2023/10. FAMILY TRIALS (the best kind)

A PHOTOGRAPHIC TALE.

The Honorable David M Connors will be retiring from his judicial seat this month. This pivotal life moment has been in the distant future for so long that I think we became complacent. Now we are stunned by the speed at which it seems to be hurling at us. Knowing we would not have access to his courtroom after he steps down from the bench, I had a  flash of inspiration, aka ridiculous idea, that we should hold a mock trial in his courtroom with all our grandkids. It would give Dave a chance to show what he has been doing for the last 15 years, and at the same time teach our family about how the judicial system works. 

In a matter of days we went from "wouldn't it be fun" to "well, that was awesome!"

When you decide to do something ridiculous I've found it is sometimes most effective to just go ahead and send out the invitation and take it from there. 

So, that's what I did:

Each participant was summoned to court.

Then I started hearing the voice of Freddie Mercury throbbing in my head..."Pressure, pushing' down on me, Pressing' down on you...."

We had less than a week to make a plan. Since Friday night was Timo's performance of Dvoraks New World Symphony, we decided to replace our traditional monthly First Friday grandkids activity with a First Saturday event with no sleep over (which in hindsight was a good idea because as soon we were done last night I collapsed in bed.)

What we did Friday: Lyceum Youth Symphony
That's Timo at the Timpanis on the left.

Now, let's create a mock trial!

"I'm a writer." I told myself, "I'll just write a script." I told myself.  

"In your spare time?" Myself told me.

Google came through again, taking me to a website where teachers sell to other teachers things they've already created. It's a great concept, one I've been trying to sell to fellow church leaders the last number of years. That's where I found the script for a young peoples' mock trial.

THE STATE vs. WOLFIE T. BADD

Each kid got a copy of the Readers Theater
with their parts highlighted. 

With a little doctoring of the script we had enough parts for all the kids to play the major roles. 

Costumes around the jury table.

Gumpa gives his robes and his seat to his granddaughter
then teaches us a little about the blessed processes of the judiciary.

Sophie plays Woflie with ATTITUDE!
Joe plays Porky E. Pig, her attorney

Calvin and Walter were Bailiffs.
When Cal decided to be a juror (in the back) Johnny
traded him roles. Auntie Kate got to join us
from New York via WebEx. Yay!
(It looks to me like that little Bailiff is handcuffing himself.)

Lil Red (Gracie) and Granny (Beth)
have to stand on their tippy toes to reach the podium.

Apparently the Bailiffs found something amusing.
And it looks like Auntie Kate did, too.

Wolfie gets a little carried away as a witness.

Judge Ruby Connors, looking an awful lot like
 the court Bailiff, isn't taking any gruff

Ms. Vi O. Lett makes her case for the State.
(Quincey)

Meanwhile the witnesses are goofing off in the gallery.

Sarah played the part of the court illustrator

When Timo had to work late and couldn't get there in time,
Libby took the part of Wood S Mann. She nailed it.

Wolfie's cousin, Alex T Wolf, doesn't help Wolfie's case.
(Parker had an awesome wolfish growl)

The woodsman tries to befriend a wolf.
Court photographer, Annie, in the background.

Granny (Beth) hobbles from the witness stand.

Attorney Daffy E Dill (Anna)
tries to get to the bottom of things.

.

Prosecuting attorneys.
(Anna & Quincey)

Capable and trustworthy court clerks
Jonah and Tessa

...with official Clerk badges.

Granny has a hard time being serious (Beth)
I don't blame her, she is wearing
my mom's old house robe and my shower cap,.

Porky E Pig giving his closing statement.

Wolfie tells his side of the story (Sophie)

Lil Red was a most excellent witness.
(Gracie)

Keeping order in the court. We only had to change the first
name on the judge's name plate.
(Ruby)

The grown-ups are the jury.

Wolfie is escorted from court
while the jury deliberates in the jury room

Bailiff Walter announces
that the jury has reached a verdict.

In the end the attorney for the defendant prevailed and Wolfie T. Bad was found innocent on account of him already being friends with Granny AND Lil Red. The whole fairy tale was just a practical joke Granny and Wolfie conjured up to play on Lil Red. 

Wolfie and Alex celebrate the not guilty verdict!

Two generations of Bailiffs
(John and Walt)

All's well that ends well.

Pizza in the jury room, for which I took no photos, and a tour of Gumpa's chambers:

Gumpa's chambers haven't looked so tidy
since the day he took the bench 15 years ago.

The boys loved looking at old photos in Gumpa's chambers.
This one is of Great Grandpa Connors, Gumpa and
Johnny when he played ball for Davis High.

As I said, I collapsed when I got home, mostly because I had stayed up till 5 AM that day getting everything ready. This kind of stuff has been my mode of operation my whole life. But I'm afraid my poor old bones are rebelling. No matter, because the memory was worth all of it!

2023/9 ALL THE COLORS OF WHITE

ALL THE COLORS OF WHITE

She is a hillside draped in heather on a Welsh  Spring morning,

A splash of daffodils drooping over a cobalt vase, 

The creamy pale yellow of fresh cold butter. 

She is the cerulean reflection of the sky above Lake Huron,

The green of a ripening bushel of pears - 

or overgrown mint in the garden - 

or moss along the riverbed.

The copper of a penny from the year she was born, or liquid caramel still warm on the stove.

She’s the taste of ripened cantaloupe, bright orange flesh

The soft red blush of a baby’s cheeks, 

The screaming red of new spilt blood, 

The rejoicing red of holly berries in the snow.

He is ballet slipper pink, the quenching pink of a watermelon heart

Purple lilacs wafting heavy in the breeze

She is periwinkle, primrose and violet

The variegated fire of sunset over the waters to the west.

She is blessed.

And so am I

For loving her.

 

She is color we did not know was hers

We needed light.

And now behold

She is white

I am thinking today, in honor of people I love who live in the rainbow, how perfect it is that what we know as the color white, when put in the world of light itself, includes all the colors on the spectrum. When I think about whether or not my heart, might and mind can embrace people who feel differently than I, who are attracted to things I might not understand, I am reminded the Lord clothes us in white for the most holy things in our lives.

I wore white on the day I was blessed, the day I was baptized, the day I was endowed in the temple and the day I took my marriage covenants upon myself. I wear white still. All the beautiful colors of white, bathed in light.

March Bisexual Health Awareness Month

March 1 Zero Discrimination Day

2023/8 COMMON THREADS

I spend an inordinate amount of time in this comfy black recliner in our family room. I sort of fell in love with recliners when I had Guillain Barre Syndrome and was confined to one for months before my legs got back under my hips. Before then I had not spent much time in a recliner…ever. Now this nice yummy leather has formed to me and wraps me sweetly, holding the small of my back safely in her arms. 

Most of my word-families are born in this easy chair, tapped out on a laptop keyboard. Many essay length dreams have been played out here. And small song embryo, which end up moving to the couch where the guitar fits better if they start growing to fruition. 

My view from this spot includes the rock fireplace, the TV screen if we have it lifted from the fooled-you console under the painting that used to hang in Dave’s law office. On the opposite wall is a lovely row of glass doors, four of them, that stand regimentally between the house and the back deck. 

There are red checkered roman shades on all four doors. They’ve been there since we built this house. Twenty-nine years now. I’ve replaced the strings that lift the blinds at least twice and sewn in eighty new little metal rings through which the strings slide to lift and lower the cloth shades. Because the glass on these doors in low-e and blocks UV light, the front facing fabric has not faded after all these years.

I have repeatedly told myself I should replace these blinds. I even have yardage of a nice neutral gray tweed-ish material in the bottom drawer of my sewing/craft dresser. But every time I actually think about it, I can’t bring myself to change my roman shades, mostly because I like them the way they are.

I doubt myself all the time, wondering if I am becoming that kind of old person who can’t let go of the familiar. I’m not against updating. Very few pieces in this room were here when these shades were installed. And if these shades were no longer functional, they’d be gone. But every Christmas, and every Thanksgiving, I like the feeling I get with these traditional plaid shades, the red in the fabric speaking warmth and family and dripping with memories. 

I wonder if one of my angels is keeping a transcript of the discussions I have with myself:

Me: you really should update this place

Also Me: Yeah, I know. I’m getting a little stale, huh?

Me: Yes. Why don’t you get in the car and drive somewhere and find something fresh and new and exciting

Also Me: I like the idea of getting in the car and driving somewhere and looking at new stuff. But when we’re done can we come back home to warm and comfy? I really like the cozy feel we have going here. 

I imagine the hip and happenin’ Me winning out, then two years down the road the Real Me goes down in the basement and drags out the familiar old plaid roman shades, because you know she kept them just in case, and reinstalls them. Then she sits in her comfy worn-out leather recliner and sighs.

So many magical moments have these trusty red plaid roman shades as a backdrop.

There is so much change I cannot control. This I can.

I’m hanging on to common threads.

 

Many a bridal and baby shower
has taken place in front of these shades.

Uncle George pretending to be the grinch
(with Joe)

Rehearsals for Christmas concerts
(with the Eskeltones)

Easter cookies with the Grands

...and Grand Christmas gatherings

Brand New Years with brand new babies
(Annie and Baby Beth)

Holiday house parades with Auntie Kate...

...and Unkin John

Years and years of Saltwerks songwriter gatherings

Santa secrets
(Anna Bella and Paul Dickamore... I mean, Santa)

...and more new babies
(Tess)

Helping Gumpa hang Christmas ornaments
(Calvin)

Newly returned Elder John Connors
making Merry on Christmas Eve with
Bea and Manu visiting from France

There's a lot of my life tucked up in those folds of fabric.

2023/7 SUMMONS

 We have a handful of days left when we have access to the courthouse through the back door. The reality of this is hurling at us as Dave tries to squeeze clearing out his massive piles of papers in his judicial chambers in between hearings and other court duties. We are frantically preparing for his retirement ceremony and open house, at the same time as trying to manage pretty heavy duties in other areas. So when it hit me that this Friday is the first Friday of the month it almost overwhelmed me, until I realized we could do something creative and awesome, then I woke right up as if there were a new me with something fun to do. I talked with Dave and we decided to hold a mock trial in his courtroom when the space isn't being used for real court. It's still unfolding in my mind, like something charming exists, I just need to peel away the layers hiding it. So far what I imagine is a mock trial:

Red Riding Hood vs. Big Bad Wolf. 

Fortunately for me, knowing that creative people already exist and may have created such a thing... and also knowing that teachers are such creative beings... I looked on an app I have where teachers provide what they have already created for other teachers to use. For a nominal fee someone already created what would have taken be many hours to do, and all I had to do was pay a few bucks and click "Download".

They did not, however, provide everything, so I spent a few hours today creating this to send to my grandkids. I foresee the grandkids, the ones we host the first Friday of every month, putting on the trial and their parents and aunties and uncles being the jury. Or I may flip flop that and have the parents put on the trial and have the kids be the jury. Either way, I needed a summons to court, so I made this, and this is what has taken the creative space I offer every day of Lent.

I'll keep you posted.

2023/6 CONSTRUCTION

Our "new" home in winter
now 29 years old

Nearly three decades ago, when I was half my age and in the heat of mothering pre-adolescents, adolescents and teenagers, we decided the kitchen in our old house needed to be changed. The process of discussing those changes and getting construction bids led us to deciding to just build a whole new house. I’ve already written, years ago, about how it came about… about finding this lot and hiring our friend and fellow baseball coach Jerry Preston as General Contractor. Right now, sitting in our now so familiar family room, I am recalling a specific scene, 29 years ago right about this time of year, when I stood in this very room, the walls brand new and not yet painted, the windows framed in and what is now our rock fireplace just a pile of stones we had collected from the creek behind the old house. I had brought donuts over for the workers, an almost daily offering to the wonderful workers who built this house. I can recall the scent of flesh sawn wood, the clean, cold scent of disturbed woods that provided the footprint for this place. I can smell mortar being mixed and hear the voice of Merrill Law instructing the two apprentices how to lay the stones. I wanted the fireplace to have the stones stacked vertically over the opening, and to come forward with smaller and smaller stones to a cement mantle that curved out. I kept searching my mind for the right collection of words to explain what I wanted. Finally, I found a long thick cardboard roll sitting in the corner of one of the rooms, some piece of leftover construction form, like an oversized cardboard leftover from a wrapping paper roll or the inside of a roll of paper towels. I lifted the long cylinder up above the lower section of rocks they had been placing one above the other. “If we could just somehow set this up here” … I groaned as I tried to balance the piece with my arms…” Then create a frame around it and pour the cement in, I think it would work.”   

Merrill looked a little confused, so I found other words to explain myself. After the third go round of re-explaining the idea, he got it. His eyebrows relaxed and he nodded his head and moved forward, grabbing pieces of wood and wire. By golly, by morning, when I came back with a fresh new baker’s dozen glazed Tasty’s Donuts, there was a form placed ready for wet cement. Now I sit daily in my easy chair facing this fireplace and see the shadow in the curve on the cement mantle.

The curved cement mantle on our rock fireplace.

No one would know this but me, not even Dave, but I scratched the initials of our little family in the mortar on the west side of this fireplace. I suppose it was an effort to keep us here as long as it stands.

I vividly remember planting my feet in this very room when the hickory floors were not yet placed, when we walked on plywood and the walls had wet drywall mud on them. 

"DMC" David Michael Connors
scratched into the mortar between stones.
There is also a J, S, K and A
(John, Sarah, Kate and Annie)

I remember inhaling the moment and pretending I was living here, that it was Christmastime, and our kids were in their pj’s and there was a roaring fire in that new fireplace. The heart-swell I felt in that moment of forethought has been relived year after year. 

Could I have imagined how wonderful
these grand-treasures would be back then?

Who gets such a charmed existence?

Lord, make me worthy of such blessings.