Cul de Sac, Roland Avenue 1957

When I awakened this morning, this post was writing itself in my mind. This often happens. It seems that perhaps my early years as a book worm have trained my mind into a prose narrative habit. Also, my brother is up here in New Jersey visiting from W.Va. for his 77th birthday and that was on my mind.

We spent our teen years on Roland Avenue in Maple Shade in a brand new hosuing development, so new that several of the two dozen or so houses were still unfinished. Our street was a cul de sac, shaped like a tear drop, one road in. On the South we were bordered by the Pennsauken Creek, and on the North we were bordered by what was left of the orginal farm. Our house was on the outer rim of the wheel and behind us was a tall berm, like a hillside and atop it was a corn field. Our brand new house was two stories with two bedrooms upstairs and two bedrooms downstairs, a bathroom upstairs and one downstairs, a living room, dining room and kitchen with a washer and dryer in one corner. It was a comfortable house. My parents were enthralled with the fertility of the grounds after living in a brick row home in the brick row canyons of South Philadelphia and they immediately began to garden. My mother had a Rock garden, and then my father had a vast truck garden.

Dad built a large pantry under the staircase to the second floor. Every harvest season, my father and mother stood sweating in the steaming kitchen boiling the jars and lids for the canning process. They made stewed tomatoes, pickles from cucumbers, preserved corn and peas, and even root beer! Dad stored the rootbeer in the small side attic upstairs and one summer the heat caused it to all explode!

We had no basement in this house on Roland Avenue. But my father was a master craftsman and built a substantial garage with a woodworking area.

I remember some of our early furniture, a redwood picnic table in the kitchen before my parents could afford a dining room set. We had an orange vinyl sofa that eventually went into the tv room which was the 2nd bedroom on the ground floor.

It was in this house that my parents began the second round of offspring. When we first moved to Roland Avenue, there was just me (in the big upstairs bedroom) and Joe (in the little downstairs bedroom,) and my parents bedroom beside his. Then, after a miscarriage, my mother successfuly brought into the world my brother Neal, my sister MaryAnn, and finally my little sister Susan. By the time Susan was born in 1965, I was gone.

I had been about 12 when we moved to New Jersey, and I was a book and reading obsessed introvert. My early childhood had left a lot of emotional damage and books were my escape in an infinite variety of ways.

At the graduation from my unsuccessful high school experience, but successful in that I did graduate and got a business education and a job from it, I went to work at W. B. Saunders Publishing Company in Philadelphia, at age 17.

But that veers off from what my mind was writing this morning. I was back in the kitchen on Roland Avenue, age 12, hovering as my mother's neighbors and lady friends drank coffee and talked about their pregnancies, their husbands, their homes, their shopping, their ailments and all sorts of topics. They ate donuts from Steve the Bond Breadman and drank coffee from my mother's party sized percolator. They wore housecoats (kind of bathrobes) and slippers and their hair was in curlers, and they smoked - all of them! There were ashtrays alongside the luncheon plates for the donuts, and the coffee cups and saucers. The women had modern problems for istance, our neighbor across the street, Mary, her husband left her for another man. He drove up in a white sports ar with his boyfriend who looked like Johnny Mathis. There she was with her two children and her house in the development and no career and no husband. She did eventually marry again and had a happy life.

All the women in the "Circle" as Roland Avenue called itself, were housewives. At that time, most women we knew didn't work. It was only ten years post World War II and the men had come home and got their jobs back and the women happily retreated to the domestic sphere and got busy repopulating the country. Most of the women in the Circle had at least three children. All the husbands were invisible figures to me. The only time I saw the fathers was on weekends when they coud be seen mowing the lawns. Fathers then loved the role of lawn mowing on Saturday, or leaf raking.

In the early years of our move to New Jersey, which was "the country" to us city folks, our old neighbors came from Philadelphia on weekends in the summer to enjoy the Jersey tomatoes, burgers and hot dogs on the eaborate brick grill my father built in the back yard and cases of beer. They all got hiariously drunk and threw one another into our three foot kiddy pool.

I don't remember what we children got up to. We are invisible to my memory but I do remember the grown ups in large vivid color, Pat and Tommy Taggart, Ella Reily and her husband whose name I have lost, and a couple of other World War II era friends. Later, my father's brothers Bill and Clyde, their wives Marge and Edna, the grandmothers on lawn chairs on the front lawn and sometimes my mother's family from 10th Street in Philadelphia would come for the picnic in the backyard.

Another thing I remember vividly from those times is the relentless domestic labor of my mother. In summer she hung the clothes to dry on the cothes lines in the backyard. She ironed everything! She ironed the sheets, the pillowcases. Things that were hung on the line to dry were very stiff and wringled. After the babies began to arrive there were endless cauldrons of boiling baby bottles being steriized and filled, endless reeking diaper pails of dirty diapers to be washed and bleached, hung out to dry and folded and put away. The youngest three came so close together, two years apart 1960, 1963, 1965, and by then I was in my teens and a sulky malcontent unwilling to lend a hand in the household or help with the childcare. It was then that I decided I did NOT want to become a mother and a housewife.

It must be said however, that my mother loved her sphere and was happy. She loved being a mother, cooking, decorating, and developing her home making skills such as upholstery, curtains and drapery. Every day just about the time I came home from school, mom began to prepare the evening meal. In those days, it meant cooking some large piece of meat, a ham or a big piece of beef, a turkey or chicken, paring and dicing carrots, potatoes, celery, and using some of those preserves. Every meal from breakfast to dinner was a real meal. Breakfast meant hot cereal such as oatmeal, or creamed rice, eggs, bacon, sausages, or Taylor's pork roll. Dinner was always some kind of meat or fish such as turkey, baked and sliced down, two vegetables and a starch. If not potatoes, baked, boiled, scalloped or mashed, then macaroni and cheese baked in the oven. Pot pie was real, made with real pastry dough, fresh carrots, peas, celery, onions, potatoes and diced chicken. We actually shelled peas! Mom had boxes of salted cod which she would soak and then make cod cakes. She had a hand cranked meat grinder that screwed onto the side of the sink drainboard, and into it went all the left over bits of turkey or chicken or ham to make croquets which we all loved with gravy. There were some terrible quarrels around that table however, battles of will between my brother Joe and I and our parents when we were served something we didn't want to eat. In my case it was salmon. I hated it, the hidden bones, the uncooked nature of it. For my brother it was scrambled eggs. He hated the texture. Parents who had grown up in the Depression and survived the World War had no patience for ungrateful children turning their noses up at valuable food! Once my brother kept scrambled eggs in his mouth all the way to Ocean City. He only disgorged them when He got out of the car to pee alongside the roadway. Mainly the tactic was that we would be forced to sit at the table until our plates were empty. We sat there all evening. It was a stand-0ff. My parents were united on this issue of food being wasted and chidren not eating what they were given

It is true and an item of regret to me now that I was indeed an ungrateful child in so many ways. I have to stop now to go to my brother's birthday lunch! I will come back and conclude this evening.

I think my dream and awakening mind narrative was inspired by my brother's visit from West Virginia for his 77th birthday this weekend. Today was his birthday. He, however, wasn't interested very much in talking about Roland Avenue and our childhood, he wanted to watch an action movie on my sister's large tv.

Everything changes and everything ends. First I moved out of Roland Avenue when I was 18 and got my first apartment, then my family bought a beautiful and historic house that had been burned out inside by a fire and my father began the devoted restoration of 19 East inwood Avenue in Maple Shade which took several years. I never lived in that house but all my brothers, Neal and Joe, and my sisters, Susan and Maryann did. My Grandmother Mabel lived with them for a time as well, but when my father retired at age 62, sometime in 1983, he moved to West Virginia and built the retirement home where my brother lives now. The family split up. Mom and Dad and MaryAnn to West Virginia, Neal and Joe to Philadelphia, me to Europe and then to Philadelphia, and then back to New Jersey. My sister Sue lives in Clarksboro, NJ.

People who lived on "the Circle" Roland Avenue still meet and have reuions on facebook and in person. All the young people I grew up with on Roland AVenue have died: Joe McGuigan, Butch Grimes, Diane Judge, Chris Gilbreath, the kids I played basketball with, and board games, and even some of the kids who found us and hung around with us like Art Borget, who was my boyfriend first and later married my best friend Chris. They are all gone.

I used to drive down to Roland Avenue and look at our old house every time I met my friends for lunch at Maritsa's on Main Street, but I don't do that anymore. I would look at our house and the garage my father built and the Pennsauken Creek where we swam, and the houses of those kids I knew who are all dead. After all, I decided not to do that anymore because it makes me sad and I don't want to be sad in these my last years. It is hard enough to stay buoyant under the weight of the degradations of age as I approach my own 80th birthday in a couple months I don't need to invite the ghosts of the past to haunt me. So I say goodbye to Roland Avenue, the "Circle" and turn my mind to the present and to my efforts at strengthening myself for the struggle - tomorrow the GYM and our walk around Martin's Lake!

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Simple Easy ways to boost your energy and your moodFrom t

From the August/September issue of AARP magazine, page 21

1. Drink a glass of water (even a little dehydration can sap your energy)

2. Step Outside for a break (connecting with nature and getting some fresh air)

3. Walk (for every 30 minutes of sitting take a 3 minute walk)

4. Cold Water (the article mentions taking a cold shower, but even a face wash and hand wash in cold water helps)

5. Take a sniff of a fresh fragrance like peppermint or citrus The main article is entitled "Reclaiming your Spark" and they mention talking to someone. Especially for us seniors, it is easy to slip into a kind of solitude beause we don't go to work, often we live alone, and these days neighbors don't get out on the porch or the steps much anymore. My special and most excellent solution to al of the above is what I did this morning - an old friend from my now disbanded Seniors group got in touch recently and we are going to the gym together 3 times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We work out for half an hour and then walk my dog around a little local park for half an hour. It gives us a chance to socialize along with the incredible healthy benefits of the gym and the outdoors!

Happy Trails! wrightj45@yahoo.com

"Woke" and values war in USA today

The recent shooting of the
conservative " youth leader Charlie Kirk brought to my mind a lot o questions. I wasn't aware of this particular "rising star" of conserfativism and I wondered what exactly he stood for. It turned out to be difficult to find an actual break-down of his points beyond general terms such as conservative.

The terms conservative and woke have changed, even turned upside down in the past ten years or so. As it turns out the Charlie Kirk version of conservativism in summary seemed to be against:

Feminism (equal rights for women)

Civil Rights for African Americans or citizens in the LGBTQ sector

Education that included analysis of the effects of slavery on our society

Birth Control available to women

Freedom of thought for college professors

Ecolongy and environmental protection

limitations on gun ownership

And Woke, was interesting because the term was co-opted by the right wing from a term used by African Americans in the 1930's to mean to be awake to racism, bigotry, and danger

To the new version of conservatists to be "woke" means to be in favor of all the things they are against incouding civil rihts, limitation of gun ownership, birth control, and rampant capitalism.

It is ironic or perhaps predictable that someone who was a fervent supportor of the National Rifle Association and widespread freedom to own and use guns was a victim of gun violence. The rhetoric that promotes a tribal passion against the 'enemy' tribe, or politiacl party, incites the mentally unstable to seek what their unbalanced minds feel to be a heroic action in taking down the bad guy, though often later we learn they arent' even sure who the bad guy is. The previous mentally unstable shooters appeared to lurch from right to left and from tribe to tribe and their enemies seemed to arise and disappear like the visions in a computer game.

We live in a sad and troubled time. Recently I was wathing program set in the 1960's and the background music was filled with early Beatles songs. It prompted me to looke up the shooter who killed John Lennon. John Lennon was a lover, not a hater. He was a brilliant, gentle, funny and kind man. His dreams in song like "Imagine" were beacons of hope to those of us who wish for peace. His killer, whose name I will not type here, stil lives and has been denied parole 14 times. In his pleas for parole he spoke of his motive for killing Lennon. he said he killed him because he sought fame through killing someone who was famous, an icon. He said he was jealous of John Lennons success, and his fame and lifestyle so he chose him to kill.

I would have to say that it is self evident that this killer was mentally unstable. The problem is that guns are so readily available that the mentally unstable no longer are forced to hide in the darkness nursing their rage, they can buy a gun and go out and kill someone. Number one problem - gun availability. Number two prolem the lack of availabiity for help for the mentally ill. That topic is too big for this blog, but I knew a mentally ill man who is able to ead a satisfactory life because of family intervention, psychotherapeutic support in the form of medication and psychotherapy, and supported section 8 housing.

We can do better. We cannot return to the fantasy wild west of the immature mentality of the far right where African Americans are returned to slavery, women are returned to economic dependence through lack of control over reproduction, and gas is cheap and low skill facotry jobs are pentiful. Strive thought they may, outside of a television series, they cannot make this happen and the old men cannot make themselves young studs via the proliferation of testerone supplements, they can only cause their own deminse via prostate cancer.

That version of the past is over and gone - the 1950's will not return. The benie cannot be put back in the bottle.

The proliferation of guns will continue to erupt in a harvest of massacres from school to supermarket to college campus. Perhaps we cannot return to a time of gun control either and this is our new reality where madmen roam the streets wearching for a target to somehow ease the pain of their torturned minds.

Meanwhile, I can practice medicattion on my shady porch and be grateful for my small town of peace and stability, the good fortune that brought me here, my good education and good career that made it possible for me to survive in the humble and comfortable living that I enjoy, a woman who practiced birth control, got a good education, worked in a career that benefited my country and my fellow human beings, and had a union that provided the benefits that allow me to live my old age in humble comfort.

Hidden History

hiddencityphila.org

October is more than Halloween, much more and more importantly it is an opportunity to celebrate and to WITNESS to Indigenous history in THE Delaware Valley.

It is true that we can't bring back the dead or give back the land or erase all that has come from the past to the present but we can and we do make the effort to honor the past. I believe with all my heart that it matters to honor those pioneer of righteousness, to honor the truth of the past, not the myths perpetrated by those whose greed propelled them to criminal acts but who have so often controlled the narrative.

For the autumn seasonal celebration, go to hiddencityphila.org for a beautifully written article about the hidden history of the Lenape people in the Delaware Valley. knowing and ackowledging is the least we can do.

I was fascinated to learn about the many tribal people who still live on their ancestral lands in New Jersey, in particular from Rancocas to Greenwich. There are tribes and tribal centers and even plans for creating places where the traditions can be celebrated and preserved.

The POW WOW is an ongoing moving tribal tradition that criss crosses the Americas continually, stopping here and there in reservations to share and celebrate the continued existence of First Peoples in Aerica. Many years ago, I was fortunate enough a pow wow at Rancocas. At the time there was a tribal center there but I have heard it has since closed.

We Quakers have a tradition of "witnessing" which gives us a way to speak truth to power when other means are not feasible. At least knowing the history and recognizing the trauma and the traditions is a way of witnessing. Check out the excellent essay at hiddencityphia.org

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Sending books out onto the river of life: Cormac McCarthy's Library

The latest Smithsonian Magazine Sept/Oct. 2025, has a wonderful essay about the team of vounter scholars of the life and works of Cormac McCarthy, American author, who are spending their free time cataloguing his vast library of over 20,000 books. His books were in boxes, on shelves in heaps on tables and in no order whatsoever, except as they interested him and he bought and rad them. They were also in rental units!

In case you don't know who Cormac McCarthy was/is, he was the author of a dozen highly regarded novels, one of which one a big prize (Pulitzer?) and three of which became movies and made him wealthy: No Country for Old Men, The Road are two of the ones I remember reading about. McCarthy's scholars are devoted to him and are avid about the annotations in the books he read because they show the workings of his apparently unlimited mind. He was literally interested in everything, and in particular, in scienc, and architecture. Interestingly, ne not only voraciously collected books but also, tweed jackets, cowboy boots, and old cars.

I am not a fan of Cormac McCarthy's work although my experience with it is slight. I met him, didn't like him and didn't get to know him any better. I have no aesthetic interest in the bleak dystopian despair of old men, or the soaking up of brutality. Like broken down old cars, cowboy boots and guns, these material artifacts are nof of my world. What we shared was a reverance for books! And a book collector's apetite. Although where we diverged is in his hoarding and my release, these last few years, of my books back into the world. I have no need for boxes of books in storage units.

I do think it is an interesting detective assigment, connecting the annotations and books to the literary works, mining the influences and the branches and connections between the works the author absorbed and the uses he made of the fuel.

"To peer into someone's library, is to peer into their brain, and here, it seemed was a mind that wanted to know everythin." (pg. 128 "There is an intelligence to the universe (of which we are fractal) and that intelligence has a character and that character is benign. Intends well toward all things. How could it not?" McCarthy is known for the bleak, violent, nihilism in many of his novels, so it was a surprise to see him describing the universe as intelligent and well intentioned. (pg. 80)

By the way, they mention in the essay that the McCarthy collection numbers over 20,000 and Hemingway's collection ran to 9,000. I have read a lot abut Hemingway over the years and I never remember any ention of his library or his literary infuences.

Today, I was pondering how to get the Poetry Collection in a bookcase in the attic downstairs and into cartons for my next donation run. I cannot manage those attic steps any more. I was thinking I might put the dog bed at the foot of the attic steps and throw the books down onto it.

Happy Trails, in the woods, in your mind, on the page. wrightj45@yahoo.com

Insight and meditation - a continuous learning experience

This morning while tidying up a room after a massive (more than 300 books) donation to the Free Library Project in Camden, NJ, I came across several of Pema Chodrin's books. Pema Chodrin is abbot of Gumpo Abbey in Nova Scotia and a practitioner/teacher of Buddhist meditation practice). I credit Pema Chodrin with saving my sanity at one or two of the most difficult/painful periods of my life and what I have disovered over the years is that the seeds planted by the teachings from her books and cd's in the early years grow perrennial crops. I read all of Ch9drin's books as of the period of my discovery of her work which was around the time of the millennium, 2000.

My daughter had quit college in her freshman year and flown to California to become an acress. I was paralyzed by anxiety. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't control the "invasive thoughts" based on fear - serial killers, pornographers, all the rabid predaors who prey on the naive young girls who think they are grown-up and know the world.

My first attempt at seeking psychological counseling was a disaster, and I had no one to turn to, but somewhere, maybe Shambala Magazine, I had come across the writing of Pema Codrin, so I bouht a 5 cd player and her cd's and all of her books - at that time about a dozen with titles like WHEN THINGS FALL APART, IN TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY, and others, all of which seemed to speak to my condition.

Every night I loaded the cd player and listened for the hours when I couldn't sleep and what that did was it displaced the intrusive fear thoughts with soothing medictation prompts and Buddhist teachings.

Over the years, I picked up more books and cd's of Pema Chodrin's works and they were like refreshers. My experience with her and her works changed my life, saved my life.

This morning, I was thinking of the suggestion "look at your thoughts passing by; don't try to get rid of them, or scold yourself for thinking, look at them like clouds passing in the sky, see them, know that they are only thoughts." That may be one of the mosst powerful recuring lessons I have learned from Chodrin. I meditate throughout the day, on the porch after walking the dog, while walking the dog, or at times of idleness, and that practice has helped to tame and soothe an anxiety tortured emotional creature.

My latest addition to this world of wisdom was a book recommended to me by Friends from Providence Friends Meeting, by author Rex Ambler, a pamphlet book from Pendle Hill Publishers and I think the title is the MYSTICAL ORIGINS OF THE EARLY QUAKERS. In the book, the author describes how Quaker silent meditation is paralell, or related to insight meditation as well as various psychological approaches to exploring our thoughts and becoming more adept at recognizing patterns and allowing us to not be controled by emotions generated by thoughts that are unproductive or unhealthy (monkey mind).

When I donated the 30 or more cartons of my library, I kept out a few books here and there, incuding some of Pema Chodrin's and perhaps in a later post, I will list the title of the few I kept. I hope the ones that left bring some comfort to other tortured souls being ravaged by their own uncontrolled thoughts and fears and the unhealthy emotional fallout from them.

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Family History Day

Red Bank Battleield, National Park, NJ

September 21st | 12 PM - 4 PM

Red Bank Battlefield Family History Day brings the Revolutionary War to life from 12 PM to 4 PM! Step aboard a colonial naval vessel and see how sailors once defended America’s freedom. At 1:30 PM, join a guided tour that uncovers the dramatic story of the Pennsylvania Navy and its bold stand at the Battle of Red Bank.

Twenty years since Katrina devastated the neighborhoods of New Orleans

One of the opening disasters of the 21st Century and a harbinger of disasters to come, was Katrina the category 5 hurricane that drove 25 feet of water into the neighborhoods of New Orleans and swallowed up the homes of half a million people and drowned and killed nearly 2000. New Orleans had withstood hurricanes before but this one was different, and this one was the opening salvo of the barrage of natural disasters to come: wildfires, mudslides, rising sea levels, drought - the consequences of climate change.

The Documentary KATRINA; COME HELL AND HIGHWATER, on Netflix gives a comprehensive picture of the before, during and after events that unfolded when that hurricane came ashore at New Orleans. This is superb docuemtary art - it blends the individual human experience with the wider media contxext and societial conditions to give a more fully informed view of the catastophe.

FULLY INFORMED - increasingly, the concept of being 'fully informed' has had less currency and 'emotionally driven' is the more operant fuel. Once an acquaintance and I were talking about how to know what is real or true in this age of misinformation, and I said that I use mulitple sources and compare. So, for instance, I get news from abc, New York Times, BBC, PBS, Cnn, and even the Guardian! Also, I subscribe to a news magazine called THE WEEK which surveys different news sources. She was a devotee' of Fox news and that was her only source of news bolstered by 'facebook' which in her life, as in many of others I have known, had become almost an addiction. Facebook was filling the lonely hunger for human interaction in lives where family, friends and neighborhood, had disappeared.

The power of Katrina took out the levees and canals that protected the low lying areas where the mainly Black neighbohoods were located and since they were in what was kind of a geological bowl, their houses were drowned in a25 foot storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain. People took refuge in attics and an rooftops, but houses were lifted from their foundations adn floated away tilting and dropping off the roof riders. Houses hit debris piles and tipped over.

The people who evacuated and took refuge at the SuperDome athletic structure were left abandoned, no food or water or medical assisstance. People who were sent to the Convention Center for promised transport out, were also abandoned there without food or water, to die of dehydration, sickness, and lack of basic medicines for their conditions such as insulin for diabetes.

It is no accident that the horror fell mainly on Black families who had lived in those poorer districts, and no surprise that the government that was supposed to protect and save them was nowhere to be found, left in disarray and chaos except to send in troops to stop "Looting" which mainly consisted of people trying to get water and food from stores to bring to their families. Our own troops paid for by our own tax money pointing their guns at their own people during a disaster.

We all remain woebully unprepared for natural disasters which are guaranteed to increase and eventually come to us all as the government is in chaos and those in charge are not only uniformed but willfully ignorant of the impact of global warning. We have seen that at our New Jersey Seashore towns. Willfully ignorant builders are still allowed to put up and sell structures on barrier islands that are vulnerable to hurricanes and that also destroy the natural vegetation that would protect the sand banks without the developments. Like our politicians, these profit seekers place financial gain ahead of everthing else so that they can buy bigger houes, more cars, ostentatious displays of excess wealth.

It is the end of the summer and once again many of us watched the movie JAWS a summer classic and once again we saw the same contest between greed and the safety of people put into contest. This contest between the impulse to greed and hoarding against the impulse toward protection and care for our fellow beings has played out thorughout human history. It appears that currently, Greed and selfishness are in power. Love and care, however, are always to be found and are powerful forces That's where hope comes in.

Note: there are things we can all do - plant trees instead of poisoning your yard to make a perfect lawn which profits no one and poisons our water supply. Think of paying a little more and using bamboo sourced toilet paper and paper towels. Vote down efforts to transport dangerous chemicals through our towns such as the controversy raging over transporting Liquid Natural Gas on our local small town train lines. And even more importanty GET INFORMED AND STAY INFORMED and don't limit yourself to the emotional hook of the propaganda channel Fox (owned by the greedy billionair Murdock). Rich people do not honor the social contract. They don't pay their fair share of taxes and they don't care about their fellow man, they only care about other rich people and their status in regard to them.

Last comment: family, friends and community. One of the things I took from the documentary was how important these three relationships are and in particular in times of trouble. wrightj45@yahoo.com. People banded together to help each other survive, and in the aftermath, to help build new lives. And the most important things lost was the family connection, people were separated from their loed ones and struggled to locate them again after it was over. It reminded me of the lines of dusty foot traffic after the Emancipation in 1863 where people walked from town to town, plantation to plantation to locate their loved ones who had been sold off from them. If there is a moral, it is LOVE - love our earth, love one another, and pay attention to what is going on around you!

Happy Trails wrightj45@yhaoo.com

Broken Hearted Book Lover

Yesterday was Labor Day and also Metereological Autumn. It was also a day when with my sister's help, I let go of over half a dozen books from my vast book collection. I have been a book lover since my earliest days and I even have the first book I ever bought, a begining reader that I bought at Leary's Book Store off Market Street in Philadelphia when I was just old enough to begin reading. Once I began, it was an endless love affair, my longest and most intense.

But like all my love affairs, this one had to come to an end. Each phase of my life was cocooned in a spun collection of books on the subject. Here is one of my early ones: When I was 16, I took my babysitting money to a book store in the Cherry Hill Mall. There was a 'sales' table and for $4.95, I bought an Art book of the lithographic works of Henri de Toulouse Lautrec. I fell deeply in love. Neither he nor I could have imagined that twenty years later, I would be in college studying Lithography as my major towards an Art degree. His lithographic posters were the shining city on a hill, the holy grail, the gold paved streets that inspired my journey. I couldn't help wondering, today, how Lautrec would feel to know that a woman in the far - over a hundred years distant future would be studying lithography because of his poster art. I think he would be astonished and pleased.

The reason I am divesting myself of my huge library is that I am losing my vision to Fuch's Dystrophy, a cornea disease. I can still paint and watch tv on my laptop, and drive, but I can't read without such a struggle (necessitating a magnifying glass) that it has no pleasure. My forlorn collections have sat gathering dust for a decade now, which was surely never their purpose in the world, so I decided to set them free.

Another reason I was divesting myself of my library NOW was that I have a connection with the Free Books Project which was originally located at the Newton Friends Meeting House in Camden when I began taking my books there. They give away gooks for free to anyone who wants them. At the time it was a community charitable venture that allowed Newton Friends Meeting to qualify for an archhitectural grant for repairs to the very very old Quaker Meeting House. The grant required that the building be engaged in a beneficial community program, so The Free Books Project was perfect. The Free Books Project is no longer there. Now they operate as pop-up libraries all over the city of Camden, especially in conjunction with other community events.

Knowing my books were going to such a worthy cause, helped me part with them. I liked to think that someone who didn't have the money to buy a book or access to a book store or a library could have a book to read. So many of my passions were between those covers.

Gone With The Wind: The film had such a powerful effect on me for so many reasons it could be an essay on its own. I loved it so much that I read the book many times, then the biography of Margaret Mitchel, then all the sequels written to follow the characters after the ending of the original book. Then I found a very old copy of the Civil War novel that inspired Margaret Mitchell. I can't remember the title now, something with "Drums" in it and if I remember correctly it was written by the granddaughter of a Confederate General, inspired by his memories of his war experience.

My years as a volunteer at Red Bank Battlefield in National Park, inspired an entire shelf in my floor to ceiling and wall to wall bookcase in my bedroom. First I read all the traditional histories, then novels of the battles, then diaries of the veterans like Joseph Plum Martin, and even two or three memoirs by Hessian soldiers, and I was inspired to seek out the three or four burial sites of some of the Hessian soldiers who died on the retreat after the Battle of Red Bank in October of 1777. And the WOMEN! I read the historical accounts of the "Camp Followers" and the memoirs of loyalists who lost everything, and female spies like Patience Wright (maybe she was a relative, maybe not) who was also a renowned sculptor.

For several years after retirement and during my long love affair with history, I gave talks for the Camden County Historical Society on the Underground Railroad. The Civil War and the Underground Railroad filled another 12 foot long shelf with stories of escape and valor, of suffering and success and led me on many hunts to spirit haunted places in my South Jersey landscape, like Saddler's Woods, or Ambury cemetery in Othello, Greewidh, NJ.

All these friends, companions, fire-starters got boxed up into cartons from a local liquor store and carted off to the Free Books Project. Goodbye to Harriet Tubman and Quakers serving in the Union Army, and Abraham Lincoln and Mrs. Lincoln and her dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley and Ona Judge who was never caught.

On the way home along Kings Highway from Clarksboro, I had a sudden squall of emotional pain and broke down in tears. But, I had to keep reminding myself, what is the use of keeping all those dusty books on the shelf when I can't read them. Surely that is both greedy and sinful.

S, now, the bottom shelf of all my collection of health books of the type of BLUE ZONES, and books on vegetarian cooking, heart disease, and other ailments like diabetes and kidney disease, are all out on the streets hopefully finding their way into the hands of someone who needs them. Now, all my Revolutionary War books are gone, and my Civil War books. And my Irish Literature books are all gone incuding a really old hard back of the works of Lady Gregory which I hated to part with. It was falling apart and I was afraid no one would understand what a treasure it was. I can still feel the damp, wet fog of the Irish night as the prisoner of one of her majesties torturous prisons makes his escape and cautiously ventures his signal to the dark figure waiting by the river, whom he hopes is the fellow rebel sent to help him. That scene is from one of her plays.

My novels went early and I can't even remember when I boxed and sent them on their way down the river of life. They may have been the second offering.

With foreboding I think there may be a bookcase in my dark and dreaded attic with all my poetry books in it. My Women's History went some years ago to the Alice Paul Institute Library.

The last to go will be my Art book collection in the floor to ceiling shelving unit my father buit into the wall at the foot of the attic steps. Those books I hold onto with the hope that the South Jersey Art Alliance will flourish in the Underwood Building of the Woodbury Friends Meeting grounds and that I can bequeath those books to them.

There are still three full shelves twleve feet long with New Jersey history, and a half shelf in the back room with coffee table books on Scotland and Ireland from my trip there and the following years of fascinating with all things Irish (my mother's people, after all, came from there!)

Well, now that I have gotten that off my chest, I feel a little better. I am reminded OFTEN of the Catherine Davis Poem, "After a time all losses are the same, and we go stripped the way we came."

When I left home at 18, I burned my yearbook in my family's backyard 'trash burning can' which we were allowed to have in those days, and when I left Philadelphia for New Jersey, I left all my college art portfolios and sketch pads. When I got divorced, I lost all my record albums and my entire collection of the books and magazines of the Second Wave Feminist Movement, books like The Feminine Mystique and The Female Eunuch and dozens of one-of-a-kind magazines printed on University presses and early copies of Ms. magazine.

Well, pets have died, romances have faded, and even my daughter has grown and moved far away. Grandparents die, parents die, uncles and aunts and cousins die. Old schools close, I have lost my beauty and my agility, my youthful vigor and my vision, and I am losing my hearing. As I approach the toll gate on the last road before the final big adventure, I suppose it is natural that I leave all these things of the material world behind. It is like a sinking ship; who cares for gold and silver, fine clothes and furnishings when the sea is about to swollow you. Still, it is just as natural to mourn the passing of old friends and my books were old friends, really old lovers, and great companions. I wish them all loving discoverers on their journey into the wider world outside my dusty shelves.

Happy Trails - in ink and on paper.

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Respect for the Greek inheritance of Philosophy

August 29, 2025 - I just read a short news item about the Taliban in dispute with the Chinese over oil well drilling in an Afghanistani valley. The Taliban accuse the Chines of reneging on the contract and the Chinese accuse the Taliban of "robbery" for forcible take-over of the oil wells and taking a dozen Chinese oil expert/workers hostage and confiscating their passports.

It is interesting to me in so many ways because the Taliban are, in fact, a lot like a criminal gang in the sense that they make their own rules and do not abide by those established by the outside world. And those rules established by the outside world, I was thinking about that and how much we owe to the ancient world, in particular to Greece and the evolution of Philosophy where thinkers examine and establish the core ideas upon which social governance and behavior get built.

My sister and I were talking about that on the phone and how religion fits in. I would say that religion was an early origin for philosophy in that it is a deal making kind of relationship between people and the outside world. People need something to turn to. After a time, savagery has demonstrated to lead to utter destruction and despair, so savagery must be reigned in. In despair and hoping to find some cause for things and some succor, people created gods, first on the elements: weather, sun, seasons. I will give you something I value if you give me something I need. This basic exchange, it seems to me, is at the heart of everything.

In the Western world we value Christianity because Jesus Christ made a lasting human example of a man so good he put love as the highest power, not lust or conquest. In the Western World we have put education and the value of learning what developed in our ancient civilizations in regard to social governance and human behavior at the heart of our civilization. The Greeks gave us philosophy and the search for the roots and functions of values, and Christianity gave us selfless values and devotion to the greater good rather than selfish savagery.

It will be interesting to see the Taliban trying to interact with the outside world when they have no cultural respect for or system for the learning (since they deny secular education and rely entirely on religious education for boys) of the historic devolopmnet of ideas on social governance and human behavior beyond savagery. They don't have a shared value for the social contract only a reliance on primitive savagery. When savages and tyrants try to make deals.

Respect for the Greeks and for Christianity AND especially for EDUCATIOM - my passion and my career field! >p/> wrightj45@yahoo.com

It isn't about living longer but living BETTER!

Out of the tail spin! Lately I have been in a slump. I have often said that I have never been lonely or bored and for most of my life that has been true - the other day, however, I sat listlessly on the sofa with no inspiration or interest and no amount of cat patting or dog companionship could lift my spirits. This, I thought is what boredom and loneliness feel like. I thought about my usual strategies, but so many of them are out of reach to me now. In the past, in a slump, I would hop in the car and take my dog for a hike around Pakim Pond in the Pinewoods. Gene's and the Red Top Market never faied to ift my spirits along the drive with Pakim pond and the pines a true tonic. Another thing I used to do was I would go to a book store (it used to be Borders) and load up on creativity magazines like ART JOURNALING and Somerset or Art in America. Well, I thought, I can still do that!

I love the seasonal magazines, especially Autumn/Halloween, and Winter/Christma! I knew I hadn't done the magazine thing for TEN years because my last Art Journaling Magazine was dated 2015! I decided to go to The Garden State Pavillions shopping center which I find so daunting I haen't been there in the last ten years. But I drank a latte' for fortitude and got my car keys and off I drove. First I parked too far away, then, although I searched and searched, I couldn't find Art Journaling - the main magazine I wanted. A store clerk helped me look and he couldn't find it either though it was on the computer as in stock. Nonetheless, I left with 6 new magazzine at an exorbitant price! In case you didn't know, the price of magazines has soared to from $20 to $30 each!

Getting out of the Garden State Pavilions onto Route 70 was a disaster due to construction barricades and detours and the odd uncooperative driver not willing to wait in line like the rest of us and attempting to line jump which caused an horn honking uproar in the herd. Finally I was home and so exhausted from my hunting trip I didn't even look at a magazine and instead I criticized myself for trying to fix an internal problem with external means and for spending money extravagantly.

Today however, I found the small spark of will I needed to get me to Martin's Lake with my dog, Uma. The walk around the beautiful lake on this extraordinarily gorgeous day (75 degrees) picked me up and I called in an order for Vegetarian Delight lunch special at Audubon's Chinese Take-out restaurant. Along the way I bought myself a latte' at Dunkin Donuts.

At home, I truly enjoyed the Vegetarian Delight which seemed crisper and more colorful even than usual and tastier too! The final verdict - I feel so much better! Call it the weather, being outdoors, a healthy lunch, all of the above - I am rejuvenated! And the Chinese take-out and the latte' were far less expensive than all those magazines, but the magazines give me somethin to look forward to - to anticipate. I can enjoy a good Art Magaine for a year or longer, which is why I still have the Art Journaling Magaine from 2015. And since they didn't have it at Barnes and Noble in the Garden State Pavilion, I bought a subscription on-line and my first copy will arrive mid September - another thing to look forward to. I hope this little push to a better level lasts! I will let you know! By the way, I have finished the Dr. Ornish UnDo It book - the audio-book version and I am trying to live up to it! I bought the paperback to review and reinforce.

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Looking for something new to try? Craft Classes!

Check out this line-up of fun craft classes available:

September 16-Star Book

September 23- Rag Rug

September 29-Nature Weaving

October 14-Wood Burning

October 21 -Gourd Scarecrow

October 28- Weaving

November 6- Embroidered Felt Star

November 12- Locker Hook Coaster Set

November 18- Thanksgiving Centerpiece

10:00 AM-12:00PM

Pre-Registration is required.

Call 856-224-8045 or email mcummings@co.gloucester.nj.us Cost $10.00/class Classes are held at 254 County House Road, Clarksboro, NJ

If like me, you are feeling the tingle of autumn in the air, you may be interested in one of the many many wonderful farmers' markets we have in South Jersey, after all, we are still the Garden State! This one has alwayeen my favorite:

Collingswood Farmers Market

Saturdays Now - November | 12 PM

Downtown Collingswood

Called “One of the State’s finest markets” by Charles M. Kuperus, the New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture, the Collingswood Farmers’ Market started as the dream of community volunteers and from the interest of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to bring fresh produce directly from local farmers to communities.

There are also music festivals and performances everywhere and since it isn't blazing hot anymore it seems like he perfect time to check them out. As always, I post for my old favoite The Albert Music Hall!

Albert Music Hall – Saturday Night Show

August 23rd | 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM

Albert Music Hall

Running since 1974, the regular Saturday Night Show features a mix of Pinelands, Bluegrass, Country, Americana, Folk, and Old Timey music each week. This week there will be 5 bands: Crown Acoustic, Eric Sommer, Fish & Whistle, Easy As Pie, and Billy Penn & The Inside Drivers.

Happy Trails everyone - wrightj45@yahoo.com

September Walking Tours at Red Bank Battlefield 2025

If you love Red Bank Battlefield like I do, you may find these walking tours of interest:

Sept 13 - Her Story - Colonial Women in Revolutionary Times

Sept 20 - The Road to Philadelphia 1777

Sept 27 - Crossfire - Descendants talk about the Whitall Family Plantation during the Revolution

Oct 11 - The Fall of the Forts: Mifflin and Mercer

Oct. 28 - Hessian Soldiers, Hidden Stories

The Walks are 1 hour and Free! For more information call 856-853-5120

Just checked the flyer again and it says registrationn is required.

Health update - the low down on Walking

From an npr nesletter in my morning e-mail

A new study reviewed data collected from more than 160,000 adults around the world on the link between step count and a variety of health outcomes, and suggests a new goal. After 7,000 steps, “there seems to be diminishing return on investment for increasing more steps," says Melody Ding, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney who headed up the data review. Compared to people who got in just 2,000 steps a day, 7,000-steppers’ chance of developing Type 2 diabetes fell by 14%, cardiovascular disease by 25%, symptoms of depression by 22% and dementia by 38%.

And don’t worry if you’re a slowpoke – researchers found a health benefit no matter the speed of your stride.

If you’re not into walking, that’s also fine. The point is to get physical activity. You can translate 1 mile of walking (approximately 2,000 steps) into one-fifth of a mile of swimming or 5 miles of cycling, says Dr. William Kraus, a cardiologist who studies exercise at Duke University.

"Everybody wants to know how little I need to do. That is the wrong question," says Kraus, "Anything is better than nothing — more is better than less."

The Biggest Loser, 20 Years Later

There is a 3 episode documentary on apple tv about the aftermath of the hugely popular show The Biggest Loser which aired 20 years ago as of 2024. It ran for about 18 seasons (or episodes) and the documentary follows up on the winners of the weight loss cmpetition. In case you weren't a watcher, Obese people auditioned to be on the show in a kind of weightloss race involving low calorie diets (as low as 800 calories) and all day work-out routines (of up to 8-10 hours a day).

Millions of people watched both apprehensively and hopefully, I think. At the time, I was, myself, about 50 pounds overweight. It is a 50 pound companion I have had since I was 38 and got pregnant. Before that, I had always been about 125 to 130 pounds. During my pregnancy, I ate carefully but with an eye to nutrition and nourishment for my baby not with an eye to my figure. It was the beginning of the personal sacrifice that marks the role of motherhood. Within 6 months after the birth of my daughter, however, I had lost the 50 pounds because at the time, I lived in the city of Philadelphia, worked in New Jerssey, and I had no car, so I walked everywhere carrying the baby in a backpack and a diaper bag and a school bag hanging on my arms - a workout of its own kind.

Once I moved to New Jersey and got a car, however, the weight didn't stay off, those sneaky 50 pounds that had hovered watchfully and waited for a chance returned at an average of about 10 pouds a year.

I was working all the time. I had a full time teaching job, two after school jobs teaching English as a second language and tutoring homebound children, and a full Saturday job from 9-5 at the University of the Arts. Sundays, I did the laundry the grocery shopping, and once I bought my house, the cleaning and yardwork. Needless to say, I was eating fast food and not looking after myself, though I tried. When you are cooking for two and one of them is a skinny and obsessively picky eater, you are trapped in the cycle of trying to tempt your child to eat something/anything that they like (mac and cheese) at the same time you try to get something with nutrition into them (carrot coins and chicken cordon bleu wa her faorite.)

Befor that life changing event of mothernood, I had been very involved with fitness thanks to a team of phys ed teachers I had the good fortune to eeet in college at Glassboro State College in the early 1970's. They were young and modern and interested in fitness. They allowed us to research and design our own fitness programs, and get our grades by charting our progress with their guidance. At the time, I was interested (as was just about everyone else thanks to Jim Fixx) in jogging and running. My program was to start out walking around the three sided park of Knight's Park in Collingswood, and slowly add jogging from telephone pole to telephone pole with the goal of eventually jogging one whole side, then two, then finally, all three. I did it, it worked and I got an A and an understanding of how to get fit. At that time, I was married and my ex-husband a competitive and inconsiderate man by nature was into both running and bicycling. Although I could do a 15 mile ride with pleasure and without pain, he found ways to force it into 50 mile rides which killed me and took the joy out of the experience. He had been in the army and his introduction into fitness training was forced marches with backpacks at Fort Gordon, Georgia. That kind of punishment suited his nature anyhow. So he often turned our outdoor experiences into painful forced marches.

After college and before divorce. I also had taken a course in Modern Dance, taught by a gifted and fascinating professional dancer/goat farmer. She was the old hippy stock, back to mother earth, organic produce in a truck garden, chickens, and goats for milk, cheese, and sale. She had been a lifelong dancer in first ballet, and then modern dance. The birth of her sons followed by her husband's desertion changed the course of her life. They had started the farm together but he had left for New York and a career in design and a wealthy younger woman, unencumbered by pesky disabled children. She was on her own with a deaf son and a handicapped daughter. I loved her class and for the first time in my life, I began to love and honor my body and to understand it. I found grace.

During that time, I also had become a vegetarian thanks to the life changing book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe. It was the time of the greatest fitness of my life. I worked in a library and I got there by bicycle while I also went to college part-time and alternating full time.

Divorce, a move to Philadelphia, dating and we zoom forward to my later years (middle aged), I was about 50 pounds overweight, raising my daughter, working all the time, and not eating mindfully, also I was still taking college courses and earning my third post- graduate degree. And in whatever time was left, I drove my daughter to her classes, her shows, and her athletic events. Then, my daughter grew up and left home around 2002. I was free.

First, I started walking at night, but I fell and broke my arm. Then I fell down the attic stairs and seriously injured my back. I realized I was not only fat but dangerously out of shape, I had to do something, so I joined a local gym that had a program where if you got 5 people from your work to join, you got a discounted rate Five teachers joined, but soon, I was the only one going. Every day, directly after school (I gave up the tutoring job) I put on my gym clothes and went straight to the gym (Royal Fitness in Barrington). I rode the bike for an hour and did a variety of strength building machines. People at the gym were helpful and supportive which helped me overcome my intimidation in the face of machines I had never used before and an experience beyond my comfort zone.

On the way home from the gym, I stopped at Audubon Lake and did an hour walk. On average, I did 2 hours at the gym and an hour walking and in one year, 52 weeks, I lost 50 pounds. I looked and felt marvelous, like a new person. The neon sign that kept blinking in my mind was "YOU CAN GET IT BACK" but the gym had stirred something else in me, a renewed interest in romance. Several years of unsuccessful and deeply disappointing dating followed during which I slowly gained the weight back. Then I watched The Biggest Loser! Like the contestnts I was sad and hoping for some kind of progress, some kind of FIX. Over the 20 years of the program, I, too, joined the gym again, walked again, cleaned up my diet again, and again and again. And each time, I lost 20 pounds or 30 pounds, and within the next couple years I gained it back again and I got old.

Unexpected Disabilities began to pile up in my late 60's and early 70's. First, I got degenerative spine disease which I discovered while taking a kayak off a car rack. It took a year for recovery from the damaged disc that impinged on the nerves in my spinal cord and caused the pain. That ended my outdoor life. I couldn't turn my head, or drive, and moving my shoulders was always dangerous. It got better eventually though, but the orthopedic doctor told me it would spread down my spine and it was not going away; it was dessicted disc disease. Then my eyesight failed - things got blurrier and I couldn't read anymore or read street signs while driving; the cornea specialists told me it was degenerative and genetic and it was Fuch's Disease - a break down of the pumps that dlean and protect the cornea. Then I tore the meniscus in one knee, and at the gym, I developed a stabbing pain in my hip while on the treadmill. the Orthopedic doctor said I had arthritis is both knees and both hips and the treadmill was bad for both. No more treadmill walking.

Still, I could always walk outside. And I have. I kept mainly to a simple diet with enough casual diversions into bad habits (ice cream, milk shakes, potato chips, cheesecake) to keep me 50 pounds overweight. But I stayed vegetarian. It wasn't enugh. Eventually I added two new afflictions to my resume' - a case of diverticulosis so severe I ended up in the hospital (Virtua in Voorhees) - (my daughter came home to help me establish a new routine of soups), and then a couple of years later a cardiac event which sent me to the hospital (Lady of Lourdes) and ended my volunteering at Red Bank Battlefield. My sister came to my aid this time and once again, I endeavored to help myself stay alive by going to the gym and walking the dog. That's where I am today. The diverticulosis was caused by my high blood pressure medications drying out of my intestines. The cardiac even twas caused by calcified soft tissue around my coronary artery.

The trajectory of The Biggest Losers has been somewhat similar. They were fatter and lost more but they, too, gained it back and are still engaged in the great struggle. Only one kept it off and he said he is an obese man in a fit body and every day he is hungry and every day is a struggle. Iterestingly, at age 51, one of the trainers, Bob Harper suffered a massive coronary heart attack. He was fit, but his cholesterol was high and he had a meat based diet; when he recovered, he became a vegan.

Perhaps that is the fact and the theme of this EVERY DAY IS A STRUGGLE. Whether your struggle is with nutrition or exercise, depression, family life, life purpose, home maintenance and independence in living while aging, cognitive decline, loneliness, we are all engaged in a struggle every day, and perhaps in my case, a great big gratitutde is that I have the will and the fortitude to engage in the struggle and that fortitutde may be the thing that buys another year of healthy life.

By the way, we (my dog and me) are just back from our walk around Martin's Lake, about 1500 steps, 1/2 a mile, and very good for meditation because it is peaceful, beautiful and usually pretty empty. I am listening to Dr. Dean Ornish's book UNDO IT! on audio book each night and trying to implement the lifestyle advice from his research. Also, I am doing the workbook each day. Just this week, my brother was in the hospital for his hear - congestive heart failure (which killed our father) and atrial fibrillation. He is now determined to clean up his lifestyle - no more drinking or smoking.

Good Luck on your Great Struggle whatever it may be!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

August is Wellness Month

Try these simple wellness tips: Stay Active – walk, dance, or try yoga Eat Healthy – focus on fruits, veggies, and whole grains Think Positive – practice gratitude daily Connect – spend time with loved ones. Manage Stress – try mediation or deep breathing Sleep Well – rest is key to good health

Collections - August 14, 2025

This headline item mademe think about collections today

Are you a collector?

A married couple, they died in a car crash in Italy. Mario Paglino and Gianni Grossi, designers who turned Barbie dolls into one-of-a-kind works of art that sold for thousands of dollars, including one that fetched more than $15,000 at a charity auction, died on July 27 in Italy. Mr. Paglino was 52; Mr. Grossi was 54.

Well, I haven't been a collector unless books count. I have thousands of books and have been donating dozens of large containers of books to the Free Books Project over the past 5 years because my eyesight is failing from Fuch's Dystrophy and I can't really read anymore. I am happy for my books to go to those who can read.

Other than books I don't have much in what you could call a 'collection' which is defined as a group of related objects. My daughter did have many Barbi dolls in her childhood and all the accessories including the converible car, the ice cream stand, the hair-dresser's salon, the recording studio, and the bargecue shop, among others. But perhaps her main collections were her Jurrassic Park action figures. She had a dinosaur encyclopedia and all kinds of accessories to that film, lunch box, t-shirts, posters, all that. She also collected American Girl Dolls and has Four of them. I forget their names. Actually almost anything that counts as a collection belongs to my daughter: she has an antique bottle collection given her one piece at a time by her father, probably a couple dozen bottles dug from privies in Northern Liberties in Philadelphia.

I am more of a one-of-a-kind collector. I have one doll from my own childhood, not particularly valuable in terms of cash but she means a lot to me because she was given to me by my Godfather, Neal Schmidt, who was possibly the nicest man I ever knew, kind, gentle, thoughtful and serene.

I gave away my seashell collection to my sister's grandson, and my fossils. For a time, I had an eye for house shaped teapots and I think I have three sets of them. Once, my daughter and I had a tins collection, added to by her vintage/antique buying and selling father, but Lavinia sold or disposed of most of them during a summer when she was getting ready to make her break-for California. She held a sureptious yard sale. I had forbidden it because I didn't want her gathering anything she decided might sell, loading it up out front and then disappearing leaving the remnants on the lawn which was a probably scenario for that period of her life. She held the yard sale when I was away and threw away trash cans of things that didn't sell. I was heartbroken when I saw some things I had given her - a little cupboard with an antique lead cowboy and an Indian to go with teh book The Indian in the Cupboard, for example. I just turned away and let it all go, not the first time in my life I had to make that move.

When I left my ex-husband, I was so exhausted, frightened and overburdened with worry I couldn't carry one more box of my stuff up to my apartment over the Drug Store on Haddon Ave. in Collingswood, so I left my entire collection of first and only edition feminist magazines and books on the curb. I had called some women's groups hoping someone would come to get them but no one was willing and I couldn't carry them up those stairs.

Collecting is an interesting and vauable pursuit, to me. First off, collector's save and conserve material culture for the future. Especially in this 'throw away' culture in which we live, stuff isn't saved, it is disposed of and replaced by new stuff.

I had a '3 Diminsion Art' course in college, taught by sculptor John Giannotti, where he once discussed the future of material culture and furnishings in a time when houses are built without attics. In my childhood most houses had attics and Grandparents and Great-grandparents things were stored there. Attics and chests of the antique and vintage items featured in many novels about treasure maps and shipwrecked ancestors forced into cannibalism. Our modern post World War II lives didn't include attics. Our modern New Jersey Development houses had no attics or basements. Nonetheless, some old family heirlooms managed to survive and float down to me and live with me at present. I have no idea what will become of them because, so far, in our family there is no one remotely like the kind of child I was which is how these objects came to be in my possession; I was that child, the reader, the saver, the Grandmother's girl. I have Sandman/Young Great grandmother's 1929 sewing machine, Merchant-Marine Wright Grandfather's mahogany deck chair, a wing chair in poor condition from my mother's McQuiston side of the family and some fading photographs from 1869. It is impossible for me to say what will become of these refugees from time after I, their conservator, am gone from this world.

I have been divested of my things several times over through divorce and moving. This house where I have lived for 40 years is filled with things which I suspect will have no value to anyone when I am gone, and this is a sad observation I hear all around me from people in my age group who are preparing for the final divestiture. Nobody wants all that old stuff.

I know there are collectors out there who would like to have and to hold many of the interesting items I have but I don't have the interest or motivation to make those arrangments; for example, I have a 1947 German made portable typewriter and an even older 1919 typewriter. The stories they tell from the times when they lives, but I don't feel like looking for homes for them.

Who knows, maybe a day will come when old things will become popular again and it will be easier to find homes for these wonderful things like my Great Grandmother's sewing machine. I can only hope so. Maybe a web site called The Old Curiosity Shop.

Happy Trails

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Collingswood Arts & Crafts Fair August 16

Join Perkins Center for the Arts in celebrating arts and culture from across South Jersey at the COLLINGSWOOD CRAFT AND FINE ARTS FESTIVAL!

Discover a vibrant mix of art and community at Artist’s Alley on Irvin. Emerging artists showcase their talents alongside hands-on crafts for the whole family. Perkins Center for the Arts brings together local artisans and is, again, partnering with Bancroft, a nonprofit serving people with disabilities, to feature student artwork in the Bancroft space in Artist’s Alley. Artist Kathy Casper will also be there, leading a hands-on art activity for visitors. Don't miss the stunning exhibition Visions of the Idyllic by Shutian Cao inside the Perkins galleries!

Festival Details: Explore, inspire, and support local talent August 16-17, 10:00 am-5:00 pm.

Special Events on Saturday, August 16:

Exhibition Docent Tours - 10 am - 1pm

Artist Talks and Stories in the Folklife Zone: 10:30 am - 2:30pm

Creation Station with Bancroft

Shutian Cao Artist Talk and Demo: 3:00 pm

Gallery Reception: 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Join in the Folklife Zone, part of Artist's Alley on Irvin! Established by the NJ Folklife at Perkins in 2022 as part of the Collingswood Crafts and Fine Art Festival, we honor contemporary living cultural traditions and celebrate those who practice and sustain them in South Jersey.

Enjoy free demonstrations, displays, and other activities featuring master artisans and tradition bearers. This year, we present a series of workshops on Sunday, August 17, presented by folk artists and tradition bearers who presented the day prior.

Full Schedule: https://canvas.perkinsarts.org/events/292

NJ Folklife at Perkins is a co-sponsored project of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Pineystock, a 60s-Themed Music Show

August 10th | 2 PM

Albert Music Hall

We’re throwing our very first Pineystock—a far-out, 60s-themed music show inspired by the legendary summer of ’69. It promises 3 hours of peace, pickin’ and harmonies. You might hear some Janis, CCR, and the Grateful Dead renditions—but this isn’t just a tribute show.

If you have never been to Albert Hall, you should go! It is a long ride to Waretown but how I loved that long dark ride through the mysterious pine woods to get there the many times I went in years gone by. I haven't been there in ages because 1.my eyesight has dimished with a cornea disease and I can't drive in the dark. 2. The adventurous friends I went there with have gone on their own path years back and we don't see one another any more. Nothing happened, we just drifted apart. 3.I can't get any of the people I know now to go with me! The last time I went about ten years ago, was with my daughter and she really enjoyed it. She even bought an Albert Hall bumper sticker for her car!

Wish I could go with you!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Anne of Green Gables and Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn

A random set of thoughts: when I was walking today I was thinking of Anne of Green Gables as I often do. It was probably the most influential of the books I read as a child and being a total book worm, I read a LOT of books. I read adult literary classics right alongside girlhood favorites like Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames-Student Nurse. But the one that touched my heart and influenced my life was Anne of Green Gables. Her profound response to the natural world matched my own. Her attempts to do the right thing even though they sometimes went awry matched my own. I realized with Anne of Green Gables that I wasn't odd or singular and that there were others in the world with a similar set of aspirations and sensitivities. Anne of Green Gables has walked through my long life with me. I am so glad I visited Nova Scotia twice although both times I was with a male companion who was captaining the expedition and so despite my desire, we didn't visit Prince Edwar Island. Nonetheless, I got the feel of the air and sky and sea from my visits.

Of course, being a girl in the last half of the twentieth century, I read the boyhood books as well as the girl books. So I read Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and in fact, most if not all Mark Twain's novels, although some of them were completely incomprehensible to me like A Connecticut Yankee i King Arthur's Court. But those boys, Huck and Tom, never reached my heart in any meaningful way and I never think of them now even though I have watched the film versions of the books as well.

It seems to me in some profound way, these two novels of youth represent the female and male worlds even through the vast stretch of time and change from when they were written to now - something more on the psychological level. And if I were in a literary program, I think I might want to explore this relationship. Anne of Green Gables still has spin-offs appearing on streaming tv services and has perhaps had more film inte rpretations that Tom Sawyer or Hickleberry Finn. Maybe women cling more to the literature of their childhood than men do. In fact, I knew very few boys who read for pleasure, neither of my brothers, for instance and non of the boys I knew in the neighborhood or in school. It wasn't until college and the literature program that I was in that I met young men who loved books and wanted to talk about them. That was a revelation and a joy!

Anyhow since this literary pondering wasinsisting on being put down somewhere, here it is.

wrightj45@yahoo.com

UnDo It update - Day 2 Aug. 4, 10:00 a.m.

Well, a small victory and a small defeat (so far) I did manage our walk to Martin's Lake and I went with a neighbor who often walks with me and Uma, my Lab. I did NOT get to the gym, at least not yet. One of the reasons I was so keen on trying this Ornish program was because I have been having a symptom for about a year - a queasy stomach in the morning, often before I awaken and it is pronounced enough that it wakes me up. I googled it and the result was probable low blood sugar. I am still trying to figure out what to eat or drink and when to eat or drink it. But I hoped that if I followed the program, I might be able to ward off diabetes if that is the cause of the nausea.

By the way, the grocery shopping that I did yesterday only cost a total of $40. I will make the salad again today for lunch because I am determined to have fresh vegetables EVERY day for the 8 week program.

Also, I had hoped to get to the gym today to help raise my daily step count which, yesterday, by the end of the day was 3300 and I am aiming for 5000. Today, the park is only 1500; it is a half mile park and takes about 30 minutes at my glacial pace. Because I have arthritis in my feet, knees and hips and a bad back, I walk very slowly. Also I have to be careful walking because of my eyesight problems, one issue is I can't see depth properly, so a crack in the sidewalk can be a fall for me if I am not slow and careful. My back holds up just enough to make it around Martin's Lake which makes this walk perfect for this stage in my fitness attempt.

wrightj45@yahoo.com

A New Start - Dr. Dean Ornish's book - UnDo It! Tracking my progress

Yesterday I began to listen to Dr. Dean Ornish's new book UnDo It! about reversing and preventing chronic diseases. I was familiar with his Reversing Heart Disease book and I was hoping this new book would get me back on the track to improving my health and mobility.

For 3 days, I have done my morning walk around Martin's Lake with my dog Uma. The weather has been superb. Today, after Woodbury Friends Meeting, I stopped in the ShopRite and from the organic dept. in produce I bought: broccoli, shredded carrots, baby leaf spinach, and tomatoes. It is my goal to make a fresh vegetable salad every day at midday. The two areas I have fallend down on most are eating vegetables and getting to the gym for my half hour workout.

I will track my progress here: So today, Sunday August 3rd (It is good to start at the beginning of the month!) the full process, at least the walking and the fresh vegetable meal begin! I forgot to get mushrooms, and I want to add sunflower seeds and black olives. Oh yes, I also had an ear of corn microwaved in its husk - delicious! I am on chapter 2 of the UnDo It! book. I will keep you posted.

The main idea I take away so far is that instead of compartmentalizing heart, separate from brain, and diseases separate from each other, like diabetes separate from diverticulosis, they are all in one system and that system needs the proper fuel and maintenance: vegetable based diet, and strength training with cardio - walking and the gym. That way, the cardiovascular system can deliver the right stuff to the brain and the organs and can keep modulated the balances of sugar and fats and such. Forgive me if my explanation is less than AMA ready.

Happy Trails! And may your trail run through good weather and fair skies! wrightj45@yahoo.com

Another Strategy to Save Myself

Yesterday a friend on a phone call recommended a book to me and today, by coincidence, I read about it in my daily e-mail news feed: Dr. Dean Ornish's book UnDo It! - Lifestyle choices to reverse chronic disease. In particular, this book, acccording to my friend, strives to focus on brain health and early intervention against cognitive decline. Mp/> This blog post is only to introduce the idea. I have borrowed the book via Audible and I will be listening to it at bedtime which is my habit. I have lost so much vision due to Fuch's Dystrophy - a degeneration of the cornea due to the break-down of the Fuch's pumps responsible for cleaning and protecting the cornea, that I can't really read anymore - it is such a struggle and I need a magnifying glass. So, I listen to audio books. I doubt there is much new in this book to me, as I read Dr. Ornish's heart book in the beginning of my heart disease fifteen years or so ago, but I think of it as a REVIEW and Inspiration to get back to the good lifestyle.

In truth, I do a good many of the recommended things as do many of my friends including - I am a vegetarian. The friend who recommended the book is a vegan (Marilyn Quinn) as is my other best friend, Barb Solem. I haven't been willing to go that far but I am close. I still have dairy products in my diet, cheese, ice cream!, and a milk based protein drink, and, to be honest, I DO NOT eat enough vegetables and fruits each day. I am a carboholic.

My main failure, however, is in the area of exercise. For the month of July I have done no exercise. The previous couple of months I was doing well - going to the gym 3 times a week for a light workout: 15 minutes on the bike, two arms machines, two abs machines, a couple other weight machines here and there, a total of 30 minutes. And I was walking EVERY day at Martin's Lake, a half mile walk on a good sidewalk around a charming pond. Then, the dog got sick with a serious illness, pancreatitis, and my days were taken up with getting my sister in Clarksboro each day to help me carry the dog out, fix her special foods (boiled chicken and rice) and get her to the vet. That took two weeks, and then I got sick with a recurring stomach bug - diarrhea and nausea that lasted a day or two. The same illness hit me last summer.

That little health crash got me off my exercise track and I never got back on. The excessive heat of this month didn't help. Following that, I became apathetic, sad, lazy and struggling. My sister's bi-weekly cleaning visits really helped me keep my head above water, but I wasn't doing the minimal exercise component.

Fortunately, I was able to keep one thing going - my writing (my daily journal and my blog) and working in my Art Journal - creative exercises. Also, I work pretty diligently at keeping up with friends in whatever way possible, texting, phone calls, lunches.

So, with this blogpost begins my journey with the new Dr. Dean Ornish Book and whatever program or ideas for saving myself that it inspires which I will share with you. I have recommended the book to two other friends and we are tossing around the idea of a casual book club based on it. I will let you know how that progresses! Happy Trails - wrightj45@yahoo.com

Old People Talking - Conversation

One of the things I love about this blog is that I often have a lot of thoughts and conversations and this is a place where I can put them. I don't know if I am sharing them. Various friends have told me from time to time, that they read something in my blog and recently a cousin from my childhood found me because he looked something up and it took him to my blog! This morning I was talking to my sister about my latest passion for dressmaking in the late 1800's as a career and an art.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my Great-grandmother was a skilled dressmaker according to the Federal Census, by the age of 16. Also by that age, I was taught in high school Home Economics Class how to sew and by 18, I was making all my own clothes. My sister and I both could sew and we grew up watching our mother re-upholster furniture and sew all the curtains for our houses. My mother also made some of my clothes and in particular, I remember an Easter outfit she made for me of pale yellow linen in the style of Jackie Kennedy, a slim skirt and bolero jacket with a paisley brown and yellow cummerbund. It was beautiful. Being a teenager, I didn't respect the garment or my mother's efforts or art - I wanted jeans and a sweater set - the going fashion for teenagers.

But I digress, and that brings me back to my subject, old people talking. This morning I asked my sister if I was boring her talking about sewing clothes and the cost of fabrics in Philadelphia in the 1960's and she said I wasn't because she liked to sew too. I asked her because I had stopped phoning my brother because although I listened politely to his endless stories about getting tree trunks and renting a log splitter to make his wood piles for the winter wood stove, and his detailed accounts of car and truck repairs, if I talked about something interesting to me, he was in the habit of putting his phone on mute. When I got hip to what he was doing, I confronted him and then stopped calling. It is a two way street. You tell your stories and listen to theirs. My sister and I do that. She talks about work rlationships and the adventures of her daily bus commute which I find interesting because I took the bus to the city daily for years when I worked at the library in Glouceter City and my bus and hers used the same route and things have changed!

Recently, however, atlunch with two friends, I was talking about discovering the death of an old friend I had looked up on the internet. The friend and I had known one another in the 1970's and hadn't kept in touch much over the years. I looked him up and found his death notice an the Canadian registry of artists. He died in 2022. It was remarkable to me because I have reached the age where often when I look up someone from the past, I found they have died. The friend with whom I was talking had done her share of the conversation on the topics of her frivolous daughter-in-law, her son's lack of control of his wife, and her still painful hip replacement surgery, and I had listened politely, but when I was talking about the Canadian artist and how we had met, she was getting impatient and interrupted and told me to get to the point and complained that I digress too much. I was hurt. I fought back and reminded her of the social cotract of friendship where we listen to one another with patience and respect. She and I haven't spoken since and I feel the friendship may be waning. Waning friendships in aging is another good blog topic for another time.

Anyhow, talking about sewing my dresses for work as a young woman working in Philadelphia in a publishing company in the 1960's may have been one of those well known 'old people boring conversations' so I asked my sister but of course, she is prejudiced in my favor and said it wasn't boring.

The friend with whom I am having lunch today was mentioning to me how when she gets together with her gentleman friend's young family, his adult children are middle-aged and their children are in their teens, none of them ask her even one question about her books or her writing or her life. They aren't interested in her at all. She has written three wonderful books on the pines: Batsto and other Quirky Places in the PineBarrens is her most popular one. She is very popular at Pinebarrens events like the antique glass and bottle show and the Clountry Living Fair and hundreds of people tell her how much they love her books, but her boyfriend's kids have no interest at all.

I have seen this before in regard to old people. Once at the photo department of Walgreens an old man showed me a photo of his Navy ship in the arctic. They were there searching for parts of a Russian crashed craft of some kind. He was trying to tell the store clerk who was visibly bored and impatient, which I have seen before, and which I understand. After all, they are working! That clerk didn't give a hoot about Russian aircraft or the arctic and the old man was keeping him from his tasks probably stocking shelves.

We have no place to tell our stories if we have no friends. That's one of the things I LOVED about my previous involvement with historical society volunteer work - we all were interested in history and enjoyed the stories we shared. Plus it was all older people who were polite by a lifetime of training and because historical clubs and societies seem to attract polite people.

I don't have any conclusions to draw from this set of observations about aging and conversation, except that I suppose it is a big challenge and an important one to continue into our aging to cultivate friends in social groups who share our interests so we have people to talk to. And, perhaps, to take up writing and also take up blogging! It just occurred to me that one of the reasons I have been so interested in my Greatgrandmother's life as a dressmaker is because I listened to an old person talking when I was young.

Happy Trails! wrightj45@yahoo.com

New Art Journal Page project - The Dressmaker

As you may have read, if you follow this blog, I have my Great Grandmother Catherine Sandman's 1929 sewing machine. As a young child, I actually met her, although at the time, she was suffering from a catastrophic stroke and my Grandmother Mabel was taking care of her in Ocean City, New Jersey. She has fascinated me ever since. I am fortunate enough to have a series of photographs of her from the ages of 16, 20's, middle age, and just before she died in her 80's.

During the time that I was focused on family history I found CAtherine in Phildadelphia on the Federal census living with her family, German Catholics just south of center city. Catherine was listed as a seamstress and I had the oral history from her daughter, my Grandmother Mabel, that they both sewed uniforms for the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia. Most of my ancestors grew out of the fertile fields of South Philadelphia, which is where I, in fact, was born and raised until age 11.

My German ancestors in Philadlphia worked in traditional trades: brewers, bakers, dressmakers, watch repair. The tradition of sewing was passed down to me in the form of the quilts my Grandmother Mabel sewed for all of her grandchildren, one of which I passed on to my own daughter, Lavinia.

I didn't realize it at the time, by the course in sewing that was given to girls in high school in my youth, was to play a contual part in my life. From those early introductory lessons I lerned to make a skirt from a pattern. The paper patterns were a thin tissue of a pale cream/coffee color. I learned to use a device with a spoked wheel and colored carbhon paper to trace darts and other details from the pattern onto the fabric. Thanks to the Simplicity Easy to Sew patterns, when I was 18, working in Philadelphia at a publishing company, I could buy fabric in the many fabric stores and sew a simple stylish sheath dress in less than an hour for less than $5.00. It took about 1 and a half yards of fabric which I could buy on sale from a remnants table, and since I had been taught how the patterns worked, even such arcana as finding the direction of the weave of the fabric (not really that important in the kind of basic sewing I was doing), I had no trouble learning how to make up the simplest garments. Later, I used that skill to make my toddler's adorable little cotton overalls. These could also be made in under an hour for under $5.00 which was a great help as I was living on very limited income until the 1990's when I was able to supplement my meager income with part-time jobs. By the time my daugher was school aged, I was buy clothes because I had no time to sew. For all those years, I used my mother's Singer sewing machine. I have written about that machine in an earlier post this year. According to my sewing machine repair-man, Chuck McGowan, it is the best model Singer that was ever made. I would have to agree as it has been sewing for me for over 60 years and for my mother before me.

My high school education prepared me for a job in the clerical world. I guess if you put a simple, broad chronology to Women's Work, the kind that earned money (for the common woman), it would be housekeeper, seamstress, nurse, clerk, schoolteacher. All of my friends in my age group - 70's, were carried by the stream of current culture into the last three of those career choices. The generation of women that I knew from my mother's period were almost all home=makers, although one or two had jobs in offices as clerks, or saleswomen in department stores. In my Grandmother's generation all the women I knew were homemakers, housekeepers, or in my Grandmother Mabel's case, saleswomen. She worked in Stainton's Department Store in Ocean City on Asbury Avenue.

Her mother's generation were housekeepers, seamstresses, bakers, cooks.

The important point to me, however, is that they had a way to earn a living. My interest has also shown me that many women in my Grandmother's and Greatgrandmother's time worked in factories as well which I saw in photographs of the early textile mills. I guess the one thing I left out because it was outside my experience was farm work. I do know that many women from the lower economic class in Philadelphia were transported by bus to do farm work during harvest seasons in New Jersey. Many brought their children who also worked in the fields during harvest. Now that work is done by immigrant labor and by machine.

To get back to the tools of the trade, however, which is what my next pages in my Art Journal will be about, I have a deep fondness for these things which made it possible for women to free themselves, by however so small a degree, from total economic dependence and domestic servitude: the sewing machine, and this trade, dressmaking, seamstress, was a SKILLED trade! It also involved beautiful resources, fabrics, laces, buttons and beads, and creativity, at the same time that it demanded backbreaking labor and exactitude. Take a look at those dresses in the next museum you visit and the painstaking details of pleating and beading and fitting. Those dresses were a creative and a tormenting process, and a kind of prison for the wearer.

Recently I came across an interesting detail about the white dresses worn by the famous poet Emily Dickinson. They ahve always caused a bit of mystery in those familiar with the life and work of the great America poet. She 'took' to wearing the simple white garment at some point in her life and stayed dressed in them until she died, a recluse.

What I learned recently was that the style of dress was a common "house dress" worn by women in that time, loose fitting and relaxed and most importantly NOT REQUIRING A CORSET! Can you imagine spending your days laced up in a suffocating torture chamber of a corset restricting both your movement and your breathing? I can't. No wonder Emily opted for the house-dress.

Even this simple garment however, had many tiny pleats and lace trim on collar and cuffs. Lace, remember, was hand-made from about the 1500's to the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800's and early 1900's in factories. Lace was imported from such centers as Italy and Belgium where it was handmade by skilled craftswomen.

Even in my own childhood, women plied some ancient fiber arts such as crocheted doilies and tableclothes, as well as the yarn arts of knitting. I have sample of each of these arts and they are magical - to be able to take a length of string and turn it into a lacy filigree! But these skills are dying out in my generation. We all have too many jobs to juggle along with housework and childrearing.

Many years ago when I was in Mexico, I bought a shopping bag finger woven from cactus fiber! I wish I still had it, it was unbrakeable but I have long since lost it. It is a long thread from those early women taking a fiber and figuring out how to turn it into a frabric, to the seamstresses making shirtwaists and ballgowns and the factory workers keeping eh bobbins loaded and the machines running.

Happy Trails along the thread that runs so true! wrightj45yahoo.com

Finding Inspiration-Fighting Ennui

July 26, 2025 - I was feeling a common apathy of a hot summer morning and in my e-mail news feed, I came across an npr essay on what columnists did to give a perk to the morning. As it happened, I was thinking that I felt uninspired and I began to think of what I do when I am looking for insspiration and I thought of my big tub of resource files in the back room of my little bungalow.

Over the many many years, when I am working on a new project for an art show, I will print out pictures from photographs or other resources to use for reference. There are so many, I could go right up the alphabet but the most common are family, friends, historic places, landscapes, pets, memories. After the pojects are over, the files become scattered, but this Spring in a major organizing effort of a couple of weeks, I got all my art supplies and my downstairs folders into labeled tubs. (The attic will have o wait, maybe forever)

My morning latte' gave me enough energy to go back into the Den and pull the heavy tub off the shelf and rifle through the folders pulling out promising prints: pets, my favorite willow oak tree on Station Ave, in Mt. Ephraim, the Railroad trees (60 of them in a column beside the tracks) throughout the seasons, mushrooms and a Mary Oliver poem. I also found an old wooden ruler that I liked and I have been searching for.

I have been wanting to do a project on the railroad trees through the seasons for years. I have photos of them in winter in snow, in Spring in bloom, and summer in green and fall in russet colored leaves. Today may be just the day to do that page in my Art Journal.

I also found an old dinosaur birthday card that I filled out to mail to a friend whose birthday I am celebrating in August with tickets to the Edelman Fossil Park and Museum, part of Rpwan University. The card must be from my daughter's childhood, hence, more than 40 years old! In a few minutes I will take the dog for a short ride to the post office to mail that and another card I am sending to an Art Journal buddy. We will ride around one or more of the local parks while we are out which is another thing I do to get inspired and to cut through the haze of apathy that often fogs me in in the mornings.

This is a special day because it is the second day when, thanks to my sister's energetic and expert help on Thursday, all the chores are done and I am free to do whatever I please! So, the ride to the PO and the parks, then I will pick one of the pages and start an art journal page. I think it will be the railroad trees!

I hope this inspires some ideas in you for what to do with your one and only unique and irreplaceable day! By the way, I also received an essay from an old classmate that he wrote about the death of his family companion, Buddy the Labrador Retriever. My files inspire writing as well as providing imagery for my Art Journal, as can be attested by this blog entry. Maybe you'll be inspired to write. How about a summer memory?

By the way, if you are interested in starting an Art Journal, you don't need any specific or special artistic skills, you can begin by doodling, any pattern, any idea, any sketch. I think I wrote a blog entry earlier about a man who wrote a column in this month's AARP magazine about his 50 years of keeping journals! Good for the brain, good for the memory, maybe even good for posterity!

Happy Trails - wrightj45@yahoo.com

Groundbreaking Ceremony at Benjamin Cooper House, Erie Street, Camden, NJ

"America’s 250th birthday will be celebrated on July 4, 2026, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 in Philadelphia. The celebration will involve various events and initiatives throughout the U.S. spanning several days." This excerpt is from a very much longer piece in my e-mail from the Camden County Historical Society of which I am a member and have been for many years. Once, after retirement, I was also a volunteer/part-time worker in the suitcase school visiting program for a couple of years. In that program, we (the volunteer/part-time employees carried a trunk of artifacts from two significant periods of our history - Colonial Settlement, and The Underground Railroad.)

Also, at that time, I was very much involved in what came to be about 15 years of intense family history research. Our family, on my mother's side, had a long history in the Camden/Gloucester County area: Major Peter Cheesement (a road named for him runs along Camden County Colege campus) was an ancestor. His daughter, Rachel Cheeseman married William C. Garwood a teacher, storekeeper for the Turnersville Store, and postal employee as well as some municipal and church posts in the Turnersville area. His grandson was my grandmother, Lavinia McQuiston Lyons, father.

Most of the family at that time were involved in the many mills that lined Timber Creek, saw mills, and grist mills.

One of Major Peter T. Cheeseman's ancestors was also a veteran of the Revolutionary War, Richard Cheeseman. During my voluteer days at Gloucester County Historical Society (Camden and Gloucester counties overlapped one another during their history) I found Richard Cheeseman in Strickers revolutionary War Index. Proving his blood connection to Major Peter T. Cheeseman seemed too complicated for me to pursue given the scarcity of paper trails in the time of wooden buildings and fires, not to mention the use and re-use of the same names throughout family history.

Anyhow, even without the family history, my volunteer work in the 20 years after retirement took me to many places that fired up my interest in our fascinating history in this early colony of the new world. I was also a volunteer at Red Bank Battlefield for many years, giving tours of the Anne (Cooper) Whitall and James Whitall House at that historic site.

I am eagerly awaiting the opening of this new venue to celebrate our history and grateful that speedy and brilliant strategy saved this landmark from the fate of the historic Harrison/Hugg House in Bellmawr which was demolished by the Department of Transportation.

You can find more on this landmark place and event via google and it would be a helpful and valuable thing for you to send in a check and become a member of Camden Historical Society. They have a terrific magazine and the e-mail flyer that I get gives literall dozens of wonderful events in this remarkable County!

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com

Batsto Citizens Committee Summer Newsletter item July 15, 2025

The Batsto Citizens Committee Summer Newsletter is a great read and I always enjoy it. You can become a member and get your on-line copy as well! There was a fascinating essay about the history of the paper mill turned Playhouse in this issue. What I can share with you however, is the Events Calendar.Special Events for 2025

7/19/2025 ~ The Second Pennsylvania Regimental Reenactment

7/27/2025 ~ Batsto Dog Show

9/28/2025 ~ Fall Antique Glass & Bottle Show

10/19/2025 ~ Country Living Fair

10/26/2025 ~ Haunting in the Pines

12/7/2025 ~ Winter in the Pines

I haven't been very often in recent years but Batsto was a favorite palce of mine since my teen years and I strongly recommend it for a family visit, or for a single solitary hike and enjoyment of the history of this wonderful place. If you go to an event, go early and be prepared to park at a distance as the events are very popular!

Happy Trails wrightj45@yahoo.com