It's Raining - Or Not

I recently read Kristin Hannah’s latest novel, “The Four Winds.” Her characters were engaging, and after a slow start, the plot kept me reading late into the night. Hannah’s setting was masterfully depicted, as it blended a historical time period (the 1920s-30s), the effects of an economic event (the Great Depression), and the geographical locations of Texas and California. Yet the setting, the plot and the characters of the book were overshadowed by one overwhelming, unpredictable factor – the weather. Unrelenting drought, suffocating heat, terrifying dust storms, and the specter of flash flooding robbed a family of its homestead, its livelihood, and its future – and strove to rob them of hope as well. It was a fascinating read, but definitely not a feel-good book to take to the beach. 

 

In the midst of reading Hannah’s pages, I watched videos of the Town Creek in Ashland as it raged through town, as the miniature golf course at Brookside flooded and detours popped up on many Ashland County roads. At the same time, a friend in Western New York shared pictures of flood waters encroaching on her home. “We are in a mess,” she wrote. “Water up to the house. Roads flooded everywhere. Have never seen water like this out here.” 

 

Her last line is one that’s being repeated throughout the western states, with a change in one word: “Have never seen temperatures like this out here.” Washington and Oregon experienced record highs at the end of June, reaching 118 degrees in both states. Eighty wildfires are burning out of control across the country. As reported in the New York Times, the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon is “so large and generating so much energy and extreme heat that it’s changing the weather. Normally the weather predicts what the fire will do. In this case, the fire is predicting what the weather will do,” said Marcus Kauffman of the state forestry department.

 

These weather-related changes aren’t limited to the west coast. The National Weather Service in New York tweeted, “A happy, hazy hump day” on Wednesday, because smoke from the western wild fires had traveled all the way to New York City. Another report suggested that Philadelphia is experiencing temperatures that are more like Atlanta, Georgia than a southeast Pennsylvania city.

 

I’m no Dick Goddard (the legendary Cleveland meteorologist), but I know enough about the whims of weather to recognize its unlimited power over humans. On my days with the grandkids, too much rain can spoil our outdoor plans, a minor inconvenience but often heart-breaking to the kids. But on a more tragic scale, I’ve witnessed firsthand the devastation of torrential rain and subsequent flooding in the Southern Tier of New York State, and Larry has seen the same along the mighty Mississippi. It’s life-changing, and not for the better. 

 

As “The Four Winds” described so vividly, too little precipitation is just as critical as too much. Those living in the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains in the 1930s were powerless to create rain. Day after day, they looked to the sky with a last sliver of hope, and day after day, there was no rain. While Roosevelt had no power as a rainmaker, his Civilian Conservation Corps ramped up to address the needs of farmers who faced bankruptcy and starvation. Even with no rain, there were methods to prevent soil erosion that could make a difference. Through the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the government paid farmers not to plant certain acreage, as their farming methods had aggravated the damage from the drought. Instead of a hands-off attitude, FDR’s government asked itself the question, “What can we do to make a difference for struggling people in our country?”

 

My understanding of the science of climate emergency is limited, and I’m far from a Greta Thunberg in my commitment to save the whales – or the world. But I do recognize that the drumbeat of rain and the crackling of fire will grow louder and louder as the earth heats up. Do we have the will to hear what their voices are trying to tell us?

 

Olde Canal Days

Canal Fulton is a small northeast Ohio town with a vintage toy store, two ice cream shops, and a towpath trail. Originally named Fulton, “Canal” was later added to its name to “convey a more dynamic quality.” The name change may have helped while the canal was prosperous, but alas, the coming of the railroad dealt Canal Fulton’s prosperity a serious blow. 

 

I was excited when a notification for Lerch’s donuts appeared on my Facebook feed announcing their presence at the Olde Canal Days Festival in Canal Fulton during the time I was caring for my grandkids. I’d never heard of the festival before, but it seemed a good diversion while their parents were away – and yes, Lerch’s donuts too. 

 

I gathered up the lovely Madelyn Simone, the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday, and the charming Henry Kyle, and off we went to Canal Fulton last Thursday night, with a pocketful of cash and our sturdy stroller, which I now know how to fold and unfold. We wandered down Main Street, ate our supper sitting on the curb, and bounced in the bounce houses manned by the high school band. As we headed to the car, Madelyn said, “Nana, there’s a Ferris wheel!” Apparently we’d missed a whole section of the festival – the midway by the canal. And I was out of cash.

 

The next night, with Henry safely in the care of his maternal grandmother, it was girls’ night out. As we strolled the midway, I had an aha! moment: this is what normal feels like. After the isolation and fear engendered by the pandemic, it felt good to be in the midst of people once again. Yes, there was some adherence to social distancing in the line for the Ferris wheel, and food vendors had hand sanitizer available, but the Corona seemed far from the festival, even if still lurking in the shadows.

 

Game barkers chattered endlessly, convincing the rubes to squander an Abe Lincoln ($5) for a chance to break a balloon and win a prize worth two quarters. Teen girls in the shortest of shorts (called hot pants when I was a teen) flirted with boys not even old enough to shave. Kids of all ages ate cotton candy (Lizzie), candy apples (Madelyn), and donuts (Nana). 

 

The Ferris wheel that Madelyn had seen shone in all its glory in the sultry night sky. Its original design was to be America’s answer to the Eiffel Tower of Paris, when architect David Burnham challenged a group of engineers to build something “novel, original, daring and unique” for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in the 1890s. George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. designed its thirty-six cars to carry sixty people each, and the experience was reported to be as if “revolving through a vast orbit in a bird cage.” 

 

For our 2021 ride operator, his was a more quotidian experience, performing his every day, mundane tasks of advancing the wheel, cranking up a small ramp, opening the bar, shooing off the current occupants and lowering the bar on the new riders. More than a hundred years of operation should have found a more efficient way to operate the ride, but apparently not. However, there was steady rhythm to this repetitive task, and the slow-moving line boosted the anticipation of its riders.

 

Unlike Ferris’ first attempt, this Ferris wheel only held two people per car, and I was relieved that our petite six-year-old could ride with “a responsible person” (Madelyn, age 11), so I kept my feet on the ground and sent the sisters into the air together. For the girls, it was as Joni Mitchell sang, “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel,” as they rocked in the night sky. 

 

As we wandered back to our car on that pitch black evening, I felt a lingering sense of gratitude for this celebration of the intrepid spirit of early settlers and the back-breaking labor of canal diggers. Because of the daring design of young Mr. Ferris, we had a wonder-filled night, with a box of donuts to take home besides. After a long, long Corona-tinged winter, cotton candy sure does taste good.

Magic in the Air, or Ear

 Have you ever heard of the magic trick where you put a tiny neon pink Polly Pocket shoe up your nose and it comes out your ear? No, I hadn’t heard about that one myself until this week, when the delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday tried to do it. While my vague memory from tenth grade biology suggests that our nose and ears do have some kind of connection, it’s more likely the tiny pink shoe would end up in the lungs or stomach, rather than the ear canal. Fortunately for Lizzie, the shoe in question lodged in her nose, and her mom was finally able to extract it (with the obligatory screams of terror from my favorite six-year-old).

 

Christopher Moore reminds us that “Children see magic because they look for it.” I think that’s so for our dear Elizabeth. Her interest in magic was evident at age three, when she performed a magic trick with a blanket. She got her signals crossed a bit, calling out “cock-a-doodle-do” instead of “abracadabra” as she made an object disappear. I’m afraid this most recent failure could mark the end of her promising career as the next David Copperfield, but we shall see.

 

Master magicians are incredible to watch, as their sleight-of-hand maneuvers can make believers out of the most skeptical of us. But a bad magician? I’ve sat through a display or two I wish I could forget. Before we send Lizzie off to study at Houdini University, I hope to shift her focus from magic tricks to the magic of our world. Instead of attempting to influence the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces, I want her to be able to see the wonder of the world around her: the magic of a glorious sunset, fireflies dancing in the twilight, a waterfall splashing into the rocks below. As master children’s writer Roald Dahl explains, I want her to “watch with glittering eyes the whole world around [her] because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” 

 

Charles de Lint writes in the modern fantasy genre. He says, “I do believe in an everyday sort of magic – the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.” 

 

Those magical moments can come between the pages of a book, in the quiet of the forest floor, or on a late-night walk along the beach under a golden moon. Yet they also are unveiled as we move within our family circle, as our connections with friends are renewed and as our faith is expressed through worship and celebration. I felt that sense of wonder recently as our church family began to gather together again. As the beloved stood in worship, singing Chris Tomlin’s “How Great is Our God,” there it was, that shiver of wonder that seldom came in front of a computer screen.

 

When we recently celebrated Lizzie’s sixth birthday, she blew out her birthday candles in a Covid-safe manner without spraying saliva all over her cake. Her wish, as she has articulated from time to time throughout the last year and a half, is that she wants the Corona to be over. We all do, Lizzie, we all do. That nasty Corona has been a thief, stealing life from those we love, robbing us of a sense of security in our daily interactions, and often keeping the magic of wonder at bay. 

The Corona is still hanging on so we can’t fully let our guard down yet, even if vaccinated. But as it retreats, I’ve been singing an old gospel chorus with these words: “I went to the enemy’s camp and I took back what he stole from me.” We don’t have the power to summon back those who have been slaughtered by the virus, but I am claiming a new sense of wonder in these in-between days. Welcome, magical summer. Welcome, tomatoes fresh from the garden. Welcome, the joy of faces reflected in the campfire. Welcome, shiver of the divine. We are watching with glittering eyes. 

 

Technologically Challenged

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, even a technologically-challenged old dog? New trick #1. When I went to the ATM to make a deposit, my debit card was expired. Turns out they sent its replacement to my old address. Wanting to get the money in the bank, I figured out how to deposit a check into my bank by using my phone, simply taking a picture of the check. Remarkable.

 

#2. After a fun day at the zoo with the grandkids, I couldn’t figure out how to fold up Henry’s stroller. I asked another family and they couldn’t figure it out either (so I am not the only one). I tried putting it in the car without folding it, but it didn’t fit, so in my desperation I thought to myself, “Google it, Barbara.” A couple of clicks on my phone, and I found an instruction manual with pictures. Success – the stroller made it home from the zoo along with three tired grandchildren and one exhausted grandmother. 

 

Two steps forward, one step back. By the end of that evening, I managed to get myself locked out of my gmail account on my laptop. It’s the email I use for the important stuff, like receiving bills, communicating with friends and clients, and sending my weekly column to the T-G. They’re telling me it will take until mid-July to let me back in, as they need that long to verify my identity – just because I forgot a password? I’ve managed to avoid Facebook jail all these years, and now this. While I may not be a wolf, I’m making his plea tonight: “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” and the gmail peeps are taunting me in response: “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin will I open the door so that you can come in.”

 

The fact that I had to google how to fold up a stroller speaks to my natural inability to figure out anything mechanical. But the fact that I could google how to fold up a stroller speaks to my privilege. I have the right equipment. I have a computer and a cell phone with a camera. I can read .I can afford to pay for cell phone service and internet every month. 

 

Yet that is not true for everyone I know. One friend has (and is quite happy with) a flip phone. Another has no cell phone at all, by choice. Many can’t afford the $100-150 a month it costs for a cell phone and internet. A twelve year old in our church cannot read. A couple of the grandmothers can’t either. Another friend has been dependent on the computers at the library, and we all know what COVID did to that accessibility for many months. 

 

The term “privilege” can seem to be overused these days, but how I understand it is that the playing field of life is not level. Depending upon where we are positioned in regards to poverty, race, gender, age, ability or disability, and more, finding success in life, whether folding a stroller or using a computer, is more difficult for some than for others. 

 

Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen speaks to privilege from a spiritual basis: “When we have nothing to cling to as our own and cease thinking of ourselves as people who must defend privileges, we can open ourselves freely to others with the faithful expectation that our strength will manifest itself in our shared weakness.” 

 

While the struggles of the “isms’ such as ageism, sexism, ableism, classism and racism are not easily resolved, Father Nouwen understood that the challenges facing humans went deeper than labels. Might it be that if we open ourselves freely to others, even to those “others’ who are different from us, we might begin to find our way forward? We may not be able to level the playing field created by privilege of all sorts, but perhaps we can discover ways to help others get to the field or to lift them up when they stumble. It’s worth a try.