The Adventures of Coon Hound Daddy and his Sidekick - Armuchee Bluegrass Festival

The REAL Coon Hound Daddy

When I first met Coon Hound Daddy back in 1973, I thought the banjo he played was so interesting. I had not run across banjos much as a child of two New England born and raised parents, and so I was intrigued, by both Coon Hound Daddy and his banjo.


As fate would have it, Coon Daddy proposed, I accepted and 42 years later I'm still listening to that banjo, less intrigued, but I'm making the best of it with my camera. He has added a few more instruments along the way so at least a variety....

Yesterday we took a drive to Armuchee, Georgia to a Bluegrass Festival that has been around for 20 some years. I did what I could with the camera to tell the story. I hope you enjoy the photos!

She was a great mandolin player!

So was he!

Okra blossom from field next to stage

Washtub John

                                     "Washtub John" -   in the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame

Washtub John

Haiti Angst and Go Forward, Please!

I see posts on social media from Haitians saying they do not stand in solidarity with France from the recent terrorist attacks because of the real and documented atrocities from France against Haitians in their past history.  I can't say I don't sympathize with the Haitian resentment, who wouldn't feel resentment against an oppressor - BUT -  France did not kill Jean Dominique - Haitians did. Nor did France employ mind control over every administration of Haitian government since independence. I suggest for Haitian's who want to help their country in a real way,  that dedication to education for the masses, a blind eye to degrees of color, and building a strong infrastructure be main priorities - and - without a victim mentality doing so. You can't change the past but you can work to a better future.

Happy New Year!

It's 2014, just barely. 2013... was...quite...a...year. With all the challenges that I was faced with in 2013, I find myself looking forward to the future, and grateful for the ever present grace and love of God. What a different journey life has been than what I may have thought it would be, or even tried to create. Perhaps that is a very common experience with people around my age which at this writing is 56. You face changes physically that can be quite trying - (I'm still trying to figure out who switched necks with me!) - and you come to grips with (or need to) an understanding of life being not as easily controlled as you might have thought at a younger year. But having said that, I find myself more at peace than ever and I think it comes to this - experiencing the sustaining hand of God. What a privilege!

I want to take this time to thank my family for their love this past year, and always. I thank my good friends who I appreciate more and more each passing year. And most of all, thank you God for Your great and abiding love.

Below are some photos I worked on this past evening as I waited for the clock to tick pass 2013. I really enjoy taking photographs and working on them. I hope that they in some small way express my appreciation for the wonderful treat that this world can be! Happy New Year!

Is Karen Coming?

It's Saturday October 5th, 2013. I woke up early this morning in preparation for preparing for a possible visit by Karen tomorrow, a named storm. I walked outside and heard the Gulf of Mexico's waves churned up. The early morning quiet and mist over the barrier island and Santa Rosa Sound, where I live, makes for sound to travel. Thinking that the surf must really be up, I grabbed my camera and drove out to Pensacola Beach - only to be surprised that the waves were not all that large. Oh well. I was there and so I enjoyed myself anyway. I hope you enjoy the photos!
...and about Karen? Seems she isn't all that angry and is more interested in visiting first our Gulf Coast neighbor, Louisiana.

Pensacola Beach Fishing Pier

Beach Morning Glory

Red Flag Flying to stay out of water

Shell Fragments

A singular seagull - rare!

Stroll on Pensacola Beach

Seagulls and Waves

Sunrise Reflections

Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel with not much to do

Lifeguards trying to get surfer out of water

Flight and Fog

Memorial Statue - Yancy Spencer

LINK TO PENSACOLA BEACH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE: http://pensacolabeachchamber.com/

LINK TO PENSACOLA BEACH TOURIST INFO: http://www.visitpensacola.com/landing/pensacola-beach

Genetically Modified Gospel

Today riding back home from Atlanta we passed a church with a catchy "you are a winner" slogan, which my husband read out loud. I can't remember what the slogan was exactly but I remember exactly how hearing the slogan read made me feel -  irritated. And a phrase came to me about the slogan - "genetically modified gospel". And as I frequently do, I began to think about writing something about that phrase/title that had come to me. You see, we were coming home from a business trip and a visit with a family member and as family members do, we laughed a lot and discussed all manor of topics - but life is not all laughs and many times life is very hard. We had also shared some struggles. I guess I had been internalizing this part of our conversation and then the church marketing on the sign entered the picture...when we returned home I went to the internet to look up articles and information on genetically modified food so I could write this with a little bit of knowledge of the process to genetically modify something. I can't say that I really understand all that goes into the process where our food has been altered but I did discover a few things, so here goes.

Genetically modified foods have been genetically engineered by the direct manipulation of it's genome using biotechnology to increase crop yields. Genome is the entirety of an organism's heredity information. Heredity information. Sounds to me that means as it was and is, naturally. Increasing crop yields is a good thing, right? I mean after all, what's wrong with increasing a farmer's yield and increasing the plant's resistance to pests? Sounds good. We should be grateful and happy regarding man's efforts to make something "better" and "more". Yet I can't help wondering (and do believe that) the food we eat is making us sicker and sicker and fatter and fatter, and so "more" is not "better", in my opinion, in regards to what has been done and is still being done to our food supply. But on to the modified gospel...

Why would it be that there is so much suffering in the world if God really meant following Jesus was to bring health, wealth and prosperity in all forms? If these wonderful promises don't happen to you, does that mean you are in the group that gets picked last for kickball? The news regarding Syria - one million Syrian children are refugees, over 3,000 people in Syria recently victims of what looks like their own government using chemical weapons on them, Christians in Sudan being airlifted out to save their lives, children in Haiti dying of hunger...

To swallow the tainted gospel message of personal achievement and self satisfaction can only be believed in while an individual would be willingly living in a culture of have and have nots, and participating in. How else could you possibly believe that is what the gospel is all about?  Happy, happy, happy? Maybe the have nots are just simply out of luck because they can't read, or they don't have access to the internet to hear that they should be healthy, wealthy and prosperous? Maybe they will never be picked for kick ball?

I know this is a bit of a rant but I had to. In closing I have included a video that sums up what I'm feeling right now - link is below. I hope that what started with irritation earlier today for me will be motivation to: For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me. Matthew 25: 35-36

www.youtube.com/watch?autoplay=1&v=PTc_FoELt8s&desktop_uri=%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DPTc_FoELt8s%2526autoplay%253D1&nomobile=1

In This Moment

A friend of mine who is Costa Rican has always used the phrase "in this moment" when referring to "right now" in conversation and I have always loved to hear her say it. Something about those words put together evoked a great feeling about the current event we were discussing. It's hard to describe but I think that "in this moment" made the present seem more precious and valuable. I don't know - maybe it's just me but that was the feeling I had with those words said as she did.




Today I thought about that and other word constructions that have touched me and generated emotion over the years and I thought I'd take some time and look some of them up and share. They may just be a few words strung together in a sentence but somehow I responded to them with my heart.  Enjoy!

"...And I have heard my grandmother speak of her first ball when she was seventeen. And they were all, when their souls grew warm, poets". Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

"Who knows how easily ambition disguises itself under the name of a calling, possibly in good faith and deceiving itself, in sanctimonious confusion".  Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

"...in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near..." ee. cummings, somewhere it have never traveled,gladly beyond

"... encouraged me in their writing, I wish to express particular gratitude". Eudora Welty, One Writer's Beginnings

"All night, this soft rain from the distant past. No wonder I sometimes waken as a child". Ted Kooser, Delights & Shadows

"And the music of the pearl drifted to a whisper and disappeared". John Steinbeck, The Pearl

"And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage". David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Wish You Were Here

And my favorite phrase, all of it!  "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" - Habakkuk 2:14

Vanity Fair?

Miss Conflicted courtesy of Vogue

My trip to Barnes and Nobles after church was a pilgrimage of sorts, a quest for a Vanity Fair magazine. I settled for a Vogue.

For some days now I have had this mental cement mixer churning around and around regarding expectations and in particular expectations of and about women. How we think of ourselves, and why. How we act, and what thinking style predicates action. I know, I know - why think about this stuff at all? I don't know! Can't seem to help myself, then the thought gets stuck in my head. Seems that the only way to exercise myself of it is to go ahead and explore the subject, write it down, and then be somewhat done with it that way. Obviously I am interested in this subject personally at present, but maybe someone out there will get something out of this post too.

My little creation to the left is the result of my taking scissors to the Vogue and combining bits of women throughout the pages. Miss Conflicted (that's her name) - she doesn't know really how to look or who to be so she is a little bit of a lot of people. The final result though is somewhat odd, don't you think? I discovered while going through the Vogue magazine is that I did not see one photograph of the women I know and hang with. What's with that? I guess I hang with the wrong crowd...I think not.

I have six sisters and I love each of them and I did not see any of them in the pages of that magazine. My friends don't look like that. My Mom didn't. My sweet nieces are beautiful, but I did not see them in those pages either. That teacher at school that took some extra time with me wasn't there. Neither was the doctor I see in there. I did not see Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton, Sally Ride, Margaret Thatcher, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt or Condoleezza Rice.

And so that leaves me to wonder why these magazines and movie stars and such are so popular and if this culture we are living in is actively detrimental to the psyches of women. We look at places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and point our finger at their mistreatment of women but I think that in our culture women mistreat themselves to give credit to this fantasy glamour splashed across pages, internet and printed page.

Ok ok - what's the solution? I don't really know except to live in the real world with real people, affirm each other daily and shun the type nonsense that makes money off portraying truly unattainable superficial goals of physical "perfection".

And so my soap box has shrunk in size now but I leave you with this thought -
Psalm 139:14
"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well".

Rock(s) of Gibraltar

It's not easy being a Mom. Perhaps that is the understatement of the year, you think ladies? I just returned home from the place where my own Mom is loaning her body to temporarily, Barrancas National Cemetery on NAS Pensacola, Florida. Of course a trip such as to the last place you left your Mother tends to promote reflection and so I find myself before my computer making this post.

The Rock of Gibraltar is a high cliff in southern Spain, at the south-western edge of the Mediterranean Sea near the town and port of Gibraltar. When people say solid as the Rock of Gibraltar they mean something safe and firm. That certainly was the situation with my Mom. Having run across something I wrote for her back in the 80's, I thought this might be a great time to bring it out of moth balls and send a solute to the Mother's of the world who daily continue on, even when they really don't feel much like it.

My mother...
As a child she was
helper, provider, security
Rock of Gilbraltar.
As a teenager she was
enemy, adversary, foe, spy
or so I thought. Young
cloudy eyes see
dimly, looking out
at a world
so confusing.
Days last forever, weeks turn
to eternity.
My relationship with
my mother all cracked
and frayed...
but maturity came to
me
or caught me after 
forever days and
eternal weeks.
Time heals and
I grew up even
I who ran 
from myself or 
possibly my mother.
Today my mother is
someone to me
who I need and who I
pray needs me.
Time healed and my mother
became my friend.
She is 
helper, provider, security,
Rock of Gibraltar.
She is my mother,
I love her.
She is my friend.

And here is a shout out to mother types around the world - Happy Mother's Day.