'Bind Us Together': Celebrating Five Years of Blogging and a Journey Home to Southern Illinois

Rappelling ropes bound to a tree at Giant City State Park

It might not seem like much to you, but a 5-year blogiversary is a huge milestone--not millstone--for me. The reason I threw that millstone in there? Some years back when we lived in Paducah, Kentucky, we (SAM, Daughter, and I) attended a church where the people loved to sing a particular hymn at the end of each service. I guess our family has a strange sense of humor because we used to joke about it every Sunday after church. 

"Bind us together with shoelace and leather! Bind us together, O Lard!" If you've ever lived in the South, you know what I mean. It may be a deep-fried life, hot as hell sometimes and crisp with promise and not much else, but at least you can depend on your friends and family through good as well as bad times. They lift you up instead of dragging you down like a millstone around your neck. 

Rappelling ropes bound to people below 

SAM on a trail in Giant City State Park, March 15, 2013

No, it's not really the "lard" that flavors life in the South. And, yes, I'm including life in Southern Illinois too. There is something mysterious and wonderful about that place.

 

I moved there the summer before my junior year in high school, a confusing and vulnerable time for any young person. Life could have taken a wrong turn for me, but somehow things worked out. Everywhere I looked and listened, people were talking about Jesus. "Jesus Saves!" signs were posted on telephone poles and trees alongside country roads we took to school and work each day. My dad would poke a little fun at them and remark "Oh yeah? Moses invests!" He didn't mean any disrespect. The move meant big changes for him too. Back then, at least to me, he seemed to take everything in stride. But he was probably just as confused and vulnerable as I was. I think we all are at one time or another. We might think we can handle it alone, but we can't. 

Ties that bind us together: they're not lard, and they aren't shoelace and leather. Joking aside, somehow, somewhere we find the ones that fit--if we're prayed for, lifted up, blessed by and with family and friends.

Thank you, blogging friends, for sharing the past five years with me. I've enjoyed your good company along the way.

Herb of Remembrance: Rosemary in the Garden and on the Brain

The skies have been leaden and
Some palm fronds are dead in
The tropical garden, you see.






No, spring time's not here yet
Vernal Equinox is its outset--
This fact--I have known it for years.

Still, the bulbs and some rhizomes
Pop some color into my home's
Drab winter garden and pots.

But the best thing in bloom now
Isn't showy or highbrow
It's the Herb of Remembrance; it's Rosemary.



This quite humble herb
Is used by cooks quite superb
In dishes with fishes and chicken

But the way I prefer mine
Is smelled like fine wine
With a waft of the scent to my brain

(It helps me work on my thinking
Instead of wine drinking
Too much in the afternoon warmth.)

Rosmarinus officinalis 'prostratus'
Is friendlier to visitors than the "Catus"
As it won't mind a pinch or a snip or a tug

So give it a try
If you chance to stop by--
Your brain and I
Will be ever so glad that you did!

Tommy Emmanuel Visits Pensacola and Makes Waves

Who is the greatest guitarist alive? Live (in concert)? I would argue that Tommy Emmanuel is the answer to both questions. If you watch just a few minutes of this rather lengthy video, you will understand what I mean.

To top off the celebration of our 33rd wedding anniversary this past weekend, SAM and I attended a concert sponsored by WSRE (local PBS station) at Pensacola State College (Jean and Paul Amos Performance Studio) on Sunday evening. The auditorium was rather small, but the experience was huge.

It's a wave that washes over your head and carries you away. You don't mind, though. You are not afraid. The music immerses you, but you're not submerged. You become part of the liquid, the music, the response. Do you respond by clapping, whistling, hooting? It doesn't matter if you just sit there like a lump. Well, maybe it does matter. Cameras all around the auditorium are capturing every movement, every expression of joy, sorrow, elation, adulation. The entire concert is being recorded.

Who knows? There might be a shot of SAM and me in a new video production someday. Now that's a scary thought!

Rosa 'Spice': Is a Rose Truly a Rose If It Hasn't Any Thorns?

"Roses grow upon briers, which is to signify that all temporal sweets are mixed with bitter...

...But what seems more especially to be meant by it, is that true happiness, the crown of glory, is to be come at in no other way than by bearing Christ's cross by a life of mortification, self-denial, and labor, and bearing all things for Christ...

...The rose, the chief of all flowers, is the last thing that comes out. The briery, prickly bush grows before...

Rosa 'Spice' in our garden near Pensacola, February 2013

...but the end and crown of all is the beautiful and fragrant rose." --Jonathan Edwards, from Images or Shadows of Divine Things

Here it is the middle of February 2013, and my new favorite rose bush, "Spice," an antique rose, is blooming like it's already the month of May. The shrub was a thank-you gift to me from Dr. Gary Knox, a horticultural research scientist with the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy, Florida. I had helped his assistant with some project or other, and he knew that I would be leaving the Tallahassee area soon (in March 2012) to return to our home near Pensacola. I can't think of a nicer parting/homecoming gift than a rose bush like "Spice." In its first year in my garden, it has resisted many of the problems common to roses in Florida, detailed in this UF/IFAS article written by Dr. Knox, et al.

"Spice" shrugs off black spot and Cercospora leaf spot, and the latter disease has been known to K.O. even the Knockouts, according to another IFAS rose article. In fact, only two roses, "Mrs. B. R. Cant" and "Spice," were mentioned in the article as reliably resistant to both diseases.

Besides its hardiness in the heat and humidity at our Florida home, "Spice" has another helpful habit: hardly any thorns (briers or prickles). It's obviously not the ideal candidate for Jonathan Edwards' image of mortification. He must have had a Rugosa rose in mind when he wrote his treatise.

Is a Rose truly a Rose if it hasn't any thorns?

A bull would find its head quite bare if it hadn't any horns.

The prickly parts of life that catch us unaware

Are meant for us to bear

So say some wise spiritual guides

Who line up on the sides

Of life's path we try to navigate

And tell us what will trip us up and how to mitigate

The punishment awaiting us if off the path we stray

It's best to listen to the words they say

But add to that the task

Of taking in the written Word that makes you want to ask

Why am I here and how should I live my life?

The questions hold the keys to faith, the answers not in strife

That trips us up and messes up our mind

That thought we knew the key to happiness was simply being kind

But love is what's required, the kind we'd like for self

The sort of love we'd keep reserved and on our private shelf

That if exposed to everyone we'd think would run right out

But if it's Love that Eternal Springs and requires Sacrifice--

The more Divine the source of it--the corporeal, the temporal simply won't suffice...

--Walk2Write, 2-13-2013--

(After he read my post, SAM said it appeared that Mr. Edwards had written the poem, when in fact it was mine, written this very morning).

'Axe' the Frozen Sea: Bull Run Instead of Blue Angels Show at Pensacola Beach?

Pensacola Beach, sometime in late January 2013

It has been a while since I read Allen Josephs' Ritual and Sacrifice in the Corrida. So long in fact that it almost escaped notice again. Forgive me, book, it has been six years since my last reading. Why did it jump out at me then from my bookshelf, with its unassuming spine, sending shivers down mine? I open to the prologue, and it hits me. "Inspiration and Aspiration." Those words sound familiar somehow. Oh yes, my last post. And now the words that struck my frozen sea six years ago while I sat listening to the author's lecture:

"A book, the axe to chop the frozen sea inside, as Franz Kafka once reputedly remarked, can have a strange and not altogether logical genesis." Well put, Dr. Josephs. Your taurine dream described in such vivid detail in your book's prologue, sunk deep within my subconscious, gave me an idea, fantastic though it may be. Tonight on the local news, there was a brief segment about the Blue Angels. The sequestration deadline, pushed back to March 1, is looming on the horizon, and the locals are restless about it. The Blue Angels' shows that leave millions of dollars in their wake and wow tourists and locals alike may soon be on the chopping block.


Now, I "axe" you: Is that necessary? Well, maybe, from a practical standpoint, since this country simply cannot continue to spend more money than it makes. Some sacrifices need to be made now and then, just to keep things going, right? They aren't always pretty or pleasant, but there they are, keeping us on our toes, trying to outrun the bulls and gals in Congress and stay one step ahead of whatever it is they leave behind them. Is a Bull Run on the beach more doable than the Blue Angels? On second thought, I'd rather have the Blue Angels than a Bull Run on Pensacola Beach. Pamplona can keep those bulls running right where they usually do, and we'll continue to let the Blue Angels fly high. If the bulls and gals in D.C. want to chop something, let them work on cleaning up the stuff they leave behind and keeping their own houses in order. Sacrifice, indeed!

Literary Aspiration: Inspiration for the Next Generation of Gardeners

Punica granatum 'Nana,' dwarf pomegranate at Santa Rosa County Extension Center demo garden

A few months ago I wrote an article for the Earthworm, an on-line publication produced by Santa Rosa County Master Gardeners and, as far as I know, available only to Florida Master Gardeners. I am so glad that I was able to write something to help satisfy my hours-of-service requirement as well as my curiosity about pomegranates and their inclusion in some famous literature (Solomon's Song of Songs, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. When gardening and literature intersect for me, life is pretty darn sweet. One of these days I hope to write a book about gardening that inspires the next generation of gardeners.

The latest issue of The Neighborhood Gardener, an on-line publication produced by UF/IFAS and--as far as I know--available to everyone, contains a lot of interesting information, but something in particular caught my eye. It's an article about the 2012 winners of the "Growing Good Kids Book Award." Aha! Something for me to aim for:

  What about you? Do you aspire to inspire?