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The first time the matter entered my mind, the trigger was an exhibition on view in Austin, Texas, held at the Harry Ransom Art Center, part of the University of Texas on historical documents dealing with the world of ISMS. According to Eugene O. Golob, in his book, The Isms, A History and Evaluation, Harper & Brothers New York, 1954, Ism words define ideological concepts and are part of a lexicon of word endings with political, controversial and theoretical leanings.

I had always been fascinated by suffixes such as …ism, …ology,  …able, …ation and more that add certain assigned meaning to the words in each category.  Thus began my collection of such words and categories with hours spent delving into research on the matter. Not surprisingly, there exists a vast store of material before me. These include many essays, surveys and books on the subject, a society of ism lovers, and a vast storage of artwork including my own. 

The trend continues. I constantly encounter “ism” endings of words that seem to be spontaneously created by a writer to serve a particular purpose in their meaning. A couple of recently encountered ism words include Purposfulism and texturalism.

My intent in today’s message is to introduce the topic of categories of suffix as an occasional subject for my Monday Blog and to offer and share my fascination with word development through the ages and ongoing as we read. I hope it will offer wondrous, humorous words for thought for you, my readers. 

The noises in the night in the numerous and varied campgrounds and parks in which we perch when on the road, are so different; sometimes staying quietly in the background, on the edge of our our attention.  Sometimes they are loud, annoying and incessant keeping us from focusing on anything but the noise. 

Last night, while awake for awhile, I heard only one continuous sound, the droning hum of the nearby highway, not loud, not annoying but never ceasing. However, in my experience, this is not the average sound of the night.  The passing of Cars, motorcycles, buses or big trucks stomping on their Jake brakes applied while descending a grade producing a very loud, long lasting screeching blast of sound and prohibited in most counties. Here, the night sounds were indeed a steady low toned hum, continuous, without volume, tone or pitch change. 

There were no birds singing, no coyotes barking, no trains passing by, no boat whistles, campground noise or voices partying late into the quiet hours. I especially missed the early morning bird and animal sounds. Camping in Sanford, Fl, I expected to hear birds singing How strange.  

Abut 12 hours after my bout with sleeplessness, we took a walk on the trail leading into the park and swampland surrounding us. The sunlight glowed, lighting its way through the dense forest.

The sounds were still subdued, subtle and steady. There was still a lack of bird song. To my delight we walked through a cypress grove. 

I anticipate the night symphony continuing tonight wondering if the sounds will vary at all, Perhaps there will be a change in the traffic sounds, a stray cat whining as it searches for something delectable only to a cat, or a plane, a train or a clap of thunder. I am hoping to hear bird song in early dawn. I am not sure anything will change.

After all of the years of my life and many visits to Washington, DC, I finally toured the incredible building, the Library of Congress. What a gift to our country, to each citizen just for the “cost” of mounting the dramatic stairway into the entrance hall.  After passing through security and entering the vast vestibule of the building, you look up for the first time and gasp at the unexpected beauty of this legacy building.  The ceilings are glowing in color, text shimmers in gold, statuary is done with fine detail and forethought; all fresh, clean and fulled with meaning and nuance.  When the Library of Congress building opened its doors to the public on November 1, 1897, it was hailed as a glorious national monument and “the largest, the costliest, and the safest” library building in the world; for more, visit web site, https://www.loc.gov/about/history-of-the-library/

From this site we learn that “throughout his life, books were vital to Thomas Jefferson’s education and well-being. When his family home in Shadwell burned in 1770 Jefferson most lamented the loss of his books. In the midst of the American Revolution and while United States minister to France in the 1780s, Jefferson acquired thousands of books for his library at Monticello. Jefferson’s library went through several stages, but it was always critically important to him. Books provided the little traveled Jefferson with a broader knowledge of the contemporary and ancient worlds than most contemporaries of broader personal experience. By 1814 when the British burned the nation’s Capitol and the Library of Congress, Jefferson had acquired the largest personal collection of books in the United States. Jefferson offered to sell his library to Congress as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the British during the War of 1812. Congress purchased Jefferson’s library for $23,950 in 1815. A second fire on Christmas Eve of 1851, destroyed nearly two thirds of the 6,487 volumes Congress had purchased from Jefferson.”

The remainder of the books belonging to Jefferson on on display on the 2nd floor of library, and what a vast and varied collection it is.  After the second fire in 1851, about a third of the lost volumes have been replaced by books representing as closely as possible the same edition of the book that had been in Jefferson’s original collection. They cover many topics and themes and include many languages.
Some photos;

Searches for more of the Jefferson’s lost books are ongoing and each book on the shelf is being digitized to enter into the archive for future research and preservation.  Furthermore, anyone over age 16 wishing to do research in the library, in one of its 23 reading rooms (don’t miss the main reading room and the fine ceiling) may do so.  Your book orders are filled withing 45 minutes from the vast stack system on or nearby the library campus.  On going programming is offered throughout the year in music, lecture and more. 

What more can I add? Go to the web sites for more historical input, photos and drawings underlining the value of this institution or to refresh memories of your own visits to the Library.  Our excellent docent, Fred summed it up for me; to paraphrase, he couldn’t be more pleased but to be a docent for this library. The value of the 3 months of training, exposure to items from the collection, instruction by the experts on staff and the enthusiasm shown by the visitors on his tours have enriched his life.  Mine has been enriched as well. What took me so long? Everything in its time I guess. 

This is a dark blog, not my usual tone.  The current book of non-fiction on my Kindle and my obsession with world news led me to create this entry.  One of the constants in this world is conflict. Nothing new, but the latest news is always there feeding our obsession with the need to know . Hatred, war, pillage, desecration, dominance, genocide and extermination are among the plagues practiced since the beginnings of mankind. The book alluded to above has brought this together for me in a poignant way: entitled, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, (Revisioning American History) by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. 

The author vividly documents the history or our country from the Indigenous Peoples’ point of view, It is not glossed over, cleaned up or glorified as in the history books we have read or historical sites we have visited.  It is not to say that battles, scourges and attacks have been overlooked, but from the point of view of the Indigenous storytellers, it clarifies the horrid and constant treatment of those occupants of our land before Chris Columbus led the way to the New World. It is clear that the final solution is not a discovery of the 20th century, but ages old. 

From the first settlers in the 1500’s and sadly to the present day, the natives of our land have been tragically slaughtered and tortured beyond the realm of my understanding, remembering the many famous battles, Indigenous children’s re-education and removal from their families, the Trail of Tears, displacement from their traditional lands and more. Reading this history is eye opening. I am just half way through the book, but cringe at the treatment of this tribal people. 

I now try to accept that the world was born in Genocide, not with the love of tolerance and peace. From early man, the tragic stories continue world wide, yet again in waves of migrants, killing on our streets, killings in our schools, in the market, parks and parking lots, neighborhoods, in our homes. 

The words of Martin Luther King, JR, presented well after these events, provide the words underlying my ire centuries after the  days of our nation’s birth. The quote, as an introduction to chapter five entitled Birth Of A Nation on page 78 in Dunbar-Ortiz’ book reads; 

That these behaviors do not cease or modify is horrific and depressing. I still believe it is in the individual and their stories that hope springs eternal.  Sorry to be so serious, but my heart is aching at the suffering endured around the globe. I know I am not at all alone in these thoughts.

Next week, back to something sweet, humorous or hopeful.

Ann Carol 

 show an orange-red eyeshine, the Chuck-will’s Widow eyes show pink or orange eyeshine.The Bobcat, Domestic cat, and so many more species display bright eyeshine giving the avid birdwatcher a hint of their whereabouts in the night sky. 

 Eyeshine is an American underground rock band formed in 2004 by front man Johnny Yong Bosch
https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/young_naturalist/animals/eyeshine/

Animals that display the brightest eyeshine, such as the bobcat, have more rods (light receptors) and fewer cones (color receptors) in their retinas than animals with no eyeshine. As a result, they have excellent night vision, but most are color-blind.

The majority of animals displaying eyeshine also are nocturnal animals.

CHUCK-WILL’S-WIDOW Caprimulgus carolinensis A big brown nightjar of … Like other nightjars, shows pink or orange eye–shine in headlight beams at night.

A face appeared in the top segment of the bathroom window of my apartment. He balanced a protective helmet atop his head, wore overall style work clothes and a plaid shirt and held a mean paint scraper in his right hand.  It is summer and we are off the road from our 10 month adventure via motorhome. This marks the second year the painting crew will work on the facade of our vintage 1868 Cast Iron building. The guys soar from work area to work area gliding on a platform held high on a royal blue long necked ribbon of the crane. What a Herculean task they have taken on, scraping, prepping and painting the large facade of the building that started life housing a patent medicine factory appropriate to the era of its birth. As tenants, we enjoy the beautiful and sturdy wooden floors, walls of brick, some sporting graceful archways, plaster abstract shaped ceilings high above our heads and wavy, old flowing glass windows that fill most of the facade of the building.

I have adopted the habit of checking the windows for those innocent but determined faces that could appear from 7:30AM on as I may be entering the shower or other morning routines. Unannounced, they arrive to scrape and paint their way to the finish date sometime in the near future. It is a challenge to duck and avoid their unintentional gaze. 

The accidental voyeur intrusion is behind us now. We are on the road for the next few months and free from the blue long necked held platforms appearing on our windowsills.  The pigeons return as the workers depart, to poise on the window ledges cooing and wobbling back and forth communicating in language only other pigeons may understand.

We anticipate many adventures ahead of us on the road and in many campsites, where we also practise vigilance in closing window shades for privacy, keeping to the quiet hour rules and properly managing our hookups. At present, we are camped in a campground in Pennsylvania, called Shangri-La. We have stayed here many times and brought family members and guests with us. The campground is very child oriented, and on this Columbus weekend there are children and dogs everywhere managed by parents, relatives and siblings. Camping here has always been a place of transition to enter this other faze of our lives. Letting go is a process, whether it is seeing children off to kindergarten, camp, college, saying goodbye to dear friends, loosing a family member or dear friend,  We will miss family, friends, favorite cultural venues, long walks along the river, and great memories.  This year is made easier in anticipation of two of our grandsons celebrating their b’nei mitzvot in the coming months, and the adventures to come.

Life is full of change, enhanced by the ability to communicate electronically. Trying to keep on top of current vehicles to communicate is another adventure. Will we miss the hum of the blue necked crane at our windows? Probably not but we will welcome the joyous voices of children at play, hugs and kisses as we favorite people along the road, the delight of the next beautiful sunset out our rig’s windows and yet more enchanting discoveries throughout this vast and beautiful land of ours.

So many of you have been notably kind to ask me if they have missed seeing my blog “message in a minute.”  I have been remiss, it has been long time since my last post. What a point of frustration this is for me as I love to write. Life gets in the way, just doing so many wonderful things. I am still amazed that people care or even think of my blog posts, but I do enjoy reading blogs from people like you, so I get it. My current plan and approach is to post a blog every Monday (I am hoping to be disciplined enough to carry this through and cover many topics ad tell many stories.)

How to start again? I needed an idea. Humans love categories and classifications; such as the lineup of sibling birth order, 1st born, 2nd born…and the effects on our growth and development. Consider the theories about number of siblings, family background, family interaction, economics, parental occupations, personality traits and more. I decided to delve into the history the day of our birth has had in lore, fable and storytelling.  I looked up my birth date and day and confirmed that I am a Monday Child.  Ah, a starting point and title. 
My source:
URL of reference http://www.dayofbirth.net/leftlinkmain.php?day=mon#.VhGnYHpViko

Born on a MONDAY: I checked sources to see what traits are attributed to Monday births;

Recycle your Possibilities!   Driving along our favorite and irresistible highway–California’s Route 1 along the Pacific coast we passed a hiker bearing those words on a he-man backboard sign explaining in three simple words his purpose for trekking along this route. We drove past him climbing a steep uphill road. He was needless to say, walking slowly, reserving his strength and waving to passersby.

It makes you wonder about his story and choices in life, propelling him to devise a hike for all to witness. What conversations he must share when he has company trekking alongside or heads off road for a snack break, a meal, or night’s sleep in his sleeping bag and tent. What an adventure. But then again, isn’t that life? Seeking a new direction, healing, adventure, change, choice, struggle, hopefully with the support of others who care.

Our rig was perched in a campsite high above the beautiful blue Pacific Ocean. Our mail-forwarded package arrived on time (from our address in Texas.) Following our usual routine, Paul opened the large envelope and scanned through the mail that included most of usual items; magazines, bills, updates of accounts, Medical reports, agency and organizational letters and brochures (“tree-killing hard copies that we beg companies and agencies to only send via email.  (They don’t always honor those requests) and a few other items. A letter addressed by hand was included at our address. My name, Carol was quite legible, the last name was illegible and we never checked it and it was routinely slit open. The return address was an address in Denver  (no name, a place that we have visited and have acquaintances.) Paul nicely placed it on the table for my reading. 

Needless to say, I was in tears by the time I read the final words. First of all for her life story and second of all, because I felt like a voyeur, an intruder. At that point I looked harder at the front of the envelope. Our address was correct but the letter was indeed intended for another client of the mail forwarding service. Again, the first name was legible, the last name indecipherable. I placed the opened letter in another envelope with a note to the forwarding service to PLEASE PLEASE determine the correct box number and forward this letter to the intended recipient. I placed it on the dashboard to mail in the morning.