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	* THE
	* CYBERSENIOR
	* REVIEW
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VOLUME 4 NUMBER 1                      JANUARY 1997
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The CyberSenior Review is a project of the Internet
Elders List, an active world-wide Internet  Mailing
List for seniors. The Review is written, edited and
published by members of the Elders  for  interested
seniors worldwide.  Contributions  from  non-Elders
are welcome. Please query one of the editors first.

Contents  copyrighted  1997  by the Internet Elders
List and by the authors. All rights reserved by the
authors. Quoting is permitted with attribution.

The editorial board of The CyberSenior Review:

Elaine Dabbs esudweek@mail.usyd.edu.au
Pat Davidson patd@chatback.demon.co.uk
James Hursey jwhursey@cd.columbus.oh.us

======================================================

CONTENTS, Volume 4, Number 1, January 1997

EDITORIAL by Pat Davidson

MUSICA EN LOS BARRIOS (PART II) by Dorothy G. Barnhouse
     Dorothy concludes her heart-warming story of music and
     conversion in the poor barrios of Nicaragua.

THE GOOD SHIP MARY ROSE by Lotte Evans
     A little tray on Lotte's kitchen bench leads to the 
     history of this gallant old ship-of-the-line.

"RESOLATIN'" THE NEW YEAR by Langston Kerr
     Lang, in his inimitable Texas way, ponders New Year's 
     and whether endin' the bad, or startin' the good 
     is the best way to look at a new year.

IF I WERE FROM A DIFFERENT PAST, a poem by Eloise Blanpied
     Eloise's elegant sonnet ponders life.

==============================================================

EDITORIAL
by Pat Davidson

The Romans had it right when they named January after their god
Janus, the god that looked both forwards and backwards. The New 
Year gives us the opportunity to do just that, looking over the 
events of the past year yet looking forward to the future. We in 
the northern hemisphere have much to look forward to, when the 
the spring flowers are about to bring colour to the gardens that 
have lain dormant, but we must also remember that our southern
friends are about to experience their autumn and winter.

One of the treats in store for us in this New Year is this new 
issue of the Review, which, though running a little late, is, 
we think, worth the wait, as it has interesting articles (and a 
poem) from different corners of the world: Nicaragua, where Dorothy 
completes her account of her music making with the children of 
the barrios of Managua; Australia, where Lotte remembers life in 
the days of King Henry VIII as she visits the "Mary Rose" 
exhibition in Portsmouth, England; and Texas, where Langston and 
his wife Marie have different ways of dealing with the year to 
come. To finish, we have a thought-provoking poem from Eloise, 
who comes from the USA.

Yes, we have started the New Year well, with much to look forward 
to. I hope you enjoy the read as much as I've done.

===============================================================

MUSICA EN LOS BARRIOS (PART II) 
by Dorothy G. Barnhouse

(Dorothy continues her story, started in the last issue, of how 
she has helped to bring music to the poor barrios of Nicaragua.)

II.  WHAT ARE WE DOING NOW? 

Twenty-five teen-teachers are teaching about 200 children in 12 
barrios.  Three times we have gotten all the children together to 
give a concert in the large auditorium of UCA (Universidad 
Centroamericana).  In addition to the recorder and basic music 
classes, the kids are learning songs, dances and rhythmical 
games.  During 1994 and '95, I gradually phased out my 
involvement at the agricultural college.  Somehow the kids 
changed my mind about what was "really important work."  For many 
of them, the time they spend with Musica en los Barrios is about 
the only opportunity they have to develop individual skills, 
learn group cooperation, give flight to their imagination and 
practise a sense of discipline.

Who are some of these children?

Maria Jose was a tiny silent child.  She never spoke, hid her 
face if asked a question.  I even wondered if she were autistic.  
But when the choir sang, she looked up and sang too.  Later she 
began smiling at the other children, and even playing with them a 
bit.

Karla always wore a pleasant smile, but her expression never 
changed, her eyes seemed vacant and she would only nod and agree.  
She had a totally chaotic sense of rhythm and although she always 
nodded, she didn't seem to understand anything.  I even wondered 
if she were perhaps brain damaged. But not trained to recognize 
or help children with such problems, I decided to do the only 
thing I knew to do, namely, to develop her sense of rhythm. Six 
months later she was able to conduct simple pieces in 3/4 and 4/4 
and could play smooth passages of quarter notes and eighth notes 
on the keyboard.  She never lost her pleasant smile, but her eyes 
were no longer vacant.  She began asking questions and making 
little jokes.  No question of brain damage. 

Maria Eugenia was about 14, and was one of the original eight 
kids in my first choir.  When I brought the first recorder to 
show them, she shyly asked if she could borrow it during the 
week.  Now she is one of the teen-teachers, and herself plays 
Bach Minuets, a Handel Bourree, a Purcell Chaconne. She has 
another year to go to get a B.A. in psychology at the Jesuit 
University. Her parents are illiterate.  Maybe she will be one to 
help take over the program when it is time for me to leave.  

Eddy was a savage, dirty little boy who used to come to throw 
dirt and stones through the window during choir practise.  The 
other children told me he was crazy and avoided him.  Nothing I 
tried worked to keep him from bothering us.  One day in 
desperation I grabbed him and hauled him into choir practise 
yelling, "Sit down there and shut up and stop bothering us!" 

A huge smile spread on his face and he began singing along.  He 
knew all the music and words of all our songs from having hung 
around outside.  In his own inimitable way, he had simply been 
asking for an invitation to join.  I found out he had fallen on 
his head when a baby, and had never developed normally.  He had 
an older brother in the choir who totally ignored him, and his 
mother  did no more than feed him and then turn him out into the 
street for the day.  He became a faithful and well-behaved member 
of the choir, but nobody wanted to sit next to him.  After a 
little basic research, I discovered the problem and  got one of 
the older boys to take him under his wing about bathing and 
finding clean clothes before choir practise.  Problem solved.  He 
improved enough that he was accepted into a special school for 
retarded children.  

I rejoice that it has been given to me to work in this alien land 
where the electricity often fails, the water is off whenever the 
engineers downtown think there isn't enough to go around, the 
potholes are life-threatening and the temperature seldom goes 
below 30 degrees C.  Six months of the year everything is covered 
with dust, and the other six with mud, unless there is another 
drought (increasingly frequent as the rain forest is cut down) in 
which case, more dust.  This is an alien land where nothing 
happens on time, few commitments are kept, where in fact very few 
things work.  A friend in the north asked me, "Well why do you 
stay there if it is so awful?" I could only answer, "Because I 
love my work."  She thought for a minute and said, "I cant 
remember ever hearing anyone here in the north talk about their 
work with that tone of voice.  You are very lucky."  Right.

Musica en los Barrios is only a few years old, but it would never 
have been born without the ten years of work by Padre Angel in 
Batahola.  The character of this barrio is strongly influenced by 
the presence of this cultural center.  In addition to music, 
which was Angel's first offering to the children, and which is 
the glue that continues to hold the center together, the center 
now  offers classes in typing, English, computers, hairdressing, 
sewing, massage, cooking, herbal medicine, carpentry, radio 
repair...  But when the youth choir/orchestra performs, few of 
the families come.  Many of the teen-agers spend all their spare 
time at the center with its well-tended gardens, brightly 
painted murals and hum of activity.  Home is often a dirt floor 
with a tin roof, one light bulb, a blaring TV and too often, an 
abusive or alcoholic adult. 

Now with their new role as recorder teachers, some of these teen-
agers have gone from being passive recipients of charity from the 
rich north, to being active multipliers of what they have been 
given.  The $2.25 per class they are paid by the project is 
important to them and to their families.  Perhaps more important, 
they are learning to understand a contract, keep records, make 
and follow lesson plans, and to be answerable to the children and 
to the demands of the project.  Most Nicaraguan young people 
don't have a chance to experience any of this.  Little by little, 
the group of teachers is learning to assume responsiblility for 
giving tests, making monthly reports, plan concerts, and all the 
other details necessary to make the program run.  

In '94 and '95 we had an annual budget of $7,500, half of which 
went for hourly wages to the teen-teachers, the rest to 
transportation, materials, instruments, and salaries for me and 
Nelly.  The money all comes from small donations of individuals 
in Europe and North America.  

III.  WHAT IS OUR FUTURE? 

It is time for me to think of leaving Nicaragua.  In the 
development lingo there is a much used phrase, - "sustainable 
development".  A project has to be able to keep going on its own 
momentum when the foreigners or development workers leave.  

Just as I withdrew from the agricultural college, now I am 
withdrawing from the front lines of Musica en los Barrios, 
devoting my time almost exclusively to teacher training and 
curriculum development.  In Nelly Morazan, we have a reliable and 
capable future director.  The Batahola teen-teachers are assuming 
more and more responsibility.  Two of them calculate the payroll 
each month.  Another supervises the giving of tests to the 
children as they pass from one level to the next.  Another is 
helping Nelly teach songs and rhythmic dances to elementary 
school teachers.  Two of them are teaching guitar to children who 
have proven their determination to learn music.  One is little by 
little taking over the administration of the project from me.  
Sometimes it seems to me those things are more important than the 
music.  If they aren't done well, it is certain that the music 
will begin to suffer very rapidly.  

My vision is for the direction of the project to pass more and 
more into the hands of Nelly Morazan and the Batahola teen-
teachers, and whomever else we may find to help them.  But after 
I leave Nicaragua, some time in 97 probably, I will continue to 
raise money and to visit once a year to bring them any training 
or materials they may need.  

In some ways, our very success with the children is beginning to 
cause problems.  For instance, what are we going to do with three 
neighbouring barrios each of which has a small handful of kids 
who have reached level three? That means they are ready to learn 
the alto recorder too and begin playing in small ensembles.  But 
there aren't enough children in any one barrio do to ensembles.  
Because of the dangers of urban life (traffic, criminal gangs,) 
the children can not leave their own barrio to join together in a 
central place.  If there were some way to get the kids from those 
three barrios together, we might begin to create a mini-cultural 
center.  But we are well aware that this may be a "First world" 
type idea, which is not growing organically from the roots which 
have dug themselves in here.   We are waiting. 

At first we opened classes in small community groups.  But often 
the infrastructure to support the group was quite frail and 
faltered if one key person were absent or busy.  For instance, 
many homes dont have clocks.  How are the kids to know that it is 
time to get ready to go to the recorder lesson unless an adult 
reminds them?  Or there are no phones, so nobody lets the teen-
teachers know that the kids all have a school commitment this 
Saturday and cant have recorder class.  The teen-teachers travel 
across town for nothing.   For this reason the last two new 
groups we opened were in public schools.  Maybe the firmer 
infrastructure will mean less wasted time and energy.  We will 
see.  

We see no reason to doubt that Musica en los Barrios will in time 
bring some of these advantages to other children in other poor 
barrios.  But it would be a mistake to judge the "success" of the 
program solely this way.  If one child has had a happier half 
hour than s/he would have had at home, if one child has had an 
awakening of awareness of a skill, if one child has had a feeling 
of comradeship in making a beautiful sound with ten other 
children when none could have made it alone, if one child has 
followed his or her imaination down the path of the songs and 
dances from all over Latin America, Israel, Negro Spirituals and 
the rest of the great human spectrum of experience, the program 
is already a success, even if we cant promise the children a 
"successful" future.

Dorothy Grace Barnhouse		Musica en los Barrios
Casa J-608, Col. Centroamerica  Managua, Nicaragua
tel/fax  505-278-4972		e-mail   dorothy@ibw.com.ni

===============================================================

THE GOOD SHIP MARY ROSE
by Lotte Evans

On one of my kitchen benches sits a little handy tray which I 
bought several  years ago at a flea market for a dollar.  On this 
tray is a picture based on the only contemporary illustration 
existing of the gallant ship the Mary Rose which was the pride 
and joy of Good King Hal, better known as Henry VIII, the much 
married King of England.

The Mary Rose was a warship and as such fought gallantly in 
several battles but disaster struck when she sank during an 
engagement with a French invasion fleet a mile and a quarter from 
the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour in forty feet of water.  For 
the men on board there was no recoiling or fleeing.  Soldiers, 
gunners and archers were trapped at action stations, either 
between decks or beneath the heavy netting which covered the 
weather deck in the waist of the ship. King Henry and his 
entourage witnessed the battle on shore and eyewitnesses 
described the heartrending cries of the stricken ship's company.

There have been many ship wrecks throughout history and most of 
these wrecks still lie wherever they sank but not so the Mary 
Rose. Amateur divers started to search for the ship on the sea 
bed and in 1965 it was found by using sonar. 

From the day of the discovery until 1982 six hundred volunteer 
divers and large number of scientists, archeologists and many 
more volunteers on shore were actively engaged in the preparation 
of the raising of the Mary Rose which occurred on the 11th 
October 1982.

Now after this brief description of the history of this ship we
 will get back to my little tray.  You see looking at it daily 
when I made my coffee I got this hankering to see what the Mary 
Rose looks like now.   And that's exactly what I did on a 
wonderful visit in the company of Elders Listowner Pat Davidson
to the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard which is home to three of the 
world's greatest historic ships, the Mary Rose, HMS Victory and 
HMS Warrior 1860.

I must admit I gave the HMS Warrior the go bye, not because I 
would not have liked to see it but I headed straight for the Mary 
Rose Exhibition and never noticed the Warrior. 

Before we entered a guide handed each visitor a handheld device 
which contains an audio tape which provides a tremendous amount 
of information about every part of the ship.  

We entered a large hall and there behind glass lay what could be 
saved of the wreck. It is quite an awesome sight. The ship stands 
as high as a four storey building and weighs about 350 tons, 
which is half of the original 700 tons and it does look like a 
cross-cut at present.  One can see the various decks and the size 
of the cabins and store rooms.  The first impression is that the 
ship must have been quite large but when one considers that the 
listed crew consisted of 200 mariners, 185 soldiers and thirty 
gunners.  And if that wasn't a big enough crowd, one eyewitness 
account claims that there were 700 men on board when she sank. 

The starboard side cannot be seen by visitors at the present time 
but there are plans to include a viewing gallery all around the 
wreck. 

But it isn't just the ship which makes this visit interesting.  
There are innumerable items which are on show.  For example the 
complete barber surgeon's chest and all its tools, amongst them 
three metal syringes for urethral injections (makes you twinge 
doesn't it), cauteries for the amputation of limbs and assorted 
ointments can be seen.

There are exhibits of the cobbler's work bench, how the ships 
crew passed their leisure hours, what they wore and what they 
ate. 

Although the ship carried seven heavy bronze guns and thirty-four 
heavy iron guns more than 3,500 arrows and 138 whole longbows 
were recovered from the ship and a large number are on show.

Some 200 skeletons were found, nearly all of them of young men in 
their twenties with an average height of 5 foot 7 inches. I am 
mentioning this because quite a number of them had been archers 
with a marked skeletal shoulder development accentuated by their 
profession.  I could just imagine those guys pulling a six foot 
six longbow; no wonder they had wide shoulders.

There is also a video one can watch.  It shows the raising of the 
Mary Rose.  Prince Charles, who is the President of the Mary Rose 
Trust, was in the forefront watching this momentuous occasion.  A 
reporter suggested the Prince to step on to the wreck when it 
came to a halt.  The reporter felt it would be rather symbolic. 
The Prince declined.  I thought that reporter must have been a 
knucklehead.  I could just imagine what could have happened if 
the Prince would have stepped on the wet timber, slipped off, or 
even worse busted something and headed straight into the briney 
deep. 

It was a wonderful experience and I do hope that I will be able 
to visit Portsmouth again as there is so much to see.  After all 
I ONLY saw the Mary Rose, missed the HMS Warrior and had just 
enough time to gape at Nelson's Flagship the Victory.

Going back by train to London, one of the passengers told me that 
she was on a visit from the States and that she had a marvellous 
time at the Naval Museum where she managed to verify that one of 
her ancestors had been a midshipman on the Victory.  I asked her 
what she had thought of the ships.  She told me that she wasn't 
interested in them at all.  All her interest was centred around 
genealogy.

Ah well I thought, it takes all kinds.

***
As a final note to my Mary Rose adventure, I did a quick web 
search and came up with the following results: "The search found 
46 pages containing: Mary followed by Rose and Portsmouth" listed 
here are just a sample of these sites:
http://www.resort-guide.co.uk/portsmouth/marhert.htm
http://www.resort-guide.co.uk/portsmouth/attracts.htm
http://www.rchme.gov.uk/hnew08.html 

Enjoy yourself!!

===============================================================

"RESOLATIN'" THE NEW YEAR
by Langston Kerr

Well, we got us a new year a lookin' us in the face! It's one of 
them times, if you're like most people, that takes a look 
back'ards to see what '96 was like and you wonder what '97 is 
gonna be like. Hope it's a good'un.

Have you made you any new year's resolations? If you're like the 
most of us, you've got a whole big bunch of 'em made and about 
half of 'em busted by now! They's this ole sayin' about new 
year's resolations bein' meant to be broke and I'm a thinkin' 
that most people that make'em really don't have no more idea of 
keepin' 'em than a duck does. That bein' the case, they ain't no 
use in piddlin' with 'em in the first place. That's the way I 
look at it.

Them new year's resolations is important. You ort not have get uh 
idea in your head that it's jist somethin' you do one time a year 
and then you stick your list up somewheres and ferget all about 
it. Jist makin' up resolations can tell you all kinds of things 
you ort to know about yourself. But if you turn right around and 
ferget'em after you get through makin'em, that tells you a whole 
lot more.

I like new year's resolations, myself. It's kinda like when you 
get to the end of the old year, you look back on it and see what 
you done right and what you done wrong. Then you make up your 
mind that in the year to come, in 1997, you're gonna do better 
than what you done in '96. It's like you take stock of where 
you've been and you try and figger out where you're goin' next 
year. The trouble is, most of my lookin' back is seein' what I 
done that I don't want to do no more. I see things I've done back 
there that I don't partic'lar like and I make me a resolation not 
to do 'em in the comin' year.

Marie ain't like that, though. She don't look at things like I 
do. She'll take and go back over the old year and try and figger 
out what it was that she done right. Then she'll center up on 
that. She says the way she looks at it, they's plenty of folks 
around to tell you where you've gone wrong and messed up. So she 
don't have to fool with that. That's took care of. She says the 
onliest thing left is fer her to look at is the things she's done 
right.

Marie says she's one of them that would a whole lot druther 
'start' doin' somethin' than to quit doin' somethin'. She says 
the way she looks at it, you can quit this and quit that and quit 
somethin' else and, next thing you know, you ain't doin' nothin' 
atall. Not doin' nothin', the way she looks at it, is worser than 
doin' somethin', even if that somethin' happens to be the wrong 
thing to do. Besides, she says that not doin' nothin' is the lazy 
way out. Ain't nothin' wrong with bein' lazy sometimes, but you 
ort not to make a whole life out of it. They's a lot more to life 
than jist settin' around thinkin' about quittin' somethin' all 
the time.

That makes sense, I reckon. In a way it does. I ain't never 
looked at it like that before. One thing about it, if it was me, 
lookin' at the list of right things I done would prob'ly shorten 
the list of stuff I had to look at a right good bit.

Me and her talked about that some here the other day and Marie 
says you can tell what kind of a person somebody is by how they 
look at things like that. She says that if you come up on 
somebody that decides they're gonna quit doin' somethin', that 
tells you one thing about'em and if they come up with somethin' 
they're gonna start doin', it tells you somethin' else about'em.

I don't know which one is worse. Is it worser when you're doin' 
somethin' you ort to quit doin' or is it worser when you ain't 
doin' somethin' that you ort to be doin'? Or it might be the same 
thing.

Take the case of somebody that's too fat. That's one I can relate 
to real easy. Maybe I decide I'm gonna quit eatin' so much so I 
can lose some weight. Well, they ain't nothin' the matter with 
that. Lord knows I could stand to shed a few pounds. But, then, 
you got Marie standin' over there and she says she's gonna start 
eatin' right so's she won't be fat no more. See what I mean? Both 
of us said about the same thing, but we're lookin' at it from two 
whole different angles. I'm sayin' I'm gonna quit somethin' and 
she says he's gonna start somethin'.

I don't know which way is the best. I look at things from the 
quittin' end of the pipe and Marie looks at it from the startin' 
end. She puts up a purty good argument fer startin', but the way 
I look at it, they's more to it than that. Life ain't all black 
and white like that. I'm all fer doin' somethin' that's good and 
right, but, on the other hand, if I'm doin' somethin' that ain't 
right, the thing fer me to do is quit. All the do-goodin' in the 
world ain't gonna make up fer it if I'm doin' mean things. I got 
to stop doin' the mean things I might be doin' before my do-
goodin' is gonna do any good. See what I mean?

I guess in the end it don't matter much matter which way you look 
at it. The important thing is doin' somethin' about it after you 
get through talkin' about it.

I ain't made but one resolation, but I'm stickin' to mine. It 
might not change my life, but even if I make this one little 
bitty change, it'll be fer the better. I'll be that much better 
off this time next year than I am right now.

Who knows? By the time I'm 500 years old, maybe I'll be a purty 
good ol' boy!

===============================================================

IF I WERE FROM A DIFFERENT PAST

by Eloise Blanpied

If I were from a different past, I'd know
How death is linked to life as life to death.
I'd know that Meaning stirs up every breath
And is the cause that ancient seeds will grow.
I'd see God's plan wherever I would go
And feel the old and new as One and yet
As two.  I'd breathe my last with no regret
And welcome warmly what His plan would show.

But from my past I've heard no solid thought
That argues well for being beyond life.
It matters not to me that life is all;
It's all I want.  And, if I could, I'd stall
The end and ever keep the joy and strife
Of my good world that chance and choice have wrought.

===============================================================
end cybersenior 4.1