Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth): George Harrison
Posted March 5, 2026 by katryCategories: Video
“The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we’re not apologetic about it.”
Posted March 5, 2026 by katryCategories: Musings
Tags: bologna, Ghana, pc-training, Peace Corps, Sandwiches
Today is cloudy. Light rain is predicted. It is warmish at 39° with no wind. Most of the rest of the week will be the same. Much of the snow has melted. The leftover piles along the sides of the roads are pockmarked with holes from the rain. My yard has large fallen branches and small pieces of wood scattered about. Nala brings in twigs and pine cones. I pick up chewed twigs and stripped pine cones.
This morning I found one boot upstairs and a pair of mittens in the dining room. I found chewed pieces of paper on the living room floor. Not the disorder of a poltergeist I figured but rather the doings of one boxer named Nala.
I used to love bologna sandwiches. The meat came in rolls and had to be cut into pieces. I was never a good cutter. My pieces of bologna were thick on one end and thin on the other. That made for an odd sandwich, always a white bread sandwich. I used to slather mustard on the bread. I also added hot peppers from a jar cut into slices. The father of one of my friends introduced me to hot peppers. I don’t remember their names, but I do remember where they lived, on Main Street in a large white house, a duplex, across from The First National. The house is still there.
This is Peace Corps week. My memory drawers are open. I remember Peace Corps training and how awful it was and how wonderful it was. I can see in my mind’s eye people and places and all the friends I made, especially two, Bill and Peg, who are still the dearest of friends. I remember during week eight or so in Koforidua, I got to my dorm room and said I was leaving. Everyone in the room said they were leaving too. We all laughed. None of us left.
I have posted this before, but it is perfect for today. I remember it all.
It didn’t take long after training to realize the best part of Peace Corps isn’t Peace Corps. It is just living every day because that’s what Peace Corps comes down to, just living your best life in a place you couldn’t imagine. It is living on your own in a village or at a school. It is teaching every day. It is shopping in the market every three days. It is taking joy in speaking the language you learned in training. It is wearing Ghanaian cloth dresses and relegating the clothes you brought with you to the moldy suitcases. It is loving people and a country with all of your heart from breakfast to bed and forever after. Peace Corps doesn’t tell you that part, the loving part, but I expect they know it will be there.
Colonel Bogey March: From Bridge Over the River Kwai
Posted March 3, 2026 by katryCategories: Video
March Winds and April Showers: Abe Lyman with Louis Rapp on vocals
Posted March 3, 2026 by katryCategories: Video
“The stormy March has come at last, with winds and clouds and changing skies.”
Posted March 3, 2026 by katryCategories: Musings
“We’re having a heat wave,” okay, a slight heat wave. It is only 33° now but a high of 40°is predicted. Rain is in the forecast. It should beat down more of the snow which is at its ugly stage. The pine trees didn’t fare well. My yards, back and front, are littered with branches and limbs. Some landed on fences. In the back a section of the fence is leaning. I think it can be saved. The front fence needs to be replaced. The snow is holding it up. Clean-up will take a while.
When I was a kid, the streets after being plowed still had a layer of snow. Summer tires were switched to either snow tires or chains. My father had his winter tires put on at the gas station. Because we lived on a hill, it was an early winter chore. Sometimes when the snow was still high on the street, my father went up the next street which by-passed most of the hill. He parked out front at the curb. Cars riding up and down the hill hard-packed the snow and made it perfect for sledding. We flew.
When I was growing up, I gave no real thought to the further beyond a day or two unless I was counting down the days until Christmas or summer vacation. I sometimes made weekend plans like going to the matinee or going bike riding usually by myself but other times with friends. On winter weekends we sometimes ice skated, at the swamp or the field. Once in a while, we’d take the bus to the MDC rink. It was the best rink. It had two round fenced in rinks, and a building where you could sit inside on benches to get warm, and you could even buy food. If I had the money, I’d buy hot chocolate then skate a little more. To get home, we used to have to cross over the busy road at the Middlesex Fells so we could catch the bus back. The bus stopped off the road at the front of the neatest house, a part of the New England Sanitarium and Hospital, where I was born as was Buffy St. Marie. The house had a beautiful rock front. Students nurses lived there. I remember them in uniform getting on the bus. They’d get off in the square.
My dance card has a few entries this week, all uke. I have the usual practice and lesson, and we have one concert. We’re playing Irish, one of my favorite uke music books. It will be good, my getting back into the world.
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