Thursday, September 18, 2008

My current town has roots in history. People who are born here, never leave. They stay. No wonder. The little city is beautiful. We have old historic buildings, a harbor and long coast line, a river running through. The word "quaint" doesn't do my town justice.

I was a guest at an all class reunion a few years ago. Each generation was represented...great grandparents, grandparents, parents and the currently enrolled student. We had a few returning alumni who were in their 90s. Many were from the same families. Such stability! Imagine going to the same school your parents went to...and your grandparents! Sometimes parents and children had the same teacher. It seemed wonderful to me that they were in touch with the same children that they went to school with, all those years ago. At the reunion, excitement, joy and laughter was every where. People greeted each other like the old friends they were.

I all most cried, I was so lonely for familiar faces and locations. None of those people were friends of mine at that time. Some are my friends now.

By contrast, I grew up in Buffalo New York. My street was divided by a school district line. Those who lived down the block from me, went to a different elementary school. Those up the block from me, went to my elementary school ps 61. During those days, blacks were buying houses and whites were selling out. As soon as possible, people scattered for parts unknown. I kept in touch with some friends for a while, but eventually I lost contact with them all.

At times I wondered what became of them. Are they all alive? Any one get rich? Married? Perhaps someone from the old neighborhood lives near me and I don't know it. Sometimes I would dream of Cambridge Avenue as it was when I was little. If you want a peek at that neighborhood, just rent the DVD, A Christmas Story. Or rent Radio Days. It was something like that.

Then a small miracle happened. One of the "kids" on the block registered at Classmates.com. I responded to ask if it really was Louise from Cambridge Avenue? yes it was. Hurrah. I found one. Louise and I emailed back and forth. Some of the questions were, "what ever happened to.......?" She knew some of the stories, because Louise still lives in the greater Buffalo area.

Louise asked me if I knew what became of Deanna. I knew the answer because my mom kept in touch with Deanna. I had Deanna's address and had even visited her a few years back.

I wanted to know what happened to Joann. Louise didn't know, but she knew where to look. Skip didn't know where Joann was, but He knew where her younger sister, Marge was. I got Marge's address through Skip. Marge called me long distance, all excited to hear my voice and I felt the same way about hearing from her. We had a long and wonderful talk. Of course she gave me Joann's phone number and address. I called right away.

To make this long story short, We had a reunion at Joann's house. Joann could not have been a better hostess. I wanted to hug everyone who came. Louise was there. Judy and Carol came too. We made five all together. We talked for six hours straight. Marge and Deanna are out of state, but We called them long distance so they were part of our reunion, too.

Time has put its mark on my old friends. All our parents are deceased. One brother is gone and one entire family is deceased. Two of us are widows. Two of us have divorced and remarried. Among our group are cancer survivors, heart attack survivors, macular degeneration, lupus, knee replacements, death of children and one had a handicapped child who died at age 12. Around the dining room table, no one cared about trials and troubles. It was enough that We were together again after 60 years apart.

Of course We will have another reunion. Make new friends, but keep the old. God bless the Cambridge Avenue gang.

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If you are the worrying type, you have a lot on your plate these days. There are more crisis in the world each day. The one that worries me a lot is global warming.

I saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". By the end of the movie, I was convinced...mostly because I noticed weather changes locally. If I shovel snow once a winter, that is all I shovel. It wasn't like that When I moved to Connecticut. We had blizzards that closed down the schools.

We've have summers so hot that I can't do much of anything during the dog days. By the time it cools off a little and I have some energy , my garden has become a field of weeds. It takes all of the fall season to get it right again. I see that garden zones are creeping northwards. I am currently in a 6A climate zone. Bet I'll be in a 7 climate zone soon. Just wait a little bit to see.

The newspaper says that the fish in long island sound are changing. It is too warm for lobster, so they migrate farther north. We have some fish that are local to the Chesapeake Bay area...from much warmer waters to the waters of Long Island Sound. We have an occasional dolphin or whale. That never happened before, or at least I was not aware of it.

Even little butterflies are migrating. I can understand that if the plants they feed on, are on the move, then the caterpillars have to move, too. Perhaps a few are blown off course. Perhaps some starve to death locally. The result will be that if some can survive in a new area, they will. This is something like an accidental migration.

Other factors of change are, of course, pollution. I am developing a bad cough....had it for years. It is getting worse. After doing what the doctor said to do, the cough is still here. My best guess is that there is something in the air that irritates my sinus and lungs....something in car exhaust?

Then, there is the cost of living. Today, I put $40 in the gas tank of my Ranger truck. It did not fill the tank.

I took a trip to Syracuse NY and back. Kept records of gas and tolls. It was about a hundred dollars for that little bitty trip!....not counting motel rooms (rates going up) and meals out (rates going up and up). and...that was an economical trip. The Ranger gets 27 miles per gallon if I drive a steady speed. I remember when $4 filled the gas tank.

I want us to get out of oil dependency because it is causing mid east wars. I want us to get out of oil dependency because it is ruining our natural world. I don't want to live on earth if everyone has cancer and frogs and salamanders grow extra legs and heads. Something is very wrong here. I can't breathe the air any more.

Instead of looking for more sources of oil, like off shore drilling, why isn't it common sense to develop solar and wind energy? Now don't get me started about greedy people who can make a lot of money out of oil. I know that all ready. Let's ignore them and develop solar and wind energy. I am willing to put solar panels on my house if the town doesn't raise my taxes because I "improved" the property.

T. Bone Pickens seems to have a good idea about wind power. If I lived in the mid section of our country, I would put up a windmill. I remember when I was a child, farmers had one that ran a pump to pump water out of the stream into the house. It was a good idea then. It is a good idea now.

At one time, the United States decided that We needed to electrify the entire United States. Wires were strung, Sources of electricity were developed. The grid was developed and now We all have electricity.

Another time, the United States decided to improve our roads. Turnpikes and highways were added to local roads and now one can drive from one coast to the other. Goods can be transported in trucks over land instead of by waterway.

Before that, We decided that trains should be able to travel from coast to coast. It was done. Ditto with planes. and ditto with the Internet.

Our country is a "can do" country. Remember that saying from world war two? "can do"? We found whatever materials We could and used them to solve a problem. We can solve this energy crisis, clean up our planet, and make my cough go away.

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