Celebrating the lives of our grandparents, whose positive influence has continued throughout our lives and in the lives of everyone who loved them. Photo by Jamie Street from Unsplash
Saying Goodbye to Our Grandparents
(Thirty Years Ago)
High on a hill, in a historic graveyard
overlooking a quaint Pennsylvania town,
we went to say our final goodbyes
to our grandmother.
After the crowd had dispersed,
my brother, sister, and I lingered.
We each threw a handful of earth
into the open grave.
There was something satisfying about doing that.
My grandmother had always loved growing things
in that Pennsylvania earth; she had placed a headstone
years before, planning to join my grandfather here.
“Cactus-Tailed Cat” is one of the poems that will be appearing in Earthly Days. It was first published on this blog in 2020. In that photo, the cat had a tail made of a cucumber!
Here is the poem as it appears in Earthly Days with a new photo by my daughter, Eve Ellen Maher, the cat’s current owner. Ellen is an ordained chaplain, following in her grandfather’s footsteps. The cat now has a real cactus tail.
This is the second in a series of three posts aboutmypaternal grandparents.
Vintage Phonograph. Grandma was a “flapper” with bobbed hair and rolled-down hose, and she loved to dance! I don’t know how my grandparents met, but it might well have been at a dance. Maybe they listened to music on a phonograph like this. Photo by Sudhith Xavier from Unsplash.
Grandpa, born about 1898, worked in steel mills all around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a young man. He bought an early car and travelled to Chicago to learn how to maintain it. There were no repair shops then. In a time when most people didn’t go to school beyond the eighth grade, Grandpa had graduated from high school. He loved to read and continued to educate himself throughout his life.
My grandmother, about ten years younger than Grandpa, was only able to attend school through second grade because she had to take care of her younger sisters while her single mother worked. At twelve years of age, she went to work as a hotel maid to help support her family. In her teens, she worked as a lifeguard. During her brief time in school, she had learned to read, and, like Grandpa, she continued to educate herself as long as she lived.
Earthly Days, is a collection of poems chosen from my blog posts over the last three-and-half years. My deep appreciation goes out to those who have posted reviews thus far. Watch for future reviews from your fellow bloggers. Check out their websites for outstanding content. If you missed their reviews of Earthly Days, you can find them at the URLs below.
Ruins of Great Western Iron Smelting Furnace, Tennessee, 1855-1856. The furnace burned charcoal, and temperatures in the furnace reached 3,000 degrees F. Photo used by permission of the photographer.
Let There Be Light
Where there is sunshine,
let there be solar farms…
Let there be light!
Solar farm in Germany. Photo by Marcus Spiske from Unsplash
Where there is wind,
let there be turbines…
Let there be energy!
Wind Turbines. Photo by Jason Blackeye from Unsplash
Where there is flowing water,
let there be hydroelectric plants…
Let there be power!
Vintage Hydroelectric Plant, West Virginia. Photo courtesy of the photographer.
Where there are ocean waves,
let there be wave-power generation…
Let there be electricity!
Gulf of Mexico, Florida Beach. Photo by Eve Ellen Maher
When people travel,
let them drive electric cars…
Let there be zero emissions!
Charging station in the Netherlands. Photo by Fer Troulik from Unsplash
Where there is imagination,
let there be innovation…
Let there be clean energy!
Photo by Alessandro Bianchi from Unsplash
Wherever children have dreams,
let their dreams be fulfilled…
Let there be clean energy for all!
Photo by Nathan Dumlao from Unsplash
A Clean-Energy Future
Although we might like an instant, one-size-fits-all source of clean energy, it may not exist. It seems that we need to work with mother nature to develop solutions using local resources. It also seems that reducing the use of fossil fuels will be a gradual process. We will continue using some fossil fuels for quite some time.
Mine cave-ins, black lung, oils slicks, acid rain, micro-plastic waste in our food supply and our bodies, toxic petrochemicals in insecticides and household cleaning products, landfills filled with non-biodegradable plastics, water pollution, smog, and climate change are a few of the problems associated with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels threaten our environment and pose risks to our health.
Clean-energy solutions have problems too. Dams can disrupt ecosystems and cause extinction of species; solar panels require rare minerals to manufacture them and have a limited lifespan; some wind turbine designs are hazardous to birds.
Heat pumps, geothermal heating systems, and river turbines are examples of clean- energy systems that may be useful in certain locations. Older river turbines were hazardous to fish, but newer designs don’t harm them.
Electric cars, one important clean energy measure, currently have a top range of 300-500 miles. There are insufficient numbers of charging stations at the present time. Batteries have been manufactured with toxic ingredients that present disposal problems. Scientists are currently developing batteries with cheaper, non-toxic chemicals and greater range between charges. A too-rapid increase in the number of electric vehicles would overburden energy grids.
Atomic power plants, which use nuclear fission, are subject to melt-downs and radiation leaks. Fission has great destructive potential. Nuclear fusion holds promise for the future as a safer alternative, if it can ever be made practical.
There are no simple fixes. Solving our problems requires dedication and commitment. It requires cooperation among many professions and among all nations.
Atomic Power Plant, Belgium. Photo by Frederic Paulussen from Unsplash
*My thanks to Robert Snyder for consulting on this article. There are many YouTube videos about developments in clean-energy technologies.
A “news junkie” I am not…well, not quite. I do follow the news on a regular basis because I believe democracy depends on informed citizens.
Recently, I watched a documentary about US President, Lyndon B. Johnson. I was unfamiliar with the unflattering stories that had circulated about his political career. As I watched, I remembered learning about the “Great Society” and the “War on Poverty” initiatives that marked his presidency.
As a sixteen-year-old girl with no TV and no newspaper at home, I just knew that Johnson’s “Great Society”sounded great to me! I probably learned about the “War on Poverty” from reading Life Magazine in the school library. The poem I wrote may have been inspired by a photo in that magazine…I can’t quite remember.
The Egg & Antipoverty
A child sits on broken, creaking stairs
eating an egg,
a child who needs more new life
than an egg.
Today, I am alarmed as I watch news about book-banning and political censorship of curriculums, even at the college level, in my state of Florida and in several other states. Teachers are leaving the profession because of restrictions imposed on them, and there is a growing teacher shortage in Florida.
A knowledge of history and science is essential in a democracy, in spite of the desires of some politicians to sweep inconvenient facts and ideas under a rug. Yes, today’s students need more new life than an egg! Curriculum should be age-appropriate, but access to, and free discussion of, information and ideas is crucial to developing independent thought. Education is the birthright of all students in a democracy! “Knowledge is Power.”
Work songs are traditional songs found in many cultures that coordinate the efforts of people working together. They also provide relief from monotony and form bonds among workers.
I first became aware of work songs as a nine-year old piano student learning to play “The Volga Boatmen.” As a young adult working in a clothing factory and in a printing company, I heard other workers singing along with Loretta Lynne and Elvis Presley as they did their routine work.
Here are some examples of work songs:
Wellerman (Sea Shanty)
Nathan Evans
Pick a Bale of Cotton
Lead Belly
The Song of the Volga Boatmen
(in English and Russian, with beautiful paintings)
Gulf Coast Poet 