THANK YOU TO ALL WHSO HELPED MAKE OUR CHRISTMAS SALE A SUCCESS!
This week we have heard of so many new strays being found in our local area, that I though I would post some information on the problems facing these poor little creatures as fall and winter moves in.
As the days grow shorter and night with its colder temperatures moves in these drop off or left behind animals seek shelter and food. The true unkindness of people is the shortsightedness of the former owner, many of whom think a domestic kitten or cat can seek food like a feral cat whose mother teaches them to hunt.
If we could get some cooperation at spreading the word about the importance of neuter and spaying your animals, we could help with this problem.
Kittens are great for playing with but ownership is a great responsibility. Have your cat fixed and remember that if you move it is still your responsibility… and apartment dwellers should realize many landlords do not want tenants with cats.
We also need more funding for ANIMAL SHELTERS, AS WELL AS VOLUNTEERS AND SUPPORTERS, FOR THOSE THAT WE DO HAVE. An more free or low cost clinics to help with fixing.
Go to our clinic and heath pages for importation on clinics in our area.
We also have a lost and found page….send backstreetmary@yahoo.com a picture with information and we will share it!!
History is a mystifying seductress to some of us.Everywhere we look we find a piece of history
that we are curious about.MyselfI am continually looking into the history of
everything and many times finding that I know very little of the history of things at all..
For New Years we all set goals for the new year and tonight
we had a museum dinner meeting to celebrate New Year and also to talk about what to do
about the museum for 2015.This little
band of helpers and myself have struggled, poured much energy and money into keeping the museum open. The question that came to my mind was, ”should I continue after 20
years?”
After all left I thought about the New Year as most of us
do and I tried to find something that would guide me.I asked myself if you didn’t work on the museum what would you do?The answers were pretty simple since I try to
do them now… 1. Help wipe out poverty!2. Work to end all Wars.
I am adamant that we are in a terrible time of class
separation, I remember a line from a song…”The hands of the have not’s have
fallen out of reach!”They have and are
becoming more so everyday. We are also in a time of world wars and skirmishes that are killing thousands of innocent people...and for what?
So I went on line and tried to find out what that great guy
Pope Francis...who signs everything just Francis…said in his New Year message. His message fittingly came on January 1st and the 48th anniversary of the Day of World Peace, and the
Maria Dolens bell was shown ringing in the background. The Maria Dolens? And so I was off on my newest history quest.
The Maria Dolens is the name of a bell that was cast from the
bronze of many of the cannons - 19, one from each countries that participated in WWI.It sits in Roverto, in today’s northern Italy and it
rings 100 times each day in the evening to honor the fallen and to many to act as a symbol for peace and an end to war.
The Bell was the idea of Don Antonio Rossaro, called the Bell of
the Fallen.It was given the name Maria
Dolens and placed on the Malipiero tower of Castello di Rovereto.It has been recast many times because of
fractures from ringing 100 times a day no doubt... but it has always been recast and returned
to the tower where is nightly reminds the world of the price of war.The latest recast was blessed by Pope Paul
VI and on November 4th, 1965 was placed on the Colle di Miravalle
where it today rest above the city of Roverto.
On the bell, which is the second largest swinging bell in
the world, were added at its recasting the statements of the Pontiff
Pius XII "With peace nothing is lost. Everything is to be lost through
war." John XXIII: "In pace hominum ordinata concordia et
tranquilla libertas."
Today it rang 100 times at midday and was shown
on the large screen in St. Peter’s square.
It is said that it tolls in the hope that Man, in the memory
of the Fallen of every war and every nation in the world, may find the path
that leads to Peace….
Blogging for New Years this year left me blank. The week has been filled with snow shoveling, News stories about guns, trouble, murder, firemen...all too much. I did manage to get away for Christmas Day and visit my cousin who just lost his father. My Christmas present to my family was a video of all the generations...(5 including my nephew).
Holidays are just not my happiest time as I have lost almost all my old friends and all my relatives.....the first week of January is also when my mother died.
Mom died in Madison County even though she lived her life 95 years in Syracuse in Onondaga County. I had to move her here to a nursing home after taking care of her and dad for a number of years. When my friend Chris inched closer to death and I had to take the job of Madison County Historian to pay for drugs and bills.... mom became a Madison County person. After her death I didn't know what to write for her obit and suddenly an old song I associated with her came into my head...I laughed and wrote this!
My Mother...
Mom
always had a sharp wit, a wit that she had up to the week she died.She was outspoken and always told you what
she thought, whether it was good or bad.She always had stories of all varieties to tell us kids, stories of
picking peas in the summer with her family to make money for school, of her
aunt who carried a gun, and others of being chased by mobsters in a wedding
party she was part of.
Domenic Messere
Her
stories eventually went on to meeting my father and marrying him, which gave
her endless stories of his enlistment in the Army and her travels to see
him.Mom worked at a clothing factory in
Syracuse during the war, and never missed an opportunity to tell these tales of
travel horror to her co-workers upon her return from the many trips she took to
see my father whenever he was stationed stateside or was sent back to the
United States to go to school.She
regaled them with stories of days of traveling on trains sitting on her
suitcase, of freezing in unheated trains at 30 below zero, of walking miles
because she could not get a bus to a camp, and tales of sitting next to
convicts in chains.Once dad had gotten
her a room in a hotel and she was bumped from it so dad’s roommate’s wife could
stay in it…his roommate’s wife was Deana Durbin, the Hollywood star! For all of
her traveling and tales, she gained the nickname “Pistol Packin’ Mama”.
Once
Dad put her up in the Sheriff of Brownville, Texas’ house for a while, there
she met prisoners that the Sheriff brought home to watch while he was eating,
and there she learned first hand of rattlesnakes, banditos and revenuers.She told tales of riding on the El Capitan
Train (then the fastest train crossing the country) to go to California to
visit dad, only to see him for one hour as his unit was called out to go to the
Pacific. (Dad served on every front of the War but Burma, so he was gone a
lot.)
She
also told of coming home to a cold apartment at 10 below and her hot water
bottle had leaked into her bed.She
didn’t sleep at all that night as it took her forever to flip the mattress over
by herself, ma was only 90 pounds then and 4’ 10”.
Mom
always dressed well and was a lady, never really having to work after the War
and when she died she had her teeth, dark hair and a great complexion which
made her look like she was in her late 60’s or 70’s.Dad always claimed the secret to her youthful
look was olive oil on the inside, and Oil of Olay on the outside.
The one
thing that is for sure is that mom hated me being known as Back Street Mary.
When she saw a newspaper story on my becoming the new Madison County Historian
she frowned at me and shook her head and said, “Why do you have that
nickname?”I replied, “What would you
expect from a girl whose mother was called “Pistol Packin’ Mama?”
For once she had no reply......
Here is Willie Nelson to sing it for you..Enjoy..Happy New Year!
