… it was legal to deny a woman credit without a male co-signer.
I don’t have any recollection of knowing it was a momentous day for women when President Gerald Ford signed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) on Monday, October 28, 1974. I may or may not have watched the nightly news that detailed a new Federal law making it illegal for creditors to discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status. At the time, I did not possess a credit card and thus had never been denied. I was living at home and carrying a full credit load. I would have been focused on a full schedule that included methods classes and other subjects required for my second Bachelors – the Elementary Education degree. When I finally applied for an AMOCO card so that I could pay for gas when traveling to and from Brodhead, I signed the application myself never realizing that just 14 months earlier, my Dad would have been required to sign for me. So much has changed in my life and so much is at stake in this election.
Wonderful on the spice rack and now a political statement!
All because Vice President Kamala Harris hugged a customer while visiting a Penzeys store during her time in Pittsburgh, the former president and the right-wing media have set out to close down this “liberal” business. The intent is not only to boycott Penzeys Spices out of business but to send a fear signal to other businesses that might want to welcome the Harris-Walz team. To countermand this attack Penzeys Spices is offering $50 gift cards for $35, now through Sunday, September 15. And, not only is there a cost-saving gift card offer, but they also have a special deal on their orange spices. Buy lots, enjoy the flavor, and do your bit for democracy.
It is an exciting day for Minnesota as Vice President Kamala Harris just announced that my Governor, Tim Walz, will be her running mate!
The first picture, while not the clearest, (I had handed my pocket-sized Samsung camera to the Congressman’s aide) provides proof of heartfelt conversations. That photo was snapped just before he departed a Rochester hotel banquet room as we walked-and-talked while I advocated for increased Federal support of libraries. The second was a sun-filled, fun day in Winona when Walz was home during the summer congressional break. He and his entourage joined young readers for a brown bag lunch provided by the Lunch Bus on the steps of the Winona Public Library.
I first met Tim Walz in 2006 at a candidates’ debate hosted by the Rochester Chamber of Commerce. After just the first two questions, it was clear the incumbent, Republican Gil Gutknecht, had thought he could return to his hometown and coast by, after all, he was the one coming from the hallowed halls of government. Instead, it was his challenger, Tim Walz, who responded competently to each question. He shared details as if just briefed and with a clarity that demonstrated how he made high school geography interesting. By the end of the debate, my luncheon tablemates were worried by their candidate’s mediocre performance and were busy conferring how best to get (then) Congressman Gutknecht the necessary coaching in hopes of a better showing in future debates around Minnesota’s 1st district. The November 2006 election proved the best man won.
A quick review of his Wikipedia page reminded me of just how hard this moderate has worked for the residents of Minnesota and our country:
"In his first week as a legislator, Walz cosponsored a bill to raise the minimum wage, voted for stem cell research, voted to allow Medicare to negotiate pharmaceutical prices, and voiced support for pay-as-you-go budget rules, requiring that new spending or tax changes not add to the federal deficit."
Even as Harris campaign signs are being swastika-ed in Rochester, I am supporting this exciting duo; my first campaign contribution already paid. The Harris-Walz presidential ticket will rejuvenate this campaign, introduce civility and even some humor into the discussion of complicated issues and provide a talented team that will work with compassion as:
Today, we face a choice between two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future and the other focused on the past. And we are fighting for the future. —Kamala Harris (July 2024)
I was the luckiest of grandchildren. I lived across the street from my maternal grandparents and moved between these two homes with an easy flow. As a free ranging child of the 50s, my neighborhood friends and I were just as likely to be found resting in the cool shade of the pines on the west side of their lot, as playing kickball in the cinder alley on my side of the street or roller skating the concrete sidewalk ringing our block. If Grandma was in the kitchen – baking oatmeal cookies, cooking supper, making Ribbli (a uniquely Swiss breakfast dish) – she always wore an apron.
Over the years, I have collected a half-dozen bib aprons but I tend to grab one only when I start a multiple recipe day of cooking and baking; an act that signifies, this is serious work. Among my friends, even those who declare themselves to be “foodistas”, I rarely, if ever, see any of them wearing an apron. This may be due to the sheer abundance of stain resistant clothing in our closets or that we came of age in the 70s when we were eager to cast off any connection to the apron clad images that were broadcast to our black-and-white 15-inch TVs. I am remembering comedic scenes with Ethel and Lucy in “I Love Lucy” or Aunt Bea on “The Andy Griffith Show” when an apron was a standard costume accessory.
For over 50 years, Grandma’s well used half aprons were kept neatly washed, pressed and protected in tissue paper. Each sewn with fabric remnants and embellished with a bit of lace or a row of rickrack. As Momma continues her shelf-by-shelf, drawer-by-drawer review of her household items, she felt it was time to share these vintage treasures. Granddaughters Barb, Rita, Sarah, Gina, Mary Pat, Rebecca, and I are now the keepers of these wonderful heirlooms.
A single meandering Siberian Squill, escaping from Michaela’s garden, burrowing under the fence to our driveway. The perfect spring image for Becky B’s square blogging challenge with these themes –
Move Forward
Reconstruct
Renew, and/or
Burgeoning (beginning to grow or increase rapidly; flourishing.)
In not quite a decade, between meeting Richard (June 7, 1981) and June 1989, I went from watching races only sporadically to track side attendance at the inaugural Formula 1 street race in Phoenix. In my early days of race viewing, the challenge was simply finding a re-play of a race as only the “jewel” in the racing crown – Monaco – might, just might be aired in real time.
Six seasons of Drive to Survive has increased viewership and a variety of streaming services now ensures race coverage with experienced commentary. And, with more viewing my familiarity with tire degradation and slip stream passes also expands. The longest season ever run started this weekend in Bahrain and we will follow this most expensive motor sport from lights out starts to checkered flag finishes all the way to Abu Dhabi.
Bahrain podium finishers: 1- Max Verstappen, Red Bull; 2- Sergio Perez, Red Bull; 3- Carlos Sainz, Ferrari.
Photo details: Canadian Gran Prix, Montréal, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, June 7, 1998. Last lap, with Michael Schumacher in the lead and winning the race for Ferrari.
This story began long ago, 100 years ago today, when Momma was born on December 29, 1923, in a little house on 8th Avenue in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It had been the caretaker’s residence for the big house next door. It did not have running water and Grandpa had to go to the big house with a bucket. He always talked about how tiny she was and how cold it was that day – so cold that ice formed overnight on the water in the bucket.
The changes in those 100 years are so numerous as to be impossible to inventory. Momma remembers riding in Grandpa’s Model T and there is picture proof; their family got their first phone when she was eight, a party line when each household had its own set of rings. (Not unlike today’s customizable iPhone ringtones – the same but different.) A time when train travel was the norm, and it took 400 minutes from Chicago to St. Paul. Men on the moon and women in space.
A grand adventure took her to Washington, DC as a “war girl”. She lived with seven other young women all working for the war effort. It was while living at the 5506 House that she met a sailor from Alabama. Dad was stationed at Patuxant River, Maryland and while on switchboard duty he called the cousin of a friend. Instead of the cousin, Momma answered the phone and that serendipitous conversation became a lifetime.
If I give into the temptation to chronicle her life this will appear more like an obituary rather than a simple celebratory blog post – so just some highlights that will bring us to today.
Two children – My sister Mary Pat (1962) and me (1952); one grandchild, John Lac, a lovely assortment of nieces and nephews now counting into the greats, great-greats, and even the great-great-great generation.
Four houses – 1226 Vine, the red brick house on 14th Street, The 40 (now owned by good friends) and the lake house, Inseli.
Travel that took her to foreign places – Australia, Egypt, Greece, New Zealand, Switzerland, Venice, and the Virgin Islands. Visits from Swiss cousins brought family connections to Wisconsin. The first two to visit arrived in 1972, not speaking any English, and just last summer, we hosted ten cousins, all of whom spoke English which made easy laughter.
This weekend there will be a party but no ballons. The students at St. James School, where she volunteered in the library for 57 years, sang a birthday blessing; there are jars of Smuckers seedless raspberry jam customized with her picture; and there has even been TV coverage!
A Project Peace meditative nugget asked readers to ponder the color of peace. My immediate thought was blue – like dusty hydrangeas in Gloucester, crisp winter skies after a snowfall on a below zero day, or skeins and skeins of yarn. On deeper reflection, I must admit that I do not ever recall assigning color to such inherent values as peace, respect, or trust. Rather, my mind recalled those places, deeply imbued with color, when I felt peace.
Standing on the edge of a granite precipice jutting into Lake Superior and watching the waves far below shift from glittering copper to root-beer frothy to deep steel gray while pewter gray rain moved across that inland sea.
Sitting under a vibrant green canopy of leaves while John Lac read a book and I attempted to write poetry, albeit bad haikus.
Both Richard and I survived decades – he nearly eight and me (halfway through six) – without a broken bone. Now, both our medical histories include right foot fractures although different bones, five years apart but with the same hobbling.
My break was totally my fault as I focused on taking that perfect picture of the centuries old monastery, tucked high in the Moldovan hillside and visible across the deep valley; totally inattentive to the surface change from pavement to gravel with a drop significant enough to turn an ankle and (as discovered later) fracture a bone. With the support of my travel companions, one of which was a Mayo orthopedic nurse, I preserved. After all, what else is there to do 5,200 miles and eight time zones from home with a “transverse nondisplaced fracture at the distal aspect of the lateral malleolus”?
Fast forward from October 2018 to last week and a facture of Richard’s fifth metatarsal. The loud thump had me running from our computer room at the back of the house to the front TV room. At first, we both thought everything was just bruised, his left shoulder, elbow and hip and his right foot. After three days, his left side soreness had noticeably diminished but his right foot was still quite swollen, and walking was painful. Time for a Sunday morning visit to Acute Care. He walked in wearing both shoes and, just like the Diddle, Diddle Dumpling nursery rhyme, he left the clinic with one shoe on and one shoe off, wearing instead a short ortho air-pump walking boot. The doctor ordered a follow-up X-ray in four weeks to check progress. We anticipate he will be booted and hobbling for six to eight weeks. This is one of those shared experiences I wish he could have missed.
I was already upstairs and Richard had nearly finished brushing his teeth when he caught a moving shadow in the corner of his eye. A bat was making sweeping figure-8s from one end of our galley kitchen to other. While Richard stood in the open archway between kitchen and dining room, waving his arms to deflect possible sonar waves, I dashed to the garage for a snow shovel (in hindsight a broom might have been the better tool, but I admit to reactionary thinking.) Whether or not the arm and snow shovel waving created the desired interior air current, we were successful in directing the unwelcome visitor into the night. Thus began our most recent construction job which has included: bat extraction from the attic, remedying a damp basement with a WaterGuard® Below-Floor Drain system, and hiring an electrician to bring power to the sump pump.
Prep work for the new drain system required handling everything in the basement to create an 8-foot open corridor around the perimeter, including five trips to the county waste-to-energy center. Once the work was completed, (jack hammering, old concrete removed, and new concrete troweled into place) everything was handled a second time to remove the thin layer of concrete dust that coated every surface. We spent September getting ready for the contractors and it feels like we will need all of October to recover.
Knit+ Librarian 