Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

July 15, 2006

Special Announcements:  A very happy birthday wish goes out to our member Wendy Cossette.  Wendy has been a friend of mine for several years.  We met in a group called the survivors. You can send her a card at: wcossett@tampabay.rr.com 

And now onto the good stuff

Today’s Queue Stories

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QUIET DREAMING PART 4

Pennies From… Well You Know

By David Wainland

            Has anybody noticed an almost total indifference to pennies? They lie on the ground in greater volume than ever before and we step around them, over them and sometimes on them.

If we stoop to pick one up someone is sure to say, “If its heads pick it up for good luck, otherwise it’s best to leave it where you found it.”

            When did this almost total indifference to change, pennies, nickels dimes, come upon us? Is it because they are worth less or because we feel we are valued higher?

            As a child walking to and from the places a child travels, I would scan the sidewalk, curbs and gutters for loose lost change. In The Bronx of the nineteen-forties, a penny meant a Double Bubble Gum, a strip of paper with sugared flavored pink and yellow dots attached, a miniature wax bottle of sweet liquid or a licorice whip.

             Two cents got you a pretzel stick or a glass of seltzer. For a nickel, a Hershey bar, a small Coke and in my neighborhood a sour pickle.

            Now a dime, that was a whole new world.  At Anthony’s it was a slice of pizza and under a Sabrett orange and blue umbrella, a warm water hot dog slathered in rich yellow mustard and covered with warm sauerkraut or spicy red onions.

            A quarter, now that was a work of art. It got you inside a movie theater where you could sit in air-conditioned splendor while being regaled by the likes of Buster Crab, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, plus ten cartoons, a newsreel and the latest chapters of Superman.

            My son, Jeremy, was particularly nonchalant when it came to change. As a young man and young adult, it was obvious that clinking money meant nothing. Everywhere he sat, slept, and drove it dribbled out of his pockets onto his bed, couch and car floor. So much so that it was a joke amongst his friends and family.

            This is but one of the small legacies he left behind.

            One day I visited his gravesite and it came to me that there was no change to be found.

            “He must be uncomfortable without it laying all about,” I thought.

            I took eighteen-cents out of my pocket and carefully inserted the money around the granite stone. Eighteen to a Jew is symbolic. The numbers mean life as in, “La-Chaim,” to life, a Jewish toast.

            We drove home, parked our car and I took Jaffa, my greyhound, for a walk. On the return trip I found eighteen cents in the middle of the street.

            Pennies do mean something.

Pick one up next time you see it.

Jeremy is saying hello.

David Wainland

David @ DavidWainland.com

About Me:

I am a professional artist and metal sculptor known as Sculptoons and I’m the creator of custom tabletop items. I paint as well as cartoon. My work is displayed at art festivals in Florida.

My passion is writing and I have completed two novels, Matecumbe Key ©, about the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane and Red Absinthe ©, a murder mystery set in 1926 New Orleans. When I am not working on my art I write stories, poetry and essays about life.

I’m married and the father of two. My son passed away in July of 2003 and left behind a beautiful daughter. Just one of my three grandchildren. My daughter and her family live in New Jersey

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 THE GUNGA DIN FACELIFT

By Ron Gold

Two nights ago I was seven years old again.  My time travel lasted a delightful and refreshing 2 hours and it also served as a painless, non-surgical facelift.

Watching George Steven’s Gunga Din for the umptenth time, I was also reliving a rite of passage.  The first three times I saw the movie were at the Palace Theatre in Stamford, Connecticut. The other dozen or so times were at various film festivals, the Million Dollar Movie and other telecasts.

The movie taught young boys how to be manly in the face of danger.

In Stamford, the most dangerous thing you could do was to try out for the High School football team.  But we were too young then. And, besides, my mother and her sisters forbade it.

The movie taught the value of male bonding.  Bobby Plotkin and Danny Feldman and I shared the kinship of the movie’s athletic Sergeants: Victor McLaglen (a former boxer),  Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (the perennial handsome film acrobat) and Cary Grant (who took his part rather than play another young lover.)

Where the movie stars dodged bullets on the screen, we only dodged large red dodge balls on the school playground.  And cars on the city streets.

And where our movie heroes faced a pit of nasty cobras, we were content to outrun leashed backyard puppies.

Gunga Din also taught us etiquette and medicine: how to spike party punchbowls and how to give a physic to an elephant—the former, a helpful trait in years to come; the latter, not practiced too often in New England.

We shielded our eyes (big boys never cry) when Gunga Din, the regimental water carrier/bugler died alerting the British forces to an impending ambush by East Indian outlaws.  And we learned snappy, snazzy salutes from that “better man”, Gunga Din  (played by Sam Jaffe in a diaper.  The first choice, Sabu, the elephant boy, was making a different movie at the time).

We learned to root for the regiment, even though there hasn’t been a new regiment in Connecticut since the Civil War.  (Unless you consider the National Guard a regiment.)

And we learned what Douglas Fairbanks learned about love: the love of one pretty girl (young Joan Fontaine) can’t compare to the camaraderie of carefree working-class sergeants.

Watching Gunga Din the other evening, I thought about some of the kids I first watched the movie with: Bobby and Danny both died young.  Peanuts and Dominick, (who used to jump off my roof) will always be in my heart.  (Peanuts still works in Stamford, Dominick died over France on D-Day.)  Sam “the fiddler” is now an attorney.  “Loudmouth” Tutti now wears a beard but still hangs out at the same candy store.  “Stinky” Sidney is now a well-respected cardiologist.

And there’s me, the writer, working in an isolated basement, ecstatically reliving times that can never come again -- yet realizing the magical splendor of the movies.

And the even more enchanting power of memory.  

Want to feel younger?  Rent Gunga Din.  Become the fourth Sergeant. Get your free, painless facelift.

And don’t be ashamed to cheer loudly and laugh.  Have fun.

Ron Gold

Outthinkresumes@aol.com

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Poetry Section

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FREEDOM

Joyce Lock
 

Freedom from Finance,
Freedom from Woe -
There is no Freedom
When you've no place to go.

Freedom from Worry,
Freedom from Care -
Freedom is Living
Because He answers Prayer.

© by Joyce C. Lock

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For Better or Worse

Joyce Lock
 

Silk stockings, pearls, and a band of gold -
Mice, lice, and a refrigerator of mold …

Diamonds, rubies, and wealth untold -
Peanut butter, crackers, and desserts to be polled …

Family, friends, apart of the fold -
Disaster, sickness, left out in the cold …

Houses and lands, a sight to behold -
For better or worse; God's hand still to hold.

© by Joyce C. Lock

~**~**~

Finding it All

Joyce Lock 

We search to win life's battles, to climb Mount Everest,
To give our best in all we do, and let God do all the rest.

We learn of power, strength, and might - searching for victory;
Determining to not give up the fight, as it maps our destiny.

We search to be more Christ-like, in all we say and do,
And to reach out to help others by using the Master's tools.

We find, to overcome Satan and the storms that rage within,
When sea monsters come to shore, we can always run to Him.

We search for happiness (of a lasting kind)
And know that, even through trials, pure joy we can always find.

We search for Heaven's treasures. We fight the roaring sea.
We search for Peace, Hope, and Love - and find it all in Thee.

© by Joyce C. Lock

At the Heart of War

ISBN 1846020085

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Few Greater Joys

 Joyce Lock

There's few greater joys
Than having a friend,
To nurture and cherish,
To love and to tend …

The joining of hearts,
Sharing God's love;
Becoming soul mates,
A gift from above.

© by Joyce C. Lock

Senior Writers

Chief writer: Sharon Bryant

                                     Chief researcher/historian: Hartson Dowd

Agee, Vance; Apted, Violet; Baker, Kathy; Batt, Al; Berry, Nell; Blaine, Pamela; Boda, Ginger; Booher, Paula; Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.; Cavalera, Robyn; Crider, Mark; Deming, Barb; Doherty, Maria;

Dowd, Hartson; Dowd, Helen; Gilbert, Robert, Jr.; Gold, Ron; Goodier, Steve; Braun-Haley, Ellie; Harris, Kathy Anne; Henry, Linda Ann; Hunt, Sharlett; Hymes, Christina; Jacobson, Gary; Kiser, Roger Dean; Kerens, Claudia; Kevin, Tim; Jenkins, Pamela; Liles, Norma; Lily Jodi Flesberg; Lock, Joyce; Marlor, Janice Bumbalough; Mazzella, Joe; Morris, Deepak; Ojeibge, Georgewaters; Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan; Shiveley, Debra; Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Streidel, Saskia; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam; Verhoeff, Jan; Walker, Bill; Walker, Joe; Warner, Gordon, K; Walsh, Sue; Weymouth, Barbara J.; Whirity, Kathy;

Wainland, David; Westerfer, Clara; White Robert;

Storytime Tapestry Staff

Carol Roach - Founder/publisher

Thelma Hartselle - Co-Founder, Moderator

Clara Westerfer – moderator

Bob Johnston - moderator