Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Faith, church and religion all seem to lumped together but I think they are really different things... the way beliefs, books, traditions, rituals, lectures etc is interpreted is kind of scary, the way it is crammed down the throats, used as a literal guide rather than a metaphorical, every changing guide. The thought that a select few can tell me what I believe, feel, experience, value...I think not.
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Anybody heard of Betsy Ross??? Through her first DH John, she was apparently a distant, distant cousin on my dad's side. But more up-to-date special relations -- Stewart and Joseph Alsop were my mother's 2nd cousins. Imagine, my claim to any kind of fame is through the U.S.A.!
Last week, while recovering from a tummy upset on an Atlantic island, I watched two Charlie Brown thanksgiving-related shorts, and one was about the Mayflower. Gosh, those were truly brave and daring (and strong!) folks. SoCalLisa, you come from VERY hardy stock indeed!
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Sorry I don't have any good stories to share but have really enjoyed reading all of yours.
Since I don't have a story let me share a picture of one of my new favorite places to relax. We bought this bench swing when they were closing out summer stuff at our local Lowe's Home Improvement store.
It's a good place to sit and share stories.
Happy Fall!
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Bec - what a serene photo thanks - I will carry that scene in my mind when I am dealing with classes of noisy kids in my library today.
My GGM must have been a feminist and an atheist out of her time - she obviously didn't buy into any of that submissive to husband stuff or submit to society's expectations of behaviour - maybe I am more like her than I know?! I am grateful to have been born into a more liberal society it.
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We have come a long way, baby!!
Bec, love your swing...
I have to say the other side of my mother's group were Italians...and
I always had a heck of a better time with that part of the family..
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Lindasa!!
Betsy Ross and the Making of America by Marla Miller - a relatively new book, reviewed above. She was a successful businesswoman who employed her daughters, sister, nieces in making flags not just for the revolution but the war of 1812 and beyond. Your comment made me remember a discussion I heard on public radio this summer and so I googled and found the book - you should be PROUD!!!
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I've been reading this thread for quite a while and think you all are a great group - so non-judgemental. I have to jump in here. Davy Crockett was my ancestor. I have a child's chair that - according to family legend - he made. It doesn't have any nails, and has lichen on one of the legs. When we were kids, we had to sit in it if we were bad.
Also, the Carter family are my cousins. I've never met them. As you can imagine, I am a hillbilly - born and raised in WV, but now living in lovely CO.
Sandy
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That's a great story sunny210. I can just hear it .. "You've been a very bad girl. Go sit in Davy Crockett's chair!"
raeizn and Lisa - glad you like the picture. It is seriously a nice place to sit and think.
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I come from Mayflower stock as well, though I don't remember the who, but I've heard stories about horse thievery as well.
Even though now living in France, I celebrated Thanksgiving this year. One of my BC survivor yogis invited us to her house. She provided the meat staples and the rest of us brought side dishes. There were women from Australia, Canada, the UK, the US and France. The French women were particularly fascinated with our traditional dishes and the story of the first Thanksgiving (although not sure it actually happened the way the press releases describe it). It was a hoot!
I've visited NC and it is beautiful! I too, am grateful for the women in this thread. Don't feel so alone anymore.
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Bec .. love your back yard!! Wonderful swing .. I've got one too and I love it!
My family is east German on my mom's side and Pennsylvania Dutch on my dads ... so all German. I do have one notorious relative who was a Nazi ... guess that's not something to write home about. We don't talk about that guy in the family. I wish I had more interesting stories to tell.
Maya .. I lived in NC for a year and now I'm just north of the border in VA .. it is very beautiful here. If you come back for a visit, let me know .. and we can meet up somewhere!
Hope everyone is having a good Wednesday,
hugs,
Bren
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Thanks Bren! Hey, I was born in Roanoke, VA - not far from you. I agree, it is beautiful there! I miss the mountains :-(
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My sis lives in Salem .. love it up there. I'm actually in Bassett, which is a little closer to Roanoke than Martinsville. I lived in Huntersville in NC for about a year ... it just got too crowded for us, so we moved up here and could afford 5 acres in this depressed market area.
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Remembering that NZ only started to be settled by Europeans from about 1840, I am 4th generation NZ of mixed stock - basically English, via Australia with some French thrown in the mix along the way. Nothing stories in my family except my GGM and my Dad.
My Dad (born 1919) went to WW2 at the age of 21. The Battle for Crete is well known in WW2 history and he was part of it. The Allies (England, Australia, NZ etc) were trying to defend their position on the island. After several months with little in supplies left, German planes flew over an airfield his group were trying to defend to see if there would be any resistance and they were told not to fire as they only had two bullets each for their rifles and they would need them if the Germans did attack. They did attack - parachutists dropped in their hundreds - two rounds per soldier had no effect on the well armed German forces and they were taken prisoner. He escaped after a few weeks by swimming out to sea and around a headland and lived in caves and lived off the land (ate insects and berries etc) and sometimes food supplied by the locals for a few months before being rescued by submarine - they were crawling with lice and covered in sores by then so left their clothes on the shore and swam out to the sub naked. He then went to Egypt and they campaigned from there up to modern day Libya where he got pleurisy and dysentry and was sent back to England to recover. He was eventually invalided home as the pleurisy had somehow damaged his lungs as it was not treated early enough. He was a man of incredible dignity, a man of simple tastes and he was grateful for what he had every day, a man who worked harder than everyone else and cared for others more than himself and a quiet man who rarely spoke of his experiences but I know he was proud that he did his bit to protect our country and what he believed was right. I know he loved me with all his heart and I am grateful for the safe country I live in that he and his generation fought for. He died July 07 and I miss him every day
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Wow Rae, what a courageous man is that...I am so impressed..
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Rae -
That is an amazing story about your father. What a hero!
Bec and Bren -
I grew up in a little town in southern WV. We went to Roanoke for school clothes and also to the orthodontist. One of the moms would take a gaggle of girls over to get all the braces tightened. Then we all had to have ice cream b/c our teeth were so sensitive. That was before interstates, so the roads were really twisty. It is beautiful there.
Sandy
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raeinnz - beautiful story. I can feel your love for him as you tell his story. Thank you for sharing.
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What a powerful story, Rae.
Just so you know, a good friend of mine is from Crete. She was an infant during the German occupation, but her older sister (and, even more, her mother) remember the terror of those days. I feel as though we all owe your father a debt of gratitude.
L
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http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/02/kentucky-park-dinosaurs/
Theme Park to go along with the Creation Museum. Tell me, what is this doing to the education of children?
p.s. Rae: Your dad was like so many vets from WWII; they would rarely talk about their experiences because the horrors were just too great, and too nightmarish for such young men to have experienced. So glad you learned his story. We owe them all so, so much.
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Rae .. thank you for sharing your story ... what a wonderful hero.
hugs,
Bren
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Thank you for your appreciation of my Dad ladies - he is my hero too. We only had a very sketchy idea of his experiences most of our lives but we found out a lot more after he died as the national radio station here played a 30 min recording of an interview he had given when he returned to Egypt following the Crete campaign (none of us knew it existed - not even Mum - he obviously wanted to shield us from the awful reality of what war was). My brother's friend heard it and contacted us about it. We asked for a copy and it was mind blowing and terribly heart wrenching to listen to him speaking so clearly and confidently as a young man having just been through such a horrifying time. He became very emotional in the last 10 year of his life - would cry if he heard of people killed in conflict or if he happened to be watching a movie that had that sort of content - I think 50 years of trying to forget eventually became too much of a burden and he just couldn't cope sometimes.
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OMG ... it is so cold this a.m. Especially for S.W. Virginia. 19 degrees so far with a high expected in the low 20's. Geez we skipped spring this year and went straight to summer ... and now we've skipped fall. So far we've had global warming and global cooling all in one year!
Hope everyone has a great day!
Bren
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We have been in a semi-drought since July. I may loose one of my 100+ year old oaks. I wish they had never used the term global warming and instead used the phrase climate destabilization. That is what is really happening. Just Google "climate destabilization" to read about it.
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Exactly notself. I think it's a bit like all the pink October stuff raising awareness of BC when it should be raising funds for finding a cure. Climate destabilization sounds very technical and a bit scary - global warming however is a more understandable theory for the masses, is much less emotive (warming does not generally have negative connotations) but does not accurately portray the real problem. 100+ year old oak - what a beautiful tree that must be - that will be a sad loss for you.
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Notself .. sure hope you don't lose your oak tree. I have one like that too .. and it's also 100 ft tall.
Bren
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We have 8 oak trees, three maples, several evergreens, 6 wild cherries, a lob lolly pine, a walnut tree and a hickory tree on our 2.5 acres. The oak trees were really hit hard by an ice storm we had three years ago. The temperature dropped so suddenly that the tree branches exploded. It sounded like artillery fire all night long.
All of northern Arkansas and southern Missouri was out of power from the falling branches taking down the power lines. 50,000 power poles were destroyed. Line workers came from all over the south to help us get power. The line workers from Galveston, TX were first to arrive. The line workers from our area had gone to Galveston to help them after the hurricane hit. Many areas of Arkansas and southern Missouri were out of power for over 45 days during freezing weather. There were deaths in the rural areas because the people could not get to a shelter since the roads were covered by huge fallen trees.
The following year we had tornadoes that went through Arkansas, Missouri and into Tennessee. One tornado stayed on the ground for over 150 miles cutting through forests and towns. Now we have just finished searing summer temperatures and drought.
The oaks were close to 100 feet tall before the ice storm. Now they are about 70-80 feet tall. It is a shock to any oak to loose its main branches and I think with all the weather this one oak may not make it. There has been no history of such violent weather followed by drought in our area. I am providing supplemental water but it might not be enough. I will know more in the Spring. Thanks for the kind wishes.
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Notself, I am so sorry about your trees. If the worst happens, do you know anyone who can use the lumber from the trees for something beautiful? I recall a PBS [of course] special on wood workers who specialized in converting fallen trees into beautiful dining room tables and the like---just taking big slices of the tree. Just a thought.
I think you all have nailed it on the global warming versus climate destablization---sure seems like that to me. Our second summer here in the NW, they hit record heat temps of over a hundred that went on for days. This past November we broke records for cold and dumped many inches of early snow that were not predicted by the weather models. When I left for work this morning to walk to the bus with my son, it was 50 degrees and I was kvetching that I wore too warm a coat. When I got off the bus 25 minutes later, the tempature had dropped and I walked into a wind/rain storm that almost blew me across the street. As people noted, it was like a mini hurricane and it seemed to come from no-where. I saw nothing on the news about a storm watch or anything other than 50 degrees and rain.
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The oak tree has a trunk that is about 4 feet in diameter. It would take a huge truck to transport it to a mill where it could be turned into lumber. Then the lumber would have to be aged/dried before it could be used. This takes at least 6 months. It is something we could look into if the tree does die.
Here are pictures of my area after the first few days. http://www.google.com/images?q=ice+storm+arkansas+pictures&rlz=1I7DLUS_en&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=FIMATbmLDoSclgeo9LGqCA&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQsAQwAA&biw=1106&bih=535
Branches are still falling from the trees in heavily wooded areas. It took a bucket truck and $2000 dollars to have our trees trimmed after the storm. We had to wait 6 months for an arborest to be available because we didn't want just anyone cutting out these huge broken branches. Improper cutting can make a tree vulnerable to disease. Until the branches are removed, they are a hazard to anyone walking under the trees.
Most people in our area couldn't afford the cost so they just hired people to cut the lower broken branches and left the upper ones to fall naturally. You can still drive through the Ozarks and see thousands of trees with broken branches hanging from them. Not a good place to picnic.
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notself - frightening photos. Makes you realize we are so vulnerable when the weather decides to get nasty. How did the wildlife survive that? The photos of the trees and power lines being dragged down by the ice are incredible! Quite unbelievable for me - it never snows here and our lowest temps are about 28oF. Your property sounds lovely with all those trees. I hope the other ones are surviving the traumas of the weather better than the oaks.0
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one reason why I am an atheist
in the name of religion, Westboro Baptist Church is picketing Elizabeth Edward's funeral.
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Here's the link again Jelson.
"When they were visited from the Most High God with the death of their 16-year-old son, they did not humble themselves before His mighty hand. They reared up in rage, decided they would show God who is boss, and meddled in matters of the womb, resulting in 2 more children -- now motherless." statement from Westboro Baptist church.
The church goes on to claim that she is now a "resident of hell, where her rebellion and rage will take full flower.
This is the most hateful, unholy rhetoric I have ever read. My heart goes out to Elizabeth's family and children. I hope those rotten Westboro Baptists get blocked from the funeral and her children don't have to see or hear them.
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