Yeah, I skipped College today. There was 2 reasons for it.

1) I am skint and my bus pass ran out yesterday, so physically can’t afford college, unless I chance it with an out of date bus pass. Which I don’t want to do, cause they may just take the pass off me, including my college card. Which they have done before.

2) I was very, very upset yesterday. Im hoping I am just ‘dipping’ because my meds have been changed, but I dont think thats it. I was so close to phoning the Samartians because I just wanted to throw myself of something and end it all. Pretty severe, when you think that the medication is supposed to stop me feeling like that. But after I blogged, I went to the toilets and had a cry.

*sigh*
Anyways. I lay in bed this morning reading Death Note, and feeling sorry for myself. When I am like that, I am better just lying, locked away from everyone, cause I’ll just say something stupid.

I still haven’t done any work, although I sat and drew at my work last night. I say I draw, it wasn’t anything spectacular, but it was all I could do from walking out of my work last night, and never going back. Whats bugging me, is that how am I supposed to make sure I am doing everything for a customer, when the call center manager is on my back telling me to hurry up and get on the next call. If I need to email another department, I can’t. And that is not helping me at all, when I am feeling this stressed.

Just focusing on Saturday, where I’ll be up in Aberdeen with two of my oldest friends, Sharon and Gemma. Its Gemma’s birthday night out. I’m just looking to clear my head, so am really looking forward to it. Its kind of like the light at the end of the tunnel. Reminds me, I need to get Gemma and Sharon bday things on Friday, when I get paid.

Another one for the danceflo’addicts. Classic dig!

Can you handle it?

Last Christmas began like any other. I woke up at about 8.20 and went up the hall to see the joy on my sisters face as she tore a Wii box apart with no idea how to begin setting it up. I started setting it up, as she and my parents sat in the conservatory. My parents kept mentioning something about a neighbour burning rubbish down the road; We’re at the top of the hill and can see all around. We made nothing of it for about 15 minutes as we couldn’t see very clearly, but the whole thing seemed very odd. Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke bellowing from down the hill. All 4 of us hopped into the car without thinking, fearing something was wrong.

We tore down the road, knowing that there was a house fire. Along the way, my mother called the emergency services in what was the longest 2-minute drive I’ve ever experienced. We guessed the road right and came upon a farmhouse in flames, my parents knowing who was in the house.

It was Sharon Whelan, a single mother with 2 children who was renting the house from another friend of our family.

We were the first people on the scene, as a crowd of neighbours closely followed us. I stayed in the car to mind my sister as we just sat in awe and watched it burn. I feel bad now for staying and doing nothing, but it was too late to do anything and someone needed to comfort my young sister. A few men began breaking into the house and then the fire brigade arrived….

Sharon and her daughters, Zara and Nadia, all lost their lives in the fire. In such a tiny village, everyone was in shock for weeks and the whole community was numb as to how this could have happened. Nights were spent packed into the tiny pub, the only focal point to discuss what had happened and rumours spread like wildfire. Days were spent putting everything you had heard the previous night, together.

I ended up spending Christmas night keeping my mother company as she bawled her eyes out, and we went through every possibility in our heads. Within a day of the incident, evidence was trailing out and we knew something sinister had happened.

The next few weeks were spent with the Gardaí; Going back through everything with them as the recorded it, fingerprints, DNA samples….
I found it very tough when they kept going back over my statement and criticising me….

One day in the middle of January, news trickled out that the local postal worker had been arrested at his home, Brian Hennessy. I personally didn’t know him, but he worked for my parents years ago and was a familiar face in the community, “The last person I would have expected to do it” reverbed around the village.

It is only this week that the court case has taken place. Yesterday a jury was chosen, and today the trial is finished. Brian pleaded guilty to all three murders. The postal worker had strangled 30-year-old Sharon Whelan before setting fire to her home. Seven-year-old Zara and two-year-old Nadia died in the fire. Mr Justice Barry White imposed two consecutive and one concurrent life sentences for the murder.

From BreakingNews,

“Detective Sergeant Jim Lyng told Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, that Sharon Whelan was last seen alive about 11pm on Christmas Eve, when the foster father who raised her dropped off gifts for the children.

Christy Whelan parked away from the two-storey, dilapidated farmhouse the single mother rented and went only to the door so the children would not hear him. All three generations were to spend Christmas Day at Christy and Nancy Whelan’s house.

Instead neighbours found the farmhouse engulfed in flames the following morning and the three bodies were recovered from the downstairs bedroom at the back of the house. Rigor Mortis had set in on Miss Whelan, who was naked from the waist down.

Post mortem examinations showed that both girls died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation, but their mother had no soot in her lungs.

Ms Whelan had a mark around her neck, her thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone were fractured and cause of death was strangulation.

State pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy found other injuries to Ms Whelan’s body, including bruising to her cheek bone, abrasions on her knee, and bruising to her thigh.

Ms Whelan’s family sobbed as details of sexual injuries were read out. Dr Cassidy stated that these injuries would be found in cases where sex was not consensual but did not necessarily mean this. However they would have been painful.

“She may have been strangled during a sexual act,” she wrote, adding that it could not be excluded that sex was attempted after she became unconscious or around the time of death.

“There was no evidence of a long struggle,” she wrote. “There were no defensive-type injuries.” She pointed out that pressure to the neck can result in rapid unconsciousness.

After the examinations, gardaí asked local men to give saliva samples. The DNA profile found on Ms Whelan’s body matched Hennessy’s.

Det. Sgt Lyng arrested Hennessy on January 15 in his home and he denied involvement. He had previously said the closest he had been to the house was the letterbox at the gate.

Hennessy later admitted going to the house to have sex with the woman, whom he barely knew. He said she was a little surprised to see him, but he claimed she brought him to the bedroom where her two daughters were sleeping, turned on the light and had sex with him.

Hennessy’s story about his whereabouts contradicted his mother’s, who said she let him in the front door about 7am on Christmas morning.

In the fifth interview he admitted killing Ms Whelan, accepted she was dead an hour and a half before he left, and agreed with gardaí that he “used her for his gratification whether she wanted it or not”.

When asked why he killed her, he said it was because she was going to tell people they had been together and that his girlfriend would find out. He denied the gardaí’s suggestion that it was so she wouldn’t tell people that he had raped her.

“I just strangled her with my two hands around her neck,” he said. “l killed her in the living room.”

He said the children were asleep when he brought their mother’s body into the bedroom.

“I sat on the bed. I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I saw the kids. It made me more sad that I’d taken their mother away on Christmas.”

“I don’t know why I did it,” he said about setting two fires. “I never thought about the children. I was worried about the murder.”

He said he knew what he had done to the Whelan family was unbearable.

“I will never be able to cope with this so God help them,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

Det. Sgt Lyng agreed that the prosecution’s case was that rape was the trigger for the killing, that “he killed her, then sat there, pondered what he’d do next and set the fires”.

He agreed with Paul Coffey SC, defending, that Hennessy was from a respectable family and had never been in trouble. He agreed the defendant had worked four consecutive night shifts and had slept only briefly after coming home from work on Christmas Eve before spending 10 hours drinking.

Ms Whelan’s brother, John Whelan, described the murders as inhuman. “It’s obvious human life means nothing to you,” he told Hennessy from the witness box. “It’s beyond belief that anyone with a conscience could contemplate, never mind carry out such evil.”

He told the court that his father used to collect Zara from school every day, while Sharon and Nadia spent most days with his mother.

He said Christmas, which had meant so much to his sister and nieces, was now a time of loss and profound grief for his family.

He said the little girls ‘never woke from their sleep’ to find it was Christmas morning.

“The murder of our girls has left a hole in our hearts,” he said, explaining that every morning and every night his parents go the two-minute walk to their graves to chat to them. “It’s all they have left.”

“They hear children playing in the local school every day, knowing Zara should be there. The pain is overwhelming,” he said.

“All you will lose is your liberty, a loss that does not come close to the loss you have imposed on this family,” he told Hennessy.

Afterwards Mr Whelan told reporters that Hennessy’s admission had meant they did not have to go through a long trial. He also said that his family bore no animosity toward the Hennessy family.

“They cannot be held responsible for one man’s actions,” he said.”

Its been a long 11 months….

RIP

I felt good this week. After our active trip to New York, I took it easy for the first few days of the week to pace myself for the rest of the week. Tuesday was a pretty big day. We started it out with a doctor’s appointment, which went well. We met with nurse practitioner, Sharon, and we really liked her. She is also a midwife, but unfortunately does not do deliveries for the practice. She was very warm and informative (a huge plus for Noah!). The boy’s heartbeat was strong in the 150s and my measurements were right on target. My ankles weren’t swollen (although I think my feet were a bit), so that is good. I am very happy that I do not have to deal with the summer heat as I have been able to avoid some of the problems others I know experienced this past summer. After work, we headed to Sibley for our babycare skills class. It was pretty informative, but we weren’t all that impressed with the instructor. It’s probably good we went as it pretty much put the most important information in front of us vs. us digging through our books.

I mailed off the hospital’s pre-registration form this week. Hopefully, DC’s mail system will get it there and get us all set up for easy admittance when we are ready. Now, I just need to call the pediatrician’s office and make sure that they are accepting new patients and that they take our insurance. My to-do list is never-ending.

After not having been on the spin bike for a few weeks, I was happy to be able to get back on it. I got to mix up my workouts this week with riding the spin bike, swimming and doing yoga. After my scare a few weeks ago where I felt terrible, I am very excited to again be energetic enough to keep moving.

Sunday, we went to the full day labor & delivery class at Sibley. We were disappointed that the hospital tour was no longer available (as of the first of November- lucky us with the timing) due to the flu season. While we did get clarification on some things we were unsure of, we learned that most of our specific (well, my specific) questions are more physician/practice policy’s vs. the hospital’s. I guess, I have a lot of questions to ask in the next few doctor’s visits. Given we could have any of the 10-12 rotating OB/GYN’s from the practice deliver, I suspect we will be in limbo on details until labor time arrives. This makes me a bit uncomfortable, but I am not sure what I can really do about this. At the end of the class, we went over breathing/relaxation techniques, but I think the techniques/information I have picked up during my prenatal yoga classes have been more beneficial. It’s a good thing I still have more time to practice during my weekly yoga class. At least I did get some nice massages from Noah today- thank you!! Speaking of massage, Noah was super sweet in getting me some for our anniversary. I am going on Friday afternoon and I can’t wait.

Oh, I forgot to mention that we finally got a glider chair last week. It’s firmer than the couch, which has been helping in keeping me comfortable. I am glad we didn’t have to wait long for it to be delivered or I would have likely been spending more time on the floor as the couch had gotten to soft for me.

the chair saving my back

It’s yet another masculine moniker that’s been favored for girls in recent years.

Thanks to Kelly for suggesting Shannon as Name of the Day.

You’ll find Shannon on the map in at least half a dozen US states, but the original is Ireland’s River Shannon, an important waterway since the earliest days – Ptolemy mapped the river in the second century.

The river’s name could be derived from:

• An ancient Celtic river goddess called Sionna or Sinann;
• The word for ancient – seán.  Masculine names like Seanach and Seánan were in use over the years.

As a given name, there’s also:

• Some posit a link to Sean.  While that’s probably not the source of the river’s name, Shannon may well have been viewed by many parents as an appropriate choice to honor someone named Sean;
• It’s also been worn as a surname, sometimes linked to Shanahan – which is linked to the personal names Seanach and Seánan; 
• Lastly, there’s an Earl of Shannon.  While there’s no clear connection, an aristocratic link has boosted plenty of names.

In the late 20th century, Shannon was an Irish setter – as in Henry Gross’ one-hit wonder from 1976.  Gross was a former member of Sha Na Na.  He penned “Shannon” about the death of Beach Boy Carl Wilson’s dog:

Conventional wisdom is that the song took Shannon away from the boys and made her a hit for Team Pink.  Not true.

Instead, Shannon ranked in the US Boys’ Top 1000 from the 1940s through 2006.  He peaked at #94 in 1972, but still charted at #98 in 1976, the year of the song’s release.

For girls, Shannon first appears in 1937.  She climbed steadily, entering the Top 1000 in 1968 and peaking at #17 the year of the song’s release.

I couldn’t land on any one factor that encouraged use of Shannon for either gender, but naming trends would’ve favored Shannon for a daughter.  The Old Testament Sharon, a place name popularized by a 1925 novel, ranked in the US Top Ten from 1943 to 1959.  And don’t forget Susan, Karen, Helen and Ellen – other very current two-syllable, ends-in-n choices for girls.  Parents feminized the name as Shannen (as in Doherty) and Shannyn (think Sossamon), too.

Other notable Shannons have included:

• Del Shannon – born Charles Westover – remembered for his 1961 single “Runaway”;
• In 1961 and 1981, short-lived – and unrelated – detective series were called Shannon, though in both cases Shannon was the hero’s last name;
• 1983’s chart-topper “Let the Music Play” was recorded by Shannon, born Brenda Shannon Greene;
• Athletes, including LA Laker Shannon Brown and former NFL player Shannon Sharpe;
• Indie rockers like Shannon Leto of 30 Seconds to Mars, Shannon Larkin of Godsmack and Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon, as well as Australian Idol finalist Shannon Noll.

Like Robin, if Shannon had no history, it is easy to imagine parents inventing him now.  But he does have a past – and it is a recent past.  With Shannon currently falling out of vogue for girls, it might not quite be time for his comeback.  But wait a few years, and much like Kelly, Shannon could sound just right for a son.

Sharon M. Knudson

When I baked cherry macaroon cookies back in 1997, I never dreamed God had a whole new ministry in mind. Quite the contrary! Having experienced a divorce after a 30-year marriage, I was overwhelmed with grief, regret and shame. Surely my days of serving God were over! How could He use someone who had been branded with the D-word?

It is estimated that in today’s society almost 60 percent of marriages will end in divorce. An alarming statistic indeed!

But back to the cherry macaroons. The suggestion to bake cookies for a shy, 51-year-old bachelor at my church came from Dr. Bruce Wilkinson of The Prayer of Jabez fame. I met him at a Navigators retreat I attended in 1996, and I won’t tell the story here except to say that Bob Knudson ate those cookies and we were married a year later.

I submitted a short story about it for Did You Get What You Prayed For? (Jane Kise, Multnomah, 2003), and she forwarded it to Guideposts Magazine (February 2005 issue). Someone at the St. Paul Pioneer Press saw that, and did a half-page interview article for the Sunday paper (May 2005). The headline read, “Pages were turned, cookies were baked, prayers were answered.”

And I had thought my dreadful divorce would make me ineligible to witness for the Lord!

When a literary agent in Colorado happened to read the story, he telephoned to ask if I would be interested in writing a book for women who were suddenly single and had to start over from scratch. He wanted me to gather stories from spiritually mature women who had been widowed or divorced. I decided to ask Mary Fran Heitzman to be my co-author, and the hard work began.

Many interviews later, we received a book contract from Strang Communications in Florida. On September 2, 2008, Starting from Scratch When You’re Single Again was released with the subtitle, 23 Women Share Stories, Encouragement, Recipes, and Lessons Learned When Starting Over Was All They Could Do. The book maintains that if women will seek God and surrender whatever situation they are experiencing to Him, He will turn their despair to hope and eventually make things right. The story of each “Scratch woman” bears this out.

“I hate divorce,” says the Lord God (Malachi 2:16). And so do I! It has so much potential for destruction! But if we will cling to God in our grief, He will restore us and allow us to serve Him more than ever. That is my message, and God is continuing to open the doors so I can proclaim it.

I saw this wonderful quote on Facebook. It was posted by my very good prayer friend, Sharon. I wanted to share it with everyone for this coming week.

Have a wonderful week, and find those sanctuaries and steeples in each and every place in your life — for these sanctuaries and steeples are the color within our lives.

All of the places of our lives are sanctuaries; some of them just happen to have steeples. And all of the people in our lives are saints; it is just that some of them have day jobs and most will never have feast days named for them. ~ Robert Benson in Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

This week we had some hints and tips for dancing to Pugliese. Now my views on Pugliese are well known, I don’t like dancing to the later tunes although I do enjoy listening to them. That said we were dancing to the early stuff and the strong rhythms and changes of pace gave us an enjoyable interlude.

One of the things we were doing was a very slow cross. Dave was asked to demonstrate with Sharon, it looked good. ( I reckon they had been practicing) However somebody noticed that Dave’s forward step moved out slightly, he said it was because he had big feet. Now you know what they say about men with big feet? Yes, they wear big shoes. Still it gave us some ammunition for some ribald comments later in The Coracle.

When these ribald comments arrived I did notice a wry grin on Alison’s face, is there truth in the rumours I wonder? The talk as usual revolved around tango, and the music. A comment by Dave I think deserves more exploration “The music is not an optional extra” The porteños dance because they love the music, and when I see people dance here to non tango, I wonder; how can you say you love tango without a love for the music? If it is a desire to become like something from Strictly, then this is not the place for you. Sex on the dance floor? Well I have news, in all my years I have only met one woman who was looking for a boy friend. There have been one or two romances, of course, but these are the exceptions. Those women who come alone usually have a husband or partner at home, and are just out for the social buzz. I seem to be popular with the ladies here (something new for me) I think that they are secure in the knowledge that I am very married, and look for nothing other that a good dance. The growing popularity of Line Dancing proves my point, there is no opportunity to get together there, so it ends up predominantly women, salsa likewise, you are together barely long enough to exchange names. Tango is the only dance where you socialise with a partner long enough and in an environment where you can get to know each other. So we meet and dance, enjoy each others company and the closeness of our bodies, safe in the knowledge that we will leave separately and that the relationship is just on the floor, nothing more..

 But what about the music? I hear you ask (go on ask me). It has to be enjoyed, women often close their eyes, not just so that they can follow better, but to better enjoy the music, I believe. If a man does not feel the music, does not move with it and just enjoy, then the woman cannot possibly respond well. Again as we danced to Pugliese great pauses happen and a lady with whom I was dancing (herself not much more than a beginner) commented that she loved the way I slowed down with the music. Come on men, this is not rocket science, to move with the music, to feel what the composer was saying, this is dancing. Dancing is not throwing her in the air, doing great big voleos or ganchos, trying to impress with your huge repertoire will just frustrate her, let her know that you feel the music, now that will impress.. It has taken me years to come to this conclusion. Years when teachers taught me moves, years when I learned kicks and flicks, and years when women probably hated dancing with me. Years wasted in not understanding why we dance, love is on the dance floor, for three minutes you love the woman you are with, but she will never know unless you also love the music you are dancing to as well.

Seems my post about the Shrewsbury Tango Rent a Mob has been taken too seriously. We had a very robust debate about the name. It looks like people do not like the Mob Idea. We had various suggestions as to what it should be called, and I thought it was just a joke, Is the world ready? I ask myself.

It had to happen one day, work and dancing just do not mix. Some times when I am not working there is not a venue anywhere where we can dance, this Saturday our friend Steve was performing at Llay British legion, another great artist Bill Dennis was performing at Ewloe, hard choice, but they were trumped by a milonga at Pant, Three venues where we could go. So where did we end up? I came home from work and fell asleep, not waking until quarter to nine. By the time I would have showered, changed, and driven there, it would have been time to come home. So for the first time I failed totally on a Saturday night. Viv did not wake me because she said that I needed it, she was right, of course, but I still missed the dancing, the music and all the three-minute romances.

I hope to make it up Monday night.

Dear Syria,

I am your President Bashar al-Assad. I was popularly elected at the age of 34, under the auspices of the Baath Party and my father, your previous President.

I am part of the Aluwite miniority clan, but, as unwilling as the Sunni Muslim majority was, I had a 97.2% support rate in the 2001 referendum. We exhibited that we were popularly selected, unlike other states like Bahrain or Jordan which have hereditary transfers of power. We were uncontested in this respect, and, having commanded the respect of all our people, I moved immediately for political reform.

When I was first elected, I took rapid action for a “New Deal” on rights. Over 600 political prisoners were released, most of them Islamists, and removed martial court and political prisons. I didn’t do those anymore. I gave the press some liberties, with sweeping conditions that they adopted our pan-Arabic stance. I believe the press necessarily enlighten the people of what their state is, and how their state responds to issues. The other parties have shown support for us by voluntarily curbing their newspapers.

I believe that we must join in solidarity in our unified fight against the Western forces of Satan. It is a national duty – Israel and the US constantly want to subert and destroy all that we hold dear, and we must prohibit them from doing so. It is in our interest, and indeed, in my interest too, therefore, to ensure that no Western concepts take root. I have banned democracy and its need for accountability and reform, as well as the civil society and its net of rights. These are solely Western concepts, and we cannot condone them if we are to protect our 4000-year-old superior heritage.

Some dissidents, agents of the West, have asked: why Lebanon? I have been trying to explain to us all, in the mist of martial law, that we had to assume responsibility of Lebanon as a natural political step, not because it generated profit for us by providing employment, but because our good ally, Iran, provides us with state cash in return for temporarily loaning space for Hezbollah operations. This organisation is crucial in our fight against the West, which we are winning. Iran’s nucleic rise means they can soon manufacture peaceful weapons, to make battle against the scarce US stockpiles and useless satellites.

We are of Arabian and Muslim ancestry, and we must continue to make the right foreign policy decisions for the right domestic reasons. We reject all US allies – Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Turkey – a conspiracy which we shall never forgive or forget. It is in our interest to maintain our cultural superiority. We will continue the good fight.

Once, in one of their many failed bids to conquer the entire Middle East, Israel was in desperation to succumb Golam Heights to us. They had mismanaged the region so badly, we knew at that point, they had given up in their quest. How could the cowards ever succeed in dominating the entire world with heretic ideology, if they had not even managed to administer, let alone govern, Golam Heights. It was then that I poured grace and mercy on the Israelis – to relieve them of their burden of governing not just Golam Heights, but also help them manage 20 km into their territory. It was a sincere action on my part to relieve the oppressed – by proposing this, Syria was in fact alleviating Israel’s chronic political situations.

And what did their Sharon do? That reincarnation of the devil, that messenger of Hell, so blatantly rejected our offers. They disagreed so vehemently when all we were doing was showing compassion, giving the weak excuse that they would have no water supply. Which man -  let alone an entire state – in the right mind, would throw us that stupid reasoning? They were stalling the negotiations, even betraying their America. Who can trust them?

It is this government’s considered policy to ensure that we keep our Arabian tradition which saw us through the past millennium and made us the cultural hub of the world. I urge you, in view of keeping the peace, to support us. We are the government who will protect us against the Western hegemony and their continued pursuit to conquer the entire Middle East. It will only be a matter of time before we remove them altogether – with Israel wiped off – then the Arab nations will rejoice in the name of our fatherland and our god.

Unity by Islam. Strength by faith. Syria by Baath.

Always and forever -

Your President,

Bashar

(I wrote this a very, very long time ago – that means December last year. Renyan will take care to correct any factual errors, should they appear, because he knows about this. This was written all in one sitting – I had researched quite a bit into him after reading some BBC articles. Unless you’ve been living under a rock in a cave on a mountain under the sea floor, you should have heard of this guy.)

CALKINSTOWN

Calkinstown Road runs in an easterly direction from Gay Street (Route 41) to the junction of White Hollow Road (the Lime Rock Road).

The earliest reference to the road appears in the town record of land transfers in 1780 when Stephen Calkin, Sr., the original owner of home lot #31 (and #35), granted “40 acres including the house and barn where I now live” to Amos Clakin. In the description he refers to a “boundry line running west by the highway that goes by my house.”

The term Calkinstown describes the area of about a mile along that highway where Lt. Stephen Calkin’s home was built and James Calkin built and about 1/5th of a mile around the bend of the road toward West Cornwalkk where Amos Calkin built what seems to be the last of the Calkins’ houses in 1808.

Older Homes in this area:

The Gager-Smith/Malcolm House ca. 1900
Two-story wooden frame house built around 1900 by George E. Gager. Owned in 1985 by L. Selina Smith and J. Margaret Malcolm.

The White-Wright House ca. 1846
Wooden frame house built around 1846 by Charles S. White. In the 1920’s the house was owned by the Spence School (a NYC Prep School for youngladies). Owned in 1985 by Hamilton W. Wright.

The Olmstead-Baker House ca. 1826-30
Center hall, two-story frame house is a classic example of the New England farmhouse that was built from the early 18th century well into the 19th century. It was built by George Olmstead sometime between 1826 and 1830. Owned by Ashton H. Baker in 1985.

The Thurston-Prindle House ca. 1925
Large wooden frame Colonial Revival house was built around 1925 by Edward D. Thurston, Jr. on the “Home Farm” of the Ezra Bartram family. Its present owner is Barclay Prindle.

The Calkin-Roeski House ca. 1808
Wooden frame house was built by Amos Calkin, a son of Lt. Stephen Calkin, around 1808, after purchasing “two acres near the Methodist Meeting House.” The original Sharon home lot #53, neighboring this property, is described as a Ministry Lot.” Owned by Otto Roeski in 1985.

The Calkin-Frattolillo House ca. 1802-1838
This wooden frame house – now shingled – was built by James Calkin sometime between 1802 (when he purchased the land from Samuel Roberts, Esq.) and 1838 (when Ira Williams purchased it). Owners in 1985, Rinaldo and Diane Frattollilo.

The Calkin-Miller House ca. 1751
Wooden frame house built in the mid-eighteenth century by Stephen Calkin, Jr. on “land I purchased of my father, Stephen Calkin.” A Federal style kitchen was added later by a Calkins family-owner or Ira Williams’ family owner, who purchased the farm in 1833. Williams is for whom Williams Road is named. 1985 owners- Mr & Mrs. Leigh Miller.

The Roberts-Blake House ca. 1802
Center hall, wooden frame Federal style house is a distinguished example of the architecture of this period, with its characteristic Palladian window above the entrance portico and fan lights high in the gable at either end of the house. Owned by Sleila White Blake in 1985.

The Calkin-Allen House ca. 1760-1780
The Sharon town records suggest that this wooden frame house was the home of Lt. Stephen Calkin, Sr. According to Sedgwick’s History of Sharon 1842, Calkin came to Sharon from Lebanon, Connecticut, and was one of the town’s original proprietors, drawing home lot #31 in 1739, later purchasing home lot #35 from his brother Samuel, and the “east half of home lot #30″ from Bezaleel Tyler, Jr. in 1760. This house was built on the Tyler land. Calkinstown is said to be named for Lt. Calkins’ and his seven Stephen, Joseph, Elijah, Timothy, Amos, Justus, and David. David Allen owned the home in 1985.

The Sanford-Weed-Burne House ca. 1790-94
This house is actually two houses. The earliest wooden frame portion may have been occupied by Ezra or David Sanford (1790-94), the first owners for which town records show a dwelling. The brick portion was built by Captain Hiram Weed, a sucessful real estate and foundry man. The front south portion of the house served as an eight bed hospital, the precursor of the present Shaorn Hospital, under the direction of Dr. Jerome S. Chaffee and two nurses.

The Weed-Armstrong House ca, 1846-53
This interesting three-story, wood framed Greek Revival was built by Cpatain Hiram Weed. There was also a store here which was operated by Elisha Knight and his partner Henry M. Gillette. The store’s scales were used to weigh the ore for Captain Weed’s Blast Furnace. In 1860 the Gillette brothers moved the business to Main Street. Matlida M. Armstrong owned the house in 1985.

The Smith-Weinert House ca. 1902-04
This bungalow-style, wood shingled house was built by John B. Smith in 1902. Smith also built a Creamery building which he later sold to Sharon-Elgin Creamery. In 1907 the property and buildings were sold to the Connecticut Advent Christian Church, which used the house as a place of worship until 1927, when it was reconverted into a dwelling. Richard Weinart owned the home in 1985.

Bowling is fun.  As Cathy said to me last night- Once you are there and bowling everyone has a great time!

 

Cathy Tarr At Cape Ann Lanes, originally uploaded by captjoe06.

 

Mary At Cape Ann Lanes

Sharon and David Cox At Cape Ann Lanes

David Cox and His Pretty Pink Bowling Shoe Laces

Mike Foley Reacts After Bowling A Sub Par Frame

I regret that I have no picture of Brainfix.  Boo Joey

]]> http://josbookshelf.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/exile/ Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:21:46 +0000 Johanna http://josbookshelf.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/exile/

After two books on the supernatural in succession, I had the taste for something more grounded, more real.  Ironically, Exile was in my list for the Fall To Reading Challenge.  It’s a novel that can’t be anything but so painfully present— a fictitious story but one wholly based on current world events, dealing  in particular with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Author :  Richard North Patterson

Publication Date :  January 9, 2007  (Hardcover – 1st edition)

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

ISBN-10: 0805079475

ISBN-13: 978-0805079470

No. of pages :  576

The Story:

The hopes for a beginning toward peace between Israel and its Palestinian inhabitants are dashed when Jewish Prime Minister Amos Ben-Aron is assassinated by a Palestinian suicide bomber on American soil.

A brilliant Jewish lawyer and  promising politician,  David,  witnesses the horrifying murder of the man whom he admires and believes to be the catalyst for peace in the Middle East.  Suddenly he gets a call from a woman whom he had allowed himself to forget.  Hana Arif, the Palestinian law student he had been helplessly in love with  thirteen years ago,  suddenly calls and says she has been accused of being instrumental to the crime.   Would David help her?

Against the certainty of becoming a pariah in his Jewish community, of irredeemably breaking his engagement with his Jewish fiance,  and of wiping out the brilliant political career path he had been so ambitious of, David with his ideals and buried passion, takes up the cudgels of a seemingly impossible case to exonerate Hana.

The case impels him to take a closer look at his culture and at the long-standing enmity between Palestinians and Jews, by going through their histories and understanding both sides’ perspectives.  David follows a dangerous trail for information which takes him to Israel, the West Bank,  and Lebanon as he chases the elusive truth to save his client.

The Review :

I am writing this review just after I have turned the last page of this book.  I’ve been so riveted by it, turning page after page well into the night, as I came to understand much more about the volatile Palestinian-Israeli crisis.

Patterson has written a rare combination of a page-turner and an educational read which explains the present complex issues in the Middle East conflict.   Although couched in fiction, this book is a definite eye-opener  to those who do not understand or had been indifferent to the crisis that presently is, I believe, the greatest and most urgent threat to world peace.

Exile is the type of fiction novel that through its entertainment value, compels you to know more beyond it.  I am inspired to research more on the subject of the ongoing war between the Jews, Palestinians, and the Arab world at large.  It is scary in its magnitude of hatred and seemingly hopeless for its dearth of solution as each side believes so absolutely in the right of its cause.   Basically a war of land rights and sovereignty,  it draws its complexities from bringing  religion, racial history and culture, internal factions, and international politics into the fray, a tangle of elements that cannot be extricated singly to make solutions.

Patterson’s courtroom scenes are energetic,  intense, and a good read.  There is a lot going for this book as a suspense-crime-courtroom-thriller.  But the true merit of this book comes from the extensively researched issues backgounding this novel and the humane and impartial way the author represents the conflict for both sides that one cannot help but be emotionally moved at the plight of both Palestinians and Jews.

The novel never takes sides.  It simply presents the conflict from both perspectives and leaves it up to you to decide who is right.  Since it is impossible for one to make such an opinion with this book alone, Exile goads you to delve and learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an open  and unbiased  mind.  Current events will never seem so one-dimensional and so distant after this.

To Read Or Not To Read:

Indeed, an important read!  To those, like me, who have been partially oblivious to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, this book should constitute the top of your TBR pile.  This novel is a good starter to point our way toward informing ourselves of a current volatile dilemma facing the world today.   Muslim, Christian, Jew, atheist…whatever your leanings, we still cannot ignore that we are all inextricably connected and therefore will be involved, one way or another,  in this war.

It’s a thick novel but once you’re in it, you’d never feel its length.  In fact, you may end up wanting to know much more.

In A Nutshell:

Exile has successfully given an impartial yet emotional account of the Mid-East crisis.  It is not a finger-pointer ; no side is singled out to blame for starting this whole mess.  As it is, it is everyone and no one and but really the sordid side of human nature that has foisted this problem on us all.  As the author aptly writes:

“…The Promised Land, which many of each side believed was promised to them alone, might be consumed not merely by hatred and violence but also by the most banal of human faults—a failure to imagine the life of another.  The only common denominator of occupation was that it degraded everyone.” —- p. 401

“You know what amazes me, Zev?  it’s that so many Jews and Palestinians don’t give a damn about one another’s stories.  Too many Palestinians don’t grasp why three thousand years of death and persecution make Jews want their own homeland, or how suicide bombings alienate Jews and extend the occupation.   Too many Jews refuse to acknowledge their role in the misery of Palestinians since 1948, or that the daily toll of occupation helps fuel more hatred and violence.  So both become cliches:  Jews are victims and oppressors; Palestinians are victims and terrorists.  And the cycle of death rolls on… In three short weeks I’ve seen all kinds of suffering, from the families in Haifa to the misery of Hana’s parents.   But they live in different worlds…” — p.  407

Please pick up this book and be aware.  It’s a superb read, a must-read,  and will be well worth your time.

My Mark :  Excellent! +++

]]> http://goosebubbles.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pc-goes-mad-no-really/ Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:46:31 +0000 goosebubbles http://goosebubbles.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/pc-goes-mad-no-really/

Last week, I rode the tram to work as usual.  I read the free paper on the way; nothing unusual there either.  As I flicked through the articles, I alighted on one in particular and that is where things got… weird.  In the distant recesses of my psyche, I heard a single voice, faint but insistent, weirdly distorted as if coming through a long copper pipe.   Soon, the voice was joined by another and another, gathering in number and volume until I could make out words, accents.  There was Jon Gaunt and Kelvin MacKenzie, mocking me with unrestrained right-wing glee.  At Daily Mail headquarters, sensing fresh souls being drawn inexorably into his clutches, Richard Littlejohn reclined upon his throne of immigrant skulls and chuckled mirthlessly.  Far away, atop their tower of (sustainably farmed) ivory, the Guardian editors snuffed out a candle and silently mourned the loss of one of their own.  Back on the tram, the teeming voices now united in a single chant that went simply “One of us”.  I attempted to choke back the words that forced themselves up from my throat, but too late.  Unable to tear my eyes away from the article, I read on helpless and in a breathless, pained whisper out came the words I thought I would never say;

“It’s political correctness gone mad” 

Political.  Correctness.  Gone.  Mad.  The words I have always regarded as the rallying cry of the bigoted, the misguided and the outright fucking stupid, and yet now they sat incongruously upon my lips, standing out like a shocking pink tie at a funeral.  However, what other words are there to describe the news that locals councils are banning all adults from children’s play areas unless they first undergo rigorous criminal record checks.  When in the hell did we lose track of the fact that the vast majority of adults have no desire whatsoever to abduct or abuse children, and just want to keep an eye on their kids and make sure they’re safe from exactly the kind of people that this ludicrous legislation is supposed to be combatting.  Its very much like a certain South Park episode, except nobody is laughing.  Of course, this isn’t entirely the fault of over zealous government and council officials.  As a society we have brought this kind of bullshit upon ourselves by demanding that we (and our children in particular) be protected from every possible eventuality, and rushing to crucify somebody in power whenever something goes wrong.  Which brings me  to the main point of today’s lecture…

CAN WE PLEASE, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP BLAMING SOCIAL WORKERS FOR CHILD ABUSE.

Ever since the sad death of Peter Connelly (best known Baby P), as a society we seem to have become fixated with the idea that every time some reprehensible piece of human excrement sees fit to murder their child, it must naturally be due to an oversight by somebody within the social care system.  Almost immediately after the case was publicised, petitions were being launched to remove Sharon Shoesmith, the then head of children’s services at Haringey Council, who were accused of overlooking evidence of abuse.  Thousands signed these petitions and joined various online groups calling for Shoesmith’s dismissal, despite having absolutely no knowledge of the case, or the workings of the social services system in general, beyond what they had been told by the Sun or the Mirror.  Eventually, Ms Shoesmith WAS dismissed from her job, perhaps rightly; of course there is the possibility that unacceptable failures WERE made, although most of the members of the various Facebook groups calling for this can’t possibly have know whether this was the case, or even formed a vaguely informed opinion on the matter.  But the persecution didn’t end there; after Shoesmith’s dismissal, the tabloids incited the petition-signers but put pressure on the government to deny her any form of redundancy package, to which she was absolutely entitled.  She was photographed shopping and leaving restaurants and demonised as callous and uncaring if she dared to wear a smile.  Overnight, a senior social worker who may or may not have made a few serious errors had become, in the eyes of the public, primarily responsible for Peter Connelly’s murder.  When social workers face this kind of persecution over abuse that occurs ‘on their watch’, is it any wonder that they go a little overboard in their efforts to cover their backs? 

Some good friends of mine work in social services.  They are dedicated, hard working people who genuinely care about the vulnerable people they are assigned to protect and yet the public and in particular the tabloid press put them in an impossible position.  If they carry out their jobs to the fullest extent possible they are demonised as petty, pen-pushing, over zealous nanny-state jobsworths.  If they fail to do so, even for a moment, they are treated with the same level of contempt we used to reserve for the real villains; the amoral bastards who will think nothing of beating an innocent toddler until its frail body gives way.  I’m not saying that public officials should not be held accountable for their actions, I’m just saying we have a pretty clear cut choice: cut the social workers a bit of slack, or be prepared to put up with the occasional bit of  ’Political Correctness Gone Mad’.

In other news…

…after last week’s discussion of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, I felt strangely empty.  Where, I thought, could I find another complete twat to crucify on my blog, an irredeemable shitbag of the highest order whose obnoxiousness would not seem petty and insignificant in comparison to the tubby BNP leader?  Who could possibly compare to the Griffmeister for sheer unpleasantness?

Step forward, Marlon King.  I won’t waste time going into the details of King’s unprovoked attack on a female clubber who had the audacity to reject his clumsy advances; unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know about it.  I won’t bother you with details of his somewhat expansive criminal record.  If you really care, you can click the link.  No, what I will discuss is the sheer stupidity of the man.  Obviously, this knuckle-dragging neanderthal fails to realize that in any given night club, anywhere in Britain, it is possible to find a number of women who think exactly the same way that King does; that his status as a millionaire footballer entitles him to, well, whatever he wants.  When King was unfortunate enough to encounter a woman with sufficient intelligence and class to tell him what to do with his money, he could simply have moved on until he encountered somebody lacking these qualities.  I doubt it would take long.  In the unlikely event that his search for a girl so shallow, soulless and obsessesed with money and celebrity as to actually be prepared to sleep with him proved fruitless, King could always resort to the loveless embrace of a whore.  I doubt that a man of King’s intellectual and moral stature could tell the difference between spontaneous and commercial sex anyway.  Instead, he lashed out at a girl who just wanted to enjoy a night out without being molested by some overrated, goal-shy waste of a transfer fee.  Good going, Marlon, hope you enjoy prison.  Again.

In honour of the commitment Nick Griffin and Marlon King have shown to the cause of utter obnoxiousness that I will shortly be introducing the Creative Unpleasantness, Nasty Thoughtless Brutality And Gratuitious Selfishness awards, starting as soon as I have enough entrants to create a poll.  Now, if only I could think of a catchy name for them…

I apologize, loyal readers (do we have any of those?) for the long space between posts.  Things have been a little nutty, but hopefully it won’t happen again.

The gap in posting, though, leaves me with the realization that we’re getting ever closer to the holidays, and all these school play-related memories are very timely.  So I’m going to attempt to keep them going, in honor of the upcoming Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas triad.

First of all, let me point out that my memories of the Thanksgiving play match Erin’s almost exactly, in the sense that I don’t remember much beyond the one song and the fact that I was always, always cast as an Indian.  I must not have had a line in this particular play, or, if I did, I don’t remember it the way I remember my lines as Gabriel.  I do remember that song though, and I remember absolutely LOVING it.  (The only variance in our recollections is that I could have sworn that the line was “feathers in our head men” rather than “feathers in our headband”, but that might just speak to my love of parallel structure.)  For me, there was something about the slow, staccato rhythm and the mysterious line about being “down among the dead men.”    I’m still fascinated by that line, and I’ve been digging around in my brain lately trying to understand what it might have meant to me when I was a kid.

But more on that later. For now, in the sense of timeliness, I want to return to THE DEVIL’S BIRTHDAY!!

I love being scared.  Yes, that’s right, I’m a humongous cliche.  I love bad horror movies, good horror movies, and stories that keep me from sleeping at night.  Back when I was a grad student I spent inordinate amounts of time researching Victorian  and early modern ghost stories (which I still hold are some of the best around).  The same was true when I was a kid: I devoured anything that made me want to run and hide in the closet.

As I remember it, Erin had a complex relationship with fear in childhood.  She participated with me in many a sleepover reading of Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark (volumes 1 through 3!).  But I also remember that these activities would make her nervous – a condition she always gives away by talking veryveryvery fast.  (If you ever ride a roller coaster with her, I advise tape recording her, as you would then have the most realistic vision of stream-of-consciousness ever imagined.)

Once, sometime around 3rd grade, she invited me to a lock-in at her church.  In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, a lock-in is a sort of massive slumber party generally associated with youth groups.  A few adults gather together girls from a variety of ages and let them all spend the night in the church rec hall and participate in church-sanctioned activities.  (I wonder if other religions do these too.  If they do, I bet they don’t play “Christians and Romans,” another fascinating topic I’ll be broaching later on.)  Somehow, Erin’s church youth leaders must not have been as strict as the ladies at our school, because there was much ghost-story telling that evening.  It started fairly early in the night when all of us were crammed into someone’s minivan and an older girl convinced us we were reliving the hook-on-the-car-door urban legend.    But it continued throughout the night, and I distinctly remember after a certain point Erin leaned over to me and whispered, “Maybe we should go lie down now.”  This was code for “I have hit my maximum limit of scare tactics.”

So I don’t know whether she’ll have the same memory I do about ghost stories at our elementary school – specifically about what we spook-addicts were given as replacement for our banished tales.  Because they were definitely banished.  During 4th grade I had the library’s copy of The Westing Game taken away before I had a chance to finish it – once the teachers realized it contained eery material – and even a run-in with a corpse!  That same year, close to Halloween, a rainy morning had us all disappointed that we’d have to stay inside for recess.  Our teacher promised she’d make it worth our while by telling some holiday-appropriate spooky stories.  Someone must’ve reported this activity to the principal, however, because by the time the promised recess rolled around she was no longer so enthusiastic.  She let us know that ghost stories weren’t a good idea after all.  Then in the 5th grade I got chastised for doing my book report on a collection of ghost stories – a report that I introduced by saying, “Some people will tell you that these tales aren’t true… but that’s just SOME people.”

So there was plenty of material considered untouchable.  I have some suspicions that the librarian felt bad for me, though.  She was the one who had given me The Westing Game in the first place, only to see it taken from me later.  She was trying to encourage reading as best she could, and she needed something to put in my hands that sparked my interest.  For a while she succeeded with books that piqued my fascination with mystery, getting me hooked on a biography of JFK that included a complete diagram of Dealey Plaza and a detailed account of the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination.  I was convinced for weeks that if I stared at that diagram long enough I could solve the case.

Even weirder, though, was the final solution that Mrs. B finally reached in her attempts to find suitable literature for me: The Door In The Dragon’s Throat, a weird children’s archaeology thriller by Christian author Frank Peretti.

Peretti has now made a suitable name for himself (amongst evangelicals, at least) in adult literature.  But back in the 80’s he wrote mostly for kids.  His main series featured a Christian archaeologist and his two kids as they were sent around the world (sometimes by the president!) to unearth lost mysteries usually connected to ancient Christianity.

Peretti was the perfect substitute for my missing ghosts.  In many ways, he was probably better – or at least more memorable.  I don’t remember the books being particularly prosthelytizing, although I’m sure they must have been in parts.  What I remember is the monsters.  Peretti dealt with Old Testament lore and often featured creatures like giants and – I swear – a cyclops.  The existence of such creatures was backed up somehow by scripture.  Wise Dr. Cooper was always explaining to his kids how various verses in the Bible described people and things that no longer existed in our world, including races of giant men and women like the Goliath who fought David.

I am here to tell you that Biblical times were TERRIFYING.  There are 3 images I retain from childhood literature that still occasionally haunt me in the middle of the night.  One is the infamous girl-with-spiders-in-her-face from Scary Stories.*  The second is the girl bouncing around the ceiling in her sleep in Nightmare on Elm Street.  And the third is Peretti’s Biblical giants.**

The question I keep coming back to, though, is why?  I mean, technically I know the answer: the Peretti books were acceptable because they were by a Christian author, featuring Christian (sort of) themes.  The figures in the books couldn’t be considered supernatural because they were historical – Biblical figures traced directly back to scripture (sort of).  This raises an interesting issue that’s a constant for kids raised in religious environments: Christianity (and indeed religion in general) is filled to the brim with bizarre supernatural stuff.  Wonders and miracles, stigmata, mystery pregnancies, narrow escapes from death, talking bushes… I could go on.  All you have to do to get the idea is listen to an Eddie Izzard routine.  If you think about it, a kid raised amongst all that stuff shouldn’t need ghost stories at all.  But those ideas are generally presented in such a matter-of-fact tone (in class!) that they never seem frightening at all.  Or at least, they never did to me.***

Remembering Peretti makes me wonder why we didn’t tap into the natural spookiness of the Bible more often.  It may have been for the same reason that our teachers shied away from Halloween: they simply weren’t equipped to deal with the consequences of a room full of scared kids.  Fear makes people do odd things, and if the Bible hadn’t been like a cozy bedroom in our parents’ house, we might have been less likely to turn to it for all our answers.  I probably got away with reading Peretti because his name was familiar and safe – because he was a Christian author.  But the contents of the books touched on something we didn’t see much of in school – but that I DID see a lot of in my favorite stories.  Peretti showed me a world that was unstable and contained unimaginable danger.  He put me in the same world hinted at by Halloween and the phrase from our “Indian” song: a world where we were down among the dead men, where the unknown haunted us in stacatto rhythms.  His Christians faced down giants and carried the ghosts of the past with them.  I’d be curious to read those stories again now, to see whether they hold up – and to discover whether they contained more prosthelytizing than I remember.  I want to know if those giants are still scary, or if the they seem more like monsters made to pound a message into my skull.

Then again, that’s all lots of horror movies and stories are, really: just coded messages meant to play on the things we fear the most – like communism, or shopping malls.  Or Texas.

Except the bloody fur collar story (mentioned in footnote *).  That one was just creepy.

*Okay I just remembered a fourth.  During that infamous 5th grade book report I read a story about a girl who goes to spend the night at a friend’s house.  She wakes up to some weird sounds and finds herself alone in the room.  The lights have all gone out, and she goes prowling around the house in the dark, hands out in front of her.  As she feels her way around, she touches something that she realizes is the furry collar of her friend’s nightgown — with nothing above it but a stump!  Something has chopped off her friend’s head.  I don’t remember how this story got resolved, but the image of that furry collar still rears its head (or stump!  ha ha!) once in a while.

** Peretti makes an appearance in a great book called Rapture Ready, a compendium on the phenomenon of Christian pop culture.  He doesn’t come off TOO shabbily, and the author’s comments about him and his adult fiction make me wonder what I’d think of those books now.

***I have a friend who used to lie awake at night because she was afraid that if she fell asleep the Holy Spirit would impregnate her.  So I guess not everybody was as nonchalant about religious mythology.

On October 27, the entire Lower School went to Wards Berry Farm in Sharon. The students enjoyed a hayride through the farm to the pumpkin patch for some picking! After finding their pumpkin they visited the farm animals and had a picnic lunch. It was a great fall day that was enjoyed by all!

If you would like to find out more about Delphi’s practical program, please contact Jeff Rouelle in our Admission Department. info@delphiboston.org or visit our website at www.delphiboston.org