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Tag Archives: Poverty
The Journey of My Red Towel, 30 Years in the Making
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Pittsburgh, Pop Culture, race, Sports, University of Pittsburgh, Work, Youth
Beach Towel, Budgeting, Coping Strategies, EKCO, Financial Crunch, Kauffman's, Mets, Pirates, Pitt, Poverty, Resilience, Sera-Tec
My red beach bath towel (and EKCO knife), still around after three decades, September 9, 2018. (Donald Earl Collins).
There are so many things I could think about regarding my cosmic jump into independent adulthood in the fall of 1988. The five days of homelessness, almost ending college for me right at the start of my sophomore year at the University of Pittsburgh. The nearly three months of financial crises that followed, including six weeks of giving plasma to Sera-Tec for an extra $25 per week (it left a scar in my right elbow-bend vein that most medical professionals interpreted as me having been a drug user — talk about racism and assumptions!). The end of my eating things like tuna fish sandwiches and pork neck bones and rice, and drinking grape Kool-Aid. My changing my major from computer science to history, to my mom's disapproval.
But another way to look at my journey would be to look at the two items in my life that survived that fall. A red beach bath towel, and an EKCO steak knife. The towel I bought on Labor Day 1988, after my Mets beat the Pirates at Three Rivers Stadium. Darryl Strawberry hit two home runs that game, after a thirty-minute rain delay, in which the upper deck folks dumped beers on some of us (not me, though) in one of the mezzanine sections behind the wall in left center field.
I had walked the four miles or so between where I lived in South Oakland (off Bayard Street and Welsford Avenue) to the stadium, getting rained on along the way. On my way back, I noticed the Downtown Kauffman's was still open for its Labor Day sale. I went in and walked around for twenty minutes, mostly to longingly look at all the things I couldn't afford. But I did know to go into the baths section, and saw that the beach towels were on sale for $17.99.
I thought about buying a wash cloth, but after rent and the game, I only had $50 on me at the time, and no bank account or credit cards. I thought about buying an "in-between wash cloth," which was what I called hand towels back then (I thought they were bigger towels for people with bigger hands, like me!). It would be a few days before I got my refund money from Pitt, but I knew I was in need of a shower after the homelessness ordeal and the Pirates game.
I bought the towel, and spend the rest of the fall using it for everything. Especially after that second Friday in September, when Pitt, after deducting nearly $900 of my refund for last year's room and board charges. After accounting for my books, I had $205 left to work with for at least the next two months.
So I budgeted down to the penny. After I cashed my refund at Pittsburgh National Bank, I went downtown to Ralph's Discount Store, across from Kauffman's. I bought a Sony Walkman on sale for $55, the most I'd spend on anything other than rent for the next two and a half months. I then caught a bus back to Oakland, and went to the South Oakland Giant Eagle (yes, post-millennials, South Oakland used to have its own Giant Eagle, on Forbes Avenue, where CVS and Jimmy Johns are today). That's where I bought an orange creamsicle plastic plate, a soup spoon, a dinner fork, and that EKCO steak knife, for something like eight or nine dollars. That would have to do.
Closeup of my red towel, September 9, 2018. (Donald Earl Collins
My red towel did the work of two tea towels, a wash cloth, a hand towel, a half roll of paper towels, and a dozen napkins every week through the end of 1988. I'd shower with it, of course. But I also used a corner of it for washing up. If I made a heavy dinner, like spaghetti and meat sauce (with a pot and iron skillet I saved from my freshman year), I used the towel to dry my pot, pan, dish, and utensils. It was my go-to for everything. I had to wash it every week, because how I was using the towel back then was nothing short of disgusting.
I finally bought two wash cloths and a hand towel in 1989. But the red towel remained my one and only bathing towel. I didn't buy a second one until the summer of 1994.
After that, my reliance on old reliable declined. Once I moved in with my eventual wife at the end of 1998, my red towel became part of a rotation. It still had enough heft to be reasonably good at drying me off from a shower. It had shrunk a bit from its original 30″ x 54″ size, though. By now, I would have gotten rid of it. But my red towel reminded me so much of what I had overcome. It was my tangible link to an unbelievably shaky past.
My red towel got more use when my son hit school age in 2008. For the next nine years, Noah would use the towel for showers and baths. A "Made in the U.S.A." towel manufactured during Reagan's last year in office was still in use in the age of Obama, and my son, born in the early 2000s, was the one using it! Life is funny.
Now sad and worn to the thickness of cheesecloth, part of me knows the red towel is no longer of any use. I mean, I still use the EKCO knife, mostly for cleaning and cutting up chicken. I'm not sure the red towel could dry the baby version of Noah anymore. But it doesn't matter. Because it was there for me when I needed it the most.
ICE is America's Gestapo, the White House the Waffen SS
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Movies, Patriotism, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth
45, Abetting, American Indian Boarding Schools, Asylum, Children in Detention, Fascism, Fugitive Slave Act, Gestapo, ICE, Immigration, Jane Crow, Kidnapping, Kizzy, Leslie Uggams, Migration, Poverty, Roots, Secret Police, Separating Families, SS, State Violence, Systemic Racism, Trump, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Waffen SS, Welfare, Xenophobia
Two pictures: ICE raid to arrest foreign nationals. February 6, 2017, (Charles Reed/ICE; http://amsterdamnews.com); Gestapo in midst of a raid, circa 1939-40. (http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com). Both in public domain.
I may have developed my sense of thinking on the issue of inclusion and migration from the ostracism I experienced via the cool class of Black classmates from Mount Vernon High School. Maybe. Maybe not. But, it was on this date 31 years ago that the Class of 1987 graduated. And, within minutes of us tossing our mortar-board caps in the air, people who were the "cool ones" in the graduating class began ignoring my greetings and staring through me like I was invisible whenever and wherever I saw them. A silent treatment that I went through for two summers with this group.
This is not unlike the way the media and this 45 presidency deals with most marginalized Americans and the daily indignities and atrocities from which they suffer. Especially those who migrate without papers and those would-be-migrants and asylum-seekers. The amping up of a policy that separates parents from children at the US-Mexico border is nothing short of kidnapping and taking hostages. However, the policy isn't entirely new, and the media coverage of it until a week and a half ago was scant. President 45 and his minions had truly believed that they could keep something like this under wraps, because undocumented migrants and asylum-seekers have no representatives, no voice, and no support among many Americans.
The cries of outrage across this country have proven them partly wrong. Still, the "cooler" — really, crueler — class of Americans, White, White privilege, White patriarchy, Whiteness-is-always-right-thinking Americans (which unfortunately also includes Americans of color) remain all for body snatching. They have either been silent or have made some lame-ass excuses for fuckery worthy only of superficially-cool high school graduates.
I'm reminded of the first time I saw America's cruelty in kidnapping kids and tearing apart families. For me, it started with Roots in 1977. I watched through Kunta Kinte's capture and Middle Passage across the Atlantic, his arrival in colonial Virginia, and later, the selling off of his daughter Kizzy to a slave owner who raped and impregnated her with Chicken George. Kizzy (played by Leslie Uggams) never saw her father alive again (she's somehow able to visit her father's grave, though), and her mother Bell is sold off to some Deep South plantation.
Leslie Uggams as Kizzy Kente in Roots (screen shot), 1977. (http://roots.wikia.com).
At seven, I cried at least three times watching this. At ten, when I saw all of this a second time, I cried and got angry. Especially at Sandy Duncan's character, Missy Anne. Because Kizzy had the audacity to have a boyfriend and attempted to help him escape, Missy Anne shunned Kizzy and put up no protest as her father sold off her childhood playmate. And I learned that this is how nice people do people like me, especially the times when we need their help the most.
Later, I learned about the Fugitive Slave Laws. I learned how Congress, starting in 1793, passed a series of laws making it possible for every White American to act as a secret police. Whites were on the lookout for runaway African slaves in places as far-flung as Charleston, South Carolina, Bangor, Maine, Buffalo, New York, and, by the 1850s, Arizona Territory and California. The assumption of African enslavement was so pervasive that thousands of free and freed Blacks could end up being sold and re-sold into slavery, merely because some random White person wanted to make an extra $10 in the 1830s (12 Years a Slave comes to mind here).
Later, I'd learn about the Trail of Tears, Indian Removal, and the long, bitter march of indigenous peoples onto reservations between the late-1820s and 1890. A population of perhaps three million Native Americans reduced to 250,000 by the time of the 1900 Census. All federal policies as the US Army executed them. All so that mining interests could get to gold and coal, all so that railroads could be built. In the process of assimilating "the savages," the federal government also snatched thousands of Native American children from their tribes and families and put them in boarding schools. With White families all too willing to teach them to forget about their long and proud histories, languages, and peoples.
But before learning all this, I also learned through my mom's years on welfare just how easy it could be for a government and willing neighbors to have children and parents separated. More than once, a social worker swung by in the years between 1983 and 1990 to inspect my younger siblings, to make sure there wasn't a man in the house, to ensure that my family's deep poverty was real. More than once, a neighbor would threaten to call Social Services on my mom (and at least once, on me when I was a teenager) because my four younger sibling kept up too much noise. The policies that now comprise what some experts call "Jane Crow," of separating allegedly neglectful and abusing parents (mostly Black women) in the name of protecting children, were very much alive and well during my teenage and early adulthood years. Because of course, poverty in America to the point of needing a few dollars and some Food Stamps is illegal.
Signs and protesters at "Families Belong Together March," Los Angeles, June 14, 2018. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images).
With all this history of breaking up families to control African slaves, free Blacks, Native Americans, and poor people, why would the sudden ramping up of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border surprise anyone? It doesn't surprise me. ICE has been brazen in their modern-day execution of its Fugitive-Slave-Act-esque charge to "round up all the illegals." The White House has 45 and an army of minions who spend every waking moment of every day figuring out ways to quash dissent and foment support for policies that would make the US a Whites-only country.
But for all this to work, there have to be millions of Americans willing to help them. And there are. Some out of pure ignorance, some out of willful ignorance and denial, and some because they are racist sociopaths. All, though, are fully steeped in the idea that America would be better off if Whites remain the majority, if White men and White women sire most of America's kids, and if all the Black and Brown people submit to their rule and oppression with bright smiles.
People, America isn't becoming a fascist state. For so many of us, America has always hung in the balance between freedom and fascism. Fascism for Americans of color, and freedom for good, Christian-as-racism White folks. This. Is. America.
Moving On, Thirty Years Later
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, Christianity, culture, Eclectic, Marriage, Mount Vernon New York, New York City, Pittsburgh, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, University of Pittsburgh, Work, Youth
616, 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Darren, Domestic Violence, Eri, Family Responsibilities, Leaving Home, Maurice, Mother-Son Relationship, Pitt, Poverty, Sarai, Siblings, Survivor's Guilt, Westchester Business Institute, Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health, Yiscoc
A Boeing 767 Delta flight at takeoff, JFK Airport, Jamaica, Queens, NY, circa 2011. (http://panynj.gov).
I am now three full decades removed from Moving Day 1987, the final Wednesday in August, when I moved for my freshman year of college to Pittsburgh. I was leaving Mount Vernon and 616, but neither would begin to leave me, at least for another year or so.
It was a day of days. But really, it wasn't the hardest leaving day I faced. In the summers I'd come home to work and watch after my younger siblings, the end of those Augusts were tearful ones. I played music for me and my siblings to sing to before I left at the end of the summer of '88. I added an extra week to my stay in 1990, just so I could spend extra time with Maurice, Yiscoc, Sarai, and Eri, teaching them how to ride a bike and how to tie their shoes, and missed a week's worth of classes at Pitt to start the fall. Even in '92, when I came back to 616 to work for two months that summer at Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health because I couldn't find a teaching gig at Pitt, I stayed an extra week. That was my life outside of college, grad school, and Pittsburgh for a good decade after my first trip to Pittsburgh. It got easier to leave as my life became about working, teaching, dating, and writing, but leaving was always hard.
My hardest leaving day was in late-August 1989. After a full summer of work, between two jobs, the end of my Mom's marriage (finally!), my older brother Darren moving out, and my schedule of activities with the younger Gang of Four, I saw going back to the University of Pittsburgh for my third year as a vacation. But it wasn't going to be one for Mom. She would be completely on her own with my younger siblings for the first time once I left. And I knew the thought of being with them without any help, or least, without any enemies at 616 to war against (like my idiot ex-stepfather Maurice) terrified her.
Screen shot of 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Mount Vernon, NY, June 2016. (http://maps.google.com)
I stayed an extra five days before leaving on August 30, because Mom still had two weekends of summer courses left to finish at Westchester Business institute. Mom made the decision to not finish up her business law and accounting classes that session the Saturday before I left. She said to me, "Go on to Pittsburgh, Donald. I'll be all right." It didn't make sense to me. She had an A in the business law class, and likely could've talked with her instructor about taking an incomplete and then the final exam once my siblings started school after Labor Day. I said as much, but Mom, per usual, didn't listen to me. She ended up with a D in the business law course, and an F, of course, in the accounting class. Mom wouldn't return to Westchester Business Institute to finish up her associate's degree until January 1996.
I felt guilty at the time that I put my own education over my Mom's. I felt guilty that I couldn't help out more. Mostly, I felt guilty that despite what I saw back then as "my responsibilities to the family," I wanted to leave, and part of me wanted to stay gone. I didn't want to come home for Christmas, my birthday, and New Year's every single holiday season. I didn't want to spend my summers living at 616 while working in Mount Vernon or White Plains. And though I wanted to help the Gang of Four out as much as I could, I would've preferred bringing them to Pittsburgh, and not going back to Mount Vernon over and over again.
Looking back, though, I realized the truth. Mom really didn't enjoy school. Mom decided to go to Westchester Business Institute because I was in college. And as a professor who has taught hundreds of adult learners (students twenty-five and sometimes much older), I know that earning a degree with your kids can be a great motivator for enrolling in higher ed. It just can't be the only motivator. At some point, it has to be about more than a friendly familial competition or even about using the degree to earn a few extra dollars. It has to be about improving yourself and the people around you. Mom wasn't ready to juggle that burden, and likely had gone through too much that summer to spend another fifteen months in school while also watching after my younger siblings.
Boy, it was hard to leave that last Wednesday in August '89. I was nervous for Mom, sad for my siblings, and maybe even a little angry with Mom and God about the impossible choice I thought I had made at the time. But I reminded myself that I wouldn't be any good to anyone if I couldn't finish my degree and use it to help others. I reminded myself that I was still only nineteen years old, that, my outward maturity and 616 aside, I still had a lot to learn about life.
When Enough Isn't Close to Enough
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, eclectic music, Marriage, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, New York City, Pop Culture, race, Religion, University of Pittsburgh, Work, Youth
616, 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Addictions, Death, Domestic Violence, Happy Birthday, Homelessness, Mother-Son Relationship, Parenting, Parenting Lessons, Poverty, Running Away, Self-Reflection, Soul-Searching, Vanity, Welfare Poverty, Yiscoc Washington
Yiscoc Washington, July 5, 2017. (http://facebook.com).
"I took care of my kids! I put food on the table, put a roof over y'all's heads, put clothes on yo' back! I did the best that I could, and none of y'all can tell me different…" That's what my Mom yelled at us the day before Sarai's funeral seven Julys ago. It was an excited utterance, after she had spent five days in a trance, unable to do as much as eat a piece of toast. We were in the living room of Mom's flat at 616, me, Mom, Maurice, Yiscoc and Eri, being yelled at over a lifetime of disappointment and frustration. Ours and hers.
Today is my brother Yiscoc's thirty-sixth birthday. That he's here at all is a bit of a miracle. Especially with the number of times he ran away from 616 between 1989 (when he was eight years old) and 1994, with his one-time video game addiction, and with muggers and pedophiles out there and all too willing to take advantage of a vulnerable preteen.
I started with Mom, though, for a reason. Her yelling at us was probably meant for me, but it was in response to Yiscoc, who shared a personal secret with her for the first time. Mom's response was to defend her record as a parent, to tell us that we had no right to judge, critique, or assess her record. That she added, "That's what you get for…" in response to Yiscoc's tearful sharing session was shameful and disgusting.
"You're So Vain" (1972), by Carly Simon, 45 cover, cropped, July 23, 2017. (http://avclub.com).
"But you don't understand, your Mom was mourning the loss of her only daughter," would be the response of Mom-defenders everywhere. To which I say, really? Your Mom's response is to push four of your five living children away with a tirade? One where she says, "this fucked up, piece of shit life I helped set up for all of you was the best I could do, and if you don't like it, that's on you, and you can kiss my Black ass!" Would that really be acceptable under any circumstances, much less during a week of mourning?
Yiscoc ran away from home, hung out with several wrong crowds, and dropped out of Mount Vernon High School a year and a half before he could have completed his coursework. Seventeen years later, and Yiscoc still doesn't have his GED (the last two times, he failed the social studies portion of the exam — ain't that a kicker!). I'm not laying all of this at my Mom's feet. But Yiscoc's adult life wasn't exactly set up for success by his growing up years. The normative permanence of systemic racism on the one hand, and domestic violence, welfare poverty, and the 616 fire of 1995 that left Yiscoc and my other younger siblings temporarily homeless on the other, would make any kid itching to run away.
A second younger brother has now reached the second half of his thirties. Yiscoc's the same age I was eleven and a half years ago, when I began working on Boy @ The Window in earnest. One of the things I figured out in writing such a torturous book was that I blamed myself for so many of my parents'/legal guardian's failures and sins. I had blamed myself for not putting an end to the domestic violence at 616 since I was twelve, for not doing enough to support Mom and my younger siblings since I went away to college at Pitt in 1987. I also came to understand how much Mom deflected, defended, and denied when it came to her parenting, especially when we called on her to do more than find temporary shelter, meager food options, and threadbare clothing. Mom was and remains one of the vainest and unaffectionate people I have ever known — vain, insecure, and likely clinically depressed.
"Flash Memory #2" (an unmasking), in stainless steel, by Liu Zhan, Kuang Jun, and Tan Tianwei, 2009. (http://elhurgador.blogspot.com/2012/05/unmask-group-escultura.html; H.T. Gallery, Beijing, China).
I also know that Mom has passed these traits down to each of us. I've been dealing directly with them for three decades. I'm not sure Yiscoc has ever peered behind his mask long enough to see Mom lurking in the shadows, warts and all. If he has or ever will, it has been or will be an ugly sight. But if we are truly attempting to rebuild and remake ourselves, it is a sight we must endure. A painful process of honesty, soul-searching, revelation, and admitting that on some level, we've fucked up, and been fucked up, by life, oppression, and parenting.
Happy Birthday, Yiscoc. Know that despite everything, I do love you. I hope that this next year brings you closer to the person you want and need to be.
The Yoke of Student Loans
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, Carnegie Mellon University, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, Movies, Pittsburgh, Politics, Pop Culture, race, University of Pittsburgh, Work, Youth
Adult Learners, American Individualism, CMU, Debt Peonage, Financial Aid, Financial Literacy, First-Generation Students, HSBC, In Time (2011), Interest Rates, Loan Payments, Marine Midland Bank, Navient, Nontraditional Students, Perkins Loans, Pitt, Poverty, Sallie Mae, Self-Reflection, Stafford Loans, Student Loans
Time, money, debt, yoke = same difference, from screen short from movie In Time (2011), October 27, 2011. (http://collider.com/in-time-review/).
This week in July thirty years ago, I took out the first of what would be a series of student loans. Loans that would help cover eight of my ten years of undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. In three-and-a-half-months, I will be ending my twentieth year paying off those loans. If I had to do it all over again, I may have stayed in New York State to take advantage of the TAP award (need-based financial aid). That way, I wouldn't have needed to borrow for my undergrad. But given my near desperation for wanting to escape grinding poverty, 616 and my family, Mount Vernon, New York, and the stigma that was my life living there among hostile and indifferent classmates, teachers, and neighbors, borrowing $2,625 on July 16 of '87 didn't seem so bad.
Yep, my first subsidized/unsubsidized Stafford student loan was a modest one. It was a set maximum based on the old laws limiting student borrowing (especially for college freshmen) three decades ago. I remember thinking to myself, "How the heck am I gonna pay this back?," as I went through an hour of phone calls between Pitt's financial aid office and Marine Midland Bank (now part of HSBC). The latter was where I had my first bank account, where I had deposited $500 of scholarship money from Mount Vernon's Afro-Caribbean Club. That's how little I knew about the process – I went with a bank that didn't exist outside of New York State to work with a school in Western Pennsylvania!
Pact with the Devil, July 18, 2017. (http://evil.wikia.com/wiki/Pact_with_the_Devil)
Because I wasn't yet eighteen, I needed my Mom to co-sign my loan. Because my Mom didn't have collateral, she needed to add two relatives who did have assets to my first loan. In the end, Mom chose my maternal grandmother Beulah and my great-great-aunt in Seattle Inez (who just happened to be Johnny Gill's great or great-great grandmother — didn't know it at the time) as relatives with collateral who could be on the hook if I or she ever defaulted on our future payments. Of course, Mom didn't actually seek permission from my then sixty-year-old grandma in rural Arkansas or my better-off, octogenarian, great-great aunt for this sign-off. Apparently, Marine Midland didn't care, either. And that's how it was for the next four years, having relatives whom I had never met (and in the case of great-great aunt Inez, who died at 101 years old in the early '00s, would never meet) as collateral for my loans.
I'd also take out the smaller Perkins Loan for my undergraduate time at Pitt, an additional $2,000 per year, for three of my four years there. In all, I'd borrow more than $16,000 in four years, with a high of $4,000 in Stafford Loans in my junior year, 1989-90.
It bothered me every time I had to re-up for student loans. Not just because of the false notion of American individualism, the idea that I shouldn't need anyone's help to go earn a degree. It bothered me because I feared, sometimes to the point of nightmares, that I'd never be able to pay this money back.
Graduate school at Carnegie Mellon and the loosening of the student loan rules and amounts under President Clinton in 1994 made things better and worse. I barely borrowed my first two and a half years of grad school at both Pitt and CMU, to the tune of $1,800 in all. CMU paid me so little as a grad student that I had little choice if I ever planned on eating more than one meal a day but to borrow. And that's how most of my borrowing occurred between January 1994 and January 1997, to either have to supplement my meager stipend (before the year of my Spencer Dissertation fellowship). Or, to use the funds to help support my dissertation research, the travel to/from and living arrangements while in DC in 1994 and 1995. Unlike many of my graduate school colleagues (especially the ones working on professional master's degrees or a law degree), I didn't use my loans to go on extended weekends to Bermuda or to take summer vacations in the Grand Caymans.
Of course, I graduated in May '97, and lo and behold, I couldn't find full-time work. And with the exception of the months of July, August, and September 1998, I wouldn't have full-time or full-time equivalent work until I left Pittsburgh for work in the DC area in the summer of 1999. But, my consolidated student loans through the dispensations of Sallie Mae never took that into account when my first payment became due Thanksgiving Week 1997. I was able to get a reduced payment of $20 per month for the first two years. I didn't default, but it made paying off my student loans that much harder. It didn't help that Sallie Mae had locked in my interest rate at eight percent, retroactive to July 1987, and unchangeable under any circumstances. Even with consumer interest rates the way they have been for the past decade.
Relationship between lenders and payees, July 27, 2015. (http://forbes.com).
Flush or not, full-time or underemployed or somewhere in between, the student loan payments, deferments, and forebearances have been non-stop for two decades. Even credit card companies will leave folks alone if they make regular minimum payments. Not so with student loans or with Sallie Mae (now Navient, which must mean assholes in financial aid-speak). Despite everything I've been through financially over the years, I finally paid off the original principal of my consolidated student loans about two years ago. Great. It still means that I have left another decade of payments on accumulated interest before I can be forever free of this nearly endless cycle.
Here's the real thing that I think I'd do over again, that should be done about this corrupt and serfdom-like process. Sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen years old is way too young to be making financial decisions that I or anyone else will have to live with for four decades or more. Even deciding to serve in the military isn't a decades' long commitment (unless one chooses to re-up or goes to officer's school). At the very least, no one under twenty-one should have to commit themselves to debt peonage, including student loans. As for me, working thirty hours a week on or off campus between 1987 and 1997 to cover costs and necessities would've been preferable to this iron collar.
The real problem, of course, is that adult learners are taking out many of these loans these days. Even though they may be old enough to know better, they aren't experienced enough. Lumina Foundation and other organizations have concentrated on "financial literacy" as the way out. This is wrong-headed, as it does nothing to change this financially enslaving system. Really, it would take free and significantly-reduced undergraduate tuition to do the trick. But where's the fun, profit, and human misery in that?
From One Starving Writer to Another
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, Pop Culture, University of Pittsburgh, Youth
"The Raven", AP English, Columbia, Crush #2, Edgar Allen Poe, MVHS, Phyllis, Poverty, Rosemary Martino, Self-Discovery, Teaching and Learning, The Starving Artist, UMUC, Writing Career
Raven eating a hand (in my case, the writer's dead hand), March 19, 2017. (creativeuncut.stfi.re via http://pinterest.com).
Six years ago, a student of mine made a reference that very much reminded me of, well, me, the person I was my senior year at Mount Vernon High School. It was as part of a conversation about looking for work. She didn't want to be another starving artist, living in some basement apartment somewhere, "smearing paint on a canvas" while waiting for a big break. I thought at the time that the idea of a starving artist had all but died out in the era of bling-bling.
But it made me think for a while about the choices I've made with my life and career in the years since the middle of my senior year at MVHS. I once said to my AP English teacher Rosemary Martino that I didn't want to be a starving artist "like Edgar Allen Poe" all those years ago. Now a student had made a similar — although better developed — reference. I think I understood better the momentary look of shock on my former teacher's face after that conversation.
My student made me think about what Martino saw in my writing so many years ago. I certainly wasn't focused on it. The same week she commented on making myself into a writer was also the week I had my Ivy League dilemma, between Columbia and the University of Pittsburgh for undergrad. I was waist-deep into my obsession with Phyllis, or really, my obsession with my crush on Phyllis. So much so that I wrote my creative writing assignment for Martino about me and my Crush #2, switching the names to "Donna" and "Phil" to barely cover up the truth of this otherwise short fictional work. Martino returned it without comment. She did comment heavily, though, on my assessment of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, a series of redundant paragraphs in search for a coherent sentence.
But my wack "The Way It Is" title was as much an indication that I was as far away from seeing myself as a writer as Earth is for Alpha Centauri without a faster-than-light-speed vehicle. And I was starving on so many levels back then. For food. For attention. For love. For a connection with anything or anyone who didn't remind me of my poverty. Martino's encouragement, though she obviously meant well, sent me scurrying in my mind for something a bit more comfortable than Poe's indebted and untimely death.
My own student's commentary made me wonder if the quality of my life and career would be better these days if I had embraced the promise Martino saw in my writing back then. I mean, I was already a slightly malnourished six-foot-one and 160-pounder at that point anyway. The inner struggle to put thoughts to paper creatively would've been much easier at seventeen than it is as a married forty-seven year-old with a contrarian teenager and bills to pay.
Maybe so. But until Noah or one of his progeny designs a time machine, I can't rewrite my history in order to make me embrace what I now see as my calling. All I know is that those words I uttered in March '87 have stayed with me for three decades. The question of finding and following my calling has always been juxtaposed with my need to eat and pay the rent and other bills. How do I do both without dropping one of the balls that I'm juggling?
The issue for more than half of my adult life was finding my calling. Along the way, I spent the summer of '88 unemployed, the first week of my sophomore year at Pitt homeless and three weeks in May '91 losing sixteen pounds for lack of food. Not to mention six weeks of unemployment in '93, walking to Carnegie Mellon many a time in the snow with holes in my sneakers in '94, and two and a half years of underemployment from December '96 to June '99. I was a starving writer long before I saw myself foremost as one. In all, I've probably made about $2,500 in direct net income as an author and writer since 2003 (half through Fear of a "Black" America, the other half in the past two years), not counting consultancies or giving talks based on my writing. If I depended on my writing income, I maybe could pay the cable bill or treat us to a night of Cheesecake Factory and a movie. Two or three times a year. When one doesn't follow their calling and doesn't follow a typical path to making a buck, the tendency is insufficient funds.
Creative abilities, even genius, may well drive people mad, but most folks in pursuit of their calling aren't fools. No one, including the starving artist, wants to starve. Some of us, though, have a desire for much more than the ability to get a job, any job, and hold one long enough to see our own kids graduate from college and meet someone they truly love. Even with the responsibilities of adulthood, we shouldn't give up on our own aspirations, for it's those things that we reach for (although not at all costs) that will help others — including the most important folks — in our lives pursue their own calling.
Too Close for Comfort
Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Boy @ The Window, culture, Eclectic, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon New York, New York City, Pittsburgh, Pop Culture, race, University of Pittsburgh, Youth
616, 616 East Lincoln Avenue, Code Switching, Embarrassment, Family Dysfunction, Humanities, JD, Laurell, Mom, Mother-Son Relationship, Pitt, Poverty, Self-Awareness, Self-Realization, The Bold and the Beautiful, The Gill Family, The Price is Right, Uncle Sam
Skyline of downtown Houston from Sabine Park, Houston, Texas, July 15, 2010. (Jujutacular via Wikipedia). Permission granted via GNU Free Documentation License.
My Mom and my Uncle Sam are in Houston, Texas/Bradley, Arkansas this week, burying their father and my grandfather, who died ten days ago, just three weeks after his 97th birthday. Given what they've told me so far, it seems like they've been treated as outsiders by my extended family of uncles, aunts, grand uncles and aunts, and cousins that I barely know or whom I've never met. They've learned some embarrassing stuff as well, details that I will not go into here. I had been conflicted about going versus not going, especially given that I'd only met my grandfather once, in June 2001, and that wasn't a pleasant visit, at least environmentally speaking. After the past few days, I'm definitely glad I didn't go.
My Mom and my Uncle Sam Gill, Jr., Mount Vernon, NY, November 23, 2006. (Donald Earl Collins).
I do feel bad for my Mom and Uncle Sam, though. And not just the natural empathy of feeling for your kin when their father passes away either. I feel for them because they are part of a family dynamic that has gone on for nearly a half-century without their input and with a limited bit of shunning as well. Some of this may well be deliberate, but most of this is natural, as time and distance has meant limited understanding and inclusion between my uncles and aunts with the New York Gills since the time of my birth in 1969. But some of this is about embarrassment, too. My Mom and my Uncle Sam's lives haven't exactly been a bowl of pitted cherries with whipped cream, either.
This is a topic that I've known all too well with my own family over the past three decades. One example would be the next to last day of 1988, the first year in which I rediscovered myself as someone other than an emotionally wounded twelve-year-old. It was a day of both eye-opening lies and hidden truths, a moment of unexpected boldness and moments of seeing familiar faces and places with different eyes.
It was the day my friend and former high school classmate Laurell decided to pick me up from 616 to spend time with her, as well as her friend Nicole, our former eighth-grade Algebra teacher Jeanne Longerano, and eventually, our mutual acquaintances JD and Josh. It was a day I was forced to code switch, to traverse my 616 world, my former Humanities world, and maintain my new conception of myself at the same time. It wasn't exactly my Miles Davis moment:
What I discuss in different parts of Boy @ The Window, but not in this particular scene, was the exact nature of "too disgusting" at 616. Let's see. Blotches of gray and black stains on a salmon-colored area rug around a 19-inch television set in the living room. On top of the rug was my then stepfather Maurice who was laid out in nothing but his size-54 underwear. This meant that most of his 400-plus pound fatty bulk was exposed for anyone to see. A cobble of broken down sofas, busted chairs, and a
Deepwater Horizon oil spill aerial, Gulf of Mexico, May 6, 2010 (same color as area rug with stains). (Reuters/Daniel Beltra via Flickr, http://motherjones.com).
kitchen table with hanger wire connecting each of its three remaining legs to the tabletop. Kitchen, hallway, and bathroom walls stained with grape jelly, crayons, and even feces. Dust balls the size of Matchbox cars in the hallway, lined up as if in rush-hour traffic. And the never-ending smell of cigarette smoke, overused cooking oil, and farts from eight human beings between the ages of four and forty-one. Seriously, what would anyone else have done under the circumstances, especially now that I was a fully awake college-aged student? I wasn't acting just out of embarrassment or just to protect my Mom from embarrassment. I was acting to protect Laurell as well.
Contrast 616 with what happened next on December 30, 1988, between The Price is Right's first Showcase Showdown and the end of The Bold and the Beautiful on CBS (roughly, between 11:25 am and 2 pm):
Afterward, we went down the street to the nearest pizza shop, and hung out until midafternoon, telling each other what we thought would be the best thing to say. Even me. I didn't talk about homelessness, or a semester without money for food, or living in a deathtrap in the South Oakland section of Pittsburgh. Laurell did give me a heartfelt hug after dropping me off at 616, still puzzled about why I wouldn't let her and Nicole visit with my family. Hopefully, after years as a high school math teacher, she understands better now.
Biohazard symbol (orange), May 29, 2009. (Nandhp via Wikipedia). In public domain.
Even though my Mom and Uncle Sam are obviously just as much Gill as the rest of my extended family in Texas, Arkansas (and Washington State, Louisiana, and elsewhere), they're not part of the everyday that my other uncles, aunts, grand aunts and uncles, and cousins have had with each other for decades. So the extended Gills cannot see my Mom and my uncle and their struggles the same way they see their own. Nor can my extended Gills see those things that may be embarrassing to my Mom and my uncle the same way either. It makes for a bewildering family dynamic. And this in many ways explains well why so many families have a hard time being families, in the closeness (and closest) meaning of the word.
Dysfunction is so much a part of families these days. but even in dysfunction, you can learn truths about yourself, especially in moments of life, death, and in my case, rebirth.


over many decades ensured that our community pulled together and moved resolutely forward to better itself. Keith led by example and it is largely because of his endeavours and tireless energy that the village has acquired and retained much of the distinctive character and facilities that we take for granted today. Think of any major local event or activity and Keith Crossman's hand will be writ large across it.
He founded the Sutherland Memorial Hall Amenities Club. In 1990, Keith was one of the founding members of the Burpham Bowling Club and after a spate of burglaries in 1994, he helped establish the Meadway Neighbourhood Watch. Many of you will recall the Burpham Millennium Fete held at the Sutherland Memorial Park on 24 June to celebrate the year 2000. Keith was its Chairman, main organiser, fundraiser and general factotum.
A Keith Crossman Memorial Committee has been set up, with the first meeting on 11th November 2014 with the purpose of securing a permanent memorial to this truly remarkable man. It includes representatives from the BCA, Meadway Neighbourhood Watch and the Burpham Bowling Club. Invitations to join have been sent to Burpham Church, Sutherland Hall Amenities Club and the Papercourt Sailing Club where Keith was Commodore from 1990 - 1992.
This is very much a retrospective action. Earlier this year a group of people decided that Keith's selfless voluntary service to the Burpham Community deserved national recognition such as an MBE and a submission was put forward in June to the Government's Cabinet Office. Sadly this coincided with the onset of Keith's illness. Later when the seriousness of his condition became apparent, he was told about it in confidence, with the objective of raising his spirits at a very difficult time – a forgivable breach of protocol. He expressed complete surprise – "Really?" He was touched to know how highly he was regarded. Sadly, awards cannot be given posthumously. We feel that it behoves us to honour at a local level, a man whose overall impact on the Burpham community far exceeds the sum of his many individual contributions. Many aspire to make a difference; Keith Crossman quite simply has done so in a superlative and unpretentious fashion. We hope you will both approve of and support our endeavours to achieve something that truly honours the memory of this exceptional man.
Happy new year from the BCA!
The BCA has endeavoured to be extremely proactive during the last six months, covering issues of flooding, the Slyfield –Clay Lane link road, the Local Plan, new planning applications and of course the recent parking survey. We do hope that you will want to continue to support our endeavours in the future. With this in mind, the BCA would like to announce that the new subscription year for 2015 starts on the 1st January. The revised rates as agreed at the last A.G.M are £8 per household or £4 per single occupancy.
Please help us to work on the community's behalf as the prospects for the coming year seem to be even more demanding than we have encountered to-date.


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Books > Kids & Childrens Books > Children's Fiction > Fairy Tales, Magical & Traditional Stories for Children
The Tale Of Despereaux
Newbery Medal Book
By: Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil Ering (Illustrator)
Hardcover Published: 1st September 2003
For Ages: 9 - 11 years old
DVD View Product Published: 4th September 2014
Please note the pages on this book have been produced with bevelled or rough edge to create an old style look. The publisher has deliberately chosen to produce the book this way.
WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL
Kate DiCamillo introduces a hero for all time
Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other's lives. And what happens then? As Kate DiCamillo would say: Reader, it is your destiny to find out.
From the master storyteller who brought us BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE comes another classic, a fairy tale full of quirky, unforgettable characters, featuring twenty-four stunning black-and-white illustrations by Timothy Basil Ering, in an elegant design that pays tribute to the best in classic children's books and bookmaking traditions.
The beloved author of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE enlightens us with a tale of adventure, despair, love, and soup.
Industry Reviews
DiCamillo "sets the stage for a battle between the forces of Darkness and Light in THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, and the book is a terrific, bravura performance."
--New York Times Book Review, The
The author of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE and THE TIGER RISING here shifts gears, demonstrating her versatility while once again proving her genius for mining the universal themes of childhood. . . . I must tell you, you are in for a treat.
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A charming story of unlikely heroes . . . This expanded fairy tale is entertaining, heartening, and, above all, great fun.
--School Library Journal (starred review)
Forgiveness, light, love, and soup. These essential ingredients combine into a tale that is as soul stirring as it is delicious.
--Booklist (starred review)
The melodramatic voice of the narrator glides through DiCamillo's entirely pleasing tale . . . And so unwinds a tale with twists and turns, full of forbidden soup and ladles, rats lusting for mouse blood, a servant who wishes to be a princess, a knight in shining--or at least furry--armor, and all the ingredients of an old-fashioned drama.
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
There is a classic charm to this picaresque tale of an idealistic mouse suffering unrequited love for a princess; that and a pace that lends itself to reading aloud will make this novel a favorite among those ready for some gentle questing.
--Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, The
DiCamillo tells an engaging tale . . . Many readers will be enchanted by this story of mice and princesses, brave deeds, hearts 'shaded with dark and dappled with light, ' and forgiveness.
--Horn Book, The
Soul stirring and charming.
--Booklist
Newbery-Honor winning DiCamillo creates the perfect read-aloud with delightful, fanciful characters.
--Child's Best of the Year
This old-fashioned tale is overflowing with good and evil, light and dark, scary adventures, and a happy ending. Ideally read aloud.
--Nick Jr. Family Magazine Best Books of the Year
Heart-stopping and heartwarming. . . . The perfect read-aloud.
--San Francisco Chronicle
Chill winds call for hot cocoa and a good book. THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX serves up 52 chapters bursting with adventure.
--Washington Parent
I give this book the highest rating: five out of five stars.
--Newsday
Unexpectedly complex in the relationships between its characters, DiCamillo's fable, engagingly illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering, delivers a carefully orchestrated, but not overstated, testament to the power of love and forgiveness.
Despereaux . . . stands shoulder to shoulder with such legendary literary mice as E.B. White's Stuart Little and Margery Sharp's Bernard and Miss Bianca.
"Reader, it is his destiny -- just as it is for THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX to become another timeless classic in the once-upon-a-time genre.
--Orlando Sentinel
This charming adventure by the award-winning author of BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE is a story of love, courage and following your heart.
--Detroit Free Press
Read the book aloud. Few recent texts have been designed for that, with multiple plots ticking on, divided into 52 small chapters. And don't forget the coda, a tiny but deft apologia of the imagination.
--Chicago Tribune
This charming fairy tale brims with delightful characters.
--Cleveland Plain Dealer
Here once again, loss brings characters together, misfits find a place in the world, and darkness and light swirl together in a not easily divisible mix.
--Star Tribune
THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX "has DiCamillo's modern sensibilities, her wry humor, and crystalline prose."
--Miami Herald
The story is just plain fun to read, but it also explores deeper and darker aspects of parent-child relations, including betrayal, the need for forgiveness and the power of love.
--Houston Chronicle
SUPER SUMMER READS: THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX by Kate DiCamillo. A smaller-than-usual mouse falls in love with music, stories, and a Princess named Pea.
--Woman's Day
A heartwarming and rewarding read, THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX cheers uniqueness, boos conformity, urges readers to overlook seeming differences, and inspires hope.
--Teacher Magazine
With its old-fashioned, fairy tale qualities and whimsical pencil drawings by Timothy Basil Ering, the book is definitely a departure for DiCamillo, but one readers are sure to love.
--Book Page
. . . DiCamillo's new fantasy novel is charming, by turns sad, sweet, and mildly scary.
--Voice of Youth Advocates
Sly style and brilliantly-crafted characters will reward the reader . . .
--Five Owls, The
Series: Newbery Medal Book
For Grades: 4 - 6
Published: 1st September 2003
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Dimensions (cm): 21.59 x 16.51 x 3.18
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Item Added: The Tale Of Despereaux

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What's The Craic is Brighton's weekly Irish radio show with an eclectic mix of Irish music, news, chat and well known Irish guests!
Live from RadioReverb's studios at Brighton's Open Market Mondays at 3PM. Repeats Tuesdays at 8AM and Saturdays at 1AM on RadioReverb on 97.2FM, DAB, radioreverb.com and on demand via your usual podcast provider.
The show takes a look at relevant news, sports and events to interest the Irish community here in Brighton with a sprinkling of well known Irish guests [previous guests have included : Ed Byrne, Stiff Little Fingers, Le Galaxie and Packie Bonner] along with playing a mix of well know Irish songs and breaking brand new music from Ireland.


text:
By: Michael Gabriel Sumastre | Published: February 19, 2013 | Updated: October 27, 2017
Source: Bakhtiar Zein/Dreamstime
Takeaway: This scripting language is simple, inexpensive and highly effective, which explains why it's so popular.
Three words can be used to describe PHP: functional, flexible and popular.
That's why this scripting language is used by some of the biggest websites in the world, including Wikipedia, Facebook and WordPress. In fact, it is used by more than 80 percent of all websites, far more sites than ASP.Net, ColdFusion and Perl. That's why it's so important for serious web developers and designers to get into PHP. Here we'll take a broad look at this language and why it's so popular. (PHP is also being used for IoT projects. Find out more in The Top 10 Coding Languages for IoT Projects.)
What Is PHP?
PHP is a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, and it's used for server-side scripting in order to come up with dynamic web pages. PHP is basically a general-purpose script language and is usually embedded into HTML.
Because it's a server-side language, it is not executed on the user's computer but on the computer or server from which the web page is being requested. Take note, however, that the server does not naturally understand PHP. It must be configured to detect PHP segments in a .php file, get the entire HTML arranged, and send it to the user. In fact, PHP is executed first, before any of the HTML itself is run.
What makes PHP so useful is that it pares down the amount of code that you need to do a certain task. What's more, it's easy to get into "PHP mode" while writing HTML code. You just need to enclose your PHP codes in "?php" and "?".
How PHP Started
PHP has been around longer than you might imagine. In fact, it was first introduced in 1995 by Rasmus Ledorf, who wrote the initial scripts to help him manage his own website. Since then, the simple scripting language based on Common Gateway Interface binaries in C evolved to how we know it today. Now, PHP is the most known and most used scripting language.
Why PHP Is Popular
Aside from being the most widely used scripting language in the world at present, there are other reasons why PHP is something that you should learn.
First, PHP is open source. What this means is that the actual programming used for PHP scripts is open for everyone to see. Combined with PHP's popularity, this ensures that there are a lot of people working on improving it. This means that PHP is also very inexpensive and very reliable. You can even get preprogrammed scripts. (Read more about the open source movement in Open Source: Is It Too Good to Be True?)
PHP can also be used in many platforms and is compatible with many servers. PHP scripts may be executed on a computer that runs on Windows and will have no problems when it is run on a Unix or Linux machine. What's more, PHP runs on many of the most popular servers today, such as IIS and Apache. PHP also works seamlessly with most of the popular database servers such as Hyperweave, Sybase, Oracle, MySQL, FrontBase, Ingres and Informix. It also supports open databases connectivity (ODBC). This means that any database servers using this standard will be able to work with PHP.
PHP also works well with a lot of protocols such as IMAP, POP3, HTTP, COM, LDAP and SNMP. It can even support Java objects, CORBA and WDDX complex data exchange.
In terms of security, PHP has a good record. According to the National Vulnerability Database, about 8.5 percent of all vulnerabilities are related to PHP. Fortunately, a great majority of these vulnerabilities are not related to the technical structure of PHP or any of its associated libraries, but have more to do with programmers not following best practices, such as not securing their code or writing bad scripts.
Last but not least, PHP is very flexible. Gone are the days when PHP was seen as a series of sloppy lines of code more suited for use by hobbyists than professional web developers or webmasters. Nowadays, PHP is seen as a very flexible web development language that may be used to create traditional desktop applications, batch processing programs and web applications. This is because PHP is rather easy to use and very simple to understand. In fact, it's quite possible to learn PHP even without prior programming experience and knowledge.
All web developers and programmers will inevitably work on a PHP-related program. In fact, a lot of programmers now deal with PHP almost on a daily basis. The good news is that PHP is very easy to learn and is accessible even to newcomers.
The Pitfalls of Using PHP
Just because PHP is easy to learn and fairly simple does not mean that anybody can create complex projects using PHP. In fact, larger and more complex projects using PHP can often stump even intermediate programmers. More complex programming requires a certain level of expertise. Fortunately, though, there are already existing templates that can make their work easier. There are also limitations to what can be accomplished using PHP, so it sometimes needs to be supplemented with other methods.
Finally, because PHP is open source, the code is often visible in plain text. This could become a problem for those who sell their programming as a product.
Learning PHP
There are a lot of sites that offer tutorials on PHP for beginners, intermediate and expert programmers. Previous knowledge in HTML or XHTML and JavaScript is preferred, but a basic understanding of these provides enough background to begin to learn and understand PHP. Once you are ready to test out your PHP skills, you should get a web server with PHP support by using your own server and installing Apache or IIS on it, and then installing PHP and MySQL (or another database server you like). You could also get a web host that offers both PHP and MySQL support.
PHP has become a critically important programming language. It helps programmers and designers create dynamic and complex websites. Because PHP is simple and inexpensive, it's likely that most developers and web designers will work with it at some point and should at least be familiar with it and how it works. As for less technical website owners who want to learn to enhance their websites, PHP is also a good place to start.
Written by Michael Gabriel Sumastre
Michael Gabriel Sumastre is a skilled technical blogger and writer with more than seven years of professional experience in Web content creation, SEO and research paper writing. He has written more than a thousand articles related to tech and gadgets, cloud computing, IT management, SEO, SEM and software solutions. He ghostwrites books / e-books and has a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science. Michael is also an expert in webmastering and loves to ride his sportsbike.
The 5 Programming Languages That Built the Internet
Perl 101
The Top 10 Coding Languages for IoT Projects
Why Is Java Preferred to Other Languages as a Building Block?
Scripting Languages 101
5 Challenges in Big Data Analytics to Watch Out For
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
Scripting Language
Abstract IL
What is the difference between alpha testing and beta testing?
What is the difference between C and C++?
What are the biggest uses of SQL today?


text:
Family & asset management
Real estate & private financing
Real estate & professional investment
Business & governance
Public actor & development
Rural & forest
The Notarial Office was formed on 20 February 1650 under the reign of Louis XIV, rue Coquillière, in one of the five Parisian parishes that at the time formed the heart of Paris.
With the parishes of Saint-Jacques de la Boucherie, Saint-Josse, Saint-Opportune and Saints-Innocents "all turned towards les Halles", the parish of Saint-Eustache, to which the Office reported, formed the nerve centre of Paris. Indeed "in the 17th century, les Halles was not only a place that had a high concentration of the population, but also where all of the social categories were represented, from the merchant from the heart of les Halles to the minister and financier established at the north of Palais Royal in the parish of Saint-Eustache. "
François Le Fouin, holder of the first appointment, was the Notary of Mazarin and one of Colbert's notaries. Starting in 1665, he would also become "advisor-secretary to the king", Clerk to the Private Counsel and secretary of the navy.
The appointment was then transferred to Pierre Savalette in title, although the practice went to Noël de Beauvais.
Noël de Beauvais also inherited the prestigious clientele of François Le Fouin.
From 1794 to 1859, the Office was transferred to the 1st district of Paris, quartier Saint-Roch, 2, rue Thérèse, and then moved to 28, rue des Moulins, then to 18, rue Sainte-Anne, being established at 20, rue des Pyramides in 1914, and then in November 2000 at 16, rue des Pyramides, its current address.
The central minutes register holds the minutes of the Office [Etude], known as "Etude 95" since its creation in 1650.
The successors of François Le Fouin and Noël de Beauvais were:
Pierre Deherain, who practised from 3 November 1770 to 18 April 1804,
Denis Le Pelletier, who practised from 18 April 1804 to 20 April 1820,
Joachim Perret, who practised from 20 April 1820 to 8 June 1841,
Léon Goudechaux, who practised from 8 June 1841 to 10 December 1857,
Phileas Vassal, who practised from 10 December 1857 to 28 October 1887,
Armand Aron, who practised from 28 October 1887 to 1st April 1914,
Robert Revel, who practised from 1st April 1914 to 29 October 1946,
Marcel Baron, who practised from 29 October 1946 to 29 November 1978,
Michel Hussenot-Desenonges, who practised from 28 April 1971 to 9 December 1992,
Marie-Anne Geoffroy Bergier, who practised from 29 November 1978 to 7 March 1995,
Jean-Luc Régnier, who practised from 29 November 1978 to 8 August 2013,
Luc Bouvet, who practised from 2 April 1997 to 29 December 2015,
Gérard Hervet, who practised from 9 December 1992 to 17 July 2017,
Jean-Louis Régnier, who practised from 26 March 1975 to 9 August 2016,
And Charles Bricard, who practised from 9 August 1995 to 9 February 2019.
The associate Notaries of the Notarial Office now known as Régnier Notaires are:
François Thessieux, an associate since 5 March 1997,
Ulrich Bédel, an associate since 9 November 2011,
Nicolas Fortassin, an associate since 8 August 2013,
Philippe Vidal, an associate since 21 December 2015.
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Have a guided tour of the college and visit various departments and discover the opportunities available at Henry Cort.
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DNA testing revealed a WWII veteran stole an 8-year-old's identity. No one knows why
Posted 4:44 pm, June 22, 2018, by CNN Wire
DNA testing revealed a WWII veteran stole an 8-year-old's identity. No one knows why
By Maya Eliahou and Christina Zdanowicz, CNN
He was a WWII veteran with a Purple Heart, a wife and three children. But in 1964, he vanished, moved across the country and later took the identity of an 8-year-old boy who had died years before.
His case had confounded investigators for more than a decade. US Marshal Pete Elliott called it "one of northeast Ohio's biggest mysteries."
Now, with the help of DNA testing, some of the pieces have come together.
It's a complicated story, so let's start from the beginning.
A stolen identity
In 2002, a 76-year-old man named Joseph Newton Chandler III locked the doors and windows in his apartment outside Cleveland. He turned off the air conditioning and marked the date on his calendar. Then he went into his bathroom and took his own life.
Police discovered his body about one week later, but it had decomposed in the summer heat. No fingerprints could be lifted from the man's remains and his body was cremated.
When the name "Joseph Newton Chandler III" was run through a database, police saw the man had stolen the identity of an 8-year-old boy who died in a car accident with his parents in 1945. That's when things got interesting.
"Joseph Chandler never got a chance to live his life, but someone else would get to live it for him," Elliott said at a news conference Thursday.
The man who went by Chandler was an electrician and a draftsman who co-workers described as being an odd, eccentric and highly intelligent man, but a loner with no family or friends, Elliott said.
Friends said he would tell them, "they are getting close," and then he would disappear from the area, returning home days or sometimes weeks later.
Chandler also kept a packed suitcase in his apartment so he was ready to go at any moment and he died with $82,000 in his bank account.
"What he was running from, I just don't know," Elliott said.
Theorists suggested Chandler could be the Zodiac Killer, or a mysterious plane hijacker named D.B. Cooper, but the truth was that no one knew who the man had been before he took Chandler's name and identity.
Eventually, the case went cold.
A breakthrough
A new lead emerged in 2014, when US Marshals took over the case. They discovered that Chandler had visited a hospital two years prior to his death where a tissue sample was taken from him.
With the assistance of groundbreaking genealogical research and DNA testing, doctors discovered the man who lived for decades as Chandler likely had the last name Nicholas, or something close to that.
The trail eventually led officials to the mystery man's son in March 2018. Their DNA was a positive match. From there, it all came together.
The man who went by Joseph Chandler was really Robert Ivan Nichols. He was a WWII Navy veteran who was born in Indiana and who left behind a wife and three kids.
"Once I saw the photos I knew it was him," his son, Phil Nichols, said at the news conference Thursday.
After his ship was bombed during the war in 1945, he received a Purple Heart. Nichols' family said he burned his military uniform sometime after that. In 1964, he told his wife he was leaving the family and that they would know why "in due time."
From there, a trail of postcards and letters suggests he traveled around the country, spending time in Michigan, Oklahoma and in California, where he sent his son a letter with a single penny inside in 1965. It was the last time his family would hear from him.
"I hold no animosity whatsoever," his son said. "I had always hoped that he'd found a happy life somewhere."
Nichols' parents reported him missing after he left, but attempts to locate him by authorities in California and Indiana were unsuccessful.
Recent advances in genealogical technology helped crack the case. According to Elliott, this was the first investigation in US Marshal service history that used forensic genealogy.
Forensic genealogy is becoming more common in solving criminal investigations and was used to track down the Golden State Killer as well as crack other cold cases involving serial killers.
Questions remain
In 1978, Nichols acquired the birth certificate of Joseph Chandler. Next he got a social security card in South Dakota using the real child's birthday and both parents' names. Later that year, records show that Nichols began working as an electrician in Ohio using Chandler's identity.
What Nichols did and where he lived between California and Ohio remains a mystery, and Elliott implied Nichols may have had a sinister reason to leave his family and adopt a new identity.
"There is a reason he went missing in 1965, and assumed the identity of a deceased 8-year-old in 1978 and went hiding for so, so many years," Elliott said. "There is a reason he never contacted his family again."
Yet Robert Nichols and Joseph Chandler both have no criminal history, according to Elliott.
The man known to some as Joseph Chandler and to others as Robert Nichols didn't want to be found in his lifetime or after his death. Elliott believes that someone who knew him before he disappeared might hold the key to Nichols' mysterious disappearance.
Investigators have asked for the public's help to determine where Nichols was between 1965 and 1978 and why he left his family.
"The first part of this mystery is solved," Elliott said. "But the second part we put out to you guys."
Filed in: Nation/World, News
Topics: identity theft, military, veteran
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'Greatest day of my life': WWII veteran reunites with lover after 75 years
Thanks to DNA sleuths, a Jane Doe killed 37 years ago might finally get a headstone with her name on it
Biker group surprises 86-year-old veteran with ride-along
Roy man returns WWII veteran's lost medals to family
Roy man seeks veteran's family to return lost WWII regalia
A Goodwill store found a World War II sailor's Purple Heart. Now they want to find his family
DNA evidence leads police to college student's killer nearly 50 years after slaying
Uncle of missing Logan 5-year-old charged with aggravated murder, child kidnapping
A veteran died in police custody. His body was returned to his family with some organs missing
Marine veteran reunited with military dog after years apart
Utah soldier who died in Afghanistan just became a dad, was due home in 3 weeks


Farm Safety Week is a nationwide initiative held between 16 and 22 July 2018 to raise awareness of farm safety and highlight practical steps farmers can take to improve work health and safety on farms.
Safe Work Australia CEO Michelle Baxter said that the latest available data shows that the agriculture industry made up 2% of our workforce and accounted for 21% of worker fatalities and 3% of serious claims for workers' compensation.
"Farms are one of the most rewarding workplaces, but also one of the most dangerous," said Ms Baxter.
Ms Baxter recommends a range of strategies to make yours a no-harm farm.
"Getting rid of old equipment is a good step, and always choose the safest equipment for your farm's needs and keep it well maintained," she said.
Ensuring all workers and visitors know about the risks on the farm and how to manage them, and closely supervising and training new and inexperienced workers, are also strategies essential to building a no-harm farm.
Throughout Farm Safety Week 2018, Safe Work Australia will showcase videos, codes, guides and case studies to help you make yours a no-harm farm.


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Limonium brunneri är en triftväxtart som först beskrevs av Philip Barker Webb och Pierre Edmond Boissier, och fick sitt nu gällande namn av Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze. Limonium brunneri ingår i släktet rispar, och familjen triftväxter. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Rispar
brunneri

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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(HZ) UK Pure London
The Brexit impact on the UK's fashion industry
Source: AP TELEVISION
Dateline: London, UK - 12 February 2017
London, UK - 12 February 2017
1. Mid of woman on catwalk in furry coat and sunglasses
2. Various of woman in camel coat with long scarf on catwalk
3. Cutaway of woman taking photo of catwalk
4. Mid of woman in grey dress with metal bead shoulder attachments
5. Various set up shots of Maggie Song, owner of labels, Jolie Moi and Emily & Me, taking red dress from peg
6. SOUNDBITE: (English) Maggie Song, British fashion labels owner (Jolie Moi and Emily & Me):
"I was shocked (when she heard the Brexit result). I couldn't think anything and also I couldn't speak, so, I was watching the exchange rate on the internet, I can see the drop, the pound, this dramatic drop to the dollar and immediately I realised how tough it will be for small business."
7. Mid of show visitors walking
8. Mid of woman hanging jacket
9. Various of man looking at shoes
10. Various set up shots of Pure London show director, Julie Driscoll looking at scarf
11. SOUNDBITE: (English) Julie Driscoll, Pure London show director:
"So the exchange rate means for international brands it's really easy for them to enter the UK market, so more than ever before we're seeing international companies, international fashion collections wanting to come to the UK to explore opportunities and indeed that means this is our largest Pure London ever."
12. Pan right of Pas Si Sages Bijoux jewellery from Lyon, France
13. Pull focus of bracelets
14. Tilt up from bracelets to earrings
15. Tilt up of back necklace
16. Mid of Chloe Chenu demonstrating how the back necklace is worn
17. Close details of necklace
18. SOUNDBITE: (French) Chloe Chenu, director, Pas Si Sages Bijoux:
"London is always the place for fashion, the most important in the world, even after Brexit, that doesn't change anything. We always come to sell products, English people are always eccentric and they want French products."
19. Close tilt up of two-tone leather skirt by Urun (from Turkey)
20. Close pan left of designer Ece Kavran showing colleague her new skirt design
21. Mid of same
22. Close of Kavran
23. SOUNDBITE: (English) Ece Kavran, designer, Urun:
"But England is an expandable market, it's forever open to the new idea, to the new brand, and I think that's what makes it, England, very compelling for us."
24. Wide of woman in gothic clothing on catwalk
25. Close of woman photographing the show
26. Wide pull focus of crowd on smartphones watching the show
27. Tilt up of model during gothic show
28. Various set up shots of personal stylist Justyna Szal
29. SOUNDBITE: (English) Justyna Szal, personal stylist:
"No, I haven't found it less interesting. I actually found it more interesting because of the whole situation people actually are starting to be more interested in the UK and I think actually it's a pleasant advantage and the fashion business hasn't been more in bloom than it is nowadays."
30. Various set up shots of fashion editor Keely Stocker looking at show
31. SOUNDBITE: (English) Keely Stocker, editor of Drapers magazine:
"I think it's definitely a challenging time, mainly because of the uncertainty more than anything else but I think those people that are doing well are the ones that are really focusing on their customer, focusing on their product and just getting on with it until we know exactly what that (Brexit) is going to mean."
32. Close pull from Mongolian/UK flag to Bilguun Brower, owner of Mongolian Kingdom
33. Close tilt down to yak
34. Various of Brower looking at Mongolian yak scarf
35. Various of fashion show with models in red dresses
LEAD IN:
London has always been one of the world's leading lights in the fashion industry - but has Brexit dulled some of its shine?
At the Pure London fashion retail show - and with London Fashion Week on the horizon - brand owners and designers give their views on doing business in Brexit Britain.
STORY-LINE:
On the catwalk at Pure London it's business as usual.
The models strut their stuff to the music and packed crowds squeeze in for a glimpse of the latest trends.
But behind the flash and the glamour - is London still an attractive venue for fashion brands?
With Britain voting to leave the EU, and uncertainty hanging over all sectors of industry, the UK's fashion talent is preparing to weather the storm.
Maggie Song studied fashion in Beijing but came to the UK 13 years ago to make her name in the industry she loves.
In this time she has founded three labels, her most successful brand is Jolie Moi which can be found in some of the UK's largest department stores (John Lewis, Debenhams, House of Fraser).
She considers her business to be small to medium sized. Her clothes are designed in the UK but the materials and production happen in China.
When the result of the Brexit vote was announced she was on a business trip in Beijing and recalls her horror at hearing the news.
"I was shocked (when she heard the Brexit result). I couldn't think anything and also I couldn't speak, so, I was watching the exchange rate on the Internet, I can see the drop, the pound, this dramatic drop to the dollar and immediately I realised how tough it will be for small business," she says.
Song is expecting a tough 2017 as the low value of the pound starts to bite. She expects she will have to lower her margins to absorb the impact of Brexit.
But not everybody is suffering from the falling pound, according to Pure London's show director Julie Driscoll.
"So the exchange rate means for international brands it's really easy for them to enter the UK market, so more than ever before we're seeing international companies, international fashion collections wanting to come to the UK to explore opportunities and indeed this means this is our largest Pure London ever," she says.
One of the foreign fashion brands visiting Pure London for the first time is French jewellery maker Pas Si Sages Bijoux (Not So Wise) from Lyon.
Their funky, Bohemian-inspired jewellery is low/to mid priced and is all designed and produced in France. They are now looking to expand into the British market.
Chloe Chenu, the director of Pas Si Sages Bijoux, demonstrates the latest product - a back necklace.
She believes Brexit has not changed anything in the fashion world and thinks the UK is still a great place to do business... perhaps thanks to the eccentric English style.
"London is always the place for fashion, the most important in the world, even after Brexit, that doesn't change anything. We always come to sell products, English people are always eccentric and they want French products," she says.
It's the same story for Turkish designer Ece Kavran, whose range called Urun features minimalist, classic pieces.
She says London is still top of her list for places to do business because of its pace and willingness to try new brands. She says in France and Italy the market is much slower and more traditional.
"But England is an expandable market, it's forever open to the new idea, to the new brand, and I think that's what makes it, England, very compelling for us," she says.
But fashion is more than just sales and spreadsheets, it's about creating brands - and there is no bigger brand than a country itself. So has brand Britain been tarnished by its decision to leave the EU?
Personal stylist Justyna Szal is at the show to soak up inspiration for new season looks.
She is originally from near Krakow in Poland, but works in London - dressing and making her clients look as on trend as possible.
Szal likes the idea of Brexit and does not feel it has had any negative impact on London as a fashion hub. In fact, she's quite enjoying all the attention, with the eyes of the world turning to Britain.
"No, I haven't found it less interesting. I actually found it more interesting because of the whole situation people are starting to be more interested in the UK and I think actually it's a pleasant advantage and the fashion business hasn't been more in bloom than it is nowadays," she says.
According to an industry report, compiled by Inside Retail, fashion is worth 50 billion UK pounds (approx. 62 billion US dollars) per annum in the UK - the second most important retail sector only behind food.
The British Retail Consortium estimates that in October 2015, online accounted for 26.3 per cent of total clothing sales - even higher for footwear.
The UK is already the world leader in online fashion sales, leading France, Germany, Japan and the USA.
Keely Stocker is the editor of Drapers, a long-running fashion industry magazine.
In a typically British way, she thinks this is a time to keep calm and carry on.
"I think it's definitely a challenging time, mainly because of the uncertainty more than anything else," she says. "But I think those people that are doing well are the ones that are really focusing on their customer, focusing on their product and just getting on with it until we know exactly what that (Brexit) is going to mean."
One of those at the show who is hoping to do just that is Bilguun Brower, owner of Mongolian Kingdom.
He is buying high-end Mongolian woollen products and selling them in the UK. The fall in value of the pound is an issue he will have to contend with in the coming years, but Brower believes there is a strong market for his products in the UK because of its damp, cold climate.
Exhibiting for the first time, he is introducing his new line of yak's wool scarves.
Brower, and the other small British business owners at Pure, will all be hoping the UK can secure strong trade deals as quickly as possible.
Pure London is one of the leading fashion retail shows in the Europe, with over 11,000 buyers visiting the show between February 12-14.
Fashion shows , Fashion , Beauty and fashion , Lifestyle , Fashion shows , Entertainment , Arts and entertainment , Fashion shows , Fashion design , Fashion magazines , Magazines and journals , Media , Fashion magazines , Retail and wholesale sector performance , Economy , Business , Brexit referendum
London , England , United Kingdom


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TXU Energy donates trees to Edinburg CISD schools
EDINBURG – TXU Energy recently donated 20 live oak trees to the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District during a special tree dedication ceremony at Kennedy Elementary School.
"We are grateful for the generosity from TXU Energy and its commitment to making a difference for our children and our school community," ECISD Superintendent Dr. René Gutiérrez said. "For more than a century, we have been planting trees at Edinburg CISD that continue to grow to this day. We hope that these new oak trees will thrive for several years to come."
TXU Energy in partnership with the Texas Trees Foundation is creating an enhanced outdoor learning environment and helping boost Edinburg CISD's tree canopy and sustainability efforts with a donation of live oak trees to five campuses, including Eisenhower, Kennedy, Magee, Truman and Villarreal elementary schools.
"I'm excited having the trees," Kennedy Elementary School Principal Gloria Alonzo said. "We do have a teacher and her husband, who are going to build benches for us. We are going to set the benches underneath the trees for our students and our parents to come in and enjoy the wonderful shade that they will create."
Matt Grubisich, Texas Trees Foundation director of operations and urban forestry, talked to students during the ceremony about the importance of planting trees across area school campuses.
"The South Texas region often tops the nation in extreme heat and high humidity, which means tree canopy cover, especially at schools, is vital to reducing the urban heat island effect and to creating shade where students study and play," Grubisich said. "Providing as much as 15 degrees of cooling on hot summer days, trees are one of our most valuable resources, and are key components of strong and healthy communities."
The donated live oak trees were selected by the Texas Trees Foundation for their ability to withstand hot summer temperatures and provide much-needed shade.
"Environmental stewardship is a key focus for TXU Energy, and through our Trees Across Texas program, we're able to team with our valued partners, like Edinburg CISD, to make a real difference in the communities we serve," said Eric Holz, TXU Energy sales executive. "By planting trees at schools, we're creating outdoor learning opportunities, increasing shade near recreation spaces, and beautifying campuses for generations of students to enjoy."
Since 2002, TXU Energy, and its sister companies, have provided nearly 300,000 trees to various partner communities. The donated trees have helped generate environmental savings and health benefits for municipalities and residents valued at approximately $37 million annually during the life of these trees.