… of a public school when making the rounds to check on YMCA meal delivery and service with the Nutrition Program that serves after-hours meals to youngsters in tutoring and sports practice programs. About two dozen locations to visit before the end of the month when the financial year ends: grant money resources come to an end for the allotted period, with a new twelve month cycle that will begin on the following day, October 1. Truly a logistical challenge with different days of the week (not all meet each Monday through Friday) Plus varying times of the day when the meal service occurs: some fed upon arrival at the after-school program, others in sports not until they are finished for the day.
On the walls of the middle school building are assorted inspirational quotes, as well as art produced by the students, mounted for students to see as they pass through the halls. Posters with positive affirmations meant to motivate students, instill positive character traits or sometimes just be mildly amusing. Some of the student art is really interesting: making it apparent that the art teacher has created challenges for her students, to make them think before they start working on a project.
As an art teacher, seeing this work produced by middle-school aged students who tend to not take school,instruction, classroom time seriously – this is pretty impressive.It seems like the assignment would have been to reproduce an illustration the student found of a cartoon character.Abstract designs, possibly drawing a mandala. Or having the design drawn on a section of the circle, then reproduced repeatedly?Just inside the main entrance to the building. My guess is the teacher had a large image, that was divided up into small sections/segments. Each student was assigned a portion, using colors of choice, then the whole was reassembled on the wall, surprising all the students with the appearance of the finished product.
It has to be very gratifying for students to see their work displayed: even at this hyper-self-aware age. To have the teacher believe a students work is worth showing off to staff and student body would be so impressive, whether the individual is one filled with self-confidence and admired by others, or a youngster that desperately desires to not stand out from the crowd. Kudos to the teacher for taking the time to display the work and grant recognition to the individuals who are willing to devote time and effort to their assignments.
… requested from the holdings of the local library. Fiction, but with such a clear ring of truth, the reading was so mesmerizing it was hard to put down. The author, Patmeena Sabit, has roots in Afghanistan, where her family lived for generations, but is an American by birth: refugees who came to the US soon after the Russians invaded their country. Now living in Canada, she continues to write.
Every page seems to be written from a different point of view: each being almost a stand-alone chapter from a different voice. Each an individual with an opinion to add to the story of how a tragedy occurred within that community of immigrants from the mid-east who have strong imbedded moral standards traditions
The religious leaders, men with influence within their Muslim community have the ability to influence families: other prominent men, who then affect their home lives – wives, in-laws, extended family,children -that are forced upon families. Their history, the culture, the ideas embedded in their beliefs and religion for centuries allows for their society to be highly misogynistic: women are beasts of burden, servants, consumable commodities, disposable both as children to be used and for trade. The young females can be sold, bartered, sexually abused, traded for goods: food, livestock, married to older men without consent, and treated as virtual slaves by older members of that household.
This mentality has remained as the Muslims have immigrated and adapted in the US: still following many religious traditions. Including an apparent willingness to destroy young women who have grown up influenced society here: the premise of the book is that the teen who was found dead was killed by her family. Rather than suffer the humiliation of having her blatantly disobey the wishes of her family, she was sacrificed. How in the world does an ‘Honor Killing’ happen here in the US in 2006?
… just off McCallie Avenue, in a part of town that is densely residential, with a large Hispanic population. There is a large area that was likely out-reach, classrooms on a college campus. Tennessee Temple Univ. no longer that educational facility, but still standing, with dorm spaces unused, but other facilities gradually being absorbed by several charter schools that have moved into the blocks surrounding the original college.
Historically: founded in the Highland Park neighborhood, meant to be a training ground for Christian students, Dr Lee Robertson was considered a visionary. Reading about the early years of the founding where the congregation began on Wikipedia. the model provided here in Chattanooga is similar to how the campus in Virginia, at Liberty University grew. A congregation in Lynchburg VA, in a small, but motivated, started by Jerry Falwell, charismatic minister seen around the globe, preaching the conservative gospel to all the nations.
You miight not be able to read the first two words at the top: Jesus loves…
One of the early ‘mega-churches’, the charismatic Robertson, his devotees and financial backers intended for the Baptist Seminary to send students out into the world, prepared to preach, teach, convert. Started in 1946, the liberal arts college had over four thousand students at the height of enrollment. Beset with financial woes, shrinking student body, it became part of Piedmont International Univ. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 2015. Property here in Chattanooga, on the campus of Tennessee Temple was taken over by Redemption to the Nations, as well as locally operated charter schools that have absorbed classrooms and facilities for use as the neighborhood has evolved years.
… by Jeannette Walls. Published in 2013, loaned from a friend, authored a writer enjoyed in the past. Written from the view point of a adolescent, a narrative thatc ould be challenging to find a way to voice. The story was well written, and consistent, making it an enjoyable read, as Jean and her sister Liz encounter many events young teens should not have to face without the care and support of adults
Jean, called ‘Bean’ throughout the narrative as a result of her sister not being able to pronounce her name properly when she was birthed, and Liz, live in California. Raised by a single mother, without a second parent, as both of their fathers deceased. ‘Unstable’ would be a kindness to refer to Charlotte. a struggling part-time actor, musician-songwriter , who leaves the two girls at home alone for days, while she is out chasing employment or men. Charlotte soon disappears, optimistic about a relationship with a (non-existent) man, leaving the two daughters enough funds to buy food for a month or more.
The sisters decide to take the money left for groceries, get on a commercial bus, travel cross country to a small town in Virginia, where they know Charlotte was born, raised, left as a young adult, desperate to get away from personal history, people who knew her and family all too well. In the town of Byerly, Charlotte’s name is everywhere, from the mill that kept so many households employed, to street signs. Going east where they hoped to find respite with Charlotte’s brother, Tinsley, who widowed, lives as a recluse in a decrepit, decaying mansion of the classic antebellum image.Caught by surprise, initially wary, Uncle Tinsley, caught by surprise, initially wary, requires the sisters to sleep in the barn the night of their arrival. Soon warming up, he welcomes the two to live in the room where their mother grew up.
Uncle Tinsley lives in a house full of accumulated clutter: generations of old clothing, furniture, papers, all of which seem to have value, as he declines help with cleaning, organizing: claiming all the piles, stacks are important and essential to his research. Vaguely planning to write and submit articles for publication about geology and family history, the nieces are told she was the one who kept things in order. Bean meets a cousin when she finds him in a tree, absconding with fruit in the orchard. Going with him to meet his parents she discovers details about her dad: not killed as she had been told all her life by her mother, a photo of him as a young man, military history, including a Silver Star award. Befriended by her aunt Al, and learning about the town, connections, Bean and Liz settle into small-town east coast life.
The sisters decide to look for employment, though they are under-age, hoping to find baby-sitting, yard work, some locals who will offer to pay pocket money. Inadvertently meeting man most of the town detests, they are hired. He is the manager of the local mill, once owned by the family, and largest employer in town. Jerry Maddox believes himself to be a wheeler-dealer, able to control the mill employees, his family, running the lives of many of the townspeople through threats of being fired from jobs, raising rent on their homes, humiliating anyone who attempts to defy him.
The story, well-developed, at a little under three-hundred pages, comes to a satisfactory conclusion, as their mother reappears, the sisters become settled in that small town that holds family history. Gradually accepted by the locals, the pair acclimate to the lifestyle, community, extended family that they have never had in the past. Grounded by the history of generations of relatives who live in the fictional small eastern Virginia town, the nomadic, uncertain lives of the sisters become stable, even with the flighty mother occasionally on the scene.
FYI: This was written, and the book read over summer as Cognitive skills starting to work again. In June, ceasing to function, almost to the point of comatose. Admitted to ER, ICU, gradually beginning to function. Books from a friend who knows my affinity for reading. But only able to manage a couple of pages before consumption of print would get overwhelming, just too much to retain. Slowly regaining skills to follow plot, retain characters and story line developed.
It does take a little imagination: but if you think, you see that the meringue does sort of resemble the tutu worn by the dancer on the stage as she performs ‘The Dying Swan’.
…named Anna Pavlova who was born in Russia in 1881, and trained in the classical style. She started her own touring company in the early 1900’s traveling the world and dancing across the globe. Eventually becoming an English citizen, where she devoted the final years of her life to teaching and training others until her death in 1931.
Beloved across the continents where she traveled and performed, bringing the art of ballet to those who had never before experienced the drama and beauty of the dance. A chef in Australia created a dessert in her honor. Known worldwide as ‘pavola’, it is a baked meringue filled with fresh fruit. The egg-whites, finely granulated sugar and corn starch (to help stabilize the stiffly-beaten egg as it is formed into a bowl to contain the fruit}, are baked in a slow oven and left overnight to dry.
That interesting little hard shell, made of whipped egg whites, granulated sugar and a stabilizer is meringue. The berries are served in that sweetened dessert referred to as ‘pavlova’. The name originates from Australia or New Zealand, when the famous ballerina was touring in the early years of the twentieth century. Russian in origin, she formed her on company, toured across the globe from 1915 until her death of pneumonia complications in 1931. The last years of her life, she shared her skills and knowledge with others as an educator, teaching others who wished to learn the art of dance.
The dessert was identified with her by the chef who came up with the idea of the delicate sweetened meringue filled with fresh seasonal berries, claiming it honored her ‘popularity and the light billowy nature of the dessert’. You may notice, from seeing the carefully formed ring of egg whites, how it looks so similar to the ballerina’s extended skirt? Pavlova!
… of spring: fresh dewy strawberries, blueberries at their peak, tasty red raspberries – topped with the whipped cream sweetened with granulated sugar.
Berries were deliciouss! Little meringue shell – hard and crunchy….
How can it be the delicious berries are being eaten in mid September? Where do they come from to be at the peak of perfection this time of year? Anticipated with delight in the spring, yet here we are enjoying the delicious flavors when the seasons are changing into the time of apple harvest, pumpkins, hard gourds, little that has to do with spring and berry picking.
The answer: willingness to pay the cost. As it turns out, the goods are actually available at any time of year- shipped from foreign lands. Different hemispheres, on the far side of the planet: for whatever the buyer is willing to pay in order to get the goods. Basically like most of the items we purchase, goods we seem to think essential from food to conveyances and clothing: supply and demand. Things shipped in cargo containers that might or may not fall off in a storm on the high seas, end up at the bottom of the ocean, or land in the designated port on the Atlantic or Pacific coast.
… on Chickamauga Lake, east of Chattanooga. Part of the TN River watershed, the park was built by workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Booker T Washington State park was built on land leased from the Tennessee Valley Authority, as a recreation area for African Americans, by black enlistees of the CCC in the late 1930s. The Corps under a program supported by the Roosevelt era meant to provide employment for young men in need of work/income. The Works Progress Administration, with the structure based on/similar to the military had the men working in national parks and forests, planting trees, building campgrounds, receiving pay checks.. Helping men support families during the Depression era, a time of high unemployment prior to US involvement in the second World War.
At Booker T Washington State Park: facilities similar to those of the one built for ‘white’ people on the same body of water. Does that make any sense? No, not to me either. The one for Caucasians built by (white) CCC workers also on Lake Chickamauga is Harrison Bay State Park. Quietly integrated in the 1960’s, probably due to the Civil Rights Act that had to be forcibly shoved down the throats of southern states.
Fishing dock, as well as a boat ramp for boat owners to launch personal water craft. Fishing with a TN permit. Camping, hiking trails, bike trails. Picnic tables scattered around the park out in the open as well as under a large open-air roofed area, similar to a pole-barn, shed, suitable for family gatherings, or tail-gate events, summer camps by church groups or social clubs. Cabins also available as they are at many state parks across Tennessee.
There was a large area of cleared land, with a tall chain link fence around the edge, heavy yellow equipment bustling around. Inquiry lead to the information that the state was building a conference center. After tearing down a conference center on the same spot. There was a long tedious vetting process because the original building was so old there was reluctance to dismantle something of historic significance. Apparently all resolved, as the area is now cleared, down to red clay as the process of putting in infrastructure for a new building begins.
Walking along the edge the water, on a slanting shore covered with gravel and these little mussel shells. The water level was possibly eight to ten feet below normal – lowered in winter, with the expectation that spring rains would fill the reservoir back up to full pool.Anchored out in the middle of a slough near the edge of Chickamauga Lake, close to BT Washngton Park.
Looking closely on the bottom edge of the photo, you can see rocks on the lake bottom, showing how clear the water is.
… named for the man, Booker T Washington: was born into slavery, in Virginia in 1856, freed when Union troops reached the area where his family lived. He grew up to become a well known educator, and ardent supporter of helping African Americans succeed by giving them training in order to find meaningful employment and financial stability. Washington was the first president of the Alabama college that is now known as Tuskegee University, when it opened in 1881.
Given only the name of Booker when he was born, he later discovered his mother had also named him Talliferro, and chose Washington as a surname. Illiterate as a child, when Blacks were not allowed to learn to read and write, he taught himself, eventually attending Hampton Institute in Virginia, a school founded to educate Blacks and then Weyland Seminary in Washington DC. As an adult, Washington wrote a memoir “Up From Slavery”. He was the first Black man acknowledged to meet a US President, Teddy Roosevelt, on equal terms, when he dined in the White House. BT Washington died in 1915, still living on the campus of Tuskegee Institute.
The first African American to be honored by issuing his image on a US Postage stamp in 1940.
… east of Chattanooga, where there is a large lake, filled with water from the Tennessee River. Created when the dam was completed, several communities were flooded in the process. The vast area is a reservoir called Lake Chickamauga. Built under the auspices of the TN. Valley Authority, this lake and dam are one of a series meant to provide flood control for the river, as well as generating electricity.
There are two state parks on the south side of the lake, easily accessible by public roads. With boat ramps, cabins to rent, lodges with full commercial kitchens as venues suitable for large gatherings, fishing from piers, swimming, tent camping areas with amenities, biking trails as well as walking paths.
Although construction started in the 1930’s, the park was dedicated in 1950.Several wooden fishing piers, with pavilions for shade jut out into the water, for fishing, or just sitting in the shade gazing at the scenery.
Much of the following info is gleaned, condensed from an article found on the internet. Written by someone who was an intern with the parks service, interested in the history of BT Washington state park. Referencing local newspaper archives, and the Library of Congress, with quotes from letters, photos from news articles, this reddit post by Mychael Allen-Fenessee was filled with facts and details of the history discovered in the research.
Tennessee is the only state that used New Deal funds in the 1930’s to build parks. This one was built specifically for Negroes, with much of the labor provided by Blacks who were part of the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC was modeled on military service, with men trained in a variety of jobs during the years of the Depression, provided uniforms,housing, meals, wages in exchange for their labor. Working on projects across the nation, earning funds that could be sent back to families who were struggling with a devastated economy, providing the basic necessities during hard times.
In the era of segregation, the white population and blacks were in separate units in the branches of the military, with the CCC being no different. The men who worked on the Washington site were trained in all facets from electrical work and plumbing, to construction, engineering and mechanical work. The site work came to a standstill when the naval base in Hawaii was bombed and the US entered the war, causing most of the workers to join the military.
The park contains nearly four hundred acres, with a good portion of the property having dense trees and underbrush. Although there are paved roads, trails throughout, much of the land has been left in it’s natural state. Operated by the state parks service, the park is open year round.
An interesting footnote: when reading the article by Allen-Fenessee, he indicates most of the state parks were a result of labor provided by the Public Works administration, and employment of thousands of young, able-bodied men. Not sure if this applies nationwide, or just TN. The Civilian Conservation Corp was at work across the nation, employing men in a variety of roles. But if it is true across the US, the men were trained, provided training, housing, meals, work, pay.
During the era of high-unemployment after financial ruin, the men found meaningful work, sending home support to struggling families. As war raged in Europe, even before Pearl Harbor, the US was supplying goods to allied forces, with increased production to meet demand by the UK, opposing Germany’s aggression. Then the Navy, stationed in the Hawaiian Islands was hit, bringing the US into a global conflict, increasing demand for men in service and women in manufacturing
… inspirational motivational signs that keep mysteriously appearing all over town. Illegally, on utility poles along the edge of the street, close to curb. Often viewed when traffic is stopped at or adjacent to an intersection where driver would see them. Not always wording that would be provoking, some just thoughtful. Occasionally published poetry, some just ‘think about life from a different perspective’, occasionally try to consider how others are seeing/feeling situations.
There have been a few with just an interesting illustration, with no actual wording. One, a bit larger than average, posted on a pole, almost not noticeable. Near one of several tunnels that take traffic through a steep ridge, close to a private school.The illustration only has outlined cat shapes on the board attached to the pole. No wording, just notice all those felines. Sometimes: just amusing.
