Way back when

 Back when I was a wee lass and protected from the harsh reality of the world, Thanksgiving was different.  Our mode of transportation was mostly on the back of an old plow horse or our two feet.  Of course we rarely left Nickerson, but occasionally we did.  The grandmas and aunts lived in Plevna which was 20 miles.  But this one time I am remembering my dad had a son that lived in Hutchinson and invited us to Thanksgiving dinner.  That was a 12 mile trip and central Kansas in the winter is nothing short of brutal.  So, us kids were all a twitter for the upcoming adventure.  

Since it had snowed the night before we awoke to a freezing cold landscape with a brilliant sun shining.  Mom and dad figured it would take us about 3 hours to make the trip.  We bundled up in our coats and scarves and prayed to the good Lord above to please, just keep us out of the ditch.  Mother had heated rocks in a bundle to help keep us warm since the cars back then did not have heaters.   We had wool army blankets to huddle under.  And off we went.

We sailed down the highway at about 6 miles an hour.  Of course we carried cans of water because the radiator leaked and we stopped regularly to add water to the radiator.  We arrived at Earl's house before noon and we were so relieved to be there.  His wife's name was Gertie.  The house was heated by a "gravity flow heater".  The heat was transferred to the house by means of an open grate in the floor.  One of the boys (Leon I think) had crawled across the grate and been badly burned.  Back in those days this was a fairly regular occurrence. He did carry the scars for as long as I knew him.

I do not recall the dinner, perse, but I know it was good and I know there was pie.  And corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, dinner rolls and casseroles of something.  We prayed over our dinner.  We never ate a meal that was not prayed over by the men of the household.  Well except at the grandma's because there were no men there.  We used to pray about everything that affected us from the moment we got up until the prayers were said preparatory to bed.  I kind of miss that.  But back to the trip.

We had to leave as soon as the midday meal was over and the kitchen "redded up" in order to be home in time to do the nightly chores.  So loaded with leftovers we began the trip back to our house.  We knew if we waited too long the roads would "freeze up" and make driving hazardous.  Every one of us had to make a last stop in the necessay room to avoid having to pee alongside the road where "God and everybody would see our bottom!"

Even back then at the tender age of 8 or nine, I loved my family.  All of them.  Even the ones I did not know.  Looking back is always better because I have my selective memory and I was bound to my sisters and brothers with a blood line that would never change.  Or so I thought.  I have one sister left.  We are not in touch any more.  She is busy and I am in Colorado.  It used to bother me, but not any more.  I have friends who are closer then any blood could ever be.  I have children that think I hung the moon! I just had my 80th Thanksgiving and there was no one there that carried my blood in their veins, but that does not matter.  I was thankful for the meal and the comraderie and the 2 dogs that showed up later.

The trip up and the trip back was uneventful and with traffic like it is, uneventful is good!  So this Thanksgiving I can give thanks for those that I love and those that love me.  Thanks for friendships and kinships that make my world go around.  And most of thank the universe for spinning and holding me to the earth, grounded in friendships, kinships and the tiny flowers that are going to sleep for the winter and will burst forth next Spring to thrill me with their beauty.

But most of all thank my God for surrounding me with the compassion of my friends and family who have accepted me as I am with all my faults and short comings.  Thanks to God for giving me a clear mind and a strong back and an innate insight that lets me see people as they are and overlook their shortcomings.

Today is the day that the Lord has made!  Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Peace!       

Would you like something to drink?

 Sure.  An innocent question I ask or am asked quite frequently.  It is a social thing and accepted as harmless fodder in our day to day interactions with people.  Sure.  My drink of choice is water with ice.  An occasional soft drink on a hot day or a  big glass full of ice with tea goes good.  It has not always been that way.  Sadly I am one of those people for whom "a drink" means stay the hell away from anything that contains alcohol.  One drink is too many and a thousand not enough.

I learned very early on that if there was booze at the party it was not going to end well!  The boys in the crowd quickly learned that the best they would get out of me full of liquor was barfed on.  Dancing went out the window.  I became belligerent.  My first date with my first husband was spent with him holding my head while I wretched out the door of the car.  This was followed by me passing out and brother Jake taking me home, putting me fully clothed in the bathtub and throwing a blanket over me.  

I hated hangovers more than fried apples, which I loathe with every fiber of my being.  Every time I picked up a beer or mixed drink I told myself, "This time it will be different.  This time I will just have this one.  One.  Well, maybe one more."  And down the rabbit hole I went.  "90 miles an hour down a dead end street," so to speak.

I managed to function in my job because I limited my drinking to my days off from work.  I drank at home after the kids were safely in bed.  Since I was a single working mother with no child support I could not afford my habit.  Had anyone suggested AA I would have been offended.  Life has a funny way of putting us where we need to be at the time we need to be there and I am a prime example of that.

  My third husband brought me to Colorado and after about a year we divorced.  At that time I learned my first husband's brother was living in Pueblo with his wife.  Delvin and Nedra and I got together.  They were big on "AA" which is the acronym for Alcoholics Anonymous.  They attended meetings probably every day of the week and would swing by and share the "Big Book" lessons with me.  I explained to them that I was not an alcoholic because I did not drink.  He explained to me that being dry did not mean I was not an alcoholic.  I was one drink away.  And you know what?  He was right.

I would love to have a big red tomato beer.  Or a Pina Colada.  Or a Rum and coke. Or a fifth of rot gut whiskey and chase it with red Kool-Aid, but that is not going to happen.  I know myself enough to know that one drink is too many and a thousand are not enough.  I have overcome the nicotine addiction and put the cork in the bottle, so it is all down hill from here.  I just gotta' keep breathing, putting one foot in front of the other and some day the trumpet will sound and I will be out of here.  Keep my hand on the rudder and my eye on the prize.

Maintain.

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!

 

We meet everyone for a reason.

1. They are sent to awaken us.

2.  They are sent to hold space for us.

3.  They are sent to help us grow.

4.  They are sent to remind us.

5.  They are sent to stay, holding a long term role in our lives.

I found this on an old yellow index card when I was cleaning the mess on top of my desk this past week.  It is in my handwriting, so I know I copied it from some place and at a time when I probably needed to know this stuff.  And I also know, that at this time and place I needed to find it and be reminded of just where my friends came from and why they are still here.

I look at this list and I look back at my life and I realize that everyone of these sentences are true.  Now, granted, some of my dearest friends are not in my life in an active way, but that may be because they served their purpose and moved on.  Some of them are in my darkest past and I no longer have contact with them, but they do pop into my memory from time to time. 

And as I look back on my most troubling times in my long ago past, there were no friends.  It was during those times that I escaped into my childhood.  In my childhood I was safe from the present I was living.   It was my childhood that gave me the strength to move forward and gave me the courage to "accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  I think that all this shows up in the Serenity Prayer in some form.  That prayer, while used by the AA groups, is a good one for all of us to follow. 

I look back down the twisted, littered road of my past and I have to acknowledge that during most of that time, there were no flesh and blood friends, but there was always God and the certainty that he was holding me up.  And it was just as if I was held by the blacksmith as he held me over the roaring forge.  He melded me and formed me into the woman I am today.  

Mother taught me that "as you sow, so shall you reap."  And "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  And another important one was, "To have a friend, you need to be a friend."  When I moved from Western Kansas back to Hutchinson, I had 4 kids walking and one in the oven waiting.  While that time was very hard to live through, I came out the other side stronger and did actually forge some friendships that I continue to this day.  

When I found this tattered, yellow index card on my desk, it suddenly took me back to those times!  And I began to reflect back on my life and friendships I have formed.  I am truly a blessed woman!  I can not count my true friends on one hand, but that is because there are so many.  I have received so much love from people that I rarely even think about that I am humbled.  How this skinny little girl from Strong Street can be so esteemed is more that I can fathom!

Just know this;  I could not have survived here in Pueblo, Colorado, without your help.  And I certainly felt all of the love these last couple of months.  (Has it only been 2 months?  It seems like an eternity!)  So, I am going to take this tattered, yellow index card and put it in a frame and put it up there on that shelf above the monitor where I can see it every day.  

I may not be able to categorize all my friends, but know that I love everyone of you.  You have all touched my world in some way.  I am a firm believer that if you let me cross your mind that you have sent me good vibes.  It is those things that make me want to get out of bed in the morning and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It is all of you  who make me who I am and what I am today.

Peace, my friends!

Happy Birth Day to Samuel Rueben Seeger!!

Many years ago in a land far away, lived a simple woman who dreamed some day she would have a son and she knew she would name him Samuel Rueben.  The first year she had a daughter and named her Debra Louann.  The next year she had a daughter and named her Patricia Lynn.  The third year she had a daughter and named her Dona Marie.  The fourth year she had a son and when she told the sister in the Catholic Hospital in the Catholic town his name was Samuel Rueben they gasped and crossed themselves and told her that could not happen.  Samuel Rueben was a Jewish name and she was a Protestant.  She insisted.  Now you need a little background on this simple creature so here it is....

Back in those days religions were set in stone.  She was not Catholic.  She was not Jewish.  She was not anything in particular, which made her a Protestant.  Back then it mattered.  Her husband came to the hospital to peer at the baby boy through the glass and his work was done.  He would be back to get her in 5 days.  He did not care what it's name was so she was alone in her protestations that the name was Samuel Rueben.  The sisters refused to write the name.  Finally, the day came to leave and the baby had no name.  She knew she had to do something so she named him Earl Edward, but in her heart he was Sam.  They let her go home with the baby now that it had a "proper name."

Her husband was stunned that the baby was not named Samuel Rueben, but Earl was his given name, so he accepted that.  It was 4 months before her mother asked the baby's name.

"What is the baby's name?  I know it is Samuel, but Samuel what?"

"His name is Earl Edward."  And thus came the tear filled confession that she had let the Catholic sisters bully her into naming him something besides Samuel Rueben.

Never was the baby ever called Earl by anyone.  He was called Sam.  It is now 54 years later and he is known in the work place as Sam.  He is known at home as Sam.  He went to school as Sam and Earl Edward is only used on legal papers like wills and such.  He was named after his father who was Earl, but he called him Sam.

You might ask why I did not insist on putting it on his birth certificate, but you would have to have known me back then.  I was a very weak person back then and second guessed everything I did.  I tried to please everyone around me.  I still fight a daily battle to know that I am really worth something in this world.  It is called co-dependency and is a complicated little personality disorder.  I read books on it.  I went to a couple meetings on it.  It is very common in conjunction with living with an alcoholic.  I married 3 alcoholics in rapid succession and divorced them in rapid succession before I decided it was my problem and not theirs.  People who know me now just think I am an overbearing b----, and they may very well be correct.  That is alright.  Some people actually like me!

So there you have it...Another confession from the warped mind of Lou Mercer.  The more I write about things, the more I understand myself.  Hopefully, some day, I will no longer be a work in progress, but will be a normal person with normal wants and needs.  When that day comes, I hope I am no longer afraid of spiders, because I gotta' tell you, that is a big one!

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

4:30 AM!!! Oh, Come on God! Give me a break!

I always wake up around 3:00 AM and reflect on life for just a few minutes before I doze off until the real wake up time.  I have heard this means I will either die young or live forever.  I am not real sure but I think the dying young is already an option that is off the table.  So this morning I opened the peepers to reflect and decided to just get up and get it started.

I do believe that life is best lived in reverse because at 4:30 AM I can see very clearly what I should have done as opposed to what I actually did.  It must have been about 1973 or in that general area somewhere, when I was working at the Red Carpet Resturant in Hutchinson.  I worked nights when I started there, but eventually moved into the morning cook/baker/fry cook position.  At this particular time I was just dating husband 3/4.  Now that boy was a drinker.  (Of course they all were so that point is moot.)

I think perhaps the "drink until you fall down and pass out gene" runs in my family.  Not that it makes anything I did right, but you need to know that my learning curve spikes in a lot of places and is non existent in the other places and the spike and the curve is not always in the upward direction.  To make this story readable, I need to tell you that the night before, he and I had decided to "go dancing".  This entailed some drinking.  The laws then were that you could take your own bottle to the "dance place" so we did that.  Course we ordered chasers.  I had opted to only drink wine that night.  Wise choice?  You decide.

I started out with something called Annie Green Springs or some such innocent sounding concoction.  It was really good as I recall, but of course that bottle went dry and since I was still thirsty someone went next door on a liquor run.  I was very clear that I wanted the same brand and all so I would not lose my rhythm.  Sadly, they did not have that brand, so I receive a giant bottle of something called Rascal Berry.  It sure sounded innocent enough.  I should have known that was not going to be good.  By this time it was after midnight and I had to be at work at 5:00 AM.  At 2:00 AM or so, I decided I had the flu.  I needed my bed.  Or at least comfortable sprinting distance to the commode.  It could not have been the wine.  Wine only has a 10-12% alcohol content.  

When sweet thing dropped me off at home so I could drive myself to work, I was still wretching.  I do not know  just how romantic that evening had turned out.  As for my life the next few days, it was a blur.  My mother waited tables and thought I should go home since I had the "flu" and Francis was quick to tell her that it was self induced.  No sympathy what so ever.   The boss just glared at me, but offered me no time off to recuperate.  I was top notch at my job and even in the throes of death, I was the best he had.

The next few days passed in a sort of blur. 

Day #1  I did not hear from sweet thing and I prayed for death. 
Day #2  I emptied my system of every thing I had ever eaten in life.
Day #3 was no better.
Day #4 was the turning point.  I could keep an ice chip down.  That was the best ice chip I ever tasted.   Praise God! 
Day #5 was  mostly just shaking and sipping some sort of buttermilk concoction that I was craving at the moment.  Some where in there I must have had a day off, because a full week passed with me courting the angels of death, before I began to pull out of the downward spiral.

Now you should know that back when I was dating husband #1, my brother, Jake and I decided to have a little drink to celebrate.  What we were celebrating I will never know, but I do know that he went to the liquor store and bought a 5th of some sort of "rot gut" whiskey.  We hoped there was enough to make us happy.  Since all we had to chase it with was red Koolaid, we used that.

That little celebration was the first time I had the "dry heaves."  Ever have those?  I do want you to know, that from that day to this, I can not drink red Koolaid.  The sight of anything red in a glass turns my stomach.  When I say "turns my stomach,"  I mean since me into culture shock and there is going to be some upchucking going on with my digestive track.  Never tried that again.  I suspect it may have been more the liquor than the Koolaid, but I can never be sure. 

I guess what I am trying to point out here is that liquor is evil.  It makes me sick.  I must be allergic to it.  I realize that I am just not a good drinker.  Nor am I a happy drunk.  Any time a guy thought he would ply me with liquor and get lucky, he was sadly mistaken. 

Alcohol and me are just not ever going to get along in this world.  I may have actually been Carrie Nation in another life.  I wonder what her background was?  Now you know some of mine.  When I make my off handed remarks, they are coming from life experiences.  Several times I have been told that I should write my life story, but no one would believe it.  So I am just going to be content to tell you that

"My life would be best lived in reverse with the brakes on ."

Do you remember the WCTU? My first encounter was in 1950 ish.

I do not remember the circumstances only that it happened.  Seems like back in the 1940's and 1950's the WCTU was very active.  For those of you who do not recognize the acronym, it stands for Women's Christian Temperance Union.  They campaigned to get rid of alcohol.  Seems like there was a woman named Carrie Nation who went into the bars with an axe and did a lot of damage.  The WCTU was started back in 1874 by a woman named Frances Willard along with another lady named Annie Wittenmyer.  In later years it expanded to include labor laws, prison reform and womens suffrage.  Willard died in 1898.

Having briefly read her history, I am thinking she may have very well been a lesbian way before it was acceptable to be of that persuasion!  That is neither here nor there and has absolutely nothing to do with my journey into the WCTU at the tender age of 9.

What I do recall is that my 5th grade teacher saw potential in my poetry writing at that early age and encouraged me.  Her name was Miss Burgess and she lived with another teacher named Miss Rinehart.  (If memory serves me correctly.)  The WCTU was having a meeting at a church out in the country between Nickerson and Plevna.  I think the area was called Huntsville.  My job was to memorize a poem and recite it for the ladies.

Now back in those days, women were expected to stay home and keep the house and kids and if the husband chose to get roaring drunk and beat the living shit out of them, it was their duty to submit!  That was our mentality then. 

I do not remember the poem, but as I recall it started, "In a castle gray, by a pounding sea, on a cliff where the white gull flew lived a lonely boy and his uncle....."  And it was about a young boy who lived with an alcoholic Uncle as he was an orphan.  I remember it was very sad and troubling and after my recitation (which was perfect) the women were ecstatic and very pleased with my performance.  The poem had been so troubling to  me that I had erased it from my memory and only think about it on occasion.  It seems in the poem the Uncle either threw the boy over the cliff or threw himself over the cliff, thus showing the evils of the demon rum.

I do not recall much about the WCTU, but I do know and probably still have a piece of paper some where that states I am or was an honorary member.  I do recall thinking of that group on occasions when one of my dear sweet husbands was "in his cups" and kicking me around the room leaving me a shattered woman sobbing in a corner.  Those were the good old days!

So why am I thinking of this today?  God only knows.  Most of the time I never recall the bad parts of my life, but it seems that with the climate in our world today and the violence that people exert against each other in the name of race, sexual orientation, poverty, immigration status, and any other reason they can find to hate in  a world that should be filled with peace and love, there is something missing.  Seems like it might be compassion.

But we are all a product of our past, so I have learned to be more compassionate.  I have learned that no matter what I am feeling, I must be tolerant of others because I do not know what demons they are dealing with in their mind.  If we could all just open our eyes and learn, wouldn't the world be a beautiful place?

Some scars stay with us forever and no matter how deep we bury them, they are just a heartbeat away.  Sometimes I just have to retreat and lick my wounds because I know they are there.  Very few of my scars are seen by anyone.  That does not make them any less real.  I thought about volunteering at the battered women's center, but the very thought gives me flashbacks.  How could I look into a face that mirrors my very soul and help?  Isn't that sad?  

The weight of the world equates to....nothing.

I remember when I was a kid I would see pictures of Atlas with the world on his shoulders.  Things like that stick with kids.  At that time I thought the world was very big and very heavy and the man that held the world was very strong.  I have since learned that such is not the case.

In the first place, there is no way a mere mortal could even get the world on his shoulders and if he did, where would he stand to hold it? I also remember my mother saying she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.  I thought she must be  a very strong woman.  Funny how a kid's mind will work.

And now that I am older, I get it.  Or at least I think I do.  Usually I am a rather upbeat person and can handle what ever the world throws at me, but then there are times when the powers of the Universe conspire against me and the weight of the world begins to pile on my shoulders.  This also gives credence to another saying, "It never rains, but what it pours." 

My world was on it's axis and spinning right along yesterday afternoon until early evening.  At that time I got the phone call that we had lost a client.  This one was totally unexpected.  A young woman with a small son and a bright and shining future.  She was engaged and life was good.  Right up till that last moment.  Then I had a phone call about a problem involving ego's and power struggles that are always unsolvable and just take up time.  Little weight of the world on my shoulders, but not really bad at all.  Got my new blog up and running and feeling good.

Then came the bright part of my day when my computer lit up with my friend and confidant.  And from there it was all down hill.  Cyber space is not all it cracked up to be.  Things said in jest can not be interpurted as such in black and white.  Emails do not always end up where they were sent and in some cases may be who knows where.  Or maybe they are just ignored in favor of something better?

Suffice it to say when the downward spiral begins there is not an easy fix, so by bedtime I was rethinking this whole life thing.  It seems that life actually can be equated  to doing the Texas Two Step on the way to the grave.  You know, the old two steps forward and one step back?  And  if you turn around and look backwards you are just liable to back right into the open grave. 

My nights get very long when I try to solve the world's problems.  I tried putting all my thoughts in piles and labeling them.  Pile number one was things I could do nothing about.... Egypt, Mubarac, the weather, death of a client went in one pile.  Things I could do something about in another pile...problems at church,  burned out ballast in the kitchen light, hole in the dining room carpet, the new blog went in another pile.  Then came the insurmountable problem of misunderstanding with a friend.  Personal relationships have always been hard ones for me.  And the sad part is that they still are and sometimes I just walk away when I think I am right.  Does not mean I am right or wrong, only means that is how I deal with life when it is more than I can understand.

God grant me the power to accept the things I can not change,  change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.  or something like that.