Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on March 21, 2019.

It was the 1st annual Kite Festival in Floyd, and “there will definitely be a second,” said Tracyann Costello, the Floyd County’s Parks and Recreation Authority (FCPRA) Chairperson.

There was plenty of March wind, kites of all varieties and families having fun together at Authority’s Park Drive park, off Route 8, on Saturday.

“We’re super excited that the community has come out,” Costello said.

County Supervisors are currently exploring the possibility  of the Authority becoming a county department, and Costello said it is her hope that the Kite Festival turnout would help more people discover what the FCPRA has to offer:  a playground, trails, classes and workshops, along with Youth and Adult Athletics that includes Tee Ball, Softball, Baseball, Volleyball, Soccer and Basketball.

The Authority collected can goods for PLENTY’S community food bank at the event and provided kites for people to decorate and fly.

A sound system of music was provided by DJ Linda DeVito.

Along with many first-time kite flyers, flyers from Roanoke’s Got Wind Kite Club were in attendance doing kite flying demonstrations.

“I probably have about 100 kites,” said Got Wind Kite Club member and Floyd County resident, Donald Jacobs.  He commented that club members are from all over Southwest Virginia and that they do kite festivals up and down the east coast.

Jacobs, who got hooked on kites after fixing a trashed kite that he found on Myrtle Beach, said he was contacted by FCPRA director Andy Mabe, who initiated the idea of a kite festival for Floyd.

Jacobs has been flying kites for 10 years and competes in kite flying competitions.  But it’s really all about the fun and getting kids outdoors, he said.

“We’re all like a bunch of kids out here.”

 1. I call drinking craft beer at the local tavern on St. Patrick’s Day, a photo/journalist’s field study.

2. A New Theory on Time Indicates Present and Future Exist Simultaneously – It suggests that time does not PASS and that everything is ever-present. According to a scientist, everything that has happened, and everything that will happen is in fact occurring at this very moment as time is positioned in space…  More HERE.

3. I think I posted that before, but maybe it seems familiar because it had already happened and already existed in some future dimension.

4. “Till that moment in my life I always thought this is me and that’s somebody else and something else. But for the first time I did not know which is me and which is not me. Suddenly, what was me was just all over the place. The very rock on which I was sitting, the air that I breathe, the very atmosphere around me, I had just exploded into everything. That sounds like utter insanity. This, I thought it lasted for ten to fifteen minutes but when I came back to my normal consciousness, it was about four-and-a-half-hours I was sitting there, fully conscious, eyes open, but time had just flipped.”  – Sadhguru on the spiritual experience that changed his life

5. One of my infamous answering machine messages:  Hello…Hello…Oh… I’m in the past and you’re in the present, but if you leave a message, I’ll get back to you in the future.

6. The moon is like a celebrity / that’s fashionably late / arriving on a red-carpet / of the sun’s fiery … See the photos HERE.

7. I use a mouse while at the computer and currently have three, but none of them work correctly.  I call them my three blind mice.

8. I used to wear a button that was a take-off on Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign. It said “Just Say Know.”

9. My brother Joey takes a lot of tropical vacations, so many that they’re beginning to be like meat to me.  I don’t know Cabo from Barbados like I don’t know brisket from a chuck roast.

10. I don’t exactly know what my practice of “no practice” means. I only know when I’m not doing it.

11. A Sci-fi Drive-by HERE.

12. Turn up the volume HERE. 

13. “Nobody’s living. Everyone thinks about life.” – Sadhguru

___________Thirteen Thursday

The moon is like a celebrity
that’s fashionably late

arriving on the red-carpet
of the sun’s fiery blaze

________Colleen Redman / Our World Tuesda / dVerse Poets Pub

I had my first green beer on St. Patrick’s Day.

I also ate green and gold chocolate shamrocks, homemade by Floyd’s Cocoa Mia.

We spent Saturday night at the Buffalo Mountain Brewery’s McDaniel’s Tavern with the rest of the Irish loving town and people beyond.

A friend greeted me by saying, “Erin Go Bragh.” “What, take off my bra?” I answered.  It was that kind of night.

There was live music but nothing Irish. Joe knew I needed a fix, so he later serenaded me with the above.

The next day I met up with a friend at the tavern to play Scrabble (see the post about my “pub practice HERE). “I’ll be the one in green,” I messaged her.   Look for some photos in an upcoming Floyd Press.

Lime-green shamrock umbrellas
Ireland loves me
She loves me not
She loves me

I press them in journals
like a monk preserving archives
or twirl them like kilts
on giggling girls

In the name of the Mother
the Sun and the Holy Wells

Ireland is a green kite
let go by the fairies
Landed in the ocean
and anchored by rock

_______Colleen Redman / Ireland in 1997 / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

When I went to Ireland in 1997 to visit my grandmother’s hometown, I learned more about myself there than I could have in 10 years of psycho-therapy.  The majority of the Irish people I met reminded me of my own family. I saw the faces of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings in their faces. And that’s not all. The Irish tend to be unpretentious, playful, tender-hearted, nostalgic, self-directed and not overtly ambitious. They are often self-deflecting, something that can be endearing, but it can also border on an inferiority complex. And I thought these traits were unique to my own family.

Although most Americans are aware of the devastation of Irish famine, our history books don’t tell the story of the Penal Laws that were imposed on the Irish by the English from the late 1600s to the nineteenth century. Under these laws, the Irish were denied their right to own land in their own country, to go school, to practice their religion, or speak in their own language. Poverty and oppression under foreign domination for centuries are likely to be contributing factors in the Irish trait of self-depreciation.

But before you get the idea that the Irish are sweet and meek; think again. They also have a history of being warriors, and they are hardly repressed (as much as the English and the Catholic Church tried) when it comes to self-expression, including that of a volatile or rebellious nature.

The Irish legacy is one of paradox. The luck of the Irish is super-imposed over Murphy’s Law (if something can go wrong it will), just as my passion to write and share my writing is super-imposed over my self-conscious public shyness…

– Read the rest of The Unlucky Luck of the Irish, a blog post from 2005 HERE. / Photo was taken at The Harvest Moon Food Store in Floyd VA. / Our World Tuesday

1. “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your destiny.” – Mahatma Gandhi

2. “Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain—unless it is done with play, in which case, it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions!”— The late Dr. Karyn Purvis, Director of Texas Christian University’s Child Development Center

3. The word swims reads the same when it’s upside down.

4. So now you don’t have to drive home in the dark, but you have to get up in the dark?

5. Moon Solo: A silver horn / plays a top note / A pied piper’s call / for the stars to come out

6. The Beat Goes On: Floyd Mardi Gras Turns Ten HERE.

7. The highlight of the weekend was dancing to Mustang Sally at Dogtown with my friend Sally Johnson and others.

8. Singers doing Joni Mitchell are like actors doing Shakespeare.  – Colleen to Joe while watching the PBS special tribute for Joni Mitchell’s 75th birthday

9. During the Joni Mitchell special Brandi Carlile sang Case of You with Kris Kristofferson, which made us think we’ll shout out “Case of You” when she’s playing at Floydfest this summer and maybe she’ll sing it.

10. Sign seen on Facebook: The best thing to give up this Lent is plastic, not chocolate.

11. Psychologists at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver studied the schedules of 70 six-year olds, and they found that the kids who spent more time in less-structured activities had more highly-developed self-directed executive function.

12. I think the above is true for adults too.

13. “It’s like America is Las Vegas now.” – Joni Mitchell, Rolling Stone 1991

______________Thirteen Thursday

The Floyd Bridal Show numbers were down a bit from last year due to fog, said Floyd Event Center coordinator Maggie Hessinger. “But we had lots of motivated brides and grooms come out,” she added.

The Show, organized by Hessinger and Silks Ribbons and Roses florist Rachel Wells, was held Sunday at the Event Center at the Floyd EcoVillage, which is also a wedding venue.

It featured samples and demonstrations for wedding planning and a vendor showcase that included wedding officiates, musicians, caterers, florists, supply rental, photographers, wedding planners and more.

For a five-dollar registration fee, brides and grooms-to-be are presented with a bag of goodies and can put their names in for several drawings of valuable vendor give-aways.

The big winners this year were Ricky Burnette and Stephanie Higgs of Floyd who are planning an August wedding.

Among the gifts in Burnette and Higgs winning gift basket were gift certificates from Copper Hill Cakes and Chateau Morrisette Winery, a free bridal bouquet from Silks Ribbons and Roses, $75 off wedding make-up by Angela Meyers, $200 off a Party Mirror rental and $250 off the rental of the Floyd Event Center.   Higgs noticed a set of knives and a cookbook in the gift basket.  “I’m ready to dig in,” she said.

Photos: 1. Attendees watch for the drawing to a grand basket give-way. Wedding cakes by Copper Hill Cakes and Goodies are pictured on the right. 2. Reverend Kanta Bosniak talks to an attendee about the custom wedding ceremonies she officiates. 3. Sarah Felts of Blooming Ground Farm & Floral points to a bucket of flowers that she says is representative of the flowers she grows.  4. Kathryn Ashera Rose of Floyd’s Anahata Education Center speaks with a couple about the Center’s wedding venue. Gift basket drawing winners Ricky Burnette and Stephanie Higgs are flanked by Bridal Show organizers Maggie Hessinger and Rachel Wells of Silks Ribbons and Roses.

6. A couple tries out some props at the Party Mirror Photo Booth, an interactive full length mirror that can instantly print photos that can be texted or emailed.  7. Brides and Grooms sampled food provided by local caterers in the Event Center café.  They watched for the drawing of another gift basket winner.  8. Vendor/baker Shawna Williams of Confectious Shenanigans served samples of her popular mini-cupcakes. 9. A table design by Barefoot Wedding Planner of Rocky Mount was on display.

__________Our World Tuesday

A silver horn
plays a top note
A pied piper’s call
for the stars to come out

_________Colleen Redman / Poets United

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on March 7, 2019 

Dogtown Roadhouse was decked out in lights and attendees were donned in all variety of feathers, glitter and masks for the 10th annual Mardi Gras Ball, a fundraiser for the Blue Mountain School (BMS).

The popular Krewe du Bleu dinner kicked off the annual festivities.

Smoked Mojo Pork Loin, Shrimp and Fish Po’boys, Oyster and Crab Bienville Casserole and Cajun delights were some of the Krewe du Bleu dishes prepared by Chef Richard Perry of Classic Caterers.

Ed Gralla, a long-time BMS supporter and past Mardi Gras King, checked in attendees and sold tickets at the door.

Mardi Gras MC Shamama thanked the opening band, Her Majesty, as they took a bow after their set. Band member, singer-songwriter Lily Byler (left in trio) is a second generation Blue Mountain School alum.

Dancers filled the dance floor and did the Electric Slide between band sets.

The Voodoo Lounge, located in the new upper addition of  the Dogtown building,  was a popular place to relax, socialize and enjoy live music and the view of downtown.

Featured music in the Lounge included Jake Retting (pictured left), Paul LeMay, David Hall and Flirting with Chemicals. Listen HERE. 

The Blue Mountain School Silent Auction crew showed off their Mardi Gras high fashion.

A mysterious masked lady browses through the silent auction items, donated by artists and businesses to support the Blue Mountain School.

Billed as “Floyd’s Rock Royalty,” Music Road Company hit the stage with an extended horn section and a Latin fusion sound. Listen HERE. 

The stage light show fell on dancers as they spun the dance floor.

Contestants of the annual Mardi Gras Costume Contest flashed their style.

The winners of the Couple’s Costume Contest did a victory walk on the dance floor.

Floyd PFLAG awarded prizes for the best cross dresser and couple’s costumes.

Jordan Harman and friends made up this year’s all-star Lagniappe band, a tradition started by the late Tom Ryan, a Floyd Mardi Gras founder.

Always a well-kept secret until the festive pronouncement is the crowning of the Mardi Gras King and Queen.  This year the honor went to Jody and Tom Franko. – More on Mardi Gras 2019 HERE. Read about last year’s Floyd Mardi Gras HERE.

1. Of all the outtake photos I took at the Floyd Mardi Gras Saturday night, the composition above is my favorite.

2. Everyone who was anyone was “spotted” as the lightshow spilled onto the dance floor at the 10th annual “Ball.” Pun intended HERE.

3. I thought I should be in the band, considering that I somehow got the memo to wear white.

4. I wore a white beret and Joe wore a black one. I called him “mon ami” all night.

5. Cross my heart / and hope to die / The truth must heal / from a virus of lies – More from Agreement HERE.

6. And just how is adjusting our tax withholding supposed to help the of losing exemptions and deductions that have many us owing the IRS this year? That’s still taking our money.

7. “1987 and I didn’t know it then / Reagan was selling weapons to the leaders of Iran /  But it won’t be the first time baby and it won’t be the end / they were all American made / But I was just a child, unaware of the effects /  Raised on sports and Jesus not the usual suspects  / So tell me Mr Petty what you do you think will happen next? / It’s all American made…” Margo Price, who will be at Floydfest this year.

8. One of these things is not like the other.

9. “Plastic Mardi Gras Beads Could Soon Be A Thing Of The Past – The iconic New Orleans party favors are getting an eco-friendly makeover. One scientist has proposed a solution that could make Mardi Gras beads biodegradable. If his idea comes to fruition, it could save the city time and money on cleanup and cut down on post-celebration landfill trash. More HERE. 

10. A few years back a friend left an invite to a party on my answering machine. I thought he said it was going to be a “no holds barred” party, but when I got there and asked him what he meant by that, he answered, “I said NO HOST BAR, Colleen!”

11. My friend Elisha’s Mardi Gras hair-do reminded me of a cross between The Statue of Liberty and I dream of Jeannie.

12.  Joe and I stayed in the French Quarter in the spring of 2015. There was plenty going on but no Mardi Gras parades, so we went to Mardi Gras World. See HERE. 

13. To find out what happened above, see “All That Mardi Gras Hoopla” HERE.  _____________Thirteen Thursday

Everyone who is anyone was spotted

As the stage light show spilled on to the dance floor

At the 10th annual Mardi Gras “Ball”

Puns intended

Look for a full spread accounting in an upcoming Floyd Press

______Our World Tuesday

Cross my heart
and hope to die
The truth must heal
from a virus of lies
Must be rid of the apple
that risks the bunch
A blight at the root
must be nipped by the bud
We must sign the line
and not break our word
We must carry its honesty
Let its wishes be heard

___________Colleen Redman / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

A Foggy Path

A Blind Patch

A Big Splash

Makes a Rain Bath

1. “Awakening to one’s inner story and finding life-long initiatory paths comprises the “real work” and genuine opus of our lives. The problem is that the exact paths of awakening are blocked by received ideas, early life traumas and over-adaptation to the needs of others. In the long run however, genuine transformation is the secret aim of all the tensions and troubles we encounter.” – Micheal Meade

2. A wise woman’s wilderness / at the bottom of a cup / rises like a lost continent / to foretell the last sip – Read Tea Oracle in its entirety HERE.

3. Alexa hosted the Oscars. Or was that disembodied voice introducing the presenters from behind the scenes Siri?

4. A Documentary about menstruation, called “Period. End of Sentence,” won an Oscar.

5. I call Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s Oscar performance “an Adelle moment.”

6. I’m a nerd about the news, thrift shopping, taking pictures and writing poetry.

7.  I’m also a nerd for research: The first documented appearance of the word nerd is as the name of a creature in Dr. Seuss’s book If I Ran the Zoo (1950), in which the narrator Gerald McGrew claims that he would collect “a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too” for his imaginary zoo. The slang meaning of the term dates to 1951.  That year, Newsweek magazine reported on its popular use as a synonym for drip or square in Detroit, Michigan. By the early 1960s, usage of the term had spread throughout the United States, and even as far as Scotland.  At some point, the word took on connotations of bookishness and social ineptitude – Wikipedia

8. Turning people away from trusting reliable news sources with terms like “liberal elite media” reminds me of when abusers control their victims by isolating from family and friends.

9. The Michael Cohen Congressional Hearing: It’s like the Republicans spent the whole hearing discrediting the hit man to protect the person who called for the hits.

10. I’ve been reading about how doctors can now diagnose Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by brain abnormalities that show up on an MRI.  Here’s how one doctor involved in the breakthrough aptly describes the disease: “Healthy people do tasks A, B, C, D and E, then go to bed. CFS sufferers do task A, then recover, task B, then recover, and so on, making sure they have intermittent recoveries so that they don’t exacerbate their symptoms. I also learned that the brain abnormalities in CFS cause cognitive symptoms like Visuospatial dysgnosia, a function of the right side of the brain used for solving puzzles, figuring out maps and taking part in any type of construction or engineering project.  It’s loss of the sense of “whereness” in the relation of oneself to  one’s environment and in the relation of objects to each other, which explains why I rarely drive outside of Floyd and the few other familiar places.

11. Someone posted THIS picture of a harpy eagle on Facebook and I was so unsure that it was real that I had to look it up.

12. Not only does the very real harpy eagle look like a person wearing a mask, it comes in red. See HERE.

13. I’m saving 13 for a rainy day.

________________Thirteen Thursday

Virginia is for Lovers – one of the most successful marketing slogans in the country – is celebrating its 50 year anniversary this year.  50 years ago my sister Sherry and her boyfriend went camping at Virginia Beach and came home with a Virginia is for Lovers button.  I somehow talked her into giving it to me and had it pinned on my pocketbook for years. That was the start of my interest in Virginia, an omen. I didn’t know at the time that I would end up living here, for over 30 years now but that button was a hint. HERE is the longer story of how that button became a ticket to Floyd, Virginia.

_____________Our World Tuesday

It was a Dogtown Pisces Dance Party! Our friend Ruth took this video clip of us dancing.

THIS might be the Bob Marley song where the Seedpickers changed the words “in the government yard in Trenchtown” to “in a government yard in Dogtown!” And cornmeal porridge changed to pizza “of which I shared with you.”  The band also played originals AND a James Brown tune AND the Grateful Dead!

I’m so grateful to live in a town where I can dance regularly and that I have friends who love to do it as much as me! Happy birthday all you Pisces! Love you Dogtown!