Shari Della Penna
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"Small acts of kindness can change and humanise our world."
   Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks 1948-2020
   ​Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, 1991-2020
                         Author, Advocate, Advisor

And Here's to You, Johnny Appleseed!

11/28/2017

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“Your old friend is traveling under titles that are not his, Graybeard. First he is a doctor . . .[a]nd now he is a holy man. It is strange, is it not, Graybeard, that your friend is all this when he wants only to be a man who grows beautiful apple trees, and loves his brothers – the Indians, the animals, the children of the wilderness.”
                                                 from Trail of Apple Blossoms
                                                                    by Irene Hunt
                                                   illustrated by Don Bolognese
                                               Follett Publishing Company, 1968
 
       John Chapman, the man, traveled from his birthplace in Massachusetts across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana to Illinois, but he was no mere wanderer. His father taught him farming. He taught himself to be an orchardist and nurseryman. 
       His apples were “spitters,” not fit for eating, but mighty fine for hard cider and applejack. As a crop, his apples were much more valuable than eating- or cooking-apples. After all, water could harbor all sorts of dangerous bacteria, but cider was perfectly safe.
       John knew Frontier Law provided land ownership in exchange for planting 50 apple trees so he planted 50-tree swaths all across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and Illinois. He sold his land to settlers and pioneers at a reasonable price. He didn’t need much, only some cornmeal and a warm place to sleep now and then.
       John Chapman, the man, never married or had children. He was friend to settlers, pioneers, Native Americans, and Nature.
       Johnny Appleseed, the legend, had a pet wolf, Graybeard, that he tamed after saving him from a hunter’s trap. He spoke the language of squirrels and bears. Johnny Appleseed, the legend, owned nothing but the clothes on his back, a tin cooking pot he wore as a hat, a Bible and a sack of apple seeds he flung behind himself on his wanderings. Apple trees grew from these seeds as if by magic and fed hungry pioneers.
       Larger than life in the legends about him, John Chapman the man, was cheerful, humble, kind, generous, wise about mankind and nature, and learned in the ways of trees. At his death in 1845, he had traversed over 100,000 miles and amassed a fortune: about 1,200 acres of farmland not counting his tree nursery in Fort Wayne where he raised thousands of seedlings that he sold, traded and planted.
       So here’s how to become a legend
  • “Larger than life” starts small.
  • Kindness is crucial.
  • Animals are respected, not tamed or eaten.
  • Generosity and humility can be learned.
  • Self-sufficiency is achieved by learning a useful trade.
  • Gratitude, as a way of life, can be quite satisfying.
 
             Here’s a good book with a chapter on apples: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. (Random House, 2001)
 
                                                                   --stay curious!

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Pilgrims' Promises

11/21/2017

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     “What’s a Pilgrim, shaynkeit?” Mama asked. “A Pilgrim is someone who came here from the other side to find freedom. That’s me, Molly. I’m a Pilgrim!”
                                      . . .
     “I’m going to put this beautiful doll on my desk,” Miss Stickly announced, “where everyone can see it all the time. It will remind us all that Pilgrims are still coming to America.”
     I decided it takes all kinds of Pilgrims to make a Thanksgiving.
 
                                                             from Molly’s Pilgrim
                                                              by Barbara Cohen
                                              illustrated by Michael J. Deraney
                                        Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1983
 
       My grandparents were Pilgrims, too. All four of them. They came to America for religious freedom and for opportunity. They were astonishingly brave. They each, in their own time, left their families, everything they knew, put behind everything they feared and sailed into a future full of strangers, strange languages, strange food, strange money. They each learned English. They learned how to buy groceries, set up a bank account, build a business. They became citizens. They adopted America and America adopted them.
       I am grateful for their stalwart acts, their courageous ventures, their self-sufficiency. This Thanksgiving, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.
My grandparents exhibited:
  • Self-reliance
  • Determination
  • Ability to comply with rules that are fair
  • Capacity to stand strong and speak out against rules that are not fair
  • Generosity
  • Compassion for those less fortunate
 
       I like to think those character traits might be flowing through my own veins, too.
       My grandparents did not give up everything only for their own selves, for a better life for themselves. They did it for their (future) children, and for me and for my kids and my own grandchildren and even their grandchildren.
       Today my grandparents would not be called Pilgrims, even though they were. They’d be called immigrants, which they also were.
       This Thanksgiving I will define immigrants as people whose courage, self-determinism, and faith in a bright future, allowed them to pull up the roots of everything familiar and re-plant themselves into the unknown.
 
                                Happy Thanksgiving!
                                                                    -stay curious!
 
       
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Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

11/14/2017

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Mr. Bird was happy.
He was so happy he had to sing.
This was Mr. Bird’s song.
     “I love my house.
     I love my nest.
     In all the world
     My nest is best!”
                                                                               from The Best Nest
                                                   written and illustrated by P. D. Eastman
                                                                             Beginner Books, 1968
 
       When I was young, I went to sleep-away camp. I took several stamped postcards and wrote my return-address in the corner where it belongs. My parents did not receive their post card. Several months later it finally arrived, un-addressed.
       My daughter went on a school trip to Germany. We shared her pictures, but when I asked “what’s that?” and “where’s that?” her answer, after a thoughtful moment, “scenery.”   
       My husband and I just returned from a three-week trip to the American Southwest.  We traveled in eleven states and three time zones (including a change for/from? Daylight Savings Time). I kept my watch on Ohio time, so I really never knew what time it was. Who cares, anyway!?
       We toured parts of Route 66 and the Carefree Highway. We toured National Parks, museums, historical sights, places of general interest and places that time forgot. We met people from Canada, France, and Denver and stopped to visit friends in St. Louis, and Mesa, Arizona, and caught up with fellow traveler friends from St. Louis in Phoenix.
       It was the trip of a life-time.
       I’ve been on excursions before. Kentucky, most recently. Before that a cruise through the Panama Canal. Before that cross country to Washington State. This time was different. Although we only had a general idea of the trip. When friends asked, I answered, “We’re going out West to see stuff.”
       We had a plan, but it was vague, overwhelming, really. We knew where we would start. We knew what we wanted to see. We had a map. We had so many ideas from so many friends that we’d need at least another month (and lots more clean clothes) to see it all. In the end, the only thing we sacrificed was The Four Corners and Promontory Point, where the Golden Spike was set at the meeting place of the Transcontinental Railroad. It was too far North for this time of year. We had just put our feet in three states on the trip to Mammoth Cave: Kentucky-Tennessee-Virginia. Aside from the photo-op, all the guide books said there was not much else to do at Four Corners, so we kept going. The Four  Corners is only a short way from Cortez, Colorado, near Mesa Verde. We saw the park and skipped the monument, disk, really.
       I took too many pictures. but brought a notebook so I could name (most of) the scenery. I remembered to address the post cards.
       Since I like lists, here are some highlights: (Pretty much in the order of the trip)
Diners on Route 66
Petroglyphs
Trees turned to stone after millions of years
Grand Canyon
Phoenix Botanical Gardens
Wild prickly-pear cactus
Wild saguaro cactus
Joshua trees
Crater left by the “breath-taking result of a collision between an asteroid             traveling 26,000 miles per hour and planet Earth approximately 50,000         years ago.”  <meteorcrator.com>
Lake Mead
The strength and courage to build Hoover Dam
The creativity to think it up and make the design
Miles of wind farms
Miles of solar farms
Miles of brown earth in every shade from ecru to burnt sienna
Ethereal peacefulness inside Broken Arch
Winds of Sedona
Quaint town of Moab
A gold-miner from Oatman, Arizona, who still mines in Alaska, and (he says) 
       makes plenty of money
Hopi cliff-dwellings
Crossing the Continental Divide in Colorado at almost 11,000 feet.
 
      Our country is vast and beautiful and fascinating. I was astonished and overwhelmed and dazed.
       It feels good to be home.
      
An interesting read: Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark 
       and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
by Bill Dedman.
 
                                                                                       --stay curious!

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It's Election Day (Again!)

11/7/2017

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And [Lillian] knows full well she would not be standing here today were it not for the people who marched. . . and the people who died. . .  for her right to vote. Lillian touches her finger to the lever.
from Lillian’s Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
written and illustrated by Jonah Winter
Schwartz & Wade Books, 2015
 
       I vote. Period. I feel the responsibility. I always have.
       Some people don’t vote. They all have reasons, some bad, some not quite so bad. (judgementalism, oops.) But really, this is my chance to make a difference. The people on my ballot today are local: school board members, city council hopefuls, judges, and the mayor. Issues will affect people in my city, my county, and my state.
       I remember voting with my mom.. 
       When my girls were small, we’d pile into the car and head out to the fire station, transformed into a polling place for the day. We’d collect the pencils, nail files, and postcards, meant to encourage last-minute choices.  We’d walk up to the registrar. I’d sign my name.
       Then we’d walk into the actual booth. Since I didn’t allow the kids to pull the levers, even though they really, really, wanted to, one was the curtain closer and one was the opener.
       I won’t say I never missed a chance to vote. But I voted on an absentee ballot when I was away at school. I voted in person when my oldest daughter was a month old. I voted early when I knew I would be on vacation.
       I voted last year when the choice was so important. I don’t really understand the Electoral College very well, but I think some significant improvements can be made. Something that considers the popular vote and each state’s majority might be a good place to start.
       I voted when my kids were small. They saw me do it. Now they vote, too. They take their kids.
       Some things don’t change; and they are fine the way they are.
                                                   
                                                                   --stay curious!
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         I'm a children's writer and poet intent on observing the world and nurturing those I find in my small space .

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