Send Me Your Ideas!!

To my readers: Please send your ideas, stories (true or not), jokes, photos, articles, opinions, and advice to: dragonfly6160@yahoo.com and I will put it in this Blog. Thanks

Drug Addiction

Yesterday, I found two syringes on the sidewalk of the Warren avenue bridge that connects east and west Bremerton. It is no secret that Bremerton has a serious drug problem.Recently, there was a proposal to open a Methadone clinic downtown, but the city council voted it down. I have never really understood addiction. If any of my readers have any thoughts on the subject, please write me @ dragonfly6160@yahoo.com and I will put your responses in my blog. Thanks.

Book Review- "Lyddie" by Katherine Paterson

Lydia Worthen is the teenage heroine of the young adult novel "Lyddie"  by Katherine Paterson.

  Sometime in the middle of the 19th century, Lydia's unstable mother sells her and her brother Charlie into servitude in order to pay off her absent husbands debts (a common practice at the time.) At first Lyddie goes to work for an innkeeper, but is discharged after she leaves to visit her family's farm.

Lyddie then travels to Lowell, Massachusetts and finds work in a textile mill. The work is long and hard, but Lyddie becomes adept at it. Most of the mill workers are young women and a few of them attempt to organize and protest the harsh working conditions, but the mill owners allow very little dissent.

During her time at the mill, Lyddie teaches herself to read and grows from a girl into a young woman. The author, Katherine Paterson has a quick and easy style and young readers will keep turning the pages as they learn about the beginnings of the Labor and Women's movements.

Turn Off The TV.

One evening after dinner, when I was about nine or ten years old ,my Mother announced that she was turning off the TV and we were going to do something different. I threw a fit, but my Mother was firm and until bedtime we played games. It was a fun night and I remember it more than all of the TV programs I watched when I was a kid. My Mother never repeated the no TV night, but I wish that she had. It is more important to spend time with the ones you love then to waste your life sitting in front of a lighted screen. So stop reading my blog and go do something with your family.

Hitchhiker

About five years ago, I was taking a Saturday drive to Des Moines.(Des Moines,Washington is a small town on the Puget Sound about fifteen miles south of Seattle.)As I was about to enter the town, I noticed a young woman hitchhiking on the side of the road. I know that it can be dangerous, but I stopped and the young woman got in.

 The young woman spoke very fast and I learned that she was a prostitute,( although she never propositioned me.) I dropped her off at a cheap motel on Highway 99. I wish I could have done something for her and I still wonder what became of her.

Bremerton Clean Up Day

On Saturday, I volunteered for the annual Bremerton city clean-up. Legal Bremerton residents were given the oportunity to drop off their non-hazardous waste trash at the designated collection spot. In this case, it was at Evergreen Park near downtown Bremerton. We volunteers quickly filled up several dumpsters with all manner of junk including at least one kitchen sink. Along the way, I rescued a tree frog that was stranded in the back of an SUV and fed some hungry Seagulls the remains of my lunch. At the end of the day, I smelled like the city dump, but I had a good time.

Power Scooter Breakdown

Not long after my unintentional panhandling, I noticed a young woman attempting to push a power scooter with an elderly man in the seat up a slight incline. I ran over to help and it turned out that the battery on the scooter had been drained of power and needed to be recharged and the young woman was trying to get the man and his scooter back home.

I decided to help her and together we were able to push the  unpowered scooter and the man up the slight rise. It was a relief to get to the top. Eventually the scooter's owner was able to maneuver the scooter to his house.

Strange Encounter 7

Today, I was sitting on a curb in front of a deserted building  in East Bremerton (apparently looking miserable) when a small car with two women pulled up. Through the open window, the driver offered me five one dollar bills and said "Maybe this will put a smile on your face." I told the woman "no thank you" and walked away.

Grand Theft Corn

As I was walking home with my prized collection of aluminum cans and smelling of  old beer and energy drinks I stopped to talk with a man who was watering a small patch of corn stalks. I asked the man if he had found any  ripe corn cobs yet. He said that he had, but that someone had stolen it. I suggested that a Squirrel or a Raccoon might have taken it, but he is convinced that it was a human corn burglar.

Aluminum Cans

When I was a kid, picking up bottles or cans for extra money was fun and fairly easy. As an adult, picking up Aluminum cans to get some money to buy some minutes on your cell phone is hard and humiliating. I can just see the pity in people's eyes as they watch the unfortunate loser who has been reduced to collecting other people's trash from the side of the road. The next time that I really need some money, I am considering something a little less embarrassing like making a sign and begging for money.

7 Billion People

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/overpopulation/7_billion_and_counting/index.html '


    Help to distribute Free Condoms.

Jellyfish

Today I was walking along the bay near the shipyard when I spotted a large Jellyfish being pushed against the rocky shore by the tide.

I went down to the water and gently pushed the Jellyfish into open water with a stick, but the tide once again pushed the Jellyfish back to the shore. I suppose when the tide goes out it will take the Jellyfish with it. The Jellyfish has almost no control over its destiny.

Humans like to think that we have some control over our destiny. It is true that we can move ourselves from place to place, but  we really have no control over where the Earth goes. The Earth is constantly traveling through space and we have no choice but to go along. So maybe there is not as much difference between ourselves and the Jellyfish as we would like to believe.