How to Have One of the

 Best Vacations of Your Life 

Americans want to get out of the house.  

   

We want to hit the road, travel somewhere, "blow the stink off ya' " as my mother used to say when we kids had spent too much time inside. 

With borders closed around the world, your bucket list trip to Italy is out of the question. In fact, even renting a room in Wildwood, New Jersey, has some latent dangers. Are motel bedspreads and comforters washed after every guest? Does the carpet look like it has been through several plagues? 

Ongoing viral infections through 2021 are predicted. This pandemic has shortened our wander leash ... or has it?

"No!" I say from inside my four-man, Coleman dome tent. "We can always camp!"

RV, trailer, or tent camping assure we sleep in our own germs, use our own toilets (possible even when tent camping), wash in our own sinks, keep our viruses in the family. This is not a time for staging mixers with the community's microorganisms.

America is returning to its pioneering roots, but the Conestoga and covered wagon have yielded to  RV's with state-of-the-art kitchens, flat screen televisions, microwaves, ice-on-demand from double-door refrigerators, and plenty of beds, hidden under tables and couches. It's called glamping. We know we "can't take it with us" when we die, but Americans have found every way to "take it with them" on the road.

My son, who works in the RV industry, said it is experiencing an unprecedented 60% rise in sales, thanks to America's desire to get on the road and sleep in their own germs. Glamping in a luxury RV may be a great option for a pandemic vacation, but for many of us a camper or tent are the way to go.

Experience has taught our family the joys and values of camping. 

In the early '60s Dad launched my decades long camping career. I was 12, so, initially, camping seemed like more work than necessary. I was annoyed with carrying water to cook, chagrined with heating water to wash, and further annoyed with 5 of us in sleeping bags, jammed shoulder-to-shoulder and butt-to-butt in our umbrella tent. Perhaps it is in just such circumstances children learn flexibility and gratefulness whatever the situation.

Our maiden adventure was to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. Signs for safety with bears were everywhere. Dad slept with an ax, locked the food in our car, and lay expectantly all night while bears snuffled around the campsite. That was camping trip #1. 

Dad's specialty on the
road - grilling hot dogs.

Even with all the inconveniences, I realized, camping was a way to see the world on a shoestring ... and have some wonderful adventures.

"Shoestring" vacations were the operative words when, as a single mom of a 4 and 6-year-old, I realized that if I were ever going to give my boys some adventure and take them to see our country it would have to be in a tent.

A two-man pup tent was big enough and cheap enough. Peanut butter sandwiches made menus easy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and off we went each summer for the next 10 years. In those days, we could camp for under $10 a night at a walk-in site. We camped in every major park and visited most points of interest between Northeast Pennsylvania and Little River, South Carolina, where we collapsed at Pa and MaMa's house.

Chincoteague and Assateague, Williamsburg, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Cherokee Indian Reservation, the Outer Banks, the Smokies and more ... horses, bears, snakes, Indians, the ocean - this was living adventure for a single mom and her boys.

Our Cross-America van.

The official and formal end to our family camping career came when the boys were 14 and 16. Summer jobs loomed for the college bound, so a final, big bash campout was planned. Pa and MaMa were included. I purchased an old conversion van in the Paper Shop, a local listing of used items for sale. The van, already clocked at 90,000 miles, needed tires and lacked air conditioning which became an issue in Death Valley. Undeterred, the 5 of us set off across the United States in pursuit of as many national parks as we could find. 

The trip would cover over 10,000 miles in our 50 days on the road. Below this blog is a chronological list of the parks, forests, monuments, and cities we visited ... a list I can only remember because of my detailed scrapbook of photos and brochures. The southern route took us west to the Pacific, up the Pacific coast into British Columbia and Alberta, south into Montana, and a final swing across the northern states. 

The van had a pull out bed in the back which we reserved for Pa and MaMa during the entire trip. The boys and I slept in our tent, the 4-man dome ... easy up, easy down. Sometimes we froze at night, like when we camped near the base of the glacier at Lake Louise, British Columbia, and sometimes we baked, like in the high desert near Tucson, Arizona. 

Daily, we made memories: the "Going to the Sun" highway in Glacier National Park, Montana; a

In a snow field.
Glacier National Park,
Montana.

solitary walk through the Muir Woods in northern California; driving through Death Valley in the Southwest with the windows up (in our non-air conditioned van because MaMa had some crazy theory about keeping it cool inside); exploring the food stands in Juarez, Mexico; and walking, always walking, the trails in Yellowstone, the Sierras, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon.

This was the adventure of a lifetime, a forever family memory, an epic journey.

The result: the family was still talking after 50 days of camping. And ...  both of my sons have made camping a major activity for their own families. Parenting 3 children each, Bryan and Trevor have graduated from the tents of their youth to RVs. They still love finding beautiful places in America to camp, and the joys of sitting around campfires at night have never been lost. We are into our 4th generation of family campers.

Ken Burns says, "Our national parks are America's best idea." Truly. And they are also America's way to point us to God, for the Creator's fingerprints are evident everywhere in nature's beauty and glory. 

The boys and giant Sequoias.

Horace Albright, one of the founders of the National Park System, said, "The parks are something more enduring than we are... they were designed by God ..." 

Our lives are brief, but in the great outdoors we see continuity. Stand on a glacier, under a giant Sequoia, or on a Grand Canyon overlook. Problems dwarf in the face of God's majesty and power. Hot springs and geysers bubbling from deep in the earth, Mount St. Helens witness to the inner power, towering pines in rain forests of the Northwest ... all display an awe-inspiring majesty no man could manufacture.

These wonders take us out of our circumstances and self-absorption. We see ourselves as we really are: a small part of God's great and magnificent creation. Scripture attests to God's hand in it all: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:20, Message)

On the arch above the northern entrance to Yellowstone, the purpose of the park system is stated, "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people." Enjoyment, inspiration, a God-encounter ... the vacation of a lifetime awaits. A pandemic can't stop that.

I'm reminded of a World War 2 song my dad often sang on the road: "Pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!" So gather your camping gear and kit bag, spend this winter planning your cross country route, and get ready to SMILE.

With a tent and some time, my family has seen America, and in its beauty, we have seen God's hand.

Lake Louise, British Columbia

You can too. It is unique, powerful, and breathtaking beyond imagination ... a welcome and crucial reminder of who and what we are.

On Layton

but encouraging you to 

"blow the stink off ya'," go camping,

and see America.

Places of interest, national parks and monuments visited on our 50-day cross-country adventure:

1. Opryland and the Grand Ole Opry, Nashville, Tennessee
2. Memphis, Tennessee
3. Dallas, Texas
4. Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas
5. Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico
6. Guadalope Mountains National Park, Texas
7. El Paso, Texas
8. Juarez and Nogales, Mexiso
9. Silver City, New Mexico
10. Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, New Mexico
11. Tombstone, Arizona, National Historic site
12. Saguaro National Monument, Tucson, Arizona
13. Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Arizona
14. Tonto National Monument, Arizona
15. Montezuma Castle National Monument, Arizona
16. Sedona, Arizona
17. Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
18. Painted Desert National Park, Arizona
19. Walnut Canyon National Monument, Arizona
20. Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
21. Sunset Crater National Monument, Arizona
22. Hoover Dam, Arizona-Nevada
23. Las Vegas, Nevada
24. Mojave Desert and San Joaquin Valley, California
25. Sequoia National Park, California
26. Yosemite National Park, California
27. San Francisco, California
28. Napa Valley, Sonoma, Mendicino, California
29. Redwood National Park, California
30. Mount St. Helens National Monument, Washington
31. Mount Rainier, Washington
32. Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
33. Glacier National Park, British Columbia, Canada
34. Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada
35. Lake Louise, British Columbia
36. Calgary, Alberta
37. Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Montana-Canada
38. Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
39. Cody, Wyoming
40. Custer State Park, Wyoming
41. Mt. Rushmore National Monument, South Dakota
42. Badlands National Park, South Dakota
43. The Dells, Wisconsin

A Food Place, A Happy Place, An Escape Place,

A Garden

It's the heighth of summer, and Layton has never looked so good. 

My grandmother's 70-year-old
peonies on Layton.

Fresh mulch is heaped around flower beds, tomato and zucchini plants are peeking from the oddest spaces, perennials and annuals are lush up and down the road. Is this any different from other years? The experts say, "Yes!"

One nursery grower reports that seed sales doubled this year, and tomato plants flew off shelves faster than toilet paper.* Mulch salesmen said they had never seen such a high demand. Customers were lined up to have bags and trailers filled. Yards and gardens look gorgeous everywhere.

John and Colette Hughes' Covid-
escape flower garden.

Gardens have been one of the positive results of quarantine and isolation caused by Covid 19. With activity limited to anything we can do outdoors, attention has turned to gardens, a traditional source of help and comfort when the world presses in and the going gets rough.

In 1917 the government asked the nation to plant War Gardens to free up food for our soldiers in World War 1. Americans responded whole-heartedly. And in World War 2, the government changed the name to Victory Gardens and asked the same gardening efforts of its people. In fact, Victory Gardens produced 40% of the nation's fruits and vegetables.*

Covid Gardens have sprouted from the needs of a different kind of war. They are not just food places although staying out of grocery stores and controlling the growth of our own food has wide appeal. Our Covid Gardens have become escape places, happy places, when the four walls of the living room begin to close in.

Several of my favorite gardeners on Layton have made their Covid Gardens virtual Edens.

Colette, lost in squash.

John and Colette Hughes tend a fully-stocked garden that far exceeds hobby gardener status. Last year's garden produced 47 quarts of tomatoes, 10 quarts of salsa, 10 pints of tomato sauce, 10 quarts of jerry peppers and pickles, 10 quarts of carrots, green beans, and green peppers, 40 pounds of potatoes, and 40 cloves of garlic ... not to mention the ever-abundant zucchini. But that was last year. Their Covid Garden is on track to outproduce 2019's crop.

My favorite part of their garden? The whimsical trellises John has constructed above the garden where his trained cucumbers climb and provide a shady, peaceful, Covid escape.

John and his beanstalk

Keep in mind this is JUST a backyard garden, no acreage, no tractors, an ordinary Layton backyard. Weeding, watering, battling beetles and other critters who come to dine then freezing and canning their harvest dominate the weeks ahead for Colette and John, but they glean joy and personal satisfaction in sharing their bounty as well as a taste of summer throughout the winter.

John Hughes and his cuke trellis.

About a quarter mile up Layton, Virginia Richardson tends an English garden. Like its Oxfordshire forbears, the garden incorporates her rolling lawn, groves of trees, and hundreds of flowers. The Richardson family has owned the land for over 80 years, so roots go deep around the house on Layton she shares with husband Reggie.

The largest bed of her many gardens fronts her house and extends close to 100 feet in a sculpted style. Primarily, perenials pack Virginia's gardens. Her favorite flowers are day lilies which can be found in a variety of colors.

Day lilies in bloom.

When spring comes, Virginia mans her garden dawn til dusk, weeding, dividing large clumps of roots, replanting bulbs in various other places (including in my yard!). Years of work and long days of grooming have produced a lovely landscape flower garden ... and neighbors, like me, take great pleasure in its beauty.

Virginia Richardson in her English garden.

Gardens hold a hint of the divine for, it seems, God loves gardens. He placed His most perfect creations, man and woman, in the most ideal spot to begin life - a garden.

And the night before His Son was to die for the sins of all mankind, God led Jesus to a garden where they could commune. Gardens loom large in His story.

A garden is a microcosm of  life: seeds give birth, seedlings soak up the water and sun as they put their roots down deep in the soil. They become fruit and flower bearers, and eventually they die. A picture of our lives.

Jesus' stories, designed to teach us about God and His kingdom, are often about seeds or soil. And when He wanted us to know how to live and walk with God daily, a garden provided the metaphor. The illustration of a vine and its branches (John 15) shows the vital importance of staying connected to God. Jesus said, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the Gardener" (John 15:1). We branches cannot live for God and His glory without abiding in Him, just as a branch takes its nourishment and strength from the vine to which it must be connected.

When we are rooted and grounded in God, He calls us "a well-watered garden" or "a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green; it has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:8)

Let's work on becoming well-watered gardens,

trees with deep roots,

so viruses, social turmoil, and worries

won't keep us from growing strong and bearing fruit.

Watering my garden and

sending down roots ...

On Layton

Information source:

* https://www.cbsnews.com/news/victory-gardens-for-the-war-against-covid-19/

Choose to Face a Tragedy, a Pandemic, or a Rugby Match ... Like a Welshman

Aberfan, Wales

1966

On the morning of October 21, 1966, the children of Aberfan, Wales, arrived at Pantglas Junior School and prepared for their opening song, "All Things Bright and Beautiful."

Within minutes, 116 of them and 5 of their teachers were dead.

Aberfan, Wales. Buried under
140,000 cubic yards of mining waste.

Looming above Aberfam, a coal mining town, stood a "colliery spoil tip," a 111 foot mountain of waste material removed during mining. A spring beneath the pile and three weeks of rain caused a build up of water. Without warning, 140,000 cubic yards of mining waste slurry suddenly slid downhill, bearing tractors, trucks, and houses with it, burying the school, surrounding buildings ... and the children. A total of 144 people died, including the 116 precious little ones of the small Welsh school, obliterating Aberfan's next generation.

When I heard the heartbreaking story of Aberfan for the first time this week, it left me saddened. Fifty-four years after the event, I grieved the loss of Welsh children, family somehow. For in 1966 I was a college freshman, immersed in surviving my first year and oblivious to the pain and sorrow of a village in my grandfather's home country, the country of my ancestors.

News of the disaster took half a century to reach me, thanks finally to the British drama The Crown on Netflix. Probably we've all watched more than our usual amount of television during this pandemic, and The Crown has been my television time-waster of choice as it appealed to my interest in all things British. The Aberfan episode gave substance and dignity to the drama.

In the film and in real life, Prince Philip attended the children's funeral. The following conversation was part of the fictional account in the movie. On his return to Buckingham Palace after the funeral, Queen Elizabeth asked him a question he considered inane. "Did you weep?" she asked.

Funeral for 81 of the 116 children killed
in the Aberfan landslide, 1966.

"It would have caused anyone with even a fraction of a heart to break into a thousand tiny pieces," he said. "There was anger on their faces, rage in their eyes, but they didn't have rallies or shout or curse or throw things."

"What did they do?" the Queen said.

"They sang."

Welshmen singing in the mines.

They sang. No surprise. They were Welsh. It's what people of "The Land of Song" do when faced with joy or tribulation. They sing. "Even at a rugby match, the crowd will sing ... not pop songs but hymns." *

"Singing is in my people as sight is in the eye," comments one character from the Oscar-winning Welsh mining movie How Green was My Valley.* Travel anywhere in the world today where there are Welsh people, and you will find a Welsh choir meeting regularly.

Blogger Ross Clarke notes of his Welsh heritage that in unfamiliar new surroundings the Welsh find solace and sociability in song. He writes, "I can't claim that all Welsh people can sing, but what I can say for sure is that all Welsh people are singers." *

Grandpa Jones wasn't just a singer. He could sing. I grew up with his powerful tenor in church and

Grandpa and Nana Jones sing at the piano on
Layton Road.

around the piano in his living room as Nana Jones played.

Born in North Wales, Grandpa John Owen Jones had been a coal miner. Making a bid for a better life for his wife Winnie and children Betty and Joe, my dad, Grandpa Jones immigrated to Canada and eventually to Blakely, Pennsylvania, a coal mining area with a large Welsh population. He ended up back in the coal mines at the Olyphant and Throop, PA, collieries and singing at every opportunity in churches, bars, or wherever two Welshmen were together.

Mining and music were in his blood.

My dad, Joe, inherited Grandpa's lead tenor. They would blend their distinctive voices on Sunday mornings. Dad joined the choir in every church he attended. He even sang a favorite old hymn, "Beyond the Sunset," at his own funeral, thanks to a prerecorded video.

Aberfan, Grandpa Jones, Dad ... the lesson of the Welsh is to sing ... in the face of trouble, in the throes of joy. Not pop culture songs. Not the "We are the World" variety. Not the "Over the Rainbow" type. But spiritual songs of meaning and depth. Songs that seek God for comfort and love. Songs acknowledging His awesomeness as Creator and Sustainer. Songs that reveal hearts of reliance on God in trouble and gratefulness to Him for all things. 

At the Aberfan funeral, the Welsh villagers sang all stanzas (without books, print-outs, or overhead screens) of "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," a standard Welsh hymn for weddings, funerals, and sporting events, a hymn basic to their lives. Here are the first two verses:

Jesus, Lover of my soul

by Charles Wesley

Jesus, Lover of my soul,

let me to thy bosom fly,

while the nearer waters roll,

while the tempest still is high.

Hide me, O my Savior, hide,

till the storm of life is past,

safe into the haven guide.

O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,

hangs my helpless soul on thee,

leave, ah! Leave me not alone,

still support and comfort me. 

till my trust on thee is stayed,

all my help from thee I bring,

cover my defenseless head

with the shadow of thy wing.

"All Things Bright and Beautiful" was the hymn children sang to open each school day in Wales. The children were preparing to sing it when the mountain slid into their school. Here are a few of the verses:

All Things Bright and Beautiful

All creatures great and small.

All things wise and wonderful.

The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colors,

He made their tiny wings.

The purple-headed mountain,

The river running by,

The sunset and the morning,

That brightens up the sky.

All things bright and beautiful

All creatures great and small.

All things wise and wonderful.

The Lord God made them all.

In this worldwide pandemic and in all of our fears, troubles, and joys, may we have an attitude and perspective that seeks God in all things and honors Him in song ... like the Welsh of Aberfan.

Singing ...

On Layton.

* Information sources:

• *All of the above quotes are from Blogger Ross Clarke, BBC Travel, http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180930-why-wales-is-known-as-the-land-of-song
• Wikipedia, "Aberfan Disaster"
• Listen to a Welsh male choir: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/8-welsh-songs-achingly-beautiful-11693991

In a Worldwide Pandemic,
We Need to Know Our Ikigai.

Our health care professionals are living grueling, dangerous days, 
battling COVID19 and saving lives. 
No question about it: they have purpose, motivation, goals, ikigai. 

But some of us have been retired or furloughed from jobs. 
Home isolation has been our venue ... for weeks. 

So what's your purpose every day?

• Are all of the long-untouched boxes in your closets and attics sorted or trashed?
• Has every last one of the board games been played and your second 1,000 piece puzzle is now on the table?
• Have you read all the books stacked on your night stand?
• Is laundry at a minimum as no one is changing clothes regularly?
• Has the dog been walked ... and walked again to the point of exhaustion?

These are times that try the spirits of the hardiest among us.

Without an ikigai, our days can be empty and meaningless.

"A reason to get out of bed in the morning ... something that makes life worth living" is a rough translation of the Japanese word "ikigai." The French call it "raison d'etre." In America, thanks to Rick Warren's book, we call it The Purpose-Driven Life.

The extra time and the isolation may have you wondering, "What on earth am I here for?" Days are passing without marker events to delineate them and often without any motivation. A life without purpose is an empty life. "It's motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason" (Warren).

National Geographic ran a story in 2005 on areas of the world with the greatest longevity. Okinawa, Japan, had one of the highest concentrations of people over 100-years-old. The demographic study revealed that one of the top life style reasons for their longevity was the individual's sense of life purpose, their ikigai.

So what's your ikigai?

What's your reason for getting out of bed during these days of isolation? To enrich the lives of your  children? To improve some else's life? To foster closer family relationships? To serve a neighbor? Purposes that look beyond ourselves to those around us may not increase our bank accounts or even our own pleasure, but they are life's most rewarding goals ... fulfilling reasons for living.

When we reach the end of our days and people look back on our lives, will we be remembered because we did everything we could to make ourselves happy or because the primary goal of our lives was to bring help and joy into the lives of others and, in so doing, to serve God?

God often works in paradigms. When we set serving others as our ikigai, the joy of giving comes right back on us.

"For such a time as this" was the reason given for Queen Esther's appearance before the king in order to save her people.  Even though precedent and history assured her she would probably be killed, Esther chose to sacrifice herself, if necessary, for the good of her people.

Perhaps it is "for such a time as this" that we are living COVID19. Our lives are not demanded of us, as they may be for some health care workers, but "purpose" certainly is. When we get out of bed each day, let's creatively imagine what we can do from our isolation to make life a bit better for someone else.

HERE ARE A FEW IDEAS THAT CAN CHANGE SOMEONE'S DAY DURING THIS ISOLATION:

•  Offer to make a prescription or grocery run for the elderly or handicapped in your neighborhood or social circle. Do they have any spring yard chores you could do to help?

• Cards or notes are a welcome sight when we open the mailbox. Even with texting and emailing, a card can go a long way to brighten someone's day. Send lots. You have time, and you can usually order stamps directly with your postal carrier. There's something delightful about a card in the mailbox that lightens spirits.

• Let your kitchen be a boon to someone: bake cookies, make soup, or a casserole. How fun leaving a treat on someone's porch or in some safe place. No need to even go to the door ... just text them, "Check your porch."

• The local hardware and garden stores have drive- through service. Pick up a few spring plants and leave them at the doors of a few people you want to encourage.

• Call friends, relatives, neighbors regularly. Some people who live alone may not have anyone checking in on them.

• Make face masks for a nursing home, a clinic, friends.   
  
  

• Donate to a local food bank or another organization that helps the needy. 

• Give a grocery store gift card to a needy family.

• Tip a grocery store worker or any one of our "necessary" helpers for serving you.

• Order a pizza or take-out meal from a local restaurant for someone.

• ZOOM out-of-town family members.

Cultivating my ikigai ...

On Layton.

What To Do During the 

COVID-19 Quarantine 

Options are shrinking. 
Schools, churches, libraries, and some restaurants are closed. All sporting events and large gatherings  cancelled.  A Harvard doctor released a medical prescription for extreme social distancing. We need to get comfortable in our own skin without social contacts. So, what will you do? Certainly, taking a walk or playing board games with the family are good options for quarantine downtime. You might even start the yard work or do your spring cleaning. But ... here's a better suggestion: 

read a book.

In 2019 AARP (American Association of Retired People) published this information:  "A study of 3,635 older adults found that book readers had a 23 month survival advantage and 20 percent lower mortality risk compared with nonreaders. Reading was protective regardless of gender, education or health."

I'm not suggesting that reading a book will prevent contracting this dangerous illness. I am suggesting that there are long range benefits and, certainly, short term comforts to indulging in a book if you are self-quarantined.

Books have been a personal joy since I discovered the Nancy Drew mystery series when I was 11. My summers were spent on the front porch glider reading through The Sign of the Twisted Candles, The Hidden Staircase, and The Secret in the Old Attic, etc. Books have helped me escape  for almost six decades.

Pa Jones and Nana Jones,
my reading mentor.

In fact, I still read on my grandmother's old porch glider on  summer days. Nana Jones was a glider-reader, too. In fact, she eventually gave me her glider, an iron monstrosity over 50 years old, full of creaks and squeaks like its former and current owners. She also gave me her love for reading and many good conversations about books.

Nana Jones' glider has been
 a staple on two Layton
front porches for over
50 years.

Memories of my grandmother center on that shared love.

When I reached my junior year of college, I still had not declared a major, college being a fun social experience. With only four semesters left, it was time to make a life plan. Dad's advice, "What do you like doing the most? Make that your major." Well, truth is, I just loved sitting on the glider ... reading. So I became an English major, the closest major I could find to reading books. 

The problem was - in 1969-70 journalism, writing, human resources, all the wonderful things you can do today with an English major, did not seem to be viable, paycheck-producing options. No glider-reading 300 level course in the curriculum, I scrambled to take the education classes I would need to become an English teacher and squeeze in student teaching in the Marple Newtown School District outside of Philadelphia before graduation..

Lakeland High School Reading Club. Students
committed to read 40 books as a team for the
NEIU Reading Olympics. Principal J. Hanni,
teachers Mrs. Salitsky, Mrs. Stephens, Miss Love,
Mrs. Walczak

God knew I was bumbling through growing up. Thankfully, He directed me to a satisfying English teaching career that lasted over 31 years. Peopled with a marvelous array of students, colleagues, and administrators, life was challenging, exciting, and never the same two days in a row. My greatest satisfaction? The joy of reading to my students, stories by Kipling, O. Henry, and Poe and books by London, Dickens, and Twain. Seeing my students fall in love with books on their own was the ultimate satisfaction. Our reading team devoured books every year to participate in the local Reading Olympics competition. Like Nana Jones and me, the students have a life gift that will carry them through old age and quarantines. Reading stories and discussing books - only God could have prepared a career to fit my desires and pleassures so well. 

After retirement, a  friend suggested we start a book club. Since 2011 our club of 4-6 women has met faithfully once a month. We've read over 100 books. Someone in the group picks a book for

A discussion leader's illustration
from A Prayer for Owen Meany

discussion, and we come back the next month ready to rip it or praise it. 

Christmas discussion, perhaps, of David Baldacci's
The Christmas Train

Our everyday conversations have been lifted from the kids, food, chit chat, the latest sales, or  health to intelligent, challenging discussions involving topics like war (Jewish oppression in the Warsaw ghetto), survival and success against odds (Trevor Noah), leprosy (Molokai), and abuse (Before We Were Yours). Many of the books I've loved; some I never would have chosen, but every one has expanded my view of our culture and our world and provided boundless food for thought and conversation. Sometimes, the discussion leader even brings a food mentioned in the book ... who doesn't love that! Always, the leader provides added information about the author or the subject.

Recently, we read Christina's World, based on a famous painting by Andrew Wyeth. The discussion leader shared biographical info on Wyeth and Christina as well as additional pictures painted of Christina and her home.

Thus, as an advocate of books, I thought you might like to see our suggestions for your quarantine. These are the club's Top Ten Picks from the 33 books we have read in the past 3 years. (Each month we rate the books on a 0-10 scale, subjectively based on theme, writing style, literary elements like plot and characterizations, or simply our personal preferences).

Our Top Ten Book Club Picks (2017-2019)

1. Molokai, Brennert

2. The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, Richardson

3. A Gentleman in Moscow, Towles

4. We Were the Lucky Ones, Hunter

5. The Zookeeper's Wife, Ackerman

6. The Nightingale, Hannah

7. My Sister's Keeper, Picoult

8. House Rules, Picoult

9. The Sun Does Shine, Hinton

10. Before We Were Yours, Wingate

Other Personal Favorites from Our Book Club

1. Unbroken, Hillenbrand
2. The Invisible Wall, Bernstein
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Skloot
4. Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder
5. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Brown
6. David and Goliath, Gladwell
7. America: The Summer of 1927, Bryson
8. Shakespeare Saved My Life, Bates
9. The Boys in the Boat, Brown
10. Being Mortal, Gawande
11. A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving
12. Gilead, Robinson
13. The Glass Castle, Walls
14. Hillbilly Elegy, Vance

For next month's discussion, we are reading Colson Whitehead's blockbuster The Underground Railroad, an intense, powerful book rampant with revelations, horrors, and relevance to our world today.

Books can be life changers. In The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, the blue woman says of another character, "I loved the way Harriet loved her books. It changed her into something different, better, and for a minute I forgot who she was - and who I wasn't."  

No discussion of books would be complete without mention of the most powerful book. Divinely authored, imparting truths for life and living, withstanding the test of time and authenticity, providing comfort in heartache and fear, gifting us with grace, mercy, and hope in the face of disaster and death ... the Bible, God's Word, stands above all other books. Its 66 books, written by 40 writers over the course of  1,500 years, do the impossible: they weave the identical story of God's grace and love.

I've done enough reading to know this is an impossible human feat. The same theme with complete agreement and the same mission by those 66 writers over centuries? Only God could author such a book. Open it. Read it. Savor the truths. Find encouragement and hope in this time of fear ...

while you quarantine.

 Reading.

On Layton.

How to Recover a Lost Art in 2020

Dear Reader,

A  brown cardboard storage box contains cards, letters, and notes I've received for the past 50 years.

Their messages were kind, or they came from special people. They struck a cord with me for a variety of reasons, and I've never had the heart to get rid of them ... for the past 50 years. The box can no longer contain its bounty!

The recent influx of papers and letters from my  Dad's life combined with mine to fill a good portion of a closet. Time to glean a few and toss the rest.

The result: I've spent hours reading and lost in memories. My grandmother's rounded, neat cursive, wishing me well. Dad's strong, bold handwriting with something humorous to share. Friends, some long gone, remembered by their writing even before I read the name.  Cards from my boys when printing their names was a laudable feat. Every handful or so, there would be one from my mother, a prolific letter writer. Her familiar severe right slant and unclear letters had me rereading and decipthering as her handwriting always did - letters to me at college, in China, from her new home in South Carolina.

I pictured those many hands I loved as they wrote with their arthritis or age spots or broken nails, and I heard their voices come to life on the page.

Finally, I landed on a thank you note from my mother in 1999. A thank you note from my mother! Whatever would the woman who gave me breath and met my needs for the first quarter of my life have to thank me for? But she did ... and I've framed the card, her love, and her unforgettable handwriting.

Today, I answered some email and sent a few texts, but there wasn't  one memorable piece of handwriting among them. No cursive to reflect personhood, nothing worth framing, no picturesque reminders of a hand or a life. Just Times New Roman 12 in featureless black and white.

Perhaps this implies enough about teaching our children cursive in elementary school. Like so many other things, memorable is being sacrificed on the altar of quick, fast, and modern.

For over 30 years my career involved teaching teens grammatical rules and proper writing style. Now, I am flabbergasted when I realize my texts are dashed off with incomplete sentences, without end marks, minus capitals and punctuation. Whatever happened to the Mrs. Walczak of eighth grade English class? Several generations of teenagers must be equally flummoxed about the years they spent learning English grammar that have been blown to the icloud in social media.

Here's a challenge for 2020: let's return to the art of letter and note writing ... even if only once a week. How do we recover this lost art? Simply, do it. Pick a recipient who could use a bit of joy and scratch away. I realize it will cost a postage stamp and a bit of time, but consider it memory making for someone, carving kind words into forever.  A day is brightened, encouragement shared, when the mailbox produces an envelope with your handwriting. The message doesn't have to be so meaningful that it is saved for 50 years, but it can exude friendship and love, poignant enough to frame with your fingerprints and style embossed across its face.

No simpler, less intimidating, more inspiring way to lift someone up.

But the most life-changing letters I've ever received are compiled as epistles from the likes of the Apostles Paul, Peter, James, and John whose goal was to communicate the Word of God. Originally recorded on parchment or sheep skin, they stand witness for eternity to God's everlasting love, and each bears the very handprint of God.

That box of letters I've kept for 50 years? Most of them are still in the box and back in the closet. Who would have the heart to dispose of such memories and kindness? Not me.

Continuing to pen in cursive and
 challenging you to enrich your connectedness ...
 with a letter.

Love,

Your Friend on Layton.  

10 Ways to Make 2020 Matter

The years fly off the calendar any more. Wasn't it just 2017? 

And as the years disappear, so have many people in our lives. 2019 left a hole in our family.

Perhaps it's my perception of the relentless march of time or perhaps it's the loss of people important  to us, but the need to make every year matter seems increasingly necessary.

Maybe I'm just getting old.

But as I look down the next 365 days, I'd like every one to matter. Who knows? Perhaps this year will only have 263. How can we live every day to its maximum potential? Here are some thoughts to consider to make 2020 a year that matters ... 

• Step out of your comfort zone. My living room is my comfort zone. So I need to get off the couch and get out. Do something for the world that requires some courage, some initiative, and a little thinking outside the box. Volunteer to build houses with Habitat for Humanity in West Virginia or teach in a school in Central America or help in a soup kitchen in Scranton. Think out of your neighborhood, out of your socio-cultural milieu, out of the country. Live sacrificially.
• Give ... to the local homeless shelter or food bank, to your church, to a needy single mom.
  
  Give coats, gloves, hats, toiletries, and bedding to organizations like the Women's Resource Center or the Catherine McAuley Center. Give to worthwhile children and teen programs, like CareNet and Youth for Christ. Give your time and energy  to fix a broken door knob for a single woman or babysit for a mother of toddlers or take an older person to the doctor and out to lunch. Selflessness is the key.
• Begin a new friendship with an elderly person in a nursing home or a shut-in on your street, with a foreign university student who needs help with his English or an immigrant mom who is having trouble buying groceries in her new culture, with the children of a single mom, with the new family in the neighborhood.
• Cultivate old friendships. Facebook your college roommate, whom you haven't
  
  seen in 4 decades, and plan a get-together. Skype your cousin in Scotland. Email your high school chums for a lunch date. Seek one-on-one time with your old friends. Maybe meet every week with that one soul sister whose encouragment never fails.
• Use your creativity. Build furniture, write a book,  knit for veterans in the local veterans' hospital, paint your bedroom or a picture, sew a quilt, fix the car, make jewelry, bake. Use your creativity to brighten someone's day.
• Read. A lot. Magazines, newspapers, biographies, novels. Keep challenging your mind
  with information. Join a book club where you can discuss ideas.
• Walk ... in places that draw your heart to reflection and awe and fire your brain with the
  
  grandeur of the Creator God. Walk the beach, walk the woods, walk at the lake. Walk at Lackawanna State Park. The park has 80 miles of trails. My grandson and I have made it our goal to walk all of them together. We've been doing it for 3 years and marking our completed trails on the park map. This year, we'll keep walking. Look up on your trek to the beauty around you.
• Plan family events. Big ones, like Olympic games in the backyard, with the
  
  kids, grandkids, cousins, aunts, and uncles. Include  a campfire and a karaoke competition. Or a camping trip, a day at Knobel's, a raft trip on the Delaware. Do some creative planning so no one will forget that family time. Or small family times, like a movie, a board game, a special themed dinner. Make memories this year with the ones you love.
• Invest in the children of your family. Get down on your knees with those kids or grandkids and play Hot Wheels or baby dolls or pony ranch or whatever they want for an hour - without leaving the room or going for coffee. 
• Get to know God. If you haven't been to church in 50 years, go ... time's running out.
  
  If you have deep soul questions that have never been answered about God, let me know ... I can hook you up with someone who can help. If you've accepted Jesus as your Savior Redeemer, walk more deeply into relationship with Him. If you know Him, heaven is your final destination. Make getting to know God the ultimate goal of your year ... after all, this year may only contain 169 days.

And in everything, give thanks. Grateful living changes attitude and perspective.

Looking to make 2020 a year that matters ...

On Layton.