Last week Barry and I went to Washington, D.C. to tour the Holocaust Museum. The trip was planned for Thursday, which was Holocaust Remembrance Day, and our group – a Reading Public Museum tour – was privileged to be able to watch in the museum theater,live via satellite, the national Remebrance Ceremony that took in a chamber at the Capitol. It was most sobering and very impressive. To me the most impressive part was the singing of the Prayer for the Dead by a young cantor from Oregon who had one of the most beautiful and mournfully expressive voices I’ve ever heard. Following the ceremony, we toured the museum. Strangely, and probably unbelievably to most, I knew nothing about the Holocaust until a month before my graduation from Penn State. My date and I went to see The Longest Day, and in it was included actual footage of the liberation of the death camps. I was shocked beyond anything words could express. My date was Jewish. He knew! And he patiently explained what had happened in Europe while he and I were growing up safely in the United States. Since that time I have read probably 500 books about the Holocaust, WWII, the various European ghettos, the death camps, the way European countires helped and hid their Jews – or didn’t. So there was nothing new for me at the museum, but the exhibits are …beyond words I can find to describe.
After the museum tour, our bus driver gave us a tour of the monuments in D.C. We stopped and walked around the new Martin Luther King, Jr. monument, and that lifted my spirits. It’s a wonderful memorial, and reading some of MLK,Jr’s quotes that are carved into the walls around the huge statue of him, helped me to find some optimism in some of the positive things that have happened in my lifetime. We’ve made some great strides in our acceptance and celebration of our differences as people – and finding the stuff to celebrate our common humanity. But, as Frost says, we’ve “miles to go” before we sleep!
On Saturday, we went to NYC to see an all star cast perform Gore Vidal’s play The Best Man. It’s about a national political convention, set in 1960, before the time when primaries made politcal conventions almost unnecessary. It’s a great play – could have easilly been written about national (and local) politics today. A dirty business – politics!
It’s been a great week! Sorry for the “preachiness” of this blog!

My children are addictive readers. They are third generation addicts through my mother and then through me. All of us panic if we finish a book, but don’t have another one ready to begin. As I thought about this wonderful addiction, I remembered what exciting joy there was for me as a little girl when I read books my mother was reading or had read, but didn’t want me to read. She belonged to the Book of the Month Club, and I wasn’t very old before I realized that the books she didn’t want me to read were placed on the top shelf of the linen closet where I couldn’t reach them. They were mostly books by authors like Daphne duMaurier (is that spelled correctly?), and certainly by today’s standards, not much to hide from a child. But I was a protected “only,” and also very curious. I easily learned to stand on a stool to get to that top shelf, and I loved reading the books as I lay across my bed and listened for my mother to come upstairs. When I heard our staircase creak, I’d slide the book between my mattress and boxspring, and pull out a Nancy Drew mystery (that I’d been pretending to read for months and months!)
My mother was a registered nurse and operating room supervisor before she married my father and was forced, by hospital policy, to resign her position. In my further explorations, I discoverd her old ob-gyn textbooks in the bottom drawer of an old bureau that was stored in our guest/storage room. I credit those books with teaching me the real facts about sex and childbirth and women’s bodies!
But last evening I was thinking about the NOOK Color I use and the Kindle Fire my son uses to read. I bought my NOOK because I am not a good library patron – never remember to return books – and my house was getting too full of my book purchases. My son, who vowed he’d never read anything but a real book because he loved the smell of a new book, is a Kindle Fire convert. Only my daughter still buys her books, in spite of having an IPAD. We all share titles of things we’ve read, and my children’s reading tastes have greatly expanded my view of the world! Ebooks are wonderful. No more panic that I’ve run out of reading material. I can simply download several books at a time and have them ready to read whenever I want to. Ebooks make travel easier and lighter! Actually, they’re easier on my eyes because I can adjust the background and print color, the type size, and font. But there’s downside….no more books on the top shelf of the linen closet to read surreptitiously as a young girld lies across her bed, listening for her mother’s footsteps. No more hiding in the guest room reading about how her body really works (because nurse that she was, her mother was not able to find the courage to explain it herself!) Did I become an addictive reader because in addition to the enjoyment of the books, I enjoyed doing something that my mother didn’t want me to do? Probably, but that bad motivation that led to a wonderful lifelong habit! Let’s hear it for books on top shelves of linen closets and rarely opnend drawers in antique bureaus in guest rooms! Am presently reading Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore – and loving it.

I was just getting ready to leave for campus when I remembered that it’s “blog day for Martha.” I’m so glad I remembered because I planned what I wanted to blog about after a wonderful Friday last week. Barry and I decided to put our work aside so we could take advantage of the lovely day and “do West Reading.” It had been far too long since we had just strolled along the avenue, wandered into all the lovely shops, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Bistro 614, one of our favorite local eateries.
In the time that had lapsed since our last exploration, a number of enticing new shops have joined some of the already established places we’ve patronized in the past.
If you haven’t been to West Reading – it’s SO much better a place to shop than any of our local malls – you must visit Kira Apple’s The Wise Owl Book Store. It’s just a wonderful place with lots of great books, as well as cozy chairs and couches you can curl up on and read. Independent book stores have a tough time competing with the giant retailers that have actually begun to tell us what we should be reading. Go to visit Kira! I guarantee you’ll love her and the store, and you’ll make The Wise Owl a habit.
What a joy to go into a store and have someone recognize me from our television show and this blog. (I’ve been wondering if anyone other that my daughter reads our blogs. Kira does! Hooray! )
I’m very excited about our next television show on 16 May! Hope Kira and a lot of others will be watching us.
Visit West Reading. View locally and shop locally!

Whatever happened last Wednesday to make me forget about blogging, I’ve no idea! For all of you who await these blogs with great anticipation – mea culpa! I hate making excuses, but I think I might have been distracted because last week I started teaching a new course. The first half is taught by a young, brilliant, PH.D. in anthropology candidate, and I was VERY nervous about taking over the class…for a number of reasons. Well, first of all, for the obvious reason that I am NOT a very young, brilliant, Ph.D. anthropology candidate. I’m a “woman of a certain age” (insert “old” between those last two words) and I have a masters degree in education. This amazing young woman has three VERY young children, travels periodically to Samoa to conduct reserach, and also teaches part time at Temple U. She DOES do it all! So her half of the course was all about anthropological research concerning family structure in different cultures. My segment is the practical side of the course – getting the students (all of them plan to become elementary teachers) to understand how important it is to get parents involved in their children’s education – regardless of how much or how little the parents have, what language they speak, how busy they are, etc., etc. Teachers have finally discovered that it truly does take a village to educate a child.
My other concern was that this class of 27 students is taught in one of those awful science lecture hall/amphitheater type classrooms that seat a hundred kids and the professor stands at the bottom on this bowl-like room. I AM not a teacher who teaches well in a “lecture hall.” I want to reach out and touch my students.
Well, the class is filled with really neat kids who seemed quite happy to see me. I moved them all down to the first three rows, and we’re doing just fine. (“This is really intimate,” said one young man when he realized that I honestly could reach out and touch him.)
So, there you have it. My elaborate excuse and far more information than you needed.
I am celebrating the fact that our show has been picked up, and we’ll be aired again on Wed., May 16. Hooray! (My semester ends two weeks before that!!!! Double “hooray!”)

It was a true privilege to be able to take in a performance of the Civic Theatre of Allentown’s production of 33 Variations. (I don’t know how to underline that title!) What a fine production! What an excellent cast, set design, intricate and well done lighting and sound. Excellent. My compliments to everyone involved in the show. Of course, we really went to see Kirk Lawrence in yet another fine performance. Have never seen him give anything but a fine performance. The entire cast was excellent. Bravo to all involved!
Wish I could say the same for the Republican political race, but since I’m a liberal Democrat that would be difficult (but not impossible) for me to say even if the present contenders were other than the political characatures presently running. I believe in giving credit to any worthy candidate, whether he or she shares my political ideology, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative – a candidate who understands the vast majority of Americans and the struggles we face not just to survive, but to flourish. But these guys? Really!? I do hope some talented playwright is already planning a script about this political scene. Sadly, this is American politics today. It would be so much better done by professional actors. Ah! Reagan’s already done that! Perhaps, the good Mr. Shakspeare was correct – the whole world is a stage! If only we could do as good a job as the Civic Theatre of Allentown does with playing our roles!

I am going to “beg off” from blogging this morning. Haven’t anything “pithy” to talk about, so I won’t try to waste our fine readers’ time. (Are there any readers out there?) I have a lot of papers to grade in the next few days. I believe that teachers have an obligation to return graded assignments ASAP, or they lose their instructional value. SO! I’m a bit jammed for time.
Wishing every one a good March! Spring’s a-comin’! A week from Friday we’re leaving for some beach time in Delaware. Whaever the weather, it will be wonderful to sit in the sunporch of the condo and watch the surf. (I love it when it’s storming and the ocean is the color of pewter, and the waves are angry and making a lot of noise.)
I’ll try to think of something stimulating to discuss next Wednesday.

I just realized that it’s “Martha’s Blog Day.” I’m in the midst of getting myself organized for my marathon day at Albright, so I honestly don’t have much time to write much…which may be a relief for some of our readers.
Let me just say “GO PHILLIES!” Carlos Ruiz is my particularly favorite Phillie, and I loved seeing his picture in the paper a on Monday. Wore my Carlos Ruiz shirt to the gym that morning! The blooming crocuses and snowdrops have not given me the belief that spring was actually waiting in the wings until I saw that cut of Carlos!
GO PHILLIES!

I hope everyone had a good Valentine’s Day. We did. Barry is the best card selector/finder in the world. I’m not sure where he finds them, but he finds just the right ones to send to me. In addition to finding a very appropriate one sent in Bessie’s name (our spoiled, but adorable black Lab), he surprised me with a musical card that not only played Sinatra singing “It Had to be You,” but it also lighted up while the music played! Lovely! We danced for a moment at 7:30 AM! I took it with me as I ran to all my errands yesterday and smiled whenever I opened it and heard Old Blue Eyes singing just to me!
We usually limit the celebration of Valentine’s Day to cards, but Barry also suprised me with red roses! (He’d hidden them in the basement until yesterday morning – in a vase with water. This is a man who thinks of details!) I decided that warranted a special dinner last night which I truly enjoyed preparing. It was a good day.
Ellen’s blog made me think of Valentine boxes in elementary school. I’ll bet elementary teachers have gotten much smarter than they were when I went to Rosedale Elementary School. We all helped to decorate a Valentine’s box the week before the big day, and all through the folllowing week we brought in Valentine’s for our classmates and put them in the box. On the big day, the teachers opened the boxes and several students took turns handing out the cards. The bad part was that some students got lots and lots of Valentines, and some got only a few. I actually remember one student in third grade who got none, and no one seemed to notice her tears. That’s a pretty rugged lesson to have to learn in third grade. I hope the rules have changed and everyone must bring a card for everyone. (I loved getting cards where the names were signed in a code of numbers that substituted for letters, and the ones that said “Guess Who.”)
When I taught at the high school, the student council held a fund drive where students could pre-order carnations to be delivered to their friends on Valentine’s Day. Different colors carried different messages. A neat idea until the day arrived , and I would see some students carrying many flowers with them all day, and some students carrying none. Life has its accidental cruelties, and I know we can’t keep our kids from experiencing them , but Valentine boxes and flower sales seemd to drive home the point a bit to harshly. Was the messge that signs of friendship and love are actually most important as a status symbol?
Had an email from Sofia, my stepgranddaughter yesterday. I’d sent her a Valentine, but she’d run out of hers and had none to send me, so she emailed me a sweet message. But she was sick yesterday!!!! What a lousy break! She’s 12 and lovely, and I’ll bet she’ll find a lot of Valentine’s waiting for her when she gets back to school. (I’m quite sure that Niko, our tall, handsome 9 year old grandson also has a lot of charmed little girls who sent him cards. Ah, love! “It Had to be You” – the best of all!

About ten years ago I bought a pair of winter hiking boots from Eddie Bauer. They’re hightops, brown, sturdy, and very comfortable. For ten years they’ve been the boots I wear in snow, ice, winter dog walking, and whenever I need a good hiking boot. They’re my “WINTER BOOTS.” Last spring as I put away my winter clothes, I made a point of putting my boots somewhere that I knew I’d remember! Well, you know how that goes! I pride myself at having a really good memory, but in fall when I put summer clothes away and retrieved my winter apparel, I couldn’t find my boots. Looked in all the likely places! No boots. After much searching, I gave up and started checking the Eddie Bauer catalogs (which we seem to get weekly) for new boots. Seemed they are no longer making ones like I had, and the ones they’re making are much more expensive and don’t seem nearly as all-pupose as my old ones.
That October snow storm found me without boots! I was not happy! Then I decided to think of places my boots might have been had I not, as I’d thought, put them away in a place I would remember. (That meant I’d have to admit that my memory might not be quite a good as i’d thought! Hmmmm!)
Where did I put them after I wore them during the winter? Often I took them off in the guest bedroom where the closet was with my especially heavy winter clothes. Could I have takent off those boots the last time and just left them on the floor? (Sadly, that was a distinct possibility. Housekeeping is not my forte, which I believe I’ve mentioned in the past – or on my bio.) I went to the guest room and looked, but the boots were not on the floor. Then i got down on my stomach and looked under the bed, and voila! There they were! Way under the bed! Probably I’d shoved them under there when I vacuumed the guest room carpet. (Hate to vacuum, and I tend to shove things out of the way when I’m doing that task. Dear Barry has taken over the vacuuming, mostly, I think, because I was very hard on vacuum cleaners!)
And so for several months my beloved Eddie Bauer boots have been waiting for me to put them on, but no snow! Today, however, when I go to campus I’m going to wear them! It’s supposed to snow this afternoon, and I’ll be on campus until mid-evening. Will probably have a distance to walk to get to my parking spot, so I’ll be wearing my great boots to keep me sure-footed! (OK. They aren’t going to look very professional, but safety first! Right?) I’m looking forward to a bit of snow…wearing my longlost boots. As I’ve been writing this, the sky has gotten quite gray and threatening-looking. Snow! I’m ready!

On the one morning that I’m truly pressed for time, I logged on to write my blog, and as I got to the first sentence, my computer decided to update itself and then shut down! REALLY! This morning!?
But I’m back for the moment! Just wanted to share how wonderful I felt driving home last evening after our “premier” show. (Coutd BCTV REALLY decide NOT to make us a regular featuire?!) Actually seeing something I dreamed about doing over ten years ago actually happen! Wow!!! What a high! Thank you, all of you wonderful friends who made that happen! Jamie! Kirk! Jane! Ellen! Christina! Sheila! Thank you! Thank you so very much!
I’m not sure what reviews BCTV will get, but I think we “did good.” It was fun! Jamie and Kirk, you did such a wonderful job of the graphics, video, credits, it was fantastic! Ellen, Christina, Sheila – I simply love you all! Love sitting there and chatting with you! There’s a bit of magic there, I think.
Now I really must get ready for a very long day on campus that won’t end until after 7 this evening. The high from last night’s success will get me through the day! Thank you!!!!!