2206 The news of her death . . "

We were on a recipient e-mail list today giving the church, date and times for a funeral of a fellow artist. I was shocked. Didn't know she'd died. However, I knew a good friend of hers, so I called to express my sympathy. "Oh, she's not dead," she said, "I just talked to her a few minutes ago." So I told her about the e-mail. "Oh, she'll get a kick out of that." Or maybe not. There were at least 50 names on that list.

2205 Working out an exchange

Tonight my son called and asked if I'd like to trade my trombone for his keyboard for 3 months. I asked him why and didn't exactly get an answer. I suspect a little bird has told him that my joining the choir has put a request in the prayer job jar that I recover one or two more notes so I can sing. It's awfully hard to practice the music without a piano, and a trombone doesn't help at all.


Last night the director was enrolling his son in kindergarten, so the trumpet player subbed as the director. He's quite talented so I'm assuming that he is a music director somewhere, perhaps a school. He's a good director too. This church is absolutely loaded with talent, although not mine. We did back rubs on the right and then the left and karate chops to warm up, then extended our arms and made a large hole with our fingers and projected the sound into the hole.

Then we split up, the men to the choir loft with the sub and accompanyist to practice the tenor and bass parts, and the women in the choir room with the organist to work on the soprano and alto. I'm just filling space at this point, but it is fun to be singing and reading music again. After practice about 20 choir members headed for the Rusty Bucket to continue the fellowship, but I went home.

Note: if your church is using overhead screens for hymns, you are depriving some sweet old lady the pleasure of reading music. Hymns are more than words.

2204 The burden of student loans

Sandra Block authors an article in USAToday on the burden of college loans. It was so anecdotal, I almost despaired at trying to parse it for the holes, gaps and exaggerations. The charts were all over the place, covering 30 years here, 10 years there, adjusted for 2005 dollars, and squiggly lines criss-crossing, going nowhere in particular. I knew if I worked hard enough at figuring it out, it would all be Bush's fault, but I had hoped for something better.

Let's parse her first example: a pre-pharmacy student, now 19, who figures he will owe $150,000 by the time he gets his doctorate. Does anyone want to figure what he would owe if he borrowed living expenses for six years and didn't go to school and didn't work? Probably a lot more than $150,000 unless he lived at no higher than $25,000/year which would get him into the food pantry in Columbus for supplemental peanut butter and mac/cheese.

Then there is her next example, an education major, who will be $15,000 in debt with a B.S. For 5 years of education, that doesn't sound too bad--less than a car loan, and she'll only have to work 10 months of the year and will get a buy out with a $50,000 incentive when she is 50 years old if she works for Columbus City Schools.

The third is really my favorite. A social worker who graduated in 1997 with a master's and $22,000 in debt. Conservatively, that's for 5 or 6 years of education. Her debt is now $29,000 even after a consolidation. Hello! That's not your school loan! That's $7,000 interest on a loan (probably with late charges) because you didn't pay it back.

The fourth example of student debt is a woman minister who consolidated her $33,000 debt reducing it to $200/mo, but now has no money to buy a house or save for retirement. So she has a bachelor's and master's degree, and was willing to chose a field that is becoming heavily female and didn't even pay well even when dominated by men? Girlfriend (as Suze would say), did you walk into this with the clerical collar around your eyes and ears? Large successful churches don't hire female ministers; didn't anyone in divinity school mention that?

So who are the experts Block consults for this masterpiece of research? Amy at the National Center and American Daughter may need to help me out here, but I'm taking a wild guess that the non-profit experts she consulted for this article are left of center.

• Project on Student Debt (endorsed by Rock the Vote)
  
• Center for Economic and Policy Research (advocates for gov't programs for every level of endeavor, but it's never enough, and requires more funding for each failure)
  
• Public Interest Research Group (although I be suspicious of any acronym called PIRG, seems to be heavy into tree hugging issues)

The headline for the article is: "Students suffocate under tens of thousands in loans." So I went into one of those "Money was worth" such-and-so many years ago sites, and discovered that the $10,600 debt for a public college today (the average according to Block) would have been about $2,500 in 1975, or $1,725 in 1961 when I graduated.

So, ask your mother or grandmother if she felt "suffocated" by debt when she finished college. Yes, 1961 attitudes toward money were different. We didn't have cell phones, broad band, or cable TV to pay for. Eating out was for special occasions a few times a year. (Cut those 4 things out of your budget and see if you don't have enough to pay off a loan.) And most importantly, people got married before they decided to "save money" by living together. Marriage broadened their base of family support from two families instead of one.

I'm sure there's more to it, but debt is debt. You borrow it; you pay it back.

student loans
college expenses

2203 Thanks, but I'll pass

Although I enjoy learning about English, if I just happened to be in the Chicago area in early March, this would probably not be how I'd spend my time, Mr. Bierma.

"If you'll be in the Chicago area on March 3 and 4, consider attending the 32nd annual convention of the Illinois Teachers of ESOL and Bilingual Education, in Naperville. I will be giving the closing plenary address, "Strange Twists and Turns in the History of English." "

There's just too much to see and do in Chicago, my favorite city. Catch ya next time, though.

No kidding!

Must be a slow news day. I just watched a story on the local news about a man who was attacked by a goat. After he struggled with the goat, he got to his house, grabbed a gun and shot the goat. It wasn't even our local story (Florida maybe?), so this must be a nationwide media feed, some of the fallout from the Cheney shooting story. If insignificant hunting accidents can tie up the press for days, let's see what we can do with a nobody-type guy shooting a goat!

2201 The port story

Has the port security story finally bumped the Cheney non-story off the front pages? Even Rush has found something else to talk about, and his "mind-numbed robots" aren't falling in line, which means they weren't such robots, were they?

"If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward." - President Bush, on Tuesday.

"In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just 'no' but 'hell no!'" - Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., in a letter to Bush on Wednesday.

Lincoln's first assassination attempt

Tomorrow is the 145th anniversary of the first assassination attempt on President Lincoln. Most people don't know that it was an Ohio librarian who saved his life.

I blogged about Colonel Coggeshell and how he saved the President's life last year, so you can read it there.

2199 Unintended consequences will help fill nursing homes

The Wall Street Journal today has an article on the cost of a short or long term nursing home stay. The government is tightening the rules, and it will be harder to shift your medical costs to your neighbor by giving your assets to your children. Many people in my parents' generation were able to "impoverish" themselves to qualify for Medicaid, but now that is out of control in many states. We were very fortunate in that neither of my parents required nursing home care before they died. My in-laws both had relatively short stays, well under the average. My paternal grandparents, however, one of whom was blind and the other who had Alzheimer's, did need nursing home care. Actually, only Grandpa needed it, but my grandmother who could have lived with her children didn't want to be separated from her husband of nearly 70 years.

We've purchased long-term care insurance which costs about $3,000 a year. That's a lot of money (and the rates are rising), but think of the auto and home insurance you've paid for over the years and (hopefully) rarely had to use. Or, if you are a smoker, think of the Social Security you've paid for that you might not live long enough to ever collect! One year's premiums for two of us is the cost of half a month for one of us in a nursing home. Or a one week vacation in Florida in February.

One of the unintended consequences of better health care and miracle drugs and technology is that people are now living well into their 90s, although the actual years of frailty probably isn't that different than a century ago--we've just changed the time line. I'm arranging a retrospective quilt show at our church for a woman who died at 102, and was out walking and quilting just a few weeks before she died.

WSJ says 11% of 65 year old men and 28% of women will need 5 years of care of more. Men don't live as long as women, marry younger women the first time, and also they tend to remarry younger women when widowed or divorced who become their care givers (WSJ didn't say that, I do.) Nursing home care and costs are very much a critical women's issue. Good nursing care actually extends the life and huge amounts of money go into the final years.

What's going to be different for boomers and busters and gamers in 20, 30 or 40 years is that because of all the abortions since the 1970s and reduced family size, they'll have fewer or no off-spring to look after them so they can avoid the nursing home either by living with their children, or having a daughter look after them as they stay in their own homes. A strong family network is still the best guarantee of love, care and community in your final years. But for some, that net was cut years ago.

2198 In my church

This is why making lists doesn't work for me. Yesterday, I wrote down: clean office, or at least desk. I threw away a few newspapers and some gum wrappers (but I did make the rhubarb pie, which was also on the list and absolutely fabulous). So today, I made the mistake of opening a notebook that wasn't labeled, and found the printed out entries for 2004 from one of my other blogs. I've discovered it is much cheaper to spiral bind them than to put them into notebooks, and more space saving. Anyway, I sat down to read it. Huge, huge mistake. Now I have to repost some of the really good ones.

In my church. . .December 7, 2004, Church of the Acronym

"George W. Bush has freed those women [from the Taliban]. He has done more for women than any American president in history. He freed more people than Lincoln. Millions of women in Afghanistan can again have jobs, education and civil rights because of him. And the Left (who would all claim to be feminists) in this country and Europe won’t even mention it except to castigate him.

That said, what about gender in Christian circles, churches, and countries? It’s certainly not the reign of the Taliban, but there are men deathly afraid of women usurping their power. They push women to the background and keep them covered (some literally, like Anabaptists and conservative Catholics).

In my church, a daughter of the congregation who was lovingly and patiently (and at great expense) brought up through the Sunday School and Youth groups, cannot be ordained in her home church if she hears God‘s call to be a pastor, a church supported for maybe 20 years by her parents’ tithes.

In my church, no woman preaches from the pulpit (although for some odd reason she is allowed to read Scripture, sing hymns and pray in front of the males of the congregation).

In my church, no woman teaches an adult Sunday School class or a week-night class where men might be in the audience, unless she has a male co-teacher as her “covering.”

In my church, which has a huge staff (about 60), there are no women administrators, and most of the women on staff are part-timers in clerical positions.

In my church, the board president is almost always a man (I can recall 2 women presidents in the past 35 years, but there may have been one or two I don't remember).

In my church, the hands down, most successful programming is run by women for women, completely independent of the male pastoral hierarchy; they select their own material, manage their own expenses, schedule their own meetings and have an outreach far beyond our local church and denomination. Historically, this is true in most conservative Christian churches.

In my church, the largest and most successful Vacation Bible School in the city, and perhaps all of Ohio, is run primarily by women, with only modest pastoral oversight.

In my church, the exercise/aerobics program was developed well over a decade ago and staffed by women who sweated and shouted and stayed healthy for the Lord, 7-9 times a week in two locations. They enrolled many hundreds of women (and 2 or 3 men) from all over the community who in turn began attending and brought in their spouse and children to become members.

In my church, a very promising urban/suburban ministry has come about primarily through the efforts of one woman who was able to rally the pastors, staff, volunteers and congregation to see the possibilities in linking a suburban church to a city school.

In my church, the women are not stupid or submissive. They are lawyers, accountants, teachers, professors, homemakers, business owners, homeschoolers, computer programmers, entertainers, nannies, musicians, secretaries, retirees and janitors. We know what is going on, but accept it, because we don’t want a church without men. And that’s what happens to a congregation that tries to be gender inclusive in power--the men will leave or sit back and let the women run everything. Look around you. Name a large evangelical church with female pastoral or board leadership."

Comments are welcome. Particularly on the final sentence.

2197 The 4 things Meme

Joan at Daddy's Roses has tagged me with this one. You can stop by her place and read hers, or read mine, or read both!

4 jobs I've had
corn detasseller (in high school)
drug store clerk (high school and college)
librarian, Slavic studies (started here, University of Illinois)
librarian, veterinary medicine (finished here, Ohio State)

4 movies I can watch over and over (not that I would, but have seen these more than twice)
Overboard
Sleepless in Seattle
Gone with the Wind
Casablanca

4 places I've lived
Alameda, California
Mt. Morris, Illinois
Champaign-Urbana Illinois
Columbus, OH

4 TV shows I love
The Cosby Show
Family Ties
Frazier
Murphy Brown

4 places I've vacationed (I’d gladly return to)
SeattleWA/Vancouver Canada
Hawaii
Alaska
Germany/Austria

4 of my favorite dishes
Apple sour cream pie
My mother-in-law’s spaghetti, tossed salad with garlic bread
Tapioca made by my mom
Peanut butter kisses (cookies)

4 blogs I visit daily
Joan’s family--there’s a bunch of ‘em, sibs, mom and cuz
Neo-neocon and a lot of really smart ladies
Vox Lauri and a gaggle of other librarians
Belmont Club and a clutch of other well thought-out and meticulously researched political commentary blogs

4 places I'd rather be right now
Actually, I like it right here in central Ohio. I’ve got lots of things going on. Could have been in Florida, but we’re saving our pennies for a trip to Finland in the summer.

4 people I tag
Just jump in if you're are interested. It's a fun meme.

2196 Me and Him

My husband gave me a ring for Valentine's Day, but it needed to be smaller, so I took it back to the jewelry store this morning. The lady assisting me was very pleasant and helpful but had a problem with the computer (a new ring would need to be ordered). She called the manager (who had helped my husband with the purchase) up front to her computer, who looked at the record, and said to me, "So me and him picked the wrong one for you?" The salesperson then corrected her saying, "He and I." The manager glared at her and said, "You're doing it again."

I felt like I'd been caught in the cross fire. Yes, the manager's grammar was poor, but the other clerk violated a few rules of good manners, salesmanship, and getting along with the boss! I wonder if she'll still be there when I go back to pick it up?

Bullying

This morning I was reading a woman's account of bullying--it had happened to her throughout her grade school years in the late 1960s and 1970s. She says she was fat and grouped with the slow kids. Pretty painful reading. Even those of us who weren't bullied remember how awful the other kids could be--especially the girls. Sorry, but I didn't note the blog name, or I'd refer you to it. You hear a lot about it these days.

There's a pretty, plump girl about 10 or 11 who sits near me at the coffee shop. As her mother was picking up their order this morning I said to her, "I was reading an article about bullying in schools. Do you think that's a problem at your school?"

She thought for a moment. "No."

"Would the teachers stop it, do you think, or are there just really nice kids there?" I asked, although I wasn't sure she knew the meaning of the word I was using.

"Everyone's really nice at my school," she replied.

"What school do you attend?"

"Winterset" (Columbus Public Schools, northwest suburbs).

"I think my husband may have been an architect for that school."

"Cool," she said.

What's the story on bullying? Overblown by the media? It's always been a part of the pecking order of schools? Every kid thinks everyone else is more popular?

2194 George Clooney

I just heard him described as a slimmer, better looking Michael Moore. And I thought maybe he was taking on this new political persona because he was losing his looks!

2193 Colds, flu and the general crud

Because I've been participating in Thursday Thirteen and Monday Memories, I've been reading all about sick mommies, sick babies, missed work, and sleepless nights. I'm guessing in the last 2 days, I've read 20 blogs on that topic. So, I've got two things to say:

1. Throw away the toothbrush of anyone who's been sick in the family, including the blogging mommy, so you don't get reinfected.

2. Put your soap dishes in the dishwasher to clean them. They probably have more germs than your toilet.

Now, go take an aspirin and a nap and call me in the morning.

2192 Is scrapbooking too complicated for you?

Or maybe you just aren't crafty, or don't have the time to keep up on the latest paper colors and cute stickers. Try this--childhood in a jar--a great memento, and you probably already have one started.

Monday Memories: Did I ever tell you about MY HUSBAND'S LADY FRIENDS? In 1994 when my husband took a buy-out from the downtown Columbus architectural firm where he was an owner, he was also leaving the exercise class at the Y where he was an instructor. I suggested an aerobics class meeting at our suburban church just 2 miles from our home where he established his new office. He was a bit reluctant since it was an all female and much younger group, but he tried the two classes, strength and aerobics, taught by a variety of instructors who were formidable, powerful and funny. He was hooked. Control and discipline are needed both for sustained attendance in exercise class and for working at home. Although he is now in the process of retiring as a sole practitioner architect, his work day these past 12 years was always as disciplined as if he had to show up at a downtown office. He always dressed appropriately to be on the job, allowed himself one hour for lunch, and worked various lunch time gatherings or breakfast groups into his schedule so that he was not isolated from male friends and colleagues. The benefits of these exercise classes reached far beyond cardiovascular fitness. He overheard the young mothers talking about the need for teachers for Vacation Bible School and before he knew it, he had been signed up to teach first graders for two weeks. He loved teaching the children and has participated now for 12 years. He has made many new friends and has found he has a real gift for working with children. He now mentors young boys at an urban school. He is also enormously popular with the ladies because he is thoughtful, respectful and courtly (I‘m not jealous because I know what he looks like in exercise clothes). Their husbands or family may forget a special day, but not my husband. One year he hired an artist/caricaturist to come to the class to draw the instructors. The artist stayed after class to do caricatures of class members and their children. That year each woman got a balloon tied to a banana with a ribbon from him. Other years, each woman has received flowers on Valentine's day. A few years ago a woman told me she was a new widow when my husband gave her the only flowers she got for Valentine’s Day. He has had T-shirts screened that say, "I work out with [his name]--someone has to do it" which many of the women wear in class. His own shirts proclaim, "I work out with 50 women; my mom didn't raise any dummies." He remembers birthdays and gives the discouraged a hug or a funny card. A few special friends have even received T-shirts screened with one of his paintings. I'm sure there would be more men in the class (he's still the only one) if they only knew how much fun my husband has and how much the ladies love him. As I write this, he is at aerobics class filling in for an injured instructor. P.S. Just so you know: when I retired in 2000 I joined the class too. However, the exercise area (fellowship hall) is slab-on-grade, and not a forgiving surface for impact exercises, so after two years I left (and have gained 14 pounds). Links to other Monday Memories 1. Pet 2. Shelli, 3. Kimmy, 4. Courtney, 5. Kdubs, 6. Melanie, 7. Joan, who is writing about her mom and it happens to be Monday, 8. Rowan, 9. Jen, 10. Amy 11. Renee, 12. OceanLady (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it here) Click here for the Monday Memories code Click here for Shelli's blog Trackbacks, pings, and comment links are accepted and encouraged! View More Monday Memories Participants Post in the comments if you want to be on the MM blogroll!

2190 Girls Rule

While dropping off four shopping bags of magazines for the Friends of the Library book sale, I noticed "Literary Cavalcade," Vol. 55, no.5, published by Scholastic's Monthly, Feb. 2003. It is billed as a magazine of literature and writing. All the editors (associate, picture, production, media, copy, etc.) are females. But even so, I'm guessing if there were a cover "BOYS RULE" like the "GIRLS RULE" cover on this issue, they'd be out of a job. These ladies are victims of a time warp. They think girls still need to be encouraged at the expense of boys.

There have been significant academic and economic consequences (many unintended) from Title 9. The legislation was set up when college demographics were 43% female and 57% male. Now they are reversed, and in one state, Maine, college enrollment is 60% female. Aside from setting girls up for a lousy social life in college, it's going to make it tough for them to find educated male peers to marry. And marriage is the biggest predictor of how well off your children will be.

It doesn't bode well for our country either. Boys have traditionally been the largest pool for engineering and science, but that is shrinking. American businesses are turning to foreigners to fill technical jobs, because even as our young men avoid the tougher cognitive fields, women aren't choosing them either.

So wouldn't you think it is time to stop propping up the girls with fluff and nonsense like "girls rule" covers on Scholastic Magazine and holding back the boys with touchy-feely gibberish and Ritalin--you know, for the good of the country and your future grandchildren?

Mothers of sons, it may be time to storm the principal's office and demand equal time and effort for the boys.

2189 Why do you blog?

On my first visit to a blog site, I usually look for some biographical and blogographical information. Some people are very specific with their reasons, others just sort of fall into it and like it. Here's the reason from a craft blogger who has really adorable things on her site, at least I almost got up and started looking for a needle and thread:

"My blog is the one thing in my life that is within my control. It is mine to do with as I please. If I arrange it just so, no one is going to come behind and dismantle it, or perch a Lego tower on top, or doodle in the margins. In a life that often feels governed by the whims of others, little birds is my whimsy. If all my corners look pretty to you, it's because those are the corners I chose to show. Would you like to see the stack of drywall that has been leaning against the wall for a year? The holes in the floor that I duct-taped closed? The exposed lath and plaster? The cobwebby wires hanging down from the ceiling? The half-painted trim? The shower mildew that won't go away? The drawers overflowing with the clutter I tried to hide away? I see those things every time I walk into my house. This blog challenges me to see the things that are not so obvious - our little efforts at beauty - the collections and assemblages that make it a home. I do not mean to misrepresent things; I do mean to notice things, the things that often go unnoticed in the chaos of our lives."

And a few days later she announced she's giving up blogging. The clutter must have gotten to her.

2188 Housing reruns

In the late 1960s, my brother bought the two bedroom house my parents purchased (their second, I think) in the 1940s. It's the first home I remember--where I kept falling down the stairs, where I sat on the front porch waiting for the mailman, where I made tents out of blankets and the dining room furniture. After her parents died in the 1960s my mother converted their farm home into a retreat center for small church groups and family reunions. My children have many happy memories of the big house and yard and vistas of cornfields and soybeans because we vacationed there during their growing up years. After my mother died in 2000, my father bought the small Lustron that his parents had built in 1950, and so we were all able enjoy that home a second time too. I almost expected to see grandma, who died in 1983, walking around the corner when I visited him. I never actually lived in the little 1950s home my parents lived in the longest (38 years), and when they sold it before moving to a retirement complex, they turned it over to my cousin's son. My grandparents' farm home near Franklin Grove that Mom remodeled in the 1960s is now owned by my brother, and his son lives there. But a bachelor's tastes are very different, and he likes bare floors and rustic antiques. When I visited there last fall, I really missed Mom because all traces of her are gone.

2187 Speaking of athletics

which I rarely do, but I'm about to retire this notebook for a fresh one and need to clean out unblogged stories, Ohio State University is number one in revenue from sports teams. OSU got $89.7 million from ticket sales, royalties, advertising, broadcast agreements and other cources in 2004-05 (Columbus Dispatch, Jan. 4, 2006, version from USAToday). OSU also has the most athletes and teams in Division I NCAA--900 in 36 sports. The program receives NO money from the government or university and it paid $12 million to the university to cover athletes tuition and other expenses.

The Jerome Schottenstein Center revenue, $18 million, is not included in the nearly $90 million. $51.8 is from football. The women's basketball program is a money loser for OSU, in fact, I'm assuming the men's sports are carrying all the women's programs, but I didn't make a specific note.