Loose Leaf Notes

January 7, 2009

A New Brew

Tea Blossom Blooms
Rusty Rose Mandala
A Sunrise Flower
in an Earl Grey Day

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January 6, 2009

Calendar Brings Past and Present Together

~ The following appeared in the Floyd Press on Thursday January 1, 2009 and HERE.

Whether purchased as a quality keepsake or for use as a functional calendar, the 2009 Floyd County Historical Society (FCHS) Calendar is a way to own a bit of Floyd history. Created by FCHS photograph archivist Kathleen Ingoldsby as a fundraiser for the society, this second annual publication features a visual history of Floyd told through postcards of the past.

Penny postcard images, restored old photos, and informative narrative tell the story of wars, moonshine stills, early schools, mills, and mail delivery. Antique stamps and postmarks, one as old as 1809, are arranged on the black glossy backgrounds of full-color monthly pages and bring to light the history of postcards and the early days of the Rural Free Delivery (RFD).

The RFD came to Floyd in 1902, and during its heyday, dozens of post offices with names like Amos, Aria, Bay, Carthage, Ego, Pax, and Posey dotted the county. A photo of a mailman delivering the mail by a horse and buggy appears with the calendar’s introduction. Next to it is a photo of the Nasturtium Post Office, no bigger than a small one room cabin.

The Hotel Brame postcard, featured for July, was one geared towards tourism, reading ‘Floyd’s Summer Resort 2900 Ft. above Sea Level.’ Built in 1904 where Dee’s Country Places Realty is now located, the Hotel Brame was once a hub of activity where one went for lunch, “to dance, to buy furniture, do banking, have a tooth pulled, to shop for fine clothing, visit the telephone switchboard, go to the butcher, or (with indoor plumbing) for a refined overnight stay,” the calendar states. A horse hitching post is shown in the forefront of the postcard.

“Back then it was as common to see oxen hitched there as it was to see horses,” Ingoldsby said, explaining that Locust Street was once known as Jockey Street because people sold and traded horses there on Court Day, a day when many countians came to town.

Drawn from the FCHS archives, the postcards and photos illustrate trends and the hairstyles and fashions of the day. The month of March shows the Noah Reed family in Sunday dress, posed in front of their home with a family pony included in the shot. A painted canvas backdrop is draped behind them to simulate a studio setting. February’s page presents a colorful display of valentine themed postcards.

In the upstairs Historical Society office on Locust Street, stored in boxes in a closet, there are 1800 photos and some postcards that have been numbered, described, scanned and stored in a database by Ingoldsby. “It’s a treasure and a wealth of a community resource,” she said, un-wrapping an album of postcards with protective gloves on her hands.

Although the closet where the items are stored is monitored for humidity levels and each box contains a black archiving sheet that absorbs acid and moisture, the space is less than ideal for long term storage. Eventually the items will be kept at the Jessie Peterman Library in a climate controlled area, and the digital data base will be available to the public. “The library partnership is a fine example of the community working together to accomplish major goals,” Ingoldsby said.

Many of Ingoldsby’s pursuits are related to her love of history and its preservation. She is an active member of the Floyd County Historical Preservation Trust, on the Old Church Gallery board, and has produced digital films of historical relevance. In 2005 she participated in an intensive three week course at the National Archives in Washington D.C. to learn “all aspects of archiving and collection management.” Ingoldsby also designed and authored the Walking Tour Historic Guide, another fundraiser for the FCHS, which lists forty-five sites of historic interest, most within walking distance of downtown Floyd.

“It’s touching to be able to look back and look into people’s lives,” Ingoldsby said about her archival work. She encourages people to do their own family research.

With images of early life in Floyd, along with holidays and current events listed, the calendar brings together the past and present. As the FCHS’s major yearly fundraiser, it supports their further work in a way that entertains, educates, and celebrates those who came before us.

On the back page of the 2009 calendar, sneak previews of coming attractions includes a postcard of the Farmers Supply building with gas pumps and Model-T cars out front. ‘Greetings from Main Street, Floyd Virginia,’ the card announces, ending this year’s calendar on a high note with the promise of more to come.

Post Notes: Calendars are $10 and can be purchased at the Floyd Chamber of Commerce, The Floyd Country Store and other places around town. They are also available by mail for $12.50, which includes postage and handling, from the Floyd County Historical Society, P.O. Box 292, Floyd, VA 24091. For more information, visit www.floydhistoricalsociety.org. Emails can be sent to floydhistoricalsociety@yahoo.com. ~ Colleen Redman

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January 5, 2009

Once Upon a Time in a Cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains

If I were writing a fairytale about my life it would be one about a heroine princess who goes off to be alone. In the quiet of time spent alone she would discover special fruits with special powers, winds that talk, and stars that sing. At night she would sit by the fire and wonder. Her days would be filled with happy activity, making creations of words and color.

But it would also be a story about the perils of solitude because solitude is a double edged sword. A few slips, sharp wrong turns, and sweet solitude transforms into isolation. The heroine forgets her verbal language, how to speak, how to be with other people. Her hair grows longer. She is older. There is never enough solitude. The more she gets the more she wants. Day and night come and go and she forgets there is a difference between them.

Her prince hero returns. She remembers him but has forgotten how to talk. They gaze at each other. He knows the well she lives in. She breathes deeply, comes up for air. She blinks in the sunlight, feels a nearly forgotten sensation in her body. Moved by the power of being seen by another, her eyes fill with tears. And then she finds her voice and speaks.

“If I were writing a fairytale of my life it would be one about a heroine princess who goes off to be alone …”

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January 3, 2009

Please Don’t Eat the Scrabble Letters

1. Future Scrabble player plots his strategy

2. Bites off more than he can chew

3. Uses board for surfing

4. Digs for good letters

5. Pleads innocent when his grandmother protests his putting them in his mouth

Post Note: See the action video clip HERE.

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January 2, 2009

I Came THIS Close to Making a New Year's Resolution

"Well, if you want to sing out, sing out and if you want to be free, be free 'Cause there's a million things to be..." -Cat Stevens

I’m not one to make resolutions, although when the New Year arrives I do find myself reviewing the past year. I like to brainstorm, set intentions for life direction. I weigh what was meaningful and what was not.

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.

This New Year’s Day an idea came, custom made for me. If I was going to make a New Year Resolution it would this: to write more legibly in 2009. If I could write more legibly I could spend more time with the notebook and less time plugged in at the cyber space controls typing at warp speed. I could read my own notes. Joe could read my shopping lists. I could take down interview quotes with the confidence of a legal secretary, and people would stop commenting that my signature looks like a doctor’s.

But as the cartoon wise woman Maxine said about resolutions on Kenju’s blog: They have a short shelf life. What are the chances that my handwriting will improve, and if it does what are the odds it will last? I can say I want it. And then allow it. But for me lasting changes don’t tend to happen with determination or force.

Lao Tzu says: Express yourself completely, then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature: when it blows, there is only the wind; when it rains, there is only the rain; when the clouds pass, the sun shines through.

PS I love my new Christmas slippers gifted to me by Dylan and Alexis.

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January 1, 2009

13: Ringing in the New Year

1. My blog is like the economy. It seems to be in a recession. Visits and comments, like retail sales, are down from last year.

2. In the evening when I’m upstairs typing on the computer and I even hear “Deal or No Deal” on TV, I have to go down and shut it off because I fear if I don’t Nielson will think I like the show and it will stay on air longer than it should.

3. I’m typing this on New Year’s Eve. I can see the moon through the trees. It looks like THIS poem.

4. “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say, ‘I don’t want to’.” ~ Lao Tzu

5. Josh, his brother Skye, and I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over the holidays, where Brad Pitt’s character is born old and becomes younger with the passing of time until he dies as a baby. I came away thinking that the premise wasn’t so much stranger than the fact that we watch our babies transform into adults and then they watching us grow into old people. Truth is at least as strange as fiction.

6. I’ve been to Time Square for New Years Eve, discovered it’s an overrated mostly drunken mob, and I never even got close to seeing the ball.

7. Today’s Soundtrack is THIS, which I first heard while driving in a tunnel in Boston under the influence of the 60’s.

8. This is really sad. LOOK at what the Thirteen Thursday Hub looks like now.

9. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Doug at Blue Ridge Muse has a list of the top 2008 Floyd stories HERE.

10. I spoke with Joe on the phone. He’s away, busy managing a five day New Year’s Teen Meditation Retreat. Tired and a little homesick, he said whenever he needs a boost he looks at a photo of our 7 month old grandson Bryce or remembers that Barack Obama is president.

11. And I am stuffed with facts…overweight with the nightly news…Poetry is the bell …that saves me from being…all-consumed ~ From “Political Prose is Hard Labor”

12. I once called poetry a sweet tinnitus ringing in my ears.

13. Speaking of ringing and bells, HERE is Bryce playing with some of his Christmas toys and navigating one in particular (it rings) that proves to be a handful for him. I video-taped this today (Wednesday) when it was 2008 and now it’s 2009. Happy New Year one and all!

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December 31, 2008

2008: A Seasonal Taste

~ The following year review was done by excerpting the first line in one post of each month. You can click on the name of the month for a full accounting.

January – Warming up for a game with my poet friend, Mara, I put the Scrabble box by the woodstove after it sat in the back seat of the car overnight. “I hope you’re dressed warm,” I said to her, holding the phone in one hand and pushing a log in the woodstove with the other.

February – He replaced the belt on the vacuum cleaner for me. I left him a pink valentine bag on the kitchen table the night before with a card and a Sunkist naval orange inside. He responded with a conversation candy heart of his own. “Call Me," it said.

March – I’m full to capacity from working on a major, long piece of writing. Only flashes of poetry and sketches of words with no goals are allowed on today’s word diet. When I finally slowed down enough, and emptied myself of distraction, this is what I saw: Joe in his camouflaged overalls and wool hat, coming back from the mailbox, standing still in the middle of the dirt road driveway reading our finished tax forms with the dog at his feet, drinking from a puddle.

April – "This is getting to be a real good smelling poetry reading,” said visiting poet Jim Webb in reference to the scent of popcorn coming from the front of the Floyd Country Store.

May – For a small window of time in the spring, three blooms converge in a symphony of color in the corner of my yard. Dogwood, azalea, and baby irises come in one after the other, and for a week or two they co-exist together like the colorful layered fruit of an English trifle.

June – At the beach Joe said to me, “I’m so glad you introduced me to naps, baths, and beaches.” Yeah, that about sums me up.

July – The Blue Fairy makes wishes come true. It’s a tall order, but she can handle it. She walks on stilts.

August – In this day of theme parks with rides like the Tower of Terror and Disney mouse and duck characters posing for photo-ops, I’m relieved there are still parks where real ducks can be fed and where you can ride around a weeping willow lined lagoon on a peddle boat with a giant swan on it.

September – This is the time of year when I put on socks, and the butter in the butter dish is no longer the consistency of mayonnaise.

October – Mud on potatoes dries to dirt in the sun, spilling from a bucket like a cornucopia overflowed. In the garden, a few tomatoes struggle to turn red but only make it to bright orange – the same color as the potted mums on the porch table, a $3 grocery store purchase for October’s yearly anniversary.

November – Snow flurries. Cold wind whips. We pull up our goose down hoods. Joe shakes the tree like it’s a piñata full of gifts. Red apples tumble to the ground. I run to collect them like a girl on Christmas morning, marveling at the magic of each one.

December – Things move fast in the world according to Bryce. One week he’s repeatedly sticking out his tongue, the next week he’s eating bananas. One week he’s teething on toys and shaking rattles, the next he’s all about his new Playschool bus. So I guess I’ll be trading in the rattle I bought him for Christmas for something with four wheels.

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December 30, 2008

A Neighborhood Yankee Swap

My neighbor Dolphin lives and teaches in Alaska now. She brought bear meat for the Christmas Eve Yankee Swap.

Cloe brought a woven cotton/silk scarf from her recent travels in Thailand, where she ate silkworms and grasshoppers and worked on behalf of rural villagers’ right to sustainable culture.

There was salmon caviar on the kitchen table for those who were sick of Christmas stolen and cookies with jam filled centers.

Speaking of jam, my Yankee swap gift was a jar of homemade blueberry jam made my Lora, but I really wanted the mixed CD Bob made.

Rowan got Josh’s handmade mug stamped with the name “Nolan Ryan.” It was one in a series in which Josh made use of creative descriptive phrases to express his love of coffee.

Kurt brought another tamari pourer made by potter Sarah McCarthy. It acted as the conclusion for a group gestalt that began last year when the first McCarthy tamari pourer stirred up competition and prompted a mutiny of anarchy that threatened the nature of the swap.

There was also a Chinese brocade box filled with fortune cookies, red slippers, candles, books, a Tic-Tac-Toe game, and a box of cereal thrown into the mix. A variety six-pack of beer got swapped and was being drunk quickly to avoid being swapped again. A couple of items were left behind at the end of the night – a silk leopard print blouse, a Crooked Road T-shirt, a Christmas angel mug – the start of next year’s swap, I suppose.

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