text:
by Robert Earle
He didn't have a father, but his mother hadn't had either parent. They died in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 when she was an infant. She was rescued and adopted by a childless Russian immigrant couple and had inherited their dairy farm just before he was born in 1951. She didn't talk about his father. "Someone who passed through when I was too old to have a baby, but look, here you are." Her laugh ended the conversation. There he was. He liked being where he was.
At first she carried him everywhere. As soon as he could walk he followed her everywhere, just like her shadow. They made up riddles about that.
"How can I have a shadow at night?" she'd ask.
"Because you always have a son," he'd say.
They were blonde, both of them, she gray-blonde, he towhead blonde, almost white-haired.
He was a Question-Asker. She'd call him that in addition to Mr. Shadow or Shaddy-My Shaddy. Question-Asker wanted to know what towhead meant. She didn't know. In Tiburon there was a little library. They rode there in the cart—didn't have a car, just the cart and a pony called Splash for the brown spatterings on his white coat—to ask the librarian. She was a friend of his mother's and teased, "What, the woman who can do everything doesn't know everything, too?" But the librarian didn't know about tow-head, either. She had to look it up: Once upon a time people grew flax plants and learned how to draw the stems's skins over a bed of nails and glean the fibers that were long enough to weave into wonderful strong soft shiny fabric. The remnants were whitish strands called tow, and boys like him became known as towheads.
"But I don't want to be pulled through any bed of nails," he said. "What's a bed of nails?"
They looked it up in the World Book encyclopedia, and there was an Indian man walking across the sharp points of a bed of nails. Barefoot!
"I don't want to do that, either."
When his mother was very happy with his signs of life, preferences, objections, and opinions, she'd pull him close, pressing his head against her soft tummy and hold it there and rock him.
"Shaddy -My Shaddy," she'd exclaim.
Or she'd sing,
"O Shaddy-My Shaddy
Crossing the fields
Your eyes are so dark
What gives them their spark?
O Shaddy-My Shaddy
Love of my life
Your skin is so soft
How can a little boy
….be made out of moss?"
Ditties, she called them. Made-up little word dances.
"Don't mind me," she'd say, "it's just the wind in my mouth, has to get out."
"What about a sneeze?" he'd ask.
"Storms in the nose."
"Sleet in your throat."
"Thoughts you can't swallow and can't spit out."
"What a fine thing to ask!"
"Mummy, what are they?"
"Burps are frogs that crawled up your bum into your belly so don't burp and let people know what you've got in you."
The librarian gave him a lollypop and he got a book on loan, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and they rattled behind Splash through Tiburon, taking in the sight of the cars rolling past them, their tires fat and scrunchy, their chrome bumpers gleaming, back out to Strawberry Point past the Lyford farm to their own little farm with its meadow, barn, chicken coop, pig pen, pastures left, orchard and garden right, and woods along the back property line.
There were mushrooms, foxes, deer, possums, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks and snakes in those woods. Sometimes he and his mother played shadow-to-shadow between its trees, scurrying around the spots of sun that got through the leaves, never letting a ray touch them and "burn us all up!" Then there was the pond back there with bluegills and perch that had found their way in from the Bay, they supposed. They fished sometimes, each in worn blue overalls and t-shirts with bits of bacon or worms from the mulch pile for bait. He might pinch one's bottom and pull it out and it would stretch like a rubber band until it snapped, or if he was lucky, he'd get the whole worm with its fingerprint wrinkles at both ends. The fish would nip at it wiggling on the hook, the bobber would sink, he or his would mother tug, and they'd cry together, "Here comes breakfast!"
He would wake up the next day to the smell of fish frying. There was no better way to wake up fully and completely. No yawns. No rubbing your eyes. No tucking your head beneath the pillow and pretending you were still asleep, even to yourself. No, the smell of frying fish was an instant waker-upper. He got right out of bed, padded to the outhouse and then sat at the kitchen table where they told one another about their dreams and plans for the day and his mother served the fish just right, so crispy it crumbled around the edges but was moist and tasty inside.
Fish, milk, eggs, cheese, vegetables from the garden, apples from the orchard, pork and bacon from the pigs, chickens from the coop, homemade bread, cake and pie and cookies and tarts and donuts and donut holes, too.
They needed every bit of what they ate to keep working the way they did, especially when he had to fit school in, too. For three years school was all right. He was smart and the fastest runner if perhaps a little odd because he had no TV or telephone and lived in a one-story farmhouse with a single large room divided with curtains for privacy and sleeping. But he got on the bus when it stopped along their road with no worries. The snuggest thing besides his head against his mother's belly was his own body, which he said went everywhere with him, making the other kids laugh.
"Oh, I'm never around unless my body is, too," he'd say. Things like that. "Before I was born, I couldn't go anywhere. Couldn't see a thing."
They really laughed at that. You could count on Alex to be cheery and funny and tell stories like the one about where burps came from or how a ray of sun could sizzle you like bacon if you forgot your baseball hat. (The girls who didn't wear baseball hats hated that one.)
By third grade he was good at getting certain teachers, Mrs. Pappas, for instance, if not Mrs. Hoffman, to let the class discuss his odd notions for five minutes before they went back to arithmetic or spelling.
He did have a favorite topic as everyone knew and various theories about it—the question about where you are before you're born. He could describe every detail of how a cow became pregnant and gave birth and the same with pigs. One thing he steered away from was people because he had to have had a father, but he didn't know who it had been. To him the before-you-were-born world was some kind of warm feminine darkness where very gradually and thoughtfully you took your place. He didn't put it exactly that way, just said it was somewhere you could feel but not see.
Mrs. Pappas said, "Maybe what you mean is the past. We can know about it, but we can't go there. That's why we study history, isn't it?"
"To find out more about what it was like before you were born?" Alex asked.
"I would think so, yes."
History wasn't something that he really grasped and he had the sense that it was a pit of a different order, a dead pit, not a live pit.
"Class, where are we before we are born?" Mrs. Pappas asked. "Does anyone have any idea? Alex, you hush. Let someone else answer."
"We're angels," Kit Paddock said.
"In God's bosom?" Sally Swanson asked.
The word bosom made everyone laugh and Sally blush. The only person in the room with a bosom was Mrs. Pappas and not much of one.
"Be quiet!" Sally ordered, generating more laughter.
"All right, Alex," Mrs. Pappas said. "Tell us your opinion."
He wanted to answer and didn't want to answer at the same time. He felt like dodging, so he said, "I can't tell you my opinion because that would mean I'm guessing."
"You mean what you think isn't an opinion, it's a fact and you're sure of it?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Where, then?"
This was Alex's way of resolving the conundrum of having a mother but no father: "We're in the everything. We're all that ever was and all there ever will be."
Mrs. Pappas was sitting on the edge of her desk at the front of the class with her arms folded across her bosom. She wore a beige dress and pearls around her neck and gold earrings like women in San Francisco across the bay. "Well, that's a very good idea, Alex. What do you mean by 'in the everything'?"
"I mean where the beginning and the end don't meet because there has to be a middle where we are now."
"I see. Did your mother tell you that?"
"No, I thought it myself listening to her read the Bible." Alex then did something his mother had told him not to do because it was their secret of secrets and no one else would understand. But he was caught up in his puzzling and excited and forgot her warning. He said the first words of the Bible in a different language and then he said almost the last words in a different language, too.
Everyone in the class looked at Mrs. Pappas's face and her expression became their expression. Alex had done something wrong; Alex really was in another place.
"What did you say, Alex? Can you say it in English?"
"I only know it in Russian."
"Yes, our Bible's in Russian because the people who adopted my mother were Russian."
At three o'clock the principal, Mr. Brandt, told Alex not to take the bus home because he would drive Alex himself.
"I need to talk to your mother, and she doesn't have a phone, so you come with me, Alex."
They got in Mr. Brandt's Ford station wagon with its wood side panels and drove to Strawberry Point. Alex had never been in a bus but never a car and found it astonishing. Staring right through the windshield was just like looking at one of the movies teachers sometimes showed in class. You could see the world playing itself on the other side of the screen; you couldn't touch it, but because the car was so low to the ground and small and private it felt like your mind on wheels; it took you where your thoughts took you or listened to your thoughts and followed them and there was no disturbance and distraction of other kids around you calling and laughing and poking and pinching, just Mr. Brandt transfixed by the world-movie unfolding before him exactly as Alex was transfixed, each of them deep in thought.
Alex's mother was embarrassed to receive Mr. Brandt in his suit and tie while she was wearing overalls and dung-smeared yellow boots. At last she asked,"Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Mr. Brandt?"
Mr. Brandt was shorter than Alex's mother, and he was younger than her, though he looked older because he was dressed like the kind of businessman who took the ferry across to San Francisco in the mornings and returned in the late afternoon.
"Suppose we sit here on the front porch. I'll only be a minute."
Mr. Brandt's smile kept flickering down into a frown, and his eyes never smiled at all. He said he hesitated about coming to visit, but he felt he had some advice about what would be better, before things got out of hand.
"What things?" Alex's mother asked.
"There are people in the community who don't remember your step-parents or know anything more than what they see on TV and read in the newspapers so it would be better if Alex didn't speak Russian at school. Russia is our enemy and the parents could take offense. He caught Mrs. Pappas off guard and maybe this catches you off guard, but I've spoken to her and it's not just the Russian, it's getting into things Alex likes to think about—before the world and after the world—and mixing in the Bible. It's politics and religion, the two things it's better not to discuss."
Alex's mother didn't want to admit she understood perfectly and had warned Alex, which would make him feel worse.
"The Communists are atheists, anyway," Mr. Brandt said, "so I guess the Bible is something they threw out a long time ago."
"It is an old Bible," Alex's mother said. "It belonged to my father, who adopted me."
"He came from Russia, didn't he? I've heard that, anyway."
"Yes, but before the Communists took over."
"Well, we don't go into that in grammar school, Miss Theodore, so I ask you and Alex to keep the Russian at home We can't be practicing drills against nuclear attacks one moment and then the next worrying about one of the children speaking Russian right there in the classroom."
Mr. Brandt drove off in his station wagon. Alex told his mother what had happened in class.
"I hardly know Russian," he said, finding it difficult to catch his breath he was so upset. "Just Bible things and you know…that's really all."
Alex's mother pulled his head against her belly and rocked him to calm him. For the first time, it didn't work. He started crying and tried to pull away. She held him tight. He got loose and ran inside. Alex's mother sat down and covered her face with her hands. She began crying, too. She had lived on Strawberry Point all her life and was upset that what she had always always worried about was true: she wasn't welcome and now Alex would feel the same way.
She said she didn't like San Francisco.
"How can you say that? You haven't been there since you were a baby."
"Yes, I have."
"Not since I was born."
"No, before then."
He was sixteen. She was sixty-one. She didn't like what she called the soda pop in his attitude. "Don't be so fizzy with me."
"When?" he pressed, man-like, slender but strong and burnished because he'd worked outdoors with her on the farm all his life.
"You think your life is the only life I've had. I'm sorry to tell you that's not so."
The way she had begun to speak amused him. Clipped sometimes, loopy and ironic other times. She picked that up from her new friends like Stephanie Wilson who gave her an old Ford and taught her to drive it. That's the sort of thing that happened when people began coming directly to the farm for her eggs and milk and fruit and vegetables. She became the thing, someone said, making her laugh. "Me at my age 'catching on.' What does that mean? Am I a cold?" He told her it meant she was becoming popular, which he wasn't. Not unpopular, but not popular. A loner except with her and when he went on the ferry across to San Francisco and Haight Ashbury and it was as though he were weightless and floated and couldn't stop the things that happened; they just swelled up around him or he drifted into them and couldn't pull away. Everything was happening over there. Everything.
"I had sex with two girls last night."
"Alex, that's disgusting. What if they became pregnant?"
"They won't. I was careful."
"I don't like this. You said you'd come back and didn't. That's another time. Who went with you?"
"No one.
"What were the girls' names?"
"Susie and I don't know the other one. She just lay down next to me."
"Where were you? I was awake all night and now here it's late afternoon and you… It isn't right."
"Some house."
"Whose house?"
He shrugged. If he hadn't been stoned, he wouldn't have slept there, girls or no girls. It was an old house with dog shit in the hallways no one cleaned up except one of the dogs, a yellow mutt who pushed his droppings under bedroom doors to make it go away. There was a piece of carpet nailed over the window in the room where he went with Susie—carpet instead of a curtain. The window was open, but no air got through. Several mattresses, some with gray ragged sheets, others thin bare things tossed anywhere. A stereo that kept playing the same Jefferson Airplane record. Ten times. Twenty times. Each note sliding in his ears like someone putting it there with an eyedropper. Straight into his brain. White rabbits. Pills to make you this way. Pills to make you that way. Just ask Alice, ask Alice, ask Alice…
"Some guy's. I don't know. It's hard to say who lives there all the time and who doesn't."
They were in the garden. She was picking tomatoes when he got home. She kept doing it, looking down so as not to look at him when they spoke, even when he began following her with the basket.
"We could sell this farm for a million dollars and buy our own house and you'd never have to work again. Me either."
"I'll never sell this farm."
"Then I will when it's mine."
"If that's so, I won't leave it to you. I'll donate it, and they can make it an orphanage."
"I didn't mean it, Mom."
"Why do you say these things?"
"I don't know."
For years they were just themselves. People hardly knew they were back there. He went to school and made himself as invisible as possible. He didn't like sports except track, and there wasn't any track until middle school and when he found out what training meant to the coach, he quit. Didn't have a phone, radio, or television. Somehow the world came after them, though. He felt responsible for having heard things or been taught things at school that he brought back with him. He was the one who told her the president had been shot. He was the one who told her about the Freedom Marches in Alabama and Mississippi. Then people seemed to take notice of them when the road was paved and the trash trees fringing the soft shoulder were side-sickled. They looked down at the farm and pulled in and offered to buy things from the lady in her big straw hat and overalls and her son, who still lived the way no one else lived but apparently wanted to start living again. Whole and healthy, straightforward and strong. Until the Ford, all they had were his bike and her pony cart. They still heated the house with a wood stove. There was plenty of fallen timber in the forest beyond their fence. That's where they chopped pieces as long as they could handle that they would pile on the pony cart and bring into the yard where they took turns working the old circular peddle saw until they had what they needed. A winter meant two cords of wood. When they were down to the last few rows, it meant it was time to turn the earth in the garden, which they expanded three times in three years because more and more folks turned in, wanting the peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, squash, beans, Brussels sprouts and broccoli they could see glistening in the sunlight.
"Imagine if you could fold a mirror like a piece of paper," he said.
"How could I imagine such a thing? It would break."
He didn't know about that. It seemed to him the people around them were bouncing off the mirror of their own lives, which were doubled up and hypocritical. He didn't like Tam High or the Mill Valley kids. The grass came to them; they didn't bother to get it themselves. Some of their parents were their suppliers. He saw adults he recognized in Haight Ashbury who could only be there for one reason and who left once they'd accomplished what they were after. No interest in poetry readings from a front porch, street musicians and vendors with Indian brassware and trinkets and little bottles of patchouli oil and water buffalo sandals. All the things that made Alex stop and stare, feeling the whole world into San Francisco sloshing by the busload, enough to tip the place over into the bay. But he had to admit it. Whatever was happening over there was happening in its quiet sneaky little way back here.
"It's just something I thought last night. We have one mirror in the house. Go anywhere else around here for miles and you won't find a house that doesn't have a dozen. Isn't that enough tomatoes for now?"
"I once had a winter hat with sixteen little mirrors sewn into it," she said. "I had it the year you were born."
"What happened to it?"
"I gave it to a calf who looked cold."
They laughed. The truth was that she was exactly like him. When one of her new friends asked her to come to a party, she'd bring along her agreeable, out-of-place honesty that pulled people in and pushed them away. What they liked was to talk about themselves, put themselves in a class. I am this and will probably never be that. Kristina never played that game. Just listened until they ran out of who they said they were or wanted to be and there wasn't any reason to go on because no one asked her about herself, and she didn't volunteer. She was who she was. You could see that by looking at her. The long gray-blonde hair, the steady green eyes, the farm work in her face, a tan tinged with red, little cobwebs of blood vessels on her cheekbones that bore no make-up…a lady masquerading as a person.
The first time she smoked grass wasn't at one of those parties. It was when he brought some home, rolled a joint, and showed her.
"But that's like a cigarette." She didn't like cigarettes any more than she liked soda pop.
"No, because you don't smoke a pack a day. You couldn't. And it smells better, don't you think?"
She couldn't deny the smell was pleasing in a sweet, musky kind of way. They sat together in the farmhouse and he blew out large smoky clouds at her, watching her eyelids and lips and wondering if this could get her loose enough to try inhaling for herself. He thought maybe so and handed her the roach and said it was just the last little bit. She tried it.
He rolled another joint. She said she didn't feel anything but he could see she didn't know what she felt. She said she had never tried alcohol or even coffee. She held a pretty smile a while as she formulated her next comment, which was going to be a big one by her standards: the holiest of things she had as a child was milk, sacrosanct milk.
"Alexei adored it. He worshipped milk."
Alex knew that a million times over. Wasn't news, but he was okay with it. "I'm named for him." As if she didn't know.
"Yes, you are." As if he didn't know.
In his heart, Alex took this rumor of a man for his own father, an emotional fact, if not a biographical fact. He didn't have much to say about himself because there were so few biographical facts. His mother, the farm, their secrets spoken and unspoken. What was the point of talking? They were each other's stories. He did think she had not had any other life than him. Whatever came before fell away like leaves in autumn, and he was the new foliage in which they hid.
"Go get strawberry baskets. We have to pick some of them now."
"You're getting greedy."
"I am not. People want them and they're ripe."
He got a pallet and twenty quart baskets while she stood in the garden and arched her back, her braid below her waist, her arms up over her head while she pushed one hand high, then the other.
"This is yoga," she said. "Cindy Simpson showed me."
He walked over to the strawberries and waited while she did more yoga, bending forward not only to touch her toes but also to clasp the balls of her feet, her braid now flipped over the back of her head and hanging down in the air like the pull rope of a church bell.
"Can Cindy Simpson do that?" he asked.
"None of them can. They're not farmers. Not used to stretching all their lives."
His mother showed him warrior pose, arms stretched in either direction, legs flexed. Then they began picking fat juicy fragrant strawberries.
"The first girl came back later and woke me up with this big smile and said, 'Who the hell are you, buster?' I thought that was funny."
"What did you tell her?"
"I said Alexander Theodore, a little midwest, a little Russian, all Californian."
"Where was she from?"
"How did she get here?"
"She's studying Russian literature and culture at Stanford."
"Older than you then."
"Most people are older than me. Nothing I can do about it."
"You wouldn't ever sell this farm with me buried in the meadow," she said. Back to that.
"Of course I wouldn't."
"And my parents and Alexei and Grushenka."
"Mother, I said I wouldn't."
She wasn't made of stone. She could cry sometimes. He saw her tears slipping down out of her eyes into the strawberries. He had no complete thought, or even a partial one, about how he could be attached, if that was the word, to any woman but her. He knew exactly what the women who courted her—not sexually but emotionally—from Tiburon and Mill Valley were after. Sometimes he would come home and find one of them working with her, milking cows, fixing fences. What for? To be the way she was.
"Did you say anything in Russian to her?"
"Only to make a joke."
"What joke?"
He didn't want to say because it would upset her. "Just a joke."
"What was it?"
"A joke about not knowing who my father was. I said in Russian, 'Father, father, why has thou forsaken me?'"
"Oh, Alex."
"Know what she said back in Russian? 'Because you've been a bad, bad boy. Learn to behave yourself and I'll give you another chance."
His mother stood straight up. "She did not!"
"Yes, she did. Her Russian was perfect. She learned it as an exchange student. What if I went to Russia as an exchange student? She said I speak Russian like I came out of a time capsule." For years—maybe until he was twelve—they had read their Russian Bible every night and discussed all the virtues and temptations and parables and paradoxes. He didn't know that they apparently were doing it in some kind of old-fashioned Russian.
His mother wasn't crying anymore. The girl from Texas amused her. "Why don't you bring some of the people you meet over here sometimes?"
"The ones in San Francisco?"
"They didn't come to California for this. They came to be Flower Children."
"We have flowers." She pointed to the violets and begonias and tiger lilies and yarrow she had planted along the rut they called their driveway.
He couldn't imagine it. "Over there everyone sort of talks about being there and doing what you do there. It's like the whole country wants to jam into San Francisco. What would we talk about here?"
He hoisted the pallet of strawberries, and she picked up the tomato basket and they left the garden, crossed the yard and he pumped water over everything, rinsing off the dirt.
"I just don't know what to do except joke sometimes," he said. "I don't have anything special to say. But no one cares. It's just like here: people want to hear themselves talk, not you."
They had gone inside. She lit a candle. He went over to his sleeping nook and stretched out beneath the window as she fixed their dinner. They'd settle the cows afterward.
"I shouldn't go over there so much," he said. "It makes me feel empty. I don't even know why I like it. I watch a lot. That's how I fit in. I watch and people need to be watched. That's why they're there and what I do for them. The same thing I've been doing all my life. What if I went to Stanford?"
"How would we afford it?"
"What if they gave me a scholarship?"
"Your grades aren't that good, are they?"
"I could get better grades if I wanted. My test scores are as high as anybody's."
"They're the highest in the school."
"You never told me that."
"Susie told me one thing you have to do is write an essay about yourself. What would I say? I lived on a farm across the bay from San Francisco with my mother all my life. My grandparents died before I was born and so did the old Russians who adopted my mother. I don't know who my father was and don't care. They had an affair and he took off. No brothers, no sisters, no cousins. I read and work on the farm and go to school and hang out in Haight Asbury and get stoned."
He tossed himself on his side and stared at the wall.
"I don't even know what my father looked like, or my mother," Kristina said.
"One of them must have looked like you. I don't look like you. Who do I look like?"
She said she didn't really remember. There was a self-incriminating note in her voice. Self-lacerating, he thought, annealing the pain it caused in him to hear it with this stronger description. He had words for everything. Words he read, words he heard here and there, words he looked up.
"There is nothing that could possibly be worse than not knowing," he said, "but we don't talk about it. That conversation is finished even if it couldn't hurt us. Nothing could hurt us, don't you understand that?"
"My father was Alexei's brother," she said. "His name was Ivan. Alexei was my uncle, but he wouldn't talk about Ivan, and Grushenka wouldn't either until Alexei died. Anyway, that's why they took me in, not just because they were Russians and my father was a Russian who was killed in the earthquake."
"What did she say about Ivan?"
"She had more to say about the other brother, Dmitri."
"There were three brothers?"
"Yes. Dmitri was a fisherman whose boat sank, but he was the cause of everything and why they came to America this way."
"What way?"
"Across the Pacific. And after Alexei died, she talked and talked. She kept saying, 'I just want to say one more thing' and then she would say dozens of things and say she just wanted to say another, and I was to write it down, but how could I get it all? She talked so fast."
He realized that she had just said more in a minute than she had said in sixteen years, and it hurt her. She held the rim of the sink tight and stood there, staring grimly out the window. What should he do? She was like a wall or a boulder or something large and heavy that wavered in danger of crashing down. He was too scared looking at her to say anything. What did he know about whether not knowing was more hurtful than knowing? If she told him more, it would still be them. There wouldn't be anyone else to help them. And he already had pushed her with his vagrancy to a point she could barely endure, lying there at night worrying about him.
She went behind the curtain of her own sleeping area. He got up and followed her, knowing something was happening. She pulled a tin box out from under the bed. She opened it and took out a notebook that was half torn-apart and some sheets of paper. Some of the writing was in Russian, some in English.
"What are you doing?" he asked her.
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
Having been "discovered" doing research in the Hoover Institution Tower by the campus newspaper, Solzhenitsyn mentioned he would welcome meeting a student, but it was the first week in June, 1975, and few students were on the Stanford campus except, as it happened, second year grad student, Alex Theodore, who took a call from Professor Staar, Solzhenitsyn's guardian and interpreter.
"You're in luck, Alex. He wants to meet one of our students. Who could be better than you?"
Alex couldn't believe it. "I can think of a lot of students who could be better than me."
"Really? Anyway, you're the one with the summer stipend, and we'd fire you or something if you refused to come talk with him a bit."
"What does he want to talk about?"
"I have no idea. Maybe he just doesn't want to feel like a prisoner again."
"I'm working on Dostoevsky."
"So talk about that."
The next day the professor knocked on Solzhenitsyn's office door and introduced Alex to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. He was a homely, Amish-looking man, his beard and hair unkempt, his face criss-crossed with the pains and maladies and abuses of a life of intense suffering. But he smiled in a gentle way and gestured for Alex to take a seat while nodding at Professor Staar that he could go now.
When the door was shut, Solzhenitsyn ceremoniously pressed a button on his desktop and a secretary came through the side door with tea and then scurried out.
"You do like tea, don't you? Or shall it be vodka?"
"No, no, sir, tea is fine."
"With sugar?"
"No, plain."
"I take four lumps, a terrible habit. I wanted to meet a student, and here you are, the best student, they tell me. You speak excellent Russian. How is this?"
"My mother speaks a little because her parents were immigrants, and then I went on an exchange program when I was a junior in high school."
"Ah, the best way. And the professor tells me you have read everything. Our literature and our history, the worst and the best."
"Not everything, I'm sure."
"But a great deal?"
"Yes, sir. A great deal. I majored in Slavic studies as an undergraduate and now, well…more of the same, I guess."
"Pushkin, Lermontov, Herzen? Yes? Yes, of course. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov? Of course, them, too. Everyone I talk to with any interest says Chekhov this, Chekhov that. In Switzerland, I heard it constantly. Our great poet of submission, so wise but despairing, he chronicled our weakest times…in the clinic…on the estates…Siberia, too."
"Yes, sir, I've read Chekhov. Everything by everyone you mentioned, in fact."
"Dostoevsky's Writer's Diaries?"
"My work, may I ask?"
Alex fortunately could say yes. He knew Solzhenitsyn's experiences in battle, in work camps, in cancer wards, and in the Gulag that was the boneyard foundation of a superpower.
Solzhenitsyn laughed sheepishly and said, "Then you wasted a lot of time, but I'll do better, I promise you. I have been given a life sentence abroad to tell the truth about what so far I've missed."
Alex couldn't relax. He'd expected a suspicious man, infected with his miseries. Was that yet to come? He sipped his tea and did sense Solzhenitsyn's mood darkening.
"In Zurich I knew I was in Lenin's city of exile and couldn't bear to benefit from the crafty neutrality of the Swiss, so I came here, and California! What can I say? It is everything and too much of everything, beyond everything."
"I grew up here. I think you're right."
"San Francisco!" Solzhenitsyn exclaimed.
"San Francisco," Alex echoed, though he had made peace with San Francisco. "Actually, I grew up across the bay in a little place they call Strawberry now."
"For the fruit?"
"Yes, sir. We grow them on a little dairy farm. There are still woods and trails and some idle land over there. And a big mountain. Tamalpais. We call it Tam."
"Yes, sir."
"Where were you in Russia as an exchange student?"
"I was in Moscow most of the time, but I traveled a bit."
"South of Moscow, sort of an arc a few hundred miles south."
He could tell that Solzhenitsyn liked listening to him speak Russian so fluently. The man was immensely tired, and this relaxed him, the tea and the young man who had read a lot and made him feel at home and perhaps safe, like someone who had put his foot through mushy ice and found a solid layer down below.
"Not Leningrad?"
"No, sir, I was looking for something else, I guess."
Alex didn't want to say. He tried to sidestep the issue: "May I just make one point? I want you to know how much I admire you. I want you to know—"
Solzhenitsyn had a remarkably powerful frown, a frown of massive displeasure. "It doesn't matter to me what I have done. My life is what I will do if I can do anything at all." In other words, don't fawn, don't tell me I can remedy an instant of what I have seen and survived. "So you went south of Moscow. What is south of Moscow?"
He might as well say it; he couldn't think of any way out. "I wanted to see if I could find the place Dostoevsky called Skotoprigonyevsk."
"When did he refer to this place?"
"It's in The Brothers Karamazov, where the story occurs."
"He made it up, didn't he? Had some idea of a town and called it that?"
"Is that what you do, sir?"
Solzhenitsyn laughed at this question. "May I tell you something? I have begun to think that it is impossible to make anything up and useless, too. When we say make something up, what can we mean? Out of nothing? The imagination is nothing? It has no reality? It is false? Why put yourself at risk of this criticism when you don't have to? Whatever we can think, unfortunately, is real."
He had won the Nobel Prize; he had been exiled for telling the truth any way he could; what was Alex to say?
"Anyway, I didn't find it."
"Of course not, but you looked. For that I give you credit. A young scholar from California goes to Russia—we will call it that—and he pulls his head out of his books and actually goes into our wild depth. Good. We won't be found in our cities. It's not where we came from. We came from the woods and fields and rivers."
Alex nodded to accept the compliment and punctuate how unworthy he felt sitting there with Solzhenitsyn, whose commitment to his characters never flagged. He brought them to life in the throes of death, when they were being beaten, when they were being burned alive by x-rays, when they were losing toes and fingers to the remorseless cold. They still had something to say, a quip, a memory, some little secret hope.
Alex said he ought not to impose on Solzhenitsyn's time.
Solzhenitsyn showed some of his displeasure and perhaps anger again. He pointed to the doorway through which Professor Staar had passed. "How can anything out there be important? I don't want to play the nonsense game of saying little things for the newspapers and television cameras. Tell me about your family. You said they were immigrants? When? What was their name?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Alex lied. He was completely sure, overwhelmed and consumed by it. "All I have is some things my mother remembers and notes from when my grandmother would talk about the past. It's almost's exactly like The Brothers Karamazov. What would happen next."
His mother gave him the old notebook and sheets of paper she pulled out of the tin box beneath her bed. He couldn't keep himself from telling Solzhenitsyn that he read his grandmother's statements that his father and two uncles were called Karamazov in Russia, and one of the uncles was unjustly convicted of patricide. And the second generation, all but his mother who stayed on with Alexei and Grushenka, went to New York. Except one of his mother's cousins came to visit once, bearing the surname Alexei had chosen for everyone—Theodore, gift of God—in thanks for their escape from the tsar to America. Alex didn't say that the cousin who visited from New York was named Michael, and he probably was Alex's father, but he went back to New York.
Solzhenitsyn listened to this disturbing story of the Russian diaspora filtered through the distortions of legends and literature warily. He chose to ignore the name Karamazov, almost pretend he had not heard it, which is almost what Alex, close to trembling, wished. "Does your family have some business other than cows and strawberries?"
Alex said, "I understand that my relatives in New York have been involved in immigration matters."
"From USSR?"
"And now there is this new Jackson-Vanik law, offending the Kremlin, taking away trade privileges. So the Kremlin won't grant exit visas. Who wins? What is this grotesque game?"
"Yes, sir. But…what I understand is that over the years different family members in New York have brought Russians here with the law or without it."
Solzhenitsyn sat a long time saying nothing. Was this young man some kind of provocateur, a KGB agent?
Alex knew exactly what Solzhenitsyn was thinking. He had seen the notes passed among the family members of the exchange family with whom he had stayed in Moscow—write it down, don't say it. He had his own KGB tail on his train trip through the south. But he enjoyed his trip anyway. He had liked the food basket smells–bread, onions, and pickles– the broad faces, the curious looks, just not the awareness he saw in others' eyes that he was bringing an agent along with him, one more jailer in the great big Soviet prison.
He said, "All I am is a literary person. I don't engage in politics."
"How can a literary person not engage in politics?" Solzhenitsyn asked.
Alex said, "I understand why you say that. Maybe we're too comfortable here in America."
"Too comfortable because of all your missiles pointing at the Soviet missiles? Nothing can be solved this way. I knew it the moment they took me away. It was exile again. Exile in heaven, you could say, not like the old exile in hell, but exile is exile, only now I have paper, pen, and this." He pointed to the mound of books and documents on his desk. An expression of guilt, probably because he was not working, crossed his face. "You don't believe what your grandmother said, do you?"
"My mother says some of it, too."
"Of course, it's her mother."
"No, not her mother, but she raised her. I realize it sounds confused, sir."
"By confused do you mean absurd? Is that what you look for in Dostoevsky?"
"You probably reject absurd."
"I do reject absurd. Dostoevsky didn't believe in absurdity any more than I do."
Alex and his mother were a long time working out as much as they could between themselves. She would help him sort through the papers, and he would tell her what they would have to mean if they were true, and the two of them would shake their heads and laugh, or sometimes grow very upset about what she had not told him before. When he went on his exchange program, they still weren't comfortable. It was the first time they had been separated for more than a day or two, and if he came back reminding her of the person she imagined to have been his father, she didn't know what she would do. But he didn't come back that way. He came back self-contained like Alexei and drew the same kind of line Alexei would draw: no further discussion of whether his father could be his mother's cousin, this man he had never met in New York.
Now Alex asked himself how, when this encounter with Solzhenitsyn was over, he could go back to what he had planned to write during the summer. There was absurdity all over Dostoevsky and Russian literature, and Alex planned to probe it, but Solzhenitsyn said no.
"Faith bends absurdity like fire bends iron," Solzhenitsyn said. "I come here and all is given to me, but I feel empty because Americans want but to give you more so they can take more and man is not a marketplace. Faith, Dostoevsky had faith. Whatever he found, even when he found nothing, it was something. His jokes, they are only a way to prick people's conscience, and make them think. He gave up in one way, yes, but in another way it was to a greater being, and nothing else in what he wrote matters. That is what he was trying to say. Tolstoy, too."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know these relatives in New York?"
"No, sir, I don't. I've never been to New York. Well, through the airport, but just through the airport."
"It isn't enough. You went to Moscow when you should have gone to New York."
Solzhenitsyn was so powerful and so certain that he did to Alex what he said fire did to iron. Alex bent. "You're right. I should have gone to both."
"And now what do you do? Live here in California, this garden of Eden, and turn your head away from this crazy tale?"
"Are you saying we all need to be exiled?"
"I'm saying we all are exiled. You in America, too."
Alex didn't know how but suddenly Solzhenitsyn's kindliness returned. Some honey appeared in his eyes. He sagged in his chair almost humorously as if confessing he couldn't keep this up—being the prophet.
"So I should go to New York?" Alex asked.
Solzhenitsyn nodded. "Wouldn't you learn more there than staying here reading your books and writing your papers?"
Alex had made a pact with himself to never go to New York. He would leave this family fantasy alone. After the exchange program, the closest he came to pursuing it was pulling a few strands of hair out of Dostoevsky's writing looking for a match to his mother's or his own.
But now what could he do?
"Believe me," Solzhenitsyn said, "I'll leave California, too. Not to New York, but here it's so sweet it's death."
Alex made a gesture that indicated he accepted Solzhenitsyn's advice. Solzhenitsyn embraced him at the door.


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Do you remember those "Love is..." cartoons? They had them on stickers and key rings—some cute naked male and female figures looking bashfully at each other? Back when I couldn't get on with the world, they used to make me sick.
My eldest son is 13, into his second year of comprehensive school—and, it's fair to say, parents' evenings haven't been the greatest fun. They usually involve 12 teachers telling me, in no uncertain terms, that my son is often distracting, sometimes rude, does the minimum homework required and, despite being very bright, is frequently a bit of a pain to have in the class.
In the depths of tragedy, a positive encounter gives James Brown a much-needed boost
There's a new ruler in James Brown's household—and he's thrown his food on the floor to prove it.
We ask a host of well-known names to tell us about the programmes they loved as kids and which shaped their lives.
... And definitely will this year. As we enter a New Year and a time for resolution and commitment, we're turning our attention to the stumbling blocks, the more awkward books that tend to thwart readers. We'll look at 7 of the most beastly, examining what makes them so fiendish and yet, in spite of it all, so very worth persisting with.
New year—or Hogmanay as we call it here in Scotland—is nearly here. Let's celebrate the old and let in the new with some superb cocktails.
Can James Brown escape the iconic prison island— and does he even want to leave?
James Brown takes to the air for an exhilarating ride at the hands of a very polite torturer
We're counting down our favourite felines on film. From Alien to Meet the Parents no film is truly complete without an appearance from man's real best friend. Time to let the cat out of the bag…

subset: commoncrawl


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WordPress is a well known semantic personal publishing platform. If you have your WordPress blog then, you will find numerous number of spam comments are been filtered by Akismet WordPress Plug-in, whether you are using free WordPress blog or hosted WordPress blog.
Now, if you look at my blog Espreson, then you can guess what I want to say. Just look.
Can you imagine! And not only that, this number is increasing day-by-day. So, what to do with this number? As I'm browsing over Akismet I got some good phrase, lets me share it.
We can't stand spam.
Who can? You have better things to do with your life than deal with the underbelly of the internet.
That's the whole thing. Spam will be there, but we have to fight against it. We have to make our WordPress immune system so strong that we get rid of this spam virus. It is challenge for both WordPress and its users.
So, WordPress spam management is our concern.
Beside Akismet WordPress Plug-in I use another plug-in called, WP-SpamFree which has given good result stopping comment spam into my WordPress blog. WP-SpamFree works fine without any CAPTCHA's or Challenge questions in comment form. It works fine with Akismet.
But, this plugin is design to stop automated comment spam (which accounts for over 90% of comment spam), but it doesn't stop human comment spam.
from, WebGeek
Now I don't find any comment spam waiting in Akismet Spam bar in my wordpress dashboard.
There is another WordPress plug-in called, Defensio which also helps in spam filtering with a high level. I haven't tried it but, it works fine fighting spam. Defensio claims on its performance as,
So, to have better Comment Spam Management for your WordPress blog I want to include a poll on it. This will help you understand and fight against comment spam in better way. Here it is.


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Surface streamlines on axial flow fans
I would be interested to hear from anyone who has done CFD modelling of axial flow fans under different pressure loadings. I am just completing a PhD thesis with my research investigating the flow pattern of a new type of fan and I would be interested to see comparative work done with axial flow fans. I am particularly interested in seeng some figures of surface streamlines on axial fan blades as I have so far not found anything suitable in the literature.
If anyone can help and wouldn't mind me using the images in my thesis with the appropriate referencing, I would be very grateful.
Re: Surface streamlines on axial flow fans
i hve my paper published in 45th AIAA conference on fan. if interested send me your email id.
Re: Surface streamlines on axial flow fans
Thank you for your reply. I have emailed you my address, so please let me know if it doesn't come through.
|All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:08.


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Facials in La Jolla, CA
Shumway Cosmetic Surgery, accredited by the Joint Commission and awarded the Gold Seal of Approval which reflects our commitment to excellence and quality patient care, offers skin care services to local residents requiring skin rejuvenation.
A facial from Shumway Cosmetic Surgery not only improves the overall health of your skin, but also gives you a much-needed break from your hectic and busy life of business meetings, children's activities, and the many other parts of life that are enjoyable yet leave you little time to be spoiled.
What Are Facials?
A facial is a beauty treatment for your skin. At Shumway Cosmetic Surgery, we know that you take excellent care of your skin, but a little extra support from a professional aesthetician goes a long way when it comes to the health of your skin. During your facial, your skin is cleansed, exfoliated, and moisturized, all while you relax and let the demands of life simply melt away.
Is a Facial Right for Me?
Yes. Absolutely. Every skin type benefits from a facial.
Why Choose Dr. Shumway?
Dr. Shumway is the Founder and Director of Shumway Cosmetic Surgery located on the Scripps Memorial Hospital campus in La Jolla, California. He is the current President of the California Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and the former President of the American Society of Cosmetic Breast Surgery. He completed an extensive surgical training program at Duke University Medical Center. This program was followed by a fellowship in Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in Beverly Hills at UCLA. He is well known for his teaching as a Fellow of The American Society of Laser Medicine and Surgery. Dr. Shumway evaluates each patient personally and considers techniques that will provide exceptional results with minimal downtime.
What Is It Like to Have a Facial?
In a word – relaxing. Facials are like massages for your face and the products that are used not only take care of your skin, but also the soft fragrances work to relax you. Facials are performed in private rooms that are designed to have an almost meditative ambience, making the experience incredible, even for those who have excellent skin.
What Are the Benefits of a Facial?
The cleansing and exfoliation of a facial removes debris and other contaminants that you may miss during your regular skin care routine. Beyond the benefits to your skin, facials are also soothing and can reduce stress.
How Much Do Facials Cost in San Diego and La Jolla, CA?
The cost of a facial can vary depending on the type of facial that you want. We offer payment plans and work closely with CareCredit™ to help you afford your facials and other skin care services.


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In These Troubled Times, Be Brave, Engage, and Learn
By Irv Garfinkel, Interim Dean
We live in troubled times. As we cope, it is useful to keep in mind this is not the first time. Think about how people must have felt when facing American slavery, the Civil War, the Great Depression, Nazi Germany and World War II.
As a consequence of the election of Donald Trump as president, some of us fear for the well-being of family and friends, some in our community who voted for Trump fear to articulate their views, and many of us fear for the nation's well-being.
What should we do, individually and collectively? Be brave, engage, and learn. One stanza of "We Shall Overcome," the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, repeats: "We are not afraid." Of course all of us have been afraid at times, and the marchers and protestors who sang the song often feared for their bodies and lives. They sang in unison "We are not afraid" to give each other courage.
We all need to be brave, engage, and learn. Speaking up in class to express a minority viewpoint is scary. Resisting a demagogue in power is even more scary. Our work requires us to overcome these fears, to advocate for our clients, and to honor diversity—including diversity of thought. In the coming months and years, we need to figure out how to move forward as individuals and as a community.
Not long ago, I heard a fellow social worker mutter, how could you be in social work and vote for Trump? I didn't know how to respond at the time, but the more I reflected on her question, the more I thought it deserved an honest answer. All social workers enter the profession with a commitment to help others, but the source of this commitment varies by individual. Some are motivated by secular worldviews, some by religious conviction. Some people of faith believe that abortion is murder. I don't share that belief, but if I did, I would likely have voted for Trump.
Later, I thought, what if I were a descendant of Josephine Shaw Lowell, who created one of the three major roots of our profession when she founded the Charity Organization Society*? If I shared her ethics—for example, her idea that aiding the poor impoverishes them—I might have voted for Trump. Finally and most generally, it occurred to me if I were a Republican, I might have voted for Trump, as the lesser of two evils. In presidential elections, the overwhelming majority of Republicans vote for Republican candidates, just as the overwhelming majority of Democrats vote for Democratic Party candidates.
We are fortunate to live in a country with strong democratic institutions and a remarkable tradition of free speech. We don't just tolerate dissent; we honor it. We will be stronger as a community when all of us, no matter our political persuasion, are brave and engaged. This process begins in the classroom and in our on-campus life together as we discuss, engage, and learn from one another about our agreements and disagreements alike. All of us will be stronger advocates for our beliefs if we can openly discuss our differences.
Ultimately, all of us, as social workers, whatever our beliefs, will be called upon to be brave and engage with the broader world. This engagement has already begun. The day after Trump's inauguration, millions of women and men, including some from CSSW, marched in protest. Engagement began even earlier at the School of Social Work with an online event in December, now available as a Webcast, featuring Professor John Robertson and one of our second-year students discussing the call to action for social workers in post-election America. A planning committee led by Professors Julien Teitler and Qin Gao is taking ideas from faculty for further events. On February 1 we held a forum on likely changes to the Affordable Healthcare Act. Other possible faculty-led events will cover topics such as the need for community education around immigration, what it means to be a sanctuary city/university, and advocacy around reproductive health.
Though change is in the air at Columbia, in our country, and around the world, we are committed to the brave and necessary work that has always been our calling. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue this conversation with you, and I look forward to the work we will undertake together.
*The three major roots of the social work profession are 1) the Charity Organization Society, 2) the settlement house movement; and 3) public assistance administration. Casework derives from the work of the Charity Organization Society. Group work, community organization, and social survey research derive from the settlement house movement. Social enterprise administration and social policy come partly from the settlement house movement but mostly from public administrators of poor laws and state legislators with the responsibility for aiding the poor, and later as we broke up the poor laws, the insane, the elderly, dependent children, and the disabled. In 1898, the Charity Organization Society established the first Summer School in Philanthropic Work at 105 East 22nd Street in New York. This was the forerunner of what would one day become Columbia University's School of Social Work. Go to timeline.
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Noting the importance of listening to others' perspectives, especially when they may not be our own, was an important aspect of Dean Garfinkel's message. It's a message for which there isn't enough support either in the media or the university, or in current advocacy groups. These entities seem to have already forgotten what the surprised experts acknowledged was the primary element in the Trump victory–the growth of what sociologists and social workers refer to as the New Poor, formerly self sufficient groups left behind by social and economic developments in which they can no longer participate–the current one being a global economy with its more demanding educational requirements and increasingly uneven distribution of wealth. The Morning After handwringing of the embarrassed pundits who, unlike Sanders and Trump, had overlooked this elephant in the room throughout the campaign, was short-lived, however. Any talk of legitimate grievances of Trump supporters has now faded from the headlines, and is absent from the protest signs. However, these groups and their grievances haven't dissolved. Investor Warren Buffet and many economists have warned that, as the new global economy races forward, such groups will fall even farther behind. Trump's empty promises and scapegoat offerings are as shameful in their own way as the neglect of previous administrations was in theirs. The lack of meaningful re-training and support for devastated neighborhoods and the ills which feed on them, is a blot on both Democrat and Republican administrations of the past 3 decades. The history of the neglect of the grievances of the poor is something with which both social workers and historians are familiar. It has already been written into the story of generations of our established poor to whom hope is no longer a companion; it is now being written into the story of the New Poor. Anyone who took Professor Cloward's class as I did, knows the sequellae to this, including how it breeds a pathway to totalitarian government led by the Man on Horseback.
As social workers, we have much to learn from listening to aggrieved people whose champion is someone we don't like, and who we don't believe will benefit any of us. It's time to recall one of the first things you may also have heard in a CUUSW classroom on conducting a clinical interview: "Start where your client is at".


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VideoHive U.S Military Helmet M1 8435363
Stock Footage \ Military
Helmet \ Military \ Helmets \ Combat \ United \ States \ Vietnam \ Original
Stock Footage - U.S Military Helmet M1 8435363 by Duksi @ VideoHive
Stock Footage \ Military
The M1 helmet is a combat helmet that was used by the United States military from World War II until 1985, when it was succeeded by the PASGT helmet. For over forty years, the M1 was standard issue for the U.S. military. The M1 helmet has become an icon of the American military, with its design inspiring other militaries around the world.
The M1 helmet is extremely popular with militaria collectors, and helmets from the World War II period are generally more valuable than later models. Both World War II and Vietnam era helmets are becoming harder to find. Those with (original) rare or unusual markings or some kind of documented history tend to be more expensive. This is particularly true of paratroopers' helmets, which are variants known as the M1C Helmet and M2 Helmet.
Alpha Channel: No; Looped Video: No; Frame Rate: 50; Resolution: 1920x1080; Video Encoding: H.264; File Size: 781mb; Total Clip(s) Length: 0:24.
Factory Conveyor 2; House Building; Temperature Fluctuations; Police Line Do Not Cross 5; Police Line Do Not Cross 4; Police Line Do Not Cross; Police Line Do Not Cross 3.
Keywords: after the battle, battlefield, combat helmet, pacific, soldiers, united states, vietnam, war, water, world war ii.


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Your Price: $2.99
The Batwoman/Wonder Woman team-up continues! The action is out of control as Bones, Chase, the DEO, Abbot and the Religion of Crime all descend on Gotham City to take part in the fight against Medusa!
And then at the end of the issue the all-new�ah�we can't tell you but it's awesome!
Unfortunately, this item is not available. Please consider these related items:


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|Gold Recovery Products - SEE ALL
|FREE PLANS & Discount Pricing
|Diamond Mining
|Gold Recovery Accessories
|Today's Specials
The redesigned GOLD RECOVERY PUMP will now do what the Bedrock Buster could do plus much much more.
The Bedrock Buster is a high vacuum suction pump designed to work inside of bedrock cracks and other narrow openings. Some of the gold bearing streams and rivers we mine in have deep cracks in bedrock and fractured granite shelves that do a great job of trapping gold of all sizes inside of them.
Unfortunately small nuggets and very heavy flake gold is inaccessible to everything except wire picks. Even with a slightly flattened tip on gold probes and other scraping tools, you will only get a low percentage of gold out of these places. The particles just fall off or around your wire tool. Yes I have faced the same challenges you do when working fractured bedrock.
What bothers me in heavily worked gold areas is that these cracks are still loaded with large quantities of semi-coarse and flake material. Nature has already done the work for you. There is an accumulation of this rich buildup trapped in deeper cracks. I have watched other prospectors use every thin tool imaginable, trying to lift, dig or pull gold from deeper recesses in prime gold area. After some hours of work, they do get a bit out, but, the lion's share remains stuck just beyond their reach.
This last summer (2010), I was working the cotton wood river just north of Quesnel, BC. The river has an amazing amount of gold in it and has been well worked by a number of miners. There are stretches of exposed bedrock "picked clean" by other countless prospectors over the years. What remains is large obvious bedrock cracks that have also been worked for the concentration of gold they contain. Surface suction dredges will only work so far down when placed over these cracks ( generally 3" - 4").
I had built a prototype of what is now called the Bedrock Buster. I asked permission of the claim owner before trying out my pump. He thought it was funny that I was going to mine empty cracks that have been worked to death. I just smiled and thanked him for the opportunity to see what I could find. I flicked out some of the longer gravel pieces that were either sitting on top or slightly wedges into the cracks. Water flow had carried some sand into these spaces, but there was mostly heavy black sand about 2 - 3 inches down from the top of the crack. This particular crevice started about 3/4" wide and tapered down to around 1/8" before ending. The easy wide part looked like a maid service had cleaned it down as far as you could easily see. As the crevice narrowed, you could see more and more black sand with just a little glimmer of yellow every so often. I started working the wide part first. I immediately attached the 1/8" stainless steel tip of the Bedrock Buster and started sucking. The crack was dry up this high so I added some water from my gold pan. I heard little particles hitting or landing in my capture cartridge. Plick, plick, tick sort of sounds. The opening held the water well until I removed most of it with the pump. I dumped more water in and slowly worked my way down to the water line. The crevice narrowed down to just under 1/2" here and water was no longer a challenge. The crack was full from the river's flow. However a new problem came up. I had sucked all the gold material up as deep as I could go. Normally this would be a huge problem, however, I switched tips to the fine spaghetti probe. The maximum reach of this tip is 2 feet and it has a built in non ferrous "pick probe" allowing you to dislodge trapped or embedded particles as you clean out cracks and narrow areas. I kept hearing little noises from the cartridge as material was shot into it. Water was now purging freely from the vent valve located on the control head. I managed to work my way down to the limit of the crack (about a foot). When I emptied the capture cartridge it was nearly full. A container filled full of black sand and lots of flake gold and little nuggets. This was from a previously "cleaned" crack.
I used the Bedrock Buster for 2 days and did quite well with it. Just over 3 1/4 ounces of mostly clean (once I cleaned it) gold. Again, this is in an area that other prospectors had already worked. The gold deeper down in the cracks and crevices seems to be safe from miners...up until now.
What I liked best is that you are right out in the middle of well worked spots. The spots that most beginners go because they don't know where else to go. I am busy pumping out gold rich cracks like I am trying to pump the river or crack dry. Water is raining down from the overflow (vent valve) of the suction pump. The few other weekend panners are working the same tired sands and gravels for a few flakes of gold.
Sometimes Knowledge Is Good!
Basic Bedrock Buster
The first model is a general purpose basic unit with two interchangeable suction wands. These nearly indestructible polypropylene wands have an internal diameter of 1/4". 12" & 18" lengths are standard with the Basic Model.
No Longer Available. PLANS ARE STILL AVAILABLE
Platinum Bedrock Buster
The second unit is called the Platinum model. This is designed for the serious miner who plans to empty cracks and narrow spots on a regular basis. It comes with a 6" by 11/32" stainless steel nipple and a 6" x 1/4" 316 stainless steel nipple.
No Longer Available. PLANS ARE STILL AVAILABLE
Technical Information on the Bedrock Buster
There are some vital keys on how the Bedrock Buster operates. No, you don't need to know this stuff, but I am offering it out to those that want more information.
In case it has to be said, I don't keep gold at my home. I sell about 95% of it and the rest goes about 400 miles away to a safe locked place. The stuff I keep are unique nuggets, prime samples of typical gold country.
Most of you already know I love creating new gold technology. The:
- Magnum Gold Hornet Suction Pump
- and now the Bedrock Buster
are my way of solving problems that I faced recovering gold in different situations.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the Bedrock Buster and get rich in gold while you are at it.
I have intentionally created these one of a kind plans with low cost and ease of building in mind. Every step is photographed, every action described. Don't forget I am always here to answer your emails. I SUPPORT WHAT I SELL!!
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Strawberry Shortcake Berry Happy Home ATTIC rug
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Vintage Strawberry Shortcake Doll furniture
Vintage Strawberry ShortcakeBERRY HAPPY HOME RARE! ATTIC FURNITURE RUG Rug in excellent unused condition!! Please remember items are vintage, over 25 years old, and have been previously played with, they are however clean and free from damage unless otherwise stated. A great addition for a collection! Payment:
INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS PAYPAL ONLY !! Payment is to be made within 5 days of end of auction. Any problems please contact me.
Shipping insurance is offered and highly recommended, I always retain Proof of Posting certificate so will not be held responsible for items lost or damaged in the post. � I do not overcharge on shipping, I only charge you what it costs me plus packaging� and will happily combine on shipping for multiple items won.I aim to ship your item within� 24 hours for receiving cleared payment excluding weekends and Bank Holidays. Sellers: Get your own map of past buyers. Fast. Simple. Terms of Sale:
Please remember you are bidding on Vintage items� which have probably been gently played with unless otherwise stated, so please ask any questions before bidding. If you have any problems with any of the items please... read more


text: Hi everyone, you are such a great gang out there.Every time I ask a question you're all there. So next question is. I'm wanting to change my CI for one with a fixed bed, I think I've found one but its an automatic, any good? pros and cons please x:thanks2:


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Three-star St. Petersburg (Fla.) defensive end
Julian Riley made his fifth and
Article Continues Below
final official visit this weekend, capping things with a trip to Florida.
"It was a real good visit," said Riley, a member of the
Florida Top 100 team and the No.
20 strongside defensive end in the nation. "I had a lot of fun meeting all the
people there and touring the campus and town. All that was great. It seems like
a great place to go to school. It gave me a lot to think about.
"Right now, my top three is Florida, Pittsburgh and
Boston College," he said. "I'm nowhere near ready to decide, though. I probably
won't do that until signing day."
Riley (6-4, 260, 4.65) capped his senior season at
Lakewood HS with 87 tackles, 31 tackles for loss, 17 sacks and three forced


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Editor's Note: This is first in a new feature in Treatment Before Tragedy's online magazine, from the frontlines of the lives of wounded warriors and their families. Please submit your story.
by Jonathan Looper
This past fall, veteran Army sniper Omar Gonzalez went on an operation that was, perhaps, for him, his final and most important. He went alone to infiltrate one of the most guarded compounds in the world. He ventured on foot, without air support, but armed. He made it over the fence of the fortress, past infrared sensors and rooftop snipers, finally breaching the entrance. The mission was likely the culmination of his 15 years in the Army and three combat tours in Iraq.
But reports on his failed mission most likely won't ever refer to him as brave.
In fact, three days following his mission, he appeared in federal district court in Washington, D.C., where prosecutors described his actions as traitorous and said he was "a threat to the president." Last month, a judge ordered a full mental health competency hearing.
This mission for Gonzalez was different than those in his past, because the orders for this mission weren't coming from a commander but rather, it appears, from within his own mind. The compound he infiltrated: the White House. The presumed target: his commander-in-chief.
Gonzales, we have come to learn, was battling brain disease, related to PTSD. On this Veteran's Day, we would be well served to recognize and remedy a sad reality in our country: Omar Gonzalez, the "White House fence jumper," is yet another casualty of our broken mental health system, a system that has failed both our civilian and veteran populations living with mental illness. The tragedy of Gonzales's journey from war to jail is a reflection of our failure as a society to address mental health issues in society.
His ex-wife, Samantha Bell, reflected on the tragedy of Gonzalez's life in an interview with journalist Naomi Pescovitz at WHTR News in Indianapolis, Ind. "I didn't understand," she said. "Looking back now thinking, I wish there was something that I could have done to help him."
In an Associated Press article, Bell's daughter, Rainie Murphy-Gandy, 24, of Midland, Tex., recalled how "everyone liked" Gonzales.
The so-called "White House fence jumper" tragedy reminded me how close my friend, Dustin DeMoss, an Air Force veteran, came to a similar fate. I grew up with Dustin in Oklahoma, losing touch with him after his family moved to Texas. A couple years ago, I heard from him.
He shared his story with me: while on a humanitarian discharge from the Air Force in 2008 to care for his mother, ill with cancer, Dustin was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Before he was diagnosed and treated, Dustin believed he was on a secret military "mission." His mission, like that of Gonzalez's, ended in him threatening the president of the United States. At one point, Dustin thought a stranger on the street had given him "orders." In his mind, the stranger had pulled up in a vehicle and called Dustin over to give him directions for an important mission.
In a rare moment of clarity in 2008, Dustin realized that whether his mission was real or imagined, it was too much for him to bear. He sought help and was placed in a psychiatric "hold" at a Veterans Affairs hospital.
Two years ago, when Dustin recalled this to me, I asked him linear questions, "Where did the directions lead you? Why did the stranger stop you? Was the stranger even real?" Dustin, treated and doing well, still couldn't answer these questions with certainty. He couldn't distinguish between reality and perception.
In hearing about the breakup of Gonzalez's marriage, as reported by his ex-wife, I thought back to the way that Dustin also lost the support of some of his family and friends, as his symptoms of schizophrenia escalated at a time when he needed assistance the most. His mother stood by him.
Unlike Gonzalez, Dustin's threat to the president was verbal and, thankfully, his behavior never reached the point of physical violence against another person. He acknowledges that, when the symptoms of schizophrenia were at their worst, things could have easily turned violent.
When Dustin and I reconnected, he asked if I would help him share his story to help others going through similar circumstances. We are now casting a movie, "Light Wounds," based on the story of Dustin's courage and his mother's love and support through the journey from illness to healing. We hope to soon enter into production.
The movie is intended to not only increase understanding of Dustin's experience, but highlight the challenges that so many veterans and their families face. These brain diseases that veterans are facing aren't new, but we are at a crossroads, as a nation. This is a moment when we can abandon the Dustins of our country and their families or we can address the systemic problems veterans and service personnel face trying to get adequate and effective treatment.
We need to provide support to veterans and their families, rather than accepting an ignorance that stigmatizes and shames. If we do this, then history will show that we hit a watershed moment and responded to it by providing long-term support and care for veterans and others living with mental illness. We owe this much to Omar Gonzalez and the other military personnel for whom brain health was a casualty of service.
Jonathan Looper is an actor based in Los Angeles and co-writer and a producer of Light Wounds, a film scheduled to be released in 2015, based on the story of Dustin DeMoss, an Air Force veteran who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. For more information, visit http://www.lightwoundsmovie.com.
#LightWounds #Tb4T
Categories: Wounded Warriors


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Putting children and young people first in the family courts
Welcome to the blog of Anthony Douglas, Chief Executive of Cafcass. Anthony will be blogging each month, sharing news from Cafcass and talking about the family justice system at large.
Earlier this year, Cafcass published findings from the 54 cases featuring an element of concern about radicalisation we were involved with during a six month period, from July to December 2015. So far this year, we have worked with a similar number of cases. Some of these have involved children being at risk of harm by exposure to extreme online material, and a new and sophisticated form of online grooming of teenagers has been identified.
Our cases cover a wide yet still mostly urban geography across England. Radicalisation concerns feature in as many cases in private law and public law. In some private law cases, allegations of radicalising by one parent against the other are forming part of the separation weaponry. These claims are often proving just as hard to substantiate as other more customary types of allegation. In most cases, we find that such allegations are dropped by the parties or are subsequently discounted by the court.
Where the concerns are about a child – rather than an adult – being radicalised, these children and their families are generally not previously known to the local authority. This sets them apart from most other cases that feature within Cafcass' exploitation strategy, which also covers child trafficking and child sexual exploitation (CSE). To assist in understanding the needs of children in these cases we use our CSE assessment tool – because of the grooming element of radicalisation – and standard risk assessment. Risks are assessed in the round as part of an overall balancing exercise and welfare evaluation.
Very few children have needed to be removed from their parents as a result of concerns. Where they have been removed, they have either returned home with concerns receding or been placed with relatives who have kept them safe. A small number of teenagers have come into the care system and stayed there. Most children have been supported or monitored in the community. This is sometimes as children in need but more frequently as children falling within the local authority's Channel Statutory duty or under the Statutory Prevent Duty Guidance.
These statutory duties need to be set alongside children's legislation which emphasises the welfare of the child. Each case requires a balancing exercise to be carried out before taking action, unless the risk is immediate. Primarily this is when there is a duty to take action to prevent parents removing their children to war zones. In some ways, the balancing exercise is the same as we have to carry out in other areas where family and civil law intersect, such as a decision about deportation. We are building up our knowledge of these cases as more come to light and as the forms radicalisation evolve. We will be producing specific materials for staff in the New Year in light of recent cases and of events around the world which have an impact on vulnerable children in the UK.
There has not been a case which has attracted the attention of the media since July this year. It shows how a huge issue at a point in time can fade from public view without a new angle. All the while, professional work is ongoing in the background to gain better understanding of the issues.
The latest series of Behind Closed Doors, called 'Contact', aired recently on Radio 4 and focused on a High Court case where a sperm donor was seeking regular contact with his biological daughter. The girl's mother is in a same sex relationship and insists she doesn't want Harry, the donor, to be directly involved in her daughter's life. We advised on this series and also on the Archers recently, in which coercive control by one parent against the other led to a violent and family fracturing outcome. Both programmes had a good balance between factual accuracy and storytelling with a dramatic licence.
Supporting programmes like this and being open about our work, makes a significant contribution to increasing public awareness of the work of the family courts. Along with access to an increasing number of published judgments on Bailii, anybody who is interested in what the family courts do and how they reach decisions, can get a pretty good idea.
Harry's application raises an important issue. A child of a sperm donor is likely in this day and age to be interested in who their biological father is and how many brothers and sisters they have – which could be a large number indeed. With children often seeking this information later in life, professionals and families should give thought to how children are supported to understand their family background as they grow up in a way that meets their needs and understanding. When people make arrangements they should be absolutely clear about their expectations before they start and be completely focused on the child.
Turning to the Archers' plot, the devastating impact of coercive control inside a household is clear. This storyline helps to shine a light on it, especially the fact that it is now a criminal offence. New and quite shocking criminal offences are being committed inside families every day. Victims only sometimes want a prosecution; they mostly want to escape but often can't, even if the door is wide open.
Working with the media, production companies and scriptwriters, could highlight issues as diverse as radicalisation, female genital mutilation, special guardianship, parental alienation and the invisible emotional harm children suffer living in families turned toxic by problems like high conflict between the adults, family violence or significant drug and alcohol misuse. These programmes are hard to put together, hard to get funding for and hard to get to screen, but once there, they are accessible forever and play an important role in public awareness, education and prevention.
Interested in Cafcass and our work with children and families? Sign up to our monthly newsletter


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King proves speed and gains experience as Winter Series wraps up Jordan King declared his Winter Series baptism in Formula Renault UK a success following the conclusion of proceedings at Pembrey in South Wales, for despite the kind of results...
King proves speed and gains experience as Winter Series wraps up
Jordan King declared his Winter Series baptism in Formula Renault UK a success following the conclusion of proceedings at Pembrey in South Wales, for despite the kind of results his potential clearly deserved proving frustratingly elusive, he was nonetheless able to demonstrate his raw pace and pick up the experience that he believes will turn him into a regular race-winner in Britain's premier junior single-seater formula in 2011.
After claiming a top ten finish on his debut in the fiercely-contested championship at Snetterton - despite having to compete battered and bruised in the wake of a testing shunt - Jordan headed to Pembrey vowing to improve upon that. In producing his finest performance in car racing to-date, he would be every bit as good as his word.
"Pembrey is a challenging and enjoyable circuit to drive and a good circuit to test at," explained the highly-rated young Warwickshire star, "but racing-wise it isn't great, because it's really difficult to overtake. I felt pretty confident going into the weekend, though, because we had been quick in testing. We were actually the quickest of anyone in one of the wet sessions on Friday - that was definitely a boost, because it proved to everyone that even at such an early stage, I can be up at the front - but to be honest, I was happy whatever the weather."
On a damp-but-drying track surface in qualifying on Saturday, however, Jordan - and all of his Manor Competition team-mates, for that matter - unfortunately missed the best of the conditions and as such wound up significantly further down the timing screens than he had anticipated, with the Stoneleigh-based speed demon left to start race one from a wholly unrepresentative 16th position.
Impressively undeterred, he would be the architect of a searing drive up through the field that culminated in him overtaking his team-mate Josh Hill - son of 1996 F1 World Champion Damon - to snatch a superb sixth place on the penultimate lap.
"The whole team struggled in qualifying," Jordan conceded. "We didn't get the timing right in terms of when the track was at its best; in that kind of situation, it's all about being out at the right time - and if you aren't, you'll be a long way down the order...
"Our speed was really good in the race, but the problem is that once you get close to the car in front, you can't go any quicker than them because of all the aerodynamic grip - so to pass ten drivers in 20 laps I thought was pretty good! It was good fun coming through, and just a shame there aren't a few more overtaking opportunities around Pembrey, because if there had been I could definitely have finished inside the top five."
Admitting that his form had been 'encouraging and frustrating at the same time' - since had he started further up the grid, he might well have been able to do battle for the podium - the fact that the 16-year-old took the chequered flag as the leading Manor driver having begun behind all three of his team-mates spoke volumes. Sadly, race two would not last anything like as long.
"I made really good starts the whole weekend, and this time I got up to ninth," he recounted. "Then, going into lap three, several drivers in front of me all stacked up together on the inside on the entry to the first hairpin, so I went out wide to try to get the cut-back on them on the exit, but there was an incident ahead and two cars came to a complete stop.
"I came out of the hairpin travelling a lot quicker, and when someone moved over a little bit to avoid the accident, my front wing tagged his rear wheel, went underneath my car and punctured one of my tyres. That was a shame, because we could definitely have had another top six finish."
That much seems indisputable, but after qualifying a best-yet of 11th the following day - a mere six tenths of a second adrift of the benchmark - Sunday's races would swiftly degenerate into disaster. Finding himself sent bouncing over the kerb by a rival in the first of them knocked his front wing askew, causing the Princethorpe College Student and Hugo Boss brand ambassador to lose a lot of aerodynamic grip and consequently speed.
To rub salt into the wounds, another driver then got one of his front wheels tangled with one of Jordan's rear wheels and spun him round, whilst a similarly over-ambitious manoeuvre by a different adversary did for his chances in the weekend's final encounter - but although the ultimate outcome was evidently not what he had been hoping for, his pace and potential were palpable.
"The basic speed is there," he concluded, "and progress has been made in other areas, too, so that's all good - I'm just disappointed we didn't manage to get any decent results, as such. Doing the Winter Series paid off in terms of building my experience, though, and more testing will help us to find the last couple of tenths that we need - and then hopefully, if we can get qualifying sorted in time for the main season next year, we'll be able to start winning some races..."
-source: jordanking.co.uk


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it's an internet thing!
it's an internet thing!
16:49 06 November 2009
Royal Mail workers have called off the strikes until January to allow a "period of calm" for them to negotiate further.
Officials assured that service would return to normal, add declared that Christmas deliveries would be "free of any disruption".
The disagreement over pay and modernisation between Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union
With the help of mediators the Trade Union Council, strike action was brought to a standstill and both sides agreed to improve relations and establish "a radically different culture".
A new and improved reward and benefits package was also part of the deal.
Further talks will take place in December with the aim of finalising a deal by the end of 2010.
Although both sides are in agreement that job cuts are necessary, each disagrees over the extent of redundancies.
Royal Mail argues the changes are to counter the fall in business. The company says the number of letters and parcels which it delivers is falling by 10% each year, losing it £170m a year.
Although the government owns Royal Mail, it has so far refused to get involved with the pension issue.
Disclaimer: Supanet is not responsible for, and disclaims any and all liability for the content of comments written by contributors to this website


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Governor Jan Brewer today released the following statement regarding a Maricopa County Superior Court decision upholding the constitutionality of Arizona Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. In April 2011,
the Governor signed into law SB 1553, which expanded the ability of students with special needs to attend
private schools. The Governor's statement follows:
"As a champion of school choice and education innovation in Arizona, I commend the Court for upholding the constitutionality of Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. Empowerment Accounts are a powerful
tool to expand educational opportunities for special-needs students in Arizona. I'm especially supportive of
these accounts because they put funding directly in the hands of parents, allowing them to choose the school that best serves their child.
"Today's ruling is particularly apt, as it comes amid our celebration of National School Choice Week. I'll
continue to fight for programs like Empowerment Scholarship Accounts that give power to parents rather than bureaucrats, while supporting innovative reforms that improve the productivity and performance of Arizona schools."
Source: http://www.azgovernor.gov/Newsroom/Gov_PR.asp


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It doesn't matter how many good photos you see. A surf trip to New York still feels like a novelty.
And that's fine. If you have time and money that you're willing to invest in surf travel, logic would put the Empire State close to the bottom of your list — sandwiched somewhere between China and nixing the whole idea of a trip and instead buying, I don't know, two new boards, a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and a handle of Jack Daniels. Logic would instead put a place like Indonesia at the top of the list. Among it, there would be more wave-sopped safe bets in regions very far from the Brooklyn Bridge. But New York has something that nowhere else has. It has New York.
There's something about the city. Something that drew a guy like Bob Dylan to it in 1961, something that draws German tourists to the tip of the Empire State Building today — it's the same something, I think. And it's something that everyone should experience at some point in their lives. Might as well experience it with a surfboard.
For the sake of simplicity, let's declare Long Beach as the capital of New York surfing. Sorry I'm not sorry Montauk — can't run a state if everyone's busy grooming their beards and trying to decide which single fin to buy next. Long Beach, though. That's where it's at.
There are a few ways to get there from the city. If your NYC travel plans include a car rental, you're doing it wrong and stop. Grab one of those snazzy little Zipcars for half a day if you want to drive. Getting from Manhattan to Long Beach will take anywhere from an hour to four years depending on traffic.
Or there's a train. Long Beach is about an hour from Penn Station and a ride will run you $20 roundtrip off-peak or $26 if you're going both ways at rush hour.
Or, if you're rich, you can Uber or teleport or ride a thoroughbred horse there in your stupid little Brooks Brothers shoes. Yeehaw!
So that's how you get from there to there. Now let's talk about how you get from here to there.
If you're flexible, watch the forecast and wait until you see a swell perk up in the Atlantic. The most obvious and easiest way to do this would be to track a hurricane swell. They're relatively predictable — at least within a few days — and massage Long Beach's jetties like a masseuse who, in poor English, promises that the ending will be anything but sad. See this photo gallery for proof.
However, if ease isn't what you're chasing, I'd recommend striking New York for a Nor'easter. A Nor'easter is one hell of a storm. Born when (relatively) warm air over the Atlantic clashes with arctic air from a cold front, they can produce a blizzard of snow and create wind like a hurricane. They can make New York truly shine.
But you know what's the trouble with scoring a storm like that? Almost everything. You'd have to take a chance — a Nor'easter can be unpredictable and the airports are usually shut down by the time a storm of that nature is a guaranteed wave-maker. But if it all works out, getting a swell like that is truly something to experience. The rambling through the snow in your wetsuit, the inevitable beating after failing to make the drop on your first wave — you always fail to make the drop on your first wave on a real winter day — the empty crowds, the perfect everything. It offers the type of reward that you flat-out won't find anywhere else in the world, an almost primal sense of satisfaction. You'd have to feel it to believe it.
That pretty much says it all. If you're a psychopath, go for a Nor'Easter. If not, go for an autumn hurricane. If you're incredibly lucky and planning a non-surf related trip to New York, check the forecast before you go. Even a chest-high day is worth chasing in New York. And even if it's freezing, changing in and out of your wetsuit in the cold will give you no illness a well-made hot toddy can't fix. —Brendan Buckley


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MACCRAY Foundation gears up for first fundraiser
CLARA CITY -- Board members of a new educational foundation in the MACCRAY School District are hoping to benefit students by giving people a way to make tax-deductible donations directly to the district.
The MACCRAY 2180 Foundation will have its first fundraiser this week. A free will donation spaghetti supper and a silent auction will begin at 5:30 p.m. Friday at MACCRAY High School in Clara City.
Foundation board members gathered at the district offices in Clara City last week to stuff envelopes to mail information to local businesses. They will work next on a mailing to alumni.
Foundation board chair Candice Jaenisch said that parents in the district had been talking for years about finding different ways to save money. Many district residents have tired of purchasing food or other items from students, knowing that school programs see only a small percentage of the money they're spending.
"We thought if we set up a foundation, so people could get a tax deduction," it might provide more benefit to the district, Jaenisch said. "Our goal is to get money directly to classrooms."
The group has partnered with the Southwest Initiative Foundation to administer the funds and handle the legal work of setting up the charitable foundation.
The foundation will award grants twice a year. The first will come next fall. The areas supported will depend on what teachers ask for in their grant applications, they said.
Work on starting the foundation started at the end of October last year. Board member Jean Santjer sought information and advice from the school foundation in her hometown of Perham.
"It really did all just fall into place," Jaenisch said.
The foundation needed $11,000 in start-up money to establish its account with the Initiative Foundation.
The Clara City Community Fund had been defunct for some years but still had some funds on hand -- $11,500. "They were waiting for somewhere to donate it," said treasurer Melissa Hoffman Bodin.
So far, they said, it seems that people in the district's three communities of Maynard, Clara City and Raymond support the idea. Even before the first fundraising event, the foundation's funds have grown to $20,000.
Donations may be designated for specific purposes or school buildings. They may also be specified to go into an endowment.
"We hope this builds a sense of community between the three communities," said Santjer.
Last year, student fundraisers collected gross receipts of about $226,000, but they probably actually received less than one-quarter of that, with the rest going to overhead for non-local fundraising companies.
"I don't think this will eliminate all of the fundraisers," said board member Toni Vick, but it should cut down on them. Some of the fundraising suppers, or those that help support local businesses will probably continue.
The foundation may be reached at MACCRAY 2180 Foundation, Box 218, Clara City, MN 56222.


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Pick a spot and choose your own standard post on which to mount this beautiful alder bronze outdoor post light.More Details >
This impeccably designed, transitional outdoor post light takes inspiration from traditional Asian, classic Mission, and contemporary lighting. The metal frame in alder bronze finish features a square, tiered top, round base, and a faceted-look body of beautiful clear water glass. A four-light fixture from the Minka Lavery Satomi outdoor lighting collection. Mounts to a standard post; post not included.


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Is This Insane Fan Theory About Michonne True?
Some fans believe that Michonne is the next major character to go on The Walking Dead, and we just can't!
Any fan of The Walking Dead has come to realize that getting too close to a character never really ends well. Because when you live in a world filled with undead monsters ready to eat anything in their path, and psychopathic groups who'll take down anyone who comes between them and running the new world...no one is safe. Case in point:
Sometimes it's easy to see who's next because, duh, the comics let us know but often times the printed version varies a bit from the one we tune into religiously on Sunday nights. That's why we're scared AF that one of the BEST characters is going to be a goner come season eight.
If you read the comics, then you've probably figured out by now that Andrea is not Rick's number one bae. Mostly because girl has been dead and gone for awhile now. Instead, Michonne has been the one take her place in the show. Because of this, Michonne may be the one to wind up with the unfortunate fate that was supposed to be for Andrea.
With Michonne's story shaping up to be Andrea's from the comic, many feel like Rick may wind up having to take out his boo after she's bitten trying to save Eugene from a herd of walkers. We're going to let you sit with that for a moment. Yes, if things follow the comics in THAT way, Rick will have to kill our girl before she turns.
We're ready to go off about this, but then again we can't be too sure they'd actually kill off someone like Michonne so soon. It seems like the show thrives off diversity, and with them just losing their other black female lead, Sasha, it'd just seem wrong to make us watch Michonne peace out too.
Then again, every season has to have that one death that just eats you up inside, causing you to wander around your house in nothing but a robe and tears sounding like Nancy Kerrigan, moaning, "Whyyyyy ?" on repeat.
This will be on our minds until The Walking Dead returns this October for not only their season premiere but their 100th episode. Until then we'll be trying to figure out any way to persuade the writers to leave Michonne alone and let Rosita be next on the chopping block because her attitude has got to go.


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Nauticam NA-A7II Underwater Housing for Sony A7II / A7RII / A7SII Cameras
Camera and ports not included; shown for illustrative purposes only.
This version of the housing includes a Nikonos bulkhead for external strobes.
The 0.66x viewfinder (shown above) is standard on this housing.
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