I am now 77 years old

I am now 77 years old… this is a strange time of life, but then, I guess every stage of life has its strangeness… anyway…  I lived my first 11 years on a failing dairy farm near Baldwin, Wisconsin…  I have lived most of my life since then in the East Metro suburbs of St. Paul, Minnesota… about 45 miles from where I was born… as a kid, the trip to “the cities” was a huge adventure…  but today, it is just minutes away on the freeway… while the farm was going broke, my dad worked on the I-94 freeway which was cutting through the countryside about a mile from our farm… his job was sharpening pilings with a chain saw… this was a terrible job…  the construction companies would hire local farmers to do these miserable jobs while most of the work crew was tradesmen who lived elsewhere and moved around to follow the work…

the pilings were like telephone poles that were driven into the ground in wet areas as supports for the concrete columns that held up bridges…  the telephone poles were treated with creosote as a preservative for when they were driven into the ground…  the creosote was a black, tar like substance that would cover dad’s hands and face and permeate his clothing when he came home from work…  the farm did not have running water and we only had hot water from heating it on the kitchen stove, so getting cleaned up from all this creosote was pretty much impossible… not to mention that it was summer, so a person got hot and sweaty working on the construction sites…  and then coming home, there was field work to do by the dim single light of an old John Deere tractor… no wonder he often went to the bar after work with the construction workers…

my dad had one sister who was a few years younger than him… she was married to a guy from Thorpe, Wisconsin about an hour east of Baldwin where my grandparents lived at that time…  the sister and her husband lived between Withee and Owen, Wisconsin…  they had one child, a son, who was two years older than my older brother, so four years older than me… he was named “Bill” after his dad… for my brother and I, it was a real thrill to see Bill whenever his parents came to visit us and the grandparents in Baldwin… we thought that Bill and his family were tremendously rich although, in reality, they were simply middle class while we were poor…  we got “hand me down” clothes from Bill… some of which were crazy fancy to us…  I remember that I got a brown suit that somehow bypassed my brother…  I was about ten years old and really had no use for a suit… I don’t think I ever wore the suit outside the old farm house, but I thought it made me look like a billionaire…

so, at some point in maybe 1958, my brother and I got to spend a couple weeks with our aunt and uncle and Bill at their house near Withee… one of our dad’s drinking buddies from the construction site was a guy named Cliff, who lived in Wausau and who offered to drop us off at Bill’s house on his way for a visit at his home…  so, we got in the car with Cliff and off we went to Withee… Cliff proved to be a perfectly decent guy and dropped us off with no problem…  strange to think of in 2025…  sending 10 and 12 year old kids with a stranger, no less, a drinking buddy from the construction site…  but although the usa was in some ways very harsh in those days, it was in some ways less distrustful and worried than today…

anyway, Bill was maybe 14 and so, it was so exciting for us to be away from our crazy home, with all the drinking and fighting… and Bill’s house seemed an island of tranquility, although, it was maybe not so tranquil when we were not there…  but I don’t really know about that…  so, the house seemed a virtual palace compared to the threadbare old farmhouse… it had running water, hot and cold! indoor plumbing, central heat and it was clean and neat with polished furniture, tasteful end tables with lamps and knick-knacks…  there was a curved stairway that my aunt had designed herself and had built going upstairs leading to the bedrooms and the attic… over the front door was a long shelf with a collection of beer steins, ranged by size from tiny cups to the huge two foot stein in the center… the kitchen was modern with a range instead of a woodstove and their were folksy rugs on the polished wood floors…

then Bill took us up to his room which we had never seen before…  Bill’s dad was an auctioneer, and at that time the auction business was booming as the small farms were going bankrupt and being bought by the more successful farmers to make much larger farms… this consolidation was made possible by increasing mechanization…  combines and hay balers, bigger tractors and machinery of all kinds was making it possible for one farmer to vastly increase his productivity and handle lots more acres and milk cows…  our farm had 16 milk cows and today, farms in that area have hundreds of milk cows…  so the industry was really changing and all these big changes were just getting going in 1958… whenever my uncle had an auction, he would look around first and pick out anything that seemed interesting or unusual and buy it for himself…  lots of those old farmhouses had military stuff in the attic that soldiers had brought home from the two world wars and even from the civil war, and my uncle liked collecting guns and old military stuff…  Bill got his pick of this stuff, so, Bill had in his room all kinds of items that we found fascinating…

he had several civil war swords and a civil war pistol… he had muskets and a real German Luger… he had a big red nazi flag with a white circle and a swastika in the middle as well as a German army helmet and a confederate flag… he had a horse pistol which was a pistol that fired a 410 shotgun shell and a complete civil war uniform…  all of this stuff was in Bill’s room… across the hall in the attic, his dad kept the rest of the gun collection with all kinds of old and odd guns…  our dad came home from World War II with a strong dislike for guns and shooting, but our uncle was an avid hunter and fisherman…  so, this whole thing was a new world for us…

our aunt was into “antiquing” furniture, taking newer furniture and treating it to make it look old and beat up… this astonished me because the furniture I was used to did not need any treatment to make it look old and beat up… in sheds behind the house our uncle kept his collection of odd old cars that he had picked up at the auctions including a Model T, a Model A, and several others…  Bill let us climb in these old cars and look them over…  then even though he was too young to actually drive, Bill showed us an old car that his dad let him drive around on their property…  they had even built a dirt track oval in a pasture next to the house where Bill and his friends, who also had old beater cars, would race their cars… and, I think the most amazing thing of all, was when Bill got his 22 rifle out and was shooting out the back door of his house at fence posts across the back yard…  at one point our aunt took us and some friends, loaded into a big fancy station wagon to go swimming in a local creek…  I think it was called Rock Creek… anyway, it was a hot summer evening and the water at the swimming hole was cool and crystal clear…  I was terrified of the water as I could not swim… but, I found the whole scene just fantastic, like something that would be in a movie or on television…  the sound of the stream rippling over the rocks, the dark trees, the kids splashing around…  the moms sitting on the side smoking and talking… the whole scene lit by the headlights of the cars…  it was like a fairy tale in the middle of an enchanted forest…

well, shortly after that time, my grandparents moved from Baldwin to Withee to be near their daughter… but then in 1961, their daughter, Bill’s mom, died in a car accident…  Bill had been a wild child as a teen and so had finished high school at a private military school his parents sent him to to get straightened out… my last real memory of Bill in those days was from 1963 when he got married…  he had joined the Air Force right out of high school so, in the years after his mom died, while we regularly saw our Grandparents in Withee, and our uncle, we did not see Bill…   

I vividly remember Bill’s wedding…  he wore a fancy Air Force uniform and he and his bride walked down the steps of the church with uniformed Air Force guys on either side holding sabers up crossed over the heads of the bride and groom…

so, many years passed…  my dad died in 1984…  after a suitable period of mourning, my mom started dating my dad’s cousin, who was a widower… when dad’s cousin died, after he and my mom had dated for several years, she got into contact with my uncle, Bill’s dad…  Bill’s dad had always been a colorful character… he always had a bright red Ranchero car/truck and I remember him tooling around Withee back in our early days of going there to visit Grandma and Grandpa…  he was kind of a wheeler/dealer who always had business deals going, fishing trips, hunting trips, etc…  he owned a small airplane back in the years after the war and there was a story that he had tried to take my Grandpa for a ride in it but couldn’t get off the ground because my Grandpa was a pretty big guy…  this airplane was a framework covered with fabric… it was apparently very small and could land and take off from the farm fields… by the time I knew Bill, the plane was gone…  our uncle was a nervous guy and a slick talker…  he was always kind to my brother and I and showed us his rock tumbler and how he would make jewelry out of agates he found here and there… he would cut and polish the agates and glue them into clasps for pins, earings, etc… I remember an old person in Withee who knew our uncle all his life, saying that he had been much calmer and more relaxed before he went away to the war…

so, anyway, after our uncle’s wife, my dad’s sister had died, our uncle had remarried and moved to a different town… I remember hearing sometime down through the years that he had gotten divorced… and then, he and my mom started dating… so at some point, maybe around 2000, I had driven with my mom, one of my sisters and my wife to visit my uncle who I had not seen for all these years…

my uncle was living in his parent’s house in Thorpe and it was fun to see him…  he had not really changed at all…  he showed us his gun collection which he still had and which was stored in a locked room in the basement of the house he lived in…  then he offered us some homemade blackberry wine which my wife said was very tasty…  I do not drink alcohol, so did not try it… then, he showed us a small triumph sports car which he said he had found in a barn and had restored…  it was a really cool little car…

anyway, he said that my cousin Bill was just across the street if I wanted to see him…  of course I did… it was so exciting to see my cousin again after all these years…  he actually looked so much like my dad that it was really cool…  he had the same curl in his hair that my dad had except that like his mother, his hair had gone entirely white at a very young age…  his dad mentioned that we had partaken of his homemade blackberry wine and Bill looked at me and said, “would you like a Diet Coke?”  so, yes, we were both middle aged boomers… and I was much more excited about the soda than the homemade wine…

he was still with his wife and we had a great afternoon of conversation about how our lives had gone… only too soon, the day was getting late and we had to leave for home…  I never saw my uncle or my cousin Bill after that…  the uncle died in 2004 and my mom died in 2017…  in the intervening years, I made some half hearted efforts to get in touch with Bill, but never got any reply…  last summer, my wife and I were driving to Wausau, Wisconsin to visit our daughter’s in-laws…  driving out I-94, within a mile of the old farm, and then on Wisconsin 29 past Thorpe and Withee, I got to thinking about the days of my childhood and so, later that day, I made one more attempt to find my cousin Bill… when I did a google search for his name, I immediately found him, but unfortunately, it was his obituary…  he had died of Parkinson’s disease four years ago…  he had been very ill with this disease for many years, which explained why I had never heard back in my attempts to contact him… he had acquired the disease as a result of exposure to agent orange in Vietnam…  this was a hazard of our generation…  I well knew the horrors of Vietnam because my own older brother had been killed in action in Vietnam in 1968…  

so, I missed one final visit with my cousin… Bill was the only cousin on my dad’s side…  on my mom’s side, I had and still have dozens of cousins but on dad’s side, there was only Bill… well, I felt bad that I had not made more of an effort to stay in touch and so I decided that I would send Bill’s widow a small drawing as a memorial to Bill…  so, I made a drawing of some trees in black ink with an orange border…  I then went on line to see if I could find an address for Bill’s wife to send her the drawing…  well, when I typed her name into the google search, her obituary popped up… she had died last spring…  so, I still have the drawing…  

I am still breathing the sweet midwestern air and walking around in this glorious world of trees and sky, houses and people, friends, relatives and strangers…  every day is a blessing and every day is a reminder of the beauty and fragility of life… I have been very lucky and blessed in this life with a happy marriage, beautiful children and grandchildren and love and kindness in abundance… I have lived the life that my brother never got to live and have enjoyed the health that deserted my cousin Bill…  and I have definitely learned that, if you want to reconnect with someone or reach out to your past, you have to do it now because the future is not promised to any of us…

If Your Mother Were…
(A tribute to a mother)

Like the moon that shines through a dark night,
Like a river full, its current bright,
Like a springtime dressed in blooming grace —
So would your mother walk this place.

She labors day and night, no rest,
Wishing not for herself, but for her child the best.
Hiding her greying hair with care,
Still walking proud, with love to spare.

If only you knew, the heart she hides,
The tears she swallows, the dreams she bides…
She walks not for herself, but for you —
Your mother, selfless, pure, and true.

Sevinch Kuvvatova was born on October 19, 2009, in the Qorako‘l district of Bukhara region. She is currently a 10th-grade student at School No. 13 in her district.

Thirty Beats

‎Oh, the pleasant moon hanging on the lips of the beloved

‎Don’t suck the light in greed anymore

‎Don’t walk in the arms of my beloved

‎Waiting for me on her radiant face

‎Don’t touch her tender heart

‎Where my dreams are drawn

‎Don’t look for the map of her eyes

‎There my happiness is tied

‎Don’t keep your breath in the bonds of her arms

‎There my nerves are touched

‎Don’t touch the sound of her feet.

‎Listen to the rhythm of my love with your ears.

‎

‎Tell the city, the garden and the orchard

‎The butterfly has touched the sky’s eyes

‎All the locks of the stars have opened

‎In this luminous light of love.

‎The spark of neurons covered in magnetic passion

‎Love’s rays pave the way like a river

‎The sweetest journey breaks the pride with a twinkle

‎The still nebula peeks out from the rosebud

‎A thousand roses stand in a row

‎With our honey moon in hand

‎Where darkness will never write a letter

‎All light will be purified in the water of the fountain

‎

‎Oh, the open air of spring,

‎Sing no more in a lonely tune

‎Wrap the neck of the afternoon of Chaitra

‎With the garland of red spring

‎Paint the flower of love on her forehead

‎Decorate her feet

‎With pearls from the oyster

‎Tell the birds

‎That in this kingdom, poetry will awaken

‎With their united voices

‎People will forget all differences.

‎The flag of love will fly on the desert.

‎

‎Oh, lonely river waves,

‎Don’t shed tears on the chest of the night

‎Don’t spread your sorrowful face

‎Don’t cry and sigh

‎On the flute of our union

‎Look, the flowers have learned to smile

‎The seeds of a vocal dream have sprouted in the chest of the bumblebee

‎The joy of happiness has blossomed in the bud of sorrow

‎I am coming on horseback

‎Tell the royal court

‎All the stones of the kingdom will become flowers

‎The fragrance of time will sing the song of union in thirty beats.

How does writing impact the world?

Do you know how many people around the world today prefer writing over speaking to express their thoughts? While oral speech and oral literature once prevailed, people later began using pictograms—symbols and drawings—as the earliest forms of writing. The benefits of writing for every human being are invaluable, and this has been proven throughout centuries. Writing is something we constantly do. Writing manifests itself around us in countless ways. A journalist’s speech on television is, in fact, a text first written and then transformed into oral discourse. The songs we listen to begin as written poetry before being composed into music. Posters, slogans, and advertisements on the streets are also forms of writing. Libraries across the world are filled with the emotions, experiences, memories, and wisdom that famous writers once poured onto paper.

The list could go on, but what has already been mentioned shows how vast the scope of writing is. What does writing give to a person? According to Harvard Medical School, keeping a journal reduces stress by 27%. One of its key benefits is that those who write regularly also develop clearer and more fluent speech. Writing is essentially thinking through letters on paper. Furthermore, research at Cambred with the emotions, experiences, memories, and wisdom that famous writers once poured onto paper.The list could go on, but what has already been mentioned shows how vast the scope of writing is. Whe, Chekhov, Lermontov, Jack London, Nodar Dumbadze, Gianni Rodari, Remarque, Agatha Christie, Abdulla Qodiriy, O‘tkir Hoshimov, and many others! Their unique works not only enriched their own minds and souls but also profoundly influenced humanity, shaping the knowledge, spirit, and worldview of future generations.

The first writing in human history—cuneiform—was inscribed on clay tablets with reed pens in Mesopotamia, mainly used for trade, accounting, and record-keeping. Imagine what a groundbreaking invention this must have been for early societies. Writing quickly became a part of everyday life.Through writing, events that occurred centuries ago, the lives of our ancestors, and great chronicles of history were preserved and passed down to us. For example, the epic Alpomish, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the inscriptions in Egyptian pyramids, and Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur’s Baburnama still provide us with rich knowledge of ancient life, customs, laws, and culture.Even today, people continue to write—so that future generations may learn, understand, and benefit.

In today’s world of advanced technology and social media, the posts people write online deserve special attention. A single error or poorly communicated idea can spark conflicts between nations. Conversely, well-expressed thoughts and clear proposals can unite countries, strengthen peace and friendship, and foster new partnerships.Writing is such a powerful force that it can move not only an individual’s soul but also entire nations—it can inspire, awaken, or, on the contrary, suppress.

The world-renowned Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov, through works such as The White Ship, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years (The Buranny Station), Farewell, Gulsary!, Jamila, and The Cassandra Brand, masterfully expressed human-nature relationships, compassion, humanity, and the power of dreams and hope.

Writing is happiness! It brings peace to the soul, clarity to the mind, and sharpness to thoughts. A person who can write freely and powerfully is an invaluable individual—because they can record truth, history, dreams, justice, and love. Writing demands great effort but also gives writers the ability to influence not only their readers but also the entire world.Writing is such a powerful weapon that it can assert its influence in any field. Whether in history, literature, and art, or in politics, international friendship, and peace—through writing, humanity always finds its voice.There are feelings and thoughts that are difficult to speak aloud, yet a person can capture and immortalize them through writing.

No matter how much the times change, even if perfect keyboards replace pen and paper, they will never replace the act of writing itself, nor diminish the power of heartfelt words expressed by the movement of a pen. Thus, writing remains the bond that connects humanity’s past, present, and future, uniting the inner and outer worlds of human existence.

Shahnoza Ochildiyeva

2nd grade student at Uzbekistan Journalism and Mass Communications University 

Happy 250th Birthday

Into the city streets

strutted the Brownshirts,

locked and loaded

and wearing steel-toed

jackboots and masks.

D.C. and Los Angeles

will never ever be the 

same again. They pulled 

people from automobiles 

and out of lines at car 

washes and big box 

stores and tamale vendors.

The thick-witted goons

flung their victims

to the pavement and

shackled them with

chains in front of their

young children. They 

didn’t identify themselves

but to brandish weapons.

Those they seized

were all guilty:

of being brown-skinned

and wanting a

better life for themselves

and their families.

The answer was to

send them to countries

where they don’t

speak the language

and to rip their

children from their

breasts and imprison

them in cages.

Perhaps, I thought,

this is not

what Americans

signed up for 250

years ago.

The beginning is the end

Like a hummingbird I utter the words

That you once said to me

Once upon a time in an evening

Gradually becoming dark

Cold as night

Lack of warmth and certainty

Whispers of the unsaid, uncared

Words and actions

Clustered around the buds

Some were yet to bloom

Or

Some were blooming like a passion

A determined choice

Between duty and dilemma

The storm of mistrust arose

Serving them all the premature death-

An obvious nip in the bud.

23.09.2025

Blue Curls

03.04.2020

Post Memory

Part I

Ashes emerge out from the glass of

Memories,

Dangling between past and present,

Beings become non-beings.

All flames fade and evaporate,

All go for impressionistic images,

Pictures signify the other pictures,

Images another images;

Memory is mixed with tears

And the soothing aches

Come out of the

Translucent prism

As post memories.

Drizzling memory

Is draining itself out of rotten bones,

Flesh, blood as

Veiled with the scars

And transforms itself

 Into a new soul.

Post memory freezes me

Like a chilled out cabbage,

Cold, calm,

With no vexation

Like a patient

Without sense

Lying on a hospital bed.

Silhouette walks down

Through the urban spaces  

That was once countryside;

Time shakes hand with

The ruins and figments of

The dead waste land.

Like slithering out from the bruised

Skins of snakes,

Like fragrance emitting out

And spreading all over the room,

Memory comes

Memory mingles

With thin air

And gives birth to post memory.

Serene, sober, smooth,

Like patches of cool powder

Around the neck applied in hot summer.

2020

Part II

People escape from the ugly

Reality,

Bypassing the truths of mortality,

Night owl records the details

Of livelihood,

Burnt cigar seeks solace in burnt memories.

Tripping down the past lane,

She finds a strand of word

That she hid from

The loitering passerby.

Holding an old bottle

She stares at the starry night,

Pictorial paintings of photographs

Flash upon her imaginative eyes

And whispers-

“Where am I now?

Where will I go?”

Time blows like wind

To tell the tale

That was once half-told.

2020

Globalization and National Identity: The Choice of the New Generation

In the modern world, the word globalization is no longer an abstract concept. It is the reality in which we live, study, and dream about our future. Borders between nations are gradually becoming symbolic, communication technologies connect people from different continents in a matter of seconds, and cultures are interacting faster than ever before. For today’s youth, globalization offers a wide field of opportunities: access to education abroad, cooperation in science and business, cultural exchange, and broader horizons for personal development.

Yet, behind these opportunities lies a serious question: what will happen to our national identity? When global trends dominate social life, there is a danger that unique traditions, languages, and customs may lose their value in the eyes of the younger generation. A young person may easily adopt international fashion, foreign languages, and global lifestyles, while sometimes forgetting the songs, proverbs, or traditions that shaped their own nation’s spirit for centuries. This creates a paradox of the 21st century: while the world is becoming closer, it risks becoming more uniform and less diverse.

However, globalization does not have to be the enemy of national identity. Instead, it can be an opportunity to present one’s culture on the international stage. Youth who learn to speak foreign languages, master modern technologies, and travel the world can also become ambassadors of their traditions. They can introduce their national literature, music, and art to foreign audiences. In this way, globalization becomes not the loss, but the expansion of national identity.

The new generation has the ability to integrate into the global society while keeping the roots of their homeland strong and alive. The choice, therefore, lies in the hands of young people. Do they want to become passive consumers of foreign culture, or active protectors and promoters of their own? Will they let globalization wash away their uniqueness, or will they use it as a bridge to tell the world who they are? This is not just a personal choice; it is a historical responsibility.

In conclusion, globalization is not a force to resist, but a process to manage wisely. The new generation must build a balance: to accept global values like cooperation, innovation, and tolerance, while at the same time preserving the priceless wealth of national identity. Only then can they ensure that the future world is not a monotonous place, but a colorful mosaic of cultures, where every nation’s voice is heard and respected.

Dildora Khujyazova (born in 2005) is from Khorezm region, Uzbekistan. She is currently studying Geography at Urgench State University. Dildora is passionate about writing, journalism, and research, and she has authored several scientific articles. She actively promotes honesty, cultural dialogue, and youth engagement in her community. Her aspiration is to study abroad and represent her country through both academic and creative achievements on the international stage.