I have an old Aiwa Walkman, radio, recorder, tape player. Recently I tried to record some of my piano playing and it wouldn’t work. On line I found a product that loosens gummed up electronic and mechanical devices and I bought it (from Amazon). It is called DeoxIT, D100. I spritzed the innards where the tape connects. Didn’t work. I spritzed the volume wheel – success. It works again.

I had in the device an old tape from my therapy sessions with my fantastic New York therapist and I listened to both sides. I still haven’t solved some of the problems I discussed with her. So what else is new.


I am still in touch with her. Her name is Page and she loves cats and she got married a few years ago and said her new husband had never been particularly impressed with cats but after being exposed, he fell in love and she is worried that when time comes that they lose her remaining kitty, Tink, he will fall apart.

A response I wrote to a woman whose letter in the News-Press irked me, appeared in the paper today. Sunday, Oct. 14. My bff, Nadine, doesn’t get the paper and I am under orders to send her what I write when it appears. So I copied it with the parts they left out marked off and e mailed her. She phoned to say she and her husband, the Mick, loved it. She made me feel so good about it, I am including it here.

(Ed said, after reading this, that people were coming to burn a cross on our lawn.)

Sent to Martha (my editor) Fri., 10/3/14 - printed 10/19/14

Mary West writes (Cape Life Mailbag 10/2/14) that our schools close to honor Rosh Hashana, the Jewish holy day of forgiveness as a holiday. She respects all religions, but gives the impression that this particular closing is at odds with the new rules for our school systems mandating that they would no longer be able to use the word God, the Ten Commandments, or say a Christian payer aloud in our schools or at any of our school sports functions. The impression I got is that she thinks another religion is getting a perk and the Christian one is not.


It is interesting that the ingrained observance of the annual Christmas holiday escapes her attention. The schools will close at the end of the school day on December 23, a Tuesday, and will not reopen until Monday, January 5. How fair is it that a Christian holiday gets 8 days? (I am not even counting the weekends). However, all children in the school system, including those not of the Christian faith, will enjoy a break from school and I am sure they all look forward to that and wouldn’t change a thing.

When I was in school, Christmas carols were taught and sung -- on the day before the break, all grades, kindergarten through eighth, gathered on the stairs of our three-storey school house, and sang all the carols. It was really lovely. It didn’t occur to me to wonder if any Jewish students were offended or felt left out. Hey, I was a kid. (But that was also a time when our pledge of allegiance did not contain the phrase “under God” which was lobbied into law by the Knights of Columbus in 1954 -- a self-serving end-run around constitutional safeguards.) Life was simpler then. An ingrained acceptance was pervasive. You did the Christian thing and sometimes you asked your mother, “Are we Christian?”

I didn’t mind. I was born a Christian but, as I grew older, I realized religious labels were counter-productive. Certainly, the attitude of religious leaders in churches, synagogues and mosques, concerning women, was medieval and that hasn’t changed a whole lot. That was a wake-up call for me. This was a donkey whose attention I could not get, even with a baseball bat. I couldn’t change it, so I left it. I didn’t necessarily leave God, although I do have trouble with a deity who allows mass evil to rule, does not control nature’s tragedies that kill hundreds of thousands, innocents included, and, according to the explanation from the faithful, does it, mysteriously, to teach us something. NOT INCLUDED: ***And if he has time, the faithful believe, he will help a sports team win a pennant. Really? Better he should turn back the hurricane.***

In any case, our demographics are changing – we are increasingly, a multi – religious culture whether or not Christians are ready to acknowledge it. We also have a vast population of nonbelievers who deserve to be accepted without prejudice and perhaps, even, hold a high ground, when compared to the self-described devout who plant bombs in health care clinics and claim God told them to do it. NOT INCLUDED: *** (Can you spell schizophrenia?) No one should have to be force-fed any religion in early school where one’s lifelong indoctrination begins. If you want your child to be religious, teach him or her at home. Oh, wait, that means you have to work at it and be involved, and spend time with your child. ***

If Ms. West wants “fair”, perhaps we should limit the school Christmas break to the one day of Christmas. I think she should leave well enough alone. Although I am not an “authority”, I think I have answered her question. There is no organized inequity – there is just chaos. That’s too bad, but no one said the people running things were going to be all that smart. (The News-Press ended my piece here.)

NOT INCLUDED: ***As for me, I don’t mind any public observance of Christmas. I say Merry Christmas as a graceful thing to do. I go to Christmas parties. I give presents. I buy holiday cards that say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas, because I can’t be bothered figuring out who is Jewish or Muslim or a Buddhist, and who is not. I have trouble identifying my friends through their religion. I identify them through their affect. Are they bright, funny, warm-hearted, playful, non-bigots? Forgive me, but my criteria has nothing to do with your faith. I will like you best if you are a moral, intelligent, life-involved person with a sense of the absurd and fun to be with. I won’t care if you pray every day so long as you are not trying to convince me to do the same. I will cut you a lot of slack even if you are dull but mean well.

Since early childhood, the one thing I have not observed is widespread tolerance for those who are “different”. How very sad in a democracy founded on freedom of religion and freedom from religion.***

xx, Teal