the threat of turning her in IF she disobeyed him.  He had a job, brought in money, which he drank away with his buddies, giving her a minute amount to care for her family.

He beat her, threatened her, and told her that if she reported this abuse, he would call authorities, who would take her away from her children. AND sadly this was true.

What to do?  I escorted her to our bilingual assistant, who handled these type of cases.  What happened? I'll never know.

Another case involved sexual molestation. In illegal immigrants, there is always a family member who knows a cousin who can vouch for the this person.  In this case, a man "Red", with rare red hair for Mexicans, claimed to be a relative of someone's brother-in-law.  He would move from place to place.  Why?

He wasn't known by anyone, sadly, and this was where evil existed. Red sexually molested boys, eight years old and under.  About the time this was discovered, Red had run to another community.  One of those boys was in my class, along with others in our school.

This hit me in my chest, full force.  Why had I missed the signs?  Why had the family not seen it?  In a one-bedroom apartment filled with twenty people, parents held two jobs or more.  Someone had to watch the kids, and Red was an obvious choice.  

This precious boy didn't show up for school from that time to the end of school.  Where did he go?  What happened?  The fact that authorities were on his trail
meant that Red's capture was imminent.

I shared this with teachers in the lounge, some of whom were from Mexico, shared my dismay of his escape.  They looked at each other, and one said, "Oh, he won't escape.  Communities like this are connected through friends and relatives.  Once he stops and tries to do this again, men will take him out to desert mountains.  They will beat the crap out of him, and then each father of those boys he abused will take machetes to finish the job." 

What could be said, just a silent nod of agreement. I would do this too. Justice meted out by those hurt solved Red's problems.

Dear Father in Heaven, what would have happened if all this information had been available?  Would he have been vetted and caught?  And what about this poor woman under an abusive husband's control?  What will happen now?

I will never know.  Wish I did.  What could be done?  What would be done? Will rioting in the streets and breaking windows of small businesses effect change?

All I can do is shake my head now.  Back then I did what I could.

obvious

Black Cauldrons Brew

Nearly every fall someone in our farmland would decide to make apple butter "the old fashioned way". A few families would gather in someone's kitchen and prepare about ten bushels of apples (Golden and/or Red Delicious).

The weary teenage daughters would be given the job of peeling those damn apples, all done in one day.  The next day, their hands will show the tiny cuts, and the hands would be cramping.

Meanwhile, the experienced farm wives would be cooking down the apples into a lumpy applesauce.  Why not purchase the store-bought sauce?  It was NOT DONE back then, besides which not many stores carried it in the late 50s to mid-60s.

Source: Minnesota maple syrup

The next day the husbands would have built up a fire of a slow-burning hardwood, some wood that I guess has magic powers.  The fire would get to the hot ember stage.  By then they would have set up a rented cauldron as shown below.

Why rented?  Those things were handed down from generation to generation, and were seldom produced anymore, as the kettles were darn expensive, especially since the interior was  copper.  It had to be copper, because copper did not impart any metallic taste.

source: $300
This is a rather small cauldron--the actual size would be much larger.

Then the dishpans of the cooked-down apples were poured into the cauldron. This cauldron
would be stirred constantly with a paddle that reached
to the very bottom of the very large
cauldron.

The paddle was made of wood, although the handle may have been made of something else, 
that would not leach flavor into the apple butter as it cooked down.  The apples cooked slowly...All stinking day, from early sunrise to almost sunset.

Source: Bubble and boil

At some point the farm women would bring out the secret ingredients used to sweeten and flavor the apple mixture, without which would result in a fairly sour and miserable runny applesauce.  Each of the women would agree on the ingredients.  

My mother preferred "Red Hots", a candy that still exists.  It is dark red, with spicy cinnamon, almost hot, taste.  This gave the apples a great color and sweetness, which would be augmented by tons of white cane sugar.

Then, at another point during the cooking, my grandmother (a true matriarch) would retrieve old silver dollars, which were true silver from the 1800s. 

They were used by her family, from long ago.  They tossed these five or six silver dollars in the cauldron and stir the apple mixture with the paddle.

ebay

The silver dollars scraped the bottom of the cauldron, preventing the now-thick mixture from burning, and ruining the whole two days' worth of work.

I was never in on this ritual, although I observed it from the porch, as the Apple Butter Cooking was done at a nippy time of year. I wanted to go back into the kitchen.  But there was a lot of laughter and low talk.
The daughters often speculated
about this, even suspecting some sort
of magic spells were being
chanted.  Silly.

Wednesday Words: Mrs. Esther

Source

Mrs. Esther assessed each student as they entered her classroom.  Being a rare insightful teacher, she knew the struggles every student possessed as a strong believer in understanding what each experienced at school and at home.

When she announced that it was time for Friday’s Spelling test, some retrieved papers from desks eagerly and some with resignation.

“Disperse…firefly...graduated…” were the words easy to remember and sound out.  Then “…either…beautiful…and finally testosterone…” Now that’s an odd one” she thought.

Papers were collected and the final bell rang.  Those students, ones that worried Mrs. Esther the most, were last to leave, with sluggish reluctant steps. Looking at their papers, she ascertained what handwriting said:

Anger, fear, depression, despair, anxiety...and much more

Those names always frightened her, for causes were from the home and almost beyond her reach.  Almost.


 Delores is a wonderful and creative writer.  She observes life with clarity.  With that in mind, Delores tosses six words for Wednesday Words writing, to challenge anyone who wants to stretch writing, create, and confound.  Please check the train tracks in the upper right sidebar.  And, please join the crew who wrestle with this words, sentence prompts, and sometimes photos to entertain and sometimes confound.

Why are we here?

Photo from Washington, Illinois, and posted on Donna's site

Welcome to all who know how I write and my style!

Welcome to all whom I have just met!

Normally, this blog plays with words and characters.  But today?  Today I find myself humbled by some posts I have read, and want to share with you.

Donna O’Shaughnessy of Midlife Farmer shared a post about an E4 tornado that ripped through and all but destroyed Washington, Illinois.  Please visit her post at http://midlifefarmwife.blogspot.com/

Where she writes about the panic, the absolute terror she experienced trying to reach her sister who lives in that area is palatable.  There can be nothing like the gripping of the heart she felt being unable to find out IF she is okay, IF she and her family survived such a tornado.

Then there is this Friko in Friko’s Word.  It is difficult to put into words.  Please go to her site at http://frikosmusings.blogspot.com/  and read her post, “Let’s stop minding our own business”.  Child abuse, children abused and tortured to death---not for the faint of heart.

What happened?

Child abuse is a world-wide problem, involving the most surprising pedophiles.  If you have a strong stomach, this site is valuable.

 Source: ibnlive in India

But it needs to be part of each individual’s awareness and, more importantly, action.  Whether is it a child next door or an elderly person living alone, we need to be aware and be proactive.

This is a topic people of “my” age generally avoid.  But after witnessing Mylie Cyrus on some award show and feeling outrage, I started being aware.  Then I read John’s World at John's World .

The Fear by Lily Allen

The video may be shocking, but it speaks volumes about the world of young women (and men) who want to be famous or at the very least, noticed.  The artist is Lily Allen, and read her words at the beginning of her song, Fear.
  
I don't know what's right and what's real anymore
And I don't know how I'm meant to feel anymore
And when do you think it will all become clear?
'Cause I'm being taking over by The Fear

 If this is the only video or site you have time to see, this one is very appropriate to today's lack of morals and values.

Please note that there is a precaution before the video.  But the words used are part of the times.

In this world and this time of political ping-pong, and harangues from news agencies, we need to ask ourselves, “Why and what are we put on earth to be doing?”

What do you think?