There is always that empty place at the table

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Monday November 11, 2013 · 9:54 AM PST

2013/11/11 · 09:54

In every remembrance ceremony I've seen at a VFW or Legion, there was a special part with a table set for a service member who had not returned. On the plate was salt and lemon, if I remember correctly. I always knew that it was for my daddy.

marykmusic

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Tuesday September 24, 2013 · 8:36 AM PDT

2013/09/24 · 08:36

I don't think this makes me a Welfare Queen, but with my Social Security at $520/month, I qualified for $88 in food stamps when I first applied in July, because I was in the local women's shelter and therefore showed no expenses at all. When I moved out and started paying $200/month to rent the living room couch (can't afford a room!), I figured my FS would go up. And it did: next month I'll get $89 on my card.

marykmusic

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Sunday September 22, 2013 · 11:38 AM PDT

2013/09/22 · 11:38

This may be a short one.

While working on my Master of Education (2012, Texas A&M Commerce), I was in a class about multiculturalism in the classroom, and found some research that blew me away. I immediately sent it to my Advisor, a professor whose specialty is in school administration. He was even more shocked than I was, and added it to his curriculum.

Third-grade reading scores in low-income schools are accessed by the private prison industry, in order to estimate how many beds they will need in ten years.

Let me rephrase that. A child who's hungry, who didn't get to bed last night because he was allowed to stay up watching television, whose parents may have been at work, or even whose electricity was turned off, simply cannot stay awake and attentive long enough to properly absorb the lesson. His first-grade teacher tried but she is forced to move on with the rest of the class because she is no longer in control of her curriculum and she is punished in some way if she doesn't maintain that schedule. By third grade, that child has lost the will to learn because it's simply not working, and does poorly on the first state-mandated test. That child, and perhaps 30% of the others at that grade level, has not passed. That teacher is therefore punished for not bringing those children up to their grade level.

In ten years, those children will have dropped out, gotten in trouble (in Texas, where I taught as a substitute for three years, truancy is a criminal charge), been locked up, and the foregone conclusion has been proven true.

Teachers are the ones expected to make up the differences that income inequality creates.

Talk amongst yourselves. (SNL's Coffee Klatch lady voice here.)

Woody Guthrie: Activist

marykmusic for Rebel Songwriters

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Wednesday September 18, 2013 · 9:02 PM PDT

2013/09/18 · 21:02

From his first song, “So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Ya” which he wrote about a huge dust storm while living in Pampa, Texas, Woody Guthrie chronicled the changing world that he saw. Best known for “This Land is Your Land” he was prolific and his output included more than songs. From his youth he was a cartoonist; beginning in California during the Depression he wrote essays, letters, and a regular column named “Woody Sez.” During this time he also became a social activist; this is the aspect of Guthrie that my paper will examine. His live radio show was heard at night as far away as the Texas Panhandle where his wife and children lived; one listener castigated Woody for singing a song called “Nigger Blues” and Woody apologized on-air. From that time on, racial justice was one of his causes as well. This became especially obvious from his actions and writings in the 1940’s in New York City. The Guthrie legacy goes far beyond the single song of his which everybody knows—at least the first verse—for it is in the later verses that the social justice for which Woody should be remembered is more obvious. His original lyrics asked, “Was this land made for you and me?” I propose that this should be the legacy for which his name is remembered: as one who lived hard times, and understood that it was hard times transcended race, or language, or national origin.

marykmusic

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Monday September 16, 2013 · 11:50 AM PDT

2013/09/16 · 11:50

You know who you are. Anyone who loves horses.

Let me formally introduce myself. I am MaryK, a musician who also loves horses. Some of my songs have horses in them, but just a few. I write music in the Celtic Bardic tradition, much topical, many historical stories that need to be remembered, sometimes political satire. I actually have a Master's degree in Humanities: Bardic Storytelling (Prescott College 2008) which really gives me some creds as a songwriter but not a job.

Meanwhile, horses run through my life. The grey mare I'm riding in my avatar is a 23-year-old Crabbet Arabian, who at age 7 was the Open Reining Champion at the Texas State Fair. Her life went to hell when (the former owner told me) a woman came down from the stands and offered a blank check. "Do you want to ride her?" the owner asked her. "Oh, no, I've seen YOU ride her and I'm sure that she's just fine." Obviously the mare wasn't, because she learned all sorts of avoidance techniques and became the Intolerant Bitch. With good reason... I found her last year for sale on Craigslist Dallas, in a stable that a lot of beginners went to. The mare, not having forgotten a thing she'd learned (and I discovered that she really enjoys Hunter over Fences as well), does not like bad riders. Pull on her mouth wrong and her nose goes straight up. Lean back too far and she starts running backwards. Press her with your leg more on one side and she spins. I learned how to work through all these things and she hated me until I did. It was months before I could canter (that's what we're doing in the photo). The mare is a schoolmaster.

Meanwhile, I bought her to learn from because I'd flunked my riding test for taking the Instructor's Course at Equest, the biggest therapeutic riding barn in the Dallas area, where I'd been volunteering. I've still done nearly everything to become a PATH International Registered Instructor except that same riding test, and another one with me teaching in the arena. That will happen in Scottsdale at the end of next month.

So there's the goal: becoming a teacher of horsemanship for riders with special needs. Here's the problem: in order to keep working towards my goal, I came back to Arizona in June to do my 25 student-teaching hours at a lovely facility near Prescott. And I'm living on my son's couch in Show Low.

Now here's the hangup: My two therapy horses (I also have a 22-year-old Arabian gelding that was a stallion until age 20) are a thousand miles east; so is all my professional musical equipment (people are asking me to play bass for them like I used to but all I have with me is my one-owner 1973 Guild red dreadnaught). My Social Security, which just started last month, is $520/month. How can I afford to go get my stuff? The divorce will take care of itself, I'm sure, thanks to Legal Aid, and because I made it one week past our tenth anniversary, once that is final my SS will go up. Looking for a horse property caretake situation here in the White Mountains, as well as a job as an Instructor.

But in the meanwhile, I'm telling my story here and asking if anyone wants to be a part of creating a happy ending?

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There is always that empty place at the table

My food stamps will go up this month. Whoo-hoo!

Teachers vs. the Private Prison Industry

Woody Guthrie: Activist

Horse people