Show, don’t tell
Sunday as usual I helped with music at Forum and then went to the Chinese church to help with youth. The younger kids were ready to implement a project we had been planning for a couple of months.
No gluing cotton balls to construction paper, no way. We started building an A-frame swing for the playground. The girl in the pink top here did most of the planning. She divided the kids into three groups, one for each leg of the trestle and another for the swing seat…
A previous kids’ class made a picnic table with benches–from scratch. Since I had dispersed many tools, we worked from a kit. Long bolts got put where short bolts were needed. The kids recognized some advantages of referring to the plan and using the right tool. We should be able to finish this next Sunday. Since this swing was made from cypress wood, we talked about Noah and the need to do right even if you don’t get a lot of help and applause.
I went directly to a Columbia Friends of China farewell party.
The evening presented a ragtime concert with superb artists. I also resolved a mental mystery. I can’t always identify the songs playing in my head! This was the case with a ragtime melody that came to me a few weeks ago. I thought it was a Joplin theme, but couldn’t find it. Then, boom, at the concert there it was, the final theme of Smoky Topaz, composed by 17-year-old Grace Bolen of KC. This was performed with touches of both poignancy and determination, as fit the song and my mood.
Monday before work I sent to a cousin a nice dropleaf table and to a salvage yard some wretched old snowtires Dad gave me on the chance that I might someday have a vehicle that could use them. I am so relieved to be freed of things that have sustained no vital function in my life. In continued de-accumulation, on Tuesday I took a station-wagon packed with plants and bookshelves to CWC in Warsaw, and sold a big trunk through craigslist. Then I continued on to the KC airport to pick up a visitor from San Diego. We submarined back to Columbia. That evening another craigslist buyer picked up a student desk, and another one got an old table. When I first started trying to unload all this furniture, being uncool, I bought newspaper ads. The newspaper ads got zero response. Zip. With craigslist for no direct cost, I was able to dispose of such furniture quickly. Newspapers and other media continuing 20th century habits are doomed.
I am very happy that appropriate people have gotten this stuff. In the remaining three weeks before I leave this town, I still have an awful amount of personal stuff to winnow, most of which is of low or negative value to anyone else. To my horror, after stacking the contents of several boxes in one pile I discovered that over the years I have accumulated 11 cubic feet of commemorative T shirts! Almost all unworn! It looks like Salvation Army and others will take these, so there’s a little job for next week.
For details, see Caleb Chen’s blogs, noted below. Why should I blog when others do it for me?
- Chinese Language — Via Google Translate (no photos)
- Chinese Language — Via Google Translate (no photos)
- Chinese Language — Via Google Translate (no photos)
Machine translation can be entertaining.
