Blueberry Festival

To be honest, I don't go to festivals anymore but I feel I have a duty to let you know when I hear about one, so here we go:

Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 5:00 PM

Trinity Episcopal Church, 207 W Main St, Moorestown, NJ, 08057 Our Blueberry Festival is back! Join the fun.

Blueberry Desserts, grilled sausage, hot dogs and salad. Kids games, music, dancing, bouncy house, Blueberries and blueberry jam for sale. p/> I will tell you my favorite blueberry place, though, it is WHITESBOG! And they have a blueberry festival as well but the parking is difficult there at festivals. You should go visit someday when it isn't crowded. Elizabeth White cultivated the blueberry from the native high bush berry and she was also a famed specialist in Holly growing and her family had cranberry bogs and a big business in cranberries. Her home, Suningive, is still at Historic Whitesbog Village and you can visit there. Hiking the bogs in summer is delightful and gorgeous!

Enjoy blueberry season - one of New Jersey's products! Remember those state products maps?

Happy trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

The World on Fire June 8, 2023

Last night, for the first time, I could really smell it - the smoke from the wildfires in Canada. Of course it could have been mixed with the wildfires in the Pines around Medford, and also, there was a construction site fire in Philadelpia.

Short sighted people. I read some comments after a red alert e-mail news item, and one of the coments was insulting and scornful against people calling this air disaster "Climate Crisis" The commenter emphasized, "It's Wildfires, not Climate Crisis" and added some insults to push his point home. What he didn't realize was that the Climate problem, the drying world, is pusshing the rest of the trouble, the wildfires, the drying up of rivers, water shortages. One of his insults was against "Woke Greennie Weenies" and I reflected on how so much of the current culture war is about manifestations of gender. Macho male dominance has been challenged by sensitive people who care about the environment, about animals, about the big world. That intimidation begins all the way back in the school yard with bully boys picking on sensitive ones and on anyone else they perceive as weaker.

It is interesting to me that Ron DeSantis in his latest ad against Trump, portrayed him hugging Dr. Fauci, whom the radical right wing have demonized, the man who led us through the pandemic. They hate him. The image was manufactured because Trump didn't embrace Dr. Fauci, of course.

I looked up 'Woke' once and it described people who believe in equality for LGBTQ citizens, environmentalism, animal rights, and women's rights.

The "unwoke" want to return to discrimination against all these groups. They want the rich to be spared paying their fair share of taxes. They want to reduce the power of the federal government, push women back into the house, take away birth control so women will be forced to reproduce and hence noat free to get an education or make a career, and be independent financially. That's what they mean when they say Make American Great Again - they mean take it back to the 1940's and 50's, reverse progress.

Air Quality - I called my vet to see what he would say about walking Uma. He advised that I wear a mask, of course, and that I walk her no more than around the block, just so she can get a leg stretcher but not breathe too much bad air.

bad air, bad water, we have more and more of these environmental disasters!

Well, at least it is still cook which I am enjoying so much!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com Happy trails friends!

Red Bank Battlefield Event

Worries and Politics

As you well know if you have visited this blog, I rarely talk about politics, but this time, I was a little worried. If, like me, you rely a lot on social security, this stand-off over raising the debt ceiling was frightening. Fortunately for me, I was a teacher and my career was during the period of the strong unions, so I have pension which is enough for me to survive, if not exactly thrive. Also fortunately for me, my mortgage is paid.

Yesterday in one of my news feeds on e-mail, it could have been npr, cnn or nytimes, I read about homeless senior citizens living in tents while using walkers and canes and struggling with big medical issues. The article said they had lost their homes to taxes or other issues and some have dementia and no family members nearby to help them maintain.

Also fortunately for me, I lived a life fairly free of bad habits so my brain is still in good shape, and I don't have a family history of dementia or alzheimers diseases for which no amount of healthy living can help. I stopped smoking 40 years ago, NEVER took up drinking, and always abided by the rules for maintaining good sleep habits - no blue screens in the bedroom, steady bedtime, and getting up early in the morning. Also no caffeine.

But people fall into all kinds of troubles including not having proper medical coverage and falling into debt for medical services. Also, not preparing for quarterly taxes can be a big one. Anyhow, however it happened I was surprised to read that there are so many elderly people in tents in homeless shelters.

To the point - all the concessions demanded by the right wing were to deprive the poor. There is never any move on their part to make the rich pay a fair share of their taxes. It is absolutely shocking to me that multi-millionaires and billionaires shirk their duty to pay a fair share of the financial burden to keep this country functioning. They use every trick available to avoid paying their share - like a wealthy friend who refuses to chip on the tip after a dinner out with friends. Selfishness and Greed rule the Right, along with bigotry and a deepd desire to dominate and control women's bodies. They don't get that taking care of everyone makes the country a better place. Who wants to live where the poor die in squalor on the sidewalks? Only vastly wealthy people who hide in gated communities and on giants yachts.

Our country is in deep danger because the Right Wing Republican party plays on the bigotry of so many against peope of different color or different sexuality to allow the rich to hide their money and rob the country.

Peope worry about Joe Biden's age, but the thing to worry about is a leaders character and morality and dedication to the good of the population. Franklin Delano Roosevelt got us through World War II and he was disabled! Winston Chruchill was ill and overweight and he got Britain through the worst crisis of the modern age, the Nazi Blitzkrieg!

Let us all keep in mind these facts about President Biden's performance:

"Biden has shown time and again his ability to work with whomever is across the table from him.

He did it in 2011 with Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell on the debt ceiling. And despite GOP intransigence only deepening, Biden has been able to pull off multiple bipartisan pieces of legislation since taking office, including:

the $1 trillion infrastructure bill; the CHIPS Act, which aims to build more semiconductors in the United States; the bill that provided health care and benefits for millions of veterans injured by exposure to toxins like Agent Orange in Vietnam and burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the $1.7 trillion federal government funding bill that got 68 votes in the Senate and included a revised Electoral Count Act." One of the things the McCarthy contingent did successfully strip away was funding for the IRS so that it could function adequately to catch tax cheats!

OK, I have said my piece. I am of the WWII generation nd I know we faced the Greed and Self-interest rise of domination politics in fascism before and defeated it, and we may have to do that again. I have hope that there is enough in humanity of compassion, courage, honor and justice to rise to the challenge and defeat it again.

Time to get outside and walk my dog, isten to the birds sing, watch the new leaves sway in the gorgeous Spring breeze, and put all the political worry behind me - Enjoy your day! For at least two more years my social security check will arrive and let me say one more time - it is NOT an ENTITLEMENT - It was an investment that all of us who receive it paid into throughout our decades of working lives. Jo Ann

BATSTO - Mark your Calendars

This jsust in from the Batsto Citizens Committee Newsletter

9/24/2023 ~ Fall Antique and Bottle Show 10/15/2023 ~ Country Living Fair

10/29/2023 ~ Haunting in the Pines

12/3/2023 ~ Winter in the Pines

Sadly since my eyesight has deteriorated along with knees, etc. I don't get out to the pines as often as I used to. I made weekly trips to Pakim Pond up until the Pandemic, when the age of my car as well as other concerns, put a damper on my hiking aaround the pond. Since then, I have bought a new car, but as mentioned above arthritis has been the restriction on my activities these days.

Still, Batsto was one of my favorite places to visit since my teens when neighborhood kids all piled into Joe McGuigan's car and drove out to the pines to hike and walk around the village. I so fondly recall the early days when the workers houses had actual artisans practicing their crafts, the potter, the weaver, the duck decoy carver, herbal medicine distilling, sheep sheering. Probably that was in the late 1960's or early 1970's.

While my daughter was growing up and after I got my first car, a gift from my Mother who wasn't driving any long, I made Batsto a favorite seasonal visit and hiked with my daughter on the trail along the lake and watched the sawmill buzzing through the tree trunks. We visited the Nature Center and learned about owls, beaver and turtles.

Again, in retirement, I returned to Batsto, and Atsion and all my favorite woodland haunts, most especially Pakim Pond! A couple of other things kind of drove me away, however, the hunters whose presence all along the road to the pond with their guns pointed into the woods made me nervous, and the ticks!

But I still celebrate the beauty and the history of the pineslands and in fact today I will be lunching with my old friend who has written three books about the pines, Barbara Solem. Her books include Batsto: Jewel of the Pines, Ghosttowns and Other Quirky Places in the Pinebarrens, and The Forks. W made many happy hikes to the hidden and mysterious places in our natural treasure that is the Pinebarrens.

If you go to any of the events, they are enormously popular, so be prepared to go early or park far away and make a hike to get there.

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

MEMORIAL DAY 2023

A small ceremony was held on Davis Avenue in my town, Mt. Ephraim, NJ today to honor the service of those who fought and died defending America. Around town, many of us put up our flags, and also many of us epressed our gratitude for the good fortune of having our loved ones return alive from war, at the same time as we shared the grief of those who lost a father, son, brother, husband in war.

Our family has had, on my Mother' side, a member of the Cheeseman family survive the Revolutionary War, a member of the Jaggard family survive the Civil War and Andersonville Prison, a member of the McQuiston family survive the Civil War at Gettysburg, an Uncle, Joseph Lyons, survived WW I, and my father, Joseph Robert Wright, and his uncle, Frederick Joseph Young (Yock) survive the US Navy in World War II. Dad was on a Troop Transport and Uncle Yock was on a Destroyer. My brother, Joseph Stephen Wright, a marine, came home safely from Vietnam. We have been the most fortunate of families.

When I visited the Vietnam War Memorial, like most, I cried, and thought of how that could have been our Joe on the wall and his pitiful youthful mementos placed at the foot of it, but our Joe came home.

It truly breaks my heart to think of the families who lost their loved ones It is a gap that cannot be filled. The profound awareness at holidays of the one who is missing, who didn't get to fall in love, be married, have children, enjoy holidays, and grow old. It is sad beyond measure.

But their sacrifice saved us from Hitler and the Nazi attempt to take over the world and destroy democracy. And it is our duty to see to it that the democracy they died to protect remains sacred and safe. When I saw a varity of events on television and I saw the Capitol building, I thought of that symbol of our nation and our democracy that was so recently defiled by fakers self-proclaimed militia men, all camoflage and no honor. Their grandfathers must have been turning in their graves to know their descendants smashed their way into our sacred capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power in an American election.

Well once again, the fascist impulse to domination and destruction was defeated and democracy was maintained, so for that we also have to be grateful, and to remember the Capitol guardians who died as a result of that insurrection, those men also died serving their country!

Jo Ann

this weekend

THE 42ND ANNUAL MAY FAIR

Saturday May 27th | 10 AM - 5 PM Haddon Avenue

Collingswood, New Jersey will be bursting with art, music and activities for all ages on Saturday, May 27, 2023 as Collingswood Partners hosts the 42nd Annual May Fair. What began in 1979 as a small “clothesline art exhibit” now encompasses more than a mile of the business district! Multiple stages of live music will feature blues, rock, folk and more. An antique & classic auto show adds to the festival’s appeal. Visitors will also find several Food Courts complimenting the downtown restaurants and cafés.

“Unheard Voices of the American Revolution”

Now through May 31st | Downtown Haddonfield

“Unheard Voices of the American Revolution” is a free, seven-part lecture series telling the stories of Quaker pacifists, African Americans, Loyalists, Jewish people, Freemasons and women, as well as the role of disease during wartime.

And there wil be an opening of an exhibition ofsmall Landscape paintings on Canvas at the Markheim Art Center (also in Haddonfield) May 31st from 5:30-6:30, please check via google for more information

Lots to do this wekend - don't forget to honor the sacrifice of so many by attending a local Memorial Day ceremony

FREE BOOKS AT Newton Friends Meeting, Cooper St. in Camden, NJ

I just saw a quarter page ad in the Camden County Historical Society magazine about this project to give away free books and I loved it, so I wanted to share the information. I copied this from site named "Indy" which you can find by googling Free Books at Newton Friends Meeting, if you wish:

"The Newton Friends Meetinghouse was built in 1872 to serve as a spot for people of the Quaker faith to pray. It’s still in use today, though the purpose it serves has changed and expanded over the years.

Every Saturday from 9-2, it serves as a free bookstore for Camden residents and for the greater Delaware Valley. The bookstore is an extension of the Free Books Project (formerly the Camden County Pop-Up Library) headed by Tom Martin. Martin had always dreamed of opening a free bookstore. Since 2017, he has handed out books on the streets of Camden, and him and his team installed “book arks” around the city to house books.

After attending a few meetings at the meetinghouse, he found willing partners for the bookstore with the folks at the Meetinghouse. Cindi Kammer, the Meetinghouse’s clerk, was looking for more ways for the community to use the building anyway, and so the Free Books Project and the Meetinghouse were a match made in heaven.

“I started attending meetings here every once in a while,” explains Martin. “I started talking to Cindy and she was mentioning how she wants to utilize the building to help the Camden community. And I was like, I want to do the same thing. I need a building and she needs a cause. So we took my cause and her building. It ended up being perfect.”

The cause of literacy is a hard one to argue against, and it’s one that Martin has been taking up for a while now. Getting books into the hands of children is important and it’s something that Sean Brown, an East Camden resident and book ark volunteer has witnessed firsthand.

“My mom was a teacher and I grew up with a lot of books,” says Brown. “But, unfortunately, a lot of younger people are more inclined to digitally read books than read a paper book. Research shows that having a book in your hands and actually being able to read it is very helpful. But also children read more when their parents read. I can’t tell my children to read if I don’t read. So to set an example, we have reading time in our house.”

Brown sets the example by reading a ton of business books, and his kids are big into the Dog Man series. There’s a little bit of everything at the bookstore and that includes popular titles such as those by James Patterson and self-help books. There are also books that are written in Spanish as well for Camden’s Hispanic population. Julie Beddingfield, owner of Inkwood Books in Haddonfield, was a huge help in making this happen.

“We have books in Spanish that are primarily thanks to Julie purchasing them,” explains Martin. “Last year we got a $5,000 grant from the Domenica Foundation to purchase books in Spanish. We have a giant Spanish-speaking population in Camden and we haven’t really tapped into that market.”

Beddingfield always had a book in her hands when she was young because her parents didn’t want to hear their children complain about being bored. Her love of reading grew and grew, and eventually she met Martin. Beddingfield appreciated the simplicity of Martin’s goal, which was to get books into the hands of people that needed them.

“Because I work in books for a living, I work with a lot of literacy organizations,” says Beddingfield. “This is the only organization I know that actually stands out on the street corner or goes to a place and puts books in the hands of the readers. It’s the connection of the book and the person who is actually gonna read it.”

Lachisha Laws and her goddaughter Zania Sims of Sicklerville have been familiar with the Free Books Project for years. Sims has been an avid reader her whole life, and likes the fact that the books are free.

“I like that you can get away in reading,” explains Sims. “Sometimes not everything is going as planned in reality. So you could use a fantasy book or any type of book in general to get away from it, and there’s a lot of books that have helped me get away from it.

“Not everyone has a lot of money to spend on books and this place will help people out a lot.”

Right now the plan is to continue to grow the free bookstore and get more visitors there. Even though not a ton of people live in downtown Camden, the bookstore is located up the street from Walter Rand Transportation Center, which is Camden’s main transit hub. Beddingfield would like to see the bookstore expand to offer more services as well.

“I really think it would be great to have all sorts of books for everybody and have a place where groups can come,” explains Beddingfield. “Maybe it’s a senior center or maybe it’s an after-school program and they can come and we do storytime and everyone leaves with books.”

For more information, follow the Free Book Project on their Facebook page, The Free Books Project.

A couple of Friends and I will be going over this Sturday, May 27, if we receive a reply to an e-mail and telephone call asking for confirmation that they will be open this weekend - since it is a holiday weekend. I will let you know how it goes because you may be like me and o many of our friends who have books they want to give away but no place that wants the books! Have a safe and happy Holiday Weekend Friends!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

CONTACT INFO:

Hi JoAnn, Thank you and yes we'll be open. Call or text me first just to be sure? 856 308 6992

Tom Martin Executive Director

The Free Books Project

camdencountypopuplibrary@gmail.com

The Free Books Project, formerly CCPUL

Website: https://camdencountypopuplibrary.org/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/CCPUL

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ccpul/

DONATE NOW A registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization: 82-3078732

PayPal ID: GWHX59DWRC362

Venmo: @CCPUL

Places to Go and Eat and Think

Today, I was out having lunch with two close friends and we were talking about our favorite places to eat lunch. All three of us mentioned The Station, 10 E. Chestnut St., Merchantville, NJ. I love everything about this place, the ambience, the food is ot of this world and very healthful, and there is an art galery as well as, great gifts, cards, and super delicious coffee and passtry. What better way to spend a lazy spring afternoon than lunch at the Station and a coffee and pasty to take home for dessert! Enjoy the art while you enjoy the food. The chef here is a marvel! Did I mention the roasted red pepper tomato soup? That soup and a vegan blt is a perfect combination.

The Station in Merchantville https://www.merchantvillestation.com The Station / Coffee, Art, Culture. We have art classes, a gallery, live music events, cake catering, photography studio, retail store and much more all ... ‎Station Coffee Menu · ‎Eilandarts Center · ‎Events

My friends and I were having lunch at Charlie Browns in Woodbury, NJ when the discussion came up. We LOVE the SALAD Bar there and we are not salad bar peope in general. Charlie Browns salad bar is always terrifically fresh as well as full of an array of salad dishes. On top of or beside your mixed greens with shaved carrots, you could have pasta salad, rice salads, potato salads, beans, beets, olives a few different kinds of seed such as sunflower seeds, olives, grated cheese, and I could go on and on. There is also always a tray of fresh bread: today it was French bread and corn bread but my favorite is cranberry walnut bread.

One of the things I am grateful for in both of these places is that they recognize that most people come to a cafe' for lunch not for someone else's choice of music. Since my friends and I eat out often, we are especially gratified when we don'e find ourselves in a blaring din of someone's favorite music play list. We actually like one another; we like to converse when we get together, food and conversation are our main pleasures in eating out. From time to time, we have asked a proprietor to lower the music so we could hear one another, and often, they are courteous enough to cooperate, but a few places have had to be crossed off our list because the din made it impossible for us to relax or talk. I mention this with the hope that the message might find itself in the ear of food establishments. Thank you! Meanwhile, I cannot mention lunch without mentioning the go-to place of my Burlington County friends who are kind enough to come down my way since i have trouble with the highways (my eyesight has begun to fail)- MARITSA'S in Maple Shade! Always cozy, clean, and comfortable, this place is one of our regular haunts and I recommend the eggplant parmigian, my favorite! Everyone here is so warm and friendly, it is a regular!

Bon apetit my friends! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Revolutionary War Fans - skirmish coming!

If you are a fan of the history of the Revolutionary War, you won't want to miss the Skirmish in Haddonfield on June 9th. Many people are unaware that New Jersey is known as the cockpit of the Revolution because more than 700 skirmishes and battles took place here as the armies stuggled back and forth over the East coast. South Jersey was the bread basket of the colonies, so many battles were fought here, the most famous of which was the battle for access to the Delaware River, THE BATTLE OF RED BANK. If you haven't visited it, you must go to beautiful Red Bank Battlefield in National Park, right off 295m or 139m and down Hessian Avenue from Woodbury, NJ. The historic Whitall House is often open for tours.

South of us in the Alloways Creek area is the historic Hancock House site of the infamous Hancock Massacre when British sympathizers sneaked up on sleeping Revolutionary miliatia men in the upstairs of Hancock Tavern and slaughtered them. There was nearby, the battle of Quinton's Bridge, and further south in Greenwich, the site of a historic tea burning! Yes that's right, New Jersey also had a tea party when smugglers tried to get tea into New Jersey after the ban on British tea, but their cargo was confiscated and burned in the town square. The ship had tried to sneak in on the Cohansey River.

SOON TO ARRIVE - In Camden, NJ, a new Museum of the Revolution will be here within the next couple of years, I believe the date is still 2025. You can find more information on that by visiting the Camden County Historcal Society Museum page, and by the way, the new issue of their fantastic magazine is available for FREE! It is filled with wonderful historic events and places and if you like history, you will love this magazine, so drop on over and pick up a few copies for yourself and your friends!

Happy Trails history friends! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Camden County Heritage Magazine FREE!

The Spring 2023 edition of the Camden County Heritage magazine is now available, with the theme of Our Stories of Camden County! This is the twelfth edition of the History Alliance’s annual publication, filled with articles and historic photos of Camden County’s past. Thank you to all those who supported the magazine through ads and donations! For more information or to receive past editions of the magazine, please email admin@cchsnj.org or contact one of the Camden County History Alliance Partner Organizations.

The above notice was taken from an e-mail I received. I want to add to the note that I LOVE this magazine and I often visit the Camden County Historical Society to pick up extra copies to distribute to my municipal building, our Senior Group in Mt. Ephraim, and our Woodbury Friends Meeting. Check the hours but I know they open tomorrow, Thursday at 10:00 a.m. The CCHS is located on Park Blvd. just behind Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and west of Harleigh Cemetery. It is a fbulous history museum to visit and beautiful historic Pomona Hall is a must see. Exhibits at CCHS change periodically so if you have been there before, you can go back again and see something new. Their online site is also very informative. Call 856-964-3333 for more information and I suggest you sign up for their e-mail notifications of events in Camden County!

Happy Trails Friends - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Just saw this in Friend's E-Bulletin and wanted to pass it on

The Quaker Bakers of Greenwich Friends Meeting will participate in the Wheaton Arts ECO Fair on Saturday, May 6, 2023 with an eye towards increasing our outreach and visibility. The Fair is open from 10-4pm and is free to the public. See glass blowing, buy native plants, learn about local environmental and arts programs, peruse exhibit spaces and gift shops and stroll the grounds, which include a newly interpreted nature trail. Bring the kids and grandkids - there will be hands-on activities for children. Be sure to say hello at our table!

For more information please visit the link below:

https://www.wheatonarts.org/calendar-eventon/events/eco-fair/

Another place to pick up a seedling for Arbor Day!

Happy Earth Day!

The First Earth Day   On April 22, 1970, more than 20 million Americans gathered on college campuses and in city squares to celebrate the first Earth Day.

Some came to spread the word, others came to learn, but all were a part of the largest organized demonstration in American history.

From a small Washington, D.C. office, Environment Teach-In, Inc. organized the first Earth Day as a coordinated teach-in involving several schools across the U.S. Denis Hayes (pictured above) ran the small activist group co-founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson. The teach-in was designed to educate Americans about growing problems with environmental pollution and overpopulation.

Thie above was from a pbs essay on American Experience

I was just walking around town with my dog, Uma, and I wass talking to a neighbor who, like me, has moved away from the onventional green grass lawn. She has a 'hardscape" rock garden and is contemplating a meadow in her side yard. I hae a woodland front yard with many trees and evergreens and shrubs such as junipers and holly, no lawn.

Some time ago, I became aware of a movement called 'permaculture' which teaches about landscaping with the future of the planet in mind. For example, over the past several years, dyed licorice mulch became popular without anyone stopping to ask if it was healthy for the ground or the water beneath the ground. Also, I have (unlike my usual conflict averse self) gotten into sseveral debates with neighbors and relatives about their poisonous war against dandelions. They dump round-up pesticide on healthful plants like dandelions which feed so many wild creatures and could feed us (my old neighbors in Phila. used to make dandelion wine!) without thinking how the poison goes into our water supply. Please, please, don't kill the daisies!"

Keep it natural, plant native species and avoid invaders like the ever present and destructive English ivy, and educate yourself on what you can do in your own yard to help the bees which are in decline and which are neessary to our crops, as well as various bird species. Let Earth Day be the day you devote yourself to one small task, learning something or planting something. You may have seen in my previous post several locations where you can find a free tree to plant. So many neighbors cut down their trees becsuse they didn't want to deal with leaves! Maybe Amerians wouldn't be so fat and unhealthy if they got out their rakes and started raking leaves again!

Anyhow at the very least, do yourself a big favor and take a walk outside and visit the local trees, enjoy the yards and flowers, and the glorious Spring weather! It is good for your heart and soul and your body!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Arbor Day - FREE TREES!!!

The New Jersey Tree Recovery Campaign partners with the New Jersey Forest Service and Arbor Day Foundation.

Here's where you can pick up free seedlings in the area:

Cherry Hill: 2-4 p.m. April 30, Croft Farm Arts Center (100 Bortons Rd.)

Collingswood: 9-11 a.m. April 29, Scottish Rite Auditorium parking lot (315 White Horse Pike)

Merchantville: 9-11:30 a.m. April 29, bike path outside the station

Waterford: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 22, Clementon Gun Club

Winslow: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 6, Duble Senior Center

Arbor Day is April 28

Local Event

Carl Woese, biologist

One of my all time favorite quotes is by biologist Carl Woese and I think it sums up life and living in a way that describes it perfectly through my experience, so I share it with you now. These are just a couple lines from a much longer paper which you can find online by googling Carl Woese's name and the first line of the quote:

Imagine a child playing in a woodland stream, poking a stick into an eddy in the flowing current, thereby disrupting it. But the eddy quickly reforms. The child disperses it again. Again it reforms, and the fascinating game goes on. There you have it! Organisms are resilient patterns in a turbulent flow—patterns in an energy flow.

Lately, I have been more aware than usual how much the weather contributes to my happiness and wellbeing and I an grateful to my dog, Uma, for making sure I get outside every day to enjoy it. In particular these days, we are enjoying both the warm weather, the invigoratijng energy of the sun, and the glorious blooming of the trees. It makes me happy to sit in my yard and look up at the tree canopy, as life creates a pattern of lace from the new leaves quietly growing and spreading across the sky.

Happy trails!

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

How to mourn in a constructive way

Yesterday, my feline friend of 18 years, a beautiful sleek, sweet natured black cat named Honey died. She had been under treatment for hyperthyroid which in an old cat manifests as starvation no matter how much they eat. She had been on medication and special foods, but eventually age and her disease caught up with her and she died at home, at night, in her sleep. My sister came to help me by digging a grave and we buried her in her cat bed in a box and planted yellow daffodils and white tulips on her grave. Next, we took 3 medium sized boxes of my old paid bills of the last five years or so, to a 'shred for the shelter' event which you can see on the flyer below. All the proceeds from the event go straight to the Voorhees Animal Orphanage which is where I had adopted a dog before the one I have now, Trixie, who also died a few yers back. So this donation helped the shelter that provided me with a loyal and loving dog companion and the donation honors the memory of my beloved cat companion Honey. So if you want to help pets, you can volunteer, donate, or keep your eyes open for events like this one! Also, PLEASE if you are considering adopting, give a shelter pet a home rather than money to breeders. Shelter dogs are healthier than overbred breeder's dogs anyhow!

Happy Trails Happy Easter Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Photography and Inspiration

Recently I ran across a review of an exhibition of the photographs of Evelyn Hofer, an American/German photographer from the mid twentieth century. I had never heard of her before, but for the twentieth century that isn't too surprising. We didn't hear about a lot of women artists or photographers in those days. I looked up her work on google and I was enchanted. Her portraits are engaging and alive, and her still life work rivals the old masters. It made me think of how much I have always loved photography and particularly since I was given my first box Brownie and began to take pictures! The photo above is a recent one of the shoes of a picker at a farm here in New Jersey. It had a kind of fairy feel to me, and I could imagine the small feet slipping out of the shoes and walking in the wet cool mud of of the rows of tomatoes that hot summer day when I took the photograph. They must have been left there for some time however because the vines had grown over them.

This photo is one of my earliest and one of the few I have left. It was taken when I was around 12 in 1957 and it shows my two grandmothers on the front lawn of the new development we had just moved into from our row home in Philadelphia. It shows so much of the times, of me (because I loved those grandmothers so much) and of these two women. The one on the far right is the German ancestry paternal Grandmother, a brisk, lively, jolly woman who lived most of her adult life in Ocean City on her own, though her brother, my Uncle Yock often moved in with her when he was on the 'outs' with his wife Alma. The one on the left is my maternal grandmother Lavinia Lyons, a withdrawn, quiet, introspective woman of Irish extraction who had known many tragedies in her life from the death early on of her mother and later of her young sister and one of her own daughters. These tragedies seemed to have drawn the vitality out of her. She was an avid cleaner and her house was totally orderly and dust free always - no clutter! My paternal Grandmother, Mabel, spent her spare time making quilts. Her apartment was a bit more cosy and although she had known many tragedies in her life as well, somehow they made her stronger. She had lost her husband early on and was left to raise her children during the first World War and the depression, and she went to Ocea City to care for her mother who had suffered a catastrophic stroke that left her permanently speechless and paralyzed. My grandmother Mabel cared for her mother scrupulously for 15 years. I have that Great grandmother's sewing machine, a 150 year old heirloom and piece of history.

I keep that photograph of my grandmothers with me at all times, presently on the piano in the living room because it helps me be brave.

Happy Easter and Happy Trails to any of you who wander the internet and may find yourself here in my cuneiform. Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

Red Bank Battlefield Event - April 2023

Our Poisoned World

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Trails! Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Museum of American History at Deptford, NJ

138 Andaloro Way

Deptford, NJ 08093

856-812-1121

sjmuseum@aol.com

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

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

Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craft Masters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yhoo.com s

Local History/Personal History - Jurassic Park & Spielberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

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

"Awakening the World to Awe"

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Trails, Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

In the Spring of Old Age

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fight weakness and build strength!

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

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

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

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

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

Small Column for a GREAT MAN

THE WEEK, the best in US and International Media, is currently my favorite news magazine. For decades I was a Time and Newsweek reader but for the past decade or more, THE WEEK has been my go-to magazine. I also subscribed for decades to the Sunday New York Times but my vision has gotten too poor for the small type. The two things I enjoy most about THE WEEK, are the brevity of the columns and the wide variety. When I say variety, I don't just mean in the stories covered, but in the various other media referenced in the columns; they really do give both sides of the stories!

The old expression "A Good Man is Hard to Find" has often been found to be true in my life experience but I like to celebrate the good ones I have encountered or heard about and I have a few HEROES. Among presidents, my favorites have been Lincoln, a great hero in the most perilous of times, same for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I have to cite him for his genius vision the WPA! Jimmy Carter has always moved me to tears with his goodness, simplicity and straightforwardness of expressionand his great intelligence, which was never appreciated when he was in office. I would say the same about Joe Biden, a serious, hardworking, intelligent man who truly has put himself in the force field for the good of our people. Often buried in back pages are the lists of President Biden's accomplishements, as for example in the Infrastructure bill. For decades people have complained about the neglect of our roads, bridges and railway systems, not to mention our rivers and air! President Biden marshalled all he could to get something done, against heavy odds and partisan obstruction.

Buried in a 3 inch column today in The News, was a short notice about Jimmy Carter, age 98, being put on hospice at home. The column stated that he had complications from melanoma which had spread to his liver and his brain, and he had been suffering many falls. Mr. Carter stated that he was "absolutely and completely at ease with death." and added that as a Christian he had complete confidence in "life after death." Mr. Carter, working with Habitat for Humanity even up until 2020, helped build more than 4,000 houses. And he and his wife Rosalyn (95) have lived in the same modest house they built in 1961. Here is a man with virtue, simple unadorned nobility. He was loyal to his wife and his vows, not driven by ego or greed or ambition, but by the will and desire to serve his fellow humans. These are the Christian virtues spoken of in the Beatitudes, not the kind spouted in the new popular brand of mega-church Christianity to sells itself as a road to fame and fortune.

I am sorry that President Carter is dying but I am happy in his peace and equanimity in the face of it. He has had a good and long life which is a great blessing. He will always be a great model for me of what a man can be. I have read over the years, a couple of his autobiographical works, I think the last one was "Making the Most of the Rest of your Life." I think I will search my shelves and find it. It would be a good time to read it again and a good way to celebrate the life of a really GOOD MAN.

Happy Trails on your life! Jo Ann (remember, please use my e-mail if you wish to contact me, not the comments section which is polluted by spam!) Thank you wrightj45@yahoo.com

ART NEWS

Today, I won 2nd Place in the Haddon Fortnightly/5050 Club 5th Annual Through a Woman's Eyes ART SHOW. The 5050 Club is a high school group which works in conjunction with the Women's Club Haddon Fortnightly to raise money for international scholarships through this annual show. The theme this year was S.T.E.A.M. (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics). The winner was a monumentally ambitious and gorgeous full size hand-sewn quilt called Flower Pots. It was incredibly intricate and an original design. My piece was 5 fabric panels, onto which were sewn 5 portraits of women scientists: Patricia Bath who invented the laserprobe for cataract removal (first African American woman on the Stanford Medical University faculty, Rachel Carson, author of Since Silent Spring, Frances Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, Rear Admiral Grace Hopper who created Cobol, the computer language, and Rosalind Franklin, whose electronmicroscopic photo of dna was used by Watson and Crick to create the 3d model of DNA.

The five panels wer sewn together like a 14 x 14 book, with a strap on the spine so it could be carried like a handbag. Each portrait was sewn onto printed fabric with a desitn to match the scientists' area such as a sea motif for Rachel Carson, who also authored The Sea Around Us. I was given a check, a book with apeach ribbon, a framed award, and a flower - all together in a very pretty package. I was overjoyed to be recognized, especially in the context of 75 really excellent works of Art, and I was doubly honored to be part of such a noble enterprise. Also, you know I love historic buildings and the Haddon Fortnightly is on the American Register of Historic Buildings, having been built in 1857, first as a church. It is a beautiful building. The whole day was a sheer delight. >p/> I still have two paintings up at THE STATION (Eiland Arts Center) the repurposed train depot turned Art Gallery and cafe' on Chestnut in Merchantville, and one of those two paintings has sold! This year is off to a very auspicious start!

If you have work to enter into a show, it isn't too late - Here is info on the upcoming Cherry Hill show which I won't be entering becauae I am tired.

The ‘Art Blooms’ festival will run for two weeks in Cherry Hill, beginning in late April. The festival will consist of a variety of events, including a coffee house, concerts, fashion shows, and art exhibits. The first event of Art Blooms will be the Earth Festival, presented by Sustainable Cherry Hill. It will feature artists and crafters selling their original handicrafts, environmental displays, and family activities such as a family bike ride. All art works submitted in the Art Blooms festival must be art on canvas or paper; this will include watercolors, oils, and prints. Each artist can submit up to three pieces of artwork until April 24, and a submission fee of $10 per piece applies. Artists then compete for various cash prizes, with the winners being announced at the festival's opening reception. Those taking part in the Earth Festival will likely want to work with Cherry Hill printing companies to prepare. Artists and crafters might want to invest in a colorful sign or banner that will draw attention to their booth. Those providing environmental displays might also want to distribute literature to those who are interested in the work they do. Art Blooms will run at the Croft Farm Arts Center from April 27 until May 11, with Earth Festival 2013 taking place on the opening day from 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. Admission is free and the opening reception for Art Blooms will take place on April 27 from 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm. For more information, call 856-488-7868.

Happy Trails, my friends! I think my next work will be a piece dedicated to Lady Gregory, for St. Patrick's Day. More on that when March arrives!

wrightj45@yahoo.com

February Black History Month

Here are a variety of suggestions for anyone wishing to increase knowledge of the history of our American Continent and our African American fellow citizens. The hidden, lost, and erased hisstory of people has always been a great interest to me - I like a MYSTERY! Let me get right to it:

On pbs Passport (which you can access with a one time $60 donation to pbs) is hosting the History of Hip Hop. Iy is a marvelous musical adventure to see the history of the times evolve with the music and to understand how the music evolved from parent music genres like R and B and Blues. A surprise for me was the involvement of Disco which I confesss I never liked until I watched this series. Don't Miss It - you will be glad you had the opportunity.

On HULU you can see the 1619 Project which was first feaured in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, then a book, and now this infinitely enlightening series which has reached 6 episodes in Season 1 so far. The brilliant and entirely engaging narrator dips into everything - music, literature, and adds the voices of the notable scholars and celebrities as well as ordinary people who light up the narrative. I watched three episodes last night, one on the music aspect, and one on the growth and transformation of policing as a result of the Race/Slave hitory of the southern half of the country. Of especial history to me due to my family history with Union efforts was the view of the history of the exploitation of labor as a result of this past.

Finally, this morning I was reading Early American Life a longtime favorite magazine of mine from my former volunteer days at the Whitall House. There was a fascinating article on the International African American History Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, which opened in January. It is hard, if you have any empathy at all for your fellow human beings, to face the facts of this horror, the slave ships, the suffering, the generations of misery the kidnapped and enslaved people were then to face, but there must be a reckoning and repair. For too long there has been a kind of blind, romantic view of the Old South that completely ignored the suffering it was built upon. The time is now for us all to take every opportunity offered to us to understand our own history and how things got to where they are today. All of these entries into history, are, also, interesting, and you get a blossoming of understanding in your brain when the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together and you see the full picture. Enhance your month with an expansion of your knowledge of American History - check out these available and entertaining sources!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann (as usual to contact me, don't bother with comments as it is polluted by robospam - use my e-mail. Thanks

wrightj45@yahoo.com

Fight the Power

Right now on PBS there is a great show called Fight the Power which is about the Roots of HipHop but even more, it is about the last 50 years of contemporary life for urban and poor African Americans as reflected in their music. If you have seen the first episodes of the 1619 Project, then turn to Fight the Power - you will go from the Roots to the Fruits of the Exploitation and Sacrifice of our African merican citizens and our sisters and brothers. This is African American History Month and what we can all do is learn about the situation, what is happening and how it got to be this way. Learn and Understand better!

Happy Trails! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

One Hundred Year Anniversary of the Rosewood Destruction

In January 1923, a white mob of Floridian men burned a prosperous and peaceful African American town named Rosewood, to the ground. They were hunting for an escaped chain gang convict who had been accused of assaulting a white woman. There was no evidence to support the accusation nor was there an evidence that the escaped convict was in Rosewood, nonetheless, the mob tortured and murdered a crafsman who lived there trying to get him to tell them where the convict was. Then they killed 30 men women and children and burned the town down. The survivors fled via a train.

Recently people were made aware of the torching of the "Black Wall Street" of Oklahoma which took place in 1921 when another, much larger, very prosperous business and reidential center of Africa Americans, near Tulsa, was also burned to the ground and several hundred peope killed and buried in mass graves which are currently being excavated, bodies identified and given proper burial.

If you have been following the re-surgence of African American History, you have probably been aware of the Oklahoma massacre, but possibly not the one in Rosewood, Florida. You are probably also aware of the renewed attention to the history of lynching for racial intimidation that took place throughout the South. Several memorials and monuments have been erected to honor those murdered under these terrible circumstances. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama is the most recent and most renowned.

As most of us have agreed, the crimes of history must be remembered lest we repeat them, also so that we can understand the repercussions they leave behind. For this reason, a great deal of effort has been put into Holocaust History, and just in time, as in recent years, Holocaust deniers have spread their horrendous lies

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This is a well known quote from philosopher George Santayana from his book The Life of Reason, 1905. At the very least we must remember and acknowledge the pain and suffering and make a vow to prevent the reocurrence of it.

The 1619 Project made the point that many of our current ills have their roots in our History of Slavery. HULU, a streaming video channel is currently hosting a documentary based on the bestselling book The 1619 Project which first appeared as a Sunday New York Times Magazine long article. I read it and was impressed and have since watched the first two episodes of the HULU series. It is shocking and mind expanding even to those of us who have made an attempt to educate ourselves about the Civil Rights struggle and Black History in general. I strongly urge anyone who has HULY to watch it. And if you are interested in finding out more about Florida's racial history, you can buy Historian/Educator Marvin Dunn's book, A History of Florida through Black Eyes in paperback for $30. I think it especially important at this contemporary moment as Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis passes increasingly restrictive acts against teaching race history.

It is an interesting paralell to me that as, thanks to the Women's Rights Struggle, women were increasingly able to move up the educational ladder, they began to research and publish more of the 'lost' and forgotton history of Women in America, and similarly thanks to the Civil Rights Struggle, more and more Black scholars have been able to research and resurrect lost and hidden History of African American citizens. At the same time, I would like to thank all the devoted local historians both informal and formal, who have kept our history alive to be found and shared in the present and the future.

Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com

CALL FOR ARTISTS

https://hmhsfeminism.wixsite.com/mysite The web address above is the contact for an upcoming Art Exhibition and Contest being held by the Haddonfield Fornightly in cooperation with the 50 50 Club of Haddonfield High School. Registration fees go toward scholarships to girls all over the world for higher education. It is a worthy effort in every way.

The piece I am working on, for their theme: S T E A M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) is based on the piece I wrote about in the previous post POCKETBOOKS, only this time it will be one Pocketbook, and a larger size. My subjects for the small portraits are: Patricia Bath, who invented and patented the Laserphaco probe, an opthalmologic device to remove cataracts, Rear Admiral Grace Paley who developed COBOL the major compiling computer programming language for decades in the development of computers. She also worked on the UNIVAC. And my old favorites, Frances Moore Lappe, whose book DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET, emphasized the role of animal agriculture in climate degradation, and Rachel Carson, whose book SILENT SPRING drew attention to the the impact of pesticides on the health of the earth as well as the rest of the creatures living on it. Finally, I always want to mention Rosalind Franklin, whose electron/microscopic photograph of DNA gave Watson and Crick the last piece to the puzzle for assembling the spiral helix of the DNA Model.

The deadline for registration has been extended, so to any artist out there who might want to join this noble effort, you have time! Registration is 2/9/23.

The show only goes up for a day, so you drop off on Feb. 24th and pick up on the 25th after the show. Even if you aren't interested in entering a work, you might want to take the opportunity to see the work! It is always a good show! Oh, and I almost forgot, there are cash prizes!

This is a project full of Heart, so I think I can use this as my wish for you to have a Happy Valentines Day! Also, think of this as a good early motivation to get something special for that one you love be it a friend, a lover, a spouse, a parent, a sister/brother, neighbor, whoever. Hopefully you have lots of people to love! By the way, the Winter Group Show is still up at The Station, 10 E. Chestnut, Merchantville, NJ and you can not only have a GREAT meal there, but the shop is full of wonderful things for a unique valentine gift, as well as delicious baked goods for the same purpose, if you arent' ready to spring for something big like a work of art, although the prices on the Art there are very very reasonable! Also they have cards, and you can always get a gift card for a lunch for that special someone!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY! Jo Ann

wrightj45@yahoo.com

The Root of Inspiration

The photo above is from the opening of the show BRAVE 100, in 2019 at the Eiland Arts Center in Merchantville, NJ 2019, the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, when Women Won the Right to Vote! The show was a celebration of that momentous event and I was so proud to be included and even more proud to win first prize for my entry which was entitled Pocketbooks.

The work was 5 quilt squares per piece, with an acrylic portrait on water color paper behind clear plastic sewn into the front of each square. Five 'pages' or squares were sewn together at the top and a hanging strap was attached. Each portrait was of a woman of accomplishement who was a hero of mine: Margaret Meade, anthropoliogist, Rachel Carson, environmentalist and author of a ground breaking book: Silent Spring, and Frances Moore Lappe, who wrote another ground breaking book Diet for a Small Planet about the impact of animal agriculture on our environment and our health. They were just three of the twenty women I featured in this work.

There were many inspirations for the format of this piece: my Grandmother Mabel who was a quilter and inspired my lifelong interest in quilting and women's lives, Judy Chicago who opened the Art World to Women's needlework and who also opened the Art World to the idea of collaborative work. Finally, my main inspiration was my daughter. When Lavinia was very little, I wanted to introduce her to books and I wanted them to be safe and relevant. Books were very expensive and in the beginning we wwere fairly poor, so I made the books. I wanted them to be safe so I made the pages out of fabric; at first, they were made from some of my own clothes, later, from things I bought at thrift shops to offer a variety of textures. It was the development of the same idea, a square of fabric with a pocket in the middle. In the first ones, I put photographs - City Animals (a photo of a police horse, a cat in an antique store window, a pigeon) and so on. The book had pages made of faux fur, satin, corduroy, muslin, denim, tweed wool, to offer a variety of textures for her to enjoy. I loved that book and so did she. I would put in the pockets, little toys like dollar store trinkets or things I had, a threat spool, a collection of buttons.

I always loved that idea and wanted to do something more with it, so when the show came up, I thought of putting portraits in the pockets.

Just this morning, in e-mail, I recieved a notice of a show coming up in February featuring historic women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. I thought I should use my idea again and do a five page "Pocketbook" with one woman for each area: Rosalind Franklin (who took the electron-Microscopic photo of dna that Watson and Crick useed to figure out the 3-d model, and since today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I decided to add an African American woman of scientific merit in engineering, the first African American Woman to receive a medical degree in Opthalmology who invented laser technology to remove cataracts, Patricia Bath.

Just an hour ago, I went to Walmart and bought the fabrics and to make it a little different, I thought I might embroider the names on the squares so I bought embroidery thread and needles. Now I have my work cut out for me and only two weeks to get it done! Tomorrow I will et up my sewing machine in the back room. My materials today cost $100. My materials for the first Pocketbooks Art Piece cost about $400 because I had to spend $200 to get my sewing machine fixed and up and running - it was my mother's sewing machine, and I also have my great-grandmother's sewing machine in the attic. the quilting grandmother and her mother, Mabel Wright and Catherine Sandman, made a living with their sewing machines after they were widowed, and that was how they survived and raised their children.

Happy Trails - through the woods, the mind, the world! Jo Ann

to comment or discuss use my e-mail wrightj45@yahoo.com as 'comments' is polluted by robo spam.

Happy New Year and Resolutions

Today I am going to Cooper Health near the Cooper River in Cherry Hill for X-Rays to begin my first and foremost Resolution for 2023 which is to improve my fitness with an eye to the future and staying independent in my own home through my old age. On Thursday I begin Physical Therapy to address issues that have arisen recently, as in the last year or two: increasing knee stiffness and inability to bend my leg for basic functions such as putting on socks and tying shoes. Hips issues: I stopped going to the gym in the middle of November because a couple of the machines I was using caused hip pain which I hadn't experienced before. I decided to see my doctor and get physical therapy before I continued at the gym to make sure I am not causing new problems. My spine has been stiffening over a couple of decades since I was diagnosed with desiccated disc disease,which means the little pads between the vertabrae are drying and becoming brittle. I had inured a couple of those discs in my active outdoor life in my 50's, lifting a kayak off a car and that's how I found out about this problem. So Number 1 Resolution - find out how to safely strengthen and increase flexibility so I can ontinue the life I enjoy in the home I love.

The second resolution is one I have been working on for about three years and that is improving and increasing social relationships. As with most people who worked, I had a wide string of friendships created at my job, teaching, and a few groups in which I had membership after retirement: I was a volunteer at a couple of historic sites, and I was an active participant with the Outdoor Club. As age and disabilities increased, I had to let go of these activities and over time, the relationships I had formed, kind of drifted away. In a recent essay based on a Harvard study of happiness that followed nearly a thousand people over 3 generations, it was concluded that social relationships were the number one factor in happiness in life. I decided to do wwhatever I could to increse and improve my own. First, I formed a Seniors group with the help of the mayor of the town where I live. I wrote a proposal to use the Senior Center that had been created in the old firehall and it was presented to Mayor Wolk and then the town council which approved it. I didn't need money or budget, just a place and our Senior Center was PERFECT - handicap accesible, close to my home, and clean and comfortable with a little kitchen. We have been meeting for about 3 or 4 years once a month, though we close down in January and February for weather concerns and then begin again in the Spring. There are about 8 of us who are regulars and a few who drop in to see what we do.

The second thing I did was I joined the Woodbury Friends Meeting. I had been feeling for some time, a need for a spiritual community and spiritual practice and the Woodbury Friends Meeting is less than a 10 minute drive from my home. Here I have found a half dozen new friends with shared values and a chance to develope my spiritual life. Increasingly as we get older, in the modern period, family members move away and there have been numerous articles and even on PBS. last night. a segment on loneliness in America and the negative affect it has on health. A spiritual community is like family in many ways, I find, and the shared values of respect, compassion, kindness and ethical behavior make it a safe space.

Many of the essays go into detail about social relationships and healthy but not as many give actual steps to improve your situation. One that I recieved in e-mail did and I took the first three steps: 1.analyze your existing relationships 2.Make an effort to do an 8 minute phone call with a friend you haven't seen in awhile 3.speak to a stranger. I did all three and the 'stranger' in my case a neighbor, has become a sometime dog walking pal since we began to chat on days when I passed her house walking my dog. Herea re more tips I found:

Make Yourself Available. Building close relationships takes time.

Stay Connected.

Attend Social Activities.

Develop Your Communication Skills.

Build Trust.

Show Up for Others.

Well, this is only the first two weeks of my two big resolutions but I do feel as though I am putting in a good effort and making a good start. All these things take time to develope, like planting a garden, and from time to time, I will post on progress. First I will let you know how my physical therapy experience is going. I am so pleased that I have a caring and proactive general physician, Dr. Deborah Ubele at Cooper Health. When I told her about my incresing proglems with sitting down and standing and other functions, she got right on board with setting a program to address these problems. I feel hopeful.

Have you made resolutions? How are they going? Walking is a great way to begin a fitness effort and my dog helps to keep me on board with that one. My e-mail if you wish to talk about any of these things is: wrightj45@yahoo.com I don't use the comments section on this blog because it is polluted with robo spam and such detritus that it takes too long to delete all of it, and it is too discouraging to see it when I delete it.

Get Going on your Happy Trails! By the way when I write Happy Trails, I still Hear Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing it! Jo Ann