Monthly Archives: May 2016

Talking Books with Trees

Tao Tao Holmes on May 18, 2016 wrote an article asking for nominees for the Best Trees mentioned in Literature. He suggested casting your mind back to your childhood stories and to choose a favorite or two or more.

The trees of the stories he mentioned are the ones that are familiar to us all as ones we read as children, as adults to our children and the ones that we read to our grandchildren.

Holmes talked about  The Giving Tree, by poet Shel Silverstein, the iconic baobabs in The Little Prince, the Ents from The Lord of the Rings, and Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas. There’s the beloved Magic Treehouse series, the wheel-trees in His Dark Materials, and Winnie the Pooh’s crucial honey tree.

Other people suggested Sam’s hemlock Homestead from My side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: The Tree of Heaven by Betty Smith. The Tumtum Tree from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll or Charles Dodgson and the Lemonade Tree in Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. I would drink nothing but lemonade for an entire summer. Then came Lord of the Rings and the Guardians of the Galaxy: Groot . From J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Whomping Willow and The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton. Do images from the movies flash in your head or the images you created as you read the words on the paper.

But to this list I want to suggest The people in the Trees by Hanya Yanaj Ihara, it is a visit into the mind of a sociopath,  Into the Woods by Silje Bekeng is not the other side of the fairy tale but a young Norwegian holding up a mirror of self-discovery , the plane ride and layover could have extended and I was busy reading Fig Tree John: I am Indian in Fact and Fiction by Peter G. Beidler. Fig Tree John was a real man who began an industry. Johnny Appleseed was not alone. Compare The Juniper Tree by the Brothers Grimm versus the tale of Snow White.   The Affair of the Gallows Tree by Stephen Chalmers is probably why I read lots of mysteries and crime books. My suggestions are a little more along the line of adult reading but the images they evoked in my head are even more real than the ones of the youthful books. What tree books do you suggest?

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172  and please read the daily 225th Bulletin Anniversary Nuggets in the newspaper daily.

 

 

 

 

 

FREE Plant Swap

It is spring and I know I am not alone in wanting to play in the earth, in the dirt. I want to rip out stuff and I want to plant stuff. I want to move stuff. I want to see stuff grow because I have placed it in a place where it is happy.

On Saturday from May 28th from 9 AM – 11 AM in the parking lot by the Community Garden at the back of Lee Memorial Church 294 Washington Street (the church across from the gas station) will be the second FREE Plant Swap of Norwich.

The rules are simple enough. Bring the inside and or outside plants you do not want or have room for to give away to others. Come prepared to adopt the plants others do not want and give them a home. Come with plants and leave with plants. Come with empty hands and leave with plants. Spend two hours or spend two minutes. It is all up to you. Just come and satisfy your curiosity. Our Plant Swapin’ community, just like Nature herself, is generous, there’s always extra!

Flowering plants are also being collected for the US Post Office Flower Power Project. Flower identification helpful but not required.

There is absolutely no exchange of money. The only green that is exchanged belongs to the plants.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172 and please read the daily 225th Bulletin Anniversary Nuggets in the newspaper daily.

Check Out 2016 EXPLORE!

2016 EXPLORE! From the Last green Valley is free and available for your year round activity needs. Never leave home without it! You’ll never have to travel far and away to see new and different places again. Take the time to explore what is so close to home first.

In the new book check out the Mystery Meanders. I need to start practicing for the two walks I made my free reservations for.  Night Sky Views is new and while Norwich is the home of William Tyler Olcott (See my January 11, 2016 blog. NASA named a moon crater for him.) we have no formal viewing station so check out the dates of the 2016 Celestial Event Calendar on page 10 and set out lawn chairs with your neighbors in your yards, parking areas, baseball fields or Brown Park.

Air line State Park Trail for bicycling and Mountain biking is open flat, easy  and extends for almost 50 miles. The Northeast Opportunities for Wellness (NOW) provides children with the opportunity to participate in a variety of athletic programs. 

Boating and fishing has multiple pages dedicated to it along with camping. Eight packed pages called Paddling  are for those who like peace and quiet on the waterways.

Feel comfortable with a day of Retail Arts, Antiques and Uniques on pages 84 and 85; and enjoy summer concert of another town from the list on page 28 at the end of your day. I want to try Disc Golf.  Doesn’t that sound like fun? Norwich does not have a course but fortunately half a dozen other nearby towns do. Then come 14 pages of hikes, strolls and walks in circles, ovals, rounds and squares all filled with history and nature and stories. Oh the stories each walk will tell! Labyrinths/Mazes , Letterboxing and geocaching, Outdoor sites and activities can be found in every nook, cranny and corner when the museums and historic sites have driven you outdoors.

Horseback riding and horse camping fills two pages and a third page lists the safe places to hunt. While dirt bikers/motorcyclists and snowmobilers can find safe and welcoming places to ride listed.   Skate Parks too have a list of their own.

You can have your National Park Passport stamped at places listed on page 74 when you check out the State and Federal Parks and Forests, as well as places for swimming and scuba diving, or winter activities such as ice skating, snowshoeing, crosscountry skiing and ice fishing.  

Theaters, entertainment and a great listing of places for a taste and a sip conclude the catalog that will put an end to all who cry “I am bored. There is nothing to do!”

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172  and please read the daily 225th Bulletin Anniversary Nuggets in the newspaper daily.

Pomp and Circumstance

It is the time of final exams and the time of graduations from Nursery school and from Universities. At all the graduations and promotions The Graduation March, or Pomp and Circumstance, will be played and most listening to it the first or hundredth time will know that there are words to go with that slow and determined beat.

Lyrics were applied in 1902, when the trio melody section of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D composed by Edward Elgar in 1901, became the song Land of Hope and Glory, was used in a graduation ceremony for the first time at Yale University in 1905.

King Edward VII thought the trio melody would make a great song, so Elger combined the music with lyrics by poet A. C. Benson  to become the song Land of Hope and Glory, which he incorporated, into the King’s Coronation Ode in 1902.

All the lyrics I read, and there are quite a few. Make a promise of hope. A promise of a great future. Trust in the powers of belief, of freedom and a hard won peace. Most of the lyrics allude to the leadership of a King which as an American I cannot quite go along with but can in his place imagine the leadership of the President and both houses of Congress,.

In other countries the music is not just played but the participants sing the words loudly and with pride.

            Land of Hope and Glory, Mother of the Free,
            How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
            Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set;
            God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet,
            God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

 The chorus is sung with Elger’s melody from the trio section of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, familiar as The Graduation March. 

-Chorus of Land of Hope and Glory by Edward Elger and A.C. Benson (1902)

Congratulations on your hard work and best wishes for a bright future to all who march in 2016.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172  and please read the daily 225th Bulletin Anniversary Nuggets in the newspaper daily.

The Angler

While doing the research for the 225th Anniversary of the Norwich Bulletin I came across this fishing essay printed August 17, 1908 called THE ANGLER. It is from a gentler time when the paper printed poems and essays as well as the news from foreign places. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did.  I did not have luck finding the author’s name.  

In a warm summer’s evening, look at the patient angler;  his eyes constantly fixed upon a floating quill. A little gust of wind deceives his fight; or his hand shakes the line, and causes an undulating motion of the cork; his heart bounds with transitory joy; but all is still again, and expectation gives a joy more calm. Many minutes now elapse in silent watchfulness. – – At length his patience is no longer kept in suspense – – the float, the frequent jerks, is snatched slanting below the surface of the flood. He feels the tremulous motion in his hand and pleasure thrills through all his frame: anxiety and hope though not unmixed with fear, engross his whole attention, and cautiously he drags the struggling victim to the light. Here when he views the unexpected magnitude of his glittering prize, his joy is at its utmost reach. What object could at this moment tempt him to quit his station? Intent upon his sport, he one moment pulls, then seems to yield, then gently draws the exhausted victim, till at length, exulting, he takes the scaly prisoner in his hand. But, alas! With his victory, his pleasure ceases: for having disengaged the poor creature from the hook, he throws it down with indifference, and proceeds to fish again, that he may again enjoy the pleasures of anxious expectations.

Thus in all pursuits: the pleasure of expectation appears to be the great compensation for the frivolity of enjoyment; but an evil which is dreaded, when it arrives usually is found so much more than it was expected to prove, as pleasure eagerly desired, when possessed is found to fall short of what it had appeared to the imagination.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172  and please read the daily 225th Bulletin Anniversary Nuggets in the newspaper daily.

Organization Branding

Is anyone else being annoyed by the organizations that request the honor of your attendance or support of an event or charity but can’t be bothered to tell you what the event or charity is? In Norwich CT this is the latest thing being done in the name of “branding.” Put the initials or the name of the organization right up front and the rest of the details won’t matter. Are you kidding me? That my friends is not branding. Branding is a marketing strategy that involves creating a differentiated name and image – usually using a logo and/or a tag line to establish a presence in the consumer’s mind to attract and keep customers. Frequently a ploy used in retail consumerism.  It is a very effective strategy in competitive markets. It’s a wonderful thing on a shopping bag. It tells everyone you found something to buy in a particular store.  

Branding is not appropriate for small not-for-profit organizations where no one knows your name or your purpose to begin with. For a small organization to grow and succeed in obtaining or raising funds for their charity people have to know and identify who you are. If you are going to use the initials of your organization, which is never, ever recommended, be consistent with their use. Make certain that people know what event and the details of the event you are sponsoring so that your name or initials will become synonymous with the event and with the quality of the event. When an event is well run, and successful, people notice who was behind it and the organization that sponsored it.  

By the way, if you want people to support, donate or show up at an event; it is important that you tell them about the event and the details of the event. The items you need to place an event on your personal calendar. WHO is sponsoring the event ? WHAT is the event? WHEN is the event? WHERE will the event take place? WHY is the event being held? HOW MUCH will the event cost?  Do not play hide and seek with the details. Do not annoy your potential sponsors by making them have to go on line and click in multiple places to seek out information. My time is valuable and it’s annoying. Be up front. You are making me suspicious of what else you may be hiding when I have to work to discover the basic information such as the time of the event or if it’s in a specific room of a large venue. 

If you are not proud enough of the event to put it in large size print, do not hold it. You should not be doing things you are not proud of. If you want people to show up be certain to put your event on every calendar you can. The church, the municipal  calendar, the newspapers (even the papers you don’t subscribe to or read), local radio stations, cable television, high school, technical school and community college stations. If you want people to support your event by showing up, you have to invite them.

If you need help, please contact me and I will help you or refer you to someone who can. The Norwich area has a great many resources ready, willing and able to assist you.

 Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172

 

 

 

John F. Slater Fund

There must have been a glow of pride surrounding the residents of Norwich Connecticut when  articles reprinted from the Norwich Bulletin such as this one from the April 15, 1882  Indianapolis leader appeared in papers across the United States and Europe.  134 years later, in 2016, Norwich residents have mostly forgotten this fund and struggle to pay for the education of all students within its domestic borders.

“On April 12. John F. Slater, of Norwich, CT, has signified his intention to create a fund of $1,000,000, to be known as “The John F. Slater Fund,” for the education of freedmen, the fund to be vested in a Board of Trustees, which includes ex-President Hayes, Chief Justice Waite, William E. Dodge, New York; Governor Colquitt, Georgia; James P. Boyce, Kentucky, and Wm. A. Slater, the donor’s son.

Slater explains: “The general object which I desire to have exclusively pursued is the uplifting of the lately emancipated population of the Southern States and their posterity by conferring upon them the blessings of a Christian education. The disabilities formerly suffered by this people, and their singular patience and fidelity in the great crisis of the nation. establish a iust claim on the sympathy and good will of humane and patriotic men. I cannot but feel compassion is due, in view of their prevailing ignorance, which exists because of no fault of their own.”

 Slater suggests the education of teachers for the colored race may be the wisest purpose to which the fund can be put If after thirty-three years three-quarters of the Trustees shall, for any reason, agree there is no further use for the fund in the form of an Institute, Slater authorizes them to employ the capital to the establishment of foundations subsidiary to those existing in institutions of higher education, so as to make them more freely accessible to poor colored students. Under the present institution of the fund, he expressly wishes that i either principal nor income shall be expended on land or buildings for any other purpose than that of safe and productive in vestment for income.

John F. Slater has been identified with the business Interests of Norwich since J840 and is Director in several banking, railroad and manufacturing enterprises, lie Is very wealthy and has one of the finest estates about Norwich. His father John, came from Derbyshire, England, with a brother Samuel in 1806, established the village of Slatervllle R, I., and built several mills in New England .”

How nice it would be if someone would step up with a donation to fund the schools of Norwich now.

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View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172

Budget Cycle

Sometimes I run across articles from the newspapers that remind me that somethings don’t change except the date. For example this article I present in its entirety from the Norwich paper of April 3rd, 1805.

“In 1788, this state owed one million, nine hundred thousand dollars, and the treasury was empty.

In 1804 the State of Connecticut did not owe a cent, and had in her Treasury four hundred and fifty-two thousand, six hundred and sixty-nine dollars, seventy-seven cents, in funds of the civil list; and one million two hundred and thirty-eight thousand, six hundred and seventeen dollars and twenty-nine cents.      

The people of this State draw out of the treasury, every year Dols. 78,855.76 cts.

The amount of all their state taxes is no more than 41, 400.00

So that they draw out, more than they pay in, Dols. 37,455.76

Thus, people of Connecticut, you have a Government which does not cost you a single cent to maintain it; but which annually pays you above thirty seven thousand dollars towards defraying the expense of educating your children; and your State is above two millions of dollars richer than it was seven years ago. O! if ye knew your happiness, ye would be the happiest people on earth.  – N. E. Republican. “

The cycle of being broke and having a surplus is the norm for federal, State and Local coffers.  There is always a surplus when the candidates run for election and the coffers are empty all while they are in office.  A rise in taxes is desperately needed so that there can be new hires, raises for the employees, more services and better education for all. How can anyone say no?

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View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172

Budgets

I hate budget season and having to pour over financial reports and staring at columns of numbers and what I really hate is having to ask people to justify the jobs of their staff and themselves. What do you do and why are you necessary? What makes you important to my company or in this case my city? Why do you spend money the way that you do? Isn’t there a better and more cost efficient way to get the same things done? If it can be repaired with an elastic band, gum and a paper clip a new one is not needed. I just hope that there was municipal accounting education evening for the members of the Norwich City Council and the Mayor before there were the department budget hearings and if not before the budget vote. It’s not just about raising or lowering taxes. It’s about what can be done currently and in the future.

Municipal accounting is generally open and transparent because the citizens of a city have the right to know how its money is being used if not spent. Municipal accounting is the accounting branch that focuses on the accounting for cities and towns.

In addition to taxes cities receive income from any number of sources that include fees, fines grants, loans and gifts. Some may have strings, limitations, use and reporting requirements.   

Just like any business there are also a number of ways that the disbursement of funds to employees, private contractors, insurance, and even  utilities is handled.  Every payment is tracked with a clear record from its cause to its payment. The records are open to the public for inspection and are usually audited by a certified firm that the accounting practices are honest and above board and the records are regularly checked for signs of irregularity that could indicate embezzlement or financial privilege abuse.  

Lots of companies manufacture software for use in municipal accounting that can be adapted for use determined by the cities size, and accounting needs. Proper software also allows for the generation of statistics, reports and responses to public inquiries from individuals and media interested in the use of their public funds.

Email comments on this blog to berylfishbone@yahoo.com

View my past columns at http://www.norwichbulletin.com/section/blogs01?taxid=1172