jottingjoan

With his family gone, Roger Cheshier read the classified ads uninterrupted - until he came across the ad selling an arm wrestling table. He read the ad again.
“An arm wrestling table! That has got to be the ultimate redneck item. Who needs something like that,” he laughed and tossed the paper aside.
With the family gone for a couple days, the ad for the arm wrestling table stayed where he tossed it. It grabbed his attention when he sat down later to pick up his Bible for his daily devotions.

What did an arm wrestling table look like anyway? He shrugged off the thought and opened the Bible — but his eyes turned again to the ad.
“Lord, is this is from you? I don’t understand. I don’t have $250 to spend on an arm wrestling table that I don’t need.”
But the gentle nudge persisted.

He called the number in the ad hoping no one would answer or that the table had already been sold.
Someone answered. They still had the table and they had someone heading Roger’s direction with a truck who could bring the table to him.
Still wondering ‘why’ he was doing it, he agreed to buy the table sight unseen.
After it arrived, Cheshier definitely did not know what to do with the square table with its the elbow pads for resting the wrestling arm, foam cushions ready to catch an arm slammed into submission and grab bars on either side of the table for the contender’s other arm and hand.
“I didn’t know why I bought the thing. I just knew I was supposed to do it,” Roger shook his head in disbelief as he told his story.

Then he heard of an acquaintance dealing with the mounting costs of a terminal illness. He wanted to give the guy something to help with his living expenses.
That desire merged with the arm wrestling table in a conversation with mutual friends. They talked about an arm wrestling competition to help raise some funds for the guy. “I knew nothing about how to organize an arm wrestling tournament or even who might be interested. But, everyone thought it would be a great idea,” Roger remembered in dismay. The idea began to take on a life of its own.
“I said, ‘Lord, I just can’t do this. I just finished building a building. I’ve got to get the stress off me.’ I told God, ‘I am plum worn out and I don’t know how to go about doing this.”
But he felt God pressing him on anyway. “He let me know ‘it ain’t about you, Roger. I am going to do it through you’,” Roger recalls.

“We will do it even if I don’t understand why or how,” Roger decided. “I had no idea how to go about organizing an arm wrestling competition, no more than the man in the moon.”
“I stepped back and watched. He (God) touched people I did not know gave a rip about anybody. People called and got mad because they wanted to help and I hadn’t asked them. ‘You gotta have something to eat’ someone said. I had no plans for food. They said ‘we will handle it.’ The whole event just kinda took off. Folks just started coming out of the wall,” Roger recalled.
One guy said he knew how to organize an arm wrestling competition. Roger told him to go ahead and do that. An official arm wrestling referee in Smackover offered to referee at no cost to help raise funds for the man.

Other people came to Roger and angrily asked, “Why didn’t you tell me? I would have helped.”
“Man, I don’t know what I’m doing or who to ask,” Roger defended himself and they found ways they could volunteer. Winner trophies were donated. All the trimmings for the fish fry and food prep were donated. Competitors signed up to arm wrestle.
With little input from Roger, the arm wrestling competition took off, took place and took in more than four times what Roger had hoped to raise for his friend.
“We had the arm wrestling table, the contestants, the referees and the food. We raised enough money to help out this guy.”

Looking back on that event – and a susequent fundraiser for another family in need – Roger said, “it wasn’t me doing anything except going with this crazy idea to buy that arm wrestling table which I did not need or want. It was God doing it.”
“When you stay tuned in with God, when you trust and obey Him, you might think He is pointing you to do something out of sorts. But, when He is in charge, it is His results. When you get intimate with God, He works it out,” Roger said reflecting his years of tuning in and aiming to walk God's way.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)

Dedicated dads made the difference in the lives of Ryan Sparks and Lorenzo Odone.
Ryan Sparks, second son of best selling author Nicholas Sparks, spent a year going from one medical clinic to another as his parents sought to understand why he did not speak. Each time a different diagnosis labeled him inadequately as deaf, autistic or learning disabled. With each diagnosis, Nicholas Sparks found and read as many books as he could find about his son’s current diagnostic condition. He researched symptoms and the treatments suggested for an optimum outcome.

In his autobiography “Three Weeks With My Brother” Nicholas Sparks writes the best fit for Ryan’s symptoms settled into an illusive “dyslexia of hearing.” Ryan experienced difficulty processing sounds, especially speech. By the year’s end, he and his wife, Cathy, did not so much want a diagnosis as they wanted an end to their son’s world of silence. One evening, filled with fearful frustration, Cathy told Nicholas that she sat up nights afraid that Ryan would never participate in the activities of a normal life, never speak, never have a friend.
Sending his wife on a much needed a break from everything, Nicholas stayed home with the children and set up a learning center for Ryan based on his year of research of various therapies. For a week he focused on Ryan. The first day he spent eight hours saying, “Apple” to Ryan, showing him the picture and rewarding him with tidbits for any effort to repeat the word.

After two hours Ryan screamed and kicked, after four hours he said, “ap” after eight he could say, “Apple.” Nicholas knew his son did not understand the word, but he had said it.
The next day Nicholas worked on “I love you” until Ryan could say “I wuv you” on the phone to his mom that evening. From that week on Sparks wrote, “I ... started working with my son Ryan, trying to ‘re- wire’ his brain, so to speak, through intensive therapy. I spent three to four hours a day teaching him the mechanics of speech in the hopes of aiding his development and getting him to talk. It was just about the hardest and yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

Ryan’s parents sent him off to school with bated breath, unsure if the home therapy had been enough. It was. Ryan’s teachers never asked for a conference to discuss his learning disabilities. He fit in with the rest of his class and developed his own group of friends.
The Odone’s never had a any hope for a happily ever after outcome for their son’s disorder — adrenoleukodystrophy — a rare, genetic disorder found in boys that leads to progressive brain damage, failure of the adrenal glands and inevitably death. Typically, death comes within a couple years after diagnosis, most died by the age of 10.

Augusto Odone and his wife Michaela lived in the Washington D.C. area. With a personal urgency to stop the cascade of symptoms, they took turns spending hundreds of hours in the National Library researching even the most obscure references to Lorenzo’s illness or its symptoms. They invested their own money searching for a treatment, talked with experts from around the world and badgered the doctors to consider a new protocol on their son when they found an idea that might slow and stop the inevitable march to the grave.

When they found complex oils that might slow or stop the degeneration, the Odones called related industries around the world searching someone to manufacture the derivatives of the oils needed. The first one oil proved effective for a while. The second stopped his decline.
He did not die in a couple years. He re-gained enough of his lost facilities to communicate to his parents that inside his severely disabled body he could hear and understand.
Because of Augusto Odone’s persistence and work with the doctors, scientists increased their understanding of the illness and refocused their search for a potential treatment.
Odone’s persistence helped the doctors develop a protocol that retarded the physical decline in thousands of boys around the world. Lorenzo lived one day past his 30th birthday, thanks to his father’s dedication.

Some people sit around and complain about the bad hand life has dealt them. Some have a laundry list of excuses why they can’t do anything to change their circumstances. Others get busy, study the situation, learn everything possible about the problem and work to change what they can.

Some of those people are dedicated dads who will do anything humanly possible to make a difference in their children’s lives.

I snagged the coupon for a free smoothie at a fast food restaurant in a recent El Dorado News-Times. I like sales and advertised specials, but I especially enjoy a free item or service and will go out of my way just because something is free.
So I immediately understood my friend's determination to get the free oil change which the dealership threw in with their purchase of a car earlier this year. An oil change is not cheap. Definitely that is one freebie anyone could use, especially the new owners of a car who fully intend to keep their vehicle in excellent condition.
So, of course, they had to take advantage of the free oil change. They made plans to have it done one Saturday and mentioned their plans to a neighbor, "We have to go to back to Shreveport to get the free oil change from the dealership," they announced. Their neighbors stared at them quizzically.
"You will spend more on gas just driving to and from Shreveport than the cost of an oil change at home," someone noted.
"Yes, but we will go shopping while we are there and have time to visit the malls and stores that we don't have here and then go out to eat out at a different place," the wife explained.
Her friend nodded knowingly. Going to the metropolitan area and eating out was enough excuse for her, add in the free oil change and it made perfect sense.
Besides eating out, the new car owner's husband had his own shopping list of items he had been pricing for a while and the neighbor had ideas for their trip. "Well, if you are going anyway, do you suppose you could stop at the John Deere place and pick up a part for my mower?" he asked.
They agreed and took instructions for finding the shop.
They left early enough to have time to shop after the free oil change. But first, they left the Interstate for a quick side trip to pick-up with their neighbor's mower part. Peering out the window, reading street signs, my friend's husband slowed and stared.
"Hey! There's a place with RVs," her husband pointed at the lot. "Let's stop and look. I just want to know what kind of prices they have."
"Okay, we can do that for a few minutes," she agreed thinking about everything she wanted to do. The swung in, parked, climbed out and began perusing the lot.
They explored, talked, viewed and checked out several RVs. Quite a while later, they returned to their car the proud new owners of their own RV. They just needed to return with a large enough vehicle with a hitch to haul it home.
By the time they picked up the mower part and arrived at the car dealership, the line of customers ahead of them waiting for service meant too long of a wait for their free oil change. They set up an appointment to return another week for the free oil change and left for the promised dinner out and shopping trip.
Back home that evening, the husband looked at his truck and considered its pulling power against the size of the RV they now owned — which still sat on the lot in Louisiana.
"I think I need to buy a bigger truck before we go get it. This one may not be strong enough," he said.
Time enough for that before the next time they head south for that free oil change — and whatever else crosses their path.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)

Babies refuse to cooperate with the best laid plans of parents and physicians for their birthday party.

For the first baby my St. Louis daughter-in-love planned everything natural from birth to food. Then the stress of finishing school and working combined with a baby just a bit off center resulted in surgery that possibly interfered with natural food production.

Their eight and-a-half pound daughter arrived healthy, energetic and feisty – ready to show her parents that not even a stack of books on parenting could prepare them for the reality of the cute, little charmer with a will of her own. At two-and-a-half, she knows her colors: Green, blue, yeddow and "Elmo color." She knows where she likes to hang out, "Go Applebees. I not hungry, I go to Applebees." She can jump, turn somersaults and told her parents she definitely wanted a "brudder."
Well she got her "brudder" last week — and he also refused to cooperate with the best laid plans for his birth.

Via the ultrasound, the physician estimated his weight at 7-and-a-half pounds and growing. He too would top eight pounds.
"How likely am I to deliver naturally?" his mom wanted to know.
Considering his projected size and the previous birth’s failure to progress and the doctor thought not too likely.

Given his daddy's work schedule of scattered 12-hour shifts and the likeliness that it would be a C-section, his parents decided to schedule surgery. They asked for Saturday to accommodate Dad's time off. The doctor agreed to skip her book club meeting for the birthday party.

They called to tell us, "If nothing happens before then, we will have the baby July 10." I commiserated with them, but eagerly anticipated the birth of the 15th grandchild — our third grandson.
They settled into a busy week at the pharmacy and finishing final preparations for the baby. I settled into a my week of work and hanging out with my house guests of the month — at least I did until Wednesday evening when the phone rang.
"We have a baby. He arrived at 4:45 this afternoon," my daughter-in-love announced cheerfully. "I guess I had better be careful what I pray for, I did not want to have a C-section and I didn't get one."

"What?" I could not comprehend it. The original due date was 12 days away. The C-section wasn't until Saturday.
She said she woke up from her afternoon nap feeling like she might be having a baby. She wasn't sure, so she called her mom, a nurse.
"Call the doctor," her mom said.
"Go to the hospital," the doctor said.
“I’ve got to find a replacement,” my son said and began searching for a someone to finish out his 12-hour shift in the pharmacy.

“I’m not waiting for your replacement,” his son said.
The other grandmother took her daughter and granddaughter to the hospital. She estimated afterwards that they were at the hospital less than an hour before the child made his grand entrance while big sister played in the waiting room with an acquaintance.
The eight-pound baby boy came quickly and naturally.
"How much does he weigh? What's his name?" I asked. My son previously told us we had to wait until the baby was born to know his name.
"He weighs 8 pounds and 6/10th of an ounce. I don't know his name, I am still waiting on Nathan to get here and tell me."

I asked my son how he felt about missing the big event, "It is, what it is," he said. When his replacement finally came, he went by their house to gather forgotten items such as the camera.
He walked into the hospital room and announced, "His name is Samuel Davis Hershberger, but we'll call him Junior," he teased thinking of Sammy Davis, Jr. the entertainer.

"We'll call him Sam or Samuel," his wife informed him.
Once things settled down, the new mom laughed and said "Sam had gotten his eviction notice and decided he wasn't going to be kicked out – so he got out on his own – in a speedy way."

A few days later she happily informed me that this time she will not have to hassle with washing, sterilizing and filling baby bottles to haul around in the diaper bag.
Like every newborn, the boy has his days and nights mixed up, but with two-and-a-half years of parenting behind them his parents have learned a few ways to get babies to cooperate – even those who defy the best laid plans of parents and physicians.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)

"Slave mart calling. We need two boys,” the neighbor kid chanted as he leaned over the wall to watch my guys shovel dirt on yet another day of summer vacation.
I resembled that statement. The guys had to pitch in and help the two summers we worked to expand our Michigan basement to a full basement. The project meant a lot of work, we all knew that — but I still resented the remark.

I did not consider the work ‘slavery’ but simply living out an unwritten rule ingrained in me by my parents: All those under their roof, accepting their food and shelter would work first and play later — and everyone helps with the work.
No one said, “you can go play as soon as you finish your chores.” We just knew it. I thought everyone knew that rule. So while learning to write friendly letters in sixth-grade, I wrote one to my cousin inviting her to visit, promising, “We will go play as soon as we finish the dishes and housework.”

That sentence caught my teacher’s eye. She singled it out to read to the other children as a good example. It took me years to figure out ‘why’ she did that because I assumed everyone knew that chores always came before sitting down to read a book or going off to play.

As a parent, I quickly discovered otherwise. The call to “Come do the dishes” frequently generates the response, “Hold on while I finish this game.”
Not my favorite response to hear.
The rule came back to mind a couple weeks ago when our summer plans suddenly included hosting granddaughters and their single father for a few weeks this summer.
Hey! I like company, but I do agree with Ben Franklin who said that house guests are like fish — they both stink after three days.

After three days, my incentive to host evaporates — and I do not consider it slavery or bad manners to expect help from any adult or children hanging around that long.
Helping out benefits everyone — just as digging that huge hole under our house benefited our energetic teenager and his brothers. Yes, we deprived the boys of the privilege of whiling away their summer vacation lifting weights to build up their muscles. We kept them occupied swinging the pick-ax, thrusting a shovel into the earth and swinging it around to toss dirt up onto the dirt elevator. Hauling cinder blocks to build a supporting wall will never rank high at the local gyms, but it did build muscles, a sense of pride and satisfaction at completing a project.
And the less than idyllic summer worked wonders for the teen’s muscles, his coordination and male bonding with his father. Plus, in the fall his coach praised his physical improvement.

So when I heard of our summer visitors, I tapped into my childhood history and three decades of parenting. I knew what to do. We had folks coming to stay. The old folks at home can use all the help they can get before hauling kids off to summer fun events. I stepped back from the stove, the mop bucket and the wash machine. My retired husband's promise of a freshly painted exterior by fall suddenly had many hands to help him reach that goal.
Saturday I began working on a promised quilt with the recipient right there to help me plan, cut and sew.

Monday they began power washing the house.
Thursday, the crew left early to go pick blueberries. By the time I walked in after work, we had our supply of berries in the freezer for the next year and the children and their father were working on a fresh blueberry pie.
It’s not a trip to Disney’s Frontierland, just real life and hopefully building good memories of feats accomplished, skills learned and insights into a few more cooking and sewing techniques to sustain them as they quickly approach adulthood.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)

"I walked in the bedroom and she was climbing up the ladder to the top bunk,” my daughter’s shocked voice conveyed her disbelief at seeing her 13-month-old daughter joyfully grasping the ladder's rung.

Such safety issues did not come into play with her son – he uses his time observing as he did when carpenters came to install energy efficient windows. Pulling out his tool box, he followed them around and copied them with his tools. He especially studied the hairy carpenter with a big handlebar mustache. The lad pointed him out to his mother, “That guy is not pretty. He is tough.”
That guy just smiled.
Another day a full white beard caught boy’s eye. He just had to go over and ask, “Are you Santa Claus?”

“You never know, so you better obey your mother,” the jolly old elf said.
This pre-schooler tries to obey. He also tries to help, but when he wanted to help fix supper and everything involved a hot stove, his mom reached into the cupboard and pulled out a hand crank mixer, a bit of flour, measuring spoons and cups. “You know what you can do? Take these, go in the bathroom and mix it up.”
Long after supper his daddy walked into the bathroom and saw the mixer, measuring cups, spoons and wet flour, “What were you making in here, Son?”
“Oh, a mess.”

That grandson calls'em as he sees'em, including gravity. His toy kept falling off its perch as they traveled in the car. Frustrated, he fiercely scolded, “Gravity! If you do that again, I will not let you come here anymore.”
He will learn — as will his sister. She likes the forbidden pieces of chalk on the easel. “She sticks one in her mouth, comes up next to me, looks at me with the chalk in her mouth, shaking her head “No, no, no,” my daughter said. Relieved of the chalk, the tiny toddler walks away only to return, shaking her head with another mouthful of chalk.

She began hearing and learning, “No!” when she discovered ground level snacks in the cat’s dish. Before the cat came to live with me, the dish moved out of her sneaky hand.
Little ones pick-up everything, including everything we say. The St. Louis mama said the words ‘monkey grass’ one day. Two weeks later her two-year-old suddenly began talking about ‘monkey grass’ as if she had just heard it.

That same child recently discovered glass, sliding doors. First, she bumped into the glass trying to walk through the door. After that, each time she approached the door, she reached out to feel the invisible glass and practiced sliding the door open and shut, open and shut. Her year older cousin held his own scientific study flicking switches on and off.
Visiting with little ones is always a mixed bag. My grandson frequently asks, “Can we go home now?” almost as soon as he walks in the door after eagerly anticipating the visit for days. A 5 year-old visitor did the same thing. The minute the friend arrived, he hid behind his mother and said very little the entire visit. But, “as soon as he got in the car he said, ‘hey! When can we go back?’” his mother later reported.

Visiting children bring their own personalities and interests. My son’s energetic family of four drove from Pennsylvania visiting folks in the Midwest. At our house these older grandchildren made a diving board out of the grilling table. They ran the short length and jumped feet first into the deep wading pool. One uncle they visited watched them explore his house, discover the shelves with a couple hundred books, pick some to read and plop down contentedly to read for hours. “All they did was read!” the uncle observed.

But then reading is our family shtick. Even before they can talk, children quickly find their favorite picture books. The Little Rock grandson wanted to hear David Shannon’s book, “No, David, No!” several times a day. His cousin discovered “Stomp, Stomp” by Bob Kolar. She “read” it aloud recently — with all her mother’s verbal inflections.

That’s the wonder of living with children, we never know how much they learn, nor what they will do to make life more interesting, exciting or even a bit dangerous.

I am posting this here as a reminder to myself of all the quilts I remember making over the years. I had forgotten several when counting up the number for my daughter. Some I actually have recorded with pictures.

1. The brown and yellow picnic blanket from remnants at the sewing factory. Joseph's mother made a couple floor covering rugs from the long strings of fabric. This one we wore out to shreds.
2 - 3. Two baby sized quilts: one from the good parts of Tim and Randy's pj's which I sewed over a tired baby quilt and tied off. Tim took it to kindergarten and enjoyed sticking his hands in the pockets I left on the fabric. Another from remnants of flannel used to make pj's for the boys. Tim's wore out, the other had newer fabrics on top and bottom.
4. A quilt with foot square blocks in red, green and white for my grandparents 50th anniversary. I saw the neighbor's anniversary quilt with all the names embroidered on it and thought it would be fun to make one. I mentioned it to my dad or mom and Dad kept asking me about it until I got it done. My aunts and mom and sister and other women did their family's blocks. I asked MJ for help, but he ignored me until I was finished. Then he saw Janes and did up another whole set for me to stitch for each of us. The center had a lot of holly outlines and something about their wedding date and names of their parents.
I had it quilted loosely by a local woman and her mother that I met through Bible Study Fellowship. Her thumb was poked full of holes from having used the needle so much.
5. A 50th anniversary quilt for Joseph's parents' 50th wedding anniversary done in fall colors: autumn gold, olive green, rust, cream and light yellow. The center piece had the outline of a horn of plenty. I did most of the stitching on that because the other women did not do that sort of thing. Then Charlotte and her friends quilted it off. Charlotte thought I had not stitched some of the loose lines enough, but her friend told her it would last for her life-time. And it did. Joe took a good look at it as it sat in the frame and said, "She did a lot of work on that."
6. A 40th wedding anniversary quilt for my parents designed as a Monopoly board in honor of all the games we played growing up. Each block around the outside represented a place we had lived or a significant event or events such as when we each graduated. The center had a wheel of colors for each family.
7. A quilt for Pat Hankins, small lap quilt with a nativity panel on one side and 6 pillow blocks on the other side.
8. A baby quilt for Heidi I made with Sharon with the story of Noah? on one side and decorations of hearts on the other side. Maroon colors.
9. A baby quilt Sharon and I made for Elijah with a road map on one side and a cloth book about bugs on the other side.
10. A baby quilt with Sharon for her friend that had a book on one side and a map on the other? All the baby quilts we machine stitched at the house.
11. A wedding quilt for Heidi that I called "Child's Play" with a collection of cross stitch done in primary colors, reversible with navy and a rainbow of stitching bordered with harlequin. It began as a reversible using the quilt that eventually became Brit's.
12. A wedding quilt for Brittany with scenes of various cities in the U.S. outlined as at night time. I did some cross stitch of cars, trains, planes and used others I had for this including one that was a cross stitch of New Orleans and a semi-truck. I had a road running around it that we did with black using white bias tape for the lines in the road. It was backed with a complimentary pattern of night time outlines of cities all hodge podged together.
13. A Precious Moments quilt for Patti and Randy done in bright Easter Colors of yellow, green, purple and pink. I used cross stitch blocks I had previously made with each of their names and a centerpiece of three bunnies on blocks for the initials of their three daughters. Plus, it had some bears from the same designer. All of their quilts were done at Greencroft.
14. A baby/toddler quilt for Elijah in the cowboy themes that Sharon used for his nursery. It turned out twice a big as it was supposed to be. I lined it with flannel so it was very useable. I stitched half a dozen one-nighter pix of cowboy items: hat, boots, cactus and a center piece of a little boy riding on a rocking horse. Afterwards I made a "Wanted baby Schulte for stealing our hearts" pillow to go with it.
15. A baby quilt that Jane and Sharon and I made with Suzy for Jane's first grandchild, using the first of the cross stitch pieces I found at yard sales.
16. A bed sized quilt that Jane made for her bedroom while we visited in Arizona. She used a lot of hunting designs and themes and then tied it off. She bought the fabric at Walmart and stood there sorting through the fat quarters picking and switching what she wanted. We appliqued coordinating designs on some of the blocks.
17. A t-shirt quilt that I helped Sharon Joy make from favorite shirts belonging to her and Jacob. A new idea that we waded our way through, developing the idea as we went. It is cozy comforter that we knotted off.
18. A t-shirt quilt that we made for a friend of Sharon's; small, a memorial for a deceased husband's family.
19. A baby quilt for Lily using appliqued teddy bears and cross stitch teddy bear pictures. I did some hand quilting stitching the names of each child beneath the applique bears. I had it about done when I found a cross stitch I liked better for the top: one with four little bears, so I took out the block I had and re-did all of that.
20. Lindsay and I figured out what I call a Crayon Quilt with rows of blocks of colors on one side and a black and white crazy check on the other with inset pix of cats in black and white, including a Siamese cat and kittens pix in the center.
21. Sharon Lee and Sharon Joy took the 12 small cross stitch pieces I made to go with the Fairy Princess quilt for Caroline and made a full sized quilt in purple, yellow and pink gingham check. The center piece was a kit depicting flying fairies I found somewhere and thought it would look just right with the fabric Sharon Joy chose for the room.
22. My Arkansas of the past quilt done with 72 6-inch squares that I found at yard sales or thrift shops ... except the 9 I made from kits, one-nighter patterns or found in books or magazines that fit the country Arkansas film. The design was "I Spy with a Twist" a pattern Sharon Joy brought me from Alaska. I kept changing and adding to the 72 pieces, including taking out blocks after they were sewn very securely in place.

Such a loud scream from such a little kid.
"I can't do it. It hurts!"

My heart went out to the child. And I would have believed the child with a cast on leg broken at the playground except ... except, well I just didn't think that a week after a simple break disabled the entire body, no matter how awful it felt.
So I looked at the tiny tike in my care for the day and decided it was time for The Little Engine that Could. The engine that went chugging up the mountain puffing, "I think I can, I think I can" and rolled down the mountain singing, "I thought I could, I thought I could."

I looked at the pathetic puddle of pain, sat down on the ground myself and cheered the whimpering one into trying a new way to move: Scooting along on her bottom with one leg pushing and the other up in the air.

The younger sibling, just learning to walk, grinned and joined us on the floor. We skedaddled as a trio down the hall to the bathroom and then the two slid around house on their bottoms for the rest of the day. I heard no more about the horrible pain ... until their momma returned.

As soon as the door opened, the child reverted to whimpering and whining and crying. She could not possibly go over to the other side of the room to greet her mother. That was just too hard. It hurt too much.

Although the mother had been tip toeing around pain filled cries for days, I reassured her that the child had smiled, laughed and scooted everywhere on her bottom the entire day. But, only the pathetic pleas caught the mother's ear. She scooped up her child and gently carried her pain riddled child to the car and drove gingerly home.

It's easy to believe every pitiful whine from a child. Even with years of experience, it happens to me all the time. I am swept away with their misery, their bold statements and their emphatic insistences that they can not do something.
My education otherwise began before I married. My fiancé supervised pre-school aged nephews preparing to spend a night at their grandmother's house. He told them to grab their little suitcases and take them upstairs to their bedrooms.

The four-year-old grabbed his little suitcase, threw it over his back, holding it with one hand, he came whining to us in the kitchen, "I can't do it. I can't carry my suitcase."

I started to reach for the suitcase. My guy said, "he already is carrying it."
I looked. Right. So the child was.

For months we heard and accommodated the pathetic story that one grandchild absolutely could NOT take her nightly pill without milk. We figured otherwise, but pill swallowing can be an issue for some folks. Then we landed in a cabin at camp for the night with running water only and no milk in sight. In the blink of an eye without one peep or query about milk, the child gulped that pill down with water without a whimper and went to bed. So much for that "I can't do it do it" when she was at our house — although I heard months later that she still maintained the same miserable mandate at home.

As a child, my son refused, choked, vomited and made quite a scene every time he had to take medicine. We got the medication down him when necessary, but mostly stuck with the universal cure of lots of fluids and plenty of sleep for his childhood illnesses. As an adult he developed a serious illness which necessitated he absolutely must take pills a couple times a day. From no pills he began taking many every day, all without a whimper.

Years ago, taking junior high students on a field trip, I mentioned the restaurant where we planned to stop.

"Oh no! Not there. They serve just awful food," the most outspoken girl protested.
Mentally, I veered away from that restaurant, but before I could say anything, the trip planner took us there anyway. As the kids unloaded at that awful restaurant, I heard that same teenager say, "well they do have some nice baskets" — which the child ordered and proceeded to eat happily and completely. And to think I almost asked to change our plans for her. Lesson learned.

I could go on, but I kind of enjoy being a grandparent, allowed to simply sit back, pretend I have it all figured out and watch someone else teach the lesson of the "Little Engine that Could."
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)

After more than 60 years my husband checked off the final item on his list. He visited his 50th state: North Dakota, that obscure state with low unemployment on the Canadian border.
His check list began in 1951 with his father's surprise extension of a short trip from their home state of Indiana to Kentucky and Tennessee (3 states, 1 country - the USA). Quite unannounced and seemingly unplanned, his dad took the family to Washington D.C. traveling through North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Penn. New York City, NY and back home through Ohio. (11 states).
His senior class trip in 1959 to Washington D.C. added West Virginia (12 states).
In 1960, he and his friends took a camping trip around the three of the five Great Lakes, including time in Canada which added Michigan (13 states, 2 countries).
In 1965, he took off on a camping trip west traveling through Illinois and Wisconsin that included South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah (19 states).
He traveled to Minnesota to see his sister in college, (20 states).
This lists skips over the innumerable trips to visit family in various states, but it does include the trip Disneyland in 1975, with a three-month-old. We loaded up the family station wagon and headed west and checked off Missouri, Oklahoma, California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and across the corner of Arkansas (so we could count having been in the state) and back home again to Indiana. Oh yes, and that trip included a brief excursion across the border to Tijuana, Mexico (28 states, 3 countries).
We tucked in a Christmas trip to Disney World in 1980 when I was expecting our last child. Driving through the night, we went through Alabama, Mississippi and stopped in New Orleans, La. for the night before heading off to Florida and back home through Georgia (33 states).
In 1981 with a 7-week-old child, my husband's supervisor wanted him to go to Massachusetts for training with more than a week between the two sessions. My guy talked the company into allowing him to combine his travel money and time with his vacation time. We spent a month traveling and camping in the upper northeast part of the U.S. including a stop to climb up to the top of the statue of Liberty before checking off: Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. While he studied, I stayed with the children in a tent trailer in a charming park with a lake. Between his two weeks of study we went to see the 46-feet changing of the tide along the Atlantic coast, meandered up to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, then went home through Niagara Falls, Ontario and Michigan (39 states, 3 countries, 3 provinces in Canada.)
In 1983 we went to South Carolina to the oldest son's graduation from basic training in the Army (40 states).
In 1989, between jobs, he said, "let's go west and see the national parks." In less than three weeks, we saw 17 parks, 3 families of relatives and at least crossed the borders to add Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and back to Arkansas via the southern part of the country. He had a wonderful trip (47 states).
Church and business trips to Mexico tallied up 6 states in Mexico. Trips with grandchildren and exchange students have taken him to Washington D.C. four, or is that six times? I do lose track of these things after a while. A business trip sent him to England for a week (4 countries for him).
In 2003, we unexpectedly landed in Alaska in the middle of the night to re-fuel before flying to Indonesia. We looked at the stuffed polar bear, peered out at the shadow of Mount McKinley and snapped pictures of it with the sun shining as we flew over it on our way home via a layover in Taiwan. (48 states, 6 countries.)
A couple years ago we went to Hawaii and celebrated the oldest son's 25th wedding anniversary with a renewal of vows on the beach (49 states).
I thought that we had all 50 states.
I was wrong. We didn't have North Dakota. I knew I had been there. My brother verified that my traveling father had taken us there in the 1960s.
My husband wanted to check off that 50th state for himself. I did not particularly want to travel that far just to check of a state.
I suggested he go to North Dakota and help build a house with Habitat for Humanity.
It took him about two seconds to begin making arrangements. Traveling with the second oldest son, he headed north a month ago. They helped frame in a duplex and when the weather turned surly, they headed south to Dinosaur National Park. He came home a day shy of four weeks, loaded with stories, souvenirs, pictures and a big, "Thank you for letting me go" (50 states, 6 countries).
He had a grand time. As did I — I stayed home and sewed.
This morning he told me that he had visited 50 states and 6 countries to my 5. I missed his week in England. I think I can live with that.
I'm not sure he can.
(Enjoying her easy chair, Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org)

My daughter and her 3-year-old stood by a backyard fountain watching the bubbling water. She began explaining to the child the pumps, pipes and water pressure involved.
The owner listened and gently laughed — obviously the child was too young to understand. Then she did a double take, “He really understands!”
“Of course,” my daughter said.
Later, my daughter told me, “Mom, he wants to know how everything works. If you find a book about toilets and sewers, get it.”
I found a 1960s children's book on sewers. It cost a couple hundred dollars.
“I guess I could take out the repair manual to show him,” she said.
Kindergarten is years away, but I already know this child will be ready. He has “The Reading Mother” as Strickland Gillian described in his poem which ends:
“You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be -
I had a mother who read to me.”
With the huge variety books in retail stores, public libraries and the abundance of used books to be found at yard sales, any child can have books.
But not all do.
My daughter mentioned studies from the Handbook of Early Literacy Research. It references the knowledge gap which parallels the income gap in our society. The printed word is linked with increased knowledge and a larger vocabulary and abstract reasoning.
Poor families and communities typically lack the resources for books, newspapers and magazines. Examining four neighborhoods, two poor and two middle-income, we found stark and triangulated differences in access to materials between poor and middle-income neighborhoods,” the researchers wrote and went on to say, “Middle income children had multiple opportunities to observe, use and purchase books. There were 13 titles per individual child. Few such occasions were available to low-income kids who had an estimated ... one book for every 300 children.”
My daughter read that statistic to her husband. He observed that they personally, probably owned at least 300 children's books.
The lack of literary resources goes beyond the home. Children in poor communities had limited access to libraries compared to children in middle-income neighborhoods. In poor communities the researchers found that the school libraries were closed or even boarded up.
Consider that the next time we hear the statistics about the poor reading levels of children in Union County and weigh it against the number of hours our children have access to a public library on week nights or on Saturdays. If we really want to raise the reading and comprehension levels of our students, we need get it right and agree to a tax increase that will open the library so that even parents working two jobs can access the books during their off-work hours.
And, kudos to Fairview Head Start which last week launched the Joint Venture Literacy Project engaging parents as academic mentors to strengthen the foundations of local pre-schoolers.
As a parent make sure that those caring for your children read to them also. According to the study, a survey of 300 centers found that on average fewer than one or two books were available per child – and the majority of those books were of mediocre quality.
Why does it matter? After all, we have Sesame Street, the Internet and animated stories on DVDs.
It matters because children who have fewer experiences with new, different or more sophisticated words outside of their day-to-day encounters are less likely to learn about their world and less likely to learn how to transfer information from print to application.
The idea is not new. In 1943 Betty Smith wrote her fictionalized autobiography, “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” set in the early 1900s. She records the dilemma of a poor new mother asking how to improve her child's life. The grandmother advises, “The secret lies in the reading and the writing. ... Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child ... until the child learns to read. Then she must read every day.” She recommends reading Shakespeare and The Bible. An aunt buys a discarded copy of the complete works of Shakespeare from the library, steals a Gideon Bible from a hotel and the reading begins. Even though initially neither the adults nor the children understand much, by the time the children enter high school they do and they have read Shakespeare and the Bible innumerable times — plus they have discovered the library.
A more recent example is portrayed in “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” the son of a black, poor, single mother. After his mother turned off the television and demanded two weekly book reports, Ben Carson went from an academic failure to our nation's foremost pediatric neurosurgeon practicing at Johns Hopkins.
If we really want to enrich our children, it begins with opening books, early and often. Enriching children with books, enriches the community in a multitude of ways and we can't afford to not invest ourselves to that end.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times. E-mail her at joanh@everybody.org.)