Easy To Be Hard

"How can people be so heartless? " I woke up this morning with that song lyric stuck in my head. Funny since I haven't thought of the rock musical "Hair" for decades. Yes, it's funny but rather apt in light of the current political scene. If you can gauge anything from a Facebook newsfeed, it seems a lot of folks are perplexed and dismayed by what is going on with the current presidential campaign. Such nastiness and so little civility makes you wonder "[h]ow can people be so cruel".

What I wonder is where are all the Baby Boomers. What has happened to us, the peace, love, dove generation? Shouldn't we be calling the shots? Aren't there more of us demographically? Well, not anymore actually. According to the Pew Research Center, the Millenials were projected to surpass us sometime in 2015. I think they did since an recent article in CNN Money claimed the most common age in America last year was 22. As a group we Boomers are losing our grip and perhaps our perspective. 

C'mon, there are still well more than 60 million of us and we know kindness. We know love. We know how to make our voices heard. So let's say something. Let's try to do something. 

Find your inner Woodstock. Dig out your Army Surplus clothing. Put on your Birkenstocks and wear some flowers in you hair.  Well, in all seriousness, at least speak up! 

With thanks to Galt MacDermot, James Rado, and Gerome Ragni, I will leave you with some  additional lyrics -

How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold

How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no

Especially people who care about strangers
Who care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend ...

My First Guitar

My first guitar was a Silvertone H604 from Sears and Roebuck, probably the cheapest and most ubiquitous student guitar of the 1960's.  It was made by the Harmony Company of Chicago which sold approximately 350,000 instruments between 1964 and 1965. So much for craftsmanship and quality control.

Mine had a huge bow in the neck and, of course, there was no truss rod. The action was so high my guitar teacher had to file down the nut after telling my parents that might ruin the thing completely and that he couldn't be held responsible. It's a wonder my young fingers survived the stress. The case was canvas and after a few weeks the ends of the strings worked a hole right through it at the top. My mother repaired it with an iron-on patch. 

Despite all that, I wish I still had it. Sentimentality? Nostalgia? Yes, of course.  It was my very first real musical instrument and I loved it. You can see it here in this YouTube video where Daniel Guareschi plays one just like it.  I wish I had sounded this good back then when I played for hours in my room, but, sadly, I didn't.

Apparently, I was not the only person longing for the guitar of my youth. There were enough to convince the Silvertone Company to reissue the 604 in a new and improved form. 

You can read all about it here - http://www.silvertoneclassic.com/guitars/model-604604e/

Oh, yes, nostalgia and everything old is new again. Did you have a favorite something from your childhood that you wish you had kept?  If so, tell us about it in the comments.

I really miss that old guitar. It was even good enough for Audrey Hepburn in the film Moon River. 

Jammin' with my Ukulele

Ah, retirement! Once you get over feeling guilty, you have time to do a lot of things you just didn't get to while you were working. My plan was to focus on photography and I have (check out the new website  http://www.nearlylostphotography.com/ and the 365 Photo Challenge Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/365photochallenge2016/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel ). But a strange thing happened while I was scanning the local adult ed winter/spring course catalogue for photography related courses. There weren't any but just before I tossed it into the recycling bin, I saw "The Joy of Uke". Hmm. Of course, I registered and three days before the class started UPS delivered my new ukulele. As I held that little Chinese-made, stringed instrument tenderly in my hands, I saw my whole tortured music lesson history flash before my eyes. 

The saga began many decades ago when my aunt offered my mother my cousin Sandra's old clarinet. When asked if I would like to play, I saw a marching band uniform and fancy parades ahead and jumped at the chance. My dreams were shattered when the only available music teacher, our milkman, refused to take me on as a pupil because I was too young. No clarinet for me. But all was not lost since the possibility of becoming a piano virtuoso loomed the year we lived with my grandparents before our new house was available. My Aunt Mary's old piano was in the parlor and I was hooked once my grandfather taught me to play Chopsticks. Lessons were provided and I practiced diligently until, alas, we had to move into our new three bedroom 1960's ranch house in the suburbs. It had no parlor, so no piano for me. 

The next chapter in my musical memoir starts with the Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. Yes, it was February 9th, 1964, and pop music was my new best friend. Who wouldn't want to play guitar like John, Paul, and George? I must have pestered my parents relentlessly because they bought me a little Silvertone from Sears and arranged for me to take lessons. Sadly, I can't remember my first guitar teacher's name but he had a 1950's wave in his hair and wore a fringed Grand Ole Opry style shirt. No mop top. No mod suit. No singing "All My Lovin'"or "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" for me. 

Still I was no quitter and for about three years I took my weekly lesson in a sad little room above a storefront downtown. My new music teacher introduced me to Mel Bay and his graded guitar method. Now I don't know if Mel Bay was ever in a band but my instructor played in a country western group. He must not have been a singer, though, because we never sang. Instead we worked our way through several grades of old Mel's system. I went from playing "The Merry Men" on the B string to cowboy songs, classical etudes and rousing ragtime tunes. I was a fancy little fingerpicker, but my dreams of rock stardom had faded away and died. Eventually, I just stopped going. 

Over the years since I have dabbled with guitars. I've taken a few more lessons and done a couple of workshops. There have been many starts and stops along the way. Nothing has ever really come together. Friends have occasionally invited me to jam with them, but that's always sounded so incredibly intimidating. I may have been able pick out "Valse Lente, op.33" but there's been no jamming for me. 

Fast forward to "The Joy of Uke" every Tuesday night in the brightly lit music room of the middle school. I sit with about 17 other eager students in front of our teacher who wears a silly Hawaiian shirt.  He calls us all musicians because we are tuning up, sight reading, and playing and singing together. The other night we worked through "I've Just Seen a Face" followed by "Hey, Good Lookin". Ironically, that's the Beatles meeting up with Hank Williams. Things are coming together nicely and I'm jammin'. 

A New Year Brings New Challenges

Part 1
Happy New Year, Everyone. It's time for a fresh start and taking on new challenges. It's that time when people make their dreaded (and sometimes dreadful) resolutions. But it may be the perfect time to just try something new. I read the other day about planning fun and exciting activities for yourself in the coming year rather than "resolving" to do things you don't like so well. Yes, of course, many of us could do with a little less eating and a little more exercise, but how about promising to do something nice for yourself this year?
You could plan a special outing, read that book you've been meaning to get to, reconnect with an old friend, learn a new language or skill. What would you really like to do for yourself or for others this year? How about taking ukulele lessons? (Yes, more about that in a subsequent post). Or perhaps you should join in the photo challenge.
Stop reading here if you hate taking pictures.
Part 2
As you know the 365 Day Photo Challenge for 2016 is on. So far we've had a great response. People really like these things for a lot of different reasons. One is obviously the challenge itself. Can you follow through and really take a picture every single day for a year? I'm betting you can.

In the last post I talked about documenting your life and the importance of that. This may be a big year for you. Perhaps you're getting married, having a baby, starting a new job, or going on an exotic vacation. You'll want to be able to look back on it all and a photo a day journal fits that bill nicely.

On the other hand, maybe this will be a hard year because you've suffered a loss or simply find yourself in a bad space. A photo challenge forces you to really look around and to see things you might have missed. Hopefully, you'll see some good things.

Photography is all about seeing and capturing so perhaps it can make everyone's year just a little bit more enjoyable. 

First World Retirement Problems

Silly title, huh? It just struck me that retirement itself is a first world phenomenon. It's a gift. However, life without the daily 9 to 5 grind does present some challenges.  I'm not complaining and I'm not referring to those things that present as problems for all of us whether we're working or not. This is not about how to get the house "Thanksgiving clean" or how best to organize the food pantry so your crackers don't fall out while your looking for the tuna fish. There's just something different about not working in the conventional way that's hard to explain, but may be worth exploring.

Society defines us and judges us by our work. One of the first questions we ask when we meet someone new is "What do you do?" Or course, by that we simply mean "Where do you work?". But, hey, if you think about that question more broadly, it's really a tough one to answer. I mean, what do any of us do? What are the actions that make up our lives? Should you have to answer that? Could you? How would you?

In the first months of my retirement I've been trying to do just that. I find myself outlining my accomplishments in the silliest of ways. I list my completed tasks at the end of the day and make sure Mo knows I rearranged the bathroom closet and washed the bedroom curtains.  Ta da! I dusted. I bought a new vacuum cleaner. I descaled the Keurig. (Actually, I haven't done that yet, but you get my point).

Have I told you I'm organizing my photos? I'm building a website on Weebly. I made my first YouTube video. I bought a domain name. Okay, okay. Enough already. I need to stop. My first first world retirement problem is  understanding that I don't have to explain myself. It's 9:00 a.m. Friday morning. I just wrote a blog post. What else am I going to do today? Mums the word. 

Retirement Is A Good Thing

In 17 days I will retire. I'm excited. I'm pumped. I've been giddily sharing the news but I'm surprised by the number of negative reactions I've been getting. People seem surprised, puzzled and concerned. I'm hearing: "Really?"; "Are you sure?"; "Do you have a plan?'; and "What are you going to do?".  Well, all you skeptics out there, let me tell you what I have in mind.

•  I will blog more. Sadly, my last post was back in June after a short visit to New Orleans. It was entitled "Three Cab Rides Part 1: The Man from Dubai." Parts 2 and 3 are yet to be written. Sigh.  Part 2 would tell the tale of Cowboy Joe. While we were riding with him, he almost pulled a gun on a guy in a black Mercedes with tinted windows for trying to turn the wrong way on a one way street. Good stuff. Part 3 was to feature Ninth Ward Harold. On the way to the airport he told us about the government blowing up the levees during both hurricanes Betsy and Katrina. Conspiracy theory or fact? He was very convincing. 

• I will walk my dogs more. The three terrible terriers really need the exercise and so do I. We have started a pre-retirement routine where I walk each one separately along a prearranged route. Each pup gets some one on one time and I meet my Fitbit step goal. So far, so good.

•  I will make more photographs or as one of my YouTube mentors would suggest "get out there and take some damned photos."  My CAS, Camera Acquisition Syndrome, needs an outlet. For years the sad refrain has been so many cameras, so little time. 

• I will have a cleaner and better organized house. My mother always told me I should have taken Home Economics. As I assume the role of Home Administrator, I face a steep learning curve.

•  I will mow lawns and shovel snow, two most satisfying activities that yield measurable results and provide time for reflection. 

• I will think of more things to do and I will blog more. Perhaps we should title this post  "Retirement is a Good Thing Part 1. 

Three Cab Rides Part 1 - The Man from Dubai

Visiting New Orleans is an experience not to be missed. There is so much to see, to do, to taste, and to photograph that you find yourself constantly in motion. I nearly wore out the FitBit by logging unprecedented numbers of daily steps. Of course, in 90 degree heat and on legs still sore from a Segway tour, walking quickly got old. The solution? Call a cab. There are over 1500 licensed taxi drivers in the Big Easy and three of them I will not soon forget. 

Let's start with the Man from Dubai.

I had a three hour morning photo tour booked and was scheduled to meet my guide at Jackson Square. I decided to take a taxi because I knew that once I arrived at my destination I'd be walking for hours. Best to start out on fresh legs, right? So a cabbie pulled up and after we exchanged the usual pleasantries I told him I wanted to go to 750 Chartres Street. I was very proud that I knew enough to pronounce that "Charters" rather than "Shartrayze" and fully expected to get a knowing smile. Imagine my surprise when the driver asked if I could give him a better address than that. I said "It's 750 Chartres Street, the Jackson Square gate directly across from St. Louis Cathedral." That elicited a blank look. He held up his smart phone and told me there were several different 750 Chartres Streets and asked if I wanted to go north or south. That's when I knew I was in trouble. Not only did he not know the street but he also seemed to have never heard of two of the biggest tourists draws in the entire city.  I told him I had no idea what direction it was and that's why I had called a cab in the first place.

He apologized profusely and told me he had been a New Orleans taxi driver for only a week and that his GPS kept giving him the wrong directions and getting him in trouble with his customers. He then asked the hotel bellman for directions and we were on our way.

 During our ten block journey my determined taxi driver asked four more people for directions and apologized to me a dozen or more times. He also told me about his home, Dubai, and why he came to the United States. I learned that Dubai is the richest of countries but only for the few. You can't get justice there and no matter how hard you work you will never be anyone. I listened as he told me he came to America because here there is justice and here you can be somebody. Here things are fair. 

He was about to ask for additional directions but I could see the cathedral about a block away. We were heading away from it and about to turn the wrong way onto a one way street when I told him he could let me out, that I was close enough. 

He apologized again and I smiled while I gave him a tip. As I walked away I hoped America would be good to him. America. Yes, America where you can get justice, and be somebody, and even get someone else to take your written taxi driver's permit exam for you. I'm sure he will be just fine. 

You Never a Know a When You May Need It

Well, gifting and shopping is over for a little while anyway and I've been putting the Christmas presents away. (At least the ones we're keeping and not regifting or schlepping off to Goodwill). Did we get too much? Did we give too much? Is there too much excess? I'm not sure, but I do know there are two gifts from last Christmas (yep 2013) that I haven't used yet. I'm talking about a lovely pair of Ugg slippers and a cool little Holga camera. I fear I may be saving them for good.

Having been raised by folks my cousin Mary Beth affectionately calls "depression era babies", I understand well the concept of not wasting. You never know when you may need something. Right? You never want to be a spendthrift and you should always be saving for that ever looming rainy day. Bud Ricker's refrigerator has a cracked shelf and occasionally sounds like it's warming up to be launched into space. Still he says it works fine so it would be silly to replace it. My family always kept a few old clothes in the back of the closet for painting or other dirty chores. I confess to having my own little "for painting" pile on a shelf. After my mother died this summer, we found brand new sweaters in her dresser presumably saved for good. Whatever that good was, it didn't come in time. 

Family legend tells of my grandmother buying my Grampa a pair of new slippers. As the story goes she insisted he throw his old ones out because they were so worn. He resisted until one day she put them in the rubbish herself. He snuck out to the trash barrel, brought them in, and hid them in the cellar. So we're back to slippers. I have one still perfectly good pair of slippers. I also have an even older not so good pair that should be in the rubbish or, at the very least, hidden in the basement. Hence, the new Ugg slippers still in the box.

Now what about that Holga? It's a beautiful, plastic lomography camera that takes 120 film and is notorious for light leaks. It's a cult classic, a thing of beauty. I really love it. I have Ilford film for it in the freezer. I have masking tape ready in my camera bag. Yes, I have too many cameras but that's a subject for another day. I will use it, Mo. I promise. I feel that rainy day coming on soon. 

Have any of you kept things for good? Are there things you're saving for a rainy day? I'd love to hear your thoughts and your stories in the comments. 

Don't Over Customize

 So, yeah, I got a new iPad. We're quite rough on electronics here at the 127 and my old one had a cracked screen. (No, I did not drop it purposely when I heard he Air 2 was being released). For me getting a new device is not only exciting but a perfect opportunity to reorganize and to revisit app selections, blog subscriptions, and news feeds. I'm starting  fresh and only installing the things I really use. But while I'm purging and editing,  I'm also being reminded of what I perceive as a dangerous trend, over customizing. 

I can tell Facebook what I want to see and don't want to see. I can pick my news sources and blogs in Feedly. I can follow only the boards that interest me in Pinterest, make Twitter lists, and select specific Communities in Google+. That's great, right? Sure. In many respects these kinds of choices save us time and make our lives easier. I'm not inclined to read things that don't interest me so why should I bother to weed through them? Well, maybe, just maybe, I'm missing something important.

Remember magazines, anyone? Life, Look, Time, Newsweek? Did you ever read a daily newspaper? These were publications that gave us a little bit of everything. We were exposed to unfamiliar stories and issues and to opinions that differed from our own. Of course, we didn't read every article and editorial anymore than we open every single link today. But they were there for us if we wanted them often complete with pictures. Yes, pictures that we might not otherwise have seen. We were able to broaden our world view and prepare ourselves to be better Jeopardy players just by thumbing through the pages. 

The Internet gives us access to just about everything. It's amazing to me what I can see and discover here on the web. How expansive and mind-bogglingly broad it all is! I think we should embrace it and open ourselves up a little more. When we over customize we close ourselves in. We become too fixed and polarized. Have you been watching any of those horribly misleading and divisive political ads? Are you exclusively Fox News or MS NBC? Is it "my way or the highway" ? Perhaps your perspective has shrunk. Maybe you're over customizing. 

You May Not Be As Helpful As You Think

This is my first week on FMLA leave and some of you may be wondering how it's going. Well, I already have some advice for anyone who may be thinking about or already caring for an elderly friend or relative in his or her home. Check your ego at the door and remember that you are a guest. With a  heart full of love and a head full of great ideas, you certainly have the very best of intentions.  But, hey, you may not be a helpful as you think.

Unless someone is legally incompetent (oh, yeah the lawyer weighs in), you have no business rearranging the furniture, revamping the schedule or otherwise taking charge. There are many different approaches to running a household. Be respectful and understand that your way is not the only way and may not be right for others. Ask what you can do to help. Listen. Stay humble. It's not about you. 

Here's the bottom line. Think about how you would feel if someone came into your home and told you what you should and should not do.

That's it for now. I'll keep you posted.

What Must It Be Like?

Today I feel a little sick. It's probably just a touch of the flu, but  I feel tired, weak and dizzy. I had to pass on an early morning couponing excursion and a trip to the gym. I've been trying to do a few chores around the house but find myself having to sit down to rest every few minutes. Everything is a bit of a struggle. In short, I can't do what I want and need to do today. Poor, poor pitiful me? No, not at all. I will be fine, or as my mother says, "right as rain" in a day or two. So what's the point of all this? It made me think about people who live with chronic illnesses and who are not  able to simply bounce back after a little rest.

It made me think about what it must be like to be young and living with cystic fibrosis. To have the desire but not the energy to move through life with the zest and the passion you feel in your heart. To miss and worry about your young son and your husband when you have to be  hospitalized and away from them. To  need a double lung transplant at the time in life when most of us are healthy and strong with hopes and prospects for a bright future.

There is no way I could even begin to know how Aimee Driscoll feels, but I do know that we can help her and her family through the Second Chances Foundation. Please visit and like the page at http://www.facebook.com/2ndchancesfoundation  Please consider sending a donation and/or attending one of the foundation's fund-raising  events like the upcoming Halloween Masquerade Ball on Oct. 26th at the Ramada Inn in Lewiston.

Of course, I would love to see you all at our Couponing Workshop Tuesday, October 23rd at 6:00 PM at Kaplan University in Lewiston. Maureen Hopkins of 2012 - A Year in Coupons ( http://2012incoupons.blogspot.com/) will be talking about using coupons and taking advantage of store rewards to get the best deal possible on things you use every day. We will also be raffling off a fully-stocked coupon binder and a CVS gift card to jump start you on your couponing adventures!

If you can't attend, you can send checks made payable to Second Chances to Oxford Federal Credit Union, 225 River Rd., PO Box 252, Mexico, ME 042576.

Who Needs Sleep?

You really need a helmet when you agree to get up at 5:30 a.m. to go couponing with Maureen. This is especially true for Spring Ahead Weekend since 5:30 is really 4:30 in the morning. (No, you can't fool me and I'll still be subtracting an hour every time I look at a clock for the next week.) At any rate Maureen can be persuasive and I do enjoy the occasional Cadbury Egg for the stores involved, so I agreed.

We stumbled into the CVS store when it opened at 7 (really 6 remember) and I had my marching orders. "Go to the chip aisle and get four bags of Chex Mix." I started to hurry until I realized there was no one trying to elbow me out of the way, retrieved the loot, and awaited further instruction. Meanwhile Mo buzzed about filling a shopping cart while I yawned and checked in on Foursquare.

When checkout time came around, the Coupon Queen of Windham handed me two coupons and told me to use the $3.79 ECB (that's extra care buck for those of you not in the know) that I got the last time we  did this. Imagine my surprise when after all was added and subtracted the clerk said "That'll be 21 cents." I was so surprised that I giggled. How embarrassing!  Coupon assistants are not supposed to giggle, but my mentor should have better prepared me.

Still chuckling we headed to a second CVS store where I repeated the Chex Mix Magic and also got 36 rolls of toilet paper added in for about two dollars total. Hey, I just follow along, do as I'm told, and laugh a lot. If you want the details and the secrets, read Maureen's blog - 2012 - A Year in Coupons at http://2012incoupons.blogspot.com/