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“Sweet as the breath of roses blown / The fragrance of her life.” Alice E. Allen from My Mother’s Garden.

This is going to be another Mother’s Day for my family without the welcome presence of my mother who passed away in 2005. On this special day that year, our house was still filled with floral tributes that had been sent to our family. At the time, the fragrance of her life–that essence–was all around us on Mother’s Day.

This is one of the poems I read during my mother’s eulogy. This is called The Rose Still Grows Beyond The Wall by A. L. Frink.

“Near a shady wall, a rose once grew, / Budded and blossomed in God’s free light, / Watered and fed by morning dew, / Shedding its sweetness, day and night.

“As it grew and blossomed fair and tall, / Slowly rising to loftier height, / It came to a crevice in the wall, / Through which there shone a beam of light.

“Onward it crept with added strength, / With never a thought of fear or pride. / It followed the light through the crevice’s length / And unfolded itself on the other side.

“The light, the dew, the broadening view / Were found the same as they were before; / And it lost itself in beauties new, / Breathing its fragrance more and more.

“Shall claim of death cause us to grieve, / And make our courage faint or fail? / Nay! Let us faith and hope receive: / The rose still grows beyond the wall.

“Scattering fragrance far and wide, / Just as it did in days of yore, / Just as it did on the other side, / Just as it will forevermore.” The poem was featured in the 1936 Doubleday collection, Best Loved Poems Of The American People.

Having gone through what my family is still experiencing three years later, the only thing I can suggest right now is that you celebrate the lives of the special women in your family. No matter how short or how long their time here, there will come a time when you will wish you could just have a few moments more to say the things that sometimes get set aside until another time. I’m fortunate that I did get that opportunity to say what needed to be said before she closed her eyes and moved on to the next chapter…

At no time in my life do I feel her essence as I do right at this moment on Mother’s Day. But the fragrance of her life remains the same. It’s just sweetening another place, shedding its wonderful perfume in another time.

By the way, my mother’s name was “Rose”.

***

Don Jackson

“When God thought of mother, / He must have laughed with satisfaction, / and framed it quickly– / so rich, so deep, so divine, / so full of soul, power, and beauty, / was the conception.” –Henry Ward Beecher 

I will be on the air Sunday with a very special Mother’s Day tribute between 9 and 11pm. I hope you will tell all your friends about the program and tune in at the end of this very special day. I do plan on posting a blog on Mother’s Day as well. It will include some thoughts about my own mom who has been gone for some time now.  She was a powerful woman who had a tremendous influence on my life and on all the lives she touched. I hope you will be watching for that blog on Sunday.

“…The angels, whispering to one another, / Can find, among their burning terms of love, / None so devotional as that of ‘Mother’ …” –Edgar Allan Poe

In the meantime, I hope you are planning to set aside some special time just for the special women in your life this Sunday: your mother, your grandmother, your mother-in-law, your wife. Her life should be celebrated each and every day of the year, but especially on Mother’s Day. Whether she’s close or only here in spirit, I think you will appreciate the sentiments in tonight’s radio program as well as during my very special tribute on Sunday. It’s my Mother’s Day Gift to my incredible audience for your continued support.

“These velvet roses / fringed with Queen Anne’s Lace, / Do they recall my first bouquet to you? / That ragged bunch of wilted dandelions / You treasured and arranged in your best vase?

“The broken stems, the accidental weeds / I brought when I was small, / or received the care / Of lavish blooms in later years. It’s true / A mother’s love is all a flower needs.” Georgia Sykes Sullivan, featured in the 1967 Hallmark Editions collection, The Beauty of Motherhood edited by Bette Bishop.

This is a short blog tonight. Anything that really needs being said will be said on the air tonight, and again on Sunday night. If you don’t live within the sound of my voice, you can always listen in live on our website.

To conclude tonight, one last poem by an anonymous writer also included in that Hallmark Editions collection.

“Hundreds of stars in the pretty sky, / Hundreds of shells on the shore together, / Hundreds of birds that go singing by, / Hundreds of birds in the sunny weather.

“Hundreds of dewdrops to greet the dawn, / Hundreds of bees in the purple clover, / Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn, / But only one mother the wide world over.”

***

Don Jackson

I’ve been agonizing over writing this blog for some time now, ever since the incident itself took place. I have discussed the situation with my wife at great lengths and finally resolved that today was finally the time to bring it to light, considering all that you have heard on the air today on CHFI.

A few weeks back I found myself standing in line at a small convenience store. A young woman and a friend were just exiting the store as I walked in. There was a young man standing directly in front of me and a very frail, elderly woman directly behind me holding a bag of milk. Behind her, leaning over the small desk at the lottery kiosk filling out his numbers for that night’s draw, was another young man. this guy took centre stage in those few brief moments that I’d like to detail in this blog.

I don’t know what this guy did for a living but his voice was loud enough to be heard all over the store. It wasn’t the fact that he was boisterous that disturbed me enough to write about this. It was his language, his repetitive use of a certain four-letter word, over and over, that made the woman behind the counter and the elderly woman in line, extremely uncomfortable.

Every second word out of this man’s mouth was the one that most women find extremely offensive. A word that is demeaning when it’s uttered only once. A harsh-sounding word that had no place in this setting. I watched the woman behind the counter, the owner of this small establishment, growing uncomfortable with a situation that was rapidly escalating. As the word kept coming out of this guy’s mouth, you could tell that she was becoming increasingly uneasy herself. I could just imagine what might be going through her mind as his eyes darted from one to another.

Another young man stood at the door waiting for the person in line in front of me to conclude his transaction. Another young man stood beside him. He had a responsibility to take control of this situation.

I mentioned at the start that when I arrived, a young woman and her friend were just leaving. Something was said from the back of the store concerning how revealing her shorts were. A burst of raucous laughter from all these young men was the response to this crude remark. You have to understand my position in line. I would have had to turn around to see the expression on the face of the white-haired older woman behind me. I didn’t need to. If fear can be a perceptible thing, it was emanating from her. I could almost feel it. She was in a situation that she probably felt ill-equipped to handle. She probably was wondering that she might be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I was watching intently to see how all this was going to play out. The proprietor of the store is someone who might have been a relative newcomer to this country, but her command of the English language was just fine. She asked the man in front of me a very simple question. He seemed to be the one who had trouble understanding. He repeated his request and she then asked him the same question again, because he didn’t seem to either hear it or understand it. He glanced back at his buddies with that exasperated look that I’ve seen on occasion on the faces of people who might be intolerant. He looked back at her and repeated his request again slowly, enunciating each word carefully, as if that might make this situation speed up. She gave up and went ahead with the transaction. I thought she might also be looking for him to make a quick exit.

Meanwhile, at the back of the store, the guy, lottery ticket in hand was waiting in line, sharing a joke with the one at the door with his identification written all over him…This is what unnerved me most….

One of the young men at the door wore a t-shirt that had big bold letters on the back announcing his employment at a certain job. That’s as far as I will go with this. I don’t want to paint this particular organization with a broad brush by suggesting that all of its employees would be a part of what had just happened. After reading what the letters on the shirt spelled out, I had hoped that he would have interceded to try to get his buddies to tone it down. He did not.

When it was my turn at the cash, I made sure to make direct eye contact with the store-owner. I rolled my eyes and found that it helped to gain a flicker of a smile on her face. She had been tense, and in that brief moment, she seemed to loosen up somewhat. As I left the store, the elderly woman behind me in line seemed visibly shaken by all this. She looked at me, and I could sense that she was unsure of every male in that store, including me. I tried to make eye contact with the one who had started it all, but he was intent on his buddies who were now outside, gathered around a few vehicles.

As I exited the store, I wondered about those who wear company t-shirts. They might be away from the job, but they are still representing what they do for a living and who employs them. I was in no position to open my mouth and tell these guys to tone it down. The situation could have gotten really ugly. I wanted these young men on their way as quickly as possible, too. My intervention might have made a bad situation worse. But I couldn’t let this situation slip by without taking a few moments to express my thoughts about what I had witnessed. As I said at the start, I talked this over with my wife and she agreed that it might be worth a blog.

I am not from another planet. I know that this kind of brutish behavior is not that unusual. There will be times when a bunch of guys will get together to let off a little steam and the language might get a little heated. Competitive, recreational sports come to mind, or when they are at home enjoying one another’s company. There is no place for it in mixed company in a place like the one I just described. There was also no excuse why the one, who proudly displayed the words I’ll never forget on the back of his t-shirt, didn’t step in to tell his buddies to keep it civil and respectful.

As we end a day that CHFI has devoted to the plight of women in dangerous situations in their homes, I thought I might illustrate the fact that it’s not only there they need to be wary of their surroundings. I can only imagine what that frail, elderly woman and the store owner both thought when they arrived home that night. I wonder who was waiting for them.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting the Canadian Women’s Foundation and their Shelters From the Storm fundraiser earlier today. Your generosity means so much to those in need of some place to escape to, a safe haven away from the violence and the abuse prevalent in society today.

****

Don Jackson

The world is home to some magnificent waterfalls. There isn’t one continent in the world that doesn’t have some sort of waterfall, from small streams that meander their way gently down a series of slippery stones to magnificent falls that plunge from dizzying heights, as water makes it way down from the highest elevations to end up eventually in the sea.

One of the most spectacular is Victoria Falls in Africa with its breathtaking vista. You can also find waterfalls in the great redwood forests of Big Sur on the West Coast. One writer reminded me of another impressive sight: “Skye, dark, mountainous, majestic, with its waterfalls turning to white spray as they tumble from cliff to cliff into the sound, from out the clouds that hide their mountain-summit sources.” An excerpt from Section 1 of The Living Fairy Faith Chapter 1 Environment of The Fairy Faith of Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, a Citadel Press Book, published in 2003 by Kensington Publishing Corp., New York. Its ISBN is 0-8065-2579-7.

There is another one that we’re lucky to have almost in our backyard…

For decades it was the honeymoon destination for both Americans and Canadians. It still is, but not to the degree that it once was. Movies were made at the Falls, mostly love stories. If you’ve ever been to Niagara Falls then you know the sound made by the torrent of water that plunges to the rocks far below. I’ve been in the tunnels that come out beneath the falls. The sound in there is incredible, especially as you get closer and closer to the pounding, pouring waters. It’s hard to imagine a deep-forest quiet in a place like this. But late in the night of March 30th, 1848, that’s exactly the sound residents woke to. When you’re so used to the noise of the city around you, it’s difficult to sleep when that noise is no longer there. Such was the case on the night in question in the mid-1800s. Something was terribly wrong. It was too quiet…

Niagara Falls had dried up. You can imagine the fear in these people as they tried to discover what had happened. The silence lasted until April 1st, when the sound of a train rushing at full throttle broke the silence. The water had returned and was plunging again into the chasm below. What had happened was very simple.

The answer was explained in “Niagara Falls Has Stopped! by Rudolph Balauff in The Original Country Accents’ Magazine 1990 Farmer’s Almanac. He writes: “With the crisis over it was now possible to look for a rational explanation of the phenomenon. The answer was finally found. That the year the spring storms were especially violent. As was frequently the case the waters of Lake Erie, which feed into the Niagara River, were covered over that winter by a heavy layer of ice. The repeated gales that spring managed to break up the ice flows and they headed for the river exiting the lake.” There was literally a traffic jam of ice at the narrow entrance to the river. “It took dozens of hours for the action of the blocked waters to finally force up a passage through the ice and return the normal flow to the Niagara River and the Falls.”

I just can’t imagine what the silence must have been like when the water stopped flowing over onto the huge rocks below. When my waterfall is shut down, you really don’t wonder at the silence. But when it’s up and running again throughout the warm months, you do wonder how you ever got along without its soothing lullaby.

***

Don Jackson

“Have you tried the Gospel Of Smiles? A smile is a sunbeam on the soul which lights up the eye and transfigures the face. It might be easier to frown, but frowns give no light or joy. A smile can scatter gloom and silver-line a cloud. It costs little, but counts for such a lot. In fact, someone has remarked, ‘A smile costs less than electricity–and gives more light.’” An excerpt from the 1990 edition of The Friendship Book Of Francis Gay published by D. C. Thomson and Company.

It is a short blog tonight–about the length of a genuine smile.

In the book Understanding Emotion by psychology professor Dacher Keltner published some years back, the author says that you can see the average smile coming from about 300 feet away. The average smile also lasts only three seconds. As I told you, it was going to be a short blog tonight.

This is the type of smile we all hope for in life. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote: “I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.”

Can you see me smiling?

***

Don Jackson

“I don’t say he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must be finally paid to such a person.” An excerpt from Act 1 of “Death Of A Salesman” by Arthur Miller, published in 1949.

I thought a reference to that classic work appropriate since my radio show tonight deals with an item that was routinely sold door-to-door. The program has, at its heart, a superstition about brooms and sweeping in the month of May. I found this some years back in a very old book.

“It is of course within the house itself that most of our older superstitions have become firmly established in their original and undisguised form … An old lady known to the author regards Friday housework as so disaster-provoking that she finds it necessary to chant as she sweeps the charming homemade litany, ‘Friday, Friday, keep your nose tidy,’ which is in her eyes a protective charm of great psychic efficacy.”

The author goes on to say that some people … ” …when cleaning a room find themselves unconsciously sweeping inwards rather than towards the door and will perhaps wonder why they adopted this habit in the first place. This custom has developed as the direct outgrowth of an old and apparently universal superstition which for some unknown reason equates dust with luck or money, and has found expression in the strongly held conviction that by sweeping outwards one ’sweeps the luck of the house away.’ It is a superstition that has become completely extinct in households where a vacuum cleaner is used.” An excerpt from “Superstition And The Superstitious‘ by Eric Maple, published in 1971 by A. S. Barnes, New Jersey. Apparently it is bad luck to buy a brush or broom in the month of May, as well.

“‘You’d better take this with you,’ the stranger said, coming after him and holding his satchel out. ‘It’ll open doors that might otherwise be slammed in your face.’ He opened the satchel, hauled a plain hand brush out and gave the satchel to George. ‘When the lady of the house comes to the door, you give her this and say: ‘Good evening, madam. I’m from the World Cleaning Company, and I want to present you with this handsome brush absolutely free.’ It’s a cinch, you try it.’ He forced the brush into George’s hand. George dropped the brush into the satchel and closed it with an angry snap. ‘Here,’ he said, …and then stopped, … for there was no one in sight.”

At Christmas time we all gather around the tv set to watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” that starred Jimmy Stewart as “George Bailey.” It’s interesting to note that the original story, written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943, was called The Greatest Gift: An X-mas Tale. It was also included in the book No, but I Saw the Movie: The Best Short Stories Ever Made into Film, by David Wheeler, published in 1989 by Penguin Books. In the original story, ‘George Bailey’ is ‘George Pratt’ and when the angel, ‘Clarence,‘ gives him his wish and shows him a town without his major influence, one of the things he gives George is a brush to help him get his foot in the door.

“He wanted desperately now to see Mary. He stumbled blindly up the path to his own house and knocked on the door. After a long silence, Mary came to the door. George’s voice almost failed him. ‘Merry Christmas ma’am,’ He managed at last. His hand shook as he tried to open the satchel. ‘Come in,’ Mary said indifferently. George got his satchel open. One of the brushes had a bright blue handle and varicolored bristles. He handed it to Mary.. ‘This would be fine for your sofa,’ He said. ‘My, that’s a pretty brush!’ She exclaimed. ‘You’re giving it away?’ He nodded. She stroked the sofa gently with the brush, smoothing out the velvety nap. ‘It is a nice brush. Thank you.”

Her husband comes in and grumbles something about brush salesmen. It was this sequence that really made George aware about how much he desperately wanted to find that angel and get his life back on track again.

At the very end of the story, Philip Van Doren Stern writes, “He pulled her down on the sofa and was about to tell her about his dream when his fingers touched something on the seat of the sofa. He did not even have to pick the thing up, for he knew what it was. And he knew that it would have a blue handle and varicolored bristles.”

“Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life. He don’t put a bolt to a nut, he don’t tell you the law or give you medicine. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And then they start not smiling back-that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory..” The requiem to “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller.

One of the great modern-day classic films about the life of a salesman would have to be the 1992 film “Glengarry Glen Ross”.  I really enjoyed the film about seven real-estate salesmen who are on the brink of being fired from their jobs if they don’t make the big sale. The product was not brushes or brooms, but suspect real-estate. The atmosphere was that of a boiler room. The film starred Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacy, Jonathan Pryce, and others. It truly was a remarkable cast, and detailed the high-pressure world of sales and the emotional toll it took on those who had to meet a quota of sales before a deadline. Pacino was the leader in sales. If there was a Willy Loman- type character, then it would had to have been the one portrayed by Jack Lemmon who had fallen on hard times with very few prospects to meet the deadline. I’m sure a lot of listeners have received a call like the ones made in this film. Alec Baldwin was great as the hard-nosed hatchet-man ready to bring a career to a close. If we as viewers were affected by this very tough film, I’m sure that salespeople who saw it were even more affected. Sales has always been a tough way to earn a living, but you wouldn’t want to end up your career working for a firm like the one depicted in the film.

Over the years, some traveling salesman have had to contend with jokes at their expense. Encyclopedia salesman and brush salesmen, salespeople going from door-to-door selling cosmetics were the ones we remember from a long time since passed. In this day and age, it’s a much different world for the travelling salesperson. Today, cellphone technology, the Internet, and websites have eased the pressure somewhat. But occasionally you’ll still answer the door to find a salesperson there on a cold-call, ready to ply their trade. It’s a tough business that requires a very special type of person. Today, the door-to-door salesman has found a new way to get inside spam in your mail.

I ran across an interesting excerpt from one of the all-time great salesmen. It was featured in the Tuesday February 22nd, 2005 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column. “The Fuller Brush Company, started by Alfred C. Fuller in 1906, became the epitome of door-to-door suavity. In his autobiography, A Foot in the Door (1960)-actually, Fuller sales reps were trained to take a step backward from the door to show the house occupant they were harmless-Mr. Fuller tells of a woman who let him into the house reluctantly, saying, ‘Lead me not into temptation.’ He replied: ‘Madam, I am not leading you into temptation but delivering you from evil..’ He sold three brushes.”

***

Don Jackson

“And in the Emerald Isles…. John Stuart Parnell, called the uncrowned King of Ireland, was quite terrified by the color green.” An excerpt from Superstition and the Superstitious by Eric Maple, published in 1971 by A.S. Barnes, New Jersey.

This character was certainly not terrified.

“Sarah caught her breath and walked over for a better look. She unfolded the blanket with one hand and draped it over the sofa. Not a blanket, a quilt, she corrected herself, stroking the fabric..small diamonds of all shades of blue, purple, and green formed eight-pointed stars on a soft ivory background. Tiny stitches formed smaller diamonds within each colorful piece, and the lighter fabric was covered with a flowing, feathery pattern, all made from unbelievably small, even stitches. A narrow vine of deep emerald-green meandered around the edges. ‘How lovely,’ Sarah whispered, lifting an edge up to the light to better examine it.” An excerpt from The Quilter’s Apprentice by New-york Times best-selling author, Jennifer Chiaverini, published in 1999 by Simon and Schuster.. It was the first novel in a much-loved series..

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” A line that has withstood the test of time in this technological day and age. Joe Garner in his book, Now Showing: Unforgettable Moments from the movies published in 2003 by Andrews McMeel Publishing, reminds us of a little of the magic behind the scenes in The Emerald City. “…to change the color of the horses in The Emerald City, Jell-o powder was brushed into their coats.” …Nothing is ever quite what it seems, is it?

“Deep in my thoughts, I sit down and listen/ To this awesome silence./ Behind the painted doors and embroidered curtains/ There used to be music and dancing./ Hunting r fishing parties were held/ In the emerald forests or beside the marble pools.” An exerpt from The Ruined City by Pao Chao (414-466)(China) Translated by C.J. Chen and Michael Bullock and featured in the collection, World Poetry by The Quality Paperback Book Club.

“Under the lime tree it was cool and peaceful; the bees and flies, when they flew into the circle of its shade, seemed to hum more softly; the clean, slender blades of grass, emerald green with no glint of the sunshine’s gold, were still; tall stalks stood motionless, as if bewitched; …” Ivan Turgenev in On The Eve, published in 1950 by Viking Press.

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Don Jackson     

“I wish I could remember that first day, / First hour, first moment of your meeting me, / If bright or dim the season, it might be / Summer or winter for aught I can say; / So unrecorded did it slip away, / So blind was I to see and to foresee, / So dull to mark the budding of my tree / That would not blossom for many a May. / If only I could recollect it, such / A day of days! I let it come and go / As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow; / It seemed to mean so little, meant so much; / If only now I could recall that touch, / First touch of hand in hand–did one but know.” Christina Rossetti

“Otto Ernest Rayburn in his Ozark Country, refers to a curious custom in which lovelorn maidens on May Eve suspend their handkerchiefs on bushes in the hope that on the morning after, they may see in the dried dew the initials of the one they will marry. Equally fascinating is the custom in which a girl visits a spring at daybreak and there pours water into a glass in which there is an egg, in the expectation of seeing there a vision of her future husband and children.” An excerpt from Superstition and The Superstitious by Eric Maple published in the early 1970s by A. S. Barnes, New Jersey.

“We do not know when the ancient tradition began of maidens bathing their faces in the May morn dew, preferably gathered from beneath an oak tree, the Druidic tree of wisdom, to enhance their beauty. Certainly the Druids regarded dew as a powerful fertility symbol, and the Celtic festival of Beltane or Beltain to mark the coming of summer began on May Eve.

“May dew was also said to be endowed with the power to enhance fertility and to offer protection against malice. It promised luck throughout the year to all who rolled or washed in it, especially as the sun rose.” Cassandra Eason from her book A Complete Guide To Magic And Ritual: How To Use Natural Energies To Heal Your Life published in 1999 by Judy Piatkus Publishers, London.

These are old traditions and customs whose origins have been lost in the passage of time. The real enchantment and magic is the fact that the season has once again turned. The month dawned bright and sunny. It was a most beautiful first May morning today. Hopefully a harbinger of what’s to come..

I like this observation from William Mulock on his 95th birthday, and quoted in the Points To Ponder column of the May 2003 issue of the Reader’s Digest magazine. “The first of May is still an enchanted day to me. The best of life is always further on. Its real lure is hidden behind the hills of time.”

“A delicate fabric of bird song / Floats in the air, / The smell of wet wild earth is everywhere … Oh, I must pass nothing by / Without loving it much, / The raindrop try with my lips, / The grass with my touch; / For how can I be sure / I shall see again / The world on the first of May / Shining after the rain?” A few excerpts from a poem by Sara Teasdale published by Macmillan.

***

Don Jackson