The Easter Sunday morning seemed to bring some few hours of peace to our mother, for whereas Christmas broke her heart for the lack of a little present when she was a child and her mother’s dried apples all stacked on a fresh baked cake would fill her with anguish, for Daddy’s family had no such thing, and his mad father saw that his sons never got to embrace a Holy Day, this demented soul who endeavored to ease his pain with alcohol was unmerciful to his boys, and Dad carried the warped anger deeply within, so to deny himself was to deny it for all of us until he awakened in the last 40 years of his life to hope, for there was just enough.

“Enough of what you ask?”  He and Mama could get food on the table, even if it was dated for the school’s to throw out.  Her yeast roll days gave us fine warm years rolls for dinner which the old high school had the women make by hand, and the garden — always the garden produced food for spring and for summer.  Eggs from our hens, and finally we could purchase bought milk and even concentrated fruit juice, so spring began to give the gifts of nature, and my Mama would start worrying about the, “Old Cold Winter,” far to early, just when the garden was in; But at Easter, we had a little bit of a surprise.  She would have hidden three or four marshmallow eggs in our shoes, something her Mama once did — Sweet candy with pretty colors, and we could have her chocolate syrup on our biscuits, and most times the dogwoods and redwoods would be in bloom.  Once or twice the girls made some egg dye, and I always knew where the hard boiled eggs were.  They were in the volunteer daffodils which bloomed year after year at our old house, and we would get to hide them and hunt them more than once, and no matter what anyway will ever say, the eggs of Easter tasted different as we touched theom to salt and ate everyone. then next, the eldest daughter home got to drive us down to Lexie Church where a few might have a new dress or Mr. Ode might have scraped his boots better after barn duty, but everyone just seemed to be a little happier.

I doubt if Mama took even one piece of candy for herself, for even as she grew older, she always took the last of everything, so leaving the breast and drum sticks for us, she would eat off the other bony pieces,  and she would have usually beheaded the chickens she could spare the night before, a brutal murder of a bird, for she chose to wring their heads off, and then it appeared as if the heads were looking back at their bodies bounce over the grass, for it was cold blooded murder.  She always boiled water in the old wash pots, soaked them, and then we plucked all the feathers off.  Next the birds would soak in salt over night, for our Mother wanted no blood on our meat, so I, to this day, will soak the packaged chicken breast in brine if that fits in to the Easter meal, but my children wanted the, “Honey Ham,” so popular in our Midwest cook books, but on the southern family table — You are probably going to have more meats to choose from than at Mardi Gras, so again, Our mother and father were so happy they could afford the fine store bought foods

Yes, I know that we are a country of obese people, and we are passing on diabetes to our kids faster than we can learn to say, “No,” at the candy counter.  We commit cardinal sins with sugar candy brimming over in every basket of chocolate and toys, for according to our learned health officials there is no form of sugar, not honey, nor agave syrup, and God forsaken corn syrup is worse than if we chose these over our vegetables.  I just cannot help but laugh, though I wish that I did not have a love for seet things — But mentioning that sugar in all forms need regulation is finally the ship of fools this woman is going to jump off of.  There is far too much obesity, and I need to crack down on my urge for these sinful treats, but the serotonin built up after a little child sees their Easter candy and have little mouths that look like squirrels is apt to be healing a long time before the sugar gets them.  Just a little sugar candy in our shoes surprised us, for Mama usually did not have the quarter for a bag of candy. 

So, Earthlings, give the kids a break and even your own weary souls, and if you cannot afford a basket, just stick a little candy in a shoe.  Tell the little children how spring renews us, brings the birds home again, and opens up a season when things might just seem a little brighter, or at least it felt that way to us.  Mama and Daddy even kept a cookie jar, not just for the grand kids — But for them as well, and they lived to see 85.  They have been gone for a while now, but if we all look from the darkest places of our lives and find a memory of joy, then place it in the scrap book lying on your heart, and if we ever wind up with sugar police and sugar busters, then show them a basket of dandelions, bitter weeds, and wild onion tops, and placd your week old cheese to the side, and tell them you will see them in church after they empty the basket of all the good stuff you gathered, for somehow we have made it from Biblical times until now with a sweet tooth, so God sent the manna like honey and the Israelites blessed the day, for they were starving.  Children hunger, you and I are starving from the lost ages when a little went so far to making those who had little feel a part of a day we pray will lead us gently in to the heavenly bounty, apt to be southern fried chicken, and chocolate syrup on biscuits, the gifts of a mother who was so afflicted with depression that she could hardly get up at times; Our mother gave us her spiritual gifts, what she loved and remembered.

That day always gave us the strength to know that we could dream like other children, and sweet candy were really little pastels of love.

Blessings My Friends.

Blessed Peace On The Way To The Cross, or wherever this weekend takes you.

Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle Ready — A book which will challenge your faith if you desire to read of The Southern Dyaspora and a woman from child to adult hood always seeking some peace in the brutal Appalachian Mountains and Valley — Awards San Francisco and Hollywood, California

I am so exhausted at this hour that I long to sleep, but tomorrow is our neighborhood book show, and Noe Valley is actually highest hills, hidden gardens, shopping areas and progressive people all swarming on Sunday mornings.  It is already early morning, and I shall sleep before dawn.  I am packed and ready for our book show and sale tomorrow 42 of us just in this area.  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” will stand out, for I have the awards to show, but somehow this day is not about money, though I will sell copies of my book, give out prizes, and I hope that people will pass the news on that I am a writer who can keep people up all night, for they want to know the next chapter, the next twist and turn, the laughter, the darkness — so dark that I cannot always revisit it, but I will tell you the truth.  You can publish all the books you want, but it is an embarrassing small number which has success with Amazon and their publishing arm of Create Space.

There are too many good writers, and everyone has a story in them, and I will have award plaques to show people — I’m among the noticed ones.  I have told a story which will tear your guts out, and most of it is true.  It is not your Dolly Parton, “We may have been poor, but we had love,” and it is now, “Just the cutest of southern tales; No it is life as it happened in southern Appalachia, and I am one who suffered in thousands.  My dear brother, Robert Van Everett began the book with a prologue, and to let you know right away that this story seems like it should have been live a century ago, but it was our lives, every piece of dirt, every whipping, low down tragic part of it, but we are not humorless.  We told it like it was — And ears burn from our telling of The Southern Appalachian Diaspora, and only now has anyone had the gall to tell the actual cost.  Brother and I told it, and we are not ashamed.

I blessed a man whose name is Richard for putting this together, another kind man who is going to help us out because we do not have the fancy phone with the square. I blessed them, but Richard said he needs blessings, so tomorrow, I am going to take his hands, and He will feel warmth from them for I have something unique that leaves me with hands warm like my Mama’s were, but I want him to feel a blessing through me.  I will give him a prayer in a moment which he cannot hear, but I will pray, and he will know something has come over him, for you see; Some of us who have known angels call them down and bless.  It is not us, but it is God, the Holy Trinity from whom all things come from when the blessing actually comes.  I will walk him to unseen waters, to the whisper of the river, the trail down to the water, but for me it is a vision, and it will help him to rest and hear the real angel speak and to know that he has had a moment by the water, and the power is his to choose to keep.

Some people think I am a Holy Woman, and I may have some gift that I can pass on, but it is not money nor is it fame.  It is a moment to feel loved, free, hearing, “I bless you my friend,” and I will not say a word that anyone has ever seen me in this way.  For we who have any such power must believe in something much larger than us, and in our humility — Sometimes Grace, the gift of the Holy Spirit must be present, for we see no specialness that is ours to keep, and I have had my hands go ice cold — When I am ill, or if I am not believing that God can work through any one of us and does.

But I will bless this man, and he will feel my hands long after we have parted. How do I know this of myself?  Some is in the book, so less hear the nay sayers; “Sure, and she wants to sell a book,” and I will advise you that I am not offended, but it began in childhood in different ways, and then when I went in to nursing, my hands became important to the patients.  The first experience in nursing which I recalled was a young girl with rheumatoid arthritis, and they told me she was difficult as a patient, but I could tell that she was in pain, and she wanted me to massage her hands and feet, and instead of being difficult she told me that my hands were wonderful, that I eased her pain, and she would want me all nights that I was on.  I began to pray to help others in the same way, and it would happen over and over again through all of the years, and I would console the elderly including my Priest mother in the same way.

Pray for me that God may work through me tomorrow, and that I may offer to this man the blessing he desires, and may it continue in his life so he may pass on blessings to others.    Just pray for these hands, and may you find a gift within yourself, the living water gift which comforts all souls.  I pray thus for you.

Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle, Create Space for my book, and Pinkhoneysuckle, the blog.

When I see Hillary Clinton now, I see a most amazingly tired woman, and I like to remember her back when she was helping get her husband in to the White House.  I have no idea how many stories were true involving Our former president in-so-far as women were concerned, but I think of that election and that time in history as when something changed in America, and I am so sorry to say that I very earnestly believe that it was a group whom I though might have had a little more decency, for if we have a party which represents the founding fathers message of a country founded by people seeking to live Puritan life and values, then somehow, the average man on the street is apt to say that, “If we want a more moral and religion friendly party, it is probably to be found in the Republican Party, but that year — A wealthy and arrogant group of Republicans had the ear of trash talk radio, and a denizen of morality, as I hold my nose, Mr. Rush Limbaugh.  We no longer had Ronald Reagan’s, “Shining City On The Hill Group,”  we were beginning the era of what has become politics with no morals on either side, and we are dangerously beginning to resemble other countries where there are never real elections, but it is what money can purchase.  The Republican party was going to win at any cost, or so it seemed back then, and for the first time — More than ever, worse than any talk show could have predicted — The era of looking between the sheets was ushered in,  and from Paula Jones to names I cannot remember, we were being regaled with the news of the candidate for the Democratic Party’s candidates encounters with ladies in his bed, and our teenage children were exposed to it, and America took a turn from, “The Redwood Forest, and The Clear Stream Waters,” to, “The Land Of Pig Swill and Sewer Encounters.”

I have wound up admiring politicians over the course of my life, for I am filled with the idea that to do public service does not mean you just want to be powerful; No, it means you want to do public service.  We kicked out one poor candidate, because he had had a period of depression, and candidates were dismissed depending on whether they had spoken as war hawks, for after Vietnam, we just could not abide another war on foreign soil where we accomplished nothing but killing thousands and thousands of their people and their having killed thousands and thousands, at least 125,000 service men and women in Vietnam, and the coffins flowed in like shipments of carefully dug Palm trees to be lain to rest somewhere, and meanwhile, we did not throw our boys any kind of parade, and finally built them a wall where they can go and weep and touch the names of buddies who did not make it back, so this was a bitter group who came home, and we made them that way, for they deserved better than our fresh, no it all, little college opinions.  We see it in retrospect, but this period showed a rawness in us which just should not have been.  The Clintons, I am certain, were against the war in the end, so President Nixon to his credit brought them home.  So it occurs to me that a President who did well in foreign policy would be the president to be impeached and to be so marred in misdeeds that he would have to resign from office; Those had been dark hours for this country, and the young Clintons were finishing college, getting married, doing those things our generation did, but they were a smart couple, and the young man who stood on the steps admiring President Kennedy, our new hope and new generation heading for the moon;  I do not doubt that by the time the Clintons got their last report cards, got married and had their baby that they were thinking, “How far can we go in this world of politics?”

Somewhere though, around the end of the Reagan era, something filthy happened in the woodshed, because if any one thought we were electing choir boys to the Presidency before, and we did elect people in whom I felt certain as a child, always had clean teeth, fresh breath, and never went to the toilet — And God help us if they had a bout of flatulence, for coughing or sneezing was bad enough in public, but from the time of my memory and respect for our office of President, until the 1980s, I believed that we were above the fray of ever allowing bed room talk in to the campaign for the highest office in our land.  Every one knew about FDR and his lady friend, but we only spoke well of the Roosevelts, for this was a couple who saw Americans through  what could have easily been the end of civilization as we had known it, for America was stretched thinly  fighting on both the Atlantic and the Pacific fronts, but families, like my father and mother believed that President Roosevelt got us out of the Depression, provided jobs for men who know longer had given up on life.  We have among our greatest feats of building and the accomplishments of what American Labor could do for The Roosevelt era would ask for labor to build our monuments which stand to this day from East to West, The train stations, dams for water to provide for building homes in the dessert, establishing national parks for everyone’s enjoyment, and the list would take so much more than this page, but public works put food in family’s mouths, but also changed the nature of who we were.  Have you ever seen the faces of the men in bread lines?  Just like the Oklahomans, and what would come to the Appalachians later, there is a haunting and vacant spirit which shows in their faces, with eyes down cast, overalls ripped, shoes coming off at the soles, but a president who had a lover that was usually at The Little White House down near his beloved Hot Springs, a somewhat barren place in Georgia and his lady friend lived a passionate life far away from the masses, and in Mrs. Roosevelt’s day, especially among the upper classes — A mistress was just that, and as some elder women once shared with me, “We did not speak of these things.”  The unspeakable was more than often, “You know what,” but let us presume for conversation that Mrs. Clinton had on more than one occasion had little birds tell her that her man was doing that unspeakable thing.  She related to Eleanor Roosevelt for more than one reason, but she had ambition as well, but she, unlike the Roosevelts, never had any cover to hide under.

She said she did not, but she did, “Stand By Her Man,” that well known country song to all of us who grew up in the south.  Country music is our common language, so when she mentioned this song, I think she got William Jefferson Clinton some votes right there for even knowing the words by the song from, Tammy Wynette.  She was able to charm us, for she had a certain prettiness about her, not beautiful, but pretty, and a woman of our time.  A lot of us found ourselves listening to what she had to say, and many of us grieved with her that national health care wound up being the one thing she was absolutely powerless to get through at the time.  I wanted her to accomplish this, and it was the indecent political pact money which kept It from happening.  Those of us who have experience national health care in countries in Europe or just over the border in Canada know that it works, and we also know that America fell for a lie == For specialist exist in all of these countries, and most people are thrilled that their tax dollars take care of what they need in physician and hospital care from the cradle to the grave.  Mrs. Clinton lost this battle, for the Clintons were the most maligned, demoralized by filthy back room deals to get rid of them, and this brilliant woman wanted to leave America better than they found it.  National health care works, and if you have the dollars and you want more private care; FGS; do you think the people in Europe are stupid, The Swiss?  The British?  The Canadians?  Dirty politics was the one and only reason that national health care could not be a reality, for when it finally happens in this country; No one will understand how God let us be so stupid as to see that it never happened to us before hand.  Three institutions bleed America to death to keep out such a compassionate kind of care — Physicians who feel overwhelming greed, thus the AMA, the Insurance companies, for they are profit making giants, Pharmaceutical companies, and let us throw in The American Hospital Association, though I am reluctant, for some hospital surely serve the poor as well as the rich and those who would have loved National Health Care would be the ones who still have association with religious orders and endeavor to be non profit, so it is difficult to lump Hospital as a whole in with the other power houses.  Hilary Rodham Clinton’s main program was botched before she was the first lady for one year.

She, no doubt, helped President Clinton during both terms, and her greatest help was that she did not absolutely just say, “I am out and to tell all after Monica Lewinsky,” for any other woman on the face of the earth that had to go through knowing all that she would, because it was going to be made our business, drug through the horse farm manure pit, and worked like elephant dung in the garden, because we had taken the bait of showing that we wanted dirt, plain dirt, and we filled our vessels with it night and day that our President had let a little intern flip her thong, and she was 22, and “Oh my God,” she was not going to tell a soul other than her 17other girlfriends, and not only was she a Californian, but that she was a little Jewish girl besides, and that was going to make it worse for this Bible toting husband and Dad, Mr President Bill Clinton.  A lot of voters believe that Mrs. Clinton made a deal at that point with her husband whose brain needed a good washing with some soap that would clean up just plain stupidity and dumb from his frontal lobe, to help him once more, but this time she got something out of it — A run for the presidency herself, and I too, have come to such a conclusion.

I do not want Mrs. Clinton to run.  What is she going to do?  In this country beauty and a brain can get you the chairmanship of Facebook, but an older face with a brain is going to  give the cartoon drawers the time of their lives, so can she go to the plastic surgeons and start looking like a new Hillary, loose two dress sizes, and start doing push-ups, maybe even a breast and butt lift; now that is thinking.  A woman growing older in this country might make the Senate once more, but she will not be elected President.  We do not elect Golda Mair’s in America, for we are not a matriarchal society.

Mrs. Clinton has been Secretary of State, but as long as any soldiers remain in the middle east, they can declare the war over, but more Americans are apt to perish, and we ask again; One trillion dollars to kill and mame how many of our children?  Many of us who believe that Mr. Obama has been grossly subjected to The No Morals Stooges believed he would have brought those kids home long ago, and for their mothers and their fathers — We learned from Vietnam that we respect the soldiers no matter our lambasting of the system which placed them there. 

Every Secretary of State at one time or the other will broker a truce with Israel, for Israel has full American support and has to be reminded about every four years or more that we are no longer fighting Old Testament battles, and please stop firing on your neighbors who are still in grief that a homeland was given over in 1947, and we cannot take that bitterness away from the Palestinians, for the memory is long when one comes in and moves an entire population.  If we are going to support Israel; Perhaps we should have a goal of endeavoring to give to end the poverty of the Palestinian People, and maybe we can even say that Israel deserved a homeland after the Holocaust the most aggressive, anti-human period of any people on the face of the earth, but again,  Is there something we can do to apologize to the Palestinian people it was their homes.  What can we possibly do to bind brotherhood to both Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, but what can we do for this small Arab nation to declare they have an unresolvable grievance; So this is our time to share sorrow with you, to build your communities, and to endeavor to make peace with Muslim people who are not the problem.  Every nation has extremist, but Muslim people send chills down our spines, and most Christians do not even know that Jesus was seen as a great prophet by the Muslims and that Mary is held in high esteem.  Right now, perhaps we can only pray for healing, but someday we need to help with some understanding behind it.  Mrs. Clinton has done a better job than most at making it know to Israel that it cannot be seeking parody in murder that such only leads to blood shed, and we are awaiting a time of peace.

Mrs. Clinton does not deserve to be torn down more, and she has so many other places to go to save the world, for I believe this is a good woman, but we now live in a land of political pacts, and it may be a big game to the people who run the elections, but we American citizens have had it with Washington as usual, and we are looking for a torch bearer, and no one in Washington is it, for everyone there has been a part of keeping government from happening, and guess what?  Even we grandmothers want everyone of you to hit the road.  No Congress, and No Senate of the 20th and the 21st century could have done worse than the ones we have been subjected to over about a quarter of a century, and the women of America would like for you all to be out looking for jobs.  We understand that there is a lot of space where Madeoff and his pathetic excuses for human beings gathered.  But Mrs. Clinton, you have done enough, and you are too good for this Washington of bought votes.  Give us anyone other than the same old Republicans or Democrats, and let the actors stay in Hollywood.

Hopefully, Chelsea will have you some babies, and you can enjoy being a grandmother, but step back, write your stories, and let us somehow look toward becoming a nation who is not governed by people who must spend four years taking dollars which could pay for a nation wide health care system to stahl every idea and vote which a decent President we elected has had to put up with the likes of the people in Washington now.  Toil no more, and by the way Mrs. Clinton, I think your eyes are beautiful.  Grow old in peace and the joy knowing that we, many of us, realize that the journey you have taken has left pain in your heart far too often.  Enjoy that you made a difference.

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Story of A Child To Woman Through The Southern Appalachian Diaspora — Amazon, Kindle Create Space

I cannot thank the people of the world enough who are coming to my website.  I just had the joy of sending my book to a new friend in The People’s Republic of China, so, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” my book crosses The Great Wall Of China before I get to.  My name is Barbara Everett Heintz on Amazon, and I do appreciate that my weblog has developed a following.  Writing my book was one of the periods of history in a time and place which I do not believe many people were familiar with unless they were living it, and I am not certain that other nations know about our Rust Belt which is a terrible name of the northern mid-Atlantic states, and some, like Illinois and Missouri begin our Great Plains, that we call everything, “Great,” has much to do with the vast amount of land involved.  This country from East to West is so incredibly versatile that, just as in Europe, we will never get to visit all of the exquisite art and monuments, one would have to spend a year or two to see the diversity of topography of our land.  One can find arid areas in Texas because it is so very large, but East of the Rockies is not desert land, for the Rockies so influence weather patterns, and until I lived in California, I did not understand about upland desserts such  as the desert of Oregon and I believe it extends in to Washington State.  Above the Plains Wyoming amazed me how many millions of miles are desert land, and in Wyoming and Montana our wild horses can still roam freely where there is grassland and water, but those of us East of the Rockies get the summer rain, the flowers which can survive shorter growing seasons of the eastern coast states, and all of the cities where the building of America began, not to mention the rugged Atlantic coast and the Great Lakes. 

I would love for visitors to America to know about Wisconsin which may be compared to Switzerland, but I have been to both areas, and Wisconsin is Lake filled from small to large, and when we are in sweltering heat in Ohio and Illinois, Wisconsin is cooler once you are in the heart of it, and the green is more emerald, but one would need to know winter sport to fully enjoy the long winters.  Cincinnati, Ohio, our city with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati has always prospered because of the great diversity of factories and world wide business like, Proctor and Gamble, and is considered mid-west in relation to the Continental Divide and how our country developed.  I think Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky are among our most gracious areas to receive visitors once people begin touring mid America, for the glaciers carved out the rivers, and you will find a quaint old city built on 7 hills, very different from the 7 hills of San Francisco, for the grand old housing remains all over the city from early century and a student of architecture would find ever kind of architecture from Queen Ann To Victorian, for we value our exquisite buildings.

I will give my visitors a travelogue now and again, but I must say something for my home state of Tennessee.  It is mountains and ends along with Northern Alabama the Appalachian Trail, so some hills are really the foot hills of how the mountains were heaved up from the earth, and in Kentucky and Tennessee our English language prevails, but people are going to speak more slowly, usually a little more softly, and world visitors will again see the changed topography.  Traveling from the country music recording capital of America from gracious Nashville, and staying on the expressway East toward Chattanooga, you will see rolling hills which look like Vermont, wonderful small towns along the way, many great mansions hidden on hills and the famous Tennessee Walking Horses which are shown where I first went to college at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and there are the gracious old Southern Mansions with the winding porches, the beautiful fretwork décor, all from another time, and it is gracious and wonderful to sit out under the cool old oaks and maples, to sip sweet tea and to just dream of how wonderfully exciting a steamy southern night can be.  I loved to walk the streets at night with boyfriends, and I was a very cheap date, because Mama and Daddy had always taught us not to ask for things, so I was never going to admit to be hungry enough for dinner, and maybe I might have strawberry ice cream, for it was so beautiful just to look at and once the strawberries were ripe and so very sweet, so the taste made one feel loved, even if you had decided such companionship was not the person for you.

Please lands of the European union feel free to visit this website, South America, Asia, Australia, even our South Pacific Islanders along with Canadian friends, and now and then I will take you on some small tours for we have only touched some of what America is about.  Of course I am honored if you look on Amazon, Kindle, or Create Space for my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” but if you just want to ask me about other areas of our country, I will take you in writing where I have been  Stop a while, and read a little, and practice some English if you are up to it, but I decided that since I have thousands checking in, then I could write something for you and to write about my country is something which I love to do.  Feel free to ask me about places you are interested in, and what I know about I shall share.  We haven’t spoken of Graceland, and what I have to share about that will surprise you, and to mention Las Vegas; There is no other place like it on earth, so I hope this is your reward for checking out my website — For this is one way of becoming what we wish to become, A Peaceful Planet where there are no wars and we have pooled our resources to end hunger and to provide for human decency.

I end this blog by stating that I believe we Catholics have had a wonderful Pope called who took the name of Francis, for I believe he is going to tackle the hard and painful lessons which the Vatican has endured, but I believe he needs all of us to give him confidence and to clean house at first — A very difficult task.  Next he will probably look at how women can be more useful in the Church, and if ever there was a time to speak for Priest and marriage for the first time since St. Augustine ruled it out, the time is now.  So many of us are convinced that non married priest is an unnatural state, and it was changed once in the church, so it can be brought back in to the church, and almost no American is going to tell you that they do not believe that Pedophiles searched out the Priesthood, so the ability to marry would be a change in tradition which would help cleanse the pastoral call, and I know the argument is made that it would not work, because most abuse occurs among relatives, and I am witness to that happening, but in a church; Are we not all brothers and sisters, so I would end my writing this night with congratulations to South America and with hope that Pope Francis I will consider making that one major concession to Doctrine as well as to allow women Deacons.  He is not there to reform social agendas of gay marriage and to revisit abortions, but he is there to say to baptize those babies who are born even when mothers may need to do some work to come to communion, and I believe soon that he will be bringing mothers back in to the church who were not ministered to after abortion, divorced persons who felt left out of communion.  I believe this man understands forgiveness, but he is not there to re write the Bible, so we Christians have jobs to do.

God Bless This Man Of God From The Americas

Just Let Me Know About What You Wish To Ask About America or American History…Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” The Book and Pinkhoneysuckle, The Xanga Blog

When I get call after unsolicited call offering something free, even money, to our family, then, If I can think quickly, I give my husband’s favorite answer to solicitation calls, “She died,” or, “We’re dead, and no one lives here any more,” but so often now they are Robo calls, so I just hang up, for it is a very sad truth that few people will ever want to give us anything.”  Either because we feel work is character building, which it is, or we feel as if the world is after our material wealth, which on those horrible calls — That is what they want, to get some forlorn or elder human being who does not understand the rule of life, “No one wants to give you anything;” and take them to the cleaners.  It shows our sadness that someday, we may be that elderly person from whom the children have to take our check books, because the Nigerians in Canada who are not the good people of Nigeria — These are mean and ruthless people who would take all that you own for self boasting if for no other reason. 

If I did not know a 90 year old man to whom this happened, a gentleman who had assets here in San Francisco, then I would have thought myself that no one falls for that, but he had sent twenty thousand dollars before his son caught on and took him before a judge to get power of attorney, a subject which my husband and I chose to broach well before we are disabled, but people almost fear that it is a jinx to life if they prepare for their disability.  I understand exactly where they are coming from.

I have been noting a lot of anger on Xanga as of late. I have been a victim of someone I will never contact again, for they were rude, hostile, and that I had ever befriended them must have been that I never looked them up first.  I will admit that I, almost always, check out a friendship request, for we are in an age and time when we do not know the person behind the plastic keys, so it is better to come in to Xanga with a full profile of yourself, and if you are evil and intent on causing harm, and that is your life’s purpose, then you can hurt people on here.  You can hurt people anywhere, but maybe this is where I begin my thoughts of what I could possibly give to each of you that may make tomorrow morning begin in a nice way.  I have been thinking about this a lot, and we all get wrapped up in our needs, in our mortal wishes, and in the desires of our hearts.  You may not understand this yet, but whether we are older or especially when we are younger, it is very hard to understand that all ages have certain needs which are spiritually embedded within us, and they need to be filled, or we speak to robots, or worse — We fein friendship.

I so wish that I could give you all the gift of, “Care.”  It takes time, and if you asked people what they need, most often it falls in the realm of worldly goods, or we do have some few who have learned from, “The Wizard of Oz,” that there are internal gifts which are so much more important than the things of this world.  All of scripture is filled with the need to give of ourselves, so if each of us had enough care, and if we could ask people to spread around the gifts of caring, then loneliness would all but disappear.  We take so much every day without even thinking, the phone call from a joyful child, the kindness of a spouse or lover to do those things which we can no longer do for ourselves, the incidental card from an old friend or now, if we are lucky — We might receive an email which changes our day.  I read back on my friend, Melanie’s letter today, the friend who plants every inch of her front yard in the earliest blooming of all the flowers from snow drops, to crocus, tulips, daffodils, iris, and she has planted so much that in the spring time her whole front entry to the delightful old Victorian where she lives is too beautiful for words.  I may have mentioned this garden before, because I have never seen anyone who has done this, and when the blooming ends, it seems as if little grasses and a touch of ivy fill in until another year her exquisite space.  But I saved a letter to read again which she had written to me as she was receiving surgery and chemotherapy for an astrocytoma which means a star shaped tumor which was on her brain, and she had gotten through the treatment, but she cared enough to mention that her garden was fooled by some early warmth in Cincinnati, but she thought they would be spared, for snow and some cold that followed seemed to have put them back in to their dormant phase.  She has had cancer, safely removed;   “Thank you God,” but she is concerned that I get back to Ohio early enough to see the splendid garden.  I am not much of a drinker, but I will swear that if her garden is all in bloom; Then when I get in and get unjet-lagged, I am going to take a bottle of wine, and Melanie and I shall enjoy the garden and wine.  She lives across the street from where Mr. Proctor of Proctor and Gamble went to church and thought up the name for Ivory soap after a sermon which dealt with, “Ivory Towers,” and masses are still held in this little Episcopal church.

I would do something of care for each of you, because I do not feel that people are feeling very much cared for in their lives.  With younger people and corporations, it is often, not how happy are our workers, but how can we possibly take another dollar out of their wages to make those in the upper offices happy.  In hospitals, “How can we possibly get Mrs. Smith home today, for we cannot get enough procedures done on her today to make this whole day of hospital care twenty times the room charge?”  Care has taken on a factor of cost, and believe it or not younger people, that it used to be that management other than Google and the internet companies really took care of you if you proved to be a loyal employee.  If everyone had a grievance, then a grievance was apt to get resolved, but now people have to form unions to make those things happen, and the power of most unions has been shot in both legs, so even the unions are broken.  I would care for you someway and somehow if you were in need, for a person in need is not a happy person.  I believe that we do show concern for our brothers and sisters who are hungry and unclothed, for I have endeavored to explain to people who complain that cities do not do enough for their homeless when places like San Francisco try so hard to find homeless food and shelter.  Most chronic homeless people could only be kept in lock up mental hospitals, for mental illness is a primary cause of homelessness, and paranoia and a fairly decent climate will see them living out doors.  They are terrified to come inside.

I would do something about all of the anger and bitterness which seems to flow as if bitter herbs were the first meal of the day.  I would endeavor to sooth the angry spirits, and maybe I am giving too much credit here, for there are people who are just mean, and that is the way they are, and nothing is going to change their miserable persona.  We are beyond helping them.  Along with those are the evil ones who hide like jackals ready to pounce always willing to sacrifice another at any cost, for there is evil in this world, and we are warned of evil — The power, the cunning, and we turn our televisions on to it every day.  Today in the Bay Area, it was learned a missing girl had made her last call from The Golden Gate Bridge, a favorite spot for jumpers who desire death, for over the years since its building, I believe one person has survived, and it is a horrible death, for the fall is so fast and the water so deep that the bodies react as if they had hit cement, not a nice picture.  What can be said to sooth anger, for we all experience it, but when it eats people, destroys the lives of families, offends or destroys, then anger is not a very useful tool.  I have certain bottles of anger which I cannot fix or throw away, for some anger is justified, especially if it began in the absence of care by those who inflicted it.  It is the every day anger that raises our blood pressures, that makes us dread the hours, that filters in to every aspect of our lives, then we are overwhelmed with this force, and I wish that there was a way to silence angry voices, anger which is inflicted on women and children, anger toward the elder man who cannot walk fast enough in the crosswalk.  I believe that there are ways of letting that anger just flow away, and to encourage meditation, to encourage an action event such as to confront the person who is inflicting what is bottled up within them, then perhaps we could help an angry person to just walk away and to be free of it.  Anger, being the opposite of love, re-enforces that it carries some evil turf with the emotion.  I cannot take it from you, for every person has their rational as to why this emotion is allowed, but the little stuff of every day; You have the power to lose that.  Save your anger for the hurts which are more malicious and where the opposite of care has been shown to you.  Let it be known, and as best you can, then let that person and that hurt go,  My sister feels that those who have wronged others significantly invariably wind up, “Getting their dues,” a somewhat southern fatalism as she and I were raised in, but as the years go by, I have seen my sister’s words come true.  Is it satisfying to see those who have harmed you in some way hurt?  To my sister, it is just amazing that people do tend to, “Reap what they sow.”   She has been right more than she has been wrong, so the long term things are harder, but I ask you to free yourself of the small things, for the elder man will cross the street many days, and you may as well sit and wait, sing your favorite tune, or if all else fails; Know that is you walking in front of your car, and if you live long enough — It will be, this I promise.

Hope, wonderful hope, I would give you hope.  Hopelessness and despair are terrible bed mates, and they are so terribly needy that it might be hard to have any hope, but until you draw your dying breath, then there is the gift of hope.  I want you to have hope, for it will greet you each day with the news that you are alive, and in this day there is a ray of hope.  Tell that to the parents of Sandy Hook right now, and I think they would almost tremble.  Hope is more easily had if one is on a spiritual journey as such life does not end but begins when we have lived out our natural course of life.  How do I possibly give anyone hope?  How does anyone?  The more atrocities which I hear about, then the less I understand of, “Hope.”  It seems to have to begin with just helping each other through the next hour after Columbine types of incidents, or death in useless war which we continue to wage, and so we begin with a seed, and that is all we have.  I believe the parable of, “The Mustard Seed,” is our lesson on hope, that when darkness falls so deeply we cannot take the next step, then I would like to beg you to first, just rest, and then rise from your bed, and if that is as far as the pain will let you go, then you lie back down, but I think we, all of us out here, we are your hope, and you are hours.  The next day, I want you to rise up and to take a step, but I want a hand reaching for you, and when I think of the parents who lost their children in such horrible ways as holocaust or famine, or murder, I simply pray that someone else with more strength is going to be that hand, and the hands will begin coming from all over, and one step will lead you to the next place one must go, but hope is the narcotic for those who feel hopeless, and we, most of us, have felt hopeless at one point or the other in our lives.  Losing small children has to be the worst of all, and I can only say that were I reaching for a parent and endeavoring to help them make that next step, I believe that I might get around to this statement when they can finally open the door to the outside again — ‘What would your child want you to do the very first thing every day,” and most of us know the answer, “Mama,” “Daddy,” lets go out and play, and if the child is silenced by the evil of death, I would want that parent to know that a child did not want grief every day.  My children wanted to play, and no matter how old they were when you lost them, then I would ask you to begin what they would ask of you.  “Please go out and play.”  Those are words which might sound callous to some, but if I could go back and be with my now grown children, I would do just that, get out with them more.

Hope takes persuasion, and it takes time, so much time.  I want to give to you my gift of having hope in remembering the parable of the sower and remembering that in your life, you will experience pain, hopefully not the pain some of us have known, and, Please, to all who have lost children — Those who have lost with you are the first with outstretched hands.  Another child cannot take the place of the one you lost, but if you are young enough to endeavor, a healthy baby will bring new hope in to your life.  For those who lost the only child they ever had, then perhaps, to work with teens who think they have been through it all, then they may understand through you that money and fame are useless if we believe we have lost all hope.  The prayers of a nation scatter like good seed, and any idiot who would tell you that it is time you put your grief away probably is living a foolish life, for the only people entitled to ask that of you are the children who are yours and who are living.  I feel longingly as if I would like to offer hope, regardless of what sadness  is in your life right now.  The loss of a person in death requires mourning, so to all who mourn I ask you to visualize an out stretched hand, and I believe that child’s spirit will remain with you, but the child would want to dry your tears.  The periods of mourning end, though tears will come now and again.  Just think of a hand who will help you during these times.  A portion of old scripture called God’s telephone by some reads thus, “Call on me and I will answer, and I will tell you things you may not know.”  For some that is help, but we earthlings are not that powerful, but we can lead, talk, help with chores, and we may not know it, but we are creating a quilt pattern, and it is called, “Hope.”

I would like to give people love, and, “No,” I am not offering romantic love.  I would like to give you love as in where to look for love and to see it in action.  Love is an exquisite word which in English can be a noun, a verb, a command, an adjective, a direct object.  There are virtually no ways to not share love and its meaning.  This is a love letter, for I am talking, just talking about something which I would like to give you.  I believe that love surrounds us in the beauty of the ordinary day.  I used to only see clouds which were gray, and then one day I became aware that they were many colors of silver, pure silver, so the days of gray no longer start my day off wrong.  I see love in action, and my life’s goal is to get well enough to do more service whether it is making a family food when they are in loss, but love will not fail you if it is based in truth.  Romance fails all of the times, and two romantics marrying is a dangerous situation, for the old atage is, “We need a gardener somewhere.”  Love is the easiest to talk about, for there is love of friends, love of home, love of the people who are out there doing the work for the poor which I cannot do now.  I believe that when we are feeling lack of love, then we need to go and watch people, for you are going to see many annoyances, but you have gone to find love.  You will see it in the people who give a smile to ones just passing by, in the child who starts to cradle the hand it holds, and sometimes in the romanticism of an elderly couple still holding hands.  The flowers you enjoy as you take a walk were not planted by someone hating the moment, for they were planted as beauty by someone who knows that you or other strangers are walking by and admiring the beauty.  Every person who works in homeless shelters, the people who deliver meals on wheels;  These are acts of love.  We witness love in times of crisis, for people come together.  We offer love when we stop and talk to a friend who just comes to our minds.  We prepare simple gifts, remember a special occasion, or we decide to give someone a hug, because we have not seen them in a while, and we need to share the blessing of one’s presence.  I am all in favor of romantic love, but love in action never fails.  It is there for you and it is there for me if our eyes are wide open.

In a beautiful concert, we love the musicians who are playing for us, or in a play — The actors give to us their very best.  I love the people of many nations from Sweden to South America, and places in between, that people come to my blog site is remarkable love.  I think of what love could do among the nations on earth as the healing balm instead of the cold forbidden bombs.  I honestly wondered what would have if three thousand or so people gathered on the line of North Korea with bags of rice and food and begged the young beloved dictator to just let them leave the food, then would he begin to think more of nations of the world?  We have dealt in war and scorn for the ages of man even after we were told that love over all things abides.  I wish that I could bring love to each of you this day, but you may be better than me at finding it.  I have admitted before that I am flawed in many ways, but when I love, I give it my very best.  I am broken from having been a nurse, for I loved  those patients, and my back aches now to the point of being disabled, but I can remember it happened, because it felt wonderful to be surrounded by love.  This day, and this hour I wish you love.  I wish you all the roses which will bloom this summer from across this beautiful country, and I wish gifts like Melanie’s garden, and  we, together, may bond in hope and love even if we never meet in this life.  We shall, for love can bind us and when love is tested, or when romantic love is broken, or when we are broken for it feels as if someone has not loved us enough; then walk out and seek the shelter of human kindness which will find you if and when you are seeking love.

These are what I have for you this day, and I cannot tie them up in a beautiful package, but I send them forth, and I bind them with the love and the trust of a child.  May the new day bring unto you a harvest of peace and joy.

Barbara Everett Heintz

Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” – The Book, Amazon, Kindle, Create Space, Awards in San Francisco and a First in Hollywood for Most Adaptable to other Media such as film, a movie or documentary.  One woman’s life through the Appalachian Diaspora from traumatic childhood on to the adult during The Civil Rights era.

Have you ever made friends with Xangans who almost seemed like the friend next door, only for them to be there for a little while and to disappear?  I have had this happen in two instances, and I think it speaks more to our fragile society than anything which I did or said to them, but it makes one reluctant to take on a very communicative Xanga pal, and after they were disappearing, I wrote them letters to encourage their writing, for both were interested in the platform of Xanga to hone writing skills, and one even gave me an extremely wonderful review on my weblog.  I miss her especially, for she was such a genuine heart, but my letter went unanswered.

I believe that I am a dinosaur when it comes to what friend means to others, for many people come to Xanga purely to accomplish getting some feed back or to latch on to a couple of favorites to follow and to try out material on.  I know that I cannot get back to the nearly 180 friends who subscribed to my site, so I endeavor to make this promise. That if you send me a private message, I will find the time to respond, and I mean that.  I hope that internet has not become the cocktail party joke, where you go and settle in with everyone who is your best new friend, and then when one leaves — It was all idle chit chat at best, and sometimes people who have not dealt with such social situations really get feelings hurt, but society is often the social set where one may find poster children for the glad hand, the immediate compliment, and if you find one person who is comfortable to sit down to have a drink and chat and let the smoozers smooze, then that is where you are apt to be comfortable.  I admire that in a person, the one who dares to break the mold and does not have their eyes darting back and forth to catch the next person they feel they should, “Chat up with,”  and we all know those people.  One I know is so horrible at it, that as she is speaking to you;  I mean it, she is looking over your head with shifting eyes back and forth — Checking out her next best plan, and I have known her for 36 years, and she is the same person I met all that time ago.  She is about my age, and her boyfriend left her;  Her husband died, and I feel sorrow that life has not been what she expected.  I could have introduced her to people along the way, but her persona was so offensive, that I would put away the thought.

I think I have made a couple or more people on Xanga where we could meet up someday and enjoy the stories of our lives, but I want to know what you all think.  What kind of place is this; Is it competitive for attention?  Is it a writer’s place to practice their skills, or do you see it as more social???

I used it to write a book, and I would have left, but people kept writing me, and right now, I seem to be drawing from the world, not just Americans, and I cannot answer what the upward tick is all about.  Am I about to launch, “Pinkhoneysuckle,”;  Oh yes I am, and I have a show on March 23rd in this Noe Valley and Dolores Hgts region of San Francisco where I live, so I knew what I was out to finish.  I did that, and now I have some special friends.  “Pinkhoneysuckle,” has not had big sales which happened as a result of Xanga, and I would warn writers to have a different plan for Marketing your book, but to just add:  Barbara Everett Heintz, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon, Kindle, Create Space, and to say yes that I have won two awards, the most meaningful being a first in Hollywood Book Festival 2012.  For those of you who find it offensive, I deeply apologize, for those who offer advice and love; I show as much thanks as humanly possible, and for those who have bought it, I simply Bless them and thank them with all of my heart.

I have never said that you better get out and buy my book, and if you do not give me a good review; then the hell with you.  I just write a note at the end of my articles, for it seemed harmless enough.  Others even have store and their web sites are all about that endeavor, though they do post as well.  If I can order from a Xanga person something which I need, then I am going to check out the price, and I would choose to help a Xangan, just like choosing local markets, although our nearest Whole Foods has simply priced a lot of people out of there, for their is great wealth around here.  I am not against going up the hill to the local Safeway, for they are rather good also.  We all have a limit on what to spend.  We all have limits on what interest us.

But, what are you looking for in a Xanga site?  I know why I got involved, and I know why I will stay on a little longer.

My Blessings Be With All of You, and to the Catholics, Let us please pray for our church to come more in to the new world.  So I am praying for a pope who is a reformer, for it is time to bring the unwelcomed back to the table of plenty.

Barbara Everett Heintz

I am looking around as I have done so many times to see what to take with me when I leave for Ohio, and I have boxes of many sizes to take the things I’ve collected over a year back to the river, and it is much harder this time, for I’m just now getting well enough to even want to go back to grandchildren, the moments I love to drive by the houses we rebuilt, then moved on from for a child needed a better school, or we were the city folk in suburbs, for there were a few places which just seemed away from what we value , that a house lives, breaths, takes in your soul piece by piece, and you will visit to see what happened to all that you once did when we can transport our ions across place and time — the way of Kirk and Spock; or when Jesus appeared in white garments and entrusted his disciples with the three tents of white gleaming in the sun; Was this a metaphor for the power of one who shall return when times are right, and the earth grows dark — Clouds making sounds of groans and thunder, and then the call, “The Call,” and shall we see the marvelous tents radiant against all things with a central figure we have called, “Behold Our God,” for if we are to believe in mysteries, then it would be satisfying to think that we can transverse death and enter where we please to see the work we left behind, to see ourselves at work or play, and to have those days when all feels so well.  We walk with the children until night fall.  What a sight, the vision of ourselves.

What shall I place in my boxes, for I have acquired — Presents for another birthday, angels for another Christmas tree unless I return here by then, and I wish not to, for California is the suburb to me, and for all of the beautiful movies, somehow the arts simply do not speak to me in the same way as near the prarie  where the glaciers left more subtle marks, and where the very air itself becomes excited and electric, spinning off great storms and rainbows to mark their end.  I need to be back in this hospitable place where we swell with pride that we are beautiful in our actions governed by the purity of the way we were — As well as the way we might be.  I see things becoming less diverse in this place at times, for one way of thinking is governed by masses, and think the other way, and your out of the ballpark, and; “You are not good after all, because we know what is right for everyone,” and if all America was up to the standard of California values — Then all is right with the world.”  There seems to be some incongruentcy  in deciding one place is a model for how the country should go and the idea of diversity.  To be diverse, if I understand it, is that differences of thoughts and values are tolerated, and I just see a lot less of beating up on people for not accepting that just everything is not kosher in California, and that people hold on with claws to live a life which retorts, “We can live with the sentiment, but we are people with many beliefs, customs, and directions, but let the great storm fan over the land, and we will go to the unseen  brother or sister of mankind.

Maybe I will take the unanswered Christmas letters and let people know that I needed no death certificate again as another blood clot decided to tear in to my right lung, but since it did not I am feeling nostalgia for Isaac’s baby garment, for Isabella’s gold cross which I got for her on the day of first communion.  I want some more pictures for Rebekah, for she loves pictures so, the daughter Jacob married and brought to our family, Rebekah.  Erica is one I save linens for, Isaac’s special wife, and for Mary — there are the little horse broaches,  and for Catherine, something she may keep for a while, just a while from my collection of small things, for many things are shattered, but I will give her something whole.  My boxes take weeks to unpack, a special dress if I go to a book signing, my favorite pens with which I write thoughts, and the pewter tray of, “Give Us This Day.”  I pack boxes well, for I know now that some will not be opened until I am but vapor on a cold morning’s air.  Dating with death too many times can make one morbid at times, but I will leave as much morbid out as I possibly can.  I asked for new sealing tape, and I already have the bubble wrap, and I close my ears when Frank suggests things are too expensive to ship anymore, for shipping cost more than to purchase, and so he says, but I know better.

I want to take the fire which we use so much in San Francisco, for we are really not where you want to visit for a heat wave.  I have asked for a recipe or two, though the heartland people do not develop a taste for the ocean fish, so those I shall just leave behind except for when the fresh fish comes in at Whole Foods back there.  I have my presents from Christmas past, so those should go in, but my Valentine from Frank will store in my draws where I keep joy and sorrow, the small poems and prayers, and I hope to remember the passport, just in case we travel soon, though will we  The time seems rarely right, but I am even thinking that we might go to  the East Coast for a change, so I must make a summer when I am doing the important things, so in must go the list of life and what is important at this juncture. Of course, I will take my book boards off the wall, and I need the posters Frank had made for me, for as the experts have noted, that in a book cover contest, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” could easily take a first prize, but how to mail them, laminated and large would take a mailing box I cannot make, so maybe they are better left behind.

I will see that everyone has their favorite soaps, and I will take things for the friends, the dear friends made over 30 years.  I do have The Emperor’s Tea which I ordered from China in the freezer, for we may save fine teas in just that way, and I am told of the medicinal power of the first leaves taken at the top of the bush in a special land where The Emperor’s regal court passed on gilded carriages with fine horses, and he declared that only the finest of tea grew in this soil and little makes it out of China.  My little books on teas, the proper sort, I have kept in a bookcase here, but perhaps one or two shall go with me to bring the mystique of my ancestors of England and the Isles back to Ohio, for under my skin which will blush with fire, the legend of the face which can hide no shock, just like the voice that trembles unless I prepare to keep Essential Tremor in check, but this face gives me away, and the maternal line of English mothers settled in on me, not the olive Indian of some of the boys, so yes; the tea shall go.

My boxes are so filled and so heavy with thought that they can hardly be carried, and you do not want to open them on your own, for there is something mystical within them, and I cannot be certain that another can handle it, because I make it!  No one knows all of the secrets of what goes in, for I do not even pack them all myself, and maybe you do not know that of life, that even after the tape and the addresses are on, weighty things narrow and slide within the stash of boxes to be mailed, for it refuses to be left behind.  It is the transfiguration that happened over the time you have been away, and the creep in, seep in, like a downpour of rain, but only the weight gives it away that something was picked that you do not always want to bring along, for a year in a life is a very long time when we are forced to think about the years which sail by, sail on, and take you to the place where you are looking back upon yourself and the packing, and wondering why it was important to make it all right, each little box, stuffed with what you could not leave behind is rather much the same from place to place.

 These years, I do not know when I shall return here, for it becomes harder every year, for we get back to the other place, and things have changed there as well.  I can now make trips to Tennessee and not grieve so hard that Mama and Daddy are interred on the hill in Walnut Grove, but I like to take rocks and sea shells, little things that will last from my garden to them, so that will be the box of sacred things.  Stones and shells are sacred you ask?  All should know that one carries the sound of the sea, and the other has made a journey from the center of the earth, and you ask me if they are sacred?  All that will remain, and all that passes by, and all that we have loved has some nature of the sacred, and only we can dis-spell the nature of that being something good, something very good. 

The good heart can turn the stone in to gold, and it can give the shell back to the sea, for our nature has the power to be glorious.  We are visitors in this realm, just for this moment; moments we will rarely count except when our expectations are high or they are broken, but we are so temporal, and yet we have the power of choosing wonderful.

We can be shallow and resist the poetry of miracles, and we can call the pipers to play the music for our dance where we crush feet, crush the sign which read, “Goal,” and we can take away dreams which are precious unto those who carried us up to the ladder, up near the white tents, and we may choose to crush them like an army for the climb is steep and the travelers are weary, stomp the boxes and break the line of love with which they began.  It is a choice, and those who mock the choice at midnight when the deepest sleep summons us to answer in our dreams and before the dawn are apt to miss, “The Emperor’s Tea,” “The treasures in the boxes,” but most of all, “The power of the rock and the stone.”  

I must go now, for, “The Emperor,” is passing by fat, filled, bathed and clothed in all of his finest gifts, so I must pack the box of charms, and make him welcome,  and perhaps he will leave the fabric for fine tents which I may sew for all who have gone before to rest in the warm and glorious sun of another time and another place.

Barbara Everett Heintz,  Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Amazon and Kindle Ready — Create Space, With awards in San Francisco, as well as a First in Hollywood, California Book Festivals 2012

I am tragically imperfect, for I know of myself that I cannot. “Walk on Water,” change the world to a peaceful kingdom, and I cannot end the sorrows for the lost.  I will never paint like Michael Angelo, and first graders can draw stick figures better than me.  I have probably spent more time with psychiatrist than the number of years you have lived, fodor I could not prevent horrible things happening to me nor within my family.  I was fully unequipped to enter an adult world at 17, but I had no choice.  I graduated college with only a 3.45 so I did not get full honors or come in first in my class.

I love sweets, and I eat them knowing that they will shorten my life, and I can say that it is good for grandchildren to have a lot of me to hug, but I know better.  I saw Oral Roberts when I was a little girl, and I laid my hands on my own head, and I tried to believe that if I was good enough, and never did anything wrong, then I could heal my brother who was born with facial deformities, and most 4 year olds have more social skills than James, but I layed my hands on him too, for I thought that I might have the power of Oral Roberts, and that I could make James in to a new creation.  I mourn his death, and he has not died yet, for he had the worst abuse a child could ever live through.

I want all wars to end, and I keep thinking that if I could sit all leaders of all nations down and just talk, that I could show them that war has been a reality since recorded time, but the time for it to do good is now over, and I want to stop these kids from coming home with PTSD which I have suffered from almost my first memory.  I am an egotist, for I feel that people could learn from my book which I wrote that America uses its people but in a more subtle way.  I have zero control over the fact that money, oil, the untouchable out of site rich own all of us in one way or the other, and I have not been able to convince billionaires that they are sinning against the world even if God was not a reality.  No person or persons should be billionaires, for people should be better than to accumulate that kind of wealth when there is famine and illness anywhere.

I cannot clothe but a few of the naked, and I can no longer see a world where scripture is taken in any serious manner, and I find myself doubting God, and I have to remember the times when I was rescued by some powerful goodness that was more than happenstance.  I refuse to denounce God, and in not being able to determine that he is not, then I must believe in scripture, and I certainly have a whole list of sins on my plate.  I would like to preach sometimes, but it is what I believe, and I do not know the right words to help everyone be just a little better.

I fear never knowing fame, even though I have been told a million times that I am a gifted author.  I confess that I long for my book to become known, for a part of me wants those who made my people of southern Appalachia out to be the country’s trash to have to eat their words and to choke on them.

This is my first confession in some time, so I hope a Priest reads it and grants me absolution, and some of you think confession is wrong, for you say you do not need a Priest to forgive you.  They do not forgive you; Rather, if they are good priests they will help you to know how much you need to pray, and they will ask you to sin no more, and you tell them, usually, I will not, “In The Name Of The Father And The Son, And The Holy Spirit.”  They cost a lot less than psychiatrist; Infact it is a freebie if you need confession, plus they are sworn to secrecy, a bond they have with the Church and with God which cannot be broken.  Absolving you of your sins is a way of saying to get your butt out there, and pray to God, and as far as Priest go; they are sinners too, and they get the picture.

I have worked harder on getting my book out than I have at making food or anything for my family, so I am selfish, and I am not expecting any of you to get up and cheer that I have opted to spend my last years putting books together when everyone and their dog is publishing a book these days.  Some are really rather good, like mine, but it is hard to find people who even care about anything of American History, and I absolve you from having to care too much about me or what I think.  I want you to choose my book from the other million.

I have too many sins to list, but if any of you want to hash out some of yours; Go for it, but you know where to go to get them off your chest, Protestant, Catholic, Muslim or Jew; Get down on your knees and pray, and if you are a non believer, then you should at least read Ms. Manners so that you will not be a total arrogant pig who states that we believers are a bunch of nuts – For we all have days of doubt and pain, but we do not need your arrogance added to all of it, for if you are wrong, then there is the distinct possibility that you may be sent back as a dung beetle.  I repent; Amen

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” on Amazon, Kindle, Create Space, and a Xanga Blogger 

This evening I got a request from an interpreter from The Republic of China who has kindly asked for my book, and China, to my knowledge is unable to order from our Amazon Books, and believe me, I notice when someone has read enough to describe my book as a, “Masterpiece,” for they have gone to the reviews.  I have been told by Xangans that Xanga is a terrible place from which to market  books, but that  being said — Last week was the first week which I remember when I had ove 1000 visitors from my site, so I would like for South America, and most of Europe to know that they may order my book, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” by Barbara Everett Heintz through your Amazon, Kindle, and Create Space.  Now, Japan is added, and your footprints have meant much to me as they have streamed in to my blog, because I wrote the book on my blog site.  There may be a few eastern European areas that may have a harder time seeking to purchase my book, and I have seen cities in Poland, Slovenia, Thialand, and so many others reaching out to my writings, and I wish to help those who truly want my book to be reachable to those who have the ability to have the benefit of an interpretor, especially to be able to purchase a book that tells about the USA as you will never see it advertised and rarely on the news open up to you through the aegis of Amazon.

I apologize to those who come to my web blog often to have to hear the, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” explanation again, so I  have done much blogging lately, and I think there is something for most people.  I have added a Photo Album, for the pictures take you to times and places in my life and of my families.  My mother’s younger picture shows so clearly the outline of the little baby which she is carrying, my sister, and it shows the men in the best they had at the time.  My father appears as worn as the mule which he is endeavoring to put away, and you could look at these and not even know especially that you are not in some place withing another country.

Just let me thank the hundreds of people who stopped by.  I do encourage you to come back from England, France, Germany, Japan, and other countries who can reach Amazon and to put, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” in your reading cue.  Though ill health kept me from achieving a formal launch of this book, at the end of March, I will do so with WVXU in Cincinnati, and I thank the talented, Lee Hay, for bringing me on for this happy occasion at the end of March, as soon as I can make it back to Cincinnati with some strength after blood clots formed in my lungs twice while in California.

“Pinkhoneysuckle,” takes you to southern Appalachia which is known as The Buckle Of America’s Bible Belt, but this book is one woman’s life as she and her family deal with The removal of Appalachian people from their Southern Farm by America’s choice of sending cotton production to other areas of the world, like India.  Strong backs of mountain men and women would hit Rust Belt cities to take the hardest jobs, for they needed a paycheck to feed families who came with them or who stayed home.  Our Daddy lift us as did most in our area, and we would grieve his coming and going for 6 years.  Where he worked closed after those six years, and he wanted to try again to farm, but we would find ourselves with nothing when the next winter came along, for our mother had only her children to help, and we did work so hard, but that year, Mom was losing all good sense, and she had canned mainly stapeles of sauerkraut, pickles, and tomatoes.  What little Dad had put back had to go on the farm mortgage, or we would have been homeless, but worse — We would have lost our mother and father in their violent acts.  Children and women were the targets for angry men, and my already beated down mother would always just keep pressing harder and harder, and we would all weep as the hitting, and worse, the gun threats began.

We were among thousands who stayed lost for more years, too late to give us any sense of ever being children.  We were slaves in white face, and only Dr. Martin Luther King was good enough to want us marching with the black poor, but I was the one who broke away, studied about our lives and realized that we belonged in the poor people Marches.  This book is careful with history, careful to tell my truth, for the fury of some of my family who did not want to be a part of the story has been hard to bear.  I made certain the story was the period that covered my life, and it brings to the world what happened to all the little towns which people walk down in to from the world’s longest dedicated walking trail, “The Appalachian Trail.”  We never even knew it was basically in our back yard, and here it was founded by The Great John Muir, the same John Muir who backed making the John Muir trail which goes all the way from Marin County to Sierra peaks, but no one would take us to, “The Appalachian Trail?”

Pinkhoneysuckle holds two book awards from the summer of 2012 — Honorable Mention in San Francisco, A number one in my division where it is mixed genre weaving history, family, and my story, all which I say could be thousands of women and children from my error of birth — mid-century on in to my adult hood.  It is seen as a book which would be easily adaptable to other media, and I am working toward a movie, for this is southern farmer’s, “Grapes of Wrath,” only John Steinbeck was touched by the Oklahomans, but we were kept in our place, and that is the darned truth of it.

The coming of age story adds some romance, and as horrible as things were;  You will find that you laugh almost as much as you cry. I greatly invite all friends of the world to go to the Amazon site, and see the places where you can purchase it through Amazon. Kindle and Create Sjpace are all Amazon as well, and Amazon is now making movies with several in the wings, but I need those of you who come to my site to also go to Amazon, and help them to understand that, “Pinkhoneuysuckle,” is able to attract 1000 footprints.  Please make your footprints count, and know that you are how and why I would ever get selected, for only you can demand more product, and I believe that when you get caught up in the book, then reading is what you will want to do.  I beg when you come to my website that, if you like the blogs which I write, then I have carved a place for you in my heart to receive, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” and I hope to meet you all over this country this summer.

Please help me show why all Rust Belt cities have Appalachian poor and hot spots to this day from Cincinnati to Chicago, and I would beg your kindness to purchase or rent, “Pinkhoneysuckle,” for I am endeavoring to show that the old friends and the loved ones who farmed with us and whose children like I are left without the independence we need to share with future generations, for we lost our crafts and self sufficient ways, and what was everyday to us is now marketed as, “Craft.”

Please citizens of the world give my story a chance, and I will never forget that all of you came to help.

Blessings Across The Globe, And I know that you want to learn about the hidden America which I wrote about and of which I am — Just one.

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” the book and Pinkhoneysuckle, the Xanga blog.

You may send me messages if you have questions about this book.

Many Thanks, Barbara Everett Heintz

I am aware that all police persons are not golden boys and girls.  One night after working at Hospice for a double shift on a New Years Eve, I was driving home on a dark and icy night, and I realized my vision was impaired, and you may not get this, but I was so exhausted, I did not get that it was a policeman following me, and instead of driving slowly on to the next lighted and public place, I stopped for his flashing light, and I had never been pulled over by a policeman before — Never!  In Ohio, we are supposed to be able to pull in to a public place if we feel our safety may be in jeoporady, but the good nurse obeys law enforcement.

I asked him when he got to the car what on earth had I done, for I was tired and extra cautious, and then he, a young and pompous little jerk, without one polite word asked me why I was driving with a brake light out, to which I vowed and meant that I had no idea one of my brake lights was out, and promised that I would have my husband take care of it when I got home, about fifteen more minutes through neighborhood streets.  He, before I knew what was happening, reached his arm in my car unable to avoid touching my chest — shall I say, and he turned on my warning signal and told me to drive the rest of the way home like that, and by then I was afraid of him.  It was before two of my sons had graduated from law school, and I knew that if you piss off one police person, then you are apt to get stopped by his buddies, especially in a small neighborhood force like the one he was out of.

Do not get me wrong, for most of the people are putting their lives on the line day in and day out, and most are well intentioned.  Your best police are not apt to be doing traffic on a residential street with a few businesses and hastleing nurses at 3AM.  He needed to be reigned in, but I mean that I feared future nights.  He said he had followed me for a half mile, and, “Why did I not stop,” and I always tell the  truth, that I thought someone was tail gating me, and the lights were blinding me, and that is how it is on icy cold and misty nights in Ohio, but Mr. Big Man, had I had a camera phone could have gotten himself filmed for battery.  He could have told me to turn my emergency light on.

In the San Francisco Bay area recently, we are noticing more and more of these police chase events where a perpetrator is being pulled over, and the next thing they know, a police chase ensues, bullets wind up flying in both directions, and it actually places the lives of other citizens in danger.  Today there was a 23 police car chase of one criminal, and he was killed, and certainly — He started the chase, but these are beginning to happen far too often out here, and all I can picture are Roy Rogers and Dale Evans chasing the bad guys, guns flashing, and they either wipe out a crew of cow thieving, town harassing good for nothing whippersnappers who aren’t worth a cold grave. 

I am not kidding that within the past two weeks there have been about three car chases, and one or two people killed in the process, so I am wondering how these people who are on the run do not deserve a day in court.  I am the first to say that, by all means, police must be able to use deadly force, though I wish that were not the case, but if citizens are going to be blasting with assault weapons, then police persons must have a fighting  chance.  We had two officers in Santa Cruz killed by a man with a history of violence, but in listening to the list, this guy was mentally ill, and we have succeeded in closing our mental hospitals, so instead we have gravely mentally ill people killing police who have come to their door, for they are trying to be humane.  I am convinced that your average murderer is not an upstanding citizen just driven to bad acts, and usually you are going to learn from the neighbors that the whole darned community knew to be afraid of them; Thus I, personally, fall on the side of non violence, but we cannot count on the sanity of all individuals.

Does that mean that the Scot Pedersen’s of the world should be let go as psychopaths, and the answer is easy, “Not on your life,” for their ability to murder is validated by them as the justification that they are above all societal norms, so keep them locked away forever,  No one recognizes a psychopath, and it may seem that I have a fixation on these people, and to a degree — I do, for what happens when it can be determined by brain scan that a person has such tendency.  The day is coming when that is going to be possible, and I do not doubt that common gene patterns will be found to run through these clever, brilliant, bright, and attractive people who turn in to murderers, so those police persons in Santa Cruz died at the hands of someone who, in all probability had fallen through the cracks, so I feel mercy toward police officers, and I shadow all of those who endeavor to protect us with prayers of well being.

What is with the car chases though, for it would seem more applicable to get the helicopters in the air, and to keep that car in sight;  But it just appears to me that even our justice system is adding to the violence.  The danger of car chases must have more caution and more limits, for police person’s are getting shot, the people who are on the run are winding up dead, and it spreads fear in the hearts of many of us who have experienced an aggressive act by a police force.  No, murderers should not get away, but even the crazy Manifesto writing cops gone rogue did not need to be burned at the stake, and we will always hear those tender screams, even after he had most probably shot himself, “Burn the fucking place down.”  That seems to have begun what has been a serious two weeks of violence out here, the law enforcement policeman who was out to get even.  A wise person well versed in psychology though shed light on that case by saying that when people come to the point of writing Manifestos, nothing is going to end well.  He was a lunatic cop killer, and he was trapped, but are we so uncivil that we cannot give the relatives a body to bury and to grieve over.

We fear when our militia seems to be handing out death sentences, and if one has ever been made to fear a police person, then I can understand the need to run, though I know these are not choir boys and nurses getting shot.  I would just like to hear that wild west chases which end with dead offendors adds to a younger person’s doubts that their best interest is served if they ask for help from law enforcement.  I want to keep advocating that the count of dead due to criminal activity as well as the number of persons who die each week in America should be counted and published every week taking in to account 50 states, and let us get a larger picture of how violent we have become, for the little children growing up today will hear, and they will see, and violence can become what seems the only answer for them, so when can we hear it?  It would be easy to compile weekly reports of how many people die in America from all forms of killing, sanctioned or otherwise.  CNN, will you lead, or will Fox?  But who will tell the truth, the weekly toll of killing in America.

God help us, and, “Happy Trails,” But make certain you do not stop in a dark place.  I was terrified, and recall it like yesterday over twelve years later.

Barbara Everett Heintz, Author of “Pinkhoneysuckle,” Story of Mid-Century Diaspora of Appalachian Families With Extremely Important Story of Children and Women Left To Carry On — A Hidden American Tradgedy