On Retirement and what to do when your schedule is removed!

I retired in 2006 from both my jobs, my full time public school Art teaching job in a middle school, and my part time job as an adjunct professor at the (now closed) University of the Arts, Philadelphia, Pa.

It is am intoxicating feeling being free! The only time we are that free is when we are small children before going to school or in the summer when we are in school. I watched what other retirees did and noted a few were kind of adrift, lost, aimless. Some had other kinds of jobs. At first, I did take a part time job as a school-visiting history storyteller for Camden County Historical Society. It was fun but exhausting, hauling that travel chest full of historical artifacts up the steps of the many elevator-less publis schools in South Jersey, not to mention doing the majority of my presentations on Black Hitory Month and Women's History Month, February and March, the snowiest (in that period) times of the year.

Then I decided to pass the job along to another interested retired teacher and I took a full year when I determined I would do nothing but what I felt like each day. What I felt like was taking a drive. I had a nice New Jersey map book and with a full tank of gas in my Saturn station wagon, I would pick a back road and follow it to its end. I began with Kings Highway (which is where I live) and I followed it until it disappeared into other names and roads. My favorite and most fruitful destination was Greenwich on the Delaware Bay. There was a historic Oyster Ghost Town there and it was the dock for a historic tall ship named the Meerwald. I met the folks there, took a tour, hiked the trail through the salt hay marsh and fell in love with the locale. I became a volunteer. Every couple of weeks, I would drive an hour down to the Maurice River area, to the Bayshore Discovery Project and do some volunteer tour guiding. Once, I gave a tour to a man who turned out to be someone I went to high school with! His family had been boat engine mechanics and had a shop on the ghost town's main street: Hettinger's Motor Repair.

I kept on taking drives and following interesting roads and discovering history mysteries such as Fort Elfsborg, an original Swedish settlement fort now vanished except for road signs and a beautiful patterned brick historic house hidden in a floody estuary which made me interested in patterned bruck houses, I attended a lecture on patterned brick houses by an author of a book on it which was held at Bass River State Park. What an interesting place that is! From that, I began to visit the State Parks I could drive to.

Also, around that time, I had joined an Outdoor Club and went hiking and kayaking regularly all over the rivers and forests of South Jersey and met man interesing people including a group of geocachers, and an author who became my best friend, Barbara Solem. She had written a book on The Forks, and another called Ghosttowns and Other Quirky Places in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. We hiked all over the woods together and we still have lunch every week or two. History became my passion.

Another passion that had been lying dormant but for which I now had the time was family history! I joined ancestry.com and began to research some family mysteries such as what happened to my biological grandmother. Her sister, Lavinia Lyons had been my grandmother all my life and it came as a shock to learn that she was actually my great-aunt. She was a quiet and secretive woman by nature and intensely private so she clammed up whenever I tried to find out anything about my mother's biological mother, her sister, but I had two photographs of her and a name. Ten years later I had solved the mystery and made a family tree which I had photocopied and which I framed with frames from yard sales and gave to my four siblings for Chritmas. Also it inspired my continuing interest in cemeteries, a half dozen of which where my ancestors are buried, I have visited

My long rambles and my family history crossed at the Civilian Conservation Corps. My father had been in the CCC in his teens before he joined the Merchant Marines and then the Navy. I had run across the CCC in my forest ramblings and in particular at Bass River where there is a series of signs giving some history, as there is at Parvin State Park which is a great place to hike. So many great CCC stories emerged from the woods that I was inspired to write a book called White Horse Black Horse taking two fictional characters, a photographer and a writer on the CCC State Guides project in 1937. Then I gave some talks on my book and sold a few copies, but most I gave away to volunteers I met at historic sites.

Other historic sites that captured my interest were original settler log cabins and I attended a great lecture, again by someone who had written a book about them, at the Greenwich Harvest Festival held each September. On the grounds of the festival there is one of the historic log cabins.

And I also took a guided tour of One-Room Schools offered by the 'then flourishing' Burlington County Hisorical Society. It was marvelous, and being a retired teacher, my heart was touched by the early efforts of teachers to convert colonial children to literate citizens. One school in particular was fascinating because it is where the teenaged Clara Barton went to teach in Burlington in a one room school you can still visit. She lobbied to have the tuition school turned public so the poor children could learn to read and write as well as the ones whose families could afford to pay tuition. She succeeded so well a male administrator was hired to take over and in disappoiment and resentment at this unfair result, she went on to found the Red Cross during the Civil War!

So you can see how one trail led to another and one story ignited another. But as the years went on, things began to happen to me physically which was a shock because I had always been so healthy and active AND a vegetarian! But genetics plays a big part in the age story along with lifestyle and like my father and mother before me, I developed arthritis in my spine and knees so there was no more hiking up frozen waterfalls in Jim Thorpe, Pa. or 8 hour kayak trips on the Winding River.

By then, being a natural storyteller, and having gotten the hang of writing a book (I had started out as an English teacher in my education career) I had written and independently published three books. I tried using a contact given me by my author friend but he wasn't interested in historical fiction and the interview was too depleting for my sensitive writer's soul so I gave up on traditional publishing and found a commercial printer (not online - an actual building with people). I wrote a relationship novel, a memoir of living in a van in Europe for a year, and gave away most of my books.

In my travels, I had become interested in old train stations. Most historic towns around South Jersey had one and since I am old enough that I actually rode trains when passenger trains existed, I was still entranced by the romance of the train. At one of the old train depots, I found an Art Gallery: Eiland Arts Center, Merchantville, NJ. It was in the town where I had gone to high school, and I got to chat with the gallery/coffee cafe' proprietor, Nicole Eiland. She put me on the mailing list and I began to get notifications of upcoming group art shows. I was invited and inspired and I began painting for the shows! My work was accepted and a whole new avenue opened up for me. I couldn't hike anymore but I used the photographs I had taken of my favorite hiking places as resources for my paintings. And I began to make paintings of some of my favorite historic spots. I sold 4 paintings of historic sites in Maple Shade, 2 paintings of the woods, two of rivers, and a scattering of other subjects over the next decade.

So, the interests that had grown out of the seeds of driving and visiting were: Genealogy

Historic site volunteering

Hiking and kayaking

Writing books

Painting

Quaker Religion

Almost forgot - Seniors Group

And the most recent one which was to emerge from an emotional crisis. A family event occurred which caused me unresolvable emotional pain and I decided to visit a Friends Meeting for Silent Worship. Many years earlier I had attended Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Quaker version of church. I liked it, the freedom of conscience, the peacefulness, the practice of meditation. The closest Meeting was Woodbury Friends Meeting, ten minutes from me. I went on a snowy morning and there was only one Friend there but I stayed and two years later became a member. It is a small group of generally half a dozen in person and a few others on zoom. I like the intimacy and the peace. They were hit by an unexpected event when a drug and alcohol support facility renting a building on the grounds of the historic Meeting went bankrupt. The building (located on the other side of the parking lot) was abandoned. A year later, I asked if I could clear out and paint the reception area and turn it into an art gallery. One of the other regular members is also an artist and I had introduced her to the group shows at Eiland Arts Center in Merchantville. We both had paintings to put in a show of our own and we did! At the same time, a former high school student who had become a stained glass artist was looking for a studio and he rented two sections of the abandoned building, so now we had a stained glass studio, and a gallery! I paid the stained glass guy to pain the gallery. Currently the South Jersey Artists Collective is working on a grant to rent the rest of the building.

Before they take over the building, I grabbed the opportunity to have a Solo-Retrospective of the artwork I have done since my college days in the 1970's. My youngest sister who is 20 years yonger than I am, does work for me a couple of times a month, and she helped me hang the show. I had cards made for the show at Bellia Copy Center in Woodbury, very friendly helpful people and very reasonable in price. This has given me a great sense of satisfaction. By the way, showing my work at Eiland Arts gave me the confidence to show work in other local shows and this year I had work in 7 exhibitions, Cherry Hill Annual at Croft Farm, Haddonfield Fortnightly Annual, Camden County College Seniors Show and four group shows at Eiland Arts. Not bad for 79!

I can't believe I almost forgot to mention that walking around town I noticed our fire dept. had been turned into a Senior Center that nobody seemed to use to I wrote a proposal to the mayor to hold a group Meeting once a month. Six years later we had a dozen regular members. Each month I invited a speaker or provided a project, and what I found they enjoyed most was Show and Tell. We brought items or photographs and told our stories. The town has taken over the building and expanded with a grant to provide five days a week of programs for the seniors of our town.

Looking back on it today to write this blog post gives me a great sense of satisfaction in how rich and productive my retirment has been. The moral of the story is to get moving, go places and talk to people and things turn up and passions get ignited! I met so many retired people who volunteer at local historic sites and they have made new freinds and generated interests to pursue in their lives which enriched their time. It is a great gift to be free! And a great gift to share your time and talents.

Happy Trails Retirees! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Walking motivator Dec. 17 2024

This morning, two friens and I were talking about improving our daily walking habit. I had read an article from Journal of American Medical Association about how 5000 steps a day can improve symptoms of depression. I know this and I know it improves EVERYTHING, flexibility, cardiovascular health, and generally I walk my dog each day to the railroad tracks and back, but this autumn I had a couple of falls and got sick a couple of times and a neighbor walked the dog for me. I said I would walk on my own anyhow, but I didn't. I am a sedentary person by nature and would rather sit curled up on the recliner sofa and read or watch movies or paint or draw or do anything you can do on a recliner! So I really did need motivation.

Some years ago I saw two interesting artists' projects - one was a walker who took a photo at the same spot every morning for months at exactly the same time, the other was an artist who collected everyone's sunset photos and made a giant collage of them!

Our project is very simple, each walk we will take one photo of something we like it can be a plant, a leaf, a lawn decoration, anything we like. It doesn't have to be spectacular but it has to be one of us taking the photo, not an old photo or a photo someone else took. I am looking forward to taking my photo and also seeing what my two friends take on their walk. It really has made me more enthusiastic about walking my dog Uma today. She is patiently waiting as always!

Update: I did my first group text from the dog walk and I took 7 photographs of Santas on the lawns around town! It was so much fun!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Collosal Olmec Heads and Christmas

Naturally, it being mid December, I have been thinking a lot about Jesus Christ's teachings and about the man himself. A couple of weeks ago when my little Sunday School (called First Day School in Quaker tradition) had reached the Roman Empire in our chronological approach to the history of religion, a youngster asked this most intelligent question: "Is there proof that Jesus actually lived?" and as it happens, there is! First of all I saw an episode of the "Naked Archaeologist" that explored the writings and sites associated with the actual physical presence of a man called Jesus Christ. He was a tiny mention, a footnote, in the writings of contemporaneous historian/philosophers like the Greek Pliny, and the Roman Tacitus, among others.

Archaeology is a great interest of mine and just a night ago I saw a wonderful three episode British program from 2019 called Lost World & Hidden Treasures that looked at three great archaeological discoveries: The Sutton Hoo Anglo Saxon burial in Suffolk, the Lion Man wooden sculpture from German cave, and the Olmec Heads. The narrator, Janina Ramiriz

Something that occurred to me after re-acquainting myself with the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount was that one of the MOST Revolutionary things about the teachings of Jesus Christ was his focus on humility. When Jesus said "blessed are the poor in spirit" he has been variously translated as meaning, by the word 'poor' - humble, not deprived or lacking in spirit.

Considering our world political situation currently, you cannot help but be struck by the HUBRIS/Arrogance and self-centered pridefulness of the worst and largest of the world leaders such as Trump or Putin or Netanyahu, to name just three.

In the episode of Lost Worlds that explores the discovery of the 30 ton Olmec heads in the jungle which had swollowed up the huge Olmec civilization of Southern Mexico and Central America, you see the concrete manifestation of this pridefulness. The giant bounder heads all sport the same sour, angry implacable expressions. An additional sculpture found in further exploration of the buried civilization depicts the ritual sacrifice of babies. The toddlers are depicted crying and clinging with their arms around the high priests carrying them to the blood letting death they will endure.

So much of a certain kind of display of what is taken to be strength has to do with emotionless, pitiless and implacable determination. Empathy and compassion are considered weaknesses. Domination and power are the halmarks of what are considered the GREATS of the ancient world such as Alexander the Great, who was, in fact, Alexander the Destroyer. All that mahy of these later described as great leaders were actually accomplished in was large scale crime. They invaded other people's lands, destroyed their buildings and crops, looted their temples and homes and kidnapped them into human trafficking slavery and prostitution.

So, how did we come (most of us) to view these things as evil rather than laudable? Through the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ preached lover over hate, kindness over cruelty, and respect and care for the- a smallest and the weakest. These were not qualities valued at all in the empires of the time of Jesus Christ, or indeed, the empires of today. Yet Christianity rose and spread throughout the world, although it can be seen that often what is labeled Christianity is far from anything Jesus would have considered a manifestation of his teachings. What we have in many of the most popular contemporary mega-churches is ostentatious display of wealth and power, exploitation of the weak for the financial profit of the leaders, and, often as displayed in scandal after scandal, sexual exploitation of the weak.

Jesus, the humble, the kind, the one who shared, who saved those who were being judged and persecuted, who washed the feet of his followers wouldn't recognize most of the churches that call themselves Christian today. Jesus rebelled against the manifestation of the Jewish religion of his own time; he turned the tables and ran the money lenders out of the temples! What would he make of the giant tv screens through which loud calls for donations and promises of wealth are shouted by so-called ministers and the lavish mansions and luury automobiles of these leaders of the mega-churches in the mid-western US or the Catholic churches everywhere.

I mentioned to a friend over lunch that the Roman Empire expanded and thrived upon Extortion. They attacked, too over, and taxed the lands of their neighbors in an international pay-for-protection scheme. I just remembered a bit in the crime series, the Sopranos, where one of the characters says, "The Romans are back, we are the Romans." And it was true, their extortion rackets were based on violence, intimidation and cruelty, lack of compassion or empathy or any respect for justice or mercy. That is the contest in the world today.

The Olmec Heads, the Roman Empire - Power, pride, crime for the accumulation of wealth, despising justice or fairness as weak - a will to win at all costs, drive for domination, destruction in a kind of grab-all-you-want-and-all-you-can side versus:

Jesus Christ, Justice, compassion, qualities of character as greater than display of wealth, sharing, protection of the weaker and the dependent, stewardship and respect for the natural world, humility and patience, the traits of the other side, the traits of Jesus Christ's teachings.

these are my Christmas thoughts in December 2024 Merry Christmas Friends! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Christmas in the Pines 2024

If you are looking for that old time, Contry Christmas feeling you might want to visit Vatsto Village in the Pine Barrens. I love Batsto at any time of the year, but at Christmas you will enjoy hot chocolate and cookies, tours of the Mansion, carriage rides and my personal favorite, walking through the historic villaage and taking the nature hike alongside the lake. Also, don't forget the Christmas vintage trin show at the American Hitory Museum at what used to be the andaloro Farm, at Andaloro Way in Deptford. You will need to check the web for both sites for times and days to be sure of availability.

Happy Trqails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Art Show

One of the founding members of the South Jersey Artists Coalition is holding a show with talk and performance on December 4th at 1:00 p.m. featuring her portraits and Dr. Daisy Century. The show will be at the Dr. Ross Beitzel Gallery of Rowan College of South Jersey on 1400 Tanyard Rd., Sewell, NJ 08080.

Loren Dann is finished her graduate degree this Decenber. Her paintings are beautiful and I recommend you visit this show and see these portraits. Loren has been instrumental in many kinds of art programs and is working on bringing her ideas to the Underwood Building at Woodbury Friends Meeting if her grant application is approved this Spring.

Hpe to see you at the show. Loren will also appear at Artist Talk, January 29, 2025 at 12:00 p.m.

Jo Ann

What is Christmas without a train show?

I just received this in my e-mail and I wanted to share it with you because I LOVE this museum! It is a small private museum of fascinating groups of family heirlooms and the collections of the owner. I have been many times and will be sure to visit again this Christmas! Hope you will too

Hi Everyone!

It's time again for the Annual Toy Train Show at the Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ! Starting November 29th, 2024 and running thru January 28th, 2025, the Show will be feature O and O-27 gauge toy trains, from the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s. Lionel, Marx and American Flyer engines, with cars attached, will race on two different platforms, each one decorated with vintage buildings, and other structures to give a traditional holiday appearance!

The Museum is open Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 3pm.

I am attaching a flyer for you. Please feel free to share!

Hope to see you soon at the Museum!

Jeffrey Norcross

The Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ

138 Andaloro Way

Deptford, NJ 08093

856-812-1121

Christmas Memories

Last night I was drowning my sorrows in a few hours of Hallmark sugary romance. In the final film of the evening, set in Paris, the male romantic lead in an attempt to get to know the female romantic lead asks her for her favorite Christmas memory.

At first, I was kind of stumped. Rather than a whole memory, or a ujit of narrative, I had a stream of brief impressions. The first that came was of Walnut Street and 6th Street in Philadelphia, 1964. I am in my dark green mohair coat, brown calf high cowboy style boots and I am freezing cold, walking up to Market Street to catch the bus home after work at W. B. Saunders Publishing Company on Washington Square. On that corner was a beautiful florist's shop and the window was filled with Christmas wreths, poinsettia, red ribbons and frosted around the squre corners from the cold. I was 18 yeqrs old and happy and Philadelphia then was beautiful. The people were all well dressed, especially at the holidays, the stores were all decorated magnificently - not modern and austere - but with an abundance, a kind of Victorian mixed with Post World War II exuberance. The big stores like Gimbels and Lit Brothers and Snellenburgs all had multilayered vilaes with trains and animatronic figures, Dickens style villages, Alpine landscapes with Swiss villages and snow, cosy luxurious fantasy American living rooms with fireplace, tree, snowy windows and well turned out families in matching Christmas Pajamas and robes. Christmas Wonderland was the overall theme. There were actually men selling roasted chestnuts on Market Street and they were delicious rich and hot and warming. People were happy, shopping, carrying red shiny store bags, wearing mufflers and hats and gloves.

That memory was quickly replaced by the Nuremburg Christmas Market in Germany at around the same period, a couple of years later. I was still the same optimistic, enthusiastic young woman, living in an illusion. I was married and we had an apartment in a courtyard in a small town called Heilbronn. We had a beautiful little tree decorated with real candles. My mother-in-law was visiting us. My husband drove us to the enormous Nuremburg Christmas Market. It was twilight and all the stalls were lit and steaming with the breath of the marketers and the hot drinks and hot treats they had to offer. They were piled high with beautifully carved little wooden figures, village houses, wooden trees, angels, reindeer, knitted hats and mittens and scarves, handcarved wooden Black Forest clocks, religious statuary, woven things, metal things, glass things, pottery things, everything! I remember my mother-in-law and my husband eating pickled herring. The signts the lights the sounds, the smells, all that rich and ancientm traditional swirl of Christmas celebration and my happy Christmas youth.

I also remember the one night madness bustle of my father and my god-father Neal Schmidt, building the Christmas platform in the emptied living room of our brick row house on Warnock Street i Philadelphia while my mother oooked for Christmas and made them food for the evening in the kitchen. Then the tree went up then the trains and the villages and the lakes of mirrors, the snow of cotton fluff and snow paper, the lights and decorations on the tree, all of it watched by two small children from surreptitious top of the stairs to the second floor bedrooms where we were supposed to be asleep. We were in our pajamas but we couldn't sleep with all that noise and excitement. Dad and Mom and Neal were all so young and happy and beautiful then. They would have been in their thirties, and Neal and Dad were home safely from the navy and World War II and Mom was in the midst of her dream of domesticity and a home of her own and family. It was all that one night. I still have a doll given to me by my god-father, Uncle Neal, the sweetest, kindness, gentlest man I ever knew.

If I spend time, more memories rise from the attic of my memory, surprisingly few from more recent years and most from my childhood. I think I can retrieve some from my daughter's childhood and from West Virginia family times, but now I am tired of it. Maybe later.

Happy trails (through the past as well as the woods, the day and the life) Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Sad Day for America and the World

Jay Gould = "I can hire half the working class to kill the other half." I remember reading this in a civics class as a child and it stuck with me. That is what happened here. The OligarchsThe man who would be TYRANT has wo used their money and power to propagandize half the working class to defeat the other half. I am not surprised, just disappointed and sad. The wave of toxic machismo and arrogance and rage that has been sweeping the country was bound to be a tidal wave that swept this trash into office again.

I noticed in the news items this morning that the press is blaming Democrats for all the alleged flaws in strategy, taking no blame whatsoever for the failure of the press to work harder to expose Trump's lies and crimes. I wrote in often to compain how the press continued to call him President when he had lost the election and by so doing, they bolstered those who claimed he never lost.

There is no way to underestimate the toxic macno appeal Trump has for so many men who would like to disempower women in every way possble - deny birth control, for starters. They want to bring America back to the 60's when women were denied a fair educational opportunity and were forced to work in service jobs that paid so little we couldn't support our children if we left abusive and exploitive domestic situations.

Add to that the racism that still runs deep and strong in this country and Kamala really had no chance but we have to keep trying. As the old expression goes, "Get knocked down 8 times but get up 9."

OI am going to take Uma for her walk now and get my mind off this sad morning news. I will try not to let fear and anxiety get the better of me. Half of all Americans have elected a criminal and a sociopath for our leader. Sigh.....

I have said it before, I feel like a good German in 1939 - appalled, frightened, trapped and yet hopeful that somehow this poison will be contained.

It's gym day and the dog walk and the gum routine will help me stay strong for the frightening future ahead of us. Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

ps: Fisk and Gould tried to corner the gold market and brought about the stock crash of Black Friday 1868? They were Robber Barons and now we have one in the presidency. When Murdock bought Fox, he used it to build the prooaganda machine that duped the dopes who elected Trump to fleece them, or bleed them dry would be even more like it. I am not a conspiracy theorist usually but this looks like a corporate take over to me.

It is said that 40 percent of the people of the world won't have access to potable water by 2025. Water is the new oil. The corporate take-over will be of water, oil, gas, precious minerals like rare earth needed for computers. Trump will take away all the safe guards of our lands and resources and open them to exploitation.

Election Day 2024

I am so happy to be able to vote. Each year, I go in person to our local voting place, MEPRI Hall on Kings Highway in Mt. Ephraim. I recognise most of the poll workers and thank them for their help. Every year I have watched one or more documentaries or movies about the monumental struggle of the Suffragists who fought for our right to vote for a hundred years. My great hero of the struggle is Alice Paul She devoted her life to the struggle and she suffered but persevered. Her grace, strength, integrity and courage are an inspiration to me. Each year women who have voted go to her grave and put their "I voted" stickers on her grave stone. It brings tears to my eyes, this gesture honoring her sacrifice and devotion. Many Quaker women hav devoted their lives to various humanitarian causes including Abolition (my personal favorite is Abigail Godwin of Salem).

Each year, I also visit the grave of Peter J. Maguire (not a Quaker) who fought for workers rights. I don't know if wherever they are, they are aware of this but it tells others who also care that they are not alone in honoring our noble, devoted, self-sacrificing heroes.

This is a good place to honor two other local heroes, Benjamin Lay and John Woolman for their work in both Abolition and in vegetarianism.

Happy Voting Day fellow Americans! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

October 28, 2024 - Saving Myself

Here is a new post under the subject of PLACeS TO GO - Planet Fitness in the Brooklawn Shopping Center.

For the past few years, I have been in a kind of rapid and shocking (to me) decline. It began with an injury to my hip joint at the Planet Fitness when I was going to the gym regularly and decided to use two machines for thigh and hip work. I used too much rigor, apparently, and pulled something in my groin/hip area that was so bad, I went to th doctor's. I got x-rayed, of course, and I was told I had arthritis of both hips, worse on the left side. That was the beginning. Shortly after, I had the first of 3 falls, first down the cellar steps (no bone injuries but a lot of joint pain). Then I fell in the driveway last summer - I was getting the dog out of the car and she tackled me by mistake while jumping out. Crash, I went down on the grass between the drive-ways which was good because it was soft, and again, no big injuries but my joints got wrenched around and twisted even worse. Two weeks ago, I fell again on a tiled floor and really banged up my hip, twisted my knee, and wrenched my back.

Meanwhile, I had been to my general practitione and to the hip doctor and got more x-rays of my back and hips and knees. Same story with the hips and knees but the news from the hip doctor was that my problem wasn't my hip but my lower back. He said the arthritis was far worse there and there was calcified soft tissue as well. He wanted me to do more physical therapy but in the past 3 years, I have tried physical therapy three times, twice at Cooper and once at Regional Orthopedics.

The main gist of it is a pt gives you a sheet print out of exercises to do at home. He then send you to a table or chair with a band, and tells you to do an exercise three times with 30 repititions each set. Then he goes to sit at his computer. When you are done the process repeats - an exercise, 3 sets of 30 repetitions until you have done an hour and about 15 excercises. I did this for 6 weeks, then another season I did it for 8 weeks. Mostly I had some minor initial improvement but the final 8 weeks course left me almost unable to walk, my hip got so sore. My gp said the repititions may have inflamed the joint.

Through all of this, I had been doing Chair Yoga which helped a little with stretching and relaxation but not with strength.

This last fall was my wake-up call. If I didn't do something to get strong, things were going down hill fast. I felt determined enough to really get motivated and today I signed up and started at Planet Fitness again. Sabrina is the person you usually see at the counter at Planet Fitness and she is a bright, beautiful, friendly, out-going and super encouraging human being.

I have had so much pain, there was no fear of me overdoing it. I could hardly turn the pedals around on the bike, my knee and hip were so stiff and painful. But I was able to do five minutes on the bike as a start, then I did each of the arm and back machines in the 30 minute room and one abs machine, only 20 reptitions on each. The seated stepper was the easiest for my legs in terms of pain and I did ten minute on that.

The main point is that when I left, I could already walk better than I was walking when I went in, the push of blood through my muscles and the loosening of my joints on the bike made a big difference. I am encouraged already by my progress and glad I took this step to save myself from the rapid and wholesale decline that was happening to me. I hope I feel ok tomorrow. My plan is to go Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, then throw in an extra short work-out whenever I have free time and feel like it. I am hopeful and confident that this is going to make a big improvement in me. It may even help me get a grip on my weight!

If you are looking for something to do for yourself that isn't expensive, I couldn't think of any better way to begin than by signing up at Planet Fitness and getting started - start small and build big! I will keep you posted on my progress.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

A Fall and a slump and 6 steps to get out of it

Two days ago, I suffered my second fall in a year. I am at that age where falls become our greatest danger; I will be 79 in a couple of weeks. My fall was my own fault, the result of a careless move. I have been trying to be more careful and mindful in what I do and to be aware of what is dangerous and needs to be avoided.

Anyhow, as so often happens, I didn't feel the full repercussions of the fall, which ocurred on Friday, until today, Sunday! When I went to my car this morning for an errand, I could hardly make it to the car. In my fall, I was stepping up with my right leg and my left slipped out from under me and I crashed backwards on my fortunately well padded posterior and my creaky back. I used my arms to push myself up from a kneeling position, the only way I can get up now. What this brought to light was the weakness of both my legs and arms.

On Saturday, I felt well enough to walk the dog, but as the day wore on my arthritic hip and my knee with the torn meniscus and arthritis got worse. This morning I really felt it. I am forced to drag my cane around the house for safety today.

As I have written many times in this blog, I have my own tried and true recipes for getting out of a slump. I am determined NOT to WASTE any of my precious life-time in fruitless negativity. My personal 6 are: 1.Walk the dog 2.Read a magazine 3.Engage in a short art project (make a card, do a small water color painting, maybe of a botanical nature or maybe a landscape) 4.Look at my photo roll 5.Watch a tv series on my laptop 6.Listen to an audiobook 7.Talk or text a friend 8.Eat a treat (a milkshake, Tate's walnut chocolate chip cookies)

Today in my e-mail feed, NPR offered 6 tips to jump start yourself out of slump, many of them overlapped with my own, but some had surprising and useful notes: 1.The walk of course (surprise addtion - give yourself a challenge - note down 6 kinds of trees, or 6 kinds of flowers) 2.The NPR 6 tips included a cold shower. It does something to your endorphins. Good luck if you want to try this - I hate the cold and would never take a cold shower on puurpose! 3.The NPR tips mentioned a walk down nostalgia lane, perhaps through photographs or a talk with a friends about 'the old days' whatever your old days may have been. I have done this with scrapbooking! 4.Of coure NPR mentioned lunch with a friend - a stand-by of mine! 5.Do something kind for someone. (I do this as well - I have a regular list of ;rojects like the Free Books Project that I participate in) 6.Keep a gratitude journal (I do this too, every day)

So there you are, NPR and I have given you a good number of free and easy tips to lift yourself out of any funk you may have fallen into. Another one from NPR and from me i

7.Eat something good (you may be hungry) I get myself the occasional food treat and I find a Dunkin Donuts Latte' does me a world of good. I had one today!

Speaking of this moment: I don't spend frivolously but I do find a new top or shoes or a pair of new slacks can sometimes give a boost. I am wearing a plaid hooded zip up flannel shirt/jacket that I bought myself for my birthday from L.L.Bean. It is soft and warm and it was on sale! I had a latte' this morning which always boosts my mood and energy, I took my dog for a short ride since we couldn't walk due to my injury, and I have written this blog and am about to watch a tv series on my laptop called The Lincoln Lawyer - not too violent, not negative, likeable characters and clever plots! Also I must mention my cats who give me hours of enjoyment watching them, having them sit on my lap or beside me on the sofa purring, and it has been provent that petting your cat or dog will lower your blood pressure. I find it soothing! I am grateful for my pets, my home (humble though it may be) the weather, my sister, my friends, my lifetime engagement wit art and writing, and living in America, and in New Jersey, and in my nice little town of Mt. Ephraim! There is much much more that I am grateful for but I am done here for today!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happy Trails - Jo Ann

Art and Experience

Today, October 15. I decided to write a post about my Art Experience and some recent shows. For anyone new to this blog or who hasn't known me for very long, I was a teacher for my adult work life. And I have been an artist all my life. First I taught high shool English after graduating from Glassboro State College, then I took a second college degree at Rutgers and taught Art in a grade school, and finally, after some years teaching in the Saturday Lab School at the University of the Arts, I took my Masters in the Art of Teaching and became an adjunct professor in the graduate program there. When I retired and my daughter had grown and gotten a career of her own, I had the time and energy to devote myself to painting. Through all the rest of the years, I did art work whenever I could get the time and I did a lot of wood but printing and drawing. As I got older and arthritis set in my hands, I switched to acrylic painting. I had done a lot of oil painting in my graduate art program but I wanted to move away from the solvents.

Fortunately, I discovered The Station Art Gallery and Cafe in Merchantville, the town where I had gone to High School. They have a running program of classes and group art shows through their Eiland Arts Center and I was delighted when I began to enter my work and was accepted for their shows. I have been showing my work there for about 10 years. During that time, for the last five years I also entered work in the annual Haddon Fortnightly March Women's History exhibition called Through A Woman's Eyes and I have won two prizes there. This year for the first time, I entered work in the Camden County Art and Cultural Heritage Show and won an Honorable Mention and also had work in the Croft Farm Spring into the Arts Show. In a week, I will be entering three photographs in their annual photography juried exhibition.

My major at Rutgers was printmaking, but I turned to painting because it is much easier than accessing a printing press, or, as I said before, woodcut printing which gets hard on the hands over time. Two prizes I have won were in works including fabric. For the celebration of 100 years of Suffrage, I did a panel of five fabric "handbags" each having a "page" of fabric with a small painted portrait of a woman in a particular field. One bag was women in sports, with Billy Jean King in front, another Woen in the Arts, with Judy Chicago on the cover, and another on Writing with Rachel Carson on the Cover. That piece of 20 "pages" won the first prize in the show. >p/> A show this Spring about which I was very happy was the Fundraiser for Fishtails Animal Rescue. Dozens of artists contributed 6 x 6 inch paintings of anomals, each one selling for $50 which went directly to the animal rescue. I contributed 7 paintings and 4 of them sold. I have cats and a dog and it made me very happy to do this charity event for a shelter and rescue group.

My latest fabric work was for the Haddon Fortnightly Show and it was a cork board with "Pennants" in blue felt with a "medallion" on each that depicted a "Modern Woman" of some fame and xuccess. It has been the joy and accomplishment of my retirent to follow half a dozen years of volunteer work at various Historic Sites such as Red Bank Battlefield, with this flourishing career in local art shows. I have met many wonderful people and enjoyed sharing my work and seeing the work of others Also during this time, I was able to get Friends from Woodbury Meeting to help me turn an empty area in an adjacent building into a small Art Gallery where two other Friends and I have held a couple of Art Shows. Our gallery is called The Friendship Gallery. We hope to do more with this site in the future.

I hope you feel inspired to do your art whether it is woodworking, stained glass, painting, quilting or whatever your media of choice, and that you, too, find a way to share that work with others! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Caves of Mystery - a review of documentaries

On pbs passport right now, there is a series called First Peoples. It has 6 episodes. It is not only utterly fascinating but also strikingly beautiful in the landscape filmed in it. The episodes cover the departure and arrival of waves of early humans from the cradle of humanity in Africa to - 1:The Americas, 2:Africa, 3:Asia, 4:Europe, and 5:Astralia. Naturally humans didn't arrive in those places chronologically, but it is the way they decided to open the series. Humans evolved in Africa over milions of years in many branches of hominids from primates. I can't remember many of the kinds of hominids, but some of them were Homo habilis, homo erectus, homo ergaster. The evolution is NOT a straight line but more like a shrub with many branches some of which existed at the same time as others.

This is such an evolving history, that even up to 2 years ago, new species and new information has been discovered. Some of the most recent discoveries have been Denisovans in the Balkans and Homo Naledi in Africa.

My introduction to this history was through the world of Art which begins with the art in famous caves like Lascaux and Chauvet in France, and Altamira in Spain among others. Anyone who loves art must be entranced by the cave art at Lascaux and Chauvet in particular. The animals depicted on the walls, both painted on with charcoal and ochre, as well as incised into the walls, are so alive they fairly gallop off the walls! They are truly splendid works of art. And they are the first works of art done by the newest and most successful branch of humanity, Homo Sapiens - US.

If you have the patience for it there is a fabulous book by Yuval Noah Harrari which was improbably enough, a NYT bestseller, called Sapiens. If not, watch these documentaries and you will be captured by this mysterious and evolving discovery of our human origins.

A good place to begin is the pbs series First Peoples. Passport costs a one-time fee of $60 which is a great bargain because you can watch EVERYTHING PBS - Masterpiece Theater, NOVA, Finding your Roots, every pbs program there has been PLUS Walter Presents, which is a European distributor that offers all the most popular tv series showing in Europe.

If you have Netflix, you can also watch Unknown Cave of Bones. It is a great voyage of discovery that the viewer can make with the archaeologists down a cave network where early hominids, not quite apes, not quite humans, carried their dead and buried them. This is a shattering discovery because until this cave was discovered in the 21st century, it was thought that burying the dead and making and using tools was what separated us from early branches of hominids. But these small brained hominids not only carried their dead through a maze of tunnels to a burial chamber where they dug the graves and arranged the bodies, but they also buried one with a stone tool! It wasn't ever thought that hominids this primitive made tools. To go along on this journey with the archaeoogists, anthropologists, and the many kinds of experts working in radiology and scanning technologies as well as forensic reconstruction, tune into this great documentary. I felt the reverberation of their excitement at each discovery.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams, is a beautiful documentary by a long time favorite German filmaker of mine, Werner Herzog. He has the balance of being just a bit eccentric and different without losing the plot, so his films are just that little bit out of the ordinary but not so much off track that you get lost. In this film, his own personal engagement is palpable. It is like exploring with a lively friend. The filming on all of these documentaries is gorgeous but most so in this one. Also, the caves filmed by Herzog are no longer open to the public due to damage by outdoor air and breathing which brought mold and erosion to the ancient wall art, so this is your chance to see spectacular cave art that you can't see any other way.

Each of these documentaries is so engaging that I have watched them more than once. Some I have seen three or more times like Cave of Forgotten Dreams. And if you are captivated, you may want to rent a most gorgeous film which I saw three times in the theatre and half a dozen times on tv called Quest for Fire! It is beautiful in the landscape and totally immerses you in a past that is gone forever. I believe the film was loosely based on the novels of French author Jean Auel. The books were surprising best sellers at the time they were released in 1980. I read them all, but if I remember correctly the first was Clan of the Cave Bear. I gave them all away years ago.

I am always engaged in trying to pare down my enormous collection of books. Every room in my small house has a floor to ceiling wall to wall book case and living here is like living in a cosy little dusty book shop. Well I hope you are tempted to watch one or all of these documentaries and if you do and want to talk about them contact me at

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happy Trails - even back into the millions of years ago! Jo Ann

ps. If you want to visit a museum into our South Jersey pre-historical past, go to Greenwich Prehistory Musseum and see the immense collection of stone projectiles and the clay pots reconstructed from those left behind by Indigenous people. This little museum is in a town worth your visit on its own merits. Most of Ye Greate Street houses are from the 1700's.

A Child Leads the Way - 7 year old Volunteer, award winner

Naomi Fife of Louisville. Kentucky has fostered roughtly 95 animals in her short life, obviously with the support of her family. She has recieved special recognition from several National Organizations for her volunteeer work, including PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which awarded her the Hero to Animals Award. She is certainly a hero in my book!

Another encouraging news item that I cam across recently was that in Spain they have just passed legislation to protect animals but stating they are no longer to be considered "things" but sentient beings and famiy members. The law has many provisions a good deal of which pertain to animals in families and their care as well as their disposition in disputes, but mainly what it does is it shows that people are evolving in their concepts of the rights of animals. Animal Rights groups as well as many celebrities have pleaded with the Pope to stop priests from giving blessings at bull fights. Most agree that this is a cruel and depressig show of inhumanity. Bulls are stabbed and tortured by men on horseback to make them mad with pain and weaker before they are stabbed to death by a matador, for entertainment. There is nothing brave about stabbing a weakened and tortured animal. Once, in Spain, many years ago, I went with my then-husband to a bull fight and I was crushed to see the animal trying its best to climb the fence around the ring trying to escape its tormentors before it was stabbed to death. The spectacular left me sickened and in despair that anyone would find this entertaining.

From my earliest childhood in Philadelphia, as a shy child, I found friendship and comfort in the companionship of our neibghborhood cats and dogs. In those days, animals, like children, were let out in the morning and came home for dinner (of course we chidlren went to school in the hours between). Many afternoons I spent in the gravel yards in front of the garages in an alley at the end of our street in the brick canyons of South Philadelphia. The gravel gleamed in the sunshine like gems. I sat there digging in the gravel while cats and dogs did their daily walk-about and stopped to sit with me and visit. My family has always had a few cats and a couple dogs at all times. I currently have five cats and a dog. Even though, now, as an accomplished and confident adult, I happen to have many human friends, my animal companions are the closest to my heart as well as in my life. My cats sit with me as I read or paint or watch tv, and my dog makes me take a walk every day whether I want to or not. The only sad part is when they die. One of my ways of resolving my grief at the loss, is to adopt another fur friend who needs a good home and to honor the love of my lost friend by sharing it with a new one.

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Camden County Historical Society

Camde County Historical Society not only provides and excellent magazine for members, it has a great on-line list of events:

:https://cchsnj.org/history-mon...

One of the many useful features in the magazine is the middle section map and list of all the myriad historical sites in Camden County. October is South Jersey History Month and there are a great nuber of very interesting events coming up beginning this Saturday with a tour of the Haddonfield Friends (Quaers) Meeting House and cemetery from 1:00 to 4:00 but check the time, please! I hope the link I copied and pasted works, if not, just try the cchsnj.org address and take it from there. I strongly suggest you rsubscribe to the online e-mail notification. I have tried a lot of the events they have listed over the years, most recently the railroad station visits that I enjoyed with a friend of mine. We met so many nice people and I have been a big local railroad fan since childhood.

Happy Trails my South Jersey fan friends! and in particular Happy Halloween! Oh, and before I forget ifyou are a Camden County Senior, Mount Ephraim has a huge listing of daily free classes now available at the Charles Dougherty Senior Center on Lambert Ave and the railroad. Parking is in the back and it is handicap accessible. I took the Chair Yoga class on Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. and will be taking the Chair Yoga class again today at 1:00, but there are dozens of other free classes to sign up for. You can get the brochure at the Mt. Ephraim Borough Hall on Black Horse Pike or drop in around midday during the week when classes will be in session and you can get a brochure and sign up for a class. You will find gardening, games, fitness, chair yoga, tea party, and many other classes, don't miss out on this free opportunity!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Places to Go - Happy Autumn 9/21/24

Well, I have been doing more writing about thoughts than places as I do more thinking than exploring these days, so I decided to do a post about places to visit. Last month on our monthly lunch-out, my great-niece Alex and I had lunch at the Blue Plate in Mullica Hill and it was a great lunch! We picked up a brochure while there with lots of colorful and enticing Mullica Hill Fall events listed.

22nd anual Ghost Walk (as evening descends) - Haunted Main Street Oct. 5th

Mullica Hill Fall Festival and Living History Weekend October 12 & 13 with music, craft courtyard, build a scarecrow, games and more! You can stop for lunch at the Blue Plate while there and enjoy a delicious meal!

Ghastly Tales Tour taises mone for the GAR Civil War Museum in Phila. call 856-223-5440 or www.ticketleap.com for $6 tickets.

The brochure also listes some interesting shops to visit. I would like to go to Brainstorm Books at 43 S. Main St., Mullica Hill. Looking at the ad reminded me of my loved and lost books store that used to be in Mullica Hall, Murphy's Book Loft. Among their 2 stories of many roomed book nooks, there was a room devoted to old magazines and I spent many hours and dollars buying magazines from my birth year and the birth years of my relatives and friends. Indeed those magazines felt like old friends. It broke my heart when I went there one day and it was gone. I never saw a book store like it before and probably never will again as people move more and more into tablets and amazone and the few remainin Barnes and Nobles.

Well Happy Autumn Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Whoops, I almost forgot the Batsto Glass and Bottle Show is tomorrow 9/22 9:00 to 3:30.

Harris Trump Debate - a Balancing act for smart women

Last night I watched the Sept. 10, 2024 debate and once again, not for the first time, I saw an intelligent, composed woman attempting to debate a belicose, distressed and rattled man. There is an old saying, when asked what men are most afraid of in regard to women, the rply was that they would be laughted at. Women, asked the same question replied they were afraid they would be murdered." That observation is a sedimentary layer under all relations between men and women. The overwhelming percentage of shooters are men. The overwhelming number of victims of domestic violence are women. Men have used economic power to control and force women into submission for most of our history. And one of the ways that has has endured is because until the birth control revolution, women were disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing and child rearing. We couldn't do all that and hold survival wage paying jobs at the same time. But things have changed in the past hundred yeats and everyone is still adjusting to it.

It is true in my own personal life that I have had to face up to male violence both in my family and my marriage. This implied threat is apparent to most of us women and we saw it in the Hilary Clinton debate with Trump when he stalked around her, and used loud, bullying tones of voice. And Hillaries response was so typical of the majority of women, she was polite and restrained.

Last night, I saw the emergence of the NEW woman, the professional woman, the woman who has had the tough job, prosecutor and who can be both self-controlled and focused and assertive. It is a balancing act. Intelligent women who are assertive are often called 'aggressive' and it has happened to me. Once in a group project, when the group was floundering and I had prepared a flow chart with a time and task component, I put it on the white board to help us settle down and get organized so we could finish in the time allotted to us and one of the male techers said "I didn't know you were so aggresssive!" It happened that just at that moment our first female Superintendent of Schools was coming in to check on our progress and she said, "If you show control and you are a man it is competent and assertive, but if you are a woman it is bossy anc aggressive." So true. Yet we have seen the evidence in the 20th and 21st century of women leaders who have done exceptional work. First let me begin with one of my all time favorite women leaders, Golda Meir! She led the nation of Israel in a time of desperation and conflict to rival what is going on at the present and led them skillfully and safely into the future. Second let me honor Angela Merkel who not only led Germany for 20 years as Chancellor, first woman to hold that position, but she was known as the "de facto Leader of the Europen Union." When Trump traveled to Germany he refused to shake her outstretched hand.

Even other women can get nervous when women ask for too much power in the world, as shown when Phyllis Schlafly organized middle American housewives to help her defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. She felt and convinced other women to feel that they would lose the shelter and protection of men if they got too equal and that we are not, in fact, equal. She convinced women they were safer under the protection of men than independence. She was afraid we would be drafted into the military (there is no more draft but we join and serve). She was afraid we would share bathrooms (we do have to share some unisex bathrooms but I have yet to see a crime wave resulting).

Fear! Fear of strong women has been with us through the ages. One of the arguments that has been used to support the exalted state of men in the patriarchy is that men die for us. That ignores the fact that through our entire species history women have died in childbirth at alarming rates for the whole human race. We die too.

What Kamala did in the debate was that she found the fine line of being intelligent and assertive without alarming men with her control. She faced the intimidating bluster of the orange faced bully with composure, and she hit back when he lobbed bad balls. That analogy works for me because it brings tomind the Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs tennis match which I saw again recently oon a pbs passport special called Gods of Tennis. I watched that match in a bar with my then husband. I was silent and watchful and worried because I knew there would be mockery and humiliation from the men drinking in that bar if Billy Jean lost. She hadn't wanted to play Bbby riggs but he goaded her into it. And she beat him because she was faster, stronger, more controlled and YOUNGER. That was the excuse used by several outraged male acquaintances of mine to explain this unexpected and disturbing loss on the part of Riggs. My teacher pals said, "NO wonder she won, she was younger than he was." There ha to be a reason. But what a blow that was for the rest of us women, so tired of the pinched backsides, the snide remarks, the lack of safety in dark hallways or storage rooms, or buses or speedline trains, or offices, or gymnasiums, or anywhere for that matter. It was like when the mild kid loses it finally after too much torment and socks the bully. We saw it in the Christmas movie A Christmas Story, when Ralphy beats up the yellow eyed neighborhood bully who has terrified all the children for their after-school walk home.

Kamala did it with her intelligence and composur, skills honed from her years in the courtroom, and there are more and more of us each generation, finding our places in careers and professions that were formerly denied to us: law, medicine, military service, technology, science. Our buried skills are being excavated and honed. Even in my own small town, we have our first female Mayor! She had a career as a Union Representative, another career that demands a practice of both self control and assertiveness.'

It would be the celebration of a century if we achieved our first fmale president. We have been climbing this Mount Everest for a long time, perhaps this century we will achieve the summit and the country and the world weill be better and safer because of it!

Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness Project - Tom and Harry! Sept. 10, 2024

Yesterday when I was walking my dog with a neighbor friend along the railroad tracks, we ran into an old man I have passed often while walking that route, his name is Tom. He alway has a calm, pleasant expression and is good at a short but happy conversational exchange, often about the weather and our walking habit. I always tell him what an inspiration he is to me because he is 92 years old!. He looks fine and seems fine although I have a dim memory of him once telling me about his health issues, whatever they were; they don't hold him back! He enjoys the weather and the change of the season as do I and he is out in all of them as am I thans to my dog who WILL NOT take no for an answer when it is time to walk. In really poor walking conditions, we compromise and I take her for a drive. Tom is a happy man. He gets outdoors every day and looks at the world and has chats with others of us, the walkers, the neighbors, the mobile.

Tom is a happy man although he is alone and old. Today, after our walk, I took a drive to get myself a treat - a hot caramel latte' size large, and visit a couple of my favorite parks: Proprietor's Park, and Red Bank Battlefield in National Park (no dogs allowed so we just park and look at the river but don't get out of the car.) Being there reminded me of an old pal, Harry Schaeffer, who lives in National Park and I knew him during my volunteer days in the 90's and early 2000's before my heart 'episode' and hospitalization two years ago. It was my last volunteer job out of half a dozen. Harry was also a volunteer and during the hey day of volunteering at the James and Ann Whitall House on Red Bank Battlefield, we and the others, took many field trips related to our Revolutionary War history interest. We went to Princeton Battlefield, we went to Monmouth College Library to see the skull of Count VonDonop (not actually his skull as dna proved but that of a native American Woman) and William Penn's plantation among many other trips. Harry is retired now from Sunoco and he also volunteers at the Gloucester County Historical Society, in particular the Museum on Broad St. in Woobury. I used to volunteer there at the genealogy library in back. Harry is a happy man. He has interests and social events and purpose in his life and he does good and it is appreciated.

I compare these two men to people who are stuck indoors, have no interests except endless tv, and who are isolated and purposelesd and lonely. These two men, one my age the other 15 years older, have a gift, the gift of getting out and about and doing something every day! This is a big part of happiness!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness Series continued - a lunchbox and a flash of memory

In an antique store or a yard sale some years ago, for a small sum of perhaps $1 or $3, I bought a battered Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunchbox circa 1954. To be honest, I can't really remember what lunchbox I carried or if I even carried a lunchbox back in those days. I do remember my daughter's lunchboxes from a period where she was engrossed in Jurasssic Park and Star Wars. I know she had many others, but that's all I remember. Anyhow, recently I had that lunchbox out for a Seniors Group Theme of 'Back to School.'

Having that lunch box out for a week or so had an unintended consequence. Day dreams, I think, have some similarities to night dreams in that in my case, they are often inspired by an object or image or interaction from the awake world, but the imagination takes that inspiration and weaves a fictional account with it. Somethng a bit different is the flashes of memory, vague and abstract that I sometimes experience in regard to the abovementioned objects or interactions, or a song on the radio. This, I think, it a shared experience with many people.

Today, after walking the dog (Uma) and stopping at the Dunkin Donuts for a caramel latte' and then a trip to ShopRite for dog food and frozen vegetables, I was sitting on the porch basking in the marvelous early autumn weather - brilliant but gentle sunshine with equally polite breezes wafting cool air over all. And I had this distinct sense of happiness, an infinite happiness familiar to me, but one I think I have rarely recorded in my journal or here on the blog. I was taken back to a time in childhood, not an event, but a FEELING. It was a feeling of infinity, a timeless floating joyful connection with all-time. It was Saturday afteroons watching the more kind cowboy movies of the fifties, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and The Lone Ranger. These heroes were restrained, reasonable, capable, kindly and reliable, not violent or melancholy or bitter or resentful like so many anti-heroes of today. They had pals and orderly ranches and relationships with the townsfolk.

But the feeling was more about how I felt at the time, and I have had flashes of that feeling from other childhood experiences too - sitting in the wild meadow beside our housing development on a sunny free day, looking at the golden grasses waving, and watching the insects going about their busy lives. It is the feeling I had on long drives with my dad when I was young and later with my boyfriend and husband, Mike, when we traveled across Europe or across the U.S. - long quiet drives looking out the window and Quenching my ever present hunger for visual stimulation. One such drive, windows down, crossing the prairies, we were inundated with the intoxicating fragrance of sweet grass. It was a transporting fragrance, sweet and enveloping and heavenly.

These flashes of that feeling of quiet joy and infinity come when I am disengaged, after walking the dog and sitting on the porch, or driving somewhere, listening to the radio or simply sitting in silence. They are happiness, and they require a kind of neutrality in order to rise. Another one is the seashore, the smell of the salt air, especially in early fall, after the busy season is over, and it brings back my Grandmother Mabel's home, the ocean breeze lifting the sheer curtains, the peace and orderliness, and the quiet and the connection with eternity, and it brings back her, just like the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunchbox brings back those afternoons and the black and white tv cowboy shows with my beloved godfather, Uncle Neal, a quiet, calm, kind man, comfortable with silent companionship, and safe, a self-restrained man in starched and ironed shirts, clean shaven and smelling of old spice after-shave. I loved him and I still do. Those flashes are a visit with eternity and a visit with lost loved ones and they are happiness, not fraught with grief or sorrow - pure and clear moments of happiness- a bridge to the great Oneness. Happy trails, here there and everywhere!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness continued September 9, Friday Night

It is an overcast evening and I am watching a murder mysteries series on pbs passport called Ridley. The murder is, of course, "up on the moors" but that is hardly relevent. The point is I just made a fresh blender of blueberry smoothie and my dog is asleep beside me amd the cats are all napping and I am happy.

A major contributor to my happiness today is that I went to Chair Yoga class this morning. It is the new 4 week session at The Station and it is from 10:30 to 11:15 in the upstairs gallery, so I had a chance to look at the new Halloween Art Show "eerie" before class began. It is a mild class so there is no anxiety about jostling any of my poor creaky joints. It is meditation in motion when you sincerely put your mind to it and don't just 'go through the motions' and I make that a practice. When I went downstairs, I bought take-out roasted cauliflower soup and a small container of cous cous salad to take home for lunch. It was my healthy alternative choice. I usually buy pumpkin spice latte' for a treat after class, but I want to sleep better tonight. My sleep has been a bit rocky lately.

So as it has been my habit to take note of when I am happy and to attempt to find the source, I am doing that here because this evening, I found myself happy! Unlike some, I am happy in quiet and in solitude and especially when I have a good mystery to follow.

Another source of happiness for me is lunch with friends and tomorrow, I will meet 5 or 6 former teaching colleagues for lunch at one of my all time favorite lunch places, Maritsa's in Maple Shade. I haven't been there for awhile and I haven't been out to lunch since Monday a week ago, so I am looking forward to it. All the happiness articles I have read put socializing up in the top three on the list of things that make us happy and I agree!

Another thing, I do love moving into autumn, especially this early start when it hasn't gone chilly yet, but autumn is in the air and the business of summer has bedded down.

Sadly, I don't have the frantic and funny racing around of squirrels this year. The diminishment of woodlands in what was once our Garden State, has brought owls and hawks into the yard and they are silently behind the scenes picking off the squirrels. My sister was here on Thursday and she found a large handsome hawk feather in the front yard. That's another thing that makes me happy, my sister comes over once every couple of weeks to help with chores. I call it the hundred dollar day because I pay her a hundred for 4 hours and we often, nowadays, also have a little lunch. She does a wonderful job for me, works far above and beyond, and I really enjoy her company. I am lucky to have a sister nearby and one I love and get along with. She is great company. Cosy up and settle in for the Autumn - Happy Trails, my friends!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness Project Aug. 24, 2024 Saturday

It is a remarkably beautiful day of cool, low humidity, sunshine and I have taken the day off since all the chores are done and my dog has been walked. My pleasure of choice is a day of reading and I chose the newest DISCOVER magazine because it has a cover story about our closest animal friend: the dog, the cat, the horse. But in the article I want to discuss here, is a quote "In the late 1990's and early 2000's functional MRI technology uncovered what happens in the brain when we experience joy. The nucleus acccumbens (the pleasure center) lights up In the late 2000's the same technology also revealed the nucleus accumbens activates when we make a meaningful purchase." The article I was reading "Collecting Your Thoughts" page 44 discusses how collecting enhances memory, forges new connections in the brain, and triggers relaxation as well as the pleasure center. The article goes on to describe the difference between random item hoarding, purposeless and leading to lack of self-esteem, and collecting with purpose, goal, discernment.

I have a lot of small collections: postcards, books, ceramic teapots and cups shaped like little houses, and little wooden houses. I have a scattering of small tins, and an assortment of strange single objects that simply touched me, like a tintype photograph, a perfectly spherical river rock, some fossils, several kinds of World's Fair memorabilia. I also have a scattering of old old school supplies, a very old pencil box, and I used to have a collection of golden rule rulers which disappeared somehow. They did give me pleasure, when I found them and when I looked at them and it gives me pleasure to still have them in the glass fronted curio cabinet in my living room.

A few yars back a couple of women authors, Marie Kondo, and a Swedish woman wrote books about clearing out. One was called Swedish Death Cleaning, about getting rid of all your stuff before you die. I immediate took umbrage at the thought - I like my stuff, lots of things have connections to memories, like that spherical rock from a creek in Plattsburgh, New York where I hiked with a man I was once married to and in love with and his best friend, now deceased. That rock, even just the thought of it, conjures the sound of the rushing water and the whisper of the trees and the smell of the woods, not to mention the memory of being in love and being young with those two young, strong,lithe men, one now old and one dead.

On a practical basis, collections become museums and keep a record of our material culture and history. One of my favorite museums is the Museum of American History in West Deptford (Andoloro Way, Westville) in a farm house, the collection of a lifetime of the proprietor and his family: fishing reels, fossils, electric trains, farm implements, green glass telephone pole insulators, and Christmas train platform figures made from melted down bullet casings in Germany after World War II, my favorite items in his vast collection!

Today the pleasure center of my brain was alight with the joy of reading this much aticipated magazine and having the afternoon off to read, and finding support for my natural inclination to collect objects of interest and delight. I am glad to know that science backs me up!

On Monday, I am going to lunch with the great-neice and we are going to Rancocas Woods, Creek Road where there is a collection of antique shops that I love to visit. The fragrance of the burning scented candles and the hand-made soaps enhances the oy I experience in visiting again with objects I remember from my personal past, for example a pair of book ends made from old crank pencil sharpeners, from the days before electric sharpeners. Happy trails collectors! wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Happiness Project - Post - August 10, Saturday 2024

On Monday this past week, my Seniors Group met as we do each month on the first Monday. Our theme this month was happiness and the members were invited to write in their notebooks each time they felt happy during the month beetween Meetings. When we read off our notes, we put them on the whiteboard in categories:

1.Friends - making and nurturing friendships a priority (phone call, lunch, text, card - try all)

2.Family - visiting with family members (even something small like sending a card or postcard)

#.Nature - taking walks, taking a drive in the country, sitting on the porch or in the yard, pant something, habe some flowers on your porch

4.Entertainments - watching a good tv series, a movie

5.Health- making sure we get vegetables and fruits daily and staying hydrated

6.Spirtual - a spiritual community, meditation, if you are averse to organized relion, try YOGA or as I do - CHAIR YOGA New class beginning in a week at The STATION in Merchantville on Chestnut St. and ongoing classes at LIVE IN JOY in Audubon on Merchant St.

7.Doing good for others - participating in programs to help others (for example, my Meeting donates books to the Free Books Project in Camden at Newton Friends Meeting, Cooper Street) volunteering

8.Pets - a pet from an animal rescue shelter can not only save the pet but save you from loneliness and boredom. They are affectionate, entertaining and fun and in my case, get me out walking!

9.Hobbies - painting, collage, scrapbooking, woodworking, quilting, knitting, crochet, gardening - doesn't matter what the hobby, it is all GOOD

10,sometimes you just need a treat! I don't support unhealthful food choices but sometimes you just need a cookie and tea or an ice cream or a shake (I like a latte') or a smoothie!

11, READ Along with our personal individual lists and examples, I had photocopied articles from AARP on happiness and one from Discover Magazine: Mar/Apr 2024 Discover Magazine, Positive Psychology 101 pg. 36

AARP The Magazine, JulyAug, 2024: One Woman's Search for Happiness, pg. 60 (to be honest I don't see how it would be much different for a man.

A piece of advice I picked up from the New York Times a couple of years ago was to make a note of each time you feel happy so you know what makes you happy, I noted that I feel elated and happy after I go out to lumch with friends, on the way home, the radio plays music I like and I feel content and happy

An old tried and true and studied tip, is to keep a gratitude journal which I do, daily. There is so much to be grateful for and it is a good idea to focus on that rather than on worries or problems.

Well this gives a lot of advice and suggestions In cae you are wondering if I do all these things, yes, I do. For example this morning, I walked my dog with a friend from the neighborhood whom I met through her husband doing yard work. We are now friends and go to Seniors Group together as well as WALKING the dog every day. Writing this blog is one of my many hobbies: and I am getting resources for my next painting to go in a show at The Station in Merchantvile and just this past Monday I put a painting in the Camden County Senors Art Show; so two hobbies! I make fruit smoothies with protein powder every other day to boost my nutrition and I have been a vegetarian for years!

Has all this made me happy! You bet! Do I ever get sad or down in the dumps! Yes I do. I had a couple of unpleasant experiences in the beginning of July that knocked me into a ditch, emotionally, but I WORKED at getting myself back out again. I wrote about it, talked about it with friends, got help, made a plan, and recovered by the end of the month. Feeling sad, feeling hurt, getting anxious are all normal parts of living, but it takes a practice to keep them from taking control of your life, and I prefer to use non-medical strategies for my own occasional setbacks. I have had longer periods that could be called depression, as in when my parents died, but as deep as I fell and as pervasive as my sorrow was, i kept working at it with my strategies and I pulled myself out. During the longer periods I had a lot of pressure from friends to get anti-epression medication, but I had faith in my own strategies from a lifetime of employing them. I just had to endure the sorrow for as long as it took (and it wouldn't be human not to suffer sorrow at such a monumental loss as the death of a parent) even though in case of my parents, it took a couple of years to pull myself back out of the pond of despair.

12, EXPERIMENT- It ocurred to me to ask myself what exactly happiness felt like to me? On my way to my sister's one day, I felt really happy and when I got there, I sat in the car for a few minutes and took note of what happiness felt like. It felt like a blooming in my chest like when a flower opens, and the world felt brighter and I felt a kind of "oneness" with everything around me, the trees, the flowers, the blue sky, the clouds! I felt light and eager and lifted up. That's what happiness felt like to me at that moment.

I hope this list gives any readers who happen on to my blog some tools to keep in your emotional health tool kit! Life is too precious to waste being unhappy or bored - do something and make the most of what time you have! Final tip - keep in mind the word FOCUS and notice what you focus on. You can change your focus just like with binoculars are a radio station.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Road to Publication

A lot of people have a story to tell, maybe most of us! Some of us also like to TELL stories, which is a different kind of thing. I have been very lucky in that I have had for friends a poet who actually had pofessionally published a book of his work, Dan Maguire, (recently deceased,sadly) and an author who has had published three books she has written on Pinelands history: The Forks, Ghosttowns and Other Quirkly Places in the Pine Barrens, and Batsto: Jewel of the Pines, Barbara Solem.

Both of my formally published friends got their breaks through associations. Dan knew someone who admired his work and made a connection for him with a publishing company. Most of the poets I have known with publihed books had to go the independent publishing route, which I will get to.

Barb Solem was friends with a man who worked for a New Jersey publishing company, Plexus. Her friend was an editor for the company and he was the connection that made her route open. The division headed by Barbara's friend, no longer exists and he doesn't work there any more.

I published three books 'independently' which means that I found a printing company that would print and bind my books for a fee, Perfect Printing in Mount Laurel, NJ. The man who did my editing and formatting is no longer with this company and they won't do that anymore so you now have to pay to have editing and formatting done before you submit your manuscript, tat is, unless you know how to do it yourself. Since mine was done so long ago, telling the price is almsot usseless because I am sure it is significantly higher and when I looked into an edition service in a strip mall on White Horse Pike (I no longer remember the name, the carge for editing and formatting alone was $1500). When I had my books printed it was $1000 for 100 books. Later it was $1000 for 50 books previously formatted and edited (by a friends).

Writing for pleasure or writing for publication. I was writing because I was driven by a story I wanted to tell. My father was in the Civilian Conservation Corps and I learned a lot about it and its subsidiary the WPA. When I was hiking in the Pine Barrens, which I did quite a lot in the old days, I came across a lot of CCC History since they did a good bit of conservation work. My first book: White Horse Black Horse was pure fiction involving a photographer and a writer in 1937 who were hired by the CCC to write part of the State Guide on New Jersey. Each State had one of those guides which gave a comprehensive written portrait of the State at that time. Teams of writers, photographers, and artists travelled all the roads of each state documenting historic sites, architecture, and geographical, historical, social observations of all kinds. You can still buy the WPA State Guide to New Jersey, and it is fascinating. So the two characters in my novel travel New Jersey's back roads and they write and photograph labor struggles at Seabrook Farms, the crash of the Hindenburg, and so many other adventures. Also in the plot there is a love triangle which gets resolved by the end.

I loved my book and when I read the chapters, each carefully crafted to end with a cliff hanger, the writing group I attended at the time enjoyed it. Barb connected me to her editor at Plexus and I provided my manuscript. His response wasw that he was interested more in beach reading, and that if a book didn't grab him in the first three pages, it wasn't going to sell, so he wasn't interested. Instead of being defeated, I decided to get it printed myself and I did - TWICE! That gave me the freedom to sell the books (not many) when I gave talks at various historic sites, and to give away copies (which I did freely) to volunteers at historic sites.

I had the writing bug, so since I had tried my hand at a historical novel, I decided to try a more modern relationship novel set in a high school amongst the teachers. Published this one independly as well, didn't even try to go commercial. I just wanted it in book form.

My first book White Horse Black Horse actually gathered a small fan club. They took me out to lunch. I asked them what it was they enjoyed so much about my book and they said "Road Trip" and that gave me another idea.

When I was 21, my boyfriend was drafted and we married and went to Germany together for his tour of service. After he got out, we stayed in Europe for a year and lived in a Volkswagen Van traveling a wide circuit through Europe. I decided to write about that and I did; it is called 1969 Published independently with same process as before. I enjoyed that so much, even finding the write black and white photo for the cover! I gave most of the copies away at a high school reunion since my classmates would have been in the same historic frame. No, it was't that popular, although silence may not mean they didn't like it but just that they didn't read it! My experience is that often people want to tell a story more than they want to listen to or read one.

By then, I had written a historical novel, a relationship novel, and finally, a memoir, the work had brought me to the end of my book writing phase.

My published author friend has a friend or two and who have been commercially published as well and it appears that having an agent can be a big boost to get your work into a publisher. For me, the writing was the part I wanted, beyond that, I wasn't interested - marketing,interviews, speaking tours to generate interest or any of that. So it is a good idea to ask yourself WHY you are writing the book - do you have a great story to tell and you want others to read it? Do you want to make money from it?

There is a third way I almost forgot. The husband of a friend wrote a book on how to find a partner. He had met my friend via an internet dating service and he had a lot of advice. He used an online printing and marketing service. I don't know how much he spent but his book, in my opinion, was mostly things people should know withut a book, and I don't know how much success he had as my friend and I drifted apart when I left the gym where we both used to work out.

The writing that I do now is mostly for the sheer joy of it and I don't write books anymore - that is a LOT of work! I write this blog, my daily journal, and short pieces for an online newletter and a printed journal put out by the South Jersey Quaker community. That's enough for me. Mostly the work I do for those is book reviews or promoting charitable projects like The Free Books Project in Camden, NJ.

Things I think would help: join a writing group. If you want to publish professionally, get an agent and/or editor. Get a subscription to a writers magazine where you can find information on all of that. I bought mine at Barnes and Noble and subscribed to the one I liked best. "Writer" was in the title but that's all I remember.

I hope you find this helpful and I hope you enjoy writing for the sheer joy of it! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Finding Happiness Part 3 - The Olympics 2024 in Paris

The firt day I began to work seriously on getting my happiness back, I got out of my car in the driveway and I was greeted by the exquisite pink face of a Rose of Sharon blossom. There is a lot to be said about that. First of all, I was opening my eyes to the outside world, not inside my head making a list of grievances and defenses. That pink face was saying hello to me from the plant world. It reminded me of the first plant I ever met as a real entity in its own right - a pussy willow in my Grandmother's yard in Philadelphia.

We didn't have a yard at my house on Warnock Street. We lived a couple of blocks away in the pink brick canyons - asphalt in front, cocrete in back and red brick walls as far as the eye could see. We had one tree and nothing else green. My gentle, sad Irish grandmother told me the name of the shrub in her front yard, "Feel its bud, so soft, like a cat's paw, that's why it is called a Pussy Willow."

fifty years ago, I was one of the generation that made the grand esperiment in psychedelics. I was one of the lucky ones. I experienced the classic psychedilic experience of ONENESS. Perhaps it is because I was tripping outdoors and everyone was careful about making a peaceful scene for those who were tripping. I experienced oneness with the grass upon which I was sitting and the trees and plants and all the creatures. That sense of oneness has stayed with me and colored everything I have experienced since then. It is why I became a vegetarian. Last night I watched an old movie called 'The Perfect Storm' and to my eyes, the gill netting of the swordfish and the gutting and the cutting off of their faces - a horrific mutilation - such that I wasn't surprised when nature sent a giant wave to topple their boat and drive it to the bottom of the ocean.

But to get back to happiness, I have described some of the strategies I had set in motion that have been tried and true in the past: lunch with my great-niece, a ride in the park, a withdrawal from coflict and complicated relationships that had plunged me into my quick sand of unhappiness in the first place. This week, I persevered with the help of friends in getting a streaming service so I could follow the 2024 Olympics in Paris. It is untterly wondrous to see what young athletes are capable of achieving. The unimagineable level of perfection they not only aspire to but actually achieve is breathtaking.

I don't usually like to tie food in with happiness, but today, I went to my favorite Chinese take-out restaurant in Woodbury and got the vegetable soup with white rice and vegetarian spring rolls for lunch while I watched the young men's gymnastics. The lunch was nutritious and deicious and I liked that I enjoyed an exotic lunch while I watched the internationality of the Olympic games.

Yesterday, I treated myself to a classic vanilla milkshake from Cabana on Kings Higheay to go with my film festival ,another tried and true happness booster. Every summer for 30 years I have watched Jaws and Jurassic Park. Knowing these movies so well allows me to really think about themes and the structure of the plots and also the reverberation they are of classic literature as well as great art works I know. For eample I like to compare Jaws to Moby Dick and The Perfect Storm reminds me of the painting The Raft of the Medusa, and the Olympic sport of pommel horse reminds me of the Greek fresco The Bull Jumpers.

Each day the percentage of the day that I spent in happiness grew. At first I had flashes of happiness, then, it grew to half a day, and yesterday it was about 80 percent. I am sleeping much better now too. Sunday, I went to Friends Meetin and was truly overjoyed to see my two friends Marilyn and Diana. I had an excellent meditation and when, last night, the Woodbury Friends started texting with a problem that needed solving, I was able to stay out of it and just watch it go by. I was happy with my success, I think I may have reached 90 percent happiness yesterday and tomorrow I expect the same because I will enjoy lunch with my two best friends, Nancy Thomas and Barb Solem.

One of the "FLOW" activities in which I participated and didn't mention was that I copied adn pasted several photographs from my daughter's past four or five years into a collage and printed it out and put it into a frame for a gift. It made me happy to see all the successes she and her husband, Justin. have achieved, and also to know she is married to a kind, patient and appreciative husband. Lavinia texted me that she was at the Newport Folk Festival and I was so glad to hear that she was doing something so much fun! And that reminds me to mention that I have been doing the gratitudes and my journal EVERY DAY! I am immensely grateful for the happiness and health of my daughter and her husband. It is a treasure beyond measure.

Hope you are getting on the Happiness Trail too! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (as always use my e-mail not comments section which is completely polluted by spammers and useless)

A Perfect Day@

I work pretty regularly on creating and maintaining my happiness. About a year ago, I began to cultivate the friendship of my great-niece, Alexandra, who had recently moved to New Jersey, close to where I live. We have a lot in common as we both worked in education, though she is very young and still full time employed. I have invited her out to lunch once a month since she moved here. Each month we try a different place, most of which have been places I have frequented in the past. We have been to The Station in Merchantville many times because I have had paintings in the seasonal group shows, and Maritsa's in Maple Shade because I really like it there. We have also been to Pat's Select Pizza Grill in Gloucester City, and many times to Charlie Browns in Woodbury. Today, a beautiful, cool, fresh and bright day after a long period of humid heat, we took a drive to Mullica Hill to The Blue Plate. I haven't been there in a long time and the building looked renovated and the menu has been refreshed. I found a delicious onion tart, which was caramalized onions in a pastry crust much like a croissant crust, light and crispy. I also had crispy brussel sprouts in a sauce with a sprinkle of goat cheese on top. Delicious! My niece had a grilled chicken sandwich and fries. We were both delighted ith our lunch and the service and the lovely drive through Mullica Hill which, although it has changed a lot since the antiques business took a nose dive in the past decade or so, still has its beauty and quaint charm. My niece is a quiet and polite young woman and we get along so well that our get-togethers are invariably pleasant and relaxing. It is a great gift to be able to have a relationship with a young person, especially one as intelligent and warm and courteous as she is. Happiness is good relationships, happy social gatherings, and perfect weather! Take someone you love out to lunch one day soon and if you are looking for the best place, go to The Blue Plate in Mullica Hill!

How I lost my happiness one week and got it back the next

Happy 4th of July 2024

Increasingly as I get older, happiness and health take top biing in my personal interests. I read a lot about both and I practice the things I learn. Happiness feels good. I like it. In order to keep it, you have to cultivate it, practice it. But even so, you can get tripped up in unexpected ways, just the way we older folks fall. Everything is going just fine and your shoe catches on an uneven board (because we shuffle more because our hip and knee joints and our backs have problems) and down we go.

Just a couple of days ago, in the house, I bent over to pick up a tissue and I tipped over like a pile of blocks. Fortunately, I was at home in the living room and beside the Decon's bench, which I used to push myself up again and although my knees hurt, nothing was damaged.

In the same way, a friend who will remain unnamed, tripped me up and knocked me off my happiness. For two years now, due to my ongoing efforts at practicing positive thinking, chair yoga, dog walking and socializing, I have been mostly happy most of the time. But one morning a couple of weeks ago, my phone dinged with the text message noise and because I almost never get early morning calls, I awoke and looked at it. I thought it was family.

All of my friends (a couple of whom are avid animal rights activists) know to keep their horror stories to themelves and not inflict them on me. I do all I can for animals. I house and care for 5 cats and a dog and contribute in a number of ways to animal rescue charies. Just this summer, I donated 7 paintings to a fundraiser. Anyway, this friend's text message was one of those horror stories and having just awakened, I had no protection. It tripped me into a suffering spiral and a big anger. This particular friend has a pattern that she keeps her phone off unless she wants to call someone and then she looks at messages and calls people back. When I finally reached her that evening and told her how I felt she became defensive as though there was something wrong with me to be upset. That poured fuel on the flames and I got really angry.

That was the beginning of my downfall. Next, I entered a couple of weeks of stress activities: I met with two groups that can be of great help to my Quaker Meeting. The first is a historical group that wants to use our Meeting House for lectures. I won't go into the details except to say that a long distance member of the Meeting is blocking the necessary response. Then my second meeting, I invited three from Meeting to join us for the discussion and tour and no one showed up. An artist friend who has his studio in the building in question had said the day before that he would be there and he not only didn't show up, he didn't call or text. I was then still operating (on the outside) in a good way, but inside I was all twisted up with anxiety and resentment.

My happiness was GONE. On top of that I made a big mistake, a bad choice is a better description. I wasn't sleeping well anymore so I bought a forbidden treat each morning to give me energy to get through the day, a Dunkin Donuts caramel latte' which gives me an energy high and temperorarily lifts my mood. These coffees got me through my meetings but left a residue of anxiety from the caffeine as well as contributed to trouble getting to sleep at night and sleeping well.

Finally we get to the cure! It came about in a kind of unexpected way. I was meeting a friend for lunch yesterday at the place we usually meet which I like, Maritsa's in Maple Shade (half way for both of us). But Maritsa's was closed as my friend discovered because she got there earlier than I did, so I suggested we meet at The Station in Merchantville because the summer group art show was going up and I had 3 paintings in it. She agreed. I love this place, it is my happy place, the art, the vegetarian cuisine, the almost always entirely polite nnd friendly staff and clientelle. We put in our orders, looked at the artwork, and sat down in the cafe' to await our food.

Two young mothers arived with three toddlers, two of whom were in the 2 year old range and possibly twins and those two set up a ceaceless and ear splitting shrieking that the mother was unable to resolve. Nothing she did stopped them from screaming at the top of their lungs and we couldn't talk and the high pitched ear-splitting noise made thinking impossible, so Nancy suggested we eat outside on the patio. I usually don't like eating outside - bugs - but we had no choice, so we went out and it was the best choice, It was cool and dry and breezy. Little sparrows twittered and flitted all around us and it was just gorgeous. Nancy and I chatted away amiably and elaxed for a couple of hours. Our food was good, and the outdoor setting was splendid. I felt happy again.

Then to cap it off, when I got in the car to go home and relized I was happy again, Arlo Guthrie was singing a train song on the radio "I am riding on the City of New Orleans" and that fit the train theme! Then his father, Woody Guthrie was singing "This Land is Your Land" and I sang along with Woody Guthrie and my happiness was complete! Last night I went to Chair Yoga and later at home, I slept well and no nightmares.

Today, all I have is a couple of regular chores, the kitty litter boxes, and other than that, I will float through the day and do whatever I please, beginning with this blog post - which by the way is one of the strategies for clearing out the clouds and supporting happiness! Writing, talking, friendship, the outdoors, dog walking, chair yoga, nutritious and delicious food - all these are the medicine to cure a passing illness of melancholy and bring back the health of happiness. Also I just called my sister and brother on the phone to say hello and wish them a happy 4th of July holiday.

Happy Fourth of July! JO Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com