Mothers and Social Security

 

When my mother graduated from West Catholic High School in 1936 and got her first job she remembered seeing the deductions for Social Security and saying to her friends at that time- yeah like we’ll ever see the benefits of Social Security.  She laughed at that memory when my Dad reached retirement.  My mother died at age 91 and received benefits for more than 20 years as a spouse of a working man, who also died at age 91.   She did not work outside the home after she married.  She did however raise 11 children and had many different unpaid jobs as housekeeper, neighbor and parent.  She felt she earned those Social Security benefits and actually liked getting that paper check, although she knew direct deposit was an option.  She felt it was her money and she earned it. 

In 1979 when I was working at my first real tax paying job after college for a church health and retirement pension program I got involved with the Women’s Alliance for Job Equity.  As a new supervisor manager and a feminist I wanted to know about the discrimination and employment laws and I wanted to be sure that everyone was treated fairly under my watch.  As a founding Board member of this organization I learned that women got 59 cents for a man’s dollar.  This was three years before my daughter was born in 1982.  It has taken 30 plus years to move that number to 79 cents to a man's dollar.  Still not equal but it’s creeping forward.   When my future granddaughter gets her first job in 2030s lets be sure it's  equal pay for equal work and that Social Security will be there for all us grandma's .

Magnolias in Rutledge

Walking my frisky collie Julian around the streets of Rutledge I have noticed this early spring the many cherry and magnolia trees.

  I think there may be more magnolias .  I counted over twenty in the four square blocks of Rutledge.  Most of them are pretty old like the one in my back yard.  In a photo of our house  in a 1897 book on Rutledge I can see two young trees in the space where our current very old magnolia and cherry are blooming.  So this would make these trees 110 plus years!  Is this really possible?  Do they last this long? They get as tall as 30 -40 feet?
The sad thing about magnolias and cherries is that their blossoms only last a week or two.  A rain usually means that you will get gentle showers of pale pink petals carpeting your lawn.  Beautiful too but only for a short time until everything turns brown.  There may only be a short time to enjoy the blossoms but the cool shade and the green light through both of these trees makes them a summer delight as well.

Maryjane and Michael

 

Maryjane and Michael

 Michael Pollan’s - Botany of Desire

This is not a book review- I will post that later.  In this book Pollan writes about four plants – Apple, Tulip, Marijuana, and the Potato and how human desires and plant evolution are really intermingled and it’s really hard to tell what came first.  I started reading this book awhile ago – but put it down – for later reading.  I’m reading it now for a book group that meets at Scott Arboretum. This time I skipped the first chapter on the Apple and jumped right in with the Tulip chapter which was fascinating.  He covers some Tulip history that I read about before but the botany parts are fascinating.  I just finished the Marijuana chapter and this is what prompted this blog.  

Marijuana, cannabis, reefer, weed, and maryjane

I never bought it, sold it or grew it but as a child of the sixties (I knew about Woodstock- but didn’t get to go) I have imbibed and inhaled-but only on very few occasions.  Most of my friends in the 70’s and 80’s were not pot heads-just sometimes users when they could afford it.  Although, I never bought any I have been given some as gifts.  I really enjoyed Pollan’s story on his experimenting and trying to grow a hybrid.  He then gets paranoid crazy that a local policeman will discover the plants.  When I read this it reminded me of all my worries and fears when I was around smokers.     I know everyone has their funny, paranoid, stupid and of course a munchies story too, but unless you live in Amsterdam or the golden triangle in California can you really relax or even talk about it even now?  

In 2011 New Jersey passed their medical marijuana laws.  It seems a smart thing to do and the beginning of maybe some lessening of the criminality of usage.  Although when you are driving down the shore you will not see fields of weed next to corn and tomatoes.   It's still very restrictive in the growing and the who gets to use medicinal marijuana.

Yes I too would like to try to grow it- although it is an ugly plant.  My garden is too visible and frankly I don’t know my neighbors well enough and would worry about them.  But say- if I had a house in the country- in the middle of nowhere- I would definitely try it.   I think the plants would make a good green border fence.  I am not really a smoker – so my fantasy is I would save my stash to give as gifts.  I figure when I’m old or my friends get old and we’re in pain from arthritis or some other awful pain I would definitely share.  See I don’t even know if it keeps – does it get stale?  Anyway I can see myself visiting you in your assisted living facility (Cape May? Atlantic City? Ocean City?), and we get to share a doobie while the soundtrack of Woodstock or maybe some Rolling Stones or Grateful Dead is being piped in.  That’s my marijuana fantasy – what’s yours.

Signs of Spring

It is late February but it did feel like Spring yesterday when I was out in the garden doing yard work. Really too early to uncover and remove some leaves, but somethings are popping up. The snowdrops are always so delicate that I have missed them in years past. Today they and the hellebore were their usual shy self. Took a picture with my digital from underneath the hellebore.Beautiful but shy .

Per Wikipedia posting

Several legends surround the hellebore; in witchcraft it is believed to have ties to summoning demons. Helleborus niger is commonly called the Christmas rose, due to an old legend that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give the Christ child in Bethlehem.

In Greek mythology, Melampus of Pylos used hellebore to save the daughters of the king of Argos from a madness, induced by Dionysus, that caused them to run naked through the city, crying, weeping, and screaming.