Finding and Holding onto Happiness

June 16, 2025 - As many of you who have visited are aware, one of my most frequent post themes has been on how to be happy. I get my tips from several wellness newsletters, magazines, friends, books, all kinds of places. Today from THE WEEK magazine comes this Yale University Study: "Take a few moments, a few times a day to slow down, pay attention and expand on those awesome moments." The awesome moments to which this sentence is referring were detailed in the article and included such small ordinary acts as stopping to admire some flowers, up close, on a walk with the dog, or the study the sky and the clowds while in a paprking lot, or to enjoy the swirl of a rising flock of birds leaving the ground and entering the sky. You can examine the veins in a dew dropped leaf on a tree beside your driveway, or enjy the yellow layer of buttercups in bloom rising up over a green yard, or the first bloom of the orange tiger lilies (which I just saw in their warm elegance along the fence at the end of my driveway. One of the ways I admire and get close to such things is to paint them! I keep a small 6 by 8 watercolor pad in the table by my sofa and a small Windsor Newton water color set there too and sometimes I just make some small watercolor paintings of, for example a group of red tomatoes from the supermarket joined by their green twisted branch, or a plucked branch of my neighbor's hydrangea which is a glorious shade of perriwinkle blue.

Anyway, the article goes on to say how these moments of awe and admiration can stave off depression. I believe that to be true and I believe it to be part of why I am so happy so much of the time.

Believe me, I am just as subject as anyone else to the sorrows of the world and the anxiety caused by the chaos and violence in our current period (the assassination of the Minnesota political couple, or the young Jewish couple in Washington DC the ongoing bombins in ISrael and Iran, the famine in Gaza, the suffering of the people in Ukraine). You would be blind and stupid to be unaware of all this, but as the serenity prayer reminds us all, we must be aware of what we can control and what we can't. I only have a few years left in this experience of being alive on planet earth and it is enormous - much bigger than these passing troubles.

One thing that reminds me of this regularly is to sit in silent worship at my Quaker Meeting in Woodbury where the Meeting House is 300 years old. As I sit on the benches made by the families of the founders and contemplate all the generations that have sat there worried about childbirth, crop failures, smallpox, wars (at least 4 in that span of time) the deaths of loved ones, the births of new ones, I am reminded that all things pass, but the aged trees in serene watchful splendor outside in the burial ground, and the old building are still here. All things pass. I will pass too, and my ashes will sit in the earth next to all the other human worriers who lived and loved an died and re-entered the earth from which we all originally sprang. So let me enjoy the infinity and power of the leaves, the trees, the birds, the clouds, the oceans, rivers, the squirrels, the purring affection of my companion cat and be grateful for what I have in this world of wonders.

Really importantly, if you are feeling down - GET OUTSIDE! Go for a walk or if you are too droopy to get up to a walk, go for drive and park in a nearby park and roll down the window!

Happy Trails!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

A small Father's Day memory

In the summer of 1985, my Dad came up from West Virginia to help me turn the attic of the house I just bought into a bedroom and playroom for my daughter. A new peaked roof had been put onto this little bungalow and the floor of the attic was a lumpy mess of the old melted roofing tar and asphalt scraps which I had to scrape off. The roof wasn't insulated, just the beams, boards and the asphalt shingles.

Over two excruciatingly hot weeks that summer, Dad showed me how to put the insulation between the beams, then put up the dry wall, then tape and plaster the seams. It was hard work and a short ceiling, so we couldn't ever stand upright and by then my Dad was in his 60's.

Because I am human, and a sibling, I got slyly competitive and asked, "Dad, do you think I am better to work with than my brothers? I fully expected him to say I was because I was following orders and working quietly and carefully. He said, "You're better in one way, you don't know what you're doing and you know it. Your brothers always think they know what they're doing and they don't."

It was a disappointing complement but so typical of Dad, and it was a great sacrifice of him to spend that summer in that baking attic.

Happy Father's Day

wrightj45@yahoo.com

NO KINGS Protest Saturday June 14, 2025

HADDON TOWNSHIP, NJ — Protesters in Haddon Township and across the country will take to the streets Saturday in "No Kings" rallies nationwide to coincide with a military parade commemorating the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, which also falls on Donald Trump's 79th birthday and Flag Day.

"No Kings is a nationwide day of defiance," says nokings.org. "From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we're taking action to reject authoritarianism — and show the world what democracy really looks like."

Just a few of us will be gathered on the hill of the Woodbury Friends Meeting site with our own signs protesting Tump's ICE raids which have kidnapped people at work, at school, at college, and at municipal buildings where they have gone to work on their permits and visa applications. They claim through the propaganda Fox channel to be deporting gang members and criminals but in fact, they are kidnapping citizens, workers, students, families, storekeepers and farm workers. It is horrible that people working in the fiels must flee to the woods and hide from these ICE enforcers.

One trespass against our rights follows another. Trump is working on defunding public broadcasting, defunding colleges and universities, and criminalizing protest. In Los Angeles he sent military and National Guard against American citizens exercising their legal right to protest the invasion by ICE into communities to kidnap people, and his propaganda channel magnified the violence to inflame the public and lied about the people being arrested and detained.

What have we come to?

Here are some ways you can take action. Sat, Jun 21 @ 12:30pm

Roadside Rallies Against Fascism › Sat, Jun 14 @ 12:30pm

Safety Marshals for No Kings March and Rally › Sat, Jun 14 @ 1pm

No Kings South Jersey › Mon, Jun 30 @ 6:15pm

Learn Spanish Meetup! › Fri, Jun 13 @ 7pm

Pre-Mobilization Call for June 14 ›

All Information from Cooper River Indivisible

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

June - Tips for Creativity

One of my health and happiness e-mail newsletter has been offering tips for boosting creatity and I thought I would share 5 of them with you:

1. Doodle! The propt they offered with this one was to take 10 circles and make something different out of each one.

2.Write a poem: What I would suggest is to learn a classic poetry form like the sonnet or the villanelle, read some of the greats and then work on one of your own. I suggest you leave the haiku alone unless you are going to try to do the form which is a season, a philosphical insight, and a 5 syllable, 7 syllable, 5 syllable form. Again if you do this, try reading some of the good ones first. Or ignore what I said and just write freeliy for the heck of it!

3.Daydream - observing free thought trails (not rehearsing ists of chores to be done) This is best done while engaged in a thoughtless activity like walking.

4. Do 10 percent more.

5.Try one new thing - take ukelele lessons, learn a language, try a new sport, attend a historic event, Try Origami

I just did my version of this when I did 3 art pieces for the neew show at th Eiland Arts Center at The Station, Chestnut Ave., Merchantville, a gallery and coffee shop. The theme was travel and collage was the suggested medium. >p/> Happy Trails! wrightj45@yahoo.com

Small Town Goodness 6/4/25

Yesterday when my sister and I took my Husky/Lab mix, Uma, for her daily walk around Martin's Lake in Gloucester City, she was fine! Last night, she started to be 'not herself' in that she didn't want to get up and go out before bed and she refused her bedtime dog treat - unheard of! This morning, before I even awoke at 7:00 she had had an accident on the landing to the back room, about a bucketful! I cleaned it up but I knew something was really wrong because she NEVER has accidents in the house and it was a ridiculously large puddle, like a small swimming pool of urine. She usually goes about a cup of uring on her walks.

She was collapsed on the floor when I finished the clean-up and she couldn't get up. I went to get my sister who often walks her for me and Uma ALWAYS wants to go in the car, it is second only to a walk in her list of most favored treats! She wouldn't get up.

When I got back with my sister, whom Uma LOVES, she did try to get up and we were hopeful. My sister got her as far as the sidewalk and Uma collapsed and couldn't get up. My sister yelled to me to get a bath towel that we could use together to hoist her up and carry her to the house and in the span of time it took for me to get the towel, a young man passing by came over to offer his help. His name wa Ely. Ely was able to pick her up gently in his arms (and she weighs 80 pounds!) and carry her into my house. He said "Dogs are in the center of my heart" and we agreed that was how we felt too. Also in that time, two neighbors from the across the street came over to offer help, and a police car stopped to ask if we needed help. After we were in, a neighbor who was doing yard work came over to ask if there was anything he could do.

Uma is collapsed on the gloor in the living room at present. I took my sister home. My vet, Dr. Sheehen in Fairview, is a wonderful veterinarian, but closed on Wednesdays so tomorrow morning, I will call and ask him to see her. As has sometimes been the case, she may be back up by then, who knows.

The point of this post is that in the face of all the horrible news of cruelty and murder that is headling right now like the smoke coming from the Canadian wildfires, here is a breath of clean, fresh, hope! All these people stopped what they were doing and came generously and lovingly to offer help to my sister, my dog Uma, and me. This is small town goodness.

Sometimes the goodness I experience in this small town of Mt Ephraim seems almost mythical. One neighbor told her babysitter about the house I live in when it was up for sale, 40 years ago. I saved her house from burning down when I walked by and saw her porch on fire. Her husband walks my dog every day. I helped a neighbor once who was stranded in a parking lot when his car broke down, he takes out my recycle and trash every week. When I thought his mother was alone too much after her husband died, I started a senior group for her which we ran together for 7 years!

My neighbors don't complain about the leaves from my trees and I share my driveway with them when they leap frog parking their two cars. We are all good to one another. This is the America of the Saturday Evening Post and Norman Rockwell. It isn't gone and it isn't a myth. It is alive and well in probably millions of small towns around America. I am so lucky to have found mine!

Happy and hopeful trails my friends, whoever you are who may be stopping by my post fence to chat! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Origins of Memorial Day from American Experience PBS

Memorial Day Origins in the Civil War

The generation of Americans that survived the Civil War lived the rest of their lives haunted by its terrible toll. Contending with death on an unprecedented scale during the four-year conflict forced Americans to improvise new solutions, new institutions, and new ways of coping with the unimaginable loss.   There was no effective ambulance corps to transport wounded soldiers from the battlefields to aid locations. As late as August 1862, a Union division took the field at the Second Bull Run without a single ambulance. After numerous pleas to the government by public health advocates such as Henry Bowditch, an ambulance corps was finally established in 1864.   Soldiers did not wear dog tags or have any system of personal records. Hundreds of thousand of bodies remained unidentified, leaving families with no knowledge of how their loved one died, or where they might be buried. When officials did attempt identification, it was often unreliable, resulting in live soldiers being recorded as deceased and dead soldiers being marked as only slightly wounded. By World War I, soldiers were wearing official ID badges.   There was no official system for notifying next of kin. If a body was identified, a fellow soldier might take it upon himself to write to the family of the deceased explaining how their loved one died and offering words of condolence. In the spring of 1865, Clara Barton established the Missing Soldiers Office in Washington, D.C. Her organization eventually helped provide information for about 22,000 soldiers who would have otherwise remained unknown.   There was no Memorial Day. After the burial of many Union and Confederate soldiers, "decoration day" rituals began to spring up, which included placing fresh flowers on soldiers' graves.   One of the earliest known celebrations took place in Charleston, South Carolina on May 1, 1865, when the city's freed Black residents organized a proper burial for hundreds of Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate prison, followed by a parade to honor their memory.   In the spring of 1868, General John Logan officially designated May 30th "for the purpose of strewing flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country," and Memorial Day as we know it today was established.

Vintage and Antique Toys

Richland Vintage & Toy Fest – Spring Edition

May 24th | 8 AM - 3 PM

Shoreline Vintage & Antiques

Richland Vintage & Toy Fest is back for our 4th Annual Spring Edition vintage, retro, toy, antique, pop culture, art and anything cool show! Free vending space & Free admission!!!

Sorry I couldn't supply more information on this particulary event, but I think you can google it. I got it from my Visit South Jersey e-mail newsletter. There were a great number of Veternas Day Events as well, many parades too.

I really don'thae many vintage toys, just one doll from the early 50's and I believe I have written about her before. My daughter however, has lots of toys in the attic and the shed incuding her American Girl Doll Collection. She also has Polly Pockets, if you remember those tiny gems. My one really old vintage childhood item is a Dale Evans and Roy Rogers lunch box, badly battered and rusty, but intact - no thermos of course!

he last time I went to a vintage toy fair, it was in Merhantville, NJ and I took a photograph of a box of mangled Barbi Dolls and printed and framed it. I entitled it "Oh Barbi, Is this how it all ends?" And in many ways, not just for Barbi dolls, time does often rob us of our hair, our glamour, our fancy fashions and we end in a box. But there is more than pathos in the vintage toy and doll world, there are the sturdy survivors! My daughters has, somehwere or another, a jeep and cast of characters from Jurrasic Park! We were both entranced by that series of films and the accompanying Museum exhibitions. That was a big cultural celebration! I think she may have a few dinosaurs somewhere too. All of her matchbox cars are gone as are her skateboard, her remote controlled cars and any other items I could pass on to my sister's son.

Looks like the weather will be good for the next couple of weekends so however you are spending yours, I hope you get outdoors. In my next post, I hope to do a review of Ted Lasso, the award winning tv series on apple tv. I took a free subscription to watch the series because it was recommended to me by so many people. It is in fact, GREAT! Happy Trails!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Alleyways and Stone House Lane

Early on this splendid day, after my gym workout and walk around Martin's Lake, I drove down to the Delaware River through Gloucester City. On the way, I decided to drive around the Mill Blocks, oldest buildings in G.C. built in 1845 to house the workers from the two large brick mills that once stood just to the North of them, just before what was once the New York Ship Yard. Suddenly I realized the alleyways and remembered the ones we had between the rows of brick workers houses where I grew up in South Philadelphia, down below Oregon Avenue.

I hadn't given much thought to alleyways over the years, and how they disappeared in residential housing developmentw, although they were once a staple of village life both here and in England. The alleyways separated the the back yards of houses and made a track way for back yard entrances, probably very useful for cottage gardening and back door deliveries.

I remember the hucksters coming through my Grandmother Lyons' back alley in Spring and summer until autumn, delivering ice for the ice boxes we had in my earliest childhood before refrigerators were common, and selling produce. The hucksters had wooden wagons drawn by horses and as a small child in the city, I was amazed and entranced by the horses. Also, I have such a crystal clear picture of the tin weighing bucket and the gauge and how the black needle moved when the produce went into the bucket to be weighed and priced. I can also remember the large tongs the ice man used to haul out the big block of ice and bring it in our kitchen on Warnock Street for our ice box. My Grandmother's Alley was much better than ours. So many people where we lived on Warnock Street had cemented their back yards and had wrought iron fences, but Grandmom's back yards were all lants and flowers and trees and wooden fences. Also, the homemakers would gather around the alleyways to meet at the huckster for their produce and it was a chance to socialize.

My Grandmother in Ocean City, New Jersey had an alleyway behind her house at 623 Asbury Avenue too, also green with plants in the sandy yards and wooden fences. I never saw a huckster there, though, and perhaps the day of the huckster had already ended.

Our hucksters in South Philadelphia came up from Stone HOUse Lane, and ancient village reclaimed from the Delaware River estuary swamplands by enterprising early Dutch and German Settlers who dug canals and used the fertie soil to rais up agricultural beds where they grew the vegetables and the things they needed to feed the hogs and horses they kept there. Later the City took the land and the shipyard is there now, and the airport and industrial usage and Stone House Lane is almost lost to memory.

Although there were no interesting hucksters in my Gradmother Wright's backyard alleyways, I so well remember her meeting with her neighbor Mrs. Garwood, to chat over the fence.

Some things promote socializing and the alleyways certainly did that, so do gardents. I used to meet my neighbor, Mrs King, a German war bride, who kept a vegetable garden on her side of our fence in the backyard and when she was tending her garden and my small daughter was playing in her playhouse we would chat over the fence.

I hope you get out and enjoy this gorgeous, even exhilerating weather while it lasts. Go for a walk and maybe ghrow in a drive and visit someplace and find some wonders! Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Lens: Finding Stonehouse Lane, South Philly's lost ...

WHYY

https://whyy.org › articles › lens-finding-stonehouse-la...

Stonehouse Lane, Philadelphia, Pa from whyy.org

Sep 2, 2016

Social relationships and Health

CNN's 5 Good Things internet newsletter always offers good advice and today one of the five good things was about the much talked and written about effect of social connections on our emotiona AND physical health!

Having just had my sister over this afternoon, I was reflecting on how happy I am when we spend time together even though most of the time, we aren't hanging out, but she is helping me do errands and chores. My sister is 20 yers younger than I am and she is a mighty physical force. Every two weeks or so, she comes over for 2 to 4 hours to do shopping and heavier cleaning for me. I pay her $30 an hour this year. I can do the easy stuff like dishes and surfaces, tidying and feeding the pets and scooping the litter, but as my knees and back have worsened some tasks are very difficult for me -mopping, vacuuming, and the steps to the basement for laundry. She helps with these.

Movement, nature, art, service and belonging

The above are the CNN named "pillars" of socializing. Doing something together, getting outside into nature, doing things that put you in the zone, helping others and feeling as though you belong to some group. Our local Senior Center offers classes in fitness and chair yoga. Fortunately for me there are several parks of all sizes near where I live and I am walking around Martin's Lake evey morning. It is 1/2 mile. I take my dog and today my sister walked there with us.

For Art, I am fotunate enough to have been an Art teacher and I have done art all my life. Just about 20 minutes from my home is a charming gallery and coffee cafe called The Station and Eiland Arts Center. I am invited half a dozen times a year to enter work in their group shows and I just completed a painting and a collage for the upcoming show on the theme of TRAVEL.

Possibly the only service I perform preently is at my Quaker Meeting in Woodbury where I have been doing First Day School for our youngest member for a year. I have done other service projects there as well. I founded (with help) a gallery in the reception area of a building on our grounds which was not longer in use. We have had 3 shows so far. Also, I provided arm rails for our bathrooms, pads for some of our benches, and other things over the years. The Friends Meeting is also a place where I experience Belonging, the fifth pillar.

Previously I joyfully volunteered at a variety of local historical locations: Red Bank Battlefield, Gloucester County Historical Society, Alice Paul Institute, and Bayshore Discovery Project. My deteriorating joints sadly put an end to all that. I had a lot of fun volunteering and I met a lot of wonderful people. I strongly recommend it!

I tell you these things not because I am bragging but to give you an idea of specific ways you can implement the pillars in your life. Another thing, I have an adopted shelter dog and when I walk her, I meet many people and have made a couple of new friends in this way. Good for my dog, good for me! I guess that counts as 'service' and shelters are also great places that welcome volunteers!

Get cnnnected! Don't be shy about contacting an old friend and inviting that friend for a lunch. Send a card and your contact information to an old friend you haven't seen in a long time. A couple of years ago, a great niece moved into my area and I invited her to lunch and we have made it a monthly plan! I have enjoyed spending time with a young person and it is something we both look forward to.

Some other socializing I do that you could consider is, when I retired, some of my teaching colleagues and I set up a seasonal get-together lunch to catch up with one another's lives.

Lunch is my favorite way to get together, it is light and easy to drive, not too expensive and we have dozens of good nearby places to eat. Two of my neighbors and I go out to eat monthly now at Maritsa's. One of my old hiking buddies and I meet every 2 to 3 weeks at the Colonial Diner where they have a big VEGAN menu because she is a vegan. I like to get out to lunch about once a week.

I hope this gives you some ideas on ways you can boost your social interactions. I love solitude more than most people but I agree that it is importnt to nurture and enjoy the social ties with friends and family in whatever ways you can, for your good, and you may be surprised how much it might mean to others! Oh yes, I text with some friends on a daily basis too!

I just leanred there is an art workshop not too far from here and on a free Friday I may try that out as well! I learned about it from a visitor to the Friendship Art Gallery, the one I wrote about earlier in this post that was founded by me with the help of Friends.

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Health, Hope and Happiness

Today, May 6 - an update on one month of Restoration of my seriously failing health and fitness. After the winter this year 2024 - 2025, when I had stopped walking the dog due to ice and snow and a bad back and painful knees, I had fallen into serious decline (for me). For example, last summer, 2024 I could walk 4000 to 5000 steps a day which included a mile walk with my dog Uma each morning. By March 2025, I could hardly make it to the back of the ShopRite and couldn't walk a block, my back pinched so badly and my knees screamed in hot pain. I could hardly get up off a chair and had bought rails for my sofa! I had sent away for a catalog of adaptive devices for disabled people because I WAS disabled! It never arrived.

If that evidence alone wasn't enough, I visited my general practitioner in early April for my semi annual and my lab report was awful. I had gained 6 pounds and my blood counts had all gone into the danger zone. I was perched on the edge of diabetes.

Emotionally, I was bereft, no energy, lethargic, but there was still a glimmer of my old metal left. I pulled myself together and decided that each day when my neighbor, John, walked the dog for me, as soon as they came back, I would put the dog in the house and go to the Planet Fitness gym not 5 minutes from my house and do a short work-out, very easy, very slow, just to get warmed up and unstiffened.

My neighbor had taken over walking the dog in the winter when the sidewalks were perilous with ice and snow because he walks twice a day for his health. He walked faster and further than I could so I was glad for my dog's sake as well as for mine.

The first day in the gym, I could barely turn the wheel of the stationary bike. I told myself to try to just do 5 minutes. By the third minute my stiffest, worst knee, the left one, had loosened up a little and I began to believe I could do 5 minutes, and I did. Next, I went into the 30 minute workout room and did 3 machines that strengthen arms and back, biceps and triceps curl, 20 each, and seated rower, 20. I did 25 on the leg curl machine which I googled at home and found out is good for knees and lower back! I decided I would add a little to each machine and one minute to the bike each week. The second week, I did 25 repititions on each machine and 6 minutes on the bike, then 30 reps and 7 minutes and I added two abs machines and did 30 on them. This week I got to 9 minutes on the bike (my goal is 15 minutes and I will stop there and just do 15 each time so I don't wear out my knees but just keep them flexible and strengthened. I am up to 60 on the abs cmbined and 60 on the leg curl.

Sadly, my walking hadn't improved very much, my back still hurt and when I tried to walk my dog in different parks for pleasure and change, she was too excited and pulled so badly she hurt my back.

THEN, I got the idea of trying Martin's Lake in Gloucester City. I drove by it many times and found it perfect. It is paved; it is small and peaceful and beautiful. My neighbor and I measured it on my car odometer and it is 1/2 a mile around! So, today, I put on my dog's best training collar and had a stiff talk with her about walking nicely and not pulling.

We drove over to the Lake and parked near the chain link fence on one corner of the park. The chain link fence helped to calm my dog's excitement when she first got out of the car and she is smart enough to have understood at least something of the lecture I gave her, my tone if not my words, plus the training collar helps a lot. She walked perfectly and we made it around the park with NO PAIN, no pain at all in my knees or my back. A miracle. I could hardly believe it!

I began in early April and as of today it has been a month since. Now I can walk the 1/2 mile Martin's Lake and I am going to walk it every day, even on gym days and try by the end of the month to walk it twice and make it a mile! It was 1500 steps. There is a park across the street, Johnson's Boulevard jogging track that I would like to measure in steps and perhaps by autumn, I will be able to walk that park! Maybe by next Spring I can walk both parks!

In place of my despair and lethargy, I have happiness, hope, and much better health! My spirits are revived as well as my vitality. I tell you all this because I am hoping it might give you inspiration to do something to improve your health, if you need to, not to mention your emotional state! By the way, additional inspiration came for me by reading health newsletters in my daily e-mail. I get about 3 of them, one is called 5 Good Things and I forget the names of the others but they all promote exercise as well as social connections at top of the list for health, happiness and longevity. I am not so focused on longevity but I want to the have the best years, however many I may have left. To paraphrase one of my favorite poets, Dylan Thomas, I will "not go gently in that dark night, I will rage rage against the dying of the light!" Happy trails (may they be outdoors!) Jo ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (e-mail me if you wish to comment, the comment section is entirely Love Canal level polluted by scammers)

Are You Flourishing from 5 Good Things

In my e-mail just now, I read the 5 Good Things newsletter and two items struck me: Neighborhoods, and Are You Flourishing. The first was a response to a criticism that no one has friendly neighborhoods anymore. The writer begged to differ and mentioned several kinds of friendly interactions she experienced lately. I too, have a friendly neighborhood and I wanted to add my experiences. One of my neighbors walks my dog for me every morning. He walks further and faster than I can which is better for my dog who is a big husky/lab mix and needs a good walk. Another neighbor takes my recycle and trash cans to the curb for me on recycle and trash days. My corner auto repair is a blessing, the mechanic is kind, talented, and reasonable and he has saved me many times with car emergencies! i do try to reciprocate in my own small ways with gifts of small paintings, or baskets of fruit, or for my mechanic in the summer, a gallon of lemonade and some cookies. Good friends are a blessing. I also have a neighbor with whom I walk from time to time. I met her when I was walking my dog and her husband was painting their fence. Dogs are a great way to make friends!

From 5 Good Things: "'Are you Flourishing? It’s not the same as being happy. “Flourishing” more broadly describes what it means to live a good, full life, bolstered by good health, financial security and strong relationships, among other criteria, says the Global Flourishing Study, which polled residents of more than 20 countries to see whether they were really thriving. Indonesia has the highest rate of flourishing, researchers found. (The US ranked 15th."

After a fortunate experience yesterday, I would say I am definitely flourishing! With the approval and help of my Friends from Woodbury Friends Meeting, the reception area of one of our buildings which is now sadly abandoned, has been turned into a gallery. I had a solo retrospective there in December and a Friend, Diana Brose is having one there now. A small group of artists dropped by yesterday to see the building and Diana's show. The two from South Jersey Artists' Collaborative are interested in doing something with the now empty Underwood Building. An Art Show and good works in the future is plenty to make my life feel as though it is flourishing. My own solo-retrospective was so inspiriing to me that I wrote a book from it. Each painting represented a series of other paintings from a part of my life and seeing the works all up on the wall brought back so many memories.

I am having the challenges of my age, knees, back, eyesight, difficulty getting around, but, I am also recently engaged in going to the local gym and working out and that too is inspiring and helps me feel as though I am flourishing. Hope you are flourishing too, and if not at present, I hope you get some inspiration to do something that makes you feel as though you are flourishing! Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Happiness

The New York Times had a headline teaser that said "A Century of Happiness Research has yielded one big clue." They didn't tell you the answer unless you subcribed, but I googled and found the answer from several resources with the same title. The answer to happiness,research says the key to happiness is SOCIAL CONNECTIONS.

There are so many ways to make social connections. For example, after I had to give up a lot of former activities due to problems with my back and knees, such as The Outdoor Club, and my volunteer tour guiding, (both of these are great ways to make friends) I still had my lunch friends. From my career as a teacher and from these activities I had made one or two staunch friends who still meet even though I can't hike or kayak any more. We have lunch and catch up on what's going on in one another's lives! Two I am meeting this Monday have both just returned from traveling and will share their photos and adventures with me. We share many other things as well, family stories, best books, good movies, health issues and solutions, to name just a few.

Walking the dog also gives you the opportunity to make new friends. I met a neighbor who was painting his fence where I walked my dog and his wife and I have become good friends and often walk together. We have added another neighbor to our little friendship group and we three lunch each month together now.

Seven years ago, I returned to a faith community, the Society of Friends. I had been a member many years ago in Philadelphia, but lost touch after I moved to New Jersey. I rejoined at Woodbury Friends Meeting and I truly enjoy both our discussion group at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, and the Meeting for Silent Worship that follows from 11:00 to 12:00. I have made two new fast friends from this group, one of whom is an artist as am I.

Our Secniors Community Center in Mt. Ephraim has bloomed since we elected our new mayor, Susan Carney. She added classes in chair yoga, fitness, games and other activities and going to any of these is an excellent way to get fit and make new friends.

So, don't sit alone in your house watching a news channel all day, get out and about! Make friends!

Recently some Philadelphia family members of mine moved to New Jersey and now that we are geographically closer, I treat my young great-niece to lunch once a month. We have gotten to know one another much better and really enjoy that time together, plus it has brought a young person into my senior citizen world. Speaking of family, I am blessed to have a sister nearby and we get together every week or two. She means the world to me.

Attending some community events and historical site events is also a great way to meet people!

Happy trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com (e-mail for discussion as the comments section of this blog spot is polluted by spam, thank you)

Have you been to Albert Music Hall?

It has been awhile, probably before the Pandemic, since I went to Albert Music Hall but I always enjoyed it so much! My friends and I would be the green tomato cake, a cup of coffee and enjoy the wide variety of folk groups and classic early rock groups that we saw there. If you haven't been, you should go, it is unique! Jo Ann

Albert Music Hall Anniversary Show

April 26th | 6 PM - 9 PM

Albert Music Hall, Waretown, NJ

Albert Music Hall will present a special show for the 50th Anniversary of the Pinelands Cultural Society(PCS). The PCS was established with a goal to preserve the cultural history of the Pinelands, including its music, literature, legends, and artifacts.

It used to cost $5, don't know what it costs now but it is worth it! Happy Trails!

April 27 Earth Day at Red Bank Battlefield Celebration

Head on over to Red Bank Battlefield in National Park on Sunday for a day of fun!

Don't miss out on all the fun!

Schedule of Events 11:15 The Life of the Honey Bee

12:00 Unusual Pollinators, Dr. Dan

1:00 Pollution Reduction Conservation Show

2:00 Colonial Conjurer Magic Show

3:30 Colonial Conjurer Magic Show

On going- Hearth Cooking Demonstrations

Glass Blowing

Pottery

House Tours

Battlefield Tours

Kid's Crafts and Games

Food and Ice Cream trucks

Craft Vendors

The event is free, we will be collecting donations for the National Park Food Bank.

What a great way to spend a day! Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

AVALON - A Great Film

Yesterday, Easter Sunday was a pleasant and peaceful day. We had omelette and pancake braekfast at Woodbury Friends Meeting, after which I went to my sister Susan's house. She rents a bungalow on Platt's Farm, so a visit there is Spring is a special treat: all the trees are in bloom, the chickens are running around, the rooster crowing, and happy people shopping for their spring gardens.

After a delicious ham and potato salad traditional meal (I am vegetarian, so I only ate the potato salad) we had dessert of Pisker's Easter Egg Cake and NY stule cheesecake! Delicious.

When I got home, I decided to watch Avalon, about which I had been thinking for a couple of weeks. It is one of my all time, top ten favorite movies. The writing, by Barry Levinson, is brilliant, evocative, profound. The acting Armin Mueller Stahl plays Sam, the main character, is superb, and at 93 is still alive. The film was nominated for nearly every catagory in the Oscars, and many of the other awards like the Golden Globes as well. To me it is the quintessential portrait of the rise and decline of the 20th Century. All the hopes and exuberance, the shiny metal flake dreams of the post-war era are brilliantly filmed in this loving portrait of a time, a place, a family. I have wateched this film many times over the 35 years since it came out in 1990 and it always makes me smile and cry. It is my childhood. It is all our childhoods, those of us born in the first half of the 20th Century. And in it. in Sam's decline, is ours as well as the world in which we lived.

The writer/director, Barry Levinson is still writing and direction and I saw another of his tv series awhile back, The Kominsky Method.

If you want a heartwarming, thoughtprovoking, and touching film experience, you can rent AVALON for 3.99 on Amazon prime. I thinkit is a masterpiece.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoocom (if you wish to comment, please use my e-mail as the comments section on blogspot is polluted and clogged with spam, thanks!)

AAA HOBBY SHOP for so many things - EASTER 2025

TODAY IN THE BRISK CLEAN BREEZE OF A NEW SPRING DAY, I DROVE OVER TO 705 N. WHITE HORSE PIKE, MAGNOLIA, NJ. I hadn't been to the AAA Hobby Shop in decades. My daughter is now 41 and she is the main one for whom I had shopped at AAA in the past. However, I have a nephew and I had bought him many things there as well, and I bought my father and my brother models there that they used to put together for my father's grandsons.

AAA Hobby Shop is my Santa's Workshop. They have EVERYTHING there. I bought my daughter's first set of trains there, and as she got older, her second set. And when she was a toddler, I bought bags of various kinds of animals for our potty training scheme. For anyone contemplating potty training (as my next door neighbors will be in a year or so) Here is a great idea! Of course you probably already know that the best training mode is positive reinforcement. Many parents make the mistake I think, of trainig with candy rewards. This is bad for their children's teeth and not a good way to encourage healthy food attitudes. The first great tip I got was from another mother at a party. She said she bought potty chairs at flea markets and put one in each room. My idea, in addition to this, was to make a wooden ark in my father's wood shop and I bought bags of different kind of animals at AAA Hobby Shop and whenever my daughter had a successfully potty event, she got two animals to put in her ark. My mother, in addition, bought her fancy panties with the days of the week on them, and I sewed her 12 little cotton print dresses to make it easy to get on the ptty. We bought the African wild animal assortment, the FArm animals, the ranch animals, woodland animals, and we even got creative and added some reptiles, dinosaurs and domestic pets. We had birds, too.

Many years later, I bought my daughter a radio controlled car there. This year, I went because my sister's grandson is 8 and spends far too much time on his IPad. He doesn't even want to walk around the farm anymore, where she lives, and visit the horses, cows, and alpacas. He used to love to do that.

These electronc games are stealing childhood. When he visits, he sits indoors captivated by video games on his IPAD. One thing he still loves, however, is Model Magic modeling material. So for his Easter Basket this year, I bought several packets of different colors of Model Magic and some cookie cutter shape cutters. AAA also has air drying clay! There are somany things there that would be great in an Easter Basket!

On one of my healthy living e-mail newsletters there were several suggestions of things to put in Easter Baskets with or instead of candy, jumping ropes, markers, bubbles, and depending on the age of the child, I recommend those bags of animals, and play dough - or better yet drive over to AAA Hobby Shop and look around! You might ind you have enjoyed the visit yourself! You might even find a hobby you'd like to try.

Happy Easter - Jo Ann

(please use my e-mail if you wish to comment as the comments function on blogspot is completey polluted by spam. Thanks!) wrightj45@yahoo.com.

World War 2 Exhibit

Hi Everyone,

This year we are really looking forward to the World War II Exhibit which starts on April 5th this year and runs until June 1st, 2025. Come celebrate the lives and memories of our veterans and fallen heroes. Among the items to be displayed are weapons, uniforms, posters and civilian paraphernalia, and we do have some new items on display!

Attached is the World War II flyer so that you can share with friends and family.

We all hope to see you there!

Jeffrey Norcross

The Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ

138 Andaloro Way

Deptford, NJ 08093

856-812-1121

sjmuseum@aol.com

Reminiscence

Today, age 79, I had lunch at Maritsa's which is a couple of blocks from where as a junior high school student, I had lunch with friends at a place called Shucks. There was a juke box and a dance floor in the room adjoining the conter where we ordered vanilla cokes and burgers and fries. Around the edge of the dance floor there were booths. We did a lot of line dances in those days, the 'stroll' is the one I remember best.

After I left Maritsa's, I passed what was the Burlington County Trust Bank, now for sale, where at 17, I had my first bank account because that was the year I had my first full time job right of high school at W. B. Saunders Publishing Company on Washington Square in Philadelphia. I paid board and the rest went into he bank or for bus fare. I loved watching that bank balance rise. When I left home, I had $2000.

Next, I passed our old house, the last one we had as a family, on Linwood Ave. next door to what was St. John's Episcopal Church where my mother was a faithful parishoner and ran the church suppers and my father mowed he lawn and did painting and some repairs. He made a stained glass "Mother's Day Window" for the chrch. My daughter was baptised there. It is now a Buddhist Temple.

I also passed the Congregational Church which is where I attended as a teen and where there was a pastor who had lost some fingers during his missionary days.

Further down the road, I turned onto Collins Lane and to the development our family moved into our first New Jersey home in the prosperous 1950's. It was a brand new house, and at first, we had a picnic table and benches for dining room furniture. Over the years, we had a large vegetable garden on the hill out back that bordered the corn field of the farmer who still ran a farm up there. It is a baseball field now. My parents gave me the best room in the house, upstairs front room with a large picture window. When I was away in camp one summer, they redecorated it beautifully with pink check walpaper, a white vanity with an organdy skirt, white louvered doors on the closet. I pitched a totally ungrateful fit because they had invaded my private space and transformed it without my having any say in the matter. I am, to this day, ashamed at my ingratitude after all their work and for crushing their anticipation of my happiness at their effort. It makes me cry and I wish I could apologize.

Around the Roland Avenue circle is the Pennsauken Creek that was in those days so polluted by overflow of sewage from the local sewer plant, which had not been updated to accommodate the new development, that 14 children got hepatitus from swimming in it. Boats used to float down the creek from the Delaware and other parts far away after storms and we would paddle around in them until they sank or left again on their mysterious journeys. I remember the water was black and giant dark green water plants with platter sized leathery leaves grew in it off long pale pipe stems from the black velvety mud. To my city child's mind, this was a jungle wonderland of plants and water, animals and birds. We'd had one tree on our city street and the only water we saw was rain water flowing in the gutters after a storm, or coming out of the fire hydrant in summer when young rule breakers opened the hydrants for us kids to run through.

Past the next development of modest bungalows where my first best friend Barbara D'Arcangelo lived, I reach what used to be the little white bridge with our initials carved in it, but which is now a metal railing bridge over the Pennsauken Creek. I drive by the little evergreen forest in the fenced off area around a municipal plant of some kind. We would sneak into the woods there and I remember the intoxicating fragrance of evergreens in summer sun and the wonderful pine cones all over the forest floor. Just beyond that forest was another spot on the Pennsauken Creek where we swam and there was a thick knotted rope tied to a tree branch that kids would hold onto and swing out over the creek and then fall into the water. I didn't do that - not brave that way.

Next I cross Haddonfield Road where the candy factory used to be on the corner with a girl, dressed in antebellum hoop skirt and sun bonnet, sat on a swing to lure the eyes of drivers over to the store to come in and buy candy.

Down the road into Pennsauken, I pass the high school where my first and deepest love had been a student. I was besotted by him, adoring, entranced, and I am glad now that i had a chance to know what that kind of romantic love feels like because now that I am old, I know that not everyone has that experience. It ended badly but I have no regrets. Even after all the ill will and bad feelings, as I drive down that familiar road that we drove so often in his sports car from his house to mine and back, I feel a longing for him and I wish we could be in contact but I have over the 40n years since our divorce, reconciled myself that he is as dangerous as a poisoned well I pass the Merchantville Train Station where I have been showing my paintings in group shows for the past 10 years. I have three flower paintings there now. Down Center Street over the intersection, I pass my old high school. There are kids in the playing fields and it reminds me of how much I hated hockey and lacrosse - all that running up and down and those dangerous sticks!

Finally, I am up and over Route 38 and passing the Cooper River where my then-husband and I bought our first house and all the kinds of adventures and bad experiences relating to that river.

There is TD Bank where I turn on White Horse Pike, where over the years I have made deposits to my daughter's bank account for holiday gifts. Up around Walmart on the corner of the Black Horse Pike and through the back streets of my town to my little bungalow and the big beautiful trees of my little woods.

I contemplate what it means to grow up and live in the same place all your life, the memories built and the landmarks to them. There is an ivisible tie of love and longing and memory that accompanies these landmarks and the thought of people I have loved who are gone or dead now.

Here is the driveway and the daffodills and the porch and soon, the door is open and the happy big cream colored dog is wagging her tail in joy and greeting.

My yard looks wonderful because I just signed up for a $900 clean-up from a landscape company that will be taking care of my yard from now on. How I used to love to run the big Toro Mulch Mower I bought to grind up the leaves for nourishment for the grass. Up and down making green stripes in the brown leaves, transforming the yard. I guess I was in my 60's when I couldn't do it anymore. I miss my intimate relationship with the yard and plan this year to walk around the yard even if I can't do the mowing anymore.

This is, in fact, my 80th year even though I had my 79th birthday and I have realized long since, that I am OLD. My lunch friend and I were talking about that today and all the things we used to do that we can no longer do but also all the things we can still do and enjoy doing. She still hikes and I write and paint. We are both happy and we have both had long, interesting, adventurous and productive lives. Being old is a challenge but it is also beautiful. Happy Trails, Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Get Happy

Today, March 26th in my e-mail follow-up newsletters on the Happiness Project, the authors remind us that happiness, defined more as contentment, is a SKILL, something you practice and acquire more ability in achieving over time. That is something I have believed in for decades and why I have read so many books and incorporated so many recommended habits on happiness. I would like to add here that misery is also an acquired skill, and so is negativity and the more you practice that the more you ive it.

Each of the experts today shared some of their regular practices: eat something, get out of the house, call someone, exercise. I do all of the above. Also, I make it a habit to keep connections with friends and relatives, in particular cousins.

Some other tips were: Think about 6 months from now and whether the immediate unpleasant situation will have an effect on your life in that span of time. One expert admitted distracting himself with a tv program. I do that too and in particular I like long range history, like earth history. I avoid animal and nature shows when I am distressed because they always seem to end with extinction and endangerment after getting you to empathise and enjoy the animals. I also look for lighthearted series on family and community, especially Scandinavian ones like Bonus Family.

Now that I have become somewhat disabled by my degenerative spine and arthritic knees and hips, I do less exercise (although I do try to walk the dog) and I will hope in the car, with my dog who LOVES a car ride, and go to a park. Going for a drive has always been a tried and true strategy for me and I have some roads that are guaranteed to lift my spirits with their beauty like 559, the back way to the seashore.

One common thread is to Shift Your Attention, get out of your own head. One researcher says she does something nice for somewone else and basks in the happiness it brings to them. I find that true and I have neighbors who do nice things for me and I am sure it makes them happy. I return the favor with, for exampe a basket of apples or tangerines. Siunce I am alone, when I buy a bag of fruit, I can't always use it up in time, so I put it in a colorful tissue in one of the many baskets I have and give it to a neighbor.

One of the comments on the piece was from a disgruntled reader who said these people were happy because they didn't have hard jobs or hard lives or live in difficult places, but I do not find that to be true. I have known people with hard jobs, hard lives and who were happy nonetheless. You can find the joy in the smallest places, the slimmest periods of time. It is an attitude and a skill.

Finally, I have to add a comment of my own, pets! My dog and my cats make me happy every day and contribute to my contentment by sitting on my lap and purring, speaking to me in their various and interesting voices, and looking at me with love and gratitutde. My dog is beautiful and her beauty and gentleness and affection are a daily joy.

I just realized I hadn't heard from my cousin Patty who lives outsie of Cape May in the Villas, so I gave her a call. She wasn't home so I left a message and now she knows her cousin of a lifetime of family experience was thinking of her.

Also, I am on my way to give th edog a quick short walk and then meet two friends for lunch in a local restaurant to which I have never been. They advertise homemade pasta and I am anticipating enjoying that.

Hope these tips give you something to think about. I take these reminders as a gift to me and use them to refresh and re-energize my practice.

Happy Traisl Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

A new female detective is on the scene

If you like murder mysteries, espceially the old fshioned kind like Murder on the Orient Express, with detectives like Hercule Poirot, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes, I think you will enjoy The Residence, on Netflix. It really turns things upside down. For exampe the detective is an old school super observer who sees the details the others miss. Her name is Cordelia Cupp, and what makes her different is that she is an African American! I don't think I have seen a Black Detective before, or a Black female detective. This one plays it just right! She is self-contained, but bold and commanding, sharp eyed and emotionally controlled. Another way this show turns the tables is that the main characters are the STAFF of the White House. The President and the other big shots are all side characters. The murder victim is the Chief Usher who is, in the heirarchy of White House staff, the top man.

This 6 part series is totally engaging and manages to be both amusing and yet serious at the same time. It is remarkably well written by the contemporary script superstar Shonda Rhimes. I saw part of another steamy White House series written by her a few years back, I think it was called SCANDAL. I stopped watching it because it got to grim with shome characters doing torture. Anyhow, Shonda Rhimes has made a name for herself in 21st century television. I say television although I watch only streaming services on my laptop these days.

Side note: For more than 5 years, I have watched ONLY my laptop because my particular vision problems make television, at that distance, too blurry and aso too hard to hear. On my laptop, I can have closed captioning to help when I don't understand what is being said or when the background music drowns out the narration, and I can see perfectly at the distance of my laptop on a lap desk. Just recently I had my verizon bill finally reduced from $!85 a month to $90 by dropping tv service and keeping only the internet and my landline. I keep the landline in case anything should happen with my cell phone and I should need to call for help now that I am old.

Anyhow, I recommend this series The Residence, for entertainment and its potention for provoking thoughts about social hierarchy, how the White House functions, and both race and gender.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Secret in the Stones

Hello and Happy St. Patrick's Day to you! If you are looking for something to watch that celebrates St. Patrick's Day, I recommend The Secrets in the Stones! I found it on amazon last night when I was looking around and it is fascinating. Way back about twnty years ago when my daughter was a teen, we went to Ireland on a 10 day tour and we did see some stone circles. She has been to England many times since and she may have visited Stonehenge, I don't know. But I have followed every story I ever ran across about Stonehenge and they are many!

There are stone circles among other archaeological ancient peoples too, however, in fact, we hae some by Indienous people in North American. These too are presumed to be astronomical measurement devices.

Another shared archaeological structure is the mound burial. there are a few excellent documentaries on mound structures in the American midwest.

The Secret in the Stones made the connection between burial and astronomical purposes as wwell as spiritual connections and religious rituals and one thing that one of the observed which I have never heard before was that he surmises that ancient Irish peoples moved away from mound burials toward the large standing stones as in England's Stonehenge in a religous move away from earth worship to sky worship.

Unfortunately by the time I found and got through the first episode, part 1 of the documentary, it was my bedtime and so I will finish the documentary tonight.

Each year at St. Patrick's Day, I celebrate with a book, a movie, and sometimes by sharing some family history. Over the years, but not this year, I have sent my daughter cards with information about her ancestral name L A V I N E A, which came from Ireland with Lavinia Johnson, about 5 generations ago. The Lavinia of that arrival lived in Philadelphia with an extended family that included names like Gallagher, Welsh, Adams and McQuiston (which was our maternal line - Scots Irish, as my great-aunt Lavinia Lyons often emphasized!). So if you are Irish in part, in whole, or simply in interest, I wish you top of the morning and a wind at your back!

Happy St. Patrick's Day and many more of them to come, Happy Trails (over land or water or time) Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Steps to Inner Peace - Peace Pilgrim, A NJ hero for March Women's History Month

This morning while organizing in my studio, I came across a little blue booklet that I had bought many years ago called: Steps Toward Inner Peace. It is the story of The Peace Pilgrim, a woman born and raised in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey. She walked 25,000 miles from 1953 to 1981 on a pilgrimage to spread the message of Peace. A quote I found particularly useful from her little booklet was “the way to peace in the world is through inner peace.“ Another of her quotes that I admire is “You cannot change others, only yourself. It is through your example that you move others.”

Born Mildred Lisette Norman on July 18, 1908, Peace Pilgrim grew up among a close-knit extended family on a poultry farm in Egg Harbor City, NJ.

The Peace Pilgrim had a revelation in the early 1950’s about her call to be a pilgrim for peace and she devoted the rest of her life to that cause. There is a little contemplation park in Egg Harbor with a monument to The Peace Pilgrm. A friend and I were fortunate enough, some years ago to attend a memorial in her honor in a local school auditorium. Her words and her life have lived with me ever since. She was and is a true prophet. I am happy that I came across her little booklet again; it feels like it was meant to be a reminder to me on my own spiritual quest for harmony and peace. I acquired my booklet at the memorial service but in the back of the booklet it says you can get a copy by contacting:

Friends of Peace Pilgrim 43480 Cedar Ave. Hemet, California 92544

You can also find information about The Peace Pilgrim via google and also other ways to purchase the booklet!

Jo Ann

More Mood boosting ideas

I found this in a well being newsletter this morning: "When you recall someone doing something kind for you or vice versa, the memory likely brings you joy. Jessica Borelli, a professor of psychological science at University of California, Irvine, developed a technique called relational savoring to encourage people to reflect deeply on meaningful moments. The practice helps people feel more secure in relationships and has been linked to increased well-being and decreased negative moods."

A lot of the examples given in the newsletter related to family events, but I like to reflect on the kind deeds my neighbors have done for me. It renews my faith in human beings. My neighbor around the block just got back from walking my dog for me. He walks much further and much faster than I do and I have a big energetic dog, so his kindness is a real boon for her! My neighbor across the street puts out my recycle can and the next day, my trash can, and brings back the cans from the curb after collection. Reflecting on these kindnesses really means a lot to me. Also recounting the good work my sister does for me als makes me feel loved. Now that I am older, I have less opportunity to do for others, although I still do things for my sister in the realm of things I can do - I can pick her up and give her a ride to the store or to the bus on cold days or bad weather. Little kindnesses I can do also are to send birthday cards and holiday cards to friends and family far away. Yesteday I dropped off half a dozen St. Patrick's cards to my cousin in Cape May, my brother in W.Va and some other friends. I like receiving a card from a friend and they have all told me they enjoy getting cards from me.

It isn't hard to think of a small thing you dan do for someone - I save magazines (Archaeology and Discover) for my neibhbor who likes to read them. I put them in the mailbox for him.

In addition to the reflection on good things, it helps to catch yourself rehashing unpleasant things and stop that in its tracks - it's over, let it go!

Happy Trails to you! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

NPR Newsletter - 8 tips to reduce stress and anxiety and improve mood and happiness

NPR Newsletter - 8 tips to reduce stress and anxiety and improve mood and happiness

1-Focus on the positive. Instead of dwelling on a negative, focus on something pleasant, for example, a beautiful sky, a taste of fresh fruit, the sighting of a bird. PAY ATTENTION TO SMALL PLEASURES

2-TAKE TIME TO SAVOR SOMETHING PLEASANT, A FRAGRANT SCENT AS FROM FLOWERS OR IN THE AIR, A DELICIOUS CUP OF COFFEE, SOMETHING THAT YOU ENJOY - TAKE THE TIME TO SAVOR IT!

3-We have all heard of practicing gratitude, Scientific studies have shown the efficacy of this practice. Take the time each day to list things you have to be grqteful for: For exampe, being alive to enjoy another Spring

4-Daily Mindfulness - Make the habit of catching yourself wrapped in thoughts and remind yourself to BE HERE NOW; be in the present moment

5-Positive Reappraisal - Take a situation and reframe it to see what positive can be taken from it. You trip but you catch yourself before you fall. You fall, but you are unhurt, etc. My favorite is "Everything is Teaching us"

6-Self Compassion: We are often our own worst critics. Give yourself the same compassion and understanding you would give a friend.

7-Personal strengths: Remind yourself of the things you are good at

8-Attainable Goals: Instead of setting an impossible goal like cleaning the whole house, try setting an attainable goal like cleaning one room, or clearing one desk top.

Good luck practicing these skills! I might add, writing them down in your daily journal or anywhere you might see them such as on your calendar, can help you remember them and remind you to practice them. I practice them and I must say that I feel happy most of the time. When I am not feeling well, or drifting into melancholy or worry, I use some of my own strategies: I get a Dunkin Donut latte' and take my dog for a drive to a park near the Delaware River and we sit and watch the river for awhile. Also, we sit on the porch - getting out of the house is very helpful to me.

Today, I was grateful to be able to enjoy another Spring, another St. Patrick's Day, Another Women's History Month. Had a great phone conversation with a couple of friends too.

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com (if you want to contqct me, use e-mail as the comments section of blogspot is polluted by spammers) Happy Trails to You!

Second post for Women's History Month - ART

Grief and love coexist in art

"Suse Lowenstein lost her eldest son, college student Alexander Lowenstein, in the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988. Her grief is still very present — but now, it lives alongside love and remembrance in an art piece years in the making.

But hundreds of other mothers, partners, siblings and friends lost their beloveds that day. So more than a decade after the devastating attack, she invited 75 women whose loved ones were killed in the attack to her home in New York. Together in her yard, they disrobed and recreated the positions they were in when they learned the life-altering news. Lowenstein photographed them all in the most vulnerable state of their lives.

And in the years that followed, Lowenstein turned the 75 women into sculptures. Some of the women in her yard banged their fists on the ground; others buried their faces in their hands. Almost all of them fell to the ground. The women are grieving — but by baring their souls (and bodies) for art, they’re refusing to let their loved ones’ memories die with them. Inside each sculpture is a memento of the loved one they lost — a shoelace, an earring, a sock — all placed near where the figure’s heart would be. The sculpture Lowenstein made of herself, on her knees doubled over in grief, contains a photo she took with her late son.

“It’s a reminder of the tragic loss and brings mixed emotions of grief and sorrow,” she said of the art piece. “But it’s also a source of connection and comfort because it represents a gift to the victims.”

Tis piece was from a "5 Good Things" E-Mail to which I subscribe. I chose to add it to my March Women's History Month blog posts because a teacher with whom I worked years ago also lost a son to the Pan Am 103 crash. We only have seen one another once a year at a Christmas party we used to attend, but when I saw her she would tell me the latest event she attended with her husband to commemorate the tragic even in Lockerbie, Scotland. She and her husband also have a daughter, and I always thought that was a saving grace. For those of us with only one child, I can't imagine what it would take to be able to go on in the world after such a devastating loss. Committing yourself to some kind of action would be like clinging to a life raft, I imagine. One of my favorite artists has always been Kathe Kollwitz, German artist and anti-war activist who lost her only son in World War !. She did a now famous work called Nie Wieder Krieg in 1924. It has stood as a symbol for peace activists for a hundred years!

From the National Museum of Women's History for March: Women's History Month

March’s Curated Book Recommendation

 Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History

by Philippa Gregory

FROM BOOKSHOP.ORG

In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, she [Gregory] tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.

Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers, and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills, and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things, and rioted. A lot.

A landmark work of scholarship and storytelling, Normal Women chronicles centuries of social and cultural change—from 1066 to modern times—powered by the determination, persistence, and effectiveness of women.

Pick up a copy from your favorite local bookstore here or at your local library.  

Do you have any Irish family History?

St. Patrick's Day is around the corner and whether you have Irish ancestry or not, you can celebrate what the Irish have brought to America and the beauty of the irish soul. I believe in celebrating and celebrating Irish culture and history allows me to visit with my Irish Grandmother in spirit and in memory. I sincerely hope it warms up by March so I can attend the event listed below! Hope to see you there!

"Join the New Jersey Irish Society and Camden County for the 10th Annual St. Patrick’s Parade in Gloucester City, NJ! This festive event will take place on Sunday, March 2nd, starting at 1 PM. The parade begins at Martin’s Lake, located at Baynes Avenue and Johnson Boulevard, and then proceeds down Monmouth Street." (from the Camden County News events e-mail)

Happy Trails, through history and through the world!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Neither Rain nor Sleet -

This post is about my vintage sewing machine adventure of this past week. Actually, the inspiration for the adventure goes back some years, when I was doing family history and discovered on a census that my Great Grandmother Catherine Sandman Young had been, as a young woman of 16, a seamstress/dressmaker. She remained a seamstress all her life. In the beginning, she sewed uniforms for the Schuylkill Arsenal in Philadelphia. We don't often think about how clothing was made in the pre-industrial days of manufacture. Whole armies had to be clothed and women often were the main manufacturers of these uniforms.

Originally, in the Colonial period, fibers were farm grown and processed locally, turned into fabric (such as linen) at local mills, processed at Fulling Mills (you can see the ghostly reminders in the names of roads. There is a Fulling Mill Road near where my cousin lives in the Villas). Finished fabrics were purchased and cut and sewn by hand in the home, or in some cases in local cottage industries by tailors. Most people had two sets of clothing, a work set, and a "Sunday go to Meeting" set.

Once, I sewed a costume by hand for a Coloial volunteer job I had. It takes a long time, even for someone who has long experience of sewing. There are statistics for this; it is estimated that a man's shirt could take about 10 hours to sew by hand. By sewing machine, the estimate was an hour and a half.

I am the fortunate inheritor of both my Great Grandmother Catherine Sandman Young's 1929 Singer Bentwood sewing machine, and her daughter's 1955 Singer 301A sewing machine which she gave to my mother and my mother passed down to me.

Two or three times over the past decade, I have wanted to fetch the 1929 Bentwood from the attic for various reasons, most recently I wanted to bring it to my Seniors' Group for a theme we had on family heirlooms. But I couldn't find it behind all the stuff in the attic and I am too old and creaky to manage those attic steps carrying something heavy, but a week ago, my sister went up with me and together we located it and she brought it down. Unfortunately the key to the Bentwood case was gone. it had been tied to the handle by a blue ribbon which disintegrated. We looked but couldn't find it.

I called my sewing machine repair man, Chuck McGowan, who has repaired my 1955 Singer 301A for me a couple of times. Most recently he repaired it so I could work on a project for the Haddon Fornightly Annual Group Art Show in March 2023. I sewed a piece for that show and won the Founder's prize, $250 which covered the fabric and the repair and the replacement case that I bought from Chuck. The original case was fabric over cardboard, like old luggage, and it had fallen apart.

I was so excited to have the 1929 machine downstairs but disappointed not to have the key to open it. Chuck McGowan told me I would never find a replacement key because they are so often lost over time but that I might be able to get the case open if I had the right screw driver. I looked it up on YouTube and sure enough there were instructions on how to use a screwdriver to get the case open, but none of my screwdrivers worked. Another tip they had was to cut off a section from a wire coat hangar and beat it flat on your anvil. I had no anvil, so I went to my favorite local family owned hardware store and told them my story and they helped me find two screwdriver candidates. Happy ending - one of the two screwdrivers was long and flat and thin enough to do the job and I opened the case and Great Grandmother's machine was out in the light once again. >p/> I want to know everything all the time, so of course I began to do some research and found out, by serial number, that my 1929 was manufactured in Elizabethport, NJ, in what was, at the time, the largest purpose built factory in the world! I read the history of sewing machines (they go back to the 1750's, used for leather I put in a call at a couple of antique stores and visited one or two with my sister. These tables used to be seen everywhere and they were popular for a time as gaardening tables. We all know how things disappear over time. These tables which were once everywhere, are now nowhere! But Antiques Emporium in Burlington City had one!

I don't drive far anymore because my vision is too poor for reading signs and I get lost. The gps doesn't help me for a number of reasons. But I decided I wanted that table - and there were complications. They could hold it for me if I bought it with a credit card but they no longer put a hold on items because people don't show up, so I tried to buy it with my credit card but they were having trouble with their new credit card machine. I decided to be brave and drive up there, with preparation in the form of written directions, and a pumpkin spice latte' I should be able to do it.

The weather this week was dreadful, torrential downpours, frozen rain, fog, cold and windy, but off I went. I did perfectly fine all the way to Burlington, up 295N in the rain, and exit 47B, but then a problem happened with 541 and I ended up lost in a gargantuan shopping center. When I finally found a road out, it took me to Mount Holly and I got so emotionally destablized I had to find a highway and go home (route 38). My former younger braver stronger self would have persevered, but I am not that woman anymore. I got old.

When I got home, I told my sister, Sue, what had happened and she said she had Sunday off from work and would go there with me. More torrential downpour but with better directions from my friend Nancy, who lives up near there, we got directly to the Antique's Emporium, on High Street, which is one of my favorite places to visit. Back when I drove all over, I used to go there about once a month to stroll and browse. I have been there with most of my friends at one time or another too, and often we had lunch at the restaurant that faces the river and Burlington Island, which changes ownership all the time.

The Antiques Emporium is enormous and used to be an automobile manufacturing plant for Chrysler cars. The building was rescued from demolition and got a new life as an antiques mall with a cooperative of sellers. Two nice gentlement helped put the beautiful table which was exactly what I had been looking for, in the back of my car and we drove it home and set it up and placed the queen on top for display. I neglected to ask if anyone knew the age of the table. The price had been $125 with a 20 percent discount in February!

At home, I put my 1929 Singer on display and admired it, then I did some research. A group incuding Singer and a German Culture Association gathered the data and put together a spread sheet of all the Singer sewing machine models and the places and dates of their manufacture. It took them 5 years from 2000 to 2005 to create the database and post it online. This was enormously helpful.

Next, I did some research on my table and found two almost exactly like it for sale on e-bay and etsy from antique sellers. Both were from 1920's. One was more complete and had a $675 price and one was a bit less perfect and was for sale for $350. So I got a good price on my table and I was delighted that the table was the same age as my Singer sewing machine.

It felt as though I should find out the same information on my other machine which was old but I had no idea how old. My mother used it and I have used it. I used to sew all my own clothes and I sewed my daughters until she went to school. It works perfectly with the occasional help of Chuck McGowan, repair man. My Siner 301A was manufactured in 1955 in Anderson, North Carolina as one of the Centennial models for Singer's 1851-1951 Celebration. Chuck McGowan had told me that it was the best model they ever made! He had worked in a Singer factory. Singer factories are all gone now in the US as of the 1980's.

Sewing machines are a big factor in the lives of women. Two inventions that changed our lives in the turn of the century were sewing machines and bicycles. Sewing machines gave us a cottage industry to make a living and bicycles gave us mobility and both were more or less affordable, althoug $60 for a 1929 Singer was a pretty hefty price. It was after all, the era of the Stock Market Crash and the beginning of the Great Depression. I wonder how Catherine Sandman Young found the money to buy that machine or perhaps her husband bought it for her before he died, or her family. Whatever means of affording it, it was her life-saver during the Depression. My Grandmother Mabel, her daughter, and she sewed their way into rent and food for the children since both were widowed.

Once in the Ocean City Historical Society Museum, there was a display of late 1800's summer dresses. The intricate detailing, beading, pleating, tiny embroidered details, lace trim, just mesmerized me and I wondered about the young women sitting at the table sewing these garments which must have taken days. They were also so fussy, I couldn't imagine how constricting they must have been, to keep them clean and to do anything in them, especially with the strangling corset underneath.

Anything women do always ends up in the press or in literature as in some way connected to impropriety and so it was with seamstress/dressmaker work. If you browse around the history of this trade inevitably it is alluded that it paid so poorly some seamstresses were forced into prostitution to make enough to live. Hence, popular history hints seamstresses had a slightly scandalous resputation. This makes me angry. Laws and economics were stacked to force women into near slavery and prostitution no matter what they did. You could be a wife, or a cook, or a servant or a dressmaker. First the mills helped women to escape this dead end, then the sewing machines and inevitabley the sewing factories, as bad as they were, they allowed for some independence for a woman outside marrital bondage and after widowhood.

My Grandmother of the 1955 301A Singer, worked in Stainton's Deparment store in the winter at Ocean City and on the Boardwalk selling tickets at the amusement pier in the summer. She had moved to Ocean City to care for her mother, Great Grandmother Catherine who had suffered a catastrophic stroke. In her spare time, Grandmother Mabel hand-sewed quilts for all her grandchildren. I still have mine but I used them and they are in tatters. I think the quilts were her Art form.

Visiting with these machines is visiting with my female ancestors and it is looking into Women's History. It is also thought provoking in pondering how some things manage to stay in the family over a hundred years when so many other things fall away over time. It makes you think too about those who recognize the importance of some items in the social history of people, like those wonderful folks who compiled the database of serial numbers for the rest of us.

This post is only about sewing machines, but it happens that I also have a 1919 typewriter! I don't know where it came from or how long I have had it; I can't remember a time when I didn't have it! But that is a story for another blog post!

Happy Trails! wrightj45@yahoo.com

Music Buff?

MUSIC THROUGH THE DECADES" TRIVIA NIGHT, WOODBURY

Event Hosted by Tony Romeo Features Music, Prizes, and Dancing March 8th, 5-9 PM, American Legion Post 133 at 1018 Washington Ave. in Woodbury, NJ

If you know your music, show us what you got and win a prize at the Gloucester County Historical Society's "Music Through the Decades" Trivia Night on Saturday, March 8th from 5:00 to 9:00 PM in the American Legion Post 133 at 1018 Washington Ave. in Woodbury, NJ. The evening will be hosted by Tony Romeo, prominent trivia performer and Executive Producer and Host of Weekend Philler. Airing on WPHL (PHL17) the magazine-style show spotlights people, places and things in and around the Philadelphia area.

The evening features a trivia competition, music and dancing between rounds, a 50/50 raffle, and the opportunity to dress for your favorite decade with prizes going to the best dressed. Snacks and soft drinks are included, and a cash bar is also available.

Tickets: $25 per person available for purchase through the Historical Society website at https://bit.ly/gchs-trivia-night. (No tickets sold at the door). Tables of 8 can be reserved.

Sponsored by: Gloucester County Historical Society Museum

CONTACT: museumcoordinator@gchsnj.org (856) 848-8531

Geo Locator: 39.85009, -75.14289

Google Maps: https://bit.ly/AmericanLegion133

Black Soldiers in the Revolutionary War

Just recieved this information this morning and I wanted to share it. When I was a voluteer at Red Bank Battlefield, a fellow vounteer, Harry Schaeffer was doing some research on African American Solciers who fought in the Battle there. They were with the 1st Rhode Island, I think I remember. It has been a little known and little shared part of the history of the founding of our nation. This looks like a grand way to celebrate Black History Month as well as to remember the period of struggle to create our Demoncratic Nation!

BLACK CONTINENTAL ARMY SOLDIERS: A LITTLE-TOLD STORY >p/> Woodbury Juneteenth is Celebrating Black History Month with 2 Live Actors Feb. 23, 1 PM, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 414 Mantua Pike, Woodbury, NJ

Woodbury Juneteenth is presenting a Black History Month program celebrating the African Americans who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War on February 23 at 1 PM in the Bethlehem Baptist Church, 414 Mantua Pike, Woodbury, NJ 08096. The FREE program features historical re-enactors Noah Lewis and Joe Becton highlighting a broad range of experiences of the freemen and enslaved men who fought against the British to establish the United States. Lewis will portray Ned Hector, who served in the Continental Army's artillery unit and as bombardier and teamster driving wagons of ammunition and supplies. Becton will portray the life and times of Jack Sisson, an enslaved African American who gained his freedom by enlisting in the Continental Army, fighting in major battles, including the Battle of Rhode Island and the Battle of Yorktown that ended the war.

The Bethlehem Baptist Church and the Gloucester County Historical Society are collaborating in the event which is sponsored by the City of Woodbury, the Gloucester County Cultural & Heritage Commission, and the New Jersey Historical Commission. >p/> CONTACT: Donna Miller, dmiller@woodbury.nj.us

Geo Locator: 39.83235, -75.15680

Google Maps: https://bit.ly/BethlehemBaptistChurch

Singer Sewing Machine - a Survival Tool

An Obsession: For several months, I have had an obsession to see my Great-Grandmother's Singer Sewing Machine which was buried in the attic behind years of accumulated storage chests, tubs and footlockers. Frankly, I can barely stand to go up there AND twenty years ago, I fell down the long attic steps and seriously injured my back, so I have body trauma aversion to going up there. But I had to see that machine. I don't know why.

I know what prompted this compulsion orignally, however. With a seniors group I founded, we were holding a Family Heirlooms/Family History Day, and I wanted to bring that machine because it belonged to my Great Grandmother Catherine Sandman Young. Both my Great Grandmother and her daughter, my Grandmother Mabel Young Wright, supported their families in their long widowhoods by sewing. I know one job they had was sewing uniforms for the Schuylkill Aresenal, or so I was told.

We all feel like we are in hard times now, but my female ancestors really knew hard times - they lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars. My Great Grandmother lived into her 90's but the final years were lived after a massive stroke. My Grandmother Mabel took superior care of her mother, knitted booties and caps for her, sewed her satin, embroidered bed jackets and kept her immaculately clean under hand sewn quilts in the front bedroom of the apartment they rented on the second floor of 623 Asbury Avenue, Ocean City, NJ.

When I was a small child, I visited my Great Granmother in her bedroom and I remember rushing to her open window to watch the fire engines roaring out of the fire department directly across the street, 6th and Asbury Ave.

Great Granndmother couldn't speak or move except her eyes, but there was nothing horrible about it to my young observation, it was just how she was. And her daughter kept her so clean and decorated that she was to me, like a large doll.

My Grandmother Mabel left the Bentwood Sewing Machine that they both used to me when she died. I have carried it around with me for about 50 or more years. When I moved into my house atso number 623, it went into the attic and stayed there, quietly soaking up time until last week when I got my younger sister to venture up there and haul it down.

My sister is a good sport and it is a heavy machine. Once downstairs, I realized the key that had been tied to the handle by a pale blue ribbon turned gray by age, was missing. We both searched with flashlights in every potential corner but no luck. It has slipped into a crack in the universe where lost antique keys go to celebrate their retirement.

What to do. I had my machine but couldn't open it. First, I called a sewing machine repair man, Chuck McGowan, who has worked on my mother's sewing machine, which I have also inherited, for me twice when I was using it to create some art works which later won prizes for me! He said those Bentwood Singer keys are impossible to find but it I had the right screwdriver, I could insert that into the round hole and jiggle it around to unlock the box.

No screwdriver that I had was able to do the trick. My obsession was getting stronger. I called an antique store. I was about to call a locksmith, but I tried the internet instead. On YouTube, two European men (one Dutch and one British) and one American woman carefully explained to me how to use a screwdriver to open the box. One of the men suggested if I didn't have screwdriver that fit, I should cut a piece from a wire clothes hanger and take it to my anvil and hammer it flat. The other one suggested that I use the key from a sardine can. Being a vegetarian without an anvil, I was stumped so I went to my local family hardware store.

I have gone to that hardware store for 40 years! They have EVERYTHING! They have never let me down. I explained my situation and the young woman, a daughter of the family line that has run the store all these years, showed me a couple of screwdrivers she thought might do the trick.

It was a cold, rainy, ihospitable day ahd normally, I wouldn't have wanted to go outside. My obsession to open that box was so strong, I could't wait to get there and then get back home and try the two screwdrivers I bought for $11. I moved the box from the bookshelf to my bureau where there was better light and using the advice from the Englishman, I lifted the screwdriver gently inside the lock and turned it right and Voila! The box opened and revealed the sleeping princess.

The last hands that had caressed that shapely machine had been my two female ancestors, now both long gone, but lovingly remembered by me. Following additional information given by one of my YouTube tutors, I copied off the serial number from the base of the machine and discovered that my Bentwood Singer Sewing Machine model # AC678501 had been made in 1929 in Elizabethport, New Jersey. That information yielded a website with the egraved illustration of the enormous built-to-purpose sewing machine factory which at the time was the largest of its kind in the world. It had been built in 1872 and by 1982 it was closed.

When I went to high school, girls took a course called "Home Economics" in which we were taught to read a recipe and cook somthing; in my case it was a perfect cheese soufle' and to sew! I learned how to sew so well, that I made all my own clothes for many years. As I worked in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the grandmothers mentioned, there were many nice fabric stores nearby, and on the remnants table I could get 2 yards of a good quality fabric for under $5. Using a Simplicity Easy to Sew pattern for a simple shift dress, I made them sleeveless for summer in cotton, three quarter sleeved for autumn and spring in linen, and long sleeved in wool, corduroy and tweed for winter.

When my daughter was a toddler, I made a bunch of rompers the same way, short legs in light cotton for summer, long legs in corduroy for winter with a turtleneck top underneith. I could make her a romper for about $4 in less than an hour.

One of the reasons that sewing machine means so much to me is not only that I knew that Great Grandmother, or that she kept her family fed and housed by use of it, but because sewing was the way the vast majority of women made a living throughout the 1800's and a good part of the 1700's and 1900's and women in sewing factories all over the world still are supporting their families this way.

Also, I made a historically accurate costume for a volunteer job I had years ago, sewn by hand, skirt, bodice and shift. It took a long long long time. Seamstresses who made the elaborate dresses of the 1800's could work 15 hours a day and were known for having damaged eyesight from the work. The sewing machine saved them.

The first Singers were made in 1857. I plan to look into the history of them a bit more now that I have my hundred year old machine open. And I am seearching for a proper sewing table with wrought iron treadle. I have a call in to Old Mill Antiques in Mullica Hill and one day, I will try to persuade a friend or relative to go table hunting with me.

My mother's machine, which I have always used, was the best machine Singer every made, according to my repair man. I will try to find where I put the information he gave me about it. Maybe it is in the box I had to buy to keep it in. The original suitcase style one had disintegrated over time. Great Grandmother's Bentwood Box at one hundred, is perfect!

Happy trails, down whatever history trail you may be on! wrightj45@yahoo.com

From NPR Tips to get out of a funk!

This morning in my e-mail feed there was an NPR piece on tips to get out of a blue mood, a slump, a funk, or whatever you call it. It was illustrated in a kind of comic book style and there were perhaps half a dozen tips. I thought them interesting enough and helpful enough to share with you! Most of them I already know and use, and one I would NEVER use, but, put simply (paraphrased) here they are:

1. Take a walk down memory lane, look at some old photographs, nostalgia can give you a perspective on your life. (My note: I just posted about my solo-retrospective art show, so you know I have done this one, and currently I am writing a book based on each piece of art and that phase in my life. It is a kind of Marcel Proust style memoir)

2.Take a Walk, even for 5 minutes, especially if you are a desk walker. Get up every half hour and walk around a bit. If you can, walk outside. (I have done this all my life, take a daily walk, although now the temperatue is so low and I am so old, the past couple of weeks I have had a couple of days between each walk)

3.Eat something. Often what you feel is your body telling you that you need some nourishment (nutricious food! I just made a pitcher of Nutella Smoothy, which, by the way, is really good hot too!) 4.Do some Art: Gather some art supplies, colored pencils, markers, water colors, paints of any kind or even scissors and colored paper and spend some time creating. (It goes without saying I have done this all my life but when I am too down to do a big painting, I have several small water color pads and Windsor Newton water color sets, and I do a few quick water color sketches - usually still life paintings, but also of my pets, or something from the yard - recently a branch of seed pods from my sleeping Rose of Sharon) 5.Watch cute animal videos (I do NOT do this because I live with cute animals so I watch them and they are immensely comforting. I am watching one right now on a cat perch on a window sill watching a fat squirrel run up and down a tree close to that window) My dog is snoring lightly beside me on the sofa - oh bliss!) 6.Take a Cold Plunge - they give health and brain reasons for this one in the NPR piece, but I can tell you I would NEVER do this! I hate cold water and any unnecessary discomfort. I have enough of those naturally with arthritis and old age. I recommend buying a good quality electric lap throw and getting cozy with that and a book or audio book or an album! This week was the 50th anniversary of Blood on the Tracks - Bob Dylan)

7.Take a Walk down Memory Lane AGAIN, look at some old family photos, your vacations snaps, look at your life. NPR gave reasons why this is good for you. (I have done a lot of family history and it has made me more connected to my family, my ancestors and history I recommend watching Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, a pbs show and then start your own family tree - you might also contact a family member to get some family history)

8.This one they left out but I will add - Phone or Text or Meet up with a friends. Yesterday two of my neighbor friends and I went to a new local place for a delicious lunch - I had cheese ravioli in marinara sauce and a small salad - and an even more delicious long conversation! Afterwards I felt lighter and mildly elated! I have lunch with friends on average once or twice a week,) 8.Write - my suggested tip. I keep a daily journal and it has helped me through some dead ends and bad turns in my travel through life. It has been a road map and a record. Also, I like to keep this blog! Writing helps us remember and it helps me understand and figure things out. Write a blog and read a blog!

Little Stories

Some time in 1969 or thereabouts, a young army wife had boarded a plane to meet her new husband in Frankfurt, Germany. Her husband had been drafted and had received the very fortunate assignment of the Signal Corps in Germany rather than Vietnam. He'd asked her if she would wait until he came back and having serched her soul she replied quite honesty that she couldn't promise anything because two years was a long time. There was a time when she would have promised to wait without hesitation because she loved him so whole heartedly, but something had happened a couple of years before, and she had been given an insight into the possibility of another young man. That is a little story for another time.

Alright, here I drop the pretense and admit the young woman was me. I was 21 years old. We'd had a worlwind marriage - blood tests, marriage license, justice of the peace, and a honeymoon at the World's Fair in Montreal, Canada.

Among the significant traditional gifts parents gave their almost adult daughters, I had been given a set of Samsonite luggage, creamy oyster white. There was the large suitcase, the medium sized one, and the ittle rectangular toiletries box.

I am an old lady now, and if I had kept to fiction, I could have filled in imaginary details to repace the ones I have forgotten, such as, what time of year was it? I have a vague impression it might have been summer, but I am not sure.

When I boarded the plane (from where? I don't remember) I saw my parents out the small airplane window with my brothers and sisters and my parents were crying. In contrast, I was thrilled! This was the adventure of a lifetime.

At the home of the Justice of the Peace, I had looked into the mirror on the other side of the lace covered dining room table, where we were pledging our vows and I had said to myself, "This is the biggest mistake I have ever made." Already, I had been given a peek into the mental illness that had only just begun to emerge from my young husband's behavior. He was prone to excessive rage, temper tantrums generally triggered by automobile problems or his mother, but generously sprayed across anyone who happened to be present. In those days, it was common for serious young couples to spend a lot of time together. We were together most week nights and every weekend.

But here was offered to me the opportunity to not only visit Europe, but to live there, in the brightly colored posters of Toulous Lautrec. Among the many books I had bought as a young working woman; I had gone to work directy from high school, and I mean directly - I finished high school on a Friday and went to work at W. B. Saunders Publishing Company on Monday. My job provided me with my first discretionary money, and I spent it at the Cherry Hill Mall. In those days, there were book stores, attractively arranged and fairly expensive. There was also, however, at the book store in the Cherry Hill Mall, a rediced price table at the entrance to entice passers-by into the store. On that table I had foun an art book of the paintings of Toulous Lautrec, and from what had apparently been a set, another of the work of Gauguin, and a third of the work of VanGogh.

Now I was on an airplane on my way to visit the birthplaces of these heroes of mine. I felt very grown up and also a bit frightened, not about the flying or the plane, but about going to and being in a foreign place, managing. My fear was mediated by my faith in the practicality and resourcefulness of my young husband. He was brilliant and he could do things like fix cars, read maps, plan trips, and he had been through basic training and officer's candidate school and he was proven and certified to be up to the job, whatever it might be. He had already arranged an apartment for us in a small town called Heilbronn.

Germany was part of the recycling of soldiers to and through Vietnam and back to the United States. There were so many soldiers stationed at the post World War II military bases that the housing was all full and offers were given the option of off-base accomodation which my young husband was more than happy to accept. Some officers wanted their families on base, but Michael was eager to live in the 'real' Germany not the military base one.

I am interested to look back and realie that I wasn't frightened of flying. We had spent a great many of our date nights at the Philadelphia airport dringking coffee and watching planes arrive and take-off. Maybe that was why. Of the flight itself, I remember almost nothings, who sat next to me or what we were served - all that has gone with time. What I remember is the announcement that there was going to be a slight detour in our flight. We were going to land in Thule, Greenland for slight repairs adn then we would resume our flight.

We departed the plane, somehow with our luggage. I remember that clearly because we all made kind of nests and forts out of our luggage. We were all army dependents, families of soldiers, and a few soldiers scattered amongst us. We were held in a vast cavernous hangar. We were there for many hours. No one told us anything. Mothers struggled to tend to sqwaling babies and to corral and control rambunctious toddlers and small children. I remember clearly being relieved that it was just me and I didn't have to cope with children in those hours of waiting in the cold, airplane hanger with no snack bar or any kind of comfort.

At nearly the days end, we were all told to board the plane again and we did, docile as sheep. And we proceeded to Frankfurt Am Man where my young husband awaited me in our new car. He took me to our little apartment on the third floor of a complex of new concrete residences, with its sloped ceilings and feather comforter on the fat little bed, the modern, no European style nonsense furnishings, and my favorite piece of all, a buttery kitchen cupboard with a slide out sifter for baking.

Years later when my family was all together at one of our holidays dragging out our stories, i was retelling this one and my father said, "I ws crying at the airplort because I saw the airplane they put you on was an old World War II plane and I didn't think it was going to make it!" To this day, I am stunned that my father thought my plane was going to go down. And that we had engine trouble and could, actually, have gone down!