Leaf Fall

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how much I loved all the seasons of the year, winter, summer, spring fall… I love them all. 

Well, today, in Southwest Ohio is a day that reinforced that love.  It is a clear blue sky, 72 degrees, the leaves are not quite as bright as they were a few weeks ago, only because now they are starting to fall.  The winds are steady at about 15-20 mph and what is so remarkable is the leaf fall we are having. 

You know…. snowfall, rainfall, leaf fall!  Every time the wind gusts, the leaves come pouring down from the trees.  I stand outside and watch the pour down and am filled with a delight similar to those days as a child on Christmas morning. 

I know I have to relish these moments right now, because tomorrow the temperatures will drop and the skies will be grey, and soon every day will be such for a couple of months.  I’ll find joy in those days to, when they get here….but for now, I stand in the yard with my arms outstretched catching the beauty  of the leaf fall.

Grateful

On October 18 I posted a blog about running into a dear old friend, whom I had not seen for 30+ years.  I was in a class and he had signed up for the same class. 

After that first day, he didn’t return and I was sad, because I really was looking forward to his suggestion of having lunch to catch up.  Today I received an email letting me know, that 3 days after I posted that blog, he had passed. 

It’s getting harder and harder, these days of receiving these messages.  I can no longer count them on just one hand…..and they are no longer surprises.  But, they get sadder and sadder. 

We all know the cycle of life and if we are fortunate enough to get one more hour in, much less one more day, one more week, or one more month, we are indeed fortunate.  It’s just not the same, making new friends now when we know we won’t have the opportunity to build the experiences, the memories, the connections with our new friends that we had with those 50+ years, 30+ years friends from so long ago. 

So, I am grateful for the time I have.  I am grateful for all my friends, regardless of when they came along.  I am grateful for the many fun experiences I’ve had in these 75 years.  I am so very grateful for that one last chance encounter I had with Bob.

I am just grateful…..thank you.

Ancient Names

Long before computers I was working on my family genealogy.  Being the history nut that I am, I was always curious about where the Hallsteds and the Poffs came from. 

Never got very far with the Poffs, that’s a whole other story, but over the years I have done very well uncovering the Hallsteds. They arrived in North American approximately 50 years after the Mayflower.  I currently have 2,632 related names in my database.  I’m always thrilled when I uncover a new ancestor, and that just happened recently.

Last week I did a tour of Memorial Hall in downtown Cincinnati. An events venue constructed in 1908 as a commemoration to Civil War veterans. On the second floor there was a very large plaque recognizing Revolutionary War veterans listing the names of a whole bunch of vets from that war who are buried in Hamilton County.

Guess what, I found an ancestor listed there. A John Halstead (1754-1841) who is buried in Miamitown, OH. Got the plot number and today I had the opportunity to visit the cemetery. Miamitown is on the far west side of Cincinnati so it was about an hour’s drive for me to find my way there. 

It isn’t a large cemetery, but unfortunately the section numbers and lot numbers were not identified.  I even had a photo of the headstone (thank you ‘Find A Grave’) but still did not find it. 

Per my database I did find him.  He is not a direct ancestor as he only had one child, a girl whose married name was Hopping.  And he goes back several generations, basically a great uncle several times removed.

What was really interesting, per the photo, it says on his headstone that he is a descendant of King Edward I of England (1239-1307).  I did a little research to see if I could find a link between the King and the Hallsteds, however, unfortunately, between two wives Edward  I had 17 children….I won’t live enough to track that down. 

So, for now, John sits as another name in my files.  But I will be checking him out further to see if I can get more info on him.  And I might go back again to the cemetery and give it another try.  Will see.

SOCIAL STUDIES

As most of you know, I’m a reader.  I spend a lot of time reading books.  Really, it is probably my favorite past time.

I recently completed the book, Killers of the Flower Moon.  Currently the book and the movie are getting rave reviews.  I was in a book store recently, saw the book, and purchased it.  I used to buy books all the time, but a few years ago gave it up for the library, much cheaper that way.  But when I saw this book, I grabbed it because the movie had just come out and I wanted to read the book before I saw the movie…. something I typically try to do.

Talk about being floored!!!  I had heard a little about the story, but not the deep details.  This is really an overwhelming story.  I did a little research and learned that David Grann, the author, had learned of this piece of American History and started digging deeper to get the details….and thus the book was born.  If you don’t know the story….it is based on the true story of what happened on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma in the 1920s.  Without going into deep detail, it is the story of multiple murders of Osage Indians for their oil rights.  It is heart wrenching in its details.  But that is not what got me sitting at the computer today.  What got me to the computer is what happened immediately after I left the movie theater.

As I was leaving the theater I was visiting with a young girl, probably 12-13 years old and her father.  She was very excited about the movie, she said she wanted to see it because they were studying the topic in her Social Studies class!!!!   Really???  What????  I thought such topics were off limits in our school systems these days. 

I didn’t get to spend any more than a couple of minutes with her, but I was so surprised and pleased by her comments, that her school was sharing some of the darkest moments of our country’s history gave me hope…. that maybe, just maybe the youth of our country have a fighting chance for a more positive tomorrow.

Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio will no doubt get Oscar nods and the movie should definitely get an Oscar, but that little girl…..she made the entire 3.5+ hours more than worth my day.

THE BLACK SHEEP

Every once in a while, I go on a mental rant, where I start thinking about something and I just can’t get it out of my head and I go on and on and on…in my head.

One topic in particular is a job I had a few years back.  I never actually had a career, just worked at office jobs with original titles of Secretary, then Admin. Assistant, and on down the line.  By my 40’s I was an Assistant to the Director, then Director of a multi-specialty group medical practice.  Along the way I had my own business and lots of in between contract jobs.  I can honestly say that each and every one of those positions was fine…no major issues, never fired, always gainfully employed and generally got along well with everyone…. except for one job.  This one job I always felt like I was the Black Sheep of the team.  I’ve wondered why all these years.  I finally figured it out.

I’m currently reading a book by Brene Brown titled Braving the Wilderness.  The subtitle to the book is “The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone.”  You have to read the book to get the full context, however, to give you a heads up, one chapter is titled “Speak Truth to Bullshit.  Be Civil” and therein lies the crux of my issue. 

You see, by the time I made it to this job I had held a director level position and was very used to operating rather independently.  This job was a low-level entry-level position.  It was immediately after I had closed down my business and I just needed to get kick started again.  But it became clear very quickly to me that something was off; and I think it was because I did speak the truth to bullshit, but was always very civil.  Let me give you some examples.

There was the time this manager in our department came to me to give me a project, she wanted me to research finance companies for low interest rates for she and her husband to use in purchasing a new home.  Keep in mind, this had absolutely nothing to do with my employers’ business.  I just looked at her and said, “XXX, I’m pretty sure this is not in my job description, nor is that what XYZ is paying me to do.“ She just walked away.

Another time she tried to strong arm me into purchasing her son’s school candy in a fund-raising event.  I might have done it, but it was the way she presented the purchase that was a major turn off for me and I told her, “No thank you, I have my own charities that I support.”

Another manager cornered me in his office one day and started yelling about an email I had sent him.  He laid into me saying I was yelling at him in the message.  Now the type face was not in all caps, it was just 14 pt instead of 11 pt.  I looked at him and very calmly said, “XXX, you will know if I am yelling at you by the words I choose to write, not by the size of the font.  I use that size because my eyesight it starting to dwindle and I can read it easily.”  Geeze, was he mad. (PS…the topic was totally neutral, nothing to fight about.)

Another manager threatened to write me up for insubordination, because I presented an alternate option (nicely) to a solution she was presenting. 

Another interesting situation was I figured out pretty quickly that there was a ‘mole’ in our department who went secretly to the Vice President of our department to report anything and everything that was going on.  I figured out who it was and tried to keep a low profile. 

I worked there about 13 years.  Once I figured out the dynamics of our department, I did manage to develop relationships with fellow employees who were not so shallow and insecure.  But I think a lot of people never could handle that I didn’t tolerate Bullshit.  I never did ‘fit in’ and while I was never rude, the Bullshitters did come to view me as ‘difficult’.

I doubt very much that I could have withstood the dynamics of this department if I had not been a manager in prior positions, but I had put up with a lot of Bullshit from a very early age. I started working for pay when I was 10 years old, and over the years in addition to my own experience, I had worked with some remarkable managers, who knew how to build teams of ‘true belonging’ (per Ms. Brown) which in turn did not create Bullshit to begin with.

Geeze am I glad I am retired!!!!