Category: American Affairs

INTO THE GREAT PLAINS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

To grow a leafy tree requires more than thirty inches of rainfall or its equivalent each year. If you drive west across the United States, you can cross an imaginary line that passes through the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and beyond it deciduous, or leafy, trees are quite rare. Soon, so are conifers, the evergreens. Irrigation becomes a fact of life if you want to raise food or flowers or even a lawn.

The Great Plains eventually pass into desert – and you might be surprised to discover that most of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington state is actually desert. The rainy belt is little more than a thin band along the Pacific-facing side of the Cascade and Olympic mountains.

Quite simply, it’s a different world from the one most Americans know.

~*~

As for the Great Plains, let me recommend Kathleen Norris’ Dakota. It’s a unique and marvelous book.

 

BAD BOYS, GOOD GIRLS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

As I said at the time …

Came across a fascinating insight a while back, something that might continue our “bad boys/good girls” dialogue. The writer, a mother, was observing that even in second grade, teachers automatically divided the class into bad boys and, you guessed it, good girls. By extension, then, coming as this does around the time that most boys are undergoing their sexual and emotional separation and twisting away from Mother, a different path from the girls’ formation, the very model of boyhood becomes, by definition, to be bad! To be a “good boy” is in effect to be a sissy, a girl. To be bad is to push the limits, be independent, be a leader, take action, grow up fast.

Perhaps this is when the boy really needs the mentor figure Robert Bly envisions, to take the boy into wilderness beyond the camp. Maybe it was the same writer (newsroom means little time to read closely, and often not to make a printout either) who was warning that American society has a real time bomb in the making as boys are being subjected to some very confused expectations and accusations. To be virile is taken to translate as promiscuous; strong, as violent; and so on.

Incidentally, David Hernandez’s “Bruises” demonstrates one side of this boy/girl outlook marvelously: when you were a child, did girls ever compare their signs of toughness like this? (So who are the “bad girls”? Tomboys? Or loners at the edge, exploring their own imaginations? Diane Wakoski has pursued this as well as anyone I can think of, but the field still seems wide open!)

Oh, well, I can only open these issues in a poem; resolution comes somewhere else!

~*~

Blue Rock

My collected poems are available in Blue Rock. The ebook’s free in the platform of your choice.

 

 

 

REFITTED FOR HOUSING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Before:

At least the work had begun.
At least the work had begun.
They saved the smokestack.
They saved the smokestack.
The fire escape was still holding on.
The fire escape was still holding on.

An abandoned mill, built on a railroad spur and relying on steam power, has found new life as affordable housing. Now touted as Woodbury Mills, it has 42 “apartment homes.” It’s one of several repurposed and renovated mills in the city.

And after:

Detailed touches.
Detailed touches.
The street side.
The street side.

 

 

MOSES CARTLAND

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
The Quaker meetinghouse doubled as a school
The Quaker meetinghouse doubled as a school

A pioneering educator, Moses Cartland taught in this combination school and Quaker meetinghouse at his family’s farm in Lee, New Hampshire, after previously establishing the Clinton Grove Friends school in Weare. A staunch abolitionist, he was also a founder of the Republican Party in New Hampshire and a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Moses and his cousin John Greenleaf Whittier were closest friends and lifelong bachelors, at least until Moses married one of his students – who was also a cousin. Although considerably younger than Moses, she predeceased him.

The family burial ground.
The family burial ground.
The resting spot is in the right side of the view.
The resting spot is in the right side of the view.

WALNUT GROVE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
Still imposing.
Still imposing.

The Quaker Cartland family built a prosperous farm in Lee, New Hampshire. Their house was a stop on the Underground Railroad, carting escaped slaves to freedom.

All in good order.
All in good order.
We approve of red barns.
We approve of red barns.
A country road runs through the property.
A country road runs through the property.

 

 

STILL SMELLS FISHY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I’m still wondering why my little city’s police department needs a $240,000 armored truck.

Is it to defend the gundalow that will be docked along the river?

Protect the historic boat from pirates?

And then, what about a getaway on the water – with a heavy truck in hot pursuit? Stuck in the mud or sinking.

IT AIN’T HAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’m still trying to figure out why my little city’s police department needs a $240,000 armored truck, courtesy of Homeland Security.

A better use? Sell it to buy hay for the mounted patrol’s horses.

I can personally attest the horses blocked a speeding car that was about to hit me as I stepped out in a crosswalk. Let’s see that armored truck do that!