A Blog Worth Reading For Those Who Want to Write
https://sammweber.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/getting-into-the-writing-groove/
Monday, April 27, 2015
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Fight Life
Fight life? You’ve got to be kidding! Maybe that works for some, but I’ve had a hard time winning arguments even with my children when they were young! So, fighting any of the multitude of things that might be disruptive or damaging to my life or the lives of those I love has primarily been wasted time and energy, I’m fairly certain. On the other hand, I am perfectly proficient at worrying, or at least I used to be. Then, the worst thing happened, yet faith was not fragile but fierce, and I and my family were overcomers.
Today, we still miss Zach Weber who died at 19 when the wet earth fell out from beneath his feet while hiking in the Italian Alps in April 2007. Now consider, our son’s death was something we could not fight. And, I think it is good to remember that a lot of things are completely out of our control. So while we’re thinking about how we might *fight* life, I believe it is wise to consider the One who holds not only life but all of Creation in His power. I believe, and the Bible teaches, that He works all things for good, and this is the solid ground that I have stood on for a very long time and it has proven to be the very best choice I could make in dealing with those things that I might have liked to *fight* (and there have been many!)
Everything in life seems to have the potential to go wrong, from committing yourself in a marriage, to childbirth, your health, finances, decision-making, career and educational choices and on and on. We’ve all heard it said, “Life is a crap shoot!” And, yet, Wisdom sometimes rises from the ashes of all our failures. Ecclesiastes 7:12 (NIV) reads,
“12 Wisdom is a shelter
as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
Wisdom preserves those who have it.
Using wisdom to fight life might look like this:
o Not letting panic take hold nor overreacting.
o Focusing on what’s going well; not feeling you must fix everything.
o Being hopeful: expecting good.
o Forbearing grievances against one another.
o Realizing that out of great tragedy, goodness will take the stage.
(Consider the Crucifixion, for example. The Innocent One,
crucified for the sins of the whole world, allowing for the salvation
of all those who will but believe!)
o Finally, the application of grace and mercy to all who offend, grieve,
antagonize, attack, belittle, devalue, persecute and discredit us.
For, according to Kahlil Gibran, “Out of suffering have emerged the
strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
Today, we still miss Zach Weber who died at 19 when the wet earth fell out from beneath his feet while hiking in the Italian Alps in April 2007. Now consider, our son’s death was something we could not fight. And, I think it is good to remember that a lot of things are completely out of our control. So while we’re thinking about how we might *fight* life, I believe it is wise to consider the One who holds not only life but all of Creation in His power. I believe, and the Bible teaches, that He works all things for good, and this is the solid ground that I have stood on for a very long time and it has proven to be the very best choice I could make in dealing with those things that I might have liked to *fight* (and there have been many!)
Everything in life seems to have the potential to go wrong, from committing yourself in a marriage, to childbirth, your health, finances, decision-making, career and educational choices and on and on. We’ve all heard it said, “Life is a crap shoot!” And, yet, Wisdom sometimes rises from the ashes of all our failures. Ecclesiastes 7:12 (NIV) reads,
“12 Wisdom is a shelter
as money is a shelter,
but the advantage of knowledge is this:
Wisdom preserves those who have it.
Using wisdom to fight life might look like this:
o Not letting panic take hold nor overreacting.
o Focusing on what’s going well; not feeling you must fix everything.
o Being hopeful: expecting good.
o Forbearing grievances against one another.
o Realizing that out of great tragedy, goodness will take the stage.
(Consider the Crucifixion, for example. The Innocent One,
crucified for the sins of the whole world, allowing for the salvation
of all those who will but believe!)
o Finally, the application of grace and mercy to all who offend, grieve,
antagonize, attack, belittle, devalue, persecute and discredit us.
For, according to Kahlil Gibran, “Out of suffering have emerged the
strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
And, so, in conclusion, what shall I say, “Bring it on, Oh Days of My Life, for I know the promises of My Lord and in the shadow of His Cross and glorious Resurrection I fear no evil!
Friday, February 13, 2015
Personal History - Alison Weber
Alison M. Weber -- Personal History
I began work at age
11, taking a bus into Washington,
D.C. from the suburbs, aattaching
test tubes to sterile jars for the American Red Cross during the summer. At 14,
I handled “complaint calls” for a large appliance retailer, which was my first
paying job. Summers, during high school and college in the 1960s, I worked as a
“typist” for various government installations, including the USAFGC, Pentagon, in
Washington, D.C. I ran out of funds for college after
two years and went to work at Walter Reed General Hospital, at first as the
secretary to the Chief of the Pathology, and then as Chief of the Blood Drawing
Unit, which put me in charge of OJT for young MSC lieutenants to learn proper venipuncture
techniques in addition to my secretarial duties, which included dictaphone
transcription and a knowledge of medical terminology. I met and married an Army sergeant and after
he left the military, we moved and I took a job with the Army Map Service as a
head secretary where I mastered their first word processing unit that took up
an entire, though small, room. After
another move, I continued in a Civil Service position as Secretary to the Chief
of the Special Mapping Agency, US Geological Survey, in Reston, VA. I was reassigned as the lead administrative
support person to a committee of the Office of Management and Budget that was
assessing all of the mapping capabilities within the Armed Services. In this capacity, I supported a team of civilian
and military personnel from many government agencies and saw the work through
to the formation of the Defense Mapping Agency.
At this point, I became a young widow following the unexpected death of
my husband.
I returned to
Frostburg State College (MD) where I had been from 1964-1966 and completed my
degree (Political Science) in 1976. I
was remarried in 1978 and look forward to my 33rd anniversary this November. During the mid-70s, starting with a college
internship, I was employed by WCBC Radio, Cumberland,
MD, as a broadcast journalist,
covering local and state news. In the
early 1980s, I stopped working and hoped to begin a family. We adopted an infant from Korea in 1984
and again in 1985, and I planned to be a fulltime mother. My husband began an industrial sales
distributorship south of Pittsburgh,
however, and my services became essential.
I acted as Vice President and oversaw all the administrative processes
of the business which were many and varied, and learned computer accounting,
mostly by trial and error. I began home-educating
my children in 1988 while continuing to handle the accounting functions of our
business and did this until 1992. At
that time, a surprise event took place in my life, adding a third child to the
family. With her birth, I went completely off-payroll and continued
home-schooling for 20 years. During this period, I started a homeschool support
group in Greene County that I chaired for the first year
before moving to Armstrong 17 years ago.
I’ve led a variety of homeschooling events, field trips, classes, and
clubs. When my youngest was in 4th grade, we experimented with a
cyber-charter school. The next year, although not enrolling my child, I worked
for the school which is no longer in existence. During that year, in which the
school was failing, I started off assisting the school nurse with paperwork;
other teachers with grading, and calling on delinquent students’ families, but
ended teaching three upper elementary English classes. Today, I my oldest daughter, Alexa, and her
husband work in San Francisco
and are young entreprneurs, introducing Foodspotting.com around the world. My
youngest daughter, Samantha, just graduated from Freeport
Area High
School, summa cum laude, and will attend Grove City College
in the fall. Our son, Zach, died 3 years ago while serving in the Air Force at
Aviano AFB, Italy. My husband sells optimization equipment for
gas wells for Weatherford, Inc., for the eastern portion of the US. We
attend North Park Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In the past, at former churches, I was active leading VBS and teaching Children’s
Sunday School .
As Different as Day and Night by sammweber
As Different as Day and Night
Samantha Weber, 13 Jan 06, 8th grade
“Tomorrow I want you to get up early so we can get started
with school and get finished. You’ll
feel much better if you go to bed now so you can get up early and get things
out of the way!”
“Mom, I don’t want to get up early: I’m,just not a morning person like you!”
This was another attempt by my mother to try and get me to
wake up early for school. She just
doesn’t understand that we are two totally different people.
My mom is obviously the “early bird: she likes to get up around 5 a.m. and take
pictures of the sunrise with her digital camera! (I don’t think I’ll ever be able to
understand why she does this.) Once she
takes the pictures, she uploads them onto her computer and adds them to her very long collection that is displayed
on her screensaver as a slideshow.
Occasionally, much to my chagrin, she wakes me up just to go look at the “beautiful” sunrise. Personally, all sunrises look the same to me;
but to my mom, every one is a unique masterpiece: the artwork of God. I also appreciate the fact that “The heavens
declare the glory of God,” but I prefer to find my artwork on my computer after
the sun has set. You see, all day long I
toil doing schoolwork and chores; and by the time all of it is done, it’s dark
outside. I’m ready to be a rebel – to be
“bad.” I have this nervous and excited
(hyper?) feeling as I invade the web, pillaging for some kind of spoils. My gang is hanging out on IM, waiting for
me. A perfect homeschooled student by
day; but by night I’m “a bad white
girl!” (Remember the Titans) Then at
10 p.m. when the whole gang is online, my mom disrupts the conspiracy and says
I need to go to bed!
It’s absolutely not fair.
She did the same thing to my brother and sister before me though. My sister would sneak back out of her bedroom
to the computer after my mom went to bed.
Occasionally, she would get caught, but as I hope you can see, it’s just
natural for us to want to stay up. Now
don’t get me wrong, I do love to sleep.
I like to do my sleeping, however, during the morning hours. The house is its most quiet and peaceful
then. The dog is asleep; the tv is off
and all is quiet. Nothing has started
and I think it should stay that way. Around
9 a.m. I am in a heavy state of dreaming and should not be awakened. Over the years, my mom and I have had
numerous battles about the time I go to bed and the time I wake up. Usually, I lose at night but win in the
morning because it is almost impossible to wake me up – or, if awakened, I’m so
miserable to be around that my mom has learned to avoid the
unpleasantness.
Hours earlier, while I’m snuggled down in my bed as peaceful
as an angel, my mom has leaped out of bed, made the coffee, taken her sunrise
pictures, and settled down with a good devotional book. She’s also got a load of wash started, taken
something out of the freezer to thaw, straightened up the house, and made a
list of chores and schoolwork for me.
Maybe she is able to get up so early because she too feels stealthy,
like she’s doing something that no one else would even think of doing (at least
in our family). One day, maybe I’ll be
just like her, getting up at the crack of dawn, making my kids go to bed early;
who knows? But, for now, I think I’ll
settle for staying up a little bit later
Just as I don’t
appreciate the sunrise, my mom doesn’t appreciate the midnight hours and all
the life it brings with it. I can’t help
that she is a morning person and automatically is awake at the very ridiculous
hour of 5 a.m., and I also can’t help that I perk up after dark. Writing this controversial paper on our
differences has brought us somewhat closer:
I am starting to understand some of the reasons she likes to get up so
early, and she is also trying to understand why I like to stay up. After writing this paper though, I still
think my mother and I are two totally different people. In fact, maybe there are really only two
kinds of people in the world anyway – the people who like to watch the sunrise
and the people who like to see the sun set.
Playing House and Other Memories by Alison Weber
My dolls ate dinner and had their hair washed regularly;
Rode in a real stroller, and wore handmade clothes.
Sitting in school, I daydreamed about them.
And at home, made those dreams come true:
Turning our front porch into our home. My babies
Took naps and had real birthday cakes I baked in a toy oven
heated with an interior light bulb -- tiny cakes from
boxed mixes sold just for such occasions!
They had the nicest clothes, even felt hats
And capes and patent leather shoes in white and black.
I had red leather shoes, but they weren’t available in
Doll sizes.
My friends had doll babies too and all our dolls played together.
Sometimes my friends would get angry about nothing,
Take their dolls and go home, but they’d be back the next day.
And how we would DRESS UP! My best friend’s mother was a
Chorus girl in a nightclub and had an attic full of gowns she let
Us wear, with layers of stiff petticoats underneath!
When our dolls were down for naps, we rode bikes
or roller skated in the alleys. If all the neighborhood kids
were out, especially the boys, we played hide n’ seek or dodge ball.
If it was just girls, we jumped rope or threw rubber balls
Against the bricked side of a neighbor's house. The neighbor
was the first black woman I knew. She let us come in her yard,
and under the overhang of her screened in porch she had a bench set
up for potting plants. When we were over, she let us turn the bench into
our perfume-making station, where we crushed rose petals and stirred
them into small amounts of water and bottled the rose perfume.
We sometimes walked to Grant Circle and climbed Maple trees.
I actually really did not like climbing trees, so when I fell out of one and got pretty scraped
up, the pressure to be a tree climber ended, fortunately. I bore my scrapes and scratches
valiantly, but more importantly, I was never forced to climb another tree!
Not only that, but my mother never found out which was great because I was pretty sure I
would have been in big trouble if she'd known I was climbing the trees in the first place.
The best thing, though, was “Blackie!” Blackie was a big black crow
That Marie Drissel’s brother, Roger, had caught and tamed. Blackie was
MY friend. When I left my house in the morning to walk to school, I would
Yell, “Blackie, Blackie!” Blackie would fly to me, and sit on my arm or shoulder
For a block or so. He was semi-famous and even had his picture in the
Washington Post newspaper!
Being a kid, growing up in the 1950’s was truly awesome! Pick Temple, Romper Room,
Comic books, Nancy Drew stories, never being scared to walk by myself to the movies or
swimming pool, take a bus downtown, be friends with everyone on your block.
While I was in elementary school, INTEGRATION occured, and that was cool too – until I
found out my mother was a racist. She never visited in North Carolina that I can recall and
when she'd lived there as a child it was in town not out in the country. In town the races were undoubtedly separated. My mother was probably about 12 when the family moved to Washington, DC, and hated North Carolina because it was "so hot down there" she said. It was a horrible day when I brought a black girl from my class home to play and found out how much my mother hated black people, and is a separate story to to be shared.
Fortunately, my grandparents lived in D.C. with my mother and I. Granny (Charlee Rankin Killian) and Grandad (Andrew Vance Killian) both grew up in rural North Carolina outside Charlotte. Their families ate what they grew and cotton-farmed with mule-driven plows. Dirt-farming, I suppose you’d say. The Rankins had “blackies” who lived on the farm. They didn't actually "have" them, they just were there living at the far end of the property. They helped out, and the Rankins helped them in return. So, anyway, my grandparents were not racist whatsoever. I only visited the farm in North Carolina in the summer. I think because of my grandmother, in particular, growing up with this communal relationship on the farm, and her coaxing me to realize, "People's just people!" that I quickly made friends with all the crinolin-dressed little girls and white-collared little black boys that showed up for the first day of school at the beginning of my 4th or 5th grade year.
Anyway, all these are my favorite memories – better than Christmases or other holiday memories even.
Oh, might as well tell everything: There was part of spending the summer weeks in North Carolina I was not fond of at all! I was made to take a bath every afternoon. This involved sitting in a large, but not actually large enough, galvanized round tub ON THE SIDE PORCH of the house -- Naked!
Rode in a real stroller, and wore handmade clothes.
Sitting in school, I daydreamed about them.
And at home, made those dreams come true:
Turning our front porch into our home. My babies
Took naps and had real birthday cakes I baked in a toy oven
heated with an interior light bulb -- tiny cakes from
boxed mixes sold just for such occasions!
They had the nicest clothes, even felt hats
And capes and patent leather shoes in white and black.
I had red leather shoes, but they weren’t available in
Doll sizes.
My friends had doll babies too and all our dolls played together.
Sometimes my friends would get angry about nothing,
Take their dolls and go home, but they’d be back the next day.
And how we would DRESS UP! My best friend’s mother was a
Chorus girl in a nightclub and had an attic full of gowns she let
Us wear, with layers of stiff petticoats underneath!
When our dolls were down for naps, we rode bikes
or roller skated in the alleys. If all the neighborhood kids
were out, especially the boys, we played hide n’ seek or dodge ball.
If it was just girls, we jumped rope or threw rubber balls
Against the bricked side of a neighbor's house. The neighbor
was the first black woman I knew. She let us come in her yard,
and under the overhang of her screened in porch she had a bench set
up for potting plants. When we were over, she let us turn the bench into
our perfume-making station, where we crushed rose petals and stirred
them into small amounts of water and bottled the rose perfume.
We sometimes walked to Grant Circle and climbed Maple trees.
I actually really did not like climbing trees, so when I fell out of one and got pretty scraped
up, the pressure to be a tree climber ended, fortunately. I bore my scrapes and scratches
valiantly, but more importantly, I was never forced to climb another tree!
Not only that, but my mother never found out which was great because I was pretty sure I
would have been in big trouble if she'd known I was climbing the trees in the first place.
The best thing, though, was “Blackie!” Blackie was a big black crow
That Marie Drissel’s brother, Roger, had caught and tamed. Blackie was
MY friend. When I left my house in the morning to walk to school, I would
Yell, “Blackie, Blackie!” Blackie would fly to me, and sit on my arm or shoulder
For a block or so. He was semi-famous and even had his picture in the
Washington Post newspaper!
Being a kid, growing up in the 1950’s was truly awesome! Pick Temple, Romper Room,
Comic books, Nancy Drew stories, never being scared to walk by myself to the movies or
swimming pool, take a bus downtown, be friends with everyone on your block.
While I was in elementary school, INTEGRATION occured, and that was cool too – until I
found out my mother was a racist. She never visited in North Carolina that I can recall and
when she'd lived there as a child it was in town not out in the country. In town the races were undoubtedly separated. My mother was probably about 12 when the family moved to Washington, DC, and hated North Carolina because it was "so hot down there" she said. It was a horrible day when I brought a black girl from my class home to play and found out how much my mother hated black people, and is a separate story to to be shared.
Fortunately, my grandparents lived in D.C. with my mother and I. Granny (Charlee Rankin Killian) and Grandad (Andrew Vance Killian) both grew up in rural North Carolina outside Charlotte. Their families ate what they grew and cotton-farmed with mule-driven plows. Dirt-farming, I suppose you’d say. The Rankins had “blackies” who lived on the farm. They didn't actually "have" them, they just were there living at the far end of the property. They helped out, and the Rankins helped them in return. So, anyway, my grandparents were not racist whatsoever. I only visited the farm in North Carolina in the summer. I think because of my grandmother, in particular, growing up with this communal relationship on the farm, and her coaxing me to realize, "People's just people!" that I quickly made friends with all the crinolin-dressed little girls and white-collared little black boys that showed up for the first day of school at the beginning of my 4th or 5th grade year.
Anyway, all these are my favorite memories – better than Christmases or other holiday memories even.
Oh, might as well tell everything: There was part of spending the summer weeks in North Carolina I was not fond of at all! I was made to take a bath every afternoon. This involved sitting in a large, but not actually large enough, galvanized round tub ON THE SIDE PORCH of the house -- Naked!
An Autobiographical Poem Samantha Weber (1992 - )
An Autobiographical
Poem - Samantha Weber (1992 - )
Samantha
Blonde,
four-eyed, thin
Sister
of slant-eyed Alexa and Zach
Who
loves Mom, Dad, and the kitten, Nike
Who
feels peaceful about cyber-school
Who
needs lots of sleep
Who
gives love, advice to others, and fun
Who
likes being part of the 3 S’s: Sarah,
Sadie, and Sam
Who
doesn’t like soccer referees
Who
fears going to sleep, being alone, and the basement
Who
would like to see Mia Hamm and Grandpa Stanley
Who
dreams of a “dreamhouse” with a bubble room
Weber
An Athlete Dying Young
An Athlete Dying
Young
You remember those times
When you thought you’d never die?
You climbed mountains
Ran miles
Won games.
The people cheered you on
Like a Champion. champion, champion…
You loved the game.
The game loved you.
You’d never wish those memories away
From those fields
But glory does not stay.
Today those echoes fade, fade, fade
Your calloused feet stay still in shade
The shade of the shadow
Of Time’s past days.
They won’t remember you.
You never had a chance.
Injuries are an athlete’s worst
enemy.
They strike without warning
And take no prisoners.
Unfortunately for you,
You’ll be forgotten.
You died too young.
by sammweber (?)
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