Author: edebock

Banned Books Week

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It seems that there is a day, a week or a month for almost everything these days. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Canada and the US. October 1 was International Day of Older Persons as well as World Vegetarian Day. Tomorrow is World Teachers’ Day. Though some of these are well publicized, most come and go unnoticed by the majority of us. I wouldn’t have known that this was Banned Books Week had my online friend, Sarah, who is both a librarian and originator of the Awesomeday movement, not mentioned it on Facebook today.

As an avid reader, that definitely caught my attention and I began to do a bit of digging. I was absolutely astonished at what I discovered! Though the practice of governments banning books in Canada and the United States is a thing of the past and there are no books currently banned by either country, specific titles are frequently challenged and sometimes banned by individual school jurisdictions and public libraries.

I was flabbergasted by the books that have been challenged and in some cases, banned. Here are just a few that are considered controversial and are often banned in American schools:

Pulitzer Prize winning To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee which addresses issues of class,  courage, compassion and gender roles in the American South during the Great Depression has been challenged over the years for its use of profanity and racial slurs. Thankfully, not everyone agrees. In fact, in 2006, British librarians ranked the book ahead of the Bible as one “every adult should read before they die”.

Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, another American classic, is one of the most frequently banned books in American schools because Twain used the word “nigger” throughout. Surely teachers of American literature can be trusted to explain the reason behind the word; that Twain was trying to reveal the plight of the slave in America and that he was using the vernacular of the time.

Lord of the Flies by Nobel Prize winning author, William Golding, tells the story of a group of British schoolboys stranded on an uninhabited island who try to govern themselves with disastrous results. In 2005, the novel was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English language novels published between 1923 and 2005 but it is often criticized and in many cases banned from schools because of its use of profanity, sexuality, racial slurs and violence. It is perhaps the book I remember most vividly from high school English class more than 40 years ago. It’s not a pleasant read but do we learn and grow if we read nothing but entertaining fluff?

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, the ever-hopeful true story of a young teenager who eventually died in the Holocaust has been banned for being “too depressing”. Unbelievable!

I was perhaps most shocked to find Katherine Paterson’s novel, Bridge to Terabithia, on several lists of most commonly challenged and banned books! As a teacher, I had absolutely no qualms about reading this beautiful book about two lonely children who create a magical forest kingdom to my upper elementary school students year after year. The inspiration for the book, in which one of the main characters dies, came from a tragic event in the author’s own experience when a close friend of her son’s was struck by lightning and died. Death is a reality, even for children, and this book handles it exquisitely.

I could go on and on about books that have been banned from schools but I literally had to laugh out loud over a few of the children’s books that have at one time or another been challenged or banned from public libraries. Librarians must roll their eyes at some of the criticisms parents bring forth!

Believe it or not, in at least one location, the first Where’s Waldo book was banned because in one of the drawings a beach is shown where a woman lying on the sand has part of a breast exposed! This in a nation where pornographic magazines are readily available on news stands! Imagine someone poring over the thousands and thousands of tiny characters featured in a Waldo book and singling out this one “offensive” character! I would have needed a magnifying glass to see her!

Then there’s I Have to Go! by beloved children’s writer, Robert Munsch. What parent hasn’t bundled a tiny tot into a snowsuit or a car seat with a five point harness only to have them announce almost immediately, “I have to go PEE!” If that’s offensive, we might as well ban Thomas’ Snowsuit too. After all, aren’t the teacher and the principal cross-dressers?

I can’t even begin to imagine why anyone would object to Al Perkin’s Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb! The story line is a little thin (okay, non-existent) but young children love the madcap band of dancing, prancing monkeys and the book’s rhythmic cadence. I think I might still have a copy of it in the bookshelf in the basement.

Certainly it is the responsibility of every parent to be aware of what their children are reading and in some cases, even to limit those choices. There are books that I’d rather not see on a library shelf and books that I choose not to read. There are books that probably aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on or the time and brain cells required to read them but, as honorary chairman of this year’s Banned Book Week, Bill Moyers, has been quoted as saying, “censorship is an enemy of the truth”. The more widely read we are, the better we will know and understand the world we live in and the people we share this planet with.

Hello October!

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October has long been one of my favourite times of year. It’s a bittersweet in-between time; summer is over but winter hasn’t arrived yet.

In my mind, October is golden. We don’t see the reds and oranges that eastern Canada is famous for at this time of year but we have gold; golden fields at rest after harvest and this outside my front window!

Sadly, in no time at all it will look like this, taken during the first week of November last year.

And that’s on one of its best days when it was dressed in hoar frost and the sun was shining on it. No, I’m definitely not a fan of winter but that’s one of the things that makes October so special. Each golden moment is precious because we know it won’t last.

Early October is a time of celebration at our house with both our wedding anniversary and my birthday falling during the first week. Canadian Thanksgiving, celebrated on the first Monday of October, follows hard on their heels.

Later in the month there’s another date that’s important to me. It was 37 years ago in mid October when I surrendered the life that I’d already screwed up royally to the awesome Creator of the universe who had a purpose and a plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11) and what a difference that made!

As winter approaches, some may consider October a time to hunker down close to home but though days are shorter now and nights are cooler, Canadian poet William Carman Bliss expressed the feeling of my heart when he penned

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir,
We must rise and follow her;
When from every hill of flame,
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

Hello, October! I wonder what you have in store for this gypsy girl this year?

Inspired!

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A couple of weeks ago one of my favourite fashion bloggers, Jeannie, writer of gracefully50, published a post in which she wore an unbuttoned trench dress as a long jacket over a tight black dress. It made for a unique and classy look but then, I think Jeannie could wear a paper bag and look stylish!

What intrigued me was the realization that I had very similar items hidden away in my own closet. Neither had seen the light of day in a very long time but they were pieces I hesitated to get rid of; the black dress because, after all, every woman is supposed to have a LBD and the other because I’ve always simply loved it.

This afternoon, my daughter and I dressed up and did a photo shoot. I took pictures for her blog post about her latest fabulous thrift store finds and she photographed me in my take on Jeannie’s outfit. I don’t have the funky shoes or the adorable pup to complete the look but here’s my version.

   

Not only did I love the look but it was amazingly comfortable. Now I just have to decide where to wear it!

How do I write?

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credit

 

A friend recently asked me an interesting question about how I write.

“Do you edit or just let it flow?” 

Much of my writing is actually done in my head before putting pen to paper or in today’s venacular, fingers to keyboard. I’ve always written this way, mulling things over and sorting them out in my mind before beginning to write them down.

Once I actually start writing, however, I edit, edit, edit! Every sentence is read and reread. Changes are constantly being made. When it comes to my writing, as in many other aspects of life, I’m a perfectionist. Downright anal might be a more honest assessment!

Like anyone who writes, I have my own personal style. I realize that there are many ways to  say the same thing but if something doesn’t sound quite right to me, it gets changed. To my mind, writing is a craft.

Editing is so much easier than it was in the pen and paper days. The internet is a fabulous tool. I often google a word meaning to ensure that I’m using it properly, sometimes finding a synonym that I like even better. Similarly, when I don’t want to use the same word too often, I search for a synonym. Though I’m pretty confident about my spelling, spellcheck is also a valuable tool.

Titles can be tricky. Sometimes, as in my post entitled Turn left at the three legged dog, the title comes to mind first but that’s quite rare. More often, I begin writing without a title and think of one later, sometimes after the article itself is completely finished. Occasionally, I begin with a working title but change it before I’m done.

My husband is one of my greatest fans and whenever I’m unsure about a post, I have him read it over before I publish it. Most often, he assures me that it’s fine but occasionally he points out something that I’ve missed or that isn’t entirely clear.

So, fellow bloggers, I’m interested in knowing how you write.

“Do you edit or just let it flow?” 

Are they or aren’t they?

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It always boggles my mind that new rocks mysteriously appear in farmers’ fields each season! Though it seems as if they must simply drop from the sky, I’m told that it’s actually frost action that brings them to the surface. Today, while I was harvesting in one of the most recently cleared parts of Louis’ land, the combine picked up one of these rocks that lay hidden in a swath of canola. In addition to plugging up the machine, it broke three teeth on the pick-up auger as well as the chain that turns it.

Climbing down from the machine, I proceeded to unplug the pick-up by hand all the while wishing that I’d thought to bring a pair of work gloves with me. As the scratches on my arms will attest, canola straw is brittle and sharp. Eventually I cleared enough of it away to expose the rock wedged in underneath. As I pulled it out, what could have been nothing more than an annoying delay became something much more intriguing. Could that possibly be a ribstone in my hands?

Ribstones , carved by the natives who wandered this windswept prairie more than 1000 years ago, are thought to depict the ribs of buffalo, the animal that provided for so many of their needs. We first saw this type of rock carving at a native ceremonial site on a high point of land located about 24 km north of here. Here’s one of the rocks found there

and here’s the rock I found in the combine today.

Is it only my imagination or do you see a similarity?

While Louis went to town to buy a new chain, I picked up other rocks strewn around the area and piled them up so that they can be easily found and removed from the field before one them causes another mishap. I looked closely at each one before adding it to the pile but they were just ordinary rocks void of interesting markings of any kind. A little stone, too small to be a threat, caught my attention only because its light colour stood out against the darker field. Picking it up, I noticed immediately that it fit snugly into my palm. Examining it more closely, I realized that it appeared to have been carved into its present shape and that one edge formed a sharp blade.

   

 

It was easy to imagine a young brave chipping away at this rock turning it into a tool that his iskwew (is-KWAY-oh, Cree word for woman and the word that our term squaw is likely derived from) would use to scrape the hides after his next hunt. Perhaps it was an elderly man, one too old to join the hunt, who spent his time making tools like this one.

As you can see, hours on the combine leave plenty of time for my imagination to run wild! Are these simply unusual rocks or are they artifacts; remnants of times long past and people who roamed these parts long before the fields were cleared and cultivated? When harvest is over, I hope to do some research and try to find out and I’ll probably be back in that field picking rocks again in hopes of finding more of interest!

Dressing like a girl

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I’m a blue jeans kind of girl. Perhaps that has something to do with growing up in an era when girls were required to wear skirts to school every day. I took my final year of high school in the Northwest Territories. The only good thing about that was the fact that we were allowed to wear pants to school from the beginning of November to the end of February, a concession to the fact that the school remained open even when the temperature plunged to -50°F (-45°C) or lower! By the time I entered an Alberta classroom as a teacher five years later, dress pants were permitted and during the last few years of my career, Casual Friday had made its way into the schools. Finally I could go to school in blue jeans!

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to spend my retirement working as a seasonal farm labourer but at this time of year, I can be found wearing faded, well worn blue jeans and a t-shirt or sweatshirt while operating a combine! I often wear dressy jeans to church but at this time of year, after dressing like a farmer all week, I love to dress like a girl on Sunday. That’s when my skirts are most apt to come out of the closet.

I’m especially glad that I chose to dress up for church yesterday. Our local high school has a long standing tradition of holding graduation in mid September. It makes absolutely no sense to me especially considering that this is a farming community where a fall grad invariably falls in the middle of the busy harvest but tradition is tradition and it isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

The morning after the big celebration, the graduates in our congregation traditionally come to church dressed in their graduation finery and each is presented with a Bible with their name engraved on the cover. They’re sometimes a bit bleary eyed after the festivities of the evening before but it allows all of us an opportunity to share in their special moment.

Yesterday, three young men showed up for church looking much more formal than usual. I was delighted when one of their mothers asked me to pose for a photo with them after the service. It doesn’t seem like very long ago that they were little boys in my Sunday School class & look at them now! Matthew, the one on my right, is studying engineering while Rylun and Jason are apprenticing mechanics.

photo by Michelle Edey

I’m glad I was suitably dressed for the occasion!

Letters to the editor

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I’ve been reminded of the power of words recently. I’m not one who usually sits around writing letters to the editor but I’ve written three of them in the last couple of weeks and have received interesting responses to each one.

The September issue of More, Canada’s magazine for women over 40, contained an article that drew the reader’s attention to Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, a book that I think should be required reading for every citizen of the developed world. I wrote a letter (email) commending the editorial staff for this and received a reply from copy editor, Brenda Thompson, telling me that they may choose to reprint a portion of my letter in an upcoming issue! Words can be encouraging.

I read the Edmonton Journal online every morning. On August 29, I came across what I considered to be an example of blatantly irresponsible journalism. The first sentence of an article entitled “Man charged with shooting two Mounties south of Edmonton slated to appear in court” stated that Sawyer Robison was the subject of a manhunt “after wounding two Killam RCMP officers during a shooting.” As was pointed out later in the article, details of the shooting have never been publicly released. Though the shooting took place just a few miles from here, I do not know Sawyer Robison. I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty. I do know, however, that he has not yet had his day in court. He has not been found guilty of wounding the RCMP officers and I was appalled that the Edmonton Journal would print this for public consumption. I assumed that this was an extreme lapse in judgement and fired off an email to Editor-in-Chief, Lucinda Chodan. Her response was almost immediate. “You are completely right,” she said and thanked me for bringing this to her attention. “As soon as I received your email, I asked our staff to correct the article.” she went on to say and included a link to the revision. Words are powerful.

This morning I entered into a Facebook discussion, initiated by a friend of mine, about an editorial that appeared in a local weekly, The Edge, out of Wainwright, Alberta. It was written by reporter, Mickey Djuric, in response to the suggestion made recently by the niece of Toronto mayor, Rob Ford, that women can avoid sexual assault by “not dressing like a whore.” While her point that women should never be blamed for being assaulted or raped is well taken, I found her attitude and the way she expressed her opinion absolutely unacceptable. Her final paragraphs were particularly appalling.

We will not let anyone tell us how we should dress, or what garments are dubbed as appropriate for your eyes.
Sluts, whores, tarts (Whatever you want to label us). Show your cleavage, or legs, and tell everyone to go screw themselves while doing it.

I did mention that The Edge is a small town newspaper, didn’t I? They’re not known for quality journalism but this goes way beyond the norm. Even in this day and age, I was astonished that an editorial staff anywhere would find this suitable for printing and said so in my letter (email) to Editor-in-Chief, Kelly Clemmer. I asked him if this was really the message that we want to give teenage girls and young women and suggested that had Ms. Djuric shown up for her job interview dressed the way she suggests and speaking the way she does in the editorial, she probably wouldn’t have been hired. In the real world, employers do have the right to tell us how we should dress!

I also told him that, right or wrong, anyone who thinks that a girl who dresses provocatively doesn’t put herself at greater risk or make herself a more likely target for exploitation has their head in the sand! Though he defended the point that he felt his writer was trying to make, Mr. Clemmer did agree with some of my points and has promised to publish my letter in an upcoming Edge.

So, as we often tell little children, use your words! They are powerful. Use them to encourage, use them to correct, use them to admonish. We who are privileged to live where we have the freedom to speak our mind should do so!

Age appropriate?

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If you read yesterday’s post, you know that age has been on my mind a lot lately. Earlier in the summer, one of my favourite fashion bloggers, Jeannie over at gracefully50 wrote a post about an outfit that her husband thought was “not so age appropriate.” At the time, I had a couple of things hanging in my own closet that I hadn’t worn yet because I was wondering exactly that. Were they really suitable for someone my age?

Here’s one of them.

I bought it on sale for 500 yen (about $6 Canadian) the last time I was in Japan. I loved the style and the fact that it’s a subtle example of Engrish, the often bizarre use of English that appears on so many items of clothing in Japan. The front says

There is nothing in
your life that does non
have meaning

and

SMILE ON YOU
YOU ARE THE PERSON
WHO IS IMPORTANT FOR ME

appears on the nape.

I finally took it out of the closet and started wearing it recently and decided that, age appropriate or not, I love it! In fact, I love it so much that I wore it for a photo shoot with my talented nephew, William, an amateur freelance photographer.

    

After looking at his pictures, I’ve decided that if this is what 60 look like, I’m definitely okay with it!

Coming to terms with 60

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I absolutely loved being 40. By then I’d lived through some of the best and the worst that life has to offer and figured that I’d learned a few things along the way. I had a past filled with memories and lifelong friends and I had a future to look forward to. 40 was a fabulous midway point!

50 was great too! By the time that birthday rolled around, I was looking forward to early retirement and all the adventures that would follow. My fifties have included everything from climbing Mount Fuji to travelling the length of Vietnam on overnight buses to flying over the jungle of Costa Rica on a zipline!

I really haven’t enjoyed being 59 though because 60 has been hanging over my head all year! I want to embrace the next decade with the same enthusiasm that I greeted my 40s and 50s with but it hasn’t come as easily. 60 is such a big number! No longer can I fool myself into thinking that I’m still young. In fact, middle aged is a stretch unless I truly expect to live to be 120!

You’d think that I would have adjusted to being 59 pretty quickly. Immediately after my birthday, we spent several days with my parents. My mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease is obsessed with people’s ages.

“How old are you?” she’d ask.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d reply.
“How old are you?” she’d ask again a few minutes later.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d say again.
Over and over and over again.
“I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.”
It didn’t really help.

Now 60 is just over a month away and I’ve been thinking about ways to celebrate; ways that might make the transition easier. One of the things that I’m passionate about is making micro-finance loans through Kiva; loans that give a hand up to women who are less fortunate than I am. Last night I invested another $25 in Kiva and gave myself an early birthday present.

Most of the women that I’ve given loans to have been younger than I am because loaning to mothers with children in their care has been one of my priorities but this time I decided to look for a woman who was 60. Kiva doesn’t list borrowers according to age so finding her took awhile. I scanned the long list of women in need, looking at each thumbnail photo for one who looked like she might be 60. Sadly, I clicked on many well worn faces only to find that they were much younger. I was reminded again how fortunate I am to have had the life I’ve had. Finally, after searching through many profiles, there she was. Sofai!  My loan will enable her to purchase chemicals, sprayers, shovels and fertilizers for her small taro plantation on the Pacific island of Samoa.

Sofai

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking for other ways to celebrate my “coming of age”. I’m not sure what they might be.

Any suggestions?

I don’t like being Spam!

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“What were you doing in my spam?” asked LouAnn, writer of ON THE HOMEFRONT, one of the blogs that I’ve been following lately.

I wish I could answer that, LouAnn! Apparently I’ve been ending up in a lot of people’s Spam lately, even my own daughter’s!

So what is Spam? No, I’m not talking about the canned luncheon meat that we found to be so popular on the island of Saipan!

According to Wikipedia, “Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately.” Not guilty!

Microsoft Security defines it as “any kind of unwanted online communication.” Unwanted? Are my comments unwanted? I don’t think so! I tend to receive positive responses to the ones that don’t disappear into Spam folders never to be seen again.

So why are my comments ending up in Spam folders? That’s a good question and one that the WordPress happiness engineers haven’t been able to answer to my satisfaction yet. I do appreciate the support that I get when something goes wrong in the blogging world but I wish that they could figure this one out for me as I really don’t like being Spam!

This is not me!