Loren and Scottie Pippen

Scottie Pippen was just inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. His shirt number 33 was retired and a bronze statue is being created to honor him and his fantastic NBA career. Scottie said the honor is “beyond words.” Loren would say “It's about time.”

Loren always said that Scottie Pippen made Michael Jordan great They were partners, equal partners, he said. Loren saw beyond the Jordan mystique (although he certainly acknowledged his great talent) and recognized early on the important role Pippen played for Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. Loren liked Scottie as a person, too, up from poverty, self-effacing, generous, kind.

That was just like Loren. He went beyond the surface appearance of things, delved deeply, had a great perspective. How I miss it. How I miss Loren. No one can ever replace my brother in my life.

The void is immeasurable, dark and deep, like the woods Robert Frost encountered one snowy evening. Loren, too, had promises to keep, and miles to go before he slept beyond the reach of those who loved him. Oh Robert Frost, if you only knew my brother, you would know how much the woods miss him, how much we miss him. And you would write a special poem only for Loren.

Only Loren could tell me about Scottie and the meaning of his life. Only Loren. No one else.

Ukraine-Time

Photo of Salvadore Dali's melting watches, "Persistence of Memory," by Joelk75 (Flickr photo)

When some of my fellow PCVs get frustrated at what looks like resistance to planning and change, the slow pace of getting things done, the low regard for schedules and time discipline, the poor quality of service even at train and bus stations, stores and hotels, I try to explain the difficult transition that Ukraine is now undergoing. I say that Ukraine is" in the process of becoming," a transition to a new model of democrary, caught between two worlds, the old and the new, the pre-industrial and the post-industrial. It's a matter of time, but the process itself is fascinating. It's a historical phenomenon.

"Historical phenomenon?" Yes, that's what it is, I reply. The little group of young PCVs chuckles .

"That's great, Fran. I'll remember that the next time I try to buy a train ticket and disturb the cashier."

"Yeah, me, too, the next time I'm alone in the office waiting for a meeting that never takes place!"

Well, remember it when you get back to America, I respond. You are witnesses to this transformation; you have a unique perspective. And if you are thinking of graduate school, you have all the material you need for a dissertation, just by having lived in post-Soviet Ukraine for two plus years.

"I''ll keep that in mind, Fran, but right now I have to get ready for a big meeting tomorrow. My counterpart just told me about it, and asked me to give a talk, in Russian."

Luba's Lament

Luba comes into my room and gives me a stern look. "Spat y intephet, spat y intephet," she says, shaking her head. It’s a loose transliteration and mixture of English and Russian meaning “all you do is sleep and use the internet, sleep and use the internet.” I call it Luba’s lament.

She thinks it's a very unbalanced life. I think she thinks most Americans are like this and, what’s more, and regrettably, so are more and more Ukrainians, her grandkids included.

It's the pre-industrial/post-industrial paradigm at play in daily village life. It’s a reality, this dichotomy; it still exists. So for someone like Luba, who goes 24/7 at a day job, in her garden at seasonal tasks, and in her kitchen preserving, preparing, and cooking the produce from her garden, it's hard to understand someone who spends hours at the computer.

I've tried to explain my behavior to Luba, sounding a bit defensive probably. I check my email, I tell her. I Skype. I connect with Facebook. I keep in touch with family and friends. I google. I google translate. I WORK on the computer, writing grants and reports and doing research. Lots of research. I upload and download my photos. I try to organize myself. I think on the computer. I write. In fact I mostly write, I tell her, trying to justify what looks like lax behavior.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. This little dialogue, which seems so mundane, actually encompasses a massive historical drama. Right now in Ukraine, we are living in the midst of the economic and social transformation that took place in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. We are experiencing it as it is taking place. I think of it, most of the time, as a rare privilege. How many of us can actually experience this transition that we have read about, studied, analyzed?

This is why Luba wonders if I get anything "real" done, "real work" that is. I'm at the computer when she leaves the house. I'm at it when she comes home. She doesn’t read my blogs. She doesn't understand online research. Writing is not real work. She doesn’t see me going during the day. She usually asks if I was home all day when she gets in the door. I quickly say “Niet, ya rabotat!” She looks at me with some doubt.

Ah geez. Maybe Luba's right. Spat y intephet. Maybe I need to change my post-industrial rhythms. Add more balance to my life. Even so, I couldn't keep up with Luba. And I wonder if Luba will be able to keep up with the economic transformation and changing social relations taking place in Ukraine now. Luba’s lament echoes through the ages.

Harvest Comes Early

Harvest fruits and vegetables in Luba's garden; barn and storage area.

I am back in Starobilsk from Crimea, and I can see that harvest is coming early to Ukraine. It's the intense, prolonged hot weather and lack of rain. Luba's garden storage area in her barn, a common feature of village homesteads, is loaded with tomatoes, onions, potatoes, apples, and herbs, drying out so they can be cured, sliced, diced, spiced, bottled and preserved.

The grapes look beautiful, but Luba says they aren't very tasty. Too dry. The apples are farily plentiful but not very large. The plums have turned deep purple but many are dropping early. There were five blushing peaches on her newly planted tree that she guarded with her life, and now we have a taste of fresh peaches. Last year the apricots were bountiful, and Luba spent hours cutting and drying them and making jam, preserves and compot (fruit juice); this year there are hardly any apricots.

Luba, who is a professional accountant, says, "During the day I work with my head, at night I work with my body and soul," and she loves it. It's a balance between the mental and physical that many of us, in today's post-industrial and technological world, do not have. In Starobilsk, and most rural villages throughout Ukraine, it is a typical pattern.

Luba's garden is medium-sized, but if you have ever worked a plot of land you know what hard work it is. Natalia's garden is huge, three times the size of Luba's. When Natalia is not teaching English at the University, she works the land with her husband and two college-aged sons. When I was in training in Chernigov, Valya and Nikolai, who lived in a large Soviet-style apartment building, went early every morning to their garden plot in the country where they grew vegetables and fruits, and Nikolai hunted for mushrooms. Some gardens are large enough so their owners can grow their own food and sell the surplus in the marketplace, at shops, roadside stands, and bazaars. Right now, on the road to Lugansk, for example, it’s hard to resist the melons and autumn vegetables.

Luba's garden and lifestyle make me think of the work of British historian E.P.Thompson and his many followers who explored the changing relationship to time in industrial and pre-industrial societies, the centuries-long transition from economies based on farmers, merchants and craftspeople to those based on industries. It began in the textile factories of England, then America, which required a disciplined labor force tied to clock time, and grew from there.

Before Thompson there was Karl Marx, who famously argues that the industrial revolution polarized society into the bourgeoise, those who owned the means of production, and the proletariat, those who performed the labor necessary to extract something valuable from the means of productions. These studies of the transition from agrarian to industrial life, and likewise the transition from slavery to freedom, constitute a fascinating body of scholarship, worldwide, a global village of international studies.

Luba's 9 to 5 day job is measured by the time-clock, but her work in the garden is pre-industrial. It is measured by the tasks required at different times in the growing cycle. She wakes up at sunrise to work in her garden for a few hours, goes to her clock-time job, then comes home from her day job and works til sundown in the garden, each task determined by the crop and the season, a natural cycle of life.

In the rural villages of Ukraine, some elements of a pre-industrial society still exist. Farmers, merchants and craftspeople dominate the economy, although large international companies, service industries and technology are fast rising to overtake them. It feels like America at the turn of the century with the rise of the trusts and big business, and the triumph of capitalism. The growing and dirge-like complaints about “oligarchy” embody, in part, resistance and regret at this development, which now seems inevitable, irresistible, unstoppable.

But for village people in the post-Soviet world, freedom still means owning your own land, growing your own food, being self-sufficient, being your own boss. It's the Ukrainian equivalent of "40 acres and a mule," the dream of former slaves after the Civil War and during Reconstruction into the 20th century. There is a fierce resistance to “clocking-in” to work for the profit of someone else.

Luba’s work exemplies this lifestyle. I think it is doomed to extinction. I wonder how long it can last?

Yevpatoria, Crimea

Street scenes, old town; Turkish restaurant; the Mosque; the Cathedral and lavish interior; Kainite Jewish memorial with prayer room and an engraved tablet.

Yevpatoria, or Evpatoria, is a very special place, like Bakchysaray. It's where the steppes meet the sea, as Barbara put it. No mountains here, but a rich history of different cultures that once made this fabulous Black Sea port their home. I have just learned about a brand new "Black Sea Studies" program at the International Hellenic University in Greece, testifying to the geo-political importance of the area, and after getting a glimpse of this ancient city I am tempted to sign up!

Barbara was a great guide. We wandered into the "old city," where Christian and Orthodox churches, a Muslim mosque, and a Kainite (Kenite) Jewish temple and monument exist near each other, towering over historic homes and restored buildings lovingly decorated and painted.

The Orthodox Cathedral, St. Nicholas, is an opulent building, lavishly decorated with paintings and icons, right up there with St. Mary's in Krakow and the Orthodox churches of Kyiv. Another church, proclaiming "Christ has Risen," stood amidst a lovely garden where Barbara and I sat on a bench and marveled at the sight. The 400-year-old Kahn mosque is elegant but I didn't put on the burka and head dressing necessary to go inside. Memories of Istanbul's Blue Mosque twirled around my head. We heard a Call to Prayer, however, as we toured the Kainite Jewish temple, a contemporary memorial to an ancient nomadic tribe of Turkish descent. I learned that this sect, which I knew nothing about, goes back to the time of Cain and Abel perhaps. It's mentioned in the Old Testament and was apparently spared from the horrors of the Holocaust, I'm not sure why. You walk under a beautiful grape arbor to get to the memorial, which features a prayer room and beautiful marble columns, medallians and tablets engraved with texts from the Torah.

The mixture of religious buildings, ancient homes and streets, and cultural artifacts in this relatively small area of Yevpatoria astonishes. I wanted to know more about how these different cultures and religions came and went, rose and fell. I wanted Loren nearby to tell me more. I think he would have felt at home here himself. I imagined Barbara, Loren and I, having lunch and tea outside at the lovely Turkish Restaurant Jeval.

Yevpartoria, Crimea, an international crossroads: Loren's soul might well reside here.

Yalta and Livadia Palace

Yalta waterfront; Livadia
palace; interiors; vistas.

Going to Yalta from Simferopol on the bus is half the fun and excitement.

Heading into the mountains of southern Crimea is a dream, and I thought for some of the time that we were driving along Route 1 in California. The mountains rose and the sea emerged, the legendary Black sea, a crossroads between East and West for centuries . Barbara said it was "like Yosemite meeting the ocean," it was that beautiful.

And then we arrived in Yalta, a beautiful Russian seaside resort town that has remained a Russian resort town. We walked along the tree-lined boardwalk and pepple (not sandy) beaches, past some Renaissance-like buildings that look like former palaces, lots of health resorts, shops, and souvenir stalls, a busy harbour filled with huge cruise ships from around the world, and sailboats and fishing boats on the shimmering sea's horizon. It was a clear blue-sky day and the whole scene looked like a water-color painting.

A highlight of our visit was seeing the Livadia Palace, where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met to end world War II. It is a long white Renaissance-style palace with a beautiful portico entrance, floor to ceilingl windows, balconies that look out on incredible vistas, large elegant rooms and decorative arts.

The first floor of the palace features the state rooms where the three leaders met for the Yalta conference, including a state reception room surrounded with carved walnut wainscotting and a lovely Venetian glass chandelair floating down from a walnut carved ceiling. For breaks, these world leaders could stroll in anItalian courtyard, or meditate in the smaller but lovely Arabian coutyard decorated with magnificent tiles.

The second floor features the elegant royal rooms of the last Tzar of Russia and his family, all victims of the Communist revolution. A royal study, library, bedrooms, and the children's classroom overlook the most magnificent vistas of

nature, mountains and sea imaginable.

Yalta is sometimes called "The Pearl of Ukraine," but I didn't feel like I was in Ukraine when I was in Crimea. Everything about it is so different from eastern Ukraine, the mixture of pre-historic, Christian, Orthodox, Turkish, Russian, Tatar, and Islamic history, the prosperous looking seasdide towns, the ancient names and places of mixed ancestry.

I'm told the majority of people in Crimea remains firecely loyal to Russia, while the indigenous people, the Crimean Tatars, who were forcibly removed from their homeland by Stalin and the Soviets, view the Soviets as intruders and oppressors. The Crimean Tatars live with the pain of a well-organized Soviet army-enforced deportation on the evening of 18 May 1944. Some 47% of the rsesettled population died of disease and malnutrition during the deportation. Crimean Tatars are now returning to their homeland after over sixty years in exile, many from Uzbekistan and Turkey. Sometimes the tension is palpable, and sometimes it is lost in the beauty and serenity that engulfs Crimea.

Returning Crimean Tatars have lots of stories to tell. The pain of losing their land remains, along with fervent efforts to preserve their language and culture. Would an ordinary but ancient pair of forged iron tongs mean anything to most of us? Probably not. But to one family it is all that remains of parents, grandparents and other relatives forced to flee their homes in a hurry one dark night in 1944, grabbing whatever they could in a state of shock and panic, a pair a tongs, a symbol of the sorrow of forced removal from ancestral homes.

Crimea has a complex past and present under its magnificent exterior. But Yalta remains a shining star.

Bakhchysaray and Chufut-Kale

Barbara at the caves; the cave city Chufat-Kale; the Khans' palace with minaret and entrance to small mosque; and the Uspensky monestary.

Bakchysaray, which means "garden palace" in Turkish, was once the capital of the powerful Crimean Khanate between the 15th and 18th centuries. After decades of tragic destruction

from both the Russian Tzars and then the Soviets, the town and its treasures are coming back to life.

The Khans' original palace survives, supposedly

because Catherine the Great thought it was

"romantic and sweet," which it is. The

palace was built by slaves under the direction of Ottoman, Persian and Italian architects. This would be a fantastic story to research and study. It's noted for its intricate designs and gates, its lovely mosque and minarets, its pretty harem, its wall paintings and decorations, and beautiful courtyard. The "Fountain of Tears," erected by master Omer in 1764 to honor his daughter, moved famous Russian poet A.S. Pushkin to write his poem "The Bakchyrsaray Fountain" in the 1820s.

Nearby is the lovely Uspensky Monestary, built into the rocks, probably by Byzantine monks in the 8th or 9th century. The gold-domed church, whitewashed and tiled, shines like a bright star on the hillside. The Soviets closed the church down, but it opened once again in 1993 and is maintained by local monks.

The most fantastic hike is through the old cave city of Chufat-Kale, fortified both by nature and man. It is a complex series of caves and structures (sheds, homes and barns) built into the limestone rock, which provided a fortress and refuge for different groups of migrants for hundreds of years. The views of the valley below are breathtaking. The guidebook Barbara has said it was first settled by Christian descendants of Samarian tribes, then around 1390s by the Crimean Tatars, and after the Tatars dispersed, by a dissident Jewish sect, the Kainite Turkish Jews, until about the mid-19th century. This sect of Judaism gave the mountain its current name, Chufut-Kale.

Wow, if these hills could talk. Scholars have tried to listen; lots of archeologists, for example, have explored the caves and tried to reconstruct their complex history. It's certainly a scholarly feast. But I think my brother Loren could tell me more than any guidebook or scholarly studies. He knew this history and I wish he were here to tell me.

Bakchysaray is a fascinating part of Crimea, and the planet, a place where old civilizations sought refuge and moved mountains, and modern generations are moved to understand them.

Crimea, Tartars and Bakhchysaray

Barbara (with my luggage!) in front of the

Crimean Tartar Library; a lovely archway at the Library; a taste of Smferople.

I’m in Simferople, Crimea, visiting my PCV friend Barbara, who lives and works with the Crimean Tartar community. Simferople is a city of about 345,000, which feels huge coming from Starobilsk. Barbara lives in a neighborhod repopulated by returning Tartars who were kicked out of their Crimean homeland by Stalin in 1944. Here’s how she describes the community (www.crimeantartarlibrary.blogspot.com):

The Crimean Tatars are a Turkic Muslim people who inhabited the Crimean Peninsula—the southern land mass of Ukraine surrounded by the Black Sea and Sea of Asov—for over seven centuries. For three hundred years, from 1441 t

o 1783 when Crimea was annexed by Russia, the Crimean Tatars ruled the peninsula through the Crimean Khanate. At the height of the Crimean Khanate, there were over six million Crimean Tatars inhabiting the peninsula, and at the time of annexation to Russia, they constituted 98% of the population. The intense Russification of the peninsula over the next century forced many Crimean Tatars to leave their homeland, and by the time of the Russian Revolution, there were only 300,000 Crimean Tatars left on the peninsula. Under the Bolsheviks a brief flowering of Crimean Tatar culture occurred between 1921 and 1927, and Crimean Tatar was made the official language of the peninsula along with Russian.

Stalin’s repressive policies soon ended this “Golden Age” and resulted in further devastation of the Crimean Tatar people and culture, culminating in the mass overnight deportation on May 18, 1944, of all Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan and other distant Soviet Republics. Over 46% of the Crimean Tatar population died during transport and in the subsequent camps, and almost all evidence of Crimean Tatar culture—mosques, place names, art and literature—were destroyed in Crimea, leading to the desired final solution of a “Crimea without Crimean Tatars.”

Still, the Crimean Tatars--living in exile, not allowed to speak or teach their language, practice their religion, play their music, or write their stories--kept alive the dream of their homeland and formed a national movement which, after fifty years of nonviolent struggle, brought them back to their native land of Crimea. The Crimean Tatars slowly began to return in1985, a momentum that gathered strength as more and more restrictions were lifted, and in a 4-year period from 1989 to 1993, over 200,000 Crimean Tatars flooded back to Crimea. Today, an estimated 300,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea, constituting 13% of the population. They have an official governing body, representatives in the Crimea and Ukraine Rada (Congress), national schools that teach all subjects in Crimean Tatar, a university that educates Crimean Tatar language teachers, art and history museums, theater, radio and TV stations, and the Gasprinskiy Crimean Tatar Library where I so happily find myself working as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

For an excellent English-language website on the history and culture of the Crimean Tartars go to www.iccrimea.org.

The Gasprinskiy Crimean Tartar Library, named after a major turn-of-the-20th century Tartar writer who was far ahead of his time, is a major institution for this community, working to preserve the language and culture of the Tartar people. Barbara continues:

As Crimean Tatars flooded back to their homeland in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they began to establish organizations to serve their returning people. In 1990, the Crimean Tatar Library in the name of I. Gasprinskiy (known as the Gasprinskiy Library) opened as a branch of the central library system in Simferopol, the capitol of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine. Five years later, it became an autonomous library under the Ministry of Culture in Crimea.

The mission of the library is to acquire, store, and make available to users the world’s largest collection of documents in the Crimean Tatar language and about Crimean Tatars in other languages. Today, the library has a collection of more than 32,000 books plus 9000 complete sets of magazines and newspapers in the Crimean Tatar language; 4500 books in Turkish and other Turkic languages; and more than 2000 rare and valuable books.

Being with Barbara in Simferople is an adventure in itself, meeting her neighbors, sharing meals, and visiting the library.

On Saturday we went to the fabulous town of Bakhchysaray and visited the Khan’s palace, a building spared when Catherine the Great of Russia ordered the destruction of Crimean mosques, because it was a romantic and lovely structure, which it is; the Uspensky monastery, built into the limestone rock of the surrounding hill, most probably by Byzentine monks in the 8th or 9th century; and Chufut-Kale, one the best preserved and best-known cave towns of Crimea. Loren would have absolutely loved this area, and I got a feeling it may have been near or around the site of The Clan of the Cave Bear and other stories by Auel. Quite a hike, but well worth the effort to explore this fascinating place. More about Bakhchysaray later!

Loren and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Yahoo image, Kareem and his "sky hook."

Loren's interests ranged far and wide, and sports were among them. He loved most sports--football, tennis, baseball, basketball, golf, even car racing. He knew the history and players of college and professional teams and could site statistics that astounded me. Any question I had about sports, I asked Loren. He always had interesting answers. Always. And so I remember his hero Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

This basketball giant was born Lew Alcinder. His ancestors were slaves on a large plantation in Trinidad owned by a French family. Alcinder grew up in NYC. He was raised a Catholic but converted to Islam in 1969, taking the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, meaning "generous servant of God." His family lineage was Yoruba, something he learned from his father, and it gave him a sense of pride from an early age.

Over 7 feet tall, he was a formidable basketball player from high school through college and into the NBA. He played for the Milwaukee Bucks, then the Los Angeles Lakers. He won 6 NBA championships and many MVPs. Loren thought star players like Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neill, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant stood on his shoulders.

“The greatest center of all time,” Loren said.
“Better than Michael?”
"Oh yes, better than Michael. That sky hook was almost unstoppable.”
"Sky hook?"
"Yeah, a great hook shot he perfected, and won many a game with!" Loren laughed at the memory.

But Loren admired Kareem not only for his athleticism, but also for his intelligence and interest in history. Kareem co-authored several books, including his autobiography "Giant Steps," "On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey through the Harlem Renaissance:" and "Black Profiles in Courage." I heard Kareem read from that book at the Southern Festival of Books in Knoxville, Tennessee, a few decades ago. He talked thoughtfully about Black history, exuded respect for his cultural heritage, and spoke about how important it was to know our stories and heroes from the past. I bought the book and had him autograph it for Loren. "My brother Loren is a great fan of yours,” I told him. "To Loren, from Kareem," he wrote. It was great! The book was in Loren's collection, but I'm not sure what happened to it. I'm afraid we went through some things so fast it all became a whirl, and the shock of it is still with me.

Whoever has it has a treasure from Loren, and insight into his far-ranging interests. Loren was not a physically tall person, but to me he stood as tall as his hero Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. To me, he was a giant with a heart of gold.

Loren and Jean Auel

Jean Auel and the books Loren loved.

The way Loren talked about Jean Auel and The Clan of the Cave Bear, and Auel's subsequent novels in her "Earth Children's" series, with such awe and reverence, led me to think that she was long dead and this series was historical, not contemporary, written early in the century, not today. Wrong!

Auel, born in Chicago in 1936, is a strong woman whose talent and personna are equally strong. She has lived in Portland, Oregon, for many years with her husband, five now-grown children, and many grandchildren, and this is where she has written all her novels. She's done most of her research in the public library there, as well as in travels across Europe, from the west to Ukraine. Her most recent research travel took her to the awesome painted white Lescaux Caves in southwestern France, which is the subject of her upcoming book "The Land of Painted Caves," due out in March 2011.

Her books are immensely popular, having sold over 40 million copies. Reviews are mostly positive, although scholars, naturally, question her research. But these are not history books, they are novels, and Auel tells a good story over time. Some reviewers call Auel the “Queen of the Ice Age” and a Time magazine review called her work 'romancing the Stone Age," in a reference to the movie.

Loren, though, talked mostly about Ayla, Auel's herione, whose odyssey through pre-historic times with the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnum peoples covers some 8 books. Auel did her research, but her novels are just that, imaginative stories, historical fiction, about life during the Pleistocene Epoch.

Auel's books drew Loren in, starting with his favorite, The Clan of the Cave Bear, a book he says in An Asperger Journey changed his way of looking at the world. The character of Ayla, a mother goddess and earth mother, a female leader who was strong, knowledgeable, resourceful, resonated profoundly with Loren, and Loren followed her every move, from cave to cave. Loren was the only person who knew about the history of Ukraine when I first learned that I would be going there for the Peace Corps. He told me all about prehistoric Ukraine, knew its landscape, cultural lineage, names of people and places. How fantastic is that, how special, how precious!

I wish Loren were here to talk more about this. I'm doing some research now on some of his favorite subjects, but it's too little, too late; too late to share with Loren, to hear his reverence for the story and for Ayla. Too late to gain in knowledge that only Loren knew, cared about, and used to sustain him on his own journey. Do you think he could be traveling with Ayla now? Do you think he's in all the places he knew and loved, traveling unimpeded and free on another awesome journey?

Loren and Hubert Humphrey

An Asperger Journey, Loren's book cover, front and back, designed by Elissa Alden Cary, and thanks to Christopher Watson, printed August 2010, 3 months after Loren's last hike along the Aucilla River basin with the Florida Trails Association. One member wrote in Loren's Memorial Book at the funeral home: "The woods will miss him." Yes, and we all miss him.

Hubert Humphrey (Wikipedia photo, right) was Loren's No. 1 political hero and guru. Loren followed his career closely, before most Americans had heard of him, starting in college at Culver-Stockton in Missouri, when he was a college liaison for the 1968 Humphrey presidential campaign. It was the beginning of his lifelong political activism. Loren believed Humphrey's loss and Richard Nixon's election was a major, and tragic, turning point in American history, a profound twist of fate that affected the next 50 years of our

political life. Loren claimed, until his last hike, that while politics had not been kind to Humphrey, history would be. He was sure of it.

Humphrey was ahead of his times, far ahead. One of the first city Mayors to get passage of a fair employment civil rights bill, the first to introduce legislation creating the Peace Corps (which most of us attribute to JFK, but how we forget!), and the first to stand up at a Democratic convention and, in a stirring and iconic speech, urge passage of a Civ

il Rights plank. That was 1948, way before the resurgence of a national civil rights movement, before MLK, before JFK and Lyndon Johnson, before any other national leader.

Loren knew that 1948 speech by heart. "To those who say we are rushing the issue, I say we are 172 years too late...the time has come for the Democratic party to come out of the shadow of States Rights and walk forthright into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

The plank was adopted, but the Democratic party split. Southern Democrats were enraged at this affront to their "way of life,” left the party and formed the Dixiecrat party, nominating StromThurmond of South Carolinga as its presidential candidate. “A sorry replay of the secession movement in that state that triggered the outbreak of Civil War,” Loren would say. “Pitiful. Outrageous.” Harry Truman won anyways in a super close race, an astonishing victory that demonstrated for some people that the Democrats could win elections without the "solid South."

As Senator from Minnesota from 1948 to 1964, when he ran for Vice President with LBJ, Humphrey remained ahead of his time. He supported a strong civil rights law in opposition to racial segregation, called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to school segregation, and an end to discrimination based on race. He was called "The Happy Warrior" for his cheerful demeanor and his forceful advocacy of progressive causes. Loren understood this.

Loren always regretted the results of the 1968 election. He knew I had supported George McGovern and he always took me to task for it. America would have been a different place if Humphrey had won, Loren maintained, a far saner, more peaceful, more equalitarian and just society. Loren was often a “Cassandra,” speaking truth that no one heard or paid attention to.

In An Aspergrer Journey, Loren says the most significant part of being in Washington, DC in 1977, soon after our father died, was being able to attend Hubert Humphrey’s funeral in January. He recalls walking from Foggy Bottom, across the mall, up Pennsylvania Avenue to the U.S. Congress, “sick as a dog,” to join a long line of people paying their respects to this political hero. Loren was first among them.

Soon after, Loren left DC and went back to Rochester, NY, facing another life transition, but still, always, committed to the principles of Hubert Humphrey. It would lead him into the VISTA volunteer program on a continuing quest for “participatory democracy,” peace and justice. Loren never faltered in his beliefs. Loren and Hubert Humphrey, happy warriors.

Loren and Mother Teresa

Wikipedia photo of Mother Teresa.

In honor of the publication of Loren's book, An Asperger Journey, I am remembering my beloved brother and the things that mattered to him. This five-part series includes: Loren and Mark Twain; Loren and Mother Teresa; and coming up, Loren and Hubert Humphrey, Loren and Jean Auel, and Loren and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Loren was passionate about good works, about living "a life of strength, grace, hope and dignity." We honor his beliefs and his faith in human kind.

Loren held Mother Teresa (August 1910 to 5 September 1997) in high regard because he believed in her good works. A Catholic nun from Albania, Mother Teresa spent 45 years of her life as head of the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India, helping the poor, sick, orphaned and dying, a tireless advocate for the neglected and the powerless.

She won the Nobel peace prize for her humanitarian work in 1979. Before that, in1960, she won India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. Not without her critics, chief among them Christopher Hitchens of the NY Times, Mother Teresa nonetheless inspired hope. She continued to work through her waning years, through ill-health and religious doubt, until she died.

Was she a Saint? The Catholic church is examining that question with the help of what is called her "postulent," Brien Kolodiejchuk, who is gathering evidence of her sainthood for consideration by the Pope and the Church. Saint or not, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta lived her faith through good works. Here are some of her quotes, which Loren and I wrote down and had on pieces of paper here and there:

Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person.

I have found the paradox that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt. Only more love.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

In this life we cannot do great things....we can only do small things, with great love.

Loren and Mother Teresa. Goodness and mercy. Our thoughts for the day.

Loren and Mark Twain

Breaking News: Loren's book, An Asperger Journey, is published! Our sister Andy has the boxes and will soon have some memorial readings in Tallahassee. Stay tuned for more about the book and how to order one.

Loren and Mark Twain were spiritual cousins. That’s why this quote reminds me of my brother. It's something I wanted to send to Loren, for his comment, and never got to it. Ran out of time. It would have been a wonderful response, I just know it.

Loren felt that his best education took place mostly out of school. Loren says school for an undiagnosed Aspie was a hostile environment, from elementary school through high school. He talks about it in his new book, An Asperger Journey. His far-flung interests just didn't fit any narrow curriculum or learning “boxes.” The world was his school, and books. Books of his own choosing. He had an amazing collection in those subjects that interested him the most: history, feminism, social ecology, native Americans, African-Americans, world geography, astronomy, and maps. Of course he had tons of National Geographics, his all-time favorite magazine, well maybe next to Sports Illustrated. A subscription to National Geographic made many of Loren’s Christmases.

It was hard going through those books. He loved them so, like friends. He had absorbed so much, thought so much, shared so much. We kept a lot, Andy and I, and we gave a lot away, to family and friends and to the Goodwill Book Store in Tallahassee, with the hope that people would enjoy the same books Loren did.

Loren and his books. Loren the reader, the knower, thinker, and doer. Loren, who would never let schoolng interfere with his education.

Antonyms and Synonyms

Making origami peace cranes with Stacey.

It was Friday the 13th, so our English Club meeting on that date began with a fun conversation about what it meant. Was it a lucky day and number or an unlucky day and number? Is it like the horror movie? Why is Friday the 13th filled with so many superstitions, even foreboding.

"Foreboding?" I passed out the new dictionaries we had just bought for the library. Natalia and Tanya had wisely decided to buy several copies. I love watching people thumb through the dictionary. "Something bad is going to happen," Alina said, just about the fastest thinker going. "I have a bad feeling in my stomach," Ira said. And she kind of looked it, the way she said it. What are some synonyms, I asked. Fear, dread, apprehension, premonition. Good words!

What are some antonyms, the opposite of "foreboding." More turning of pages. “Good luck,” Dima said. “I think Friday the 13th is good luck.” His English is excellent and he loves using it. I think it's lucky too; I was born on the 13th, and so was my daughter Michelle. “Well then,” Maria chimed in, “it IS good." Tatiana, an English teacher who would like to work abroad or for an organization like Peace Corps, thought it meant "Something good is going to happen. It’s like optimism, opposite of pessimism.”

"Well, speaking of good things and good luck," I continued, "now I want to read you a story." It was my blog about Judy and her students in Blacksburg, Virginia, and their gift to our library. I read slowly, pronouncing each word, defining some. The members of the English Club were silent and thoughtful. They got it. They knew this was a story about a special gift from special people. A selfless gift. The kindness of strangers. We talked about it, with some reverence, and much appreciation. A good lesson in giving and receiving. Antonyms and synonyms.

Then Stacey, our TEFL volunteer, said she knew how to make peace cranes. What luck! And that’s what we did for the rest of our time together on this Friday the 13th, that and continuing with translations of authors and titles into Russian for the librarians.

While members folded and folded, this way and that, I googled ‘origami peace cranes’ on my laptop to show them how much information there is online, including great “how-to” videos. There are different styles to this paper art, we learned, different ways to fold. Stacey said she knew only this one she was doing. I thought it looked complicated. But it was rewarding, too, to see a peace crane emerge, and to flap its wings.

The Japanese believe you need 1,000 peace cranes to bring good luck, health or peace. It’s the origin of the “1000 Peace Cranes” project to remember the victims of Hiroshima, and to promote nuclear disarmament, why President Obama signed America on to the project for the first time this year.

I don’t know if we’ll get to 1,000 peace cranes, but the ones we made were for Judy and her students, symbolically giving to them as they gave to us. To give and to receive. Antonyms and synonyms

All English-Language Books Now in Library!

At Linqua Bookstore at Lugansk Shevchenko University, 10 August 2010, our final book shopping for your Partnership Grant. More great books for our Library!

Natalia and I made our last trip to Lugansk to buy books. This time we went to Linqua Bookstore, an independent English bookseller at the Lugansk Shevchenko University. Sergei, the manager, met us and we took it from there. It was a wonderful selection, and we piled up another 50 books, DVDs and videos, all of which I want to look at and read, even the "How English Works" book and things like the "Welcome to English" series and the "Headway" series, also with videos, DVDs and guides for beginner to intermediate levels. "Super Songs" with a DVD looked great too, as did "Irish Fairy Tales."

We also spotted some cherished literature we couldn't pass up, like Rebecca, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, A Kiss Before Dying, and Tales of King Aurthur. Some of these had DVDs with them, and then we added a few more, including Lord of the Rings, Romeo and Juliet, and Augustus. We're thinking of having an English film and discussion series for the Library, like the Boyd County Public Library in Kentucky, which has recently agreed to be a "sister" library with the Starobilsk Library and share information and ideas.

So now, dear friends and partners of the Starobilsk Library, we have a very nice and well-rounded collection of English language books. The librarians are working on registering them, and English Club members, who LOVE the collection and can't wait to start digging in, will continue with the translations. By September, and after school starts up again, the library will be ready for a big public celebration to let everyone know about the collection. I will keep you posted. We can't thank you enough!

Prava y Pravda: Know Your Rights, Chmyrovka!

Lawyer Serge holding new "Know Your Rights" booklet; a village leader wearing a "history" (in English!) shirt; Vera and members of the audience.

A second "Know Your Rights" meeting, supported by a Peace Corps SPA grant to Victoria NGO, was held on 7 August at a large auditorium in the small village of Chmyrovka. Surrounded by fields of wheat and corn, and some sunflowers, the large hall must have witnessed many a grand gathering in its day. This sizzling hot summer day it seemed way too big for the size of the audience of twenty people. But did this lively group fill the space!

Vera followed a similar format as the first community meeting in Starobilsk, giving an introduction and explaining the work of the Peace Corps and the goals and activities of the "Know Your Rights" project. She also distributed and reviewed the new booklet, hot off the press, which was well received. Lawyer Sergei Anatolyvich, who helped write the booklet, said a few words about knowing the laws. One person commented that the booklet was excellent, and liked the suggestions for how to get documents and write to the court. I gave my talk about "The Rule of Law" in America. We didn't have a translator this time, but the handouts were in Russian so people could follow me.

I think the most important part of this meeting followed: Consultations with Sergei in a small group, and then one-on-one. The consultations lasted over an hour and a half. A few women left, then came back, it seemed with more questions. I could see how critical these consultations were, even though I did not understand the issues.

I did understand this, however: The "Know Your Rights" project is filling a great need for civic education, empowering citizens in rural villages, and providing legal consultations to those whose rights have been violated. Thanks to our SPA grant, the lawyer was able to come to this rural village on a hot Saturday afternoon to spend a few hours and talk with its citizens about their rights. Vera told me Sergei has also had several consultations in the office, which is evolving into a useful community resource.

Prava y Pravda: Rights and Truth. The public meetings are fulfilling the promise of this civic education project: "Informed citizens are empowered citizens."

Peace Cranes and A Gift from the Heart

Anne Shea, flickr photo

Judy Bauer, a teacher, and her students at Blacksburg New School in Blacksburg, Virginia, are unsung heroes. I've mentioned them in blogs and Facebook posts about the Partnership Grant for English-language books for the Starobilsk Library. I've thanked them online and sent a written thank you note from the English Club via regular mail. I do not know if Judy has heard from us.

Judy and her students made origami peace cranes, sewed them into mobiles, and sold them to raise money for the Partnership Grant, "Books for a Community Library." I do not know how Judy learned about our project. Online I would guess. I do not know Judy or her students. I don't know Blacksburg New School. I just did a search and learned that Blacksburg is an old colonial town of some 40,000 people in Montgomery County in southwestern Virginia, in the Appalachian’s Blue Ridge mountains. It’s the home of Virginia State University and, having driven the Blue Ridge, I figure it must be a lovely mountain town. But all I knew before this was that there is a teacher and her students there who made an incredible gift to our library and helped open the world of books to more students a world away.

Peace cranes are ancient Japanese symbols of health and peace. "A Thousand Peace Cranes" was a project to honor victims of Hiroshima. They now represent the hope for peace in the world. Google peace cranes and you'll learn all about them, and how to make them. There are 1,000 and more uses for this lovely paper art. I use them for Christmas tree decorations. Judy and her students used them to bring books to a small village library in far-eastern Ukraine. A gift from the heart. What a lesson for Judy's students, and for the people of Starobilsk: the kindness of strangers, the generosity of kindred spirits, the hope for peace, one peace crane at a time.

Young Rita and the Art of Friendship

Fran by Rita; the Princess and the Cat; Rita surrounded by Marfa's artwork embroidery.

Olga's sister Valya died recently, tragically, of breast cancer, at only 52 years of age, around the time my dear brother Loren died. We have both been grieving.

Valya's daughter Olena, a doctor, singer, and pianist, and her daughter Rita, 8 years old (same age as my grandson Kyle), live in Lugansk, but Rita has been staying in Starobilsk with Auntie Olga recently. Rita's friend Polina, 12 years old, has been here too, keeping Rita company. Rita has inherited her mom's talents and interests; she is bright and creative, and learning a little English, too.

Olga is working hard to keep them occupied (sound familiar?). We visited Marfa together. They go swimming in the river, a bit too hot for Olga, “but it keeps the kids busy.” They bike around town, visit Olga’s mother, who lives down the road on Panfelova, and they visit the Amerikanka on the way.

Recently Olga came with our mutual good friend Tonya--Rita and Polina in tow--for tea and snacks. I found a deck of cards and a checkers set for the kids to play with, along with paper and color pens.

Tonya, my lovely Koorychevka teacher friend, so dear to me, speaks better English than Olga, but both work at it and both are former French teachers, and so with my little bit of Russian, some English and some French, we wend our way through the mysteries of language to talk about things that matter.

One thing I learned is that Ukrainins believe that 30 days after someone has died, their soul departs their bodies and goes to heaven, or some afterlife. It's the tradition for people to gather round to honor this journey. They wanted to know if we had such a tradition in America. I said we don’t have this tradition, but lots of people believe it. I’m not sure I do, I added, but I WANT to believe it. We all agreed about this, we all WANT to believe, and we went on from there. It feels good to communicate on this level, something Luba and I cannot do but wish we could.

While we chatted, Rita and Polina played games and drew. As they left to go swimming, the girls presented me with gifts of their pictures. How sweet! It made my heart sing, and evoked a flood of memories of my children's and grandchildren’s drawings. Kids, friends, and sharing. It’s what gives life meaning. Keeps us grounded. Keeps us going. The art of friendship.

THE LIBRARY HAS ENGLISH BOOKS, THANKS TO YOU!

Universal Books, or Globus, the Ukrainian bookstore; Natalia and Julia making selections; with Tanya, head of new books for the Library; Natalia with the helpful proprietor of the modern English language specialty bookstore, Booklines.


Oh what a shopping spree! Natalia, English teacher at the university, translator and consultant par excellence; Tanya, head of new books for the Library; Julia, an English club member; and I went to Lugansk yesterday and had a book-buying spree to beat the band, and the bank (to continue the alliteration)!

Imagine a Ukrainian bookstore with an eclectic mix of English language and Russian books, and then another bookstore more like those independents we loved in the States before Barnes and Noble and Borders, this one specializing in English language books, newspapers, DVDs, videos and lots of things English. Imagine going through shelves and shelves of great books and saying, "We'll take that, and that, and oh yes, that and, oh look, it's Mark Twain. We'll take that, too!" We were like kids in a candy shop.

The first stop was Universal Books, Ukrainian in lots of ways, including the exasperation of the sales people at the many books we kept adding to our pile, and then the need for a detailed receipt for them! Had to be handwritten, every book. Gee, how could we intrude on their time like this! The manager of the bookshop, however, a mild-mannered but jolly babushka, seemed happy at our spending spree! This bookstore has its charms.

The specialty English language bookstore, Booklines, has a wonderful proprietor who knows all his books and obviously loves every one. He answered questions, found and suggested books, and delighted in our wide-ranging interests. His shop is both old-fashioned and modern, with a computer, printer, scanner, security system, and friendly approach to selling books to people who share his passion.

But best of all, we spent 4,000 hgrvnia and got close to 300 books. In addition to this, Iryna and Natalia have already ordered books on learning English, dictionaries, grammar books for different proficiency levels, and related reference works from a Kyiv bookseller, a 3000 hgrvnia order. So this Lugansk trip focused on literature.

The Partnership grant of $900 or 7200 hgrvnia (at 8% exchange rate) goes a long way here. And the local staff and friends of the library made the most of it, with careful and thoughtful purchases that will open new worlds for English learners and readers, and keep on giving.

I felt like a national banker, just going around with my clients, and doling out the money, well YOUR money! Ukrainians think all Americans are rich, and I'll tell you I felt rich in more ways than one on this book-buying spree for the Starobilsk Library.

So what books did we buy? It's a long list, but here are some examples. We bought a series of classic American and English authors, from Thoreau and Twain to London, Hemingway and Steinbeck to Dickens and J.K. Rowling. We got contemporary detective stories and mysteries. We added lots of USA history, world history and geography. Poetry, short story anthologies and "cultural readers" were favorites. We got several Russian classics in English, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Ivano Franko. We got popular international authors like Portuguese writer Paulo Coelho, whose Alchemist and other stories are very popular here (something I just learned and have added to my reading list). And we got lots of great children's books, from classic fairy tales to modern stories beautifully illustrated.

It was worth the trip in 110F heat, and a car ride that featured a HEATER going full blast all the way.We roasted, but never complained. What we won't do for books!

We want to give special thanks once again for special people: Leo and Kathy, Howard and Don, Mindy and Andy, Richard (CoeCoe) and Bob, Linda and Kermit, Bev and Sandy, Tom and Suz, and teacherJudy Bauer and her students at Blacksburg New School in Blacksburg, Virginia, who made origami peace cranes, sewed them into mobiles, and sold them to raise money for their donation to a village library in Ukraine! What an incredible contribution, and what a surprise! Thanks also to all those who made gifts in Loren's memory, and all those who chose to remain anonymous. KUDOS AND OUR HEARTFELT THANKS. Starobilsk will cherish and always remember your generosity and your belief in the power of books to transform lives. May the peace cranes live on!