Britt Decker, our host at www.ethicalela.com today for the Open Write, shares a prompt that proves that we walk by thousands of writing opportunities everyday. We walk in them, past them, heck – we wear them! She shows us how to take a t-shirt from our closet with words, a picture, or a memory that will inspire poetry. It's as simple as going to the closet and considering all the possibilities. I love how her t-shirts inspire a poem about her own need of distance between work and play. Read the prompt here, and consider writing with us. I bought a t-shirt at the NCTE conference in Anaheim, California last November with a message I enjoy sharing – your story matters. My poem is a 3x5 today - short and simple like an index card - three lines, five syllables.
Your Story Matters
you’re a child in God’s
great universe so
your story matters
Today’s guest blogger is my father, Reverend Dr. Wilson Felix Haynes, Jr.
ON BROWNIES AND GOBLINS
I did not know anything about Brownies and Goblins until I ”stumbled” into a 1915 grade school textbook entitled The Brownies and the Goblins by N.M. Bantlay. To add enhancement to my early education, I did a quick read-scan of the well-illustrated volume, beautifully crafted. I came to understand their profile.
Brownies, or Hobgoblins, evolved in Scottish lore. They are fabled household spirits who are domestically inclined. They come out at night while households sleep and do beneficial tasks. These welcome visitors oversee needed chores, deplore slovenly work, prod the lazy, and are experts in hiding. Brownies are mostly male and appear in a characteristic form as little thick people. Scottish homes left cookies and cream to assuage their temperamental nature. Handle them with care!
The Brownies’ reputation for good work and a merry spirit made them good examples in children’s textbooks. They found their way into cartoons and advertising posters as “salesmen.” Brownies created a fortune in products, including Eastman’s Brownie camera. They go fishing, horseback riding, and travel the world. Brownies have had a hey-day in products. On posters they accompany soft drinks, cookies, coffee and soap. Any item that has a Brownie connection is a jewel.
The opening page grabs the reader of the children’s text:
Good morning to you, dear friends! We think it very fine To see your faces beaming Like the merry, bright sunshine.
Your hearts are beds of roses, That breathe their sweet perfume; And brownie folk all love you With a love as sweet as June.
I advocate for their return and am leaving a bowl of milk and cooking beside my fireplace. I need their prod, blessing, and spirit.
Check out Pinterest for some great ideas on building elf doors and fairy gardens in your own yard or in a public space that invites others to add to the creative magic!
In the early fall when I was sipping my coffee and gazing out at Lake Juliette from my camper window on a Saturday morning, I got a call from my brother.
“I went on a blind date, and I like her a lot,” he told me.
I knew when he was ready to talk about her so soon after the first date that something was different – he’s never done that before. He’d sworn he was going to throw himself into his work as a real estate agent and enjoy the life of a single man, but he’s an attractive guy – as much as any brother can be – and when friends of friends start talking and matchmaking, a strange sort of magical chemistry happens. Friends see in their single friends a compatibility factor between two yet unintroduced soul mates. A seed is planted, and love blooms.
I was also surprised – though I shouldn’t have been – that he’d ordered a game as a Christmas conversation starter that has become a relationship-strengthening part of their courtship.
According to my brother, you can play the game Let’s Get Deep different ways, but they choose times to draw cards and take turns answering three levels of questions – from icebreaker, deep, and deeper categories.
“I’d recommend this game for any couple progressing to a more serious phase of a relationship. It gives you a chance to gain valuable insights into the shared values and dreams – and yes, it gets deep,” he told me. “In fact,” he offered, “I can also see how couples who have been together for a long time and seem happy should perhaps avoid this game. It has the potential to shake things up, but it also helps clarify how close or far apart you stand on issues.”
That, he explains, is why they keep holding their breath, holding hands, and taking turns drawing cards.
I’m pretty sure an ever-deepening love is in the cards for them, and on this Valentine’s Day, that’s worth celebrating! This adorable couple will make another blog appearance in March with a big announcement about their tastes. Stay tuned!
The Great Backyard Bird Count kicks off this weekend (February 17-20), and I’ll be counting the birds that come to visit the Johnson Funny Farm in Williamson, Georgia – partly because I love birds, but partly too in memory of my mother, Miriam Haynes, who adored them and worked hard to establish a nature-loving legacy that she would be proud to know lives on in ways that continue to make a difference.
Here is everything you need to know to prepare and to participate this weekend. I’d love to invite you to participate and to share your findings and photos on your blog post next week. It takes as little as 15 minutes to observe and only a few minutes to report.
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) started in 1998 when the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society collaborated to create the first online citizen-science project. In 2009, Birds Canada joined forces to expand the geographic data collection points. Its goal is to encourage people from all over the world to spend time watching and counting as many birds as they can, and then reporting their observations – which helps scientists better understand global bird populations and their migratory patterns.
To take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, you can visit this link to learn more – but to make it quicker and easier, I’ve pasted this information from the link:
Step 1: Decide where you will watch birds.
Step 2: Watch birds for 15 minutes or more, at least once over the four days, February 17-20, 2023.
Step 3: Identify all the birds you see or hear within your planned time/location and use the best tool for sharing your bird sightings.
How to Share Your Observations:
If you are a beginning bird admirer and new to bird identification, try using the Merlin Bird ID app to share what birds you are seeing or hearing.
If you have participated in the count before and want to record numbers of birds, try the eBird Mobile app or enter your bird list on the eBird website (desktop/laptop).
We have two Great Horned Owls that I hope will make an appearance – or at least be heard – during the GBBC Weekend! Listen closely and you can hear them exchanging their innermost thoughts.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
Think of the world which you carry within yourself…pay attention to what arises within you. – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
We recently spent another Saturday savoring the morning hours with coffee and conversation in Zebulon, Georgia on our town square. We love the atmosphere of our small town coffee shop, restored from a historic building to the place we love and enjoy today by Dr. Dan Dunnahoo. You can read his story here. Dunnahoo, a retired Pike County art teacher known affectionately as “Dr. Dan” by locals, named the coffee shop 1828 Coffee Company because it was built in 1828 by Samuel Mitchell and still has the same wood floors that creaked under folks’ boots all those years ago, every plank restored and returned to its original position in the floor.
You can step back in time and order a cup of Zebulon Pike or any of their unique blends of coffee or tea and a cinnamon roll, then sit back and wonder about the history of this place and your own indelible time stamp on it, the dust of your own shoes settling somewhere beneath your feet between a crevice in the wood on the very dust brought in by those who used it as a trading post when it was first built. You can also wonder about those who later became proud first-ever owners of automobiles within its walls when it was a car dealership, and all the romance that bloomed here when it was an ice cream shop and young men brought their sweethearts here to share a date night treat – many of whom no doubt brought their own children back years later when it was a restaurant or an office.
Today, you can find a book in one of three Little Free Libraries here in this coffee house, hear live entertainment, or listen to students reciting poetry or performing a dramatic reading. Dr. Dan and his son-in-law Bryan open their doors to welcome a variety of events that shape the culture of this small town.
Next time you’re traveling through Zebulon, Georgia, be sure to stop in and say hello. Order coffee upstairs, admire the art, and then stroll downstairs where you can play a board game or sit outdoors on the brick patio and enjoy the sights of the town. If you happen to see a middle-aged woman huddled in a corner savoring coffee, reading, or writing, come introduce yourself – – it may be me!
When my phone rings in the early morning hours, I don’t panic and wonder what in the world has happened. A feeling of calm prevails. Things are as they have always been. There’s Dad.
I have a story I need to tell while it’s fresh on my mind, before I forget, he tells me. I grab my pen, the closest piece of paper, and listen, feverishly writing all that he shares.
It was back in the old days in rural Georgia when I was preaching at Ohoopee, he began. This was down around Highway 19, where you’d go through Wrightsville, meander over to Tennille, and then on out to Sandersville, where there were cotton fields everywhere and all the roads were red clay. And Ohoopee was a church of miracles. A cured drunk who loved the Lord led the singing, and the first time I stepped in there, they were singing “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks,” only he pronounced it Jurdan’s. And, as they say, “he weren’t wrong.”
There was a fellow by the name of Noah in the church, married to a lady named Nora, and Noah was having trouble finding where to dig his well. He needed help finding water. And back in those days, people were people and folks’ existence was all about helping their neighbors out.
Another couple in the church, Elvis and Helen, heard about it.“I’m coming over to hope you out,” Elvis told Noah, and when I heard that, I went over there too.
It wasn’t uncommon in those days to hear regional idioms and think of them as words misspoken, but these weren’t misspoken words – this was intentional language packed with meaning. Elvis was coming to hope his neighbor out.
Elvis said he had a divining rod – a hickory branch – that he could use to help him find water. Now Kim, believe what you will, but Elvis walked the grounds with that stick, and suddenly it tremored. I saw it with my own eyes. Right there, he said, was water. They marked the spot for the well and dug right there.
“Where exactly was this spot?” I was curious and had to know.
They called this area Possum Scuffle, he explained. It was back over in Harrison by Raines Store where they called it Deep Step and Goat Town, where a lady named Margaret Holmes had a cannery for black eyed peas and collards. They were the best you could get then and still are today.
“I believe you, Dad,” I assured him. “I’ve read about this. It’s a real thing.”
I had flashbacks to visiting the Foxfire Museum in Clayton, Georgia at the foot of Black Rock Mountain last April, where I saw in the holler the ways of a simpler way of life with a harder work ethic and more relying on God to bless the land – and people depending on each other – and wished that part of the world still existed.
Who am I to doubt a divining rod?
Now, I’m telling you all this because I’ve had one of those mornings where I’ve been playing with words, and I know you do the same thing, he continued. I’m still dwelling on the shipwreck passage in Acts 27, and there’s a Biblical connection I’ve discovered. Luke is the most likely author of the book, and he describes the ship being in a storm out in the Adriatic Sea near Malta. They used stabilizing ropes. In mariner’s terms, these are called hawsers. Today, we also call them helps, or help ropes.
I began to see where he was going with all of this. “Ah, I see. So hoping someone out is like using a help rope. Help is a hope rope.”
Exactly, he confirmed. Hope ropes tie it all together and make things possible. In Acts 27, the imperiled ship could have been dashed, save for the hope ropes.
That’s exactly what we need today in our communities – – to hope our neighbors out. We need to adopt the mindset of rural Georgia thinking back in the good days when folks extended not just a hand, but their whole selves – – divining rods and all.
Dad holding my brother Ken, with me (blue dress) and a friend (yellow dress) on the steps of Ohoopee Baptist Church, 1972
In 2012, we celebrated the high school graduation of one of our daughters and the college graduation of one of our sons. I rented the old opera house in downtown Griffin, Georgia for the event, and we sent out invitations for family and friends. The guest list was eclectic, even with the family members present. Since we’re a blended family, there were grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides.
I gave a great deal of thought to the ways to help avoid awkward silences and encourage lively conversations and landed on using a tablecloth. I bought a white vinyl cloth, a roll of clear cellophane tape, and a small book-style photo album from the dollar store and set about brainstorming my memories as I built a question bank for a “Which Graduate…?” conversation table.
First, I cut apart the photo album to separate the pages. On the front side of the flap, I posed a question: Which graduate once got suspended from school for starting a fight when someone stole his/her sandwich as a joke?
Then, on the flip side, I wrote the correct answer (my son’s name). I looked for the crossover opportunities where both graduates’ names were correct. Which graduate once broke a car windshield when they were angry? (both son and daughter)
Next, I laid out the pages in a small inner circle and a large outer circle, then taped the pages down on one side to the vinyl tablecloth, forming a page (flap) that turned back and forth to read the questions on one side and the answers on the other.
The memories I shared were stories that at first had been sore spots but which, over time, had become humorous ways of ribbing each other to the point of laughter. All of them had a story smoothing out the shock value once the full story was told, but it got guests wondering, talking, and chuckling.
For 11 years now, the tablecloth has been folded and kept in our antique oak buffet, but as I’m cleaning out and paring down, I’m sorting through memories and writing about them to preserve them in words rather than continuing to hold on to items in drawers and boxes. It makes parting with possessions easier when I am able to share the joy they brought.
Here are some of the questions from the tablecloth:
Senoia, Georgia. Most people know it as the town made famous by The Walking Dead. On any given night, you can have dinner in Nic & Norman’s on Main Street and perhaps see Neagan having dinner with a friend. That’s what happened to us, only as a non-watcher, I didn’t recognize all the fame seated at the table right next to me until my stepson enlightened me. Plenty of movies have been filmed here, and the titles line the brick sidewalks in brass plaques.
If you were hungry for Shepherd’s Pie, you could eat at Maguire’s, the sort-of-underground Irish Pub where Drop Dead Diva was filmed – and bask in the soft comfort of the green velvet chairs in front of the fireplace while you wait. Their Monte Cristo is a tasty favorite, too.
My sister in law and I went over on a recent Saturday morning to enjoy coffee and breakfast at the Senoia Coffee and Cafe before strolling the shops lining Main Street. She ordered the quiche and a latte, and I had black coffee with a shot of sugar-free vanilla syrup and a splash of light almond milk. Without deadlines or time frames, conversations are a great way to start a relaxing weekend!
It’s fun to wear sunglasses in a movie town. People wonder. The food and beverage selections all look delicious! My sister in law had the broccoli and cheese quiche.
When we left the coffee shop, we ambled along the sidewalks and browsed in the specialty shops. In one, we noticed that all of the plants were named after African American women such as Cicely Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, Coretta Scott King, and others. It makes me want to name all 3 of my plants and put little name cards in their pots so I can talk to them as a person when I water them. I wish I had a more evolved green thumb.
No trip is complete without a visit to the local bookstore, so we found Book Love and spent some time perusing the new releases and the well-loved classics.
And when we were finally tired, we sat in a breezeway and people-watched for awhile before heading home. Saturdays are days to savor the aroma of coffee and the sweetness of unhurried time.
Slow travelers bus, train, walk, and bicycle. We cruise along the roads on bikes, in camper vans, or RVs. Some others cross the high seas in ferries or sailboats….we make stops along the way to inhale and exhale. - Bhavana Gesota, The Art of Slow Travel: See the World and Savor the Journey on a Budget
Last Sunday, my husband and I bought tickets to the Atlanta RV Show.
We don’t need a camper – – we just purchased a 21 foot 2022 Little Guy Max Rough Rider to see if we can become more minimalist campers as we contemplate selling our 29 foot 2010 Keystone Outback. We love them both, but each offers a completely different approach to camping.
What we found out is that we can still keep all the things we love about camping while giving up the extra 8 feet that contains two recliners and a loveseat. We’ve learned a lot about appreciating a simpler way of life by giving up some of the extras. We’re doing this at home, too. Paring down. Lightening up. Enjoying the ride. There is much to be learned by not seeing more, but seeing more of it.
We’ve also learned a few things along the way about purpose and fit – which is what motivated us to go to the RV show. We’re looking with different eyes, thinking of the type of camper that we want to rent when we drive Route 66. It’s on our bucket list – not backpacking through Europe or camping in the Australian Outback, but seeing the United States from the road.
We want to rent an RV with a small kitchen, a wet bath, and sleeping accommodations for four adults who take shifts driving and who all know how to pack a wardrobe that works for two weeks in one small carry-on bag and who know how to savor coffee and oatmeal for breakfast, a sandwich and chips for lunch, and eggs and bacon for supper. We want to watch sunrises, see the changing landscape, and search for the constellations as we stargaze.
We want to become schooled in the art of slow travel – – to breathe: inhale, exhale. To open our eyes with heightened sensory awareness and few possessions along the way and say, “Now this?? THIS is living.”
We took notes of the features we think we need on Route 66. A small kitchen is a definite, so that we can prepare at least two meals each day in the camper, eating out only once a day.
A table would be nice, but isn’t as necessary as the sign on the wall to remind us that the adventure is one to be enjoyed – – including the bumps in the road along the way.
Being able to stand up in the camper is a nice feature, too – – especially for the Johnson guys, who are all tall. Just these extra couple of feet at the top make a big difference.
If you’ve traveled Route 66 and have any words of wisdom for us, please add these in the comments. We’ll be traveling with two other adults when we make the trip. We need pointers, tips, and any landmarks and stops that are must-sees. Your experience and valuable insights are appreciated!
What is missing from many of our days is a true sense that we are enjoying the lives we are living. It is difficult to experience moments of happiness if we are not aware of what it is we genuinely love. We must learn to savor small, authentic moments that bring us contentment. – Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Some Saturdays, we get up and head over to the local coffee shop on our town square. My husband orders coffee, a cinnamon roll, and a slice of breakfast casserole. I take my Optavia breakfast fueling along with me and order black coffee. We sit at a table near the fireplace, where we chat and enjoy the meanderings of those, like us, ambling about town on a Saturday morning.
When he has extra errands to run that will take an hour or so, he’ll drop me off at the back door of the bookstore across the square, where the comfy chairs are circled around an oval coffee table, and I’ll gather a handful of books, grab a Cherry Coke Zero from the store fridge, and throw my feet up and read.
The place is magical from the moment you walk into the store. The smell of books greets you, and the floors creak under your feet as you browse the shelves. On the walls, there are watercolors and photographs by local artists for sale, and on the counters there is also handmade jewelry and other gifts. The new books are up front, along with the book club books that are lined up according to the month they’ll be discussed. The heart of the store is the used books – $3 for paperbacks, and $5 for hardbacks. And the lighting is warm and welcoming, giving the perfect ambiance for comfortable reading. Sometimes they play slow jazz.
I go straight to the travel and adventure books to see if there is anything obscure that grabs me, and I begin my book stack there. I mostly hang out in the nonfiction, perusing the shelves and searching the spines for titles that spark my interest. When I have one armful’s stack, I glance at the fiction and keep moving toward my chair – the one with the matching ottoman. I plop down, throw my feet up, pop my Coke top, and take a long swig as I begin with first glances at the books. What’s in the Table of Contents? When was it written? What does the back cover say? What’s the format, and do I like it? Is the print big enough? What do the pages feel like? Does it smell real?
I’m picky.
Two members of my writing group have recently books – Starting From Scratch, about teaching poetry, and Kitchen Table Wisdom, about womens’ wisdom from ancestors with answers. I order these, and then I chat with two of the owners. Karen leads the writing group, and we share what we’re writing. I meet her daughter and grandson. I speak briefly with another owner, Chris, who is headed out for lunch, but always asks what I’m reading – so I tell her I’m reading around the United States, and I’ve just finished Stephen King’s On Writing for the New England states and am narrowing down my choice for the Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming states. I’m leaning towards Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore.
Today, I narrow it down to two books: The Iditarod Fact Book and The Happiness of Pursuit. And then I wonder: How am I going to meet my goal of getting down to two and a half bookcases if I bring more home? I think there is math involved: if I get rid of more than I take in, will it work? Somebody who can do math, please – tell me that it will. These are small, authentic moments that bring me contentment – – and books are what I genuinely love.
Common Threads 