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Tareisia K. Simmons

 

Dear Stigand,

 

Yes, there are thousands of foods in the world...well we don't have access to thousands of ingredients (More like a couple of hundred if one goes through the whole year) but if one combines the ingredients different ways, one can easily come up with a thousand different dishes. Also there are multiple recipes and variations of each dish. Recipes in my world are written down with fairly exact directions to follow so cooks can easily reproduce each other's work. That is why we have a shelf of cookbooks plus there is Recipesource.com (formerly SOAR), a huge recipe database that any one can freely access. Recipe Source, has four versions of cranberry pudding alone. The cranberry pudding Basia and I helped make last night came from the Settlement Cookbook (The more famous cookbooks have names) and is more like a cottage pudding than what is in the database. The reason there are so many recipes is that people write them down and publish them or post them.

 

You asked about race in your last letter and this is a tricky subject because ther is a lot people don't want to admit and a lot of painful history. I'm an American of African descent. I do not know where in Africa my people come from. If you ever see a decent map of Africa lit looks like your right fist. My ancestors came from the part of the fist that is under the thumb that is tucked in to the fist.

 

My people were brought to this country as slaves. They were not just captives in war or indentured servants. Slavery was fairly industrial and greedy traders in human flesh jammed hundreds upon hundreds of Africans between the decks of old sailing ships for a trip called the Middle Passage. Yes, African rulers sold their own people in to slavery, and the Europeans who had settled in the Western Hemisphere were ready to buy them.

 

Most blacks were in the United States (I am on the opposite side of the planet from you. It is five hours earlier where I am when you are if you have any clocks. I am that far west if that makes sense.) by 1808 after which the slave trade with Africa was forbidden. My family history on my father's side where they have good track of such things goes back to Florence, Alabama in the Southern part of the United States.

 

During the 1860's there was a Civil War in this country (I live in the year 2007, so you can figure out how long ago all this was for me.) because the Southern States wanted to set up their own country called the Confederate States of America. As part of the effort to crush the confederacy and please Abolitionists in the north, the President of the United States at the time, Abraham Lincoln, ended slavery and freed all the slaves.

 

Lincoln's successor (Lincoln was assassinated by a Southerner named John Wilkes Booth), Andrew Johnson, instituted Reconstruction and for a while, Blacks got the right to vote, set up freedman's schools, and got some job training. My ancestors took advantage of this. Of course my ancestors had an advantage in being bound out to factories so they weren't field servants. They may have been house servants. I am what is called a red bone (light skin and soft hair for a black person) which means that somewhere way back when a white plantation owner or overseer had his way with a female ancestor or two of mine. After slavery ended, my father's ancestors took full advantage of what Reconstruction had to offer.

 

Unfortunately, it did not last. By the late 1870's the Klu Klux Klan was riding through the South, and by the 1880's there was Jim Crow which meant that Blacks were segregated in restaurants, trains, boats, schools, you name it. Of course by then, my father's family had left the South. They saw things weren't going to get any better and traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio and beyond that to Cleveland, Ohio. From there they settled all across the Midwest, New England, and Upstate New York. If you ever wonder how I ended up in Syracuse, I have relatives there. I even have paternal relatives in Maine. Until my grandfather decided to retire to Georgia near where he was last stationed (He was in the military), I had no family on my father's side in the South. This is VERY UNUSUAL for a black person.

 

My mother's family is Southern. They are in Mississippi, Louisianna, and Texas. My mother was the only one to go north and now she's back in the South again. My parents are both alive but divorced by the way.

 

I guess you want to know what it's like to be black in the United States in 2007. Well there are people who say racism is everywhere and white people have white priviledge all the time and there are people who say that racism is a thing of the past and both these points of view are wrong. What I notice is that when there are almost none of us as there are where I go to school now, I'm invisible. I might as well be white. It makes no difference. Where there are more of us, people think black kids aren't as smart as white ones. They think all we are in to is music and athletics. I stink at sports but I do sing and yes, my father was a boxer but so what. M mother was never much of an athlete or a singer but she finished community college and works as a computer operator. My dad sells shoes for a living. He's too injured to ever box again though he does spar.

 

People also think all blacks come from the South. Half my family doesn't come from there at all. People also think we all come from urban ghettos. I have since learned that my family was either working or middle class before my mom got sick and my father got hurt and took a long time recovering. That by the way is what killed the marriage, not crime or drugs which is the first thing people think when they see my skin color. People are actually surprised when they find out I was born in to a two parent family with both parents married as were all my siblings by the way. The divorce came after the last child was born, and there are lots of white kids with divorced parents too so it's not a big deal. Half of all marriages end in divorce.

 

I'm sorry this letter goes on forever, but it's hard to describe racism to an outsider. Most of it is just stereotypes that people kind of push aside when they know me as an individual. You know the expression: "some of my best friends are..." The stereotypes are annoying though. White people don't have to live with them and there are even positive stereotypes for some groups. Asian Americans, whose families or ancestors come from China or Japan are considered to be very bright and the same is true for Jews by the way. Kelli, one of our newest foster kids, who is American Indian (Yes, Native American is the politically correct term but she says "idnian") has to deal with negative stereotypes too. Out in Missoula, Montana where she used to live, people used to fuse the words dumb and Indian together when talking about Indian kids. The only thing Indians were supposed to be good at was basketball.

 

I know you are supposed to ignore what people think of you when they don't know anything about you, but it is easier for people of whom other people think well from the get go than it is for people whom others think are lazy, dumb, criminal etc... That's what racism feels liike in 2007.

 

That is why it is very important to have black people and Indians and Mexicans in Rose Among Thorns so that those people will be brothers and sisters in faith and nobody who joins Rose Among Thoughts will keep their stupid stereotypes for very long. I hope Alise gets her house down in Washington, DC and everyone treats that big house with respect. That will teach them.

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

Boynton Middle School

1610 N. Cayuga St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Tareisia K. Simmons...

 

Dear Stigand,

 

This is a time and technology difference between your world and mine but seventeenth through nineteenth century chattel slavery (that is the fancy term for it) in the United States and the Caribbean was different from slavery in your time. For a start, the slave traders (Yes, there were people who traded in slaves and made a business of it but did not actually own them except to sell them off.) brought their human cargo five thousand miles across the ocean to the other side of the world. That meant that even if an owner freed his slaves, where were they going to go?

 

The slave traders also took slaves from different tribes or ethnic groups and housed them together. That was so the slaves would not be able to speak to each other and have no common language. Within a generation or two, the slaves no longer remembered any of their African languages. That was long before Homer Simmons, my great great great grandfather was born in the late 1840's.

 

I think about this sometimes these days because one of our fosters is an American Indian from Missoula, Montana and this summer she is going back to Lame Deer, Montana to learn Cheyenne which is one of her native languages.

 

Afro-Americans speak English and whatever foreign language they learn in high school. our native languages were wiped out as were whatever religions we worshipped. I know Lisette Dumont and Santeros in New York and Cuba still worship the African gods, but they are an exception that proves the rule. I have learned in school that when you take away people's language and religion and even memory of where they come from, it is called cultural genocide.

 

Genocide is a word that means the deliberate destruction of a people. There is physical genocide as with what was done to the Indians of the Great Plains. It was mostly succesful by the way. Kelli is a descendent of the Indians who somehow survived. What was done to the Africans brought to the United States was cultural genocide. Without their old culture they built a new one. That is why I say I am black or Afro-American rather than African. I know this is really grim stuff and it is old and it is disgustingly politically correct, but it is the way that academic people set out and describe things and unfortunately, it is also true.

 

The question is what does all this mean a hundred and fifty years after slavery ended, and two hundred years after the slave trade ended. It means some of the sbutle stereotypes I hear white people say when they either don't think I'm there or they forget to keep their mouths shut. It also meant there was a large minority (In some places as much as half the populatin) of blacks in the Southern United States living during very prejudiced times. The government tried to figure out what to do with us. During the 1860's and part of the 1870's they practiced Reconstruction and let us be citizens.

 

That ended way too quickly. Liberty Ulysses Simpson, Homer Simpson's son, took his parents, his own wife, their children, several of his siblings and their families and migrated north to Cleveland, Ohion on the shore of the Great Lakes. It was his intent to go as far north in the United States as he could get. Homer had been a blacksmith and an iron worker. His master had bound him out to factories near the river. Liberty had worked in a store and could sew clothes. Cleveland had plenty of work for any one who wanted it, and there was no Klu Klux Klan.

 

Of course in neither the north nor the South were we full citizens of the United States. In many cities, we could not vote, and there were restaurants and stores that would not sserve us even when we had the money and there were separate black and white schools and in some cities no high schools for black teenagers.

 

It took until the late 1940's for then President Harry Truman to integrate the service. That is one of the reasons Julius Kakira Simmons, my grandfather, stayed in the service his whole life. It took until the early 1960's, about a generation before I was born for blacks to be full citizens in the United States.

 

That's why what makes me different is more than skin color. You can't unwrite history. You can't undo genetics either, but that is another story and people have only really known about genetics since the 1920's. They only decoded the human genome (each gene on each chromosome) which explains inheritence exactly about six years ago. They still don't understand it all either which is sad because a lot of illness is inherited. I know that schizophrenia (madness) runs in my mother's family. My mother, grandmother, and her mother all have it. Fortunately for them, it responds to some very new medications. The schizophrenia is one of the reasons I don't know very much about my mother's side of the family. People live a long time but some other relative raises them and then when they get well, they go looking for their parents and kin. Both my parents went looking for their kin when they were all grown up. My father's side of the family is healthy. They live a long time, and they pass a lot of their stories down. The stories my mother and her kin tell, aren't stories you want to know.

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

Boynton Middle School

1610 N. Cayuga St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

 

Naama G. Roth --

 

It is early in the semester (My last semester. I graduate in May God willing!) so we could close down the tutorie early. We closed down the tutorie early so those of us who were still up and about could go traying. We finally had cold weather and an ice and snow storm over the weekend that left Libe Slope the hill behind Cornell's undergraduate humanities and social science library slick and slippery and just right for sliding down on cafeteria trays and plastic sleds.

 

Of course everyone needed to be done with their work before we could take off for Libe Slope about two and a half miles from our house. Mendel was all ready asleep or else working on his religious studies. He thinks traying is a colossal waste of time. He calls it a "ritual." Maybe it is. Leonie, the freshperson humanities tutor who lives in High Rise Five on north came down to Libe Slope to join us and I took Tareisia, Basia, and Isabella with me. Naomi also met Sherman at the slope and Tamara and Tamima, the two cooks, could not resist. Basia, Tareisia, and Isabella suffer from fierce insomnia. Staying out late doesn't hurt them. We each had our own tray.

 

Basia had never been traying before. Tareisia trayed last winter and enjoys it immensely. Isabella had been sledding. The only one who had never engaged in this sport was Basia. "Just sit down and push off," I said when it was her turn at the top of the hill. Even at well past eleven pm, Libe Slope was crowded with trayers. Basia had to wait in line behind self assured boys, the kind that still frighten her. She is sure they'll make a pass at her. They just see how scaird she is and steer clear.

 

Basia pushed off and she and the tray went careenging down Libe Slope until they hit a brown spot about a third of the way down. She got up, dislodged her tray, sat in it and pushed off again. After that she caught on though she liked the blue plastic taboggan better than an Oakenshield's Special as we call the cream colored trays. The Alice Cook House trays are red and the Bethe House trays are black as are trays from North Star. All of them behave a bit differently though tonight the hill was fast.

 

Basia almost did not want to go home when we packed it in around 1am. She was a bit groggy this morning. I fixed her a strong mug of hot tea while she peeled her grapefruit. She doesn't ask for Prigat (expensive grapefruit juice from Israel), but she eats a couple of grapefruits per day if we have them around.

 

"I had nightmares last night," Basia spoke up.

 

"Oh no..." sighed Mendel from his place at the kitchen counter.

 

"What did you dream about?" asked Tareisia.

 

"I dreamed I was traying on a huge mountain and I couldn't stop and I went down a crevasse. Then I was caught in an avalanche...Then I went off the side like a ski jump only I couldn't land...Crazy huh..."

 

"Do you want me to interpret this dream?" asked Mendel.

 

"Are you Joseph with the coat of many colors?" I asked my foster son.

 

"I can sometimes interpret dreams," he responded undaunted.

 

"OK, then tell me," said Basia.

 

"You feel unmoored and unsafe being away from a Torah true family that loves you."

 

There are times I feel like slapping Mendel and this morning was one of those times.

 

"Is that all you're going to tell me?" Basia asked. "I can figure that out without a stupid dream!"

 

"Basia," asked Isabella. "Are you homesick?"

 

Basia shook her head. "I'd just be stuck back where I was," she let her voice trail off. She secleted her grapefruit and ate an eighth of it at one bite. When she swallowed she asked Mendel: "Do you think the dreams will go away?"

 

"We dream every night," said Naomi who had taken a psychology course.

 

"I don't mean that. I mean the nightmares."

 

"Once you are sure you are safe here, the nightmares will stop," Mendel answered.

 

It is a wonder Kelli does not have nightmares but she doesn't and tonight at 9pm Eastern time 7pm Mountain time, I get to talk to the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council at Lame Deer and hope that they can send Kelli's foster care system to where she is actually in care. Of course Basia's parents don't give us a nickel. At least we managed to get her stuff.

 

Naama G. Roth

House Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

 

Dear Stigand,

 

The biggest difference between some pre 1808 ancestor of mine and your Andulasian is to put it bluntly skin color and numbers. Slave trading in the 1700's was an industry. The ships that plied the middle passage weren't designed for raiding. They were designed for shipping human cargo. Slaves were manacled, and placed lying down in decks divided in to crawl spaces. Sometimes after a slaving ship made a few journeys they just burned it becuase it was so infested with disease from human beings having been packed in so close together.

 

When you pack and ship people like so many packages or so much cattle, you obviously don't think they are people. Also thousands and thousands of blacks were brought to the Americas (The United States, Caribbean, and South America). Most were sent to plantations, farms where they were housed in separate slave quarters. Some were family servants, if they were lucky, but no one treated them as if they were full human beings. They were like the serfs of Medieval times except they were property.

 

Having so many slaves and their descendents who were also slaves, meant that in a lot of areas, a fairly large proportion of the population was black. In the Caribbean where Alise Liddel's ancestors come from, blacks became the majority though not in control. In the Mississippi Delta where my mother's family lived, they were close to a third to a half the population and in some places also a majority.

 

Also the blacks rebuilt the culture that was taken from them. They didn't put it all together the way it was in Africa. Most blacks are Christian, but a Black church (which is usually Protestant because the Southern United States was settled by Protestant Christian whites who owned the land and the human property) sounds different from a white one. We have a gospel musical tradition that is very different from what white people have. Jazz, rhythm and blues, and Delta blues are all Afro-American. Reggea and Calypso are Afro-Caribbean.

 

A black slave woman just off the ship and recently sold, would find herself either around the Mississippi Delta (New Orleans area or Mobile, Alabama) or along the southern part of the Eastern seaboard of the United States (My ancestors were sold inland or else their masters migrated and brought them with them to Florence, Alabama which is several hundred miles from the sea) She would be sent to a cotton, rice, or indigo plantation and put in the quarters with slaves from all over the western side of Africa and some who had been born here. She'd work in a crew in the fields with mainly other blacks. She would not be permitted to go to town if there was any town near by. Many of these early plantations could be fairly isolated. She'd effectively be a farm animal with two legs if she was lucky. She would never have any hope of becoming part of a mixed race society.

 

If she wasn't lucky, a master or overseer would rape her or seduce her and she'd have his babies. Why do you think I'm a red bone? In time the slaves had a separate society of sorts with skilled artisans such as some of my ancestors and house servants at the top and field hands at the bottom.

 

All this was long ago, but in a way we are children of history. The technical name for what chattel slavery and Jim Crow, and two waves of northern migration in the twentieth Century did for us is called a diaspora. A diaspora is a culture of people separated from their native land. It is a bit different than the original culture and sometimes a lot different, but members of the diaspora share a common bond. In my case it is skin color and history.

 

There are several diasporas in the early twenty-first century. There is a Han Chinese diaspora. The Chinese traded and migrated all over the planet. David Cheh and his daughter are members of this diaspora. There is a South Asian diaspora that happened the same way and was aided by the British Empire. Then there is the Jewish diaspora which began in 70AD. The Chinese and Jewish diasporas are is your world and time as well as my own. You probably don't know any Chinese but some of the cities have Jewish quarters. Being black in the United States is probably quite a bit like being Jewish in your time.

 

It gets tricky writing about all this because it is easy to blame the present on the past. It would be very nice to say that I am my own person and I do what I want and am who I am regardless of my skin color or ancestry. To some extent, this is true. I like Fair Aisle sweaters. I enjoy singing 1970's and 1980's pop tunes which are clearly white people's music in Praise Choir. I can whip most Caucasian students' rear ends academicly and a lot of what I learn is about white people. My foreign language in school is French not Dioula or Walooof or Swahili. I don't feel any great urge to learn an African tongue. Maybe it's just been too long.

 

On the other hand, social scientists blame high blood pressure, reduced academic performance (I'm at the right end of the curve but so have a lot of people in my family, but it is hard to do well in school when your parents are just struggling to get by), poverty, single parenthood, etc... on the long history of slavery and Jim Crow. What I mostly see are the occasinal stereotypes. Look at the way white people in Washington, DC call Oak Gardens Plaza, a working class black, immigrant, and Latino apartment complex, Choke Gardens Plaza all because of one criminal gang, even though the complex was filled with decent working people. If those people had all been white, people would have felt sorry for them being victimized by criminals and they wouldn't give their complex a nasty name. Sorry, I do notice things like that. I also notice that black kids from the projects don't feel comfortable coming to the Rose Among Thorns house in White Plains and that black families in Yonkers and Mount Vernon, the third and fourth largest cities in New York State, don't travel to either the Ardsley or the White Plains house, a short distance by public transportation. It's hard NOT to notice this stuff. It's just there.

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

Boynton Middle School

1610 N. Cayuga St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

 

I had a dream last night. I have lots of dreams and I figure they are just movies in your head and maybe a reaction to stress but this one bothered me. It bothered me even though it should have been a good dream. I dreamed I was at one of those big family reunions. Black people seem to have these more than white people. Everyone comes south and stays at a motel and they all rent a room in a restaurant or there's a party in someone's yard, whoever lives in that town where everyone came from once.

 

Of course my family doesn't have reunions like this. I remember when they locked mom up in Creedmore. I was nine. Olivianna was seven. Vivienetta was five, and the babies Elijah and Jasmine were three and nine months each. The case worker from Social Services said she wanted me to tell her about all my relatives and where they lived. She gave me a yellow legal pad and told me to write down their names and as much as I knew about them. Olivianna and I set to work. They even gave us a table in a corner of the crowded office. It semlled of pizza, old pizza and peole were walking in and out of the place going about their business.

 

Dad had always been a pretty good talker and so had mom when she was well.

Now you can't shut my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother up. They're all making up for lost time since there's finally a medication that works for them, but that is another story. Back then we only knew our dad's side of the family. Mom said she didn't have much family and that what there was of it was in the south and she had been raised by her dad's people etc... I didn't think I wanted to go south anyway, but I put down the address which was in New Orleans and then went back to the rest of the list.

 

We knew the names and addresses of eight aunts and uncles on my father's side of the family. We knew the names and home towns of nine or ten more. The case worker looked impressed. Then she read and reread the list: Boston, Cleveland, Toledo, DesMoines, Dubuque, Lewiston Maine, New London Connecticut, Toronto Canada. You get the idea. "Don't you have any family in the South?" she asked. "Not that we're close to" I answered.

 

The case worker asked me how all these people were related to me. I remember she taught me how to make a family tree. She had to get a different family tree to accomodate three generations of cousins. She looked impressed and baffled. She even called in her supervisor. The supervisor smiled and said: "I think we may be able to get someone in your family to take you. This means by the end of the month, you'll be out of foster care. Since there's so many relatives, I'm going to insist that they keep the five of you together. With this many we may get a yes on that. If not, we'll look for separate placements." Apparently Olivianna and I had made the social workers' day.

 

Of course there hasn't been a family reunion on my father's side either. Some of that has to do with my grandfather Julius Kakira Simmons running off when my father, Kenyatta Kakira Simmons was six. He didn't have much choice. He was married to Grandma Rosalynne and I would have run off too but being Grandma Rosalynne's grand daughter complicates things.

 

If my family did have a reunion it would probably be some place like Boston. Maybe we'd even visit Rose Among Thorns -- Brandeis. Why not? The kids and even the grownups would definitely go ice skating. I don't know what we'd eat. I grew up liking school food because they had variety and it was served the proper way. Everyone else eats in their own weird way.

 

Of course in my dream though the family reunion had everybody and it was in the South not the north. It had my mother's family in it and they had fried chicken but they also had farfelle salad which is very Rose Among Thorns. I don't know if it is Jewish or not. Mendel, Ba-Ba, Naama, and Naomi all argue over what is really Jewish, and ladies sat around the table and they wore hospital clothes, state clothes and they told stories that you don't want to know. I was afraid to hear their stories, but I could not walk away.

 

I did not ask Mendel what this dream meant. I all ready know I have a crazy family and I am relieved that they won't get all together to meet like this. Finally, I couldn't stand the stories the women were telling and I walked away from their table back towards my father's relatives. Some of the men had figure skates over their shoulders. They were waiting for the ice rink to open so they could take the kids skating. Some had brought dates whom they were teaching to ice skate. My dad was showing off sparring moves. Suddenly, this big very dark black man comes up to me and says: "Tareisia, why don't you go back to your mama's kin?"

 

I wanted to tell the man to mind his own business but I told him that I liked my dad's family better and I had the Kakira which is like being a junior. I belonged with my dad's people. I also told him that my dad had been a boxer, a light weight contender.

 

At this point the big black man laughed. "That little red bone boy!"

 

My father took his skates off his shoulder and dropped in to a fighter's crouch. "Oh shit," sighed the big black man. "I can't beat up on guy's smaller than me."

 

"Are you afraid?" asked my father.

 

"It's a fair fight," said grandpa Julius.

 

The folks in both families formed a circle around my dad and the big black man. The big black man took off his shirt. His hairless chest rippled with muscles the color of coca cola. His close cropped hair showed a bullet shaped head and a brow furrowed with muscle attachments. He had huge hands that he made in to huge fists. Then my father got in close. This took care of the big guy's reach. What good is a reach when you are inside it? My father did not back down. He showed no fear and he was fast.

 

The men began to spar and I became afraid my father would get hurt. My fater managed to give the big guy a bloody nose. The big guy gave my father a black eye. Then he cut my father and blood ran down his face. My father gave the big guy a split lip. Soon his face was bloody too. Some of the women screamed for the fight to stop.

 

Then two strangers appeared in the crowd. They didn't really appear. They just kind of walked through from the back of the crowd. There was a smallish to average white man with a bald pink head and a medium brown beard and mustache. He looked lean and strong like my dad and an even smaller white man with shoulder length black hair, dark olive skin and slightly Asian features. The second man wore a blazer and looked like a college professor. The first man wore a red silk shirt and white pants.

 

"Leo," said the man with the bald head. And then he said something in a language I did not understand. The big black guy thgrough his fists in the air. He'd had enough fighting. Each man returned to his corner except there was no one in the big black guy's corner since he was a stranger. Then my great grandmother, Michalia came forward. She is eighty years old and has hair the color of snow. I have a picture of her so I knew it was her. She can still walk without a cane. She had on red pants and a white shirt and white blazer. She took the blazer off showing wrinkled old lady arms.

 

"It's all right. I remember. I'm not scaird. When you run with demons, nothing scares you any more. That Kenyatta, he's a professional boxer."

 

"Not any more," I told Great Grandma Michalia.

 

"What happened?"

 

"Head injury."

 

Leo snorted snorting out blood from his bloody nose. "Damn good fighter," he said of my dad.

 

Then I woke up. Suffice it to say, I am glad this was a dream and not real life.

 

Tareisia Kakira Simmons

Boynton Middle School

1610 N. Cayuga St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Naama G. Roth --

 

Dear all,

 

Tuesday night, I managed to get Kelli's foster care stipend sent to Ithaca on a monthly basis. That meant she and I had the talk about money Wendesday evening. It was fairly basic and we had the talk in the house office with the door open. The computer in the office does not face so any one could see it. I showed Kelli what she gets from both the Northern Cheyenne Nation and the United States government (Social Security). I explained what it cost to keep her at Rose Among Thorns. I also explained that Rose Among Thorns required her labor. Kelli is not useless in the kitchen though she is still in training as far as cooking is concerned. Like Deborah Bottari she is ignorant of the several hundred ingredients that parade through our kitchen in the course of a year.

 

Rather cruel fate and government beaurocracy have conspired to leave Kelli the richest foster child under our roof. I won't say what she gets in the way of pocket money but she can keep whatever the house dosen't need to feed, clothe, and lodge her. Her deal is indeed very sweet.

 

"All the foster kids get different support don't they?" asked Kelli.

 

I ndded. Kelli turned in time to see Ba-Ba (aka Basia) head in to the walk in cooler to rummage through the fruit boxes. "What does she get?" asked Kelli.

 

"You all ready know," I answered. "You weren't here when Lay-lay and Caufeld went down to New Jersey to collect her stuff. It was like pulling teeth. Basia's a runaway not a foster child."

 

"That means no support, not even from her parents," said Kelli.

 

"She gets pocket money through the house fund when there is a house fund. She works for the house so she doesn't have much hope of earning money after school. On the other hands, she isn't starving and she is warmly dressed. You know the rest."

 

Kelli shook her head. She pondered this just as the walk-in cooler door opened and Ba-Ba emerged with a ruby red grapefruit under her arm. Renard DuPrey must have had Ba-Ba in mind when the fruit club sent those things.

 

"How can she eat those?" asked Kelli.

 

"It's an acquired taste. I was raised eating them too. The red ones are pretty sweet."

 

Kelli scrunched up her face.

 

"It keeps colds away."

 

Ba-Ba headed out in to the dining room.

 

"It's not fair you know," Kelli told me.

 

"Life is not fair," I answered.

 

"You know Ba-Ba and I are here for the same reasons," Kelli said. "We both came here to go to good schools. We both want to go to college. It's almost like Ba-Ba is getting punished for not ending up in care."

 

I didn't say anything. I shrugged.

 

"Is there any way I can give some of my pocket money to Ba-ba?" asked Kelli.

 

"You have two hands and a wallet and a bank account."

 

"I don't mean that way. She'd feel like dirt taking it that way."

 

"You want to make a contribution to the house pocket money account every month?" I asked.

 

"I want it for Ba-Ba."

 

I blinked. By all rights, Ba-Ba nad Kelli should not get along but oddly enough both are dedicated students in the traditional way. Isabella is still a bit behind and will be going to summer school, but Ba-Ba and Kelli both enjoy French and Ba-Ba who is one to two years ahead depending on her subjects has given Kelli advanice and Ba-Ba has read Kelli's papers because Kelli is sometimes tongue tied even when doing exposatory prose and more so with creative writing. She reminds me of Mendel this way. Mendel has called the two fosters chavrusot, study partners. Perhaps he is right.

 

"All right Kelli, how much do you want to give Ba-Ba?" I asked.

 

I'm not going to print this number on the Telegraph. I realize there are starving people on the Telegraph and people for whom this number would be meaningless and some for whom it would seem piddlingly small.

 

Just as Kelli does not complain of the epithet jar, Ba-Ba has never complained of being broke even though I warned her of it. She has likewise never complained of co-ed gym and only talked a bit about co-ed classes which she likes because the girls are often better students than the boys, even in math. It is too bad her GPA and achievements will never impress her parents and the clergy down in Lakewood, New Jersey. Sometimes I'd like to fly down there and punch those parents. Kelli, of course has no parents left to punch.

 

Naama G. Roth

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Mendel-Menachem Schneerson Roth --

 

I don't have to tell you how I felt this morning as I walked Ba-Ba, Kelli, Isabella, Codi, and Tareisia to school this morning. I was steaming. Yes, I read the telegraph. No Isabella and Ba-Ba do not read the telegraph yet, but they should! For those of you who don't know, we are all children or teenagers or littles who live at Rose Among Thorns #2 on Ithaca's South Hill and who go to school at the other end of the city of Ithaca. I am a little who attends Fall Creek Elementary School. In my last physical life time I was Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the last one as far as I know since there has been no successor. It would be good for the movement if there was, but Lubavitchers like most Jews are creatures of passion.

 

Basia (aka Ba-Ba is from a Lubavitcher home but has run away to Rose Among Thorns and Naama Roth who is also my foster mother has given her succor.) This morning I was trying to explain why I did not feel one bit sorry for the Templar, the Scotsman, and the Noble from the North of England. "Do you know what the British did to our people in the thirteenth century?" I inquired; for it was time for a little history lesson. I may be considered a third grader for school purposes, but I have most of the memories of half a dozen past lives. That makes me different from the person I was when I was alive, but sometimes the knowledge is there and useful so I don't mind. This was one of those mornings.

 

"They threw us out," answered Ba-Ba as if on cue. "They said convert or die and some of them died."

 

"They were locked up in a tower in Yorkshire and burned alive, men, women and children. The children could have released their babies if they had been willing to have them baptized, but they would not commit such a chilul Ha'Shem." A chilul Ha'Shem is a desacration of God's holy name.

 

"So what are any of us supposed to do about this on the Telegraph?" asked Tareisia. "First, it was seven hundred years ago. Second none of the men appear to care about the Jews one way or the other. You can't really call them antiSemites even if they lived with antiSemites or in an antiSemitic time."

 

"Tareisia's right," echoed Kelli.

 

"Very well," I answered. "But you're wrong. You heard what the ship's Captain, Morrighan Graham said. His was among the last ships to leave Acre. Who drove out the filthy Eur-o-pee-an crusaders from Eretz Yisroel?" I asked.

 

"Saladin," answered Tareisia.

 

"Who fought alongside Saladin?" I asked.

 

"We did," answered Ba-Ba, and by we she meant the Jews of the Eretz Yisroel and the surrounding countries.

 

"That's right," answered Mendel.

 

"But we didn't win...I mean Eretz Yisroel belonged to somebody else after that and the British got it back in World War I from the Ottoman Turks who had it...I don't know from when because they didn't teach us all that in Global Studies."

 

"That is what you get for going to seck-you-lar schools," I sighed.

 

"What about Leha Dodi?" asked Ba-Ba.

 

Leha Dodi is a song most Ashkenazi (Jews of Eastern European origin) Jews sing every Shabbos to welcome the Sabbath Bride. It dates from the fifteenth century. It is a beautiful mystical piece created by the followers of Luria, the great Talmudist....

 

"What about Leha Dodi?" I asked.

 

"Well it was written in the 1400's and in the late 1200's nearly the 1300's the Jews and Saladin drove out the filthy Crusaders. Well that was their history. Then they were suffering under the Turk, but they knew they could fight for their freedom, because they had done it and not that long ago....

 

"Well you know the middle verses of the song....

 

'Wake up great city (Jerusalem) and shake off your mire,

Dress yourself in your proudest attire.

Long have you dwealt in a veil of tears.

Now the time of redemption is near.'

 

"And there's also....

 

'May your enemies be scattered to the right and the left....'

 

"You know that verse don't you?"

 

I am shomer negilla or I could have kissed Ba-Ba. "Secular education is good for some things!" I cried out. It is strange how distant history lives and how the past can be important even to those pretend it is just history. "Well, now you know who those people are. Thanks be to HaShem the filthy Crusaders were defeated."

 

Kelli and Isabella glanced at each other as Ba-Ba and I were crazy. "Don't you celebrate Custer's Last Stand?" Ba-Ba finally asked Kelli.

 

Kelli, who is American Indian, half Blackfoot and half Cheyenne, stared off in to space. Tareisia whispered in my ear two words that have a fancy sociological meaning: "cultural genocide."

 

"I can't even trace my ethnic group back and I'm part everything," Isabella interjected. "Besides, my ancestors could have driven yours out of England."

 

"You think you're descended from royalty or the clergy?" asked Ba-Ba.

 

"Who knows. The records are lost. Anyway, I think my people were just digging dirt," said Isabella.

 

"No they weren't," answered Tareisia. "They were carving the stone and making the stained glass for the cathedrals."

 

I winced. "I think Tareisia's right," answered Ba-Ba.

 

"Anyway, I'm not guilty of what my ancestors did, if they did anything," Isabella proclaimed.

 

"Of course you're not," I said, "but those Gen-tiles, on the telegraph are another case, especially Morrighan Graham. We're going to have to watch him. Tareisia, this is like having an officer of the Klu Klux Klan on the Telegraph. Kelli, this is like having a US Cavalry officer from the 1800's on the Telegraph and I mean one stationed in the Great Plains or a Buffalo hunter. We've got to be really careful and on our guard, got that."

 

"This sounds like a very old feud," answered Isabella.

 

"Yes, but these people are on the Telegraph now," Ba-Ba backed me up.

 

"So what do we do, not that I'm on the Telegraph?" asked Isabella.

 

"We keep an eye on them and answer their mail. I guess this is not the welcome they expected but we Jews don't forget. Think about the song Leha Dodi."

 

Mendel-Menachem Schneerson Roth

Fall Creek Elementary School

138 Lynn St.

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Naama Roth --

 

Dear Mr. Kringle,

 

I haven't been around the Telegraph. This semester, my last at Cornell, started with a bang, and I am also Head Steward at Rose Among Thorns. It is said that the busiest people have the most time. I don't believe that any more.

 

Yes, we are celebrating Tu b'Shevat Friday evening February 2, 2007. We will have a special Shabbos dinner, featuring the fruits that Mr. Duprey secured for us through a Fruit of the Month Club membership.

 

I'll get out the invitatino to the Telegraph forthwith. I'm not sure who we will have but we are going to have one very large dinner and one very crowded room. Yes, you are invited.

 

Note: Rose Among Thorns has a no alcohol policy. It is not that any one here believes drinking is immoral. Actually I think one or two of our members do, but that is not the reason for the ban. We live in an age of law suits and one drunkent kid getting in to an accident is going to shoot our insurance premiums through the roof not to mention the bad publicity. A basket of fruit or box of cookies with an OU or K on them would make a better hostess gift or you could send flowers or bring a candle. I'm sorry to be so nitpicky, but we have had concerns about law suits, attempts to smear our good name, and insurance premiums since day one.

 

Thankyou in Advance

Naama G. Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

"The Maw"

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Naama Roth --

 

To all and Sundry,

 

This is let you know that Rose Amont Thorns Ithaca plans a special celebration in honor of Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees, on February 2, 2007 at 6pm. The program features a Friday night Shabbat service folowed by Shabbos dinner featuring plenty of fresh and dried fruits, including the fruits of Israel.

 

There will be good talk, entertainment, and that great Rose Among Thorns hospitality.

 

Note: All members of the press must adhere to the House Policy with regard to equipment and interviewing. If they have any questions, they may contact Caufeld Banks in Sryacuse, Sherman Taylor here in Ithaca, or me.

 

Naama G. Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Naama G. Roth ----

 

Dear all,

 

Everyone on the Telegraph is welcome to come to the Tu B'Shevat Part on Friday at Rose Among Thorns Ithaca. Any one in the media is asked to obey the house media policy. The best gift for those wishing to bring something is a canned or nonperishable food item which we will be donating to the local food bank. We look forward to having all of you...

 

Naama G. Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

Mathematics Library

Mallott Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 14853

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Kings Lawrence Padraig and others,

 

Your food post intrigued me. Tell me, while you were in the United States were you served tilapia. This is a farmed fish that eats only plants so its meat is clean. We had Manhattan style tilapia chowder for Shabbos dinner last Friday. Manhattan style means made with tomatoes and vegetables instead of milk. I am from New York, and my mother used to make very good Manhattan style chowder.

 

Last night the kitchen crew and I were planning the menu for the Tu B'Shevat celebration. Mendel got to sit in our meeting last night, and my poor little nearly tore his hair out. It did not help that Naomi picked on him.

 

One of the reasons that Peter complained of how noisey the twenty-first century is, is that labor is very expensive in the United States. This means that we either work using machines or do the work ourselves. This means that a house like this has no servants. We wash our clothes in the washing machines and driers. We have three of them in the laundry room.

 

This also means that we are our own kitchen crew and we are not servants but all are equal. Any who have become competent cooks have a voice in menu planning. Mendel due to having been a rabbi in a past life is one of the mashgiachs or obervers to make sure we keep kosher dietary laws. Tamima is our other masghiach. She is also a cook.

 

Mendel shook his head as we planned out a menu. Dessert is to be key lime chiffon and orange chiffon pies. We prep the crusts the day before and then make the fillings. Ba-Ba's parents sent up a case of unflavored kosher gelatin. This is gelatin powder made from agar-agar a sea vegetable rather than hooves of unknown animals. Chiffon pie filling is made from beaten egg whites, gelatin, and fruit juice. It is light and fluffy and fruity. Also oranges and limes come from trees, so this is a good Tu B'Shevat dessert along with the plate of dried fruits and carob pods. Mendel was the one who was upset.

 

"Why do you have to eat *gen-tile* foods?" he aske. Naomi blinked. I winced. Ba-Ba said that no one here had been brought up observant so they ate the foods of their childhoods, but Naomi laughed.

 

"Mendel," explained Naomi. "This is a case of social cohesion isn't it?"

 

Poor Mendel was lost. "It's not enough to eat kosher. If we prepare the same dishes as everyone else if we can still eat them, we defeat the whole purpose don't we? I mean what is the fun of keeping dietary laws if we don't have our own special foods and don't eat other peole's food..." She grinned slyly.

 

"You don't believe Jews are special and set apart..." he said.

 

I didn't remind Mendel that about a third of our cooks are nonJews. Naomi shrugged.

 

"Look Mendel," it was Tamima this time. "Jews aren't monolithic. We come from a variety of backgrounds and like a variety of things to eat. All that is permitted so why not..."

 

"A want-to is more than a have-to," murmurmed Ba-Ba.

 

"Look at Tamara," Tamima went on. "Her mother was raised in the country so she eats country foods like rutabega, squash, sweet potates, and greens. Those are all kosher. Try telling me anything she fixes if forbidden. I like anise and broccoli rabe. Naama's mom made her chowder. We even have tuna paella, and all those cakes are the best part of being kosher and we need no bakery to prepare them." Tamima smiled proudly.

 

Mendel sighed. "If you don't care about..." he stopped.

 

"Tradition," said Sherman and then he sung it as in Fiddler on the Roof.

 

Mendel shook his head. "It's not a joke," he spat.

 

"It's a matter of knowing a chumrah or a minhag from a rule," answered Tamima "and in this kitchen, we know the difference."

 

"But why do you crave those kinds of pies?" he asked.

 

"Because they make a nice change," I answered. "It's boring to cook the same things all the time. It's fun to bake new kinds of pies and cakes. Aren't you the one who said we should worship and do mitzvohs with joy. Well here is your joy."

 

"And what of mesoros?" asked Mendel. Mesoros means continuity.

 

"I don't think there is mesoros for food," Naomi confronted Mendel. "Food changes with what is available and what people think is healthy and where they live."

 

"So that is all..." Mendel sighed. "You want Moshiach don't you?"

 

"Moshiach doesn't care if she never sees another kugel again," I snapped.

 

"Do you want moshiach?" he asked.

 

"I agree. I don't think it has a bleeping thing to do with food as long as we keep kosher," Tamima backed me up.

 

"Do you want moshiach?" Mendel asked for the third time.

 

This time no one answered. After seeing what happened to Alise last fall when she called down the wrath of God. After dealing with my own curse, and after watching Margerite sent away to federal prison for eight months, the thought of Moshaich's arrival fills me with fear. I know it won't be easy. Maybe I'm conflating the popular Christian myth. Maybe I've seen the movie, Tommy, one too many times. I've seen it five times. Maybe it is something else.

 

We are having those chiffon pies for dessert on Friday. We will also have dried fruits and there will be dishes with fruits of the land of Israel in them.

 

One thing I do believe is that Mendel has been sent among us to learn about Jews who crave Manhattan style fish chowder and make kosher chiffon pies and who are bio majors who know that trees are not just for fruit. If he can understand us, maybe Moshiacha can understand us, if indeed Moshiacha all ready lives in Syracuse as I believe on good days.

 

Right now I follow Marguerite, try to run a house, and let the eschatology take care of itself.

 

Naama G. Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

Mathematics Library

Mallott Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 14853

Point Two-Five

 

==Naama Roth narrates==

 

Dear Ms. Gunderson:

 

I all ready spoke to the press on Friday evening. Attached please find a written copy of my statement from the Ithaca Journal. This is my full and complete statement on the subject of the shooting and all I am going to say unless they catch the man who did it.

 

Also you and your Newswire DO NOT have permission to photograph inside the Rose Among Thorns #2 premises at 411 Hillview Place.

 

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Dear King Padraig,

 

 

Things here have been very chaotic. There was a shooting followign the party and of late I have been fending off a snoopy tabloid reporter. I don't want you to think me ungrateful or that I have forgotten your kind words. Thankyou once again, and I also hope everyone in your house is over the flu. Usually flu bugs are just bad enough to leave everyone grouchy and irritiable but still dragging themselves to class and then back, good for little else but studying, eating, and sleeping.

 

Naama Roth

head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Pint Two-Five

 

Right before Golden Hour Saturday night (2/3/07), I called Marguerite Weinstein, our Founder and Leader in Syracuse (Rose Among Thorns #1). She had all ready seen the news on Friday night and said I was very brave in front of the media. I told her that we had a different kind of media problem. A woman named Margot Gunderson from the Weekly Newswire wanted both an interview and photographs. As far as I am concerned, I gave my interview Friday night. I am cooperating with the police and quite frankly, I don't think this woman is really interested in the shooting. She wants to know what it was that we did to let the shooting happen besides leaving our tutorie door open which I am not even sure we did except that had to be the way Renard got in unless he is an expert telepath.

 

Marguerite listened patiently and then asked what she could do. "She may come looking for you," I said.

 

"Why?" she asked. "I'm fifty miles away. What do I know? Why doesn't Ms. Gunderson go to the other reporters who covered the scene or to the neighbors who witnessed it? Your house like mine is in a very residential neighborhood. There are at least a good dozen witnesses who live on Hillview Place."

 

"Because she's not really looking to catch Mr. Dupree," I answered. "She's after us."

 

"Any body with two neurons as the premeds from Cornell all say, knows that Rose Among Thorns is NO CULT!"

 

"Yes, but Ms. Gunderson hails from Florida. She doesn't know Rose Among Thorns from a hole in the ground."

 

"Then why doesn't she attend services."

 

"She wants photographs," I replied.

 

"Just keep saying 'no' and have law enforcement back you up if necessary. I'll do the same on my end and spread the word to Rochester, Buffalo, and Utica."

 

"I'll get the word out to Binghamton," I answered. "What about the rest of the houses."

 

"Albany's a good hundred and fifty miles away...All right, let's divide up the rest of the houses too. The last thing we need is a tabloid 'reporter' making light of our misery."

 

Sometimes Marugerite can be very understanding and sharp. I felt relieved.

 

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

Tareisia K. Simmons narrates...

 

Mendel drew a blank when Aunt Naama sent him to the walk in cooler this afternoon. "I said cubanelle pepers. I want three of them. Mendel, you know your way around..." I went and got the peppers. Mendel glanced at them.

 

"Those look like noses," he said.

 

"They look to me like fingers," commented Naomi.

 

"I know what they look like," said Sherman who sometimes does indeed deserve to be called vermin.

 

"They look like appendices," answered Naomi.

 

Mendel rolled his eyes. "What's with you guys?" asked Naama.

 

"Nothing, the cubanelle pepper is phallic, that's all," said Sherman quite innocently.

 

"I surely hope not," answered Naomi. "Look at all those bumps and twists."

 

Mendel started to blush.

 

"Censor the listening not the talking!" I told Mendel. Mendel bolted from the kitchen.

 

"Thanks guys..." commented Naama who started chopping up the pepper.

 

"How many kinds of pepper are there?" asked BaBa.

 

"Probably hundreds," Naomi quipped back.

 

"Let's see, there's bell peppers that have four lobes and are blocky, three lobed bell pepers that are long and graceful, poblano chilies that are a deep moss green when fresh and cordovan red when dried." Naama stopped. "Then there are emerald green anaheim peppers which are emerald green, hungarian wax peppers that are nearly yellow."

 

"There's cherry peppers and pepperocini," added Naomi. "Then there's those very hot peppers we're a bit scaird of. Jalepinios are stubby and dark green and smooth, and Thai peppers are small and skinny and bright red, and Scotch bonnets and habeneros are shriveled and curly and can be any color, but boy are they strong!"

 

"What about chipotles?" I asked.

 

"Different species," answered Naomi. "Caspicum frutescens instead of capsicum annum."

 

Mendel who now stood in the kitchen doorway rolled his eyes. "What do you do study peppers instead of learn?"

 

"Peppers are some of the language of food," answered Naomi.

 

Mendel shook his head.

 

"I wonder if Vijaya ever eats chilis," I said.

 

"Probably. Her housemates are good cooks," answered Naama.

 

"She's very lonely and scaird these days," I commented.

 

"If you want special prayers for her just say the word," answered Sherman.

 

"I want something more..." I said....

 

"Well figure it out and the liturgy committee will discuss it," added Sherman.

 

Vijaya's nutmeg song went round in my head.

 

I have a small chipotle

It's full of firey seeds.

And when I'm sad and lonely,

It satisfies my needs.

 

I have a small chipotle

I'm taking it to see,

Your friendly little nutmeg

So friends the two can be...

Chi-chi-potle isn't it just grand

To trade secrets only spices understand?

 

I have a small chiptle

It's full of firey seeds.

And when I'm sad and lonely,

It satisfies my needs.

 

I have a small chipotle

Two spices sure beat one

To give you aid and succor

When the day is done.

Chi-chi-potle do you think of Clay,

Vijaya's boyfriend who's so far away?

 

I have a small chipotle

It's full of firey seeds.

And when I'm sad and lonely,

It satisfies my needs.

 

I have a small chipotle

And though it may sound crass

My little spicey friend just kicks the jumblies' ass.

Chipotle if Clay went and fooled around

We hope he'll have nobody when the chips are down.

 

I have a small chipotle

It's full of firey seeds

And when I'm sad and lonely,

It satisfies my needs.

 

I have a small chipotle

He says what must be said.

Clay you better write Vijaya if you are not dead.

Chi-chipotle speaks the words so true

If you're a bad boyfriend, we're coming after you.

 

I have asmall chipotle

It's full of firey seeds

And when I'm sad and lonely,

It satisfies my needs.

 

"I'm absolving you from paying twenty-five cents for that song. Breaking up the rhyme scheme is a good excuse," said Aunt Naama.

 

"Naama," commented Sherman who can sometimes be real close to vermin, "what is there about that nutmeg song. You've created a monster."

 

"No she hasn't," I protested. "The little nutmeg rocks!"

 

Tareisia K. Simmons

Rose Among Thorns #2

411 Hillview Place

Ithaca, New York 14850

Point Two-Five

 

==Naama Roth narrates==

 

I was up until three in the morning last night. I was working on my own studies (education courses phew!) and on LayLay's portfolio to go with her ASVAB results. I'm her volunteer supervisor and she's done a spectacular job as a tutor and a writer. She read both her own poetry and Wilfrid Owen's at Golden Hour. I'm glad Vijaya was not there. I could see her sitting in the audience and in tears.

The wars, both public and secret, are very much home to us now even if all our staff would take the noncombat option. All it takes is one good friend or lover in the service and we are the home front, and on the home front we are powerless but to watch and wait.

Seeing LayLay on paper as I've described her makes her larger than life. LayLay at not quite eighteen and a half is like looking at me at that age. She is small. She is academicly bright. She has ideals and ideas that are not completely tarnished yet. She wants to make a difference with her talents. She will work until she can drop. She will starve herself when she must work. She will pass to that point beyond the place where she needs sleep and then wonder why she bounces off the walls and staggers around and sleep forsakes her. She has parents who care about her, but they don't understand why she has fallen in love with Rose Among Thorns. They approve grudginginly of her choice. At least they do not blame us for letting her get drafted. They think that National Service may grow her. That is her words. I think of the prison academy to which my well meaning parents once wanted to send me. All this is so terribly hard.

The best thing is often not to think about any of it. I'm not cooking for the next four nights. I have the second round of math prelims. Math ourses work on a three instead of a two prelim cycle. Kelli, Isabella, BaBa and all the other high school kids have to get used to the Cornell prelim cycles. Ithaca College works on midterms. According to Isabella insanity stalks Rose Among Thorns every five weeks, and it stalks me every four.

It's almost class time. I realize soon we'll stop praying His will be done for those on the Sirius Gate and start praying kaddish. It will be strange to see Tareisia stand for the prayer for the dead. I probably will stand too. We stand for Earnesty who is not permitted to stand though her culture permits her in cases of bereavement. Unless one forms the right habits in good times, they are absent in bad times.

For Alise, the good times are the weekend after next. She deserves House #12. We finally make it to our first "big city," though God knows Syracuse was and is a big city in every sense of the word. Washington, DC is an international city. We are finally making history, we, ordinary people who don't need magic but do need righteousness, hard work, good values. Good can win sometimes. I have to keep telling myself that.

 

Naama Roth

Head Steward

Rose Among Thorns #2

Mathematics Library

Mallot Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 14853

Point Two-Five

 

==Leonie Berne Rosenzweig narrates==

 

I am on this list, so you probably want to know about me and what happens in my life. First, I'm different from most of the Rose Among Thorns members on the Telegraph because I don't live in the house on South Hill. I live in High Rise Five on North Campus because my parents think a freshwoman should live on North with the other first year students and because I'm not sure how much they really approve of my working with Rose Among Thorns. I think it makes them happy that the tutoring appears on my resume and I'm not off buying beer with a fake ID. On the other hand, something about Rose Among Thorns should make all complacent upper middle class people just a little bit nervous.

 

As for me, I've finally found my place. That I am going to lose it at the end of May due to being drafted seems immaterial. It is not that I live for today or from day to day or even for the next prelim cycle or going traying at night. It is more that I am trying to consume myself like a bottle of Coke until nothing is left but the rcyclable container. I'm up at 6am and down at the Straight around 7:15am for breakfast. My parents have insisted I stay on a 7B and L (breakfast and lunch) meal plan. I sit eating scrambled eggs and toast overlooking Lake Cayuga which is a distant blue smear throughthe mullioned windows of Oakenshields.

 

Then it is off to classes alternated with studying. Somewhere there is lunch, and then more of the same and then it is off to Rose Among Thorns for an evening of tutoring and then more studying and then betwen midnight and 3am I return home, sleep a bit at the dormitory, and head out. Laundry is a major inconvenience. My bag is full and I have nothing to wear. Sometimes my hair gets dirtier than I would like. Naama is concerned I am skipping meals and losing weight. I am just convinced that if I run myself until I am running on empty, it won't matter. It is all going to end sooner than I would like.

 

Naama does not think I will be a common grunt. She says I have way too much talent. I just don't think though that the government can work me half as hard as Cornell and Rose Among Thorns. I wonder what I will do when I can't lose myself in work any more. I can't go back to being the kid stuck in the waiting room of high school. Who is the person who is LayLay unoccupied? What happens to me if I get told to "hurry up and wait?"

 

And what will happen to Rose Among Thorns while I am gone? The weekend after next, I am riding the bus to Washington DC to be part of the dedication for House #12. If Rose Among Thorns can move to one big city, it can move to others. What next? I keep telling myself that one day I will be telling my grandchildren about how friends of mine and even I helped to change the world for the better and in a big way. When you think about it really hard, that is one very scarey thought.

 

Leonie Berne Rosenzweig

aka LayLay

Willard Straight Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 14853

Point Two-Five

 

==Naama Roth narrates...==

 

Dear Kelli,

 

I would not call living on a reservation disgusting though I know you've got your reasons, and yes, I spent the summer after I graduated from Hunter and my first winter break at Cornell on the White River Apache reservation in Arizona. The first time I went out there it was with Rebeccah Sparks who wanted to bring her baby, Jedediah, to meet her relatives. I had Rebeccah with me (of course) and Mo, my then boyfriend, Trevor Kallikak and Vitus Chralse Seale, two littles and Trevor's parent English (Yes, that was his name and still is. English Kallikak). None of Rebeccah's relatives wanted either her or the baby. They did not even want us when I offered to pay money for our keep.

nstead they gave us to Sanford Bennet who runs a "ranch" for troubled Indian teens. Sanford took my cash and then took us to White River, which is the reservation's capital (They all have capitals.) to see what I would do. I loaded us up on scrap paper and school supplies. Then he took us to the ranch and told us to get our hogan ready. The catch was that the hogan used to be a barn. In fact, there was a dead sheep in there. He was a ram and he was all bones. I got him out of there and worked to help clean the hogan up.

omewhere in all of this, I refused to eat the food that Sandy provided. I managed to find a crystallized jar of strawberry preserves and melt it so I could have it on bread. Once the hogan was clean, Sandy took us to Phoenix and bought enough equipment used for a pretty good outdoor kitchen in a shed and he also had me buy the kinds of foods I liked to cook. I spent most of that summer as a combination cook and tutor. I still have a bone from that dead sheep in my medicine sack which I sometimes wear. You've probably seen me wearing it.

Anyway, reservation life is primitive and there is a lot of poverty, but I think Indians want to do things right and live cleandecent lives as much as any one else. Disgusting is not a word I'd use for either them or where they live.

 

Add closing on the net.

 

== Isabella McGlaughlin ==

 

Dear Alise,

 

You never talk about your siblings. I don't talk about mine either. It depresses me. The siblings both sided with my step mother or at least were willing to tow the mark or else she'd throw them out like she did me. My father ran because there is no justice. I got kicked out cause there is no justice. I stay here at Rose Among Thorns and I say, you sleep with yourselves, Mariann and Isaac. Sleep with yourselves knowing Dad didn't touch you but not speaking up about it. You pay the price for just taking up space as far as I am concerned. I pay it by being in care at sixteen, but I'm still on my meds and still in school. I'll be OK. You're going to pay the price somewhere a lot further down the line in ways that are worse, and maybe I do care. Maybe I don't. It would be easier to say I didn't care. I guess part of me does. I can't do anything. Siblings are a lost cause which is why I never talk of mine.

 

Insert closing.

 

== Basia Leibowitza aka BaBa ==

 

Dear Isabella,

 

I think in the end it is every kid for herself. I am the oldest of six full siblings. I love my brothers and sisters. There are three brothers and two sisters besides me. I can't do anything for any of them. I don't know if they care. For me, getting a general education was always a personal passion. I sometimes think it should be something else and that in a different family it would be what the parents wanted or maybe we would have have parents that would let us all follow our passions and then cheer. My parents clearly aren't like that. Are any one's parents like that though?

I think my brothers and sisters will get less scaird of me as time goes on and they see I am doing fine and not in any serious trouble. What I've done flies against a lot of the philosophy I was taught. Working for just me should be selfish and should hurt, but instead I'm healthier, happier, and more engaged in my studies than ever. It could be from eating all that grapefruit and pomelo.

Isabella, I have no comment on what happened in your family. I pray your father will come out of hiding one day. If he did would you go live with him instead of at Rose Among Thorns? Kelli, what about your father? I know that is a sensitive subject, but you say he is still alive.

 

Insert closing.....

 

== Naama Roth replies ==

Dear all,

I wish I were closer to my siblings. I am the oldest of a moteley crew of what will soon be evelen. These include one full brother, two half siblings, several step siblings, three littles, and two more half siblings to be born in May thanks to Marilyn Roth. My father is very prolific. Talk about euphemisms.

I did try to reach out to my siblings. Long ago I used to be train monitor and ship them all back and forth between Amagansett, the Upper West Side, and Chappaqua, New York. I got frequent rrider miles on Metro North. I knew every inch of that commuter railroad and every landmark seen through greasey train windows.

When my father with my mother's complicity tried to put me away in prison school right after I finished Hunter, I led the escape over an electrified gate. I asked any sibling who wanted to; for they were all present, to come with me. One, my stepsister Debbie, heeded the call. I gave her my sweat shirt to protect her hands, and I climbed the fence bare handed. I burned the flesh off of the palms of both hands and fried the nerve endings in my hands as well. The nerves have sice rewired. I spent half the summer doing physical therapy. I used to have a squeeze ball and they did skin grafts in Syracuse.

For causing a public embarassment, not for sending his daughter to a prison school, my parents lost all their children. I don't know where half of them are now. My full brother Gad, is studying at Rutgers. My stepsister, Debbie, the one who went over the fence with me is at Rosemary Hall, a prestigious prep school. Someone, perhaps her new foster parents (this was a private arrangement with another Independent Rainbow family), took a real interest in her. She wasn't one of a hoarde created in the hopes of improving the breed or calling the right souls.

I made a choice once. It was a fast choice. It was a good choice. It didn't do much for my siblings. I imagine most of my siblings know where I am, but they've made no effort to contact me. So it goes. There is not much I can do either. I'm not even going to resort to a certain cliche about feeling pain.

 

Insert closing

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