University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa USA

Two of my favorite subjects in high school were the Latin language and Roman history. Indeed my valedictorian address at our graduation ceremony in 1931 was entitled "Pax Romana, Pax Americana." It is from this starting point I view human progress during the past two millennia.

It seems to me that the basic elements of human nature have remained the same. For example, society continues to honor honesty, integrity, loyalty, hard work, and the loving care of children, and to deplore avarice, hate, intolerance and cruelty.

Peering into the next millennium as the world's population passes the 6 billion mark is a hazardous undertaking and I do so with appropriate humility. My vision of the next century is a mixture of extrapolations of the past and hopes for the future. Here are my best efforts.

I expect the further and much more pervasive availability of electronic communication and of high-speed computers, though on the technical side there will be an inevitable leveling off as invention approaches fundamental physical limits of size, speed and capacity.

On the other hand, the efficient production of food is nowhere near global capacity and can continue to expand, aided by advances in bioengineering. Likewise in the fields of public health and the treatment of disease, it is reasonable to expect a quiet revolution with scientific advances in genetics, diagnosis, and treatment leading the way.

No such progressive revolution in mass transportation can be reasonably foreseen, because of its profligate consumption of non-renewable energy and the limits of surface roads and airways. As traditional sources of energy become more expensive and approach exhaustion, the use of wind power, solar electric power, nuclear power, biomass combustion and other renewable sources will gradually become the dominant foundation for transportation and other human demands. But the economics of such alternative sources of energy will require much greater attention to efficiency on structural as well as technical bases.

In my own area of professional activity, I expect durable public support for the scientific exploration of our solar system and the distant astronomical universe as representing human curiosity at its best, despite few expectations of utilitarian applications. But I can not join the small cadre of futurists who predict that human space travel will become commonplace.

Finally, let me venture the hope that the human species will successfully pursue the peaceful resolution of conflicts, the elimination of crime and violence and in the wise husbandry of the Earth so that it will remain a pleasant, healthful habitat for our progeny.

JAMES VAN ALLEN

His research is in the area of space physics. In 1958, he discovered the radiation belts of the Earth and has served as principal scientific investigator for 24 space missions including satellites of the Earth and the first spacecraft to Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. He has received many honors for his pioneering work including the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (U.K.) in 1978; the National Medal of Science (USA) 1987 and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1989.

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I was born with a cruel, lifelong intractable and profound unknown disability that robs me of speech mobility and sensible movement. It is quite enough to cope with. Sometimes it is more than I can cope with but it's something to be accepted and worked around. It's just the way I am. There is no choice but to make the most of it.

England should be a comfortable place in which to grow up - no wars, famine volcanoes nasty diseases or the sort of poverty I've seen for myself in Tanzania and Bangladesh. But is it, has it been comfortable for me? Resoundingly, no. It's been a very rough ride indeed and I enter my teenage years with a quite extraordinary array of experiences quite unlike that of my able-bodied brother.

I have much too much to say and a great deal of indignation, not to say anger and frustration, at the difficulties I have encountered over and above those connected with my disability. I have therefore prepared a hand-out with the longer-winded version of my speech, and more details still are available on my website. From this hand-out, you will see what I have felt at various pivotal points in my development - how I thought I was stupid because I needed therapy, for example, how alone I felt when I realised I had a lifelong disability, how I got the opportunity to spell and became free to communicate what I wanted to (at least some of the time), being on trial at a mainstream school, the joys of the internet, the troughs of despair when placements failed.

I have had just one year's education, ie 23 terms less education than my peers. I myself took my case to the ombudsman and after 2� years he decided that I had been unjustly deprived of care and education for 4 years. My parents subsequently complained about another couple of years going by but he decided that it was reasonable for the LEA to have failed to provide for me and that my statement of SEN does not have to be reviewed as other children's in law have to be. We have no explanation of why this is so and no means of complaining about it. He also decided that waiting 5 years for home adaptations was not the result of any maladministration because it is reasonable for the council to be careful in how they spend public money. Thus I still have no access at home to loo, basin, bath, shower, hoist or lift.

Unsurprisingly, I have grown a great deal of bitterness and have had some deep and dire depressions necessitating the NHS funding psychotherapy for me. I cannot stop being afraid. I am afraid of the power the authorities have to deny me help that could lessen the impact of my disability. Surely they exist to help people like me? Surely I am their raison d'etre?

I haven't let it stop me. I have grasped such opportunity as "they" have provided. My LEA recognised my talents at an early age and after my year in mainstream infants' school sought a grammar school base for me when I was still just 6. They funded my writing music for 2 years and my places at the prestigious London music colleges. They set up internet facilities for me at home. But they have not built on my early success at training others in my means of communication. I have one habitual enabler, who you see here today, my mother.

Without my mother I would not have been able to achieve anything. She has ensured that professionals listen, has built good working partnerships such that I have the allies and advocates I need, and has empowered me to be as self-determining as possible. She refuses to let my disability stop me from doing things I want to do: she has designed a pack-flat portable toilet seat, built me a bed, designed welly-boot wheelchairs, board games, appropriately sized dolls' house etc etc etc. She devised interactive games, quizes and multiple choice stories to build my early literacy skills and gives huge amounts of time so that I can develop my means of self-expression.

If you'd like to take a moment or two to look at my hand-out where I rabbit on interminably about memories to do with self-expression and education, acceptance and empowerment, please do. This afternoon I will be saying more about specific instances when I have felt harmed and thwarted by bureaucracy, about the denial of my equality with able-bodied people and what I do to make my life pan out more satisfactorily. OK?

I have carved my own life outside of any classroom. I am a performed composer of classical music, a BBC Video Nation correspondent, I set up at 10 a website that includes a literary mag of experiential writing that has won a prestigious international award and has had articles contributed by inter alia George Carey, John Tavener, Helen Sharman, and Melvyn Bragg; at 12 I raised the money to travel to Tanzania and Bangladesh and on to New York to discuss poverty with Kofi Annan. There is a lot I want to do. I want to divide my life much as Albert Schweitzer did between music and more obviously useful and pragmatic endeavours. I want to help to ameliorate conditions in poor countries where basic resources are sadly lacking. It horrifies me that hard-working honest nice people can be living with electricity in their homes and access to free health services for the treatment of cholera and dysentery and without access to safe clean water. It upsets me that they want it and can't have it.

However, there seems no expectation that I should be doing anything useful at all. Not merely is time not treated as precious but I am encouraged to have low expectations not high ones.

Let's begin at the beginning. From diagnosis at 13 months through to adulthood at 18 years, I have to periodically attend my local paediatric centre. It's where the speech therapists, physios and OTs are based. It houses a couple of pre-school groups. It's where I see my consultant orthopaedic man, my general consultant paediatrician and my epilepsy and neurology consultants. There is only staff parking. The reception and waiting room are on the first floor. There is no lift. There is a sign in the hall saying no valuables should be left lying about. My mother has to leave me in the hall and go upstairs to report that we have arrived. She has to persuade them that she cannot carry me upstairs and a downstairs room must be arranged. There are no examination couches downstairs. I have to be laid on the floor to have my hole in the heart listened to and my pelvis examined. The doctor must kneel on the floor. Then I must be lifted up again without the aid of any hoist. Then my mother is asked to pick me up and hold me in her arms to take a routine weighing on ordinary bathroom scales because they cannot bring the scales downstairs that I could sit on. There is no disabled toilet in the building. Now I wonder what I learn from all of this? Are the disabled valued? Of course not, I'm a bloody nuisance to everyone. Should my mother be lifting and carrying? Yes she should. Should anyone else? No there is health & safety legislation that prevents them from being allowed to.

Health & safety legislation erodes what can be provided. My care package is dwindling as I increase in weight and likewise my opportunity to exercise. My general fitness is not a priority. Overnight my physio was cut from twice a week to twice a year. They have no mechanism for funding my continued use of a standing frame. Education want to stop paying for my workouts in the hydro pool. My parents are required to undergo their umpteenth means-testing for equipment that will allow the implementation of section 3 provision in my statement of SEN. My needs would be met free of any charge if I were less severely disabled.

On top of this, I have a care manager who will not help to ensure that I can continue to leave my house. He wrote to me that my expectations were too high because I expect a wheelchair similar to this one in which I am currently seated when this is outgrown. This was NHS funded. It allows my nappy to be changed in a disabled toilet. They have said they cannot fund such a chair again.

I feel as if they would gag me, as if they don't care what they do to me, and how I feel.

My physical care is time-consuming but is as nothing compared with the time spent trying to organise stuffs for me. I seem to be divided into a million pieces and boundaries are fiercely defended. Budgets are not for spending but for protecting. I am made to feel greedy. I am made to feel difficult. I am made to feel worthless. I am 13. My considerable achievements are not apparently valued by my community although I receive correspondence from all over the world from people who do seem to value me and exhort me to struggle on. Life is a struggle. Not merely because I don't have proper equipment, bathrooms, intellectual stimulation, the company of my peers (however one defines that), not merely because of my disability.

Life is a struggle because I am so afraid. I am afraid of my dependence on services whose attitude impedes me, hurts me, frustrates me, and upon which I am life-long dependent. Who will help me when my mum dies? Who will be my advocate? The NHS resources a clinical psychologist to help me with my fears but it's not an individual's problem really. It's not me that's mad, it's society that's unfair. And I find it sad that although I have been sufficiently cute crip often to be a human interest story in the press, I can't kick them into campaign mode single-handed. I don't really want to spend my life in politics fighting for my rights or those of others. There are other things I want to do, but if I am prevented from doing them, I have no choice but to be a political animal.

I want to feel valued even though I am disabled, even though I cost the state money. I would prefer to live in a society that is HAPPY to help the vulnerable and disadvantaged not grudgingly doing so, but I feel I MUST live in a society that is at least trying to be equitable. I hope people here agree.

HERO JOY NIGHTINGALE

I am a thirteen year old girl with a locked-in syndrome caused by a profound apraxia of all my muscles and the retention of dominant babyish reflexes. I am a wheelchair user and need complete care. I cannot make voluntary sounds and therefore cannot speak. Spelling is my greatest delight as it affords me the freedom to direct the course of my life. I crave acceptance as a really quite ordinary person, with an artistic temperament and a nice enough personality. On the whole I prefer adult company to kids', and my own company to 'most any other. I am bloody-mindedly independent and rarely acknowledge the wisdom of my mother's grey years.

I live in England, in the same town as I was born in but I love my mother's native land of Scotland even more. I also find Venice hard to eradicate from my mind, it swims like a tantalising mirage on my horizon informing my tastes and swelling my longing need to be truly me. I used to say that "I yearn to visit with people beyond Europe but have not a lot of dosh available for such sojourns". Last year I raised the money for my first big journey and changed my life immensely.

I need quiet. I hear music in my head a great deal of the time in a way I have come to accept is unusual. I was a composition student on a part-time Intermediate place at the Royal Academy of Music in London, participating alongside the undergraduate and graduate students when I was 9 years old, but they abruptly terminated my place and thrust me into a terrible depression.

Since then, I have veered more towards writing and journalism, by inventing FTW and becoming a BBC Video Nation correspondent and some other initiatives, but I also have leanings towards the visual arts. I am currently building an ambitious installation, am continuing to develop my photography, and if I could find more time, would out the visual aspects of the two autobiographical ballet scores I have completed and organise some performances of my poetry.

__________________________________________

My little window, at times, provides me with insights into the world around me and my role in it. Back in 1961 I was involved in a program entitled, "The Encampment for Citizenship". The purpose of the program was to demonstrate to young people that they could make a difference and that they should be part of the process to involve themselves in the world around them.

This program had a lifelong effect on me. I heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak in San Francisco while attending the program at the University of California, Berkeley, and was enormously moved. At that time the Freedom Rides were taking place in the US and groups of Black and White people were attempting to bring about the integration of public transportation.

Following Dr. King's speech I signed up to attend a non-violent workshop in the South, the bastion of segregation in my country, conducted by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Upon attending I was part of a group arrested for ordering a cup of coffee. You see, we were a racially mixed group and that was a NO-NO in that part of our country.

The outcome of the specific event is unimportant. The important aspect is that I utilized my learnings to recognize that a 18th century countryman of yours, Sir Edmund Burke, was totally correct when he said, " All that is necessary for the forces of evil to take root in the world is for enough good men ( women) to do nothing." My anger over injustice, in all areas, has never ceased. However, I have attempted to recognize that injustice is easy to fight. After all what is easier than saving mankind? It is contributing to saving the individual or solving the small problem that is difficult. Therefore, my window led me to teach a course, at one time, on Social Action. My emphasis, in teaching as well as life, is that one must be involved with his/her community. School groups such as PTA, Voter Registration, local charities, sports' groups for children, community association and what have you. All need the involvement of the general citizenry if this is to be a better place to live and grow.

CORE, ( Congress of Racial Equality ) began the "freedom rides" during the summer of 1961. They caught the imagination of the entire nation. CORE was led by a civil rights icon James Farmer. He was an African American. His assistant was a gentleman named Gordon Carey. He was white. Together these two men built an interracial organization dedicated to improving the conditions of the African American in America. At that time the obvious and open injustices were taking place in the southern states of America.

However, CORE was also educating a nation of "whites" who didn't live in the South and for the most part were unaware of what was taking place in their country. CORE ran lunch counter and restaurant integration activities. That is they would have a team of white and blacks enter an eating facility to see if they would be served. After "testing" they, CORE, would then decide if they wanted to cause an arrest by the local authorities by having an interracial group refuse to leave an establishment that wouldn't serve them. The "freedom rides" did the same thing in the area of interstate commerce by using a bus that traveled from state to state in the South. An area where blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus. Integration of public beaches was also being attempted. In St. Augustine, Florida the mother of Governor Peabody of Massachusetts, quite an elderly lady, was arrested for being in such a group. Dogs were unleashed on her group. I do not remember if that took place in the summer of 1962 or 1963. Dogs, firehoses, the unleashing of vicious citizens were the order of the day.

The dogs, the firehoses were all part of the police tactics to "break-up" non-violent demonstrations. Our view was "we will fill your jails" and use our "bodies" to obtain a just society. A romantic and possibly naive point of view. Remember, we were all young students or just out of college at the time.

The police were not present to protect anyone demonstrating from the violence of the local citizens. Most people may remember the names Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. These were one black and two white young men who were killed while working on a voter registration drive. They were arrested on a bogus traffic charge and then released so that the "killers" could follow them and carry out the killings.

While voter registration, integration in many areas of daily life and other civil rights acts of civil disobedience were taking place not all were being carried out under the CORE banner. However, it was this organization that led the way with acts of civil disobedience on a large scale that set the scene for the myriad other Civil Rights groups to follow. The key to the entire movement was the young student of the day. While there were some "older" people involved and killed it was the young people who carried the day. The end result came with the passage of federal laws, known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation as it then existed. This was also coupled with decisions of the United States Supreme Court which also declared that "equal but separate" is inherently unequal.

At the same time the Northern section of the country felt it was morally superior. After all, outright segregation did not exist in northern states. However, CORE knew that defacto segregation was an important if not more important than dejure segregation. That is segregation that exists as opposed to segregation created by law. In New York City, where I lived at the time, our CORE group tested apartment rental policies. We would send a black couple to rent an apartment. They would be followed by a white couple in order to ascertain if the apartment would be available to one group as opposed to the other. In many instance the answer was the apartment was not available to the black couple but was to the white couple.

As far as my personal life and upbringing are concerned I didn't think it exceptional in any way. My father was a postal worker who always had "black" colleagues. Some were invited to such family functions as a wedding. My mother, a typical housewife of the day, was bright and well read although not formally educated. There was never a negative racial nor ethnic slur used in my home. We were taught, as young children, that all people are equal. My dad always spoke of the "brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of God". Obviously it had an effect on me.

I became a teacher, assistant principal and then a principal of an "inner city" school attended by black and Hispanics students. I also spent ten years as an adjunct faculty member of the State University of New York as an instructor of United States Labor History.

I hope this meets your expectations. At the present time they are distant memories. After all some 38+ years have passed. I feel lucky to have been part of the "solution" to a problem. While racism is still alive and well in my country I do believe we "work" at trying to face and solve our problems. Not fast enough for some and too fast for others. I have always believed that if my children were to ask me what I did at such and such a time I would have to have a valid answer for them. Unfortunately they never asked.

Keep well my young friend. Remember, you make the difference.

Love,

Bob Balogh

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House of Commons

Dear Hero,
Thanks so much for your letter inviting me to write something for your magazine.
I am so overpressed that I can't manage it so I shall have to ask you to excuse me for the moment.
I read your enclosures with care and I do hope you will be able to make some progress with your education.
Good luck!

With best wishes,

Tony

Tony Benn

TONY BENN

is a Labour politician of the old sort. HJN.

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VANITY, VANITY, NOTHING BUT VANITY

From Doctor Johnson's 'Vanity of Human Wishes' to Orwell's 'Keeping the Aspidistra Flying', from George Gissing's 'New Grub Street' to Paul Auster's recent 'Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle Of Failure', the tribulations besetting the would-be writer have been well-charted. The lonely wrestling with the might of the English language. Shifty or condescending patrons. Discontented spouses. Rejection slips to paper several garrets and a madhouse wall. Acceptances which, once they come, never actually achieve the light of print. All are discouragements enough. Especially for a type not noted for a tough skin. And meanwhile Tom Clancy & Co rake in millions...

In this age of electronic payment and junk mail, now to the scourges above add the Vanity Press. Not that it ever refers to itself as such, seeking out, rather, the quiet corners of otherwise respectable literary supplements. 'Your Poems Considered'. 'Be a Writer'. 'New Authors. Publish your work.' 'Authors worldwide invited.' You take the advert at its word and send off your manuscript, whether five pages or five hundred...

A few days later - time being money, these organizations are nothing if not prompt - a peculiarly grandiose envelope arrives. Postmarked Cambridge, England, the left-hand corner carries a picture of the University's spires, presumably uncopyrighted. Not yet knowing the nemesis ahead, you eagerly undo the seal. There on the letter-head are three different typefaces, the same appropriated spires recurring, your Christian name. 'At certain points in a lifetime of work, it is helpful to both reflect on one's career achievement as well as look forward to the challenges ahead,' gushes typeface number one, split infinitive powerless to stop it. 'All too often we may wish to promote our respective achievements without losing a sense of natural humility...' Gush, guff, gush, your Christian name once more, a quote from Henry V. This is a prologue to the big announcement in typeface two: Here is 'your chance to be', anonymity notwithstanding, 'the proud owner of a signed and sealed Golden Scroll of Excellence'. Not only that. You can have it 'mounted on a magnificent wooden base and eminently suitable for hanging on an office or study wall to reflect your achievements to date.' Or ostentatiously suitable, revises a cautionary whisper of common sense.

'A Special Invitation from the Senior Editor,' the golden blurb spills onto another sheet. More gush and guff. Then, overleaf, 'Your Personal Reservation Form.' Now, in significantly smaller print, for the nitty-gritty: 'For only $415 the Golden Scroll is yours. Or for an equivalent fee in sterling.' - The Award is international after all. Or, should you so wish, for a de luxe version you can pay $495. No, your eyes are not playing tricks: That's debit, not credit. As if anonymity has not messed you around already, here it is pushing you up against a wall and leering. In a fit of amour propre you tear letter, envelope, form into tiny pieces. One more lesson learned, one more pitfall avoided...

Until a fortnight later another letter arrives. From the same organization or a dingy offshoot? You're not told. Only that your submission has now been 'certified as a semi-finalist' in a competition which the advert did not mention, and 'will automatically be entered into the finals'. Here the neat black print breaks into indigo italics: 'IMAGINE YOUR POEM/STORY...IN A BEAUTIFUL ANTHOLOGY!' Three paragraphs and five more flourishes of your Christian name lead to the question, 'SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW?' To add to the $495 payment requested previously, for $212 you can obtain your 'personal copy of the publication in which your artistry appears.' A few lines down, the PS, as if anticipating your misgivings, insists: 'You should be genuinely proud of your achievement.'

Vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity! Worse still is the image of someone the other end sneering all the way to the bank. This letter goes the way of the first. Compared to such nonsense, plain oblivion seems almost a blessing. Never again, you vow, attempting to rise above the situation, the waste-paper bin your witness...

Or not till next week. Into your pigeon hole drops, on the strength of that submission you're beginning to regret having ever written, 'Your Personal Invitation to acquire an Individual Award recognizing you unfailing service in World Literature.' Attached is an illustration of 'An International Testimonial of Merit', complete with your name misspelt and a passport photo of a bespectacled gray-haired lady resembling some dimly-remembered maiden aunt. 'The Board has resolved that the above portrait be included in this Testimonial as verification of the honor bestowed...Mark of distinction in this competitive world...antique bronze...fine milled paper to last generations...' More dreaming spires. Somewhere the thought, If I were more successful, this could well be a practical joke from some envious rival, flattery as insult, a gilded put-down? If...if...

Your sense of achievement - diminished already - diminishes further on reading Visa, Mastercard, Access, beside each its small blue and expectant square. Yes. The reward for acquiring 'the tasteful honors afore-mentioned' is a debit of 100 pounds and 10 pence including postage. Meanwhile in cream or beige 'The Pictorial Testimonial' is a bargain at minus 92 pounds. Here must be two of the most extortionate sheets of quarto ever. For a further fee the certificates may be 'laminated on their own wooden bases ready for hanging and so eliminating the need for framing.' Forty six more pounds will make you 'the recipient of both certificates bound in a folder of best chamois skin...' Answering that advert is taking on the dimensions of a curse that will not budge, a punishment for harboring genuine literary ambitions to begin with. As if to prevent another unwanted encore, this time you don't just tear up the dubious documentation but burn it.

'As cold water in a thirsty mouth is good news from a distant country,' says the proverb. Real news, that is. This pseudo version resembles another substance altogether, something one wouldn't wish on anyone. Not for this did you spend those midnights crouched over the word-processor, agonizing over le mot juste, the best rhyme, revising your revisions: And now you're being charged for it, urged on to pay for your own efforts. Alienation of labor is one thing, but here's an aspect of capitalism even Marx did not think of. As if a dustman would pay for emptying dustbins, a secretary accept being debited for typing letters?

Four, five more weeks pass. Then, lest you think you've been forgotten and the curse is lifted, another envelope arrives. Having escaped the lure of Golden Scrolls, being labeled with an untold myriad of others as 'International Man of the Year', you're offered a place in 'The International Who's Who of Intellectuals - in Standard Edition, Luxury Edition, or the exclusive Royal Edition.' Provided, of course, you buy a copy. The bill, to be footed by your esteemed self, has now sky-rocketed into the 500-1000 dollar range. As a sample payee/recipient there's a Professor from the Department of Industrial Automation, Waotung University.

Among a pile of other achievements, he can boast of being 'first class prize winner of the Xuzhou City audio-visual demonstration lecture match.' Finally you are requested 'to recommend the names of others you feel fit the criteria as an intellectual, and who would like to be invited to be included in the 'International Who's Who of Intellectuals.' Spaces are provided for a dozen, each plus more lines for a 'Full Address.' (Vanity is evidently infectious...) Alright, you asked for it. 'Names embossed in gold on the spine, front and back covers,' why not maybe Kim Il Sung for his services to Political Thought; Freddie and the Dreamers for their contribution to modern music; the inventor of the Credit Card for services to economics, though in the latter case the Edition would probably come free. Or, as a genuine as opposed to a bogus contender, how about Ecclesiastes? 'For what hath man of all his labour, and of his vexation of heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?' Quite. 'Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun...yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it to his portion.' Timelessly to the point. Whether as commentary or antidote, also a candidate for 'Pearls of Wisdom', or any other of the anthologies mentioned in the blurb - 'A Lasting Calm', 'Flowers of Fancy'. Or maybe not. For one thing: Ecclesiastes probably had no bank account. As further grounds for rejection, Biblical shekels wouldn't be an acceptable currency. Then, now the Temple is no more, there's the problem of an address. In which case the less timeless talent of A.N. Whoever as evidenced in an unrhyming sonnet to his pet ego will have to take preference. This is also vanity, and if not 'a great evil', certainly in the running as a minor one.

SO WHAT HAPPENS NOW? You think of some corner of the rain forest cut down to provide paper - plain or beige or cream - for all those certificates, not to mention the varnished wall-plaques, those wooden bases. Then it's back to the word processor, dispatching more poems, short stories, a never-ending novel into the void. That's what. At night, all this vanity gone to your head, you dream of tomorrow's post. One envelope has 'Save Trees' biroed across the back. Two are in your own hand-writing, the only difference from waking life being the golden ink. Predicting the rejection slips, you find a moment later your predictions come true. 'While enjoying your work, the editor regrets he cannot make use of it. You are reminded that a very dim view is taken of those who fail to include a stamped self-addressed envelope...' There's a bill from the Gas Board, from the phone company, a pamphlet about double glazing. Just one envelope left.

On fine milled paper out slides an announcement that you have just been awarded 'the Nobble Prize for Litterature.' Amazing, but for those mischievous misspellings. You turn over. Less amazingly you are invited to place your order now, before demand outstrips supply. The fee, you cannot help noticing, has jumped from a thousand dollars to more than your life's savings. Payment by Wire Transfer, Visa, Access, Master Card are, of course, accepted.

And at no extra charge, along with the prize comes an inflammable certificate...

MARTIN BENNETT

Martin Bennett taught in West Africa for several years and now works in Saudi Arabia. He has had three short stories on BBC World Service, and other work in Stand, Poetry London, Wasafiri, West Africa Magazine and elsewhere. A collection of poems - 'Loose Watches' - appeared from University of Salzburg Press in 1997.

____________________________________________

JOHN BIRKBECK

************

HOMELESS

Sometimes he

perches on

a bench on

the ped mall

mislocated and

miscast into a

place and time

not his own.

In bad weather

he looks out

from the window

of The Tobacco Bowl

remembering

the day when

he could make

time stop

and the sun

run on time.

It's not

America

anymore

he thought

wondering

where he was

and how he got

to this place.

*********************

ALIEN AND SEDITION

Commonplace riots

over-the-top road rage

pedestrians raging

snarling militia bands

in new camouflage

nazi dungerees

suicide bombers and

biker gangs amok

myriad mutants gather

in the heart of

gutted cities

junkpiles and jags

of plaster and brick

like after a bombing

as if a slow

and imperceptible

war had just happened

where the homeless

feel most at home.

******************

IT'S CHIVALRY

... or maybe it's

just the esoterics

of whatever it is

that passes for

academic discourse

in these later

days of no Latin

no Greek no

rollick in the

original tongues

of bards who

after facing down

the Moors

had strummed of

delayed lust for

ladies a-waiting

in foggy homelands

pining high on

unassailable

balconies

far up on cold

stone battlements

yet holding the

dream aloft.

***************

JOHN BIRKBECK

I was always a late bloomer. I went

through about half my life, not

realising that what I'd always thought

were dangerous imaginings, were

really poems trying to get free.

My first published poem happened

when I was in my mid-forties. Since

then, I've published three books, and

have another one in the process of

being published as I write this.

I've made my living for over thirty

years as a scientific illustrator for

James Van Allen, discoverer of the

radiation belts around the Earth that

have been named for him. Sometimes,

during a lull at work, or at lunch hour,

I'd dash off a poem or two.

I've had poems in numerous small-

press magazines in the U.S., Canada,

the UK, and France. My true ambition is

to write (and publish) short stories,

and my dream is that if I ever become

famous as a poet, this might be easier

to do!

More of John's work appears in Mag 5 and 6. HJN.

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Hi Hero,

My name is Tom, and I live in the United States, in a city named Woodhaven, in Michigan. We are near to Detroit.

I saw an article about you in Nando Times, and checked out your magazine, following all the links to your web pages. I have read some of your magazine, and have downloaded and saved to disk all of the older editions. I will be reading it carefully over the next day or so, as I have time. From what I have seen so far, you are doing a wonderful job, and I will look forward to your future successes over the coming years.

If I think of my body as the house of my soul, and my eyes as the windows through which " I " , that is to say the Eternal part of me peer out, I can say that from the Window of my Soul, I have seen many beautiful things, and much suffering as well. You suffer, trapped as you are in your body for a while, and yet you accomplish more than most, generously giving to the rest of us the beauty of your own vision....your Soul peering through the window, through your eyes. I always like to see Souls from this side of the Window, but most people don't like to reveal themselves at such a deep level.

Halloween is coming next month, so I thought I would share with youthis little poem, in the spirit of the day. It's called John the Mortician.

John the Mortician was working late

With the skill of an artist to recreate

The face of a girl a shark had ate,

Using Marilyn Monroe to illustrate.

When, suddenly, began to pour

A host of ghosts, right through the door.

All around him they did soar,

'Till one said "I am Theodore.

"And I'm the one my friends did choose

To bring you this tremendous news.

Your hesitance we won't excuse;

In fact, we won't _let_ you refuse.

"Johnny, since you've been around,

My friends out there in hallowed ground

Have seen a change that's so profound

That we just had to come around.

"Just take that famous Capuchin,

Besides the grin beneath the skin

He has one made of paraffin,

That makes one think of mortal sin.

"And then it's almost scandalous

The way you made voluptuous

And dressed in clothes diaphanous

A girl shaped like a platypus.

"We think that you deserve a prize,

And so arranged for your demise,

So _you_ can come in some disguise

And waft about the friendly skies."

But John began to wheeze and sneeze,

'Til they dispersed in the ensuing breeze.

He packed his clothes in his valise,

And moved his business overseas.

I hope you enjoy the poem. Thank you for your efforts.

tom brooks

TOM BROOKS

Dear Hero,

I am going to attempt to compose a short bio for you, so that you can use my poem, _John the Mortician_.I have looked at the bio's you have published so far, and see that some are big and fancy, while others are short and sweet. I think I will go for the latter variety, if that's ok with you. I am 51 years old, was born in Ann Arbor Michigan, which is the city where the University of Michigan is. I grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, where my family moved when I was in 2nd grade. After I graduated from High School, I joined the U.S. Marines, and spent four years as a Marine, and was a Sergeant when I was Honorably discharged. I work for Ford Motor Company, in the Quality Assurance Department, at the Woodhaven, Michigan Stamping Plant. While I have been working here, I have attended Lawrence Institute of Technology in Southfield, Michigan, and the University of Michigan, Dearborn campus. While attending U of M, I changed my major to English. I live with six cats, work, write, and use the computer. I wrote _John the Mortician_ on Holloween, for a friend (now dying of cancer, unfortunatly) who always dreamed, for some reason known only to himself and to God, of being a Mortician. I hope that is enough; you can use as much or as little of it as you like. I have to tell you, I do like your magazine, and the way you share your inside with us on the outside. You are giving to us something that most won't give.

Your new friend (hopefully)

tom brooks.

P.S. I also study Metaphysics, have tried many different religions in my search for Truth. I think of the world as One, and God as One. To me, each person, no matter their situation, is the beautiful expression of the Divine Mind. God is the Artist, the Musician, the Poet, etc., inspiring all in us. tb

___________________________________________

Some people, I am told, can remember things from their childhood as early as three or four years old; their first fall, that first special Christmas present, a vague sensation from a season of happiness, or perhaps misery. Maybe this ability to remember is a measure of an early desire to absorb life or maybe it is this which shapes our skill to be accurate and precise throughout our adult life. Maybe the recalling of early memories is triggered off more by the faded family photographs and the recounted stories from spiteful siblings. Maybe it�s best that we don�t remember too much from our early years.

But memories of growing up in my Kingdom in the clouds, are worth remembering and according to the editor of this wonderful webzine, worth recounting: The natural beauty of the Himalayan mountains which served as a backdrop to all our early childhood play, the crispness of the air at eight thousand feet, the paddy fields laid out like steps to our hilltop mission hospital. I remember the way the early morning clouds would gather in the valley below us and how I would want to run, run, run and throw myself off into the puffy candy-floss which obscured the terraces below. These things would be worth recounting. But alas, how to describe this magic when I struggle with words, as my first school report from the British Primary School of Kathmandu stated, "Stephen is following the Ladybird Key words reading scheme, he has progressed steadily and knows 166 words. His hand writing must improve " 166 words! What were these words? How many words do I now know I wonder? Enough to adequately describe the marvel of the snow-capped mountains, the early morning walks collecting wild mushrooms, or the evening sunsets which seemed to scorch the western evening sky? How can I describe in words what then I could only feel and taste, picture and sense? Perhaps I should try to share these with you using paint, paper-folding, cutting and drawing instead, for as the school report went on "he enjoys these subjects but encouragement will help him gain confidence."

Maybe the Internet is the answer to my desire to describe and share, for through this most technological of inventions I can indeed "cut and paste" and �paint� my memoirs. I can capture a few snapshots which �draw� my feelings of growing up in this mystical kingdom, a kingdom which extended far beyond the line of mountains which served as such an important childhood reference point.

Today If I pause long enough to catch the smell of a Landrover on a farmland path and absorb the unique musty mixture of dust and diesel which only this peculiar workhorse throws up, I can begin to remember the slow descent from our mountain in the hospital ambulance. The hard upright seats provided no cushion from the pot-holed cavernous road. Peering through the small dirty windows I would look back and ache for the home I was leaving. The mission hospital with its curved reflective aluminium roof stood out like an excavated pre-historic backbone laid bare against the green hill. How it must have appeared like a holy vision to those villagers who would carry their relatives, the lepers, the sick and dying over the mountains. Often these human ambulances would walk for days to receive the white man�s medicine. I can remember feeling proud of my father as I would wait for him to appear at the end of a long day�s surgery, his stethoscope my treasured toy. The evening meal of rice and dhal no sustenance for a man who stood for hours at the operating table or alongside the dying, yet was not this food a feast for the local porters, the cleaners and those who scratched a living from the fields?

Although I would hear later about my parents� struggle with lack of medical supplies and indeed lack of knowledge to cure the walking wounded, all I knew then were the radiant faces of those Nepalese nurses and church workers and the happiness which flowed from our little home. My father on the pedal organ bellowing out another old Welsh hymn, the terror of his tenor voice in full unbridled swing. My mother telling us stories and tucking us up in our beds upstairs. To us our father and mother were the pillars of not only our home but, it seemed, the whole surrounding district. How strange then to be leaving this nest, this home of warmth and comfort where the World Service was the only western voice and where the greatest childhood pleasure was buffalo milk and sugar on yesterday�s left over rice.

Passing the cows, pigs and bison who shared the narrow road, the Landrover ambulance turned around the final bend and in an instant the site of the hospital was gone. Fighting back the tears I would face forward and grip the hand of my father who accompanied my sister and I to the airstrip which lay far away in the valley below.

These journeys were a harrowing occurrence and the signal to me of the start of term. For 3 months we would be apart, separated from our parents and younger brothers (who between them could inflict enough injuries to warrant a separate accident and emergency department had not our mother watched over them so closely ! ) Exchanging the idyllic mountain playground for the very strange bustle of Kathmandu and the primary school was bad enough, but the protracted goodbye and sense of abandonment which lay at the end of this journey down the mountain was torturous.

More often than not, these descents would be halted by the effects of the monsoon rain which caused great landslides which covered or �ate� away the road. Sometimes the road would disappear and we would have to let the driver turn back with the Landrover and set out on foot with our father. Slowly, with child-like steps, we would set off over the landspills, river beds and mountain streams which flowed down, joining the tributaries of the great river Ganges. I can still remember the large rectangular whitewashed blocks which were perched at the side of the road and served as barriers from the crevice below. Images of buses and overburdened lorries toppling over the sides disturbed many a sleepless night. I was never sure whether the occasional flowers which daubed these white blocks were an offering to the gods for a holy cow which had fallen or whether there had indeed been a tragedy of man and machine. That the tomb-like blocks ever provided any barrier from the thousand feet drop below was questionable, but they did serve as a useful resting stop for the coolies who would eventually take over from my father and carry us and our luggage in their cone-shaped back packs. These silent graceful men looked dwarfed by their precious cargo, balancing their burdens using only a strap over their foreheads. Like mountain goats they plodded bare-foot over the stones and across the gorges, carrying us down till at last we arrived at the foot of the hills and the little airstrip. A runway is too grand a description for a piece of land which doubled up as the local feeding ground for the sheep, cattle and straggly goats.

And then the tears and tug of war would begin. A mixture of exhilaration for surviving what felt like a real Pilgrim�s progress (in reality no more than a day�s walk), and the sense of the impending separation would be too much for me. As we begun to say our goodbyes the little man became a big child again and wanted to be cradled and taken home back up the mountain. I knew what the "its time to go now" and the "of course we love you" meant. I knew the clinging would have to stop. I would have to be brave and follow my sister onto the little twin engine plane.

The site of two small fair-haired children boarding the Royal Nepalese Airline brought benevolent sympathy from the airline staff who would now be our guardians. The only consolation from these flights was the VIP treatment of being able to go up to the cockpit and watch the splendour of the mountain ranges and the tiny path we had had to navigate. I remember the two red triangles which formed the Nepalese flag on the tail wing (why was it that Nepal had a flag which was so different from any other country I would wonder?) The sick bags and the primitive safety belts which strapped us into our seats for the rocky take off; the taste of boiled sweets, the sympathy and countless smiles from airline stewardesses. It was as if all my senses were shaken up together in the giant cocktail shaker of the metal fuselage. After picking up hippies from Pokhara, we would be poured out on the tarmac runway in Kathmandu which, to my inexperienced senses, looked and smelt like the capital city of the world !

From the airline hostesses the �baton� of care was passed on to my sister. Mary who was older by 2 years would now become my companion and security. After all, at 8 years old she was already accustomed to the boarding school hostel and the 14 other ex-pat kids who shared the dormitories and classrooms. The fact that I can�t now picture the faces of our fellow borders or remember any of their names says much about this period. What I can remember now as I write this 30 years later, is the "splutter splutter" sound that came from the wobbly engine of the Volkswagen camper van which took us from the airport and into the heart of the city. Past the temples and under the massive gates, cocooned from the outside alien world by the security of this little split-screen van which looked and sped like a bullet. Already the tears were drying and my father�s hand had been replaced by my sister�s. I was captivated by the metal dashboard, the radio - which to me seemed so modern, so European (wherever Europe was? ). From behind the little rectangular windows I would look out at the crowds, the cows the rickshaws and the elephants all of whom shared the road in seeming harmony.

What is time and distance to a 6 year old ? All I knew was that we would return. One day we would see our father again waiting for us at the tiny little airstrip. With smiles and unshaven kisses he would take us home. We would walk and ride up, up, up into the mountains. Telling us stories of people from far-off lands and teaching us songs of hope and refuge. He would be there to take us home back , - up to our kingdom in the clouds.

As I look back I realise the heartache which my parents felt at being separated from their young offspring was different, but no less painful than it was for us. We knew my father had to return to the mission, to his other sons and our mother and perhaps most of all to the patients who needed his skills. Although I must have felt a very real sense of abandonment at these dramatic goodbyes and 3 monthly absences, I always had my sister and must also have been conscious of a deep love and underlying security. What effect these seeming contradictions had on me I cannot say. Perhaps the great love which I felt from both my father and mother was derived from their care and passion for the poor and their "higher calling". As a young parent now, I marvel at the choices they made, but also at their courage, their seeming unshakeable faith and single-mindedness. To be able to have the discipline to be consistent, to be able to continually balance the complex, frequently changing priorities of child care and wider compassion - was this a natural gift or a vestige from an earlier austere generation I will have to ask my guardian angel one day.

__________________________________________

"What Do You Do?"

A friend of mine, a writer who is half-Portuguese, maintains that the question the English always ask of a new acquaintance is "What do you do?"

He considers it a terrifying question, with that accusatory emphasis on thefinal word, and it is certainly daunting if one lacks a ready answer.

Sometimes, it can sound more like the question, "Who are you?" with the implication lurking in the background that "Do you exist, or are you just a nonentity?" is the real question.

The other month, as it happens, a quintessentially English Cambridge postgraduate asked it of me at the Festival Hall. Fortunately, if you confine yourself to the job you do, if you have one, it is easy to give a superficial reply. So I told him about working for a small charity, and about my interest in writing.

The questioner is always uncertain of how he or she will respond; they are waiting to find out how interesting you actually are, and whether you are worth knowing. I imagine you are reading this in a similar frame of mind.

So what is it that I "do," really? I am a collector of impressions, but for this sort of collecting you don't need money. You must simply continue to exist. As a boy, I wanted to play alone with my toys; what I "do" now is to float through the streets, an observer, an outsider: it is certainly a way of making time pass. It feels as though things follow one after another, and I experience them completely, every one. A walk on an ordinary afternoon becomes a succession of vivid moments, and I believe I can even recover them in my memories. But, of course, the truth is different. It isn't like that at all, only pieces remain, like thumbnail sketches, partial, incomplete, skewed in their emphasis. It is not even true that you can ever experience the world in a complete way; we think of that as divine or superhuman. It is enough that it sometimes seems to us that we are totally connected to the world. The real wish is to make a new world out of these impressions, a creation that can be experienced by others, but in the first place just existing as a completed whole.

The images of city streets are what my imagination builds with; the way the light falls upon the buildings, and on the pavement. Hence the interest in small details of appearances, which become like fragments of memory because they are attached to imagined events. I see the steps down to a basement and imagine someone tumbling down them, half-running, half-falling; a large, fat man hurrying down to meet his friends, is he, or someone abruptly stricken by illness? Moon-eyed, I stare at the sunlight on a wall, or two scooters, parked side-by- side, their number plates the same shape, yet somehow different.

This seems like the renewal of an experience as one writes it down, but is it truly so? In the moment of writing, there is always at least a small gap between event and word, and frequently a great deal of time has passed. The experience has continued in the mind meanwhile, but changed and often remade.

But that doesn't mean one gives up trying. Once I tried to capture these moments on film; I became a collector of my own photographs. I was living in Hampstead then, and for a period I used to spend hours in the streets there, and on the Heath, snapping at anything that struck me. Just a few of these images were worth the effort, but generally I find having a camera creates a barrier between me and the experience. I am not usually so literal-minded, and perhaps the images only served as a reminder to me of my state of mind, and could not have communicated their secrets to others.

Their expressiveness came from the thoughts and feelings I linked them with; my photographs, at least, were not expressive works in themselves. Instead, I constantly seek an internal "fixing" of the impression, and the greatest possible definition of what it is I am seeing.

I shall try to go back almost as far as I can, to see what can be recovered- some of this is certainly fact, but I cannot always vouch for every detail of it. When I see a photograph of myself as a small boy, I can't become once more the child in the picture. I don't really know what I was thinking at that precise moment- how could I? I have to distrust my remembrance of these states of mind. These memories concern the period between my infancy in London and the permanent return there just before my teens. My recollections of life at this time are the first that have any shape- before that, I just have random images, some of them equally vivid, but impossible to compose into a narrative. I have referred to some photographs and other evidence, but in places I can confirm these from my own memories. I could almost draw a plan of the place- I have the guidelines in my head. To call memory so very unreliable is to take too gloomy a view; it is just that not all of it is my memory- some things I know only because I have been told about them later.

I was not yet 6 when we came to live at Bernard Shaw's house, Shaw's Corner, which is at Ayot St. Lawrence in Hertfordshire. My parents were the first National Trust custodians of the place, and my father managed to obtain some publicity, so that he still has photos and articles about it-some facts are recoverable. For example, there is a picture of two small boys (my brother Tim and myself) "helping" my father dust the books in the study.

One of the photos shows us smiling over the gates of Shaw's Corner, with my mother looking like a film star. Or we are seen next to the vanished bronze statues of Joan of Arc and of a lamb (they were later stolen, and doubtless melted down). Another confirmable fact is that my brother and I used to show people round the garden after my parents had shown them the house, and this little piece of enterprise was written up in the local paper. This garden featured the bronze statues I have mentioned and the hut Shaw used for his writing. In a less public-spirited moment, we also tried to set up a roadblock, made from bricks, outside the house, but fortunately this was not a great success. I remember seeing a dead rat in the kitchen garden, and the memory of how the orchard looked often comes back to me, as though it were a setting or backdrop. In that orchard, the aged Shaw had the fall which killed him. I believe he was pruning the trees. Sometimes, the pheasants stalked across the grass- I thought of them as peacocks, and in a way that delusion persists, a stubborn revision of my experience, as though the traces of former ignorance have still not been worn away. We visited a local dignitary, Lady Hart-Dyke, and saw her silk farm. I was worried by the huge silk moths, (which lived in large, rather dark cages) since I have always been afraid of insects and thought they might escape and fly around me.

There was a steep little valley in the garden, below the statue of St. Joan, with a path on the further edge, beside the flower-bed in the centre. It forms another of those pictures that recur, a sort of background, partly from memory, partly imagined, that come into the mind when reading. Many of the visitors to Shaw's Corner were from the Soviet Union, and there is a photograph of some very Russian figures all looking at the small wooden building in the garden. Years later, when I was a teenager, we performed "Saint Joan" at school, but I have never had any talent for acting. I did, however, write an additional Act for "Androcles and the Lion," in which the hero and his new friend return to his home town.

Shaw was very famous then, since he had only just died. The area was still quite rural, and one was surrounded by animals. I have seen a photo of myself rather timidly patting the head of a foxhound at the meet- but I have no memory of that incident. Above the garden valley, a lawn ended in a steep slope (another boy once rolled me down it) which led up to the verandah at the back of the house. The kitchen garden would have been on the left, looking at the house from the rear, with the orchard beyond. The door from the kitchen was on that side of the house, but on the other, something about my memory of the arrangements reminds me of scenes from a Jane Austen novel- it seems an appropriate setting, but I cannot recall it accurately enough to say why.

Later on, I was ill and spent several months in bed: I can remember watching the mice scurry backwards and forwards on the landing outside, back and forth under a chair in the night- I suppose it was then that I began the habits of insomnia which have persisted ever since. My second brother was born at this time.

This was a country interlude in my life. After Shaw's Corner, we lived in Sanderstead, near Croydon. One day I sat on the back doorstep, looking up at the towering white clouds, and worked out how old I would be in the year 2000. Now we are almost there.

MARK CASSERLEY

I was born in London in 1951, and educated at University College School and the Universities of East Anglia and Sussex, where I studied English Literature. I have been a writer in thought, if not always in deed, since my schooldays. My gestures in the direction of a career, or at least earning a living, include periods working for the Richmond Fellowship (a mental health charity) and the ILEA, and as a free-lance literary journalist, writer and researcher. My recent working life has shown much greater commitment, however. I have been with the National Association for the Education of Sick Children (a small charity) since its inception in 1993. I first joined as a volunteer and helped to set up the organisation, and am currently Press and Publications Manager.

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From: Art and Joni Cox

Subject: (Ya'll come back now, ya hear)

Date: Sunday, 19 September 1999 12:00pm

good mornin from Beverly, West Virginnie, USA. Yes, I guess that do make me the Beverly Hillbillie, Cain't help that. Picture me as Jed Clampett.

Do your friends call you Hero, or Joy or Nightingirl? I am a poet, a mechanic, a calligrapher and a grandfather. I am also disabled. Deaf, or dang near it. (I picked the wrong parents, so type loud if you reply) Enjoyed your magazine, and will bookmark it. Maybe put a Post-it note between the pages. Can I submit a poem or two? That will the first one you have from a genuine hillbillie.

Coffee is a-callin, Nightingirl. And I got to go feed the livestock. Ya'll come bach now, ya hear!

Art Cox

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: Set a spell, Kick your shoes off

> Date: Sunday, 26 September 1999 10:32am

>

Ho,

I be gittin' ready to go see the grandkids wif my wife, Jonetta-Marie, here in a little bit. Ummmmm, doggies, but they is a-growin like weeds. Ages 9,8 and 6.

That'll be a trip of about 3 hours in the ol car. H'aint near as bad as befo the built that there new-fangled highway. Still we has ta watch out for suicidal deer. Them depressed deer will jest jump out in front of the ol car and make an awful mess of themselves. Don't do the radiator no good neither. Now there are a lot of deer what ain't set on killin theyselves, so I don't want you to think that I am prejudiced agin all of them. But they is a few what ain't a-thinkin straight. Maybe they's been drinkin a little too much, maybe smokin them there funny cigaretts.....

For what ever reason, there has been a whole bunch of depressed wildlife around these parts lately. Ain't been a lot of work for them to do. And when a racoon or a squirell ain't got nothin to occupy his mind, they bound to fall in with some bad company.

We took our male cat and set him to chasin some mouses under the house. It is a gettin cold out there since winter is a-comin, and them mouses is a-lookin for some warm place to keep their feet. The wife ain't partial to mouses settin up housekeepin in around the wood stove. ( I used to have this here pet black snake I kept in the house before I got hitched up to Jonetta-Marie, but she ain't partial to havin no snakes in the house neither). You got a cat?

Gonna get me some coffee to take the foggyness out of my head, Nightingirl, and then get to doin my chores before we leave. Give my regards to the family. I gonna send you a song I done did a while ago. It is about a guy who is a-havin some trouble with his woman. Here in the U S of A, we has to send our hard earned money to the IRS at taxtime. You'll have to know that as it mightn't not to make no sense to you otherwise.

For you, a country love song, from Art

>

> > "Oversalted Frenchfries" Art Cox 1997 ( a country, blues song)

> >

> > My baby called the I.R.S.

> > Said my returns were all lies.

> > She put poison in my meatloaf,

> > Oversalted my frenchfries.

> >

> > Then she emptied out my bank account,

> > Ran my credit cards to the sky,

> > Hit me with a frying pan,

> > And blackened both my eyes.

> >

> > She called a 900 pervert number

> > And left my phone off of the hook.

> > She burned down my old trailer

> > And gave me a dirty look.

> >

> > My baby up and left me,

> > Run off with my best friend.

> > They drove off in my pickup truck

> > Shot my dog and then

> >

> > Baby packed her bags and left me

> > Had me committed, this is true.

> > So if you see my baby, ask her:

> > "Does this mean we're through"?

> >

> > My baby called the I.R.S.

> > Said my returns were all lies.

> > She put poison in my meatloaf,

> > Oversalted my frenchfries.

>

>

So there you have it, Nightingirl. My next million seller. Jonetta-Marie says I shouldn't give up my day job whilst I wait for the record companies to call. Ya'll come back now, the coffee's hot and the buscuits is in the oven

Art and Jonetta-Marie

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: The bisquits is in the oven

> Date: Tuesday, 5 October 1999 12:03am

Sure enuff, Nightingirl, you can publish my little ditty in that there electronic magazine of your'n. Can I git several copies for my maw? She be right pleased to hear her son is being read about in someone's magazine. I might jest have to find me a bigger hat too.

My annaversary is tomorrow. Me and Jonetta-Marie has been married 3 years, and I got to go buy her somethin special. Maybe a new set of shovels for the garden, or her own screwdrivers. That would be nice, don't ya think? Say 'Howdy' to your maw for me, and if'n she wants to to drop me a line, I'll be here.

By now Ho, and I'll try to see if'n I cain't come up with another thingy for your magazine.

Art

----------

> From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: We'll put on some fresh coffee

> Date: Thursday, 7 October 1999 1:29pm

>

Good mornin', Nightingirl ( and Mama Nightingirl)

Hope that you are having a good day. Jonetta-Marie and I went out for coffee this mornin, and she is gonna have her hair done up real pretty at the beauty parlor. I am inclined to think she looks jest fine the way she is, so when I chases her around the kitchen table she don't say "Now don't you be a-messin up my hair".

She and I had been talking about how garbage and litter gets to be along the side of the road, and now the newspaper had this front page article on trash. I just couldn't resist pulling out this piece I wrote several years ago. Thought you and your maw might like it.

''Trash'' by Art Cox 1996

Trash. If you ask a hundred people if they put it there, you will get the answer "Not me". That is significant!!! One hundred percent testifying that it wasn't them. To the question "Are you lying"? the answer "No" will come back to you. Think about that: 100 % of the people do not litter. 100 % of the people are honest.

This leaves us with a dilemma. The garbage and trash gets there BUT NO ONE PUTS IT THERE !!! So, having a tangible substance but no explanation for it's existence, we need to come up with a theory or theories to explain it's presence.

The first theory presented was that God had made it. But when compared with the rest of His creation, the trash was not the same quality of workmanship. So we threw out that theory.

The next theory proposed was that it evolved. This theory allows for some of the observed facts. Being in a state of development would account for it being in an unusable condition at the present time. The beer cans would eventually fill up with beer and then cap themselves. Old typewriters would presumably develop into word processors or possibly computers. And of course the refrigerators would spontaneously sprout wheels and become Ramblers, that utterly shapeless car from the 1960's.

The evolution theory is not to be quickly dismissed due to the argument

of "When will it become usable"? We can simply say that not enough time has passed to see the transformation. Then to stifle any other criticism, we can throw in a line about "only the ignorant would dare to question such a well proved, widely accepted theory".

Third theory has to do with the military and U.S. Top Secret Pentagon activities. The military has been undergoing some cuts in their budget. Therefore in an effort to keep the men in a state of readiness, secret flights have occurred in the wee hours of the morning. Dummy bombs would have been too expensive to drop. At a cost of only $15,000 each, old Pentagon bathroom fixtures were dropped.["Top Secret" classification prevents me from revealing exactly what fixtures were dropped. But if you let your imagination run wild......] Swat teams brought in trucks late at night and set up communication centers designed to resemble old sofas and broken tv sets. Bags of trash [actually biological weapons] were positioned in strategic locations for future use. "Fetid Odor Number 3" was released over the area to keep curious eyes from prying into what could be an embarrassment should any of this clandestine activity leak out.

The forth speculation presented is a difficult one to either prove of disprove. It maintains that since no one ever sees the litter being put along the roads, it must be that it is being placed there by highly intelligent life forms [Not politicians. They don't qualify]. These life forms could vary from place to place. Here in West Virginia, it could be Whitetail deer. Since deer are out late at night and early in the morning, they might be returning from disposing of their waste products. I personally could not dismiss this because of never having seen a deer buying a sixpack of "Budweiser". I do all my shopping in the afternoon and deer don't do any shopping then. Perhaps if there are any concerned cashiers out there who could shed some light on the subject. We would guarantee anonymity. Or a hunter who stumbled on a group of drunk deer polishing off a Domino's pizza?

Well. There you have a few of the possibilities. We didn't have time to develop the "Alien-attempts-at-turning the-earth-into-a-garbage-planet" one, or the one that says that it is a Communist plot. We were only concerned with real possibilities, and figured that the tabloids would cover these on a "slow news" day.

I have to do some reading of some material I have to review down at the Kingdom Hall tonight, Ho, so I best be getting on that soon.

Ya'll have a great day

Art and Jonetta-Marie

From: Art and Joni Cox

> Subject: From West Virginnie, USA

> Date: Sunday, 24 October 1999 12:13am

Dear Ho,

I have spent a gooddeal of time reading your experience in Africa, and I must admit that it has not been easy coming up with a responce. You see, my friend, it is so much easier to be silly than to be serious. How do I answer questions about if it is acceptable for you and I to have clean drinking water and a bed, when geography has deprived others of these necessities. The truth of the matter is that I wish there were an quick and easy answer.

I was born in 1949, shortly after the big one, World War 2. It was supposed to save the world from dictators. All the great minds of the day sat down and signed their names to paper so as to avoid war in the future. Fifty-four years have passed, and we still have dictators, still have war. So my generation protested, marched and screamed for peace. Some even died for that cause in the 60's. But, if we stopped one war, others came up to take it's place. Are we going to see the rulers come to their senses, and put that effort into water and beds? How I wish that would happen, my friend. You see, when you get to be 50, you have seen greed turn people's minds repeatedly. A craving for power doesn't worry about children. They are expendable. (I won't get into commercial greed here. That is another subject)

However my outlook isn't all that jaded. I do believe that deep inside of all of us is a desire to allievate the suffering of others. Do what you can through your contacts with others, but realize that you will make a small dent in the problem. My solution isn't global in scope, but I have found it works. I have volunteered my time teaching children at the local children's home (and other places) to control their anger. Did some work at a prison too.

In the early 60's, the injustices I saw turned me into an angry young man. Were it not for the efforts of someone who took time to teach me to control my anger, I am sure I would have found myself in jail. What I needed to realize was that mankind is incapable of solving his problems. He lacks the ability, the knowledge, and he is hampered by greed. So the solution has to come from a higher sourse. ( I am not talking about religion in general here. That is the sourse of so many of the conflicts)

What I am talking about is surrendering of the individual's free will to the benefit of the group. This isn't communism either, because that was a 90 year experiment that went bust. ( OOPs! We ruined your lives, your soil, your economy. We are so very sorry, Bye--)

Are you curious? Care to know more? Or shall I save my two index fingers, the only ones that know how to type ? Might be easier to send you a video tape of me. Then you can re-wind me, or dub Donald Duck's voice over mine when you get done watching it. That would be an improvement over my normal voice. But that would mean I need your 'snail-mail' address (, and will a videotape made in America work on your machine? I have never thought about that before. Hmmmmm. )

So there you have my serious side. Your illness has opened your mind to things another 13 year old would never think about. I expect that most other 13 year olds are boring to you. Is that an accurate assumption? But, since you are 13 in body, not mind, do you mind if I treat you like an adult? It is hard to put on my bibbed overalls, and my country accent when you have seen me serious.

Goodnight, Nightingirl

Art

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1st Dec 99

Brett saw lots of action yesterday at the WTO conference...not much sleep...got off at 2 am and back at 6 am this morning. Clinton arrived last night. He personally took down 6 protesters...2 did not get up very easy...he used a lot of pepper spray and tear gas...wore his mask all day. He is full of red marks from carrying all the gear and wearing his mask( his girlfriend says)...they had knives thrown at them and anything else you can imagine. No injury to any police. The riot squad is really suited up, as you can see on TV....

They are concerned about a propane truck and dynamite that was stolen in weeks past....some of the protesters are calling "bring on the truck"....would take out a city block if it holds true...so they are watching out for this truck. The police are out numbered like you would not believe. Brett says the force is probably more like 500 for the Seattle/King County force... yesterday's count was not enough...But they held their line yesterday...but could not cover all that was needed. So they brought in the National Guard and State Police. Brett's girlfriend saw some action yesterday. Was called down for a while. She was not suited up...she worked on the back lines away from the conference center with other matters.

Brett was at the WTO meeting site all day yesterday. King County Sheriff's dept. are the ones in all black....Brett was on TV for a lot of the day, he says....and we all probably saw him, but could not tell for all the gear....(he was the tall, handsome one with the powerful punch...ha ha ha) They were recording for TV when Brett and the others had the confrontation with the protesters he took down.

All officers were given 100 sets of plastic tie hand cuffs today...they will be arresting a lot.

Brett sounds very tired. Had no water or food yesterday and today went more prepared with water....but not much room for anything else. Guess you have to pee your pants....he did not say that....but?

Brett seems to be having a good time with all the action. That might sound strange, but Brett likes action and is very dedicated to the police Dept. and anyone that breaks the law, he wants to deal with them.

Most of the people are peaceful....they are small groups that are looting and spraying things on buildings, and breaking into places. Looks like a bunch of hippies....most of them probably can't spell WTO....the troublemakers, Brett feels, are just radical kids that need something to do....and are using this as an excuse to cause problems. There are a lot that are so defiant of the police... Brett enjoys giving them a lesson....

Today they are blocking off most streets to protesters...so there will be lots of arrests and confrontations. I will be glad when it is over on Saturday.... they are all on mandatory 12 hour shifts, which are turning into longer.... he gets no extra pay....just overtime over 8 hrs. I would think they would pay them more...

I asked Brett if he would be getting recognition, as well as the rest of the officers, for volunteering..only 100 King County volunteered...he says 'MOM, I'M NOT DOING IT FOR THAT".....ha ha ha sorry son....ha ha ha I was just asking!

Well, you are all up to date. I am sure I will hear more when we have the chance to talk again. He was sweet to call and let us know he was ok...He is in the front line of the riot squad cause of his size....so, keep watching for a tall guy ....

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Dear Hero,

Thanks for your letter. Congratulations on what you're doing. You ask me to let you have a "long & detailed article". So I'm enclosing a book I wrote (ie : a long & detailed article).

Hope you like it.

Very best wishes

Ran Fiennes

RANNULPH FIENNES

has walked across Antarctica in a feat of remarkable endurance I closely identify with because it was unnecessary but had to be done. HJN.

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Dear Hero,

It was great to meet you at the Scope Annual Conference and I particularly enjoyed sharing experiences of our visits to Africa. I was thrilled when you asked me to write about my visit to Ghana for From the World, as it is not often that I am given the opportunity to write from my own personal experience. I hope that we both get a chance to revisit Africa one day!

All the best!

Helen

I have a confession. I am scared of the unknown, worried to let go of my normal safeguards and put myself into new and unknown situations.

In theory, it should be a lot easier for me to face the unknown than it is for you, as I don�t need the support of other people to meet my primary needs of communication and movement. In the last edition of Windows on the World, you described how you achieved your dreams and reshaped your mind by new experiences. You have inspired me and I will continue to grab scary unknown opportunities.

Reading about your experiences in Tanzania, Bangladesh, Australia and New York bought back to me some wonderful memories of my experiences in Ghana last summer. It reminded me that once placed in new situations, I invariably find that I don�t need a safety net and that wherever I go, I meet people who are just like you and me, people I can trust and enjoy.

I travelled to Ghana to co-ordinate publicity for a new children�s book, �Wake Up World�, published by Oxfam. I had never been to Africa before and didn�t know what to expect when I set off for a rural village in Zuo, Northern Ghana, to meet Anusibuno, a young girl featured in the book. I comforted myself with the thought that I was prepared for the poverty that I would face as I had worked with Oxfam for three years. And I was with experienced travellers and journalists, including Tony Robinson who has spent much time in the developing world through previous work with Oxfam and Comic relief. But I think we all had some of our perceptions challenged and had our minds re-shaped by the people we met.

Like you, the face of poverty was bought home to me. Ghana is considered relatively well off compared to many other countries in Africa. But its export driven economic policy has had a devastating effect on the lives of the poorest people. Recent drought has severely affected farmers in the north, as have deforestation, overgrazing and soil erosion. Like Florianna, who you met in Moshi, many people we met could not imagine having a tap of their own or afford to send all their children through primary and secondary education.

Suddenly, poverty was no longer about statistics for me but about real people having to make unacceptable sacrifices. The real face of poverty is not reflected by the passive images often seen on television of people desperate for aid. Poverty is about continual struggle and no one we met wanted to accept their situation; they wanted control over their lives.

Anusibuno�s parents were determined that she and her sisters would have a full education but on hearing the costs involved, it was difficult to see how they would be able to afford it. But I believed them; their determination was so strong, that they would make as many sacrifices as they could to ensure their children could read and write.

However, all this is not to say that the people we met live in misery in their poverty. The village shared tremendous pride in all that they had, especially the fact the local co-operative had just recruited a female secretary for the first time. A woman in the village could read and write as well as a man, and not only was the woman showered with respect but the whole village enjoyed self-respect for this achievement.

At the end of our stay, I felt incredibly humbled when presented with a basket of eggs to thank us for our visit. I knew the value of the eggs to the village, and struggled to find a way to accept the gift graciously and then return it without causing offence. The only way to do this was to explain that they would not last the journey but that we were honoured by the gesture.

But really, it was us that had to thank the villagers for our stay, not them us. In the few days I spent in Zuo, I danced, sang and laughed more than I have for years. I found it difficult to loose my English inhibitions as I wasn�t used to spontaneous dance but the laughter at the difficulties I had in finding the rhythm were warm, and suddenly I relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

In the playground of the school, I rediscovered games that I had played as a child and joined in with the skipping. When the words of the rhyme were translated, I realised I had played the same game myself during playtime at school. I sang out my name in time to the movement of the rope, which I have to admit was easier for me as my name was considerably shorter than that of a lot of the children.

The purpose of Wake Up World is to show children in the UK how much they share with other children around the world and that at heart people are driven by the same needs and desires. The book compares and contrasts the lives of eight children around the world, from the rain forests of Brazil to the frozen wastes of Siberia; from the traditional African rural village to the Californian Boulevard. The differences between the children�s lives are striking but I think it would take the wisdom of Solomon to be able to make a judgement over whose childhood is the happiest. I would be hard pushed to say that my youth involved as much dancing, singing and laughed as what I witnessed in Ghana and I wouldn�t dare to make a comparative judgement over the joys of our childhood.

However, growing up like you in safe and affluent southern England environment has meant that neither I nor my parents have had to worry about where the next meal is coming from, or how to get hold of clean and safe water. I am particularly lucky in that I have had a good education and been given every opportunity to control my life. If the West stops exploiting developing countries with crippling debt repayments and protectionist economic policies, the people we met may have a chance to control their lives too. They have the will and determination and are not asking for handouts just for control to access the standards of living that we enjoy. As you say, this should be the target for the new millennium and we all need to take responsibility to ensure equality is guaranteed for all people, wherever they live around the world.

HELEN HONOUR

Helen Honour worked in Oxfam's Press Office before joining Scope as Press and Public Relations Officer.

___________________________________________

BIOGRAPHY OF THE SOUL

Near Debrecen horsemen pasture stallions on the remaining pusta

as did their fathers who are giant memory; they wear hat and boots

(as if the village streets were mud) as had their fathers worn.

This vast plain of nothing much but grass and seldom tree was Eden

once.

In Sopron there stands a church in which my mother's blood and mine

still sits in prayer and counts the beads to bring some peace to family

unseen. Broadcast continuance, such is the conquest history has won.

Each in its place unswerved by change can measure what is man--

neither rebel, fool, nor Hun, but man as common trance; genetic

farmer at his fields, the millwright at his flour, commoners as all were

once.

Such is the victory over time that women in communities keep pace.

Such is the victory of time, the changing vista 'round unchanging grace:

In Budapest the Turkish baths are full and, afterward,

there's cafe Viennese and Linzer torte. These things,

more than citizen or mother tongue, denote a dream

still dreamt, a dream from which one cannot walk away.

I cannot walk away. How could I leave my hands that gesture

as she had or use them to end the misery of separateness

or turn my eyes toward another vision of the world as if I'd been

born immaculate and worthy of self-sacrifice. There must be dreams

from which one cannot walk away. The Christ-man knew it. He wept

upon the choice he'd made and had been made for him: an accident

of birth is fate. I know this as one knows of breath--I am his untrained

son and, yet, I am the factory which built the crucifix, distributor of crimes

against humanity. I am no less the stowage of the ship in which slaves slept.

I am no less the demon stoked the furnaces of death, the keeper of the shower stalls with gas; the gangster and the child giving birth to child; the villain of all violence. I am the woman with the swollen womb unwanted, the doctor who ends that life; I am what he had been to him one night; and she to her.

The venal and the murderous onslaught, the slut, the druglord and the drugged

I am what was for them as much as I am what I am and must become and had been

once.

The stallion--history, the sword of time, the one lost moment--mine,

the past forever in the child alive as in those who gave it birth.

Thus, Paris burned and plundered lies beneath my breath; the continent

in movement is the movement that I make; from where I stand, seasons

and the corners of the earth stretch out; the center of the shape of things

I am; round me and mine wherever is my blood, THERE is my present

and my past, the future deemed suitable for me. Unless I act

in order not to act; sever from me hands that touch not right, the tongue

that corrupts words of love, the feet that walk me into miseries.

Unless I act in order not to act; accept this bag of sinewed bones

and thoughtlessness as worthless heap. Refuse to act, to react,

stand my ground like some old rock that takes the blade, releases it,

that loses some to sharpen it, and yet remains a solid rock as it was

once.

It's something that the Jews have known, a Covenant with God;

and, yet, I am no Jew nor have I been at any place in time.

An Israelite without that history, a Zionist who dreams that dream,

and, yet, I have not been of these and neither have my kin. A dream.

I had dreamt once.

It is a dream that lives; it is a gypsy breathing in my soul;

it is an unconscious sphere of thought within--a dream,

as some would say--but it is more than that which lives:

it lives and dies; it breathes beneath my breath; its sacrifice

particular to its strange gods, its ritual and its own gold calves.

The past--life given us at birth--a dream from which none walks away.

Yet, we crave it in our bones: those dreams from which one walks away

but once.

Our freedom is to do its will; to change--though with unchanging grace;

to realize in everyday there is the dream--a Zionist within our genes;

to never turn aside from that from which one cannot walk away. The dream.

A sense of place, a memory, a happenstance of lucky birth, sixth sense,

or call it déjà vu. No. No. And No. You almost shout the thought--

There MUST be dreams from which one cannot walk away.

Not once.

And, child, one of them is you.

©John Horváth Jr

JOHN HORVÁTH

John Horváth Jr has published since the 1970s, most recently in Mindfire Poetry Journal, Dark Planet: Poetry, Morella (US), and in Badosa EP (Spain), Audax (Germany), and The Inditer (Canada). His poetry explores ethnic and regional, private or public identity. He writes about the strange and stranger among or within us, about where events, experience, history, and memory mingle.

Links to John Horváth, Jr.:

and,

___________________________________________

dear Hero Joy Nightingale,

I was pleased to have your letter. I'm afraid, though, that I'm quite overwhelmed with work just now and cannot write a piece for your magazine. Good luck with everything.

Yours,

Paul Muldoon

PAUL MULDOON

Paul Muldoon was elected to the Chair of Poetry at the University of Oxford earlier this year. He had the grace to reply, and in a hand-written note.

On the other hand, the poet laureate Andrew Motion, although a friend of a friend, has done me no such courtesy, although he wrote in the Guardian that all his salary goes on postage replying to requests such as I have sent to him. HJN.

__________________________________________

"If you wear a hat all day then take it off, you can still feel it on your head�.������������it�s not that way with underwear, though!"

(The above quote was provided by Hallmark cards Australia 1999)

Not only have I lived with a very silly name for 44 years, but my business name is just as strange.

Philadelphia Philpot was discovered by my mother while researching our family history.

She was my great great great Grandmother, and was a very independent midwife who was born in Birmingham in England..

I loved the name and thought it very fitting for a milliner.

My business is situated in a very trendy, inner city suburb in Sydney, Australia, only a 7 minute drive to the centre of the city, and only a stroll to the best harbour in the universe !

I came to Australia in 1964 with my family, just after the Beatles and wouldn�t live anywhere else in the world.

My background is art and design�.art school, TV and advertising, fabric design and screenprinting. As I have always had a passion for hats, I enrolled in a millinery course about 8 years ago and have never looked back.

It�s everything I have ever loved all rolled into one. Fashion, colour & style�silks and textures�.. jewels, antiques and fabulous feathers.

My studio is very small, but filled to the brim (!!) with beautiful old wooden hat blocks, boxes of fabrics, feathers, trinkets for hats�old hat books, patterns, flowers, old collected hats, and of course my couture hats.

Philadelphia Philpot hats are designed and lovingly made for clients who are looking for something unique. Brides who want a contemporary hat or headpiece, not a tiara and veil. Hats for the races, weddings and celebrities. Sometimes I am commissioned to design for the theatre or to do some restoration work.

My hats have appeared in television commercials and in promotional work.. I recently had great fun making a headpiece that had $250,000 worth of pearls carefully placed into it, and today I was asked to make a top hat for a famous Aussie cattle dog over here who stars in TV commercials!

Of course being an advertising agency, they "want it yesterday"

In Australia, the women only really tend to wear hats in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn�..it�s really not cold enough for hats in the winter�so as you can imagine, it�s quite seasonal, and milliners all over the country starve to death in winter !

The phone starts ringing about August, as Spring Brides and Mother�s of the Bride come out in force.

Brides need special attention, as they have very special requirements. Their dresses are only half made when they come to see me, or sometimes not at all, so I have to try to imagine what the overall design will be�..Most of my clients leave the designing up to me, which is fantastic.

I usually see brides for about 3-6 fittings, as they are constantly changing their minds! But the end result is worth it.

I usually pop along to the church to make sure they haven�t got their hats on backwards due to nerves.!

I like to get an idea of my client�s personality, and throw around a few ideas and maybe sketch a couple of designs. We work closely with their couturier or designer, and try on different styles of hats until we find one that suits.

There always seems to be a lot of draping of fabric and pinning on bits and pieces until we come up with a design to compliment the outfit.

Sometimes I trim the hats with the same fabric as the dress or just tone it in.

Clients who really love hats, and have quite a few, will often have the hat made by me before shopping for an outfit. This is pure millinery licence!

Our Racing season starts in Spring, so I�m very busy until November, when we have our Melbourne Cup race. The whole state of Victoria has a public holiday on Melbourne Cup day�the rest of the country goes out for lunch and stays out! It�s a big day and everyone seems to have a "flutter".

This year I was flat out working until 12pm the night before the race, for clients catching the early plane to Melbourne.

Millinery is quite varied, as it isn�t just sticking a few roses on a hat!

I mostly steam and then stretch the felt or straw over a wooden hat block and leave it to dry. Hat blocks are very hard to come by these days, but I hunt around antique and junk shops for great bargains

I then stiffen the hat with a special size, maybe sew the crown and brim together if needed, and sew wire around the brim to keep it�s shape.

The final stage is the trimming, which is the best part. Depending on the client, I can put as much or as little on the hat. Sometimes I hand-make flowers or bend feathers in strange ways. I collect interesting pieces of costume jewellery, so these can be added if needed.

Hats can also be made from fabric, using a pattern, similar to a dress pattern.

After making the base of the hat from stiffened fabric, I then cover the hat with the fabric and finish with a trim.

Headpieces can be made from a small stiffened base and covered in fabric or flowers or feathers and attached to the head by a clip or comb�it�s endless.

Every client wants to look fabulous and different, so I have to keep coming up with new designs and ideas every season. This year I went over the top with huge see through flowers and feathers. They were a great hit. The great thing about the races is that one can really wear an outrageous hat and get away with it. Many of my clients have won first prize for best hat or best dressed and last year a large black straw with loads of feathers, auctioned for $1000 for charity.

It�s a mad few months with an endless stream of interesting and new clients, who sometimes become good friends and also my established clients who come back year after year.

I am "forced" to attend loads of charity lunches and be a guest judge for the best hat competitions at this time of year. They are always loads of fun and a great way to network with other women and promote my business.

Hats are always needed in fashion parades too, so this is another pressure for me during the racing season.

I seem to have a glass of champagne constantly in my hand !

The wonderful thing about being a milliner, is that most women love hats, and feel really fabulous when they wear one.

Hats give a strong impression of femininity and it�s amazing how many men compliment a woman when she wears a hat. An outfit is not really complete until you wear a hat.

Wearing a hat communicates that you are taking your style "one step further" � showing your individuality. It is important that the style of the hat reflects your personality and you need to be comfortable with it.

Hats need to match your accessories and should compliment the colour of your outfit and should enhance your complexion.

Clients often ask me about hat etiquette and rules of wearing a hat.

My main rule is to never ever ever wear a cheap hat with an expensive outfit�.you may as well wear your gym shoes as well!

Never wear a hat on the back of your head�.wear it forward and slightly tilted,.it looks much sexier.

Keep your hat on until you get home�..you will look really silly with squashed "hat hair". If you do need to take it off, take a comb and hair drier and your hairspray !

Large framed women should avoid small hats�they should wear larger brimmed hats that balance with their shoulders and hips.

Very small women should avoid large brimmed hats as they look like mushrooms!

Women with glasses should avoid down turned brims, as it looks too crowded under there.

Business women�s groups are always looking for unusual speakers, a light relief from the usual financial, or motivational speakers, so I load up the car with hats, grab my speech and head for the lunch. (again!)

We always have fun as I ask for volunteers at the end, to demonstrate my rules in the "elegant art of hat wearing" and the boo boos.

It�s amazing how many women tell me they love hats but never know when or how to wear them, so this is a great opportunity.

The ozone layer is a huge problem in Australia, so more and more women are wearing sun hats to go shopping or just to pick up the children from school.

The great thing about having a hat made by a professional milliner, is that we hand stitch most of the trimmings on the hat and NEVER use glue!

This means that the hat can be completely stripped the following year and can be re-modelled into an entirely different style. The hat will be made to fit properly, be comfortable and to suit the individual needs of the client��..

WENDI NUTT

lives in Sydney with her silly cat�leads a wonderful full life filled with love and laughter�Her fabulous friends, a good glass of red, warm Aussie sunshine and her meditation are very important to her.

PEACE LOVE AND "HATTINESS" !

___________________________________________________

thanks for writing to me. I was very touched to read your interview and God has indeed given you great gifts. Do you sometimes feel that your need is all the more intensified because your body is confined to a wheel chair and you cant be distracted by idle talking away of your ideas? I am hopelessly dyslexic and when people (editors of publishing houses are the worst offenders) rubbish me I have to remind myself that I have published many books and they do sell all over the world. I'm so glad you have been travelling. I was born in China and travelled all my life. I have just spend six years in an Italian forest. I was completely isolated in m forest and lived with four dogs and six cats. It was the most completely alone but not lonely time of my life. I was forced to come back to England but I know, just like you, that I have work to do. I am finishing a novel called The Fame Game, so I can't offer to write anything for your web site at the moment, but now that you are in touch with me do feel you can e mail me when ever you want. I have a new e mail number When I get the novel delivered, I will write for you. Lots of love to you and to your family erin pizzey

ERIN PIZZEY

is remembered by a generation of women as a prime mover in the women's refuges movement in the UK. HJN.

___________________________________________

Hero,

Here's the article we wrote. As usual, when more than one of us author an article, we present one viewpoint - otherwise it is too confusing. This was written by myself, Shelly, Mollie, Ian, and Gwen, with input from 'rion, Baby and Keeper.

We use a variety of pen names but our legal name is Mollie Sheldon Eliot, so you can use that as a byline. You can include our email addy if you choose.

We included the article in the body of this email, and as an attachment as well, in case you'd rather it that way. If we can help otherwise please let us know.

Thank you deeply, from all of us in Q, for providing a forum for us to share about multiplicity.

Regards, eliot

My name is eliot, (no the small "e" is not a typo), an alter in a multiple personality close friends nicknamed " Q". Calling us Q solves the tricky problem of identifying who is "up", or as we say "has ops". The Q nickname is apt, some of us are Trekkies. The Star Trek character Q is part of a collective entity, he has individual and collective perspectives.

We experience life from collective, multiple or individual perspectives depending on what we�re doing. We�ve always known we were multiple. But most of our life only four of us "inside" knew about each other. Mollie, whose appearance and age match the chronological age of the body, is bearer of our given name. I�m decidedly male, tall, rangy, and nearly blind without glasses inside or out. My inside appearance reflects our Native American heritage. Baby, a blue-eyed, curly-haired blonde, stayed three until she felt safe enough to start growing up during our fifth decade of life. She is now developmentally in her early teens. Shelly, male, blond with Native American features, is charmingly social but tough and streetwise. He was sixteen years old for nearly 30 years.

Our inner family now includes many alters who hid deep inside throughout most of our lifetime. They held bits of our childhood trauma apart from the four of us who interacted with the outside to keep us safe. They protected our sanity and our soul.

In early childhood we core four thought everyone had an inner group, just like they had outside family: mother, father, siblings. But by the time we started school I�d been frequently punished for "acting like a boy," Baby spanked for "behaving like a baby." It was clear other people didn�t swap off to another member of an inner group accidentally, or by choice, as we did in times of stress, boredom or any other reason. It was also clear we risked adult displeasure when we did it, so we went "underground".

Protecting our inner family from discovery became our primary focus. We normalized behaviors until we presented a nearly uniform front. As we grew older Baby spent most of her time inside, venturing out only when we were alone.

We hid so successfully few people ever suspected, even our teachers. Our school performance varied from As one day to Ds the next. One week show and tell was a stuttering nightmare for me, the next Shelly entranced teacher and class alike with one of his tall tales. Schoolmates accepted a classmate playing dolls one moment and brawling with boys the next. No one questioned frequent absences from school, there was always a properly written excuse, frequently forged in Shelly�s best hand, indistinguishable from either of our parents�. Records showed we were often ill. Not only did Shelly skip school, but much to Mollie�s dismay, I became expert at feigning illness to stay home and read. School bored me.

The town librarian knew me, a quiet, polite child, an avid reader. Her concerns about book selections containing what she viewed as questionable content were set to rest by Shelly�s social charm and explanation the books were for a parent.

Our Sunday school teacher was familiar with compliant, serious Mollie/Baby, a child who sometimes acted a backward, resorting to scribbling when coloring, but recited the commandments after one reading. The soda fountain clerk would have been surprised that saintly child was the same witty, wild one he suspected stole candy. Shelly distracted him with a story, making him laugh to avoid detection.

Our family doctor knew a submissive, sickly child he had easy access to abuse.

Like most multiples, my inner compatriots and I exist in response to prolonged, repeated, early childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse. For most of our adult life we didn�t know that. We believed we were naturally multiple, a rare aberration, the edge of a bell curve of human variation. Until mid-life we had no conscious memory of abuse. Our dissociation from those experiences was nearly complete.

We didn�t know memories are stored by chemical processes in the brain. Dissociation, the mechanism whereby we became multiple, in its most basic form is merely a chemical process, probably similar to what allows a prey animal to die calmly in the jaws of a predator.

Normal people dissociate every day, but not to the degree we do. Dissociation accounts for arriving suddenly at work without remembering every detail of a familiar route. Daydreaming, another ordinary type of dissociation, provides an outlet for boredom or escape from repetitive tasks. Hypnosis is another form of dissociation. On a deeper level, dissociation becomes a survival tool to endure trauma. Some people have a greater ability to dissociate than others. Faced with extreme or repeated trauma they fragment, becoming multiple to bear the burden.

Traumatic events are processed on a chemical level in the brain differently from ordinary events. Memories created during trauma are stored in different cognitive areas of the brain from ordinary memories. Memories of our childhood trauma began to emerge during our early twenties. We dismissed the fragmentary flashbacks as nightmares, or like Scrooge, as something we failed to properly digest. But by mid-life the memories were released in chaotic floods. Life experiences triggered chemical keys which eroded barriers to our secrets. Smashing free, flashbacks became more and more detailed, forcing us to either deal with them or end our pain. On the brink of suicide we finally acknowledged our multiplicity arose from the betrayal of Baby by her caregivers.

Shelly and I were �born� in response to what Baby could not bear to know, was unable to process. We chose to be male because we perceived males as strong. I was "born to hold, nurture and protect our intellect, to keep us sane." Each of the core four of us had a primary job.

Shelly�s was to physically guard and defend us. Later we learned he also held the key to our hidden secrets. But until flashbacks exploded out of Pandora�s box only Shelly even suspected secrets existed.

During our childhood and adolescence Mollie was my closest friend. She served as Baby�s mother and nurtured Shelly, trying her best to keep his unruly behaviors in check. As we reached adulthood she remained my companion and confident. Because she matched our outer appearance as a woman, Shelly and I deferred to her desire to marry and bear children, sharing with us a normal range of human experience.

Our core group remained unaware of alters outside our circle until they began emerging along with our secrets. They were part of the complex checks and balances required to make us feel safe. Our operative concept throughout most of our life was: the world is unsafe. Shelly was constantly on guard. Faced with a real or perceived threat he could become physically aggressive and tenacious. But he was tender and caring with Baby and all outside children.

Our version of multiplicity is unusual according to the psychiatrist who worked with us during our crisis. Most multiples are unaware of their other alters. Some live in a bewildering whirl of missing time and confusing events caused by alters switching control.

We occasionally experienced missing time, especially as alters emerged from hiding. Some hid where they could observe our activities, occasionally claiming brief time out of their own. Gwen, a young adult now part our system, made it a practice to take control when we were shopping. She viewed herself as our children�s baby-sitter and loved taking them to the movies and buying them clothes. She was responsible for our repeatedly coming up short of cash.

We laugh about it now, but it wasn�t funny then. When she painted our fingernails red or bought outrageous clothes Mollie and I blamed Shelly, who was known to spend our money unwisely. He reacted with righteous indignation. I should have known he�d never paint our nails, he was so disgusted when Mollie did.

After Gwen became part of our inner circle, we learned of more alters, many of them very young. At first I was overwrought each time another emerged. Each brought memories, pain and issues which demanded our attention. Each coveted time out. Some used what we in Q system viewed as more than their share of our resources, both time and money. Emerging alters are usually very strong. They can wrest control and keep it from the rest of us. Negotiating with them to become part of Q�s system can be time consuming and exhausting.

I�m no longer distraught when new alters want to come in from the cold. I�ve learned each adds a unique dimension to our inner life, and our outer interaction with family and friends. As more child alters emerged, Baby no longer moped about having no playmates. As �l�ilones� shared their hopes and dreams, and became proficient at tapping our inner resources and experiences, many began to grow. Some chose to integrate with other youngsters or older alters. Through those integrations we began to believe each of us each of us inside is multiple too. If one of us endured abuse we fragmented individually, creating a complex system of hidden alters, each holding pieces of our pain.

We don�t ever have to be alone. Our inner world is rich in detail. We each have our own "private space" but we can, and do, spend time inside together. Each of us can be occupied inside, while the alter with ops is busy with outside life. I can access memory of a book someone else in the system read outside and read it myself inside. Inside I can swim in a tropical pool with a gaggle of l�ilones while Sheldon shovels snow outside (a personal favorite of mine). Of course when it�s my turn to shovel snow he can choose to do whatever he wants inside, like talk to me non-stop (a personal favorite of his).

We divide boring outside tasks amongst a group of us to make them tolerable, but each of us has certain skills we�ve perfected. We can allow others to share those skills, specific how-to knowledge of anything we know, but most of us prefer learning, making our own judgments and mistakes. Each of us has talents and interests.

Mollie is an excellent cook. She taught Shelly and I to cook. I can do the job, but no matter how hard I try to pay attention, I still have a tendency to burn supper. Some of us still prefer to spend most of our time inside. �rion is painfully shy about his southern accent. He avoids anyone but close friends and family. Ian Lee could care less if someone identifies him through his Irish brogue, but has learned to temper it to avoid embarrassing the rest of us in public.

Gwen feels she will never be able to actualize who she is, or accomplish what she�d like to do. A young woman, Gwen will never bear a child of her own. Like Shelly and I, she understands Mollie�s offspring, the children of this body, are hers too. We all love them intensely. But Gwen mourns her inability to have a baby of her own. To ease that pain she became surrogate mother to our l�ilones. Remaining mostly inside, Gwen guides their growth, buffers their passage from hiding, to joining our system.

Most therapists we�ve worked pushed toward the same goal: total integration. I was more concerned with finding all our alters and dealing with our collective pain. Integration into one unified self scared me witless. It still does. I resist partly because I believe complete integration for Q is an impossible goal. I was against integration on any level until it began happening naturally. I finally learned to accept it when Dani, a fey, dark-haired, mute inside child I loved dearly, and her swaggering twin Vinnie integrated with Shelly. Once I had faced the twins emergence with dread. I endured their acting out, sadness, and childish pranks. I watched them learn to use system resources, develop their own talents and interests, and grow. I wept tears of joy when Dani began to speak with the tortured syllables of a nearly deaf child. In a matter of months she transformed to a young woman of growing self-assurance. Her twin matured into a young man with an agenda of his own. By the time they both asked to merge with Shelly, Dani no longer needed or wanted Vinnie�s intense guardianship. Shelly agreed confidently, having already integrated with Susie and Watcher. His blending with the twins was harder. He experienced and owned their abuses in agony before the process was complete. I mourned the twins. My consciousness no longer resonated with their unique familiar brand of mindtouch, our inner communication. I missed them intensely, as a parent would mourn a child�s death. But I catch glimpses of them in Shelly�s smile, hear Dani�s voice when he suddenly mangles a word, see Vinnie in the swagger of his step. Shelly�s command of French once belonged to Susie, his penetrating gaze to a small boy we knew as Watcher. They are all Shelly now.

Less obvious to me are ways integration has changed me. Those who rejoined me can easily trace their origins directly back to me. Some, like Shadow, split off so recently their connection is obvious. His inner appearance is so like mine l�ilones called him "eliot�s Shadow". I am never aware of his presence in my consciousness until he steps away.

Unlike Shelly, whose alliances are permanent, mine are tenuous. Dakota, Logan, Devon, Shadow, Chad, and I split off for various reasons and recombine all over again. The rest of the Qs laughingly refer to us as "the eliots".

Each of us in Q has changed more in the last five years than all the 45 before. Shelly took his first steps from a stubbornly teenage viewpoint toward adulthood to earn the respect of someone he loved. Now he appears inside as a young man in his early thirties. Outside he accepts and shoulders adult responsibilities. He doesn�t even get speeding tickets anymore.

Shelly�s incentive to reach out, grow, was the same as my own: unconditional love. We were lucky enough to find someone who respects and cares about each of us. Over the course of our chronological adulthood some of us forged individual outside relationships, all of them disastrous until we met Lis. She identifies and relates to each of us as individuals, nurtures our little ones and urges us toward healthier life choices. We share our lives in ways incomprehensible to most people.

A few years ago when Shelly held a razor to our wrist I was too sad and weary to protest. Mollie, Shelly, Baby and I never expected to appreciate life again. Friends sat long nights with us when we were suicidal from around the world via the Internet. Others nearby tempted us to eat, cooking our favorite foods. Friends, therapists and counselors helped us find the courage to not choose death. Lis taught us moments of choice are right now, and if needed, thirty seconds later, until the urge toward self-harm is dissipated. We learned moment by moment to stop cutting, a lesson we applied over and over, until we finally achieved an understanding of joy, and learned to trust.

We disclosed our multiplicity to family and friends, embarking with them on a journey toward understanding. We gained confidence and began speaking to hotline volunteers, victim service agencies, clubs, organizations and communities about the effects of sexual assault, domestic violence and what life is like from a multiple�s perspective. We wrote our autobiography and published a website because our walk away from suicide necessitated a meaningful goal. Nothing will ever change the fact of our abuse, or erase again the memories. I doubt this late in life we will ever fully integrate. Integration on that level takes adults years of therapy, and our life is already busy and rewarding. But a child identified as multiple who engages in therapy can fully integrate in a matter of months. Sometimes we wonder what our life would have been if we�d had that opportunity. What if our teachers, the librarian, or our neighbors had recognized clues of our abuse or multiplicity? Through sharing our story we hope to help people learn some signs of a child at risk.

Please intervene when child abuse or domestic violence is evident. Silence is complicity.

MPD/DID Most frequently asked questions - our answers may not be true for all multiples. Multiplicity is an individual response to life events. Multiples are as varied as singletons. Remember too, multiples have as much in common with singletons as with multiples. We all share commonalties of human experience and emotion.

Question: How many alters do you have?

Answer: We stopped counting after 12.

Question: Can more than one of you be "up" at once?

Answer: Yes, we call it "sharing ops"

Question: Who is the original child you all sprang from?

Answer: Throughout most of our lifetime we believed Baby was our beginning. We have discovered many other babies and toddlers inside. Who our host personality or original child was is not clear, but is of very little importance.

Question: How do you decide who has "ops"?

Answer: Sometimes it�s determined by what we�re doing. If we�re writing for payment, it will be one of three alters who are professional writers. If we�re horseback riding it can be anyone who has experience, or a combination of someone with experience and those who want to learn. Ian rides in an archaic sidepass style, Gwen rides English, while Shelly rides Western.

Sometimes ops is random: I drive to town and park, but Shelly shops. Problems arise because I parked the car and he can�t find it.

Question: What is it like inside?

Answer: Like virtual reality, but more complex. If I decide the sky is blue and Shelly is having a cloudy day we need to adjust when we�re together, otherwise we waste time discerning the other�s experience. Unless we are communicating by pure mindtouch, our inside "where" and "when" need to match up.

Question: Do you like the same things?

Answer: No, we have individual preferences. I like my coffee black, Mollie prefers cream.

Question: Are experiences "in there" and "out here" the same?

Answer: No. Inside experiences have a greater range of possibility. Inside we can do whatever we think up, without laws of physics governing our behaviors. We can be as strong as we need to, jump as high as we want to, go where ever we wish in a blink. We often communicate with each other through mindtouch, but also use audible communication inside. It�s not considered polite to mindtouch someone who is asleep or engrossed in something. There is a particular mindtouch we use to get attention in those cases, like knocking on a closed door. Physical sensation is muted inside. Foods don�t "taste" as rich, textures are more subtle to the "touch".

Question: Do you ever wish you weren�t multiple?

Answer: Yes. Each of us has longed, ached, wished, burned to have our own body unencumbered by needs and wishes of anyone else inside. But it must be weird to be a singleton. How do you ever make decisions? Who do you talk things over with? Don�t you get lonely?

Question: Does something another alter does ever embarrass you?

Answer: Yes. Sometimes l�ilones lead us into strange situations. Chad used to crawl under clothing racks in stores when he was scared. How many times can you pretend to have dropped something in the same store?

Question: Isn�t MPD just an exaggeration of different parts of our personality? Aren�t we all "multiple"?

Answer: Nope, and no. The causes and indicators of MPD are not present in non-multiples. They are however commonalties among multiples.

Question: Are MPD and Schizophrenia the same thing?

Answer: No. Schizophrenia is not split personality, it is a chronic form of psychosis caused by a biochemical/genetic disorder of the brain. It doesn�t involve amnesia or flashbacks. Schizophrenics hear voices from outside. MPDs hear internal voices.

Question: How common is MPD?

Answer: Current research indicates at least one percent of the general population is MPD. If you know 300 people, chances are excellent three of them are multiple. Most professionals involved with DID/MPD research believe this is a low end statistic. Remember, many don�t know they are multiple, or they hide, as we did for almost 50 years. Many multiples are high-functioning, well educated, talented people who blend into ordinary lives chameleonlike, no one ever suspecting the truth.

Q has an Associate Degree in Journalism. Three of Q's personalities are regularly published professional freelance photo/journalists. Q also is an advertising, and public relations consultant and owns Quest Publishing, a micro-publishing company which designs www sites, mentors other writers, presents seminars, and produces small publications.

They served as a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Roster Artist in Literature/Poetry presenting educational residencies in 1995-96, and worked seven years in a local school district as parent liaison for a Federal remedial program.

Q has written grants for schools and local organizations, and served as board member or officer of a variety of community and regional organizations. Q was chosen a "Business Woman of the Year in Northeastern PA" in 1995 and was a featured alumni in Pennsylvania College of Technology's "College One" magazine in 1995.

Q's current most significant activity is speaking to groups, organizations, clubs, churches, hotline volunteers, medical professionals, and psychiatry classes about sexual assault, domestic violence and multiplicity.

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What You Should Know About Learning Disabilities

It pains me to have to write this article. I long for the day when all ignorance and misconceptions drop from surrounding disabilties. The ignorance is terrible enough surrounding physical disabilities but even worse when it comes to the internal disability that you cannot see with the naked eye. I cry inside when I think of all the children and young adults who suffer for their disability isn't recognized or they are cast off as stupid or a complete write off. Such is life for many of these individuals--but it doesn't have to be that way and it shouldn't be!

Several decades ago nothing was known about learning disabilities. A child who wasn't good in a certain subject was cast off as being stupid and basically not worth teaching as they won't get anywhere. Around about the early 1960s several educators found this not to be the case. The children were actually quite smart and could learn as musch as their counterparts if not more. But the catch is they had to be taught in a different and much more unconventional manner. These teachers took their findings to the government to ask for assistance in forming special tutoring classes for the children to help them learn. These classes would be discribed as "special eduaction".

Alas, there was a problem. And this very problem has hurt many children and adults since. In order to get funding for their program the children requring the program had to be reffered to as learning disabled with an actual disability.

The problem--these children weren't disabled at all--they just learned in a different manner. Suffice it to say the teachers needed the funding and went on with their program despite the fact they knew the children were learning different not disabled.

Now a day that big gap between disabled and learning different is erased and physcologists diagnose children and adults with a battery of tests and assessments and place them in a special class away from classmates (most of the time with little integration with normal classes) This is very disheartening as the child thinks they did something wrong and are different from everyone else.

They lose friends as the other kids don't understand the difference and are scared. The education system does nothing to show other kids that the so called learning disabled aren't bad.

I know many educators who would be upset I wrote this. They turn a blind eye to this and don't help the kids as much as they should. Often the disabled or those who are labelled as such don't get the help they need. They are stuck in a special help class and if they so far as speak up about bullying, harrassment or a teacher that isn't helping they are ignored--for they cost money and extra time one doesn't want to allot. This is sickening and disgusting to many teachers who love their pupils and want to see these disabled kids win.

How do I know this? Well, I've been there. I was labelled as learning disabled and basically written off. I was told that I would never be seen as a normal child. I was different from my peers and wouldn't be able to function in math, sports or anything requiring knowledge of visual concepts. For many years I went through school feeling inadequate and quite bitter about this. When I discovered I had talents in acting and writing they were basically ignored by all but one special teacher who told me to reach for the stars.

I was also bullied for 12 years by other children who didn't understand me. I had my arm broken by other students and was pushed around. I spoke out about it but all my complaints were divided into two categories--sweep it under the rug or tell the child that his parents are over protective and the student is an immagitive and creative liar. And what is even more disgusting is that I'm not the only person this happens to each day.

Eventually my parents and I got fed up with a system that failed me and so many others. I home schooled for 3 years worth of my adolescent life. I was basically isolated until I found an adult high school. I enrolled in courses and my life changed drastically. I found people who understod me, fostered my talents and loved me for me. I became Student Council Vice-President three years in a row and won the Student Council Election the fourth year. I also went on to form the school newspaper and write for many different newspapers and periodicals. So much for people thinking I wouldn't get anywhere.

It angers me that kids get written off when labelled learning disabled. People automatically assume their skill and intelligence is limited. That's absurd when intellegence is a quality larger than what we can imagine. Even those with severe mental delay are intelligent enough to be creative and produce art or other masterpieces. Learning disabled people can be geniouses in acting, public speaking or anything they want to excel in. They just have to be encouraged by teachers instead of discouraged most of the time. Stop limiting others!

I'm not bitter about this as I feel God wanted me to see the reality of this situation so I could speak out about it to help others. There are answers to what is happening. You do have the right to sound off and fight back. If you are pushed into a corner by an education system or not listened to you have rights. Look hard for your local learning diasabilities association and have them go up to bat with you. Your rights are protected and you deserve a fair education free of limits and harrasment that may follow for being different. I found this out the hard way--but I hope I have armed you with information to excel and move forth.

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HOMES AWAY FROM HOME--AT NO CHARGE!

You have just arrived at your vacation destination-it could be anywhere in the world you name it--Denmark, Oregon, India, Japan, Kansas! You may be traveling alone, or with your spouse and children. You carry your luggage into the place where you will stay for the next two nights. You don't present your credit card--you won't pay to stay here even though you will receive a comfortable place to sleep, breakfast, and possibly an evening meal. You are shown where you will sleep, given a towel to freshen up, then invited to come sit around the dining room table, to become acquainted with family members, probably have a bite to eat, and plan your visit. Is there something different about this picture'? Sit around the dining room table? Meet family members? Stay for free? It's likely you are a Servas traveler in the home of a Servas host.

The Servas Organization

'Servas' (Esperanto for 'we serve') is the name of an organization begun about 50 years ago by a few Americans and Danes who believed the best way to promote world peace was for people from different countries, backgrounds, and beliefs to spend a couple of days living togetherin each others' homes. The organization, now worldwide, is established in many countries. Its official statement is:

"Servas is a no-profit, not-governmental, interracial and international association of hosts and travelers which works towards understanding, world peace and justice through person-to-person contacts. It has consultative status as not-governmental organization with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations."

The purpose and intention of Servas is for members to become acquainted and share ideas and experiences, hopefully to gain understanding across cultures and nations, and to become friends. The recommended stay is two nights unless the host suggests a longer stay. The traveler should expect to spend some time with the host rather than taking off on tourist jaunts as soon as breakfast is over. In fact, it can be more fun to share in some of the host's daily life than playing tourist. For example, children may be invited to go along with host's children to school, or adults may be invited to the workplace. For the guest of an American host, it was quite an experience to go along to an appointment at a newly opened healthcare facility. The guest, from another country, could not imagine doctors' offices with carpeting and chandeliers! Others tell more exotic stories--e.g., that upon arrival in Germany her hosts swept her away for a weekend at the family's castle in the country! The same person, when in a small village in India, chose to work alongside family members in the rice paddy.

Some countries are more Servas-oriented than others. For example, I've been told that in Denmark so many families want to serve as hosts their period of service is limited to three years. Otherwise the hosts will have too few guests to entertain. Another country known for its Servas hospitality is India. Servas' founders intended for the organization to be closely aligned with Gandhi's teachings. They paid numerous visits to India and passed along their enthusiasm to many Indians who continue to be active participants.

Traveling with Servas does not mean that you have to give up seeing, say, the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal just to maintain ties with your new-found family. If sightseeing is a priority it may be best to check into a hotel for a day or two for that purpose before or after spending time in a Servas home.

Membership:

One may join the organization as a 'host', a 'traveler'(guest), or both. It is not necessary to serve as both 'guest' and 'host'. You need only to locate a local 'interviewer', fill out a brief form, and submit it to the interviewer who will tell you about the organization and the general practice followed by most travelers and hosts. The membership fee varies according to country, usually priced separately for hosts and for travelers. One may 'rent' directories which are published according to country.

Locating Hosts:

In each directory the hosts' entries are arranged by region within the country to make it easier for browsing. Detail about each host includes name(s), address, telephone, age(s), ages of children, language(s) spoken, profession, and main interests and hobbies. It also states how many guests they will accept, how much notice is required, smoking/non-smoking, sleeping bag requirements, 'away during school vacations', 'have dog', 'will meet you at train', etc. Some indicate 'WMT' which stands for 'want more travelers'! It is advised to write to hosts in advance, although some require only one or two days' notice. Being a 'solo' traveler is not a requirement. Families, including those with small children, report great experiences, especially if they locate a host family with children of similar ages.

My Experience

I joined Servas last June and used my membership while in France a month later. I stayed with five different hosts, and each experience was quite unique though pleasantly memorable. Their homes ranged from a young female social worker's 'bachelor pad' to married-couple math teachers' elegant contemporary home built amidst castle ruins. One host, an English bookseller in France, pointed to the camper-trailer on her property and said, "There it is!--your own little home!" One host family took me to their village's Bastille Day fireworks--a treat for me because I had missed our own Fourth of July celebration. Another host helped me find an optometrists' office where they could order contact lenses for me. When they double-checked my prescription I appreciated having my bilingual host there to serve as interpreter.

To Learn More About Servas

MARY JANE RUHL

Mary Jane Ruhl lives in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.A., with her two cats, Jasmine and George. With academic training in biochemistry, management, and the liberal arts, most of her professional career has focused on information management in the biological and physical sciences. She has been the owner and manager of her own consulting firm, and has worked in Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, Jamaica, France, Italy, and Japan. Business and recreational travel has taken her to more than 30 countries. What is her greatest love? Music, she says, especially pre-1700 and post-1900! She sings soprano in two choral societies and especially enjoys their European tours. The study of symbols is a hobby.

(She contributed an article on TS Eliot's imagery to Mag 4. HJN.)

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Hey Hero,

Do check it out.

Cheers!

Terry from T.O.

(Toronto, Canada)

PS: I noticed that you used the term "wondrous wind". That is a term used almost reverently in hang gliding circles. At sundown in the mountains, the cool air "runs" down the mountain slopes displacing the warmer air in the valley which then rises en-mass. In that warm smooth wondrous wind, a hang glider will be buoyed up for a well extended flight.

SECOND SOLO - PREMIER FLIGHT

There I was, parked, at 2000 feet. The air was smooth but strong. Strong enough to exactly oppose my forward motion. My Falcon flew itself in trim while I spread my arms and revelled in the wind. The long forgotten expression, "Lookit me, mom." passed through my consciousness. I was over the end of my destination runway and not moving a bit over the ground. It gave me a moment to ponder a lifetime.

The outside world, too, was my personal vista. My heading was west by south-west, so off to my right was Groveland, Florida and Highway 33 ran almost parallel to my bar. The late afternoon sun stretched the trees in the orange groves and highlighted the westside beacons. My instructors, now 1900 feet below, whose collective will alone could have kept me from harm, watched, and waited, and rated. (Why are they standing where I will need to land?) The small lake just ahead with its resident alligator; my western turning point. A snap-shot saved in the soul.

This, I remind myself, is why I took up hang gliding. And the hours of study and practice have been well worth it. This flight started about 7 minutes earlier on the ground, in my harness, hooked in to the glider, staring along the tow rope towards the ultra-light tow plane they call the Dragon-fly. They're all waiting for me. I have to get used to this pilot-in-command thing. I run down the check list in my head.

It strikes me that this is like water skiing --- but with a third dimension. I mutter something to indicate my readiness and my wing man interprets it correctly. He gives that full rotary arm motion that signals the tug pilot to "hit it".

The ground roll is short --- I'm flying within 4 seconds but must keep low and give the plane a chance to take off ; also careful to stay above the prop wash and the wing-tip vortices. The powerful little tug is quick to rise. Steady as she goes; keep the plane on the horizon, and don't let the glider get off to either side. Climb rate is about 500 feet per minute. At 2500 feet the tug pilot waves me off and, as my fingers squeeze the bicycle-brakes-type lever, I feel the clunk and hear the whizz as the tow line releases and drops away. Pull in to gain air speed and peel off to the right. Poetry in motion as the tug peels off to the left --- then the steep dive, and she's gone.

Yikes! I'm on my own.

A flood of DO's and DONT's. First thing; relax and shake your arms (that have been doing a lot of the work up to now), and pull in your tow bridle. Get your bearings and locate the LZ (landing zone). Check your ground track and figure the winds. Set your heading and relax. It is quiet. It is peaceful. It is a time to be in awe of the world beneath you. It is an emotional time. Unfamiliar feelings flood in from forgotten places. Let loose. Any tears of joy will dry long before you land. Your view is unencumbered for you are prone, facing down, with your "support" all above you. You marvel at your good fortune.

You pity the earth-bound.

As a novice you head straight to the LZ to practice multiple figure 8's on landing approach. But the wind at this level is 70 degrees across the runway and is strong and you find yourself "parked" on the up-wind leg. I check my ground track again. Oh,oh! I'm loosing ground. I'm actually flying backwards. This is what they warned me about. Don't get too far down wind.

I pull in the bar for more speed. No headway. An instant of panic. I haul in the bar; now gaining ground but loosing altitude. But it's OK because, at 1500 feet I reach gentler winds and go in to my figure 8's. Jim taught me how to enter my turns with confidence, to push out and carve the turn, and to exit the turn right on track. You know when you've done it right by the feeling you get in your body and your soul. This experience is not possible on the training hill.

The sound of the wind in the wires is your speedometer. Your other senses tell you location, attitude and direction. Subtle movements of your body control everything. Hang gliding is a sport, a discipline, a passion, a thing spiritual. In learning to fly, I have also learned to read the clouds, the birds, and even the grass. I notice things that are invisible to common men. Hang gliding is amazing and fulfilling. I applaud those who have gone before me.

Michael Robertson got me started in all this years ago and I am eternally grateful. More recently, Campbell convinced me to fly at Quest Air by his unbounded enthusiasm for the sport. Jim took me under his wing (no pun) and taught me how to "follow" the plane, showed me my first "thermalling", and how to pick my "spot" on landing and watch the angles. Russell helped me perfect my oscillation recovery, landing set-ups, and, most important, how to relax. Paris taught me how to carve those turns and gave me my final passing grade. And Leslie gave me advice, confidence, and lots of photographs.

Alas, it is time to land. Should I make that one last turn? Naw! Better to go long --- there's lots of runway. Too short, and I'm in the watermelon patch. Check your "spot". Straighten out. Pull in for speed. Windsong much louder now. Hold it. Minor corrections --- gentle --- nothing hard or hasty at this point. Level off or "round out" just above the road. Skim in over the grass at about 4 feet while you bleed off speed. Push out --- gently --- and flare ------- NOW! Perfect landing. Your sub-conscious registers a few cheers. But you are lost in your own thoughts; already re-living the flight.

I am struggling out of the harness when someone comes up and hands me a Coors Light; the drink of choice at Quest Air. Friendly people, a common passion, and cold beer --- what more can you ask for? Its been a great flight and a great day. As we all head to the hangar, we know the talk that night will be of flying. And later that night, the dreams too, will be of flying.

TERRY RYAN

Born in Toronto many years ago. Did poorly in school. Worked for four years. Learned to love making music; especially folk songs. Went back to school for electrical technology and aced it. Worked three places, including Northern Electric (now Nortel Networks) before starting my own business with a partner. Pretty scary. And pretty difficult juggling two partners. The other one is my wife and mother of our three kids. Took us five years to break even. But then success grabbed us and held on tight. We manufacture telecommunications power products and the business has grown beyond our wildest dreams. I've always liked tinkering with electrical and mechanical things. It's really neat when you can turn your hobby into a money maker. Our kids are 21, 20, and 15 and they all take their good fortune too much for granted. With all this, my idea of a good time, still, is sitting around a campfire with friends, a case of beer, 2 guitars, a banjo, maybe a harmonica, and at least one person who knows the words.

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A FEW LEAVES AFTER HAIKU.

------------------------

LEAF 1

Call it autobahn, call it highway

roar of a million wheels.

A little away sun is stilled, showing

red shafts as reeds sway in breeze.

LEAF 2

Who barks there?

It's darkness and just d-a-rkness

muddy river turning liquid in the stars

and there lem'me lie in her tide.

LEAF 3

Tick tock tick time

white sand through glass cornice

slow, moving in rhyme

a swift silver blow and hark

I too shall die.

LEAF 4

Bubbles of tune dance around

mingle with rain drops.

Pathos flutter, dip and carve

memoirs of pain, mementos of love.

_______________________________________________________

Hero Joy Nightingale From

Editor Ananda Sen

>From the Window Chiang Mai,Thailand.

Ms Joy

Would it be a surprise, that an Indian is sending you couple of poems for consideration? And it's from Thailand. I am a teacher here.

As you would find, the above are written keeping Haiku poems in mind. I've not tried to keep to 17 syllables and all the necessities pertaining to nature related words. But I kept nature and life in focus, that was the joy of writing.

I occasionally write articles and poems, some have been published. A local publication is serializing a story of mine, written for the children. Another detail: I'm forty plus.

I think that's enough. Let me know your reaction. Best wishes for your excellent effort.

Yours truly

Ananda

ANANDA SEN

has promised me a further article. HJN.

___________________________________________

Hi Hero: I was just remembering a few things about my childhood and thought I would share them with you. The street where I grew up was mainly made up of large families. Nearly every child had several kids their age to play with. I remember three girl friends that were very close to my age. All one had to do, was to walk outside and there would be someone out there to play with. We all had life size baby dolls and the cutest hand made clothes that were given to us by our families when the babies out grew them. We would push them around in our little buggies (strollers). We also had dress-up tea parities. Television was very new then and most people did not have one. There was no cable TV, so the ones with TV's, proudly displayed those large antennas on their roofs to get the two channels available (in black and white). No air-conditioners either. The occasional shop that did have an air-conditioner, displayed a sign on the door "Come in, It's Kool inside". With a K because it was an advertisement of a cigarette by the name of "Kool". The logo was a penguin. Not very many people had a phone. I remember at about any given time you could hear someone's mother yelling at the top of her lungs for one of her kids to come home. They would open their door and start calling. I don't think I have heard this for years now. No shopping centers either, how did we ever survive! I remember though, that there were little grocery stores on nearly every block, we had a store just next door. On weekends we would ask Dad for pennies. Penny candy, most of it was two or three pieces for one cent. Armed with just a few coins we would come back with a good sized bag of candy. Nearly everyone walked to and from school, and they also walked home for lunch. Now the occasional child I see walking home is escorted by a parent. Mothers pretty much stayed home and raised their large families. I don't think children go home at lunch-time anymore. After dark we would go outside and catch lightening bugs or play hide and seek, during the day we would play baseball (in the street). We would stay out way past dark during the summer months. It was much safer then. Everyone knew each other and looked out for the smaller children. The area is a very dangerous part of town now, with drugs and an occasional shooting. How scary it must be for the little ones that are growing up there now. I wouldn't even feel safe inside on that street now. It has been a beautiful week. I am wondering how much longer it will last. I think it will be about 80 degrees tomorrow (Monday). Wish it had been this nice for the Folk Life Festival. Donna

DONNA SKINNER

Donna Treaster Skinner has lived her entire life in the Boyhood Hometown of Mark Twain. She is the Code Enforcement Officer for this town rich in history. Hannibal, Missouri is also the birthplace of the Titanic's Molly Brown, who was raised in Hannibal as well as Becky Thatcher and other characters you have probably read about. After raising two sons of her own, Donna feels a special kinship with Tom and Huck. She invites everyone to visit America's Favorite Hometown and tour the childhood homes and museums of these famous people.

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Hero:

Great stuff! Here's a poem from a Native American. Enjoy. I am from the Iroquois tribes (Haudenosaunee). Use at will. Send me a land-mail addresss and I'll send you my poetry books and anthologies. Thanks, Godspeed, and good luck.

Have Fun,

Doug Stuber

The Poem:

Now or Never

A turtle flies through the universe.

We ride on the back of the turtle.

The Undergods dwell in Canandaigua,

The Overgods look down from clouds.

Even if we're 300 moons away from

When this mattered, most of our lives

Are touched by one holy inspiration: nature.

Cosmic coincidence should not amaze here.

You are in the middle of the new awareness.

Black rocks spin and dive in deep water.

A four-year-old runs then swims.

Relaxed willow provides humid shelter.

You peek under the giant grass skirt

And see four tangled feet. You don't peek further.

Gray locusts send twirling twigs to hair.

You swim out to a cooler spot of deep water.

The white snake, awake again,

Leaves Bare Hill, not reeking havoc

But cutting new creeks to hike along,

Full of crawdads and water spiders.

You retrace ancient steps. You sneak

Through the old neighborhood, now trespassing.

Four tangled feet, a few skipping stones

And the spirit within you:

Now awareness reigns. Corn presents

A raw treat for passing minstrels. Nothing

Talked about or noticed matters.

DOUG STUBER

Doug Stuber is a poet, artist and musician who often tries to mix as many forms of expression into his life and creations as possible. He has had two books of poems published, and will be included in "Poems from the Heron Clan" and Anthology due out in November. He's done 793 paintings, and has about 10 songs to his credit. He plays in the Gadflies, and exhibits art around Nroth Carolina.

(More poems next time from Doug. HJN.)

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Hi Hojoy,

I received your reply and will send you three, not two, stories that I have written. The two deer hunting stories are true experiences of mine. I understand that a lot of people don't like to see animals killed now days, but hunting has been a tradition in our family for many years. I hope that you can understand this and the way I feel about hunting by reading these stories. If you have any questions or thoughts about them, just let me know. I feel that young people benefit a lot from learning to hunt in our great outdoors. They learn about the importance of gun safety, wildlife habitat, conservation, patience, camping outdoors and even a greater respect for living things in general. Getting a deer is just a bonus at deer camp!

Lots of us come home with great memories of what happened. At night, we'll tell stories of other years hunting, play cards, eat from the campstove or just read a good book until we fall to sleep on our cot! Getting outside early in the morning and breathing some of the fresh air in the northern woods of Michigan is a wonderful experience.

Killing such a graceful animal such as a whitetail deer is not fun in my book, but doing it in a humane manner, taking care of the animal properly after the kill and not wasting it in any fashion, is most important. This may not be true for all hunters and perhaps they have given others of us a bad name.

In Michigan alone, thousands of deer are killed by autos and trucks on our roads. Most of these deer are totally wasted and cause large insurance claims and lost dollars to our state each year. Crop damage to farms is another concern. Managing the deer herds by hunting seems to be a reasonable option to me, and as I mentioned before, a family tradition. If my dad didn't take me to deer camp and out hunting when I was a young boy, I doubt that I would have done it myself. Now, I have two boys and a daughter, but my oldest son is the only one who likes to hunt. That is fine by me. They all know how to flyfish and we go as often as possible to the several lakes in our area!

I did locate the article in the Kalamazoo Gazette for you, and I will send it to you as soon as I can! I'll attach the stories to three different e-mails for you. I'm having trouble sending multiple attachments, lately. I put them in text form (.txt), so, I hope that they will be readable for you.

Remember that I'm not a professional writer or anything like that. Feel free to edit them if you want. Enjoy, thanks for your attention always, Larry J. Weststrate.

p.s. I work in the grocery department of a large "one stop shopping" store called Meijers near Kalamazoo, Michigan (you can put four football fields inside the store building!) and my wife Cheri has her own business making teddy bears. You may be able to find her small web site by typing in the name of her business, "Mostly Bears" on any search engine on the net!

1991 Deer Season

Joel's First Hunt

This year's deer hunting season and the story I'm about to tell, will stick in my mind for years to come. Joel, my oldest son, was going deer hunting with me for the first time. What would happen on this hunting trip to Newaygo, Michigan was something I would have never anticipated. For a first time father-son deer hunt it was fantastic!

Just before the colors of fall appeared in Michigan my thoughts were totally on the upcoming bow season. I had been out shooting my bow at the straw bales for several weeks now so that my arm would be in shape for my first bow hunt of the year. I had permission to hunt on Dr. Staufer's land near Texas Corners where the deer were doing lots of damage to his pine trees and alfalfa. After several times out with my bow I saw a lot of deer but still had not gotten a shot. Finally I positioned myself in an area where I saw deer from the opposite side of the field the day before. That evening three deer came into position below my portable tree stand and I took a shot at a small buck. Before hitting the deer my arrow nicked a small twig I hadn't seen when I took the shot. I knew that the deer wasn't hit well enough to stop him and with traces of just a little blood he was certainly going to see another day. I found the arrow on the ground only twenty yards away from where I shot and it wasn't even bent!

The next time I got out to bow hunt was a few weeks later with Tom Haggard, a friend at work. We scheduled time off work to go up north to Newaygo for a few days. After the first couple of days we saw several deer but none came in close enough to take a shot. Because of the number of deer we were seeing our chances of getting one seemed very good. On the last day before going home I saw a nice buck walking slowly away from me in the distance. Since it appeared that he would not be coming any closer I decided to mimic a deer call to see if it might get him to come in closer to me. After one call the buck stopped but not for long. I called one more time and he stopped again! I was amazed that it was working and sure enough he started to head my way though some thin pines. By now I was getting a bit nervous and tried to concentrate on getting a good shot.

This buck was at least a nice 8-point but I tried to forget the size of his rack. Even though I was shaking a bit I pulled back on the bow and steadied my sight as the buck came into range. He had his head down trying to look under the pine bows to see if he could determine what the noise was that he heard earlier. Only twenty-five yards away, I took my shot but the buck instinctively jumped back and the arrow just grazed his chest. I've heard that deer could actually react to an arrow like this but never saw it until then. There were two tufts of fur on the ground where the arrow stuck. The buck stopped about forty yards away and looked around for several minutes before walking deeper into the woods. That was the end of this year's bow hunting for me.

By now Joel was showing some interest in going back to Newaygo with me for the deer gun season. I told him to get signed up for the hunting safety classes coming up in the first week of November. He had to obtain a certificate from this class to be eligible to get his first hunting permit in Michigan. Joel took the three-day class and after passing a test we went to Meijers to buy him his first deer hunting license.

Deer hunting season has been a joy for my dad for as long as I can remember. This was going to be a year that he couldn't go because of some health problems and was a very big disappointment for him. I stopped by his house a few days before we left for up north to pick up some hunting clothes for Joel. Dad said Joel could use his rifle instead of my shotgun like we had planned. I sighted the gun in at a target to see if it was shooting straight and we found that it was off quite a bit. After a few shots it was ready for hunting. I don't like taking a gun into the woods without checking it out first.

As soon as Joel got out of school he helped me pack the rest of our gear into the station wagon. It took us longer than I thought it would but finally we were on our way. The sun goes down early this time of the year in Michigan, but I thought we would at least have some time before sunset to check out our hunting spots. We wouldn't make it up there in time, however.

Before we got to Grand Rapids it started to rain, just as the forecast had said. The northbound traffic added to the slow pace on the freeway. To make things even worse, we rolled to a stop in a massive traffic jam in the middle of Grand Rapids. A seven-car pile up was blocking the freeway! Joel and I heard what was going on up ahead over the radio station we were listening to in the car. I got off the freeway at the first exit and drove though the city in the pouring rain to by-pass the stopped traffic on the freeway. By this time it was already getting dark out, but at least we were moving again.

The rain was still coming down pretty good when we reached our campsite. Joel and I grabbed our raincoats and set up our tent in that miserable weather in the darkness of the woods. With flashlight in hand, somehow we managed to set our tent up and throw an extra tarp over the top to help keep us a bit drier. The rain was going to continue all night! After scrambling to get our hunting gear, cots and other equipment into the tent, we started our heater up to help things dry out. We finally settled down and talked about what our plans would be for hunting in the morning.

At this point I didn't believe this hunting trip was going to be much fun. Hunting in the rain never thrilled me much. I worry about getting soaked to the skin and getting cold after that. If I wear rain gear, every time I move, the deer can hear me a block away. Keeping the lens dry on my riflescope so I can see through it can be another problem. The constant dripping of the raindrops on my hat can also drive me nuts! I tried to throw all of these thoughts out of my mind and prayed that somehow, maybe the rain might stop before the next morning.

Just before sunrise the nest day, the sound of the raindrops on the tarp over the tent seemed to diminish. The small heater had kept us warm and dry through the entire night. It was still extremely wet outside but for now my prayer concerning the rain was answered. Hot cocoa and cereal for breakfast seemed to be enough for the both of us. Rushing to put our hunting clothes on, we almost forgot to turn the heater off.

As Joel and I quietly walked to our deer blinds, the rain came to a stop and a heavy fog settled in. The woods slowly lit up but with the low clouds in the sky, it was not going to be a very bright day. On opening day for deer hunting, Joel saw about 10 deer but only one was a buck as far as he could tell. It stayed behind a few trees and walked straight away from Joel making it too difficult to take a good shot. Every time Joel saw a deer he would put his scope on it for practice but there were no antlers to be found.

All morning I sat in Dad's blind where I shot two bucks last year but only one doe showed up running in the distance. It just seemed to be too quiet. I heard several shots in the distance but never saw another hunter all morning. Either there were not many hunters out moving the deer around or with all the rain that night, the deer were content to stay in heavy cover. At the end of the day I counted only three deer. The clouds were breaking up in the evening and the radio said we would have clear skies at night and through most of Saturday.

On Saturday it was cooler with a slight breeze blowing in the early morning. The leaves were a bit frozen on the ground and the stars were shining bright. I thought to myself that the deer had probably been up all night feeding. We had to get going because with the clear skies the sun would be up fast. Joel beat me getting dressed and was heading to his favorite spot where he had seen most of the deer the day before. When I finally headed out the skies were already getting light.

I waved to Joel as I passed him going to the spot where I had decided to hunt that morning. I sat down at near a lane that marked an easement at the edge of my dad's property, about a hundred yards away from Joel, but looking in the opposite direction. From there I could see just about anything that might come through the area. I sat right in the middle of three small trees and hoped that I would blend in with the surroundings a little better. There was a huge pothole that separated me from the railroad tracks that were about 200 yards to my left. Any deer coming towards me from the pothole would be an easy target and since a slight breeze was blowing from that direction, my scent would not be detected by any deer.

At about 8:30 AM several shots rang out over by the tracks. I readied myself for the possibility of a deer coming to me from that direction. Maybe a deer had jumped across the tracks and someone was taking a shot at it. Hopefully he missed and if so, I wanted to be ready. Alerted by the shooting a few minutes earlier, my eyes picked up some movement coming up out of the pot hole just about 30 yards in front of me. At first all I could see was a huge set of antlers. It was the biggest buck that I've ever seen in all my years of hunting! As the buck stepped forward at a slight angle I wasted no time putting my scope on him and dropped him in his tracks. It all happened so fast that I never had a chance to get nervous about taking the right shot. If I had seen this huge buck coming from a long distance I would have gone nuts trying to hold my gun steady! I counted ten points, an even five on both sides, and guessed that the deer weighed about 200 pounds!

After calling Joel over to the downed buck I showed him how to field dress a deer, that was just another part of becoming a knowledgeable hunter. It was warm enough outside that I knew we had to clean out the deer as soon as possible and cool the meat down to preserve it better. Both of us grabbed onto the large spread of antlers and started back to camp. We would have to drag the deer the full length of the ten acres of the property. As I was telling Joel how I had shot the buck, we were both pretty excited and the weight of the deer made for a good workout. Stopping a few times to catch our breath, I started to sweat and my glasses were getting steamed up in the process. Joel, wearing contact lens, was not bothered with this problem, so, I knew he could see where he was going! We came to a few small logs crossing our trail just before reaching the deer blind my dad had built. Stopping for just a moment, we could hear a group of deer coming straight at us up the ridge! I whispered to Joel to get ready for a shot and start scoping them with his rifle. Because my glasses were so steamed up, I couldn't tell how many deer there were in the group. I quickly told Joel to go ahead and take down the first nice sized deer he saw if he had a good shot. We had a doe permit so if no bucks showed up, that wasn't going to be a problem.

In those few seconds I managed to find my red hanky to clean the moisture from my glasses while I was kneeling on the ground. Moving slowly, I didn't want to spook the deer coming towards us. Suddenly a deer stopped about twenty-five yards right in front of us. Joel squeezed the trigger and the deer dropped in his tracks. That was the first time Joel had fired Dad's rifle, and it was a perfect heart shot. We now had two deer on the ground and we could hear another one coming up the ridge in front of us!

I quietly walked forward a few yards and watched an open clearing below us. The deer we heard was not showing himself but I could still hear him just off to the left of the clearing. I motioned to Joel to sit tight and I scoped the area. Finally, limping badly, a deer appeared going straight away from us and without seeing any antlers I didn't shoot. This deer was lagging behind the others and obviously, with a bad front leg, could not keep up with them.

Now it was Joel's turn to field dress his deer. He had downed a nice button-buck, only a yearling, but it was a healthy deer and had been feeding well. With all the fat on it, this would be great venison for the freezer. For his first deer, Joel did a pretty good job, but now we had to get our deer back to camp.

With a rope, we hauled Joel's deer back to camp first, left our guns and coats and returned to bring my buck back later. We were pretty tired by then, but with the weather still mild, we didn't waste any time getting the deer up on a pole we had tied up with rope between two trees at camp. Washing the deer out with clean cold water was our last chore before getting an opportunity to rest. We were both ready to get cleaned up and have a bite to eat.

Joel, after seeing all those deer that morning, was pretty excited, and wanted to return to his deer blind to hunt that afternoon. He still had one valid license to take a buck and decided to go back out hunting while I cleaned up around camp.

It was still mild outside and another storm was on its way, so, I made the decision to start packing up before Joel returned from hunting that afternoon. When he finally arrived back at camp, I could see a big smile on his face as he stopped and took a look at the two deer hanging on the buck pole next to our tent. That afternoon Joel had seen about twenty deer, more than most hunters ever see in several days! Although he didn't see any bucks, he enjoyed watching several deer come within a few yards of his deer blind. From that day on, Joel would have a greater appreciation for the great outdoors and the whitetail deer. We packed our tent and all the gear into the station wagon. With both deer tied securely to the top of the car, we were ready to head for home. It was probably a good thing that we didn't drop another buck that day, because the car was already inches from touching the ground. We could see lightening flashing in the distance as we headed for home. Our hunt started with rain, so, I suppose ending it with a shower seems only fitting.

___________________________________________

TARA BEATTIE

A quick joke: Two parrots sitting on a perch. One says to the other, "Can you smell fish?"

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RULES FOR WRITERS

1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (they're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. Be more or less specific.
15. Understatement is always best.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be avoided.
19. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
20. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
21. Who needs rhetorical questions?
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

Peter Giles has previously submitted a poem on the Tsarevich, published in Mag 2. HJN.

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> > TO: Ohio Committee on Corporations, Law and Democracy / others

interested

>

> > Here are a few of the signs and slogans that I saw through the fog of teargas at one or more of the many marches held during the WTO meetings last week.

Notice how many deal with democracy and/or corporations. It's encouraging that the issues are no longer solely (as important as they are) protecting this forest, that animal or whatever labor right. They now include the fundamental issues of democracy and corporate power.

This represents a democratic opening. What happens now is up to us!

> >

> > -------

> >

> > Signs / Slogans at WTO Marches (a small selection from the thousands)

> >

> > World Tyrant Organization

> > People before Profits

> > Planet before Profits

> > We're here. We're wet. Cancel the debt

> > Protect the Rainforest, Clearcut the WTO

> > The world is not for sale

> > Labor Rights, not Trade Wrongs

> > Profit is not a civil right

> > Deregulate the people, not corporations

> > People do not exist to serve the interests of corporations

> > Abolish corporations now

> > No globalization without representation

> > Globalization is recolonialization

> > Big business uber alles

> > Money is not God

> > WTO = Corporate Greed

> > Increasing profits, decreasing labor rights

> > Organize the unorganized

> > Corporate law is fascist law

> > Life is sacred. No GE food

> > Do you remember voting?

> > Will Target Opponents

> > Will Teargas Opponents

> > Democracy, not WTO hypocracy

> > Smash the WTO

> > World trade is our business too

> > If I loved people less I could support the WTO

> > Think the WTO is bad, wait till you hear about capitalism

> > Turtles & Teamsters: united at last

> > This is what democracy looks like

> > Works To Oppress

> > US Congress Support of WTO is Economic Treason

> > Capitalism cannot be reformed

> > End corporate rule

> > The corporate media diverts your attention from police and WTO violence

> > wtNo, Earth Yes

> > Constitution Free Zone

> > Buy (on one side of sign) / BYE (with picture of earth on other side of

sign)

> > WTO: Kiss my ass

> > Chiquita Eats Independent Farmers

> > There are solutions: WTO is not one of them

> > Sovereignty, not Slavery

> > WTO: do your moms know what you are up to?

> > Don't punish other countries for not wanting our stupid stuff

>> Kickin' ass for the workin' class

> > Free the Seattle 500, Jail the Fortune 500

> > Resist Corporate Tyranny, The People have Spoken

> > WTO: Shame on you!

> > Corporate rights lead to corporate wrongs

> > People do not exist to serve the interests of corporations

>

> Melinda Wiggins

> Executive Director,

> Student Action with Farmworkers

> 1317 W. Pettigrew St., Durham, NC 27705

> 919-660-3652

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Eminent people who have made promises are:

- Stephen Hawking (re-iterated)

- David Blunkett (UK Secretary of State for Education)

- Jonathan Miller (the opera director and doctor of medicine).

I hope at least one of these will actualise by mid Feb.

Quite a few already in: eg on baseball, African proverbs, being a firefighter and paramedic, a special rainbow, and "remembering the children". Promises also on stuff from a reformed junkie and a retro from Kent State Uni in Ohio.

Please keep the articles rolling in. I love hearing from any and all of you.

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It may help our circulation if you were to print a hard copy of this mag and make it available to colleagues, family and friends. Please publicise it any way you can. I am always looking for unsolicited contributions.

We are seeking contacts to act as correspondents in UK Oz USA SA or indeed any elsewheres: eager beaver students (eg on creative writing courses) may wish to submit suggestions as to how they could participate on the Editorial Committee (do some legwork for me). I am anxious to obtain more oral history and some stuffs from 1st class sports-people, for example, and as you may have noticed am desperate for eminent writers, having set precedents that are hard to follow.

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