And once more it is the changing of the seasons.

It is amazing that no matter what we do as mortal men/women, it pales in comparison to what Mother Nature guided by the hand of God can do!  The sun comes up every morning and goes down every night.  It's path across the sky is always the same.  We look at the same horizon that was placed there lo those many years ago.  The sun I will see in a few minutes is the same one that my mother watched on the plains of Kansas and is the same one her mother and grandmother watched  across the ocean in a land I will never see.

Always in the back of my mind, when I think of my ancestors, I picture Ellis Island.  I will never see the Statue of Liberty, but it is as clear in my mind as the keys on this keyboard that I write on today.  I see the Haas family clearing land along the river to build a home to raise children.  The natural progression of live never ceases to amaze me.  Nature never ceases to amaze me!  

When I was a child, I thought as a child and when I became older, I put away my childish ways, or did I?  Life was so simple when all I had to do was play in the dirt and eat wormy Mulberry's from the tree North of the house.  Sunday's always found us in Plevna, Kansas at Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield for Sunday dinner.  We always gathered at the round oak table and there was always room for all of us and we all had a chair.  Grandma Hatfield always cooked the chicken and there was always enough.  It always amazed me how that worked out!  There were never leftovers and no one left hungry.  There was always pie for dessert and the pies were always cut into exactly enough pieces.!  

Grandma Haas was crippled by a stroke and she walked with the help of a walker.  Great Grandma Hatfield took care of her, but still kept her active.  They both wore aprons.  Always.  Get up, get dressed, put on your apron.  I have an apron that I usually wear when I am baking, but other than that, just clothes.  Great Grandma would get a pan of potatoes and a paring knife and hand them to grandma.  It took grandma a while to get the potatoes peeled, but it was her job.  

The parrot, "Polly" would set on its perch and sing "After the ball is over, after the dancers are gone....".  Great grandma would step around the corner and feed Polly a piece of apple, or celery or something.  And the Grandma Hatfield would tell how Polly had come from Brazil and was brought here by an ancient relative who "sailed the seas".  Polly had been featured in the Kansas City Star many years before.  When Grandma Haas passed and Great Grandma Hatfiield moved to Coldwater, Kansas, Polly and her perch went with her.  When we learned of Polly dying, we were all devastated.  An era was over.

Great Grandma Hatfield lived to be 104 years old.  I never seen her again.  When she passed she was returned to Abbyville, Kansas to rest in the family plot there.  I want to return some day and see her grave.  When I have served my time here on earth, I will be interred in Pueblo, Colorado.  Just seems like the place to be.

I love to go "back home".  I love to visit the graves of my forbearers.  It gives me a sense of peace to look back on the road I have traveled. My heart swells with a sense of pride that the ancestors that came before me  forged a living from unyielding earth to make a place that this skinny little, knob kneed creature that lived to become "Lou Mercer" could grow and thrive.

Momma taught me to never forget where I came from and always be proud of my ancestry.  

And I am!

A time for new beginnings?

 A Happy Birthday to me!!  These keep right on coming and the only way to stop them is to die, apparently.  Since I am showing no signs of that, I will just open my cards, answer my phone and say thank you.  I realize birthday is a good time to look back down the cluttered road of my life and remember birthdays before.  Now here is the really sad part, I don't remember them.  There is only one birthday that I can actually focus in on and remember it clearly.  That was my seventh.  

First I want to tell you that over the years I have had husbands, kids, friends, acquaintances, teachers, co- workers, lovers, family and my birthday has never been forgotten.  And every card, letter, phone call or personal visit has meant a lot to me.  I have been covered in flowers delivered by FTD and the aroma still fills my senses.  I love flowers!  I hate it when they have stayed past their prime and I have to throw them out and put the vase some where.  All of these touched me deeply, but the one 73 years ago will travel with me to the streets of gold!

Mother cleaned houses as a side job and one of her clients was a lady named Paralee who was also a cousin to mom.  Paralee was also the neice of Aunt Helen and Uncle Skinny Lang.  Not real sure how all the blood lines worked in here, but I do know that side of the family had money.  That and the fact that Paralee and her husband worked and only had one kid.  On this particular birthday, Paralee wanted to see that I had a birthday party.

I am not sure how many kids from school showed up, but I do know somebody gave me a gift of a cookie cutter.  It was red plastic and the design was Cinderella.  I was ecstatic!  It immediately became my favorite possession.  Now you need to understand that growing up in Nickerson without benefit of running water in a house heated with a wood stove was not exactly the lap of luxury.  Gifts were few and far between and the cookie cutter joined the Chiquita Banana cloth doll that mom had gotten with coupons saved and then stitched  the pieces together by the light of a coal oil lantern.  I slept with the cookie cutter and the cloth doll.  I dreamed of the day when I could make cookies and cut them with my own cookie cutter.  

The dream of the cookies I would make was much like building castles in the air.  Sugar was rationed.  Since the cow had died, butter was non existent.  Store bought "butter" was a one pound block of white grease with an orange pellet that you poked a hole in and then worked it into the white grease so it looked like butter.  World War II left an indelible mark on most of us kids back then.  Our sole source of information was what we picked up listening to the adults.  I know I was too young to understand, but I can remember the jubilation when the war was over and our troops came home.  

Some how all the horror of Auschwitz and the pictures of the emaciated bodies of the Jews still lives in the recesses of my mind.  The stories that came out of that period must never be forgotten.  We must never again turn a blind eye on man inhumanity to man.   

And once more, my mind has turned a corner.  How did I go from a happy 7 year old at her first birthday to Auschwitz?  Could it be that perhaps this is where my passion for lifting the downtrodden  comes from?  I can clearly remember things that I should not remember.  I can hear Roosevelt announcing on the radio "The war is over."  I do not think it was actually him since the war officially ended after his death, but memory is a funny thing.

Momma always said that our mind will remember what our mind wants to remember and momma was right.  I want to remember a red Cinderella cookie cutter and a birthday party that may or may not have actually happened.  So, on my happy birthday to me day, that is what I will remember.  And I will see friends that love and care for me.  By the very act of clinging to life for 80 years, I have earned my stripes!

So Happy Birthday to me!  And rest assured, I am not done yet!  I may be the matriarch, but I am still 7 years old in my mind; an innocent little girl aching to grab the world by it's horns and make it her oyster!

Peace and love!

The potato bug saga.

 It took lo! these many years for me to figure myself out!  Being born into and going up in poverty was not the cause of anything.  It was just the catalyst that propelled me into being the person I am today.  I recall the first nickel I ever made.  I do not remember the man's name, but he lived in a ramshackle house on the corner of the street we walked up to get to "down town."  He had his whole yard planted to potatoes.  The rows were even and ditches clean for water to run down to irrigate his crop.

He was setting on his front porch and wearing the uniform of the day; overalls.  I stopped to look at his potato crop.  It was green and tiny white blossoms topped each plant.  The porch was about 40 feet from where I stood. 

"Whatcha' lookin' at little girl? "

"Just looking at your potatoes.  They sure are pretty."

"Do you want a job?"  

"Sure."

He then came down to where I stood and explained that "potato bugs" were decimating his crop.  (Side note here:  I am sure he did not use the word "decimating"  because I am pretty sure neither he nor I would have used that word, but 70 odd years later it seems to fit.)  He further went on to explain that he would give me a pint jar containing gasoline and I would go through and pick the bugs off and drop them in the jar.  For each jar I filled he would give me a whole nickel.  I ,of course, jumped right on that offer.

The sun was hot as I worked my way down the first row.  The jar took a very long time to show any signs of ever getting full, but I persevered.  I gave no thought of hurrying home because I could only see the reward of the big shiny nickel when the jar was full.  I do not know how many potato bugs I picked that hot afternoon, nor is it important at this late date.  What is important is that about the time I got the jar full my brother showed up.  Momma had sent him to find me.  He went with me to deliver the jar to the man.  He was pleased and gave me my shiny nickel.  I promised I would come the next day to finish the field. 

But when I got home and showed my mother my new nickel, she frowned at me.  "Do you know that old man is not well?  His wife is an invalid.  He has to take care of her.  You march right back over there and give him his money back!  You know better than taking his money."

Mother explained to me that we were put on this earth to help those less fortunate and we were not to do it for rewards except the one reward we  would receive when our time on earth is done.  And I did as I was told.  The old man was dumbfounded when I gave him his nickel and explained that I would come back tomorrow and finish the job.  He took me inside to meet his wife the next day.  She lay almost comatose in a small bed and I do not think she even knew I was there.   I finished the field and never saw the old man again.  I assume he and his wife went to their reward because that is how life works.

The point to this is that any time I come across some one less fortunate then myself, I want to help them.  I do not mean financially, but physically.  I guess that is why I worked so tirelessly during the AIDS epidemic.  That is why I labored for the homeless teenagers.  Not sure they appreciated it, but I knew I was doing the right thing.  Migrant workers hold a place in my heart.  But times have changed and I am becoming one of the vulnerable.  I was going to town up South Road and saw a young woman beside the road with a suitcase and bag containing clothes.  I almost stopped, but I did not.  I know she has a story, but I do not want to be a statistic.  

I do very little charity work any more.  What I do is in a controlled environment and when I finish, I walk away.  My shelf in the closet is where I keep all my treasures and awards.  No one really needs to know where I have been or what I have done.  That is between me and God.

Dreams of being a missionary in Africa were scrapped for the reality of being a wife and mother in Western Kansas.  Visions of opening a mission were traded for the reality sewing sweat bands for migrant workers.  Woulda', coulda', shoulda'.  

My life goes on.

Close enough to perfect for him

 Click here to listen

40 years ago my late husband and I began "living in sin".  He was fresh out of a divorce from his wife of many years which had produced 4 children.  I was fresh out of divorce from my fourth husband.  To say we were both a little "iffy" on whether or not this was a wise move, would be an understatement,  but what the heck.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And those 4 words seemed to be the basis of the whole relationship.

My son was still in high school and my youngest daughter was in middle school.  His wife had kept the house and he had money in his pocket to make a down payment on this house.  He had an end dump and I was working for a construction company that he worked for.  Lot of strings there but we seemed to have a lot in common.  I was freshly out of my second marriage to my fourth husband so with 5 divorces on my resume', he proposed.  I accepted with one stipulation: We would live together  (in sin) for one year.  If we survived that year, we would make it legal.  

Now, I never thought of him as a romantic, but being a local gravel/demolition hauler, he spent a lot of time listening to the radio as he drove up and down the road.  He came home one night to announce that he had heard the perfect song for us.  "Close Enough to Perfect" by Alabama.   The lyrics were what he heard and thought it fit me to a "t".  I was touched. Kenny was such a simple, black and white person that I could not have found a better song!

"Some times her morning coffee's way to strong.  And everything she says, she says all wrong."                She's always there beside me, as only a friend would be.  She's close enough to perfect for me!                      Sometimes she gets down and starts to cry, but then again the lady has a right.                                            She's all I ever hoped for, she's all I'll ever need.  She's close enough to perfect for me!"

Now, I ask you, could any woman hope for more in a life partner?  All my life I had searched for a man who would be my partner.  A man who would care for me just like I was with all my faults and phobias.  He was the first man I ever met that accepted me just like I was with all my imperfections.  And I could trust him.

So one year after moving in with him on December 23, 1983 when the temperature was -15 degrees. we hopped in "Fugi" and drove to Canon City, got a license, found a retired minister in a high rise senior housing and took our vows.  We stopped at the donut shop and had a donut and returned home to live happily ever after until death us did part.

So, good morning world.  I have been living alone now for almost 20 years.  Am I happy?  I am not unhappy.  Am I lonely?  I am alone, but not lonely.  I manage to get through the days and sleep through the nights.  Do I date?  Not really.  That would entail dressing up and actually leaving the house.  I would like to spend more time with my kids and grandkids, but they are back in Kansas or down in Texas and I have a neurotic cat that hides when anyone comes.

Mother always said memories are better than the actual living, because we can remember things the way we want.  So, from my perfect world, to your perfect world...

Peace!

Idle hands are the devil's workshop!

Momma said it.  It was reinforced by Grandma Haas and drilled to the depths of my tiny brain by Great Grandma Hatfield.  When I lived with the grandmas my Freshman year of High School, I spent every night sitting with them around the old oak table.  It was there I learned to crochet and read the Bible.  The telephone hung from the wall by the front door.  It was a big brown box with a receiver that you held to your ear and a tube that you spoke into which was transmitted to the wire (I assume) which went to someone else's phone.  To call someone you picked up the receiver and placed it to your ear and turned the crank to get the operator.  

 

The operator would say "Number please?"  You would say the number or the name of who you wanted.  She would then pull the line from your number and plug it into the number you were calling.  Now first I used the pronoun "she"  which is not permissible in this day and age, but back then telephone operators were women.  It was not man's work.  That is just how it was.  I always dreamed of being a telephone operator when I got old enough to work, but I decided to be a barmaid instead.  

Very little time was spent on the phone.  It was a tool.  Usually when the phone rang it was for emergency contact for one reason or the other.  Good reasons, not just passing the time of day.  Or to enquire as to one of the grandma's health.  I was 15 and healthy so no one needed to check on me.

Another thing about the telephones back then was that most people were on a "party line".  Back then a party line meant there were several phones on the same circuit and if you wanted to "listen in" all you had to do was pick up the phone very quietly and hold your hand over the mouth piece and you could be privvy to who ever was talking.  We were not supposed to do it and it would get you a "lickin" if momma found out which she always did!  (To clarify the word "lickin' ", it means spanking.)

But as for the eaves dropping, that is how my mother found out my older sister was pregnant by an older man in town who she was sneaking around with.  The operator listened in on a conversation between my sister and the scoundrel!  She then felt it her duty to report the situation to my mother and anyone else that would listen.  Talk about gossip!  And Mrs. Humphrey almost lost her job.  Almost, because no one else wanted to do her job so she was allowed to stay at the switchboard  and no doubt it was not the last conversation she was privy to either!  

Now how I made the leap from sitting around crocheting and reading the Bible in the evening is beyond me, but here we are!  I guess the fact that I can not sit quietly and meditate goes back to that old oak table, the family Bible and the telephone that was for emergencies only.  We also used to pay for long distance, but that is all gone by the wayside.  We are never out of range of our loved ones no matter where we are.  I can pick up my phone and punch in a few numbers and reach Dona who is out in the chicken coop 200 miles away.  Or I can call Debbie or Patty who are 400 miles away.  Debbie will be feeding something to some body or be lining the grandkids out for the day.  Patty will be on her way to some where with the phone in the car.  Neither call costs anything.  Connections are clear.  

As for my idle hands, they are usually up here on this computer listing on ebay or etsy, or writing something to clear my mind of some obstacle that life has put in my path.  But at 3:00 in the afternoon I turn on Jeopardy! and my little eyelids droop and it is nap time.  And to clarify you need to know this: nap time and  bedtime are two different things.  Nap time I close my eyes and doze off and usually wake up to the closing theme music of Jeopardy.  I do not dream during the show, but my mind takes in the information.

Bedtime usually occurs about 8:00 or so.  I put on my jammies, turn out the lights, crawl into bed, pet the cat and slowly drift off to dreamland.  Usually my dreams are pretty mundane, but sometimes I fight the demons of the day all night long.  Those are the mornings, when I wake up at 3:00 am and get up come in here and write.  I compose beautiful poems and write brilliantly as long as I do not leave the bed or turn on the light, but morning always comes.....

maybe.

The center of home and family.

 The first time my mother came to this house is clear in my memory.  This table was new at the time and I had not bought the china cabinet, but the memory is clear.  I had picked her up in La Junta and brought her for her first visit to Colorado.  Mother never liked to drive and so the train was her mode of transportation.  She boarded in Hutchinson and arrived at La Junta.  That is where the train turns and heads south as I understand it.  Why it does not come to Pueblo is beyond me, but I was not in on the planning of the route.  This may all change some day, but I sadly fear I will not see that although I did work on getting a line to connect Pueblo and Denver.  Some where in that one is a "switch" to connect La Junta and Pueblo and then north to Denver.  That is all moot. 

She set at this table and we had a glass of tea.  As she set there she remembered many tables like this in her life time.  As far back as I can remember there has always been a round oak table.  Oak used to be a cheap wood and perfect for making a round table.  I am sure there are square ones, but not in my memory.  A coal oil lamp was in the center, perched on a crocheted doily.  

When I lived with the grandma's in Plevna, the round oak table was covered by a hand crocheted table cloth and in the center was a ruffled doily that held a coal oil lamp.  It was at that table that I learned to crochet the ruffled doily that held the coal oil lamp.

I think when we left Nickerson, she left the oak table behind because it was heavy and awkward and she wanted one of the new Formica ones that did not require oil to keep its luster. 

As she stretched her arms to feel the smoothness of the oak surface, I could see her mind going back to her childhood.  "This is where the family always came together.  After work they ate together.  Decisions were made at this table.  Home work was done by the light of a coal oil lamp.  We mourned at this table when a soul passed.  We celebrated a birth, or a wedding at this table.  It was the center of our life.  Promises were made and promises were broken at this table.  It was the center of life."

Mother was right.  It was at a round oak table in Nickerson that I did my homework.  Every meal was eaten at that table.  Home made ice cream was eaten at that table.  It was at that table that we learned of deaths, births, weddings and everything else that transpired.  It was in the center of the center room of our home.  It was the center of the home.

                                                                                                              

When you come to my house, we will have coffee or tea at this table.  When we eat, we eat at this table.  My correspondence is written at this table and bills are paid at this table.  I have a kitchen counter and stools at the counter, but I never use them.  They are to hold "stuff".  The stools set by the back window to make room for the table that holds 2 heavy duty mixers.

  When I picture my mother, it is at this table.  When I remember the grandmothers, it is at their table.  Sadly when I am gone, this table will be sold at auction.  I do hope that it can go to a home where it can create memories for another family, but I have no faith in that.  I expect it will go to an antique shop and someone will take it home to add to their collection of antiques, but that is out of my grasp, isn't it?

For now, I shall use it as I have always used it and when I am done, it will become an item# on a list some where with no connection or memory of Kenny and Lou.  A "fine oak table with 4 matching chairs and 2 chairs in need of repair."  There will be no mention of the laughter, love and tears shared at the table.  No mention of the dreams conceived in the early morning hours or the frustrations voiced in the waning hours of the day.

Just an old oak table.

At the base of the porcelain god...

I have not had a drop of alcohol in many years.  It holds no siren call to me.  I drink water and if I am feeling the need for libation of any kind, tea will do.  Occasionally I do crave a soda pop, but even that is very rarely.  So, that having been said, why did I wake up at 4:25 AM remembering the siren call of alcohol?  Why were my first thoughts this morning a memory of waking up in a dry bathtub, fully clothed and covered in vomit from the night before?  How many years ago was that?!?  Apparently, the fun I had transitioning from teenager to young adulthood is a memory I shall never live long enough to neither clearly remember or forget.  

When I was 16 I wanted to be a missionary and save the souls of naked natives in Africa, but by the time I reached 18 I had changed my goal from saving souls to drinking the brewery dry.  I had a friend whose dad made home brew and she and I relieved him of a lot of his product when he was not looking.  I think he blamed it on his wife, but it is a little late now to apologize for that little fiasco.

I remember very little of my Junior year in high school and even less of the Senior year.  I showed up for class pictures and ordered my class ring (which I promptly lost) and that was about it.

Now, there were boys who subscribed to the theory that "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  Those little fellows never reckoned with me, did they?  Beer made me mean and hard liquor made me meaner.  Of course, either one was going to make me throw up!  Nothing turns a guy off like some broad barfing  which was the one thing that got me through my high school years with my virtue intact.  The last time I was drunk was when my brother came home from the Army and he bought a fifth of rot gut whiskey for three dollars and some change.  We washed that down with red Koolaid.  And the rest is history.  I threw up for 3 days and swore off liquor for the rest of my life.  Red Koolaid is never found in my house.  And I am pretty much  still abstinent.  Lips of wine will never touch mine!

So let's get back to the subject.  Why, all these years later, are the memories of booze so clear in my mind?  I can not remember what I got in the car and drove to the store to purchase, but I can remember how drunk and sick I was lo' those many years ago.  Now I suppose a psychologist would say I was secretly wanting a drink, but I am pretty sure that is not it, because I could drive to the liquor store which is one mile away and buy a bottle if I chose.  But, no, I drink tea.  And water.  Sometimes chocolate milk.  And of course, coffee.

So, it is now 5:30 AM and I am winding up this entry.  I will have another cup of coffee and get ready to start my day.  Not sure what today will bring, but I am sure I will be stone assed sober for whatever it is that happens.  There are things in my life that are "givens".  That means "it goes without saying."  I will not drink liquor today.  No red Koolaid either. No cooked apples.  For the most part, my life is good.  I miss my kids, but so be it.  Some day!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

40 years and counting!

 I woke up this morning, stretched and began thinking.  I have been in this house at this address for 40 years.  That is half of my life!  How sad that we live our lives one day at a time and then one day realize that what we see in the rear view mirror is our life slipping away!  

What happened to that little skinny girl on Strong Street who wanted to be a missionary?  When did the dreams of working with the natives in Africa and teaching them about taking care of each other and learning about Jesus Christ turn into having a baby every year?  How did I become a mother and grandmother in the twinkling of an eye?  When did I actually set my course on Colorado and watch Kansas recede in my rear view mirror?

There were six of us kids growing up.  Now there is just Donna and I.  I think back to family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins.  I used to have grandmas and all that.  Sadly even my friend list is dwindling.  Slowly, slowly and one by one, my friends are slipping from sight.  Family?  What is family and where is family?  I have 2 kids in Pueblo, 1 in Texas and 3 in Kansas.  Friends?  Probably the friends I had back in Kansas are mostly pushing up daisies!  Evelyn is still there.  Vi moved to Missouri and I never hear from her any more so who knows.  Last time we talked she waved the trump banner in front of my liberal face and laughed.  Fatal mistake.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, the fact that I have spent more years in this house then anywhere else in the whole world!  When mother was alive she used to send me the obituaries of people I had known.  I dutifully dropped them into a desk drawer.  Then I bundled them up and moved them to a bigger drawer.  Then the drawer was emptied into a cardboard box and put on a shelf in the closet.  The pile continues to grow and my memory is beginning to fade.  Names that were at one time so very important to me are now just words on a piece of yellowed paper.  The heart that used to hurt when I thought of my losses is now numb.

Soon I will take Kenneth to Imperial and have him interred under his stone.  Anthony and Annie are resting on my dresser.  Soon I will take them to their new home.  Then I will wait for my turn.  To everything there is a season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up.  A time to laugh and a time to cry.  A time to live and a time to die.  

Right now it is time to let the geese out.  The sun comes up and the sun goes down and I will put one foot in front of the other because that is what we as humans are designed to do.  Sometimes some of God's children get impatient and try to rewrite the rules.  That never would work for me.

Guess I am just old school.

I have no waist.

This is nothing new.  When I weighed 98 pounds, I had a 29 inch waist.  Since then I have gained 40 pounds and my waist is 36 inches.  An hour glass figure was always something I longed for, but never achieved back in my younger days.  Mother was always the practical one.  She dismissed it as "So?" That did not seem to help much.

As I inch my way toward being an "octogenarian", I think I have finally come to grips with the fact that it really doesn't matter anymore.  Back in high school it seemed to matter.  Barbara was 36-24-36.  The rest of the girls were similar, but found it amusing that I was 32-29-34.  While they weighed in at higher numbers, I tipped the scales at 89 pounds. The boys found them fascinating; they found me strange.  The "in girls" tittered when the boys entered our realm.  While the girls seemed to accept me as I was, the boys were looking for boobs.

Irene had huge ones so she was a real hit.  Martha found boys stupid and she would rather play the piano.  I found boys strange creatures.  Then there was that the phenomenon of the changing voice that boys had to contend with that proved embarrassing to them!  One would be talking in a normal voice and then out would come a word in his little boy voice.  We would always laugh, but I am sure it was hard on them as the "tiny boobs" thing was to me.  Kids are cruel.

I started my high school years living with my grandmother and great grandmother, so by the time I got back to Nickerson, I entered high school as a Sophomore.  My class mates from grade school had new friends and I was the outsider.   We had a larger curriculum, and the teachers expected us to actually do our home work AND turn it in at the end of class or beginning if it was something we did at night.  I had a Speech class and it was always torture for me to stand in front of a room full of people and "defend my viewpoint" on one subject or another.  Algebra was like a foreign concept.  History was boring.  Chemistry was an accident waiting to happen in a beaker on my table.  So I started skipping class in my Junior year and by my Senior year I was a secret drinker.  I never graduated.  I did, later in life get my GED and went to Business College where I graduated Magna cum laude which helped not one iota in the restaurant business since I was a cook or waitress and not the owner.

I have 5 kids and my body has changed, but the hour glass figure that I so longed for is still not a reality.  I have developed a personality of sorts so, that is good.  At least I have friends.

So I guess the moral of this blog is "God don't make junk!"  It is not what is on the outside that matters.  He will judge me by the content of my heart and the deeds I have done.

I sure hope that is how it happens, cause life sure does get tediuos!

A poem that should be written.

 I woke up this morning with the remnants of a poem in my mind.  I think it has already been written, but I can not find it nor recall the words.  It has been in my mind as long as I can remember, so if it rings a bell with anyone, let me know.  To me it has always been the epitome of the way a perfect relationship should be.  

I do not want to walk ahead of  you, because you may not follow.

I do not want to walk behind you, because I may not follow.

I want to walk beside you,  beneath your arm where I am protected and near your heart  where I am loved.

Country music singers and song writers have been writing the perfect love songs for as long as I can remember.  Garth Brooks and his "The Dance" pretty well sums up the loving and losing.  And then there is this by John Michael Montgomery click here.  Growing up in Nickerson was conducive to wanting a better life.  And along with the better life was always the thought of a perfect husband.  We all know how that went!  A husband should never be a "destination" in life.  I always pictured a husband  as an equal partner.  

When I embarked on my first marriage I was full of hope.  I think he was also, but hope for what I was never sure.  I wanted security and a man to love and fulfill me.  That did not end up well for me, but I chalked it up to a life lesson and moved on.  By the time I reached Colorado my kids were pretty well on the paths they would take and I was pretty well set in my ways.  When Kenny and I married it was clear that we were soon to be entering into the sunset of our lives.  We would grow old, retire and die.  One of us succeeded in that, but one of us did not.

So here I set.  Kenny has been gone 20 years.  I have had a couple male friends, but nothing romantic.  It seems that my place in their lives was to help them cross the bar.  I know I did it right with Sherman, because I saw the look of contentment on his face when he took his final breathe.  The other was different.  I know I held a special place and I was very sad when it was over, but I do so hope that he found the peace he sought.  

So anyway.  This is not a good way to start the day, but it is what it is.  I shall put one foot in front of the other and follow where life leads me.  Maybe it will be a good day.  I can always hope!

Peace and sunshine and if that poem up there strikes a chord and you remember seeing it some where, hit me up!

The road not taken.

 As I recall Robert Frost wrote something like this, "Two roads converged in the yellow woods and I took the one less traveled and it made all the difference."  I think that is pretty close.  But if you stop and think about his poem, it pretty well mirrors our lives, at least mine.

When I left high school for the real world, I was dating a boy named Gene.  He joined the Army and I pledged to wait for him.  Of course I did not.  He sent me a silk pillow from Germany, but by the time it arrived, I was married to my first husband.  After 10 years I returned to Hutchinson and several years later I was given the opportunity to host a television segment in eastern Kansas. Not wanting to uproot myself and my little family  I opted out of that move.  So all these years later here I set in Pueblo, Colorado.   I am not sure how it happened, but 40 odd years slipped away from me and left me here an old woman with kids that live some where else and a 2400 square foot home on an acre of ground to amuse myself with by trying to keep the weeds from taking the place. 

I do sometimes think back to the road I did not take and wonder where I would be had I married Gene when he came home.  Would we have lived happily ever after?  I rather doubt it.  I did not really know much about him except that he lived in the south part of town with his mother and sister.  I close my eyes and try to picture him and I come up blank.  I think he had brown eyes and I know he had a buzz cut because he was in the Army.  I always wanted to marry a sailor so I do not know how I ended up with a soldier.  Guess he was the one who asked me!   Duane Seeger came into my life as a friend of my brother Jake's.  And three weeks after I was introduced to him, we were in front of the minister at the Presbyterian church down on Sherman Street.  But then I did not end up with him, did I?  No, my last husband was  Marine.  

I do like my life because I do not have a lot of roads to choose to take.  I am here.  I am settled and I am too old to want a lot of changes.  Occasionally I think of uprooting and moving back to Hutchinson, or Nickerson, but having to do the actual selling and uprooting is just more than I am able to fathom.  

I like to think I have aged gracefully, but I am not sure that is exactly how it happened!  What I think is that I married Kenny and he gave me my first real home.  So, I took root.  When I lost him 20 years later, I still had kids at home.  That gave me a reason to stay put.  I began doing charity work and then the kids grew up and soon the last one was in love and moving out and here I set.  I do look back at the roads that brought me to this little acre out here on the Mesa and wonder if I could go back, would I do anything different?

I think not.  I think I may actually be turning into a recluse.  I am invited out to eat, because that is the one thing we all do for sure, but I rarely go.  It is just easier to get up in the morning and slip into something comfy and try to figure out what I should do today.  One day turns into another and before I know it, I am off to church again, and then it starts the whole thing again.  Sometimes the tedium is broken by the need to buy goose food, or replenish my own supply of whatever it is I am eating this week.

For several years I volunteered at hospice and I think about returning to that venue, but I do not drive at night and people tend to want to die at night, so that is pretty well out the door.  I do have a grandbaby a couple days out of the month which definitely breaks the monotony of my solitary existence.  And sometimes I go to lunch with a lady friend.  Even went shopping one time with Kay.  But other than that, the sun comes up, I sleep through Jeopardy!, the sun goes down and then I go to bed.

So when it comes to taking another road, that is pretty much a moot point!  I am doing very well staying on the path I am on at this time!  So, Mr. Robert Frost, I wonder what you decided?  If you had it to do all over again, would you?  Would I?  Would anyone?

I recall a conversation with my mother once and it went like this:

"Why does she put up with his bullshit?  Why doesn't she just leave?"  And mother, in her infinite wisdom said this....  "It is like setting in a pile of warm shit.  As long as you are in it, you are warm, but if you try to move out of it you find it is cold and smelly as you move away.  So it is just easier to set there and not move."

So, I think whatever road I took, it still would have brought me here!  Been a lot of twists and turns, and bumps and tumbles, but I am here, I am warm, and I am not leaving!

Red Carpet Restaurant way back when.

I worked at the Red Carpet shortly after I arrived bag and baggage with my kids on my mothers door step.  I had no experience at much of anything except having babies and being a punching bag for some man.  I had 2 jobs at the time.  One was washing dishes in the middle of the night at the Blue Grill and the other was waiting tables at Skaets Steak Shop evenings.  Neither paid enough to live on and pay a baby sitter so when I saw the ad that Bob Bailey would train someone to cook, I was all over that.  

I took my 97 pound self down to 13th and Main and he and I came to a consensus that I needed a job and he needed someone to do things his way.  A match made in heaven began and I began my life as a short order cook working evenings.  Soon I was adding skills such as baking bread, then baking wedding cakes and then decorating wedding cakes.  Next came meat cutting.  Then the morning cook quit and I moved into her position.  It paid better.  I made all the gravies, sauces and such as well as specials such as chicken and noodles with noodles made fresh.  I was in my element.  But this is not about me, it is about a lady who worked as the salad "girl" and it is about domestic violence.

I will not use her name.  She was a very timid woman and always on time for work and left reluctantly when her shift was over.  She rarely smiled and seldom had anything to say.  I will call her "Nadine".  Nadine had a husband and 3 daughters ranging from 12 to seventeen.  Since we worked side by side and we had lulls in the work we talked a little.  She was married to a construction worker.  Big, handsome man who brought her to work and picked her up after.  

I began to notice that she sometimes had bruises on her arms and once a black eye.  She explained that she had "fallen"  or pulled a pan down on her head, or some other "accident."  I also caught the smell of alcohol a time or two.  Oh, that was her mouthwash that smelled like alcohol.  She had tripped and fallen.  Always something that was her own fault.

I had been to her home a time or two when I was just passing by and stopped.  Her husband was always home and he was always charming.  Nadine was like a little mouse around him.  I never dreamed what her life was really like, but I would soon learn.

One morning she came in looking like the wrath of God.  She was very subdued and her right arm hung like it was not part of her body.  I finally called her husband and he came and picked her up and took her to the emergency room.  Her arm was broken!  How had that happened?  She said she had fallen on the concrete porch that morning on her way to the truck to come to work.  

Since she could not work, she did not come in the restaurant.  I did drive out to see her, but she was always subdued and her husband was always home.  I do not know when he actually worked, but she said he did.  Several weeks went by before I got back to see her.  This time when I arrived she was in a bed in the front room unable to speak.  Her husband explained that she had suffered a stroke.  I figured he should know.

It was not until her daughter showed up on my doorstep one evening that I learned the dirty little secret that she had hidden so long.  She told me her dad had beaten her mother and that was why her arm was broken.  She said it had been going on for years and the last beating had given her a brain injury and she could not talk any more.  The daughter was afraid of her dad and afraid for herself and her sisters.  Now, I am no stranger to domestic violence, but this was a whole new level and I was at a loss for an action to take because the daughter was afraid to go to the police because they would "not beleive her".  She was right!

That is how it was back in those days.  A man could beat his horse, his dog, or his wife.  He could beat his kids and that was just how it was.  I am glad to see that things have changed and women are now actually humans with feelings, but that was then and this is now!

To wind this up, Nadine died in her bed shortly after her daughter had come to see me.  There was no funeral.  Her life was sad and her husband pretty well got away with murder.  If I could go back to that time in my life, would I do things differently?  I doubt it.  Until the laws were changed and women were no longer chattel there was nothing that could be done.  If  Nadine had presented herself battered and bleeding to the police station, maybe she could have been saved, but she "loved him" and did not want him to get in trouble.  So ends the tale.

I worked at the Red Carpet for 5 years leaving there when I opened my own restaurant and then moving to Colorado.  My Red Carpet experience gave me the skills I needed to survive on my own out here in Pueblo.  Nadine gave me the strength to leave an abusive marriage.  We all learn little lessons as we traverse this path called "life".  I like to think that my life in Kansas made me the empathetic woman that I am today.  

My late husband knew what my life had been back then, because I told him.  It made him sad, but then my mother explained it to him this way:  "We are all a product of where we have been and what we have done before.  What does not kill you will make you strong and that is what makes Louella who she is today."  

And that is how it goes here in my world.  I thank God every day that I came to Colorado and that my God allowed me to survive to be in my little house with no broken bones and memories of only the good times.

Everything in its time and place!

It was all woman's work!

 I have been over the hill and on the downward slide for many years now and I have learned many things.  The first lesson as a bride at the tender age of 19 was that a woman's job was cooking, cleaning, and figuring out how to budget with no money, because the paycheck never made it past the bar where it was cashed. My first husband was a tree trimmer and as such there were no fringe benefits and of course no insurance of any kind.  No job security because it was also his job to knock on doors and convince the homeowner that their trees needed his expert care and their car payment could wait.  He was good at his job!

It was also known that as "man of the house" he was the only one who knew what the finances were and he would take me to the grocery store and pay for what he thought we needed to survive. This same thought process carried over into the bedroom where birth control was unheard of because after all, his mom had 12 babies.  OK.  Enough said about that!

We were married for 10 years and the first two years were spent with him pointing out to me that I was barren and he wanted a baby.  That was all he wanted, a baby.  Well, actually a son.  He wanted a son.  I was sent to every doctor who had room for another patient and came home with the same verdict, "No reason why you can not get pregnant."  One doctor even hinted that perhaps my husband was sterile and he would like to test his sperm.  That went over like a proverbial "turd in a punch bowl.   So, I gave up.  Bad mistake!  I immediately got pregnant!

 Nine months later I had a daughter.  He had clearly told me he wanted a son and I had ignored him!  Ticked him off royally.  Now, you should know that back in those days, men were not allowed in the delivery room so the best thing to do was drop the old gal off at the front door of the hospital and then call later to see if the wife was still alive and had she had that kid yet.  And most importantly, when could I come home as there were chores needing my attention!  So much for love.

A year and a half later I had a daughter.  

A year  and one month later I had a daughter.

11 months later he finally got a son.  HE.  Not me.  HIM.  Finally I had gotten it through my thick head that he wanted a son.  Silly me!

If I had thought that having a son gave me any status in his eyes, you are sadly mistaken.  Having a son was not all it was cracked up to be because the little boy needed diapers changed and he needed fed with a tiny spoon and a bath and all that was in addition to the needs of the first 3 girls.  So the care of 4 children the oldest of which was 5 years old fell squarely on my shoulders.  He was an "old school" father and his dad never touched him, so he never touched his kids.  I have one picture of him holding Debbie and talk about a man looking out of place!

The marriage survived for ten years total.  There was one more baby, another girl.  Upon divorcing, I got the kids.  He did not pay child support because his reasoning mind said "You have the kids.  I have nothing.  Why should I pay you?  You should pay me!"  And in my co-dependent mind, that all made sense.

Sadly, death called him early.  He was only 50 years old.  I left Kansas in 1973 and have been in Colorado now for over 50 years.  This is my home.  I think sometimes about moving back.  Where is "back"?  Would it be Nickerson where I grew up?  Hutchinson where most of my kids were born?  Or Garden City where they were toddlers and we lived in furnished apartments and drove a car we bought for $35 off a car lot on a side street? 

I look out every morning through my east facing window and think about Kansas.  I see the sun shining brightly and think of "home."  And then in the evening I see the same sun setting across the Rocky Mountains and I smile.  This is home.  This has been home for 50 years and I am sure when God reaches down and pulls the curtain closed on my life he will lift me up, up, up and I will look down at the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and I will know where my home was, is and will forever be!

Always know that when God closes a door, he opens a window!

Peace....

The last thing at night.

 I see him the last thing every night and the first thing every morning.  He is on my dresser smiling the big smile I loved so much.  He has on his sun glasses because his eyes were sensitive.  He had migraine headaches and they helped him during the daylight hours.    When I wake up I come out to the office and he is smiling that same smile at me from my computer screen.  I speak of him now in the past tense.  There is no present tense when it comes to him.  

I have quit waiting for him to call.  I have quit reaching for the phone to call him.  I do not put 2 cookies in a bag for him.  So much has changed in the last four months and they have been the hardest months of my life.  I have seen and done a lot in my life, but never have I been through anything that has so completely made me question whether life is worth living as this.

This covid crap has not helped.  I have been forced into isolation at a time when four walls are not what I need, but it is my reality.  The one thing this has shown me is that I have friends who love me and care about me.  I have friends I have never met!  Once I received a simple bouquet of flowers from someone I worked with long ago.  There was a phone call from a friend from Garden City that I had forgotten.  A lady brought me some "healing soup" and left it on the porch.  There was a gift of 4 Red Big Chief tablets for me to write my thoughts in.  And so many thoughts coming my way!

Most of my friends have no idea what happened and only know that I am hurting and reach out to let me know they are here for me. They only know that they want to share my pain.  I appreciate everyone of these gestures.  I will survive.  I may not want to, but I will!

My daughter in Longton, Kansas, always said "What don't kill you will make you strong!"  And she is right.  Some day I may need to look some one in the eye and say "I know what you are going through."  When that day comes I will remember what I went through.  I am growing stronger every day .

I am sure of one thing, if the Lord brought me to it; he will bring me through it.  My church was not there for me when I needed it most, but God was.  I could bury my face in the folds of his blood stained robe and he held me when I cried.  

I will be alright.  I make strides every day.  I can say his name without crying.  I can laugh at his little idiosyncrasies that made him so unique.   

And that, my dear friends, is because of all of you!

Bell bottom trousers, coats of Navy blue.....

My Anthony was a sailor.  Ah, but that was many years ago before Viet Nam. I have his wool top of his uniform and if I can find a camera I will post a picture of it.  Not of him, because I do not have him any more, but I do have his scatchy wool top and his green denim flak jacket. And playing through my mind is this little ditty:

"Bell bottom trousers, coats of navy blue, He'll climb the riggin' like his daddy used to do!  If you have a daughter, bounce her on your knee, but if you have a son send that "fella" out to sea!"

He was on the USS Proteus which was a sub tender.  That meant it was his job to make sure the submarines were all in tip top shape.  He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and that was a long time after the bombing there.  His time ran out just as Vietnam was becoming a way of life and he did not "reup".  I am glad he did not because Vietnam was not pretty and he would not have become the man he was had he gone there.

I have tried to think what it would be like to be submerged beneath the ocean for days or weeks on end and being the claustrophobic that I am, I can not even imagine life beneath the waves.  Anthony and all his shipmates had to be a special kind of person.  I think Irene told me that their father was also in the navy.  I think it takes a special kind of person to join the Navy.  

My father was in World War I.  He had a scar on his upper arm where a horse had bitten him.  He was in the cavalry apparently.  His sons were in World War II as I recall.  Richard was in the Navy, Gene was Army, and not sure if Earl was in at all.  There seems to be some sort of code they all follow, something I never understood.  Jake was Army and was in Germany, but it was peace time. Kenneth was Marine and he was in Korea.

There is one thing I know and that is when a man came home from the service, they were always clean shaven.  They kept their shoes polished and always seemed to be alert to their surroundings.  My son was in ROTC when he was in high school and I still keep the little awards he received.  I am glad he did not go into the service because I like him just the way he is!

Anthony was younger than me, but that never seemed to bother either one of us. I remember when I was in high school and how I lusted after the sailors in their little tight white pants before I was even old enough to know what lust was.  To think I had to wait 50 years to finally get my sailor is kind of sad,  but it was worth the wait!  Anthony stood straighter then most men.  He rarely got rattled and he understood my sense of humor.  Few men can measure up to my expectations, but he did.  He has only been gone for three months, but it seems like forever.

He was only in my life for a few years, but he has left a mark on my soul like no other man before him.  It is as if time has stopped and the world is standing still.  

I wonder if I will ever awaken from this dream?

Ragged 'n Ripe Peaches and Momma!

It did not happen often but it was always wonderful.  We watched the peach tree and waited for the peaches to drop.  It was only in the house at 709 North Strong Street that we had a peach tree.  Peaches have always been my favorite fruit.  A big, juicy dark red apple with four points on the bottom was always nice, but a rarity at our house.  Sometimes some one in town would have a plethora of apples and we would be sent to harvest the leftovers on the ground beneath the tree.  These were sorted, worms removed and the harvest made into apple butter or apple sauce which was basically the same thing.  Jars of apple sauce lined the shelves down in the root cellar.  Fried apples appeared regularly for supper, or dinner.  Chopped apples swam in oatmeal. To this day I do not eat an apple unless it is a dark red one with 4 points on the bottom and it is raw.

Pears are actually my favorite fruit, but I do not recall having them as a child.  Once when Duane and I were living in Liberal a man in the neighborhood came and told me I could harvest the pears on his big pear tree.  He furnished a ladder and I climbed up the tree and managed to harvest a big bushel basket.  Of course the kids were eating them almost as fast as I picked them, but I persevered and home we went.  I do not recall where the jars came from nor the rings and lids, but I did can them and processed them.  Sadly, the kids did not like them from the jar and when we moved the jars were left behind.  I assume some one did something with them.

Bananas were a rarity at the store, so pears, apples and peaches were what I grew up eating as far as fruit went.  Unless you want to count the Currants and wormy Mulberries. Oh, wait!  Every Christmas we each got an orange.  That was special only because it came once a year and beneath it was my Big Chief tablet and a brand new pencil.

However, my fondest memory in the whole world was when Momma turned the sign in the front window and the iceman would leave extra ice.  I knew what would happen next!  On the day the extra ice was left down in the root cellar, Momma would dig out the ice cream freezer.  It was washed and dried and assembled on the floor in the kitchen.  A can of "Ragged Ripe Peaches" would appear on the table.  Rudolph Reinke would appear with a jar of heavy cream.  The ice block would be brought up and Jake would use the ice pick to chip the ice so it would fit in the space between the metal bucket holding the elixir and the wooden outside.  Making ice cream was a family affair and probably the only time we could all refrain from fighting.  Momma cooked the ice cream until it thickened a bit and than poured it into the metal can.

Now,  after we had taken turns on the crank and it was getting hard to turn, the crank was taken off and the lid removed.  Momma had drained the Ragged n Ripe peaches and used the syrup to sweeten the ice cream.  The peaches were added to the mix and the lid returned until it would turn no more.  The crank was removed and the tub and ice cream was covered with a heavy wool quilt and left to "ripen".  

We were told to go outside and play.  Of course that did not happen because we knew that at some point momma would remove the quilt and pull the paddle out.  Of course there was always a fight over whose turn it was to "lick the paddle".  That was solved by each one of us taking a turn.  But the glorious part was when all the licking was over, supper eaten, and the baby in bed, momma brought out the "Ice cream bowls."  As I recall they were glass and were a rather amber color with raised flowers of some sort.  Today I recognize them as "Depression Glass" and they are rather pricey to buy, but then they were plain ice cream dishes. 

When we each had our bowl we were given the coup de gras (or something like that), which was a saltine cracker.  You heard me, a plain saltine cracker.  The saltiness of the cracker and the sweetness of the ice cream combined to make the best memory in the world to this skinny little girl from Nickerson, Kansas.  I will never think of my mother with out the taste of homemade peach ice cream.  

Over the course of the years on Strong Street, the peach tree became infested with bores.  The tree died, mother went to business school and got a job in Hutchinson, Kansas at some investment company.  Life was never the same after that.  We had running water and electricity and a car.  All the finery's life had to offer.  

I have three ice cream makers down stairs and before Covid became a part of our lives, I used to make ice cream at our church and have an open house.  The church wanted to make it a fund raiser, but I was just searching for a link back to my past. Life is sure funny, isn't it?  Peach ice cream was not a big hit at the ice cream socials and that kind of makes me sad.  

Ice Cream comes from the store and is in a box.   I do not think they even make peach ice cream, but I can taste it just like I was setting on the porch on Strong Street and mother was inside with dad.  I can see my sisters and brother and when I look into their eyes, I know the meaning of complete bliss!  

Nothing will ever take away my memories!    

Segregation is still alive and well in spite of it all.

 I just watched a segment on television about an old theater in some place down south.  Might have been Birmingham, Alabama.  There are two important facts here.  #1 is I am actually paying attention to the television and we are still having segregation problems and it is not just down south that it is happening.  

They were showing the history of the theater and explaining how it had been used as a headquarters for Ku Klux Klan meetings.  They gave the history to explain why the theater was the prime place for a museum to replace the KKK.  I am old enough that I can remember back when "night riders" interacted with black people in such a way that occasionally the black person would not return home in the same condition they left in.  This was acceptable behavior back when I was a kid growing up in Nickerson, Kansas.  I expect that the city of Nickerson could build their own museum, but not thinking they are going to do that!

I have very vague memories of my mom and dad having hushed conversations, before he would leave the house for an unknown destination.  When we got up the next morning for school he would still be asleep.  Hindsight is such a much better vision then living in the present!  We would hear hushed conversations in the school yard that abruptly ceased when we came near.  Guess this was something only the older kids were privy to.  

There were no Mexicans in our town.  No blacks.  There was a family that lived in the boxcar down on the curve that we suspected were maybe Indians.  We learned later that the word was "Indeginous", but then they were Indians and they kept to themselves.  There was a father, mother and 3 daughters.  Once I went to their house out of curiosity.  The house was very neat and the mother did not talk at all.  The father just glared.  I never did that again!

After they had been there for what seemed like a long time, Eveline was allowed to attend school.  Granted, no one played with her, but by then we were out of the "playing" stage and into the "trying to learn something that would be meaningful in our future."  Mostly, that involved cooking or baking, or cleaning house.  Eveline did come to my home a time or two, but mother was quick to point out that she had "very long fingernails and God only knew where they had been" so we must never touch anything she had touched!    

I am happy to report that later in her life my, mother actually acknowledged that there were people in this  world who were not lily white like us.  There were things like gay people, Mexicans, and black people!  We further learned that they were human and as such deserved the same treatment as our white friends.  Now in all fairness, I have not been a citizen of Nickerson for over 65 years, but you should know that when I last cruised the streets I did not see anything but white, anglo saxon, protestants.  Sadly something else I did not see, was any new buildings or thriving businesses.  There were a couple run down looking trailer parks and lots of abandoned buildings up on Main Street.  Nickerson seemed to be a step back in time.  What does that tell you?

As for my life, I think I have come a long way.  I have had the pleasure of being grandmother and/or great grandmother to several mixed grand children both half black, half Indian, and a couple not sure of paternity.  Does this make me anything different than I was when I was a snot nosed kid in Nickerson?  I think not.

I wish the people who work so hard for a good life could have crossed my path way back when.  There is a song I used to sing in camp and never really knew what it stood for.  Let me just sing you a couple bars:

"Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world!  Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in his sight! Jesus loves the children of the world!"

I hope I can remember that no matter where I wander and no matter where I roam, or who I meet in my life journeys that we are all children of God and as such are blessed by his goodness and help me to love my brother as myself.  And with that ,  I wish you all peace!

 

Dreams never really die, do they?

 My first memories of Christmas include waking up and running in to the dining room table where Santa had left our gifts.  There was the usual panties and socks.  And then a ball and an orange.  There was also some sort of candy; not much, but something.  Mostly we got a chocolate thing that was about an inch high and inside it was something made with powdered sugar and it was disgusting.  I can tell you this now since Mother is no longer with us, that this particular candy was gross!  The chocolate did not have a taste since it was mostly wax.  The powdered sugar filling was hard, but that was 70 years ago before all the preservatives came to make sure nothing dries out or loses what ever taste it had.  

Ah, but at the bottom of the pile was what I coveted most!  A brand new Big Chief Tablet.  It was red.  Always red, I think.  I think this is what it looked like back then.  Mother always included a pencil and I think she was killing 2 birds with one stone, so to speak.  The fact that we had to furnish our own books and tablets and pencils and such came into play at Christmas.  She had to buy them anyway, so might as well give Santa the credit.

What momma did not realize that a sheet of paper and a pencil with a sharp point was all I ever wanted out of life.  I wanted to write poetry.  That was my sole goal in life.  It would be followed later by the desire to write a book, which was followed by wanting to change the world.  Reality deemed that I would work and raise children.  Motherhood took precedence over my wants and desires, but it has been fulfilling and I am proud of all of my children today.  Granted none of them every made it into the highest office in the land, but I consider that one of my greatest blessings.  I digress.

Some where in my past lives poems and short stories that will never be found or read by another human, but I know.  I can not always voice my thoughts, but I can write them.  I do have a gift for that, and for that I thank God.  What the world does not know is that if I am sad, I write.  If I am happy I write.  If I am fired up for a cause whether it be gay rights, abortion, civil rights, women's rights, homelessness, or any of the myriad of things that cross my sight daily; I write.

But here is the deal.  When I write I share happy thoughts, and I hope I make you smile.  When I write I release the demons that tear at my soul, and I hope you understand that also.  Sometimes I just want to share a tiny glimmer of hope that has flitted across my radar.  For some people, a drink after work relieves the pressure.  Some people jog.  I write.

So here is the deal; I will keep writing if you will keep reading.  My blog has a counter so I know there are  several someone's out there reading what I write.  Feel free to leave a comment, good or bad.  That way I know I made a connection.  

In the meantime, I have youtube playing in the background and this song tears my heart right out of my body.  click herehttps://youtu.be/KZ-4LwfCClk

Life is pretty much a crap shoot.

 Here I set like so many times before, waiting for the sun to come up.  And like so many times before, I am second guessing myself.  What did I miss?  Was there something said that I missed?  Any sign at all?  And after all the soul searching and all the self recriminations, it all comes back to nothing.  Could I have done anything to prevent what happened?  I told her no.  But is that true?

We tried so hard to stay safe.  We did not go to public places.  We wore a mask any time we were out of the truck or the house.  He contracted covid; I did not.  He quarantined in his house and I stayed in mine.  I took him groceries and left them on his porch.  We talked on the phone.  The conversations got shorter.  Staying home alone, day after day begins to wear on you.  People are gregarious by their very nature.  He was no different.

Mother always told me "You never really know anyone.  You only know what they tell you and let you see."  Momma was wiser than most people and had an inner wisdom that gave her an insight like no other.  She could see the good in everyone, even the orneriest old coot in town.  And she could also see the weakness and evil in the hypocrite beating his chest and pointing his finger.  She had the sweetest smile and her hazel eyes twinkled when she looked at me.  She actually made me think I was capable of anything.  But she was wrong.

I have always thought I was put here on this earth for a reason, but I am now questioning that.  If I was, what is the reason?  I have raised the kids.  I have fought the political battles and won a few, but what is that?  If not me, someone else would have carried the banner.  

Life goes on and I look back and just wonder what it was all about.  If I had life to do over, would I?  And if I did, would it change anything?  I think not.  I know I have got to come to terms with some things, but I am not sure I know where to start.    I can not stop the river from running to the sea.  I can not get the toothpaste back in the tube.

In hind sight, there is nothing I would change, because I still would not have known what someone else was thinking.  I can not know what thoughts someone is thinking if they do not say them out loud.  Am I at peace with this?  No.  Can I change anything? No.  Would I like to?  Yes.

All I can do, and the only advice I have at this point is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep hoping and praying for a better day.  I do not want to keep second guessing and I want to remember that I did the best I could with the tools and knowledge I had at the time and if that upsets anyone, so be it.

I think it would be how momma did it. I sure miss my momma and that will never change.

 

Sure am missing Nickerson, Kansas

 Merle Haggard says it best.  https://youtu.be/TuwhpVde6NY The roots of my raising sure do run deep.  Growing up in Nickerson, Kansas was definitely a challenge.  Like all small town there was a right side of town and a wrong side, but it this case it was the whole "outside of town."  We lived "outside of town" only 2 blocks from the high school when I was very small. That was the "wrong side of the tracks."  When I started second grade we moved clear across town out by the cemetery.  That was also the "wrong side of the tracks."  Either place was a place we could listen to that lonesome train whistle blow.

I learned early to love that sound.  It meant the train was going some where and I knew it was far away.  When the train whistle subsided in the distance, the coyotes howled.  Occasionally a wolf would howl.  Coyotes made more of a yipping sound, but wolves had a mournful howl.  It was like they were trying to call the moon from the sky above.  Either one scared hell out of us kids and we waited for the howling to subside before we could sleep.

But as poor as we were, we knew we were safe in our beds.  To my recollection, I never knew my dad to own a gun.  He was in the Army in World War 1.  He was what I thought was a big man, but in actuality he was only 5'8".  It was not an unusual height back in those days.  I do not know why, but I am assuming it had something to do with what they ate back then.  The emphasis in those days was not so much on vitamins and minerals as it was on survival.  A cow was easier to raise than a head of lettuce.  But all of that is irrelevant.

I remember the first time we got linoleum in our house.  My God!  You would have thought we had died and gone to heaven!  We could walk across the floor  barefooted and not get a "sliver".  Slivers were little pieces of the wood flooring and could only be removed by a pair of tweezers and a needle held in the hand of our dear mother.

Closing the house up at night entailed closing the front and back inside doors.  There were no locks.  There was usually a hook and eye on the screen door, but they were used to hold the door closed when the wind blew.  Bad people did not exist in Nickerson.  I recall once coming home from school and there was a dog walking on my street.  It scared me to death.  I actually climbed up on the icebox so the dog could not "eat me".  Nothing ever changed in Nickerson and that dog did not belong on my street.

Occasionally someone would pass away (We never referred to it as dying.) and the hearse would have to pass the end of our street on the way to the cemetery.  Nine chances out of 10, we knew the body that was being transported because Nickerson might have had a population of 1,000 people if everyone was gathered in one place.  Needless to say, we had to stand quietly with our hand over our heart until the hearse had passed.  This picture was taken from the cemetery side, thus the words are backwards.

For whatever reason I keep retreating to my childhood I know it was my safe place.  One would think that at this late stage in life I could accept who I am, but I don't.  I love to hard, trust too easily, and my biggest weakness is that I am ever the eternal optimist.  But I forget the most important thing momma told me:

"You never know anybody.  You only know OF them.  You know what they let you see."

Thanks, momma, now I remember.