Biscuit City

A video from ABC News of Richard Blanco reading “One Today” at the ceremony this past Monday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mDrk8AC4G4

Bob and Dick were excited about the big catfish their friend Steve caught using only his hands, but sorry that it  swallowed him in the process.

Now, to a boy from Georgia, cat fishing used to mean going out to the river where the big ones lie in wait with your pole and can of worms and trying to catch one of those big whiskered fish to take home to fry up and eat. Not that I actually ever did this. My fishing expeditions were few and far between, and when I did manage to catch something, it was usually a perch or bluegill. There was more to eat off a jumbo shrimp.

I’ve also seen shows about guys with some skill and less sense who catch catfish by hand. This process is called noodling, and it involves sticking one’s arm and hand into an underwater hole where the catfish hangs out. When the fist tried to escape, it usually clamps onto the noodler’s hand, who quickly grabs the cat by a gill and hauls it out of the water. That is, if a snapping turtle or poisonous snake is not living in the hole formerly occupied by the catfish. Other outcomes follow from this scenario, including but not limited to the loss of fingers and death. I think I had an uncle who noodled for catfish, though I’m not sure. We called him “Seven-Finger Bob” after he disturbed a snapping turtle. (I made that up because deception is related to the theme of this post. Trust me.)

But I’m not here to talk about that kind of cat fishing. I found out just the other day about another kind which involves the mighty river of the internet. And deception. Lots of deception. According to the online Urban Dictionary ( http://www.urbandictionary.com), a “catfish” is “someone who pretends to be someone they’re not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances.” “To catfish” is to fool someone using the internet by creating a false identity.

All this came up after the revelation that Notre Dame football player Manti T’eo was hoodwinked into thinking that a non-existent young woman was his girlfriend. It’s more complicated than it sounds (for more of the story, go to http://abcnews.go.com/US/notre-dame-football-star-manti-teo-dead-girlfriend/story?id=18232374 ), so it’s about more than a delusional young man creating an ideal relationship. Officials at Notre Dame believe he was the victim of a cruel hoax, and I suppose there are some things to be learned from this.

One is that online relationships are not real relationships. I’ve had the experience of “getting to know” people in our local writers’ group on Facebook, but I’ve always wanted to meet them in person, although months might elapse before we do so. A second learning is, not everything on the internet is true. (Notice the number of times I steered readers to the web in this post. Uh, yeah, I did.) We still have to check out what appears to be true. When I was teaching, we told students to not believe everything they read. That advice still holds true, perhaps even more today. And, third, the human heart, while capable of much that is good–love, respect, caring, sacrifice–also may be a place of darkness.

Be careful out there. Every fish swimming in the sea ain’t necessarily a cat fish.

Last Saturday was the National Day of Service (more information at http://www.2013pic.org/service). I know Biscuit City readers are involved in all kinds of service year ’round, and I salute you for that. I’d like to suggest one way local folks in the Manassas/Prince William area can be of service to some of our older residents. These people by and large don’t “do computers,” and with the recent loss of the News and Messenger print edition, I’ve heard a number of them say they have no way of keeping up with recent news, including deaths and obituaries. (Prince William Today comes out once a week)

So, my suggestion for service is this: if you know someone who can’t or doesn’t go online for news, give them a call or, even better, a visit, and take a few minutes to catch them up on the local news, not just the recent deaths. I know they will appreciate it and I believe you will enjoy making a difference in their day.

Here’s the website for local news coverage: http://www.insidenova.com/

Correspondence with My Brother

Amy is in the dining room
Writing a letter to a friend
Dark hair falling around the paper.
She does not move
Except for her hand
While I range between
Refrigerator and stove and table
In the kitchen
Preparing dinner.

She is composing her life.

I am glad, Ron, that I have you to write to
Since we don’t see each other enough
And don’t have much of a chance to talk.
Our lives are so busy and
Without someone to write to
I am not myself.
To be myself
I thought I needed to read
But this summer I read nothing
And it made no difference
But I do need to write
And I need to write to you.

Amy is in the dining room
Writing to her friend.

I am in the kitchen
Washing potatoes and
Writing this in my head
To you.

We are composing our lives.

–Dan Verner

We have always had at least one cat in the house since we set up housekeeping nearly 40 years ago, and most of the time, two felines. Yep, we’re cat people, and most of that time we have taken our critters to Prince William Animal Hospital on Nokesville Road south of Manassas. The care for our pets has been outstanding. The love of the whole staff for animals is evident, and they have gotten us through injuries, infections, diabetes, and the death of at least a couple of our charges.

So, here’s to you, Drs. Brown, Verloop, Nostrand, and Scher (and Medici, who is no longer with the practice), vet techs Xander, Philip, and others whose names I don’t know; receptionists Carleigh, Rachel and  Tonya (and others again whose names I don’t know). All of you are top notch in our book!

Gliding

Looking for a new Christmas tree
After Christmas
I saw a plumber at Home Depot
Returning a shopping cart from his truck
Gliding
In an easy fluid motion
Across the parking lot
As he returned the cart.

And I thought, how very like

A Shakespearean actor “taking the stage”
A ballerina moving into place under the lights
A NFL wide receiver gliding into the end zone

And I thought,

They were all

Gliding.

And, my heart lightened
By an unexpected moment of grace,
As I walked to my car,
I felt as if I too were

Gliding.

–Dan Verner

Our recycling bin looks like this except for the aqua top. Many of the bins I found pictures of were blue. What’s with that? I’ve never seen a blue recycling bin. And it wouldn’t go with our house, which is sort of cream-colored.

For just a couple of people, Becky and I generate a lot of paper at home. I suppose that’s to be somewhat expected since I do a lot of writing and she is involved with a lot of music. Both of these in some guise require paper. (Or at least they do now.)  I do write on a word processor, and Biscuit City is produced online (news flash), but I print out drafts for revision. I can see errors and problems on a hard copy more readily than on a screen. It’s a holdover from the days when I hand wrote everything, or typed it.  As for music, we have the music for the Manassas Chorale (which Becky directs) shipped to our house, so we have a lot of boxes. We also order a fair amount online, which means more boxes. Then there’s the regular mail, fully half of which is, uh, direct marketing.

We have a recycling bin, which holds about two bushels of stuff. It used to live in the kitchen, but has gotten torn up thorough heavy use. It now lives on the porch and we have a nice recycling bag. I empty both bin and bag into the 55-gallon wheeled recycling bin that the City of Manassas provides, and we more than fill it up each week before it’s picked up with the trash on Thursdays. And this is from two people.

A “paperless office” was predicted as early as 1975. Instead of paper output lessening, it has increased siunce then because of the ease of producing documents. Today, the average office worker produces two pounds of paper a day. I think we’re right up there with them on that.

Of course we use computers. I first used them at school in 1985, but I still use a lot of paper. Part of it is that I realize that digital entities have a way of disappearing, so I don’t trust them entirely. I keep a calendar on my i-Phone, but back it up with a paper copy. My novel is saved on a hard drive, a thumb drive and also on a cloud (or my castle on a cloud, I’m not sure which), but I still run a hard copy every once in a while. I hope it wouldn’t come to typing it all over again, although that might improve the manuscript.

What’s your experience with paper? Are you using more or less? Are you overwhelmed by great piles of it as we are? Any ideas on how to control it are welcome–I’ll be glad to take a page out of your book…as long as I don’t have to recycle it.

First of all, it’s time for Christmas vacation for everyone here at the Biscuit City Studios. We’ll be taking a break until after New Year’s Day. On behalf of the management and staff, I want to wish everyone the most blessed and peaceful of Christmases and a prosperous and happy New Year.

American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow heard church bells ringing on Christmas Day of 1864. The war had been going on for over three years, and as he reflected on the bells and life at the time, he put his thoughts into a poem, “Christmas Bells.” Some of the verses were later set to music. The words, thoughts and feelings still speak to our circumstances today.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!”