Observations from my Backpack

May - Military Appreciation Month Throughout the month of May, we recognize and celebrate the dedication and service to our country  and freedoms by Americans who serve presently, our veterans and those who gave their lives in our nation's military.   Not sure if today many understand how important our military is, and what services they provide in support of America.  They don't just go and fight off shore protecting the freedoms of others, and often ours. COVID19 while it is still ongoing, without the support of the military and their efforts to provide engineering and medical and research services throughout our country, not sure what the outcome would have been.  Just learning about the research labs in Maryland and their ongoing commitment to find the vaccine. For many years before returning home to Charleston, working with military families and their children, and often older youth, consumed my life with many others who joined us on th...

Home schooling End of this week brings to a close the second semester of our schools in our local district.  Quietly, the week of March 9, 2020, teachers and schools were beginning to plan to send home students to finish out the semester, iPads and chrome books in hand.  Parents learned that they would be soon taking over the home schooling. The COVID19 had started to appear to be deadly, and therefore the schools had to be closed. Closing schools aligned with all of us to stay home also.  Lock down was the other description, and now we are beginning to open up and start back out into our world only 60-days later. Prayers now that as we go back into our world, it will come back stronger, and we will be able to join back into life with new habits to help keep us safe from this virus that in the beginning when the projections were first assembled by some of the finest researchers, well, the devastation was to be in the millions.  Any loss is serious and bad enou...

Mama, standing on the edge of the Myrtle Court Fountain Columbia, SC - 1945 Mother's Day, 2020, as we move towards learning a new way to live  in our world.   COVID19 has shaken up our day to day activities, from our attending school, going to work and in general socializing.  Not sure what the new normal will look like, but I do know that my Mother would have fit right in, and in fact probably would smile and say:  "Yes I told you to wash your hands, keep your hands off your face and cover your mouth with tissue when you sneeze". Growing up in a neighborhood filled with relatives, from aunts and uncles and cousins, and on a street that seemed to run in between all of them, we were often raised and watched over.  In my mother's later years, she lived in the house that I grew up in, and spent her last days there.  She would mow her grass, enjoy the rock pond she had built on the side yard, and lead an independent life into her 80's.  Then one da...

Clara Barton, founder of American Red Cross Nurses Week Upon paying respect. first and foremost, a week honoring our nation's nurses, is not long enough.  every day, we should thank them for their nurturing care and wealth of knowledge, especially those that have taken the extra time to study and take on becoming Nurse Practitioner. Quietly, going back in my memory many years, as a little girl-child, one of my first Santa gifts was a nurse's kit.  I remember a black cape with the Red Cross button, and a little black bag.  As a Mom, on our trip to Washington, DC,  my daughter and I traveled to Glen Cove Maryland, to visit the Clara Barton National Historic Site.  Some earlier childhood dreams are never forgotten.  My daughter too had had a little black bag, and was often taking the heart beats of her dolls. We arrived just about the closing time, but the National Park Ranger, opened up and we were able to view the interior, where Clara Barton began...

May 4, 2020 So May Day, has passed.  My plan was to blog about my growing up in Columbia, SC and the May Day Celebration at Valley Park, in Five Points.  It was called the May Pole and the park was filled with poles and bright colors of crepe paper and lots of "little and big girls" dancing and weaving around the poles.  Quite a site to see.  May 1 my fingers and keyboard were not working quite so well on that day. Why my tennis shoes here?  My excuse for not blogging on that day, is because I had been moving.  Yep, in this time of COVID 19,  my lease came to a close, and I needed to relocate due to "mold" and other "air" coming out of the AC unit.  Even with the filters put on the AC unit, still the "Dust" was most colorful, and can you imagine when the cleaners and I did the 'deep clean" we found a colony of maggot eggs (from part of a dead rat's carcass left in the attic left in attic by maintenance). Not a very healthy env...