“Getting to Know You”

There was a party in our neighborhood a few weeks ago. The day before, two preteen girls from this new family went door to door and asked if it was all right if they had music until ten o’clock at their party.

Let me just say, for the record, that we’ve never had anyone any place we’ve lived come ask our permission first to have loud music in the evening.

Cars and pickups began arriving on Sunday afternoon; bringing Mamas in their Sunday best, carrying covered dishes and Daddies toting babies in their car seats. Little girls in frilly pastel dresses and brothers in long pants marched proudly into the house.

We couldn’t see the dancing in the garage.  However, I suspected from the strobe lights and music that they were having a better party then we were.

Actually, the sound of foreign language and music at the house across our street every weekend reminds me of my Grandma’s house back east many years ago on Sunday afternoons. Polka music pouring forth from my uncle’s accordion filled the air. I’m sure our parent’s voices carried across the backyards and were just as confusing to their American neighbors.

My cousins and I played hide and seek; chasing and shouting like the little Latino kids do now across from my house.

Those cousins grew up. They married into various ethnic families and scattered across the United States.  My grandparent’s offspring learned American ways and taught some of their ways to others. The extended family boasts computer programmers, major league ballplayers, and engineers on some of the first manned craft our country launched. There are artists and writers; many women own their own businesses.

. They played football in school, golf with business clients and tennis any time they had a chance.

In other words, they assimilated, just as the families that visit across the street will also.

When he came here in the 1880’s, my Grandpa worked in the coal mines in West Virginia.  He and the other immigrant men that came to America to earn money and yes, send some of it back to their homeland, took the hardest jobs and were paid the least wages for them. He worked beside Irish, Polish, Russians, and many others. This country needed their labor in its industries just as immigrants are needed now to drive the economy.  The United States grew and prospered with their help.

The immigrant families came with the same basic aspirations and needs as the residents of their new land. The newcomers and the long established transformed each other through a blend of mutual cooperation, competition and yes, sometimes conflict.

Some fought side by side with fellow Americans in WWI; and in later years, along with their neighbors, said heart- wrenching good-byes to their own sons to fight in yet more of our country’s wars.

The cultural and ethnic fusion was slow; but our diversity in color, culture and thought is what makes this country great.

“Reading Rage”

By

Gerry Niskern

There has been a lot written lately about the fine art of reading. Everyone agrees that reading enriches lives; but the big question is how do you instill that desire to absorb the written word into today’s children?

Let me ask you something. Do you have kids or grandkids, nieces or nephews? Be honest. How many electronic games have you bought them on gift giving occasions? How many children’s books did you purchase?

Kids are no different now than in years past. They respond to what they are offered. When toddlers, if they receive only toys with computer chips inside that allow the user to push a button to see it light up, talk or move, when they get older they will gravitate to electronic games instead of reading in leisure time.

.          I don’t know if you have noticed, but the toy stores have a very limited amount of books these days. We all know each child is unique, and some will actually choose a book over a toy if given the opportunity. Consider alternating a trip to the bookstore between trips to the toy store. Children’s imagination and curiosity needs to be constantly encouraged. What better way than a new book that requires visualizing the setting and characters in endless ways?

All infants need to be read to. There is no thrill to equal the sound of your first baby pointing to “ball, bird, or baby” in a book and saying the words out loud. As they grow up reading provides a quiet respite in hectic young lives. They need to get away from their frantic world, turn real pages and let their imagination flow.

When my family moved to Phoenix years ago, I discovered a wonderful building, the Phoenix Carnegie Library. I left that building loaded down with an armful of books every week. Every child should experience that feeling of elation and possibilities when he staggers out the door of the neighborhood library with an armload of books. A trip to your local library for even an hour once a week can be the cornerstone of a lifetime of enjoyable reading.

During this election, as in years past, we hear endless politician’s declarations of why children can’t read. Teachers are blamed. Parents are blamed. When you stop to think about it, there are many reasons, lots of blame to go around. In many families there is no money for storybooks or time for trips to the library when both parents are working two jobs to provide necessities like food and shelter.

A simple gesture like Governor Neapolitan of Arizona’s plan a few years ago,  to give every child in first and fourth grade a book of their own was a beginning. Those privately paid for books provided kids with a volume to read and dream over again and again, because it was theirs to keep! Who knows what ripple effect those precious books had in young lives by providing that spark of enthusiasm that is the key to all those doors of life?

Those of us who can provide books for the little ones should do so and often. Everyone agrees that if toddlers are read to every day, they will learn to read easier. But will they become avid readers? Who knows? Hopefully, the majority will, if given early exposure to books.

The rewards are endless. Who knows? When those kids are adults, they might even call you up and say, “Hey, I’m reading this great book. Do you want it when I’m finished”.

Moving

By

Gerry Niskern

He was the first neighbor we met when we moved into our home on the North Phoenix Mountains.  Pacing back and forth along a wall on long, thin legs, he slowed and gave us a piercing look with bright cobalt eyes. Then he turned his back and hurried up the driveway.

Later that day, when I was on the rear patio, he darted across the top of the retaining wall above. The large roadrunner looked a little defiant, as if to say, “You can move in and live here, but this is really my house.” He appeared again at lunchtime. My son offered him some French fries. After picking one up daintily, the large bird proceeded to slam it vigorously back and forth against the ground. After he was satisfied that it was dead, he ate it.

I thought about the rude roadrunner, my first acquaintance in this area, when I read recently about the 75,000 people expected to relocate to our valley in the next year. Moving is always a tough job whether it is across the valley or across the country. It’s more gratifying to be greeted with a friendly wave and smile.

Looking back,  I remember when our family moved to Arizona when I was a kid; there was a war on. The carefully laid plans of having our furniture loaded by Allied Van and expecting it be in Phoenix a week later when we arrived didn’t work out. Our household goods were off loaded in Dallas for three weeks. Moving the  possessions of the Army officers’ families had priority in those days.

We moved into a big, empty three-bedroom house on West Madison Street near the State Capitol with nothing but our suitcases. The neighbors pitched in to help.  First they offered food, and then they brought mattresses for us to sleep on. One came with a hot plate for cooking. An electric roaster. Dishes. Towels. They offered the use of their washing machine when needed.

One fellow taught my Dad how to service our evaporative cooler that was in the living room window. With his help, our family adjusted to the 110 degree August temperature. The kids directed my sister and me to University swimming pool where we kept our cool.

The neighborhood ladies provided my mother with covered dishes for our dinner, a coffee pot for breakfast and most important of all, friendship and sympathy for my young Mother three thousand miles away from her ten brothers and sisters for the first time.

A couple of months ago a young couple in our family moved into their new home. The neighbors, in this subdivision still under construction, brought a huge pan of goulash that lasted through the weekend, garlic bread and a platter of brownies. One fellow even pitched in and helped unload their pickups.

Other young friends, on the opposite side of our valley, told an entirely different story. The people who did happen to be out in their yards looked the other way as they settled in. My friends are very discouraged to see their neighbors speed by, raise their garage doors by remote, slip in, and the next sound was the thud of the garage doors closing, as if to say, “I can’t be bothered with anyone new.”

I know, it’s tempting to say, “I’m just too busy. I have enough to think about without adding another person to my list.” But then again, you could ask yourself, when you see a moving van on your street, “Why don’t I take five minutes, step over and welcome them to the neighborhood.”

I will admit that our first acquaintance, the roadrunner, did have an attitude.

During the first few weeks here, we could count on seeing him below the house in the early morning chasing insects.  Once a flock of black birds landed in the  yard. He hunched down low to the ground, shot across the terrace like a blazing rocket and knocked one of the intruders end over end. Another bird met the same fate when they came back. Needless to say, they decided it wasn’t much fun at this guy’s house!

If he wasn’t looking for food, he could be found looking at his reflection in our glass door. He seemed to be admiring his brilliant blue eyes and brown and white stripped coat of feathers as he preened himself. “Maybe,” I thought, “he’s courting that bird in the door when he spreads his wings and ruffles his feathers from the top of his head to his extra long tail?”

Then one day, just as we were getting used to sharing our new property with a co-owner, he was gone. We haven’t seen him for many years. Maybe he knew the first mortgage payment was due.