If you are not educated enough, you are not going to learn anything from me. I will write my opinions each month, but do not make the mistake of thinking that I will teach you anything. Teaching was never going to be one of my objectives. If you need more education and you know it, you are my kind of reader. One can never have enough education. Learning must continue ad infinitum. Unfortunately, this forum, "Wading Into the Stream", is not educational and will never seek to educate its readers. Those who came here for that will just have to try somewhere else. May I suggest Khan Academy.
My writing is expression of thoughts, opinions, ideas, and just-plain statements that occur to me, that I suppose you may have not verbalized for yourself. You may have come close to thinking the same thing yourself, but not quite. If you say to yourself, "I always thought that, but I've never seen it in print before," then I am on the right track. Many people have said I have a knack for stating the obvious. Wait a second. That is not a compliment, is it?
While studying English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, many years ago, I decided that pursuing teaching as a profession that English majors fell back upon when real jobs could not be found, was not a place I ever wanted to be. And I have not been able to land a full time job for seventeen months, now. Nevertheless, I'm sticking to my guns and will not pursue teaching unless faced with homelessness and starvation. Thanks for supporting me, Suzie. You are the real teacher.
_________________________________________________________________________________ March will bring my one thousandth blog view. Thank you to all of my readers. You guys are the best. But you didn't know you were exclusive. Most worthwhile bloggers celebrate their one millionth or ten millionth readers. Not me. Very few people have read this blog. I do not market this blog. I do not collect any revenue from it, at all. (And I have no income, at the moment.) Finally, I have only mentioned it to a few people. It is, more or less, a secret. No need to forward this to anyone. It is not funny, and definitely not educational.
So those of you who are reading this and those of you who have read more than one posting must really want to be here. I salute you!
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Woodchurch to Cincinnati in 579 Years
In the village of Woodchurch, in the county of Kent, in the country that called itself England was born a girl named Katherina to the wife of Richard Endingham. The year was 1435. She may be my 16th great grandmother.She married a man named Robert Clarke. One of their sons was named William Clarke. William married a woman named Benedicta Ashburnham. They had a son named Richard. The year adult Richard's wife had a daughter named after her mother was 1504. The place was called Wellbourne, in Lincolnshire.When Margaret Thomas Clarke grew up she married a man who was made a Knight of the Realm, Sir Richard Smith. Together, they produced thirteen children, the eldest of whom was born William, in 1518. His daughter Eleanor, grew up and married Alexander White. Sometime around 1546 or so, they had a daughter named Frances.They also had a daughter named Katherine, who would grow up to travel with her husband, John Carver across the English Channel to Holland. A couple of years later, they would take a small ship across the Atlantic with a group of religious dissenters to start a new life in a wild land near the James River in the New World. That trip would be interrupted by bad weather and that group of Protestant dissenters, later referred to as Pilgrims, landed and named Plymouth in 1620. Frances did not follow her sister. Instead she stayed behind in England and grew up to marry another Francis.Frances and Francis also followed her sister to Leiden, Holland, but at some point, they ended up going back to England. Their son, John, was born in Leiden in 1602. Sometime after 1620, John made his way across the Atlantic in the great Puritan migration, and ended up in Connecticut. He married a woman name Johanna Whitmore. Their daughter, as was the custom at the time, was also named Johanna.When little Johanna became a young woman, she married a man named John Burrows. To them was born another John Burrows in 1671 in Groton, New London. Young John married a woman with a name typical of the time and place, Patience. Patience later gave birth to Eunice.Eunice grew up to marry a man named Jonas Curtis. Jonas and Eunice lived for time in Stratford, Connecticut, where their daughter, Hannah, was born in 1739. Hannah grew up and married my fifth great grandfather, Henricus, known also as Henry. Henry Ellsworth saw action as volunteer for the Revolutionary militia. He had a famous lawyer for a cousin by the name of Oliver Ellsworth. Oliver would become the third Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a few years after helping to write part of the Constitution of the United States. Oliver was also a friend of George Washington.Much more ordinary Henry and Hanna raised a family containing one son named John. John became a man and married Mary Whitney, probably in New York state. They had two sons, one of whom fought for the Union in the American Civil War. His name was Freeman.Before going off to war, Freeman married young Scottish immigrant, Jane Smith. They had several children before Freeman's unit went to Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1863. This was where Freeman probably died of dysentery.Jane had to raise the younger children, the last of whom was a spunky but mildly deformed girl named, Marilla. Not one to let a little deformity deter her, Marilla met young Orlando Richmond, whose family was also from New York.They married and had three children. Their son, Harry was born in Ohio in 1875. He grew up in North Baltimore, Ohio. Harry met and married a young Pennsylvanian girl named Ninetta, who insisted on being called Nina. Nina rhymed with china. In North Baltimore, Nina gave birth to Gladys, Grace, and Harold. Gladys was born in 1903, the year those Dayton boys, the Wright brothers, flew a motorized vehicle in North Carolina. Early in the 1920's, Gladys, having gone to the teacher's college in Bowling Green, married a man who towered almost a foot over her five foot, one inch height.His name was Forest Borough. Being from Weston, Ohio, Forest and Gladys bought a house half way to North Baltimore, in the village of Deshler. Gladys and Forest had only one daughter. Her name was Roberta, but like her grandmother Nina, she insisted on being called by her nickname, Bobbie. Bobbie grew up to become a nurse and married my father in Cincinnati, in 1951. I was born in 1958, third of four children. Cincinnati was a long way from fifteenth century Woodchurch in Kent. By the records written and maintained by many other people, I found my way there in 2013.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
January One is an Excuse to Produce
How many hundred 750 Words writers are starting today's writing mentioning the date. Yes, it is the beginning of the year. Yes, it is the first of the month. And yes, it is a beginning. That is okay. Beginnings are a good place to start. Start your week, your month, your year of writing, today. Yes, start. That is what is important. Is writing necessary to you? Do you have things to say? Is expression vital to you? By all means, start writing!
Personally, I would like to invite everyone I know, who has any interest in writing, to use New Year's Day as an excuse to begin writing as a habit. It will take about thirty or more days for it to begin the habit of writing. There is a website called 750words.com. It is a convenient place to start that habit. Whether you want to write a journal, a novel, some poetry, an article, or maybe a wikipedia article, 750words.com is a good place to begin those pieces. You can store the writing, here. It will count your words for you. It gives you an automatic community of writers, where you can be a member.
You, who may never have been published. You, who may have never belonged to any writing group. Or, on the other hand, you, who have written three novels that you cannot get published. Or you, who write in your journal every day since you were ten years old, may need some encouragement. Or, as I implied above, you, who have something to say, can and should say it here.
Today, I write. Today, I tell myself, I will begin to write everyday, for a week, month, or, if I am disciplined, a year. Yes, I will write 750 words or more, every day that I can, for as many days in a row that I can. Yes, I will. I have that many thoughts and words inside me, that are bubbling to the surface, daily, for many days in a row. The row is not important. How many is not important. Those percolating thoughts put into words are what need to be put down for whoever might read them. It might only be you. It might be 500,000 reading it online.
New Year's Day is a fine day to start anything. Maybe I will take one or more photographs, everyday for the next year as well. I could be quite busy. Write 750 words, minimally, daily, and take a photo or more, daily, everyday, from now until January 1, 2015. It sounds very doable. Looking back over the last year, 365 days will go by in a flurry, and next year will be here in a couple of shakes of the head.
What will I have accomplished. If nobody notices, nobody reads what I've written, nobody sees my photos, did I do anything? Perhaps, but that would be the most negative and discouraging way of looking at it. Minimally, if I write and photograph daily, for hundreds of days, I will have much more experience in both. Anybody doing something like writing or taking photos daily, for any prolonged period, is going to get better at it, if only by doing it slightly faster. Any awareness of increasing quality while performing regularly, will produce increased quality.
I would invite anybody, who practices any skill, to begin to practice it with more regularity, today, January 1, 2014. Then continue on January 2nd, 3rd, and continue. If you have not shown yourself as much discipline as you know you need to accomplish your goals, start practicing today. Then do it again, tomorrow. Is it important to you to get better? Do a third day. Do you really want to get good. Do it a twelfth day. How expert do you want to be? Do it a thirtieth day. Go. Be you. Develop your skill. Make it yours.
That's it. I am not going to encourage you more. It really has to come from within you. If it does not, you may quit on day six. Ask yourself, how important is what you want. For someone to give it to you is just not as important as you conceiving of it, thinking about it, and making it come to pass. To not do it is failure.
These are really my words to myself. I write to myself. Write more. Write more frequently. Write more originally. Write more imaginatively. Write more tightly, more efficiently. Be more interesting. Be more compelling. Write like your life depends on it.
Personally, I would like to invite everyone I know, who has any interest in writing, to use New Year's Day as an excuse to begin writing as a habit. It will take about thirty or more days for it to begin the habit of writing. There is a website called 750words.com. It is a convenient place to start that habit. Whether you want to write a journal, a novel, some poetry, an article, or maybe a wikipedia article, 750words.com is a good place to begin those pieces. You can store the writing, here. It will count your words for you. It gives you an automatic community of writers, where you can be a member.
You, who may never have been published. You, who may have never belonged to any writing group. Or, on the other hand, you, who have written three novels that you cannot get published. Or you, who write in your journal every day since you were ten years old, may need some encouragement. Or, as I implied above, you, who have something to say, can and should say it here.
Today, I write. Today, I tell myself, I will begin to write everyday, for a week, month, or, if I am disciplined, a year. Yes, I will write 750 words or more, every day that I can, for as many days in a row that I can. Yes, I will. I have that many thoughts and words inside me, that are bubbling to the surface, daily, for many days in a row. The row is not important. How many is not important. Those percolating thoughts put into words are what need to be put down for whoever might read them. It might only be you. It might be 500,000 reading it online.
New Year's Day is a fine day to start anything. Maybe I will take one or more photographs, everyday for the next year as well. I could be quite busy. Write 750 words, minimally, daily, and take a photo or more, daily, everyday, from now until January 1, 2015. It sounds very doable. Looking back over the last year, 365 days will go by in a flurry, and next year will be here in a couple of shakes of the head.
What will I have accomplished. If nobody notices, nobody reads what I've written, nobody sees my photos, did I do anything? Perhaps, but that would be the most negative and discouraging way of looking at it. Minimally, if I write and photograph daily, for hundreds of days, I will have much more experience in both. Anybody doing something like writing or taking photos daily, for any prolonged period, is going to get better at it, if only by doing it slightly faster. Any awareness of increasing quality while performing regularly, will produce increased quality.
I would invite anybody, who practices any skill, to begin to practice it with more regularity, today, January 1, 2014. Then continue on January 2nd, 3rd, and continue. If you have not shown yourself as much discipline as you know you need to accomplish your goals, start practicing today. Then do it again, tomorrow. Is it important to you to get better? Do a third day. Do you really want to get good. Do it a twelfth day. How expert do you want to be? Do it a thirtieth day. Go. Be you. Develop your skill. Make it yours.
That's it. I am not going to encourage you more. It really has to come from within you. If it does not, you may quit on day six. Ask yourself, how important is what you want. For someone to give it to you is just not as important as you conceiving of it, thinking about it, and making it come to pass. To not do it is failure.
These are really my words to myself. I write to myself. Write more. Write more frequently. Write more originally. Write more imaginatively. Write more tightly, more efficiently. Be more interesting. Be more compelling. Write like your life depends on it.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
My Disclaimer
This posting is to acknowledge that I, Jim Fothergill, otherwise known as James F. Fothergill in official documents and on the WWW, am the only author of "Wading into the Stream". I am a real person, not a group of writers. I am also "wordsforfree". The views and opinions in this column are mine. I am the management. If I have quoted or used someone else's words, it was an oversight, and I was not paid for their re-printing. It is my hope that qualifies as fair use. If I did not credit those words to the originator, I apologize. It was unintentional.
My views come from my upbringing, my education, my supplementary reading, and what I hear from various sources including print, broadcast television, broadcast radio, all internet sources, and person conversations. My topics could include virtually anything. I create no limits. They are also my views of the moment I write them. They are subject to change at any time, including during the piece in which I originally stated them. That is to say, my thinking can evolve within a given piece. Actually, that is often the goal. I think it would be fair to say that my thoughts are amorphous until I actually write them down. They are frequently mistaken and I will reverse myself with no notice.
These columns have been free for the entertainment of my readers. I have written and will create other columns from which I intend to be remunerated, one way or another. These columns may not use my actual name (see above), but they may be built in such a way that I can get paid when they are viewed, and it is possible I may create a non-profit entity that readers may contribute to enable actions that they could financially encourage.
Today's posting is really for me and anybody interested in my writing and its intentions. Thank you for reading it, and thank you for reading any of my past postings on "Wading into the Stream". I greatly appreciate you time and interest. It is my hope that we can continue this writer/reader relationship well into the future, and that we both will benefit from it in unseen and unanticipated ways.
My views come from my upbringing, my education, my supplementary reading, and what I hear from various sources including print, broadcast television, broadcast radio, all internet sources, and person conversations. My topics could include virtually anything. I create no limits. They are also my views of the moment I write them. They are subject to change at any time, including during the piece in which I originally stated them. That is to say, my thinking can evolve within a given piece. Actually, that is often the goal. I think it would be fair to say that my thoughts are amorphous until I actually write them down. They are frequently mistaken and I will reverse myself with no notice.
These columns have been free for the entertainment of my readers. I have written and will create other columns from which I intend to be remunerated, one way or another. These columns may not use my actual name (see above), but they may be built in such a way that I can get paid when they are viewed, and it is possible I may create a non-profit entity that readers may contribute to enable actions that they could financially encourage.
Today's posting is really for me and anybody interested in my writing and its intentions. Thank you for reading it, and thank you for reading any of my past postings on "Wading into the Stream". I greatly appreciate you time and interest. It is my hope that we can continue this writer/reader relationship well into the future, and that we both will benefit from it in unseen and unanticipated ways.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Reconnecting with the Past or the People
This fall, I reconnected with a couple of friends that I have not spoken to in decades. In both cases, I have not had any contact with them for over thirty years in one case and thirty four years in the other. Yes, this does qualify me for "middle age" status, minimally. Some would just say I was old. To them I say, my eighty-seven year old father and ninety-five year old uncle are assuredly old. Okay, I am old to teenagers and probably, to twenty-somethings. Alas, I'm probably old to my thirty-two year old daughter. Old but not necessarily mature.
But reconnecting with my old friends is a time conundrum of its own. On one hand I would like to say to them that I've lived the heart of my life, the important and significant years. I'll just have to catch you up on all of my important moments in the last few decades and then we'll start over here now, in 2013. I'm still the same person I was at twenty, right?
On the other hand, a significant part of me feels like I am not the same person I was at twenty. That twenty year is within me, but another person has grown around him like a tree. To strain that metaphor a little further, I've grown more than thirty rings of new person around that twenty year old and it might be a little hard to access him now.
How do I explain this to my old friends? After all, we have all moved on, as the cliché says. There were reasons we both moved on. Part of me would say that real life got in the way and some of our friends got pushed aside. And there is some truth to that. Then there are those reasons that they have not connected with me in all that time. Those could be ordinary or those could be a little uncomfortable. But that twenty-year-old person in me is shouting from within, "I really liked that person and want to know them again."
Now the work begins. Now I have to communicate with them and get to know them all over again. Now I will hear the significant moments in their lives over the last few decades. Then we'll see how it goes from there.
But reconnecting with my old friends is a time conundrum of its own. On one hand I would like to say to them that I've lived the heart of my life, the important and significant years. I'll just have to catch you up on all of my important moments in the last few decades and then we'll start over here now, in 2013. I'm still the same person I was at twenty, right?
On the other hand, a significant part of me feels like I am not the same person I was at twenty. That twenty year is within me, but another person has grown around him like a tree. To strain that metaphor a little further, I've grown more than thirty rings of new person around that twenty year old and it might be a little hard to access him now.
How do I explain this to my old friends? After all, we have all moved on, as the cliché says. There were reasons we both moved on. Part of me would say that real life got in the way and some of our friends got pushed aside. And there is some truth to that. Then there are those reasons that they have not connected with me in all that time. Those could be ordinary or those could be a little uncomfortable. But that twenty-year-old person in me is shouting from within, "I really liked that person and want to know them again."
Now the work begins. Now I have to communicate with them and get to know them all over again. Now I will hear the significant moments in their lives over the last few decades. Then we'll see how it goes from there.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
The Anarchy of the Rule of Opinion and Belief
In a democratic republic, such as the United States of
America, the idea of democracy takes the form of representative
government. The people do not actually
rule. They do not directly create laws
in any form. Representatives are elected
to localities, and those representatives create the laws. Ideally, the people have agreed to follow
those laws as they conduct their business and their lives. This idea is known as the rule of law.
Generally and specifically, the people and their
representatives tacitly agree to not to break the laws their elected
representatives have democratically voted on and enacted. There is no suspension of these agreed upon
laws short of blatant disobedience. The result can be the beginning of societal
disorder, such as the partial shutdown of the government brought about by the
House of Representatives stubborn refusal to legislate. Remember, writing,
arguing for or against a bill, and then voting on it, is why, by law and by
oath, they are there.
It does not matter what representatives or constituents
believe. If an enacted piece of
legislation is personally disagreeable, then any representative is welcome to
write new legislation to reverse it, if he can convince enough of his fellow representatives
to go along with his new thinking.
Congressional rules preventing any part of this process obstruct the
governmental process. This is the main exercise of democracy we use in Federal
government.
If large political groups, religious, business, or just professional
lobby groups, assert opinions that are contrary to Presidentially endorsed laws;
that is their right. Written or spoken opinions
are protected by the First Amendment.
Nevertheless, politically aligned Congressional representatives cannot
prevent the enforcement and enactment of those laws under any circumstances. To allow governmental obstruction is to
disrupt the rule of law and risk the fracture of the foundation of American
society.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
So Much to Do
There is much to do in this world. There are people in need. Our lives can be made to work smoother. There is much to do in this country, state, city, and neighborhood. There are many people willing to do some of the work that needs to be done. But much of the work has no funding. In the case of large projects, like building bridges, fixing infrastructure, building housing for the homeless, there is not even funding for planning the projects. Some people then assume there is no need to plan and execute these projects. But this is not true. Many things need to be done to improve our society and help the unfortunate, even if the money to do them has not been publicly or privately earmarked. Our leaders cannot think of everything, and have not. As good as most of us have it, this is not "the best of all possible worlds." We have to help them.
It is my position that there are many worthwhile projects that should be planned and funded simply because there are people who are in need of worthwhile work and are unable to find it. There are people who lack experience and vocational training because there are too few ongoing projects where they might get it. To take this thought a step further, I would hazard a guess that the tax paying public, tax weary though they might be, would rather they get more for their tax dollars, let's say in the realm of unemployment payments and welfare, than nothing. What if they could put people to work for the good of the neighborhood, city, state, or nation? I think the tax payers would go for that.
This is my idea. Plan more projects. Plan to train more people in all types of work. Plan to spend some money. There is money. Don't tell me there is not. Money is imaginary anyway. I say, "Imagine the money. Imagine and plan the projects." Okay, I know it's not that simple, but more imagination is definitely needed. Imagine helping people to live better; all of us. Imagine putting people to work who want to work.
Nay sayers could say, "Government is too big, now. I want government to be smaller and more accountable." I disagree, but not out loud. Instead, my answer to them is, "Do it privately." That will not fly either. Nobody wants to spend their profits, dividends, or inheritance on something that will improve the society the live in. They would rather complain about the government, too many taxes, or ignore everything that needs to be done to make this a better world. This is not socialism or communism. This is the flawed, entropic world we live in, and a lot more needs to be done that will not necessarily make a profit. I have not even brought our children and grandchildren into the picture. But our society and our lives could be improved if we used our imaginations and took a chance or two.
If you agree, share this post with others that might also agree. Thank you for your time.
It is my position that there are many worthwhile projects that should be planned and funded simply because there are people who are in need of worthwhile work and are unable to find it. There are people who lack experience and vocational training because there are too few ongoing projects where they might get it. To take this thought a step further, I would hazard a guess that the tax paying public, tax weary though they might be, would rather they get more for their tax dollars, let's say in the realm of unemployment payments and welfare, than nothing. What if they could put people to work for the good of the neighborhood, city, state, or nation? I think the tax payers would go for that.
This is my idea. Plan more projects. Plan to train more people in all types of work. Plan to spend some money. There is money. Don't tell me there is not. Money is imaginary anyway. I say, "Imagine the money. Imagine and plan the projects." Okay, I know it's not that simple, but more imagination is definitely needed. Imagine helping people to live better; all of us. Imagine putting people to work who want to work.
Nay sayers could say, "Government is too big, now. I want government to be smaller and more accountable." I disagree, but not out loud. Instead, my answer to them is, "Do it privately." That will not fly either. Nobody wants to spend their profits, dividends, or inheritance on something that will improve the society the live in. They would rather complain about the government, too many taxes, or ignore everything that needs to be done to make this a better world. This is not socialism or communism. This is the flawed, entropic world we live in, and a lot more needs to be done that will not necessarily make a profit. I have not even brought our children and grandchildren into the picture. But our society and our lives could be improved if we used our imaginations and took a chance or two.
If you agree, share this post with others that might also agree. Thank you for your time.
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