Well so much for an article per day in August!  Thanks to the loyal readers who submitted worthy individuals and causes for my month devoted to good works.  I’ll squeeze in a few more stories.

Mostly I’m finding August is much busier than I expected it would be.  My home and neighborhood near Syracuse University are at the center of transition at this time of year.  My youngest child is preparing for his freshman year at S.U., which is the easiest of my responsibilities these days.  I’ve been hosting parents of international students delivering their sons and daughters for studies at the University.  It’s a blast.  We have a father and son from New Zealand, a  father and daughter from China and we said farewell to two young vacationers from Berlin, Germany. Sure I’m making quite a few beds in my spare rooms, but I’m learning a lot from these wonderful people.

There’s a whole world out there!  So thank you for your patience with me.  I bit off more than I could chew this month.  I’ll write more as soon as I can.

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As anyone who has cared for an aging parent knows, days can be long and heartbreaking.  One Massachusetts man is chronicling his father’s decline in a blog entitled Life with Father.

There are millions of blogs, including this one, detailing life’s challenges and rewards, however, Life with Father is different.  The author,  Chuck Ross, 50,  sugarcoats nothing, and in fact, he often and eloquently seems quite angry about the whole thing.  It’s worth a read.

My favorite entry among recent posts, discusses the love affair  Ross’s dad had with his cars which makes the battle to take the keys away  all the more poignant.

Journeys like these always become worse instead of better.  Here is hoping the road ahead for Ross and his father is as peaceful as can be.

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When Manlius volunteer firefighters Timothy Lynch and John Ginocchetti died battling a house fire in Pompey in 2002, Dick Casale wanted to do something to help.  The owner of Manlius Dry Cleaners and Artel Cleaners in Fairmount, Casale offered to dry clean every uniform in the Manlius Fire Department, free of charge.  He’s been quietly doing it ever since.

“I thought if these guys can risk their lives to keep the community safe, then the least I can do is help them out” Casale says.  ”I want to give something back.”

Dick Casale grew up in Syracuse, went to Bentley College in Massachusetts, and returned to learn the dry cleaning business begun by his parents on the south side of Syracuse. Today, in addition to the two dry cleaning establishments in Manlius and Fairmount, Casale runs a wholesale dry cleaning business, taking in the cleaning of other storefronts around central New York.

Throughout his years in the business, Casale has seen stricter environmental control over the chemicals used in the cleaning process.  The recession has shrunken the business significantly as customers perceive dry cleaning as a luxury item.   Wash and wear clothing is becoming a greater percentage of even the professional wardrobe, Casale says.

All of which makes the quiet little practice of dry cleaning firefighter’s uniforms for free, a big deal.   So the next time you see a Manlius firefighter marching in a crisp clean uniform, give a nod to the dry cleaner who keeps it that way.  Dick Casale, someone special in our community I thought you would like to know.

If you know of someone who deserves some recognition, please leave a comment below and I’ll contact you for details. This is my focus for the month of August.

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Since 2003 Pete Wirth has been on a mission to make Syracuse simply daffy with daffodils.  He began the Westcott Bulb Project, an organization that supplies free daffodil bulbs to homeowners and businesses in the Westcott Street neighborhood.  Now they include tulips bulbs as well.

The Westcott “Nation” as it is known, is a groovy cross section of students, aging hippies and apartment dwellers with Section 8 housing subsidies.  They all blend together in a lively mix.  You’ll find some of the best pizza in town at Dorian’s, Mexican food at Alto Cinco, Middle Eastern cuisine at Munjed’s and diner food at Mother’s.  Early spring brings high school girls to Boom Babies for the largest selection of prom gowns in Central New York.  The Onondaga County Library has a branch there, and in the fall, the Westcott Street Fair unites artists, musicians and merchants in perhaps the largest block party in Syracuse.

Springtime is also when you see the efforts of Pete Wirth and his band of volunteers who collect and distribute the bulbs.  The bulbs are planted in the fall for a spectacular spring arrival.  Last year the bulb project went citywide, culminating in 70,000 daffodil and tulip bulbs planted around Syracuse.

I’m a big believer in flowers making the difference between a city that is alive and one that is not.  Visit Saratoga Springs and Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario to see what I mean.  Or stroll Rt. 20/Main Street in Cazenovia and marvel at the giant hanging baskets of petunias off the lampposts, or the potted plants dotting the sidewalks in Skaneateles, or drive Meadowbrook Dr. on Syracuse’s east side to see the annuals exploding with color and structure at all the cuts in the brook. Flowers show a community cares.

Pete wants everyone to know the bulb project is available to all community groups who want to assemble volunteers to plant in the fall.  Bulbs are to be placed in visible locations, they are not for private backyards.  He provides “top size” bulbs at cost, in the following varieties:

Daffodils: mixed, large premium bulbs

Tulips:

Red Impression
Golden Apple Doorn  – Yellow
Tequila Sunrise Mix  – Red & Yellow, Pink, White

The deadline for ordering the bulbs is August 18th.  For more information contact Pete at pwirth2@verizon.net  or visit the Bulb Project’s Website.

This is the inaugural article for my own project occurring this month of August, where I feature people and organizations doing good deeds for nothing more than the satisfaction that comes from improving a life or a community.  If you know of someone who deserves recognition, please post a comment which will remain unpublished, and I will contact you for more information.

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From time to time I receive an email requesting some publicity for a caring individual or good cause in the Syracuse area.  Often the stories are so humbling that I think my little blog is too small a spotlight for the great deeds happening all around us.  But it’s a start.

For the month of August, every article I write, hopefully one per day, will give credit to individuals and organizations that improve our lives.  There’s no award, just the satisfaction that comes from someone listening, writing about it, and passing it on.

My readership goes beyond Central New York state, so I’d like to know of the good works happening just about anywhere.  Catherine on Cape Cod, Valerie in Bethesda, Delphine in France, Jacqui in Scotland, Jianan in China, this includes you too.  Send them in.

To share a good deed, simply give me a little information in the comment section under any article on my blog.  Your comment won’t be published.   I’ll  respond to the email address that accompanies your information.

I have a handful of ideas sporadically sent over the last few weeks to get me started on this project, but I’ll need many more to do one per day in August.

We’ll call this a different kind of “summer reading list”; the reminder that in spite of a troubled Norwegian with a gun, gifted athletes who no longer have hope, and a federal government too crippled by politics to do the responsible thing– there is much, much more good happening in the world than bad.

Spread the word.    I hope to hear from you.

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Check out this advertisement about downtown Syracuse, currently airing on local TV.  It is gorgeous.  But in my opinion, it’s also a little over the top with the drama and that makes it slightly annoying.

The one-minute commercial was sponsored by the Downtown Committee and produced by Syracuse-based Solon Quinn Studios with assistance from a Preserve America grant.

I sent it out in a tweet this afternoon, inviting opinion, and I got plenty.  One person summed it up nicely.  ”Too much mush for my liking.  At least they r doing something”. Yup, I feel the same way.

Another twitter friend Stefanie Noble, who is a graphic arts designer in the Syracuse area, astutely compared it to the Chrysler Super Bowl commercial. That ad is here.   I like Syracuse better than Detroit, but I like the Chrysler commercial better because although it is really similar to ours — right down to the moving shot of a powerful bronze statue,  the one from Detroit manages to keep its feet on the ground at the end.

To be clear, I think it is great to see a commercial of this artistry and production value focusing on Syracuse.  And these days, you can send it around the world for all to see our beautiful city.   Again, the camera work is stunning.  I just don’t like the melodramatic copy.

What do you think?  Am I nuts to think it could have been written better?  Or is it the best thing to come along since the Erie Canal?

Hey, at least they r doing something.

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I just received my prescription allergy pills via health insurance mail order.   It’s a 90 day supply, the maximum allowed in one shipment under the plan.  But as the photo below shows, it looks more like I’m about to run out of pills instead of just getting a fresh supply.  What’s with the giant bottle?

Those 90 pills of singulair could fit in an old photographic film container.  Remember those?  The little black tubes?   Instead, they came in a plastic bottle 4.5 inches tall and 2 inches in diameter.  It’s like opening a brand new bag of potato chips and finding the bag nearly empty to start.

First, it’s a waste of plastic to make a container 15 times too large, no matter how small it is.  It uses too much raw product and it takes up too much room on the shelf for storage.

My other problem is psychological.  I know, I know, there are meds for that too.   I just believe $50.oo for 90 days of pills should look like they fill something.  This pathetic bottle looks like I got cheated out of most of my pills, like the pharmacist took a phone call in the middle of counting them out and never came back.

If you asked me to guess how many pills are lying at the bottom of that pill bottle I would probably say, maybe, 28?  I would never guess 90.

So as Congress explores ways to cut spending, lets take a look at our bottles of medicine.  I can’t be the first person to get 90 pills in a container meant to hold 1000, can I?

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I never had the honor of meeting Julie and Steve Kenan’s son Cameron, but I have a lifetime of images of his cherubic little face after attending the toddler’s funeral this morning.    Snapshots of Cameron and his family were mounted on boards and placed on easels throughout the church hall. As Julie once embraced her boy, the power of community and hope held us all in Skaneateles.

Cars filled all the streets surrounding the First Presbyterian Church on Genesee Street.  Yellow ribbons tied on every tree and lamppost, beginning at the church and winding through the business district and West Lake Street all the way to the Kenan home, rippled in the wind.   The lake sparkled warm and cold all at the same time.

That lake is the reason Skaneateles exists.  It draws tourists, receives high school graduates who junp in with their caps and gowns, and it provides the drinking supply for a city.  But because it also took Cameron from his family and into the arms of God, it was the giant topic no one seemed to want to touch until the Reverend wisely took it head on.

“Some parents say they’ll never allow their children near the water again”, he told the mourners. “People are saying they’ll never jump in that lake.  And that’s OK.  It’s normal to feel that right now”.

But he offered a lesson in faith and  hope.  Of course there will be joy in the water one day. Life will be different, he said, but we must all have faith that it will still be good.   Faith is what you hold onto when nothing that happened makes any sense.

Many of Julie’s colleagues in the TV news business were there today.  Among them was my friend Michael Benny who articulated at the reception what I was feeling too; everyone hugged their hellos and they hugged them hard.  I don’t know,   I can’t speak for anyone but myself, but it seems every person I saw today– some for the first time in years, means more to me now.  It’s all for coming together to grieve the loss of a golden little boy.

I remember when my parents died, in 1998 and 2000, as they were supposed to die following a long and happy life, I was ticked off to see people coming and going normally as I struggled through the most abnormal thing that had ever happened to me.  Traffic flowed, teachers taught and stores sold goods to shoppers.  It was out of sync with the way part of my world ended.  It bothered me to see everyone OK when I was not.

That’s not happening in Skaneateles.  On a picturesque Chamber of Commerce kind of summer day,  there are too many cars in the village for a Wednesday.  Sidewalks bear people in black.  And a hundred or more yellow ribbons strung from one end of the village to another, remind us that nothing is normal at all.

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The first thing I notice year after year is, I do much less writing and reading now than I do in winter.  Much is made of “summer reading”, but who has the time?  There are trails to bike, weeds to pull and backyard barbecues to prepare.  College age children come home and leave laundry and dishes and that’s alright because they bring the fun too.  Even in heat and heavy air, summer speeds things up at my place, instead of slowing them down.

I’m having some victories in the garden this summer.  After nursing giant blue-green hostas through several seasons in critical condition, I believe I found the secret to repelling deer who liken these shade-loving show-stoppers to prime rib.  Though it’s aesthetically a little backward, a row of ever expanding mint placed in front of the hostas are keeping deer away.   The mint is taller than the hosta and would surely look better behind them, but heck, I’ll take it.  This is the first year they are actually getting to grow.

My German Shepherd loves echinacea, the two foot tall plant that features what look like pink daisies on top.  For some reason Eika goes straight to that one plant and snacks on it, so it’s my latest item in flora intensive care.   Gardens provide us with both worry and wonder.

I’m making liberal use of my clothes line in the backyard and I’ve had good success at pulling it all in just before it rains, which lately, has not been often.   The scent of clean laundry infused with hours of fresh air is one of those things that cannot be replicated, no matter how many candles and car fresheners attempt it.   It’s in a league all its own.  You can’t copy the flavor of the ocean you get in an oyster either.  That’s why they’re so special.

I’m loving the weather this summer.   One thing about Syracuse, just when the lawn gets dull and crispy, a burst of rain splashes water on it and brings it back to green.  I concede it is a tough growing year for the farmers who got too much rain in April when they couldn’t use it, and very little the last two months when they could.   Nature works to bring balance, but sometimes it occurs over years instead of months.  That’s tough when your livelihood comes out of the ground.

Call it global warming or just Maureen warming, but about five years ago I bit the bullet and installed air conditioning in the house.  I just couldn’t take successive days in the 90s anymore.  However, I consider it another victory when I don’t have to turn it on.  It’s expensive, but even worse, it’s another day without fresh air.  I much prefer open windows.

Speaking of open windows, this old house of mine does not include many screens and I’ve had no luck retrofitting them.  When you have windows made in 1926, options are limited.  So I throw open the casements and let the bugs and occasional bat come in.   I have a truce with the moths, mosquitoes and spiders around me.

It is also turning into a summer with sadness.  I was swimming off a friend’s dock on Skaneateles Lake on Saturday when I heard sirens and saw a State Police helicopter circling over the other side.  I did not have a good feeling about what was transpiring at the Kenan home.  My friend Julie Abbot-Kenan, formerly of WSYR-TV, lives there with her husband and four young boys.  We all learned the next day her 2 year old Cameron wandered off as dinner was being prepared and he drowned.

I don’t know many woman with four children like Julie and I, so that right there is a sort of club.  When I was pregnant with my second child, I wondered how I could possibly love a new baby as much as the one I already had, but every parent knows the love just multiplies and multiplies with every baby until the heart takes over the whole body.   Just thinking about the loss of a child creates a hole in my heart big enough to drive a truck through it even with three kids leftover.   I will spend the rest of this summer and beyond praying a very loving Julie gets all the love back in the difficult journey ahead.

More than ever, I am reminded this summer of the beauty that surrounds us, of love’s expanse, and of luck that runs out in cruel and random fashion.   We stop to note the amber sunset, electric and closing out a day of fun on water that had diamonds on it, at the very moment darkness moved in forever.

Every time a baby goes to heaven, a measure of joy gets stolen from all women who ever bore a child.

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