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Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Challenger Space Shuttle has exploded.

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the disaster aboard the Challenger.  What were you doing that day?  I remember very clearly, I was cleaning house.  Now I do not remember because I never clean house and this was special, but there are somethings you remember because something else happened to remind you.  On the day JFK was shot, I made cinnamon rolls and cleaned a goose.  So January 28, 1986, I was cleaning house.

Kenneth had left about 8:00 AM to go out to the Eden yard with his cutting torches intent on cutting a railroad tank car in half lengthwise so he could make it into a rock trailer for hauling.  Daughter Debbie had come from town to help me clean house, more for company than actual work.  We got our coffee and then she remarked that the Challenger with the teacher was being launched and she would like to watch that before we fired up the vacuum.  So we set down to watch.

The astronauts filed by and waved to us and I remember feeling a sort of pride that America could do this and school kids all over our nation were watching the teacher lift off and fly into space.  The rocket raising over the cape was a beautiful sight, but then something did not look right.  There was absolute silence on the television and in my front room.  Then Debbie said, "Is it supposed to do that?" and I replied,  "Nah, I don't think so."  It was a life time before the man (Was it Walter Cronkite?) on the telly noted that something appeared to have gone wrong.

Thirty minutes later Kenneth came in the back door.  Of course we were still watching the reruns over and over, hope against hope that we would catch a glimpse of the Challenger emerging in one piece on the other side of the smoke.  Never happened.  Kenneth never went back and cut that tank that day.  He thought that might have been an omen, so he stayed home.  Deb and I rather lost our zest for cleaning house that day, also.

America took a giant step backwards in the space program that day.  Two years would pass before we tried again.  We had been kicked in the pants by a leaky "o" ring.  Ever see one of those?  The ones we used on the truck was about the size of a dime and just a very thin piece of rubber, open in the middle.  Ours cost about 7 cents.  Probably that was the most inexpensive piece on that whole rocket and for want of that tiny item, seven lives were lost.  Seven bright eyed pioneers of the great beyond that we call "space".

Some where in the back of my tiny mind, I am remembering a quotation.  Help me out here if you remember it correctly.  "For want of a horse, the rider was lost.  For want of a rider the country was lost."  Now, I know that is not right.  It may actually be a poem.  Bet my Sammy can come up with it for momma!

But you get the idea.  Another one Momma used to say was, "A stitch in time saves nine."  It all boils down to the same thing.  Make sure when you do it, you do it well and it will hold up for you.  If you do not mend your clothes at the first sign of a tear, you will end up having to do a real repair job on it later.

So there you have it.  Just some short musings of where I was 25 years ago.  How time flies!

Friday, January 28, 2011

What contitutes friendship?

Isn't this picture pretty?  It was taken at Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  I was there with over 200 acquaintances.  Imagine not being able to say 200 of my friends.  I once told my mother that I had lots of friends.  My mother, a very wise woman,  told me "If you reach the end of your life and you can count your true friends on the fingers of one hand, consider yourself blessed."

Well, here I am with more road behind me than I see in front and those words echo in my mind.  Mother has been gone for too many years now and I find myself more often thinking like she talked.  So, I got to thinking about how many friends I have actually had and are they still around.  For the first eight years of school I had a very best friend.  Her name was Barbara and I spent one night a week at her house.  Never saw her after grade school.

High school is a blur.  Then I married and moved around a lot so friends were hard to come by.  After the divorce I moved back home to Hutch.  There I became best friends with a waitress named Vi.  She had a daughter the same age as my son.  That one stuck through thick and thin and still exists to this very day.  She is a better friend then I am.  She writes, I read.  She calls, I talk.  I moved to Colorado and she moved to Missouri.  We have both buried our husbands.  I got to go see that girl this spring!

The next lasting friend I made was Frank.  We were in business with him and I liked his honesty and all his family.  He is still in business and lives in this town and I have not seen him for several years, but I still count him as friend.  If I called he would be here in a flash and vice versa.

Then came Renate.  Renate listens when I talk and I listen to her.  She is bluntly honest with me when I am wrong.  She and I use each other as sounding boards. We both work with AIDS clients so we have that to commiserate over; that and attending funerals together.

Then along came Kay, who winters in Texas, but we keep in touch and have breakfast every Wednesday when she is here.  We have in depth conversations and do a lot of gossiping.

So you see there is four friends, each perched on a finger.  I only have room for one more!  You know, either my mother was wrong or I am blessed beyond measure because I have a lot of people that I consider very dear friends.  Back home is Evelyn and Kay, Karen, and my sisters.  Shirley in Kansas City.  Amy in Florida. My dear friend Jade.  And all my Internet friends and that is before I start naming the ones here in Pueblo.   I am not even going to go there because someone will get their feelings hurt.

I have friends who have become lovers and lovers who have become friends.  (I like the latter better.)  I am truly blessed in that I can walk into any place in this town and there is someone I know who is very happy to see me, so I am not alone long.  More often than not their name escapes me, but they don't seem to mind.  This impresses me.  Most people want their name remembered, but my friends do not care.  They love me for who I am, not if I remember their name.

I have few rules that my friends must adhere to and failure to do so gets you off my list of friends and you then become a "this is".  So watch out for that one.  If you are still with me here you are my friend, or my dear friend, or my very dear friend. 

The first rule of friendship is to always be honest.  I gave up lying because I could not keep my stories straight.  So honesty is paramount.  The truth is what it is and should never be altered.  I respect the truth.  Lie even once and we are done.  The omission of a relevant fact is also a lie or at least it is in my book.  You are my friend because I judged you by your words and actions from the first day I met you.  If you neglected to mention that you are a serial killer in your spare time, don't you think I would want to know that?

I am loyal to my friends and I expect loyalty in return.  If you have something bad to say to me, say it to me, not someone else.  We can work out our differences if we know what they are and we face them head on.  Love has to come naturally, but a friendship is worth working to save.

You must respect that I am a Bleeding Heart Liberal.  You do not have to like it when I work with the AIDS clients, or the battered women, or the illegal immigrants, or pile my car with recyclable crap, or stop and give that homeless woman the money in my pocket, or stand nose to nose with a homophobe in the middle of the library and we get thrown out.  You don't have to  like it but you do have to accept it and if my actions embarrass you are free to just walk away.  Just do not attempt stop me or try to correct me.  I am on a roll!  You are free to voice your opinions and I will respect them, but they are yours and part of your conservatism.  It is best we not discuss politics.  LOL

For the most part I try to adhere to the 10 Commandments and so do my friends.  It is nothing we think about, just sort of comes naturally.  So once more I have digressed from the point of this blog entry.  I came on here to decide who to put  on that last finger to fill out my friend list and discovered that I am going to need a lot more fingers!  I love every body and they love me.  It is called making the world go round.  I can not limit my friends, nor would my dear mother expect me to.  So I will just hang on to what I have when the road comes to an end, I will just look back and see who all is still there!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Do we ever forget? I mean completely?

Kansas is a very flat state as you enter from the West.  You can see for miles.  Even a Prairie Dog will catch your eye.  So sometimes the foot tends to get a tad bit heavy on the gas pedal.  I know it does for me, especially when I am driving West and headed for my home in Colorado.  I had spotted these two roadside markers on my way down, so I was watching on my way back. 

The stretch of road between Syracuse and Lakin is as straight as a laser beam.  There are a few rolling hills, but if you have ever driven Kansas, you know just how little those rolls are!  The distance is about 35 miles.  That is why I was a little surprised to spot these and the sad part is, they are just a few yards apart and they are very new.

I could have researched this and found out all the details of who, what, when, where and why, as good reporters do, but I did not.  By being on the side of a highway, they by virtue of the location become public.  The details matter, but are of little relevance in this piece.   They can only serve as a reminder and memorial to the  people who placed them there for that purpose. 

I must confess that as I passed the first one, the blue cross, my foot came off the gas just a little.  The second one, brought it up a little more and by that point I was probably obeying the speed limit.  


I know these little markers can be found all along every highway in this proud land.  As we speed past a little beacon flashes on and makes us aware that some one died on that precise spot.  This has been marked by friends or family of the deceased and thereby committed forever to memory.  Or so it seems.  But years will come and go and the memorials will become faded and then turn to dust.  They will be replaced by newer ones with a different name and date.  That is just the way it goes.

My brother Jake was an enigma.  He was my only brother and I loved him dearly.  After I married and left home we sort of drifted apart, but not really.  I knew he was there.  I knew if I needed him he would be where I was, somehow.  His name was Delbert Leroy, but we never called him that.  We called him Jake.  Mostly Shakey Jake.  He made people laugh, and everyone loved him.  He had a scar that ran  from the bottom of his eye, across his cheek and down and back up.  A horrible looking thing that came from a horse kicking him in the face, but nobody ever noticed it.  He was that kind of guy!

My brother was killed in 1964 at an intersection some where near Inman, Kansas, I think.  Or maybe it was McPherson.  I know he had just gotten off work and he and his friend, John Rogers were heading for home.  Probably they were in a hurry.  Jake had only recently discovered the Lord and I think he was hurrying home to go to church.  He was not driving, but that is not important.  What matters is that there on a very lonely stretch of road, my brother and his friend went through a stop sign and into the side of a loaded gravel truck.  Clearly they were at fault.

Efforts were made to save Jake and he did in fact live long enough for me to get home from Western Kansas.  He wrecked on my daughters first birthday which was also my 4th anniversary.  He died on Halloween. I never went to see that intersection.  I never went to see the pickup or the gravel truck.  The day we buried him the doctors amputated Johnny's leg.  Four days later we buried him.  That was a bad year.

I did not put up a cross, but I have one in my heart.  I thank God every day from October 31, 1964 to this very day that he found Jake before he became a statistic.  I need no marker and hardly ever visit his grave.  He lives in my heart today bigger and stronger than ever before.  I think of Johnny occasionally and am secure that all the markers in the world would not make a difference.  I think he and Jake were talking about how great life was when the conversation ended abruptly.  I do not think either of them seen it coming.

So, when I came to this particular place on Highway 50, I stopped.  I stood for a while and thought about Jake.  And I thought about Johnny.  I can still see Jake in my minds eye.  Johnny has fade, but Jake remains there still 29 years old and still with his lopsided smile.  He will never grow old.  He will never loose his boyish grin.  His eyes will forever twinkle and I will forever think of him along a lonely stretch of road, or up in the mountains, or down by the river, and I will pray for him every time I pray.  I will never cease to thank God for the chance to know this little fellow that slipped through my life and brought me so much joy!



Dedicated to my brother
Delbert Leroy Bartholomew
October 5, 1939-October 31,1964

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Follow the yellow brick road................

Sunday is the day I took sister Mary to meet her girls who will take her to her home.After driving for about 3 hours we are now at the beginning of the Yellow Brick Road.  I have this particular picture in a lot of my albums.  I never fail to honk  when I pass it, but usually stop and take a picture with whoever is with me.  All the husbands are framed by this back drop except #1 and #2. Reason for that being I did not even know Colorado existed until the long, legged guitar picker told me it was here.  He tried to lure me, but I just laughed.
 And here we start the last leg of the trip.  Daughter said we would not miss the truck stop; we would see it!  She was right.  Had she said an ant hill, we would have seen that also!  LOL  I lived many years on this flat land.  Kenny used to call me a Flat Lander.  He was so cute.  No matter which way I point the camera it is pretty much the same view.
 You can drive really fast cause there is not a thing to slow you down.  The highway is as straight as a string and goes for miles without the scenery being broken by a house, field of cattle, damn near anything.  Got the cruise control on and just kicked back coasting.  Probably warbling along with Johnny or Charlie or one of my other boys.  The thrill of the  open road!
 Now, here is the favorite part of the drive, the Welcome to Colorado sign which you can not read because I was too far away and going way to fast to focus!  (Little side note here:  I drive a Ford Focus. Do that cause it gets phenomenal gas mileage.) But the sign is up there....trust me. (snicker)

Before I leave this country I do want to put in a plug for the fair state of Kansas.  I lived many years on these flat plains and there is a lot to be said for the view.  You can look in any direction and see for miles.  You know where the river runs, because there are trees there.  In the summer the wheat fields are spectacular.  Oh, and signs of spring on the way down!  The winter wheat is starting to turn the fields green.  I saw at least 5 separate fields with baby calves.

The sunrise is beautiful and lasts for about 45 minutes as does the sunset.  In the evening the shadows start growing very long and if you are a little kid, you know that it is time to head for home or the dark is going to catch you.  In Colorado, the sun just sort of pops up and then in the evening it falls behind the mountains like that ball at Times Square on New Years Eve.  Those are the two things I miss most about Kansas.  Those and the humidity and the black ice.  (Little sarcasm there.)
Oh, but here is the view I most wanted to see!  Coming up the highway headed West, I noticed the sun was starting to set behind the mountains.  Oh, it was spectacular!  Having been in Colorado for over thirty years, I have learned that this was not going to last long.  I stopped beside the road, pulled out my trusty camera and snapped this picture for posterity.  Thirty minutes later I pulled into my drive in total darkness.  I do not get to see many pretty sunsets out here, but I think this one was well worth the wait.
So here I am in my very quiet house.  Sister Mary is home in hers.  I know you girls are reading this, so I want you to know first of all that one of her pill containers (with 7 boxes) is here on the counter.  I have not been down to her room to do the final shake down, although the Daisy dog is waiting for her to come to bed.  There may be more down there. 

What else you need to know, is that we may not have done a lot while she was here, but what we did, we did well!  I enjoyed my visit with your mother, my sister, and we laughed about some of the things of which you know nothing!  We had a life before all you little kids cropped up and both of us still remember that time.  Some memories never fade.  So enjoy my sister while you can and remember,  we are all traveling the same road and headed the same place.  North, South, East or West.  I still think, Heaven is best.

Aunt Lou

Monday, January 24, 2011

Sister Mary at the half way point on the journey home!

Well, here goes Mary with her two daughters!  She has more than this, but the other one is in North Carolina.  She also has a son, but he is home in Hutch.  This is Tina on the left and Dorothy on the right.  Mary is in the middle. 
 I do think she is most happy to be going home, although I did tell her I will not be there to cook and she could very well starve to death.  At least she will not have the chicken and home made noodles, Black Walnut Ice Cream, home made cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies and that stuff.  When she started crying, I told her I was teasing!  I am a good sister!
 Now here we are in front of the Truck Plaza outside Garden City, Kansas.  Left to right is Tina, Mary, Me , and Dorothy.  Let me digress here for just a moment.  We tend to get a name in this family and then wear it completely out using it.  Tina is named after mother and Mary.  Dorothy is named after Mary's mother in law, but we also have a sister Dorothy.  I had a sister in law Dorothy.  I have a daughter Dona, a sister Donna, and a sister in law Dona.  You get the picture?
Oh, speaking of Dona, here is my daughter Patty on the left and Dona on the right.  Behind Patty is her daughter (my grand daughter) September, who was born in November.

So here you have pictures from the mini reunion at the Truck Plaza.  Mary should be waking up in her little house this morning.  She is gonna miss me, but such is life.  We had a very good time while she was here.  The girls asked what we did and we said, "Nothing!"  I do, however think we did something.  I know we went to Beulah which Mary likes to do.  We had lunch at the airport with Tim a couple times.  Lyn brought a grand baby by a couple times for us to play with.  It snowed and Mary slipped and kind of busted her butt.  I hit her in the head with the car door.  We went to church.  Had company several times for supper  or dessert.  We went out to eat.  Yeah, I think nothing may have been an inadequate answer!

So here I set all alone with no Mary.  Guess I will put my new to me Charlie Pride on the turntable and hop on the tread mill and go for a little walk before I have to do the chores.  Tomorrow I am going to take you on the drive to Garden City and back.  You will love those miles and miles of flat country!  Gonna do it anyway!

Miss you, sister Mary!  Remember if you get hungry, lonely or just need a change of scenery, I am still here in Colorado and if I keep up the house payments I will still have your bed!   Good Night, John Boy!  Good night, Mary Belle!  (click)

I have a place for you to go!  Have fun there.          My really big store!

Friday, January 21, 2011

50 years ago or was it yesterday?

Yesterday  marked the 50 year anniversary of John Fitzgerald Kennedy being inaugurated as the 35th president of our fair land.  The newscaster noted that only 30% of the people alive today would remember that event.  I am among the chosen few!  I realize this dates me, but oh, well.  Facts are facts.

I remember so clearly that period of time.  It was amazing that a Roman Catholic of Irish descent was elected to the highest office of the land.  If I recall, he is the only Roman Catholic to ever hold the Presidency.  Correct me if I am wrong.

He was the most drop dead gorgeous thing and his wife was beautiful and every inch a lady.  Caroline was cute as a button and rode a horse named Macaroni.  As I recall, son John was born after the election and prior to the inauguration.  "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!"  " The torch is passed to a new generation."  "Tear down this wall!"  "I am a Berliner!"  Every word the man uttered was carved in stone!

He was a family man all the way and every day.  I stood with millions of other young women with our noses pressed to the window watching the whirling couples dip and sway in a land called Camelot.  We all knew what and where Camelot was because John and Jackie taught us.  We learned about touch football from the Kennedy's on vacation in Hyannis Port.   From 1959 to 1963 we dreamed a dream and we loved our government!

We loved our government and tried to be good people.  We could envision a future for our children that had not been dreamed of before JFK threw down the gauntlet and his beautiful wife cheered him on to victory.  In that short period of time, I married and had two children.  I prayed as John and Jackie stood vigil over the crib of their premature son in 1963 and wept as they buried the tiny coffin. 

And I stood with my second child in my arms as I watched the motorcade wind through the streets of Dallas.  I watched as Jackie in her pink dress splattered with blood tried to help her fallen hero.  I flinched as Jack Ruby fired a point blank shot into the stomach of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who had taken our dream away.

It was a magical time.  It was a time of hope and aspirations that had never been seen before and will never be seen again.  Who knows what the future would have been for this man with the funny accent and his perfect family, so clouded with tragedy and triumph?  I do not know.  What I do know is I am so blessed that I am part of this 30%.  It is a period of my life that gave me hope to make it to this point in my life.

I look at our government now and I look at how little respect we have for our chosen officials.  Fresh after the mess in Tuscon I look back at how we treat our heroes.  One person, whether it be Lee Harvey Oswald,  James Earl Ray, Sirhan Sirhan, or the guy in Tuscon, can wreak so much havoc and destroy so many dreams.  I do not know the solution, well I do, but no one wants to hear it.  It is in a song that goes like this...."What the world needs now, is love, sweet love!  That's the only thing we have too little of." 

That is all I know.  The Camelot years are gone, but not forgotten by 30% of the nation today.   I only hope I never forget the euphoria that gripped our nation at that time!  I hope I never quit clinging to the dream of a better life and time.  I do not want to ever give up the optimism that I cultivated at that time.  Camelot will always live in this woman's mind!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Martin Luther King Jr. day.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  There will be no mail.  Banks are probably closed.  School is out.  But how many of you reading this know or care what went on in connection with Martin Luther King Jr.    I  do. Do I remember the dates?  No, I do not.  Do I remember specific incidents?  No I do not.  I remember in generalities.  Selma, as a fleeting memory.  The 3 civil rights workers that were murdered and buried in a dam or something.  As an injustice.  The integration of Little Rock, Arkansas as something I was glad was not happening here.  Man's inhumanity to man was at that point in history at the pinnacle of injustice, hatred, and every vile word that comes to the front of my mind.

I remember being incensed, but I do not recall feeling empathy.  They were, after all,  only niggers.  They had been born as niggers and they still were, only now they were different.  I remember thinking, somewhere in the recesses of my mind that these people (?) could have feelings.  For many, many years, I had been aware of their existence, but they were not a part of my life.  I did not interact with them at all, because there were none in my small town.  But now here they were, angry and wanting civil rights.  What was civil rights?  Hell, I had no idea, nor did I care.  I just knew that black people were acting up and it was affecting the whole world.  My world.

Then at some point in time I had a thought.  What if that were me?  What if I was black?  Would my friends spit on me?  Sure they would.  Could I go to school?  No I could not.  I watched the kids going to Little Rock and wondered why they were doing that.  I watched the white kids throwing rocks and bottles at them.  I could not understand that either.  I listened to Martin Luther King Jr. speeches and they made sense to me.  I was not raised in a racist home.  Mom and dad were more concerned with putting food on the table then who went to school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

I remember.  I remember the White Only signs in restaurants and on bathroom doors.  I remember Medgar Evers, the Black Panthers, Rosa Parks and I tremble with shame and rage at the whole thing.  We, proud citizens of the United States of America, brought black people to the shores of this great country in chains and yokes and forced them to labor in the hot sun in fields and kitchens of the aristocrats.  They were niggers.  They were not allowed to marry, they were sold and families broken and shattered.  What were we thinking?  What justification did our forefathers offer as a reason for this?  We killed a man who tried to set them free.

For years they suffered in silence and then came another saviour.  John Kennedy strove for civil rights and we killed him. Martin Luther King Jr.  He did it.  He freed them.  And again we killed him.  Our answer to everything is to kill some body.  We now have Civil Rights laws in place and the second class citizens that suffered so many years are treated as equal.  Not separate but equal, as once was proposed.  This is a lot like don't ask don't tell.  Who will we kill when that one is repealed?

I am not a very smart woman, but I do know right from wrong.  We have done lots of things in this country to make me scratch my head and wonder, but you know what?  Back in that era there was a lot of hate.  Two sides and both thinking that their side was right.  Emotions ran high.  But it all worked out.  I am a quilt maker.  Sometimes a piece does not want to go in where it is supposed to and I have found if I tug a little here and a little more there, pretty soon it is in there right where it goes and it looks very good.  Same thing happened in the civil rights movement.  I watch Oprah.  I saw some of the white kids who were there in Little Rock and some of the black kids.  It is many years later and they have come to terms and faced their demons. 

That is what life is all about.  Just like the first time they flipped the switch and a light came on.  Bet that scared hell out of some one.  I think humans by very nature of being human want to do what is right.  We just have a hard time figuring out what right is, but when we get the big picture we are the best in the world at enforcing it.  Lincoln did not die in vain.  Nor did JFK, or Martin Luther King Jr.  We have come full circle, but there are more circles ahead of us. 

My favorite quote of Martin Luther King Jr. is not from the I Have a Dream Speech, but this one:

"In the end we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."    Martin Luther King Jr.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Sister Mary, the boy and girl, and Robin who I have known for years.


This is a happy little family outing.  Since it has been freezing cold since my sister Mary got here and snow is refusing to melt, we are becoming home bound.  So I saw on the weather that today was going to get up over the freezing mark and decided we should make a break!   I had to go give blood for my annual physical that I have every year and a half or so.  That meant I could not eat or drink till that chore was out of the way.

I thought it might be fun to meet the kids at Souper! Salad.  Bret is very fond of the Chicken Enchilada soup in there.  He actually will eat a little salad and thereby confuse his digestive system into thinking it got something healthy.  Amanda actually will eat a little salad and a vegetable on occasion without being threatened.
 So there are the three of them.  Mary ate two bowls of soup and a small salad, but what she is working on here is a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles and oreo cookies.   Amanda had to take off her jacket so she would not flip food on it.  We do know how to enjoy our food.
Now here is the surprise.  See this lovely lady?  No, not me!  The one on my left, your right.  That is Robin.  Now I know this means little to you, but she has worked here for many years.  That is not all.  I knew this young lady when she was 15 years old and attending Central High School here in Pueblo.  At that time she and my daughter, Dona, were friends.  As I recall, they were both kind of ornery, but not as ornery as some.  They did like to go to concerts.  Robin was dating a boy who actually had a car.  I think they later married, but I could not say for sure.  I do know she has some kids and a couple are still at home.

Every time I go to the Souper! Salad and run into Robin I vow I will get her phone number and I think I did once, but Lord only knows where that went.  I am going to get organized soon, very soon.  Right now, I am going to call Dona and see if she remembers Robin, but as I set here and think about this, I think I have already done that.  I think I do that every time I see Robin.  Got to be careful here or my kids will think I am getting senile.

So if you have never been to Souper! Salad  you should venture in to one.  I am pretty sure they are a national chain.  The salad bar is always crisp and cold with any addition you want.  The  four kinds of soup are hot and tasty.  Baked white and sweet potatoes.  An assortment of fresh baked breads.  Spaghetti, chili and pizza.  Lots of fruit, strawberry short cake.  Oh, I am getting fat thinking about it.

So, now it is night, and sister Mary is off to bed.  Bret and Amanda went some where for some reason.  My house is very quiet.  Scratch that!  They are home again and having a little discussion.  My little eyes are getting very heavy.  I need to go delete a bunch of stuff on the other side of this computer.  Think the last time I looked I had over 3000 emails in the old mail. 

So if you are in this fair city stop out at the Souper! Salad and see Robin.  Tell her Lou sent you and then give her a wink.  That should drive her nuts!   She is a very nice lady and she works very hard for her money, so be nice to her.  Thanks.



Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Today is 1/11/11 and I feel the need to say something special.

When I looked at that my first thought was a lottery ticket.  Now I know people were all excited and doing something special on 1/1/11.  But look at that.  It is special.  Oh, and I think November will bring us 11/11/11.   And September 9/10/11.  You know what I think?  I think every day is special!

Any morning I wake up on the top side of the sod, I consider a very good day.  Usually some one or something will come along and make me rethink that, but most days are good!  Now today I woke up thinking about some one I know who wears a lot of makeup.  I have seen her apply this and it is no easy chore and is very time consuming.  I do not do it.  I did for a few weeks when I was living in Liberal, Kansas.  I was 26 at the time.  I remember it clearly. 

I have been blessed with a very unique skin that requires little care and has never been cursed with a pimple.  Course after a few days of smearing that crap around on my face, I got one.  So now, it is au naturelle (or however you spell that).   But, back to my friend.  First there is white stuff under the eyes to cover a dark circle that might be there.  Now I am not sure what order this all happens in, but during the construction of this face, there will be liquid something,  powder, red stuff on the cheeks, purple stuff on the eye lids, lines around the eyes, dark stuff in the eyebrows, black stuff on the eye lashes and then comes a curling iron to curl them. 

Now, I know this is a lot of work and I do not have the proper sequence of events that just took place,  but I can tell you the end result is a face that is without flaw and a perpetual deer in the head light look that will not leave until it all comes off at night.  At least I think that is when it happens.  I have not been around to see the coming off part.  I do know the putting on part takes well over an hour.  I like my routine....

Get nekkid.  Step in the shower.  Grab shampoo bottle and lather hair.  Smear a little soap around.  Brush teeth while rinsing.  Water off, dry, deodorant, pick through the hair, dress from the bottom up.  Total elapsed time: 7 minutes.  I have the theory that if I do happen to see anyone I know today they will not remember tomorrow what I looked like today.  They will remember forever what I said, but not what color shirt I was wearing.  And that is the premise of my life!

Now, I think I digressed again.  But here is my theory on that...it is not the first time and it will not be the last time!  The date today is just another day on my march to that big blog site in the sky!  So I fully intend to live this day with the same gusto I lived the 26,000 (give or take) before.  Reminds me of a song......" You got to give a little, take a little , and let your poor heart break a little!  That's the story of, that's the glory of love! "

Have a good one!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Arggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!! More cold and snow!!!!!!!

The Arctic front is back!!  Right now it is 12 degrees and falling.  I am already frozen.  I never lost the last snow.  It melted a little here on my sloped driveway that I have to walk across to get to the car port and then quickly froze into a sheet of the slickest ice I have encountered since I left Kansas!  As I recall those days, when winter came it first rained.  Then that changed to freezing rain.  This left a sheet of ice on everything known as "black ice".  You have not lived until you have driven 200 or so miles on that. 

Black ice is just what the name implies.  Inevitably this phenomena would occur right before I wanted to make the trip from Garden City back to Hutchinson.  Course  who ever heard of postponing a trip?  Well, yeah, that and the fact that the ice would be there until Spring so why fight it?  Then it would snow and the temperatures would fall and 15 degrees below was a good day.  But you will recall that I left Kansas. 

Now I know you think Colorado is the land of beautiful snow falls and skiing and that sort of thing, but what you do not know is this......I live in a hole.  I am here in Pueblo where it never rains, temperatures are moderate and the sun shines every day.  Except of course, when it does not!  Give us an Albuquerque Low and we measure the snowfall in feet or the rain in gallons.  And then there is that little thing called an Arctic Front that comes creeping down from God only knows where and drops the bottom right out of the thermometers.

So back to the sloped drive and the sheet of ice.  I myself have found it easier to go out the back door, across the deck, down the side walk, out the gate, across the back lot, crawl over the front fence, stumble through the rose bushes and exit into the car port.  Most of the time I have the presence of mind to have my keys with me.  But occasionally I exit the front door.  Side walk is clear (Thanks to my back breaking work and Bret sleeping late cause he does not do a good job of shoveling.) so I can get up a little speed, lock my knees when I hit the ice patch, glide to the bottom and stop suddenly when I hit the dry gravel which marks the neighbors drive.  Then it is just a matter of turning right, walking spraddle legged and holding on to the trash can, water hydrant and springing forward to the first pole in the car port.  I could never do that sober!

Had a man stop buy last evening to pick up some thread.  Course he parked right in the middle of the ice patch I laughingly call "Widow Maker".  I was happy to see he had been around enough to have mastered the spraddle legged walk which I also laughingly call "Widow Maker".  When it came time for him to leave I told him I  would watch him to his car to make sure he did not fall.  He, of course, thought I would pick him up if he did.  I told him, "No, but I think I can slide you over to the car port and you can grab hold of something and pull yourself up."  Luckily he made it to his vehicle and all was well.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, I woke up this morning and what do I have?  Got another 6-7 inches of fresh snow out there.  I have no idea where I left that damn snow shovel.  I think it is with the sledge hammer I need to break the ice on the pond.  I expect they are in the tin shed which has yet another drift in front of it.  If life were fair, things would be different.  I know where I went wrong.  See, a couple weeks ago I went to have my tires rotated and the little guy at Peerless (whom I love) told me, " Gee, Lou, your tread is about gone.  Want to take care of that now?"  And I in my lackadaisical manner did my usual procrastination thing.  I love it when I do that! ( Sarcasm, just another service I offer.)

Ok, so I was wrong about it never snowing here.  If this were the first time I was wrong you might be able to cackle, but seems to me specialty.  That and dumplings that do not have a hard ball of dough in the middle.  So now you have a good day and think about poor old Lou out here in Colorado freezing to death and driving around on bald tires. ( I would insert a happy face here if I had any idea how to do that!)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

From daughter Patty for Christmas, or a mindless blog today!

Today should be the day I blog about my second daughter, Patty, if I were on schedule, but I am not!  I need pictures and I am not prone to dig in that closet today!  Well, actually, ever, but that is beside the point.  So today, I will show you one of my Christmas gifts from said daughter and tell you what havoc it has caused in my home!

Do you see that picture?  Do you know what it is?  It is a bird house.  It is a bird house clock.  It has batteries.  It actually works and Patty gave it to me for Christmas.  As with all gifts I receive, I put the batteries in it, and started it up, as you should do with all gifts you receive that require batteries.  That was my first mistake!

I set the hands to 2:47 and then went about my business.  13 minutes later I heard a tweeting sound.  Had I been the only one that heard the sound, life could have been good, but 2 dogs snapped to attention and immediately set to barking.  If they could have found the intruder it might have been a different story, but they could not.  With the sound gone they were soon back at their favorite pastime, which is sleeping.

One hour passed and the tweeting began again.  This time Icarus was in the house and was bent on finding the helpless bird.  As luck would have it she was at her feed bowl which is located on a built in desk in my kitchen.  It is there so the dogs do not eat her food.  Her head popped up and in one quick leap she had the birdhouse clock in her clutches!  In one quick leap I had her in my clutches!  Of course the dogs were immediately on point and barking like mad.  This scenario was repeated every hour on the hour until I took the batteries out of the clock.

So, now here is the dilemma that I face today.   I know that there has to be a way to silence that clock.  Unfortunately, as with most everything I own, the first thing I did was throw away the instructions.  So now I can dig through the trash and try to find that little 4 inch square piece of paper.  I do not like to dig through trash under the best of conditions.  Oh, what I can do is put the batteries back in and put it up on top of my cupboards where there is a place for such stuff but I do not like to do that cause then I have to clean that because it will attract every drop of grease that floats in the air.  Amanda, my little flash fryer of food, adds to that little problem daily!

So, in the meantime, the little clock sets there very quietly, awaiting my decision.  It is a very pretty little clock and the cheeping did not bother me.  Scared hell out of me the first couple times because Icarus has been known to bring in a bird or two and give them flying lessons.   I blogged once about how she undressed that one a feather at a time.

OK.  It is time to go let the ducks and geese out into the pond area.  I have lost one duck so far this year.  Old age is invading my flock. Time marches on and all that.  I see we have another Arctic Front coming.  Wish I had recovered from the last one, before the next one gets here.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Meet the oldest daughter, Debbie and her hubby, Hammer.

Son in law, Hammer and middle daughter, Dona

This is oldest, Debbie and second, Patty off to the right.

This is the littlest great grandson.
And here he is showing Grandma Lou how he can ride his bike!

This is the great grand daughter.  Girls are few and far between this generation!

This is the trap that hangs on her wall to keep grand kids under control!

This is the radio and it actually works!
Welcome to Longton, Kansas and the Bar HD or HD Bar ranch.  I forgot just what she said her brand was.  I know I have the HD part right.  Since they are retired bikers living the good live in Eastern Kansas, I thought HD was Harley- Davidson.  She was quick to tell me that it was Hammer and Debbie.  Might have been H Bar D.  That sounds good!  Crap!  Don't tell her I forgot.  And don't tell her I forgot how long she has been married either!  But I remember that day very well.

Here she came dragging in this giant of a man, hippie type, 2 tours in Viet Nam and what more could I expect out of life?  I had known him about 6 minutes when he said something and I asked him, "Man, are you frigging nuts!" To which he replied, "I sure am and I have the papers to prove it."  Probably the best son in law I ever had!  Devoted to Debbie.  When they decided to tie the knot they picked me up and the lady who ran the U Pump It and off we went to the court house.  I was Maid of Honor and Shirley Smith was Hammer's Best Man.  That is how we do things here in Colorado!  That had to of been over 20 years ago.

They kicked around as kids will do. They lived in Lakin, Kansas.  They moved to Guffy, Colorado.  Then they bought 40 acres on Eleven Mile Reservoir.  They built a cabin with just their two hands.  They went to Sturgis and I am hoping she kept her shirt on, and if she didn't I do not want to know about it.  They moved to Pueblo, then to Lakin.  They bought matching Harley's.I am not sure of the order of all this.  I am sure that they had several "I have fallen and I can't get up moments."  Then they found this little piece of Heaven called Longton, Kansas.

They got the house and 40 acres with a pond and wild Raspberries and the rest is history.  They have horses and I do not know why.  Sometimes they have a goat or a cow.  Look at her picture up there.  Click on it and make it big.  Who does that look like?  That girl is the spitting image of me in more ways than one.  She looks like me, she walks like me, she talks like me, but I think she can spit further than I can, cause I am out of practice.  She can out hunt, out fish, out track and out shoot most men I know.  She can gut a deer quicker than you can bat an eye!

She gets up at 5 AM and feeds the animals, works the land, cans the bounty and has never tackled a job she did not finish.  Her husband loves her, grand kids worship her, her friends adore her, her siblings look to her for validation.  How did I raise such a strong, independent woman?  How did she go from the first tiny baby I suckled to this survivalist, frontier woman?  Beats hell out of me!  I think she was just born with a mind of her own. Course her father might have had something to do with the hunting and that stuff. 

I know Hammer has another name, but I told you I would keep a few secrets.   So, daughter Debbie, know you have made your mother proud.  You were my first born and I think you were a learning process for me.  Hope the next one I had turns out as well.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Longton, Kansas, center of someone's universe.


 This is a tree growing out of a roof on a building at the end of Main Street!

This is looking down Main Street from some direction.

I be thinking this is the grocery store.

Now we are leaving town.  This barn is on Main Street!
This is the house on 5 lots with a garage my other daughter bought for $12,000.
  I have decided to let you meet my children.  This is about my daughter, Debbie.  She is the oldest.  Today I am going to introduce you to her fair city.  Tomorrow you will meet her and the grand kids.  Her grand kids, my great grand kids.

So this is Longton, Kansas, down in the Southeast corner of the state.  Just got off the phone with them and it rained there, while it was dumping snow all over me!  Today they had a little frost on the window. Now, a brief description of Longton and then a link so you can explore further if you like.

It was established in 1870, elevation 918 feet, and population dropped from 396 in 1980 to 389 in 1990.  Some body must have left town or a lot of them died.  The Cappers Weekly , if you remember that paper, was founded by the Capper Family and the Capper home still stands there to this day.

Longton is in a very lush, beautiful part of the state with gentle hillocks and oak trees in abundance.  Debbie is on 40 acres and has her own pond.  Unfortunately she also has Copperheads and other poison snakes which just scare the bejeepers out of me.  When you are headed for their house you better know where you are going because physical addresses mean nothing back in those hills.  And do not be surprised if you encounter an Armadillo running across the road.

I know people think Kansas is a flat, desert like place, but Longton is the exception to the rule.  It is very humid down there and I think if I were to leave Colorado it would be for somewhere like Longton.  Might buy that building with the tree growing out of the roof!  I would be close to my friend Ely May in Missouri and closer to Vi on over in West Plains.

So, see you tomorrow when you will meet my daughter Debbie and her husband, Hammer!  They are the biker survivalists in my family and if the world is going to end in 2012 I am headed for their house, snakes or no snakes.  So see you tomorrow!

Here is that link I promised you!
http://www.skyways.org/towns/Longton/index.html

Monday, January 3, 2011

Here is Sister Mary in her new jammies all ready for bed!

You should know that one of the favorite past times around here is going to bed.  Just love to do that, you know.  This is my sister Mary who lives in Wichita, Kansas most of the time.  This is January and it is very cold every where, so she has come to stay with me for a while.  The first night she was here it got down to -20 and the second night it was -13.  So I am sure she is not here for the heat!  She is here because she likes me and likes to come stay with me!  I think a lot of it is the cooking!

See, my mother used to come a couple times a year and stay.  She would con someone into hauling her out here and leaving her for a couple weeks.  When she stepped out of her conveyance, she would have a piece of paper clutched in her bony little fingers.  This was handed to me before the second foot hit the ground.  It was the "Things I want to eat" list that she had been working on.  She need not have bothered since it was always the same.

1.  Cream puffs with that filling you cook.
2.  Tomato soup made with home canned tomatoes and milk.
3.  Salmon patties with onions like I like.
4.  Potato Salad and don't put Miracle Whip in it or sweet relish.

But this is not mother, this is Sister Mary and her desires are different.  She will eat what ever I put in front of her.  Well, not the beets.  And she does not eat enough to keep a bird alive.  That may change.  She sets at the kitchen counter while I am in the kitchen and nibbles at Carmel Corn that her daughter, Tina made for her. We got a bag of Clementines she also likes.  And coffee!  Girl is coffee hound.  Someone gave me some coffee beans for Christmas and we had a bit of a problem there.  I use my coffee grinder to pulverize Habanero's for a dip I make (and sell to a choice few).  Now, I do not think she was real fond of that first pot of coffee!  Then there was the problem of getting it just the right degree of strongness.  Finally solved that problem by buying a can of Maxwell House Breakfast Blend!

My mind does tend to wander.  I was going to tell you about the new pajama's Mary has.  She got them for Christmas and they are pink.  I know the picture does not show pink, but they are.  I think Mary's favorite color must be pink!  Yesterday when we went to church she wore a pink sweat shirt with Gingerbread men on it that says, "My grandkids are Sugar and Spice."  Very pretty little lady she was!  She likes my church cause it is very old and the people are very nice.  Course they are very old also, but that is what God put us here for, I'm a thinking.

Well, I better get off of here cause she is going to be getting up in just a little while.  I went yesterday and bought her the bread she likes.  She likes the 7 or 9 grain bread, but we found some yesterday with 12 or 14 grains and it is very good.  So I will make her toast and she puts her own jelly on cause I use to much.  I do not actually eat jelly, but I think that people who eat it should put lots on the toast.

Ok, I am off to go play with Sister Mary.  I have a friend who thinks Sister Mary should be a nun!  I will sing her a song.  That always makes her smile.

Have a good one, because I intend to!

Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.    Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed...