A month after I graduated from High School, my brother and I traveled to the United Kingdom. We stayed there for five weeks and toured through England, Scotland and Wales (not necessarily in that order). I was 17 years old and my brother was 21. I had just graduated high school, he had just graduated college. The trip was a gift from our maternal grandparents. It was a sort of Heritage trip, a chance to learn more about where our family came from. (And I profusely thank them both for the incredible gift they gave us. It was amazing for me!)

Caernarfon is in Wales, in the far Northeastern corner overlooking the sea that stretches to Ireland. It is sometimes spelled Caernarvon, in an anglicized version that is not used so much these days. The history of this area goes back to Roman times - when there was a fort called Segontium not far from the present day castle of Caernarfon.

The castle in the pictures is one that was built by Edward I in the 13th century. It was made to impress, to awe, to convince the people of Wales of England’s right to be in their country. It did impress and it was awe inspiring, at least for this American girl who had all sorts of fantastical and romantic dreams of Britain.

This is what Sesame Street had to say today, in a song performed by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. I normally like that pair. I think that in a scene too filled with fake and cloying, they tend to come off as real. I usually like Sesame Street too. I think it’s incredible how fresh and clever their skits can be even after years of processing the same information into bits and bytes the kids can relate to.

Today, though, the song I heard made me rather angry. “I’m not patient because I’m patient. I’m not kind because I’m kind. I scratch your back nice and long because I know that you’ll do the same for me. Take your turn, take it nice and long, because I know when you’re done, I’ll get a really long turn too.” That is not verbatim, but it’s close.

I object to teaching my children to be nice to others so that others will be nice to my children. Giving to others to see what comes back to me is not how I live my life and it’s not what I want my children to learn. I teach my children to be nice, to be patient, to be kind, to be generous, to be loving because it makes them feel good to treat others so nicely. I want them to learn to be giving people because of how it makes them feel, because it’s far better to put good out in the world than bad, because being all of those things (kind, loving, generous, respectful, patient, and nice) is the way we should all act towards one another.

I do not want them to be any of those things because they will receive something for it. We cannot expect external rewards for good actions. The rewards must come from within. Any external reinforcement for good behavior should just be a bonus.

So, I object to a song aimed at children, aired on Sesame Street, which tells my child to be kind so that others will be kind to him. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” is a fine sentiment in some circumstances, but that expectation of reciprocity should not form the lifelong behavior patterns of anyone. I can only see that leading to a feeling of entitlement: “Well, I did x,y,z for you. Shouldn’t you do a,b,c for me? Shouldn’t you reward me?” No, that’s not how the world works, that’s not the lesson I want my kids to learn.

This rant has been brought to you by the letter N and the number 8.

That’s pronounced BOH-cuh RUH-tone, by the way, for all of you Northerners who like to give it harsh, short vowel sounds.

Boca Raton is known these days for being home and playground for the rich and the famous, with beautiful golf courses and huge homes.

I know it differently, though. I remember it as the gathering point for our large family. Both of my parents spent years there as children, and I spent many hours there as a child. My memories of Boca include the neighborhood my dad grew up in, the beaches, and the school my grandmother taught in for years and years. I remember the mural of a Spanish Mission that my grandparents had painted on the wall of their dining room (such a sad day when we heard that the new owner had painted over that mural ) and the fairy tale mural my grandmother had on the walls of her classroom at school (perhaps why I love the story of Sleeping Beauty so much?).

I remember spending the night at my grandparents’ house with half a dozen cousins, being woken up with the sunrise in the morning, and told to get swimsuits on. We’d pick oranges off of the orange tree beside the house and squeeze the juice into a thermos. We’d all pile into the car, and drive to the coffee shop. We’d get donuts to go, and then on to the beach. Within minutes of leaving the house, we’d be there! Watching the sun come up over the ocean, the waves crashing the shore, as we ate our breakfast of fresh-squeezed orange juice and donuts, liberally sprinkled with sand. We’d splash into the waves and stand in the sparkling clear water, watching the tiny yellow school of fish curiously nibbling at our knees.

At Red Reef Park, I’ve explored the reef, with all its various forms of life. I’ve seen man-o’-war and jellyfish dotting the seaweed that came in withe tide. I’ve watched a nest of sea turtles hatch and make its way to the ocean. I’ve spent hours walking the coastline with my grandparents searching for beautiful seashells.

Boca, to me, has nothing to do with the rich and famous. Boca, to me, is a town filled with many happy childhood memories.

The Fiction Class
By Susan Breen

“You’ve known there was something special about you for a long time, haven’t you?”

With those words, Susan Breen drew me into the story of Arabella Hicks. I read the first half of the book little by little, absorbing the writing advice being given as Arabella teaches her class. I found Arabella a bit awkward, stiff and perhaps formal, and I was uncomfortable with how much I related to her character for those reasons. (Who likes to be reminded of their faults?) About midway through, I set the book down for a few weeks, unable to give it my full attention.

Then questions about what happened in the story drew me back: What happened between Arabella and her bitter mother? Did Arabella find a way to connect with her students? Did Arabella ever finish the novel she had started? Did Arabella grow out of her awkwardness - in other words, is there hope for me yet?

I returned to the book, beginning where I had left off. The three parts of the story (the fiction class, the visits with her mother, and the story her mother had written) wove themselves into a beautiful whole that hooked me in completely the second time I picked up the book. I found the writing prompts at the end of each chapter allowed me to go through the class along with her students, so that I became more of a participant in the class.

As amusing, and even educational, as Arabella’s fiction class was, the part that moved me, the part that really reached down to the core of me, was the relationship between Arabella and her mother. I know the desire to please a parent who seems difficult to please. [Disclaimer here: I do not have such a difficult relationship with either of my parents. In fact, I think my parents are wonderful. But I still find myself doing things which I hope will please them...and sometimes being disappointed by the lack of response my efforts draw.] I also know the guilt of putting a loved one in a nursing home: Our son, Sullivan, was in a Hospice Home when he passed away. The decision to turn to the Hospice Home for respite care was a difficult one, and at the same time we made it, we began discussing the options for a long term care facility. It’s not an easy decision, be it for a parent or a child.

The Fiction Class was a good read, but not always an easy one. Perhaps because it did speak so well to parts of me that I don’t always want to face, I found it harder to read than another might. I appreciated the new ways Ms. Breen offered for looking at things, from writing, to the relationships in my life. I think that marks an excellent book, when I enjoy it and learn a new perspective at the same time. This book will be on my shelf to reread many times in the future. I suspect I will find yet more new perspectives during those future readings.

This book review has been made possible by Blog Stop Book Tours. Clicking on the link will provide more information about the author, the book, and other reviews that have been written about this book.

Antietam.

Cornfields are what I remember most about Antietam from my first visit. Looking out at the National Battlefield today, you might never guess the devastation that the Civil War’s “bloodiest single day of battle” inflicted on this quiet area. Lodged amidst the cornfields now are monuments, statues, and cannons that honor and remember the men that died there.

I used to have to cross over Antietam Creek in order to get to my college from home. Every time I drove over it (or more likely, was driven over it) a single sentence echoed eerily in my head: “The creek ran red with the blood of the fallen and wounded.”

The college I went to was right across the Potomac River from Sharpsburg (which is the town closest to the Antietam Battlefields). The area was overflowing with Civil War memories, ghosts and lore. It’s probably one of the things liked best about going to school there. There was such a sense of history. That long memory of the residents did lead to some odd myths and legends though.

One night, my freshman year, I went for a drive with a couple of people I knew. We were going to Antietam to experiment with a myth. The story goes that if you drive to this spot on a road I can only remember as “Bloody Lane” and put your car in neutral, your car will move UP a hill by itself. Supposedly, it’s being pushed by soldier-ghosts. So, we did as instructed, putting the car into neutral, and waited. We watched the cornfields on either side of the road, jittery in anticipation. And the car did move, but maybe we were on an incline we couldn’t detect. It wasn’t dramatic.

Until the guy driving the car let out a shout and said, “Did you see that?” “No, what?” My friend and I replied. “There was a guy out there. No, two. One was helping another across the road behind the car!” We craned our heads to look, thinking he was hallucinating or something. We didn’t see a thing.

He drove us away from there pretty quickly, acting genuinely spooked. After he’d calmed down, he started driving slowly back to school. On the way he described the men he’d seen. The sounded suspiciously like Confederate soldiers. My friend and I offered up suggestions: maybe they were re-enactors out late in the fields? Maybe he just hadn’t seen them clearly? Maybe he’d mistaken some trees waving in the wind for men?

He continued to swear that he’d seen ghosts out there. I never drove to “Bloody Lane” to try that again. Too many natives of the area told stories of the Civil War ghosts haunting the area. Much as I like history and areas steeped in it, I can live without the ghost stories!

The images shown in this post were found at The Clip Art Site.