Fleur-de-Heart

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s better to give than receive. And Valentine’s Day—what a commercial Hallmark holiday. No computer-generated card can pull the heartstrings like a handmade card.

But, and this is a big BUT, it made my 2/14/12 to receive an e-photo of a pristine, unfurling rose.

The sender is a former Eagle Point Road neighbor—actually, I’m the former, he still lives there. You may even know him. Allen Haring is no stranger to Fleur-de-Lys newsletters. Before anyone gets any crazy romantic ideas, Al is happily married and I am one of several who receive his photographs via email at various holidays throughout the year.

Al is the Man-In-Charge of the Kutztown Fair. He recruited me to champion the Scarecrow and Crazy Vegetable contests each August.  He and his wife often parked his pickup at the farm, unloaded their bikes from the back, and went for bike rides down Hottenstein Road rather than risk the dangers of riding on Eagle Point. Al was featured in a newsletter one Thanksgiving when an ink sketch by his late son, Kutztown-raised artist Keith Haring, was made into a huge balloon and featured in the Macy’s Day Parade.

When Richard was Brazil-bound and needed “local” pins to take with him to trade with students in the Rotary exchange tradition, Al connected us with the Keith Haring Foundation, established in 1989 to assist with AIDS-related and children’s charities. (Keith was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 and died two years later.) We bought a sack-full of playful, colorful KH characters on button pins that “went global” in Brazil.

So, last week I was out on the “Left Coast” at the San Francisco Writers Conference hearing about setting writing goals (500 words a day – I’m up to 305 right now) and lots of other things I’ll be sharing with you in the coming days/weeks. The conference coincided with President Obama’s fund-raising trip. The conference was at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, Pres. O was speaking at the Nob Hill Masonic Hall … and our car was parked in a garage between the two. Trig-the-Brownie-Points-Lady didn’t let a battalion of motorcycle cops and (we found out later) rooftop snipers stop her.

“I’m an 83-year-old grandmother and I need my beddy-bye,” she told an officer trying to block the sidewalk, as she pulled me and two other conference attendees into the parking garage to her waiting red Mercedes.

Forty minutes later, we had crossed the Golden Gate and were relaxing in her home on a hillside above Tiburon. Trig is the consummate storyteller and mentioned that two days earlier (Valentine’s Day) she had tied a red balloon to each of her neighbors’ mailboxes. We continued to chat and then she offered me the March issue of Architectural Digest for bedtime reading.

The Princes of Serendip must be alive and well in Marin County.

On the cover of the magazine was Brooke Shields standing in front of her Greenwich Village fireplace. Above the mantle, a heart-shaped painting I’ve never seen before but recognized immediately. I opened the magazine to the article, and there was even a photograph of the wrapping paper that Keith Haring decorated to present his “heart” to Brooke for her 21^st birthday!

This magazine heart wasn’t left in San Francisco. I placed it in an envelope and it is headed to Eagle Point Road with a Fleur-de-Lys note—a little late for Valentine’s Day, but still, a joy to give. Laurie Lynch

Written on Slate: “San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art. Every block is a short story, every hill a novel. Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal. That is the whole truth. – William Saroyan

Speaking of Written on Slate: Paula emailed the other day asking how I painted my quote slates. She has an e.e. cummings slate from the shop in her front yard in Philadelphia where she is a member of a community garden. Another member has a pile of slate, and they thought they could make signs for the garden. I told her I bought “paint pens” from the Art Store on West Main Street in Kutztown, down the hill from Uptown Espresso Bar. I wash and dry each slate prior to painting, write the quote, and then seal it with spray shellac.

Fleur-de-Sister

Growing up, we had a school bus driver who referred to my sisters and me as “the fish-eaters who lived on the hill.”

I didn’t know what that meant, so I went home and asked my dad. He told me it was a nasty way of saying we were Catholic because, at that time, rules from Rome forbid us from eating meat on Fridays; we could only eat fish. Times were worse when he was growing up Italian Catholic in a small Pennsylvania town. The KKK burned crosses on the hill behind his home.

State College didn’t have a Catholic school when I was a youngster. It wasn’t until I was in college that I began hearing nun stories from kids who went to Parochial schools. The ones about the nuns who whacked errant hands with rulers. The ones about the nuns who locked kids in closets. Then, there were the nuns of movie and TV screens:  the Sound of Music nuns, The Flying Nun, and the Whoopi Goldberg Sister Act nuns. I wanted a nun.

In all my years as a growing-up Catholic, running-away Catholic, and a come-back-to-the-fold, finally practicing Catholic, I never knew a nun.

We joined St. Mary’s Parish when we moved to Kutztown in 1997. Two years later, Sister Kathleen White became a pastoral associate and director of religious education for the parish. She nurtured both of my kids and countless others through junior and senior high ministry and the growing pains of young adulthood. With effortless calm she recruited and trained the kids to serve spaghetti suppers in the church hall to raise money for Heifer International.

Sister Kathleen became “my” nun when I joined one of several faith-sharing groups in our parish. And I’m sure each of the parishioners at St. Mary’s felt the same possessiveness toward her.  My stories aren’t out of the ordinary–she shared herself with so many.

Over the years we had a standing date in November to go to the Kutztown High School musicals together. And we’d exchange emails, mostly her encouraging me to use my gifts. Two of my gifts were my strength and height. And one of Sister Kathleen’s gifts was allowing people to feel worthwhile by asking them for a favor. My last January in Kutztown, she invited me to her apartment because she couldn’t get her artificial tree to break down for storage. I used a little of my farm muscle and got the darned thing apart, and we packed it away into the far reaches of her closet.

My mom, friend Dina, and I supported her Missionary Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, located in Reading, by walking in their Nun Run. One day Sister Kathleen shocked me by saying she played point guard for her high school’s basketball team. If Sister K stood 5’tall, I’d be surprised.  But she was so feisty I could see her ripping up the court.

Another time, Sister Kathleen confessed that she was pulled over by a police officer for speeding. En route to a diocesan conference, she had stashed her purse in the trunk with boxes of religious materials. When she had to open up the trunk to get her license, the officer quickly put two and two together. “He told me, ‘Have a good day, Sister,’ ” she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. He walked away without giving her a ticket.

I remember once she asked me why I called her Sister Kathleen, and not just Kathleen. She said when she came to St. Mary’s everyone called her Sister or Sister Kathleen. “I don’t understand,” she said. I explained that she was the first and only nun I had ever known, and was proud of her. I had five sisters, but she was my only Sister.

“What do you want to be called?” I asked.  “I’m Kathleen,’ she responded, “but Sister Kathleen is fine.”

Throughout the long months of the Chicken Fight, she supported Fleur-de-Lys in the shadows.  Once a week she would stop in for a dozen eggs and a chat under the trees. As we sat on the “Stonehenge” benches, she encouraged me to fight the good fight.

Our twice-monthly faith sharing get-togethers glowed with her wisdom. She always seemed to find a clear path in a muddled world. When the door of divorce crashed shut in my life, our faith-sharing group was reading and discussing Joyce Rupp’s The Open Door.  Sister was there, giving me faith that doors would open, that all was not lost. On days that I couldn’t imagine an open door, or even a window, she’d squeeze me into her busy schedule. We’d sit in my kitchen, with just a simple bowl of soup or grilled cheese sandwich, and just talk.

Her gracious and graceful words were healing. Her conviction was softly spoken, but direct. I remember when I first realized my marriage had fallen apart I was ready to chuck everything. I had been on the Internet investigating my options. I’d decided on the Peace Corps. It was something I had always wanted to do and now it seemed like the perfect escape. I was so excited about telling her I had found my open door.

Sister Kathleen listened politely. Then, with just three words, she gently brought me back to reality. With three words she solidified everything and I saw my doorway.

“Richard needs you.”

Last spring Sister Kathleen went to a doctor’s appointment. One thing led to another, and doctors discovered she had brain cancer. She had surgery, and chemotherapy, but thenpneumonia set in. On Feb. 3 Sister Kathleen left us. She was needed elsewhere.

Laurie Lynch

Comfort Food: Everybody needs a little comfort in February, even when we’ve had a mild winter. Ruthie send this recipe for Cream-less Creamed Corn and I couldn’t wait to share it with all of you. What I like best about it is that you can make it Southern-style, with grits, for my Charleston SC buds, or Northern Italian-style, with polenta, for my family roots.  What I like second-best about it is that it is even better as a leftover, and yes, the vegetable lover that I am, I like it for breakfast as well as dinner!

Cream-less Creamed Corn

3 T butter

1 small onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

2 springs fresh thyme, leaves only

2 T olive oil

4 cups fresh corn (4-6 cobs) but frozen corn is fine too.

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

2 cups milk

1/3 cup cornmeal (or grits)

Salt, pepper, and Tabasco sauce to taste (Instead of Tabasco, I tried a sprinkling of smoked paprika, my new favorite spice, yum!)

Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring, until tender. Add garlic and thyme; continue to cook for another two minutes. Add olive oil, corn, and a pinch of salt, and cook, tossing until soft, about 8 minutes. Add stock and milk, and bring to a simmer. Sprinkle in polenta (cornmeal), add a dash of Tabasco, and continue to simmer, stirring, for 15 minutes or until polenta is cooked. Adjust seasoning if necessary, and serve warm. Ta da!

California Dreamin’: Soon I’ll be heading to the San Francisco Writers Conference. Before I moved to State College, my good friend Terese brought over a bottle of California wine she discovered when visiting SF. It’s called Rex Goliath. I’m partial to the Rex Goliath Free Range Red. It’s so smooth. It also doesn’t hurt that there is a gorgeous graphic of a proud black-and-white rooster with red wattles and comb on the label.

Plus, it’s got a great story: At the turn of the 20^th century, His Royal Majesty Rex Goliath was a treasured attraction at a Texas circus where he was billed as The World’s Largest Rooster, weighing in at a whopping 47 pounds. The wines, the label says, are a tribute to Rex’s “larger-than-life personality.”

Written on Slate No. 1: “Don’t curse the darkness; light a candle.” –one of Sister Kathleen White’s oft-quoted sayings. 

Written on Slate No. 2: “What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All we love deeply becomes part of us.”  –Helen Keller

Fleur-de-Legend

OK, let me orient you. See the tall evergreen on the far left of the photo above? If you walk up the knoll, past that tree, and keep going, you’ll hit Country Club Road. Cross it, and you’ll come to the wrought-iron fence I photographed last summer with my bike shadow. Hop the fence, walk the length of a football field, and you’ll see it: Joe Paterno’s grave site.

Or maybe not.

Last week was an emotional one in Happy Valley. Thousands streamed through Pasquerilla Spiritual Center at University Park in hushed reverence. A large spray of white roses, tied with Penn State blue ribbon, blanketed his coffin at the public viewing. Two Penn State football players (one on the current team, one from the past) stood as honor guards on either side of the coffin. Off to the left of the altar was a large photograph of the beloved coach, educator, philanthropist.

The afternoon of Joe Paterno’s burial, a dozen or so police cars blocked the road to Centre Hills Country Club and Spring Creek Cemetery. My mother lives just past those two landmarks at the top of the hill. We were driving home from an errand and approached the barricade. We were told we’d have to take a detour through Lemont. As we drove in from the other side, we were stopped by another set of officers blocking the other road. After we gave them our house address they let us through. We went home.

The next morning, the newspaper said Joe Pa was buried in Pine Hall Cemetery on the other side of town. Office gossip claimed that Spring Creek Cemetery was used as a decoy, to keep curiosity seekers away.  On Thursday afternoon the memorial service at the Bryce Jordan Center streamed into our office via computer. We worked, and listened.

A week later, as my mother and I take our daily walks past that cemetery, cars quietly pull to the side of the road. One, sometimes two or three people silently leave their cars and walk toward the back of the cemetery. They huddle around a recently dug grave site topped with a pillow of spent white roses tied with Penn State blue ribbon. And there, in the background, the hedgerow frames our beloved Mount Nittany. Laurie Lynch

Working Stiff: When I worked on the farm, especially in early spring around asparagus weeding time, my muscles ached. But after a good night’s sleep, I felt refreshed and ready to go again.

I can’t say that was the case this past holiday season. During the last several days of 2011 and into the first several of 2012, I was in PAIN! Yes, there was the stress of a shower of post-nuptial paperwork, a flurry of family friction, and an avalanche of secretarial duties as a co-worker took a three-week vacation … but the pain in my neck/shoulder was primarily caused by the exertion of sitting at a computer all day! Imagine, from sitting. I couldn’t sleep; heck, I could barely lie down in bed without a handful of Ibuprofen and a hot-pad of lavender.

Just before New Year’s I made an appointment with a massage therapist. This was not your incense-wafting, feel-good-pampering, light-the-candles massage. This was heavy-duty medically based therapy. The fellow runs a school called Integrative Bodywork. He found the knots and kneaded them. Twisted, pulled, pummeled and squeezed them. Tears were welling up when I pleaded, “I’m no whimp but you are really hurting me.” He replied, “I bring tears to football players eyes – but I know what I’m doing.” And he did.

After a half-hour of muscular torture, 24-hours of ice-pack therapy, and a few days of my lavender heating pad treatment, I was feeling almost comfortable in my body again. But the best part of the entire prescription was a simple preventive exercise.

For the rest of you computer-bound folks, here’s the scoop: Sit in your office chair with feet flat on the floor. Take your right hand and grasp under the chair at your right hip. Take your left hand and place it on top of your head. As you pull up on the chair seat with your right hand, you firmly pull your head toward your left underarm. “Pull it down like you’re sniffing your armpit,” the fellow coached. Hold for a few seconds and release. Then, switch sides.

Doing this exercise every hour or so got me through inputting a kazillion pages of inventory and material transfers  — 10,000 pcs of 14×1½ hex heads w/ washers, 8265 pcs.of 2 ¼” AP screws, not to mention too many square feet of 2’’ 60 PSI extruded polystyrene and another mouthful – Polyisocyanurate – which people in the know call “ISO”  — without so much as a twinge of discomfort.

LOL: After reading about my “found” pierced earring holes, my friend Terry sent me a thought for the day that I think we all can appreciate:

“I don’t want to brag or make anyone jealous or anything, but I can still fit into the earrings I wore in high school.”

Wine & Cheese, DYI Style: For those of you in Eastern PA, my friend Lelayna is giving a class on making fresh cheese using raw milk and minimal equipment Feb. 10 at 6:30 p.m. at The Cob Studio, Chester Springs. The class includes making three varieties of cheeses, sipping local wine, and then eating a hearty organic winter soup made with cheese. $65 for the whole shebang. You must email Lelayna Klein at stresslessn@gmail.com by this Friday and mail the payment to her at P.O. Box 4, Kempton PA 19529. (Bring two glass containers with lids to carry your cheese home.)