Writer | Grumpa Joe's Place

Words

Posted on 06/11/2022 by Grumpa Joe

During a recent computer session, I latched onto the website for the Merriam Webster Dictionary. The term Saccadic Fixation came into my life as the result of searching for information on a rather new Lions Club program called “Reading Between the Lions.” This program is based on the response of the human eye that makes reading possible. Evidently, there are people (kids especially) whose eye muscles are not able to skip from word to word, or phrase to phrase. This program has been developed to test kids for this eye function, and to discover those kids whose eyes don’t respond effectively. The early test results show that as many as ten percent of kids between kindergarten and first grade have this problem. The program developers have also invented eye exercises that can correct the condition and make happy readers out of the ten percent.

Don’t ask me how I got to the M-W dictionary web site but I did. While there I discovered a page called Time Traveler that listed all the new words that were added during each year going back to the fourteenth century. Out of curiosity I searched for my birth year (MCMXXXVIII) and read through the entire list of 243 new words, or terms added. There was a lot of new stuff that was going on in that year. Compare that to the list of 2022 which has one new word so far, ‘spongy moth’. My infantile mind immediately shifted into gear and assumed that in the past VIII decades we have learned everything there is to know and we are now so smart we don’t need any new words. Or, it could mean that since the government invented the Department of Education our linguistic development has become atrophied and word development is too difficult for us to master. Or it could mean a lot of other things too, like our Saccadic Fixation has been undiscovered, and undeveloped, and we have become a world of non-readers. What the heck why read when you can look it up on Youtube?

Whenever I write a post I have my dictionary open and visible on the same page for two reasons: 1) to check my spelling, 2) to check that the word I am using really means what I think. I often use words that sound like what I mean but they are not even close, they just sound good so I plod on and use them. I can ramble on and on about words and word use, but I don’t feel mentally sharp enough at this moment to challenge myself.

Yesterday, I had drinks with a friend who has a neat ability to buy unique birthday gifts for the members of our weekly wine club. For instance, he knows I am fascinated by things made from wood so he presented me with a wood carving of a fisherman in a boat. Another time he gifted a friend who is a financial advisor with a six inch diameter snow-globe so he could look into the future for stock tips. When it came to the youngest in the group, who happens to also be a foxy young lass (Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker), he has deferred to a first class bottle of wine. She registered disappointment by scolding him for not getting her something unique and creative like he did for the others in the group. Last night he told me he had solved the problem. He buys all of his gifts from ‘Goodwill’, a store whose inventory consists of other people’s junk, and never pays more that three dollars. He found an old Merriam Webster dictionary for $2 which weighs about ten pounds and is nearly ten inches thick. He will present it to the lassie because she is a professional student who has never stopped going to school.

So how is this post for writing something about nothing and coming to some kind of logical end?

Filed under: Biography, Education, Writer | Tagged: Goodwill, Merriam Webster Dictionary, Reading Between The Lions, Time Traveler, Unique Gifts | Leave a comment »

Good Grief?

Posted on 17/08/2022 by Grumpa Joe

After experiencing grief for nineteen years it is my conclusion that there is nothing good about it. My lovely, beautiful, caring, adoring wife Barbara died on this day nineteen years ago. I write this at three hours past the time she expired in 2003. Over the last few years this day has not crossed my mind as sharply as it has this year. All I know is that suddenly, like the piercing pain that shot down my back last week I am laden with depression. This phenomenon is not new to me. For years after she died I would fall into depression at the beginning of July and be miserable for the next two months. The first day of July, 2003 is when she went into the hospital with peritonitis, and never returned. The memory of her last days has faded over the years except, this year it is as sharp and clear as it has ever been.

My writing frequency has diminished over the last two months, and I am now beginning to believe that it is because of my depression. Usually, once I realize why I’m not able to think of anything to write about I attribute it to depression. One way I can dig myself out of the hole is to express my feelings to the ether of the internet. Once they are out of my mind my soul is once again free to soar.

A friend who writes the Just Cruising blog is currently going through a similar change. The writer is taking time off to rethink why he has a blog in the first place. I too have to remember why I began this journey. I know for fact that my original goal was to promote the benefits of positive thinking. I have strayed from that path and instead immersed myself in the idiocy of trying to persuade people to my conservative ideas. That was fun for a while but after achieving failure, I switched to just plain story telling; find a subject and tell the story about how that topic came into my life. I must have run out of topics because that no longer amuses me. So now, I find myself writing about myself and my depression triggered by grief.

In the days after Barb died, on a scale of one to ten, with ten being maximum unbearable pain, my grief was at a hundred. Slowly, ever so slowly over the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years it softened to where I would place it at about a four. Then 2022 hit me right square between the eyes and I am back to ten. I thank God it is no longer at one hundred.

One way I coped with grief was to remarry. I found a beautiful lady who was also a widow. She totally understood my emotions as she experienced them also. We were happy for fifteen years together. Our shared grief was mild, but still present. Unfortunately, after ten years she contracted a disease that caused her to forget who I was. We were faithful lovers and friends to the end.

Grief didn’t hit me as hard the second time, but it was certainly there. I think the first round hardened my soul to resist the emotion. Now that I think about it, my current depression began around late June, which is when she died three years ago. Add that to the first grief beginning in July and I wonder why I am having trouble? I am experiencing a super nova of grief. Maybe it is because of the way the planets are aligned and the moon is circling.

At this point of my tome of over 600 words I realize that I am embarking on the very first session of blogging therapy which no doubt will begin digging me out of the trench in which I landed. That my friends is why I probably have been doing this for so many years, it is a form of therapy for me.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, Writer | Tagged: grief, love, marriage, Til death do us part | Leave a comment »

Have You Ever?

Posted on 24/01/2022 by Grumpa Joe

Have you ever gotten in a mood when you have to force yourself to compose something? A BLOG is a diary of sorts, and the word BLOG is an acronym for Weblog. When you own a blog it infers that you write something nearly everyday. There are times when I can post three or four pieces in the same day, and then there are times when I don’t do anything for two weeks. I’m in that zone right now where writing is a royal pain in the keester. On days like this I force my self to begin keying words, sometimes they are just that, words. Not sentences that are put into paragraphs in an attempt to convey information or personal thoughts.

Maybe it is because I just returned from shoveling snow off my driveway and I’m dead tired, but the words, and ideas are stuck somewhere in my cranium. I hate a drive topped with four inches of the white fluffy stuff. My drive has to show concrete not deep, groovy white tire tracks. Most times I test the snow with a shovel to decide if I do it by hand, or if I pull out my handy Honda snow-blower. Today, the blower lost the game and I won the chance to compete with my two shovels. I took my time and spent an hour pushing the stuff around.

When I sit in my sun-room and view the backyard garden covered in snow I see a space of beauty. There is nothing prettier than new fallen snow on trees, shrubs, and lawns. The whiteness of it all conveys a purity of vision and thoughts that can be over-whelming. By tomorrow the back lawn will resemble a school playground with foot prints leading to everywhere. Mostly rabbit and squirrel tracks., but today it is still pristine, smooth, and white.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, family, Writer | Tagged: Pristine snowscapes, Shoveling, Snow | 2 Comments »

Into the Spotlight

Posted on 28/03/2021 by Grumpa Joe

If I could jump into a time machine and transport back to nineteen fifty-two I would. There has been a question the answer to which has bothered me ever since I took a test to determine what profession I was suited for. I was registering for high school. The particular school had several college directed curriculums. I chose to go into pre-engineering. The guidance counselor told me that my scores did not indicate that I would become successful in that kind of career. Being strong-minded and strong willed I rejected their advice and began an education that eventually yielded a career in engineering. What I would like to know is what my test scores actually pointed me toward. No one would ever tell me. So for the past sixty-nine years I have lived in the dark abut whether I made a mistake by pursuing engineering.

The direction could have been any number of directions which might have been easier to come by. I was always tinkering with mechanical things, so I could have chosen to become a mechanic, or maintenance man. In between building model airplanes and sniffing a lot of glue I was always doodling artistically, and loved doing artsy things. I learned that I was a natural at mechanical drawing and had a strong ability to view three dimensional things and being able draw them in two dimensions from many different views, and vice versa. Printing and lettering by hand came almost as easily as cursive writing in the Palmer method. I hated all things like social science so that would have been out. Yet, today I seem to have a penchant for political science, and history. What did the test scores say? Should I have skipped going to college in favor of barber school like my dad recommended? What?

In high school, I learned that I loved to write stories, but hated grammar, sentence diagraming, and punctuation. Skip all the Shakespeare stuff along with all things to do with English literature. In college I definitely loved calculus, solid geometry, and art history. What a combination that is, art and math. I struggled through the many physics and high level math courses, but eventually succeeded in getting my Bachelors in Science, Mechanical Engineering (B.S.M.E.)

In my aged wisdom I have concluded that what my real direction could have been doesn’t matter anymore, because my chosen career was my passion, and I succeeded in making a living, raising a family, and putting three kids through college and into careers in science.

For the last twenty-five years i have been dabbling in an art form called Intarsia. I like it because it incorporates art, with the use of my hands, and skill with wood cutting tools. I began with simple projects and slowly, ever so slowly my skill level has been improving. The early projects were all based on another artist’s vision of things like fish, teddy bears, and flowers. I bought patterns and used them to make pictures from wood. In the last ten years I have decided to develop the art form into something more. I go beyond two dimensional forms pieced together from different colors of woods with some minimal shaping to original designs based on photographs. I convert a photograph into a pattern then shape it into wood sculpture. The very first work I did I called “Horn Man.” It is based on a photo of my grandson Dan practicing with his trumpet. I felt so proud of this work that I have gone in this direction since. Today, I only use pre-made patterns when I like the subject. In fact I will take a pre-made pattern depicting something natural, and then add something special to make it mine. My second attempt at doing this combined a Judy Gale Roberts pattern of two blue jays drinking at a bird bath with my vision of the bird bath in an endless green lawn which has a single dandelion growing at the base of the bird bath. I call it “An Almost Perfect Lawn.”

A year ago, pre-covid era, I entered an arts and crafts show. I priced the pieces so high they would never sell. I needed to learn if anyone else besides me liked any of these works. Although no one bought anything I learned that my works have some appeal. One visitor told me that I was at the wrong show, and that my work should be exhibited at the Frankfort Fine Arts Show. Then COVID hit. All shows were cancelled.

Last month I decided to enter a couple of pieces into a show titled “Emerging Perspectives” at the Tall Grass Arts Association Gallery in Park Forest, IL. Still unsure of myself, I labeled the pieces NFS meaning not for sale. Since then, I have decided to enter as many shows as I can just to give my work some exposure. This morning I completed the entry for my piece titled “Three Roses,” into the Frankfort Arts Association Member Exhibition “Into the Light.” I love the show names, they really pump me up. Anyway, all this excitement about showing my art has raised the question I posed above, did my career interest test indicate that I should have pursued art as a profession? I’ll never know and I really don’t care any more, I like what I am doing: blogging to practice my writing, and using my wood working skills to produce some interesting art.