Spring means different things to different people. Yes, it’s the interlude between winter and summer, but the memories it uncovers are wide and varied.

To me, it’s when the dreary winter-dull grass down on the Golf Course turns to bright green, and people, not just the walkers, begin to people its pathways.

My friend jumped at my question with, “Oh, Ethel, yellow baby chicks.  They mean it’s Spring and warm weather will be here in two blinks of our eyes.”  She told me that the fertile chicken eggs were kept in the house and carefully cosseted in warm shallow shelters, where watchful eyes could keep track of seeing the chick, from inside of the shell,  would keep pecking at the shell until it broke and they found their way out.  A miracle to the child my friend then was and still a miracle to anyone watching such wonders.

I hadn’t thought of animals as Spring,  but, of course, young animals mean Spring to most who grew up in rural areas, and so it was no surprise when Bob recalled running in their pasture and playing with baby lambs. He says the mother Ewe would watch, but wasn’t disturbed, for the newborn ones have to exercise. His Dad, didn’t let him run them too long or too hard, but says it was good for the lambs and for him. And to remember, too.

For Wayne, who grew up in Lethbridge, Canada, Spring meant the Chinooks. “Oh, Ethel, the Chinooks came and the bitter cold was over.  I recall one day when it was 25 degrees below zero, and I was bundled  from head to toe to get to school, but later that morning a Chinook came swooping down and when I went home that afternoon, I carried all those clothes in my arms, not on me.  Spring brought the Chinooks, and the Chinooks meant the end of bitter cold and warmth for us all.” 

Bernice had nothing to do with green grass, baby chicks, or baby lambs, but, she remembered how our Mother, (she is my sister) would insist that we wear LONG cotton stockings all winter long, and how, when Spring came, on her way to school, and well out of Mom’s sight, she would unhook and roll those stocking down as far as possible so that all day long she walked around school with huge ‘do-nuts’ of rolled stocking around her ankles.  ‘Do-nuts’ that were carefully rolled back up and hooked (remember Panty Waists?) before Mom saw her.  Yeah, parental rebellion was Spring, too.

Nina saw herself  ‘helping’ her father Till the garden soil, as she walked behind him, barefoot, and enjoying the warmth of the just-Tilled soil against her bare feet and wiggling her toes within its warmth.  She had seen her Father put the dry fallen leaves on the garden spot before winter arrived, and now she saw those leaves as compost and being mixed with the good earth. Nina saw the ‘complete circle’ and you can’t get any better than that.

I will not forget one day when I saw that someone had scattered small pieces of bright orange paper over my back lawn, and as I tsk-tsk-ed over the ‘mess’, I  went out to clean up the trash.  But there was no trash, just the beauty of Crocuses (I know the plural is Croci, but I like the other) that Gram and I had planted, and now  had multiplied and spread over a large space.  They are gone now, for I belatedly found that Weed killer for dandelions is a killer of crocuses, too.  And I unwittingly did it.

My sons remember roaming the pasture (before it was for golf) and prowling  for frogs, toads, bumble bees, and turning over rocks to see the worms and bugs sheltered there while waiting for the warm sun to lure them out.  Everything came alive down there where, to the casual eye, there was naught but cows and horses.  Only kids would have the time and curiosity  see how much life really returned each Spring. 
 
Deanna remembers how her whole family, aunts, uncles and cousins, would go out to the West Desert for a great big picnic, and she didn’t really know why, but only how great it was. 

I think I know why.  One of her Uncles, Dominic and his kids, were Rock Hounds and that west desert was a bonanza for such hunting.  The Rocks were later polished and he made lovely pieces of art from them.  I have a beautiful Rock Clock, that he made from rocks, that maybe he found on a  ‘picnic’ day.  But it’s autographed by his daughter Joyce, and  hangs on my wall where visitors see and admire it. Rocks too, speak of  Spring.

Chicks, lambs, Rock Hunting, Crocuses, bare feet in newly tilled garden soil, long stocking rolled down to ankles, looking under rocks for bugs about to come forth, the Chinook winds,  lavender Hyacinths in full bloom with their heady aroma, all speak of Spring.  And maybe what reminds you of Spring is world’s apart from any of the above, but while you’re enjoying this 2013 Spring, take a moment to remember and enjoy again,  your childhood years.  They’re priceless.

Why not send them all to some isolated island?

         When some subject gets stuck in my mind there’s nothing I can do except keep writing about it until I’m ‘written out’. And now, it ‘s me and people in prison or jail. In fact, the point’s been reached that when I hear of someone being put in jail or prison, for any length of time, I cringe.  
          Nor that I condone what they did, but, just consider:  every time someone is imprisoned,  your taxes go up.  Whether County, City, State or Federal,  it matters not.  We,  meaning  you, begin paying, right then and there, for their three times a day meals, and while it isn’t high class, it’s far better than many homeless person eats.  And it’s put on  your Tab.. 
          If in prison, everything they use is paid by you,  and the majority of the men (I didn’t teach at the women’s center) said they’d never lived better. Three meals a day, clean clothes, a bed, dentist and doctor’s care,  (often for the first time in their lives) operations if needed, recreation, a place to worship, books to read or study, and, when old and needing special care they get it. Plus the heated buildings, nurses, and all the stuff that you, perhaps can’t afford, yet  you are paying all that for them. .
          So you get ‘hit’ twice.  Once when you or someone close is robbed, killed, embezzled, raped or whatever,  and secondly you’re  charged for all their expenses and often for the rest of their life.  Huge ‘prison hospitals’   have been built to care for the old and helpless prisoners and is  paid for by you, as well as for every brick used to build them, all upkeep and the nurses, doctors and their equipment.
          I wish there were an answer.   I know a Dentist, Eye Doctor, and Medical physician who give their time and talent as an offering to those in prison.  And yet, (I repeat myself, but just can’t help it), there are thousands on the ‘outside’ who have never broken a law, but can’t afford  such  needed care. Yet you pay for getting a  prisoner’s every ache or pain diagnosed, followed by the care for whatever is found, and at the end of it all,  you pay for their burial expenses,  too.
         Then there’s the job of making our License Plates.  It is a prison job  and the men are paid for that work.  Yes, they must have a good Prison record, but there are non-criminals who would like that job, low wages or not.  It would be a job.
          Prisoners break our laws.  They kill or rape our loved ones. They swindle us out of our savings for their unlawful investments.  They break  into our homes and rob us of not only valuables, and jewelry, cameras, TV, computers, etc, but often,  so very often,  simply tear, shred or destroy all they see, vandalize what they don’t take, throwing cherished china against the wall to destroy them,  open drawers, rip needed paper records, old wedding licenses, pictures, and birth certificates. They simply vandalized in their fury. 
          And then after destroying lives,  you  pay for a trial, for an attorney to defend  them,  and their ‘board and room’ while this is going on. And then, you  take over their living expenses for  the length of their sentence.  And when they get out,  with no job,  you provide places where homeless, and they are in that class, can sleep, get free meals.
          More than one prisoner, (usually those over 45 or 50)  in my classes said, and not joking, that if freed from the prison, the first thing they’d do is commit another crime so they would be sent right back.
          Every step of the way, You pay for their every need.   If you know the answer, tell someone who can make a difference.  And I’m only half serious, but why not send them all to some isolated island.  Give them seeds, tools and what it takes to make a life and then forget they’re there.  That would be justice.  I think.

I’ll meet you on the river’s shore . . .

There was an Indian Newspaper published out of Montana  which, is now gone.  Much of what was there, was worthy for Indian or non-Indian, and I remember that newspaper and I also wish it were still here. It was good.

But, anyway, they had their Wise Old Men and Women, who were deeply honored for their insight, and some of their words impressed me so much I saved them.   Such as today’s words.   I pondered over the words then, cut them out, saved them, and dang it all, as I pore over them again, once more I ponder, and shiver.

Scan them yourself, word by word, and see what they do for  you.

THE TWELFTH HOUR

For long centuries the world’s been told
“This is the 11th Hour”
And we knew it to be true.
But quietly, almost secretly, the 11th Hour passed
And now, the hoped for, but feared,
Twelfth Hour is Here.  It is Now.

It is the time to know our own Truth,
And cease looking outward for another
To tell us what to think and do.

It can be a glorious time, for
The River is flowing fast.
So rapidly that many are afraid
And cling to the shore
Crying out that they are being torn to pieces.

But the River knows The Destination.
Let go of the shore,
Dive joyously into the midst of the stream.

See who is with you and rejoice!
Look fearlessly at your fears
And never once reach back to the shore,
For whenever we stop to question
Our Spiritual Journey also stops.

The River knows  the Way and
Will carry you with  it!
Look to no other for counsel,
For the time of asking others is long past.
Be Still and allow yourself
To know and act in a sacred manner.

That wondrous Hour
Is no longer anticipated
But is here.  Now.

In awe and humility know that
You chose to be part of the Change.
and
Are one of those the world has long awaited.

Yeah, shiver, shiver, shiver.  No longer the 11th Hour, but it’s now the 12th, and we, you and I  chose to be here, at this time, and  to do our part. What does it mean?  And, shiver once more as the last line tells us that each of us is one of those that the world spoke of.  The long awaited ones.

I  write and share words that mean something to me. These wise Indian words  touched me when I ‘found’ them, a few decades ago, and they affected me in the very manner today. Good luck, and, who knows?  Maybe we’ll meet at the river’s shore.

Whitman taught us how in Leaves of Grass, and it is as new today as when he wrote it . . .

My friend Ed brought out his copy of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” last weekend, and, as we read I realized how little I had understood those marvelous words.

It is one of the most humble books I’ve ever read, yet, when first published (and still is to the casual reader)it appears to be one huge ego trip.  Nothing, however, could be farther from the truth, even though the very first words are those memorable, “I Celebrate Myself.”

For, “One’s Self,” is the compass-needle necessary to find the secret Walt hid in the haystack of his poetry. For when he carols out “Of One’s Self, I sing, a simple separate person” it is well to remember that it was not just ‘his’ self he sang about, but ‘all’ selves. Separate enough, as we well know, but still…thinking, feeling, being and loving as one.

Like all seemingly ‘decent’ people, we feel that too much candor about our inner emotions might be judged either vanity or bad taste. Tacky is the word oft used today, or even worse, it might be called boring.

But the first thing one learns from “The Leaves” is that candor about one’s private emotions may not be egotism at all, but deep humility. Openness about one’s inner struggles do not divide one from another, but brings about the comforting assurance that all men are born, suffer, enjoy, love and die in much the same manner.

I belatedly learned the truth that Whitman found over a century-and-a-half ago and revealed his feelings in his simple, yet mind-blowing way.

Get out your copy of “The Leaves”, let it lie around on a handy table, and prowl the pages. It isn’t meant to be read as a novel, but to be picked up casually. Dipped into, and though the term was unknown at his time,  today it could be included in what’s become known as “a bathroom book’.  Why not?

Oh, what a self-acceptance he had as he penned: “I know I am august, and I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood. I exist as I am, that is enough, and if no other in the world be aware, I sit content. And yet, if each and all be aware, I shall still sit and be content.” Immense!

He sang the Song of Me and sang it as though he looked out from the eyes of man, woman, worker, slave, master, (yes, his life spanned the Civil War) or, a leaf of grass. He sang of the beauty of a man’s or woman’s body, he sang of the everyday ecstasy of sex. He sang of birth and death and knew them both to be but different aspects of the same every-flowing life.

Whitman, couldn’t you guess, was not thought well of in his time. Those same subjects, even today are looked upon, by some blinded people, with averted eyes and ears. Those who knew Whitman closely, including both Emerson and Thoreau, were the same.  Oh, yes, they liked him, they admired and praised both him and his work, but at the same time, they liked him better when he was in the next town, living with some one else.

But that’s always the way fore-runners are treated. They, in themselves, have no sense of proportion. They cannot adhere to a schedule or stay off subjects most average people consider improper. So, with their free, outspoken manner, they can be uncomfortable to be around.

No one is a genius to those who know them on a day by day basis, except, that is, except before they arrive or after they have gone their way. And that was the way with Whitman.

But his genius lives on, and if you haven’t poked through your copy of “The Leaves” lately, do so. There are dozens of issues, and at all prices, but Whitman will tell you more about yourself than you ever knew, or could guess. Take off your blinders, forget your guilts, forget your fear and forget your ‘pride of uniqueness’. Read Whitman and learn to know yourself.

Then forgotten . . .         

         The words I use today came from Johnny Carson, and though he did not write them, it was he who gave them to me, and  really, to all the world.  Perhaps you know them, too, they are titled, “All I Ever Really Needed To Know, I Learned In Kindergarten”, and were penned by Robert Fulghum.        
          “Most of what I really need to know about how to live, what to do and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten.  Wisdom did not arrive at the top of the graduate school mountain, but was to be found there in the Sandbox at Nursery School.
         “These are the things I learned .  Share everything.  Play fair.  Don’t hit people.  Put things back where you found them.  Clean up  your own mess.  Don’t take things that aren’t yours.  Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone.
          “Wash you hands before you eat.  Remember to flush.  Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.  Live a balanced life.  Each day learn some and think some.  Draw, paint, sing, dance, work and play some every day.
          “Take a nap each afternoon.  When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic.  Hold hands and stick together.  Be aware of wonder.  Remember the little seeds we grew in plastic cups?  The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we’re all like that.
          “Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seeds in the plastic cup, they all die . . . and so do we.
          “And remember the book about Dick and Jane and the very first word you learned.  The biggest word of all . . . . LOOK.
          “Everything you need to know is somewhere back there in the Sandbox.  The Golden Rule, love, basic sanitation, ecology, politics and sane, sensible living.
          “Think of what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world . . . had cookies and milk about 2:00 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap.
          “Or if we had a basic policy of our nation . . . and the whole world, to always put things back where we found them.  And cleaned up our own messes.
          “And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is still best to hold hands, stick together and not let anyone get lost.”
         I never did know who or where Robert Fulghum was, but his words hold wisdom that could re-make our world over night if we would but go back to the rules which kept kindergarten a safe, happy place to be.
          Where the only rules were those to teach us how to live happily with those around us.
          His words cut right through me today when I stumbled upon them, the same as they did years ago, and I . . . and the entire world . . . would like to go back and take the whole kindergarten course again.  Thank you Robert Fulghum for writing the words . . . and to Johnny Carson for finding and giving them to us all.

With nary a period . . .

Life is one long, long sentence, and I am not speaking in prison terms, but a sentence that is used in speaking or writing. And to me. the beginning of My Sentence started with The Big Bang, whatever that was, and continues on.

There are no Periods in this Sentence.  Not a one.  There are thousands of commas, semi-colons, dashes, exclamation points,  pauses, and all else, but not a one Period.  No end to this Sentence we experience.

Birth, as when I slipped from an unknown Room into this Room where I dwell as Ethel Ohlin Bradford,  was not the beginning of my Sentence, but prefaced, perhaps by  a Comma, or Dash,  a Semi-colon.  Who knows?

And when what we call Death arrives, it will only be the end of the body I’ve used these long, wonderful years, and that part of me that never dies will just  slip quietly (joyously?) on into the next Room.  There will be no Period, maybe an Colon?  Exclamation Point?  I don’t know, but certainly not a Period.

I know, well, not first hand, but many times my husband told me of when as an 18 year old, he became ill with pneumonia  and died.  This was before the Wonder Drugs has been formulated, and he was deathly ill.  So sick, so tired, and lay a bed in the upper west bedroom of the Bradford home, and for days there had been a Registered Nurse by his side.

Oddly, my older sister, Amber Ohlin Bodine, then worked at Thornton-Anderson Drug Store at the northwest corner of State Street and 4800 South, and where it was easy to hear any doctor’s conversation with the Pharmacist, and she came home one night, and at the dinner table told that the ‘Bradford’ boy would not live through the night. I did not know ‘the  Bradford boy’ or certainly not that he would one day be my husband.  But I remember her words.  Life is odd.

But my husband much later on, told me that ‘suddenly’ there was Light.  A soft. wonderful Light, and with it, all feeling of sickness and weariness were gone. Forgotten.  He was himself  again, with not even a memory of sickness, for suddenly he was joyous, happy, running free, and   overwhelmed with surprise and joy. Joy, he repeated, what Joy!  The Light enclosed and  permeated his every cell.  Said he had never felt such utter happiness than what was his.

But then there was someone, something(?) wrestling with him, trying to pull him away from that Light.  He fought back, but the one he wrestled with was strong, and then he was shocked(?)  and taken further out of the Light, by a sudden sharp bitter taste in his mouth (what mouth(?), and he found the wrestler and the horrible taste, had taken him out of the Light and he was back in a his bedroom, his bed, his sick body, tired, weak, and unhappy.  And the ‘unwelcome’ Nurse was gripping him.

He said, “My first thought was that it had been a struggle between me and another force, and that force had won the match. I was the loser.”

How marvelous that Next Room must be when an 18 year old would fight to remain There  rather than here.  For the rest of his life, he remembered that Next Room, the Room of Light that he had been a part of, and then been ‘pulled’ back from it.

He later found that the nurse had poured a spoonful of whisky(?) or some alcoholic stimulant between his lips and the glorious wonder that had been his only a moment before, was gone.  And he repeated, “She won.”

So, with his story, my own experiences, and having the blessing of Classes with Dr. Arya, I found that for me, there is no end to this Sentence that I am living right now.

I’ve had flashbacks (we all do) of happenings (dreams?) that were ‘me’,  but in another body that were of different nationalities, cultures, and ages.  Sometimes I was male, sometimes Female.  And many different roles, such as  Kind, unkind.  Pure, sinful. Wealthy, poor. Ruler, serf.  Warrior, farmer.  Sailor, store clerk. I’ve ‘clicked’ into many, and they were all Me.  No, not the ‘Ethel’ me, but the Inner Me, we all have.            

Joel Goldsmith, penned a wonderful book entitled “A Parentheses in Eternity” and his words made me more certain that my ‘flashback memories’ were valid, and that this life really is a parentheses in Eternity. 

When we are in bodies, as right now, we are wearing Blinders.  We can not see (except in wonderful moments) what we were ‘before’, or what we will be later on.  And it’s the answer of when we meet some ‘stranger’ and know that we know each other.  The answer to so many unanswerables

And, my idea, not Goldsmith’s, or Arya’s or any other spiritual book or Teacher,  but Einstein, the supreme Physicist of our time, told the same in his writings, using words I had to read and re-read to understand, but according to him, along with my Teachers, that when I have learned enough, become wise enough (who knows what the requirements are?) but  we will experience the reverse of The Big Bang, and become again One with The Source of All.

I write of my experiences, and today of my husband’s, telling of how  our lives are  one long, long sentence, with many punctuations marks, but nary a Period.  Even the event  I wrote of in the last paragraph, will not be the End, but a most  wonderful continuation. 

TYG.

And memo to Sylvia . . .

This past month  was the coldest January we’ve had in decades, and so was an ideal time for me to start using new Flannel Sheets.  Well, I guess as an infant my mother tucked them around me, but who was I to appreciate anything back then except clean clothes and a full tummy?

It was my niece Sylvia who casually mentioned that she and her husband sleep twixt flannel all year long, and in answer to my surprised eyes, explained, that “If we lived in Utah, I’d go for the cotton “cold” sheets in the summer, but here in the Puget Sound area, we seldom break 90 degrees, and with the nights in the 60s, a flannel sheet is the perfect blanket. Cool fluff in the summer and nary a cold corner in the winter.”    

And I, who considers a heating pad to be a standard equipment for all beds, no matter what the season, perked up my ears, tucked the idea in a  handy mind-corner, and in a week or two, when I saw sheets on sale at a local mart, I halted and without missing a breath, asked if they had Flannel ones.

“Why, of course”, was the answer, and in a trice I was facing a shelf of Twin size sets for $15.99 and  $22.95. Now I’m not one to walk past a bargain, and  even though the patterns weren’t what would have been my first choice, I figured, what the heck, that’s why they’re on sale.

And for the difference of only $7.00, decided to go first class, bought a $22.95 bundle, was off for home, and almost before taking off my coat, had my bed stripped, the package opened and was re-making my bed, with  that soft, fluffy stuff.  Absolutely heaven on earth, and was already planning on an early bedtime hour to test them out.  And going further, saw myself with a book, a dinner tray and music in the background.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The fluffiness made the sheets seem bulky, but I soon found the  bottom, ‘fitted’ sheet and saw it was different than the usual ‘four corner’ fitted ones I use, for this one had just one big ‘rubber band’,  like a 1/4 inch rope, that was in a casing that went around the entire four sides.  Like a big cap.  That’s  nice, I said and pulled the sheet from side to side until the mattress was encased and that circle of elastic, on the under side,  kept it tightly fitted. Not bad at all. 

Then I reached for the top sheet, and found it really was large.  Too large.  Too wide.  Too long, and belatedly knew that I’d bought sheets for a larger bed. Way off from what I needed.

But I wasn’t to be beaten, and was soon pulling that huge sheet far to one side and began tucking it in, and in, and in, and in, until I had the right amount of overhang on the one side, and the other??? Well, there was over  a yard of tuckage on that  side, and the same at the foot of the bed.  But out of sight, out of mind and as long as that great big rubber band kept the under sheet where it belonged, I could manage the top, and all was well.

And there’s a good side to it, too, for now making the bed each a.m. is a ‘piece of cake’.  The sheets on the ‘that’ side are so well anchored they can’t  budge, and the other is just right.  And all that’s beside the point. I love them.  No more cold spots, and surprise of all, although I keep it handy, there is no more need for the Heating Pad.  Everywhere is that soft, welcoming warmth.

And so,  if you think  the comforting fluffiness of Flannel is for infants only, think again. You’ll have no regrets,  but, glory be,  take  more time than I did, and get the right size.  I can anchor that top sheet, but must admit that only that tight ‘rubber band’ on the lower sheet, saved my life.  There’s an old saying that God takes care of drunks and fools, and I’m not a drunk, ergo, you know what I must be. 

So Sylvia, lots of love and thanks are speeding to you, straight  from Ur Ant Ethel.

If you’ve ever eaten home-made pretzels, you’ll never again want to eat those which ‘come in a bag’.

     While today we think of pretzels to be eaten while drinking beer or maybe with soup, the original pretzel was made, surprise, surprise, surprise, in a monastery where no beer or wine was allowed. So they must be good with soup.
     The chef in charge of baking, was busy making their unleavened Lenten bread, and, like all cooks, ended up with some small strips of left over dough.  Hating to toss them out, he crossed two thin strips of the dough on a floured board, and then twisted and shaped them until they looked like arms crossed in prayer.
     The custom then was for a person in prayer, to cross his chest and rest his hands on his shoulders.  The ‘praying arms’ were an instant success, not only at the monastery, but with the children of the area who were given them as a reward for learning their prayers. And soon home to their parents and eventually to the local market where you and I can buy them. But try these first.
     Pretzels kept their religious symbology as they spread through Europe and the three holes came to represent the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  They even found their way into the coffins of the dead during the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries.
     Soon the pretzel was even copied in stained glass windows, representing the marriage knot and ‘wishing upon a pretzel’ became a common marriage custom.  From then on, the story of pretzels grew.  They came to the New World and then…as we Americans are wont to do, the religious symbology was cast aside and they found their way to the beer houses.  Today we eat them everywhere and with everything.

PRETZELS
1 ¼ cups warm water.
1 scant tbsp active dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
3 to 4 cups flour
1 ½ tsps salt
2 tbsp oil
1 egg beaten with 1 tbsp milk, for glaze
Toppings:  coarse salt; poppy, sesame or caraway seeds

     Place ¼ cup of the water in a bowl and stir in yeast and sugar until dissolved.   Let stand until bubbly, about 5 to 10 minutes.
     Combine 3 ½ cups flour and salt.  Add remaining water, oil and yeast mixture. Stir.  On a lightly floured board, knead until smooth and elastic, adding flour if necessary to prevent sticking.
     Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Lightly grease 2 heavy baking sheets with shortening of some sort.

     Divide dough into 24 pieces and roll each into a thin strip about 10 inches long.  Shape into pretezels by crossing the ends to make a loop, then flipping the ends back across the loop.  You’ll see how to do it in a second, but be sure to give the ends a light pinch so that they don’t flip open when baking.
     Place on the prepared baking sheets.  For chewy pretzels, cover loosely with a towel and let them rest in a warm place until puffy. (about 15 minutes).  For crunchier pretzels, bake them immediately, not letting them rise.
     Either way, however, when ready for the oven lightly brush the egg-milk glaze over them and sprinkle each with a pinch of salt or seeds.  Bake until lightly colored (about 15 to 20 minutes).  Makes about 24 pretzels.
     Books could and have been written about the history of pretzels, and I could fill this space for the next six months, but enough’s enough.  Just remember, some long ago monk made the first one and were the Monk’s treats for ‘good boys and girls’, right there at the monastery.  Little did he know, little could he have guessed they’d end up in homes in a land he never knew or even heard of.

Just be careful . . .

I don’t like being around paranoid people, but recent TV discussions are  honing in on my thoughts and, dang it,  I think it’d be easy to get there.   Paranoid, that is.

Three  separate TV panels have told us what an impact cleanliness has on our health.  Well, that’s old stuff:  wash our hands, as well as vegetables and fruit before we use them because we can’t know who had handled them before they get into our homes.

But, they stressed the hundreds of things we bring home, and as we put it all in their proper places, and handle each one, at the same time we scratch our faces, touch our eyes, nose head, arms, visit the bathroom,  etc. all using our hands.

However, the TV discussion also told us how many other people, coming before us, have done the same unthinking actions, beginning with the field and orchard workers, others putting the products in boxes, onto trucks, into stores, on the shelves or display racks, and then, the number of customers who pick them up to decide if they are what they want to buy, replace them if not wanted, and leave them for another to pick up and handle. 

And then, in Carts where ‘messy’ children, still babies, have been carried, we put our food choices, and it all touches every thing else.  All sides.  Finally we go to the Check-out stand where, piece by piece, it’s handled again by others and finally another person, with their hands, puts into in sacks.

We were firmly told that before ANY food, in whatever form,  reaches our tables, it’s been handled by hundreds of hands.  Shee-e-e-e-sh.

Then they went to our daily newspaper.  I thank whoever does it for me, for it’s always left  within easy reach from my door, but, they told us, we pick it up by the same spot, the open, loose end of the yellow sack,  that the Carriers used, when, in the middle of the night, they hurried  to  fold the papers,  and stuff  them into the sack.  And, if they had a cold or felt ‘lousy’ and  scratched their nose, eyes, coughed or sneezed, who was to know?   We all do these things without even thinking.

I  didn’t like  where their words took me, for  next were all the spots we touch while going in or out of  Public Rest Rooms.  Yes, we wash our hands,  but how are we to know how careful and thoughtful the people before us were as they moved in, out and around??

Once they got me going on this kind of thinking there was no end.   See, they told of the Mail Man,  God bless his soul.  The envelope started by someone who used their own hands, perhaps coughed, sneezed, sniffed, and then it went to people and machines to sort it all, toss it in boxes or whatever, and on and on and on.    Thousands of  ‘close encounters’ come  between the time the envelope left Point One and its final destination.

It scared me, for everything we pick up has a trail of hands, hands, hands from all around the world, and they pointed out how some illness in Timbucktoo can quickly become an epidemic. 

They stressed that it doesn’t matter how clean  it LOOKS, because germs cannot be seen and aren’t  noted on the Label.  Dang it,  TV’s words sent me out  to get me  a can of  germ-killing wipes, and, double-dang,  before two days had passed, (and hating myself with every step), I’d gone over every door handle, light switch, the entire bathroom (well not the walls or ceiling) refrigerator handles,  phones, and vases and any such thing that attracts the hands of both adults and children.

I didn’t like it at all, but the TV advised us to look around at people we meet, and I had to add my name to the list,  and see  if they sneeze, sniffle or whatever, for they, like it or not,  ‘picked it up’ from someone else.

The TV spokesman even advised us, when traveling, to take our own food  in freezers, and, if we need ice to cool our drinks,  to also remember that whisky or rum, etc, kills germs, but to remember, that the Ice Cubes you might order, are made from their local water.

Egad.  Don’t go as far as I did, or you won’t like yourself, either.  I  finally remembered that all that scare stuff is their job.  It’s what they’re paid to do.

I’m going to cross my fingers, wash MY hands,  put myself in GOD’S hands, and turn OFF all TV’s fear programs.  You with me?  We’ve lived this long, and might just as well go on as usual.  Careful but not paranoid.

You can be addicted, and not know it!  In the first place, I’m not a Doctor or even close to being one, but . . .

I just spent a month beginning to control an addiction.  I’m far from the first one to do such a thing, but I betcha I’m one of the few who didn’t even know they were addicted, and what’s more thought all I’d have to do is just stop taking the dang pill and that would be that.

How foolish, but this all began quite a while ago, when we weren’t very aware of side-effects and I wasn’t computer savvy enough to know how much info Google can offer and reveal.  But I sure do now, and today as soon as I’m given a new prescription, I go to my ‘trusted friend’ and find what the  good and bad effects will be.  Maybe I wasn’t listening way back then, but I don’t think I was ever told that Valium, now known as Diazepam, is addictive. Or what ‘addiction’ really means.

And anyway, I was only taking One-Fourth of a pill each day, and that dose is about the size of two pin-heads, so what was the big deal?

Well. I’ll tell you, it is a big deal.  I was having a few problems I didn’t like, thought I was into Depression, and that small pill, plus a caution to ‘watch my diet’ seemed to take care of the matter.  Now, if I’d ‘googled’ it, and found the ‘bad’ side of that Pill, I’d have been not so heedless.

An awfully lot can be learned from the computer, and in that manner, slowly began to sense that maybe my problems were the result of a blood imbalance and its many unwanted side effects.  Well, yes, I’d been told to ‘watch my diet’, but was never told what ‘watching my diet’ meant.

So, I blundered along with what I thought was border-line Depression until one day I told my friend Rita about it and she, who is a 39 year, healthy, survivor of Hyperglycemia (too little insulin), and who has learned an awful lot about blood imbalance, while coping with her own body.  She told me my words sounded as if I had Hypoglycemia, (too much Insulin), and she gave me a few instructions on what to and what not to eat, and see what happened.  Simple things that, if she were right or wrong, could do no harm. 

Now, remember I’m no medical specialist, but with talking to Rita, I found that  Hyperglycemia is the fancy name for Diabetes, and Hypoglycemia is the opposite.  Simply put, the first has too little  Insulin and the other more than enough.

It changed my world, for within two or three days I was a new woman and now, if I’m careless and forget what the good-and-bad foods are for me, my body tells me. 

Again I go back to Google, and if you’re just not feeling ‘up to par’, not much energy, a bit woozy, think you might need new glasses, look up Hypoglycemia and a new world might open up for you, as it did for me. There’s plenty of expert help on too little insulin, but never once was I told about too much insulin until Rita, from her own long-time experience with Diabetes, showed me how a ‘simple’ blood imbalance can cause havoc to the body.

Anyway, anyway, I now keep track of what I do/don’t eat but getting off the Diazepam, even slowly, as I am doing, is not fun, and the first month when I cut my dosage down a bit, I wondered if I would die.  Sound extreme? 

Well, hope you don’t ever have to find out.  It isn’t a pill, such as aspirin, that can be casually tossed into your body, and my doctor of quite a few years ago (who knows where he/she now is) might not have known either.  Oh well, now I just consult either Dr. Rita, Dr. Ethel, or Google. Joke, joke, joke.  But it is no joke for me, so with the help of a licensed doctor, I’m coming to terms with starting to get off my addiction.

Don’t try it.  Or better yet, don’t get addicted in the first place.  I’m about half off and am crossing my fingers about the other half.  Wish me luck.