Conservatory a great place to take kids

We had a Lakeside event at the Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Thursday evening, and it was fun to see our summer friends. However, when we toured the building all decked out with wonderful Christmas themes in flowers, plants, model trains, topiary flamingos decked in neon, a gingerbread competition and glass bulb Christmas trees (there are at least 16 special displays), we were particularly impressed by the young people and families flooding in with babies, children and friends. Even when we left about 8 p.m. they were standing in line for tickets.

Lakeside is ready for Fall Festival

  Photo by Beth Sibbring

Historic site for United Methodists

Sunday at 3 p.m. I walked two blocks to a ceremony to unveil a plaque commemorating Lakeside as an official Historic Site of The United Methodist Church (UMC). The final approval came in June, and the plaque will be placed on the original Lakeside Chapel (now a museum). If you're on our Christmas card list, you've seen this building before. The first camp meeting was held September 11, 1872, and the first sermon preached with 20 tents on August 27, 1873. The first two buildings on the 30 acre site were Hotel Lakeside and the Lakeside Chapel built 1874-1875. But there's more to come in this designation. Now we have to become a Heritage Landmark of the UMC and that might take another few years because the meeting is in 2020. The honor will actually be for a cluster of seven buildings, and our archivist prepared a lot of research on the history of the buildings.

Speaking of Methodists, I've seen some mean, nasty battles on Facebook, even between family members. But nothing beats the Wesley family's political and religious battles of Susanna (mother of John and Charles) and Samuel Wesley back in the 18th century. Both Susanna and Samuel were offspring of dissenters, Christians who refused to conform to the Anglican Church, but they in turn dissented against their own parents and joined the Church of England. But the couple had political differences--he supported King William III and she liked James II. Their political differences were stronger than their shared lives and beliefs (they had 6 living children and 8 deceased) and Samuel eventually changed bedrooms and then moved out. With Queen Anne, they could reconcile and he moved back, but they continued to sleep separately. You know how old political differences divide us. But a fire in July 1702 burned 3/4 of their home and Samuel returned to the marriage bed. On June 17, 1703, little John Wesley was born, and 4 years later Charles Wesley (their 18th child). John and Charles went on to found the Methodist Church, and I've looked at a few web sites (I'm not a Methodist) and can't determine if Susanna ever supported them in this. Independent thinker to the end, she's nevertheless called the Mother of Methodism. (Story source: The One Year Christian History by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten, Tyndale, 2003, Sept. 3, pp. 494-495)

Signage battle in paradise

This summer rainbow colored signs have appeared in the tiny yards of some Lakeside cottages--I call them "virtue signaling" and they speak to "women's rights" (aka abortion), "science is real," (climate change), gender, race, illegal immigration without ever using those words. Since our owner's agreement says no signs, people have been asked to remove them (we don't even own our land--we lease it). Now I'm seeing signs about First Amendment free speech rights. Sorry. This is a private association, and First Amendment applies to the government not being able to shut you up, not an association you willingly joined. The Association also forbids smoking, alcohol, mean dogs, and parking on certain streets. That's what makes it such a nice place to live and safe for little children.

 

Winding down the 2018 season

Seventy days certainly goes by quickly.  We’re into Labor Day week-end and the place has come to life.  It was so quiet without children.  And I was in bed for 3 days with a cold this past week. Tonight is a Neil Diamond tribute program by Jay White, and then fireworks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1gMGZ5yexw

So this summer we’ve had Elvis, and John Denver, and Karen Carpenter and Neil Diamond tributes.

I love my new hair style (curly perm), even if Bob is less than enthusiastic.  Especially like that I can walk in the wind or rain, quite common here on the lake, run my fingers through it and I’m ready to go. I’ve had a lot of compliments, got one today a month after the fact, which are rare these days.

I’d been having some foot problems with all my walking and exercise, so I looked up the symptoms, thought back to my change in size about 6-9 months ago, and decided to drive to Sandusky and buy an 8.5, same style, and it seems to help. I’m also going barefoot in the house.  Not sure why I had changed to an 8—maybe the 8.5 wasn’t available plus the 8 felt fine when I wore it.  It’s hard to find the shoe style I like—don’t like the ones with mesh.

I went to a great talk on the change in the nutrition labels on Monday and am now noticing—Bob bought me some cans of chicken noodle soup so I could eat something, and there it was!  The rest of the week’s programming looked good too, but I was asleep in the guest room.  A friend said the foreign films were among the best she’d seen (part of a program).

Yesterday I did walk to the rummage sale, and got a great deal on a painting/print (not sure which until we take it apart) by our deceased artist friend James DeVore. Tomorrow everything will be half price, and I saw a small mirror I’d like to pick up to keep in the bathroom vanity so I’ll probably go back.  One year at the ½ price sale, I got an 8 place setting of white china for $5! I can’t buy paper for that. Plus it was lovely. 

Our daughter and son-in-law have been living in our home while theirs is being remodeled, and she sent me a photo of the mums she planted at our condo. There’s no color yet, but it should look terrific later in the fall.   The impatiens had been decimated in a storm.  Looks nice.  They’ll be moving out this week-end now that their house is finished.  Well, finished for now.  In October they are getting new floors, but they won’t have to move out for that.  I think he starts upstairs and works down.  I would love to have our marble tile floors replaced, but Bob says no, too expensive. They are cracked, and there’s no sheen left.

I have to figure out how to use up our leftovers. A neighbor is having something this evening—pizza and we’re invited.   Bob was doing the shopping when I was sick, so we had to find someone who could use the milk we didn’t’ need that he bought--a half gallon of 1% milk. I think Sunday there is a barbeque on the hotel lawn. Monday evening we’re invited to the Barrises for dinner. We’re not leaving until Tuesday morning, but have a lot to do on Monday.  We’re usually not here for the holiday, so I’m watching the schedule and the frig.

How to read the new nutrition label

This is the final week of programming at Lakeside, and the director of education uses our own Lakeside "experts" who present fine programming. Yesterday was Wendy Stuhldreher a retired professor of nutrition and public health explaining the new labeling for food (she used a one page FDA graphic issued Jan. 2018 which I've been unable to find). My take away was, "just eat your vegetables." She said it many times, especially at Q & A. Her point was that although vegetables may not be high in protein or calcium, they perform with other nutrients as an orchestra, and all play their part.

She also stressed that vegetarians must find compensatory nutrition because they don't eat red meat. The audience was definitely in the osteoporosis/bone loss age group, so she also stressed calcium, but added that it was an investment we needed to make when we were young because the body starts making withdrawals from the bank of our bones by middle age. For a cheese good for protein and calcium, she recommended cottage cheese.

My mother's generation started that 2% and 1% milk trend (she was 5'1" and always watched her weight), and now my generation is probably low on the calcium reserves that needed the fat content for our bones. I think I continued with the 1% and skim until a few years ago.  Don't give young children skim milk as a replacement for whole.

When I first decided to attend Wendy’s lecture, I thought I knew how to read a label, but there have been significant changes, and we found out why, like Vit. D is now listed, but Vit. A & C have been removed because deficiencies in those are rare. Sugar is sugar on the new label. Fat is fat, and "calories from fat" has been removed. Potassium need has been added. (You can't get enough by eating a banana, which most of the audience believed).

The public health concern about sun damage and advertising about sunscreen has been so successful, we now don't get enough Vit. D and today's children don't play outside as much as the boomers and Gen-Xers. She gave the new thinking on sodium/salt--because more of us are eating out, we're not eating as many vegetables--and it's not the sodium, it's the lack of vegetables.  One woman (very thin) in the audience commented about addiction to sugar, and Wendy said that has not been proven and commented on the difficulty of using control groups for nutrition studies.  But one she did recall concluded sugar was less harmful than other sweeteners.

I know how we all love to read those organic and health food websites, but when doing an initial search, I add USDA or FDA to check the research, aka bibliography/footnotes.

Why would we change the Ohio Constitution to improve drug sentencing and treatment?

The 2018 Ohio Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment, and Rehabilitation Amendment is a ballot initiative aiming to change Ohio’s constitution to achieve four goals:

(1) change drug possession felonies to misdemeanors,

(2) prohibit prison sentences for technical probation violations,

(3) expand the ability to earn up to 25% off a prison sentence through rehabilitative programming, and

(4) redirect funds saved from reduced incarceration to drug treatment and victims’ services.

Although it is easier to amend a state constitution than the federal, this definitely sounds like something that should be done by legislation and the court system, not by changing the constitution, especially the part that goes around prison sentencing, and part 3 about reducing the sentence with rehab programing. What an invitation for a cottage industry of poorly thought out programs, millions in grant money to be frittered away.

I attended the programming this summer at Lakeside (and read Quinones’ book, Dreamland: True Tale of America’s Opioid Epidemic) on the drug problems in Ohio. In the 70s and 80s we were active in a prison reform group and a teen rehabilitation program. I can see nothing in this proposed amendment that actually speaks to the problem of improper sentencing, nor which will reduce or redirect funding or reduce deaths.

https://ballotpedia.org/Amending_state_constitutions

http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/constitution-amend-with-care.aspx

https://www.lsc.ohio.gov/documents/reference/current/guidebook/chapter1.pdf

https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/08/23/proposed-ohio-constitutional-amendment-backed-by-facebook-founders-would-reform-sentencing-for-nonviolent-low-level-drug-offenders

I stepped on the scale today

It's adding up. Patio donuts—cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla are my favs; peanut butter on toast; cheese on crackers; honey on biscuits; fried potatoes, eggs and sausage for the breakfast special after Sunday services; the pie lady at the Farmer's Market; bowls of ice cream on the porch with friends; hosting a block party; going to the CIC club for brunch with John and Katie; invites to Arlene and Roger’s peach cobbler. Over my adult life I've lost about 130 pounds beginning in college, but usually 20 pounds here and there (1960, 1983, 1986, 1993, 2006, 2015). And the last time, 2015, it was 30 lbs.! and it's time to suck it up, pull it in, and stop having so much fun.

Looking for jewelry at sales

For years I've been looking for a black and white or just black necklace. I rarely wear jewelry. I discovered that coral, teal and off white are popular, but black went out a few years ago. So yesterday at the antique sale at Lakeside I browsed all the costume jewelry booths. I found one for $8.50 and one for $20, but didn't buy them. I went back in the afternoon after the rain thinking I'd buy the cheaper one, but of course it was gone. $20 was still available. So I moved on to the soggy (we'd had a real downpour) $1.00 box out on the lawn and found 2 for $1.00 each.

Porch stories at Lakeside 2018

There’s a 20 year old movement of communities and neighbors getting together to tell stories.  The book, The Moth, has become very popular and many communities are forming around the concept of the old time story telling as a social event.

“The storytelling phenomenon the Moth — with a Peabody Award-winning radio show on more than 450 stations around the world and a hugely popular podcast — is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. The Moth was founded in 1997 by the writer George Dawes Green — its name comes from his memories of growing up in St. Simons Island, Ga., where neighbors would gather late at night on a friend’s porch to tell stories and drink bourbon as moths flew in through the broken screens and circled the porch light. It has since grown into what its artistic director, Catherine Burns, calls “a modern storytelling movement” that has inspired “tens of thousands of shows worldwide in places as diverse as Tajikistan, Antarctica, and Birmingham, Ala.” “ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/books/review-the-moth-presents-all-these-wonders.html

Last summer, a Lakesider, M.A., decided Lakeside needed a way to capture some of the flavor of this national movement.  The first meeting of Porch Stories which was planned for one of the large gracious porches of our little community was rained out, so we met at the Lakeside Women’s Club—and had practically standing room only! I believe there were three last summer and four this summer. M.A. has her rules—pithy, no more than 15 minutes, created a significant change in your life or beliefs and no questions from the audience to interrupt the flow.

On Monday, August 20, my husband was one of the story tellers, speaking to 115 friends and neighbors at the Lakeside Women’s Club.  Several days later I’m still being stopped on the street with comments and questions. He told about his first year of going to Haiti on a short term mission trip and how that changed his life. The next night, all the story tellers from 2017 and 2018 met for a reception so all could get to know each other.  It was an amazing gathering, and we caught up on three stories we’d missed while we were in Columbus one week this summer and had an opportunity to discuss the “rest of the story.”

“We are still here” The French culture in Illinois and Missouri—Sunday’s program

Instead of meeting in Hoover Auditorium at 8:15, the Sunday evening program is at 6 p.m. in the Steele Memorial in Central Park along the lakefront.  This week the performer was Dennis Stroughmatt of Albion, Illinois et L’Esprit Creole with music and stories from an Illinois culture I’d never heard of—the French Midwest Creoles who lived in southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and southeastern Missouri.  Stroughmatt  has been researching and preserving the language and culture of these descendants of French speaking Canadians who emigrated to work in the mines for about 20 years.

https://france-amerique.com/en/fiddles-french-and-the-quest-to-save-a-forgotten-dialect/

https://france-amerique.com/en/la-resistance-des-dialectes-francais-aux-etats-unis/

“Illinois French stands halfway between Canadian French and Cajun French. You can hear influences from all the settlers who passed through the area — French from Brittany and Normandy, Irish, Germans, and Native Americans. “

The language is called Paw Paw, but today only 30-50 people speak the 300 years old language. Even 60+ years ago when I took Illinois history in school, I’d never heard of it. Similar dialects are spoken in northern Maine and in Louisiana.

Daddies and babies

I love seeing the daddies and grandpas pushing the baby strollers in the dawn's early light at Lakeside. Someone drew the short straw when the little one woke up. But yesterday about 7 a.m. as I nodded and spoke to the 30-something dad, I could smell the cigarette smoke on his clothing (he wasn't smoking--we're a smoke free community, even on the streets). I could still smell it a block away as I walked where they had just been. Think about the house and car! And the baby's lungs! And think about how that sweet baby learns to associate the smell of cigarettes with hugs, cuddles and daddy.

Joan and her sister Carol, blogging and Facebook friends,  were both school teachers before retirement, and have said, “When I taught school, I could tell which children had parents who smoke because the smell of smoke permeated the children’s clothes.”

So I decided to look it up—if I were concerned, surely someone has researched it.   And yes.  “ Children’s Hedonic Judgments of Cigarette Smoke Odor: Effects of Parental Smoking and Maternal Mood” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1783765/

“We hypothesized that children of smokers would like the cigarette odor and prefer it relative to a neutral odor more than children of nonsmokers. Moreover, we hypothesized that children’s preference for cigarette odor would be attenuated if their mothers experienced cigarettes in a negative emotional context. . . . The current findings suggest that early learning about the sensory aspects of smoking is anchored to children’s experiences at home and the emotional context in which their mothers smoke. However, it is not clear how variation in the timing and amount of exposure to cigarette smoke during childhood affects the formation and persistence of such olfactory associations. If these odor associations persist throughout childhood into adolescence, our data may suggest that children who experience cigarette smoke in the context of a relaxed mother may have more positive associations with smoking, whereas those who experience the odor with a mother who smokes to reduce tension may have more negative associations. Whether such associations (either positive or negative) affect children’s risk for smoking initiation is not known. The long-term effects of early hedonic judgments about cigarette odor are important areas for future research.”

Meeting friends at our age

I don’t know about you, but finding new friendships at our age is difficult. Everyone is set in their social groups or busy with grandchildren.   Except at Lakeside.  Tonight we enjoyed for dinner the peach cobbler Arlene sent back with Bob when he went over to chat with Roger, who’s been on the mend from various ailments.  We met them about 3 years ago when they bought their cottage after being long time Lakeside renters.  Ironically, we discovered that in the summer of 1967 we lived on the same block in Upper Arlington. 

Also today, Bob decided he’d just grab a few leaves out of the gutters (while I was napping and couldn’t stop him) so he asked Tom to help him drag the ladder out from under the house, so Tom did, and just ran up the ladder and cleaned the leaves out himself!  Last Sunday our neighbors John and Katy Martin invited us for brunch at the CIC club with other neighbors Richard and Rosemary who are here for 6 weeks as renters across the street. 

Then this morning as we sat down at a table for 4 at the Patio restaurant we invited Jim and Margie Norris of Olmsted Falls (or New Olmstead) who were waiting in line to share out table.  Normally, we would have never met them because they have 6 children and 12 grandchildren, but had come for the week-end to see Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits.  We had the best time, then ran into them again in the afternoon outside the coffee shop and down on the lakefront where they went to watch Bob helping with Kids’ Sail, a free program to help young children learn about sailing. It turned out they’d also stayed in the past at the Idlewyld B & B with our friends Dan and Joan Barris whom we’d met about 8 years ago.

Friday night we invited neighbors Ron and Mary Ann Janke over for ice cream and then went to the evening program, Mike Albert and the big E Band, an Elvis tribute program that’s been to Lakeside to perform over 12 times.  We’d met them about 3 years ago, and the guys are in the Guys’ Club, but Mary Ann and I sat together at a volunteer luncheon recently and got acquainted. Friday there was an open house for the cottage across the street which is for sale.  We ran into more neighbors and chatted for awhile (from NC).  Our neighbor Dorothy Crutchfield was widowed last year, so we had her over for dinner last night.  Although she and Cleo had purchased their cottage in 1974, she’d never been inside ours, although we’d often been at neighborhood events together and they were at out 50th 8 years ago.

Yes, it only lasts 10-11 weeks, but it’s casual and easy to sit on a porch or fall in step on the way to a program. In 2 weeks we’ll all say good-bye until the next summer.

Today's smoothie and yesterday's outing

Carrot juice
organic spinach
frozen bananas
frozen pineapple
fresh strawberries

Yesterday we went out for lunch at Bistro 163 which is a very nice "pay it forward" restaurant in Port Clinton, with Dan and Joan Barris who own the Idlewyld Bed and Breadfast in Lakeside.  Then we went to the adorable artistic/resale/ shop called Lilly and Gerts.  Joan and I had heard her give a talk at the Lakeside Women's Club recently. It's a terrific store, and we all bought something, even the guys.

Symphony season ends at Lakeside

It was the final performance of the symphony last night. Fabulous. It’s been so wonderful with all the guest conductors. But it made me think of Jordan Peterson's comments that the top 1% of the 1% doesn't just apply in the financial field (richest 85 people have as much as the bottom 3.5 billion). It's also at your work place, scientific papers,  it's in book publication, and popularity of composers. It's called Price's law, after Derek Price (sometimes known as the Matthew Principle, Matt 25:30) also called the Pareto principle.
"Just 4 classical composers (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky) wrote almost all the music played by modern orchestras. Bach, for his part, composed so prolifically that it would take decades of work merely to hand-copy his scores, yet only a small fraction of this prodigious output is commonly performed. The same thing applies to the output of the other 3 members of this group of hyper-dominant composers: only a small fraction of their work is still widely played. Thus, a small fraction of the music composed by a small fraction of all the classical composers who have ever composed makes up almost all the classical music that the world knows and loves." p. 8, 12 rules for life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0iL0ixoZYo  YouTube of Peterson explaining the Pareto Principle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QAY0qc0u-4

Today’s lecture on C.S. Lewis

Dr. Jerry Root of Wheaton College is the main speaker and preacher of the week at Lakeside August 12-16. He’s been studying C.S. Lewis since 1970 and is a delightful speaker filled with humorous stories and erudition.  In fact.  I really couldn’t take notes, I was so deep in his sentences—up to my knees at least.  But I did note that he mentioned Lewis enjoyed Boethius, and that Root had never heard of him until studying Lewis.  Boethius, said Root, was also an influence in every field of endeavor in the western world, we almost can’t move ahead without examining him.  So when I went home for lunch, I looked him up to see why everyone from Chaucer to Tolkien,  Aquinas to Shakespeare to Lewis read him. Here’s what I found at Ligonier ministries site. https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/boethius-philosopher-theologian/
“One of the least known but most significant Christian thinkers of antiquity was a sixth-century layman called Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius, or simply Boethius for short. The son of an old senatorial family, he lived between 480 and 524, being consul (a largely ceremonial political position) in 510, and then Master of the Offices at the Ostrogothic court in Ravenna in 522. [He was tried and executed for treason.] He was later canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Severinus.
Boethius’ contributions to Western civilization in general and theology in particular are wide-ranging and significant. Indeed, he adapted a number of Greek works into Latin, probably including Euclid’s Geometry; these works laid the ground work for the so-called quadrivium, or group of four academic disciplines (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). The quadrivium combined with the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic), to form the seven liberal arts . . . , the seven liberal arts became the foundation of Western higher education; thus, the work of Boethius was, in the long run, instrumental in profoundly shaping the whole concept of university education.”
“. . . Theologically, Boethius’ great contributions lie in his five Opuscula Sacra (Little Sacred Works) and his magnum opus, The Consolation of Philosophy. The former group of five little tracts, the Opuscula Sacra, covers issues relating to the doctrines of the Trinity, the nature of the Catholic Faith, and the Incarnation. The most significant of these are undoubtedly nos. 1–3, which deal with the Trinity. Given the fact that Boethius’ work on the Trinity was to be a standard textbook in the Middle Ages, and that writing a commentary upon it was to be a basic part of theological education, the importance of his work in this area cannot be overestimated.”
Carl Olson at Catholic Answers on C.S. Lewis and Boethius. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/true-happiness-and-the-consolation-of-philosophy
The influence on music and art. https://www.verdigrismusic.org/blog/boethius
Much of this lecture I heard this morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycWQMJxLPoM

Dogs and babies at Lakeside

I usually stop to admire dogs and babies when I'm on my walks. Today a man about 18" taller than me was rocking a cranky baby in a buggy. I stopped to peek and admire a little one who'd about outgrown the space.
Me: How old is he?
He: 10 weeks.
Me: Wow. He's big.
He: Weighed 8.5 lbs. at birth. But I was 9.
Me: I was 9.5.
He: Yeah, but I was a twin.

The morning exercise routine

Until this summer, I usually walked about two miles in the morning, always choosing a flat street to accommodate my bursitis pain and getting at least a mile along Lake Erie.  Then the Wellness Center opened in 2018.  Now I walk there (about 1 mile to get there), exercise on a cycle and a treadmill (about 4 miles), then walk home, about 1 mile, and pick up 2 or 3 miles during the day walking to various programs and activities.  Returning home through the woods has been especially nice.

 

 

From a drone photo

Camp meetings, August 6

Today is the birthday/anniversary of the organized camp meetings and revivals that turned America back to Christianity, August 6, 1801, called the Cane Ridge Revival in Bourbon County, Kentucky, ca. 20 miles west of Lexington.
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-45/revival-at-cane-ridge.html
Lakeside Chautauqua began as a Methodist camp meeting in August, 1873. "On Aug. 27, 1873, Reverend Henry O. Sheldon, the first presiding elder of the East Toledo Methodist Episcopal district, preached the first sermon of the Lakeside camp meeting from a basic preacher stand surrounded by twenty canvas tents". There will be a marker placed on September 2.
https://www.lakesideohio.com/calendar/event/12895

Out and about on the peninsula

Shopped at Walmart this morning. Noticed the hiring banner at the door. $11.50 starting wage. I've also noticed at various Walmarts that their employees resemble all God's people-- black, white, brown, tattoos, nose rings, obese, anorexic, burka, autistic, disabled, well spoken or not so much, and most are helpful and well informed in their department or will find help if they don't know. I’ve never understood why people want to ridicule.
I read at a trombone website that some people use WD40 for slide lubrication.  So I bought a small container.