Two Poets will Read at Coffee with the Poets

Coffee with the Poets will have two Netwest featured readers this month, June 13, 10:30 a.m. Mary Ricketson is also on the program Wednesday with Maren Mitchell.

Mary Ricketson’s poetry has been published in her chapbook, I Hear the River Call My Name, Lights in the Mountains, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge, Freeing Jonah IV, Freeing Johah V, and Wild Goose Poetry Review, Future Cycle Press, Your Daily Poem, various magazines and blogs, and in Disorgananza, a private collection distributed among family and friends. She won the gold medal for poetry in the 2011 Cherokee County Senior Games/Silver Arts and silver medal for 2012. She won first place in the 2011 Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest national poetry contest.

Mary writes a monthly column, Woman to Woman, for The Cherokee Scout. She is a long time member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. Mary says she writes to satisfy a hunger, to taste life all the way down to the last drop. She gains perspective from family and friends, her Appalachian home, and her life’s work as a counselor. Writing poetry places her in kinship with her own life.

Mary Ricketson is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor in Murphy, North Carolina. She brings more than thirty years experience to her work, with twenty-five years in private practice. She is a founding board member of REACH. She has a special interest in women’s issues, victims of abuse, and family and couple relationships. She offers innovative ways to effect change in difficult life patterns, including Journey to Intuition and Neurofeedback. She is listed in Who’s Who in America.

Wednesday, June 13, will be a day of good poetry, for sure, with Mary Ricketson and Maren Mitchell at Coffee with the Poets, at Cafe Touche, 82 Main St. in Hayesville, NC.  

Contact Glenda Beall, nightwriter0302@yahoo.com for information.

Coffee with the Poets Welcomes Maren O. Mitchell

Maren O. Mitchell, Poet

A member of the North Carolina Writers’ Network West is featured each month at Coffee with the Poets. Maren Mitchell, outstanding poet and native of North Carolina, will read Wednesday, June 13, 10:30 a.m. at Café Touche, 82 Main Street in Hayesville, NC.
Anyone who enjoys writing and reading poetry is welcome to come and listen or read an original poem or short prose piece. The prose can be fiction or non-fiction of no more than 1000 words.

I’ve known Maren Mitchell for a number of years. We partnered in Nancy Simpson’s class on putting together a chapbook. Maren’s poetry makes us think about things we might have never thought about before. She has a unique way of seeing the world around her. While growing up, she lived in Bordeaux, France and Kaiserslautern, Germany. Presently she teaches origami, the Japanese art of paper folding, at the Moss Memorial Library in Hayesville, North Carolina, near her home in Young Harris, Georgia where she lives with her husband and two cats.

Her poetry has appeared in Southern Humanities Review, The Classical Outlook, The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Appalachian Journal, Red Clay Reader, Volume 4, The Richmond Broom, The Arts Journal and the anthologies Sunrise from Blue Thunder, Echoes Across the Blue Ridge and Nurturing Paws.

Several of her poems have been archived in online journals. Her poem, Not the Poem, won this year’s First Place Award for Excellence in poetry in the Georgia Poetry Society.

Maren has taught poetry at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, NC. She had a poet’s dream job when she catalogued at Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s North Carolina home, now a National Historic Site.

You will not want to miss Coffee with the Poets this month. We will also give a door prize. Just sign your name on the Sign Up Sheet.
There is no charge for this event, but you will likely want to sample Liz’s coffee, and I highly recommend the muffins.

Locally Made Movie showing in Asheville June 7th

For readers who live in Asheville or nearby, check out this award-winning movie filmed right here in Brasstown, NC with my friends, Tipper Pressley and her twin daughters. “Earlier this year the film won first place at an Appalachian Film Festival held in West Virginia. I hope it’s received as well in Asheville and beyond!” Tipper said on The Blind Pig and the Acorn.

If I Had Wings to Fly “is about a young man from a small mountain town in western north carolina who, through his singular desire to play music, ends up learning some things about community, culture, place, love and loneliness. It is a chapter of Felix's life that is frenetic and challenging, both joyful and thoughtful, in which he dances up and down the staircase that he is told leads up to maturity. It's a story about how saying "yes" to things (because you aren't afraid to, or because you have no other choice) isn't always easy but usually leads to enriching and meaningful experiences.”

There are none better than Applachian Folklore Blogger, Tipper Pressley and her musical daughters to enrich this movie with their talent and knowledge of mountain music.

What: The official premiere of Kazoo Films’ If I Had Wings to Fly

Where: The Fine Arts Theater in downtown Asheville, NC

When: Thursday, June 7th at 7pm (6:30 for music)

How Much: $8.75

Who: Directors Bruno Seraphin and Harrison Topp, Tipper Pressley, Chatter Pressley, Chitter Pressley, Tim Ryan, and live old-time musical guests, you!

Read more interesting accounts about the making of this film and see photos of some Folk School employees at  http://kazoofilms.org/

There are no Dumb Questions

A Hospital is not my favorite place for hanging out, but I waited with my two nieces and a friend from four o'clock until 9:30 p.m. when my sister came out of surgery. If you have ever had a loved one in the hospital and undergoing surgery, you know the tension you are under and the worry that niggles at your mind while you pass the time trying to read or watching mindless TV.

Some people place complete confidence in the staff of the hospital and believe them when they tell you what will happen. I, on the other hand, am suspicious of anything I hear. This is because I have seen many errors made by well-meaning doctors and nurses.

Before my sister was taken to the operating room, her nurse asked her, "Which leg is broken and needs surgery?" My sister told her it was the right one. "Good," she said. "They will ask you that before they put you under, so remember to tell them it is the right one."

My niece laughed at this and said, "I don't believe they would make a mistake. This boot is on her right leg."

I said that would seem obvious to us, but many times in the operating room, wrong legs have been amputated, breasts have been removed that were not diseased, and other things that we assume could never happen. They now mark with a marking pen the correct limb for the surgeon to work on.

The nurse agreed. "You don't assume that in the operating room they will know." 

My worry was put to rest when the surgeon came into the pre-opt room and asked for a marking pen. He had to go out and find one, but then he did make a mark on the correct leg. I was told they also go through a check list before they begin to make sure everyone knows what is going to happen and to be prepared for anything that might go wrong. 

I felt good about the procedure. The surgeon was thorough and I had confidence in him. After the two hour operation, he came to the surgical waiting room and talked to us and explained how well she had done. He said we would be called when my sister was put back in her room.

From that point on nothing went according to what we had been told. We waited two hours and no one called us. I called the CCU and was told she had just been brought to the room and they would call us when we could come in. We were also informed we should have been in the second floor Family Waiting room instead of the first floor surgical waiting room. I guess, if we had not called, we could have sat there all night. We went to the correct waiting room, and still no one came to get us. We waited another hour until one of our party decided to see what was happening. She went to the unit and found my sister in a room.
She found a nurse who said, "We were not told there was family waiting." Finally, we got to go in and see my sister. 

Those kinds of things make me suspicious of a hospital. The CCU nurse said my sister was not brought back to the unit after surgery. She was left in recovery until someone from CCU went down to get her. We don't know how long she was in recovery while we waited and she waited to be put in a room. All of these mishaps prolonged our worry, made my sister more uncomfortable and left me worrying about her care. 

These are the reasons I don't assume things will go on as planned in a hospital. No one intentionally goofs up, but often they don't pay attention to important details. No questions are dumb questions when one is acting as an advocate for a sick relative or friend, and many times if we don't ask them, our patient gets poor medical care. Perhaps it takes some bad experiences to learn this lesson, and I have had my share of bad medical experiences. I'm thinking of writing a book on the medical mistakes I've witnessed. Some of them resulted in the loss of lives.

Have you ever had scary mistakes made in hospitals or nursing centers? 

MEMORIES ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Thank you, my friends, my readers, for taking the time to check out this blog and for leaving your thoughts and opinions as well. I am especially grateful to those who subscribe and have my latest posts arrive in your email inbox.

I am planning to have a restful and relaxing Memorial Day weekend. I remember it was Memorial Day, 1995, when Barry and I moved here, to this house. It was a major turning point in our lives and the beginning of a completely new life for me. So much has happened to me since that time. So many happy times, and so many losses in my life since leaving my childhood home and moving to the mountains. At times I can't believe how different my life is today - how different I am now. The manner in which we accept or handle changes creates the person we become. I hope most of the changes in me have made me a better person, a better sister, a better friend and a better teacher.

I notice that I do get on the nerves of my sisters sometimes. (smile) For that I'm sorry. I wonder if they prefer me as the person I was seventeen years ago or the person I am today.

That's a good prompt to write on this weekend. Do I prefer the person I was to the person I am?

With summer upon us, we all have many things going on in our lives. I look forward to another writing class I'll teach at TCC beginning June 5, 2- 4 p.m. 
I also anticipate lots of fun when The Festival on the Square , July 13,14 is held in Hayesville. Netwest will have a booth this year. We will meet tons of folks and I hope, if you can attend, one of them will be you.

CHICKEN TARTAR FOR TIGER

Although I have a comfortable room at my sister’s house in Roswell, GA, it is good to be home again.
Tiger, resident cat, is happy to see me although she had the best sitter while I was gone. Tiger loves to lie beside me when I am in my recliner and working on the computer. My moving fingers mesmerize her, and she reaches out with her little white paws to catch them. I missed her, but I would give her up to a loving family or person who would give her the care I give.

I see myself traveling more. Tiger gets carsick. That means I have to pay a sitter when I go away. She is litter box trained and is such a good girl. Her head is snuggled against my thigh now and her paws are tucked under her chin.

Since I began feeding her chicken tartar, Tiger has blossomed and her coat is the prettiest it has ever been. Once again I see that nutrition makes the biggest difference in our health. Just as I learned from my poodle Brandy, many years ago, that acupuncture  is not a hoax, not quackery but honest to goodness healing. When all the vets had given him up and said his internal organs were shutting down, I found Dr. GradyYoung in Thomasville, Georgia who had studied acupuncture in the Orient. 

I carried Brandy into the office, wrapped in a blanket like a baby. Brandy couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even stand. After one treatment, Dr. Young placed my little buddy on the floor. To my amazement, Brandy trotted over to the door, looked back at me as if to say, “Come on. I’m ready to go home.”

He was ten years old at the time he had acupuncture and lived to be nineteen. Dr. Young studied for years and I think he was the best. He used acupuncture to anesthetize a dog while he removed a large tumor from her abdomen. My husband watched the entire operation and was stunned that the dog showed no pain or stress during the process.

Why can’t our modern doctors learn in medical school the value of nutrition and healing methods like acupuncture? At least Dr. Oz is on the right track. 

Vox Poetica

Visit Vox Poetica and see if your poems fit their needs. Read good poetry on Vox Poetica and submit your work.


http://www.voxpoetica.com/

Writing Class coming in June

Hope you will join me at Tri-County Community College in Murphy, NC beginning June 5, Tuesday afternoons, 2 - 4 p.m..

For six weeks we will write about our lives, short stories, fiction based on truth, memoir, and family stories. Learn how to combine your stories for a book, market your stories in magazines and journals, how to make true stories entertaining and enlightening and have fun with like-minded people.

To register call TCC (828) 837-6810 and ask for Lisa in Continuing Education.

The cost for all six weeks is $40.00.

Call me at 828-389-4441 or email nightwriter0302@yahoo.com

for more information.

Two Mothers

How lucky can one person be?

Mothers everywhere are being celebrated today. I still miss my beloved mother. She was Lois Robison Council, but I also had a sister, June, who was like a second mother. Today I want to celebrate Mother and my sister, the oldest of seven kids, who filled in when Mother was busy cooking, doing laundry and all the other chores. In recent months, talking with an older brother, Max, I heard how June watched the baby while Mother cooked meals, washed clothes and fed her chickens, and gathered eggs. Since June was the oldest, there was always a baby to rock.

I remember June reading to my little sister and me when she put us to bed. She taught us to say our prayers, and she took us to see The Yearling at the Clair Theater. A precious memory is her drawing paper dolls for me, more beautiful than the movie star cutouts I received for Christmas.

My second mother, my sister June when she was a  lovely teen  

Diary of a teenager

Recently, June let me read her diary she kept when she was sixteen or seventeen years old. Like any teenager, most of her days were uneventful. The most exciting happenings were meeting some new cadets, trainees at the local military base or the arrival of dear cousins from far away.

This journal tells the story of a young girl who grew up with a father who worked a day job and farmed on the side. She had a devoted mother and close relatives June visited or who visited our family almost every week. She writes of Aunt Bill, Uncle Rudolf, Aunt Sadie, Uncle Dewey and others with a deep love and appreciation. Her joy explodes on the page when cousins Muriel and Ginger come up from Florida to visit.

The girl in the diary appeared confident and happy although her clothes were mostly handmade, and she worked at Grant's or Kress   five and ten cent store to earn her spending money. On several pages of her diary, June sketched pictures of her new dresses with detailed description. She had an artist's eye.
Her classmates voted her into leadership positions in several honor societies and clubs. Her art teacher showered special love and attention on June, far more than one would expect. Mrs. V opened doors for her, presumably because she recognized an outstanding person, not an ordinary high school student. 

 On the days June worked, she pasted the invoice with her salary -- $1.21. I don't know if this was a day's wages or part of a day, and I can't imagine how long it took to earn enough money to buy her school ring, but she had to pay for it herself. Her father's wages were spent on  the necessities for raising a large family.

Movies and good books

She and her friends loved going to the movies downtown. June was an avid reader as she is today. On several pages she listed books and authors she had read. Most of the books were classics. Some of the titles were required reading for me when I went to college, but I think she read them because she enjoyed them.

June's generous and giving spirit shows throughout the year's notations. No complaining or feeling sorry for herself. She was thankful, grateful for her family. 

 "I took Rex to get his vaccination today, but we were supposed to be there yesterday." Rex was the little brother starting school that September. She took him downtown to the health department three times before he finally received the smallpox vaccine required before entering first grade. This is one of the ways she helped her mother. 

On one page in large letters -"WOW! Glenda walked today!"

June was my babysitter and my "other mother" when I was small, and as I grew up, she listened to me and advised me without being preachy. I admired her and tried to heed her words. Her photos from those days show a beautiful girl with long black hair and lovely smile. She is still striking today.
Although she is in the hospital today, she knows she is loved by her children and all her family, especially her "little sisters."

                       Happy Mother's Day, June.

Baby sister on left, June, the older sister, on the right.