From: ParetoKid@aol.com Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 14:13:11 -0400
To: leslie@hbks.saarlink.de Subject: Re: Ned Hamson What a lovely idea! :) Of course I will participate.
Giving up some cloth that is meaningful may to some be difficult for some.
If you meet with some resistance, you might remind them that when you give something away,
you retain it forever in your heart and soul. I will have to think a bit on what piece of fabric and then will send it to you.
I have the written material that I wish to share now and will append it here.
Ned Hamson, editor: The Journal for Quality and Participation Association for Quality and Participation, 801-B W. 8th St., Suite 501, Cincinnati, OH 45203 Tel: 513-381-1979 Fax: 513-381-0070 e-mail: ParetoKid@aol.com or Ned_Hamson@.qof.com
"This is the time... We are the people... Let's work together... Now!"
When Owl and Bear become one
Bear, in this case a regular old brown bear, is known for thinking about things for a very long time.
Bear lets its thoughts brew and turn over for a very long time.
Bear enjoys doing this so much that rarely are those thoughts shared with anyone - even humans.
When bear does share those long held and considered thoughts and ideas, humans only hear whoofs, grunts and snarfs.
And more often than not, Human just runs away when confronted with a Bear;
even if the thoughts Bear has to share are quite precious.
When this happens, Bear gets very dejected and hesitates to share thoughts; even when they are very important.
Owl is known for lightening-like wisdom.
Owl observes so much, that quite often things are seen that just have to be shared.
But Owl tends to reduce the great wisdom gathered from seeing everything to its very essence.
So when Owl quietly sits on a low branch and delivers the great message over and over, all humans hear is whhooo - whoo - wo-whho.
Human smiles and laughs, or cowers and scurries away when Owl shares the wisdom with all who will hear.
Owl becomes just as dejected as Bear at times,
but continues believe that is the message is repeated long enough someone will understand.
During one of those magical times, not so long ago,
Owl and Bear chanced to meet in the same meadow after each had been unsuccessful,
yet again, in sharing their knowledge with Human.
They shared their thoughts and their woe over not being able to get their message through to Human.
Owl suggested that perhaps if they thought really hard, they could become one and
then the Human would understand when they spoke. They melded their thoughts, minds and souls into the evening smoke and tried to become one -
they could not.
Just as Bear scowled and began to turn away, Owl spied a soft patch of color under a nearby bush that looked Human.
"Hold on Bear," said Owl.
Under the bush, they found a clearly abandoned human child, shivering in its sleep.
Owl and Bear laid over the child and gave this small human their warmth and love
throughout the long cold night.
When morning came and the Sun was rising, the child was all that could be seen under the bush, even to the most discerning eye.
Owl awoke with a start and saw bear close by, but could see nothing else.
"I cannot see where I am Bear, where are we?"
Bear felt around with a bear's heart sight for a moment and then said,
"Owl for all your great sight, you can't see can you?"
Leslie: It was wonderful to meet and talk even if for just a short while.
I enjoyed our talk and seeing a few sights in the Saar.
I am even more convinced of the importance of your project and effort.
I will send you a copy of the article as it appears in our newsletter.
Now the story of the shirt:
This shirt belonged to my father.
He purchased it in 1932 to wear when hunting in the secion of the US known as New England (its Northeast).
My father was an immigrant from the United Kingdom in 1911.
He and his father emigrated after his mother abandoned them
for a career in vaudeville as a professional swimmer and diver with her brother
(she became the first woman to swim the Golden Gate in San Francisco - before the bridge was built).
He and his father missed taking the ill fated Titanic to the US because they had forgotten their tickets in a hotel room.
He left his home in Virginia when he was 15 to make his own way (he never finished secondary school).
In Philadelphia he worked in a steel mill and played in semi-professional football.
He eventually settled in New England and took a job with the Prudential Insurance Company in 1930.
He continued his athletics by working part-time as a life guard in Providence, Rhode Island during the summer.
It was while swimming that he met my mother,
who was also a long distance swimmer.My mother's father made his living as a hunting guide in Northern New York state,
so the shirt had a lot of use and even to this day carries a few small stains from animals shot during those years.
Much later, after I had been born and learned how to hunt with him in California he gave the shirt to me.
When I was 14 years and he was in his mid-fourties, we both decided to stop hunting when we realized
that the animals we loved so much were being hunted to extinction.
It was then that he gave me the shirt.
For me it became the shirt I wore when hunting for fossils and semi-precious stones in the desert and mountains
or when camping in Baja California.
I also wore it in my travels around the world.
I have to say that my father did not live a happy life and ended it in self-induced torment.
And while he visited that torment on the rest of his family, he also gave us some precious gifts.
Perhaps the most precious gift was his absolute intolerance and abscense of bigotry.
He taught me and my brother early on that people should not be judged by us on any account,
race, color, religion, language, or even behavior.
We could judge and either accept or reject the behavior but not the person.
Since we grew up away from our relatives in the Eastern US, he invented fictitious aunts and uncles for us.
Our first two uncles friends of his in our California home: a Mexican-American Tio Jorge and an African-American Uncle Samuel.
On that account he served us well.
It is because he loved and respected all cultures so much
(he chose to end his life in Baja California)
that his shirt which witnessed his overcoming violence against all peoples and species and which I have worn in a similar manner
(it was on many anti-war and civil rights marches during the 1960's in Washington DC and animal rights event later on) is being given to the world.
His torment is over and his love of the world should be carried on.
Ned Hamson, editor: The Journal for Quality and Participation Association for Quality and Participation, 801-B W. 8th St., Suite 501, Cincinnati, OH 45203
Tel: 513-381-1979 Fax: 513-381-0070
e-mail: ParetoKid@aol.com
http://newciv.org/worldtrans/qualitycommunity.html "This is the time... We are the people... Let's work together... Now!"