Red Bank Battlefield Event - April 2023

Our Poisoned World

Toay and yesterday (March 26 and 27) we had telephone and e-mail alerts about our drinking water. It turns out a manufacturer upstream on the Delaware River had a chemical spill and the waterways in the estuary of the Delaware River are compromised. My phone message said "Burlington and Camden Counties are put on restriction alert" and we are not to use our potable water for anything but drinking. I have always been against watering lawns anyhow - it has alway seemed a terrible waste of water. And I am a modest launderer and showerer as well. People seem to have lost the art of washing themselves and feel they need to shower to wake up as well as get clean.

Well, not to pat myself on the back, but, I will - I have multiple notices from Public Service Electric and Gas commending me on being more environmentally responsible than the best in my town! They have little colored houses on a rating sheet that show the average consumption, the most environmentally conservative, and then there is my little house, smallest of them all. I have NO lawn, so there is no watering there, and I don't launder as much as average either. Again, I wash myself so my clothes dont get as dirty or smell bad and I can wear them more than once. Same for my bed linens. I am clean and my bed is clean. My dog has her own bed and isn't allowed to sleep on mine and I cover my bed with rubber backed protective covers during the day when the cats nap on it.

Anyway to get back to the water. I always drink Poland Springs water which comes from natural springs in Maine, not from anywhere around here. I have been to Poland Springs, Maine because there was a Shaker village there and one summer, my friend, Tom Clapton, my daughter, Lavinia and I drove to all the New England Shaker communities, both still extant and those closed and only remembered by a sign or a building. One plain little yellow building in Connecticut was on a prison property that we could only see from a distance behind a tall chain link fence and a sign that warned against trespass.

Anyhow Poland Springs water is always rated high in tests of bottled water, and it smells and tastes clean and refreshing unlike the tap water in Camden County. I need to look up where our water comes from.

I had just been shopping so I already had a case of water bottles and two gallon jugs of water but I went back today to Shop Rite and bought two more cases and two bottles of another kind of water. Shop Rite was almost sold out. People had three and four cases of water in their shopping carts. My sister told me people were coming from Philadelphia because all the stores there were sold out. They are the most hard hit.

There have been so many water and spill disasters recently - just the past month there was the train derailment and chemical spill in New Palestine, Ohio that made the residents sick and killed animals, and before that the water disaster in Mississippi and of course, Flint, Michigan. Locally, we have had three train derailment spills in local waterways in Paulsboro, Gloucester County. One of them made the air stink for miles around for two weeks.

And if that isn't bad enough, Pennsylvania wants to send hundreds of rail cars and trucks through the urban surroundings to New Jersey, through Camden, Woodbury and into Gibbstown, to ship Liquid Natural Gas from fracking in Pa. to Europe for profit! It isn't even for local consumption but to be sold to Europe. And Liquid Natural Gas is terribly flammable. All it would take is a spark, a bullet, a derailment to unleash a Dresden like firestorm in this highly populated urban/suburband environment. It is insane.

One of the people from my Woodbury Friends Meeting has been an environmental activist, Marilyn Quinn, and she has been protesting and making as many people as possible aware of this LNG danger.

So now it is here, we are the ones with tainted and dangerous water. I am extra anxious about such things because of the year I almost died when the Pennsauken Creek was polluted with raw sewage from an overextended local sewage plant which sent a cloud of poisonous mosquitoes into our neghborhoods and made over a dozen children (including me) sick with hepititis. I was in the hospital for weeks, at home in bed for weeks and missed my 9th grade year of school (Happily). and was left with a permanently compromised liver because no one realized how sick I was until I was unable to sit or stand up any more. When I complained about feeling sick, My mother thought I was malingering because I hated school so much I was always trying to stay home where the fun was. Finally, exasperated she took me to the doctors and he said, "Mary did you not notice your daughter was yellow?" She had not. But in her defense I hadn't noticed either. But there I was, skin and bones and yellow from the whites of my eyes down. I had to go into the hospitl because I had been sick for so long I had liver damage and was in danger. I was warned never to drink alcohol and never to give blood to the Red Cross. I never did either. And from then on I have been acutely aware of the unseen dangers lurking in water, insects, and invisible entities like bacteria and virus.

There was a mysterious art installation at the University of the Arts once, a long snaking line of plastic coctail cups, the kind they gave out at cocktail parties at gallery openings. Each cup was half full of water. No one could figure it out until one day I SAW it - It was the shape of the Delaware River in water cups! I have always been interested in the shapes of rivers. They are so much the same as our arterial and veinous systems, and our nervous systems.

Also the Delaware River has played a big part in my life as I was raised so close to it and have lived within blocks of it most of my life. It pains me to think of the careless negiglence that poisoned this river, our main artery of survival, and all the creatures who depend on it, fish, birds, wild animals, that will be sickened and die because of this spill. I am heartsick at the greed and ignorance that is poisoning our world, our fragile planet. I can only hope that somehow a kind of transcendant awareness will come along and make people care about their world and their bodies, and all the creatures who share our world. But I don't know. My brother was talking about how he likes to visit the cows when he walks the dog and how he feeds them grass and they know him and come to visit and I said it makes me sad because they trust and they don't have any idea what people are going to do to them. My brother just doesn't think of it. Sorry about this sad post. But do what you can to conserve - don't water a lawn or poison it with roundup to get rid of little yellow flowers (it's our drinking water). Become a vegetarian. Use and reuse before you replace. Here's a good one: "Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, do without." Try to conserve wherever and whatever you can. Be MINDFUL.

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (don't forget - comments is also polluted like the river so contact my e-mail if you want to chat, not the comments function.)

Some things to watch on tv (or if you are like me, on the laptop!). My cousin recommended THE CHOSEN, which is onNETFLIX and I think I may have th etitle slightly wrong, but it is about Jesus a good choice before Easter. I plan to watch it as soon as I finish a series that I wouldn't recommend called CASTLE which is on Hulu. I only watch it because it is more or less light and that is what I needed recently.

I spent a very well placed $60 to subscribe to PBS Passport for one year. It gives you access to every pbs program which includes Finding Your Roots, NOVA, pbs Newshour, and American Experience, among many others. Also, they send me e-mails telling me about new programs. I mentioned one in an earlier post called FIGHT THE POWER, which although it was the history of Hip Hop which many people don't care for, was actually a very fine and fascinating social commentary on urban African American Experience as it is translated and expressed via Hip Hop and Rap. I do recommend that! Also American Experience has this one coming up: March 28 at 9/8c

  The Movement and the “Madman" shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved.

The Vietnam War divided many families as it did mine. I felt deeply about the war, my brother went to Vietnam and I am eternally grateful to be able to say he came home and we just spoke on the phone a few hours ago as we do most day. He got to be 75 which so many other young men did not. I felt the war was unjustified and a waste of lives both Vietnamese and American. The protest in the program above is one I attended in a bus provided by WOMEN IN LEAGUE FOR PEACE AND FREEDOM. It goes without saying that my father, a WWII navy veteran was furious at my stance and believed we should support our country right or wrong. I felt that was the same line the Nazi regime put forth to the German people and that we should stand up if we believe our country is headed in a bad direction. We got past it, especially as my brother came home alive and my husband, drafted but sent to Germany, and I came back safely from our overseas adventure.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ

138 Andaloro Way

Deptford, NJ 08093

856-812-1121

sjmuseum@aol.com

One of my favorite places to visit on a regular basis, this little local Museum is hosting a World War II exhibit beginning April 1st. For those of us raised on the history of WWII, this is a don't miss it opportunity! My father was a WWII veteran. He served in the US NAVY in both the North Atlantic and the South Pacific and I claim it as one of our greatest blessings that he returned safely as did my brother who served in Vietnam more than 20 years later. Our family was lucky indeed and you need only visit the monuments and cemeteries for both of these wars to empathise with the families that weren't so lucky, and that suffered the the tragic loss of their loved ones to these wars. But, we WON!! We defeated Fascism and Naziism and we saved the free world from tyranny and genocide. We celebrate the effort and the sacrifice of our World War II heroes and the veterans of all of our wars.

Hope you have a chance to visit this museum and see this exhibit. Maybe I will see you there!

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

"She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness"

A short Review for Women's History Month: I just saw a documentary I happened upon by accident called Eleanor Roossevelt - American's Greatest First Lady. Although having watched nearly every documentary about the Roosevelts over the years and read many books on them as well as on Eleanor Roosevelt, there were a few things I hadn't noticed before.

We all are aware that Eleanor Roosevelt campaigned in every way she could for the betterment of her fellow American Citizens. She worked for and supported the Red Cross, and she worked for and supported Civil Rights, Worker's Rights, the proper care of veterans, and she even established an entire planned community called Arthurvale in West Virginia to help the destitute mine workers during the Depression. That was something I didn't know.

Eleanor Roosevelt acted as a balancing force in regard to the work and attitudes of her husband during his presidency as well. For example, she pushed to have women included in the Works Project Administration programs and she also pushed to have AFrican American people included. I didn't know that she used her own income to support the Tuskegee Airman Institute! I also didn't know she had used her own wealth to create and support trade schools for economically deprived children in poor communities.

No matter the disappointments in her personal life, Eleanor never let any of that drag her down. She soldiered on courageously and whole heartedly in service to humanity both in our country and in the world and received many international recoginitions for her service to the UN and other efforts. She was often at odds with her husband as in his caving to pressure to exclude Jewish refugees from asylum in the US. He was a brave and well intentioned man but more aware, perhaps, than Eleanor that his political career depended on appeasing Southern white supremacists and isolationists. A few posts ago, I wrote about what I called a Virtuous Man, Jimmy Carter. In this post I salute a Virtuous Woman, Eleanor Roosevelt, a model for us all.

Happy Trails and Happy Women's History Month! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com (as always, avoid the comments function as it is polluted by robo spam - use my e-mail to converse with me on any posts)

Craft Masters

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a show about a dozen international craft masters who practice arts almost forgotten in the modern world. Mainly they were paper makers, potters, barrel makers (for distilling spirits) and silk printers (Indian sari's).

My own lifelong favorite of the ancient arts is block printing from Japan. I have done a good deal of printing myself, having been a printing arts hajor in my second bachel of arts in fine arts. My form of printmaking was lithography which is treating very fine limestones smooth surface to adhere ink where it is wanted and repel it where it isn't wanted. The most famous artist who used lithography is probably Toulous Lautrec, which is where I first learned of it from his beautiful, striking, bold and enchanting theater posters.

Yesterday, I met a fine craft artisan who made me toke a long look at another, often neglected form of artisant art - crochet! We are all familiar with wood-workers and furniture makers and since the 19780 there has been a growing respect and admiration for the fine art of quilting, but I think the art of crochet has been neglected.

I grew up in an ethnic neighborhood in South Philadelphia. Although my family ancestry was Irish on my mother's side and German/English on my father's side, our neighborhood was predominantly more recently arrived Italians. A great many of the older women in those neighbor homes were practioners of the almost magical art of crochet. They made 'doilies' which covered the back of upholstered furniture, the arms, and the tables in most of the houses. The most ambitious projects were crocheted table clothes, works of immense complexity and labor. To me, they were always magical, to think you could make something so complicated and beautiful, like a snowflake from a string.

There were other needle crafts prevalent in y old neighborhood, too, such as weaving of palm fronds at Easter into terrifically complicated braided designs. These braided palm ornaments were placed on walls and doors as representatives of the entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. But nothing could compare to the doilies. My mother practiced this art as well and I have one of her doilies stitched onto muslin and framed in an embroidery hoop.

I bought three pieces from this needlework artist, a knitted shawl with crocheted edges, a gorgeous blue doily with pearls on the corners of its star shape, and a pad sitable for hot plates or bowls.

Over the years, I have bought and re-bought the child's version of weaving, the metal frame pot holder maker. I had one when I was little and I made dozens of potholders, mesmerized by the process of weaving. Looking back I can see that I was ALWAYS destined to be an artist of some kind and if I had been born in another century, I would have been a quilter, seamstress, and I would have knitted and chrocheted. Also, I have, in years past made paper, another miraculous process. I used my blender to turn waste paper, after shredding it, into pulp and then I made a very coarse and rudiemntary form of paper with leaves embedded in it, and feathers. It was great fun! Now, I stick to painting, but at present I have 6 sewn carry-all bags on display at The Station, gallery in Merchantville, and at my Friends' Meeting House in Woodbury. Each bag has a painting in acrylic on watercolor paper of a woman of historical note, sewn onto a printed fabric and protected by clear plastic sheeting, and sewn onto the bag. I call it "Functional Art" and the bags are meant for such romantic items as mysterious parcels for the post office, pastry from a patisserie, a manuscript going to an editor, or to carry a gift to a friend for a birthday. They arent' suitable for groceries unless you are buying just a few things from a local summer farm market, bagels, some jars of honey, nothing that would leak because these bags cannot be washed. I will try to insert a photo. I hope you have an art you practice. I met a man once whomade lead soldiers. I wish I had a chance to speak with him again as I would have loved to see his process at work. By the way, my sewing machine was repaired by a man who still practices that art! Chuck Magowan, so if you sew, he's your man! 856-546-1631 He has repaired my machine twice for me to make my projects in time for two Art shows where I actually won prizes! Thank you Chuck!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yhoo.com s

Local History/Personal History - Jurassic Park & Spielberg

When my daughter was growing up, we were both caught up, SPELLBOUND is the right word, by the Jurassic Park film phenomena. We watched the film over and over, we visited the Jurassic Park exhibition at the Philadelphia Natural History Museum and at the Franklin Science Museum. We had all the stuff - the action figures, the dinosaurs, the dinosaur books, the T-shirts. And to this day, every summer, I have my summer movie line-up which begins with Jurassic Park and all the Spin-offs and goes through Star Wars and Jaws and my own youthful favorites: Endless Summer, and all the surfing movies.

In my e-mail this morning, I was surprised to find a connection between my local neighboring town and Steven Spielberg and Jurassic Park (NO not the dinosaur in Haddonfield, 'Hadrosaurus' although I have a connection to that too!) Here is the e-mail news item:

"HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ - Steven Spielberg paid tribute to the town where he watched his first movie in “The Fabelmans,” his 2022 semi-autobiographical film up for several Academy Awards this year. Now, he’s set to pay tribute to his hometown in-person “very soon.”

In a letter to the Camden County Board of Commissioners dated March 8, the seminal director behind “Jurassic Park,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and “Jaws” admitted he was “surprised” and “honored” to learn of a historical marker commemorating the place where he saw his first movie at the age of six: the former Westmont Theater. Read more: Steven Spielberg's Camden County Childhood Featured In Oscar-Nominated film.

The historical placard was unveiled at a ceremony Tuesday at the site of the old theater, located just about four blocks from his elementary school, Thomas Edison Elementary.

During his time in Camden County from 1952 to 1957, Spielberg’s family resided at 267 Crystal Lake Terrace and were members of the Beth El congregation in Haddon Heights. The budding director was an avid cub scout, and made “large donations” to the scouts later in life based on his experience in Haddon Township, county officials said.

“The Westmont Theater is an iconic location here in Camden County that has played a part in so many of our childhoods, including that of Steven Spielberg,” said Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. in a statement. “We wanted to honor Spielberg and his connection to South Jersey by installing a commemorative placard at the site where the Westmont Theater once stood.”

I am often reminded of a line from a short story which was later used in an Loudon Wainright song, "The Movies were a mother to me." The movies weren't a mother to me but they were another neighborhood, a place to enter that was full of magic and adventure. I had a most wonderful mother and nothing could match her, but the movies were an education and a place of magic: Spartacus, The Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind - I grew up in the age of epics, and our home was always entertained by the musicals of the period: Singing in the Rain, Easter Parade, and the holidays inextricably connected to the movies of the season: White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Carol, or at Halloween: Frankenstein, The Wolfman, Dracula.

My parents' and grandparents' generations had movies in the theater, but my generation and the ones that followed had movies in our homes, like a member of the family.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

(as always, please avoid the comments function as it is polluted by robo-spam. Use my e-mail if you wish to converse! Thanks!)

"Awakening the World to Awe"

The title above, "Awakening the World to Awe" is from a hymn or holy poem by the Priestess Enheduanna, of Sumer who lived about 4300 years ago in the fertile plain between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in one of the first civilizations, an urban center which may have held up to 50,000 inhabitants. I bring Enheduanna to you today for Women's History Month and because she is currently considered the first author in the first writing, the cuneiform tablets of Sumer. I was reading an article about the use of artificial intelligence to translate the cuneiform writing on the clay tablets into modern English. The article stated that only a handful of experts in the world can read with any fluency from the clay tablets which hold records of the first civilization in human history.

Rather than literature, most of the early tablets are basic accounts, cattle shipped, beer allotted, bushels of grain stored, etc. The tablets of Enheduanna, in contrast, contain prayers and hymns to the Goddess which describe her powers and the attempts of humans to appease her.

I apologise but I must recount this educational anecdote. When I took a year long course called Survey of World Literature back in the early 70's, our syllaus contained NOT ONE female author. When I brought this up to the professor, he calmly stated that if there had been any of note or worth they would have been included. I argued with him and he set me the task of creating a bibliography over summer break, which I did. I learned so much! The first true 'novel' was written by Lady Murasaki (978-1014) and was called Tale of Genji. I learned about and read samples of literature,renowned in its own time, written by women, for every historic period period and turned in my research the next semester. The professor had created a course called Women in Literature, but sadly it was novels by men that featured women such as Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert. He had missed the point entirely, but I had learned a lot. I had not, at that time, discovered Enheduanna, but I find her in all sorts of magazines these days.

Hence for Women's History Month, the first known author - Enheduanna, and the author of the world's first novel, Lady Murasaki. Oh, how times have changed!

By the way, I am working on an art project for St. Patrick's Day that includes Lady Isabelle Gregory (another author, but of more modern times) and the activist Bernadette Devlin, and assassinated journalist Veronica Guerrin of Ireland. So for a combo, you can honor St. Patricks Day with some Irish History and also Women's History Month!

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

In the Spring of Old Age

For almost two months, I have been taking physical therapy. I feel very fortunate in that my career in education - hard won and fought for (I paid all my own tuition and worked assiduously to stay on the dean's list every semester of every year) has afforded me excellent benerfits and I have an excellent family physician whom I believe really cares about my well-being. I won't diverge here to talk about my past with my doctor, but take my word for it. She has been with my a long time and she listens. I told her I was having trouble getting up and down from a seated position and that I had increasing hip pain along with my historic spine pain and knee trouble. She set me up for a set of x-rays (you probably guess I have arthritis) and then I started physical therapy. So far, after two sessions each week for 6 weeks, I would say I notice 20% improvement. It isn't what I hoped for but it is far better than continued degeneration of abilities. I could no longer step up a curb, manage steps (as in going to the attic or down to the laundry room) and I could barely bend far enough to scoop after my dog on dog walks or get in the car.

I learned a lot from physical therapy. I learned a simple thing I can do getting in and out of bed that will stretch my left hip flexor which was so tight it was contributing to a very painful hip joint. And even just yesterday, my therapist noted that I bend forward when walking and he advised me to notice it and straighten up because that contributes to tight flexors too. While walking the dog today, I caught myself doing the forward slope and straightened up and it felt like the world got brighter. One of th benefits of phyical therapy to me is a brighter and more hopeful attitude. Both of my therapists are optimistic, cheerful and no-nonsense coaches. That helps.

At ShopRite today, an elderly woman in front of me, also sloping forward and visibly tired and uncomfortable, was just leaving as I reached the bagging area and check out. The cashier said "How are you?" And I used my usual reply which comes from an old country and western song my brother and I laugh over, "Not bad, pretty good, can't complain; and anyhow everything is just about the same." The elderly woman turned and said, "Good for you! Wish I felt that way." She left and I said to the cashier, "Attitude is free and you might just as well be positive as negative" We both laughed. But it is true. I used to have a personal motto "Things turn out for the best if you ake the bes of the way things turn out." It isn't good logic, it is called circular logic, but it is a good life advice.

So on top of gettting help and trying to stand up straight and have a good attitude, it helps to find aids I put handles in all the places that are hard for me to manage - mostly steps. They help me by making it safer and giving me somehting to hold onto on both sides. Next I want to get a shower chair. And I have had a bannister installed on a stairway that didn't have one. I also put cinder block pavers under some outdoor steps by the doors that were too high. Along with all that, the physical therapy has helped me a great deal with the steps!

Another lucky break for me is that I am an artist. I alredy wrote about selling two paintings and winning my second Art award last month. I am working on a limited edition series for Women's History Month: Carry-Alls (bags with portraits of famous women on the front, sewn on printed fabric and covered in sheer plastic for protection One is on display at The Station gallery at present. It was my Black History Month bag with a portrait of Zora Neal Hurston.

There ss no excape from getting old except dying but I plan to make the best of my time and enjoy every day of it!

Happy Trails - Jo Ann (as always, don't bother with the comments function, robospam has destroyed it - if you wish to reach me, use my epmail wrightj45@yahoo.com

Fight weakness and build strength!

International Women's Day March 8th 2023 - focus on Ireland

For this year's Int'l Women's Day, I would like to commemorate two Irish Presidents, Mary Robinson, the first female President (from 1990-1997) and the 7th Irish President, and Mary MacAleese, the 2nd female President *from 1997-2011). Also, I would like to remember the fiercely courageous journalist Veronica Guerrin who was assassinated while driving her car, and the activist Bernatdette Devlin who is still living. Not to shortchange the arts, I would like to rememmber Lady Isabelle Gregory, a noted playwrite and the founder of the Abbey Theater, as well as a founder and supporter of other theatrical efforts during her lifetime.

At this time of year, approaching St. Patrick's Day, my mind always turns toward my own Irish female origins. Lavinia Johnson's parents were listed on the Phildelphia census as originating in Ireland. She married Hiram McQuiston (also listed as having parents from Ireland). Her name was passed down to Lavinia (McQuiston) Lyons, who adopted her niece, my mother, Mary Lavinia (Goldy) Wright. i named my daughter after my mother and the other Lavinias - Lavinia Jones Wright. Lavinia lives in New York with her husband and she is in the theater and in film among other things. A recent project she worked on LOVE ALL ALICES was a commemorative play and film for her theater teacher/menot Alice Spivak who died November 9, 2020. Her husband is a musician and works as a music producer. He appeared in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and was a member of the band, These United States.

To all the women all over the world who dared to fight for a cause, tell the truth, leave their homeland for someplace better, rise up to a position of power. create a work of art despite the obstcles, and to do the simple courageous every day things like give birth to a child and raise a family - I salute you!

Happy International Women's Day! Jo Ann ( please use my email to contact me as the comments function is copletely polluted by rob-spam) wrightj45@yahoo.com