Passion for Neighborhoods

I've been both honored and queried about my apparent hyper-active passion for neighborhoods.  No doubt the passion stems from the neighborhood of my childhood where every yard was available for play, everyone's pets roamed with us, and most every adult knew who you were, how you were to behave, and where you belonged at dinner time.  I and my friends enjoyed daily outdoor adventures along with a secure sense of our environs.

Apparently, I still seek that!  It's a treat when others in my grown-up urban neighborhood say they do, too.  So there's a  Fisher Park neighborhood newsletter to write quarterly, neighborhood Board meetings to attend monthly, the website to update, quarterly work days in our lovely park, and delightful social events.  Recently I've begun organizing a Fisher Park Neighborhood archives, in memory of Mary Lee Wood Copeland who was such an inspiration; absolutely lovely and resolute in proactive caretaking of neighborhood spaces. 

Participating in the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress provides yet another extension of those passions, ensuring we associate faces and personalities with dozens of other neighborhoods, securing a home town feel across spaces that we may not otherwise take opportunities to frequent.

As always, we do these things because they summon greater pleasure than we could find on our own.  May your neighborhood be as joyful and welcoming as is mine.

For a friend

My husband Bob's dear friend chose to leave us all on my birthday, February 24, 2009, and we'll never forget the day nor fully understand the "why". Yet we respect his talents and memory enough to be forever greatful for having known him for over a quarter of a century.

Bob is executor of the estate, a task he now recommends you never agree to do, no matter how dear the friend or close the friendship. We've learned things we did not want to know, tried to make sense of and explain to family and friends what we've learned, and our dining room remains filled with boxes and file folders of paperwork which arrives daily. 

Yet as poet Robert Service penned "a promise made is a deed unpaid" so we're managing the estate, day by day, as was our friend's request.  Through it all, we remember Jim and his frequent, willing smile.

Mom in a Teapot

Brother, sister, sister-in-law, nephew, and I finally had a perfect weather weekend together and took the opportunity to properly bury mom's ashes in our home town cemetery.

Armed with a shovel, we snuck past the "official" cemetery workers. We and dug a small hole on top of dad's grave, poured mom's cremains into her favorite Wesley Wedgewood teapot, added a few azalea blooms from her garden (blooming from an azalea given to us at dad's death in 1966), tucked in all our baby teeth that she'd apparently saved low these 60-something years, and topped her off with a small gold pin monogramed with her initials (HCS) so long ago given to mom by dad. Dear nephew John, recently turned 18 years of age, read the two blessings printed on both sides of the teapot, and we tucked mom in a region likely to be nicely above our dad's generous heart.

Not everyone buries their mom in a teapot. But when it came to choosing a container, we jointly agreed this to be an excellent choice. Mom or dad had purchased this Wesley Wedgewood reproduction teapot about 40 years ago, part of a sweet setting including the teapot, plate, creamer, and sugar. I've read that Joshia Wedgewood made the first teapot of this design for John Wesley, founder of Methodism, and the original is in John Wesley's house on Chapel Road in London. http://teapotsteapotsteapots.blogspot.com/search?q=calico

Mom had told me that this teapot's spout was twice broken, once by sister Mary and once by dad. So for most of it's years perched on our kitchen table, the glued spout made it useless for hot tea, yet it remained decorative we enjoyed the blessings printed on each side. Mom often admired the teapot while she ate at the kitchen table, and since the blessings printed on the teapot were about food, which she clearly enjoyed, we thought this the perfect setting for her final rest.

If you could see the Wedgewood Wesley teapot in person, you'd read the blessings it bestows.

"We thank thee Lord for this our food

But more because of Jesus blood

Let manna to our Souls be given

The bread of Life sent down from Heaven"

[and on the other side]

"Be present at our Table Lord

Be here and everywhere ador'd

These creatures blefs & grant that we

May feast in Paradice with thee"

Rest in peace Harriet Cutler Coburn Stringfield, RN, and thank you for being our mom.

Oh yes, and if you have any interest in teapots, you'll be thrilled to visit http://teapotsteapotsteapots.blogspot.com

The Joy of Editing

In January, I had the pleasure to preview and share comments with folks at Inmagic Inc. prior to their publishing Library 2.0 Defined - The Social Library . The article describes a SOPAC, a Social Online Public Library, as a web resource which can collect, organize, and disseminate knowledge generated both from top-down vetted resources and also from bottom-up contributions from the SOPAC's authors and users.

In the process of reading and commenting on the article, I was most pleased to learn that one of Inmagic's principals is brother to a Librarian and that she'd also read and commented stringently on the preview. A Librarian Sister is a powerful resource and I'm quite delighted to know that Inmagic Inc. has access to such a resource! Enjoy reading the article and know it has passed through at least two librarians who share "The Joy of Editing"!

Meritorious Achievement

Many thanks to the Special Libraries Association North Carolina Chapter (NC/SLA) for honoring me with their 2008 Meritorious Achievement Award!

I recall being on a NC/SLA Committee of some sort many years ago, just beginning to get my feet wet in the profession that I've enjoyed for 30 years now, when a similarly wet-behind-the-ears librarian in the room suggested that our Chapter institute 3 awards: Meritorious Achievement Award for "notable and enduring contributions" to the NC/SLA Chapter and the Special Libraries profession, Horizon Award for a young chapter member who, through work and professional activities, shows "promise of becoming an outstanding member of the profession", and an Information Managment Award, which recognizes an organization, served by a North Carolina special library, for its "outstanding or notable support of library and information science."

I immediately and irreverantly labeled the first two the Geezer Award and the Young Whipper-Snapper Award and have had difficulty referring to them otherwise ever since. Understand that I've never disrespected the awards, and I have recommended others for these awards over the years, yet I had assigned cute, memorable names.

Now that I've received the Geezer Award, I mean the Meritorious Achievement Award, and appreciate the many years of contributions, activities, and ideas it represents, as well as my peers generosity in even submitting my name for consideration, I think I'll add it's more formal name to my resume. Thanks all for your thoughtfulness!

Paths

Years ago I purchased the most wonderful book about paths; paths to our home, paths through our gardens, paths through meadows, wherever we find and follow or create paths. At the time I was planning a practical path from our new driveway, to our new patio, leading to our older 1925 home in the historic Fisher Park neighborhood.

The greatest joy of this book (Garden Paths: Inspiring Designs and Practical Projects by Goardon Hayward, Camden House Publishing, 1993) expands beyond the practical matters of how to construct various paths, and materials to use, by offering lovely quotes about paths at the beginning of each chapter. I share my favorite path quotes from the book with you!

• A path leads to the mystery beyond. Dan Kiley, a Vermont landscape architect since 1935.
  
  
• No single element in the design of a garden is as important as where you put your paths. Hugh Johnson, The Principles of Gardening.
  


• In a path is the beginning of narrative, that sure and welcoming sign of human presence. Michael Pollan, Second Nature.
  


• The way we are enticed into the garden and encouraged to pursue its experience to the end is like the plot of a novel. It is the thread on which the whole story unfolds. Joe Eck, garden designer in southern Vermont.
  


• Once paths are comfortable, all other elements of the garden fit together. Jeff Blakely, a Florida landscape architect.

And my favorite ...

• The path is how the garden is known. Robert Dash, painter and gardener in Sagaponack, NY.

I hope the paths I shape during my lifetime will reflect the spirit of a generally good nature and attempting good works. The stone path that I eventually constructed is today both lovely and useful, leading family and visitors from an extraordinarily ordinary concrete driveway into our garden and curving to reach the patio steps. The path is wide enough for several people to stand and chat while coming and going, is shaded by a sturdy Sunset Maple in summer months, is delineated with small drought tolerant germander (herbs) with purple flowers, and the path bifurcates leading us back to the garage for tools, the mower, and hobbies. This path was my first and required a great deal of my contemplation and labor. (Just ask my husband, who wondered what the big deal was!) Years later, I still adore it!

Father's Day

Father's Day 2008. There are a myriad of reasons why I left the security and comforts of corporate Special Librarianship to start my database and web design business, InfoCrofters. One of those reasons, of equal significance to many other reasons, is that my dad died at the age of 56 in the prime of his life. And reflecting on his short life, I wanted to ensure I create a full life for myself in at least as many years as he did.

Dad, Dr. Thomas Stringfield, was an excellent small town family physician who helped innumerable members of our home town community (Waynesville, NC), day and night, house calls and all. Having done all that good work for so many people for so much of his life, he died alone in a hospital bed 5 hours from our home and family, after 3 months threaded with tubes, and hands padded and constrained so he couldn't pull out the tubes to be more comfortable. This was long before the hospice movement was embraced nor recognized the value of spending your last days comfortable and at home. Dad contracted tubercular meningitis. I wish that the end of his life could have been comfortable, as he had worked so diligently day and night to ensure his family, neighbors, friends, patients, and community were as comfortable as he could help them to be.


So I recognized in the comfort and security of my late-40's that I sought a life change which might enable me to contribute to my community in ways similar to dad's; ways you can't fully accommodate when working 8-6 Monday through Friday within a comfortable corporate box. With 17 years accumulated seniority in a corporate Special Library, I was still 13 years from corporate retirement when I reflected ... "If I'm fortunate, I may have many more years of life, but even if I don't, the next few years could be spent in a fashion that approximates the years that Dad so generously shared his talents, personality, and good nature with his community." He died too young, but his brief years were positively invaluable.


Remembering Dad, I've begun to read Bill Sloan's 2006 book Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at Peleliu, 1944- The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War. (Thanks to our sister Mary for sending the book!) Our dad was a young physician in that WWII battlefield on Peleliu island and won a bronze star for efforts going foxhole to foxhole trying to rescue or tend wounded soldiers. Like many veterans, once home he rarely spoke of the war and considered himself and his brothers all fortunate to have returned home; in various conditions, but home. Yet one story he shared, chuckling, was that as he hopped into one foxhole, he faced only one man, a Japanese soldier. They looked at each other momentarily, as if to say "I have no issue with you" and they both hopped back out without harming one another. He lived to smile at that mutual reflection of both fear and humanity in the midst of battle.

Since leaving the comfort and security of corporate Special Librarianship in 1998, I now work for the ability to set my own schedule including time every day to give to my customers and also to my community. Whether volunteering with my Fisher Park Neighborhood Association, historic preservation colleagues, animal welfare groups, family, friends, or professional library, museum, or archive associations, I am now fortunate to make time for community. This keeps me tremendously busy, yet brings a sense that accomplishment that all time within our days, not our number of days or years, is where the value lies. Father's Day remains special to me still. What great fortune to have had the father I did my first 12 years of life!

P.S. Mom was great too during her 84 years of life, and Sister Mary and Brother Sam and in-laws, I treasure all of you, too! You'll just need to wait a bit for my blog entries about YOU!