Senseless Banter...

Martha, I never replied. I was 6 months old when my Swedish father died, and 11 months old when Mother married Daddy. (He always had a crush on her). He adopted me about a year later when they moved to Fresno. It's was so interesting to find the paper work when I had to clear Mother's house.

AtlantaMarie wrote:Kelejan, what a great idea!  I really hope it works out and works well!

Although, I must confess....  I'D take the National Geo's to the local nursing home!  I'm sure some of those folks would enjoy reading them or at least looking at the photos.

When my mom went thru all of their books, one guy at the local nursing home asked for the encyclopedias from 1960 that she had.  He wanted to read thru and see how things had changed, lol.

(Now - waiting NOT so patiently for the next installment...)

For old books, magazines etc, contact a charity about sending to schools in 3rd world countries.  I've been asked by someone here about any old books, even paperback novels,  I might have as English is a main language here and they want books to improve language skills.  Nat Geo would be a good thing.  
A jumbo balikbayan box costs about $100 to ship no matter what the weight and includes customs fees.  I use the UMAC company to ship.  I don't have contacts in the other provinces, but fellow forum member Jamesmusslewhite is in another province.  I use the service to ship things I can't live without (like Dukes Mayo and apple cider vinegar) .  Last year I shipped summer clothes for myself to save trying to lug my limited weight suitcase on the plane.  Just left them here.  This year I shipped some curtains, linens, sheets, towels and such that I no longer use in the stateside residence for use in the house here and a lot of the pickles, jams and tomatoes I canned this year.  They taste so much better than the commercial brands available here. Finding a kosher dill pickle is impossible  This is not Manila


Kay

Thanks walshevak, I am saving that information and anything other idea that appear on this thread, to pass on to my friend. I am also going to save the comments etc that I have received as I think she will find it so encouraging.
I am so enjoying enjoying writing about these two different subjects, it is so interesting to find out others experiences in life.

Kay, I would be interested in hearing more about your life overseas.

(Was that hint subtle?)

I'm a bastard too. My grandparents wanted to emigrate to Australia and take my mother, who was then about 18, and me. The Australian authorities nixed it because I was a bastard, unless my mother would give me up and let my grandparents adopt me. My mother didn't want to give me up, even technically, so that ended the Australia bid. She still feels a little guilty, she says, about her parents giving up their dream of emigrating for her.

Almost immediately thereafter, my mother emigrated with me to the U.S., and my grandparents and many other relatives followed, over time.

Eventually she married again, but my new stepfather always had it in for me. Fatherless children simply weren't valued then, by the state, by society at large, or even within their own families.

It used to be the same for divorcees, and still is in some countries, as it is for rape victims, the handicapped, the mentally ill, or, simply, poor people ... which is unfortunately nearly a universal excuse to limit people's rights and/or think about them and treat them with contempt.

The human race has so far to go before people start treating each other decently as a matter of course that the mind reels to consider it, and one may even wonder if we'll have time to get there before blowing ourselves to smithereens. Occasionally, though, some of the small reaches toward progress we make are almost equally startling. Who in the 50's and 60's would have thought that the word "divorcee" would someday no longer provoke giggles and scandal in America ... so much so that it completely disappears from the lexicon?

Just think Marc, you would have a different accent than you now have. I know if I had been brought up with my birth family I would sound different with my southern English accent. My birth family were brought up in Yorkshire. They  say to-may-toe and I say tom-art-toe.

Marc Iverson wrote:Who in the 50's and 60's would have thought that the word "divorcee" would someday no longer provoke giggles and scandal in America ... so much so that it completely disappears from the lexicon?

OMG, I'm so grateful there's no stigma in many areas anymore. But some of the words that are used on regular TV, and some subjects of commercials, still boggle my mind.

Our family always took great pride in getting rid of our accents and learning our new language well. I would hope that my accent would be minimal no matter where I wound up.

I can understand if people can't quite get the hang of their new language. But I think it's important to try.

CapeCoddess wrote:
OMG, I'm so grateful there's no stigma in many areas anymore. But some of the words that are used on regular TV, and some subjects of commercials, still boggle my mind.

The "stolen home porno movie" as a career move is one that still strikes me as a little odd, as is calling people who get notoriety from them geniuses.

Then again, I am fond of the British habit of calling the oddest things, including those that have nothing whatever to do with thinking or insight, "brilliant." As in, "This tuna fish sandwich is brilliant!"

"This tuna fish sandwich is brilliant!"

If it's that good , send some over here please .

Marc, where were you from originally?

Germany.

I'm drifting back to earlier in the day.  Marc, that was very interesting that Australia would not accept your family unless your grandparents adopted you.  At one time, the word bastard had a definite meaning, but more of a legal meaning.  No inheritance. Only the oldest son in England could inherit the land estate instead of chopping it up in smaller estates and dividing among all marriage born sons.  (Hence the long "honeymoon" until the wife was pregnant, ensuring that the child would definitely be his.)  The other sons would receive other inheritance, but not the family estate.  Bastard sons were either ignored if they were from the kitchen, or if the man was a good man and they were from his mistress, he would help educate them or set them up in some position, trade or business.  But they were never part of the inheritance.  A woman who married a second son knew that her husband would never would never inherit the manor, unless the first born died, and there was no chance if she married the third, etc., son.  And if she fell in love with the bastard son, there could/would be nothing in the pot.

Then times changed and the B word applied to all children born out of wedlock.  And it became more of a derogatory word than legal word.  I'm glad that children are not stigmatized today.  It's not the child's fault.

With stepparents, think of Snow White and Cinderella.  Relationships between stepmothers and stepdaughters, and stepfathers and stepsons were often strained, or worse.  I think that step fathers, and mothers, are better, for the most part, today than in the past.  A lot of blended families today.  Both of my sons are/were good stepdads.  I was lucky, mine was wonderful.  What with Facebook, etc., a bad stepfather or stepmother would have their name broadcast everywhere!!  Thank goodness my kids like my husband.  

LOL Facebook! What a difference from even the old chat by the office water cooler, or the coffee-klatsch of my parents' era, or perhaps a gathering around the well or over the fence-tops of old.

Unfortunately, "bastard" has such a vituperative tone. I don't think it's incidental or accidental, the way we might prefer it to be in these days when looking back on the past. Those different or excluded from society or the church faced severely limited prospects, and not all that long ago what we think of almost casually as "mere" social "shunning" was equivalent to a death sentence.

Interestingly I hope, I was reading a bit about a new edition of Grimm's fairytales, released almost simultaneously with another as the first translation of the original Grimm's tales. Apparently, one of the two brothers made a major effort to "clean up" the old tales. As harsh as step-parents can be to their charges, the reality the more circumspect of the Grimm brothers tried to obscure was grimmer still. Those wicked stepmothers? In the original tales ... they were commonly the mothers themselves.

The Mothers? Shudder.

Shunning? Most painful.

I wouldn't return to the past for anything.

I'm one of the last of the "boomers".  And, admittedly, my parents sheltered me from a LOT of stuff - the Vietnam War (as much as possible) comes to mind.

I just don't UNDERSTAND the thought processes behind all of that mess...  And I thank them constantly for keeping me from it!

I just don't see the need for judgmental words/actions/thoughts like those.  Everyone has their own problems & issues.  Why concentrate on others'?

Sanderson, that was a well done synopsis of the history of bastardism. (I like making up new words.) 

Marc, I would love to hear more about the Grimm brothers.

And about the dogs in your profile photo!

I hope that's not a dog paw.

martha wrote:...Marc, I would love to hear more about the Grimm brothers.

And about the dogs in your profile photo!

And about the photo shoot. It's a great picture. The photographer is either exceptionally good or very lucky!

I guess with those dog paws he/she could climb trees.

camprn wrote:

boffer wrote:I hope that's not a dog paw.

I picked up this bird at roadside a few days ago. I stopped thinking it may be a grouse, sadly turns out it was a young barred owl.

Poor little thing. 

On a happier note, while DH and I were in Florida, we went to a wildlife refuge, that was pretty much birds. While there, we got to watch two rehabilitated hawks be released. I don't remember what the injuries were - I'm pretty sure one of them was an unfortunate interaction with a car, but they both only had to be in rehab for about a month*. Very heartwarming!  

* A month's stay in rehab is usually all insurance will pay for anyway, but in these two cases, the hawks were ready to go anyway.

I would not want to be a rabbit at the end of that claw! We watched Yukon Vet last night.  Her youngest daughter used a barred owl as her test bird.  She was in training to be a something or other with birds of prey and she had to give a presentation to the "committee" to move on up in training.  Boy, if I had known I would have written about it today, I would have paid more attention to the details.

martha wrote:Marc, I would love to hear more about the Grimm brothers.

And about the dogs in your profile photo!

I wrote a lot about them in the first couple of pages of the August PNW regional thread:

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t18429-pnw-august-2014

Regarding the Brothers' Grimm, I read the free sample of this book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Original-Fairy-Tales-Brothers-Grimm-ebook/dp/B00KUCTP5O/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1417988076&sr=1-1&keywords=brothers+grimm

and want to buy it now. I love mythology and fairy tales. I googled some reviews about the book and the Brothers' Grimm, too, which just made the book sound more interesting and unique. Apparently the whitewashing of Grimm's fairytales wasn't just something that happened in prudish and frightened Victorian England so that bluenoses could feel comfy reading the stories to their children; it started with the Grimms themselves. But this book, the first edition, is much more the real deal and very close to the original tales -- often rougher, more earthy, more cruel, more challenging, and more knowing. A better window into the past, and, to me, more interesting. It's definitely high on my to-buy-soon list.