Holy Week Tugs at the Heart Strings

This is Holy Week 2015 and my memory is going crazy, pulling up things from my childhood in Euclid and at St. William's Church. Memory is also calling up my many visits to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in Euclid, as well as family trips to Martin, Floyd County, Kentucky and our annual stays at the Dwelling Place Monastery with the Mt. Tabor Benedictine nuns.

An old Gregorian chant heard throughout my childhood keep running through my head: "Parce, Domine! Parce populo tuo. Ne in aeternum, irascaris nobis." In English, "Spare, O Lord! Spare your people. Be not angry with us forever!" I remember so vividly the solemn rituals of Holy Week, the cloaked crucifix and statues (covered with purple linen), the haunting rituals of Good Friday when we remember the Crucifixion, the emptiness of Holy Saturday, the joy of Easter Sunday. On Good Friday the bells rung at the Consecration were replaced with clappers. The psychological impact on me was incredible. I loved the mournful songs and chants, sung and played in minor keys. I loved that there were very few Easter songs. The popular culture couldn't figure out how to exploit Good Friday and Easter Sunday with the shameful orgy of commercialism that has become the Christmas season in America.

As a kid my Dad would take us over to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes--right where Chardon Road (US Rt. 6) meets Euclid Avenue (US Rt. 20), the holiest place in Euclid. We would walk the hillside Stations of the Cross, praying at each of the 14 stations. On Friday we would keep silent from 12 Noon until 3 PM and we always expected Mother Nature to reflect the solemnity of the occasion, with cloudy skies, rain, or snow flurries. I cannot contemplate this season without thinking of Dad, Mom, my sister, and brothers at the Shrine. We took Julia, Carolan, and Emily there as they were growing up. I hope they don't forget it.

I also think of the many years we would travel, in the 1990's and early 2000's, driving from Euclid or Chardon to Floyd County, Kentucky, to see Steve and Sue Sanders and their children. Most of the time we would stay in the guest house of the Dwelling Place Monastery, home of the Mt. Tabor Benedictine nuns. These were among the most liberated Christian nuns on the planet. They finally left the umbrella of the Roman Catholic Church and became a freer ecumenical community. Holy Saturday was so special with the sisters (who absolutely loved our visits and planned activities for our girls and their cousins). They would design a beautiful ritual, which began with an outdoor bonfire, and then a candlelit procession into the chapel, set on the mountainside. A place so beautiful (and amid such ugliness and poverty) it would break your heart. The sisters there taught us to pray not just to the patriarchal God we were so familiar with, but also "Sophia," the feminine spirit of God--really, the Holy Spirit. We would laugh and joke about these prayers, but we were praying in a new and radical way--and a truthful way.

I always associate our trips to Mt. Tabor and the Sanders family with the spectacular blooms of spring, in particular the redbud trees, a riot of reds and purples, and the dogwood, with their cream-white and sometimes pinkish blossoms. These trees would limn the creeks and hillsides and announce the Resurrection of nature after a hard winter.

The last time I saw my mother-in-law, Ruth Sanders, was at the Dwelling Place Monastery. It was 2007, weeks before her sudden passing. Ruth Sanders was a force, and she has left her mark on many people, including our children. We miss her so much; may she rest in peace.

I am grateful for all these memories. I have lived them. I was there. I am a witness.

Sisters of Mt. Tabor/Dwelling Place Monastery.

First Floor of the Mt. Tabor Guest House, where we stayed every Easter.

Author John Grisham Takes on Strip Mining and Mountain Top Removal

The #1 best seller on the New York Times fiction list is Gray Mountain, by John Grisham.

John Grisham

It is amazing when an author of Grisham's power and popularity takes on environmental and political issues like strip mining and mountaintop removal. Grisham's novel is connected to my family in a way. When doing his research for the book, he interviewed lawyers in the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center in Whitesburg, Kentucky. My brother-in-law, Steve Sanders, is the founder and executive director of this nonprofit, the goal of which is "Fighting for Justice in the Coalfields."

Steve has been involved on this work since graduating from Vanderbilt Law School in 1978. He has worked often alongside Tony Oppegard, another hero in the fight for justice in the coalfields.

Strip mining and mountaintop removal, black lung disease, widespread damage to the environment and to the health of people in the coalfields. It is hard to imagine that coal has defenders who defend the indefensible--people like Senator Mitch McConnell and mine owner Robert Murray!

I will write more about this novel as I get deeper into the reading.

Fracking and Mining Endanger America's Fresh Water!

I lived in the coal fields of Eastern Kentucky (Knott County, KY) for a year and just outside the coal mining counties for 6 years (Madison County, KY). I have in-laws and friends  who've spent most of their adult lives in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields or very near them (Steve and Sue Sanders and their children; Tony Oppegard). I have seen firsthand what modern mining techniques do to streams, rivers, and aquifers. So much of Eastern Kentucky and other coal mining states are "Zones of National Sacrifice," as Harry Caudill, author of Night Comes to the Cumberlands, put it. Well I am not ready to offer Ohio up as a Zone of National Sacrifice. My county, Geauga County, is totally dependent on well water for everything. The greatest current threat to drinking water in my county and in Ohio (and really, in most of the nation) is the fracking boom, which Governor Kasich has welcomed with open arms. We won't have the disaster of coal mining in Geauga and surrounding counties, but we could be faced with the disaster of widespread fracking.

Recently RJ Sigmund, in his weekly digest of fracking issues, discussed the danger of fracking to fresh water supplies. Sigmund states:

Thirsty wells: Fracking consumes billions of gallons of water - Drillers in Ohio have used more than 4 billion gallons of water to frack horizontal shale wells since 2011. That’s a lot of water. Enough to fill one two-liter soda bottle for every person on the planet; or in terms that motorists in shale country can relate to, 800,000 tanker-loads of water.  The state surpassed the thousand-well mark in August. A Repository review of water usage reported by drillers to FracFocus, a national fracking-chemical registry, as of Sept. 12, shows:

• • Of the first 1,031 Utica and Marcellus shale wells drilled, FracFocus listed the amount of water used to frack 662.
• • Water use for all 1,031 wells could approach 6.7 billion gallons, based on average water-use rates per county.
• • Chesapeake Energy used 2 billion gallons on 411 reported wells.
• • Three wells in Ohio topped 17 million gallons.
• • Average water usage was 6.1 million gallons.
• • Fracking could consume more than 10 billion gallons of water if all current well permits are drilled.
• • Some wells used more water than what drillers estimated on permit applications.

How can this water usage be done in Geauga County without endangering the water supply to every single Geauga household, business, and factory? 

Sigmund also discusses fracking waste-water and injection wells. These further endanger the water supply in our area--permanently, in light of average human lifespans. This is short-term gain (the fracking money, which makes a few people very wealth), and long-term disaster.

Here is what Sigmund writes about Beautiful Ohio, injection waste-water capital of America: 

Ohio is cited in GAO report for fracking waste disposal - Drilling – Ohio -- Only Ohio allows fracking waste disposal without advance disclosure of chemical contaminants. : The federal Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) released a new report ( http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-857R ) disclosing that Ohio alone of eight states studied allows contaminated waste fluids from oil and gas wells to be disposed without advance disclosure of the contaminants it contains. The report had been requested by members of U.S. Senate and House environment committees to disclose the level of disclosure on the nature and toxicity of such wastes since “fracking” of deep shale rock layers to unlock oil and natural gas deposits has become common. The report concluded that of the eight states studied (California, Colorado, Kentucky, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas), each state - with the sole exception of Ohio - required waste disposal companies to provide information on the characteristics of the waste to be disposed before they could receive a permit to “inject” the waste. The primary disposal method for these wastes are injection wells, which inject the waste fluids, frequently under high pressure, into deep rock formations where, in theory, it cannot contaminate sources of drinking water. The report acknowledges that the amount of oil and gas well wastes has increased dramatically since the advent of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” and that at least 2 billion gallons of contaminated wastes are disposed in injection wells daily; this water is also laced with a variety of chemicals, many toxic and many whose nature is undisclosed, to fracture the rock so the oil and gas it contains can be mobilized. Much of the contaminated fluid injected in this fashion is then forced back to the surface where it is collected and trucked off site for disposal at an injection well.The report reveals that many of the states studied have elaborate requirements to confirm the nature of this waste fluid before it can be approved for disposal. In stark contrast, Ohio requires no disclosure of the characteristics of the waste fluid either before, or after, an injection well permit is issued by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). 

This has to stop. We have to stop it!

p.s. About 35 years ago I heard the great folksinger and Perry County native Jean Ritchie sing the song "Black Waters." The song was then sung about the impact of coal mining on the water in Eastern Kentucky streams and rivers. That same song can be sung today in areas affected by fracking. It seems we have learned nothing. We are making the same mistakes over and over again.

Jean Ritchie sings "Black Waters" in the following video:

Girdled Road Reservation and Big Creek

Me, not acting my age, on a downed tulip tree over Big Creek

Sue Ricalton Sanders and Steve Sanders

False Solomon's Seal

Steve Sanders

Shelf fungus

Blue-sky day in Northern Ohio--so we took a hike with our Kentucky relatives along Big Creek in Girdled Road Reservation, the amazing Lake Metropark in Concord Township, Ohio.

The Beginnings of Our Life Together

Our Mythology

We decided to get married in late November of 1977 and announced it to Linda Sanders' parents shortly before Christmas. Linda's father, Art, had the oddest response to our announcement. He simply said, "What did you say?" I don't know if he didn't hear what Linda had just said to him or if he was gob-smacked stunned! She repeated the news, and he responded the same way. And then a third time--by then, I thought I was in deep trouble! And then, as when Peter denied knowing Jesus, a cock crowed. Well, almost. I think Linda's brother Steve understood what was being said, and got up and shook my hand and hugged his sister. I never knew what went through the minds of Linda's parents. Did they think we were just buddies, just friends? Did they think we hadn't known each other long enough? I'll never know the answers to these questions.

Linda and I had been in the same graduate education class at the University of Cincinnati (UC) beginning in the fall of 1976--"Psychology of Reading," taught by the great professor, Linda Amspaugh. Linda Sanders was working as the secretary for the Health and Physical Education Department at the University of Cincinnati; I was in a Masters of Education program there, specializing in reading theory and pedagogy. I was one of 2 guys in the class--with about 20 girls. Both guys were named Bob--Bob Moore, and me (Linda thought my name was Bob Moore for quite some time). During that first semester, I gradually began to recognize this pretty, very quiet girl, who typically slipped into class a bit late because of her work schedule, often red-cheeked from embarrassment at coming in late. She didn't talk in class (Bob Moore and I talked all the time!). Gradually, Linda and I started sitting next to each other. Sometimes we would chat briefly after class as we walked down the hallway.

At the time I lived a short walk from campus, on a tiny diagonal street called "Hollister," between Vine and McMicken My slum apartment cost me $40 a month--and was worth it! It was bare bones to be sure and it was absolutely freezing in the winter. But for a student with no money, it was perfect. Linda lived about 3/4 mile away, just off the west side of campus, on Clemmer Street--but I wouldn't find that out until March of 1977.

After a wonderful semester in Linda Amspaugh's Psychology of Reading class, students asked her to teach a follow-up class, and she was able to do it--a Sociology of Reading class. The same people signed up for it, including Linda Sanders and me--and that was good luck indeed. For if she and I hadn't signed up, we might have never gotten together. This new semester, the Winter/Spring of 1977, Linda and I began sitting next to each other and talking much more (I was barely aware of this; it was pretty much unconsciously done). And we began to coincidentally run into each other in the stacks of the library. The stacks of UC's old library weren't places you visited by accident. They were dark and maybe a bit scary, almost dungeon-like. But they were quiet, a good place to study. The odds of running into a classmate there were not good. So I look suspiciously on those chance meetings!

Anyway, Linda and I had never had a date or even a long chat. I do remember that every once in a while she'd be eating hard candy or chewing gum and she'd offer me a piece. One day while walking down the halls with her after class, I said, "Hey, where's my candy today?" Before she could answer, I did something ridiculous. I reached into the front pocket of her pant and felt around for "my" piece of candy. I did it all so innocently, we both just laughed (and it was intended innocently). But afterwards, I thought to myself,"What have you done! That was a pretty daring move!"

Right around that time I had had a few dates with a girl I had met at St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church in the Clifton neighborhood, where contra dances were held periodically. This was pretty unusual for me--it had been quite a while since I even had a date. Most of the local girls I knew were friends in the Peacemaker Movement, and we just hung around together, pretty much like brothers and sisters. So there were no "dates" as such. Anyway, one day after our Sociology of Reading class, Linda invited me to her apartment for supper--for soup and cornbread. I enthusiastically accepted--and then realized that the day she wanted me to come I had a date with this other woman to go to Hap's Irish Pub in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati to hear Malcolm Dalglish and Grey Larsen play their wonderful folk music. So I had to tell Linda that I could come, but I would have to leave before 8 pm because I had an "appointment" (not sure what word I used!). She said that would be OK. So that evening, I had soup beans and cornbread at Linda's apartment, and then went on a date with another woman to an Irish pub. That was the craziest thing that ever happened to me--an all-time first. I believe I met Linda's Mom and Dad at that soup bean supper--and maybe her brother Steve.

Well things happened quickly after that early March 1977 supper. I would try to visit her at her office in the PhysEd/Health Department, and if I didn't find her I'd leave her funny notes. And we consciously sat next to each other in class and ran into each other in the library. One night we made plans to meet at Arnold's Bar and Grill on 8th Street in Cincinnati, the great pub run by my old friend Jim Tarbell. That night I worked my minimum wage job at the UC library, then ran the 2 or 3 miles to Arnold's (luckily it was downhill much of the way). There I met Linda and her roommate Mary Ann Hageman. We listened to some great music, drank some beer, and then Linda and Mary Ann drove me home in their blue Volkswagen Beetle. I was so excited about being there with Linda and meeting Mary Ann.

It wasn't long before Linda and I sat on the lawn in front of UC's McMicken Hall, in a ring of blooming crocus. And it was there we first kissed. About 9 months later we told Ruth and Art Sanders we were going to get married. I didn't "ask for her hand." That didn't seem right to us. We had no engagement ring. We had no elaborate engagement scenario.

And that is how our story started.

We were married 36 years ago today, and some day I will tell that story.

Bob, Linda; Chris Cotter behind, and Mary Ann Hageman, obscured. May 5, 1978.

Steve Sanders on Kentucky's Erosion of Coal Mine Safety

My Brother-in-Law, Steve Sanders, responds to
Kentucky's erosion of coal mine safety.

Steve is the director of the Appalachian Citizens'
Law Center, an organization devoted to protecting
the health and safety of miners.

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In 2007, Claudia Cole, left, and Stella Morris, widows of coal miners Russell Cole and David Morris, urged lawmakers to enact mine-safety protections that this legislature is rolling back. 

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• Ky. voices: Stephen Sanders says legislature wrong to roll back mine-safety protections without study or public notice

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In February 2007, widows and children of coal miners convened at the Capitol in Frankfort to testify before a House committee about an important mine safety bill.

The landmark legislation, sponsored by Rep. Brent Yonts, followed one of the deadliest years in recent history for coal miners in Kentucky. Sixteen miners had been killed on the job in 2006, and five of those deaths were from an explosion at the Kentucky Darby No. 1 mine in Harlan.

Four months before Darby, 12 miners were killed in the Sago Mine in West Virginia. Both disasters received extensive national coverage and legislators recognized that it was time for Kentucky to act on mine safety.

The Appalachian Citizens' Law Center worked with the United Mine Workers and others to pass legislation to improve mine safety. While parts of the bill were ultimately compromised, one important component survived: the number of mine inspections per year was doubled from three to six.

Now lawmakers are trying to do away with this requirement — without the usual process of holding public hearings and engaging in public discussion. Instead, the Senate quietly proposed a state budget that would significantly reduce funding for the Office of Mine Safety and Licensing. And, in a last minute addition to the budget discussion, the budget conference committee agreed to reduce state inspections of coal mines to four per year.

Mary Middleton, whose husband, Roy, died in the 2006 Darby blast, told the Herald-Leader: "They're looking out for coal operators, same as always. It's the men who go underground and do the work and risk their lives, but the politicians will always cut corners for the coal operators. The politicians don't have to go through what we have, with the loss of a husband and a father."

Stella Morris lost her husband, Bud, to injuries in another Harlan County mine and she helped campaign for the mine safety bill back in 2007. As she told WYMT-TV last week, "If there's something going on in the mines and they're not being inspected on a regular basis, there can be fatalities there and we just don't want any more families to go through what we went through. ... Even though you only have a few mines operating, those mines need to be safe."

The cuts to OMSL's budget are drastic and will significantly curtail the agency's ability to ensure miners' safety. The biggest disasters of coal mining make the news — like the Upper Big Branch Mine explosion in 2010, which killed 29 men. But the day-to-day dangers of working in and around high-speed mining equipment, of roof falls and rib rolls, and of breathing excessive amounts of dust, are threats that debilitate and kill an untold number of miners. Such individual deaths and injuries occur out of the public eye and are often normalized as the everyday costs of mining. Because mining conditions change quickly, it is vital that OMSL perform frequent inspections for mine safety to be maintained.

The way in which the cut to the OMSL budget and the reduction in the number of inspections was moved through the legislature — with no recommendation from the agency in charge of mine safety, without a public hearing and with no public discussion of how many inspectors and inspections are needed — is not the way to properly legislate mine safety.

If the reduction in mining activity lessens OMSL responsibilities, there should be a study of what changes can be reasonably made to OMSL without a reduction in the enforcement of safety standards — not an arbitrary decision to cut funding and reduce the number of inspections.

Regardless of the outcome, the cavalier manner employed by legislators in addressing the safety of Kentucky's miners is an affront to the hard work and dedication of deceased miners and their families.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/04/09/3186321/ky-voices-stephen-sanders-says.html?sp=/99/349/#storylink=cpy

First Flowers of 2014??

Steve Sanders sent me this photo of the first crocuses of the year. The photo was taken in Lexington, Kentucky:

Crocuses peaking out--Lexington, Kentucky

This seems like a pretty aggressive, mean thing to do. Well I looked outside my house and look what I saw! The first pink dogwood (or is it flowering crabapple?), growing right out of a snowdrift in my front yard! What a surprising miracle!

How do you explain this?

Someone guessed that these are cheap plastic flowers I thrust into the snow bank. O ye of little faith!

Spring Torture--from Lexington, Kentucky

My normally wonderful brother- and sister-in-law, Steve and Sue Sanders, sent a photo of blooming crocuses seen in their neighbors' yard in Lexington, Kentucky. Meanwhile we are still under a blanket of snow. Crocuses aren't going to be seen in Northeast Ohio any time soon!

Here is their version of Spring Torture: