Little Rock, Arkansas-- full of nice surprises

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We started our totally excellent adventure to see a few more states we haven’t visited by flying to Arkansas via Memphis, home of Elvis, the recently deposed king of dead pop stars. There we noted that the restrooms in the airport were marked as Severe Weather Shelters—our first reminder that we were in tornado alley. A second short flight and we arrived in Little Rock—our first visit to Arkansas.

Little Rock surprised us—we didn’t expect to find so much to do or find the city so appealing. However, the highlight was the Robinwood Bed and Breakfast. We have stayed at many bed and breakfasts and this one was outstanding in every measure! The hosts, Karen and Miriam, are fabulously welcoming while still providing us with ample privacy.

Another surprise—the accents we heard were quite mild and in some cases non-existent —no strong southern drawls here. In addition Little Rock hasn’t been hit hard by the recession. Their housing market was never driven up to unsupportable rates, so there hasn’t been a huge downturn. With beautiful, architecturally mixed neighborhoods minutes from downtown, Little Rock is a very pleasant place to live. Our hosts told us about their neighborhood progressive dinners. It turns out that the governor’s mansion is right in the neighborhood, so the current governor is invited and attends the dinners! Apparently he is well-liked, as was Clinton. Huckabee turns out wasn’t much of a neighbor and few, if any, compliments were made of his administration by our hosts.

From the free parking lots to the proximity of the residential area to the small main street, Little Rock is more like a small town than a capital city. After getting nourishment (we are three meal a day travelers regardless of where we are visiting), we toured the Clinton Presidential Library. Okay, not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s a really cool building architecturally and perhaps my photo of the replica of the Oval Office can pass as the real thing. The letters to and from the Clinton’s were particularly cool—inspired me to start writing to the White House occupants and who knows, maybe my letters will show up in a future presidential library.

One great way to get to know a city is through geocaches. So we set off in search of our first (and as it turned out, only) geocache in Arkansas. Having arrived from the rain-drenched northeast we were eager to dry out walking in 100 degree sunshine. Apparently, the locals didn’t see the appeal in walking in the heat and we had the route to ourselves.

Once we had replaced rain moisture with sweat moisture, we made our first daily stop for a milkshake and headed to visit the Little Rock Nine National Historic Site. This NHS is across from Central High School where the nine black students attended in 1957 in an effort to initiate desegregation in Little Rock. I was particularly moved by the comments of one of the parents of the black students, sending their children into a hateful environment on a daily basis. One student recalled how her parents had told her to keep her emotions in check and not to take the taunts personally; it wasn’t about her, it was about race. How hard for the parents to take such stand in order to better the education of all of the children who would follow in the footsteps of these brave first few.

Tomorrow on to Hot Springs to continue our tour of this very appealing state.

Ancestry Map

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Need to capture your ancestry visually in a small space? Here is an ancestry map that I created as a 5”x7” rectangle which shows the names, dates of immigration and countries of origin for 4 family lines each going back 4 generations. Five, six or more generations can be accommodated depending on the length of surnames.



Key:
Green: Mother’s maternal ancestors
Red: Mother’s paternal ancestors
Black: Father’s maternal ancestors
Blue: Father’s paternal ancestors
Script Font: Country of birth
Regular Font: Family name of ancestor and date of immigration
Font Size: Largest fonts represent parents, fonts decrease in size for prior generations

I then arranged the names and places artistically rather than chronologically. If a last name is taken by a spouse at marriage (common in many English –speaking countries historically) then I didn’t repeat the name. Similarly, for Spanish surnames, to allow for space, I didn’t repeat the paternal surnames. This greatly reduces the number of names that need to be included and allows more names to be readable.

Similarly I didn’t repeat countries of birth. I included the name of any country in which at least one of my ancestors was born, but I only included each country once, even if 4 great great grandparents and 2 grandparents were born there. To visually identify that multiple families originated in a particular country, I used more than one color in the country’s name. For instance, to show that my mother’s dad and my father’s dad came from Italy, I would write Italy with both blue and red font. I adjusted this technique to show balance in the numbers of ancestors coming from multiple family branches. For instance, if many of my father’s maternal ancestors came from Russia and one of my mother’s paternal ancestors came from Russia, then I might write Russia all in black with just one letter red.

I also included the dates of immigration to our current country of residence. The dates next to the names in the generic ancestry map shown here, correspond to the year that name or branch of the family immigrated; they are not meant to represent the date for that particular individual. In the case of many ancestors having come to your country a long time ago, many of the names would include dates. On the other extreme, if your parents were born abroad and you immigrated to your country then none of the names shown would have dates included. In such a case, I would include the date of immigration in a large font prominently in the center of the map.

Modify and adjust to suit your family’s structure. Country names, immigration dates, surnames can all be adjusted in color, type and size to reflect a multitude of ancestry information. Perhaps you want to include common first names or employment industry or number of siblings. Select the attributes that are most important for your family and then modify the fonts to reflect those attributes.

My daughters suggested increasing the transparency as you travel back in time through the names, so that the great great great grandparents names would be quite faded. Just beware of attempting to capture too much information as having more than 4 or 5 attributes may only serve to overwhelm and confuse whoever is reading your ancestry map.

Weaving Blind

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A myriad of blues cascades along the warp on one loom like a mountain stream. Reds and golds glow like a summer sunset on an adjacent loom. Each loom tells a different story, just as each weaver has his or her own story to share. The weavers at these looms aren’t drawn to the vibrant colors and may not even be able to imagine the colors they create as they move their shuttles back and forth through the shed. Each of the weavers in this small room is blind or significantly visually impaired.

Louise sits in front of the cascade of blues, looking at her weaving and seeming to ponder her work. Yet Louise isn’t seeing the loom as most people would. After being oxygen deprived at birth, Louise’s eyesight slowly dimmed until she became totally blind. She still has memory of color, so as her warp is described to her she has some inkling of what the colors convey. But it is her tactile view of the warp that is most expressive. Changing the shed and passing her shuttle across the warp, she senses that she’s caught a thread. She carefully feels the edge with her agile fingers. Watching, I cannot see a mistake. When I tell her so, she asks for my hand and then moves my hand to the offending thread. By touch the minute error is quite evident. Louise carefully undoes the caught thread and continues weaving.

At the loom in front of Louise sits Janette who has been blind since birth. She too carefully passes her shuttle back and forth, creating beautiful straight edges and beating a very consistent fabric. In front of Janette, sits Carmen who has been blind for 5 years and is working at such a frenetic pace she cannot stop for any interruption. Her shuttle flies back and forth, back and forth, pausing only long enough for the briefest of beatings.

Then someone calls out, “I need a leg.” I need a leg? Doesn’t sound like a typical request from a blind weaver. This request has come from Pauline. Pauline is 97 years old—nearly 98 she’ll happily announce, and is legally blind from macular degeneration. Her 97 plus years don’t give her quite the strength and agility to release the warp and bring it forward. The rapidity with which her ‘need a leg’ requests are made, indicate just how quickly she is weaving.
So how do all of these talented blind weavers get the warps on their looms? Frances Curran is the creative director of the New Hartford Artisans Weaving Center. She designs the palettes for the warps for each loom and with the support of many local weaving volunteers the looms are carefully prepared. After the fabric is woven, volunteers finish the pieces, creating beautiful scarves, ponchos and bags, which are sold to help support the center.

As I depart the weaving center, the non-stop, interspersed clink of the heddles fill the room. Knobby hands reach out to feel the texture of the threads in the warp and weft. Even the scent of the fibers is alive in this small room as the weavers beat their threads, each to his or her own drummer.

Theater with the Lights On

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Town meetings in my town are an event not to be missed. Unfortunately 95% of the voters don’t realize this. If only my friends and neighbors were aware of what they are passing up—this is theater with the lights on. And it’s good theater—especially later in the evening due to the inverse relationship between tiredness and civility. This year a citizen suggested, no, actually directly said, that laws are made to be broken and made this utterance with a full complement of our officers in attendance. Then the presenter went on to suggest that the Supreme Court of the United States exists just so we could pass the current article and challenge current laws.

Granted theater with the lights on is not so good for necking, but it’s great for multi-tasking. A brief glance around the room and I spotted 3 knitters (who put down their knitting needles when the Supreme Court issue was raised), a baby being rocked to sleep, one crossword puzzle devotee in action, and multiple doodlers. This is an ideal environment for type A personalities—you can not only cross many items off your list, you can make your opinion known to a room full of fellow citizens, respectfully listening while knitting, stretching and doodling.

Both the script and the actors are high quality. The actors upon the stage had researched their areas of focus and brought forward well thought out and articulated arguments and, at least earlier in the evening, were very complimentary to their opponents’ presentations. Ad lib performances at the open microphones were coherent and persuasive, challenging the audience to consider both sides of the debate.

But what would a critique be without suggestions for an area of improvement? Given the intelligence and the knowledge of the presenters, I was surprised at the poor quality of the slides shown. Certainly the color choice was fine and by and large the font size was readable, but honestly, these are educators—why are they displaying a long list of bullet points and then reading the bullet points to the audience. That is precisely what we teach our students NOT to do. A budget is full of numbers, numbers can be easily graphed. Graphs can show comparisons far more effectively than a column of numbers—create some graphs people. In addition, we can be more externally focused—let’s look to other towns for best practices. Only one article, which was prepared by a concerned citizen, focused on the best practices of other communities as a model for change we could use. Thankfully several presenters showed photographs which clearly were worth a thousand words. Perhaps some of the board members took note and will improve their slides in the future.

Oh, and if any techies are reading this, can someone please create a mechanism that allows projectors to go to a blue screen (or any other entertaining interlude) rather than displaying the laptop’s desktop between slide shows. Some desktops are not meant to be publicly displayed.

So check out the local theater at your town meeting—you may be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the performance and make a difference in your town planning and governance at the same time.

The Volunteers of the Iowa Flood Recovery Effort

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The skill range of volunteers assisting with flood recovery is quite broad, ranging from skilled contractors to, well, to people like me who put up a piece of sheet rock for the first time while rebuilding a once flooded basement.

Our team of volunteers from Vermont was matched with a full time volunteer through Americorps Vista Corridor Flood Recovery (www.vistacorridorrecovery.org) . This Americorps group has been transformed from community corrections outreach, so the Americorps volunteers drive around in corrections vehicles to the work sites and are outfitted with standard issue corrections jump suits. The jump suits all have names sewn on the pocket—the name of the wearer might only coincidentally match the name sewn on the jump suit. Consequently we were calling Jimmy by his nametag—Danny— the day he came by our work site. After 10 months few volunteers were still choosing to wear standard issue jumpsuits in favor of their own jeans and Ts.

Our team leader, Phil, was a recent college graduate from Philadelphia who had started volunteering last July to assist with the recovery efforts. He stopped wearing jumpsuits last summer. As an Americorps volunteer he is given a below poverty level stipend and minimal housing which typically results in living in conditions similar to those in poverty. Phil takes his dinner meal at a local church feeding the homeless along with other Americorps volunteers, has no housing expenses and very low entertainment expenses as he has little time and the evening softball league requires few expenses beyond refreshments. Consequently, Phil commented that as he is no longer managing the expenses of a college student, he is actually saving more money now than he had previously.

Phil was an outstanding team leader—an adjective he likely would not have applied to his inexperienced crew the day he met us.

When we asked him how he was assigned to be our team leader he responded, “I was late for the meeting.”

Ouch. He later denied that he followed that statement with “I won’t do that again.”

However, in our zeal to finish our project on Friday afternoon, he again missed the weekly team assignment meeting, so likely ended up with an equally inexperience group of volunteers the following week.

Like all contractors I met, Phil did not shrink from finding fault with the previous workers for any problems we encountered. The previous group had erroneously put the sheet rock on the walls before the ceiling, left gaps that were hard to fill with mud, put up a few pieces of sheetrock wampyjod ( a new term for me, which I question is widely used by experienced contractors) and left countless screws sticking out too far. I am certain the group following us would find plenty of complaints in our ceiling tiles and mudding efforts. Although, the final two sheetrock pieces we affixed to the bathroom ceiling did fit beautifully around the lighting fixture and wall jags.

We met other Americorps volunteers—those coordinating training in the warehouse, communicating with the short term volunteers, and other team leaders. Steve was one of those team leaders. Steve had been a physical therapist until he was diagnosed with ALS shortly before the flood. He was let go from his job and rather then retreating into darkness, Steve began working every day on the flood recovery efforts. He has worked every day since the flood gutting destroyed homes by hauling load after load of rotting, saturated, putrid possessions, furniture, and building materials out of buildings that need to be reduced to the bare studs. All of this I learned from him in one short conversation after he asked if I knew the score of the previous night’s Celtic’s game. The untold stories are countless, waiting like bud ready to blossom with a little rain and sunlight.

Likewise the women I worked with are dedicated volunteers, women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, giving their own time to rebuild a stranger’s home. In the camaraderie of using a sheetrock lift to puzzle in a piece of sheetrock, or figuring out the most effective (and ineffective in the process) way of cutting out a hole for a can light in the ceiling, we quickly moved from conversations of daily fluff to the meaning of life. Once we were in the seductive rhythm of screwing in an 8 foot ceiling sheet or mudding corner beading, we could contemplate the lives and loss of lives that have touched us. The time we spent working together was a gift to each of us equally as meaningful as the physical results of our efforts.

The Parishioners

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“After I looked 165 people in the eye and had to tell them we couldn’t do anything for them, that their insurance didn’t cover floods… well, it gets to you.”

“I washed my niece’s clothes 5 and 6 times and couldn’t get the smell of the flood out of them. No water damage, just the smell.”

“I knew the UCC disaster relief needed help, so we opened our doors.”

“The downtown jewelry store lost everything. A friend who had her ring there—it’s gone. Someone’s going to find a really nice ring someday. The local library lost its great collection. A nearby church was completely flooded out.”

These are snippets of the stories that the parishioners of Hope UCC shared as they welcomed flood recovery teams to lodge in their church. A somewhat small church in membership, Hope UCC is HUGE in compassion and mission and activity. Greeting us in our makeshift bedroom were inflated air mattresses, one large enough to sleep a family of four, and a huge basket filled to the brim with microwaveable popcorn, Girl Scout cookies, snack packs, nuts, maps and paperbacks. They had arranged that we could shower across the street at the fire station—the absolutely hottest showers imaginable—and shared their kitchen where we cobbled together a few basic meals (5 mothers away from home for a week are disinclined to prepare big meals after putting up sheetrock all day). Truly an extravagant welcome.

We happened to visit the week prior to the big spring church fair, so parishioners were coming and going all week setting up crafts and baking for Saturday. Tuesday, table center pieces and homemade crafts began filling Fellowship Hall. Wednesday, a beef and vegetable soup simmered all day in the kitchen as more crafts appeared. Thursday, an indoor garden of flowering plants appeared. Friday morning at 6 am Lois and Faye arrived to start baking cinnamon rolls and 275 “Pies for Two” (which we soon renamed, pies for one) for their Saturday church fair. Upon returning from work we found every surface covered with cinnamon rolls and pies—peach, raspberry, cherry, banana cream, strawberry rhubarb, pecan, apple, blueberry, mince meat, raisin, raisin?, yes, a pie full of raisins—and I thought I knew the full range of fruit pies being a pie maker’s wife, but raisin was new to me. “P” had been pricked into the peach crust, “R” into the raspberry, “Y” into the strawberry (never did figure out how that came about). The delicious aroma permeated every room in the church and had we been in any other structure, we may have been less likely to show such self-control as we restrained from tasting every pie available.

And this was only one of many annual events Hope UCC congregants prepared—in a few weeks they would be baking and cooking for the local spring town-wide event Hog Wild Days where they manage the food tent and feed hundreds of hunger fair-goers for four consecutive days.

Many new members are joining Hope UCC from a nearby church that was devastated by the flood. While the flood may have provided an impetus for the individuals and families to find a new church, clearly the vibrancy of the Hope UCC community and its welcoming attitude are the compelling reason for these new congregants to choose Hope.

Cedar River Flood Fallout: The Homeowner

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Eleven months after the devastating floods in Iowa, homeowners, volunteers, and community members welcomed a team of New England volunteers to assist with rebuilding in the Cedar Rapids area. These are the stories those volunteers encountered.

The Homeowner
“The water will only reach the curb,” officials told homeowners in Palo, Iowa in early June 2008 as the Cedar river headed for flood level and rain continued to fall. Curt and his neighbors pledged to stay and save their homes from the rising water. So they armed themselves with generators and pumps, put basement furniture up on blocks and stayed vigilant. The water continued to rise. Forecasts were revised, the Cedar River would crest at 31.1 feet on June 13, 288, over 10 feet above the previous record of 20 feet in 1851 and 1929. At 18.5 feet water affects the lowest residences in Palo.

Vehicles were prohibited from the neighborhood after 8 pm Wednesday. The water kept rising. Early Thursday morning Curt looked out at his dark neighborhood, realized his neighbors had fled and decided it was time for his wife and him to seek safety. The water rushed around his calves as he carried a few belonging to his truck at the end of the street. He quickly returned home, called for his wife to grab the dog and headed out into the now waist deep current swirling through his once tranquil neighborhood. Lightening flashed and the rain pelted down as they anxiously made their way back to their truck and left for higher ground.

In this town of 950 residents northwest of Cedar Rapids all but 1 household evacuated. Residents waited impatiently for the water to recede and to be allowed to return to their neighborhood. Finally, 3 days later on Father’s Day, they were allowed back to see their homes, although it would be months before homes passed occupancy inspections.

Curt and his wife found several inches of muck in their garage, coating everything, and their freezer knocked over and blocking their entry. Between the black water, rotting food, hot June days and a sealed house the stench was overwhelming. The water had reached 22 inches up the first floor cabinets and by Sunday had receded to expose the top step of the basement stairs. Curt looked down into his basement filled to the brim with filthy black water.

With friends, family and co-workers pitching in, they took two days to shovel out the garage and then the real work began. Fans, power washing, shoveling out muck, removing debris continued for days on end. “A king size mattress, waterlogged, weighs more than a car, I tell you,” Curt commented as he retold the story of lugging the mattresses up out of the basement. The power of the water was evident everywhere. His slate topped pool table, which a week prior he had lifted up onto cinder blocks in the basement, was completely flipped over. Clothing, mementos, furniture, appliances, all unsalvageable. A ruined household and no flood insurance.


Even with generous time off granted by his employer, Curt and his wife with help from friends and family could only chip away at rebuilding their home. The pace slowed, but work continued until finally, 109 days after evacuating, they returned to live in their home again. The basement remained unfinished, stripped and cleaned down to the studs. Their family had traditionally hosted extended family for Thanksgiving and Christmas and everyone would retreat to the finished basement for pool, TV and games after their holiday dinner. Holidays in 2008 wouldn’t be the same without the basement space. The rebuilding would stretch far into 2009.