Hey Raven, steal some sun for me, okay?
Raven Steals the Sun, by Preston Singletary
National Museum of the American Indian
Hey Raven, steal some sun for me, okay?
Raven Steals the Sun, by Preston Singletary
National Museum of the American Indian
It seems like nothing has been easy lately.
Work projects that should take minutes have taken hours. There's always a problem, a glitch, a hangup. Applications crash or I forget some detail or a mic battery dies.
My body simply will not cooperate with me. My shoulder aches and aches and aches, so I take a painkiller and then can't wake up properly. I overdo the caffeine one day and a bad dizzy spell overtakes me. My stomach rebelled after lunch today. I can't sleep, yet all I want to do is sleep.
I get some Christmas shopping done online, but it looks like the stuff won't ship until awfully late. Or am I just reading the information wrong? Who knows.
I seem to get sad too often. It overtakes me when I least expect it.
The day began with fog. It blurred the sun and hung over the fields and the warehouses as we drove to the subway. Somehow it was very peaceful and I felt a little better.
The fog burned off as the morning wore on toward noon and I slogged my way through a simple task, a simple task that I somehow had to force myself to finish. The sun came out. As I gazed out the window near my cubicle a jay landed on the bare branches.
I finished the task and another nitpicky project (that took far longer than it should have) and it was time to go home. The train came quickly. It wasn't raining or terribly cold. Joe picked me up and smiled at me and fixed me a steak dinner.
In four days I start my end of the year, two-week vacation. I guess it's just a mood. I'll be fine.
Here's a beautiful church, Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church. It's made almost entirely of hemlock. It's one of the many, many churches and houses of worship located along New Hampshire Avenue in Maryland. I think it's particularly striking against this winter landscape.
I was going through the Blue Steel Box O' Records* looking for info to help me with Mom's Medicaid application when I found my Pop's Navy service record.
Pop enlisted in the Navy in February of 1944, when he was 35 years old. World War II was still raging in both Europe and the Pacific. He had previously tried to enlist in the Army, but was turned down because he failed the physical.
Question 8 on the application says: State in full your reason for making application at this particular time (include reason for choice of the Navy in preference to other services)
Pop's answer: Consider present status not essential to war effort - have no particular preference, want to enlist where I will be able to do most good
My father, at age 35, married with two kids, wanted to leave his good job with the Federal Housing Administration to serve his country, even though he didn't have to, even though he'd already been turned down.
Well, the Navy wasn't as picky as the Army and they welcomed him into the Naval Reserves as a Lieutenant Junior Grade. He served aboard merchant ships, leading the Navy contingent on them. According to his record, he served on the S.S. William Pepper, the S.S. Trevillian, and the S.S. ESSO, Concord.
He was officer, psychologist, doctor, censor, and pretty much everything to his men. One time, a sailor came to see him, nervous as all get-out. The sailor finally blurted out, "A friend of mine thinks he might have gotten the clap." (Let's face it; sailors have been sailors for centuries.)
And Pop said, "Well, pull out your friend and let's have a look."
He had to censor the sailors' letters home to ensure that there were no references to their location. Of course, the sailors tried all kinds of ways to let their families know where they were. One kid wrote: "I can't tell you where we are, but if Papa were here he could speak the language." Pop used to cut the offending phrases out of the letters with a big pair of scissors. One sailor's mother wrote him back and said, "Next time, just send the holes."
*The Blue Steel Box O' Records is a fireproof file box with Mom and Pop's important information. I remember it from when I was a kid; now I have custody of it.