Vernal Full Moon Rising

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

VERNAL FULL MOON RISING

Kathie Buchanan

March 19th, 2011, was a very special holiday. 

The moon rose to break night into day in equal proportions.

The evening was celebrated with like-minded loved ones.

Some consider a holiday such as this “Pagan”, but the Vernal Equinox has been celebrated for thousands of years by millions of people worldwide.

We give thanks as we usher in Spring. 

We pray for the new beginnings that Spring promises.

We reflect on our own pre-birth, and development in our mother’s womb,

and our journey…Where we are right now. 

We use corn, fire, tobacco, water, a crystal, a sacred pipe, song, dance, drums.

We use the symbols of the Four Directions, each with a color that represents the

Spiritual Paths. Red in the East, Yellow in the South, Black in

The Kentucky Derby & Flat Track Motorcycle Racing: Horses and Motorcycles

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE KENTUCKY DERBY & FLAT TRACK MOTORCYCLE RACES:

HORSES AND MOTORCYCLES

Bob Sanzi

To make sense of this little short piece an explanation might be helpful. The Beanery Writers Group meeting our facilitator and co-founder sends us a weekly prompt to assist us with writing something for the meeting. For the first May meeting she offered the recent Kentucky Derby as the subject. She asks us to think about the subject, formulate a piece and write the results in just seven minutes. This is the result.     

     The second hand will be up to the twelve in five seconds. There it is—so now seven minutes to write. The Kentucky derby is the subject, but I have no interest in it. Nancy (my partner) is into the whole thing though. She watched it off and on through the day.

     I thought the track was perfect for a

The Ghostly Hoosac Tunnel

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE GHOSTLY HOOSAC TUNNEL

Kathleen Clark

“This ride into the tunnel is far from being a cheerful one. The fitful glare of the lamps upon the walls of the dripping cavern – the frightful noises that echo from the low roof, and the ghoul-like voices of the miners coming out of the gloom ahead, are not what would be called enlivening.” —The Hoosac Tunnel, Scribner’s, December 1870

     The ridges of the Berkshire Mountains, located in the Deerfield Valley, stretch across western Massachusetts. The Hoosac Tunnel located in North Adams and known as “the Bloody Pit,” winds through the mountain base. I was fascinated by the many first-hand accounts of ghostly hauntings that surround the tunnel‘s construction. It provided a difficult and troubled challenge to the men who worked it.     
     Almost every tunnel bored through the mountains during the early 19th century posed problems particular to its location. Starting at the East Portal side, barely ten feet into the proposed Hoosac route, the specially made seventy-ton steam-driven boring machine cut a perfect hole . . . then stopped forever. The workers resorted to hand-drills and gunpowder, but couldn’t exceed sixty feet a month on either end of the tunnel. Boring on the West Portal side, drills hit soft rock, mica schist and water resulting in a soupy mixture referred to as “porridge” and prevented further penetration.    
     Thus a second tunnel was begun immediately to the right of the abandoned tunnel, using the new compressed-air Burleigh Drill invented by Charles Burleigh of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. This four drill contraption that could be pulled along the tracks as the men worked, in tandem with the introduction of Nitroglycerine explosives, finally resulted in the tunnel’s completion in 1875. Although only 4.82 miles long, the Hoosac took an unprecedented

Currency

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

CURRENCY

Jean Isobel Myers

 ~~~

                                                The Earth “wept”

                                                 And so shall we

                                                 For those lost

                                                 And some soon to be

                                                 Mother Nature’s fury,

                                                 Unleashed, taking her toll

                                                 Far mightier than those

                                                 Reactors standing tall

                                                  At what cost,

                                                  Are we?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

ADDITIONAL READING:

WATCHING CORN GROW

Rabbit’s Foot Fern

Linn Run’s Shallow Sound

Wintry Mix

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

WINTRY MIX

Joe F. Stierheim

     I survived the “Wintry Mix”—the disagreeable mixture of snow, sleet, rain and ice that came through as weather during the first week in December, 2010—weather you wish you didn’t have to acknowledge. At least I think it came through. I didn’t really see it. I heard there was ice on the mountain but I’m really not sure of the extent of that. I didn’t travel there to find out. In fact, I didn’t go anywhere, didn’t even venture outside. I stayed home. I can do that, being the noncontributing member of society that I am.

     I stayed home and read a book, a book entitled Lost Mountain by Erik Reece. It deals with mountain top removal mining in Appalachia. It’s about a lot of other non-contributing members of society who live in Kentucky, West Virginia and other Appalachian states. They are noncontributing because many of them

Times: They are A-Changing

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

TIMES: They are A-Changing

Bob Sanzi

     Were you born before 1960? 

     If so, you would be one of those kids whose parents told their children what to do and when to do it. There was direction in your life then. It was a much easier world to understand. Things just seemed simpler. 

     Isn’t everything more complicated now? Nothing we do is simple anymore. Do you think the world is all out of whack?  How many times in a day do you find yourself thinking “Huh?”. 

     For example: Did you buy a box of frozen green beans only to find that when you opened it the beans were lumped in a plastic bag with a chunk of something yellow?  When you dug the empty box out of the kitchen trash did you discover specific instructions on what to do with the bagged beans? Did it involve a microwave? 

     See what I mean?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

     When I was in high school I learned how to type. Leaning how to drive a typewriter was supposed to help you when you went to College. So I was instructed to learn to type because I would be going to college.

     When is the last time you saw a typewriter? Here’s an interesting exercise: try to explain a typewriter to

How to Give Support to Caregivers

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

HOW TO GIVE SUPPORT TO CAREGIVERS

Fran

It’s not just about the person who has that disease (whatever it may be), but everyone who loves and cares for that person.  —Leeza Gibbons*

     In today’s world of expensive nursing home care, low or no insurance, and the worry of finding a good home for a loved one, more and more of us find ourselves becoming a caregiver in our own home.
     I’ve found through my last five years, as my husband’s a caregiver,  that often my friends will call to ask how he is, what he needs, if they can stop by to visit him. What they don’t think, or don’t realize, is that maybe they can help me too. 

     Care-giving is a non-stop job. It never ends—not when the person is asleep, not when they are in the hospital for something, not ever.  The home caregiver and the patient are always one – they become one as both lives revolve around each other, totally dependent on each other. As a result, my friends who have lost their spouse, after care-giving them at home, find themselves completely lost for quite some time. 
     What I find helpful is if friends and family understand that the caregiver is not just someone who takes care of the ill person.  The caregiver still exists as an individual, with needs of their own that often go unmet. 

     If it takes a town to raise a child, it surely takes a country to care for the ill.       

     Everyone, including you, knows someone who cares for an ill relative. And everyone, including you, can offer much more than help to the patient.  You have the ability to lighten the burden of the caregiver, to realize that no matter how much they love the person they are caring for, it is a burden—one they grasp onto willingly, and with the hope that they are giving the best care to this person that they could ever get.

~~~~~~

     With this in mind, I have a few tips for those of you who visit a home where there is a caregiver.
     First, when you

Why Neckties?

BEANERY ONLINE LITERARY MAGAZINE

WHY NECKTIES?

Joe F. Stierheim

     Men often comment on the willingness of women to follow the vagaries of fashion in their pursuit of approval by society. Men fail to recognize that they are guilty of the same thing in their meek and unthinking acceptance of an article of attire that is one of the

Little Ears Are Listening

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LITTLE EARS ARE LISTENING

Fran

     “I want to be a body tool when I grow up!” little Jerry told his mom.
     “A what?” the very surprised mom asked.
     Jerry looked her square in the face and said, more loudly, “I told you I want to grow up to be a body tool just like daddy.”
     The young mom was at a loss for words. Daddy was an ad executive who occasionally did ad work for tool companies, but to her knowledge the little boy had never seen any of them. And the last thing she wanted was for her son to

Jesus

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JESUS

Rafael Alejandro Jara

I picked up a squirrel lying in the road.
I pitied him, thought him a poor fellow
And deserving of enough dignity
To be spared being crushed by tyres in the sun.
I thought about other daily slaughters:
How many snails had been crushed