Moving Forward

    Last Wednesday I was working on my first column of the New Year, full of the kind of hope and optimism that comes from being rested, when I got a call from Lindsay’s mayor, Ramona Padilla.  “Have you seen the paper?” she asked.  Her voice urgent, she read the headline of the story of the year.  “City searches for lost leadership,” she said, noting a photo of former city manager/police chief Rich Wilkinson sat right below it.

    

     To have the year’s news of Lindsay characterized in this way, after 12 months of struggle to make progress in teaching the albatross to fly – the albatross around Lindsay’s neck left by years of leadership still lost in Townsend’s pink cloud – was almost devastating to me, if not to her.  If you want to know what the insiders are thinking (and feeling,) just read one of Sheyenne Romero’s articles.  Her carefully reconstructed versions of Lindsay’s history match theirs to a T. 

     I could spend my 500 words deconstructing that version, or I can tell you in a couple of sentences why that “loss” is really good news.  Wilkinson was a bully, a different kind of bully than Townsend was – less savvy, more abrasive – but a bully nonetheless.  The keepers of the citadel put him there like a gun to replace a diplomat.  It cost us a lot, both financially and socially, to have him there and it cost us a lot to let him move on, but his departure was an improvement in community quality.  It brought hope for the future. 

    
     The “conflict” between the city council and staff that Ms. Romero reports with such dismay was actually a long-overdue and hard-won change:  the council actually began doing their job overseeing the staff on behalf of the public.  I see it as a tremendously healthy sign of democracy returning to this small town. “Returning” might be a hopelessly romantic word to use, since small towns are known for their propensity to serve only the handful of small fish whose self-esteem is magnified by the size of the pond.  But this romantic believes that at some tiny moment in Lindsay’s history, democracy did have a day.  And more important, this advocate for the four freedoms believes we can have it again. 

    It will take people working together to figure out how we make the democratic process accessible to people who’ve never seen it in action (English speakers included.)  It will take people who want that, which means replacing some of this city’s “leadership” that still remains with people who can see the beauty of inclusiveness.  It will take people who give more than lip service to the need for governmental transparency.  And it will take hope. 

     I take hope from Lindsay’s real story of 2015.  It was the story of the year, largely unreported by this or any other paper.  And I believe we can move forward to a more democratic society, with a more transparent and responsible government and an engaged citizenry becoming members of this place for the first time in their lives.  It is not too much to hope for.  Happy 2016. 

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes.  You can send her your signs of forward movement c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

peace unearth

Published December 23, 2015 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     I was a very young woman when I found this phrase, “peace unearth.”  I think it might have been in the book Notes to Myself, whose author I no longer remember though his impact on me was great.  I made last-minute Christmas cards with it, the words floating under turquoise decoupaged tissue paper, and even sent a few out.

     "Last minute” has come to characterize my Christmas preparations.  It’s not just that I’m lazy or tardy, though I am both of those.  I am also one of those who is aggrieved by the appearance of Christmas decorations in Target and Walmart the day after Halloween, the sound of Christmas music in the grocery stores before Thanksgiving.  These “jump the gun” people seem futuristic to me, and set my brakes screeching, sometimes against my will.  The sound inside my head is illness-making.


     Each year around this time I remember that I moved to small-town Lindsay in search of a more meaningful Christmas.  At that time my family seemed destined to cash in the year’s income in order to mound presents under the tree, and I needed to disconnect from that compulsion.  But more important was the need to grasp the true meaning of the Bethlehem story for my entire life, not just for the month of December.


     The streets of our small towns this past weekend were strikingly empty.  The merchants’ doors were open, but the customers filtered through in thin wisps.  I was out looking for a few treasures and found them, but the spirit of Christmas was vaporous.  My small-town antennae picked up warning bells.

 
     The pews in my church were almost as vacant.  We listened to a gaggle of beautiful children sing, heard Mary’s part of the Christmas story once again.  The organ piped out “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night” while we sang along, anticipating the birth just a few days away.  But the future of the church matches that of the small towns, both being eroded by the centralizing forces of the consumer empire.  Until people learn to tend these critical components of small town existence, our future is on the auction block.


     The Christmas cards are fewer this year, too, as more of us increase our reliance on sending e-wishes.  The shift from paper to light and electricity has its benefits, but leaves some of us wondering what will become of the word, spoken or written.
     “As healthy and active as ever, I became old in this, my 79^th year,” wrote my friend Jann Maguire by email, “perhaps because of living in the same house for half my life.  Everywhere I looked, I saw the past peeking through: open school campuses, now with high locked gates; houses, including my own, where the dear departed used to live; almost empty churches where I once worked and worshiped.”  Catching herself in easy melancholy, she got out her verbal shovel and started to dig.

     "I’m grateful for study with wise teachers in vast virtual classrooms and for community service promoting art, feeding my spirit,” she declared, unearthing some peace.  “I pray we keep our hearts open and light in spite of the daily news,” she added, digging a little deeper.  “I revere the babe in the manger, the carpenter who healed, the Cosmic Christ and the Mother and Father of All,” she ended, at rest.  “Amen” I say to that.    
    
     Another friend wrote his hope that I would enjoy this season walking around town like we did my first Christmas in Lindsay, enjoying the sights of lighted houses and yards, the fires stoked, the neighbors outside taking in the stars and the night air.  We’re still safe enough here to do that, by and large.  What a gift.    


     May you unearth some small-town peace this Christmas, courtesy of the Bethlehem story.

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Trudy Wischemann is a neophyte elf in Grinch clothing.  You can send her your peace digging stories c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

Dos Libros

Published December 16, 2015 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


Dear Readers,

            There’s something I want you to add to your Christmas lists: some new light from Sylvia Ross.

            Sylvia is a local treasure whose books I have reviewed before in this column.  She was featured by the Book Garden in Exeter Dec. 3^rd, where she signed copies of her two newest children’s books, Fables In An Old Style (Bentley Avenue Books, 2015.) 

            I wouldn’t know Sylvia if I hadn’t been blessed with a job at the Book Garden eight years ago.  We kept and ordered copies of her first two children’s books published by Berkeley’s Heyday Press, The Lion Singer and Blue Jay Girl, and she would come to the store when she needed one.  The realities of the publishing world at that time meant that we could order copies of her books cheaper than she, the author, could.

            In the interim, the small miracle of self-publishing occurred, unlocking the doors of print media and unleashing writers from the stranglehold of the publishing world.  In the case of Sylvia Ross, the result has been the betterment of our culture and our communities.

            Fables In An Old Style / Fabulas En Un Estilo Antiguo, Books One and Two, are billed as “Comparative Literature for Children.”  Ostensibly they are children’s stories, but I found them more an immersion in real life through stories about children, through children’s eyes, for adults.  It’s just who she is, this Sylvia Ross who lives up the road, around the bend in Lemon Cove with her wonderful husband Bob and children and grandchildren.  She doesn’t discriminate according to age cohort or gender, much less race or ethnicity.  She paints them – us – altogether, just like in real life, and reminds us of that reality in the process.

            There are two terribly delicious distinctions between Sylvia’s Fables and most children’s books you’ll find on bookstore shelves.  The first is that they are bilingual, written in English and Spanish (translated by Rosalinda Villareal Teller.)  As you open the books, you find that the story progresses page by page with English on the left and Spanish on the right.  For families hoping to maintain some semblance of both languages, these books offer evidence of the importance of that effort as well as a tool for assisting in it.  For those of us hoping to expand into one or the other of our two major language systems in this valley, it’s a breath of fresh air.  Hope.

            The other distinction is that they are meant to be colored in.  Once an illustrator for Disney, Sylvia has drawn lovely pictures reminiscent of coloring books interleaved in the stories, and suggests in the table of contents that we buy a set of colored pencils to accompany the gift of these books.  “Some books seek a little desecration,” she noted in Book Two.

            But it’s the stories themselves that are the gifts in these books.  We meet children both naughty and good-hearted, fathers with tempers and women who forget the importance of common things, good kings and bad neighbors, and even one dragon.  We learn the relation between good and bad, about growth of character, the development of morals, the loss of goodwill and blessing, and the critical role of love in the world.  Billed as “fables,” the stories are parables about real life, and reading them, whether aloud to a little one or silently, letting the storyline work its magic inside our heads and hearts, we are reminded what life is all about.

            I encourage you to meet the village gardeners, wizards, witches and woodworkers who Sylvia has gathered together for us to learn from, and take them home for Christmas.  You’ll see the holidays through sweeter eyes and watch otherwise invisible miracles occur if you do.

             Blessings as you go through these next short days.  Yours, Trudy

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Trudy Wischemann is an avid reader who would be dead without books.  You can send her your favorite fables c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

 

 

Bethlehem

Published Dec. 9, 2015 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     Slouching, walking, riding a donkey, we’re moving toward Bethlehem in these last weeks of lengthening nights.  We deck the halls with garlands of evergreens and strings of lights, maybe even a little mistletoe to celebrate that first Coming, the immense journey from Nazareth to the City of David, from peasant child to newborn King.  But we also do it to ward off the dark until we can see the days lengthening once again.

     Bethlehem.  All I have to do is hear the word or see that sacred place name to feel the roots of my belief, my faith.  It marks the time as well as the geography of that turning point from old testament to new, the moment when some of God’s children added the word “forgiveness” to their vocabulary.

     How far is Bethlehem from Damascus, I wonder, or from Jerusalem, for that matter?  From Beirut?  Cairo, Baghdad, Istanbul?  In the Bethlehem of our hearts and minds, it is much further than miles.  It is the place where “fear not” was spoken and heard by shepherds and wise men, a plain carpenter and his child bride.  Fear not, because a new way of living together has just been born in this stable, a new, upside-down order where the poor will not be hungry and the rich will slink off into oblivion if they don’t learn to share.  Where the kings of countries will not slaughter their own people, where little children will be suffered instead of die in suffering.

     Some of us are innocent bystanders in this long, wide story.  Others are soldiers in God’s army, at least in their own eyes.  Then there are the nurses and chaplains, the generals with their strategies and the presidents with their real job, to make peace where there is no peace, and none desired.  There are the arms makers, arms sellers, arms negotiators, arms detonators.  There are arms in the hands of innocents and sinners alike in this long, wide story, this historic sweep.  Back and forth we go, corner to corner, dust pans in hand, removing the debris until the next government bombing, the next terrorist attack.  Back and forth, over and over.  The sound of broomstraws is everywhere.

     Bethlehem.  I could not call myself a Christian if it weren’t for the Christmas story.  It entered my heart as a child, long before I would learn about the faith, decades before I discovered God, the Great Spirit, the Light.  Images of Mary astride the unshod donkey in the cold night, finding shelter with the animals instead of humans, the cattle lowing in approval and welcome – those images tell me who I am in ways the cross does not, at least not yet.  The cross is a harder lesson to learn.

     But now is the season of Bethlehem, and making that journey could be the best therapy of all.  When our cities and small towns appear to have been infiltrated by citizens of Damascus and Beirut set on keeping the old, cold war going into eternity, let us mentally follow Joseph and Mary into the unholy world of Herod and Caesar.  Then, following instructions, let us slip away with them unscathed, the infant safe in our arms.  Let us dig in with them for the long haul, keeping watch over our flocks and discerning God’s direction in the constellations, taking heart from the angels and preparing for the cross.

     Bethlehem:  you couldn’t have come at a better time.

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Trudy Wischemann is a neophyte shepherdess who writes.  You can send her your star and angel sightings c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Rescue Kittens

To be published in the Nov. 25, 2015 issue of the Foothills Sun-Gazette


     Weeks ago, when I first wrote about the well-drilling fundraising project to help save a priceless small farmer in Fresno County, Will Scott, Jr., I mentioned that I was bottle-feeding a kitten when I got the call. (Be sure to see 3 entries, below, about this important project!)  At the time, it seemed like a perfect coincidence:  there I was, doing something that makes my heart soft and tender when the heart-opportunity of a lifetime arrived, just in time to keep my mind from jumping off a bridge. 

     Over the weeks since then, it has seemed less of a coincidence.  There seems to be a high correlation between tending little Pipsqueak and his siblings from the late-harvest litter born in my backyard, and getting another call for the next step in rescuing Will.  I don’t pretend to understand it, but I think my observations are reliable. 

     One of the deep joys of shepherding kittens is to watch them play.  At this moment, on a sunny November morning, this little family of five is hard at work playing, learning everything from the art of sneak attacks to escape via the grapevine, guided by Yoda and Chipmunk, the two surviving kittens from the spring litter.  It’s like watching a soccer match or basketball game, they move that fast.  But there’s no winning or losing team.  My heart cheers as I see each one grow in competence. 

     I didn’t expect Yoda or Chipmunk to survive: their six siblings were taken early by a bad respiratory virus following a cold spring rain.  So I simply tried to make them comfortable, washing the pus from their eyes and mucus their noses twice a day and feeding them the best food I could afford, hoping my snuggling would comfort them, if not help boost their immune systems.  When I finally realized they weren’t dying, I took them to our beautiful vet Jamie Wilson, got them the shots they needed, got them neutered to slow down their straying, and now they’re healthy teenagers taking babysitting duty regularly. 

     What I truly learned this summer, however, was that they were helping me survive.  Every time a wave of despair threatened to sink my ship, I’d be drawn away from that mental state by their needs.  Did they have enough water?  Better go check.  Is there shade where they’re sleeping, or are they cooking in the sun?  I kept a syringe in a jar of electrolyte solution on the porch, and more than once pulled them back from the brink of dehydration and death.  But monitoring their condition kept me from sweltering in mine. 

     Then I began to notice other ways I was being rescued.  Re-united with an old friend whose late-life divorce is pending and who I thought needed my company daily via the telephone, I saw that we were helping each other anchor in reality and grow in acceptance of self as well as the world.  What appeared as deathly darkness at the beginning of this year has turned to health-restoring light.  Ending each day talking with Pam has made the beginning of the next one seem more plausible, even hopeful. 

     In our culture, our Thanksgiving traditions mostly focus on celebrating all the good things we’ve been given through the year, and truly, no one in this world is without blessing of some kind.  But not everyone can see that.  Sometimes the gifts come in badly-wrapped packages, looking like time bombs or terrorist attacks.  Sometimes they seem like a case of bad karma.  To most people, having litters of kittens born in your back yard seems like trouble or even outright irresponsibility, and having tried unsuccessfully to prevent it, I confess I wasn’t exactly overjoyed when these litters arrived. 

     But this thanksgiving I’m thanking God for this life-giving intimacy with kittens and old friends, for the revelation that in rescuing others we rescue ourselves.  May your blessings be easy to count and your turkey done to perfection. Thanks for listening to me all this year!

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Trudy Wischemann is a feline shepherdess and rural advocate who also writes to fend off despair.  You can send her your rescue recipes c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

 

 

 

           

 

Good News

     There is good news to report from Lindsay, my adopted home town – more, in fact, than has been making the pages of the newspapers.

 

      I have been thinking a lot about what makes for good news. The sun came up this morning. That’s good news in two ways.  It’s “good” because it’s beneficial: this thing we need even more than food and shelter, this thing we count on so desperately that we take it for granted, has happened yet one more day.  It’s also good because it’s true.  It doesn’t matter which day you read this, it is still true.  If it were false – if it hadn’t happened – you wouldn’t be reading this.

 

      So truth, as well as benefit, are criteria for good news.  I think “wholeness” is a third: a sense of being complete (as much as someone can know the whole story at any given time;) a sense of being thorough, examined from all sides.  Not just the sunny side; not just the dark side.  Both sides.  News from only one side of a story is a half-truth, which leaves much too much room for truth’s opposite.

 

      There was good news to report from the Oct. 27^th Lindsay City Council meeting, but all the papers missed it.  The forces behind the current city administration had taken advantage of the power of the so-called social media (which, with its lack of accountability, might better be called “anti-social,”) to spread the rumor that the city council wanted to shut down the McDermont Field House.  The rumor, of course, pinpointed the three councilmembers who have been charged with everything from dysfunctionality to conspiracy (not to mention the false charge and arrest for felony embezzlement of Councilman Mecum a year and a half ago,) which was not good news under any of my three criteria, above.  That’s what I mean by lack of accountability.  It was bad.

 

      How this bad news got converted into good news had a touch of gospel in it.  Our mayor, Ramona Padilla, with all her education, compassion and humanity, took that bull by the horns and said, essentially, “We are not going to be gored by this.”  She called it by its true name – a falsehood, a rumor intentionally spread to make real conversation impossible about the problem of making McDermont a financially responsible part of this city – and then asked each councilmember to say whether or not they had ever mentioned the possibility of closure.  Not one had.

 

       By taking control of that ill wind at the very beginning of the meeting, she turned what could have been just another public brawl into a real community conversation about the problems and opportunities of that facility.  It went on for almost an hour, which was not bad since it was at least five years overdue, if not ten.  She took full advantage of the collection of interested people who had gathered to protest, and turned them into willing participants in shaping our future, looking for ways to make that albatross fly. (Albatrosses can fly, you know – they don’t have to just hang around your neck.)

 

      Did you read that story anywhere?  I didn’t.

 

      And what a lost opportunity that was.  Here the real media could have carried some good news, something readers are always clamoring for.  Instead, they have chosen to characterize the current struggle to make better budgets, better rules, better public relations, better balances of power – they are characterizing this as dysfunctional, as “not able to agree on anything.”  It’s the same blindness that characterized past councils’ rubber stamp work as progressive.  It’s bad news.

 

      Bad enough to make me not want to read the newspaper.

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Trudy Wischemann is a born reader who writes for a life, not a living.  You can send her your observations of good news c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

We Drill for Will

Farmers Saving Farmers, Redeeming Us All


     Will Scott, Jr., Fresno organic grower of soul food, community farm activist and president of the African-American Farmers of California, is about to go out of business for lack of water.  (For an overview of his efforts, visit www.scottfamilyfarms.net.)  Featured in the Fresno Bee's "Faces of the Drought," Will was quoted as saying  "We're on the verge of losing a lot."  (See also this blog's entries "Drill for Will" and "Approaching Rain" in October.)


     Paul Buxman, Dinuba organic tree fruit grower, small farm organizer and Valley farmscape painter extraordinaire, heard the news and said "The community can't afford to lose this man."  So he's launched a fund drive to deepen Will's well to keep Will where the community needs him:  on his farm. (For two beautiful television reports on this project, visit http://abc30.com/news/drought-hasnt-dried-up-dinuba-farmers-generous-spirit/1010605 and http://abc30.com/news/generous-response-to-valley-farmers-well-fund/1020474/.)  See and hear also Alice Daniel's fantastic piece of radio journalism for KQED's "California Report" at http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/11/07/drill-for-will-get-this-farmer-some-water/. 

    
     For a $50 contribution (roughly equal to one foot of well deepened,) Paul is offering a 16x20 lithograph of either "Approaching Rain" or "After the Rain."  For a $75 contribution, a person can choose one of three 18x24 lithographs:  "Swedish Homestead," "Autumn Afternoon," and "Approach to Reedley."  The lithographs are signed and numbered, wrapped in acetate and backed with museum-quality board, ready for framing.  (For a large view of Paul's paintings, visit www.shinnphoto.com/Paul-Buxman; unfortunately, this blogsite isn't allowing me to insert photos today!)


               We  Can  Help ! ! !  Even us non-farmers ! ! !
    
     Any contribution will be gratefully accepted.  Make your check payable to Will Scott, Jr.  with "Drill for Will" or well fund written in the memo.  Send it to Paul Buxman, Sweet Home Ranch, 4399 Avenue 400, Dinuba CA 93618, and include your name, address and phone number to arrange for pick-up of the lithographs. 


     If you'd like to taste the Buxmans' fruit of their labors, literally, plan on attending their annual Art Show and Holiday Gift Sale, November 27 and 28, featuring Paul's original oil paintings (many new ones this year!), lithographs and art cards, plus farm-crafted foods and gifts from Sweet Home Ranch and neighboring farms.  Enjoy the beauty of the farm, the tastes of home, and visits with neighbors and friends.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes from her adopted home town of Lindsay.  You can send her your ideas to raise money and lower Will's well c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.