We are Now Outnumbered

 My one year older sister Jerri has died. Of unknown causes. Typical of my family deaths. And her death is not one that one would just be able to say, “Oh, I am so f= sorry for your loss.” It’s not just another Mason death. One nobody can just put in a box, read the obituary and  check off as normal.

Lorette died in her sleep at age nineteen. No known cause. Just dead at 19. This occurred while I was in my second week in college.  And then I got out of school and, many years later, way before we got used to DEATH, death came to us. Again.

And it was one after the other after the other. First it was our father, who was innocently  about to mount a horse. He was then thrown from that horse and was struck dead, days later. Of an aneurism.

At age  sixty eight.  The age I will be an a few years. 

Then  my artist niece Lucinda died. In her 30’s.

Alberta died of an infection caused by an infected tooth. Age 60.

Aced died  of a massive heart attack whilst chainsawing down a tree in a local forest. Age 60.

And now Jerri has died. Unknown reasons. One year my senior. 

I remember that my supervisor at my  city job once said that we were being hit on the chin. My family was  hit on the chin. And it was true. We had brothers in law and many friends who died during those years as well, and was out of work soooo much that it seemed ridiculous, I didn’t apologize. I just took it.

I took it. 

That’s what you do when you are a Vermonter, a member of a huge family. A tribe. It’s a tribal expectation.

And now, I am a  person who had two living parents and ten living siblings in the seventies/ now have no parents and only five living siblings. There are six of them and five of us. We are now outnumbered.

THE RED TAPE of Moral Dilemmas

 

Over the past years, since retirement, I have dreamed incessantly of days gone wrong, programs gone wrong. Where I was blamed for even the slightest issue, even the tiniest wrongs. I pleaded and begged the people in the dreams to listen. The tital wave would hit. The village was flooding. The Vikings were on the horizon but, for whatever reason, they would not listen.

One of the most vivid dreams I have had (more than once) featured an airport hanger, dark in the dead of night. I had invited 50 children to fly to a foreign country, as a part of an exchange program. When the night came, they arrived with their luggage, but without proper paperwork. My assistant dutifully provided all necessary paperwork. Parents signed it with their children interpreting the information—as these parents were refugees.

When all of a sudden, about 100 more kids showed up! We only had room for the children who had originally been accepted into the program. And the new children all wanted to go. Nobody understood why the new arrivals were not going to be allow to go! I was one of the only people in the hanger who spoke English. I was in the minority. I kept trying to explain what I knew: that we only had room for 50 kids on the plane.

The children interpreted my message to the parents. I knew not only did we need the kids we had invited to go, but that their parents needed to sign the releases to let them cross international borders with us, we are acquaintances with them, but clearly not parents. And the airplane was on the tarmac. I could smell the diesel fuel. Hear the roar of the engines! 

The parents of the kids who were signed up were suddenly upset that the kids who HAD NOT signed up couldn’t go, as well. One kid told me that the airplane was big enough for all the kids. Why couldn’t they go, too? Parents’ faces were pleading me to let them go. It was to be an educational and recreational trip. WHY COULDN’T I LET THEM ALL GO?

And my feelings in this dream ran from calm to panic to calm to compassion to empathy to sympathy to panic and on and on. I KNEW the rules. I knew the laws. I’m an American. American teachers know not to drive, let alone FLY kids anywhere without express permission from custodian parents.How could these parents not KNOW THIS?  Oh, right. They were New Americans. They had endured war and hunger and just the worst atrocities and if ANYONE was going to go? It was going to be THEIR child. Their child would benefit from the experience and they trusted that I would keep them safe.

And I would. I WOULD. 

In real life, I would have and still would lay my life on the line for a child. I would run into traffic to pull a child to safety. I’ve always known this. So, this dream, this recurring dream, I finally figured out? Was not about my coming up short with the parents. Not about parents NOT trusting me—my biggest fear. It was about RED TAPE. About my inability to do something against the rules because I feared reprisal. Not from the people who loved and adored the children. But those who feared the worst—a law suit, because the paperwork wasn’t filled out correctly.

RED TAPE. Thats what that nightmare was about.And, in some ways, ethics. Doing what is right when I could have bent to the will of the parents. And what was right, maybe wasn’t really. Or, why would I continue to have this dream? Inner conflict. Moral dilemmas. They haunt me, even in my sleep.

Ninety Eight Point Six

 So, most people, or your average person, has a body temperature of 98.6. Not I. My mother had the same body temp, so I guess I inherited a low body temperature. It’s 97 on average and only goes up if we’re burning up with a fever or falling through the ice of a pond.

Oddly, our father and I also have the same oddity of sleeping hot. I live in Vermont. I sleep at 60 degrees Fahrenheit year round WITH A FAN, and even then, my partner complains that I’m a blast furnace, that I radiate the heat of the sun. My duvet is only for show. I can only STAND having a cotton sheet or two on my body. NO FLANNEL PJS FOR ME. Shorts and sleeveless T. Or nothing at all on really hot nights when my A/C is unable to keep up with my body throwing heat out into my bedroom like the Brunson burner that I am.

How in the WORLD could I have the daily body temp of a pond frog and the nightly body temp of a Jersey cow? And warm hands year ‘round! I read palms for fun during the Halloween season (and often in the winds, under a tent near Lake Champlain) and every single person wonders why my hands are so warm!

What am I? A polar bear/rhino mix?  A caterpillar mixed with a lizard? Or am I simply half Sidney, half Dorothy? Have I actually been given the best of my dad— the ability to stay warm anywhere- and the best of my mother, an ability to stay alive even when I am literally freezing to death?

Maybe ninety eight point six is NOT a gift: it is merely a suggestion. Maybe 98.6 is the equivalent of traffic lights in Italy, Like speed limits in Boston? Just maybe…

STONE SOUP== use whatever you have to make a tasty meal

Last night my boyfriend and I were talking on the phone. He was thinking of making some soup. I'm vegetarian and he isn't but he's coming around, somewhat. It seems that he tried out some veggie  sausage that I had left in his freezer and he texted to ask where I had gotten it. We started talking about soups later and stock and whatnot.

Now months later, after having left a few soups I made while visiting, I asked him if he had ever eaten those frozen soups I left in his freezer. His answer, “What soups?” Apparently he never uses or looks in his freezer and as a self-professed MINIMALIST, says he really doesn’t “even use a fridge” so there you have it.

Soup making is so easy. You get some broth (and this can be the juices of veggies you’ve steamed or boiled, veggie bouillon you’ve 
purchased, or whatever. But starting with water is a no-no because the veg then don’t have anything to soak into them, or whatever it’s called. 

You cut up the hardest veg first and by this I mean:
Carrots
Parsnips
Beets
Corn on the cob, you have to chop off the cob
Potatoes or any other hard to chop veg.

You put those into the broth first and cook them until they are el dente (not quite soft) BUT WHILST you are cooking them, go ahead and get the softer veg chopped up.

Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Maybe some hard tofu you’ve bought and baked (or BOUGHT BAKED from your local coop salad bar, if you’re me)
Or, add veggie ground “beef” also called “vegetable protein” because that? Is what it is!

When the harder veg are at the el dente stage, throw in the softer veg.  Also throw in half of a flavor packet from a veggie ramen or whatever spices you like. Don’t overdue this as you don’t want it too salty or have so many flavors, it tastes weird.

Cook it up and test it out, but don’t burn your MOUTH! Cool it down by leaving it out for awhile, blowing on it or putting a tiny bit of water on the spoon.  

Dish it out and top it with grated cheese, or if you’re VEGAN, don’t top it with dairy. Add dollop of cream cheese, instead, that is vegan—not made with animal products.

Enjoy!

A Post POST Retirement

I HAVE CAPS ON BECAUSE FOR WHATEVER REASON MY IPAD DOESN’T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO DO LARGER PRINT.

TECHNOLOGY! ARGG!

IT IS NOW OCTOBER 9TH IN GOOD OLD LOVELY VT.

FOLIAGE IS AT ITS PEAK AND IT IS ARGUABLY THE MOST LOVELY TIME OF YEAR WITH REALLY THE BEST WEATHER (ABOUT EVERY OTHER DAY) WHEN IT IS SUNNY AND COOL. WE CALL IT SWEATER WEATHER AND WE LOVE IT HERE.

I HAVEN’T REALLY WRITTEN IN THIS BLOG IN MONTHS. SINCE WINTER, I THINK, WHEN I WAS IN THE DOLDRUMS AND COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING POSITIVE TO SAY. NOW I CAN.

I SPENT THE SUMMER (and not in this order) doing the following things:

1) camping in NH, MA and VT in friend’s backyards and in state forests
2) staying in Air B N B’s in Vt and MA
3) staying in a motel for 4 nights in Amherst, MA during a 4 day rain storm
4) staying indoors at friends’ houses/apts/condos
OH, and many nights in Burlington, VT as part of a deal-gone-wrong, but that? I won’t write about.
5) watching my niece and staying at my sister’s house on the land I grew up on
6) watching a LOT of YouTube, Netflix and just DVD’s and movies.

NOT ONCE was I really alone except on overnights camping and MAN did I ever miss having a place of my own!

FINALLY IN JULY, PUSH CAME TO SHOVE WITH FAMILY AND I FOUND A PLACE TO RENT IN MY HOMETOWN. I’M THERE NOW, BUT NOT REALLY,

It got so bad that my “man friend” offered for me to live temporarily with HIM. And that is not only a bad idea, he lives in a HOT climate and I can’t STAND the heat. At all. He has A/C, but it really was a matter of my having committed to watching my niece —plus an elderly neighborhood woman—and having to be in VT.

And that is still happening.

So, I can say one thing about this? I learned a LOT about A) being retired and B) committing to things whilst being retired that don’t pay and therefore really just cost money, if you think about it. We hall have to eat, for example. I can’t tell you how many loaves of bread, chunks of cheese, bottles of milk, sticks of butter, leftovers, etc. I have LEFT in refrigerators because as a “camper” one doesn’t really have any way of insuring food stay fresh—meaning not moldy or poisonous.

I will stop dog/house sitting, stop watching the elderly woman and START my actual RETIREMENT about a YEAR after the date of 12/12/18– Actually, I think the week after 12/12/19.

I’m a slow learner.  It only took me a year to figure out what retirement is.
And isn’t.

Life in New England— yes, we know!

Here we are in VT in the Dead of winter. There are moments of sun through clouds here and there but mostly?  Really not.

There are hopeful moments and even hours. Of hope.

There are always plans being made, soups being stewed, bread being baked. We have lived this way for EVER and we know that the groundhog can come out or not on February 2nd. Those weeks inevitably turns into sixteen weeks. We know because we KNOW. We are New Englanders living East of the Great Lakes with an Easterly breeze that passes those Great Lakes and hits us like a slap on the face. We know that three or four times a winter a Nor’easter will inevitably hit us and last 48 hours. 

We stock up. 

We hunker down.

And we wait out the storms.

We dig out from under and we go back to work.Ask any New Englander— what if the power goes out? We will laugh and say that we are all stocked up. We got it covered.

We have flashlights, candles, lanterns.We know how to melt snow. We know how to pour  stored up water into toilet tanks. Hell, we’ll pee outside if we have to, dig a hole, bury the poop.

New Englanders are tough because this climate makes us tough. We don’t suffer fools because we wouldn’t survive BEING fools..              

Life here isn’t about enjoyment or living any kind of luxury,  It’s about one simple thing and do not let anyone tell you anything different. It’s about survival. People can die here of exposure, even in 50 degree weather in June in the mountains in rain storms. Folks perish of dehydration in the summers or getting lost in the thick and luscious forests during deer or hiking season. They die of exposure skiing off trail (and alone) in winter.They ride snow machines across frozen lakes, hit thin ice and go away with the fishes.

We not only understand the weather, we expect it. We count on it. Being a New Englander doesn’t even beg the question of “ what if?”—we have that covered. We live every single day as if the next
disaster is about to happen. Not one of us doesn’t have Plans B and C burned into our consciousness.

We all know that Hell in the form of a high wind storm, a flood, a nor’easter or high crazy humidity with afternoon electrical storms are imminent! You can’t fool us. Nothing surprises us. Fifty degrees on New Years Eve? We’ve seen it. Freak snowstorm in June? We’ve been there shoveling our steps,
knowing our phones aren’t going to work for days. Knowing we have enough provisions to last us months.


I recall one summer in the late 1980s when it rained every single day for like 4 weeks! I remember because I was an outdoor educator at a nearby college and hiked, camped, rock climbed and canoed in that shit.

So why do we love Vermont so much? Why do we call it home, even if we weren’t born here and maybe only spent summers here or better yet A summer? Maybe it’s the mountains, river valleys, lakes,  upland highlands and winters.  There is nothing in the world like sitting on the dock on a quiet lake early in the morning. Nothing  more beautiful than heavy snow blanketing evergreen trees weighing down the branches.  Late summer electrical storms lighting up the sky. Walking through a pine forest and hearing a crystal clear babbling brook just off to the left. The autumn leaves are arguably the best thing you will see in New England.  We are famous for covered bridges, cheddar cheese, maple syrup, smart wool socks, turtle fur hats,  ski resorts, as many greens as there are in Ireland. Lovely mountains that remind Austrians of their homeland.

And we are famous for our politics and policies— the rights of all people, legalizing pot, same gender marriage, physician assisted suicide. We are small yet mighty. We are a brave little state, and who wouldn’t want to call such a place home? And our winters are long and harsh. And we are strong and mighty. This is one brave little state! 

Ruminating Again...Countdown to Retirement

Ok, its been like six weeks but  I'm still not actually unemployed or retired. I'm in the middle, sort of. On vacation. Still. But it is now coming to an end and on or near Valentine's Day, I will receive my last paycheck from the city and begin receiving retirement benefits a month later. I have done many things and none of them well over these weeks and I have come to some conclusions and have set some goals. Mostly I watched a LOT of Netflix, YouTube videos, got together with friends I hadn't seen in a while and left the state. Twice.

I need something to do with my time. Something that is fun, is creative and brings me joy.
I don't want to "serve others" in the way I have been professionally doing for my entire life.
I want to be closer to nature. To live in it. Simply.
I don't want unnecessary stress in my life==even thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise up.
I like being entertained; mostly I like to learn from podcasts, TED talks, YouTube videos about Rving and living a minimalist lifestyle.

There is a lot going on. Lots of it is free or comes at a low cost. Lots of events and rallies and community stuff. All I have to do is look at FB, the papers, stay in contact w/ close friends who enjoy getting out and doing stuff.

I want to get back into MOTH story telling. 
I have some great, encouraging friends.
My boyfriend is supportive, as are my friends and family.
I am hopeful that Spring comes early.
I need someone to help me start boxing back up my life and getting rid of stuff to lighten my load. It's all just STUFF.
I don't want to replace new stuff with old stuff. But I do want to get camp gear and travel safely and efficiently for awhile.


I sold my house and got rid of 80% of my stuff. 
It is time to get rid of 10% more.

I have lived on the Long Trail. I have been my own boss, my own friend and my own enemy since I left my parents' house at 17. I can live with very little stuff, I can not live without people who I care about and who care about me.

At the end of my life I want to actually have lived the life I imagined when I was 14 and reading Walden Pond essays.
So far? So good.

All I ever wanted was to live a simple life. One with just books, a bed, a chair, a table, candlelight, an outdoor fire pit. Oddly, the way to have that in my near future was to have a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house and SELL it. Strange how that went. 

Life goes on. And the beauty is all around me. New England weather is rough. Just really ever-changing and never perfect. Ok, there are those 6 or 7 days (never in a row) where we do stand outside in the breeze of a Spring of Fall day and say, "Yes, this is why we live here." Winters are long and Summer heat, bugs, moths, bats are even longer. The humidity is always at 80% or higher in July and August. Sometimes September, as well. You have to love it here to live here. For me, it's the people. The mountains. The rivers and streams. Ponds. The lakes. And if that isn't enough, I can always jump in my car and head out for awhile. 

I'm not sure why I love it here, if I am being absolutely honest but it has always seemed like home to me. Especially my childhood home, which may or may not seem obvious. I know many people who dread going "home." I also know people who are at home anywhere, due to travel or the fact that they can "bloom where they're planted." As long as they have clothes on their backs and a song in their hearts...

We will see...

Ruminating about Retirement--Seeking a New Purpose

DAY ONE OF RETIREMENT


December 12, 2018

IT has been not even an entire DAY of retirement and although I planned and promised myself that I wouldn't DO anything, I did make a list of things that would make me feel better and did exactly thirteen of them before 3:15 PM.

It's after 4 now and although blogging is NOT on my list, here I go.

I had lost my laptop in the move a few months ago after having sold my three bedroom one bath and now live in a one bedroom one bath apartment. The view here is spectacular--one cannot hope for a better view of the mountains and rolling hills...

End of day note: Today was DAY ONE, well, still is. And it wasn't bad at all. People warned me about what to do and not to do:

• make sure you get up when you normally do
• sleep in
• take it easy the first few days
• get into a routine
• treat it like any Saturday
• don't get into a rut
• RELAX
• dance
• enjoy your freedom
• whatever you do? Do NOT drive into the city! (that piece of advice? I took)

My boyfriend told me not to make any lists, since we live and die by them and they drive him nuts. So what did I do? I made a list. Did almost all of the things on it, but they were all good things, like dealing with the mountain of recycling in my kitchen and taking a long walk in the sunshine. And breathing. And stretching. Things I forget to do on a daily basis and those things have made me into one of the youngest retirees around. I'm just barely 60 and according to absolutely everyone I know I am either "too young to retire" or they are jealous or envious (a nicer word for jealous) and regret some of the choices they made or they, too, would be retiring now.

So, I did some things and talked w/ three people on the phone. I made my bed. Washed my face. Ate a healthy breakfast. Found my laptop. Lots of first-day-of-retirement things.

And now I'm sitting  here....
______________________________________________________
OK that was literally over a month ago, and now that I have had 40 days of actual retirement, I can tell you what it is like.

B O R I N G, at least now that the holidays are over and everyone -except me- is back at work.

What I did over the past month of "vacation"--because I still am on vacation.

• um... nothing much from 12/12/18 until 12/17/18
• Went to Boston, then Virginia over Christmas and New Years
• Came home to VT and started researching RV living, tents, yurts, etc.
• Watched a lot of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video movies
• REwatched the movie Julie and Julia a number of times, to get an idea of how a running blog would actually work
• Downloaded Tasty app and made a few vegetarian meals I had previously never made (the stuffed portabella mushroom recipe is divine, by the way)

Now we are at the near-end of vacation and I have set myself an appointment to go and see Tricia, our town community coordinator, to see what kind of heck I can get into with her. She's a fun, smart and very talented artist and has great ideas when it comes to how to get the citizens here to "mingle and mix and be"- as Tom Hanks says in some movie or other.

January 22, 2019

Today is Day One after the big storm that not only dumped FEET of snow on the entire Eastern America, it brought with it sub-zero temps and kind of made a lot of people miserable in the process, mostly those of us who had visions of snowshoeing and cross country skiing last weekend with our partners.

So Dr Martin Luther King, Jr has had another birthday and folks are back at work. Well, everyone except us retirees (or pensioners, as I like to call us). It's a strange time of year to retire and I won't go into details as to when I chose December to do it, but I did. So here I am...

Well, I did actually take a few walks here and there over the past month and had a very nice time snowshoeing across the Stowe Quiet Path (other than the moment a strange dog tried to come face to face with me whilst feeling me up!)

I've been outside, I've met with friends I never see anymore except at grocery stores and gas stations (two Melissas and Minghui) tidied up, done some laundry, shopping, etc. I haven't stared at any walls, or had more than one crying jig. So that's good.

The other night I was in tears and my "man friend" was here. I told him I feel lost and don't feel as if I have a purpose. After all, I'm an American, dammit. I have worked since I was a toddler, bringing in the wood, putting away clothes, helping with laundry, sweeping the floor. I graduated to babysitting at about age 12 and really, since then have never even taken more than a few weeks off. Ever. Even though I was was a teacher and worked in schools for 19 years, all told. I had plenty of summers where I could have taken literally two months off per year. You know, had I been able to afford it!

You ask why I didn't? Yes, money was one reason. Now that I am at this point and age in my life I can say that TWO WEEKS' VACATION IS ABOUT ALL I CAN TAKE!

Well, I've learned another thing about myself, like it or not. I don't do well without a list or a reason to go onto the next thing. So here comes the list. Shield your eyes, folks, this ain't gonna be pretty. But if you do enjoy figuring out what to do with your life, follow me in my journey and you will at least learn how I did it.

I will start off with a list of positives. I will list what I enjoy doing.

I enjoy:

1. being outside
2. writing
3. taking nature photos
4. being around smart people
5. helping out by physically doing stuff that isn't back breaking
6. being creative and having beauty around me
7. producing things like plays 
8. planning things like activities and events where people can learn and enjoy 
9. palm reading, painting, teaching about safety and how to do things
10. giving credit where credit is due, encouraging coworkers and teammates to do their best
11. having enough time to take breaths and small breaks, enjoy nature, take a walk, etc.
12. working for the greater good

I do not enjoy:

1) being on a team that does not appreciate, listen to or respect me

2) sitting in an office--or office settings, in general

3) working every single day, 40 hours a week and commuting over 10 hours a week

4)  other folks taking credit for ideas and successes that are not their own

5) stress in the workplace (or anywhere else)

6) being distrusted or disliked in the workplace, and distrusting and disliking others

7) people who can't let bygones go; people who hold grudges and retaliate tit for tat

--generally speaking stress, distrust and bad feelings in the workplace.  I could have just said that, but chose to make a list because I know what I do NOT WANT and will not put up with those things ever again. God willing.

Ideally I would be able to work three days a week Tues, Wed, Thurs and do that to be around people, make a little money and have a reason to get up and out of the house. I do not think the work has to be meaningful the way my work has been (working with migrant folks, homeless people, seniors...) but it has to serve a purpose.

One of my all-time favorite jobs was doing dishes at what was called Mt Mansfield Company. I did that after quitting my first teaching job. I romanticize it in my mind when really it was after a big boyfriend breakup (ok, I was dumped) and a summer living with my brother with nothing to do except sleep and eat. Bad times call for action, so I got a job as a dishwasher with low stress and specific hours and obvious duties and it was exactly what I needed at  time. And because I had quit a private school job, I started the dishwashing job in May and didn't stop that until I got another teaching job in October of that year. Five months and it was great! Hey, maybe my next job with me as a dish washer. Its a resort town. Who knows?

So with that written, I will now go on to do what I will today in this frigid deadly yet extremely beautiful day. Thanks for reading this.

I will try to write again tomorrow... 

RETIREMENT COUNTDOWN!

The Countdown is on. I have 21 more days of commuting to the city.

Some things I’ve already done:

• Sold house
• Moved out
• Put money in bank
• Gone to eye doctor, regular doctor and dentist
• Looked into insurance post-retirement
• Scanned p t jobs, way too early
• Talked about retirement to everyone I meet to get tips

Now it’s time to do a daily blog about it. So here goes:

Today is Sat 11/11 and I am retiring on Wed, 12/12. 

It’s a lovely sunny 20* day in VT and I am plunked down on my sofa with a pillow in my lap acting as a desktop. I began watching Julie and Julia—the movie about a gal//writer named Julie and her blog about Julia Child. She spent a year cooking one or more recipes from Julia’s cookbook—The Art of French Cooking. Mostly out of boredom and because she felt if she didn’t she would go crazy.

Unfortunately I cannot blog and watch a movie about a blog at the same time. Or can I? I forgot
about my PHONE! Maybe I’ll call mine Evie is Leavie or something. (Okay , maybe not)


Okay  daily blog isn’t gonna happen seeing’s how this is the 16th, as my southern Kentucky land lady  says.

I Used to Be....Now I'm....

I used to be....now I'm...

I used to be afraid of having fun. Now I'm not (as much.)

There were four of us riding down the smooth, newly honned dirt road, one behind the other in a dark blue baby buggy with white stitching and white wall tires. All chrome. Very sweet. Riding down the road. Squealing with delight. "Faster! Faster!" we hollered to our 9 year old sister, our pilot. Ticona held fast onto to the shiny chrome handles. We perched inside, arms spilling out as we flew. Mariah was three and in front, I was four and a half, Jerri was almost six. Acey was eight.

Sunny afternoon, mid July. Blue sky. Puffy white clouds. Perfect.

Until we hit the rock, the soft sand on the side, veered off into the double barbed wire fence. Electric. And it was on. Mariah flew out and into the field, Acey over our heads after her. Jerri and I were trapped under the pram.

I must have grabbed the fence because I have always had scars  on my hands. I definitely struggled. I remember shouting NO! shaking my head back and forth, ripping open my face.

Ticona tried to make it right. The worst part was that because the buggy was mostly chrome, it was electrified. Every time Ticona touched it, she got another jolt.  OW OW!

GET IT OFF HER! GET IF OFF THE FENCE! someone cried.

Finally I must have crawled out of it or Acey may have snagged it off....I don't know because all I could see was red. Blood in my eyes, coming from the top of my head, my forehead, cheek. My face had essentially been ripped off.

Screaming and screaming and crying and terrified, Jerri grabbed my hand and ran me down the road to the house. Our feet barely hitting the ground. In blood and shock.

For some reason I remember that I was wearing a little girl white T shirt and blue shorts. By the time we got to the house, only 30 yards away, my T shirt was drenched in little girl blood. I remember blinking and seeing the blood running down my left arm and off my fingers.

We got to the farmhouse and to Mother and Dad. Later Daddy said he knew something was really wrong when he heard "you girls screaming like that." Mother washed me up and wrapped me in a white bed sheet fresh from the line, taped my face back on, rocked me back and forth. Stayed up all night to make sure my wounds didn't re-open. Let me sleep in my parents bed for nights thereafter. She never looked at me the same after that. Nobody did. When you're a little girl, about to start first grade and you have a scar across your face as big and red as that one was? Nobody looks at you the same as they look at other pretty little girls in your family.

I am fortunate, really, because a few inches lower and that fence would have gotten me in the neck---the corotid. Jugular. Blood would have squirted out with every beat of my little girl heart. A heart that earlier pounded with glee, replaced by adrenalin, kicked into survival mode....a heart that knew where home was. Even when she couldn't see.

It took years to get over the feeling that if I let myself go, really let go the way most people do on ferris wheels, even tree swings, on bicycles...something tragic would happen. Something horrible and bloody would come and spoil everything. Scar me for life. I used to be afriad to have fun. Now? Not as much...

Nothing But Lies

"How's your new engagement ring?" my niece Eliza asked me as she hopped into the passenger's seat of my car. She chuckled as I backed the car around and headed out of the driveway.

"Oh my God!" she laughed. "You won't believe what your sisters are saying!"  She was wrong there. I knew them and had for over 50 years. She had only had to put up with their shenanigans for like 30.

"What now?" I asked.

"Well, Jema (her mother) has been saying you're engaged to somebody but none of them can figure out who!"

"Oh, it must have been my joke on Facebook. I put a photo of this ring (I showed her the tastefully done cz ring I'd purchased at a local box store for 8$ on sale.) I had posted, "Sometimes a ring is just a ring."

"Hey, that's nice!" she said. "Looks real, too. That must have stirred the girls up. Hee hee hee."

"Must be they have someone stalking my pages again. Nothing else to do, I guess."

"Yup. They need to get a life!" she said, sucking down the contents of her plastic cup with ice cubes.

We laughed. She had been my friend ever since she was little and just walking around. She got me.

She filled me in on what her mother and my other sisters had been saying. That if I was being secretive, I must be hiding something...

"They have two theories. Get this: either you're seeing a married man or a woman."

"Wrong on both counts," I said. 

"Well that's what they're trying to prove...You're not gonna like this but at first they thought it was Mr. Bartlow, your old English teacher from high school."

"What?" I asked.

"Yeah, they say that's why you're trying to buy that condo! Apparently he lives in that area!"

"Well, this means war!" I said through my teeth. (As a certified English teacher, I was never so insulted!)

It was true that I  had posted a bunch of lovey dovey crap about true love and whatnot on FB. You know, quotes from George Bernard Shaw and Will Shakespeare. Then I downloaded and pinned a ton of bride and groom pics. I even posted a photo of a wall plaque I had taken at an Air B N B in Toronto--- Happily Ever After.

So I wasn't at all surprised when I'd gotten the call from my youngest sister, the leader of the Sister Gang.

"Hey! Heard you're getting hitched, Evie."

"What? Who told you that?"

"I have my ways," was her sly retort. "I know everything that goes on in this family."

"I don't know what you're talking about, " I said. And for emphasis, "I gotta go!" And hung up.

So I had laid down that foundation. No wonder they had it down to those two possibilities.

"We need to think up a lie, Eliza said. "We need to spread a rumor about you. Throw them off the scent."

"Yeah," I said. "Smoke them out of their fox hole!" (We high 5ed on that one.)

We decided that the best candidate was a "mildly famous celebrity" who was a) single b) a man and c) around my age.

"I've got it! Rusty Deweese!" she finally said, almost choking herself to death with her drink.

"The logger?" I asked  her. (For those of you who don't know, he is a stand up Vermont story teller from the Stowe area. Red headed and very pale skinned. Does a Vermont dialect that I don't recognize but I was only raised here and lived here all my life.) 

"Perfect," I said. "It's settled."  ANOTHER HIGH FIVE.

Eliza was to go see her mother the next day and tell her that she had tried to get Antie Eve to admit to who she was seeing, but she got nothing. She was to say she had seen me outside Black Cap Coffee in Stowe holding hands with some dude, who looked like the Logger but couldn't have been.

That I had gotten in my car and given him a smootch. She could have been wrong, but she THOUGHT it was him.  She was to tell her mother, "DO NOT TELL YOUR SISTERS," which would ensure her telling them the truth of the lies and adding on a few more juicy details.

Just for good measure I "friended" the Logger on Facebook, downloaded two of his photos and "liked" a bunch of his posts. Replied to some. I even shared an upcoming charity event he had planned in Enosburg Falls High School which was, coincidentally, where I used to teach.

In the end I was busy the night of the event and one of my older sisters, Ty, did go and said THE GIRLS didn't show. Eventually my sister Marina phoned from North Carolina saying the girls were all wound up about who I was going to marry! That they wouldn't stop obsessing about it.

So I had to tell her the truth---that the whole thing was nothing but lies.

"Good for you!" she said. "They deserve what they got. They need to learn to mind their own business."

They've left me alone ever since. :)

Supervision

Day One of my job at COTS (the Committee on Temporary Shelter) at the Day Station, One Main Street, Burlington, VT.We stood on the loading dock and my tall, handsome fast-paced ADHD supervisor says to me, "Grab your stuff! Sister Lucille needs to meet with us on North Street."

I had been interviewed by Tim and Lucille and I really only remembered one bit of advice from him, "Never again come to work looking so dressed up."  He had said, "You can wear anything you want here, but no dresses!"

I had come from a past of teaching at Sacred Heart Middle/High School where the priest/principal once chased me into the women's bath room and yelled at me for daring to wear leggings under my skirt on a 20 degrees below zero day. Then I'd taught at EFHS and jeans were never allowed. So hearing Tim say that the dress code was essentially NO dress code, was odd. I had asked Tim why I couldn't dress up and he said, "Too intimidating! These clients have trust issues. They'll think you're too high and mighty!"

"OK, I understand," I said. Tim and I got into his blue beat up Volvo filled w/ two large laundry baskets full of (I guessed) dirty laundry.  We must have been  running late because Tim swung the Volvo around in a circle almost careening into a group of pigeons and one of the clients who had the type of schizophrenia known as paranoid delusional. The guy rubbed his fingers together through woolen fingerless gloves as if to say, "Shame on you and Tim said, "Yeah, right, Roger! Like I'm gonna kill a pigeon in front of you!"

Tim dug into his jean pockets and frowned. "Oh, Jesus,"  he hollered. "Hey, grab those jeans back there! The ones on top!"  So I did and pulled them into the front seat. He fished the keys out of the jeans pocket and handed them to me and skidded to a stop. "These are yours. Don't lose them!"

And off we went to meet with Sister Lucille.

I didn't know it at the time but Tim Coleman was to supervise me once a week. Mostly it was him and me riding around in his car, hitting the ATM, eating gravy fries at Nectar's or going to his apartment in Queen City Park because he needed to check to see if he'd left his coffee pot on. Supervision with Tim Coleman was definitely something to look forward to. He gave me some of the best advice I have ever gotten. Mostly he said if people believe something it's true for them. Meet people where they are. You can't change the wind, adjust your sail. And if you can't believe how stupid or drunken or crazy or ridiculous people are, remember they are getting something out of it or they'd stop. People are who they are. Remember that and you will save your self a lifetime of aggravation.

Running For Office, Them's Fightin' Words!

So, I decided to run for office, not because I thought I had a snowball's chance of winning, in fact, probably because I didn't. So I didn't try too hard to win--in fact, these are the only four things I did do:

• Announced it on Facebook  (ok, about a zillion times)
• Took a quarter page out  in the local paper for $197.27
• Announced it on FPF--our on-line hometown bulletin board
• Word of mouthed it w/ small flyers to those I knew

 Now, if it hadn't been for the smear campaign that Mrs. Geck, one of the local pre-school teachers (whose I Q is probably close to that OF a pre-schooler, and whose vocabulary consists of, "That's not nice" and  "It's only fair to share your toys" and "Let's go to the potty" and clapping and shouting "YES!" when someone drops a bum bum in the toilet and the like), I may have won by a larger margin.

OK, I was snarky and I did provoke her. But she started it.

First, she posted hate messages on the Forum. I reacted with information from my many years working with the poor, data that supported my argument. I emailed her directly asking some pointed questions like, "Why do you hate homeless people so much?"

Then, she posted a second scathing hate message about homeless people and my retort was, "Are you trying to reach small minded people?" And yes, it's true, I did indeed quote Will Shakespeare's Hamlet speech about her protesting too much. I also may have asked her why she had to keep it up, why, oh why did she have to rant and rave? Couldn't she let someone else post their own thoughts, for once?

Well,  Mrs. Geck didn't take a breath before she zapped off an email to about 150 people in her school's private email address book misquoting me. She wrote to owners of businesses, people who went to my church, people I had gone through 12 years of school with! Of course, what she didn't realize is I am related to half the town and she accidentally sent that wretched email to one of my many sisters! So, tit for tat, I wrote to her. After my second email to her, she not only told me not to write back, she wrote those same people telling them what I wrote--and misquoting me again, in the process.

However, in an attempt to make me look stupid; she made herself look insane. In an attempt to get MY goat, she let hers run away. She did hit below the belt when she went begging for people to vote for my opponent, the incumbant (whom she didn't even know, by the way) asking if "Yvette Mason is the kind of person we want representing us on the Select Board." 

Well, them's fighting words so I contacted an attorney who said now that it was public, it was slander (or was it lible)? If she had cost me the election, I wouldn't have been so forgiving. It's a national election year. And apparently she thought if Donald Trump can be racist, mysognistic and hateful, so could she! It's true that the night before the election I ended up in tears, crying to at least three friends how unfair it was and that she would be costing me the election. How I was Hester Prynne of Morristown and how nobody would ever speak to me again. I might as well start stitching the Scarlet Letter to my chest tonight. Blubber blubber.

My best friend, Jason, saw the rambling text I cried into my phone and quickly rang me up. "What is going on up there?" he hollered into the phone over the sound of a street siren. After listening for some time to my slobering nonsense, he finally said, "Ok, here's the thing, nobody likes their kids' preschool teacher anyway.They just put up with them until their kids get old enough to go to regular school and never speak to them again!" (That made me feel even worse, since I had spent 13 years as an afterschool teacher and I actually thought some of those parents LOVED ME! Booo hooo.)But by the end of the conversation I did realize ridiculous the whole situation was. How much worse could it really get?

Jason told me that even if I did lose, I had been brave. I had publicly stuck up for fringe, people without a voice. I had a made points that many people share, that I really passionately believed. And how many people DARE do that? And he ended his little encouraging speech with, "Evie, you are not Hester Prynne. You are Bernie Sanders!" and I could feel him smile all those miles away. I threatened to stay home the next day and not even vote. Jason convinced me that if I didn't vote, Mrs. Geck would win. So that was it. I had to suck it up and go out there the next day and vote. Plus, I would be sure to get at least one vote.

Fearing stares and lightening strikes, I avoided Town Meeting. But I did go into the town offices and went to cast my vote. Of course, it got worse when my name was misspelled on the ballot!  YEVETTE? WHAT THE F? And although it had gone from ridiculous to ridiculouser, I just smiled and thought, "Well, if I do win, does it even count? That's not even my name..." 

But won. I won by 72 votes. I beat out the encumbant--and nobody does that. 

Nobody.

When I told Jason, that it was only by a slim margin, he said, "What? Do you think when Hillary won....by 10 votes....something something....(I stopped listening so I could gloat)....she said, "Oh, I only won by... Hell no! She threw her arms up and said, "We just won Iowa!" (or was that Bernie?)

So, maybe Mrs. Geck's pre-school pontifications backfired. My ad featuring me (sort of) preserved in a Mason jar--might have been a smart move, after all. Listing my assets (that I am from here,  I was born and educated here, I pay taxes here and I'm here to stay) may have been enough. Maybe my being female helped, or my supporting Bernie or that my name was listed alphabetically and therefore came before the encumbant? Who knows? Maybe the words I posted in the Forum in the Six Word Contest aimed right at Mrs. Geck (Mary and Joseph were homeless too) got the Christian vote. Who really knows? I do know that the 24 hour roller-coaster ride was one of the best and worst of my life.

And Mrs. Geck? She's still out there--lurking in the shadows, typing her hate mail late into the night. Instead of being the super mom who reads bedtime stories and tucks her kids into bed, she is still obsessing like Bilbo Baggins about her Precious, her Precious...

I told one of my seven sisters that if Mrs. Geck had said I was a slob and always had dirty dishes in my sink or rarely took my recycled wine bottles to Stowe Recycling Center, or even had unclean thoughts or whatever, I'd say, "OK! OK! She's got me there!" But, "She's mean to me!"? and "Do we want this kind of person in office?" Making her the victim? Me the bully?

I.  Don't. Think. So.

She's the one who twisted my words. She's the one who tried to whip this town up into a lather portraying me as the Melville heroine of Morristown.

It's true that if I hadn't won the election, I would have sued the hippie skirt off her. Taken the yarn and knitting needles out of her clutches. But 53% of the vote is a win. And Mrs. Geck or no Mrs. Geck, I am not Hester Prynne. I am Bernie Sanders. I tell it like it is. I take names. I call people out. I get the votes. And I'm smart enough to privately email people to let them think twice about their public comments. I never once said a bad word about the incumbant.  I never even said a bad word about Mrs. Geck.

I? Thanked everyone for their votes. Humbly and sincerely. I didn't sue her (yet) nor did I wish ill will. I didn't point out the lunacy of her campaign to bersmirch me. I turned the other cheek. I took the high road. 

There is a lot less traffic up here.

rewritten April 5, 2016 

Soft Soaping a Pig

SOFT SOAPING A PIG--named Gronk

There's an expression about soft-soaping someone and I used to hear it in my childhood, "Oh, he's just soft-soaping you," someone would say, mostly my father.

I think it was like "greasing the pig"-where, during county fairs back in the day (and maybe even now-a-days) in some parts of America, there are pig catching contests. A pig and a human being run around in a pen and the pig squeals and the human grunts and groans and, because the pig is "greased up" for this contest,when the person chasing it around does get his hands on that pig, he usually loses grip and the pig slips away and runs around some more in the muck with on-lookers placing cash bets, mostly ON the pig...

I grew up with horses, ducks, chickens, goats and once we may or may not have had a cow. I can clearly remember having a pig when I was in middle school. His name was Gronk because that was the sound he emmitted when he called out. We fed Gronk grain and table scraps, stuff we normally composted and Gronk seemed to smile and wave his curly tail every time he saw one of my sisters or Dad coming over the bank toward his pen with the sap bucket of food.

Gronk lived there all year and maybe two but I'm not sure and then one day it came--late fall. Lawrence Lechance meandered over from next door with a knife the size of a machete and called out to my Dad. Then the two of them went over the bank and came up the gravel road with Gronk between them with a rope around his neck. They passed the mail box and turned into the driveway and disappeared into the wood shed where, presumably Lawrence slit old Gronk's throat.  

I was 14 at the time and I had vowed vegetarianism when I was 12. Naturally I was horrified that my family would raise and then murder an innocent animal, one I had come to tell my secrets to. Dad of course, reminded me what he had said from the very beginning, "Do not make friends with that pig. He's going to be pork chops and ham and bacon come fall." And for effect, Dad would lick his lips and send me running outside. No soft-soaping there.

I was certain that Gronk knew what they were going to do to him that fated day. That day my eyes opened and filled with tears. The day I ran up the road and into the field and cried and cried for my pig friend, Gronk.

I USED TO BE.....NOW I'M ........ (prompt)

I used to be....now I'm...


I used to be afraid of having fun. Now I'm not (as much.)

There were four of us riding down the smooth, newly honned dirt road, one behind the other in a dark blue baby buggy with white stitching and white wall tires. All chrome. Very sweet. Riding down the road. Squealing with delight. "Faster! Faster!" we hollered to our 9 year old sister, our pilot. Tacoma held fast onto to the shiny chrome handles. We perched inside, arms spilling out as we flew. Meesha was three and in front, I was four and a half, Jemi was almost six. Asa was eight.

Sunny afternoon, mid July. Blue sky. Puffy white clouds. Perfect.

Until we hit the rock, the soft sand on the side, veered off into the double barbed wire fence. Electric. And it was on. Meesha flew out and into the field, Asa over our heads after her. Jemi and I were trapped under the pram.

I must have grabbed the fence because I have always had scars  on my hands. I definitely struggled. I remember shouting NO! shaking my head back and forth, ripping open my face.

Tacoma tried to make it right. The worst part was that because the buggy was mostly chrome, it was electrified. Every time Tacoma touched it, she got another jolt.  OW OW!
GET IT OFF HER! GET IF OFF THE FENCE! someone cried.

Finally I must have crawled out of it or Asa may have snagged it off....I don't know because all I could see was red. Blood in my eyes, coming from the top of my head, my forehead, cheek. My face had essentially been ripped off. The skin of my left cheek was flapping.

Screaming and screaming and crying and terrified, Jemi grabbed my hand and ran me down the road to the house. Our feet barely hitting the ground. In blood and shock.

By the time we got to the house, only 30 yards away, my little girl white T shirt was drenched in little girl blood. I remember blinking and seeing the blood running down my left arm and off my fingers.

We got to the old gray (at the time) farmhouse and to Mother and Dad. Later Daddy said he knew something was really wrong when he heard "you girls screaming like that." Mother washed me up and wrapped me in a white bed sheet fresh from the line, taped my face back on, rocked me back and forth. Stayed up all night to make sure my wounds didn't re-open. Let me sleep in my parents bed for nights thereafter. She never looked at me the same after that. Nobody did. When you're a little girl, about to start first grade and you have a scar across your face as big and red as that one was? Nobody looks at you the same as they look at other pretty little girls in your family.

I am fortunate, really, because a few inches lower and that fence would have gotten me in the neck---the corotid. Jugular. Blood would have squirted out with every beat of my little girl heart. A heart that earlier pounded with glee, replaced by adrenalin, kicked into survival mode....a heart that knew where home was. Even when she couldn't see.

It took years to get over the feeling that if I let myself go, really let go the way most people do on ferris wheels, even tree swings, on bicycles...something tragic would happen. Something horrible and bloody would come and spoil everything. Scar me for life. I used to be afraid to have fun. Now? Not as much...

Getting Organized--under a Blood Moon

It's not as if I am incapable of cleaning a room or moving through boxes of paperwork, dragging furniture around rearranging art work, storing things, throwing stuff out. It's just that I can always find better ways to spend my time. So I decided, during a conversation with my dear friend Patricia, that SHE was the person who could help me actually clean house. I have several sisters, one of whom would throw too much stuff out if I could ever get her to slow down long enough to come over and help me out, one who (and I mean this with love) is a hoarder, but who can tidy a room like nobody I have ever seen---when it's not her own...and another who means well, is really good at doing any size project, no matter how disgusting (more on that later) in record time, with zest and zeal and a "we are going to get this done today" attitude. Of course, one wouldn't, one couldn't and one really shouldn't since she has her own messes to clean up before the snow flies, including trying to fix up and sell two houses that were left to her by our dead brother.

So along comes Patricia, spends the night at my house in my (yes, clean) guest room-- unbeknowst to PJ, I had spent several "pre-organizer" hours cleaning up the house...you know, like when the maid is coming and everybody has to make their bed and pick up the toys? 

We decide to "go to town" after a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, English muffins, carrots and celery, veggie sausage, coffee and juice. Heavy on the coffee, light on the carrots and celery. We talked about what could be done (there is a LOT of that in reorganizing, as well as a tiny bit of lecturing, many explanations, and much acquiescence)..it's a real education. Patricia (I will henceforth refer to her as PJ, because a/ I'm lazy and b/ok, there is no b==I'm just lazy) had arrived the night before, which meant she hadn't surveyed the property. So after talking about all the possibilities ad nauseum, we cleaned up breakfast and ventured outside into the cool, autumn air and across the heavy dew of the lawn.

In a sentence I would call my house and property an "end of the street raised ranch built into an ant hill surrounded by woods, bushes and brush and a cedar hedge." The lawn is nice, large, and part of it is almost flat enough to pitch a tent, features a thrown-together field stone fire pit (in which I burn papers, cardboard and your occasional woolen blanket or pair of painter's pants.) We sat on a makeshift tent platform high on the hill surveying the scene. PJ started in. "You can pitch tents on this lawn! You could sell it as a place to have weddings! You could...." and so on...she is a woman full of ideas, many creative ones, many overly ambitious ones. (More on the actual organizing of the house here....)
alter, Japanese sake 
family pics

So, it was back inside for us to tackle the job before the blood moon showed up, and we had to stop. I live near a country club, a golf course. And although we could really have scrambled up there, dodging the hoards of skunks reported to frequent the 7th hole, we decided to use the brains our parents gave us and drive up there. In the heat of my car, peering out through the moon roof, we saw it. There that moon was, smiling down on us and there we were, Japanese sake in hand, two gray handle-less mugs flung from a potter's wheel already warmed up. Rearing to go. 

 PJ is a photographer, so she was having none of this, in-the-car stuff. She fled the vehicle as if her ass was afire. She was about to sit her carcass on the ground, when I got out and hauled a blanket I keep in my car for JUST these kinds of occasions, which come to find out, happen exactly every 18 years! We sat there under that moon, chilly and excited, a bit tipsy and poised to get wowed and get some award-winning shots of that crazy, magical lunar eclipse that was about to happen.

NOTHING IS BETTER

• winter sunsets
• the ocean at sunrise
• trees covered in snow
• spring flowers
• Friday afternoon commute
• Sunday morning brunch
• moss covered rocks
• paper birch trees
• maple sugaring time
• mountains in the distance
• Vermont foliage
• you

Life Savers--OCT 27, 2015

LIFE SAVERS

It isn't just people who save lives--there are the obvious people/occupations like EMTS, fire fighters, police officers, soldiers...and there are nurses, physicians, operating room staff. Teachers save lives, counselors, friends...everyday people who are brave and dare run into fires, run into traffic, dive into icy waters and onto railroad and subway tracks.

But places, organizations, institutions can also save lives...giving people hope to go on one more day, take one more step into the future. Right here in Burlington there is such a place called Hope House--it is a respite home for those undergoing cancer treatments at the nearby hospital. Their doors are open to even spouses, children, loved ones of the patients so they can stay close, not have the expenses of a hotel stay, the dread of an empty, stark room.

So why some idiots (and I'm guessing frat boys) would sneak up to the Ronald McDonald statue that was sitting peacefully on a park bench outside Hope House in the middle of the night? Saw his legs off, decapitate him and leave him there for the horror of children and the disgust of staff volunteers, wives, mothers of cancer patients? Is more than I can fathom.

I know that many of us fear clowns and some folks are even terrified of them with all the drama makeup and big red lips, baggy pants, surprise flower that sprays water, floppy shoes...and many of us even refuse to frequent McDonald's restaurants--a place that joyfully brags that they "serve billions daily" the greasy salty fries, hamburgers that came from god only knows what beef cows, and Coke, a product that is known to clean the gunk off your car battery better than anything...

But to mangle a mascot? The sign of joy and hope and love and light and symbol of the Hope House itself, seems unconsciencable. I hope those vandals are caught and I hope they learn a lesson about who and what not to eff with.

Emily Dickenson once wrote "hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all..."

Hope House perches on that college hill singing a tune without words, never stopping at all. Saving lives. One song at a time.


Yvette Mason,
MORY Writers' Group

Second thought for the day

Why do people, caught in lies, lie even more?

Please Stop Saying That?

List of what I can NOT STAND to hear one more time:

• Long time No see! (This is the worst, so I listed it first)
• No worries
• You'll have that
• Been there. Done that.
• No problem
• Yup, you'll have that
• Seen that 
• Same
• Ain't that something?
• Whassup?
• No Problem! No Worries, Mate!
• Where yuh been?
• What yuh been up tuh?
• Told you so
• Yup, I told you so
• Didn't I tell you so?
• I warned you (or any variation of this)
• It's been a while
• Yer shittin' me!
• Nope
• Yup
• Don't think so
• Hell no!

This list is by no means finished. Nope. Hell no. It ain't.