The Blaisdell Blog

I am one of those women who can’t drink out of the same glass as her husband without getting pregnant.   As a result I found myself, “in the family way” just two years into my marriage despite efforts to prevent same.   I was a young teacher, but not worried about completing the year as my due date was after the school year ended.   I was never healthier, didn’t know what morning sickness was and had abundant energy.   There was just one little wrinkle. In November I got a note to drop by the administration building after work.   When I got there I was taken to the assistant superintendent’s office and told that I needed to fill out the forms for maternity leave, starting at the end of the first semester in mid-January.   [I realize this is ancient history, but the 70’s were a different time.]    This meant that there would be no income for the second semester and no guaranteed job for the next school year.   I told Dr. A., “thanks but...

I must be from Lake Wobegone because I come from a place where, in the charming words of Garrison Keillor, “…all the women are strong, all the men are good looking and all the children are above average.”   I am sure that our grandchildren have inherited all of the strengths and none of the weaknesses of their ancestors.   We love taking our grandkids on vacation.   The Children’s Museum in Indianapolis; The Volksmarch hike to the top of the Crazy Horse Monument; and the aquarium in Monterey, CA are all at the top of my list.   Along the way we have learned some things.   If you ask a child if they have to go to the bathroom they will say, “No.”   They are lying to you.   They will suddenly have an, “emergency” and the bathroom will be in the geographically most remote spot from where you presently are.   When you get to a bathroom there will be a line.   If there is no line, the bathroom will be a port-o-potty that the child will...

On the South Side of Chicago, a young man started shooting at two other men in a crowd.   They returned fire.   When the dust settled a six year old girl was down.   She had been hit in the chest and was lying on the ground covered in an ever widening pool of her own blood.    The victim, who is fighting for her life, is Quianna Tompkins.   Quianna is Black.   The shooter is Black.   The only other victim, a 52 year old woman, is Black.   The intended victims of the shooter are Black.               Surprisingly, Michelle Obama has not issued a statement saying that she, “could be” Quianna, even though she also grew up in South Side Chicago.   Shockingly, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Attorney General Eric Holder and the usual array of race baiters that popped up like whack-a-moles for the George Zimmerman case, have nothing to say about this horrible violence.   There ...

There was a time when the grandest thing a person could say was, “Civus Romanus sum.”   I am a Roman citizen .   That time is gone.   There was a time when the sun never set upon the British flag.   That time is gone.   Right now, the United States of America is the strongest, wealthiest and wisest world power on the planet.   According to Nobel Prize winning economist Michael Spence, that time also will pass.   Unlike most of the people interviewed on network television or running for Congress this man actually can get his intellectual flag all the way up the pole.     I have a master’s degree in economic education and put my daughters through college by teaching economics at night at the local community college.   So, while I am certainly not eating at the same table as Michael Spence, I can still read his menu.    Let me say that I have tremendous respect for Mr. Spence, which extends to admiring this work, whil...

On October 25, 1415, Henry V of England laid some serious hurt on the French at the Battle of Agincourt at Pas-de-Calais , France .   Part of the success of this campaign was due to Henry’s use of the longbow, but part of it also goes to the creative use of military indentures.   These legal contracts required all of the English captains to provide specified amounts of men, material and time to the King’s cause.             An indenture was a document, written in duplicate and then torn along a jagged line, like little teeth ( dents ), in the paper.   One portion of the contract was in possession of each party and when the required conditions and period of service were fulfilled, the parts reunited and the debt was considered paid.   Many of the people who first came to this country from England came as indentured servants, worked off their debt and became the backbone of the country.   ...

On January 29, 1951 a poor, black tobacco farmer from rural Virginia named Henrietta Lacks entered the, “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore , Maryland .   Only 30 years old and mother of 5 children, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and would die in less than a year.               Henrietta Lacks was the product of her times.   Suffering the institutionalized discrimination of pre-Civil Rights era America , she lacked both education and cultural protection.   She bore her first child at age 14.   Her husband, who was also her first cousin, infected her with gonorrhea and syphilis.    But Henrietta was also a protective and loving mother, a good friend, and a fun-loving, attractive woman.   She loved to dance, was a good cook, and a hard worker.    None of this helped her fight cancer.          ...

In 1999 my husband and I went to Paris to see the last total solar eclipse of the millennium.   We fell in love with this truly magical city of lights.   The food was great, all but one of the waiters were polite, the eclipse was rained out, but the clouds parted just as totality was achieved and I got me first view of, “Baily’s Beads.” [Those are the pearl shaped drops of light that shine between the mountains on the moon and ring the edges of the darkened orb as it blacks out the sun.]   The trip was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which was my first experience with a bidet.   The French don’t get everything right, but they certainly pounced (crouched…squatted…straddled???) on a winner with this spiffy little invention.           Aside from the ever popular, “foot bath” jokes, the bidet is a great addition to any bathroom.   The traditional bidet of the movies and many nice hotel rooms is a l...

A replay of one of my favorites: My favorite 4 th of July moment happened in Philadelphia .   We were visiting the Liberty Bell, which no longer hangs in the belfry of Philadelphia Hall, but is housed, across the street, in the Liberty Bell Center .   We were actually there on July 8 th , which is the anniversary of the date when the bell was rung in 1776 to summon citizens to the first public reading of our Declaration of Independence.   It was hot.   There was a long line.   It didn’t matter.             Two things happened that day that will make me smile my whole life long.   The first happened in the line.   A family with two children, a teen-ager and preteen, were in front of us.   The kids were a bit restless and the younger one pulled open a gift shop copy of the Declaration of Independence and, for no reason other than boredom, started reading it aloud.   When he got...