Yesterday was Memorial Day.
            My dad was part of the Greatest Generation. He lived through the celebration of the end of WWI, even though he was a little baby. He lived through the Great Depression. He served in the Army Air Corps during WWII.
            Daddy never talked about the war. He only told us kids that he was a radio operator in the planes that flew somewhere over Europe. He taught us Morse Code. He brought home a couple of pipes for his father. I remember the smell of pipe tobacco hovering over Grampy like a sweet cloud.
            I don’t remember too much about my dad when he was young-ish and I was small-ish. We did family things: car trips, picnics, dinner-table talk about work and school. He did dad things: mowed the lawn and kept the weeds under control, took his turn driving to Sunday School, steadied my bike seat as I learned to find my balance. That was his really hardest job. Balance is a tricky thing.
            Now, we live near an air base. The airmen and women practice fly overs sometimes. As I’m writing this, three heavy-bodied planes fly low, in formation, part of our town’s Memorial Day observance. The speeches will begin right after, at 10:00, followed by a march with the High School Band to the local cemetery.  A trumpet player is honored by playing taps, a twenty-one gun salute is fired, a wreath is laid and everyone disbands to their picnics, ball games, and department store sales.
            Today, Memorial Day, I’m remembering my dad and all his brave friends. Some I’m sure did not come home although Daddy never talked about that.
          How much courage is necessary to save a country? How high does an ideal fly that motivates a young person to dream the dream of freedom for all? How lucky are we all in this country where education is important, children are valued and our lives are our own?  
          May our flag ever wave.
                                                    
                                                                  --stay curious! 
                                                                                                                      

Some bugs
CLICK.
Some bugs
SING.
Some bugs do a
BUZZING
thing!
by Angela DiTerlizzi
illustrated by Brendan Wenzel
 
      We’re approaching the beginning of another brood in the 17-year cicada cycle here in eastern Ohio, a tiny corner of PA, a swath of WV and the western most slice of MD.
      The last time the cicadas cycled was 1999. We were approaching Y2K, the new millennium with all the uncertainty that was predicted, including a total shutdown of the Internet which would affect the electrical grid, National Security and the water supply.
      I didn’t buy into that. Okay, I did buy a couple of gallons of water, just in case. I figured I could live without electricity for a little while. If National Security was breached, we’d all be in the same sinking boat anyway, so what the heck could I do about that. But water. If the water supply was compromised and I did not have running water, that was another story. In 2001 or '02, I took my two gallons of purchased water out to my garden and gave my tomato plants a drink..
      It’s 2016 and the cicadas are cycling again. You can look for your own batch of hatchlings. Check around the base of the trees in your yard. A few weeks before they hatch, cicadas construct exit tunnels about a half-inch in diameter. They’re called “turrets” for the chimney-like structure that leads to the outside. When the soil temperature reaches about 64 degrees Fahrenheit, the mass exodus begins. These cicadas have been underground for 17 years and they’re hungry. They begin feeding when their exoskeleton hardens, about 5 days after emergence. They like the juicy parts of trees just under the bark.
      Periodical cicadas can reach population densities as high as 1.5 million per acre. Everything from birds and spiders to snakes and dogs will feed on them, but even after they all eat their fill, hardly a dent will be made in the cicada population.
      Individuals live only a few weeks, but they emerge over the course of a couple of weeks, so they last about a month. The serious singing starts about a week after they emerge and lasts about two more weeks. Go to www.magicicada.org then click on the “Species” tab to hear recordings.  
      Seventeen years from now will find us in the year 2033. The cicadas will be back. I will be pretty old. My oldest grandchild will be well past adolescence.
      I didn’t really plan for Y2K and the Internet crash that didn’t happen. There’s really nothing to plan for the cicada hatch. Nature takes care of herself, when we give her the chance.    
       In 2033, the next time the periodical cicadas will cycle, I hope to be a little grayer in the hair and a little wrinklier in the skin. I hope my brain still works. And my legs still carry me around.
       I hope you’ll still be hitting those little “like” buttons and giving me your thoughtful feedback. Change happens and it can be good. But for me, for now, I'm enjoying life in the slow, steady and predictible lane.
 
                                                                   --stay curious!  

​And Sister nibbled her nails.           
Nibble, nibble, nibble, nibble.
Before she knew it, she had nibbled them down to nubbins.
 
                             from The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit
                                                   by Stan and Jan Berenstain

       I notice other people’s nails, probably because I was a nail-biter. I don’t know why I did it. I was embarrassed about my hands even when I was really little.         
       My mom worked as a hand model after she graduated high school. She worked for the local newspaper advertisers. She wore rings and bracelets and held handbags. Yes, that was a real job.
       Mom may not have noticed other people’s nails, but she was pretty tuned in to mine. Sitting on my hands didn’t work to stop my nail biting. Neither did the bad tasting stuff that she painted on like nail polish. Neither did the raised eyebrows, winks or finger-pointing. That’s how habits work. They happen without thinking about it.
       Somewhere, a long time ago, I read that if you do something for three weeks, it will become a habit. I tried it by making my bed.  It worked! Now I make my bed every morning. I brush my teeth. I clean the cat boxes. I don’t need to plan to do those things or set aside a particular time. They just get done.
       I don’t know why I don’t bite my nails any more. Some years ago I noticed my nails were not nubby or ragged. I bought nail polish!
       My habits serve me well. I can save my brain cells for thinking up new ideas for my blog, discovering recipes to try, working on my picture book manuscripts and solving the word jumble in the newspaper.  
       But sometimes I go through my whole day on auto-pilot and get to evening asking myself, “What did I do all day?”
       Walt Whitman, one of my favorite writers only wrote one book, Leaves of Grass. But he revised it and edited it and re-published it for the rest of his life. He explains his philosophy in a group of loosely related poems. One of my favorite quotations from “Song of Myself” goes like this:
 
    “You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every                                  moment of your life.”
 
        So while I enjoy my habits, I also pay attention to the minutia of my life. I look for details in news stories. I have been known to count the spots on the ladybugs in my garden. I know how many miles it is from my house to each of my daughters’ houses and which exits have the best coffee.
       And I know that real life is searching for the balance between being on auto-pilot and being absorbed in the details. I'm always looking for that sweet, middle ground.
 
                                                                   --stay curious!

Half a dozen dangling braids
all hanging in a row,
then
each one tied
up tightly
with a brightly
colored bow.
      Nobody
                  combs my hair
                                          just like
                                                      Mama.
                                                        from: Just Like Mama
                                    by: Leslea Newman (illus. by Julia Gorton)

       Every evening a beautiful, silver braid hung all the way down my great-grandma’s back. At the end of each day, she swung her hair over her left shoulder and brushed and brushed. Then while looking in a mirror, braided and braided, all the way to the very skinny tip. No tie at the top and no tie at the bottom. I felt lucky. Not everyone got to see her braid. It was part of her nighttime look.
        My grandmother usually wore a wig. It changed over the years from brown to “salt and pepper” and finally silver. She had diphtheria when she was small, leaving her hair so very thin. Not many people saw her without her wig. But I was lucky. It was part of her real look.
        My mother had long hair when I was growing up. Beautiful waves frame her youthful face in the wedding picture I have on my wall. I suspect she never wore a braid.
        When I was growing up, my mom braided my hair. First the ponytail, smoothed down with a damp comb, then the rubberband. She did not use the coated ouchless ones. I sat on the closed toilet seat while Mom sat on the thin edge of the tub and braided down to the skinny tip at the middle of my back, securing it with another non-ouchless rubberband. In the evening the whole process went in reverse. Sometimes I had two braids, and they were always secured at the top. I didn’t like the part when the top rubberbands came out. Ouch. I wondered if my hair would ever be as thin as Grandma's. But I was lucky. I had braid-created waves all evening.          
        Both of my daughters had long hair when they were young. Ouchless rubberbands had been invented by then, so their braids came out easily.
        My granddaughters both had long hair and braids, too. Recently, my older granddaughter broke with a tradition she didn’t even know our family had. My younger granddaughter still loves to wear an Elsa braid.
       Tradition lives.
       It lives in the braided history we share, tying us together with stories we tell each other and new stories we are writing now.
       I’m still feeling the silvery afterglow of Mother’s Day. Even though both of my girls spent their days with their own families, I know we’re woven together--tight, and mostly ouchless.                                                                                                                                                                                  --stay curious!

       I’m not a swimmer. Not that I’m not a good swimmer, I really can’t swim. I’m okay with that. I like to be near the water, but not really in the water. Swimming lessons were pretty much wasted on me.
       Once, when I was little, I went to the beach with my mom’s best friend. We called her Aunt Lil. She preferred Auntie, but that’s another story. She took me to Euclid Beach for a picnic and a swim. An amusement park was part of the grounds, but much to my disappointment, we were not going there this time. I remember a piggy-back ride across the sand, hot-dogs with mustard from the concession stand, and not wanting to go into the lake past my knees.
       I also remember crying a lot. Was it because we didn’t go on the rides? Maybe because I didn’t want to swim? Maybe because the piggy-back ride was scary? I think all of it. So it wasn’t that much fun. We only did that trip once. I think I cried all the way home, too.
       When I was eight or nine, I was allowed to ride my bike to the neighborhood pool by myself.  I took swimming lessons for a couple of summers. I learned to not be afraid of the water. I could float on my back and kinda move in the water by kicking my legs and thrashing my arms around.
       Then marriage, kids, weddings, grandkids...and my husband wanted a boat. Still living close to Lake Erie, we kept her in Ashtabula. I loved the boat. We sailed on weekends and took mini-vacations to Canada, only 60 miles away. I felt safe on the boat. I knew my husband could (make that would) save me if I went overboard. I wasn’t so sure about being able to save him, though. So I read the step-by-step instructions on our throw-over life preserver until I knew those directions by heart. 
       Euclid Beach has been closed for almost 50 years. All my swimming lessons have faded into wherever things go that we forget. The boat (and its never-used life preserver) has a new owner on Lake Michigan. 
       But water...This week finds me evening after evening watching the sun set into the Gulf of Mexico. I can watch the waves ripple onto the beach as long as I want to, and not go into the water above my knees. I can sit at the side of the pool with a rum punch and a novel. I can kick back or kick it up a notch.
       I’m on vacation and life is good. I bet my bluebells will still be blooming when I get home.                                                                                                                       _stay curious!