WHY DO PEOPLE VOLUNTEER?

Here is a letter I wrote to “Psychology Today”magazine yesterday.

In the May/June issue, Kaja Perina writes on page 46, “Even community service, for some the standard metric of character development in the form of ‘giving back’, has been reconfigured as a resume enhancing path to achievement.”

How many community service jobs are resume builders? Can the author or the editors name any? I am a retired college English instructor. I volunteer two days a week at an animal rescue group. I clean litter pans and cat cages. Imagine that on a resume.

When I was in college, I was asked to dress up as a gingerbread cookie for Special Olympics. The girl who recruited me said it would look good on my resume. I started giggling. Did she think I would be applying for any jobs as a gingerbread cookie?

Most of us who clean the litter pans or dress up as cookies, do it to help the community. I am grateful for the opportunities I have had, but this is not giving back or resume building. You oversimplified a complex topic.

And you insulted people who give of their time for unselfish reasons.

David Brooks and Kaja Perina could learn something about character building by talking to people who volunteer to clean litter pans. I am often up at 5:30 a.m. and I stumble through snowbanks in Michigan winters to get to the animals I volunteer to help.

Excuse me. I have to add “Gingerbread Cookie” to my resume.

Excuse me. I have to add “Gingerbread Cookie” to my resume.

DISCOVER A NEW AUTHOR TODAY

Thousands of writers need your help.

These are first time authors who have crafted new novels. These authors need readers. First time book authors face a difficult time getting attention. They are ignored by the publishing industry that is itself flooded with new novels and nonfiction books. I have been told that some agents get a new email from an author looking for representation on average every ten minutes. That is a lot of book proposals to read and evaluate. Even with an army of interns to read some of the manuscripts, most new manuscripts are not read. They are lost in the shuffle.

As an author who just spent over two years on a novel that is finally ready for readers, I understand not wanting this precious baby of mine to get lost in the slush piles.

Reading new (as yet) unsold novels will cost you nothing but time. They are free; imagine the joy if a novel you read, reviewed and championed early in the process becomes a best seller, a classic or both some day.

Here are several ways you can help. Create an online book club. Join with two or three other readers to read and critique one novel a month.

Get school classes to select three new books every semester to read and review. Or you can just start reading. Where do you find these new authors and their novels?

Bookcountry.com

inkitt.com

These sites are free to join. While they were set up for new writers to post their work and share, readers are always welcome. Let’s support new authors in our community be they online or sitting across from us at the local coffee shop. Start reading today. Discover some exciting new talent.

A JOURNAL ENTRY A DAY

Did you write every day in your freshman English journal? I did. I hadn’t kept a journal before, but I leaped into the assignment. The instructor said to buy a ruled notebook, and we would start our journals in class.

I didn’t wait. I had a few extra notebooks at home, and I started writing that very day. All these years later, I am still writing in my journal everyday.

I became a freshman English teacher and assigned journals. I know many students did not take to them as enthusiastically as I did. I would collect journals at the end of the semester and some students had just one of two pages. Few students took a liking to journals as quickly as I did. But there were a few who enjoyed the experience promised to keep writing journals.

Some had kept journals before the class started. One student told me she would keep a separate journal for the class because her personal journal was too private.

A few students made their own journals. One student was a kindergarten teacher’s helper and she used construction paper for covers and she added drawings. While I preferred students keep a cheap notebook, I did enjoy the special efforts. Those students who created their own notebooks seemed to have more fun.

The question I was asked most often was: What do I write in my journal?

I would ask them what made them angry. If you are mad about something, then you have lots to say about it.

Oprah Winfrey tells her audiences to keep gratitude lists. That’s a much better idea, but for many people finding the joy in life is harder than finding the faults. We often concentrate more on things we don’t like that on the blessings life is giving us. I gave the students writing prompts from various books and websites. I suggested unsent letters, altered points of view and descriptions.

One of my favorite assignments from my own freshman English class was to go someplace on campus and make a list of 126 sense sensations. We had to list things we tasted, smelled, felt or heard.

The assignment didn’t work very well when I assigned it. It became a journal suggestion instead.

Now that I am retired I still keep a journal. I consider it practice writing. Sometimes I experiment with chapters and scenes for one of my own writings. Sometimes I write about my pets; sometimes; I just write down memories. There always seems to be something to write about.

If I have a day when few words are coming, I start a silly story. After a few nonsense words, I find the words I was meant to share for the day.

What are your experiences in keeping journals?

ADOPT A SENIOR PET MONTH

November is Adopt A Senior Pet Month.

I have always had senior pets.

When I was a child my mother had a pet chicken named Henny Penny. She had her own chicken coup and when she wasn’t eating bird seed, she pecked at bugs around the yard.

Troubles seemed like the oldest dog on record, but we couldn’t be sure of her age. Our neighbors Oscar and Eloise moved to Oregon when I was a preschooler. We took their dogs Troubles and Queenie, two sister mongrels. I could not identify the many different breeds that went into them. Queenie was killed on the highway right after the neighbors moved.

I remember that when my dad pulled Queenie’s body off the highway, Troubles followed him and watched as Queenie’s grave was dug.

I was a preschooler then., We still had the dog Troubles when I graduated from high school and she lived for a few years after that.

I adopted a four month old cat in March 1972. Both of his hind legs were broken; he had malnutrition and various other medical problems. The shelter manager said he was too badly injured to live. He was slated for euthanasia at the shelter, but I loved him from the moment I saw him. I named him Thaddeus and he lived until December 1992; He had just turned twenty.

A few years after Thaddeus died, I had a very rough year. My dad died of cancer in August of 1995. As I struggled with that, we knew a stray cat lived in the neighborhood. I told all our neighbors I would take the cat if anyone caught her.

On December 16 of that year, the day before my birthday, my husband noticed the stray, a pretty young calico in our back yard.

He went out and brought her in. We guessed she was seven to nine months old. I named her Felina, after a Mexican dancer in an old Marty Robbins song, “Music would play and Felina would whirl.” Felina is still living with us. She is now twenty years old and will soon celebrate 20 years of living with us.

We did adopt a senior pet when we adopted Lancelot from the Pet Adoption Alternative in Warren. The vet guessed Lancelot was eight years old then.

Tiki our dog adopted from Michigan Animal Rescue is 14 born in 2001 and Senior pets bring a lot of joy. They are easier to cope with than kittens and puppies. There is no potty training.

What is or was your oldest pet?

Mary Ann's Page: HALLOWEEN IN A SPOOKY SUNKEN SHIP

Mary Ann's Page: HALLOWEEN IN A SPOOKY SUNKEN SHIP: When I was a child, two ocean liners, the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm collided in the Atlantic Ocean. What followed was one of the mos...

HALLOWEEN IN A SPOOKY SUNKEN SHIP

When I was a child, two ocean liners, the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm collided in the Atlantic Ocean. What followed was one of the most dramatic and successful sea rescues in history.

The Andrea Doria was mortally wounded in the collision. It immediately sent an SOS. It needed assistance because minutes after the collision she lay on her side taking on water. Many of her lifeboats were difficult to reach because of the tilt of the decks.

According to several books on the subject the Stockholm’s first reaction: “Was it really the Andrea Doria we hit?”

The Andrea Doria was a famous ship. Hollywood movie stars and European royalty sailed on the Andrea Doria. When the boat was in New York, people came just to gawk at it. In fact, my dad’s brother and his wife saw the great ship, rumored to be the most beautiful ship in the world, when they were in New York.

Though her bow was seriously damaged, the Stockholm was able to return to New York and she remained on the seas until recently. She was at one time the oldest passenger ship still in service.

The Andrea Doria sank.

Maybe I was a stupid child, but before hearing about the two ships and their accident. I didn’t know ships sank. I didn’t think there was anything under the world’s oceans except fish. The Andrea Doria’s death opened up a whole new world of nightmares for me.

Television news coverage was much different in 1956 than it is today. While photographers were on the scene taking pictures of both the dramatically injured Swedish ship the Stockholm and the sinking Andrea Doria,I didn’t see most of those pictures until “Life” magazine came out about a week later.

We always had the latest issue of “Life” in our living room. I today question my mother’s wisdom of letting me see some of the published pictures. I remember the picture of badly burned child from a school fire. That picture gave me nightmares for a long time. After the first time I saw the picture of the burned, dying child, I wouldn’t look at it again.

The magazine often had graphic pictures that disturbed me.

When the issue about the Andrea Doria came out, it contained pictures not only of the ship as it lay in the water during it’s last moments, but also pictures of it under the waves. I couldn’t put the magazine down. I read every word; I glared at every picture.

The Andrea Doria settled into a dark, deep part of the ocean, where only the most experienced divers dared to go. Over the years, I read many books about the Andrea Doria. Then I slept with the night light on for several days. The story of the ship and it’s grave terrified me. Still I read everything I could about the ship and its last voyage.

Occasionally a television documentary would show divers down in the Andrea Doria. The bravest divers admitted it was a spooky place. Several divers died exploring the ship.

Of course, there was another similar story of an even more famous ship. The Titanic hit an ice berg, not another ship. Both ships, the Titanic and the Andrea Doria claimed to be designed to stay afloat. The Titanic claimed to be unsinkable. They were designed to stay afloat with two water tight compartments flooded.

According to “Titanic the History and legacy of the Most Famous Ship from 1912 until Today,” the book I read on Halloween night, The Titanic had five watertight compartments flooded.

The Stockholm ripped open three water tight compartments when she collided with the Andrea Doria. We all have our nightmares. It would have been wise of me to never read a book about the Andrea Doria or the Titanic, but their stories still fascinate me. They scare me too.

I could have looked away from the ship wrecks as I looked away and refused to look at the severely burned child long ago. But I chose to look. Every time a new book about the Andrea Doria was published, I bought that book, I read it. The story didn’t change much.

Over the years it became more about the divers, but the ship itself was always central to the story. Several Divers, most of them probably not superstitious, claimed they had an eerie feeling as they floated through the first class dining room on the Andrea Doria. They said it was haunted. A chill went through me.

I spent this Halloween reading about the Titanic. Remember the story is so much like the one about the Andrea Doria. It is the same story of human hubris.

The Titanic’s story is in many ways much spookier. The loss of life was much greater on this ship than on the Andrea Doria, where most passengers were rescued. The casualties occurred in the collision itself.

Divers began exploring the Andrea Doria hours after she went under the waves. The Titanic was lost for decades, and today lies in even deeper water than the Andrea Doria.

Still I find sunken ships and downed airplanes the spookiest things on earth. I shivered as I read about the Titanic on Halloween night.

But I have obtained some maturity since 1956. I didn’t have to sleep with the light on.

WORK OUT

WHAT I'M DOING WHILE MY ROBOT CLEANS AND COOKS

A day will come when robots will have taken over all or most of our jobs. Robots will build new robots, and in the unlikely event they need supervision, robots will supervise other robots.

What will people do?

In my last blog I talked about writing novels,. painting landscapes, or playing golf. I even suggested leisure. What’s wrong with lying in the sun and getting a tan. of course, the possibilities are endless. This morning I thought about some of everyone’s favorite Americans, the cowboys. A song about a rodeo came up in my music mix as I was exercising. Cowboys made a great discovery. Thye could make big money showing off what they did everyday.

Cowboy chores like roping cattle and breaking wild horses became a sport when the occupation was no longer needed. Sports stars make more money than day laborers. Cowboys who once rode the range with pennies in their pockets became wealthy men.

Loggers also knew how to turn their skills into fun. They had holidays. Instead of taking the day off, they had competitions and worked harder than ever.

Recently our home had a make over. We put on a metal roof and new siding. Watching the men work was like watching a ballet. Every movement was choreographed. One man cut metal strips or siding to precise measurements; another man nailed the pieces in place. They walked on platforms, as sure footed as Michelangelo must have been when he painted the Cistern chapel.

There is something beautiful about work.Even grunt work can be beautiful I like washing dishes and folding clean clothing. These are daydream times for me when I work out sticky points in a novel or memorize a new list.

So work can be introspective as well as entertaining and beautiful.

When robots take all our jobs, we will create new chores. We might do it for the entertainment of ourselves and others or we might do it for private introspection and pleasure.

I named this blog “Work out.” I find the term interesting.People go to the gym to imitate movements their ancestors did every day and called work.

People used to walk or bike to the store or to work. Today we get in a car and drive around the block to shop. Then we go to the gym and walk on a treadmill. So many chores used to be more difficult.

I remember my mother getting down on her hands and knees to scrub floors. Today I walk behind a mop that is so sophisticatedI barely have to push it.

My mother had to apply real muscle to pound bread dough into place. I buy my bread at Whole Foods. Then I come home and work out with bar bells. When we don’t have work, we ralize that we need it to stay in shape and to satisfy a certain longing. Perhaps that longing is just for time to daydream

The future of work might be competitions where humans, not robots pound in nails and roof or side a house. No robots allowed. We might wash dishes make pretty loaves of bread. other humans will watch us and marvel at our skills at such wonderful old fashioned tasks.

Perhaps real human workers will work in a museum showing visitors how 20th and early 21st century humans performed their chores.

For those of us who don’t want to imitate cowboys and loggers by turning old skills into entertainment and competition, there will always be poetry to write, philosophies to learn, and dances to perform.

And sometimes we might just want to lay in the shade while a robot serves us fresh squeezed lemonade. This is the life. I can’t wait.