12.15.2021 – imagination

imagination
seeds of dreams are found in books
golly miss dolly

Since moving to the South, I can report there are indeed some things southern that southerners take seriously.

Very seriously.

Football.

Well, college football anyway.

On this devotion to college athletics, all I can say is that my old college up north has, since 2018, played in the NCAA Final Four of all FOUR major sports.

That includes, football, basketball, baseball AND hockey.

When UGa or ‘Bama add a hockey team, call me.

The love and devotion to that food item known as grits is real.

I have had some that are really good.

I have some that were like eating ice cream on the beach on windy day.

Gritty.

And there is Dolly Parton.

The patron Saint of the South.

Being from the North, I knew of Miss Dolly.

Even one of my favorite northerner authors, Jim Harrison once wrote about the crystal clarity of Miss Dolly’s voice.

She seemed sweet but no one to be taken seriously or at least not too seriously.

Miss Dolly is on my mind because the other day I was online at my local library which here in the Low Country is the Beaufort County Library.

There was an announcement on the website that the Beaufort County Library, in partnership with the LowCountry Community Church, was now a part of Miss Dolly’s Imagination Library.

Through this partnership with the Imagination Library, free books were now available to kids in the area.

I was aware of this program if vaguely so.

Some years ago, with much fanfare it seems to my memory, Dolly Parton announced that she wanted to give books to kids.

Very sweet, but not something I took very seriously.

I was sure it was pretty much a publicity stunt of some kind.

It seems like I remember reading that over one million books had been given away through this program.

But in the back of my brain were other memories about Miss Dolly,

Miss Dolly had recently donated a large amount of money to Covid Vaccine research.

Back a few years ago when fires went through the Great Smokey Mountains part of Tennessee where she was born, Miss Dolly cut an album of songs and the proceeds went to relief agencies.

Intrigued enough by the announcement and these other memories, I clicked on the link to read about this new partnership.

I went with a cynical, ‘oh really‘, ‘isn’t that sweet‘ pre-set suspect animus in my mind.

Then I read the announcement.

Then I read some more.

Then I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer to thank God for people like Miss Dolly.

I figured that this program sent some lucky kids a book.

And it does.

Once a month.

Every month.

Until the lucky kid turns five.

The program had not delivered just one million books, BUT one million books A MONTH.

I had to read that part a couple of times to make sure I read it right.

What the program needs is a local non-profit as a partner.

I immediately searched the zip codes where my grand children live to see if the program was available there.

If it was, my grand kids were going to get signed up.

Sad to say it wasn’t.

Maybe there are flaws to the program.

Maybe there are flaws that make this program hard to partner with.

Maybe, maybe maybe.

On the other hand, maybe this is one of those programs that people, for reasons mentioned, think this is a sweet little program but not one to be taken seriously.

I don’t want to think that.

I want to think this program exists to put books in the hands of kids.

I want to believe it.

I want to believe it is what it is and says what it says and does what it does.

I want to believe that Miss Dolly is as sweet as I think she is.

I want to believe that Miss Dolly is as serious as she says she is.

The Imagination Library website states:

Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts over 1 million free books each month to children around the world.

The website then quotes Miss Dolly herself:

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true.

I know there are children in your community with their own dreams.

They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister.

Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.

The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

I also remember that recently the state of Tennessee was planning to put up a statue of Miss Dolly.

As I remember it, Miss Dolly asked that the money go to charity instead.

Very sweet.

Very Very Sweet.

Very serious.

Why isn’t the Imagination Library available where you live?

You want to do something during covid, there isn’t anything much easier than ask this question.

Ask this question, then do something about it.

The Imagination Library is looking for the next local champion.

As Miss Dolly said, The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.

An Imagination Library.

Dreams that go beyond the wildest dreams.

Dolly Parton speaks at the Library of Congress. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

12.14.2021 – to look around me

to look around me
as though I had never been
in this place before

I based this haiku and several others like it from the writing in the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

I tried to reverse the process of habituation, to dissociate my surroundings from the uses I had previously found for them. I forced myself to obey a strange sort of mental command: I was to look around me as though I had never been in this place before. And slowly, my travels began to bear fruit.

According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

To also quote myself, I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

And to reemphasize, neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

12.13.2021 – everything being

everything being
of potential interest,
layers of value

I based this haiku and several others like it from the writing in the book, The Art of Travel (2002, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:

I tried to reverse the process of habituation, to dissociate my surroundings from the uses I had previously found for them. I forced myself to obey a strange sort of mental command: I was to look around me as though I had never been in this place before. And slowly, my travels began to bear fruit.

Once I began to consider everything as being of potential interest, objects released latent layers of value.

According to the website, GOOD READS, Any Baedeker will tell us where we ought to travel, but only Alain de Botton will tell us how and why.

As I said in the section on Architecture , what I find irresistible in reading Mr. de Botton is his use of language.

To also quote myself, I get the feeling that if you made a spread sheet of all the words, adverbs and adjectives used by Mr. de Botton, you just might find that he used each word just once.

And to reemphasize, neat trick in writing a book.

If I knew how to do that, hey, I would.

12.12.2021 – book shop after hours

book shop after hours
slide money under the door
good deed weary world

The Old Bay Marketplace is an arcade or covered outdoor walkway through the middle of a building that is lined with shops on either side of the walkway located on Bay Street in downtown Beaufort, South Carolina.

On the corner of the entrance to the arcade on Bay Street is a used bookstore named the McIntosh Book Shoppe.

The McIntosh Book Shoppe is situated there on the corner of the entrance into the arcade so that there is a door facing Bay Street and another back door that opens out into the covered walkway.

The space outside this back door under the covered walkway is crowded with book carts and tables that are filled with books for sale.

The back door to the McIntosh Book Shoppe

So many carts, tables and books are crowded into this space that moving all these carts, tables and books would be a lot of work to bring in at night and put back out the next day.

So the books, carts and tables are not brought in at night.

The books, carts and tables stay outside in the covered arcade.

On the arcade wall, next to the door, is a metal rack stuffed full of envelopes.

Next to the metal rack stuffed full of envelopes is a small, hand lettered sign.

The sign reads:

After hours – put money in envelope and slide under the door.

It is altogether appropriate at this point to quote Big Bill’s, “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world” (Merchant of Venice – Act V, Scene I)

But, somehow, it is better to quote Gene Wilder in the role of Willy Wonka.

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

PS: Admit it – this made you smile and feel a little bit of a warm bump inside – maybe a small kick of hope in your soul.

12.11.2021 – For he thought will there

For he thought will there
not be security and
peace in my lifetime?

I recently read the article about Congressman Peter Meijer, What the GOP Does to Its Own Dissenters by Tim Alberta that went online on December 7, 2021.

The article tells the story of events of and after January 6, 2021 from the eyes of a someone who had been a member of Congress for all of three days.

Congress, Jan 6, 2021 from the iPhone of Congressman Peter Meijer

The read was incredibly sad.

Sad because Mr. Meijer is a Representative from where I used to live.

From where the majority of my family still lives.

A place where I have a lot of friends and contacts.

These people play a major role in the story told by Mr. Meijer.

The role they play is the role of ‘the voters at home’ who take to their texts, phones, twitter feeds, facebook post and face to face meetings with Mr. Meijer to express their displeasure at his actions in Congress.

What did Mr. Meijer do?

The article explains, ” . . . he joined Gonzalez and eight other House Republicans in voting to impeach Trump. Meijer was the only freshman among them – and the only freshman in U.S. history to vote to impeach a president of his own party.“

Why Mr. Meijer cast that vote?

Mr. Meijer, the article says, contacted Congressman Anthony Gonzalez.

Mr. Gonzalez was voting for impeachment and Mr. Meijer asked why.

“I can convince myself not to vote for impeachment,” Gonzalez said. “But if my son asks me in 20 years why I didn’t vote for impeachment, I couldn’t convince him.”

The long view.

It is one of this historical accidents that Mr. Meijer represents they same group of people who, in their day, elected Gerald R. Ford to Congress over and over again.

This same congressional district from 1893 to 1993 elected ONE, thats right, ONE, Democrat.

The one Democrat was elected in a special election in 1974.

And WHY?

These people.

These conservative Dutch folks wanted to send a message to Washington.

President Richard Nixon had gone too far and beyond the powers of his office.

The country had been watching the Presidency of Mr. Nixon unravel in front of their faces as their read their newspapers, listened to the radio’s and watched their TVs.

When Mr. Nixon appointed Mr. Ford to replace the disgraced Vice President, the people back in Mr. Ford’s home town, in a special election, sent the first Democrat to Congress in 80 years.

Mr. Ford told Mr. Nixon that the people in Grand Rapids had sent Mr. Nixon a message.

Now the people back home in Grand Rapids are watching today’s political events unravel on their iphones, their twitter feeds and facebook.

The people back home in Grand Rapids took to these same tools to send messages to Mr. Meijer.

According to the article, while thinking about his vote, Mr. Meijer, “leafed through a copy of The Federalist Papers, hoping for an epiphany.”

The article states that Mr. Meijer was, “believing that he was on the right side of history, and that an awakening was at hand.“

Mr. Meijer took the long view.

The long view doesn’t mean much today.

There are a lot of headlines and statements that seem to show that if the future of the country, the future of democracy, is at stake, folks don’t care.

I am reminded of the history of King Hezekiah as recounted in the book TWO KINGS, in the Old Testament.

Hezekiah had been promised by God that there would be 15 more years of his life and during that time, his kingdom would be at peace.

But after that, the Bible says that, “Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord.”

And what did Hezekiah think of such dire portents for his kingdom, his land and his subjects?

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

If you cannot take the long view, and the long view is of course under God’s plan, but if you cannot take the long view as much as any person can.

Why would you care?

Everything can all go to smash.

It will take time.

Nothing will be left.

Will there not be peace and security in your lifetime?

For Mr. Meijer, it says in the article, “His optimism didn’t last long.”

Like I said, the article, was very sad.