bigotry and bullying

I read another blog today that had to do with a woman who allowed her 5 year old son dress as Daphne from Scoobydoo. Apparently the child loves the show and for some reason had chosen this costume to be what he wanted to dress up as. The closer it came to Halloween and taking him to preschool in his costume the more he became concerned that people would laugh at him in a bad way. Several of his friends moms knew what his costume was to be and told him it was great as they walked into the school. However when the child and his mother reached his classroom several other mothers made a point to question this woman as to why she would allow such a costume and was it one that he had picked out and if he was in Kindergarten she would have had to put her foot down and not allow it at all.
This blog got my blood boiling! How DARE anyone question a costume for Halloween unless it is totally not age appropriate. This mother posted a picture of her son in costume and it made me smile. He was very cute. Now granted I wouldn't want my son to dress in drag on a regular basis but for a Halloween costume there isn't anything really the matter with it.
As I read this blog I thought about how hatred and bigotry and bullying tend to start at home and get brought out into the public areas. If parents can't find a way to understand that there are all types in this world of ours then how are children to learn that it is ok to be different? How are they to know that it isn't ok to call other people hurtful things or behave in a hurtful manner if their parents are spouting garbage in their homes and calling people that are different ugly names and terms? Children learn by example and while some things may not be the norm or really acceptable in todays society there are ways to let your child know without being rude, crude, and nasty about it.
Ok... I step down from my soap box and try to accept that life is as it is and I have raised understanding and non bigotted children. Thank you.

Concerts

For the past two weekends, my family and I have attended concerts at Stone Mountain Park. It has been a wonderful way to spend time together as well as get some cultural experiences.
Last week there was the Last Blast of Summer with Eden's Edge, Chris Janson, Jaron and the Long Road to Love and Jarrod Niemann playing on the main lawn. We got there early and got a good spot on the lawn where we could hear everything as well as be able to see the laser show later in the evening. We also set up near one of the entrances so that my husband would be able to find us when he got there from work. We got to hear some great music and have a good clean family time.
This weekend Stone Mountain hosted the Yellow Daisy Festival with tons of craft booths in the special events section. We knew that they were going to have The Band Perry playing and for a $10 parking fee we got to go enjoy another concert. This time we got to the lawn early and were thinking what fantastic seats we had, only to realize that we were in the wrong section of the park. We needed to be over in the special events section. So a long walk and a shuttle bus ride later, we got there in time to see part of Foxes and Fossils before The Band Perry started.
My son enjoyed Foxes and Fossils more than The Band Perry but that is ok. He found something he enjoyed listening to and then wandered for a bit with a cell phone in his pocket while the rest of us enjoyed who we had gone to see.
We got to meet the band afterwards and they were friendly and polite and just as happy to see those of us that were at the end of the line as they were to see those at the front.
I am so glad that we decided to go to these events. Family time is important and as my children grow rapidly toward being adults I find that I treasure the quiet times together.

Neighbors

It never fails to amaze me how friendly people are when there aren't wooden walls between "neighbors".
On Saturday when we got to our campsite, one set of neighbors offered us the use of a hammer to pound the tent pegs. It wasn't needed since we had brought our own, but it was nice they offered never the less.
On Sunday evening, after dinner, we were finishing a game fo cards and the neighbors across the way began to play some dance music on their car stereo. My daughter and I decided we wanted to do some of the dances so we set the same songs to play on our laptop. We began dancing at our site and they saw us and told us to come on over and join them. We ended up there dancing to several songs.
Also on Sunday, while at the pool, my teens met another set of teens that were siblings. THe four of them played frisbee and ball off and on through out the afternoon. They later came and sat with my kids around our campfire that night, talking about band and wrestling, snow and floods.
Smores were eaten, conversation flowed and neighbors of a few hours in the space of time got to know each other better. What a wonderful way to spend outdoors.

Sitting in the quiet stillness of the morning beside a lake, my family still sleeps in the tent behind me. A small smokey fire burns befoe me to heat the first pot of water we will need today. We have taken a weekend to go camping for the first time in many years.

I recall the many nights of camping in amusty canvas tent with my parents and siblings when I was a child. Tghe day light hours of those camping trips are long gone from my memories, but the nights? Those I remember. We would have a campfire and roast marshmallows and sing. Then Mom would send us in to get in our sleeping bags for the night. She would remind us to be hush so we'd hear her play us to sleep and if we were quiet whe would go out and play her guitar by the fire. Sometimes it was just a variety of chords that would sound like a bablling series of notes as her fingers plucked the strings but oft times it was more an accompaniement to her soft soprano voice.

Tonight our campfire will bursh and my children will roast marshmallows. We will sit beside the fire and talk of our day in husched voices but there will be little to no singing this night. My teenagers don't know the old songs like I learned. When I should have been teaching them around the campfire like I was taught, I fell down on the job. Sadly my voice doesn't hold the notes properlyh now and it would be the noise part of the command to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Despite the lack of Christian choruses, I believe my children will remember this time together with fond memories.

Yesteryear

They say you can't go home again..... I am finding they are right. I have come back to my hometown for the first time in 12 years and so many things are changed. Many of the people that I remember are no longer locals. Buildings that I remember are still here but have changed ownership and business names. I played tourist while I was here, taking lots of pictures of things I remembered. I was glad to see that some things still look the same but being older and taller the vantage point is different.
The outer portion of the library is the same.... I spent so many hours in that place because it fed my love of books. I remember my mother taking us there when I was a child and going there in elementary school for a field trip. I remember hours of research done there as a teenager for papers for high school. The library had a children's section, a teen section and an adult section as well as the periodical room. This was before computers were so popular and everything needed to be looked up in the card catalogue to find it. To this day I am excited to walk into a library and know that the world is at my fingertips and adventures await when I open the covers of a book.
The ocean and beaches look the same. I guess there isn't much that could be done that would change the waters. I was hoping for some time with the ocean waves rolling in. This visit the bay was rougher than the ocean but to be able to remove my shoes and feel the sand between my toes and the water over my feet was wonderful. The salt air was perfume to me and seeing these places brought back the memories of laughter and playing in the sun and surf as a child; of meeting family and friends on the beach. Memories of picnics at Fresh Pond and fireworks at Albert's Beach or Main Beach flooded back. Days of innocence and growing up.
Another thing from "yesteryear" is the foods I used to eat while living in my hometown. I can't get them where I live now but I was able to find them again here. Rare roastbeef and american cheese on a hard roll with mayo and salt and pepper along with a Hampton's Dairy iced tea in a green box was a must have. I ate them regularly and was so glad that I was able to get them at Buckets where Everett came out of the back to say hello. I worked in that store on Saturday mornings putting the Sunday newspapers together. I always got lunch from there or from the Chicken house on Saturday. It just depended on which deli I was at when lunch time rolled around.
New York Pizza was a must as well. I ate it twice this week..... folded over the proper way with extra cheese and garlic salt added to it. Grease dripped from the folded crust as I bit in and closed my eyes. There are New York style pizza places in the south but there is NOTHING like it to have it from one of the parlors from my home town. I worked for a local parlor when I was in my early teens and thought when I stopped that I would never want pizza again. How wrong I was. Due to be older and having reflux issues I don't usually eat red sauce anymore.... but NY pizza isn't the same without it and I found that I didn't have one bit of problem with it from here.
I am so glad I took the time to come back to my hometown. I still want to bring my children so they can see it, but I long for the days of yesteryear, when we walked the streets safely and played at the parks and beaches and through the neighborhoods. It felt odd seeing the local kids grown up even though it has been so long since I have been back and I feel old myself many days. Seeing familiar places took me back to being a child and the days of freedom and innocence.

Christmas with Mom

Ever since Mom moved south and is closer to my family, we have gone up on Christmas Eve and spent the night. We usually get in late that evening because my husband works retail and he has to close the store before we can leave. Everything will be packed in the car and ready so that when he gets home we just have to drive up to Mom's. My sister and her family will already be there and excitement is in the air as we relish the time of being together. Mom's house is all decorated with a real tree that smells of pine. The tree has homemade ornaments made by Mom, Gram, my sister and I. The lights glow softly amidst the branches and instrumental Christmas Carols play.
Christmas morning we awake early to make our way into the living room with the children for presents. Gram and Uncle John come over as well and for a while there is mass confusion as we are opening presents and ooooooing and ahhhhhhing over them. Wrapping paper litters the floor and presents are scattered around everyone. Some years the presents are home made ones, other years they are store bought. Each year brings a mixture of laughter and tears of gladness as we exclaim over the gifts.
We take the time to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and say a prayer of thanks that He came to earth for us.
Many years my children didn't get to enjoy Christmas in such a manner because family lived so far away. I am so glad that we get to spend time with my mother, my stepfather and my grandmother while my kids get to enjoy it as well. I pray for many more of these years to come.

Childhood memories

Today I was talking with one of my coworkers about when I grew up. She is of my daughter's generation and doesn't remember a time when mothers didn't go outside of the home to work. I told her about growing up and having Daddy work and Mama stayed home, how I didn't know what store bought cookies were until I went to school, and how I thought we were poor because we didn't have everything that others had.
I know she couldn't imagine a life without cable tv or cell phones. It was so funny because I know that my children have been raised very similarly to the way I was. For years we didn't have cable television in our household... either as a child or as an adult raising my own children. There is a difference however. In my childhood home we got ABC and that was all. In my adult home we could usually pull in PBS but my children had plenty of videos they were able to watch to help keep entertained.
When I was growing up we went outside to play a good deal and used our imaginations or sat under a tree and read a book. I remember playing "Little House on the Prairie" with the neighbors and the log cabin play house we had in our back yard. We used to take sand and rocks and acorns and mix them up to make "cake". We would play jumprope and one of us would turn the rope that was tied at one end to the telephone pole while the others would jump. We would gather all the kids in the neighborhood and play redlight greenlight and mother may I or Simon Says. We all got along fairly well despite the age differences we had.
As my children have grown, they didn't spend a lot of time outside. There were times when it wasn't safe for them to play. We struggled to make ends meet and didn't always live in the best of neighborhoods. Of course by the time we did live in a better area where they could be outside, it was almost always too dark for them to be out once we were at home. My husband and I both had to work to make ends meet and the children went to afterschool care where they got their homework finished and waited for one of us to come get them. Now these same children are teens and they have many things that keep them busy... very little of it involves being outside. However one of the other things that I have instilled in my children is a love of books. My son doesn't read as much as my daughter does but both will read every book of a series if it is an author that catches their attention.
I look at life as it is now and wonder if my children have lost out on anything by not playing the childhood games with neighbor children. I don't think that they have but I think times were simpler when I was growing up than they are now. I have to wonder if life wouldnt be better if we could return to that simpler time and place.