What's In Your Toolbox?

by Mary Reiman

What’s in your toolbox? I continue to see that phrase quite often as writers discuss what is needed to accomplish goals.

Quite a few years ago (time flies) school librarians used that phrase to evaluate which resources needed to be available for students and teachers to be most effective in their research. Indeed, some of the tools in the toolbox changed significantly when we moved from only books to our digital world. Some stayed the same. The tricky part was determining what carried the most value and how we would best maneuver through those resources.

Now I am again thinking about the value of a toolbox and what it contains from another perspective. This week while putting together a table, a friend brought a very stunning toolbox filled with every gadget perfectly placed, all shiny and new and color coordinated. I will admit, I was a bit jealous. It had bits in every size and shape, and more types of pliers than I knew what to do with or how to use for pulling out all those packing staples. 

When I drove into the garage that evening, I looked over at my old wooden toolbox. It was concocted  by my dad when I bought my first house. I’m guessing he realized I would need some tools, but in his typical ‘why would you buy something new when I have extras you can use’ way of thinking, he found a variety of extra tools for me, a few with a bit of rust. He showed me how to clean them up, sharpen them, and when/how I would most likely use them. I’m not sure he realized the value of the gift he was giving me. At the time I am sure I did not thank him enough. Although they were not shiny and new, over the years they have helped my wimpy arms accomplish more projects than I ever thought possible.

When someone needs help with a project, I often volunteer. I am sure when they hear my voice or read my text saying ‘I’ll be over to help put that together,’ they roll their eyes and think ‘how can she possibly help me?’ 

Well, what I’ve learned over the years is...it’s all about the tools in the toolbox. And what I’ve really learned is...it’s not all about muscles. Thank heavens!  

For example, pulling up carpet. The relatively rusty pincer pliers (I know there’s a professional term for them) work perfectly! And the giant crowbar sitting in the corner of the garage that seems to weigh more than I do. Well, when I needed to move a railroad tie, I did it! Really, it’s all about leverage. 

Leverage: use (something) to maximum advantage OR influence or power used to achieve the desired results 

So what else do I need in my toolbox? What influence/power might I leverage? Do I call my state senator to let her know how I think she should vote on a bill? Do I call my congressman to attempt to convince him that not all of his constituents agree with the way he votes on many bills? Will it matter? Do I voice my opinion often enough, yet not so often that they look at the name on my email and delete the message before they’ve even read my thoughts? How do I articulate my values in such a way that no one could possibly disagree with me. What's in my toolbox to help with those conversations?

And how do I leverage my power, my voice in my reaction to being bombarded by offensive political advertising? No one, no one should campaign with a gun in hand, advertising he will defend me. Defend me from whom? I fear him! How many phone calls and emails need to be sent to share my astonishment, my anxiety, my outrage. 

I am hopeful I will one day open that old toolbox and find wisdom and knowledge and patience and kindness come tumbling out, as well as advice on how to leverage those qualities. That's what I need in my toolbox to weave my way through these tumultuous times. 

What's in your toolbox? 

Ghosts in the rubble

By JoAnne Young 

 

People move on all the time. From loves, from jobs, from buildings. 

 

Moving on this time has a different feel because the Journal Star Building was a space I held, floors I walked, conference rooms where I listened and laughed and explored other people’s lives, deeds and misdeeds. That space, those rooms and floors were obliterated this month. 

 

Gone is the physical structure in which I spent more than three decades of my adult life, a formative time indeed. Rubble now. 

But somehow, it still lives in my head, like other old houses and building ghosts long gone. Anyone else have a map in their head of Ideal Grocery’s aisles and meat  counter and produce area? The counters and seating at the old landmark Valentino’s at 34^th and Holdrege that opened in 1957 and baked its last pizza in 2014? The hallways and that room in the Cather-Pound dorm, imploded in 2017, where you told your secrets to your roommate or pulled an all-nighter during finals week?

Demolishing a building is a waste of many things -- energy, material and history among them, said French architect Anne Lacaton in the Intelligencer. They billow dust and questionable particles into the environment for blocks. 

 

Still, America seems to have an addiction to teardowns, even though old buildings can be recycled into restaurants, offices, housing. The developer that bought the Journal Star property plans to build two towers, six floors and 13 floors on the site for an estimated 320 apartments.  

Over the years as staffing of the Journal Star got thinner and thinner, some reporters talked about how smart it would be to turn the first floor into a restaurant/bar, something like the popular Minneapolis restaurant The Newsroom that features newspaper décor. 

The $1 million Journal Star building was constructed in the early 1950s as a modern production plant for two independent newspapers: the evening Journal and the morning Star, a consolidation needed because of growing printing costs. 

 

The innards of the building were unremarkable, but the history and people who filled it were extraordinary. The concrete, brick and metal may go, but the work and the workers will linger as long as people who can remember exist. 

 

Those rooms, and those people who came in and out over the nearly 70 years of the building’s life, are part of the building blocks of our memories.

 

* Editor Kathleen Rutledge on the carpet by her desk illustrating the difference between lie and lay for young reporter Angie Heywood. 

 

* The stacks of documents, news releases, letters, budget books, directories, photos, AP style books, and movie review packets that overflowed on reporters’ desks.

 

* Gathering around TVs in the sports department to watch in disbelief the coverage of the Challenger explosion in 1986 or the collapse of the World Trade Center in 2001, and then scrambling to get local reaction. Or those Friday after Thanksgiving Husker games, that Nebraska actually won sometimes.

 

* Standing with fellow reporters and editors in the back alley with a can of Moose Drool late on a chilly November night, celebrating because we, one way or another, met our deadlines and put another Nebraska election to bed. 

 

* The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days of merging two papers in 1995, and then surviving the strangeness and exhaustion, and putting out some pretty decent papers. Then building together as the combined Journal Star. 

* That strangely lit room in the basement where the creative tech types hung out. The green tiled stairway. The smell of ink and newspapers. 

Everything else be damned, we could always count on change inside 926 P St. 

 

Bricks and mortar aren’t people, but gosh, you can still grieve them. 

 

So hug your historic home or school or workplace, and keep gathering memories. You never know when that wrecking ball will come calling.

Nebraska: A Pro-Life State?

 

by Marilyn Moore

"Nebraska is a pro-life state.”  This statement has been proclaimed often by our governor, Pete Ricketts.  Most recently, I heard him make this assertion in an interview with Nebraska Public Media reporter Fred Knapp earlier this week.  He said this in reference to the bills that have been introduced in the legislature that would further restrict women seeking access to abortions, in defiance of the present (but perhaps not-for-long) boundaries established by the US Supreme Court nearly fifty years ago.  When the reporter asked him about the description of Nebraska as a pro-life state, in light of a 2014 poll from the Pew Research Center that showed that 50% of Nebraskans favored abortion in all or most cases, and 46% opposed abortion in all or most cases, the governor dismissed the poll, and went on to say that there are other ways that Nebraskans are pro-life, citing the experiences of neighbors helping neighbors in times of disaster, such as floods, or tornados, or the pandemic.  

This is not a blog about abortion, though that may be my topic at some time in the future.  This is, instead, a musing about what a pro-life state looks like, if we go with the Governor’s statement for the moment that pro-life is not limited to the topic of abortion.  

It seems to me that in a pro-life state, elected leaders would be at the front of the movement to protect people in a pandemic.  They would do that with the megaphone that is theirs alone, because no one gets more media attention than elected officials.  They would also do that with specific attention to laws and policies that promote, rather than inhibit, evidence-based practices to counter the pandemic.  What do we see in Nebraska?  

The first, best practice we had as a nation, before vaccines were developed, was a face mask, and every public health official continues to say it’s a valid and important practice in reducing spread of the virus.  Our governor has resisted every effort by public health leaders at the local level to require this public health best practice.  The State Attorney General, with the governor’s support, has just sued the Public Health Director in the city of Omaha for the mask mandate she implemented this past week, as cases and hospitalizations there have sky-rocketed in the past month.  He has relentlessly criticized the Mayor of Lincoln and the Public Health Director in Lancaster County for mask mandates.  He asserts that local officials may not make these decisions, that they must have permission from the Nebraska Department of Health to do so.  (Not such a champion of local control in this situation, I guess.) I’m not the expert on the statutes regarding the relationship between local public health departments and the state, but it seems to me that if there are statutes prohibiting local officials from making the best decisions possible for the residents of their cities and counties, a pro-life state, and Governor, would be about the business of changing those laws.  If there are differences between Lancaster County and Arthur County, and there are, then why shouldn’t local experts have the authority to make the decisions that protect the lives of their residents?  If we were a pro-life state, we would place a high priority on those decisions that protect lives.

Speaking of the lives of residents, I believe that anything else, anything other than Covid 19, that killed 160 Nebraskans in a two-week time period (January 1 to January 14) would get elected leaders’ immediate attention.  In all of 2021, 220 Nebraskans died of automobile accidents; more than half that many died in two weeks from Covid 19.  And yet, legislators are introducing bills that would prohibit the implementation of public health safety measures, like masks, vaccinations, and testing.  If we were a pro-life state, we would not be looking at legislation that hinders, rather than helps, public efforts to protect lives.

While the governor has said, on several occasions, that he thinks people should be vaccinated, he has resisted every effort, at every level, to require the vaccination that every public health official and epidemiologist has said would be the most helpful step in controlling this virus.  Indeed, Nebraska was one of the states that sued to stop the federal mandate for vaccinations in workplaces, which our governor described as a “breathtaking example of federal overreach.”  The US Supreme Court agreed, determining that Congress had not granted that much authority to the federal agency.  Could be; my purpose here is not to argue that decision, though I’d like to.  But if the law is what the court says it is, then wouldn’t a pro-life governor of a pro-life state be urging Congress to authorize life-saving practices in the time of a pandemic?

And about overreach….on the day that Governor Ricketts described the federal agency’s efforts to mandate vaccines as overreach, he issued a directed health measure aimed at a private, non-profit, medical center in Nebraska, directing that they cease all elective surgeries, because they had moved to Crisis Standards of Care.  It must be awkward to be governor in a state with  world-renowned infectious disease specialists, who know the science and speak the science and advise on best practices in public health, when you as the governor don’t really want to implement those best practices.  So when the medical center, with those world-renowned infectious disease specialists, implements Crisis Standards of Care, it pretty much says we’re in a crisis, and that in spite of the governor’s assertions that Nebraska came through the pandemic just fine, without mandates, and that businesses stayed open and children stayed in school, the fact is, hospitals are full and over-full, and the next surge  is still in front of us, and of course doctors and medical centers will have to make decisions about who of those people lined up in the emergency room are going to be admitted to an ICU for covid care.  That’s what a crisis looks like.  And on top of all of this, that medical center is now being told by the governor how to make that decision.  Those are hard decisions to be made; I am confident the health care providers and their leaders have the information, the judgment, the wisdom, the head and the heart, to make the best decisions possible when there is no good decision.  I would think a pro-life governor in a pro-life state would want to help and support those professionals, not second guess them.  To those professionals, his directive might look like….overreach.

Putting aside all policies, regulations, laws, etc., I would think a pro-life governor in a pro-life state would use his bully pulpit, intentionally, deliberately, repeatedly, to urge public health best practices.  Our governor has said on repeated occasions that Nebraska doesn’t need mandates, because Nebraskans will do the right thing.  He has also said that vaccination is the right thing to do.  Yet, from the county map on the Nebraska Department of Health Covid Dashboard, just over a third of the counties report a vaccination rate of more than 50%, and only two, that’s right, two out of ninety-three counties, have a vaccination rate of 70% or higher.  And those are the two counties that the governor repeatedly criticizes for leadership shown by public health officials.  The governor barn-stormed the state last year, drumming up opposition to the proposed federal 30 by 30 voluntary conservation plan.  He’s speaking in multiple stops across the state again this week, promoting his legislative initiatives.  Clearly, he believes that being in local communities across the state is an effective way to communicate what’s important.  Where’s the barnstorming tour promoting vaccines, urging people to do the right thing, to take action to save their own lives and the lives of others?  I suspect that the majority of those counties with a vaccination rate below 50% voted for this governor; isn’t the pro-vaccine message an important one for them to hear, too?  Again and again?  It is, after all, a pro-life message.

In a pro-life state, where every life is important, we would recognize, affirm, and celebrate the connectedness of our lives.  Our pro-life governor would remind us that it’s not just for our individual benefit that we wear a mask, or get vaccinated, or quarantine if we have a positive test.  It’s for all the other lives that we touch, too, literally or figuratively.  Teachers and students are protecting each other.  Health care workers and patients are protecting each other.  Retail clerks and customers are protecting each other.  Those providing and those receiving governmental services are protecting each other.  We would recognize that the 2941 Nebraskans who have died of Covid as of January 15 are not 2941 isolated deaths.  Left behind are children and spouses who mourn, friendship circles that have a missing chair, businesses and workplaces that struggle to replace expertise, and lives and stories that ended way too soon.  In a pro-life state, where every life is important, we are all the poorer because of 2941 lives lost.  

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A meandering blog of broken things … of garage doors, the Taliban and flower seeds

By Mary Kay Roth

This isn’t the blog I was planning to write.

My initial concept was hatched on Christmas Eve when my car was clobbered from behind for the second time this year. While slowing for a traffic light, a woman plowed into the car behind me, and that car in turn ran into mine.  The driver in the back car was a dear woman, dressed up in holiday finery, significantly injured, a woman I held close as we waited for the emergency medical folks to arrive. 

Eventually, both drivers from the other two cars were taken to the hospital that evening. And as the dusk settled on Dec. 24, I found myself sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, waiting a couple hours while police processed paperwork. I was lucky to be unharmed, but was feeling quite unanchored. 

Thus the concept for a January blog began to form: A past year of broken things.

In a summer bicycling accident this year, I broke my wrist and lost a pricy cap off my front tooth. My ancient roof shingles finally gave way. My poor dog had two close calls with death over the past 12 months, a mystery malady and a ferocious dog attack.  Right now my cell phone is completely shattered right down to the internal gears. This most recent traffic accident is shoving my car into the body shop – again.  And to top it off, I backed into my garage door last month and every time it goes up and down, more wooden pieces fall off. 

So, I was going to write about shattered pieces – with the backdrop of Jan. 6 and a crushed country packed with political madness, COVID dialed up to red again, systemic racism, labor shortages and grocery shortages.  

Admittedly, the plan for my blog wasn’t fully formed, but you probably get the drift.  My theme was heading into the Pit of Despair.  

Then two things happened.

• On the morning of New Year’s Eve an unexpected “freeze fog” turned Interstate 80 into an ice-skating rink and left me stranded at a Bellevue truck stop.  But in a sweet surprise, two kind-hearted truckers guided me home. I have no idea how those truckers voted or how they stood on vaccinations, but they paused on the road to help a stranger. Thanks to them, nothing broke that morning. 
• Several days later I was working on a freelance story and interviewed four tenacious young-adult siblings, refugees from Afghanistan. The two brothers had worked for the U.S. military, consequently the entire family was at risk of Taliban retaliation. Fairly fluent in English, one brother told a compelling story of their escape and of how blessed they felt to find a home in Lincoln. Toward the end of the interview, however, I spoke to the issues they still faced and asked how they were feeling about inevitable challenges. The brother who had been sharing their story paused, smiled and said, essentially: “The Taliban are not trying to kill us. I don’t have many complaints.”

Busted. Somehow my original blog of despair was breaking apart (so to speak).  

After all, earlier this week my fabulous dentist replaced my front crown with something made of even stronger material (though he declined my offer to test it out).  My wrist is mostly healed with a very cool scar. My dog, Zuzu, is alive and as neurotic and glorious as ever. And I just ordered a brand-new coral-colored phone that has no chunks missing.

A few days ago, I had tea with a friend who shared her favorite meme from this past year. It pictures two people, looking into the future. The first describes how bleak and futile the world looks, while the other talks of color and hope on the horizon.  

Person No. 1: “Good grief the world is totally messed up. How can you see any hope?”

Person No. 2: “Because I am planting flower seeds.”

In the end, dear readers, I extend my sincere apologies because this is one of those maddening blogs that flies around in circles – and I’m not quite sure how to bring it in for a landing.

I read somewhere that the world's population was projected to be 7.8 billion people on New Year's Day, 2022 – almost 332.5 million in the United States … with our country experiencing a birth every nine seconds.  

So, there are 332.5 million people in this country who have choices each and every day. We can break but we can mend. We can write hate mail or love letters. We can invest. Listen.  Recycle. Get civic. By god, we can protest.  Hang onto our passion. Give blood. Sponsor a refugee family. Donate hair. Thank a service person.  Pet a dog (or cat).  Create a care package.  Live and love.  

Granted, my garage door is still broken and that pretty much sucks.

But when I think back to my Christmas Eve accident I remember that no less than 20 people slowed and stopped, offering to help. Recently, I have discovered both other drivers are home from the hospital. And my fine mechanic says – lucky me – I will likely have another brand-new bumper with a clean slate for a fresh crop of bumper stickers.

Undoubtedly, more things are gonna break this year.  But I will resolutely paste and tape and nail them back together.  I’ll stock up on super glue – as well as flower seeds. And when I foresee a possible slide into the blackest of despair, I will ask the important question: “Is the Taliban trying to kill you today?”

On Brain Injury, Butterflies, and Becoming

 by Penny Costello

Dear Readers, I invite you to join me on a circuitous journey of heart, mind, and humanity. At a time when many are gleefully launching into 2022, I’ll be joining you soon. But as I write this, I’m still in a reflective mode. Through much of 2021, reflections have centered around or been inspired by concussions, cocoons, and consciousness.

On Brain Injury

Dead Man's Run Rescue

Seven years ago on Thanksgiving Day, I fell head first into a ravine while playing a rousing game of fetch with my dogs. It happened in a place where I had been taking dogs for walks for years on the East Campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Salt Creek runs through the site, carving a 30-foot channel called Dead Man’s Run. I had never had occasion to go close to the creek in all those years. But, on that day, the tennis ball ended up within inches of the edge of the bank, and when I bent over to retrieve the ball, a very slight misstep took me sailing over the edge, landing on my head 30 feet below. I didn’t lose consciousness. When the rescue squad transported me to the trauma center a couple of hours later, I was told that I had sustained three neck fractures and a concussion. As awful as that sounds, I didn’t die. I wasn’t paralyzed.

I embarked upon what I refer to as a journey of recovery. (Apologies to Lewis and Clark historians, I can’t resist a play on words.) As the euphoria of my good luck dispersed over time and I prepared to return to work, I became conscious of the lasting impacts of my brain injury – fatigue, tinnitus, difficulty concentrating, memory issues, light and noise sensitivity. It was then I learned the ingratiating term ‘new normal’, and came to understand that there would be no going back to the person I was. The new normal for me included early retirement when that would not have been my choice. Like it or not, I was on a new path, and little did I know at the time that I’d be guided on this journey in part by Monarch Butterflies.

On Butterflies

Several years ago, a lone milkweed plant (Asclepias Syriaca) appeared in my yard. I live on a corner lot, and the spot where this plant appeared is the sunniest, most exposed area of the property. At the time, I knew very little about milkweed. A friend of mine pointed it out to me. I knew that it generated pods, and remembered picking those off plants as a kid on our ranch in South Dakota. I would soon learn that milkweed blossoms provide one of the most wonderfully fragrant smells I’ve experienced.

I would also learn that milkweed is the only plant upon which Monarch Butterflies will lay their eggs and it is the primary food source for Monarch caterpillars. Habitat loss, climate change, pesticide use, and agricultural practices have caused a 90 percent decline in Monarch populations over the past two decades.

Since that first plant appeared in my yard, protecting the milkweed became a priority, and each year, seeds would burst forth from the pods and scatter, rewarding me with more and more plants the following year.

I’ve had interesting conversations with passers-by when I’ve been weeding that spot. I’ve explained to little kids that I’m trying to help the Monarchs. I’ve explained the same thing to the city weed authority and a nice engineer from the Traffic and Safety Department when the milkweeds got too high for motorists to see pedestrians approaching the corner. Ultimately, we reached a compromise that would benefit motorists, pedestrians and Monarch Butterflies.

The more I have learned about the Monarchs, the more concerned, fascinated, and enamored I’ve become. My feelings for them have evolved into respect, awe, and gratitude.

Weather Radar Image, Monarch Migration

Monarch Butterflies are amazing creatures. Their story as a species is enthralling. The Monarch breeding population will produce four or five generations during a summer season, each of which produces the next generation. The last generation of the year fulfills a different purpose. The survival of the species depends upon this generation to make the 3,000 mile migration to Mexico and California in October, to overwinter there, and begin the return trek the following February or March, reproducing subsequent generations along the way who will complete the journey. It takes three to four generations to make the northward migration. While the first three or four generations have a life span of two to six weeks, the last generation each year can live for nine months!

In terms of life stages, the egg stage lasts three to five days. The larva emerges from the egg and lives as a caterpillar for 11 to 18 days, during which time it becomes an eating, growing machine. The caterpillar then produces sticky ‘silk’, with which it attaches itself to the milkweed to enable its metamorphosis. It then bursts out of its skin and converts that to the protective pupa (chrysalis). While in the chrysalis, the caterpillar partially dissolves, allowing inherent cellular structures that become wings, antennae, and butterfly bodies to develop. This complete metamorphosis takes up to two weeks. When butterflies emerge from the chrysalis, they strengthen and spread their wings and prepare for migration

 On Becoming

Monarchs are the only butterflies that migrate in two directions as birds do. They use environmental cues to tell them when it’s time to go. The magnetic pull of the Earth and the direction of the Sun aid them in navigating to overwintering locations and summer breeding grounds. And they recognize and locate milkweed, the keystone plant species ensuring their continued existence.

When caterpillars have been subjected to chemical gases in the lab, butterflies they become have shown an aversion to the odor of those same gasses, suggesting that they have memory that transcends the stages of metamorphosis.

I can’t help but wonder what awareness or consciousness they have of their generational structure. Do they identify with which generation they are in, and what they are responsible for in terms of feeding, breeding, and reproduction? Do they get excited with the prospect of flying 3,000 miles to winter in Mexico, or breathe a sigh of relief that their role is simply to eat and have as much sex as possible in order to fulfill their purpose?

I have to at least consider the possibility that this is a sentient, conscious species, and marvel at the extent to which they are connected and tuned into the cycles of nature, her signals and seasons, and their complete engagement in and commitment to their place in the circle of life. In seeing this and pondering those questions, my faith in the Universe as a living, spiritual entity deepens. This can’t be a random evolutionary crap shoot with no purpose. Something great is at play here. And we’re so lucky to be in the game.

I recognized the Monarchs as guides in my journey of brain injury recovery after reading about the stages and process of their metamorphosis. At times it has felt like I was encased in a chrysalis, uncertain of how, when, or as whom I would emerge. 

I’m sure I am not unique in this experience. People constantly encounter setbacks, injury, heartbreak, pandemics, and pathologies that encase us for a time. Like the Monarchs, we have to trust the process. A process the result of which, ultimately, is becoming.

As we go through these stages and experiences in life, when we come to an ending of who we are or what we knew, that merely signals the beginning of the next stage of what we are becoming. 2021 felt like that. I think I’m ready now for 2022. I’m grateful for a loving, supportive spouse, committed friends and care providers who have stood by me through these past seven years. And I want to extend a special thanks to the four Mavens of Mayhem who tolerate my mercurial, meandering contributions to this blog.

In her book, My Antonia, Willa Cather wrote, “I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great…”

Become a part of something entire - that’s the key, isn’t it?

This past summer, every time I would walk out of the house a pair of Monarch butterflies flew up to greet me. They flitted around my head as I walked around my front yard. It felt as if they were purposefully coming to greet me. I talked to them and wished them well on their journey to Mexico. And I was entirely happy.

With all due respect, Ms. Cather, I submit that we don’t have to die to, as you wrote, ‘be dissolved into something complete and great.’ The real trick is to realize that we are an intrinsic part of something complete and great, and to walk in that awareness while we’re alive. It wouldn’t hurt to plant some milkweed while we’re at it. Feel free to hit me up for some seeds.

Thank you, dear readers for taking this journey. May 2022 become the fulfillment of your hopes and dreams.

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