Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 10

Would You Spend the Night in a Museum?

 

Yes, there are museums  that will let you spend the night!


AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY:
In 2014, the New York museum hosted its first adult-only sleep-over ...
complete with a champagne reception with live jazz music ...
fossil fact-finding by flashlight and cots under the 94 foot long model of a Blue Whale.
The next grown-up slumber party is June 22.
Get your reservations in early!
Cost $350!  Ouch!!

NATIONAL ARCHIVES MUSEUM,  WASHINGTON, D.C.
Pack your pajamas and pillows for a night of heroes and history ...
resting your head in the Rotunda near the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
The fall sleep-over is October 13th.
But you must be from 8 to 12.  Rats.  Cost: $125

BALTIMORE NATIONAL AQUARIUM
Shark fanatics and budding oceanographers will have to part with $120 
to spend the evening with experts and brave the shark catwalk.
Comes with a buffet-style dinner and light breakfast.  
Ages 8 and up.

CARNEGIE SCIENCE CENTER,  PITTSBURG
Want a sleepover for the whole family?
You can engage and educate parents and children alike for only $39!
Last month's event on the 27th centered on electricity.  
This July 18th will have the theme of chemistry.
You will enjoy educational activities, a movie in the new Rangos Giant Cinema, 
laser shows, snacks, breakfast, and free admission the following day!
Reservations are accepted up to 5 days prior to the event date.
Ages 4 and up.
There are at least 11 others museums that offer sleep-overs.  
Check to see if one is near you.

WOULD YOU SPEND  THE NIGHT  IN ONE?

WE ONLY THINK WE KNOW

 Take what we are celebrating today:

We only think it freed all the slaves.

As Galadriel says  of Sauron's gift of the Rings of Power

"But they were,all of them, deceived."

To paraphrase Fallout -- Politics, like war, never changes.

PresidentAbraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not free all enslavedpeople in the United States. 

The proclamation only freed slaves in states thathad seceded from the Union, giving the South 100 days to end their rebellion. 

If the South complied, slavery could continue, but if they kept fighting, theirslaves would be freed and could be drafted into the Union army. 

Theproclamation also exempted the Border States, as well as Tennessee and areas ofLouisiana and Virginia occupied by Federal troops.

Lincoln'sprimary motivation for the proclamation was to win the Civil War and reunitethe Republic. 

He also didn't want to antagonize the slave states loyal to theUnion by setting their slaves free.

What do you think? 

Hobbes is getting a headache trying to figure it out.

GROW YOUNGER EACH DAY

“I’m still going.  It keeps you thinking young.  My body is old,  but I think the same as I did  when I was 20 years old.”  - June Foray

"I believe it's important to stay young at heart, 

to have faith in what might seem impossible 

and to have goals beyond your current abilities or temporary means."
 - Haley Williams

June Foray, the voice of “The Rocky and  Bullwinkle Show’s” 
Rocky the Flying Squirrel and his nemesis Natasha Fatale

of Boris and Natasha fame in the early 1960s 

and a key figure in the animation industry, died just 8 weeks short of her 100th birthday.

Foray was also the voice behind Looney Tunes’ Witch Hazel. 
She was young at heart until she died.
June Foray's sense of feeling younger and always finding a reason to laugh

is an important key to living well:

Feeling younger inspires a sense of resilience that keeps people young. 




1.) USE IT OR LOSE IT

Challenge yourself to try new things, learn new ideas, and develop new skills.

 Realizing that most human abilities follow a “use it or lose it” pattern 

can motivate us to stay active in all realms of our lives.




2.) HARD TO SAIL WHEN AT ANCHOR

Bring your attention repeatedly to the present moment, through informal mindfulness practice.

It can help you to appreciate this moment, 

rather than becoming lost in regrets about the past or imagining future deterioration.




3.) LIFE GROWS AS WE DO

Develop a sense of meaning in life.

Focus on something larger than yourself, 

whether that’s connecting with people close to you or helping improve the lives of others.

Or commit yourself to a hobby you love, 

such as gardening, attending the theater, dancing, or reading.

When our focus is just on our own immediate pleasure or pain, 

we’re much more likely to have difficulty with the aging process.





4.) SCRAPPED KNEE PRINCIPLE

 Remember when you were younger and would take a tumble, only to forget about it in five minutes? 

When you’re an adult, a lot of things aren’t all that easy to brush off, 

rather than dwell on them, you still manage to dust yourself right back off and go at it again 

(though this time, smarter). 
After all, life’s too short to spend it dwelling on the scrapes and bruises. 

Sometimes the only way to get over a setback is to simply just try again.



5.) LAUGHTER FILLS YOUR SAILS

 Laugh real. Laugh honestly. 

It will feel really, really good, and no matter how unattractive you think your laugh is,

And laughter releases endorphins which act as natural morphine.  

How cool is that?



6.)  LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE AS LONG AS YOU CONTINUE TO EXPLORE

 There’s always something new to discover and claim as yours, 

whether it’s a new restaurant, 

a new coffee shop hidden away in your neighborhood, 

a new book, or maybe even a new passion and hobby you never even knew you had inside yourself. 

We spend so much of our days going through routines and the same paths and habits, 

and breaking free only to stumble on something you never even knew you’d love 

 is refreshing and can remind you about every little beautiful thing in this world. 


To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven,  that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

FATHER'S DAY/SINGLE MOTHERS

 

Fathers.

As a counselor, I saw too many doughnut burns --


when a child is shoved into a tub of scalding water, 

the anus tightens in response so that the burn is round with a ring of unburned skin in the center.


I have counseled too many daughters of sexually abusing fathers whose scars, though invisible, will never completely heal.

Single mother households are unfortunately becoming the new “norm.” 

There are a total of 15 million children living without a father in the US alone.

Despite of that, many fatherless children are still succeeding with the help of their mothers.

Many of the hollow-eyed waitresses and sales clerks you meet will be heroic single mothers attempting what sometimes feels to be an impossible task.

According to the 2013 census, 84% of custodial parents are mothers whereas fathers are 15%.

It is my feeling that Single Mothers deserve presents on Father’s Day.

Ladies, you are a gift to society. 

Without your courageous characteristics to take on the responsibilities of your own and others, where would many of us be?

  My last memory of my own father is his receding car speeding down the street called Skid Row in Detroit after he abandoned me there. 

 I can still remember running after his car, screaming, "Daddy, Daddy!"


A street person, Maude, and her little dog, Tufts, took mercy on me for six weeks

 until she conjured the courage to bring me to the Salvation Army outpost (she had a paranoid fear of uniforms.)



In FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE and END OF DAYS, you will find me tipping my Stetson to their memory.

 http://www.audible.com/pd/Fiction/FRENCH-QUARTER-NOCTURNE-Audiobook/B00DMJJ97Q

My mother was a single mother, and she handled Father's Day creatively:


She pointed out the verse in Psalm 68:5 -

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.


So I have always thought of Father's Day as Holy and God as The Father.

But what about other single mothers?

How do they handle Father's Day do you think?


Do they have a unique way of celebrating it? Does it make them sad? Angry?


Some mothers get mad at others thinking they should get a nod at Father's Day, saying  

"I am a woman not a man! I am a mother not a father!"


This extreme reaction says to me they obviously have unresolved issues concerning being a single mother. 

Or do you think differently?

The creator of  Father's Day  was a single man named  Charles Berlitz , whose father,  Howard Berlitz , died of cancer in 1867. 

Charles made the day up to remember him.

Mr. Berlitz unintentionally made a day that is often sour for struggling single mothers and lonely children.

And the questions come murmuring in the night:

“Why don’t my children have the loving father they deserve?”

“Why do I have to do everything and he does nothing?”

“Why must I struggle financially, because he chooses to pay no child support?”

What would you say to them?

***

Something to make you smile:

MAN(un)KIND

 

ON THIS DAY IN 1682 ...

InSalem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bridget Bishop, the firstcolonist to be tried in the Salem witch trials, is hanged after being foundguilty of the practice of witchcraft.

Trouble in the small Puritan community began in February1692, when nine-year-old Elizabeth Parris and 11-year-old Abigail Williams, thedaughter and niece, respectively, of the Reverend Samuel Parris, 

beganexperiencing fits and other mysterious maladies. A doctor concluded that thechildren were suffering from the effects of witchcraft, 

and the young girlscorroborated the doctor’s diagnosis. Under compulsion from the doctor and theirparents, the girls named those allegedly responsible for their suffering.

And Cancel Culture has been thriving in America ever since.

What do you think?

SOMETIMES A GREAT WRITER CAN BE A GOOD FATHER

 

John Steinbeck would send his son letters

 — sometimes 18-page-long ones, when he didn’t have time to edit — 

ranting, raving, and generally trying to be helpful. 

The only thing I remember my father telling me was one word: "Survive" 

when he abandoned me at six on a rough street far from my home in Detroit.

"Happy Father's Day, Dad."

In 1958, John's 14 year old son wrote of falling in love for the first time.  

This is the letter Steinbeck wrote back:


New York
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First -- if you are in love -- that's a good thing -- that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. 

Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second -- There are several kinds of love. 

One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. 

The other is an outpouring of everything good in you 

-- of kindness and consideration and respect -- 

not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. 

The first kind can make you sick and small and weak 

but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply -- of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. 

What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it -- and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone 

-- there is no possible harm in saying so -- 

only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another -- 

but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. 

But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. 

She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens -- 

The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,
Fa

  You should treat yourself to Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (public library) 

that constructs an alternative biography of the iconic author through some 850 

of his most thoughtful, witty, honest, opinionated, vulnerable, and revealing letters to family, friends, his editor, and a circle of equally well-known and influential public figures.

"They fight not for the lust of conquest". 80th Anniversary of D-DAY

 "They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight toend conquest. They fight to liberate."

-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt's official addressannouncing the invasion.

My latest novel centers on this epic attack.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

June 6, 2024, 

will mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Daylandings along the Normandy coast during World War II. 

This event, whichultimately led to the liberation of Europe, will be commemorated at NormandyAmerican Cemetery.

Think Stephen King and Ray Bradbury combining to spin a tale of what led to D-Day and afterwards ...

MAN DOES NOT CHANGE_IWSG post

 

Many believe Samuel McCord and his haunted jazz club, Meilori's, fictional. 

Keep on believing: you will sleep easier at night.

For his own reasons,

Samuel has exchanged letters between myself and John Steinbeck over the decades of his life these past twelve months.

Here is the latest delivered to me from Mr. Steinbeck:



John Steinbeck
Sag Harbor
June 3, 1953

Dear Roland:

How odd it is:

Here I am much older, not nearly as wise as I would have hoped to be, still writing to you unchanged in the year 2024!

Your words over the years have helped me, though I fear mine to you has not helped any at all.

I am back from Washington, D.C.  and just now reading the newspaper and your latest letter to me.

This gold medalist proclaims himself a woman and those that think this odd from a father are decried as haters and bigots?

How odd.  The tyranny of the politically correct: McCarthyism at the opposite end of the spectrum.
A former president (now leading in the polls) convicted by a corrupt judge and DA. 

Two first impressions from both my trip and your letter of your own confused times:

First, a creeping, all pervading, nerve-gas of immorality which starts in the nursery and does not stop before it reaches the highest offices corporate, media, and governmental.

Two, a nervous restlessness, a hunger, a thirst, a yearning for something unknown— perhaps morality.

Then there’s the violence, cruelty and hypocrisy symptomatic of a people which has

either too much or no chance at all to get enough,

and lastly, the surly ill temper which only shows up in humans when they are frightened.

Nothing seems to have changed in the nature of Man.

You mention this best-selling author, James Patterson, no longer writing his own books.

He does the outlines and hires different co-writers. He does credit the other writers,

and he probably does pay them handsomely,

but the whole thing is coiled up in my stomach like bad diner food.


Ghost-writing 

How to express my feelings for it?  Let me try:

Early on I had a shattering experience in ghost-writing that has left its mark on me.

In the fourth grade in Salinas, Calif., my best friend was a boy named Pickles Moffet.

He was an almost perfect little boy, for he could throw rocks harder and more accurately than anyone, he was brave beyond belief

in stealing apples or raiding the cake section in the basement of the Episcopal church,

a gifted boy at marbles and tops and sublimely endowed at infighting.


Pickles had only one worm in him.
The writing of a simple English sentence could put him in a state of shock very like that condition which we now call battle fatigue.

Imagine to yourself, as the French say,

a burgeoning spring in Salinas, the streets glorious with puddles, grass and wildflowers and toadstools in full chorus,

and the dense adobe mud of just the proper consistency to be molded into balls and flung against white walls—

an activity at which Pickles Moffet excelled.

It was a time of ecstasy, like the birth of a sweet and sinless world.

And just at this time our fourth-grade teacher hurled the lightning.


She assigned us our homework.

We were to write a quatrain in iambic pentameter with an a b - a b rhyme scheme.


Well, I thought Pickles was done for.

His eyes rolled up. His palms grew sweaty, and a series of jerky spasms went through his rigid body. I soothed him and gentled him,

but to show you the state Pickles was in—he threw a mud ball at Mrs. Warnock’s newly painted white residence.

And he missed the whole house!


I think I saved Pickles’ life.

I promised to write two quatrains and give one to him. I’m sure there is a moral in this story somewhere, but where?

The verse I gave to Pickles got him an A while the one I turned in for myself brought a C.

You will understand that the injustice of this bugged me pretty badly. Neither poem was any great shucks, but at least they were equally bad.

And I guess my sense of injustice outweighed my caution, for I went to the teacher and complained:

 “How come Pickles got an A and I only got a C?”

Her answer has stayed with me all my life.

She said,

“What Pickles wrote was remarkable for Pickles. What you wrote was inferior for you.”

 You see what this says of your James Patterson and those who ghost-write for him?

If you do, please write and explain it to me.

Yours,

John

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: On Memorial Day

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:  

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. 

At the going down of the sun and in the morning 

We will remember them. 

 

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,  
 

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; 
 

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,  
 

To the end, to the end, they remain." 

 

- "For the Fallen" Lawrence Binyon 

 

Has society become too cynical and self-interested to appreciate Memorial Day anymore? 

 

What do you think? 

HOW TO WRITE WHEN LIFE HITS HARD

 

Monday is my "Chore Day".

I only found time to write one page of my new novel ... but I wrote it.

Those long days when I ran my bookstore, 

visited my mother as she lay dying, 

and walked back and forth to the mall and to the hospital because twice someone had put sugar in my gas tank ...

I still wrote. 

In fact those ______ who destroyed my cars improved my health with all the walking, 

gave me time to reflect on the dying of my mother & to come to grips with it, 

and allowed me the opportunity to put my thoughts into coherent order to write in my journal.


I do not know what storms hammer at you this season ... I just know they are ... or they will soon.  Life is like that.

You must ask yourself: 

WHO DO YOU WANT TO BE?
A SUNSHINE SOULORONE FOR ALL SEASONS?

Can you sacrifice who you are for who you will become?  

Can you do with 30 minutes less sleep a day to write one page of your novel?

Can you transform your lunch half-hour into one of sipping Instant Breakfast 

while plotting the page you will write tonight or tomorrow morning?

It's not about how hard you were hit but how hard you can be hit and still go forward.

Remember:

1.) PICK YOUR BATTLEGROUND

Choose where you can do the most good.  

You cannot do everything.  Help where it makes sense.  Be flexible.  Be adaptable.  

Pace yourself: running yourself into the ground will not help you or anyone else.


2.) PEOPLE SEE THROUGH THEIR OWN EYES

You are entitled to your boundaries.  

You have the right to say NO.  

You have the right to safeguard your own health or sanity.

Non-writers think we’re not working when we’re plotting or researching or studying how to write better.

 It’s up to you to defend your writing time as strongly as others defend their own pursuits.

Yes, you can be more flexible. 

But writing should stay on your calendar for all but the most critical days.


3.) INVEST IN THE PERSON WHO YOU WILL BECOME

Skill is only achieved by hours and hours and hours of honing your craft.  

If you are not making your life or someone else's better ... then you are wasting your time.

You're already in grief from your dream.  Keep on and get some reward for all that grief.

You want your dream?  Then, go on and get the hits, the disappointments that come with the package.


4.) THE HIT LIST

 Before sleeping, make a list of three important things you intend to accomplish the next day. 

If you’re in the midst of storm and trauma, 

break bigger projects down into tiny steps you know you’ll be able to complete in a day. 

 As the storm eases, you can work with bigger chunks again.


5.) WINNIE THE POOH DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

No one's life is all sunshine and rainbows.  

For most of us, the world is a mean, nasty place ... 

and life will knock you to your knees and keep you there and laugh as it kicks you ...

if you let it.

No one is ever going to hit you as hard as life. 

But it is not about how hard you are hit ... 
but how hard you CAN be hit and get back up and go forward, 
how much you can take and still stumble forward.

That's how you win, how you can stand tall, knowing you gave it your all.


6.) IT'S NOT THE TITLE THAT MAKES YOU

It is not the title AUTHOR or DOCTOR that makes you. It's not success that makes you.

It is your character that makes you.  Character defines success, defines fame, defines YOU.

And you sculpt your character with every resistance to obstacles you make, 

with every sleepless morning as you write, 

with all the early A.M. hours when you run dark streets ...

with doing something right each and every time you do it whether anyone is looking or not ... 

because you refuse to do shabby.


7.) IT'S YOUR DREAM

It's not someone else's.  

Do not expect help or support from someone who has their own dream.  

You must get up early, stay up late to make your dream come true ... no one else will do it for you.


8.) LIFE IS GOING TO SUCKER PUNCH YOU

Murphy was right.  Life is going to blind-side you when you least expect it.

It's all right to show pain, to even unleash a colorful metaphor or two, to suck air.

But those times are when the most growth occurs.  

You can let the tragedy destroy you or you can learn from it.

We all fall down in life.  The question is: who gets back up?

Please, choose to get back up and into the struggle, fighting smarter.

The companion to night is not darkness but light, for every night is followed by the dawn.



9.) YOUR MIND SET

It is not your circumstances or your situations that determine if you are going to be successful or not.

IT IS YOUR MIND SET.

It's the way you see your dream, your writing, how you feel it, how you nourish it.

Your mind is the battleground.  

But it is YOUR mind, sow the soil of it with truths that help not hinder you.

"I may give up one day ... 

BUT IT WILL NOT BE TODAY. 

 I'M GOING ALL IN, ALL THE WAY!  

I'M GOING TO MAKE THE REST OF MY LIFE THE BEST OF MY LIFE."


10.)  LEAN ON YOUR STRENGTHS


What are your personal strengths as a writer? 

Whatever they are, they’re your leverage for hard times.

 If dialogue is your strength, 

you may want to write dialogue for the next few chapters and come back later to fill in the rest of the details.

Or you might want to carry a journal and use spare moments 

to brainstorm character names and answer “What if?” questions to sketch in a story and its conflict.

AND DON'T FORGET TO REWARD YOURSELF EACH DAY YOU KEEP FIGHTING ...

if only an extra ten minutes of sleep the next day or a dessert you reserve for hard times.