H is for High Hope and How to

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 3 has marched another week closer to the presidential election for my beloved country. I know that this bumper sticker illustrating my own High Hope may not seem relevant to my many friends around the world (although in my opinion it is relevant to the future of the whole planet).

Also relevant to our future are the dedicated teachers who show How to do what they do best. In these few photos I will show my son's wife (and my friend and sister) Kristin introducing youngsters to the violin and my husband showing grown men How to build an electrical motor control.

Kristin is not only a dedicated music teacher, she is a concert violinist, concert master of the Port Townsend symphony orchestra, and a member of several successful performing groups, she is also anxious to introduce youngsters to the joys of music.

Above is a photo from 20 years or so ago as Kristin shows niece Myrtle How to hold a violin, while Myrtle's little brother, Cedric, and their slightly older cousin, Daria, looks on from the right.

And above Kristin introduces the Daria's son Baxter to his first violin.

My husband is a professor emeritus of the University of California, but that doesn't mean that he is retired! He spends from 8 to 10 hours a day on efforts to halt global warming by various methods of energy conservation. In the above photo he shows a class of Washington state men How to build the energy-saving controls to an electric motor.

And above he shows slides of his unique circuitry to a scientific convention in Ohio. This isn't exactly the best of photos, but I was faced with the dilemma of a dark room with a slide being shown on a screen that would have been turned completely white had I used flash.

For other responses to the letter H go to ABC Wednesday Round 3 and/or ABC Wednesday Anthology.

Politics, Politics!

My dear blogger friend who leans right
I’m really concerned with your plight
For you've made it plain
That you’ll vote for McCain.
Is your straitjacket fitting too tight?

This is a response to Mad Kane’s prompt for a limerick about blogs or bloggers. I didn't quite get in under the wire for it to be posted on her site, but I thought you might like to see it. Actually, of course, I welcome other political opinions being expressed freely among us bloggers, since it opens up an opportunity for fruitful discourse. That's what democracy is about, isn't it?

This first limerick prompted another one that has nothing to do with blogs, doesn’t have a catchy ending and has an extra last line (or alternate, if you prefer). Sometimes I think it’s time to speak up.

Our choices are really too few
If we’re forced to choose only from two -
McCain or Obama,
no wide panorama.
More parties are long overdue.
I’m frustrated! How about you?

Choose to pronounce Obama and panorama either way, just so they rhyme.
I voted for Kucinich in the primary, but it was a mail ballot mailed in early and by the time the votes were counted he had already dropped out of the race. Sigh!