Pamela

Returning from “Our Lost Tohickon Valley”

8 Comments / Life

FULLCOVERCYMK300dpiSIZEJULY7A year of research, interviews, and retracing the woodland walks of my childhood have resulted in seeing my name, for the first time, on the cover of a book. For all the journalistic bylines I’ve had in my life, there is something entirely different about acquiring the title of “author”.

“Our Lost Tohickon Valley” is a look inside the lives, families, homes, and farms of Upper Bucks County during the mid-Twentieth Century. Those halcyon days after World War II when the country was booming and the middle-class was growing.

For nearly twenty years there was a place tucked away at the base of Haycock Mountain in Upper Bucks County where no one locked their doors, where children disappeared for hours unsupervised, and where people earned respect through hard work and honesty.

Then the government came calling with their right of Eminent Domain. The result was shattered lives, lost legacies, and historic structures that met a watery grave.

Today, at Nockamixon State Park, families picnic and sail on what was once a place that, like the mystical Brigadoon, exists now only in our minds. Blu Arial view

As the book tour rolls out, my co-author, Marjorie Goldthorp Fulp and I look forward to sharing the many stories we have collected in the course of writing about “Our Lost Tohickon Valley”.

And we know of what we write; Margie and I both lost our family homes to the park.  This book has given us the chance to reclaim our memories…one last time. My thanks to the Haycock Historical Society for the opportunity.

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Upon Reflection…Pretending to shoot the President is not a game

14 Comments / Absurdity, News, Politics

I’ve spent the past couple of days thinking about the incident in Roseto where the local church carnival made the national news for a game where people shot foam darts at a likeness of President Obama holding a “healthcare bill”.

It’s important in these times of real problems and real dangers to not overreact to things so I thought I’d “sleep on it” for a couple of nights before writing about it.

Seventy-two hours later, I feel exactly the same way as I did the first time I heard about it: What the hell were they thinking? The game company manufactures the thing in the first place, then the parish church in little Roseto no less actually allows the game to be displayed, and then hundreds of people use it shooting at the heart and head of the President before some woman from NJ blows the whistle. That’s a new low, no not the game; well yes, the game, but that we here in Pennsylvania had to have the error of our ways pointed out by someone from New Jersey.

And don’t give me that guff about First Amendment rights. This has nothing to do with what is legally allowed and a lot to do with what’s right in a civilized society. What kind of example are we setting for our children? No wonder bullying and violence are up in school .

More thoughts on this subject in my latest column for The Daily Caller….

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Justice Denied for Pan Am 103 Victims & Families

6 Comments / News, Politics

The world is full of injustice: Like the “Serenity Prayer”, most of us live each day trying to change what we can while not driving ourselves crazy over the things we can’t. It’s that “wisdom to know the difference” part that’s tricky.

But some things are so outrageous, so full of avarice and evil that you wonder how people who are subjected to them, survive.

That’s how I feel about what appears to be the blatant murderer-for-oil swap that has taken place between Great Britain, British Petroleum, and Libya. My thoughts in their entirety are available in my latest column on The Daily Caller.

It’s bad enough that mass murderer al Megrahi, the only person convicted for the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie Scotland, was released at all, but to now hear that the doctor whose report set al Megrahi free, was bought off, and to  know that Gadafi’s son admits Libya told the British the oil deal would be stalled without al Megrahi’s release, is beyond infuriating.

And as if the feeling of helplessness could be any worse, four senators are calling for a State Dept investigation. Yes, that will do a lot of good: Our leaders in Washington are so effective, I’m sure that BP will shake in terror at the thought of a U.S. investigation. That’s why our Gulf Coast is drowning in BP oil.

Al Megrahi is living in luxury in Libya and BP is about to start a billion dollar drilling operation off the North Africa coast, while the families of the Pan Am 103 victims have seen their loved ones memories trampled.

The amount of wisdom needed to handle that much injustice is more than I can imagine.

An excerpt from “The human pawns of Pan Am 103”:

In August of 2009, when al Megrahi was released by Scotland on humanitarian grounds, the story that it was a business arrangement to allow British Petroleum access to Libya’s oil fields, started to circulate among the Pan Am 103 inner circle on the secure website provided to them by the Scottish government. With the perception of a grieving mother, Jane Schultz wrote a personal letter to Scottish Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill, stating:

Make no mistake that in the coming days and years, Qaddafi will make a mockery of the Scottish compassion shown today. Libya’s oil and gas fields are the only winners in your decision.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/14/the-human-pawns-of-pan-am-103/#ixzz0tiKBrMwp

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Pennsylvania and the Second Amendment

1 Comment / News, Politics

The DC logo My second column for the news and information site, The Daily Caller, has been posted. “Greetings from the land of guns and religion” is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek look at the recent SCOTUS McDonald v. City of Chicago ruling of last week.

The court’s sweeping decision to uphold the right to keep and bear arms really took me by surprise. As we’ve been watching government slowly erode our freedoms and our privacy, my expectations have sunk so low that such a strong defense of the Bill of Rights came as a shock.

The lower courts will now have the very important job of protecting us from municipal and state laws that do not conform to the Supreme’s interpretation of the Second Amendment.

From the top to the bottom, this is the quintessential example of why making appointments to our courts is one of the most important and impactful of Presidential prerogatives.

Like many rulings lately, McDonald was a slim 5 – 4 victory. It will only take one more retirement before 2012 to tip the scales the other way.

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Saving Sakineh

5 Comments / News, Women

While the east coast of the United States enjoyed idyllic weather (before the heat wave set in) and celebrated one of our most festive national holidays, a woman has been languishing for almost six years in an Iranian prison. Charged and convicted of “adultery” with what appears to be no proof, Sakineh received 99 lashes as her punishment. A barbaric act that her children were forced to watch. She has remained in prison ever since.

Now, for some unknown, or at least publicly unstated reason, the case has been reopened, and Sakineh has been sentenced to death by stoning. An international effort is being mounted to bring pressure to bear on the Iranian government to commute the sentence.

 

Several weeks ago, before this case gained world-wide attention, I rented a movie which I had heard about through my Afghan friends. The movie, titled “The Stoning of Soraya M” was the true story of another Iranian woman who had met this horrible fate. The film left me with images that I still cannot remove from my mind, which is why I am so horrified at the prospect of Sakineh meeting the same fate.

It is difficult to believe that in the 21st century, this barbarism is still practiced. This is not about cultural sensitivity or respecting another religion; this is about inhumane and murderous acts.

If you are on Facebook, please go to the “Save Sakineh” page and sign the petition that will hopefully be presented to the Iranian government. It will only take a minute and it just might help save her life.

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The Woman Effect…from Kagan to Palin on The Daily Caller

3 Comments / Politics, Women

The DC logo For a writer it’s all about having a voice; most of us write because we want to engage in the collective dialog, especially those of us who write columns and commentary. Today, the people with whom I can have a conversation just increased exponentially: My first opinion piece has been published on The Daily Caller.

“The DC” as it’s known, was founded by Tucker Carlson, a 20-year veteran of print and broadcast media, and a partner who worked in the Bush White House. Its website states that “The Daily Caller is a 24-hour news site providing original reporting from an experienced team of professional reporters, thought-provoking commentary and breaking news”…along with a blog and various regular features.

My slightly tongue-in-cheek look at the current class of 2010 women in politics, “The woman effect…from Kagan to Palin”, is also meant to make a point: We’ve waited a long time and paid a lot of dues to get to where we are today.

There are good examples of how far we’ve come baby on both ends of the spectrum. Politics aside, it looks like we’re going to get a historic third woman on the Supreme Court. Personally, I wish Elena Kagan had more of a track record. The release of the papers and emails from her years with Clinton have shown her to be a very savvy “operative”. But let’s face it, we know she’s a liberal replacing another liberal, so hopefully, no harm, no foul.

Nikki Haley’s win last night in the face of one of the worse smear campaigns I’ve ever seen, was worth the wait. She has conducted herself with class and dignity. Maybe she’s a great actress, but in the face of no hard evidence of the infidelity charges against her, I choose to believe she’s who she says she is. I heard Haley speak this morning on Morning Joe…one of my favorite shows, and she was impressive. Very intelligent, thoughtful, and smooth. Let’s hope there’s a lot of substance behind that attractive exterior package.

As I said in The DC op-ed…

Here we are, almost four decades after the start of the modern women’s movement, finally having a political impact from coast to coast and across the political spectrum. What we’ve always wanted is coming to pass: Women of all political persuasions are duking it out in the public arena, taking on each other…and the boys. They’re paying their dues, spending their own fortunes, and setting their own agendas.

I love the smell of estrogen in the morning.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/06/23/the-woman-effect-from-kagan-to-palin/#ixzz0rhKGFkhN

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The Oil Spill: Good news for Elena Kagan

2 Comments / News, Politics, Women

Kagan Some eastern religions believe in the yin and yang of life: Every action or event has a positive and negative energy. By not letting the negative overwhelm you, and tapping in to the positive side, you can benefit from even the worse disaster.

Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, hasn’t needed to chant any mantras to benefit from the Gulf oil spill. The disaster knocked her right off the front pages and the 6:00 news. Even the release of the documents from the Clinton Library, reflecting her time in the While House, has barely received a mention. According to The Washington Post’s email blast wrap-up of the Sunday morning talk shows, “Sunday Roundup”, only CSPAN’s “Newsmakers” program had any discussion of the upcoming Kagan hearing which is scheduled to begin in one week. 

The Post reported that, “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he was unsure if Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan would serve as a consensus builder on the high court, but he said he would "like to see us go back to more consensus decisions." He said Kagan’s hearings, which are scheduled to begin June 28, "will last until we finish. I would hope they don’t last more than a week." He expects a vote on her nomination sometime in July.”

In political speak I think that means Kagan is going to get a pass and the hearings are a mere formality.

There is a case to be made for the fact that her appointment to the Court will not shift the balance; perhaps with so much else requiring our attention, from the Gulf to Afghanistan to the deterioration in Iraq, putting Elena Kagan through her paces is not a priority.

However I like to have a little bit of yin with my yang. At her age she could well sit on the Supreme Court for 30 years.

As much as I would like to see a historic third woman on the Supreme Court, I would also like for the person who is going to have that much influence over our future to have a known track record, a public airing of her record, and a very thorough Senate hearing.

Looks like the oil in the Gulf is covering up more than just birds, marshes and beaches.

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Birthday Wanderings…with a little help from my friends

4 Comments / Life

Today was my birthday; for the past week I have been enjoying the passing of another year. Combined with a concentration of friends, family and memories, it has all made me a bit nostalgic. With my Irish ancestry this state of mind should call for a bender, but since I don’t drink, at least to that degree, I’ll share my “sober” reflections instead.

The nice thing about having a blog is it’s kind of like talking to yourself only better. You can have complete conversations, discuss important issues, and never lose an argument unless someone who disagrees with you posts a comment. You also get to ramble on about whatever is on your mind like I’m doing now…

I’ve always loved birthdays: Mine and my friends’. It’s the only day all year that’s about you…no Santa Claus, Easter bunny, candy-filled hearts or parades. It’s a celebration of one’s life; what that life has meant and who it has touched.

Sangria at PacificoThat’s why the love and fun and thoughtfulness of my family and friends these past few days has meant so much. They made me feel special, and what human being doesn’t need that?

My dear friend Charlie Versaggi took me to a fabulous al fresco lunch at one of my favorite places, Pacifico. We ate a tub of guacamole and drank, (I judiciously sipped), the best white sangria I’ve ever tasted.

And in an act of great unselfishness, Charlie then accompanied me to the strawberry festival at my childhood church, Church paintingSt. Peter’s Tohickon Church, out in the boonies of Upper Bucks County. It’s a real  beauty; almost two centuries old, built of fieldstone with rare stained glass windows.    

It was a true homecoming filled with names that were familiar connected to faces that no longer were, and so many memories that they tripped over each other rushing past my lips.

As we sat under the maple trees eating ice cream and strawberries, listening to the soothing Jim Steager playsmusic of Jim Steager, the church’s pastor, Rev. Steven Hamilton, sat beside us to talk of the area’s history, he even showed a genuine interest in all the “I walked three miles to school in the snow” stories.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was seeing Elwood Clymer. Now 93, Elwood and his family used to own the local mill, a real mill beside a creek, that ground flour and grain, where I bought feed and hay for my horse. He and his daughter, Brenda Elwood Clymer & daughterChernikovich, were in charge of the shortcake so we only reminisced for a short time, but it was so good to see him again.

As we were leaving, I paid my respects to my parents and my daughter whose final resting place is in the cemetery there.

The next day, my friends Eileen Stewart and Nancy Tulli, celebrated our mutual June birthdays by taking in the Wine & Food Festival at the Sands which was a benefit for the Northampton Community College Foundation. It was the first year for the event but I hope it won’t be the last…it was fabulous !! Many of the area’s top restaurants were there as were wine purveyors from around the world. Everything was delicious and it was very well organized.

One of the best parts of having a summer birthday is the family picnic and joint birthday party with my grandson, Connor, who was born within two days of my birthday so that we always get to celebrate together. The weather was perfect, the air filled with stories and laughter, and the cake was delicious. My wonderful husband surprised me, really surprised me, with something I’ve been wanting for a long time: A top of the line hi-def flat screen television for the bedroom, where I “nest” when I need to decompress. It has a beautiful picture with gorgeous color and I can now get all the movie channels. I’m enjoying it so much.

Now the birthday cavalcade is coming to a close; the mantel is filled with cards, my Facebook page is filled with good wishes, and my heart is filled with gratitude for all the love and friendship that this birthday has brought me. I am truly blessed. 

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When You Wake Up In The Morning…

7 Comments / Life, News

pelican Even with a bad economy and a recession heading in to its second year, there’s a certain level of comfort and security most of us as Americans take for granted. But the truth is, when you wake up each morning you have no idea what fate or God or “Mother Nature” has in store for you.

Imagine what it must feel like to be one of those Americans who woke up six weeks ago with a beautiful spring day ahead and went to bed that night slowly sliding in to hell.

Watching the live video of tens of thousands of barrels of oil pouring in to the Gulf of Mexico every day makes me ill. I’m not kidding; I had to stop watching it. And now the horror show of suffocating wildlife, their eyes pleading for help, has started to appear everywhere. And I’m a thousand miles away. It’s not my life, livelihood, or culture that’s being destroyed. I don’t know how the people of the Gulf coast are hanging on to their sanity. I’m in awe of their courage.

The criminal negligence involved here is a subject for another time. For now it will suffice to say that for the fourth largest and highly profitable corporation in the world to have not had contingency plans for this magnitude of disaster is beyond anything for which money can compensate. I doubt anyone will go to jail, but they should.

As for our government; the lack of leadership has been appalling. The local Parish Presidents in Louisiana have shown more native ability to lead than anything that has been said or done in Washington.

And there’s the rest of us, those who don’t smell oil in our nostrils every day, who haven’t just lost our quality of life perhaps for a generation or more. We think it’s a shame, but it doesn’t really affect us. That’s until the ripples reach in to our food prices, until energy costs go up, until real estate prices dip….until the oil starts to wash up on east coast beaches.

If you’d like to help your southern neighbors and/or help the poor creatures who are drowning in oil, there are two good, vetted lists of options on the Fox News site and on CNN’s site. Please do what you can. It may be our turn next.

Blogger’s Note: If you want to get a perspective of what this would mean if it had happened to us. There’s a visualization tool on the web called “If It was my home”. Read it and weep.

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Weaving Silken Dreams…Here in Allentown

5 Comments / Life, Women

Anne Hills I’m in the process of writing my first column for the Morning Call in almost a year. The topic will be the stress our military is under due to so many multiple deployments and how the new Veteran’s Sanctuary, opening this fall in Allentown, is a much needed resource. The story will appear on Memorial Day.

As part of my research for the article, I attending a benefit concert held in the partially restored building that will house the Sanctuary. Standing in the auditorium of the former St. John’s Lutheran School on 5th St., the more than the one hundred people and I that were in the audience, were carried back in time not only by our surroundings, but by another local treasure, singer and songwriter Anne Hills.

What a wonderful voice singing so many beautiful songs that spoke to the human condition. There were of course many veterans in the audience, and when Anne sang, “Your new companion” about the loneliness of alcoholism, often an early symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you could have heard a pin drop.

And in a poke-in-the-eye to Billy Joel and his awful song about Allentown, Anne wrote a beautiful ode to all the workers who made the Queen City just that…the Queen of the silk mills. “Silken Dreams” tells the story of a retired weaver and her friend who came here as young women from Austria and spent their lives at their looms. “On a hot summer night, you could hear those looms; they never shut them down. Weaving and spinning the silken dreams of the workers in Anne Hills w-banjo Allentown”.  

It’s no wonder Tom Paxton, Anne Hills’ friend, fellow songwriter, and folk legend, said the following about her..

“Anne Hills is such an exquisite singer that it’s understandable that people might be swept up in the pure beauty of her voice and thereby overlook her writing. That would be a mistake. For me, Anne’s writing, in songs like ‘Follow That Road’ and many others, is as direct, melodic and deep as any work being done today. She is quite simply one of my absolute favorite songwriters.”
                    — Tom Paxton

Anne, who volunteered to entertain at the benefit, lives in Bethlehem with her husband and daughter. Her career takes her around the country, but she does occasionally appear locally. Her concert dates are listed on her website.

It was a very special afternoon filled with beautiful music and heartfelt sentiments…all for a very good cause. If you believe that our Veterans deserve your support, please consider donating to the Veteran’s Sanctuary.

Blogger’s Note: My thanks to Christopher Scappaticci for the generous use of his photographs. I tried to download Anne’s song, “Silken Dreams” to accompany this post, but being the techno wizard that I am, I couldn’t figure out how to do it. There’s a beautiful version on Rhapsody.

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