My favorite mystery writers and more 2/18/26

Last night I was searching for something to watch in my ongoing struggle against melancholy. The melancholy could be genetic, my father had it. Or it could be a result of my sugar binge of chocolates on Valentine's Day, or Seasonal Affective Disorder - no sunshine for a month, being housebound - who knows - a mystery. Anyhow a good series will keep my mind focused on the outside world of fiction. the outside world of reality is too depressing.

I have to tell a small but to me funny anecodote here. I was so sad yesterday that while I was on my way to lunch with a friend (always helps me cheer up) tears were sliding down my cheeks. I couldn't listen to npr on the radio - too much sad stuff - and 88.5 my usual music radio station was playing some chaotic, raucous loud aggressive music not at all helpful. I turned the dial until I came to a Southern blues guitar. The singer began to sing "I live on lonely street. I'm so lonesome I could die." It struck me so funny so fast that I was laughing out loud. Me crying in the car and the blues man so lonely he could die!

Anyhow I got cheered by lunch but sunk again by evening, so I was again sifting through the detritius of our media world for something engaging but not depressing to watch on my laptop. To my surprise I found "One for the Money." A Janet Evanovich novel had been turned into a movie starring Katherine Heigel! There was a period of about 15 years when I devoured all kinds of mysteries in order to fend off an ongoing more severe depression following the deaths of my mother and then my father. Books were the life raft that kept my head above water and eventually floated me out. In 2011 after my father's tragic death - (and arent't they all tragic?) I was kind of paralyzed. I don't know what made me turn to Outdoor Girls on a Hike, but I did. My introduction to Outdoor Girls on a Hike (published in the 1920's) was in my Grandmother Lyon's basement where there was a bookcase full of books no one else read to my astonishment - treasure! I was about 10 when I found Outdoor Girls. I didn't know then that it was a series. I only had the one volume, a dusty dark blue hardcover book. I was in love at first read! Here were these girls ALONE hiking and canoeing and solving mysteries! They were unafraid (I was terrified of everything) and they were jaunty and cheerful and competent. They had fun.

So after finding more adventures featuring the Outdoor Girls thanks to amazon, I turned to P. D. James mysteries. I don't know why, but I read everything I could get and I bought every cd audio book of her work - boxed sets. I was finding my way out of the tunnel of despair.

Then I found Dorothy Sayers! And I read everything I could find of her novels. These were the days before I became an amazon addict, so I had to go to book stores to find the books, and libraries. The tunnel out of depression via reading led to the subway system and Agatha Christie and all her books and her movies and then, I met the fun and trashy neighborhood girls: Janet Evanovitch, Patricia Cornwell, and Lisa Scottoline.

I read all of their books too. Those novels are all gone now - I gave them away and donated them to libraries. Most recently I read ALL of Louise Penny's novels. the Three Pines mysteries. I think the first was Still Life: A Three Pines Mystery. I passed them on to a friend and she passed them on to a friend and soon about 4 friends of hers were reading them all and THEY have beeen turned into movies too viewable on amazon prime!

One for the Money, is the name of the Janet Evanovitch novel made into a movie with Katherine Heigl, who I love as a comic actress. In her portrayal of Stephanie Plum, bail bond hunter, she portrays a kind of jaunty innocent, a daredevil always getting out on a limb, but not losing hope. She is not held back by her upbringing though she is fond and respectful of that world. She is not yet, however, ready for a new world. Lisa Scottoline's fictional lawyer heroine is Bennie Rosato, she is the new world. She is not only a lawyer but has her own law firm.

There is a lot of the chronology of the struggle of women in the class system that is so familiar to me, having been born in South Philadelphia and being the only female in my family in any generation up to my great nieces, who managed to find their way to college and careers. Stephanie Plum and Bennie Rosato are so familiar to me. They are me. They are me when I was trying to put myself through college by working as a Kelly Girl and Manpower Temp and me when I got into graduate school and got a masters degree. And in the world of Stephanie Plum there is the Black hooker who, with Stephanie Plum's help, gets a job in cousin Vinnie's bail bond office whick gets her off the street.

The path for the middle class girl is paved and marked but for the poor girl and the working class girl, it is a deep, dark, foggy woods with no marked trails and many wolves. The trails for girls of the class I grew up in are marked to waittress jobs, factory jobs, Walmart jobs, nurses aid jobs, cleaning jobs. or other kinds of office jobs. For lower class girls it can be much harder.

Away from the mystery of the class system and back to the literary mystery genre. I just devoured those books and they saved me. They dragged my mind away from morbidity and the pathos of tragic life and death, and into the cleaned up distanced death of strangers whose deaths were going to be solved. Those mysteries had resolutions.

That's it too, the appeal, yes, people died, but there were clues and trails and if you were diligent and paid close enough attention, you could figure out the mystery and solve it!

I, who felt insecure and lost, frieghtened and weak found young outdoor girls, female detectives and lawyers, who strode fearlessly into the depths of the darkness and emerged triumphant.

It is true that in the Evanovitch novels, Stephanie Plum is often supported, saved, and seduced by hunky male characters, unlike the more modern Bennie Rosato, who fights on single handed and alone, except, like Stephanie, for the companionship of her working class and warm family and their dinner table brimming with old fashioned home-cooked meals.

If my career had begun sooner ane I had an earlier start, I could have designed and taught college level courses in literature and if I had, I would have written one for these mystery writers. Agatha Christie is the world's most successful writer even up to the latest list that I looked at which was 2018!

I never really took to the modern male authors of crime fiction like James Patterson or Harlan Coban - too gritty, too many female victims, too gloomy and misanthropic main characters - always gloomy old men 'put out to pasture' and as a last resort, recruited to come back and save the scene from the incompetent and inexperienced youngsters. I don't identify with those old guys but my brother, Neal, who does read identifies with them.

I wonder what you read, mystery visitor? wrightj45@yhaoo.com

I just called my brother and he is reading Clive Cussler and Stephen King.

Happy Trails!

Presetation on Oney Judge - Escaped from Slavery and NEVER Caught!

Alexandra Ford, a Re-enactor from the American Historical Theatre will present a program portraying the life and times of Oney Judge -- an enslaved woman who escaped from President George Washington's House in Philadelphia -- at the Gloucester County Historical Society Museum in Woodbury at 5 PM on Saturday, February 28. The program is co-sponsored by Woodbury Juneteenth, the Historical Society, and and RevolutionNJ. The program is FREE but registration is required. You can do that by adding this event to your cart at the bottom of this page and then going to your cart in the upper right corner and checking out. This will put you on the entrants list.

Washington House Historical Site, Philadelphia Judge was one of nine enslaved people held in forced labor positions at President George Washington's house in Philadelphia during his presidency. The other were Moll, Hercules, Richmond, Austin, Giles, Paris, Christopher Sheels and Joe Richardson.

Judge became famous for completely disappearing and alluding Washington's 1790s attempts to have her captured and returned to him. She hid away and lived as a free woman in a rural seacoast area of southeastern New Hampshire where she died in 1848.

Erasing Slavery History In January, citing Donald Trump's Executive Order 14253, the National Park Service ripped down an extensive exhibit at the Washington House historical site in Philadelphia that detailed Judge's and the other enslaved peoples' lives and work in the presidential mansion.

Ford is a professional actor-historian based in the Philadelphia area who portrays notable Black women in American history. She is a member of the American Historical Theatre, an organization that provides living history performances for schools, museums, and community groups. She portrays Oney Judge and Rosa Parks in living history presentations and has degrees in Literature, Arts, and Philosophy from Camden County Community College and in Theatre Studies from Montclair State University. ~ ~ ~

Contact: museum@gchsnj.org | (856) 848-8531 Museum Location: bit.ly/gchs-museum County justice Complex Parking Garage: bit.ly/woodbury-free-parking

What to do with old diaries and journals

I am an obsessive journal keeper and have been keeping journals since the 1970's. Sadly, most of my best thoughts now go into this blog which will no doubt fade like a January fog in the sunlight of time. I do my essaying here because typing is so much easier and faster than writing with a pen, especially now that I am old, 80, and my hands hurt and my wrist.

Probably the diaries are of no use to anyone because I am not and never will be famous, but I always think how I enjoyed the diaries of common folks which are, of course, much harder to come by. I am thinking of The Diary of a Midwife, an 18th century journal of the travels and travails of a midwife halping women give birth in all months of the year, terrible weather, and traveling by horse or canoe! I think of her because I know what it was like to experience the indescribable agony of labor pains and the terror. It feels as though your insides are being wrenched out by pliers. It is HORRIBLE, and to think of lone women in little cabins going through this ordeal without help is awful but to know that the midwife was there to help and assure them and to turn the baby if it was coming out in the wrong position, or if it was stuck, gives hope. It was the biggest killer of women before modern times. Women bled to death, died in horrific agony with the baby stuck inside, babies suffocated in their ordeal of trying to escape the womb - all kinds of terrors in that experience, but the midwife was there to use her wisdom and skill to rescue those poor souls. That midwife was an ancestor of the famous Clara Barton, and how wonderful that someone in each generation of that family was thoughtful and caring enough to save that diary from decade to decade until it became a book and eventually a film in the 20th century!

Another interesting little diary story was that of a young woman who dumpster dove to get some cool vintage clothing being tossed out an apartment window in an apartment clearance in New York City. In amongst the clothing she found a little red diary about a young woman in her twenties moving to New York City for the first time. She was a thoughtful finder and shared the treasure with her boyfriend who was also sensitive to historical documents and together they located the woman who had written the diary. She was an octagenarian living in Florida. The young couple wrote a book about the find and the return. I think it was called The Red Notebook. I had that book before I gave away all my books.

One of my favorites was a diary by a young farm wife in th 1700's in England and her cooking. She would prepare special favorites when she wanted to influence her husband in some decision. Her cooking descriptions were so alive, you could almost taste the things she made.

Of course, most people in the history world have been familiar with the Diary of Joseph Plum Martin, a young Revolutionary War soldier. I also read the diary of a Hessian soldier in America during the Revolution. I can't remember the title and the book is gone now. Maybe his surname was Dohla? Anyway another famous period diary is Joseph Fithian of Greenwich NJ and I have read it and visited his home territory and discussed it with the gracious man who volunteers at the Cumberland County Historical Society in Greenwich - a beautiful and historic town you should visit.

So, I looked up where someone could donate 20th century diaries and found: American Diary Project, "collecting, archiving and honoring" Kate Zirkle, founder americandiaryproject.com

and

The Gilder Lehrman Collection

www.gilderlehrman.org>collection

note, however, some collect only PUBLISHED diaries, but I think the first one ADP collects written ones.

I guess once I am gone, it doesn't really matter what happens to my diaries, I'll be gone and they are less than a shell, a husk, a shadow on concrete of the ME, but they are a record of an ordinary woman of the 20th century - a time of great change in general and for women in particular.

Happy Trails, wrightj45@yahoo.com

Valentine's Day 2026

This morning, I put the dog in the car and drove to Dunkin Donuts for a latte' and then to the store to buy heart shaped boxes of chocolates to give to some friends I am meeting for lunch at Maritsa's today.

New Valentine's and holiday activity - I text all the people on my texting list and wish them all a Happy Valentine's Day (or whatever the holiday is) I like to let them know someone thought of them. Then they all text me back!

One who has been going through a lot of difficulty I texted how each day when I drive by the old high school where I used to teach (she and I were both teachers) I think how lucky I am (we are) to be retired - 20 years this year!

Today it made me think how so many things we go into with such naive open hearted hope and enthusiasm turn out to be a kind of gauntlet of disappointment and pain, where so many of us (me) come out the other end disillusioned battered and bruised: marriage, teaching, parenthood. Not that there arent' joyful experiences along the way, but the road is perilous and we get worn out and beaten up. But at the end, we survive (some of us lucky ones) and when we do, we learn to enjoy the simple pleasures of basic existence - like my old cat Lucky lying bathed in a warm pool of early morning sun on his window perch, or my dog beside me on the sofa, waiting patiently for her breakfast, or Dolly and Patsy beside me, just happy to be here and to be warm and safe and to know that their expectation of bowls of breakfast kibble will be realized soon. I will have raisin toast with crunchy almond butter and orange marmalade.

While I was out I went to the store and bought small cardboard hearts of chocolates for the teacher friends I am meeting for lunch today at Maritsa's. I will put on a red sweater and look forward to the chat and the lunch, the comraderie.

How lucky have I been to be born into a place and time of peace and plenty. I watched an archaeology show narrated by Alice Roberts about a bronze age village found in surprisingly good condition because it had been a stilt swamp village like my favorite Hallstadt in Germany. So it had fallen into the oxygen depreived silt of the lake bed and been preserved, even wood, textiles and food in clay bowls! The archaeologists pieced together the mystery and deduced the village had entirely burned and the villagers had fled quickly and never returned. It was undetermined whether the fire was accidental or from an attack but no bodies were found, just many swords, long knives and valuables like glass beads, lots of bowls many with grain based food (like porridge I guess) in them. The people disappeared.

I thought then as I do often how lucky I am that I was born when World War 2 was over and we had entered this long period of peace and plenty. I was blessed with an inquisitive mind, a trail of books were left for me as though by the fairies so I could get educated and find a career with BENEFITS and a PENSION so that in my peaceful old age, in my small bungalow, I could live a life of leisure and peace with my pets, and a bag filled with heart shaped red boxes filled with chocolates to give to friends for Valentine's Day. Even to be allowed to grow old to the age of 80 is a miracle. My what gifts I have been given! Thank you to the universe!

And Happy Valentine's Day to you, sttangers and visitors! wrightj45@yahoo.com

Working Class limitations/ Casual cruelty and violence inflicted on working class children

Often when I drive through the river front town where I taught school for 35 years, I am reminded of my own childhood directly across the river in Philadelphia. Actually where I was born and grew up was more deprived in some ways, we had no trees in the brick canyons where I lived - no gardens or grass, just asphalt, concrete and brick, the stench of the refineries and the contents of our homes.

Something else I think of often now in my old age - I am 80 - is the trauma the fathers in my neighborhood were carrying from their childhoods in poverty and their youth in the Depression and the War.

For much of my adult life I blamed those men, and my father, for their drunkeness, their casual bullying and brutality, and their insensitivity, without thinking much of how that sensitivity had been beaten out of them.

My father's childhood was very poor because his Merchant Marine father had been killed in a mysterious hit and run event in the Brooklyn Navy Yard just after he had come to port. The family story was that my Grandmother, his wife, had a dream that he had been killed and woke up in the middle of the night and awakened her sons as well. Shortly thereafter they received word to come to retrive the body.

, They were so poor that the boys, Dad, Bill, and Clyde, went to the railroad tracks along the riverfront near where they lived, and picked buckets of fallen coal from the coal cars to take home to heat the house.

Even when I was a child, people still heated with coal, and the coal trucks would come and slide a chute into a basement window and pour the tons of coal into the coalbin in the basement which my father would then shovel into the coal burning furnace that heated our two story brick row home.

Dad didn't complain about his life; I think he was grateful to be alive to have survived the US Navy and the devastation he witnessed in World War II and to have a wife and a home. His mother had never achieved that status - owning a home. When I bought my house, my father said it was the proudest he'd ever felt about me. Not college - buying a house.

We don't think much about class especially these days, for some reason. I read the book CASTE, and it made me think about those levels of society that we pretend don't exist but in which I grew up and in which so many others have and still do. We are fooled by tv into thinking everyone has houses in suburbia with garages and yards and good schools.

When I worked in the Outreach program in the riverfront town, right out of college, I visited the homes of poor people on the river front, some so poor they had no heat except what they could get from the gas range - because petroleum was so expensive in the 80's and 90's. I brought them library supplies to enrich the lives of the children. Many of the children slept on bare, stained and holed mattresses on the floor with piles of dirty clothes in the corner. Many poor houses had depressed, hopeless, slovenly women and absent men who showed up periodically, drunk and angry and violent. I saw this with my own eyes.

My father was one of the 'good' ones in that he loved his home, and my mother and he was home every night, but drunk every weekend. When he got drunk, he became frighteningly affectionate, and then it bled into a beligerance that was a heat seeking misssile for a reason to be violent. Any perceived lack of respect or disobedience could be the spark that would set off the rage and the violence. Still, my mother and I were made to feel lucky because our provider was a good provider and always came home and paid for the groceries and the bills and was regular in his habits in that way, AND most importantly of all, our mother wasn't weak emotionally. She remained optimistic and positive in the face of everything and she kept a clean and well ordered home - something that women of her class and time could aspire to as a success!

The casual cruelty I experienced and witnessed growing up and in the town where I worked incuded insulting, cornering and bullying, and violence in the form of slaps and hits with hands and beatings with belts. In the town where I worked I saw most of this including hair pulling and insulting at children as young as toddlers. Their little faces haunt me to this day. The shock and betrayal and the hurt, which the men were blind to so they could indulge their tempers.

I say "men" because although this was possible and ocassional with mothers, for the most part it was the fathers who also, except in our house, bullied and were violent towards not only the wives but the elderly mothers, anyone weaker, also pets.

People were different in the development in New Jersey to which we moved in the 50's. Perhaps because the houses were separated and we didn't see it, or perhaps because we had moved up one layer in the sociodemographic sediment. We never saw public desplays of violence or profanity or drunkenness which were common in our old neighborhood in Philadelphia.

Children had so little scope for hope or aspiration in those worlds. I was an exception, I don't know why. I don't know why I was drawn to the books ignored and neglected in my Grandmother's basement in Philadelphia. I know they were an escape from the brutality that I could and did perceive in my daily world, and perhaps they gave me a glimmer of a different world. The Outdoor Girls on a Hike series, for example, was not only a beacon of light because it was girls who were brave and had adventures on their own, but because in the world where they lived, girls sat on the porch and drank hot chocolate and had talks and no drunken father shouting in the kitchen. No one was frightening them or bullying them or setting splintered broken wooden fences around their possibilities.

The other windows into possibility that were offered to me and that I took advantage of were the magazines to which my mother subscribed and most importantly the Children's Illusrated Encyclopedia which she got at the supermarket with green stamps. My mother opened those worlds for me! What a brightly colored enormous world was opened up between those covers.

I don't know why I was the only child who took a ride on these vehicles to other worlds. I don't know why the other children didn't read or see the potential in it. That mystified me as a teacher as well as growing up.

Reading took me out of that dreadful poverty stricken landscape of drunkeness, brutality and despair, and it was FREE but somehow, although I consistently tried one experiment after another to reveal the magic hidden in reading, the working class students I taught couldn't perceive it. The students I taught, the lowest levels in the school, pursued instead, drugs, alcohol and sex, the very things that were going to poison and defeat them. it is a mystery I will take to my grave.

I took that drive in the car today after I bought a latte' at Dunkin Donuts because for another day, I am struggling against melancholy, which is no doubt whey I inflicted that sad series of reflections on this blog post. The melancholy I inherited from my father. A latte' and a good breakfast can help lift me out of this slump brought on by the dreary midwinter, dark and cold and still covered with mounds of jagged and dirty snow lining every street, and a wind rattling the windows like an animal trying to claw itself in.

My next strategy is to do the best I can at struggling to read with my visual impairment. That the best escape I ever knw has been taken from me is another of the many losses that can fuel my melancholy like a bucket of coal into the furnace, but I resist and pursue whatever means I can to indulge as much as I can (magnifying glass) audio books. When that fails, I paint! And watch shows on my laptop.

None of us are feeling too pert in the house today, or yesterday or all week or all month. The dog has had no walk in a month, except for two walks on the farm thanks to my sister when I gave her a ride home from work.

I think a nice hot chocolate is in order as well. The sugar, the chocolate! And in the evenings, I have been watching the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan/Cortina: last night half pipe snow board, moguls, down hill racers, cross country, and the one where they race around an oval. They are so young and beautiful and fearless!

Happy Trails whnerever you are - wrightj45@yahoocom

February Black History Month 2026

"On January 22, 2026, the National Park Service (NPS) removed the "Freedom and Slavery in the Making of the Nation" exhibit from the President's House site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The exhibit, which opened in 2010, detailed the lives of nine enslaved people in the household of President George Washington."

borm 1748 in Va. died 1812 Hercules Posey was held in slavery at the plantation of George Washington. He was brought to Philadelphia to cook at the president's mansion. He was a renowned chef who served faithfully until at one point after some perceived transgression he was demoted to field labor. He escaped and lived free in New York City for some time, until he was manumitted by Washington's weill in 1801. Another excaped slave named Oney Judge or Ona Sudge Staines, born 1773 escaped and ived free until her 75th year when she died. Washington kept slae catchers after her throughout her life, but she was never caught and a book called "Never Caught" was written about her, author Erica Armstrong, published 2019.

Trump can take down the markers but we can keep the memory alive in our hearts and on our blogs and in our discussion groups! Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Review of the documentary Queen of Chess, Netflix February 2026

Last night I watched the documentary Queen of Chess on Netflix. I had read about it in the news magazine The Week to which I subscribe. I have followed chess from a distance with an affectionate interest kind of like that of an aunt following the exploits of a distance cousin.

When I was a high school English teacher, I sponsored The Chess Club in our high school which was a working class sociodemongraphic in a run down river town. As a new teacher, I was given the lowest classes in terms of behavior and achievement, the students who had failed the 'new' minimum basic skills test, ninth graders (for those who don't know - the worst grade to teach in terms of behavior management). It seemed to me that one of the things my students, mostly boys of about 15 years of age, in the midst of the physical turmoil of adolescence, needed was something to teach strategy, patience, and an eye to a few steps ahead.

I found the boy popularly deemed to be the toughest of the touch, a skageboard hero, six feet tall with a mohawk who had been mostly home-schooled by his mother due to his problems with behavior in school. Bohemians often hit it off with outsiders and the outsider world leaves a little room for art of many kinds, spray paint, comic books, etc. I just had a feeling this boy, very bright, would be intrigued by the game of chess. He was. And because he took an interest, his followers did as well. I bought a dozen cheap sets at the local 5 * 10 store for $2.50 a box and proceeded to teach them the basics. In about one game, they could all beat me. I am not particularly crafty or competitive, and they all had those traits.

We formed a chess club which seemed to confer an extra cache' of glamour on the bad boys. I took them on class trips with field trip money to chess tournements. Sadly, I was not a good enough chess teacher to make it possible for them to win, but I showed them a wider world.

I would have liked to be a better chess player but I lack a most essential ingredient, a trainable memory. My memory works bery well on things it likes, but I cannot force chores on it, they slide right out. At the time, I knew so little about chess, that I didn't know about chess magazines or books but our chess club didn't last long anyhow because we met on lunch hour and the maintenance staff complained about potato chip bags and wrappers in the classroom trash cans. I couldn't do after school because I was a single parent and i had to get home to my little daughter. They closed us down. No matter, I had other programs including an annual trip to the theqter in PHiladelphia where my students got to see the Nutcracker, and an opera.

Back to chess. This was another of the ubiquitous regions entirely dominated by men. At the time of my youth women weren't even permitted to compete in tourements with men should they have so desired. Few women did. The prevailing 'masters' publicly announced on a regular basis that women would never compete in chess with men because we weren't intelligent enough aggressive enough, and we lacked the concentration.

So from a distance, though, I kept my eye on the chess world as indeed most people did in the era in which I grew to adulthood. Everyone knew the names Bobby Fischer and Gary Kasparov and people sat breathlessly awaiting the results of games that pitted Americans against Russians. It was like the space race, a tribal competition of national epic proportions.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered via the review in The Week, that there had been a Chess superstar who had actually been in the top 10 of Grandmasters, and had actually beaten Gary Kasparov! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to see that documentary. It was really well done, too. Judit Polgar, Hungarian, had been trained from early childhood by her father who had the great experimental goal of trying to raise a genious, He was of the nurture rather than nature disposition. He and his wife home-school their three daughters and they had 3 training chess sessions each day. All three young women became successful chess champions, but Judit was MORE! She set her goal on becoming a Grandmaster and beating Gary Kasparov, at the time, the greatest chess master in history. Judit won her way up through the women's tournement heirarchy then the mens. Finally, she came face to face with Kasparov and I will leave that to you to watch in the documentary because it is a subtle and beautiful portrait of two greats coming together in the spirit of championship level sportsmanship.

Some of the male competitors that Judit beat refused to shake her hand after the match, a very surprising thing in that world of extreme honor for rules and correct behavior. To me. her demeanor throughout this journey to greatness was so admirable that it brought tears to my eyes. She met every disappointment and every slight and i nsult with grace and determination. Judit Polgar was the Grandmaster of sportsmanship.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am working on a project for the Haddon Fortnightly and HMHS March Women's History Group Art show. I am doing a group of 15 miniatures of great women often overlooked by history. The theme is "Remember the Ladies" the famous quote from Abigail Adams in Revolutionary America. At first I planned to stick to women of that period, the 1700's but some caaled out to me and I had to move up the centuries and add some of my favorite heroines. Now I am adding Judit Polgar, Happy Trails as we endure the Polar Vortex, the Arctic Blast and the third rider of the frigid apocalypse, the Bomb Cyclone! wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Polar Vortex and being 80!

Ok, just so you know, there is an upbeat to each of my crises. Right now my ongoing crisis has been coping with transportation in regard to grocery shopping since the Polar Vortex dumped a bunch of snow on us and the Arctic Blast froze it into white concrete.

Crisis number one was getting my car out of the driveway because small drifts had formed against the tires and froze there. I hadn't prepared in advance for this event because it was somewhat unprecedented. This had never happened to me before, and I was unprepared because my neighbor said he would shovel me out when he shoveled his drive, but after he did it once, more snow came and he had so much to do, he couldn't keep up with my driveway too and his back went bad.

Neighbors scrambled for sold out ice melt products. I had asked my nephew Archie if he could stop on his way home from work and pick up some Ice Melt at Tractor Supply and I would give him $100 to spread it on the driveway and he said "NO."

My nephew, Godson, Archie is a good case in point for the late learned lesson that it isn't always 'us' who are to blame for the anger of a man, often it is self generated and we are simply the target. We used to have a fairly good relationship and he would do the occasional small job for a whacking good pay out. I always remembered his birthdays and Christmas with nice gifts. Then about 2 years ago, he took against me. I think it is because my sister and I are close and he has become deeply angry at her and dumps all his rage on her and I am connected to her, so I am now the 'enemy' as well.

On his birthday last February, I gave him a $99 AAA automobile service membership, a birthday card with some cash $25, and took him, his son and my sister for brunch at The Station in Woodbury. His reaction to his gift was "Why'd you buy that? I don't need that." followed by a dismissive little temper gesture. Needless to say, he has used the AAA membership three times this year. He has been so mean to my sister that she and I decided to stop appeasing and enabling him. He has never remembered my birthday or Christmas, or hers, and I decided to boycott his February 5th birthday this year. Neither my sister nor I gave him a card or a gift this year.

My sister came to the rescue after a week of being frozen in when I began to run out of some essentials - mostly cat stuff. She took an Uber over to my house and used a shovel to chip away the ice behind my back tires and then got in the car with me as I manuevered out between the high shoulders of plowed street snow that stood 3 feet high like the straits of Gibralter beside the driveway. We did a shopping and I took her home.

One of the problems I have had since then is that I have to put 'trax" (a kind of cleats, on the bottom of my shoes to get me safely over the frozen path and driveway to the car, but once in the car, because my back is so stiff and my knees don't bend I can't get the shoes off and remove the trax from the soles of the shoes. The tracks make walking on flooring treacherous because they act like tiny ice skates.

It has been a week stuck indoors - I didn't go to church, and I began to run out of some things I needed but my sister isn't available this weekend, so I was on my own. What to do?

Things were piling up because on top of everything else, all the sewing and painting, and the leaning on things to get to the car had caused my right wrist to go bad again. This is an affliction that assaults me every time I get into a period of over use. It is like a stress sprain that gets so bad, I can't lift a cup or a saucer, my wrist just gives out with some shocking pain. If I immediately put on a wrist brace and immobilize for a day or two, my wrist recovers; whatever has been aggravated calms down, and I can use my wrist again, so that is what I did yesterday. I took the day off and did nothing, and my wrist recovered.

But what that meant was that the dishes piled up, the litter needed scooping, some broken things needed repair and I had to go to the ShopRite for groceries today. How to get those cleats off so I could walk safely into the store myself instead of waiting in the car while my sister did it for me. In the car, I used the short snow scraper to lift my shoes up to my lap after I kicked them off on the floor, took off the cleats, dropped the shoes on the pavement and slid down into them, did the shopping, back in the car, I lifted the shoes up again and put the cleats so when I got home, I could safely carry the three heavy bags, one at a time of course, into the house.

This morning and yesterday morning, I was on empty in the happiness tank. I felt old and weak and helpless, even a little humiliated and unwilling or unable to think how to get help. But I dug down and found my character and got to the store, had a rest, did the dishes, put the groceries away, fed the dog and now I am typing this. Success! Triumph over adversity! I also sent text messages to two of my old Senior group friends who have it much harder than I have. One has a wheelchair bound husband and has just been diagnosed with liver disease herself, the other has no car and has to find ways to manage her three huge dogs with minimal help from her son.

What I learned from my experience is next year have the Ice Melt on HAND and use it! Also, look into ShopRite home delivery! AND do not sign up for any more classes.

Another crisis hanging over me had been that I spent a lot of money to take a quilting course which I thought would be good for me learning something new and meeting more women. The course was $120, the materials $120 and I don't like it. It is too hard for me - too much measuring and sewing machine use. I am the least experienced in the class and they are all too young for me - in their 60's mostly. My sewing machine needle broke, and I replaced it but the replacement needle fell into the machine and I can't get it out. The sewing machine repair guy has not returned my call. I am behind in class and this is another chore I need to resolve today. I have to see if the machine will work as I am advised by a google search on what to do if your needle falls into the machine.

The description of the course never mentioned that I needed a machine. I thought we would sew by hand (ha!) and it said they had machines for us to use. Turns out they do but it is required that you do most of the work at home!

Unfortunately this sewing takes place as I am trying to finish the art work for the annual March Women's History Group Art Show at the Haddon Fortnightly, and again, I have spent too much money and time to let it go. I have to get it finished! Pressure - stress - chores.

The added stress is keeping hte kitty litter empty of poop becaue the dog has become obsessed with eating poop every chance she gets and the fat left in the excrement from the cat food causes her to have a relapse of her pancretitis, so I am on consant alert to keep the litter done (wrist problem) as well as to keep the gates chained (every time I have to go to the bathroom myself) so she can't get out of the living room to eat out of litter boxes in the bath or bedroom. All these little obstacles.

My painting table came apart and had to be glued together too. - small stuff but it piles up, like used up stuff you need from the grocery - cat food, toilet paper, milk, crackers, cheese.

Right now the "severe weather warning Polar Vortex Wind" is smacking every loose thing against the house and shaking the windows and puffing on walks like it is the wolf blowing my house down. Even the animals show concern - looking up from their naps when a particularly vigorous gust rattles our little pig hovel made of twigs.

It's all ok. I am home from my trip to the store, the groceries are away, we are supplied well enough to last until my next pay day and I have treats for the end of the day when everything is done and I am on the sofa wrapped in my electric lap blanket and watching something on my laptop - stand-up comedy by Tom Papa or Mick Birbiglia or Kathleen Madigan, or perhaps this weekend - The Winter Olympics in Milan! Although when I tried to sign up with peacock streaming service to watch it, my password was denied, then my e-mail was denied with the caution that my e-mail was already belonging to someone else (probably me from the summer Olympics when I had subdcribed to Peacock and then after the month, canceled.) They don't seem to have software programmers who have expected such an ocurrence, which I would thing was pretty common, so I don't know if I can find a way to see the Olympics. I would like to, and I bought microwaveable popcorn just in case I figure it out.

For next year - 1.a supply of Ice Melt early in the season, 2.Home delivery option from Shop-Rite, 3.No joining any courses and it may be time to re-think entering the Women's History Group Show - it turns out to be a challenge I relish but spend far too much time and money on. I have to respect the needs of my deteriorating joints too.

Well, today I overcame most of my obstacles and I have gotten a confidence and lift from it which helps me feel like I can manage the rest of my chores. I also have to do the laundry! Maintaining means getting chores done EVERY day and taking a day off here and there causes a pile up. Fortunately, this time, I got lucky and with a latte' found a little wave of optimism and energy to tackle the pile up and probably get it all done, and that gives me a sense of hope that I am ABLE. This too shall pass - and Spring will come and summer, and I will work on getting in better shape to face the next winter. And feel encouraged about managing this one. My friends who are my age have looked into the future and seen friends a relatives a few years down the road and we are seeing tough times ahead - we have to prepare. Hope you are managing through the Polar Vortex, the Arctic Blast and the Bomb Cyclone too! wrightj45@yahoo.com

NEW JERSEY'S REVOUTIONARY WAR MUSEUM

For may volunteers in the South Jersey History World, the rescue and renovation of this survivor of our Revolutionary War era is a miracle and a dream come true.

The more you learn about the pivotal place of New Jersey in the Revolutionary War, the more you marvel at and mourne our lost opportunities in showcasing it. Just recently as you probably know, the long surviving historic home of a revolutionary war hero who mortgaged his property to raise a militia to serve with our Continetl forces was destroyed in an early morning attack by the Department of Transportation while the History community was fighting to save the building, the Huggs Harrison House which stood on St. Mary's Cemetary grounds off Browning Road in Bellmawr.

Anyhow, back to vicotory, the Camden Co. Historical Socity just posted this news item about the progress on the restoration of this rescued building.

merican Revolution Museum of South Jersey

$4M Rehabilitation on Track for Completion by June 20th

Camden County Historical Society has been making waves in restoration and preservation, planning to open the newly renovated Cooper House Museum just in time for the 250th birthday of the United States. The Cooper House will be the trailhead for Camden County's planned 34-mile LINK Trail system and is located just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge at 60 Erie Street, Camden.

The two-story museum will include rotating exhibits and details of South Jersey’s role during the American Revolution, such as battles and skirmishes. Other rooms with focus on South Jersey counties, as well as The Declaration of Independence. To read more, Click Here.

note: I have visited this building many times over the years along with a coupe of other propeties once belonging to the founding Cooper family Sadly, one that existed in ruins is entirely gone, and another, last time I saw it was a burned out shell. I am so glad this wqs saved and I can't wait to go visit! So many milestone events happened right here during the Revoution and you can begin with the Battle of Red Bank in National Park, and follow up with a visit to Batsto and learn about the Forks. Books oon both places have been written by Barbara Solem, a local author.

"A Problem to Solve or A Part of Life "-

Reading The Week magazine today (issue 1270, Jan.23rd, even though today is February 1st, I ran across this phrase in an article about Amy Pohler's podcast A Good Hang, which won a Golden Globe. I have not listened to this podcast, nor, any podcast for that matter. No reason why, just haven't added it to my daily routines. The observation was made in regard to the occasional emergence of observations about menopause. Speaking from the cliff top of age 80, I can see Menopause dimly in the mist from the spray of the waves hitting the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, on the beach far below.

What I remember from that time is the HEAT which came from a small generator just below my throat, roughly above my sternum. It radiated and the red spread on my skin up to my face and it felt like I had generated a 85 degree humid summer day in my own body. Along with it came irritability, impatience, and restlessness. I did often go out into the yard as I have read other women have done, to cool off in the refreshing winter air. I had menopause for 10 years from about age 42 when my orderly body began to count down periods at one month intervals, to 52 when they were ceased entirely. That decade happened to coincide with the most stressful and occupied decade of my life. I worked two demanding jobs and raised my daughter, bought a house, and had no car.

What I did was I endured it, got to know it, and lived with it. At the time there was a pharmaceutical push to get all of us menopausal women onto "medication" Horonal replacements. I have always had a suspicious nature and in particular with the pharmaceutical empire which is, to me, a cousin to the military empire, hungry and crafty predators who do serve a purpose in the environment but must be watched with wariness.

Aside from menopause, however, I think that phrase from the review of Amy Pohler's podcast, has larger and wider implications. So many things in life are part of the process and not necessarily problems to be solved. We all know that from the times when we are just venting about some issue to friends and they dump a basket of onions of options on us - how to solve the problems. Most of the solutions are things we have already thought of and tried, and many are completely beside the point. I have so so many friends who have sought medical solutions to problems I have personally felt were things that could be solved privately with lifestyle changes, attitude adjustments, or which could be just endured.

A [erfect example is the many friends I have who immediately seek antibiotics for the common cold. And one kind makes them sicker and they demand another kind. I have freinds who are encyclopedic in their knowledge of antibiotics and they go from one to another when my opinion (which I now keep to myself because I realize the emotional dependence is beyond my scope) is best endured with soup and tea and rest and usually gone in a week. My antibiotic addicted friends can spend 3 weeks in their fruitless circuit wile damaging their gut biomes and depleting their bodies attempts to heal them.

Same for insomnia. I have friends with 30 year Ambien habits when they know long term use has been linked to cognitive decline. But they will not give up the habits of tv watching in bed, laptop scrolling (blue screens) in bed, and drinking copious quantities of caffeinated beverages during the day. I don't say anything about any of this anymore.

I have divested myself of zealotry regarding my opinions on people's choices. Now I just think they have a right to both live and die as they choose. Same for me.

So many things in life, though, I think are to be endured rather than solved, especially in the realm of emotional pain. People turn to so many emolients for relief from emotional pain, alcohol, marijuana, (my favorite is food treats like ice cream and cookies) when the easier, simpler, less expensive and inevitably most successful strategy is to endure it. Some good helpers, I find, for enduring these admittedly deeply painful emotional situations include observing what I am experiencing and writing it out. This is an age old, trusted way of coping, and to some extent, the wellspring of literature and poetry, and maybe art.

I often think of Marcel Prousts Remembrance of things Past and how he resolved his confinement and debilitating illness by this poetic and enlightening trip in his mind and memory. I never got through the whole 6 volumes, and in fact, gave them away to the Free Books Project now that I know I will no longer be able to read anything like that due to my vision impairment, but I read and listened to enough to get this function of this particulary work of art. In fact it is a profound bit of knowledge to ponder, that a man debilitated and confined to his bed and room broke free and created a lasting literary monument.

Another short article that I read that touches on this idea was about a woman who was severly sickened by genetically inherited sickle cell to the extent that her hands and legs were amputated. But she realized she still had her sense of taste which was awakened by the gift of a b rown butter cornbread, so that when she was released from rehab with her prosthetic hands and legs and wheelchair, she opened a culinary venture with the support of a devoted assistant. This is some profound level of endurance and maximizing of the miracle of a life.

This is a particularly good time to ponder endurance because we in New Jersey, are in the grip of our own little Ice Age! Temperatures trapped in the teens, snow frozen into concrete layers on every surface and little icebergs on every sidewalk, so that both driving and walking are impeded and dangerous. I have to use my crampons to walk from the house to the car, and then I am trapped in the car because I can't walk on ordinary floors in them becaue they become like ice skates on linoleum.

People my age are in terror of falling because so many of the skills that keep us upright are being slowly stolen from us - muscular strength, joint flexibility, mental/brain and muscle coordination. I know, it doesnt' happen to everyone, but it happens to most people. We are everywhere, shuffling, holding on to stuff, and, sadly, falling. But all the challenges of AGING itself fall into the category of things that must be endured and like Marcel Proust, we must find other avenues into beauty.

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com