Author: mferra

If you ever run out of things to write about, take public transportation…

mferra 3 Comments

Dear Readers,

Warning.  This is not for the faint of heart.

Here’s a brief story that I just can’t shake.  It’s funny, but it’s sad.

Yesterday I went to the Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden to take the train to Philly.  I saw a wrinkled, skinny, elderly man with old plastic  bags standing in front of a ticket machine. Two security guards stood in front of him, gently telling him that he could not be there unless he was going to buy a ticket.

The man seemed to know the guards and he told them that he had a ticket, but I don’t think he did.  He had been hanging out there.  I saw sympathy on the face of the guards, but they had to tell him to move on. I glanced at him and felt guilty.

Here I was, off to Philadelphia for a nice dinner with friends and then a writing workshop, and this man needed a warm place.  I put in a five to buy my ticket and the change clinked into the metal change dispenser along with the ticket.  As I bent down to take my change and ticket, I realized that the man had peed all over the floor next to me.  The guards saw it, too and they spoke kindly, but kept reminding him that he had to leave.

Ooh.  It was so cold yesterday that I kept on my gloves.  I removed the coins and ticket somewhat awkwardly because of the gloves.  The darn ticket slipped from my gloved hand and flew like magic into the puddles of pee.  I jumped back and moved to a machine farther away to purchase a new ticket.  No way was I going to retrieve the other ticket.

One guard saw my plight and he said, “No, I’ll call for you,” and he arranged that I could take the train without paying again.

It was almost funny how the ticket seemed whisked by a strange force from my hand onto the floor into the pee.  It was sad that someone at the end of his life should be in that situation.

Marguerite Ferra

Best day of the year! Happy Birthday, Kim!

mferra 6 Comments

Dear Readers,

Are you wondering why today is my favorite day of the year? Is it my birthday? No. No. No.

Is it the day that I retired? No. (Been there, done that)

Is it my daughter’s birthday? YESSSSSSSSSSS! She’s been extraordinaire even as a little girl. Let me treat you to a few of my memories—At six months, she sat on a little rug near the sofa and pulled herself up, held on to the sofa and walked to the end of the sofa where I was talking on the phone next to the dog. (She wanted the dog.)   She asked me why did God make His only child a boy, not a girl?—age three.

She’s always been funny, charming, hardworking, athletic, Sdown to earth and kind. I don’t know how a bookwormy wuss like me had this wonderful daughter.   She’s SUPERDAUGHTER!

Happy Birthday, dearest Kim! I love you. You are my heart.

From your mom who knows she was blessed……

Hey, thanks to all who voted for Isaac!

mferra 1 Comment

Dear Readers,

So many of you let me know that you voted for Isaac Destin to take the last shot in the last basketball game in Camden County!  Thanks.  It was fun to show Isaac that he has a lot of fans….

Regretfully, another young man came in first, but Isaac came in second.  Still cool.

I know Isaac’s older brothers and sisters more than I know him—I know the older “kids” from their family when they first came to Camden from Haiti–more than twenty or twenty-five years ago???, from Cramer School in East Camden, from Martin Luther Chapel in Pennsauken and from the former Saturday GLEAM program at Martin Luther Chapel.  So–I knew them very well and we still communicate by Facebook–and their travels all over the world!

Isaac attended GLEAM, too, and played basketball in the church school’s gym.  He often sat in the church pew in front of me and looked at me with his big brown eyes—good-looking—like his siblings!  A beautiful, loving family…!

I enjoyed trying to get my blog readers to vote for Isaac and how pleased I was that you did.  Thank you.  You are good people.

Love,

Marguerite

Seven negative things you don’t know about me

mferra 2 Comments

Dedicated to Jane G. Moore–a person who is NOT negative–a great person, in fact!

Dear Reader,

Some Facebook members are posting–“I challenge you to post seven things about yourself.”  Wouldn’t it be easy to post seven positive things about yourself?   But, the challenge would be to post seven negative things.

Ah, the bravery to expose yourself.  Here I go.

1.  I don’t like loud music. Totally negative about it.  Can’t enjoy life in a row home with neighbors whose volume choices differ than mine.  Not to mention choice of music.  Ack.  I hate rap.

2.  I am against any and all potholes.  Can’t say a positive thing about them, although I have seen birds here in Camden bathe in them.

3.   I violently and bitterly oppose all food in the world that is fattening or not healthy.  Can’t have more than a teeny-weeny slice of my daughter’s birthday cake this weekend because it will blow my “dedication” to the Weight Watchers’ online plan–and it’s only my fifth day–grump, grump, grumpity-grump.  Could this healthy change in lifestyle be inspiring this list?

4.  I never got a Master’s degree and now that I have the time?   Can’t get the energy, motivation or money to do it  (need all of these at the same time!) so I must remain a Bachelor.  (of Arts…)  Have to count on books (including Facebook) to keep me marginally litterit.

5.  I have an adorable puppy, but I get negative vibes about canine poop.  Can’t say that I feel positive when I scoop it up, although it would be worse if he was constipated?  Just don’t like doggy-doo.

6.  I never wear pretty shoes because my character is so weak that I refuse to suffer for beautiful feet.  Can’t stand those high heels or tight toes.  Going to wear sneakers, flip-flops and sneakers for the rest of my days–gee, that thought is making me feel positive–yay, retirement.

7.   NEGATIVE ABOUT FOOTBALL.  I do not like football.  Really?  People running into each other, hurting each other? When it’s Super Bowl Sunday, people rush to the game (if they can) or to their TVs.  I rush to a bookstore which will be curiously uncrowded.  I can get a primo seat in the bookstore café for once without knocking another patron to the floor.

——————–

AND———please read on…help me out….

http://highschoolsports.nj.com/news/article/5441913932632333816/boys-basketball-fan-poll-who-do-you-want-taking-the-last-shot/

On a positive note, thanks to all who are voting for Isaac Destin, Collingswood, as the basketball player who you would like to take the last shot of the game.  Isaac deserves to win, but he is in second place.  Please keep voting.  It is permitted to vote as many times as you wish.  PLEASE HELP..  Two seconds to click!  THANKS A BILLION!

http://highschoolsports.nj.com/news/article/5441913932632333816/boys-basketball-fan-poll-who-do-you-want-taking-the-last-shot/

Readers…help out again? Two seconds? And some thoughts about great kids…

mferra 1 Comment
Dear Readers,
Thanks a million to everyone who clicked on the above link and …..Could you click again and vote again?  It is permitted.  If you vote for ISAAC DESTIN, he will be the basketball player in Camden County that you would want to take the last shot.  It’s a fun honor and he deserves it.  Please click as many times as you can.  It would be super if Isaac Destin (Collingwood)  won!
Yesterday was Isaac’s birthday.  He’s a tall young man, but I remember him as a little boy with huge eyes, sitting with us in church.  And, I do remember him past that, too!
Getting older is not great fun every day, but one wonderful part of getting older is to know that the little kids that you knew are growing up to be good young men and women.  I can’t even remember how many kids I’ve known or taught over the years…perhaps close to eight hundred to a thousand?
Isaac’s family came to the city of Camden from Haiti and his parents came to my adult ESL class long ago.  I met and fell in love with the Destin kids.   They joined my church.  They later moved out of Camden.  The children joined the GLEAM program that I ran at church for more than a decade of Saturdays.  Lots of happy memories….trips, lessons, crafts, music and basketball in the school gym of Martin Luther Christian School.
It’s very late, but I just couldn’t sleep without asking you to cast more votes for Isaac Destin.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Until tomorrow….
Marguerite Ferra

Readers, please do me a favor! Two seconds of your time!

mferra 3 Comments

Dear Readers,

It’s a long story, but I used to run a program at my church on Saturdays for kids whose families were new in the USA…and we had kids whose families weren’t new!  It was called GLEAM, God’s Love, English, Art and Manners.

Those little kids grew up and I can follow many of them on Facebook…great fun.

Today I am asking you to take two seconds to vote for ISAAC DESTIN, COLLINGSWOOD, for a fun basketball honor.  He’s a great kid.  He has a great family.  And, his sister, Libna, is my great goddaughter.  So, this is BIG.

Click on the link and vote.  You can vote often if you refresh the page.  THANKS AND LOVE.

Marguerite

— http://highschoolsports.nj.com/news/article/5441913932632333816/boys-basketball-fan-poll-who-do-you-want-taking-the-last-shot/

A Camden kindness

mferra 2 Comments

I live in Cramer Hill and near the top of a real hill. So, I don’t like snow! The snow doesn’t always get plowed on my street.  Going up and down an icy hill = no fun.

When it freezes, it’s bad on the hilly streets. I don’t know why, but it melts much later on our street and neighboring streets than in other parts of Camden. It does melt, though, by the Fourth of July…okay, that was an exaggeration.

The small streets around my former school, Wiggins College Preparatory Laboratory Family School, just off Broadway in Camden, rarely got plowed either. The snow and ice didn’t melt quickly there, either.

I dreaded returning to school after a bad storm. Deep potholes invariably lurked underneath layers of ice and snow on Walnut Street, just off Broadway, next to the school, and I had to drive there to get to work.

One such morning after a snowstorm, my Camry got stuck in a Walnut Street whopper pothole that was close to reaching China. I couldn’t move the car. Was it a sinkhole? Just a block and a half from school, but I couldn’t see anyone that I knew…

I grabbed the cheap coarse cat litter that I kept in the car. For traction emergencies. I shook it around the tires nervously.

Cars veered crazily around me on the icy street. I was sure that my car was going to get hit. Not even paid for yet…  I wished that I had called out and stayed in bed with a cat and a book.

A young man in a car saw me standing in the street with the bag of kitty litter and waved. “Lady! Get back in your car. Wait.” He couldn’t stop his car where he was, but he went around the block and parked, got out of his car and started to push my Camry.

Then, a mom with two little girls in school uniforms and puffy coats walked slowly in front of my car.  I blared my horn and screamed out the window, but they kept walking and he kept pushing. He couldn’t see them. It felt like eternity.  Talk about a nightmare?

Thank God, the mom and kids reached the pavement (never turning their heads toward me or moving faster) before my car lurched out of the pothole and into the intersection. It was a day that I was glad that I had used a lot of Mitchum antiperspirant.

I knew that had to make a left really soon because others cars were behind me so I yelled fast, “Sir! What’s your name?”

“Eric. God bless your day,” he said, smiling, and ran to his car in dress clothes and good leather shoes.

I turned on Fifth Street, hollering out the window to him. “Thank you, Eric! God bless your day, too.”

P.S. I’m pretty sure his name was Eric. He was medium height, caramel candy skinned, slim, handsome, young man with a beautiful voice.

If you read this blog, Eric, thanks again. Maybe your name isn’t Eric, but I think so. This happened about three years ago. This retired teacher remembers your kindness that is not atypical of the people of Camden. Even if your kindness was typical, it was very much appreciated and remembered.

Tribe connections

mferra 5 Comments

Dear Readers,

Before I unpack my suitcase, throw in a load of laundry or take the dog for a walk, I want to tell you about…

Oops. I had to take Finn for a walk—this puppy could less care if I’m writing a blog. Why am I surprised? If you ever want a writing focus challenge, let me lend you our puppy. If he sees you typing for more than ten minutes, his bladder activates.

Our cat, Reina, is standoffish, but her cuddle/kiss mechanisms activate when she sees me typing. She, too, is available for a writing focus challenge loan. For free.

Anyway!

Last yesterday afternoon I arrived home from a writer’s dream…four-day weekend at the Seaview Hotel in Galloway—hours and hours of snap fiction writing with excellent teacher/author Richard K. Weems, too much good food, seven a.m. dips in the pool (indoor!) and loads of great company, especially my fellow workshop writer/friend, Kay Peters.

Over two hundred writers from all over the USA and the world attended the getaway. I felt lucky that I knew a good dozen or so people from various workshops, but I did other meet people in the cab from the train station, at meals and in my snap fiction group.

I expected nothing less and nothing more from an outstanding Peter Murphy’s Winter Getaway. No disappointments. But, I didn’t expect any surprises.

But, at Sunday night dinner, a woman rushed to my table and said excitedly, “I can’t believe it’s you! I’ve been searching everywhere for you since Friday night. I’ve found you!”

She didn’t look like a detective, a debt-collector or the FBI. I stuffed more tender, juicy roast beef into my mouth in case she was going to take me away and there wouldn’t be any roast beef where I was going.

“You live in Camden still. I saw your name and city on the participant list. I grew up in Cramer Hill and there’s another woman here, too, who grew up in Cramer Hill!” (Having grown up in the Cramer Hill section of Camden is VERY SPECIAL. Still living there is VERY, VERY, VERY SPECIAL.)

I swallowed the beef without chewing it. “I’m in Cramer Hill!” I told her. I stood up. We embraced. Tribe members.

Whoa! How could this be? What were the odds? How could three fabulous Cramer Hill natives/writers/women all end up in this writing conference in this dining room in Galloway, New Jersey?

She led me to the other member of the Cramer Hill tribe. The three of us had grown up within a few blocks of each other. One is younger in her early fifties and one is in her early seventies and I’m in my early sixties. (Although all of us look and feel like we are in our Cramer Hill teens… Okay. A little fiction.)

We didn’t go to school at the same time, but have common memories of people and places, especially Veterans Junior High School, Woodrow Wilson High.  In decent weather, my husband and I walk past the former home of one of the writers and I told her that it was my favorite Cramer Hill house and garden and I never had known who had lived there.  We hugged each other good-bye and plan to keep in touch.

I got to watch the very ending of the getaway, a heart-wrenching program honoring Dr. Martin Luther King. Malala Yousafzai and Mona Mahmudnizhad, not alone (my buddy, Kay, had left) but with one of my Cramer Hill writing tribe.

Life never stops offering surprises.

Madame Curie in the morning in Camden?

mferra 1 Comment

Dear Readers,

How many people are lying in bed on a Saturday morning with a kid’s biography about Madame Marie  Curie?  Let me know if you did that this morning, please. I bought that book for a pre-teen, but wow!  What a story!  I berated myself for never learning about this incredible Polish woman until now and I’m …  age sixty-four.  There are so many good books to read still.

I read books before I give them to kids–are they too hard?  Too easy?  Maybe not appropriate for the age of the reader?  And… I have to admit that many books for young people are darn interesting. Did you know that rich people used radium water as mouthwash until jaws started to rot?  That radium was put in lipsticks and suppositories?

I saw a Facebook post that encouraged people to read MORE in 2015.  I didn’t clasp that advice to my bosom.  I was thinking that perhaps I should read LESS.  What should be my resolution?  Read less?  Write more?  Exercise more?  Renovate the basement?  Cook more?

My friend and fellow blogger, Maria Casale, at Bookworm Rrriot, tells us about her writing resolutions in her latest blog.  In other blogs, she has recommended books to read.  I am now reading some of them, including her recent book, The Caregiver.  What I want to say is this–please…if I read all the books that I want, I’ll never eat, sleep, write, renovate, cook or exercise, especially never exercise.

Now I have friends and family publishing books–I’ll never stop reading. Well, I wouldn’t, no matter what.

Here are four of the most recent.  You can find them on Amazon.  The Navarre Brotherhood  by Tammy Wunsch, first cousin;    Dark Orchids by Zana Etter, high school, college and former co-worker friend;   With Light Steam by Bryon MacWilliams, writer friend; The Caregiver, Maria Casale, writer friend.  Others to follow…

Ha ha!  People are often afraid of Camden City and its residents.  They don’t know that some of us are reading about Madame Curie and are wondering if we read TOO much.  We are not dangerous…armed only with books.

I’ll say HAPPY NEW YEAR and BYE FOR NOW.  I need to get ready for a wedding and when I put on some lipstick, I’ll be happy that it is radium free.

Marguerite Ferra, Camden

No spangly dress, high heels and party hat tonight! Top Five List for 2014!

mferra 2 Comments

Dear Readers,

Happy 2015!  It’s almost here… In about two hours.

I’m ringing in the New Year in a flannel shirt, jeans and sneakers.  Home in Cramer Hill.

Hey!  Keeping this blog brief because I know you readers are busy partying, watching Times Square, or writing resolutions…

Instead of my Top Ten List of Great Events for 2014—here’s my Top FIVE for 2014…not in order of importance…too complicated for tonight!

1.  I retired while I still have my mind and my health!  (Both improving!  More sleep, less stress, more exercise…)

2.  I’ve enjoyed more time with family and friends and have reconnected with many people !  (But, not enough!)

3.  I adopted a lively puppy, Finn, who was born in Dutch Sint Maarten.  (He’s got me walking a lot and I know my own neighborhood and neighbors better now.)

4.  I began a writing group, Woodland Writers.  (Great to write with the members on Thursday afternoons.)

5.  I started this blog.  (And…….I vow to write more in 2015.)

God bless you all.

Marguerite Ferra, Cramer Hill

What holiday song makes you crazy?

mferra 1 Comment

Dear Readers,

Tell me the truth.  Is any holiday song just too much for you?  And, to let you know, right up front, I’m not a Grinch.  Okay?

Since holiday music has been playing nonstop in stores and restaurants since Thanksgiving, I am feeling crazy.  It’s not only stores and restaurants.  White Christmas, Winter Wonderland and Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas dominate TV and radio commercials.  STOP!

Think!  What song makes you wince?  Is it Santa Claus Is Coming to Town, Jingle Bell Rock or Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer?

I’m not personally against any of these songs.  I hate that they are played too often and too early.  What I really hate is that they’re being played not for fun, holiday spirit, but to get people ready to buy, buy, buy.  It wasn’t like that in the days of yore when I was a little girl.

When I attended John S. Read Elementary School in the days when dinosaurs ruled the world, the fifties, there was no Common Core.  Maybe the teachers had a curriculum, but they seemed to be able to have flexibility in what they did.  It seemed to me that we sang Christmas songs in the classroom all December.

The Camden Courier-Post distributed newsprint booklets of Christmas carols and holiday songs to the schools and these booklets provided us with hours of singing.  My school was a public school and I look back and wonder why we sang religious songs when everyone’s family was not from a Christian background.  It was great for me, though.

I loved all the songs and I loved the beautiful language of the traditional Christmas songs..  O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie, Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, The silent stars go by…   Gorgeous, right?  Whenever the Camden skies were especially dark and starry, I’d think of those words and how we shared the skies and the stars with Bethlehem where Jesus was born.

Each Courier-Post subscriber got that booklet with a December newspaper.  I sat at our kitchen white enamel table, memorizing all the verses of all the songs.  What gifts they were to myself–I still have all those songs, even the most obscure verses, in my head and in my heart. 

I did learn, too, all the holidays songs that have become almost awful because they are played too much.  They were fun, then.  Hey, Jingle Bells was a great song, even though I’d never seen a one-horse open sleigh, except on TV.

However, as I was doing the breakfast dishes this morning, I caught myself singing–Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas!

Marguerite Ferra, Camden

1957 The Chat

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Dear Readers,

Do you ever have memories from childhood that just stick in your head?

I was seven in 1957 and I was not crazy about adding and subtracting in Grade 2 in Miss Robinson’s room in Read School in North Camden, but it was okay. She wrote problems on the blackboard in white chalk and we copied them on that arithmetic paper that has little chunks of wood and would stop the pencil. I knew math facts because my mother had taught them to us at home and I had a good memory. I flew through the problems because I would have a book in my desk—a book that I hadn’t read or hadn’t finished.

If I recall correctly, Miss Robinson had long low shelves along the wall filled with books. She loved books, I supposed.

I would do the math even faster if I had one of the twins series from those shelves, “The Dutch Twins in Holland,” “The Chinese Twins in China,” The Belgian Twins in Belgium” and so on. I’d finish my work, not worrying if it was sloppy because I couldn’t wait to get to my book.

She was beautiful with her curled white hair, red lipstick and pretty sweaters. She liked to talk about her life and how she had traveled to China. She never married (I guess!) and she lived with a boarder, Mr. Coffee.

Mr. Coffee used to pick her up in his car after school. He was in real estate, I think. (I’m pretty sure that was his name because my dad used to joke and say, “How’s Mr. Tea?”) Sometimes Mr. Coffee would come into the classroom at the end of the day and draw “germs” on the blackboard for us. I remember him as jolly and gentlemanlike in a suit and tie.

Quite distinctly, I remember standing in our kitchen near the back door where the light came in and having my mother brush my long hair with the good ivory-colored brush from the Fuller Brush Man.  It was a proud purchase for me by my mother and I never forgot it.   My mother was being chatty and friendly about school and I decided to ask her a question that had been buzzing in my mind for some time. “Mom, you know Mr. Coffee, right? He picks up Miss Robinson after school sometimes.”

“Yes. Why?” said Mom.

“Well, is he Miss Robinson’s boyfriend?”

She enunciated. “No, he is her boarder. He just lives in her house.”

That made sense to me that two old lonely people who had white hair should be in the same house. But, perhaps my teacher and her boarder might have been in their forties. Not as many people colored their hair in the 1950’s.

My mother took my hair and twisted it until I felt that I was going blind and she secured the ponytail with a rubber band. She stood to look at the nice job she did with my hair.

I innocently asked one more question. “Do Miss Robinson and Mr. Coffee sleep together in Miss Robinson’s bed?”

Whack!

My mother smacked me with the good hairbrush that she bought from the Fuller Brush Man.

So much for knowing anything personal about my beloved Miss Robinson except that she could write words in Chinese and talk about her travels… I meant that question in all innocence and didn’t figure out for many years why I got in trouble for that question. I didn’t know that was one of those “none of your business” questions.

Marguerite Ferra, someone who has to write down all these memories while she still has them!

Cramer Hill

Merry Christmases on Grant Street in North Camden in the fifties

mferra 2 Comments

Dear Readers,

I remember holidays when I was a little girl on our street, Grant Street, that was so small that only one car could go down.  The few people with cars almost parked on the sidewalk. It wasn’t an affluent street, but the neighbors celebrated Christmas like crazy

Mothers baked cakes and wrote cards.  Dads decorated front porches with strings of lights.  My mom stenciled Santas and Christmas trees with soap flakes on the front windows and big dining room mirror.

Several years, my brother and I came straight home from John S. Read Elementary to make tissue paper wreathes for gifts for relatives and to sell to neighbors.  Twisting billions of tissue paper leaves around a wire hanger bent into a circle–for weeks on end–what could be more jolly?

One neighbor blared Christmas carols from his front porch (this was not usual in those days) and I remember walking to Weiss’ grocery store listening to the music and feeling that Grant Street had the holiday spirit.

My dad would buy the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve and, luckily for my parents, Santa Claus decorated it while my brother, Billy, and I were asleep.  A platform had been dragged out of the basement into our tiny dining room and my brother’s Lionel trains were set up.

My mom had done the shopping for the gifts and she learned not to tell my dad what she bought.  Dad had been Number Four of thirteen kids so his Christmases were probably skimpy and he was thrilled that we would have nice gifts.  My dad wouldn’t exactly tell us, but he would ask us, “Would you like a toy watch?  Candy in a Christmas stocking?  A doll?”  (Just what Mom had just shown him “in secret.”)

It’s funny to think that we got candy cigarettes in our stockings.  Viceroys like Mom’s cigarettes and Camels like Dad’s cigarettes.  I never smoked the real thing, though.  Probably those chalky-tasting candy cigarettes turned me off to smoking forever.  Whew.  It’s also funny to think that one year I got Annie Oakley boots with spurs, Annie Oakley umbrella with a pistol handle and … a big Annie Oakley toy rifle.  I loved them all, but did not grow up to become a sharp-shooter.  Although my Cousin Charles let me shoot a couple of shots with his rifle once and it was fun…  And, I did teach my ESL students about Annie and they loved her life story.

Neighbors, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends popped in and out.  Soda, usually a luxury, flowed.  My Uncle Art gave us a case of Tru-Ade, the best orange soda in the world, one Christmas and my parents let us drink it like water.

We lived down the street from our church and we were in the children’s choir–maroon robes with gold stoles. Our State Street Methodist Church at Fifth and Grant always had a Christmas program and I still remember the glory of all the music, the candles, the poinsettias, the story of the birth of Jesus.

What a wonderful holiday for my family on that little street…

What holiday memories do you have?

Looking for a good read? Try THE CAREGIVER by Maria Casale. And, my new hat…

mferra 5 Comments

Dear Readers,

I needed a new hat because Old Man Winter is paying a visit and I hope that he wears out his welcome.  If indeed, he is welcome?

I took this selfie on the Patco Speedline from Walter Rand Transportation Center in Camden to 16th and Locust in Philly.  It says a lot about commuters that no one paid attention to me taking photos of myself on a train. What does it say about me?  I’m too old to embarrass myself?

Retirement is proving to be busier than anticipated, especially since we got our puppy, Finn. I guess I had forgotten how puppies need lots of time, just like little kids.  However, Finn has brought a lot of fun and love into our home. My husband, Carlos, and I are a lot of fun, too, but we were lacking certain activities in our lives–going outside every waking hour to look at sticks and leaves, tossing tennis balls and reading puppy training books.

Finn really adores my new hat, by the way.  I am NOT giving him a chance to eat it up, though.

He has been an exemplary puppy, in our opinion.  However, I am sad to report that he bit the cover of a new book that I had hoped to get autographed by the author, Maria Casale.  Now my copy of the book, THE CAREGIVER, will never be a collectible, not unless the teeth marks on the cover are coveted by a very special collector.

I lunched with Maria Casale last Sunday and we talked so much that I didn’t give her the book to sign.  I get to spend time with the author, but I go home without her autograph?  Maybe it is for the best because now I plan to order an unbitten copy from Amazon.com for Maria to sign.

I want to tell you about THE CAREGIVER, but I don’t want this blog to be a spoiler.  I want you to discover this book yourself as you read about this woman and her love of the house where she takes care of an elderly woman.  I loved the setting, Central Jersey and I loved the perfectly drawn characters who have little surprises for the reader.  Most of all, I enjoyed the beautiful language…each word seemed to be carefully  and elegantly chosen, but in the most natural way.  It’s an excellent read.  I’m always happy when I find a book that I love and this is one.

In a later blog, I will tell you about two other books that I would like to recommend, too.  But, for now, get this book, THE CAREGIVER, for yourself and enjoy a lovely time with it.  But, if you bring it over to my house in Cramer Hill, don’t , don’t, please, do not leave it near my puppy.

Marguerite Ferra, proud owner of a puppy and a new hat and the book, THE CAREGIVER, by Maria Casale

I didn’t plant that garden.

mferra 3 Comments

Dear Readers,

I have packed my life with everything, almost everything, that I wanted to do.  But, I didn’t plant that patio container garden nor that front yard garden of my brick row home in Cramer Hill.

I had bought packets of cosmos, marigold, zinnias and daisy seeds, but the seeds never left the packets.  Why?  Was I too tired this spring?  That last spring of teaching in Camden?  That last year of sweetest ESL students?  I was exhausted, I think.  I wasn’t deprived of flowers in school that year, though.  It was the year of roses for me from students–red roses that live in my computer photos and in my garden of poignant memories.

But, on this mildly cold November day, I want to plant a flower garden and to have sunflowers, marigolds and daisies to pop up in a few months.  That’s not going to happen.  Not in Camden, New Jersey.  Winter will be here before we know it.

Spring will follow and I can plant my garden, but, in the meanwhile, I feel curiously bereft.  I want to plant seeds today and I want flowers.

The one year that I had a backyard garden made me happy.  The golden sunflowers in the car-sized patch of soil bloomed like crazy.  The cosmos, the marigolds and the morning glory vines fought for space, but they were so darn cheerful about it.  I even had a birdbath where sparrows took a splash or two.

I loved to pull into my asphalt parking area, big enough for one car, and to see on my left, goldfinches, flitting around the sunflowers. (I parked in back, a newer car,  my husband in the front of the house, an older car.)  I’d never seen goldfinches before I had the sunflowers.  They delighted me, in spite of the fact that they stole the seeds from the flowers.

It was the first time that I’d had a chance to plant out back for fourteen years.  That bit of yard had belonged to our dog, Cookie.  When she died, I consoled myself with the garden.

Then, one of the clichés about Camden came true.  My husband found marks on his car that someone was trying to steal it.  The grass, the sunflowers, the birdbath and the goldfinches disappeared.  My husband’s car parked next to mine.  I was a little angry and bitter.  I didn’t plant anything for the patio or the small front lawn.

I vow that I will flower up next spring.  At least, hanging baskets of petunias.  At least, pots of zinnias.  For sure, the morning glories.  Roses are more difficult to cultivate, but hey, I have the photos of the roses from my former third-graders and those memories of their joy to honor their old ESL teacher.  Still good.  A memory of happy times is quite like the best garden ever.

Written by Marguerite Ferra

Blessed in Cramer Hill

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Dear Readers,

Bad news all over the world.  War, disease, crime.

I regretted that I picked up USA TODAY and WALL STREET JOURNAL to read as I ate my salad on the second floor on Wegman’s, Cherry Hill.   I’d been feeling so happy–a cold fall day, but with plenty of sunshine, lots of beautiful leaves still left on the trees, money in my pocket to buy what I needed plus more.  Retirement.  (Five stars for retirement.) How could I be so blessed when people everywhere were suffering terribly?

I got into line after I’d picked up crackers and cheese for Thursday’s writing group, free range eggs for an omelette for dinner,  kale for my husband and me (although he is not going to eat it, I bet), green tea for me, an apple pie for a friend’s visit, canned salmon for my mom’s all-time favorite sandwich, Thanksgiving cards for loved ones and doggy treats for our puppy, Finn. A cart filled with rich people stuff, I mused.

The little straight-haired girl of Asian descent in the cart in front of me gave me a grin and she reminded me of my daughter, now thirty-one, when she was about two years old.  I felt better and better..  Look at my world–I’m a woman who lives in Camden, New Jersey, USA with a pension and all the freedom in the world to enjoy my retirement.  I can’t let the bad news tear me down today.

Out I went into the sunshine and cold breezes, satisfied with my purchases.  I would write the cards as soon as I got home.  How many good friends I have who live far away…  Maybe the cards will surprise them–real snail mail.  I stopped and looked at the parking lot.

Uh, where did I park?  I took a deep breath and remembered.  Somewhere in the center, okay.  And…  The center of the parking lot at Wegman’s is one big place.  Okay, okay.  Next to a hedge on one of those grassy curbed islands.  Great.  I pushed the cart happily to a hedge in the center.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few hedges in the center.  I sighed and beeped my key thingy.  The car beeped, but the sound was faint and the noise of cars blurred the location.

A young man with a jacket saying,”Honor firefighters”  walked to me and asked me if I had lost my car.  He listened for the beep and he couldn’t even hear it. An airplane roared over the beep.  He took my keys and pressed ALARM.  Voila. The car sat waiting for me about two rows away.

I stood thinking how he looked like the kind of young guy who would be in a church youth group and before I knew it, he grabbed my cart and maneuvered it over two islands to my car.  He waved and ran back to his car.  Maybe he worried that he’d have to drive me home, too?

I drove home and put my bags on the table.  Finn ran to his leash so we walked where he investigated branches blown down by the wind and this once feral puppy barked at a bunch of sparrows and a pigeon..  Finally, I made a cup of green tea and to complete this healthy green tea break, I finished off the last sticky bun left over from last night’s family dinner.

A fine fall day for me, one unremarkable day for me, but one that many in the world would regard as unattainable…   I am blessed.

Marguerite Ferra     Camden, New Jersey   Cramer Hill !

Tube of Colgate, Witch, Hawaiian Girl … Halloween in North Camden

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Dear Readers,

What could have been more fun than Halloween in North Camden in the fifties?  Believe me, not much.

John S. Read Elementary School, my long gone school at Fifth and York, held classes on Halloween morning, but, at lunchtime, you went home and put on your costume and mask.  The forbidden happened.  Boys in costumes dared to go in the girls’ schoolyard that was divided from the boys’ schoolyard by an iron fence.  Oh, the horror!  The screams!  The giggles!

Students paraded around the school, barely able to see through the cloth or plastic masks, and the moms, the aunts, the grandmoms of Read School students, as well as the neighborhood ladies, stood on the porches or on the pavements in the autumn sunshine.  I see them still– clapping and waving at the witches,  the princesses, the football players, the ghosts, the vampires, the monsters, the brides, the hobos, the cowboys, the Raggedy Anns and the angels.

Confession:  I never wanted to be a bride, a princess or an angel, but I secretly envied the oohs and aahs that these little girls received in outfits made from old party dresses or Holy Communion dresses.

One year I dressed up as a tube of Colgate toothpaste made from a paper dry cleaners’s bag and a paper bag colored red for a cap.  Another year as a witch… Another year as a Hawaiian girl with a plastic lei.  My mom made us great costumes and I regret that I can’t remember the other costumes from elementary school.

Oh, to break the strict routine of school and to mill around the classroom with homemade cupcakes with orange sprinkles…  Now that was big fun after the parade.

When we got home, we’d walk from our brick row house on Grant Street to my Nana’s house on Fifth Street near the Ben Franklin Bridge.  My mom would stand to the side of the marble steps so we could pretend that we were ordinary trick-or-treaters and we could see if my Nana would recognize us.  Jake and Fighter, our grandparents’ dogs, went wild at the storm door.  They wanted to eat up those masked kids.  What joy.  They didn’t recognize us!  After Nana shooed them, she brought us in and gave us candy, maybe even a little money, too.

Then, we would go back to our neighborhood and would trick-or-treat until it was dark.  Sometimes we took brown paper grocery bags and when they were about to burst, we’d run home for new ones.  I don’t remember using Mom’s pillowcases as many kids did?  Neighbors and little local businesses joined in the fun, admiring costumes and distributing candy.

Mom put on the porch light and we gave out candy to the big kids who clomped up our wooden porch steps until nine or ten p.m.

What great memories!  How did you celebrate Halloween as a kid?  Or, maybe you did not?  Tell me!

Marguerite Ferra, Cramer Hill where Halloweens were fun and safe, too, for many happy years