Loose Leaf Notes

Once there was this kid who / Got into an accident and couldn’t come to school / But when he finally came back / His hair had turned from black into bright white…

Have you guessed yet?

The Crash Test Dummies are on tour for the 25^th anniversary of their award-winning album God Shuffled His Feet, one of my all-time favorite albums that I wore out playing and singing along to throughout the ‘90s.  It was so good to be with a crowd of other Crash Test Dummy fans at the Rocky Mount Harvester Performance Center, drinking a good IPA and even dancing when I felt moved.

The people sat waiting / Out on their blankets in the garden / But God said nothing / So someone asked him “I beg your pardon /I’m not quite clear about what you just spoke / What that a parable, or a very subtle joke?”…

As promised in press releases, Floyd’s 2nd annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration was a beautiful community celebration that brought together an outpouring of support and participation from local businesses, organizations, churches, restaurants and individuals.

Hosted by The Heart of the Child Music Education and Preserve Floyd, the event highlighted the Interracial Community Building in Floyd that began following the violent Neo-nazi march in Charlottesville and a confederate flag ride through downtown Floyd.

The honoring of King included song, prayer, remembrances, a fellowship meal and a keynote address from Reverend Dr. Edward Burton, a retired pastor of a Roanoke church who lived through the civil rights era and met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“When I first moved to Floyd, it was because I wanted to live in a community, a small intimate place where everyone could be known and cared for. Over time I realized that Floyd is made of many different communities, and that some of them didn’t even know each other. This event celebrates how some groups in this town have felt called to keep The Dream alive, by reaching out across community boundaries to build a stronger and safer Floyd,” Kari Kovick, Heart of the Child director and one of the organizers of the event, said to the crowd that filled more than half of the Floyd County High School auditorium.

The program included song, prayer and the words of keynote speaker, Reverend Burton who was introduced by local pastor, Reverend Dr. Clinton Crump. Floyd County High Coach Winifred Beale gave a welcome address and acted as an emcee. Volunteers involved in community-building events and the CERC (Community Educational Resource Cooperative) non-profit umbrella were given shout-outs of recognition.

“I have an announcement to make. There are no second-class citizens! Everything that God made is good,” said the Reverend Edward Burton. With a mix of storytelling, humor and preaching, Burton summarized his inspirational talk saying, “The movement didn’t start with King and it does not end with King.”  He reminded the crowd that we are all responsible for “the carrying on to bring our nation to a new and even higher height.”

Another highlight of the program was when Kovick, a teacher of child social-emotional resiliency, called all the children to come on stage to sing “This Little Light of Mine.”

 “All through the town, I’m gonna let it shine…” the children sang as elders were honored by leaving the auditorium first to make their way to the cafeteria for a fellowship meal provided by local businesses.

Organizers asked attendees to sit next to someone they didn’t know and have a conversation as part of the conscious community-building that started in 2017.  As they did, the closing words of Reverend Burton gave context to the cafeteria buzz. “I’ve been to Floyd where I got happy cause something is going on!” he said.

Look for a story by Floyd Press editor in this week’s paper.

We had one board, two Official Scrabble Dictionaries and three free look-ups.  “Do you want the new or older one,” he asked one of the players who wanted to look up a word, “the one with the dirty words in it or the cleaned up one?” He had the 3rd edition that had swear words in it, and I had the 4th edition, in which even the word “fart” was struck from the content.

I dropped a letter on the floor (more than once), and we had to get the brewery bartender to get us a flashlight to find it.  My fellow-players might have suspected that I was dropping letters on purpose because I had all vowels! But I wouldn’t ruin all future games because of a missing letter.

Needless to say, I didn’t win, but I enjoyed the company and my IPA.  On the way out, I overheard a woman talking about the government shutdown. I was happy to hear that she knew what she was talking about and gave her a thumbs up as I passed, taking one hand of the big deluxe game box.  I dropped it.  We had a good laugh, and I didn’t even curse, or say any of those words in his 3rd edition Official Scrabble Dictionary.  But one may have ended up on the board. / Our World Tuesday

It starts out with so much potential
I flip to the ones I like
I start at the back
and work my way to the middle
then lose my place
and wander in circles
like poring through clothes
at the Goodwill Thrift Shop
and trying on the same ones twice

________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Clark Gable is back!

Can you spot Scarlet?

1. Recently seen: commend more and condemn less.

2. Poetry is a condensed form of expression that doesn’t follow the rules of prose like a dream isn’t limited by reality.

3. The couch is a lifeboat / I manage to inflate / The poem is a fish story / that doesn’t hold water / It’s in over its head / and under the influence / but drowns out the deep blue / of a wasted afternoon – Read “Last Call” in its entirely HERE.

4. I should have won a gold medal Sunday morning, not for how late I slept in but for how much work it took to do it.

5. “James Shapiro, a Shakespeare scholar at Columbia, argues that Shakespeare behaved more like a chemist than a writer: by smashing words together–words like eye and ball–he created new words, and new ways of seeing the world.” – From Radiolab

6. It’s amazing how many phrases Shakespeare is credited with coining, like: it’s all Greek to you, mum’s the word, send him packing, the green-eyed monster, with bated breath, pure as the driven snow, all of a sudden, wild goose chase, heart of gold, all that glitters is not gold and the be-all and end-all.

7. Learning about all the phrases Shakespeare invented gives me writing inspiration, knowing that if I can’t think of a word or line that interests me, I can make up a new one, or think of a few unlikely words that sound new when put together.

8. “Maybe we should stop calling it “Climate Change” and call it “Human induced Sixth Mass Extinction.” – My Facebook friend Jane

9. We’re like parasites that the earth is shaking off, like bad renters who don’t pay their bills.

10. I Love Snowflakes HERE. 

11. Speaking of glitter, see HERE.

12. “Often these days I have trouble deciding between the sad and the mad emojis.” – My Dharmacratic friend Will

13. What would Shakespeare do?

__________Thirteen Thursday

If ice is a fool’s diamond, then I am a fool because I’m attracted to all that glitters. Ice crystallizes the power of water, which is more valuable than any cut gem.

It can give or take life.

My footsteps loudly crunch on the top layer of ice and echo through the countryside.

A walk in the woods is a dangerous act, as chunks of ice melting in the sun are tossed from treetops, causing me to take cover.

Soon it’s raining ice, sounds like gold going down the drain.

Riches are fleeting, but nature’s treasures change form and cycle back in due time. ________Our World Tuesday

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on January 10, 2019

A first kiss, how we met, a new career after a parent’s death were some of the “beginnings” stories told at the January Blue Ridge Story Space (BRSS).  It was the year anniversary of the monthly storytelling event and one of the best turn-outs yet, said organizer Christal Trivett-Presley.

Trivett-Presley, an English teacher at Patrick County High School, spoke of preserving the mountain tradition of oral storytelling during the evening’s introduction and before passing the hat that held the names of signed-up storytellers. Free and open to the public, the story space as a non-competitive, safe place where people come together to share 5-7 minute stories, she said.  Held at the June Bug Center on the first Saturday of the month from 5:30 to 7:00, the BRSS’s February theme will be “secrets.”

Photos:  An attentive audience listens to Jane Avery’s story of growing up as a tomboy in Connecticut and experiencing her first kiss.

A storyteller from Meadows of Dan spoke on the mind’s journey of exploring the variety, ambiguity and cyclic nature of beginnings.

Clinton Atwater got the audience’s attention when he joked about being a drug dealer (a pharmacist). He, talked about learning to be comfortable with public speaking through his participation in a Toastmasters leadership club.

In a story about ‘how we met,” BRSS’s organizer Christal Trivett-Presley (left) recalled when she and her wife Jane (right) got married in their PJS at a courthouse in Atlanta after the Supreme Court ruling made same sex marriage legal in the U.S.

“I’ve been at more than one party that started under a bridge in the rain,” said Greg Locke, while sharing his adventures as a motorcycle enthusiast.  Locke got his first bike in high school.  “I don’t have a title,” a friend that was selling the bike said to Locke.  “That’s okay, I don’ have a license,” Locke replied.

Hari Berzins of Floyd Citizens Cooperative TV hooks up a storyteller whose story began with a blue piñata.  Video-taping is an optional feature of the BRSS.  The taped stories are aired on Citizens TV Channel 20 and can also be found at the BRSS youtube site.

The audience responds with laughter during the blue piñata story. – Colleen Redman

_________Our World Tuesday

Same lunch
Same nap
Same birds
at the feeder

Squeaky rocker
in a drowsy noon
Poured tea
might as well be whiskey

Head drops
with the weight of thought
I wake with a gasp
and a stiff neck

The couch is a lifeboat
I manage to inflate
The poem is a fish story
that doesn’t hold water

It’s in over its head
and under the influence
but drowns out the deep blue
of a wasted afternoon

__________Colleen Redman / Poets United /Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

1. The pouring of tea is like the conversation that comes after the contemplation of the steeping.  The darker the steeping, the deeper is the taste of meaning.

2. “This portal! How remarkable that it’s there in your kitchen. The wonder of gazing down that rabbit hole, that well of wisdom—into fantastic pictures, to stories that lead around the cup and up the sides, beyond the daily to magical, often humorous, luminous inspiration—through the tea leaves remaining in a cup…” – More from Wisdom in a Teacup by Gretchen Lawlor HERE.

3. I don’t drive far from home / and can barely read my own writing / but I miss the inspiration/ closed between the pages / of bright futures and good graces / Where once in a lifetime love spent / is stamped like a passport in faded print… Read The Notebook in its entirety HERE.

4. In writing poetry (as in life), I try to avoid self-victimization and drama as much as I avoid soundbite solutions and glossing over.

5. In working with words, the meaning is the wild card that trumps the rhyme. The rhyme is like the physical appearance you can’t change.

6. “It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it.”  -David Sedaris

7. “A Woman’s Place is in the House” has taken on a whole new meaning.  It’s actually the title of an article in Elle magazine, referring to the fact that on November 6, 2018, 35 new women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, making this incoming class the most diverse by race and gender in the body’s 230-year history.

8. This past year, Merriam-Webster added 850 new words and definitions. Many of these words seem like they have been around for several years. Often they have, because the dictionaries don’t want to include words that are merely passing fads. Some examples of recently added words or meanings are: Cryptocurrency, Glamping, Microfinance, Mansplain, Demonym, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Bandwidth.

9. Justice prevailed as the “word of the year,” named by Merriam-Webster.  Other words that were looked up at significantly higher rates than they were a year ago, according to the dictionary,

10. Sometimes my random Thirteen Thursdays remind me of Seinfeld, a show about nothing.

11. Seinfeld said in 2016 interview with Rolling  Stone that he’d welcome Donald Trump on his web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee – if only for comedy’s sake. “He is buffoonish enough, with the long ties, the pinky-index pointing,” he said. “He’s as funny as it gets.” But the comic would insist on driving an open-top car: “I wanna see the hair fly.”

12. It must be my Irish DNA that makes me love tea over coffee and dark beer over wine. A pub and a tea shop have a lot in common for those who enjoy a good brew. I’m drawn by the intoxicating flavors, the alluring aromas, the warm and cold, the clear amber tones.  Whether assam, ceylon, pekoe, earl grey, or darjeeling, a china cup of tea is a pool of poetry, a remedy for whatever ails.  Whether stout, larger, hops, wheat, or ale, good beer is hearty food for my body and soul. Both beer and tea pamper and nourish me. They call me to slow down and partake in the present moment.

13. “I don’t think there’s a good excuse for being unhappy.” Jerry Garcia

_______________Thirteen Thursday

_____Wordless Wednesday  / Skywatch Friday

Who knew, it was made with glue?

There are so many kinds of slime — also known as goo, goop, flarp and flubber –  both the bought and the homemade kind.  In December I went to a slime making workshop at the Jessie Peterman Library, which is where these pictures (some of which first appeared in The Floyd Press) came from.  I wanted to investigate, thinking if it was easy enough, I would make some with my grandson, who asked for slime for Christmas.

I love squishing slime, like I love popping bubble wrap, but I didn’t want to get my hands sticky while holding my camera, so I watched.  Later, I googled around and was stunned by how many recipes there are.  The simplest, most safe recipe, and the one that was used at the library, consisted of mostly Elmer’s school glue, a little baking soda and contact lens solution (see HERE). From my understanding, the baking soda and lens solutions acted as activators that made the glue less like glue and more like goop.  The library also had glitter on hand, and some people like to mix in a drop or two of food coloring.

My grandson gave me slime for Christmas.  It was one of my favorite presents!  / Our World Tuesday

It holds a bucket list of poems
that I’ve mostly given up on
and handwritten directions
to places I can’t pronounce

Its empty pages are haunted
with a family of unborn chances
for people I’ve never met
who only want to look at the pictures

I don’t drive far from home
and can barely read my own writing
but I miss the inspiration
closed between the pages
of bright futures and good graces

Where once in a lifetime love spent
is stamped like a passport in faded print
is lost between the landmarks
and forgotten signs of time
where every unearthed confession
is one-of-a-kind

_____________Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on January 3, 2019

The Floyd County Store hosted The Great Gingerbread House Contest on December 22.  The store’s marketing manager, Gina Dilg, is pictured here holding the Gingerbread Contractor of the Year crown as the evening’s dance band warms up in the background.

A child studies the gingerbread houses on display. Contest entries included a hobbit house made by a mother and son team, Cameron and Pat Woodruff (left), and a church made by mother and daughter team, Alison and Zaila Prudner (right). The gingerbread house in the center was a demo made by Country Store marketing manager Gina Dilg.

The Woodruff’s gingerbread hobbit house inspired son and mother to dress for the occasion. Cameron Woodruff is pictured in hobbit feet slippers to the right of his mother. Contestant Alison Prudner is pictured on the left.

Alison Prudner and her daughter Zaila’s gingerbread church entry was the contest winner, determined by votes made by store visitors.  The church featured stained glass windows made from melted Jolly Rogers candy that lit up with a flashlight.  A $50 store gift certificate was awarded to the pair.

1. Some people are on their honeymoon in sunny Australia while others are preparing to fly to Florida to play golf.

2. But all you need for my kind of vacation is a little sun.  Close your eyes and you’re there: anywhere.

3. No, that’s not a ski slope.

4. We didn’t see the ball drop for New Year’s Eve but we danced at the Dogtown ball. See HERE.

5. One too many?

6. Yesterday’s Amazon searches: sparkler birthday cake candles, a minimizer bra and a cowbell.

7. That time when I slammed the front door to mimic the sound of a gun going off HERE.

8. You know how when you forget someone’s name and no matter how hard you try, even if it’s on the tip of your tongue, you can’t remember? Then you go off and do something else and the name just pops in your head? Writing poetry is like that.

9. The Muse Was Here – A thumbprint of evidence / in winter’s cold case / The muse gives witness / to the moon’s phased escape

10. At the start of this new year, 19 states and 21 cities will increase their minimum wage, hunters can wear bright pink along with blaze orange, Vermont will pay workers to move there, California will require pet stores to only sell rescue animals, Ohio will require kids to learn cursive and you’ll have to be 21 to purchase tobacco products in Massachusetts.

11. You say you want a New Year’s resolution…? Sometimes I feel left out listening to others’ specific New Years resolutions to stop smoking, lose weight, or any other number of ways to better themselves. I try to come up with a concrete resolution I can get behind. But I never feel serious, the resolution feels empty, not practical, I don’t want to announce it, hold myself to it. If it hasn’t happened yet I don’t want to beat the dead horse – More from I Came THIS Close to Making a New Year’s Resolution HERE.

12. Alone or all one?

13.  Good to remember:  “As the poet Rumi reminds us, we don’t have to save the world; what we must do is tune to our souls, become our own unique note and join the great song of creation ongoing.” – Micheal Meade

___________Thirteen Thursday

AKA: One too many?  / Wordless Wednesday

Cause in Floyd, we got plenty of sparkle and glitter, and good friends to ring the New Year in with, all in the comfort of the Dogtown Roadhouse.

We got two of my favorite local bands playing on stage, including The Kind who got things started.  One highlight of their rocking set was when special guest Ash Devine sang Bobby McGee with The Kind’s Wendy Godley. Listen HERE.

We got a big dance floor and freestyle dancers who aren’t afraid to use it.

We got the original jams and special guest (Alan Graf) dueling guitar riffs of Music Road Company.

We got light shows on the ceiling, great craft beer, wood-fired pizzas and more.

We got more cowbell! And trombone!

Best of all, we got those champagne kisses at midnight.

It was a Happy New Year for sure!