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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

Betrayal

3/30/2019

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Photo: Jacob Jaconovich on a small Gerry 
​Betrayal
 
“I still remember the day after the emperor set fire to my portion of the city as if it were yesterday” – Philippe Rouseff on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday.
 
***
 
I took my wife to Mass more to please her than from any desire of my own. I watched as the priest lifted the loaf and intoned the words, “On the night in which he was betrayed…” Bile rose up in my throat at the words.  I knew betrayal.
 
The Emperor, one of my closest associates--a cousin even, had struck at the heart my railroad operation in an effort to destroy my family business. I pressed my lips together to stifle the urge to cry out in anger as the priest held up the cup. When Christ was betrayed, only one man died. I wondered how many thousands burned when I was betrayed. 
 
As the faithful shuffled forward to take their bread and sip from the cup, I shifted in my seat and pondered why that bastard crime boss, Wu, a better man than my cousin, had sent his wife to my offices to warn one of the bookkeepers about the impending purge. As the bookkeeper raced from the building, she screamed, “Fire! The army is coming! Fire! Flee!” Who else had been warned that the emperor’s army marched against the city? Who had time to flee? 
 
I had no desire to spend a Sunday afternoon working, but at three in the afternoon, I met with two railroad supervisors to survey the damage to almost a square kilometer of the city. I expected to find tall burned skeletons of tenement buildings. Nothing remained but stone foundations and ash. The emperor had been thorough.
 
We drove up to the deserted M’TK station. Blowing ash shifted and settled after the passage of my car. My stomach churned wondering how many of my employees’ ashes mixed and blew among the debris of burned buildings.
 
The brick and slate train station still huddled beside the tracks the lone survivor in a wasteland. Soot now stained the red bricks the same black as the rest of the borough. We stood and looked over the desolation—nothing moved, nothing lived. I wanted to hope that some of my people survived, but hope refused to kindle here among the ruins. The workers were only indigenous northerners, laborers, but they stocked my warehouses and loaded my trains.
 
The Central Region supervisor looked up. “What the hell?” 
 
I followed his eyes and soon made out a string of boxcars pulled by the station’s yard-gerry slowly rolling toward the station. Filled with the horror that lay around me, I stared transfixed at the approaching apparition. If I were a superstitious man, I’d have turned and fled in fear of death and ghosts. I refused to take my eyes off of this small sign of life.  
 
When the gerry with it’s string of boxcars towering above it, rolled to a stop at the station, the operator dressed in railroad coveralls lifted a woman down from the first boxcar.  A young boy about ten jumped to the ground. This family appeared to be like any other of the northern poor—dirty and ragged.
 
The man introduced himself as the assistant stationmaster. He unlocked the station for us and assured us that he had locked the station’s ticket money in the safe. He seemed respectful enough. He kept his eyes lowered as custom dictated for a man of his station. 
 
I heard the eagerness in my voice, “Have you seen signs that some of my people survived?”
 
“I haven’t seen anybody within a kilometer of the station. Wu warned me, so I had time to move the equipment. I suppose others had time.”
 
I shook off my melancholy for a moment.  “Listen, you saved my equipment and the money in the station. I must give you a reward.  What do you want?”
 
The man answered immediately. “The Stationmaster ran away when he heard about the army. I stayed long enough to save your equipment. Give me the stationmaster’s job, and let me live here with my family.” For the first time, the man looked me in the eye.The sharp intelligence I saw in the eyes of a northerner surprised me. The man’s humility returned when he asked for help to assist his cousin from the train. 
 
Curious about the new stationmaster, I helped lift his cousin in a wheelchair from the boxcar. I almost recoiled from the reek that still clung to the air inside the car.  I recognized the stench that is created when many unwashed bodies are packed close together. I picked up a small piece of waste paper flecked with fish scales.  The evidence before my eyes and nose told me that many people, probably northerners with their love of fish, had very recently been packed into this car.  In my mind, I saw people filling the boxcars to flee from the fire. I suspected that my new stationmaster had his own reasons for his secrecy, but the knowledge that some of my workers had survived revived a hope that settled into my heart.
 
I turned to the humble man beside me and forgot a lifetime of lessons about the indigenous people from the north. I suddenly saw not a worthless, northern laborer but a man created in the image of God. I saw the man who had saved my people, a man of honor and compassion.  I wondered if he thought of me as just an oppressive Southerner.
 
How did laborers see the elite?   Did they think all of us are as cruel and evil,  as I now saw my cousin the emperor to be? I reached out to shake the stationmaster’s hand, fearful for the first time in my life of being rejected.  –
 
***
This story is told from the perspective of the young boy mentioned here in the book M’TK Sewer Rat: End of an Empire. This is the first record of Mr. Rouseff’s side of the story of the day he met his longtime friend Jacob Jaconovich then the assistant stationmaster. 
 http://www.amazon.com/MTK-Sewer-Rat-Empire-ebook/dp/B00APRA4NG 

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Lucy Goes Home by Delinda McCann

3/18/2019

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Chapter 1 Lucy Learns She Has a Home.

Lucy hadn’t slept decently for almost two weeks, not since Mrs. Celia, who oversaw the orphanage where she lived, told her that her birth family had been located and she had a living brother and a grandfather.  

Her parents had died, but her real live brother and grandfather were looking for her.
Now, her suitcase, filled with her newest clothes, stood by her door, and her beautiful smoky blue suit hung on a peg ready for her to wear in the morning. She’d bought new shoes, cute bluish-grey pumps with a little strap to wear for the occasion of meeting her birth family.

Aunt Gwen had glanced at the cute pumps and good suit and pushed Lucy’s bangs out of her eyes. “Maybe you better wear walking shoes and casual clothes. Your family doesn’t live near any towns or villages.”

Lucy ignored Aunt Gwen.  She wanted to look her very best for her real family.
Papa Jake, the president of the country sat down beside her in the Compound library where she did her homework. “I’m familiar with that area somewhat. You best wear sandals for the trip to the border.  Native peoples in Mesa and Montsea provinces wear sandals.” 

Alone in her room, Lucy stroked her cute pumps. They did have a strap on them like sandals.  Lucy turned the shoes over in her hands, remembering how other children at school wouldn’t play with her before Mrs. Celia came and moved her orphan family into The Compound and gave them pretty new clothes. The first thing she learned in school was that children who aren’t pretty and don’t have pretty clothes aren’t liked. She lifted the shoe to her nose and sniffed the new leather smell, believing there was a greater chance her family would love and respect her if she looked beautiful and stylish. A tear ran down her cheek as the fear of rejection broke out of the prison in her brain where she kept her most horrific memories. Her family had thrown her away before. Her stomach knotted with the desire to be loved and accepted now.

At dinner, Mrs. Celia seemed to understand Lucy’s fears that her birth family wouldn’t love her and hugged her saying, “Wear whatever gives you confidence. Pack your comfortable clothes where they’ll be handy when you need them.” 

Lucy had long imagined her mother would have been just like Mrs. Celia, who seemed to understand a girl’s heart and loved everybody, even children who sometimes misbehaved or didn’t do their schoolwork. She’d never known her mother and felt just a little bit thankful there wasn’t a mother somewhere to compete in her heart with Mrs. Celia.
 
Lucy knelt at the communion rail after Compline. She lit a candle, placing it carefully in a holder. “Father in Heaven, thank you for my brother Curtis. Forgive me for feeling thankful my parents had not thrown me away and forgive me for all the years I feared they had. I wish they’d lived, but I’m thankful they hadn’t just…” Tears slid down her face. She fished in her pocket for a tissue to blow her nose. “I don’t mean to be sinful, and I’m really thankful I have a grandpapa and a brother.” She looked up when she felt someone beside her.

Papa Jake knelt beside her at the rail. He wiped at her tears with his handkerchief, then turned and sat on the kneeling rail beside her. “Now, tell me what has you so upset.“

“Am I bad for feeling thankful when my parents are dead?” Lucy sniffed and blew her nose on the handkerchief Papa had given her.

He patted her shoulder. “No. No, you’re not wrong. It’s a good thing to be thankful your parents loved you. It’s good to be thankful that you know the history of how you came to be placed in an orphanage.” He adjusted his weight on the narrow rail. “Your family must have been very poor. Some of our mountain communities are poorer than anything you’ve seen in the city. Your Grandpapa wouldn’t have had anybody to take care of you while he worked long hours. He may not have had food for a baby.” Jake looked up into the dark reaches of the cathedral dome. “In my travels, I’ve met people who have little more than a hut, who live off lichens, roots and whatever small animals they can find. When you visit your brother and grandpapa, you’ll see such poverty. I don’t want you to be discouraged or shocked. The poverty is one reason I want all our people to adopt a modern lifestyle.”

Lucy nodded and sniffed, but Papa Jake’s admonitions about poverty flew over her head as her overactive imagination conjured an image of her grandfather in faded and tattered clothes standing at the door to small one-room cabin holding out his arms to his returning granddaughter. The words to describe her relief at being assured her parents had loved her do not exist outside the human heart.

After two weeks of worry, tears, thanksgiving, and fear, Lucy boarded the first morning train to Mesa City. She managed to sleep a little once the train left the station.  She was accustomed to traveling with Mrs. Celia to visit the other orphanages, so she confidently wheeled her suitcase to the platform for the train north. She sniffed the spicy scent of meats and sweet treats prepared by vendors in stalls beside the station. Her stomach growled asking for food. Her throat constricted. She glanced again at the stall selling fried bread with honey and cinnamon on it.  She sat on a bench. I’ll get fish and bean cakes on the train.

After breakfast, she sat looking out the window without seeing the fields and rivers flying past her window. What will Grandpapa be like? The letter from the nuns said it’s my brother who’s looking for me. Will Grandpapa be angry that I’m visiting? What will we eat? Do they eat lichens like Papa Jake said? Surely they must have some sort of hut. Will my brother hug me? Do they speak the common language? What if they speak a dialect I don’t know?  She got up visited the restroom for the dozenth time.

A voice on the intercom interrupted her fantasy in which her brother, a big mountain man like her adoptive brother, U’Kee, handed her a bouquet of wildflowers and said, “You look just like I remember Mama.”
​

Tears slid down Lucy’s cheeks as the conductor’s voice echoed through the car. “Three-rivers station. Arriving at three-rivers. This is the end of the line. Check that you have all your packages and luggage before you get off the train. Thank you for traveling with Rouseff Rail Services.”

Will Grandpapa accept the granddaughter he sent away sixteen years ago? For all of Lucy's adventures you can find the book at: https://www.amazon.com/Lucy-Goes-Home-Sewer-Book-ebook/dp/B07JYKKSF1/ref
​


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The Bench By Delinda McCann

3/9/2019

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The old woman saw the bench sitting alone and thought it looked lonely sitting there beside the path through the woods.  She rested her weary body on it and patted its moss-covered wood in gratitude for this respite on her daily walk.


She sat and let her eyes flutter closed as her mind drifted into the past.  She remembered the red dress she wore the night she first saw Carl. Her lips curved in the slightest of smiles as she remembered her young love--so tall and strong.  She chuckled in her mind as she remembered how he couldn’t take is eyes off of her. She snorted. “He couldn’t take his eyes off of my breasts is more like it.” Her memories gave her energy enough to push herself to her feet and move on.  

The next day the bench still waited for the old woman to rest on its aged wood.  She patted the mossy surface and let her eyes drift closed. She smelled the damp air as the weak sun tried to dry up the last of the night’s rain.  She remembered the big flood. Their house sat on a small knoll surrounded by water. Many of their neighbors had not been so lucky. Carl had taken his rowboat from house to house rescuing stranded neighbors and bringing them home.  She remembered how she’d fed forty-three people soup and bread. She sighed pushed herself to her feet and resumed her walk.

The next day, the old woman greeted the bench as an old friend.  She sat and remembered when her babies had come. A tear rolled down her cheek as she remembered the grave of little Marie.  She’d been born so tiny, but had fought so hard to live. “Dear Lord, take care of my baby. I miss her,” she prayed then pushed herself to her feet to continue her journey.

On the fourth day, the old woman sighed as she eased her frail bones to the rough surface.  She didn’t have to wait for the memories. They flooded her senses. She remembered when her son, Dale, went away to war and the day he came home in a coffin.  She remembered how Carl had held her as he cursed the foolishness of men who make war. She remembered how Beth grieved for her brother then followed him a few months later as cancer claimed her body.  The old woman heaved a great sigh and thought, “Soon,” as she struggled to her feet.

On the fifth day, the old woman stumbled as she approached the bench.  What memories would torment her soul today she wondered? A great sigh welled up from the depths of her being, but no memories of loss plagued her today.  Today, she remembered traveling with Carl to Venice. They’d stayed on the Lido. She remembered how he held her hand as they rode in a gondola. They ate lunch and drank wine in St Marks’s plaza.  He bought her a cameo on a chain. She bought him a yellow tie with lions on it. She remembered the warm sun of Italy and longed to be warm and loved.

After her happy memories of Italy the old woman approached the bench the next day, hoping for visions of the good days when Carl held her in his arms and made her laugh.  She thought of Carl and her knees gave out as she lowered herself onto the bench. Instead of joy, she remembered the night he passed on. She remembered wondering when her handsome young husband had become an old man.  A warm feeling spreading from her heart surprised her as she remembered how Carl had turned to her at the very end and whispered, “I’ll be going now. Always remember that I love you and will love you ‘til the end of time.”  The old woman pressed her hands to her heart to hold the memory of Carl’s love inside her as she struggled to push herself upright.

At the end of the week, the old woman tottered and wheezed as she made her way to her bench.  The young nurse had told her to say inside because the wind blew so cold, but the nurse didn’t know anything.  At the bench, she remembered. She lived again. As the elderly woman sank down on the rough wood, she longed for her mate.  She closed her eyes but no memories flooded her brain. She thought, “It is cold I best go in.”

She smoothed the folds in her red dress and looked up to see Carl.  His voice warmed her tired body as he almost lifted her from the bench.  “Come my love, the children are waiting.”

Nurse Daphne leaned close to the window as she peered out and shook her head.  She turned to one of the nursing assistants in the home. “Steven would you go out and bring Rose inside.  That crazy old woman is sitting in the cold.”


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Garden show: Reality VS Fantasy.                                  By delinda McCann

3/3/2019

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One of the greatest joys in my life is the Pacific Northwest Flower and Garden Show. I go every year and wander among the display gardens, crafts, art, and products I could never afford. I think of it as being something like visiting Narnia. We walk through the doors and suddenly the  flowers are brighter than in our gardens that still sleep. In early February my garden is like it being “always winter and never Christmas.” It’s really pretty dead, and this year it was still covered with patches of snow.

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My garden in winter.
PictureThe light colored leaves are my baby sage. The dark colored leaves on either side are the hyacinths.
The garden show is spring before it is really time for spring. The flowers bloom without frost damage or water spots. The air is scented with fragrant hyacinths while my hyacinths at home are just sticking their noses out of the ground as if testing the temperature to see if they really want to come up and bloom. This year, they don’t.

As in a proper Narnia, the walls and gardens are both exotic and funky. A garden gate must have a window for the big people to look out and a lower window for the little people to look out. Narnia has houses for big people, little people, foreign people, nomads and of course the tower for the princess.
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I loved these garden gates, but they are in the category of things ordinary people can't afford.
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A Moorish style garden. I liked the colors here.
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The house for little people
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And the tower for the princess. This was in the Irish garden.
PictureThis baby herbs looked sweet but the container is nowhere big enough for them.
The sense of fantasy can be something as big as a dragon or as little as an herb garden. I looked at the charming little herb garden with the sweet little herbs growing so obediently in their little rows. This is Narnia, folks. I do grow herbs. My bay tree is ten feet tall. My rosemary is six feet tall despite the heavy pruning I give it every year. The parsley has gone dormant, but the thyme thrives. My tender herbs grow two feet tall and shade out or just overpower anything with in two feet of them. They aren’t nice. They’re thugs. They have to be in order to survive in the reality of my garden.

​

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My sweet bay tree with the lighter colored six foot rosemary in front of it.
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Garden thyme takes up more room than you think.
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The tent was enchanting with it's blown glass chandelier.
A tent in a garden is a wonderful place to hang out and listen to the birds, the wind in the trees, and the coyotes howling in the enchanted forest. At the garden show even the tent is unreal with it’s blown glass candelabra and rugs on the floor. In my own enchanted forest we can hear the wind and the birds and even the coyotes, but the tent better have a tarp over it to keep the rain out and why in the real world, does everything have to be an unnatural blue?
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We do have a tent in the garden. Hubby likes to go out there and listen to the wind and wild things.
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The tent has a chair, a cot and a heater--no chandeliers here.
I want glowing orbs in my garden. Where do I get glowing orbs? What I do have is the rope lights inside the cold frame. This is just not the same as soft pink glowing orbs. These would be so lovely in the enchanted forest.
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I fell in love with the pink orbs. They would look so magical in my enchanted forest.
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Cold frame for collards and cabbage. I use the rope light for light and a bit of heat. We've been eating the collards so this system works.
PictureThis little garden with all it's tidy plants would so not last in my yard where everything tends to sprawl and crowd out the neighbors.
In Narnia, all the plants grow in tidy rows or circles. The sense of unreality expands in a garden with topiary, as all the shrubs grow in their proper form. Alas, the fantasy explodes when we find the garden designer working hard to keep his display looking fresh. I thought he would make a nice element in my garden but security got testy when I tried to drag him out to my car and stuff him in the trunk along with my new pruners and bulbs. I can still hire help from the local garden store, so I left this worker where he was.

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Tony misted to keep his topiary looking fresh. Narnia is more work than we might think.
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I'm extremely thankful for my garden workers.
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Tony works at Redwood Builders Landscaping and asked that I post his sign if I took a picture of his reality.
PictureI took lots of pictures of waterfalls. I have some excellent places for waterfalls in my garden.
Alas, even Narnia has it’s troubles. It lasts only five days before the whole thing is dismantled and disappears until next year. Meanwhile, my own garden will grow and bloom. The ducks and goose will waddle around eating slugs and pecking at weeds. They add a sense of funky movement to the garden. The birds come back from their warm winter homes. My garden will live again and be what it is, a little farm on the edge of an enchanted forest.

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The ducks are camera shy and ran for their pen when they saw me coming with the dreaded camera. Maybe it is just Basil the goose who hates cameras. He protects the rest of the flock.
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The garden in winter. I use raised beds because my soil is toxic from the ASARCO smelter in Tacoma. These will be choked with color in July.
Acknowledgement: tony@redwoodlandscaptingand builders.com 
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    Author

    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

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