"You've got to be Carefully Taught"

I find it incredibly sad that just 4 years of Trump and his lies is all it took to bring the white supremacy crowd out in the open... with all of the “crazies” in tow. Since they have always been there in hiding I suppose it is a good thing that they are now exposed.

However, when I heard the song “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught" being sung recently it reminded me of the tremendous job it is to combat racism. For those of you who have never heard the lyrics I repeat them here...

“You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!”

A STRANGER & I SHARE AN AMUSING MOMENT

 This goes way back ... and is a repeat too ... but it's one of my favorites !

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1907.……MY MOTHER AND HER PET ROOSTER

I have been posting on this Blog for almost 16 years so it's no surprise that I've posted this before, but it's one of my favorites so I'm hoping this will be new to some of you...

In January, 1907, this adorable picture of my mother and her pet rooster, Teddy, appeared in the “Boston Globe”, along with the following article:

“Roosters are not unknown as pets, but little Ruth P. of West Brattleboro, Vt., has an exceptional rooster, Teddy, in that he will allow her to do anything she may wish with him.

The way this little mistress manages her bird playfellow is extremely interesting. She never punishes him because he never needs a rebuke. She speaks to him in a quiet tone, but there is in her eyes a certain power of the will, a power which is rare in children, which forces him to submit to her kind, though sometimes odd, treatment.

In the morning he struts into the kitchen and with a jolly “crowing” he mounts the low table at Ruth’s command, steps into the washbowl and patiently submits to a sponging with soap and water. After shaking his feathers a bit he is dried off with a towel and then brushed until his coat shines bright and clean.

Then follows another of her favorite pastimes. She hitches Teddy to her small doll-cart and drives her noble steed by “gee” and “haw” out through the woodshed, down the front yard to the sidewalk for a jaunt... both child and bird with tiny white hoods crowning their heads.

Ruth has had this strange comrade for several years and has trained him entirely herself. Teddy shows a great fondness for his mistress and obeys her without the least hesitancy.”

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My mother lived to the grand age of 92 and, as one of her five daughters, I can attest to the fact that she “trained” us pretty much in the same way that she did Teddy!

"FIRE and ICE" by Robert Frost

"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire,

But, if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.”

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I've always been moved by this Frost poem and doesn't it seem to be particularly evocative of our world today?  I read this as Frost warning us that too much of anything is a bad thing. 

Desire left unchecked becomes fire and can consume us quickly. Hate, on the other hand, is a much slower killer. It turns us into unfeeling human beings with hearts of ice and we can look forward to death by freezing.

The greed and the lust for power and superiority that we are experiencing in today’s world is exactly what I feel when I read these lines. It seems to be telling me that we’d better learn to live with one another and to share our lives and our resources or we are doomed to pay the consequences.

Hatred...famine...fire or ice? It matters little...they all 

suffice

Back to my usual ...

Hi everyone: I am trying to ease back into “normal” after a very emotional few days in remembrance of 1/6/2021., so here goes ...

There are many reasons why I love doing crossword puzzles, but mainly it is 

because I never fail to learn something new.  For instance, do any of you know who 

this man, Evan Esar, was ?

He was a famous author and humorist who passed away in 1996, but still today his

famous quips are often the main theme of crossword puzzles. These are just a few

that I thought you might enjoy:

..... A husband is like a fire, he goes out when unattended.

......Nothing ages your car as much as the sight of your neighbor's new one.

......All things come to him who waits, but they are mostly leftovers from 

those who didn't wait.”

......Admiration -- Our feeling of delight that another person resembles us.

......The girl with a future avoids a man with a past.

I’m at a stand-still ...

    
 

As most of you faithful followers know I have been posting a new blog entry every 5^th day for many years. This seems to work well and I should be posting today but I am at a stand-still.

Tomorrow is one year that our country underwent what is most surely an INSURRECTION and any sane and patriotic member of the United States would want to get to the bottom of how and why this happened. However, as we all know, this is not what is happening.

I am taking a few days off to honor the brave men and women who fought for our democracy that day and to contemplate what our future holds if we fail to act.