Buffalo Gal

 I have just finished reading a book titled "The Ultimate Gift" by Jim Stovall.  It is a little book that can be read in a day or a half day if one cannot put it down…like I was unable to do.   I read it on Sunday night and the rest of it Monday morning.  It is a fiction book but it seems like a real story…one that could easily have taken place.  The basic theme of the book centers on 24 year old Jason Stevens, a grand-nephew of Howard (Red) Stevens who had just died and his will has been read to his considerably extended family by his long time friend and lawyer, Theodore Hamilton who is another leading character in this small book. Jason is promised "the ultimate gift" after his Great Uncle has left no real money to his children who Mr Stevens describes as worthless and unworthy and untrustworthy to receive any large sums of money.  His childern inherit his many business enterprises without reaping any of its profits…they are owners in name only.  Jason on the other hand is set forth a year long pursuit of "gifts" under the direction of Theodore Hamilton and his assistant, Margaret Hastings.  At the end of the year long quest for the gifts, Jason receives the ultimate gift which comes as a surprise to the reader….and also to Jason.

I was most touched by the chapter titled the "Gift of Gratitude".  In it, the reader learns of Red Stevens’ long friendship with a man named Josh; the two men knew each other before either became successful in their chosen careers.  When the two parted company, Josh told Red about his mother’s "golden list" which he (Josh) practiced every day of his life. Red went on to adopt the "golden list" and in one of his monthly searches, young Jason develops his own golden list according to his Great Uncle’s post-death instructions via a series of videotapes made prior to his death.

The Golden List is simply a mind-picture each day for the individual who keeps his own golden list.  He or she sees a set of golden tablets and on them are written each day, all the things for which the person is grateful.    I developed a golden list of my own after reading this particular chapter and I share it now.   My own golden list includes my gratitude for these many things and parts of my own life.

I am thankful for my husband and my three sons and for my daughters in law and for my 8 grandchildren.  I am so thankful that all of us, so far, have been blessed with reasonably good health and no major illnesses or accidents.  I am also thankful for my home which is a true blessing….it is not large and it is not fancy but it is truly a home where we raised our 3 boys and now welcome them back as adults with their wives and families whenever we can have a family reunion or gathering for holidays or birthdays or any good or not- so- good reason!  I am thankful that we have enough beds in our home, enough blankets, sheets and pillows so that all 17 of us can sleep under the same roof.  I am so thankful that we have enough money to buy the food we need to stay healthy and feed ourselves on a daily basis. I am thankful for all the work I did over the years of my adulthood—first of all the work it took to keep up with our home and to take care of our sons as they grew up.  Doing the mundane tasks of housewifery were a blessing when I think back on the years that my full time work was being a mother and a wife who stayed home and did the work that needed to be done in a home…I am thankful that I learned to cook and bake and that I always had a workable washing machine, clotheslines, later a good dryer to deal with the loads of dirty laundry produced by 5 people in a family. I am thankful that I had the strength and energy at the time I needed it most.   I am so thankful I learned how to grow a garden from which I canned and froze vegetables and fruit for all the years my sons lived at home. I am so thankful for the rain and sunshine of summer that helps grow gardens and field crops, so thankful for protection from hail and tornados and bad windstorms through most of these years.  I am so thankful that we have always had means of transportation and at the time we needed it the most, when all 5 of us needed to drive places, we were able to have the cars we needed for our sons and us and one spare if anything should go wrong with one of them (which it did!)   I am so thankful for the professional work I was able to do from 1980 until 2004 as a public school librarian and music teacher.  I am so grateful this  job came along just as our oldest son was about to begin college.  It was truly Providential and I acknowlege and give thanks to the One who looked out for us in that time when we needed extra help with the finances of a family of growing sons.    I am so thankful for my extended family which has included my only sister and her 2 husbands….I am thankful that we got through the sorrow of the loss of her first husband which took us all by such shock in 1999.  I am so grateful to God for seeing us through and fulfilling his promise that "all things work for the good of those who love and fear him" and that He saw to it that my sister and her 2 children were able to overcome the sorrow and grief and go on living even when they were at their saddest times.  I am grateful for the man who married my sister 4 years after the death of her husband; he has been a blessing to her and her children and she has been a blessing to his children.  I am thankful for my nieces and nephews and their families…for my brothers and sisters in law and the love we share as a family and the good times we have had together over the years we have known each other.   I am thankful that I live in the United States of America, which is criticized heavily by people from other countries recently and even by our own present President… but in spite of it all, it is still, for me, the greatest nation on earth in which to live and be free and be blest with the Liberty our Founders envisioned when they began this new nation so many years ago.  I am thankful that there are still so many others who treasure this nation and its freedoms and would give most anything to keep it that way.   I am thankful for the hard times we have gone through as a nation…it has made us stronger and more determined to uphold our freedom.  I am thankful every morning when I can stand up on my feet and look out a window and watch the sun rise in the east and hours later I can look out another window and see the sun set at its appointed time.  I am so glad I have eyes to see the wonders of this created planet and look up at night and see the wonders of the universe.   I am thankful for my many friends….friends I have known for decades and for friends just made in even the past week.   Loyal, kind, reliable friends have made my life richer by far than any materialistic gift I might own.   Lastly (at least until I ponder my golden list again when I go to sleep tonight at which time I will no doubt add to my golden list)….I am grateful that I am a child of God, raised in a Christian home by good loving parents who taught me well and gave me many gifts I have not mentioned…the gift of work, of laughter, of problems to be solved, of knowing the value of a family’s love for each other.    I have so many gifts…..and so do you who read these words.   I urge you to make your own golden list and ponder it daily. 

This was the quote at the beginning of the chapter about the gift of being thankful.             "Inthose times when we yearn to have more in our lives, we should dwell on the things we already have.  In doing so, we often find that our lives are already filled to  overflowing."

Best wishes to you with your own "golden lists".

The Random House Concise Dictionary describes "serendipity" in this way:  an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident".   I volunteered a year ago in April of 2008 to help with the 2009 Art Show in Hawley, MN and it has been a "serendipity" experience all the way.  I do not think it was quite by accident but it was an offer made on the spur of the moment last April when I was in a state of "aglow-ness" over the Art Show for 2008.

I fulfilled my offer to volunteer and it has been a totally serendipitous week since last Saturday and Sunday, March 28-29.  These were the days for the artists to register their work and it was also the weekend of the highest flood crest in Fargo-Moorhead’s history.  The Art Show entries were another flood-sufferer; many of the Fargo-Moorhead artists who routinely enter work for the show could not do it this April.  Many of them were evacuated from their homes and many were sandbagging or helping others to sandbag homes and businesses.

But by Sunday afternoon many western Minnesota artists had come in to register and there got to be a good number of paintings entered by 5 p.m.   On Monday, I got my first taste of "setting up" for the art show and I was not prepared for the physical work it takes to get ready.  I did a lot of walking the hard maple board floor of the "community building"…a structure in the town that was built in the early 1940′s as one of the many W.P. A. projects of the Franklin Roosevelt administration.  I have a vague, dim memory of being taken by my Mom to see the building coming up; all I recall is seeing many men and many horses and a lot of straw…apparently much of the digging work was done with horse-drawn digging machines from that era.  I know our neighbor, Henry, father of my best-first friends, was employed at that site.   I also know I was impressed even when I was 3 or 4 years of age at the time.

The old community building gets transformed on the first day of the week of the art show.  It goes from being a rather old, former gymnasium where all the school basketball games were played for many decades…  from being the former temporary roller skating rink we would have when we had a "Youth Center" and the Granfor family of Perley, MN would bring in their clamp-on indoor roller skates and the music system and the marvelous lighting for the "special" romantic "skates" for couples only when all the little kids had to sit down and shut up while the couples could skate and hunch close to each other in the artificial moonlight of the rotatating spotlights…. to the most romantic of the recorded songs that the Granfors would bring along.  Art Anderson of Dilworth was in charge of the lights and the music and all the teenage girls would have given an arm to skate with Art who was tall and not- too- handsome… but handsome enough, and a mysterious "man" from another small town.

The community building, by Monday night of art show week, has been transformed into an art gallery with the paintings hanging tastefully on many boards, triangular structures and on the east wall of the old building.  There are lamps set up in crucial spots so paintings in darker corners are nicely high-lighted (literally).   Green plants, Ficus trees, a bevy of beautiful spring flowers, all made of that wonderful silken material that is now used for "fake flowers" are placed in beautiful vases and other interesting containers from the art show committee members’ homes.  A very French-looking sidewalk cafe springs up in one corner with small round tables covered in pale spring pastel tablecloths, each table centered with other small flower arrangements in even more interesting pots and vases and baskets and surrounded by comfortable chairs so visitors to the show can sit down and enjoy coffee or lemonade along with homemade sweets, courtesy of a local or country church womens’ group.   During the show, these little sidewalk cafe tables are usually full with people who spend a long time at the show, not only viewing the art works, but sitting with friends and chatting over coffee and cookies.  It is truly a time of community togetherness.

I was amazed at the number of people I saw in just 3 days….people I have not seen for  many years and what serendipity that was!    I saw old school friends from other towns that I probably have not seen since the mid-1950s when we were all young and fresh and ready to go out into the world;  I saw grown children who had been my sons’ playmates and school friends, all of them well into their 30′s and 40′s by now, with half- grown up children of their own.  Some of them are already grandparents if they married young and their children did the same thing.  I saw good friends who were freshly back in Minnesota after wintering down in  "Sweet Home Alabama" and another couple returned from blissful, warm, tropical Oahu island in the Hawaiian island chain.  I became acquainted, for the first time, with artists whose names I have seen for years when I was just a visitor to the show.  What fun to put an artist’s face with the name that is familiar as many of the Hawley Art Show artists have entered works for decades as the show has aged from being a young project to a now-42-year old, very grown- up show that has transformed and changed over the decades.

Years ago when the show was one of the only small town art shows, artists flocked by the dozens to display and sell their work.  The old building was so crowded some years by all the paintings that you could scarcely walk without bumping into a person or a painting.  Everyone was dazzled by the novelty of an art show in a small town.  Now it is more of a high-quality, sedate and distinguished show…the paintings and the frames are only of the highest artistic sense.   They are beautiful and unique and expressive.  

Each year, as it has become a tradition, there are awards given our for audience choice of one painting or work of art.  There is an award for one work in each of the school classification….an elementary art choice award and a high school choice award.  And then there is the Art Show Committee Choice Award.  This is the most interesting of them all because the Art Committee this year chose so many different favorites that we had to re-vote to narrow it down to one and we did that, and chose a beautiful watercolor titled "Under The Tuscan Sun" as our special choice.  The title is obviously lifted from a movie of the same title but the art was a luminescent painting of glowing warm colors of a house with a box of geraniums fastened to its stucco walls.  It was glorious…but I could have chosen more than ten paintings I thought worthy of this award.  But only one can win so it was the Tuscan Sun that took the prize this year.

The winner of the "Best of the Show" was a delicate and artistically done collage, titled "Where Did Van Gogh?".  It was done by a local artist who can no longer paint due to advancing Multiple Sclerosis, but she can still cut out things from paper and do collages. I noticed the art work when her husband registered it last weekend and I was delighted when I saw it go up, after the judging was done, on the easel where the "Best of the Show" is displayed in its place of honor each year.

My feet are so tired from standing and walking for hours and hours on those hard maple boards.  My eyes have been filled with the most exquisite beauty of so many lovely paintings.   I got to be the one who helped hang the student artwork and that was the the division that had the largest number of entries.  Kids’ artwork is such a display of the creative imaginations of young children;  the high school division was filled with sophisticated works from young men and women who have obviously received good art instruction in high schools from the area.  The blue ribbon winner among the high school students as a stunning black and white  print work titled "Self- Reliant" and was the face of a very old man whose eyes had seen hard times and had come through in spite of the toughness of a long life lived.  I was positive when I first saw it, that it was the work of one of the professional artists—but it was done by a high school senior and it was amazing to behold.

I need to go and eat something besides the many bars and homemade cookies I nibbled for 5 hours today, as we all—the entire committee—were on duty for the final afternoon of the show when the artists come in and retrieve their work and the ones who sold paintings collect their fees.  Everything is duly checked out, the art boards and walls and special panels are put away into the storage room once again, the little French cafe is dismantled and the plants and flowers go home with their owners once again.

What a satisfying and serendipitous week it has been!   What a fine group of people I have met on the committee.  What a delight it has been to visit with the artists and the visitors who came to see the art show!!!  And what a "sugar high" I am on from all those homemade sweets and goodies the ladies from a small rural church near town have served up.  I am also brimful of fragrant tasty coffee.  I need to get out my Lady Clairol "Foot Fixer" and see if some of the achinness can be de-feated from my feet.  I need to sit back in the recliner and unwind and relax.    I need to contemplate the wonderful serendipity I have had for one whole week.

Last night as I lay abed I read my latest issue of the Newsmax magazine.  There are many interesting sections each month but I was drawn to a short piece in the "Newsfront’ section of the issue and this particular piece was subtitled "Harsh Justice".  The title is "Iranian Acid Victim Chooses Eye For An Eye".  

Amenah Bahrami was a 24 year old student in 2002 when Majid Movhedi, who was 19 years old at that time, began to harass her and ask her to marry him.  She turned him down but he persisted for two more years and was beginning to become more violent toward her as the time went on.  Then one day when Bahrami was walking to her bus in November 2004, she felt the presence of someone behind her.  She turned to confront Movhedi who had followed her to the bus stop.  She was suddenly aware of excruciating pain.  Her face felt like it was on fire. What she was feeling was acid which Movhedi had thrown on her as soon as she turned around and faced him.   She screamed in pain and called for someone to help her…."I’m burning…I’m burning…for God’s sake, someone help me!" were the words she was screaming out.

The acid seeped into her eyes and mouth and when she covered her face with her hands the acid burned them as well and also ran down onto her arms burning them too.

In 2005, Movhedi was convicted of the attack with acid and has been in prison awaiting final judgement for the horror and damage inflicted on Ms Bahrami.  Under Iranian law, the victim of the crime could have asked for a money settlement but she had the option to choose the punishment for her attacker.  She decided that she wanted "an eye for an eye" and said she wanted to make sure he never would be able to do such a thing again to anyone else.   She told the Judge in the case that she wanted Movhedi to feel the same pain she had felt when he hurled the acid into her face in 2004 at that bus stop.

After exhausting all his appeals, Movhedi has been sentenced to suffer the punishment chosen by his victim…..the Iranian court has ruled that Movhedi will be blinded, slowly and painfully, with 10 drops of sulfuric acid in each eye.     (from the account in Newsmax magazine, April 2009 issue)

I was surprised to read that a female in Iran had the option to choose a punishment for her attacker; I had been under the impression that women in middle eastern , Muslim countries had little to say about anything but Iran does not fit that profile.

I thought about the agony of the attacker as he will receive the "eye for an eye" punishment she chose for him….it is a gruesome thought but the crime he committed against her for refusing to marry him and then being stalked by him for two years, is equally gruesome.  She has suffered horribly from her eyes and face being burned by acid and now he will suffer the same fate.

Somehow, in this case and in many others I have thought about…like the torture murders of young children by sexual predators in this country—it seems like the "eye for an eye" justice would be merited.  There would probably be a huge drop in such horrendous crimes against children or women by perverted and evil people, that we might be caught off guard by its effectiveness.  Or maybe not.  I do not know, but this short news item in a monthly magazine took me by total surprise and made me think about the issue of this type of justice.

I bet you are not thinking of the flood right at this moment!!!