457 Comments

Let's just assume it washed in on a Big Blue Wave.

Expand full comment

It’s a sign!

Expand full comment

We hope!

Expand full comment

I need a Big Blue Wave with my campaign for Clay County Indiana Treasurer. Just doing what Heather Cox Richardson told me to do!

Expand full comment

Sharon You have the maturity, the skill, and the guts, so GO GIRL!

Expand full comment

Thank you dear Keith Wheelock. You are very generous! You made my day! This is a tired girl tonight. It isn't dark but I am heading to bed! We had a Meet and Greet today! It was lots of fun but exhausting. I spent yesterday putting my yard signs out and getting ready for today! I will rest tomorrow!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Sharon. You represent so many of us who may not be as brave, or able, but who do work in the background. I would vote for you for sure! Hope to hear the good news, the results for the coming election. Onward!!!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Irenie! I wish there were more people in my area like you and my other friends here on HCR substack. You are all amazing...and lift me up!

Expand full comment

Best wishes for you and Clay County, Indiana.

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

Yay! Good for you.

Expand full comment

One Sharon to another - Go Girlfriend!

Expand full comment

Less than two months to go and lots of work ahead!

Expand full comment

Found you, Sharon--good for you and your gumption with stepping up! How can we support you?

https://ballotpedia.org/Sharon_L._Stearley_(Clay_County_Treasurer,_Indiana,_candidate_2022)

Expand full comment

Ellie Kona, the only way you can support me is by mailing me a check. I have not signed up for the organization that collect the money. At my age I am beyond worrying about my private information. You can send to me at: Sharon L. Stearley or Sharon L. Stearley for Clay County Treasurer. Both will work.

3285 W State Road 340

Brazil, IN 47834-7351.

I apprecate any help that I can get. When I got into this and said I would run for Treasurer of the County I was told I could do as much or as little as I wanted. It is difficult to win over the our Republicans in the county but I am working as hard as I possibly can. Mostly the cost has come out of my pocket which is not that deep! Advertising is not cheap! If I have any campaign donations remaining I will use them for other future deserving candidates. We need more Democrats in Indiana! No funds are available from the State Democrats and our local chapter only provided the rental for the local 4-H County Fair booth that I manned all of the hours except for serving at a fish fry in a local community in our county.

Humm! I didn't know I was on ballotpedia.org! So glad you found me!

Expand full comment

I have proudly contributed to. Sharon’s campaign. She is our type of candidate—fighting in unfriendly turf with gutsy determination. I urge all of her admirers to send her a pittance or more to:

Sharon Stearley

3285 W State Road 340

Brazil, IN 47834

Let’s make Sharon the first LFAA candidate who won with financial support from the Heather Hellians.!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Keith. I so want to make you all proud of me! You are very special indeed!

Expand full comment

Sharon Years ago I was a fan of Indiana Jones—NOW I’M A FAN OF INDIANA SHARON!

Expand full comment
Sep 11, 2022·edited Sep 11, 2022

I’m with Ellie and Keith.

Sharon, you’re an inspiration !!

Expand full comment

Thank you, Kathy!

Expand full comment

Shame on the Democratic Party for providing you with so little support.

I am joining with Keith's Heather Hellians and the check is in the mail!

They say in-person events are the most effective way for a candidate to get votes. Best of luck to you!

Expand full comment

Sometimes the Democratic party isn't Democratic or democratic. I volunteered to stuff envelopes at at Democratic Party office in Irvine California in 1990 where all the others were Republicans including the candidate. I didn't realize it until one of them offered to mail all the envelopes I'd stuffed all day . As he drove away, I was going home the same direction, do followed him and saw him dump them all in the trash. The ,"candidate" lost and was rewarded with a job with an oil company in Oregon, nest his home.

Expand full comment

Oh my!

Expand full comment

I do another "Fish Fry" next Satuday. Then on Sunday afternoon we are going to canvas the county. Hopefully, I can do a couple days this week. Then the following weekend is another "Fish Fry" and parade on Sunday afternoon!

Expand full comment

We are all rooting for you Sharon!!!!!

Expand full comment

Yes! I was just thinking that’s a blue blooded, fully vaxxed, totally boosted, situationally masked, science loving, public health abiding patriotic lobster.

Ok, I’m still giddy after my bivalent booster! Cheers and have a great weekend y’all!

Expand full comment

Exactly! A big blue lobster wave

Expand full comment

Ha ha.....funny!! I was thinking the same thing. Great minds!! Congrats on you booster!!

Expand full comment

Love it, doc!!

Expand full comment

Me, too. They're saying this one might be viable for a year. Wouldn't it be loverly.

Expand full comment

Yes, that would be so great!! Especially for the elderly and the many immune compromised who need the convenience. :)

Expand full comment

Ah, from your lips to God’s ear!

Expand full comment

I assume God has more than 1 ear

Expand full comment

You can bet She does!

Expand full comment

and in true Heather fashion, this Big Blue Wave lobster also appears to be "something borrowed, something blue!"

Well-wishers are welcome to make a gift in the name of Heather & Buddy on the Tending to Democracy Giving Circle site. Can we imagine her wanting anything more than helping to save democracy?!?!? Join us, if you haven't already!

https://www.grapevine.org/giving-circle/1XQhnyD/Tending-to-Democracy

💙💙

Expand full comment

This will be a good place to send any extra dollars at the end of my campaign!

Expand full comment

Lovely thought

Expand full comment

I like the way you think, Ann!

Expand full comment

Loving that idea.

Expand full comment

Hope so!!!!

Expand full comment

Perfect!!!! Will do!!!!

Expand full comment

Thought this would interest Buddy and yourself

“ White — the rarest of all — at 1-in-100 million. Science tells us that blue lobsters are not just uncommon, but are in fact mutants. This is the result of a genetic mutation that causes the blue color. Blue lobsters are, in fact, the result of a single mutation of one piece of the SNA of American lobsters.”

Expand full comment

Er, does this augur well for the Dems in the upcoming midterms? 👀

Expand full comment

We need watchers at the vote count.

Expand full comment

Beautiful lobster. I hope you put it back in the ocean to live a full life

Expand full comment

What I see are lobsters tortured by some human taping their pincers. So what if they're a rare color. They're sentient, suffering beings. Let them .. and all other creatures .. live. And if you must kill them, do it quickly.

Expand full comment

Those are rubber bands.

One Saturday mawnin around 1965 I banded 1300 lobstahs at Sebasco Estates, ME, at my summah jawb.

Expand full comment

Wow! What a beautiful color! Enjoy your time with family and friends! Thank you!

Expand full comment
Sep 10, 2022·edited Sep 10, 2022

WOW oh WOW! Blue lobster -- they're so incredibly rare! Here's newspaper article I found via Mrs. Google from a while ago:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/08/16/rare-bright-blue-lobster-captured-maine/10341458002/

Also: How rare is a blue lobster?

1-in-2-million

According to the New England Aquarium, wild blue lobsters are about a 1-in-2-million find. The aquarium got its own resident blue lobster in February 2020 and has had resident lobsters of other colors, including orange and calico.Aug 16, 2022

Expand full comment

I just found the same article! -- I grew up in Maine and never heard about nor ever saw a blue lobster prior to this posting. We really do learn something new from HCR nearly every day!

Expand full comment

Ought to be catch, clone, & release. Cannot believe they intend to put that into a pot of boiling water.

Expand full comment

They didn't. Displayed in a tank for two weeks then released it. It could even be the same lobster. Odds might be greater that the same lobster would be caught twice within a month than there would be two blue lobsters in the area. It would be neat if Buddy & Heather compare photos and let us know, also, if the vicinity that the August catch is close to their own lobstering area.

Expand full comment

Judith and Steve Branz -- I live in Nova Scotia, and one of the "rules" of the road in these waters is that when lobstermen catch female lobsters, they clip their tails, as a message to the next lobsterman, and release the females back into the water. Insures further generations!

Expand full comment

It's the same in Maine, Judith. If they have eggs attached they're called "berried females."

Expand full comment

Judith, thanks for the follow up information!

Expand full comment

It had a gigantic blue lobster in the late 70s, 40 years old (they grow till they die)! Displayed in a big tank meant, kind of heartlessly, to replicate the conditions of the then-filthy Boston Harbor, which subsequently underwent a 10-year cleanup. (I worked on that, teaching the engineers how to communicate clearly. People were spread over at least 150 sq miles, no cell phones.)

Expand full comment

Teaching engineers how to communicate clearly—wow, a full-time job for sure. I edited their user manuals. I remember one saying if the scientific stuff was right that was all that mattered. Not if no one understands what you just said.

Expand full comment

I loved the work—engineers are so smart and funny. But yeah, they don’t get much practice writing in engineering school! Or didn’t then. I can’t remember now what technology they were using to communicate with people in the field (i.e. in the Harbor), miles away in the days before email or cell phone, but it was *crucial* to be clear. I guess it’s pretty important to everything they do, come to think of it. Why a liberal arts education is key to the survival of civilization!

Expand full comment

That’s what I said when the company founder implied I’d wasted money on same going to college.

Expand full comment

Oy veh….

Expand full comment

I listened to my heading-to- engineering school grandson, artfully analyze a poem in his English lit class on (can you believe it) grandparents visiting day. There's hope.

Expand full comment

Judith I remember seeing a blue lobster at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Center back around 1940. That was about the same time that a friend of ours, who dragged for bottom fish, brought a live, 30-pound lobster into our living room. I preferred the blue lobster.

Before WW II I had lobster pots in Edgartown (Marthas Vineyard) Harbor. Got enough for Sunday dinner. Was difficult recovering pots from under The Reading Room, a men’s drinking club where, I believe, the only book was on cocktail recipes. The broken glass was a great hazard.

Expand full comment

Hi Keith. Thanks for your great stories! Cannot imagine having a 30# lobster in my living room! (Although my beloved 5-years-older sister put a live Maine lobster in my bathtub before I got in it, when I was about 8! Beloved evil sister! We laughed about it many times over the many years.) I did get a good chuckle out of your story, though!

Expand full comment

At age 6 or 7 I had lobster pots and eel pots in Edgartown harbor. I loved lobster, loathed eel, which my mother relished. I took pleasure in shaking all the eels out of their pots as we ate lobster for Sunday lunch.

Much much later two families [my wife, me and another couple] were taking an older [20 years younger than me now] couple out to their private, key-only beach. We decided to bring a large dish of lobster meat. This we did, but my lobster plucking buddy got bad poisoning from the lobster innards and spent days in the hospital.

P. S. We gave the ‘oldies’ a 60 second head start with lobster picks.

Expand full comment

Ha Ha Ha!

Expand full comment

WOW!!!! So glad you are taking time to enjoy family. I find that I need a break from “lots going on” too. Thank you for all you do. ♥️

Expand full comment

Tomorrow, 9/11, is the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the D. C. target toward which the plane brought down in Pennsylvania was headed. Pause for a moment in memory of the thousands who died that day. And afterwards think about the importance of our intelligence services today in maintaining the nation's security so that we are on guard against a repitition of 9/11, and of the folly diminishing or compromising their operation in any manner would be..

Expand full comment

linking your thoughts to home-grown terrorists, The Guardian wrote an extensive article in support of President Biden's calling out those who are working to undermine democracy, 'President Biden finally is sounding the alarm about democracy. Good' https://apple.news/A8jvFs9cWThqdVri_hQRezQ

Expand full comment

Good article. Terrorists are terrorists, regardless of whether they take direction from a foreign entity or a domestic one. The President was correct in warning us about MAGA Republicans. Back on August 17, New York Times columnist Charles Blow summed it up by writing a column headlined 'Republicans are America's Problem.'

Expand full comment

Congratulations to the Bride and Groom, Heather and Buddy! ❤️🍾🥂

Expand full comment

Happy celebrations!

Expand full comment

Something borrowed, Something blue?!

Expand full comment

You beat me to it! What a wonderful sign for them.

Expand full comment
Sep 10, 2022·edited Sep 12, 2022

Thank you, I love that! Have a wonderful time with family and friends! Could this be your wedding weekend? I was married 61 years ago today! Hummmm! That was before you were born! Hugs Update: And it was! Congratulations Heather and Buddy! I am so happy you picked this date to get married...I will always remember your anniversary. May you live a long and happy life together! Hugs!

Expand full comment

Wow! Happy Anniversary Sharon!♥️

Expand full comment

I celebrated with a Meet and Greet on a hot day in Indiana yesterday. It was as hot as the day we were married. He was killed in an auto accident about a block from our home in 1974. We didn't celebrate 13 years together. He told me when we were dating when I was still in high school that he didn't think he would have a very long life. However, I don't think he imagined it being over so fast. I can still remember hearing the siren that night while I was taking my bath in our tub. I had fallen asleep before he got home that night from our friends house where I had left him and walked home. The telephone woke me up from a sound sleep. I still panic for phone calls late at night. My life totally changed! I am still fighting and keeping the passion for life!

Expand full comment

I’m so sorry.

Expand full comment

How horribly sad, no choice but to fight on

Expand full comment

Congratulations, Sharon!

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

Mazel Tov to you and yours!

Expand full comment

how special, Sharon!! congrats!! seems like today's the big day so a perfect date, right?

Expand full comment

That was my thoughts. It was was another hot one like it was 61 years ago and no A/C in the church! Today it was mostly in the sun! But it was fun!

Expand full comment

Enjoy! You deserve a night off!

Cool blue lobster.

Expand full comment
Sep 11, 2022·edited Sep 11, 2022

To lobsters red and blue. To family and friends. To Heather Cox Richardson, to Buddy, to subscribers, to compatriots, to hope, renewal, courage, determination and good will.

For the Bird Singing before Dawn

by Kim Stafford

Some people presume to be hopeful

when there is no evidence for hope,

to be happy when there is no cause.

Let me say now, I’m with them.

In deep darkness on a cold twig

in a dangerous world, one first

little fluff lets out a peep, a warble,

a song—and in a little while, behold:

the first glimmer comes, then a glow

filters through the misty trees,

then the bold sun rises, then

everyone starts bustling about.

And that first crazy optimist, can we

forgive her for thinking, dawn by dawn,

“Hey, I made that happen!

And oh, life is so fine.”

Copyright © 2022 by Kim Stafford. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 27, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

About This Poem

“Many times in my life I’ve been told by serious people that I must be very naïve to be happy, to have hope, to celebrate this little life I’ve been given when, actually, they say, everything is pretty dire. There’s war, poverty, crushing injustice all over—what right do I have to talk back to all that with flimsy little poems about the good? What can I say? The birds are my teachers, my elders, my guides. Every day before dawn, in silence and darkness, I’m at my desk making poems on the page. And then, before light, I hear the first bird outside begin to sing.”

—Kim Stafford

Kim Stafford is the author of Singer Come from Afar (Red Hen Press, 2021). From 2018 to 2020, he served as poet laureate of Oregon, where he currently resides.

Expand full comment

Thank you Fern. You found the perfect poem. I’m still looking. On my walk today I saw baby woodpeckers already practicing and I thought how nature, if we take care of her, is so generous, really brilliant. We “only” have to care and take care.

Expand full comment
Sep 11, 2022·edited Sep 11, 2022

Yes, Irenie. The sounds and sight of birds always make me smile inside out.

Expand full comment

Bird watching party this morning at the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago at 8 am today! Thank you Fern for the delightful poem.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Carol. I do wish that I could be with you. Salud.

Expand full comment

Three Little Birds, Perfect song

Expand full comment

Happiness is a choice and I choose to be happy very day.

Expand full comment

What a beautiful sight, a blue lobster for a blue midterm, I really, really hope so. Thank you for all you do to keep us sane. And of course a big thank you to all of you readers and contributors, I learn a lot from all of you. What a wonderful community you are. ❤️

Expand full comment

Framily takes priority! We can wait... "Every" day is a blessing, but whenever you post something, it's deeply appreciated.

Expand full comment

Wishing you and Buddy the very best!

Expand full comment