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

Well, here goes Mary with her two daughters!  She has more than this, but the other one is in North Carolina.  She also has a son, but he is home in Hutch.  This is Tina on the left and Dorothy on the right.  Mary is in the middle. 

 I do think she is most happy to be going home, although I did tell her I will not be there to cook and she could very well starve to death.  At least she will not have the chicken and home made noodles, Black Walnut Ice Cream, home made cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies and that stuff.  When she started crying, I told her I was teasing!  I am a good sister!

 Now here we are in front of the Truck Plaza outside Garden City, Kansas.  Left to right is Tina, Mary, Me , and Dorothy.  Let me digress here for just a moment.  We tend to get a name in this family and then wear it completely out using it.  Tina is named after mother and Mary.  Dorothy is named after Mary's mother in law, but we also have a sister Dorothy.  I had a sister in law Dorothy.  I have a daughter Dona, a sister Donna, and a sister in law Dona.  You get the picture?

Oh, speaking of Dona, here is my daughter Patty on the left and Dona on the right.  Behind Patty is her daughter (my grand daughter) September, who was born in November.

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

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

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

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

Home is where the heart is.

The other day, well today actually , I received an email from a friend and in it he was explaining to me where his home was located and the layout of his home.  He also said it was in the ghetto, but he was happy there.  I told him that home is where the heart is and that got me to thinking.  Where is my heart?  Where is the one place that is my sanctuary, that I feel safe and loved and wanted?  After much soul searching, I know.

Where I am now is a very nice house and I have an acre of land.  Not big enough for anything, but a little too big for nothing.  This house is solid, warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  I am located so I get very little traffic and it is quiet.  No one comes here unless I draw them a map and then they get lost.  I am almost secluded, but the neighbors know I am here and watch out for me.  That is good.  But where is my heart?

It is in Nickerson, Kansas at 709 Strong Street.  That was my ghetto; my wrong side of the tracks. It did not have running water.  We heated with a wood stove and cooked on a wood stove in the kitchen.  The out house was on the back of the lot.  Sears catalog and the whole bit.  Those were just the times.  I think we were the only street in town that was that far back in time, but there you have it.  Now you may ask why anyone in their right mind would go back to a hovel like that and I am here to tell you.

We were all there together.  Momma cleaned houses and put food on the table.  Cereal was cheap back then and we ate a lot of that and other grains.  Apples and Carp (You know that bony trash fish that other people throw away.)  We had fried apples, baked apples, boiled apples, apple sauce and I do not to this day eat a cooked apple in any way shape or form.  Don't eat Carp either.  Those are nasty!  Dad was there in his own little way.  He share cropped with a farmer and he was one of the last to give up the team of horses (and only then because they died of old age ) and never bought a tractor.

My baby sister Dorothy was there with her big brown eyes and dimples.  Mary was there with her long beautiful hair and her petite little body.  Donna was the serious one who ate the middle out of the loaf of bread after school.  My brother Jake was there and had not gone to the Army yet which he did by altering  his birth certificate at the age of  16.  Josephine had not eloped  yet. 

We had clod fights.  We walked to the sand pit.  I fished off the Bull Creek bridge while Jake and his buddies swam naked in a hole a little further upstream.  We had two creeks in Nickerson, Bull Creek and Cow Creek.  Also had the Arkansas River.  Every spring they flooded and isolated the town.  In the winter the Arkansas froze and had to be dynamited.  Old Black Joe lived on the river in a pile of lumber and made silver jewelry with turquoise stones and he was Jake's friend.  Momma was mortified to find out Jake hung out with the likes of him.  He died on the river.
We never had a dog.  Never had a cat.  Jake and I listened to the Grand Ole Opry on the car radio because the radio in the kitchen would not pick it up.  WSM in Nashville as I recall.  We had electricity eventually and got a pump in the kitchen.  The out house remained.  I attended Elementary school in Nickerson and went to 2 1/2 years of high school there. Came back to there after living with my Grandma my first  half of my Freshman year.  Smoked my first cigarette there.  Learned about God and salvation there.  Forgot about it there. Won a three speed English racing bike there by getting the most "Our Family" labels off of canned goods.  Flew my kite into a tree at the cemetery and could not get it down.  Watered the sweet potatoes and a spider got on my foot.  Momma had her hysterectomy there when I was in the seventh grade. 

The Reinke girls lived next door with their dad because their mom had died when the youngest was born.  I was glad my momma was still alive.  If we wanted ice for the ice box we had a card to put in the window with how much we wanted right side up.  All the doors used a skeleton key and you didn't lock the door because everybody had a skeleton key.  Whittling  Joe and Johnny Carson lived up on the highway and they let the chickens come in there house. Pop was a nickle and that was a lot of money. Ora Ayers rode her stick horse because she wasn't quite right in the head.  And we better be good cause the Gypsy's were camped outside of town and might come steal us.  We were poor, but poor was a state of mind.  There were people who had less then us

When I can not sleep, I walk the streets of Nickerson, Kansas.  I pass the feed store, the grocery store, the church and I say my prayers and fall into the most blissful sleep.

So my memories go on and on.  My ghetto lives in my heart and mind and everything I am today and will be in the future is because I was there and it impacts me forever.  So find your ghetto, or grotto, or wherever your safe place is and hang on to it with both hands.  It is your heritage.  It is your lifeline.  When life is stripped away and I stand before my maker, I know he will see a skinny knock kneed little girl with tangled hair and dirty bare feet and he will say, "Get in here you little urchin!  I been waiting for you to get home!"
And I will waltz in those pearly gates and up those streets of gold just like I belonged there.  Nickerson, Kansas is a state of mind!

I am upstairs at Nickerson, Kansas, Elementary School.

When you left me last I was in the fourth grade and Mrs. Howe was by teacher, but time has passed and I am now in the fifth grade.  That was a big promotion cause now I got the extreme pleasure of going upstairs to class.  That was very scary that first day as I had never been upstairs before.  Miss Swenson was my teacher and she was so sweet.  She is the one who discovered I had a penchant for writing, especially poetry.  She even met with momma to get permission to submit one of my poems to Jack and Jill magazine. I was so proud.  Well, yeah, I still remember to this day, so it must have made an impression!  I do not know what went on with that, but it was none the less an honor. My greatest joy my whole life was always a blank sheet of paper and a pencil.  Still is. The kids sometimes just give me note books, college ruled and they are all over the house!

Fifth grade was where reality set in.  A classmate lost her father in a farm accident.  Miss Swenson met a man and married him.  A new girl came to our school named Mavis.  Course the kids had to tease her and it was then I realized I had compassion in my soul for my fellow humans! Mavis became my friend and I protected her from the slings and arrows of fellow classmates. Then she moved away.

On to sixth grade and Miss Lauver.  Miss Lauver was a spinster.  While I knew what that was from the dictionary I was never really sure of all the implications.  She was very strict as I recall, but not mean.  It was in sixth grade I found out what happens when you take the internal workings out of a crank telephone, grab the wire and have someone spin the crank!  Hard lesson to learn especially for a little girl! Miss Lauver lived with her older sister who was also named Miss Lauver.  They came to the house one time to see momma. Don't know why.

Seventh grade brought Mr. Schriber.  That may not be spelled right, but he was a wiry little fellow and cute as a button with his curly hair.  He also was the coach.  Back then teachers could do that.  All of us girls worked very hard.  In seventh grade I learned the difference between and the commonalities of Nature and Nurture or Hereditary vs. Environment.  I am still in a quandary over that one.  Lot to be said for both sides.

Eighth grade and Mr. Bollinger.  He also owned the movie theatre. Never let us in free though.  My best friends that year were Jay Moore and Owen Lentz.  We used to stay in over recess and draw dream cars on the blackboard.  They did not know I was a girl but I knew they were boys, but that was about as far as that went.

No account of grade school in Nickerson would be complete without me telling you about the music teacher. Her name was Miss Barkiss.  Since she went to our church I am not sure exactly when she married the Principal's son and became Mrs. Houston. But while she was Miss Barkiss the woman tried tirelessly to coax a "c" note out of my tiny throat.  I could no way in hell carry a tune in a bucket.  But I must send accolades out to the dear woman who is no doubt singing with the angels in heaven, for trying. I now do the country songs around the yard and house at the top of my lungs, and am happy as can be with my never change tones method of what is known loosely as "caterwauling!"

And so I bid adieu to my childhood days at Nickerson Grade School.  The halls are froth with memories, some good; some bad, but all mine.  They helped shape me into who I am and I guess that is the environment part that comes into play. I guess it was inevitable that I then went to high school and I am going to tell you about that and grandma and my career as an actress hopefully tomorrow.

For now I will put my little ghosts back to bed and get on with the business of living while there is still breathe in the old body.  I have a lot of blank pages to fill before I fly away!

All the seeds of yesterday are the trees of tomorrow.  Lou Mercer

Alina & Tommy sitting in a tree?

Here is Alina, the very proud mother!!!

Here is great Aunt Lou and the lovely little Adriana!

Now here is a picture of daddy Tom and Grandma Donna!  The only other picture I have of Tom also has grandma on the other side.  As you kow I do not use pictures without permission and I did not get permission from Donna for any picture except this one.  Sorry.

The red writing below is now moot since you have your pictures!!

I must apologize because there are no pictures here, but I can not figure how to get them with someone elses software.  When I get home I will add pictures.  Thanks for understanding an old woman who is clueless on a computer!!

As you know I am on vacation!  This is my first evening. Left Pueblo this morning, well actually yesterday, which was Sunday. Stopped in Lakin for lunch with the kiddies, but that is a whole nuther blog!  Arrived in Hutchinson, Kansas around 7:00 PM.  Where is the first place we had to go upon arrival at my sister Donna's house?  You guessed it!!  She has a brand new, and the only one in the world at the time, Grand Daughter!  Her only son, Tom Bartholomew and his lovely wife, Alina are the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl, born only the day before.  How exciting is that? And this precious little baby was wanting to meet me! Me! Can you beleive that? At least that is what Donna told me and of course I beleive everything people tell me.

Now, I want to go on record as saying, this may look like a normal baby, but such is not the case.  Far be it from me to brag about my family of which I am the official Matriarch, having outlived the other older siblings, but I shall digress and do just that.  Her mother is Alina Aldatova, formerly of Russia and current and former Karate/Kick Boxing Champion of the World.  I kid you not! Go Google Alina and there she pops up.  My traveling companion, the wiccan, reminded me to mind my manners as I had not yet met Alina, and I sometimes come across a tad bit overbearing. She did, however, say she had my back.  Yeah, my waaaaaaay back.

Alina is a very sweet and wonderful person and I think she liked me as I left the room in one piece! I had seen pictures of her in her karate poses and asked if she would show me how she could put her foot clear up over her head while standing flat footed on the floor.  She declined, but there will be another day.

While Alina is a world wide celebrity, Tom is fairly well known in this area,  He is a salesman for Sysco Foods which sells to resturants and institutions.  Not just your old run of the mill salesman either.  Boy has been very succesful in this field.  Wins all sorts of awards, but the best part is his customers love him to death. He is one of the sweetest little (and I use the term lovingly, not literally) kids I have ever known.  But while Tom is a celebrity in the food service circle, his mother is a celebrity in the resturaunt circle.

Donna Bartholomew along with her partner, Karen LeShure own and operate Skaets Steak Shop in Hutchinson, Kansas.  Now this place has been around for quite some time.  My first job was washing dishes at Skaets in 1959. At that time it was owned by Norman Deschene and his wife.  I was 18 at the time, a mere slip of a girl, unsullied by the world.  But there is a whole new kettle of worms! 

Tomorrow I shall give you the history of  Bartholomew involvement in food service in Hutchinson, Kansas.  For now we shall just wait till Donna gets up and I can verify a few things before I post this. In the meantime, I am going to pull on some shorts and tee shirt and a pair of tennies and jog on over to McDonalds on the highway to meet my boy cousins.  I have not talked to them, but I did email them that I was headed this way and I think they will get the telepathic message.  If they are there I will eat yogurt, if not I will do the sausage and grease thing. BBL (In chat room talk that means Be Back Later!)

Oh, and tomorrow I will be lunching with the girl cousin and a Kansas politician of rather high standing, who just happens to be a Republican. Need a picture of him for my phone.