Dru Tieben's Writing Corner

Musings and Meanderings

Stephen Wurzel’s Adult World in New York and Cross-Country Adventure

Posted on January 5, 2025 by Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

Stephen Wurzel’s adventures continue in Part III.
A final note on his Arkansas farm. I asked him about a farm that existed but closed down in 2021 due to Covid. It was an amazing place called Hazel Valley Farms. They had a beautiful place to visit with horses, gardens, and bike trails in Hazel Valley. He said he didn’t know them, and they weren’t a part of his group. However, he commented that that were better gardeners than them! They have a Facebook page if you want to visit and see the spectacular pictures. I don’t know if they’re still posting:
https://www.facebook.com/hazelvalleyfarms/photos/?_rdr
Another amazing place that I think would be fun to visit and talk to the folks who run it is the Co-op in Eureka Springs, AR. They have an amazing farm and even more amazing food! What a remarkable thing to be able to grow beautiful food like they have on the website:
https://onf.coop/community/hazel-valley

Stephen told me that they did have another group living down the road from them and the farm was called DomeLand. They all lived in self-built geodesic domes. He said that it was a very cool place, and they were friends with all of them. I couldn’t find anything online that a dome farm still exists, but there are interesting domes that you can book a stay at when you visit! How cool is that?

*****

Stephen finally made it back to New York from the Arkansas experience and met and married his wife, a beautiful woman named Janice. They lived in a little place on the waterfront, at Jones Beach in Long Island and they worked at a restaurant called Santosha (which means Contentment in Sanskrit). He was the chef and Janice was a waitress. The winter locked them in for three months, so the restaurant was closed during that time. They needed a better source of income!

Stephen’s next venture took him into the landscape design business. When he was in Japan, he loved all of the cultivated gardens they had and wanted to help create this same beauty in New York. He got to know a lot of famous people including the producer for All My Children, so his business took off. He created an exceptionally reliable workforce, and his reputation grew. The hours were fantastic, and they were able to work nine months out of the year. His clientele had a lot of money so asked for the best. The business grew and thrived, but he wanted to give Janice an adventure of her own. In 1978, he sold the business and made a nice profit. That summer, they took a cross-country trip across the states. He was so excited to show her the beauty of America. After the trip, they moved back to New York one more time for the next phase of their lives. I definitely identified with the cross-country adventure. I didn’t have a lot of money but packed my little car and drove out to Colorado in early 1980. I think that is a wonderful experience for everyone to consider when they are young.

Stay tuned for Part IV.

LIFE IS AN EDUCATION-Reflections from School in the 1960s-Civilization as it Stands-Part IV

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

Continuing from yesterday’s post:
What does this discourse in primary years of education say about our civilization and technological advancement? As society continues to change and grow, the individual must change and grow at the same rate. Some people change along with it. Some stay the same. We all want to continue to learn innovative ideas, but we are continuing to use old methods. We cannot get stuck in the past and forget our dreams, and our creative process based on our history. We must learn to accept our failures and get unstuck. If we continue to believe we cannot change, we will not change. We will stop learning new things. We will stay in jobs that are mentally unproductive. We will stop enjoying our lives. We will stop learning something new. We will begin to believe that this mundaneness is all there is to life.

If we continue to let only one percent of the world’s population make all our personal decisions, we will lose our courage to uproot negative feelings about ourselves and others. We will not believe in ourselves. We will refuse to believe that a single individual can make a change. If we can get beyond what our adolescent years taught us about learning new things, and dealing with new people, we can finally complete the growth process and become an adult and functioning human being. We won’t be as angry with ourselves – this anger which usually translates to anger at others and the world. We can finally learn to stop and take it one day, even one hour, at a time.

During the 1960s, we as a nation began discovering the individual and the individual in relation to the world that surrounded us. Some of us didn’t like what we saw and dropped out. We went to communes in hopes of achieving happiness. Some of us decided to become part of the political action scene. These were the ones who thought that working to elect new blood would change society. Some of us became activists, disliking the system and wanting to completely give up on society as it had become. To me, this is usually translated as blowing up s*#t, thus harming innocents in the process. Some of us still believed in the system enough to try and make changes by working for the government. Others simply rode the storm out. The influence of the Vietnam War permeated the sixties’ and early seventies movement. We blamed everyone except ourselves, including those young soldiers that came home from the war. Many of those young people came home to a disenchanted world and their psyches never recovered. They weren’t heroes to the very loud protestors. They were baby killers. That still makes me so sad to think we had abandoned them in a time when they needed us the most.

During the late 1960s, author Edward Abbey authored a book called Desert Solitaire. He was a great outdoors person and had strong beliefs in keeping the great open spaces pristine and undeveloped. Throughout my final high school year, I wanted more out of my personal reading. In making a discovery of his works, (and once again in the 1990s) I began to transform my thoughts about the world and how I wanted to fit in. His words made a meaningful change in my thinking during that time. I realized that I was only a tiny part of the vastness of his world. I was an insignificant speck. I would later discover how self-absorbed the society was becoming. In this same book, Abbey stated that he wasn’t “…opposed to humankind but only to man-centeredness, anthropocentricity, the opinion that the world exists solely for the sake of man…. He also stated that he was not opposed “…to science…but to science misapplied, to the worship of technique and technology….” Finally, he stated that he was not opposed “…to civilization, but to culture….” (p. 305-306).

It was our culture that swept us into Vietnam. It wasn’t for mutual aid and our defense of our civilization. Rather, it was a judgment made by the men in power regarding the threat of the illusive communistic takeover. It was like any other war – a fight for monetary benefit. So, I personally couldn’t condemn the young people who were drafted into a non-war. I did condemn many of the political decisions made (such as the draft) to force those young men into a war zone. And I condemned those who spat on these same soldiers when they returned. A lot of my generation was too young to participate in the war or protests to the war. We could only observe what was going on through the mass media, so our reactions were detached from those who were already engaged in these actions. I would rediscover Abbey’s works in 1999 and would begin another attempt to live the life that I desired – a life that he had inspired me with his works.

In my college years, I began to realize that I wanted more. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to make positive change in the world that I lived in. I didn’t want to be one of those who dropped out. As I began to realize that I did, indeed, have a place in the Universe, I wanted to save all the beautiful places and live there, whether it was in the mountains, or in the desert, or both. I thought that if I had enough knowledge, I could fight the system – the establishment. I knew that illegal actions were not the answer. I repeat: You can’t just blow s*#t up to solve the problem. It never does. I made a choice to fight within the system. But, as I began to learn, knowledge was not enough. Application was just as important.

Law enforcement was the career choice for me to create change, but there are so many other governmental entities that need an enlightened graduate. When it comes time for graduation, I hope the new generation will make a choice to work within the government walls, as hopeless as it seems right now to make changes from within. We must move forward and create a system of enlightened and integrated workforce that work ten times better than they were in the past.

Keep up the good work and thank you.

Remember today is the last day for the Colorado Gives Day campaign. I just gave donations to 5 different causes so please give what you can! Hugs to everyone and be at peace during this holiday season!

Note: Parts of this post were originally written for a graduate level class in the late 1990s. Some teaching methods have improved over the last two decades. I would love to hear teachers respond to this blog, how they help students learn, and what the new methods are to teach in an integrative learning environment. Thanks to all teachers who are dedicated to the craft in these trying times!

Revisiting the Past to Plan for the Future

Posted on November 29, 2024 by Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

The 1980s brought about a decade of new conservatism in social, economic, and political life. The years were characterized by the policies of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Soviet Union was breaking down and the economy was booming.

A lot of us grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and we thought those had been a troubling time that undermined confidence in ourselves and the government. The 1980s, often remembered for its materialism and consumerism, also saw the rise of the yuppie, a young, urban professional, or “yuppie,” a baby boomer with a college education, a good-paying job and expensive taste. Consumerism soared and suburbia became all about one-upmanship.

Computers and cellphones became available for everyone; however, they were bulky and extremely expensive. The internet was created, and people were now able to access so much more information at their fingertips. Everyone started getting more interconnected and dependent on devices.

Throughout the 1970s, computers were expensive devices that remained the province of a handful of garage tinkerers and multibillion-dollar entities like IBM and NASA. but all that changed during the 1980s, the decade that introduced the world to the video game, Pac-Man.

The 1980s also brought about an explosion of blockbuster movies and the emergence of cable networks like CNN and MTV, which introduced music videos and launched the careers of many iconic artists who sought global change. Health issues such as the AIDS crisis would go on to kill more than 700,000 people in the United States alone.

The Reagan years brought about the inauguration of a conservative president who was no great friend to the arts, or to marginalized groups, including immigrants, the poor and those who fell outside of the conventional all-American family unit. The period was defined by how people responded to their circumstances — how they lived, partied, railed against authority and, most importantly, what they did.

Unfortunately, I was a boomer but was never a yuppie, because I didn’t have a lot of money to spend. I was too busy trying to make a living as a public servant to pay for things I needed. I did, however, spend quite a bit of money on huge hair, and on clothes with huge shoulder pads (having given away my bohemian hippie clothes of the 1970s). After all, we had lots of big important meetings in those days.

And now that we are revisiting this era once again, with the incoming administration, I am worried that we forgot about all those traumatized by those years. I am worried that we have forgotten that not everyone made lots of money and spent lots of money during that time. I am worried that those downtrodden who might have been starting to rise are just going to get downtrodden once again.

It is my hope that we take one person or worthy cause into consideration this holiday season and make our mark for change. Keep being. Keep reading. Keep doing. Thanks everyone! Hugs and love to all!

For more information on the early years of the 1980s, see:

https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/1980s

History Channel documentary on the 1980s; and,

New York Times Style Magazine publication.

In Search of Ancestry – Are We Just Boring People?

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

People are fascinated with ancestry for many reasons. We are instinctively interested in history and our ancestors are our personal history. We can connect with our ancestors’ stories throughout history to learn about our origins. Personal stories give most people a sense of belonging to a particular community. And if it leads to interesting people and their accomplishments, we feel excited and important in the world which contributes to our sense of identity. Finally, with the rise of genetic testing, some people are motivated to explore their ancestry through DNA analysis to learn about potential genetic traits and origins.

People look to their ancestors for guidance, or to find patterns and explanations for their own lives. For example, they want to know if their talents or traits have precedent in their family history. Some people view learning about their family history as a moral endeavor, and a way to learn from their ancestors’ actions. In the past, some people used their family’s lineage to justify their social rank.

In 2022, the New Yorker published an article titled, “Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots” by Maya Jasanoff. She stated that the largest archives of genealogical documents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vault. The vault is the largest physical archive of ancestry in the world. It is located east from Salt Lake City toward the Wasatch ski slopes. “Several concrete arches open into the face of a mountain. Behind doors designed to withstand a nuclear strike, through tunnels blasted six hundred feet into the rock, in a vault that’s another seven hundred feet down, lies a trove stashed in steel cases: not bullion or jewels but microfilm, millions of reels of it. They contain billions of images of genealogical documents, an estimated quarter of all vital records on earth.”

The article pointed out that before the print and digital eras, genealogical records overwhelmingly resided with religious and kin-based authorities. From the doctor’s office to the passport office, ancestry inflects the social, material, legal, and medical conditions of nearly everybody’s life.

The article pointed out that “Origin stories provide collective accounts of where ‘we’ come from, but they also help some lineages claim power over others…. Ruling dynasties often boasted of sacred or supernatural ancestors.”

Today, web sites and sleekly packaged DNA kits are available for the public. The initial rise of current interest in learning about our past came from our isolation during the pandemic. The interest has created a huge database of information for both medical research as well as law enforcement. This public knowledge of our personal information can be good or bad, depending on the use.

My thoughts are that even though I am in the system due to my law enforcement career, I am not sure if I want this same system to have every single piece of data regarding my background. With the current political environment, who knows how this data will be used in the future?

I’m probably not related to anyone famous or royal blood, or whatever matters to others out there. I probably have very boring ancestors, and that is okay. And do I really want to know about all the evil my ancestors have wreaked on society? I really believe that it is how we make our mark in the world today that matters. So be kind to both interesting and boring people. If you choose to know more about your past because you want to understand your roots, and it doesn’t reveal everything you hoped for, know that you are who you are in this present moment, unique and a contributor. Continue to be that loving person that you are, no matter what your past reveals.

For more information on answers to why we are fascinated with ancestry see the Question of the Week from McMasters University from a 2019 post:

https://alumni.mcmaster.ca/s/1439/16/interior.aspx?sid=1439&gid=1&pgid=8211#:~:text=Humans%20are%20instinctively%20interested%20in,our%20lives%20in%20the%20present.

Marvin Harris: Insights on Culture and Evolution

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

Marvin Harris (August 18, 1927 – October 25, 2001), was an American anthropologist born in Brooklyn, New York City. He grew up a poor kid but joined the army when he was old enough, and fought in WWII. The GI Bill enabled him to attend Columbia University. As a result, he received both his MA and PhD in Anthropology from there. He later became the department chair. He performed fieldwork in Brazil and Portuguese-speaking Africa before joining the faculty at Columbia. He later went to the University of Florida where he was the Graduate Research Professor. He was a prolific writer in his field. Harris was among the few faculty leaders who sided with the students when they were threatened and beaten by the police in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was highly influential in the development of cultural materialism and environmental determinism. Harris was known as “one of the most controversial anthropologists alive” (Smithsonian Magazine).

Harris’ observations in this introduction of his book, Our Kind: The Evolution of Human Life and Culture, made me read the entire book back in the early 1990s, and re-visit it today. Here are two thoughts to ponder for our modern-day dilemma.

“What part of the human condition is in our genes and what part in our cultural heritage, whether jealousy, war, poverty, and sexism are inevitable, and whether our species has a chance to survive?” And,

Educators have heated debates “…about what it is that anybody must know in order to be considered an educated person….” Harris states that historians and literary celebrities create “definitive lists of names, places, events and literary works guaranteed to lift the uneducated out of their…ignorance.” Harris’ reaction is that they focus on the achievements of Western societies and “…are silent about the great biological transformations that led to the appearance of our ancestors on earth” which “endowed our species with a unique capacity for culturally constructed adaptations.” In other words, they “…ignore the evolutionary principles that shaped the social life of our species after our ancestors achieved ‘cultural takeoff.’”

To put it more succinctly, the abstract for this book states: “Before consciousness formed and toolmaking began, before speech was learned and cultures were established, before religion, society, politics, and war, came a simple evolutionary change: One primate, our common ancestor took a single upright step. So began our family history. The story of ‘Our Kind.’” https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1989-98292-000

In the conclusion of my book, Discover the Life You Want to Live, I ask the reader to change the course of their lives by breaking their hidden boundaries and become comfortable in the world (of change). I ask people to cut through all their artificial barriers, have a social conscience, and understand their place in the universe. And finally, I ask them to create the desire to contribute and seek cooperation, and take personal responsibility for their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and share this idea with others.

I am asking everyone to calm their anger and wake up and stop speculating about the future. I am asking everyone to do what they need to do to create change in their community right now, to create this cultural takeoff at the grass roots level. Head up a writing campaign and send in the letters to your representatives when you feel strongly about inequities and present your ideas for change in a logical well-thought out letter. I am asking everyone to create a better life and support those in need.

It does not take money to act with kindness and love to everyone that surrounds you. Recognize chaos but RISE UP into your own positive position of power.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and what your action plans are to make the future shine bright in everyone’s life.