Columns
Bark o' the Banshee
| Bark o' the Banshee Lion, or Lamb? |  |
by Pat Robinson
March roars in and tiptoes out, or so the saying goes. The winter weather has been very bizarre this year, 70-degree days and very little snow. This month has one holiday, the first day of spring and two religious holy days in it.
When I was a little girl, I believed that everyone was celebrating my birthday, a day close to the 17th. I do know better now. But privately, I still get the biggest kick out of seeing my childhood nickname splattered all over all things green and Irish.
Spring follows close after, and crocuses poke their pretty colors up through brown ground and sometimes a blanket of snow. The sap starts to run and the air becomes heavy with the sweet smell of maple.
Mud season has arrived. Roads are clearly marked if they’re impassable, yet folks are always pulling some disbeliever out.
Talk has shifted from the Patriots’ SuperBowl win, to the glory of the International Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah to the boys of summer. The age old joke of “when the Pats win” makes for much chatter regarding the “curse of the Bambino” and the long and patient wait for World Series victory for the Boston Red Sox.
My partner is a Yankees fan and she wants to see Fenway Park. She has promised me a World Series shirt when we get a World Series. I silently promised myself I would not take her to a Sox vs Yankees game, I don’t think I could handle listening to that. Everyone has limits, well, I have some limits.
I just received an e-mail containing the opinion from the Georgia Court of Appeals.
I am saddened that the Georgia case was lost, but grateful that Ms. Burns had the courage to bring it about. She deserves all of our prayers because she cannot see her children as long as she resides with her partner.
I wonder how her ex-husband sleeps nights knowing he is robbing his kids of a balanced upbringing. After all, they are her kids, too. Does this mean she must choose who she loves more?
I am very glad I live in the north, regardless of my hatred of snow and all things cold. My winter fingers heal every year and this one will be no different.
Passover is late in the month, followed closely by Easter. Someone take the bunny and shove it please. This year, let’s just pray.
We had the shoe bomber caught and subdued by two brave flight attendants and some passengers, pilots whacking loony passengers with axes, skate gate, plots to harm water supplies, the near financial collapse of the Boston Archdiocese, and war everywhere.
Airport terminals get emptied, passengers wait, and Osama is still nowhere to be found.
As I sat here in my office, surrounded by beautiful things I watched a Massachusetts judge sentence a priest convicted of molesting one out of over 100 minor boys. He got 9-10 years of prison, six of which must be served according to law. Is that all there is? Does that time to be served cancel out the pain and suffering felt by all those kids, and the trusting moms who welcomed him into relationships of trust? I have no answers, only more doubt about the ability of people to continue to trust the men in collars.
Colin Powell tells the truth to our young people about being safe when sexy and the Right reels. And will someone tell me why men are always doing the talking? When was the last time any of them got pregnant? Start asking the women left holding the bag with kids they cannot feed and clothe while the men get trophy wives and new lives.
The newest threat is to the Liberty Bell, located in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Apparently, our enemies think we are just a bunch of symbols, and that we are easily taken with rhetoric from zealots. We know all about zealots, we have our own. I don’t need to list any of them here, we all have our own personal favorites.
So, here I am on the threshold of new beginnings. I went to my first poetry reading and performed in November of 1998 at the now closed but never forgotten Third Wave Bookstore in Northampton, Mass. The whole ride home was like a dream sequence in a John Waters movie. I have read many times since and will continue to do so. I have enjoyed audiences from a queer slam in Burlington, Vermont to the famous Club Passim, formerly the historic Club 47 in Harvard Square.
I am going into a recording studio to make CD’s of my works. I hope you all consider them for purchase when I come to your area to be heard.
And like all good things, this column and my presence in this paper are at an end. Paths of work and pleasure are opening and I must go on in my travels.
I want to personally thank the Board of Directors for continuing to bring this wonderful paper to the Vermont community.
I want to congratulate Euan Bear as the new Editor in Chief.
I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Jason Whipple for a job well done, and all of the great things he has shared with me, making me a better writer and I think, a better person too.
And most of all, dear readers, thank you for your ear each month.
Peace.