"Now, I don't want to alarm you, but..."

I'm sure those words were meant to keep me calm. I hadn't started to panic because I really wasn't sure what to panic about, but I'll have to admit, those words had caused a small alarm to go off in my brain, even if it was just because I didn't know what he was going to say next, and especially since, HE was a police dispatcher at the other end of the phone line.

The day started off with such promise, really it did. My friend, Marie, had offered to help me pack up things at my parent's house and I was looking forward to the company. We stopped at Starbucks to fuel up for the job ahead and got a couple of sweet rolls, just in case we needed something to sustain us through the morning.

My goal today was to get most of the kitchen packed up, find some of the items my parents needed at their new apartment, and take the old rifle bullets we found in my dad's office down to the city police station. No problem. 

Until we found the tear gas in the back of the kitchen drawer.

I didn't know what a tear gas container looks like and I wouldn't have known what this was, had it not been for the paper wrapped around the canister and labeled with my dad's handwriting: "Caution, military tear gas". Actually, the writing looked nothing like that because it was my dad's handwriting and almost illegible, but I've had lots of practice reading his grocery lists in the last six months and I figured it out quickly.

From my last article on this blog, you know what I think of guns and weapons. My only goal at this point was to get rid of it as safely and as quickly as possible. I put it in the box with the old rifle bullets and we drove down to the local constabulary. Somehow I assumed I could just walk in, hand it to someone, and walk out. I was wrong. 

"You'll need to call the dispatcher." The woman behind the glass pointed to a black phone on the opposite wall, "They'll send an officer to pick it up."

I did as I was told and told the dispatcher what I needed. A moment of silence. 

"So, you have this in your car?"

"No, I have it with me."

"You.. have it with you... in the building?"

"Yes," I said firmly. 

That's when he said, "Now, I don't wish to alarm you, but...(long dramatic pause)... you need to go outside and wait by your car. An officer will meet you there." He went on to explain to me about how tear gas can become unstable and he didn't want to chance having it go off in the lobby of the police station. He also took my name and asked where I was parked.

So I went back out and explained the situation to Marie. She was supportive. 

"I figured if you weren't out in 30 minutes, I'd go in and post bail."

After about ten minutes, an officer came and asked to see what I had brought. I started to hand the box to him and he backed away, saying, "I can't take it right now, I just want to see it." So I opened the box and showed him the bullets and the bag with the canister. 

"I'm sorry," he said, "We're not allowed to dispose of tear gas. We'll have to call the bomb squad."

So, we waited and waited some more, all the while Marie made comments on how the police obviously would be watching me, they probably already had a file on me, and how they'd probably search the car.

"It's okay," I said, "it's not like I have any dru... oh shit." I had forgotten about the trash bag filled with expired prescription drugs in the trunk of my car. I hadn't yet figured out how and where to dispose of them. There were even a few... narcotics... in there.

We laughed till we cried and then got hungry and debated whether or not to call and have a pizza delivered to the police station parking lot. We decided against it when we realized we'd have to explain the possibility of the pizza delivery person encountering the bomb squad.

Eventually the officer returned and said he'd talked with the bomb squad and since this was a small container of tear gas, it was okay for the officer to take it.

"It's military strength," he informed us, "It could stop a bear."

Which leads me to the one question I forgot to ask my dad when I told him the story.

Why?

I'll be on the safe side and assume they had a bear infestation at some point and needed to keep them out of the kitchen. Anything else, I'm not sure I want to know.

Have We Lost the Gun Battle?

Guns are here to stay. They're out there and no one from the government is going to go door to door insisting that people give them up. The NRA is powerful and there are a lot of folks who are so enamored with their rifles, revolvers, and semiautomatic weapons, they would be willing to defend their right to own them with their lives. Even more certain, they defend their right with their vote.

In 2010, there were 2,694 children and teens in the United States who died from guns*. That's more than the total number of US military casualties in the whole Afghanistan war** (2001 to June 2014). We are our own worst enemy.

I am tired of the violence. I am tired of the arguments. I am tired of the cliches:

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. On more law won't stop criminals. Gun control advocates just want to take away our guns. It's not right to punish responsible gun owners because of the irresponsibility of a few. We need guns for our protection. We have to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government.

I could come back with my own arguments about how often it is children killing children with their parent's guns or joke about how much safer my family would feel if they knew their myopic wife and mother with Parkinson's disease was packing heat. I could point out our government has some built in ways for people to get involved and work to change the direction of our country. It's called learning how the government works and getting involved. Our government is far from perfect, but it mostly functions quite well. 

But no one is going to listen. If you are reading this, I'd be willing to bet you are not an NRA supporter. You're probably a peace freak like me. It's been almost two months since a child was killed at a school. The initial panic, sadness, anger, and frustration has subsided and there's not much about it in the media right now. Have we forgotten already? Has this become so common we are numb to it?

I briefly considered another cliche - If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Maybe they're right and our country would be safer if everyone had a gun. A gun license could be issued along with our driver's license. Then, as criminals become more sophisticated and have larger and better weapons, we'd be required to do the same. The gun manufacturers would love it.

A couple of people have told me it's just the fact you have a gun that protects you. Having it means you won't have to use it. This sounds familiar - what was the arms proliferation called during the cold war? Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD.

The whole MAD scenario wouldn't work for me, so what would I do if I were threatened? I hope my role model would not be Clint Eastwood, but Antoinette Tuff***, a front office worker at the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy near Atlanta, Georgia. When a gunman came into her school, she calmly talked him into putting down his gun and giving himself up. This could have been another mass shooting. Instead, no one was hurt.

I could also look to the late Fr. Roger Mollison, a Catholic priest and friend of mine who once talked a young man into putting down his gun and having some cookies instead. The man had come into Fr. Roger's youth center and threatened to kill him. Fr. Roger also talked a woman out of killing herself by explaining calmly that it wouldn't be fair to the cleaning lady who was coming in later that evening and would have to clean up the mess.

Both Fr. Roger and Antoinette Tuff admitted they were terrified at the time (and undoubtedly for some time after) and they knew they could have been killed. At any moment, the gunman could have just started shooting. This is obviously not a method one can count on to be successful.

I would still not want to carry a gun. I choose to believe that most people are good and, as long as I don't take unreasonable risks, I'm reasonably safe. I don't feel the need to carry a gun to protect myself. Yes, there is a slight chance I could be killed, but I could never, ever kill another human being. Even if I could, being the hero and saving the day is a lot harder and a lot less likely in real life.

We all have to die eventually. That's not an option. We can, however, make the choice not to kill. That's the path I choose. But hey, I'm just an old peace freak. What do I know?

*http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2013.html

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forces_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan

*** http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/21/us/georgia-school-gunshots/

Winter's Worth

It's half past spring and time to be busy again. The winter was a lovely time to slow down and rest a little. I've learned I need to prioritize if I want to be active and not crashing from exhaustion. This means I had to give up a few things like my art classes at the high school... and dance. Prioritizing isn't easy.

This meant that other than spending time with our grandchildren and my parents, I mostly stayed in hibernation at the University of Colorado at Denver. I had done my research and the data had been promising. A great number of students are capable of sleeping in university classrooms. It was, of course, my intention to sleep as much as possible through the winter. It didn't work out so well.

The classes I chose were too interesting. No way could I sleep through them. Just so you know, in case you plan on following my example, here are two classes to avoid if you want to sit in a corner and sleep:

American Political Thought with Professor Thaddeus Tecza

Some people might mistakenly assume that any class talking about political thought would be boring. Even if it were possible to find such a class somewhere, discussing politics with Professor Tecza is anything (and everything) but boring. This was a 3 hour evening class and I still couldn't fall asleep. After the first 20 minutes, I stopped trying and started learning.

This was a challenging class as the group of students was, in many ways, a microcosm of our society. I learned just how paralyzing it can be for those who are so rigid in their thinking, they cannot consider anyone else's point of view. I also learned how paralyzing it can be if you insist on understanding and respecting every point of view without thinking critically about what you believe and why. This class may have ended, but the learning goes on.

Introduction to Creative Writing with Professor Eliot K. Wilson

Professor Wilson is too creative and funny to miss anything he has to say. Besides, he encourages students to bring food to share - food as in cookies, brownies, chocolate. By the end of the semester, I had eaten enough I could have gone into hibernation. He's also a demanding teacher. My blog readers (all three of you) will be grateful to know he has challenged me to write better. This is a humbling task. He gave us the tools. Now it's time to practice and practice - and read good poetry and short stories.

For class assignments, I often spent days carefully choosing the words for one line of poetry only to have the professor suggest tossing out the entire stanza. I doubt anyone would consider blogging to be great literature, but to be on the safe side, I didn't tell him about my blogs. 

What happens now? With spring and summer there is a lot of garden work to be done and places to go with the grandchildren. The senior auditing program is being revamped this summer, so I don't know what possibilities there will be in the fall. If at all possible, I plan on continuing with my studies. Maybe I can be the world's oldest college student some day.

For Small Moments

The dog comes to greet us every morning before we get out of bed. We're retired now. This reminds us we can sleep in later than our daughter. We chuckle at the dog, watch her leave as Emma calls her from the door, and turn over to embrace each other before starting our day.

“Tell Grampa the joke, Lucien.” Two year old Lucien pokes his grampa in the nose and says, “EAR”, and giggles because he knows it's a nose. That's the joke.

A fat cheeked, dimpled baby Opal with wide eyes watches her brothers play with smiles turning her face into a round, joyfilled sun.

Dropping Patrick off to babysit the grandkids, I hear Mattheus yell from the dining room “UNCLE PATCHY!!” and Lucien just yelled.

Two ladies on the train in Chicago laugh and joke with us, telling me how I would look good with my hair in corn row braids. One of the ladies has stayed with us at Ronald McDonald House. I know what she's going through with her new grandson. We embrace and cry a little when Emma and I have to leave.

A homeless man sees us trying to figure out where we are going at the train station. He comes over and asks where we want to go, then he escorts us straight to the platform. Only after we are at the right place does he ask if we have some spare change to give him. When I admit I don't have any at all, he smiles and wishes us a safe trip.

We make it out to the passenger pick-up area just as Chris drives up. For two tired travelers, this is a wonderful moment.

On Thanksgiving morning, I receive a message from an out-of-town friend, expressing gratitude for our friendship. It means more to me than I can express. Today our family is getting together for a meal. The house will be wonderfully loud and crazy. 

Some times I find myself waiting for the big things to happen and forgetting that small moments make up most of our lives. This year, I want to try harder to appreciate all the small moments.

Today I get to practice this after I stepped in dog poop. It was a small moment too, and I'm really, really thankful it wasn't any bigger.

When Novel Characters Go on Holiday

It's November, which is also called National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo, which is also called, How to Torture Yourself by Writing Fifty Thousand Words in Thirty Days or HoToYoWriFiThoWoThiDa. As a number of women in my author's group were joining in, I figured I would try it, too. It would be good practice for me and, who knows? Maybe I'll end up with one of those surprise successes and be the next J. K. Rowling.

First things first. I had to figure out what to write about. This didn't take too long. I went thirty-four years into my past and decided to write a novel based on my experiences working in a deaf/blind preschool. If nothing else, there were plenty of quirky characters involved. I remember the psychologist who came to the school to offer his advice and ended up talking mostly about the good old days when one could use electric shocks and other aversion techniques. It still makes me shudder.

Next? There wasn't really time to plan anything else. Suddenly it was November 1st and I had a word quota of approximately 1670 words per day over the next thirty days. I've learned a few things about writing in this way:

If you're working towards a word quota, always spell everything out. One thousand, six hundred and seventy counts as more words than 1,670. 

Don't go back and read what you wrote. You'll be tempted to delete something and that will take away from your word count.

Keep tea and chocolate on hand at all times.

Don't over think your writing. The characters sometimes just say what they are going to say. This is called, getting into the flow.

I was doing well with this until yesterday when one of my characters started to yawn. What's the matter, I thought, is my writing really so boring? He yawned again and I started yawning, too. It was contagious. I decided we all needed a day off. I announced this to my characters and let them know I would expect them back promptly the next morning. A couple of them cheered.

This isn't a new concept. I first learned of the secret lives of book characters when I read "The Eyre Affair" and "Lost in a Good Book", both by Jasper Fforde. The characters in these books travel around and generally do whatever they want to do at those times when they aren't needed for the story until page 178. 

If you haven't read these Thursday Next detectives stories, I would highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys intelligent literary humor and having your brain tied in knots while you try to figure out what's going on. Even if you read it just for the bookworms, who sometimes have digestive trouble and start farting apostrophes whi'ch make' eve'ry'one' tal'k li'ke thi's, you'll be glad you did.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the characters in my story. I decided they needed a break just as much as I did. It paid off. They were all back and ready to go to work today. Nobody yawned. I didn't ask them where they went or what they did. I figured it was their time and their business.

We're definitely back in the flow.

A Neighborhood Library

Our family loves books. They can't help it. Our son, Patrick, has enough books to fill a small bookstore, all in his bedroom.. and the studio.. and the back kitchen. I think there's one in the bathroom, too.

Book collecting comes to our family naturally. Chris worked at the University Library for nearly 30 years and his mother, Natalie, was the librarian and reading teacher at Notre Dame Catholic School in Denver for almost that long. Patrick is now working for a company that sells used books online.

When Chris was growing up, their family read out loud every evening. It was a beautiful tradition which we continued with our own children. In fact, we used to read out loud to each other even before our children were born. P.G. Wodehouse and Pogo were my favorites.

There's only one problem when books are such a big part of one's life. They start to take over the house. We have fantasies and mysteries, gardening books and build-it-yourself manuals. We have whole sets of Dickens, Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling, Patrick O'Brian, Dorothy Gilman, Ellis Peters, and Agatha Christie. There are spiritual books and collections of Doonesbury cartoons. I doubt there is anywhere in our house where you couldn't find at least one book within arm's reach. I believe used bookstores have a magnetic pull on my family.

It's time to share. We've loved the idea of the Little Free Libraries and decided to create our own. The website (littlefreelibrary.org) says this: "In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share." If you go to their website, you'll see photos of some amazing Free Libraries, some looking like large birdhouses on fence posts or trees.

Ours has been created from an old metal cabinet which once held motor oil or transmission fluid, or something like that, in a gas station. We cleaned it up, painted it, and it is now filled with books, just waiting for some of you to come by.

A few titles to tempt you:  Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, The Jim Chee Mysteries by Tony Hillerman, several Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters, a number of old Oz books by Frank Baum, and lots, lots more.

Come by and visit!

Common Sense and Respect vs Blame and Shame

(Note - many people responded to the blog article which upset my daughter so much. Most bloggers responded within hours. It took me 5 days. I'd like to say it's because I think about things more before I respond, but it's mostly because I'm just slow. Emma encouraged me to post this anyway.)

When my daughter came out to talk to me the other day, she was angry. Not just a little perturbed, not miffed, she was so livid I instinctively reached for the fire extinguisher.

This is a young woman who rarely gets angry about anything. She has, after all, inherited her mother's calm demeanor. So what got her so upset? She had read a blog article about modesty and how girls are posting indecent photos of themselves on their Facebook pages. According to the article, this family goes through their son's Facebook page together. They talk about what is decent and what is not decent, and all those indecent girls are unfriended. No second chances.

A friend of mine is disgusted with the local Catholic newspaper. She says their focus seems to be on creating more and more rules to follow. Specifically, she pointed out an article which went into detail about how women should dress. This friend is also one who rarely gets angry at anything.

Neither of these women wear clothing I would ever consider to be inappropriate nor could I imagine either of them posting indecent photos on Facebook. They both use common sense when it comes to what they share on social media. I figured I'd better read these articles to see why they were so upset.

By the time I finished both articles, there was a knot in my stomach that wouldn't go away. Why? What bothered me?

These articles are directed towards females and only females.

I do understand the concern of parents regarding social media. The internet has opened up infinite possibilities for us and these possibilities include sexual photos, videos, chatrooms, and other activities which are not healthy for children. Heck, adults are struggling to figure out what the new normal might be in this regard. It's not only good, but important for parents and teens to have conversations about all sorts of issues surrounding sexuality.

I went online and looked for other sources of information about appropriate dress for women and men. On one of the few sites which list guidelines for men, there are only a fraction of the rules compared to those in place for women. Dressing appropriately makes sense, but when these suggestions, guidelines, and rules are focused so strongly towards women, other things start to come to my mind:

A Toronto policeman who said “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” (link here)

In India, a woman is brutally beaten, raped, and murdered. Women are rising up in India and saying enough is enough. Sucharita Eashwar of WEConnect International states, "Politicians are saying that the women demonstrating are 'painted, dented women'. Women must wear traditional sarees and salwar kameez and be stopped from wearing skirts as their clothes attract rapists to them." (link here)

Dean Saxton in Tuscon, Arizon preaches christianity to his fellow students while holding a sign which says, “You deserve Rape”, suggesting that any girl wearing short shorts in 90 degree weather was asking to be raped. (link here)

Imam Shahid Mehdi has stated in a television interview that women who do not wear headscarves are asking for rape. “Women are not entitled to respect when they walk around without a Hijab. They are to blame for it when they are attacked.” (link here)

I understand the concern of parents when it comes to the internet. We all need to educate ourselves and decide how we will use this technology and when we will decide to limit its use. This is not just an issue for teenagers and their parents. It is not just a matter of scolding young girls for being “indecent”, however mildly and tactfully is it done.

My daughter said the article was condescending, not tactful. It was telling her to be ashamed of her body because if she's not careful, some boy might have impure thoughts and it would be her fault. It may be obvious, but what one person considers to be indecent may be very different from another.

I told her boys will have all sorts of thoughts, no matter what she wears and no matter what she posts on Facebook. Sexual arousal is a normal process. Sexual thoughts are normal. We do our sons no favor if we tell them otherwise. Shame is a strong force, a powerful and potentially destructive emotion.

So, Mrs. Hall, if you insist your son unfriend all his indecent friends, that's fine with me. It's your family decision. I have no argument with that. What I will argue is the appropriateness of addressing this subject with the girls in this way. Asking girls to be “decent” in order to keep your son's thoughts pure isn't terribly far from telling a young woman she is asking for rape by wearing a miniskirt.

Teach your son to respect and value women, regardless of what they are wearing.

Teach your son that sexual feelings are normal, natural feelings. There is nothing wrong or impure about them. Women and girls have sexual feelings, too. We all learn that we don't act on every feeling, no matter how strong they are. This is part of growing up.

Teach your son to consider the consequences of his actions, especially how they will effect others. Then trust him to do just that. Be a good example. When you mess up and hurt someone by your words or deeds, do what you need to do to make it right.

Know that, regardless of what might go through the minds of boys and men, the males of our species are much more noble, more protective of women, and more easily embarrassed than we women give them credit for. Most young men will rise up to our trust in them.

As for the article in the Catholic newspaper telling women how to dress properly, most women are quite capable of figuring this out for themselves.

I, on the other hand, need my daughter to supervise me when I dress, at least if I have to dress up to go somewhere. She's much better at style than I am.