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Category: Living in USA

Created: 20 July 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

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Letter from America

           By Ellen Neumann

Sullivan County, New York,

July 18^th 2012.

Ellen NeumannSummer has always been my favorite season.  As a child growing up in the Catskill Mountains of New York State in the 1960s, I counted the days each June until finally the shrill sound of the last school bell rang, signifying the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. Oh how I loved that day! Two months of “no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers………” [You know the rest!]. Oft times my little sister and I would be shipped off to my grandparents’ farm to spend weeks on end doing pretty much whatever we pleased.

Nana and Pop were both born into large American/Irish families [Sheridan’s and Dillon’s, Lynch’s and Naughton’s], all firm believers in the old adage “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”.  They found countless ways to incorporate us, their little angels, into life on their working farm. If we were not picking berries, we were churning butter. We watched and we learned as Pop helped a calf come into this world; the miracle of life. There were always plenty of little jobs for little people like us on the farm. We loved every moment!  We still had plenty of time to play; the 100 acres of farmland, pasture, orchard and barn was our playground. We were busy from morning till night, our imaginations always in high gear.  Bored? We did not know the meaning of the word. Oh but how things have changed!

I am now the Nana [although my four darling granddaughters call me Grandma, a name that took me some getting used to]. Their mothers [my daughters] schedule mostly all of their activities as is the way of today’s world. Lessons, lot of lessons! Swimming lessons and riding lessons, art classes and afternoons at the community pool. Play dates and asphalt playgrounds. Does this sound like a fun and full way for kids to spend their summer?  Sure it does, except for one thing. That ’thing’ has turned my otherwise active and beautiful little granddaughters into miniature cyber-slugs.  Can you guess what is dragging them into sloth and boredom? I will give you a hint: It is the size of a deck of playing cards and more powerful than any government on the planet. It is the almighty I-Pod. Eye-Yi-Yi!!

My little darlings’ age range: 12, 9, 8 & 5 years.  Each one of them [including the youngest one] spends countless hours sitting on their little bottoms with those tiny computers in their hands. They stare at the itty-bitty screen, intent on the game they are playing or the music video they are watching. Their fingers remind me of hummingbirds as they skim over the miniscule keyboard with lightning speed. Most times they seem to be in a hypnotic state, unaware and uninterested in their surroundings. If spoken to while they are ‘I-Pod-ing’, they must first snap out of ’trance mode‘ before they acknowledge the person wanting their attention. If they do not respond at all, it may be because their ears are plugged into the tiny machines with microscopic ear-buds.

Yesterday my 12-year old granddaughter asked me, as she lifted her lovely brown eyes up from her nasty little I-Pod for a few seconds ’Grandma, how long till we go back to school?’  I could not believe my ears! Go back to school? Are you kidding me? It is only mid-July, she has been out of school for just a few weeks and she wants to go back already? What was that all about? I wanted to know and I asked her. OK, here it comes, the answer that is so predominant in today’s world “Grandma, I’m BORRRRRRRRRED!”  Bored? BORED! She is BORED! As she tells me this, I can hear my own father’s voice in the corners of my mind saying “Bored? I’ll give you bored!” That may not make sense to you but I surely got his message and I love those times when I actually hear Dad’s voice [in my mind of course].

Have we turned our children into little cyber slugs? After all, those I-Pods make fabulous little babysitters, allowing us lots of time to surf the internet, shop on Ebay , tweet or interact with our Facebook following. We are guilty as sin here folks!  The answer is really simple: get up off our own bottoms and enjoy the sun, sand, water or whatever summer offers in your neck of the woods. It’s not too late, only mid-July. We can turn this thing around if we make some rules for the kids pertaining to electronics and remember to follow those rules ourselves. If we don’t heed this, it’s gonna be a long and lazy summer. My best advice, most importantly to myself, is “get up off that computer and MOVE!!”

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Written by ellen neumann

Parent Category: Life and Style

Category: Living in USA

Created: 06 July 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

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Letter from America

by Ellen Neumann
Sullivan County,
New York,
July 4^th 2012.

ellen NeuamnnIn Sullivan County, the heart of the Catskill Mountains of New York State, it is summertime and life is good. I love it here, even though our rural area has become depressed, oppressed and sort of poverty oriented. Jobs are scarce, taxes are high and many people live from week to week wondering how they are going to survive. Yet it is summertime and life is good.  No worries about heating the house, driving in the snow or catching the flu. Mother Nature provides Sullivan County with shimmering lakes, rolling rivers and babbling brooks; all perfect for water sports and swimming in the good old summertime. Did I say swimming?  Oh yes! Love it!

I did not learn to swim until I was almost a teenager. I grew up in a family of 4 children, one working dad and one non-working mother who did not drive a car [Oh man! She would kill me for saying that! Her “job” was caring for us and our home, a tough and thankless one indeed in the 1960s]. My aunt [who drove a car] would take us all to a lake on the occasional Saturday in the heat of summer. We would splash about, wiggle our toes in the sandy sludgy bottom of Highland Lake and float around in big black inner tubes.  My parents once took us for a day trip to the banks of the Delaware River. As my sister Peggy and I waddled in the fast moving water, a current seized us.  We clung to each other as we floated down the river for what seemed to be forever.  Neither of us remembers how we got out of that alive but obviously we did!

When I was 11 years, my family built a new house close to my grandparents. With that move I gained access to a swimming pool! Yay! Yippie! Yahoo! Finally I could learn to swim and I did. No lessons, no instructor, just me, my little earplugs and the shimmering blue water. By today’s standards that pool was tiny [15 ft wide and 22 ft long, 6 ft deep at the far end] but when I was a little girl it seemed like the biggest pool in the world and although it was packed with lots of other kids, in my mind it was MY pool! I taught myself to float on my back, doggie paddle and barely swim across the pool. I was no Esther Williams to be sure yet I could now swim and this opened up an entire new world for me.

When I was 19 I met the true love of my life, the Atlantic Ocean! Oh my! I can remember the first time I saw it, somewhere near Jacksonville, Florida after having driven 1200 miles from New York to Florida with several friends in an old beat-up Chevy convertible and finally reaching the east coast of the USA. The year was 1969, I had just attended the Woodstock Music Festival and then headed for So. Florida, but that is another story. It was September, hurricane season with one brewing out at sea. The surf was strong, the waves breathtaking and foamy as they rolled and crashed on the sandy shore. The smell of salt and sand was intoxicating [or was that the cheap wine we were drinking as we lay on the sand letting the sun engulf us].  I entered the water cautiously, not really knowing how to navigate the waves. I learned quickly to bob and weave under and over them; to catch one just before it “broke” and ride it to the shore. It was a glorious and liberating experience to say the least.  Over the years I have spent countless weeks at many beaches along the Atlantic coast and each time it has been like the first time: always new, always fresh and exciting.

My husband and I took our little girls to the seaside every summer for a week or two.  He loved the ocean as much as I do and our children followed suit. Ocean City, Maryland was our favorite destination. We were young and needed nothing more than the boardwalk, the wide white sandy beach and some really good *Del-Mar-Va crab to create the finest vacation imaginable. What wonderful times we had and precious memories we created!

I now swim in the local community pool; a place where, when I was a young wife and mother, I took my precious daughters so they would learn to swim. Now they are the young wives and mothers. They spend their summer mornings at the same pool and watch their darling children [my grandchildren] take swimming lessons; their afternoons swimming and splashing and sunning themselves. I join them occasionally. I still enjoy a nice cooling splash into the shimmering blue water. I love to play with my grandchildren and watch them swim. They tell people “this is MY pool”. I love it when that happens.

It is now a hot and sunny July 4^th afternoon. I think I will get up off this computer and head for that shimmery blue water. Summer in the Catskills is fleeting, only 8-10 weeks and it will fade into memories.  When the snow flies next winter, I will think of this summer and all the summers I spent swimming in the sun.  Summertime and yes, the livin’ is easy and I am lovin’ every minute of it!

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Written by Administrator

Parent Category: Life and Style

Category: Living in USA

Created: 29 June 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

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Letter from America

         By Ellen Neumann

Sullivan County, New York,
June 28th 2012.

Ellen NeumannMy previous three articles have run the gamut on the topic of friendship. I have told of my youthful friends, my BFF, my disappointments and my successful friendships that have lasted a life time. For this, my last article on the subject of friendship, I want to tell you of a magical and magnificent world in which I have made wonderful friends and acquaintances; a world until just a few short years ago I did not even know existed. The world of which I speak is not in a parallel universe nor is it a pretend figment of my imagination. Can you guess? I will give you a hint: *www.makingfriendsincyberspace.com.

I had been using a computer for many reasons since 1998. Email, genealogical research and travel planning come to mind. I started the never-ending process of learning to navigate and understand the World Wide Web. I was clueless and frustrated yet determined to succeed. My nieces were involved with cyber-dating.  The concept of “meeting” people on the internet was unsettling to me. I guess I was afraid of the unknown and masked my fear with indignity. Eventually circumstances found me on the computer one very late and isolated night with nothing to do and no one to talk to. I had been introduced to MySpace [a social media network that has now pretty much become a dinosaur] by the nieces and wondered if I could make some new friends or at least find someone to chat with in the wee sleepless hours of night. Could I? Should I? Ah hell, why not!

I started by looking for people in other countries; far away would be safe I thought. I had recently visited Ireland with my darling mother and both of us had fallen in love with the warmth and friendliness of the Irish people. My first friend’s invitation was sent to a man who lived in Virginia, Co Cavan, Ireland. When I clicked my mouse and sent the invite, I had no way of knowing that this man was to become one of the very best friends I have ever been fortunate enough to possess.  How did I choose his from the thousands of profiles you may wonder? First of all, his surname was familiar to me; a name that exists in my own family tree. His profile showed him to be a married family man and home owner who was interested in gardening and photography [me too!]. He was not looking for romance or intrigue but instead friendship and interesting company [again, me too!]. All these things contributed to my decision to send the invite. Today in my heart I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that fate or God brought us together.

Over several years we became friends on the internet, sharing our writings, poems, hopes and dreams with each other. Time passed and we moved our friendship to the telephone and then some 17 months later when my mother and I traveled again to the Emerald Isle, we met in person and solidified our already precious relationship. I met his lovely wife and two children. We are now all great friends, minus Mom who passed away not too long after this trip. When she died, these wonderful people cried with me for the mother I had shared with them and then lost. To this day we are as close in mind and heart as any people can be. Without the internet this would not have been possible. Thanks to it, I took a chance and extended my hand across the Atlantic Ocean. Long arms, small world!

I have since then met hundreds of people via the internet. I have made other dear friends who I have met or plan to meet in the future. There is a woman in Australia who is planning to come visit me here in the USA next year. We are both so excited! I have made a dear friend in Kilkenny who is a seer of sorts. She feels what I feel and can tell when things are going to happen. For real!! Both of these women call me “Sis”. I like that too! How very lucky I am to have met these girls in cyberspace! Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think this possible.

Yet it has happened since that first night when I made a friend and broadened my cyber horizon. I now am unafraid to make a friend in my own country, even in my own state. I have a lovely friend in Maryland who is fragile and strong at the same time. She is an old soul I think. Happiness eludes her at times yet she sees the good in the world. I met a woman in Albany, NY who is always upbeat and funny, sharing my passion for genealogy and family, a girl in New Jersey who shares a common tragedy with me and a woman who takes the most incredible photos I have ever seen.

I have also reconnected with old friends with whom I had lost touch over the years. They are some from school, some from work and some from just plain living. Websites such as Facebook and Twitter make this possible. I am at a place in my life where I care to know what became of John or Leon, Susan or Bill. I have learned so much from and about long lost friends and in doing so about myself.

I want to end this four-part series by saying that I treasure each and every person who has ever extended their hand to me in friendship. You have brought joy, delight and fellowship into my life. Although I am not always on my game, I have striven to be the best friend I can be to you. Thank you for loving me and showing it in so many ways. I am blessed to call you friend, no matter when or where. You are an important and dear part of my life. I treasure our friendship: then, now and always.

*this is an imaginary website

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Written by Administrator

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Category: Living in USA

Created: 20 June 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

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Letter from America

Sullivan County, New York,
June 13th 2012.

The first two installments in this, my current series of articles, were based on the friendships I have made and treasured in the early years of my life. At first I spoke of my adolescent friendships; their fragility, their naïve wonders and innocence. Next I shared my growing years; an evolution of self and the discovery of true and lasting friendship. My previous “revelations” were honest, sometimes bittersweet yet heartwarming and uplifting. The story I will share with you now deals with a darker, more painful side of friendship. It’s the story of friends I treasured and loved; people who touched my life and, in one way or another, broke my heart. Lovers you are thinking? Oh no. Not at all!Ellen NeumannI have always been attracted to needy people.

I feel a great desire to fix the world; to right the wrongs of society; to salve the wounded and to champion the weak. I am a nurturer. If possible, I would take in every lame duck on the planet and attempt to “heal” him or her.  This is nothing new. I have always been of this persuasion. This has brought me great joys and great sorrows as well.

If I am to be brutally honest, I will tell you that these friendships were and are very lopsided. Heavy on my shoulders, the weight of carrying them is sometimes more than I can bear both physically and emotionally. I must and should not complain for I initiated these relationships of my own free will. No one ever forced me to be a friend to them. I entered into these volatile relationships with open eyes and a loving heart. I truly believe that there is value and goodness in most people. This belief, although tarnished, blistered and shaken, remains alive and a very real part of me.

When I started this article I wanted to name names and get really specific by writing a sort of “tell-all tale”. But no! I can’t do that. What purpose would it serve to unload, accuse and blame the friends who disappointed and disillusioned me throughout my lifetime? Although I have suffered at the hands of these friends, I have benefited from each and every one of them as well.

Friend “A”, although self destructive and haphazard was beyond a shadow of a doubt the kindest, most gentle and loving person I have ever met. Pure of heart would describe her perfectly. Friend A’s “modus operandi” was unique when you consider the fact that she never set her mind to damage or injure another living creature. Her abusive activities were directed solely at herself. Because of this, she did severe damage to those of us she cared for. Ultimately, she suffered a debilitating illness and died. I miss her. A lot! I wonder if I could have done something differently, if I could have been a better friend in some way. I will always wonder.

Friend B shook my faith in women. She was supportive of me when my child was gravely ill.  She was gossipy, funny and full of life. She could always make me laugh. We spent many hours and evenings in our respective kitchens regaling our life trials and triumphs. Then one day, she walked out of her life, hooked up with “the love of her life”, leaving her four small children with her husband. My first thought was “she had lost her mind! Mother’s do not leave their children for any reason EVER. Not in my world.” For weeks she sat in my kitchen, telling me of her new life and the man in it. After a time, I realized she had not lost her mind but instead had selfishly created a world for herself that did not include her four precious small children. I could no longer sit across the table from her and listen to her tales of her new life when I knew her babies were sitting in their home a few miles away crying for their mother. I ended the friendship in anger and never looked back. The loss of it still weighs heavy on my heart. Should I have tried harder to understand? Was there something I could have done to help her see the horror of what she had done? I will never know the answer.

Ellen NeumannFriend C was another story! She was funny; she was community minded and proactive. We shared many common interests. Our friendship came on fast and furious and ended in the same way. I did not see the end coming, did not detect the flaw. I was shocked and terribly hurt when this woman accused me of being dishonest. I did not see that coming and was innocent of her accusation. It was and remains inconceivable to me that anyone who knows me would take such an action. Live and learn, painfully in this case. Lesson learned: keep my distance, shelter my heart and people cannot hurt me. Except that is not really my way of doing things. I still choose poorly at times but I am getting better at avoiding people and situations that lead me to dead-end relationships.

So there you have it. The bad news is I have failed miserably several times. The good news is that those times are few and far between. I continually strive to be a true and great friend to those I meet and connect with. I am after all the eternal optimist!

Next week in my final installment of this series of articles on friendship, I will speak of the friends I have made in a way I never dreamed possible!

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