As another year ends....

 Another year is drawing to a close.  As I reflect back on this past year, I realize how much I have changed.  You may not think so, since my appearance is much the same.  Oh, a few more gray hairs and my complexion just a tad more leathery.  My weight remains the same and the hair is still white.  The changes are inside.  The changes are subtle.  I suppose it happens to all of us as we move forward from the cradle to the grave.

I moved into this house in 1982 with Kenny Mercer and my two kids, Sam and Susie.  They were both still in school.  Sam would go on to graduate college.  The kids are both gone.  Kenny has since passed and I remain here on my "Gods little acre."  with 7 geese and a calico cat for company.  The grandson that Kenneth and I adopted together is grown, married and has three  children of his own.

Today was Sunday, December 24.  Yesterday was December 23.  On December 23, 1983 Kenny Mercer and I exchanged our wedding vows in front of retired minister in Canon City, Colorado.  It was 15 degrees below zero.  We topped the ceremony off by enjoying a doughnut at the local donut shop. Susie was in middle school and Sam almost ready for college.

Sadly, I lost Kenny in 2002.  I have spent over half my life in this house.  I look around at where I am in my life journey and wonder how this happened.  It seems like only yesterday that I was surrounded by a vibrant loving family and the token dog and cat.  How many sunburns did I suffer while on a weekend fishing trip?  The children are gone, replaced by grand children and even great grand children.

I set here in my 2400 square foot house with a detached garage and an acre of land and wonder just where this will all end.  I can't sell the house and move into town, because I have 7 geese left from the good old days when I had 17 geese and 47 ducks and a pond.  They have only known this little acre  of mine as their home. 

And if I should move, where do I move to?  Do I go back to Hutchinson, where I have only one sister left?  I have no friends that I have kept in touch with.  Do I  go to Garden City, where I spent many years with my husband who is the father of my kids?  He is since deceased.  Do I go to Lakin where I have one daughter?  Or Longton where I have two daughters.  I have one daughter here and one son.  And one son in Dallas. 

Life would be so much simpler if the good Lord had not given us free will.  We should be born with some kind of handbook on how to do this.  But we weren't so I am stuck.  Guess I will just keep putting one foot in front of the other until one day I just cease to be.  Then it will be someone else's problem, won't it?

Peace!

Growing up on the Stroh place.

According to records in my geneagloy collection and stories handed down, my dad had gone to work as a hired hand for Josie Haas, a widow woman.  My mother had eloped and gone to Chicago with a man named Jack Walden, who was rumored to be a criminal who worked for the "mob".  She was 19 years old at the time.  She escaped in the dark of night and came home to grandma.  Or so the story goes.  

At that time Reuben Bartholomew was the handyman for Josie Haas.  Christine Haas was her daughter.  Christine and Reuben soon fell in love and married.  What followed is history.

 Of course, I was not born yet when that happened, so I can only surmise!  My first memories are of life on the Stroh place outside of Nickerson before I started school.  By coordinating my memories to what I recall I can figure out, I must have been about 6 years old when we left there and moved across town to the Ailmore place.

The big book that shows my genealogy is screwed up and shows my sister Mary married Tom Shea when she was 2 days old.  So I am going to forgo  dates and jump right into my memories.  According to the birth dates that I am sure are correct, I was six years old when Dorothy was born.  I remember momma bringing her home and she was crying all the time.  Harvest was about a week away and when it came time to drive the truck that hauled the wheat to the silo in town, Dorothy went with momma.  She was nursing and there was not much she could do, but take her. 

So the dynamics of the home at that point in time were these:  

Josephine, my half sister from mom's first marriage was 12 years old.

Jake was 10.

I was 6.

Donna was 4.

Mary was 2.

And Dorothy was new.

I did not like her because Momma always babied her.  Of course, she was a baby, but that was not taken into consideration.  My dad worked as a farm hand for a man who owned bottom land named John Britain.  We did not know him very well., but sometimes Dad would take Jake and I to work with him.  There was a slough that ran through the farm and sometimes it would have water flowing through it.  The water fed through to the Arkansas River which was next to the land.  If Jake had been lucky in his foraging he would have enough scraps of wood to build me a boat of sorts to float in the slough.  If not we just poked around to find crawdads.

I recall one time when Donna who must have been about 3 years old at the time poked her finger at a turtle, which latched right on and would not let go.  It was rumored that it would let go when the sun went down.  Donna screamed he head off until John Britain took his pocket knife and severed its head from its neck.  It let go then and I do not think Donna ever did that again.

As I recall, momma had geese and one time John Britain and dad snuck a goose egg into the chicken house and when John's wife found it, she was very excited!  "Oh look at the size of this egg my chicken laid!"  Not sure if anyone ever told her!

I started school on the Stroh place and one time it snowed very deep and Jake Stroh brought his horse to the school so he could bring us kids home to momma.  People used to help people like that.  It was called "helping your neighbor".  It must have been one of the memories that makes me help people today.  It was just "doing the right thing."  Helping your neighbor.

We need more of that today.  We need more kids playing with crawdads in a slough.  We need more walks in the woods and more helping each other and less television time.  I guess even televisions are going by the wayside and being replaced with computers, cell phones and the internet.

I may have outlived my usefulness!

Peace!

Let's start this off with a song!

click here Now that right there is the truth if ever I printed it!  Back in the days of sand and shovels life was so much easier!  We walked to school in a cluster.  Our family lived on Strong Street and there were 3 houses with kids.  On the end were the Ayers kids.  Willis, Ralph, and Marurite.  Then the Reinke kids.  Delores and Irene.  Flo was older so she ignored us.  Then came the little Bartholomew kids! Josephine, Jake, and me.   Donna, Mary and Dorothy would come later. I attended all 8 years in that 2 story red brick building on the corner by the First Christian Church.  I attended that church the same 8 years. 

We all walked to school.  Not so much in a group as one would think, but rather as a bunch of stragglers off to learn to be responsible adults some day.  My brother Jake was pretty much a goof off  but most of the boys in that era were.  He finally joined the Army, because that is what boys did back then.

Now back then, if a kid misbehaved they were sent to the office where Mr. Houston would administer the proper punishment.  That usually meant a spanking.  Lordy!  times have changed, haven't they?  If your kid got a spanking at school, they would also get a better spanking at home.  No mother or father wanted to have a kid that would misbehave in public.  It just was not done!  Period.  End of story.  The classroom teacher was not allowed to spank.  She (and most of them were women) would walk up behind an inattentive, wiggly kid and whack them on top of the head with the edge of a wooden ruler.  Trust me on this; I seen stars for days!  Mrs. Howe was the only one who ever struck me.  That woman was mean!  I prayed every morning that she would not look at me, but God ignored my plea!

I still remember my teachers through grade school.  First  grade was Miss Donough who married in the middle of the year and became Mrs. Breece.  She was so kind.  Then grade two was Mrs. Wait.  Grade 3 was Miss Holmes who was very sweet.  Fourth grade was Mrs. Howe who was, to my recollection, the meanest woman in the world.  Fifth grade was Miss Swenson who was kind and the first person to ever praise me for my feeble attempt at writing poetry.  She actually got me published in a magazine that was popular at the time. Sixth grade brought Miss Lauver.  She was strict, but very fair and probably one of the best teachers in the school.  Old maid.  Seventh grade was Mr. Schriber and eighth was Mr. Bollinger.  I did not like men teachers.  They were full of themselves.  But in all fairness, Mr. Bollinger owned the movie theater so he was cool.  

At the time I was in school there were less than 1,000 people in Nickerson.  The red brick building has been demolished and a one story grade school built a block away.  A bunch of houses occupy the lot where so many memories were made.  The church I attended which set on the corner across the street from the school is boarded up now.  There is one grocery store and it is in the building the appliance store used to occupy.  I left Nickerson, Kansas 65 years ago, but in my mind, I am still there.

We never wore shoes to school in the fall.  When the weather started getting cold the shoes were dug out and whoever they fit had shoes.  The Montgomery Ward Catalog was dug out and feet were measured and new shoes bought for whoever did not get a pair of hand me down shoes.  Life was hard back then, but poverty did not discriminate.  New shoes were a luxury, but they were also harbingers of blisters on our feet because they were stiff and needed "broke in".  I did not like new shoes.

I watched the kids getting on the bus in front of my house.  They are in little uniforms.  Shoes are all the same color.  Wonder how that works for developing adults that are unique?  Oh well.

Busy day ahead of me so I better get busy.  The days of sand and shovels must go back in my mind and wait for another day.  I hope I never get so old that I forget where I came from and the road I took to get to this day.  School days, school days, dear old golden rule days!  Reading and writing and arithmetic. taught to the tune of a hickory stick.........

Peace!

...

Queen of the Silver Dollar!

Many years ago, when I was 18 years old in Hutchinson, Kansas, there were three taverns, better know as beer joints down on south main street.  They were known as the 3 Queens.  You should know that it was also about the same time the Navy base was being phased out.  Now brother Jake and I liked to drink and I liked to dance.  In Kansas, at that time any bar worth frequenting had a dance floor.  So, let's set the mood here by clicking on the title of the song!  queen of the silver dollar

So, this oasis down on South Main Street in Hutchinson, Kansas housed a plethora of bars.  Brown Derby, Manhattan Club (which was my favorite), Anchor Inn, another one that slips my mind, and the Crystal Ballroom.  The Crystal Ballroom, which had a giant crystal ball mounted high above the dance floor, was only open on Saturday night.  It was mostly for old people.  There actually was a bar called the Silver Dollar, but it was clear across town on Highway 96 on the way to Nickerson.  I was only there once or twice. I did not like the ambiance there.

The Manhattan club was owned by a man known as "Dutch" somebody.  I would sometimes work the bar so he could go do errands in the afternoon.  A few notes here.  At that time it was illegal to sell alcohol to Indians because it "made them crazy".  It was hard for me to differentiate between them and Mexicans, who could drink until they fell over.  Sure different from now when you are required to serve people of every nationality. 

 There were whores who worked the bars.  I knew only one and her name was Seabiscuit.  That was not her name, but it was her "working name." I do recall she drank White Horse Scotch with cream.  Pretty sure those two things together would curdle, but not my circus; not my monkeys!  I came to know her on a different level.  She once had a family and a home like normal people, her husband had left her and taken the kids and South Main Street became her home and prostitution  her means of survival.

There was another one who was a little "pudgy" and giggled a lot.  I am not sure she charged for her wares, but rather did it for the sheer enjoyment of the work.  Her name was Berniece.  

My step brother, Gene had frequented the bars and they both remembered him.  Since my maiden name was Bartholomew it was easy for anyone to link us together.  Gene Bartholomew, Delbert (Jake) Bartholomew, Louella Bartholomew.

Fights broke out fairly regularly at the Manhattan Club, but as soon as the police arrived the fights stopped and they were warned not to do that again.  I still carry a scar right below my ankle from a beer bottle someone threw across the floor that broke and went into my heel.  

The last time I went to Hutch, I was going to go to South Main Street and check out my old stomping grounds, but I didn't.  The next time I am going to make it a point.  I am willing to bet that the bars have turned into antique shops. That time of my life was over 60 years ago, and time marches on!

My kids will no doubt, cringe in horror when the read this post.  But then again, they may actually be relieved to know that momma was young once and wasn't always a prude.  And they may understand how I figured out what they were doing because Momma done been there and done that!!!

It will all come out in the wash.

 Sometimes I get down and feel sorry for myself.  This is usually proceeded by something said or not said by a person in my life.  You must understand that I have very tender feelings and my heart has been broken more than once by something someone said or did not say.  They might not have actually said anything, but they may have looked at me and I thought maybe they were thinking about saying something.  To say I am a tad bit paranoid may be an understatement, if you get my drift.  I am sure that it all harkens back to the poverty days of my childhood.  I take comfort in the fact that my momma did the very best she could.  I did make a vow when I became the sole support of five needy little children, that I would do the very best I could.  And I did.

Working meant leaving the kids in the care of a babysitter a lot.  I hired a single lady from the south end to stay with the kids while I worked.  Bless her heart she tried.  Sadly the woman had a facial hair problem so did not fit in normal society.  In the beginning the kids were scared of her due to the fact that she had a pretty full beard!  She always wore an apron and in the pocket was 5 pieces of candy.  This, at least, got her in the door!  One for each kid.  I do not know what they did all day while I was at work, but the house was still standing and there were no injuries to anyone, so I was good with that. 

The kids had pretty much become accustomed to her when the boss's son was sent to Viet Nam and his wife needed a place to live.  Exit Ida Mae, enter Janice, a live in babysitter.  A match made in heaven, or so it seemed.  That lasted about 2 weeks.  Sam turned up with a long thin bruise on the side of his face.  Seems like Janice had struck him with the edge of a wooden ruler. Exit Janice and enter a long string of temporary workers.  I do not remember the string of temporary workers that went through my revolving door until finally the kids were old enough to want to go stay alone.  Susie was younger so she stayed with Mrs. Bensing.  Then, one by one they decided they wanted to attend school in Deerfield and later in Lakin, where their dad lived in Western Kansas.

And then I married Charlie and we moved to Colorado.  Susie started school at Jefferson Elementary.  Then I divorced Charlie, married Henry, divorced Henry, married Kenny and moved to the Mesa   And now it is 40 years later.

 After the kids graduated they mostly came back to Colorado.  They migrated back and forth beween here and there. And here we set.

I am on the Mesa, a widow of 20 years. 

Debbie is in Longton, Kansas married to Hammer who did 2 tours in Viet Nam. She has one son , one granddaughter, and 2 grandsons.

Patty is in Longton, Kansas.  She has 2 daughters, one granddaughter, and 3 grandsons.

Dona is in Lakin, Kansas.  She owns a beauty shop. She lost one son in an accident and has one living and 2 granddaughters.

Sam is in Dallas, Texas.  He is married to Allen.  They will take care of me when I get old, next week.

Susie is married to Tim and they have 4 dogs.  She lives across town.

I have come a long way from Strong Street, but it is all good.  Or at least I think so.  I some times get confused and wonder what the hell I was thinking, but like I said up above...

It will all come out in the wash!!

Peace!

Getting ready for new beginnings!

 Tomorrow when I wake up November will be behind me.  The bad memories can rest until next year.  It is not like shutting a door and moving on, it is just closing a door and living my life.  It all sounds good, doesn't it?  And I really wish it worked that way, but it doesn't.

I sometimes long for the days gone by when the only thing I had to worry about was whether I would be scared when my brother hid and jumped out at me in the darkened path on the way to the outhouse in the middle of the night!  Or whether one of us would drown in Vincents sandpit where we were cooling off on a hot summer day.  Or whether one of us would choke to death on a bone lodged in our throat from the big old Carp that momma caught in the Arkansas River when she seined for our supper.  Or whether that green Peach I stole off the tree by the chicken house was going to kill me for sure this time.

I remember the rabbit hutches and the babies that grew to be our supper.  I remember the nasty old Muscovy Ducks foraging for a scrap of something in the bottom of the mudholes behind the house where the kitchen sink drained out a pipe from the house.  I remember how the big red rooster used to seek me out and chase me out of the barnyard.  I remember my brother putting the baby kittens in a sack and throwing them in the river.  He wasn't being mean, he was doing as he was told.  Momma could hardly feed us, let alone a bunch of kittens.

Momma always said that people are like the seasons.  Babies are born like the Spring and are fresh and new and flourish, but when we get old we are like the Autumn.  We lose our leaves and and become skeletal like the barren tree against a cold dark sky.  

I have always accepted life in that manner.  I look around at my friend pool, and it is about dried up!  That young girl that used to race out the door and down the street to dance all night has ceased to exist.  The auburn hair is white now and the barefeet that used to fly across the floor are encased in a pair of orthopedic shoes.  The catfish that used to be fun to catch, dipped in corn meal and fried has been replaced by some sort of white, flaky stuff raised on a farm somewhere in a spring fed lake.  Most meals are steamed and fried is a thing of the past.

Fall is here and Winter is on the way!  That means I have to be careful not to slip and fall and wind up with a broken hip.  I have no desire whatsoever to jump in a snow drift or even throw a snowball at the mailman, or mailwoman as the case may be!  A trip out back with a bucket of water for the geese is about all the excitement this old broad can handle!

But I remember!  The kids today will never know the joy of walking home from school in knee deep snow.  They will never know the joy of a pair of galoshes with fur around the top that Santa Claus brought to replace the black ones that Jake grew out of and passed down to me.  They will never know the closeness of sleeping in a bed with 3 other kids.  They will never know what joy a Saturday night bath in a big aluminum tub was!  

The older I get, the fonder the memories become!  Momma always told me that someday my childhood would be something I would look back on and smile.  Something that would bring me joy.  And momma was right!

Momma was always right!

Winter doldrums, spring fever and summer sweat.

 My world is a wonderful place!  Winter is behind me and since it was a mild one and all the geese survived, it was a fairly good one.  Spring bursts forth with a wonderful display of leaves, foliage and flowers to stir the juices in my soul and make my heart sing.  Now we enter summer.  I like summer.  Not sure why, but I do.  It brings out the bugs, bees, hummingbirds, and vicious summer storms.   The first three things I really like.  The summer storms I can do without!

Now, Kansas was a different story as far as storms go!  Most days were just days.  Some were hot and some were hotter.  Some times it rained and some times it poured!  But always in the summer we watched the sky line for the clouds that could bring the tornadoes.  There always seemed to be a feeling in the air of what could be.  The tornado clouds were low and dark and the storm trackers were in their element as they scurried from one area to another to get a closer look at impending doom.  The air seemed to be full of electricity from the approaching storms.

Since I had a nest full of kids at the time, I watched the sky line and wished that this time I had a house with a storm cellar.  Now when I did have a house with a storm cellar I never went down there.  Storm cellars were just for that purpose and since no one went down there, spiders were prolific and BIG!  I harbored the idea that the tornado would suck all the webs and spiders out before I got down there, but I am not sure that was a rational thought!

A side note here on the cellar business.  When we lived in Glasco, which is in northern Kansas, we lived in a farm house that had a root  cellar.  This was a nice root cellar with concrete walls and floor and ceiling.  It even had a light hanging from the ceiling.  Of course, the first thing Duane and his brothers did was to "set" a crock of grapes which would ferment into wine.  Also something that would turn into some other form of alcoholic beverage in time.

The rules on this was that under no condition was myself or Maude, Larry's wife, to go into that root cellar.  That was "man business".  I also at that time had a little Chihuahua dog named Jake. (Jake will enter the story again!)  A couple weeks passed and the men went to work and the women stayed home.  We were very compliant about not going into the root cellar, but alas!  Much like the forbidden fruit that tempted Eve, the root cellar called to us.  What was going on down there out of our sight?

So one day we decided to just go look.  Two crocks were setting on the ledge and we lifted the cover and peered in at a stinking mess of grapes and water  with foam on top.  That was one foul smelling concoction, so we quickly covered it back up and scurried up the stair.  We saw no hope of any of that mess being of any use at all to us.

So the men returned home.  Supper was on the table so we ate.  Then Duane said, "Where is the dog? I haven't seen him since I got home.  That was unusual since Jake was usually there in case somone lost control and threw meat on the floor.  We began the search.  No dog.  After looking in all the usual places we gave up.  Duane then decided to check his alcohol progress in the cellar.  Lo and behold!  There was Jake shut up in the cellar!  How did he get there?  Were we in the cellar where we were not supposed to be?

Oh, no!  We would never break the rules!  Then how did that dog get in the cellar?  And try as I might, I could not lie my way out of that one!  I will not go into the scene that followed, but suffice it to say, I never disobeyed another rule that man made.  Never went into the root cellar again and the biggest blackest clouds could come and the storm that followed was mild in comparison to a husband who had been lied to by his wife!  

That was 60 years ago.  Jakie and Oopsie, my two dogs have been gone for years.  There is no one left to share my memories with anymore.  That is sad to me.  I often wonder if my mother had memories she wanted to share and I did not have the time nor the inclination to listen?  

I miss my momma!  I miss the old aunts and uncles!  I miss the history that I will never have a chance to learn now.  But most of all, I miss who I was then.  I was a 90 pound girl and the world lay before me.  Mother always said, "Hindsight is 20/20, looking back."

So I set here and remember and try to document just some of the history so some day maybe my grand kids and great grandkids will read some of this stuff and know that grandma had hopes and dreams and wants and needs.  Just maybe they will find a tiny corner of their hearts where they can bask in memories that will never pass this way again.

Peace and Love!

Kansas at it's best!

I did not plan a trip to Kansas, but here I am,  I knew I was missing my sister and my nieces and nephew, and it was my desire to travel back home a some point, but just not right now.  Kansas is rather notorious for tossing a tornado into the mix when you least expect it and that is why I had not wanted to come here at the height of tornado season,  But here I set!

Today I had lunch with my friend Joe at Skaets Steak Shop, which is owned by my sister .  Then on Saturday my daughter and her husband will be here with 3  great grandkids,  Probably have supper with Alina and Tom, spend some time with Evelyn and then get up on Sunday and head back to Colorado.  I grew up in this neck of the woods so i know a few people.

Right now the weather is kind of cool, but it knows how to get hot and humid when it wants to!  I am hoping it will not do that, but who am I?  The wheat is looking good and I think there will be a bumper harvest this year!  I tried to call cousin Daryle, but no answer.   Sister Donna is asleep on the couch, so I am left to my own devices.  I think I will wander down stairs and see what became of the room I used to sleep in when I came.

Guess I am at a loss for something to do.  Just wanted to check in,

Momma never really left me.

 Momma is still with me.  I see her arm and hand coming out of my sleeve.  I see her eyes watching me in the mirror.  I even hear her voice in my head when I am faced with one of my dilemmas. (She would be proud that I spelled dilemmas correctly on the first pass!)  My mother was very smart.  She was also very pretty.  When I went to live with the grandma's at the start of my freshman year, I was enrolled in Plevna High School.  Mother enrolled me and at that time girl's were automatically enrolled in Home Economics.  There were no such thing as electives, it just was what it was.

To get to the crux of the matter and set the background for this post, the Home Economics teacher was a lady named Ms. Crawford.  Ms. Crawford had gone to school with Christine Haas, who just happened to be my mother, Christine Haas, at the time.  Now my mother was not only very smart, she was also beautiful.  She had the prettiest hazel eyes, trim figure and flawless skin that was to die for.  I inherited my skin clarity and tone from her.  All through puberty when the other kids were battling acne,  my skin remained smooth as silk.  To this day I do not recall ever having one of those things called a pimple.  I was very lucky.

Back to the topic of Ms. Crawford.  Home Economics in the Plevna High School encompassed all 4 years.  As a Freshman in a class of 12 meant that the Home Ec class meant there were 7 of us girls in her class.  The first day she picked me out as that little Bartholomew girl.  Her nose sure looked long when she looked down it at me and announced to the class that she had gone to school with my mother.  Something about the tone of her voice when she said "your mother" made my blood run cold.  Her whole demeanor to me was different then with the other "farm kids".  It was my first case of being disliked simply because of jealousy over which I had no control.

Needless to say, I flunked Home Economics with flying colors.  There was no way in the world I could do anything to please that woman.  My other grades were high, but there was no hope in that class.  Suffice it to say, after that debacle I grew up to work as a cook, manage a restaurant, and own a restaurant, so I must have learned a lot after I left there!  

I have often wondered just what caused the animosity between those two women.  I guess it was not between them, just on Mrs. Crawfords side.  Momma  picked me up take me home to Nickerson one time and Mrs. Crawford passed us with her nose in the air.  I told Momma that she did not like me and Momma said, "It has nothing to do with you.  That is just how she is.  She does not like me."  That was all that was said about it.

And here I set 65 years later wondering what that was all about.  I could never fathom what caused the animosity between those two and now there is not a soul left that could tell me.  I just know this, my mother was the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful woman to ever grace God's green earth and it was Mrs. Crawfords loss.  

And another thing momma told me was "You never know anyone.  You know of them.  You know the part they let you see."  Momma was right.  Over the years I have known many people, but I have not really known them.  I have loved many times, but not known most of them.  A leopard never changes its' spots.  Momma said that.  Momma was usually right.

I miss my Momma.

It makes me sad.

 As life goes on, so does my memory, which is actually a good thing until it wakes me up in the middle of the night.  Last night I woke up remembering my oldest sister and, of course, Nickerson, Kansas.  I was 15 years old and my sister, Josephine was pregnant.  She had a little girl who was 3 or 4 as I recall.  Her husband was at work in the oil field.  As I recall his shifts were 24 on and 24 off, but that could be just something that came into my head, because I never really paid much attention.

On this particular day I had been sent to stay with her to keep an eye on her daughter, who shall remain nameless for this story.  I liked the little girl so it was no problem to entertain her.  Josephine was another matter.  She stayed in bed and appeared to be in some sort of distress, but how was I to know what was actually happening?  I had no idea where babies came from and was not interested in learning about the birds and the bees at this point in my life.  I was there to entertain my niece, and that was what I was doing.  But Josephine had other ideas.

She called me into the bedroom and told me to take her daughter, my niece, and go get help because the baby was coming.  I grabbed my niece and ran next door to the preachers house.  He called the grocery store and told his wife, who was a nurse, to come home right now.  He assured me it was all under control and that I should take my niece and go to my house where mother was and send her to Josephine.

It was only 3 blocks, but it seemed like it was miles.  I carried my niece most of the way which was not easy as she was heavy for me.  But we made it.  Mom left on foot because we had no car.  To make a long story short, the baby was stillborn.  It was a little boy.  

The next day, Jack Lamb, the mortician, brought a tiny coffin to the house.  He brought it in and set it on the coffee table.  He opened the lid to show us a very tiny little boy wrapped in a soft blue blanket.  His little hand was positioned to hold the blanket closed and I would have thought he was only sleeping had I not known.  That was so sad and a picture in my mind that will never fade.  

Since that time, I have attended many funerals, but I always see that tiny baby in my mind.  I went to visit the Nickerson cemetery several years back and visited the tiny grave of Baby Boy.  He did not have a name, but he will never be forgotten.  Although he never breathed a breath on this side of the veil, he still lives in my mind and my heart.  65 years later he is still in my mind holding his blanket together under his tiny chin.

Some memories never die.

Pecan pie and a thief in the walk in.

 

Somebody said something about a pecan pie over on facebook and I immediately remembered back to my days at the Red Carpet Restaurant and the boss's venture into the bakery on south main.  The bakery was in trouble so Bob leased it at t very low price.  Mother had a husband who had a grown son who needed a job (Dammit! I forgot his name, but maybe it will come to me.  The son, not the husband.  His name was George.)  Seems like I had an in with Bob so George asked me if I could talk to Bob and get (I will just call him dipshot for short until I remember his name.) Dipshot hired .  So I did.  Course Bob let me know that I would be responsible if Dipshot screwed up.

I would close the resturant kitchen at 10 o'clock and head by the house to pick up Dipshot and take him with me and we would head to south main to bag the bread that had been baked earlier.  First we had to slice it and then bag it and twist tie it shut. This usually only took a couple hours.  Then Bob decided to add pies to the line.  So cases of pies were delivered to the Restaurant.  I baked these while I was working and returned them to the case which was then taken to south main and sent out to the stores. 

Now Dipshot was not the brightest bulb in the box and honesty did not run deep through his soul!  I was however, mildly surprised when I opened the refrigerator in my kitchen at home and found 6 freshly baked Pecan Pies. Upon closer investigation, I determined that they were from the stock in the walk-in at work.  The fact that there was a piece gone out of one led me to believe that perhaps Dipshot had releived the boss of a case of pies.  A conversation with him later in the day proved I was correct.  I had a thief in my house!  This did not set well with me.

He, of course, promised that this was a one time thing and he would never do that again.  My mind, however, knew that "once a thief, always a thief".    I explained to him that we were going to take the pies back and he could just explain to Bob what he had done.  Of course, he swore he would never do something like this again if I just let this one slide.  Confessing  to the boss was not an option that interested him.  However, being the purist I am, I could not let this go unpunished.

I loaded the pies in the car, retreived my house key from him and bade him a fond farewell.  He had been a friend for a time, but honesty is paramount in my world.  So I drove to the restaurant and explained to Bob what had transpired.  I put the pies back in the walk in.  My heart was heavy at the loss of what had happened, but Bob never brought it up again.

I do not know what ever became of Dipshot, but the last I knew he was living in Western Kansas with his sister.  I lost my brother many years before and for a while I was happy that I had a replacement.  But you know what?  No one could ever replace Jake!  Jake was one of a kind and all of us kids were raised to be honest and respectable people.  And there was something else momma always said that rang true in this experience!

Don't let the fox guard the chicken house!  That woman was always right on!

Peace.   

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!

1967 in Liberal, Kansas

 My mind seems to remember things that occurred 55 years ago much clearer then the events that transpired yesterday for some odd reason. 

 Duane had met this farmer who owned a house about 3 miles out of Liberal.  The house was vacant and in need of repair and we needed some where to live.  We agreed to clean the place  and paper and paint as needed to make it livable.  The farmer would pay for paint, paper and brushes and such and the deal was made.  We spent the first night on the floor in the front room with all the kids.  Soon we had a bed and a wash machine.  Duane went to work every day and I began scrubbing in the kitchen.  I papered, painted and had that room done the first week.  For the first time in our marriage I actually felt like I had a home.  

The reason I remember the year is because Sam was one year old and had received a blue elephant toy that had wheels and he could set on it and push himself across the floor.  I recall that we also had a gravity flow floor furnace.  In case you do not know what that is I will tell you.  The gas fired furnace was in the basement and heat was transferred to the house by vents that opened in the middle of the front room floor, the bedroom and the bathroom.  It was archaic at best, but was what this house had.  I came in one day after checking the mail find Sam stranded on his elephant on the furnace vent because it was stuck and he could not put his feet on the furnace because it was too hot.  Other than that incident life was pretty good in the heating area. 

And the kids soon learned that they would burn their feet on the gravity floor furnace.  We got chickens.  We got a dog.  As time progressed I finally got the inside of the house all painted and papered. The rose bush bloomed by the back door and life was good.  The farmer came to visit and check out the now refurbished house.  He was impressed.  He brought his wife.  She was impresssed.  They were so impressed they presented the house as a wedding gift to their son and handed us an eviction notice.  Sam was now 2 years old and we were homeless, but you know the old saying, "When God closes a door, he opens a window?"

God opened a window in Garden City, Kansas.  And another window in Hutchinson, Kansas.  Life went on as life will do.  Duane became quite successful as a tree surgeon and an arborists.  I, of course, followed my heart and ended up in Pueblo, Colorado.  And after several changes of heart I am still here.

I think back on my life and have to admit to one thing....If I could live my life over, there is not a thing I would change.  There is a country western song that pretty much sums it all up.  This song is for Pueblo, Colorado.

click here to play

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....

Those damn Muscovy Ducks!

 

Thinking back to Nickerson is impossible without remembering the stinking ducks.  Let me lay the scene out for you.  We had a sink in the kitchen and a hand pump to pump water for indoor use.  The drain consisted of a pipe that ran through the wall and extended about 10 feet into the back yard.  Beyond that was the rabbit hutches and further out the chicken house and yard.  The chicken yard was fenced and they had a very nice house.  Horse pen and barn were over to the left.  Ah, but the only thing not restrained were the Muscovy ducks.

As I recall, there were 4 of them.  Black and white.  Now a Muscovy duck is different than other ducks.  The Muscovy is a "warbler"  which means it sounds like an old man mumbling to himself.  As a general rule ducks are pretty quite and when they do talk it is a definite "quack".  I am pretty sure that the male ducks I had never uttered a sound and the females were quite vocal.

Another interesting point here is that domesticated ducks and geese do not fly.  The exception to that rule is the Muscovy, which can fly and I know this for a fact because at one point I had 38 ducks, 4 of which were Muscovy.  All the ducks liked to float around in the pond, but the Muscovy ducks liked to fly up to the house and set on my central air unit which was located (and still is) near my back door.  It became a regular chore to hose down the unit when they went back to the pond.

But back to Nickerson and the sink draining in the back yard.  It was the habit of the Muscovy ducks to root around in the mudhole that was created by the water draining onto the dirt in the back yard.  I am pretty sure that mosquitoes laid eggs in that water.  I do know when the ducks got through digging in the wet dirt that it was a very stinky mess.  Hindsight tells me that if the health department had ever seen that mess that they would have bulldozed the house, but that was then and this is now and there is not much anyone can do about that, is there?

Looking back down the years of growing up on Tobacco Road, it is a miracle that any of us survived, and yet here I am!  We all have scars that we got when we were wee tykes and I can now empathize with my mother.  My hat is off to that woman if only for the fact that she raised us all to adulthood without any loss of life.  There were 6 of us back then.  Now we are down to only two.  Donna lives in Hutchinson and I live in Pueblo.  

We gathered only for funerals, but now there are just the two of us, so that does not happen very often.  She actually thinks she is my big sister, so I just let her think that.  I do know that we remember our childhoods differently.  I see abject poverty and she recalls a very happy childhood.  She remembers a very kind father and I never met that man! 

The one thing mother did teach me was that we all have our own concept of reality.  Some of us see the glass half empty and some of us see it half full.  

I do not even remember having a glass!

Ten dollars and 200 miles.

 I do not know about you, but I have 20/20 hindsight looking back and right before the crack of dawn is when I can see all my choices clearly!  Today is no different.  I woke up about 4:30 remembering my last day as a married woman in Garden City, Kansas.  The events leading up to that choice are irrelevant, only know that I had reached the end of my endurance and whatever lay ahead had to be better than the current situation.  Had I remained in the situation I would no doubt have ended my life that day.

With $10 in my pocket and a full gas tank in the 1967 Chevy I waited for my husband to leave for work, or wherever he went most days.  With him safely out of the house, I loaded what I could for clothes in the trunk on top of the spare tire.  That was days when there were no seat belt laws, so 4 kids were stuffed in wherever they could sit, stand or lay and away we went.  I would like to say it was an easy trip, but only 20 miles later I had a flat tire and no jack.  Luckily a boy scout troop happened by and the leader had a jack.  I left the flat laying beside the road and trusted God and the universe to help me reach my destination.  And he did.

I can only imagine the sight when mother opened the door and found me and the kids there and finding out we were there to stay.  She quickly called in a few favors and a babysitter was lined up for the next day.  Since I knew nothing about making a living, I started at the Blue Grill as a dish washer.  There I met a man who was wiser in the ways of the world and making a living then I was.  His advice was to bluff my way into a job as a waitress.  Lie on my resume: they would not check.  And he was right. 

 Mother waited tables at the Red Rooster and soon I had a job waiting tables at the Red Rooster.  There I met Gibby, who told me the cook was the highest paid employee in a restaurant.  So I applied for a cooking job at the Red Carpet.  I kept the dishwashing job and the waitress job and worked as night cook at the Red Carpet. Frank and I remained friends of sorts until he went to work at the radio station.  Gibby and I were like brother and sister until the day he died in California. 

Finding babysitters was sometimes a challenge and more than once I was ready to throw my hands in the air and give up, but give up to what?  Or who?  The kids dad was quick to point out that he would not pay child support.  His reasoning was that he did not want a divorce and that I had the kids and he had nothing so I should just figure it out.  After time I would take the kids to him for a few weeks and then go get them.  I saved babysitting money that way.  It worked out and over the years we could actually be in the same room with out screaming at each other.

To make a long story short, time marches on.  Today my first husband and the father of my children settled down and we shared custody.  I moved to Colorado and he lived in Western Kansas on 20 acres.  The kids stayed with him to attend school in a small town.  Between us we got the kids all raised and out into the world before he passed to whatever reward he had earned.  

I am a stronger person then I was 50 years ago.  Three of the kids still live in Kansas, one in Texas and one here in Pueblo.  My last husband and I adopted one of the grandkids.  I was married to him for 20 years, and he has now been deceased for 20 years. Apparently my mind is still pretty well intact.  Dates are a little fuzzy, but mother always had a way to explain that.  She said, "As life goes by you get more memories in your head.  As you get more memories they are harder to find in your brain.  They are there, it just takes time to get to them through all the other memories."

So there you have it for this morning.  If you get confused reading this, think about how I feel!  Some where I have it all written down and documented, but I do not know where that is.  So just know, I am here now.  Then I was there.  And never the twain shall meet!

Thanks, mom!

The sound of silence is killing me.

https://youtu.be/bGLHadex0B0

I wake up most nights just after midnight.  It is then that I do my best thinking.  Last night was no different.  I have nothing in particular to worry about, so I just lay there and think and inevitably end up back in Nickerson and I can hear a lonesome train whistle coming from the track that ran about 3 blocks from the house.  Mostly what I hear is silence, but the silence is broken occasionally by a coyote.  Rarely it is a wolf, but rarer still is a panther, or mountain lion drifting up from the river.  I love the river and I especially love walking the banks of a river or creek.

There is so much to see, or at least there was back when I was a pubescent girl with a vivid imagination.  Maybe it was just that back then the river and the cemetery were the 2 places I could go to escape the tedium of every day life.  Mom let me go to the cemetery with no qualms, but she worried when I walked along the creek.  Now granted Cow Creek ran past Nickerson on one side and Bull Creek on the other.  Access was restricted when those 2 flooded which they did every Spring.  The fact that the third and final escape was the Arkansas and it was always running high.  I went back to Nickerson a few years back and was surprised that nothing had been done about flood control, so they were pretty much busy building little dirt dams here and there to keep the water out of their houses.

There is just something about a quiet stream far from the city.  Little spiders skate across the surface where the water is still.  Tiny minnows gather in still places.  Baby frogs find their first water legs in pondlike places.  The abundance of flowers and mosses gives hope to a world that is still living away from the crowded city.  I am terrified of snakes, but in the wilderness they do not bother me at all.  I just back up and go a different way.  I am in their territory and that makes a world of difference.  When I find one in the goose house, it becomes my duty as superior human to kill it.  In the wilderness, I am the intruder.

Do you know what a crawdad house looks like?  If you come upon a small hole with balls of mud piled around it, that is a crawdad house.  I used to think a crawdad was a tiny lobster, but late in life I learned they were the cockroach of the creek.  I still like them.  When they are in the water they mostly travel backwards.  When Bret was 4 years old I took him fishing at the park and he caught a crawdad.  Actually the crawdad caught him because it had a grip on his hook and when he let go, he fell to the ground.  Bret was terrified of the "crab".  Jiraiya and I found one by the ditch a week or so age.  He and his daddy went back and found it and it was nearly dead, so Bret put it in the duck water.  The next morning we found its lifeless body near the duck water.  We had a funeral complete with rivers of tears for the poor little crab.

If I live to be 100 years old, I will never forget my life in Nickerson, Kansas.  I go back there sometimes.  I do not know any of the people there, but I haunt the places I used to walk.  Bull Creek was a dry creek bed last time I was there, but I still recall how it could fill the banks and overflow across the fields when the Spring rains came.  I  remember my brother catching a bull frog and putting it in my skirt with instuctions to take it to the house and find something to put it in.  I was mortified that it would bite me.  As luck had it, I opened my skirt to show it to Josephine and it leapt into the house.  She almost beat me to death before I recaptured it.  I think I told you she was mean.

I want to go back home next Spring.  I will drive 96  Highway and the State Patrol will have a man at every bridge, because the creeks all flood in the Spring.  It is just something that we can count on.  Since Kansas is flat it floods easily.  I love Colorado, and my life is here, but I think when I die, my soul will live in Kansas.

At least I hope so!

Spring time back home in Kansas.

I wonder if I will ever be old enough that I do not miss Springtime in Kansas.  Oh, I love Spring here where I am at in eastern Colorado, but it is not the same.  When I had Bret back when he was smaller I used to plan trips back home over Spring Break.  Sadly those days are over, but not my missing the Lilacs, Spirea, Iris, and the cool spring rains that brought all that to fruition.  I would leave here as soon as school let out on Friday.  Saturday morning would find us headed East.  A short stop in Lakin and then on to Donna's house.

My sister, Donna, has a big house with a full basement and two bedrooms along with a bathroom and a shower.  So that was home for the week.  In the front yard is a tree that I forget what it is called, but it would be in full bloom preparatory to throwing down some sort of big seed covered with sharp thorns.  Hutchinson is very temperate most of the time and in the springtime it clothes itself in a floral cloak just for me!  Forsythia, Spirea, Lilac, Iris, Tulip trees, Catalpa, Redbud, Hyacinth, Maple.  Hutchinson is very humid and my skin thrives on it.  At least it does most of the time.

Donna and Karen own Skaets Steak Shop.  Skaets is Steaks spelled backwards and has been in our blood since I started working there when I was 17 years old.  I was the dishwasher at the time and when I moved back after having my kids and divorcing my husband, I waited tables.  Skaets sets right on the main entrance to the fairgrounds, so best not to go in the first week of September.

Needless to say, they have very good food.  This is son Tommy choking down a Moon Burger.  It is one of their specialties.  It is a cheeseburger with bacon.  Bacon makes everything taste better.

But we are not here for the food.  We are here for the scenery, the trip down memory lane, and to just leave Colorado behind for a week.  I usually go check out the 2 fishing holes I used to frequent.  Maybe next time I will climb up the levee and visit the Arkansas River where I used to take the kids wading.  We would stop at B & D Carry out and get a box of burgers which was 8 hamburgers and french fries, all for one dollar.  Probably was not the healthiest meal in town but it fed the 6 of us and we liked it.

I have only a few friends left in Hutchinson.  I do have a nephew and 2 nieces.  Oh, and 2 cousins, Darrell and Steven.  I think that is about it.

All this talk of Kansas is just making me homesick.  Rest assured, Colorado is my home now and I have no intentions of moving back there, but I do have fond memories of Hutchinson and Nickerson.  I married my first, second and third husbands in Hutchinson.  Four, five and six, were all Coloradans.  I owned my home in Hutch, but gave it back to my mother when I left.  It has now been torn down and an apartment complex covers the lot.   I have lived in 3 different houses in Pueblo. I have been in this house 37 years and figure I will just do the toes up thing here.  Maybe.  Lord only knows what I may run in to out there in the real world.  Have to be pretty special to make me look twice and poke out that ring finger, but I digress.

Time to get ready for church.  Sunday is the one day that I make no commitments and I think I will keep it that way.  Just sort of drift with the flow and take a long nap while watching the cooking shows.

Peace!

The beautiful Colorado sky!

Every morning without fail, I leave my back door and head out back to the goose house.  When I built it, it was a duck house.  An influx of foxes changed all that.  At the height of my goose/duck raising , I had 37 ducks and 17 geese.  I also had a very big pond which was lined with heavy plastic.  It was about 35 feet long, 30 feet wide and 5 feet deep.  They loved it and swam in it all day long.  I still have pictures of it some where, but that is history and I do not like to live in the past.  Very slowly the foxes began to sneak in and carry off a duck now and then.  When I realized what was going on, it was too late and the houses behind my empty field prevented use of a gun.  One of the neighbors who lived down there, told my step daughter that he had shot over 10 foxes in one week.  But that is history.  I now have 8 geese and no ducks.  None of this is relevant, however.

This morning as I stood in my back acre, I reveled at the beauty of the blue Colorado sky.  Not a cloud in sight.  It was not cold, just a little cool, which is to be expected this time of year.  It was just that the beauty of the Colorado sky struck me as the hand of God at work.   It is so wonderful to live here in the center of the United States of America that I could not help but thank God above for delivering me to this place!  I fully intend to live out my remaining days right here on South Road, but can I?

I watch the news.  I know that south of here, children are locked in cages because their parents are trying to escape the drug lords in South America.  North of here, the Indigenous people who lived on this land since before Columbus or whoever came and they were eventually pushed back to reservations.  The government has penetrated into every aspect of our lives so that we are no longer allowed the security of our own planet.  In lands across the sea, bombs and war are an every day occurrence.  Running water, heated homes, electric lights at our fingertips are not givens over there.  I do have a radio in my bedroom that will bring me messages if the depot ever implodes.  It will also let me know if a tornado is on the horizon.  It was installed in my home over 30 years ago by the government.  They have changed the battery twice.  It is tested every Wednesday at noon.  I also get a calendar every year from the same place that furnishes the radio.  I am sure that it has some purpose, but I really do not know what it is.  Perhaps it is the government spying on me.  If so, somebody is pretty hard up for someone to spy on!  There is very little outside activity in my home and the bedroom is pretty well a "dead zone."

But back to the sky that is such a beautiful blue that it makes my heart ache!  If our government could spend the money on taking care of our weakest citizens that they spend on securing our borders and monitoring the rest of the world, wouldn't it be a beautiful world?  My grandfather came here 120 years ago with nothing but the clothes on his back and a hand held by my great grandfather.  I love my family history, and I love to go back to Plevna, Abbyville, Huntsville and all the places my grandparents lived.  Some of my fondest memories were made around the oak table at the little house in Plevna where I lived with my grandma and great grandma.  The school is gone now.  Last time I was there, only the gymnasium was standing.  The Hinshaw general store had burned.  That left the bank, the phone company and one gas station.  The Smith house was gone and 3 trailer houses were on that lot.  The Congregational Church still stood next door to our house.

The sky in Kansas and the sky in Colorado are different.  Colorado is a deeper blue.  Kansas sky goes on forever. The night sky in Kansas is not polluted by city lights and I can hear the coyotes yipping  across the prairie.  There are more stars then one could ever count.  The sky is total black with only diamonds sparkling against the velvet background. but it is the sky that fills my soul.

At least that is how I remember it.

All I see is a pink ball...

It is Christmas all over the world, and contrary to popular belief it is Christmas at my house.  I do not have a tree and all the trappings.  There is no Christmas music wafting from the stereo.  And last night I missed the service at church for the first time in many, many years.  But it is still Christmas morning here.

Yesterday I went to a friends house for lunch.  I dined with Ross Barnhart and his brothers and most of their wives.  His cousin was also there.  It was lovely and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Today I am staying home.  I have some things I want to do today, but right now I am thinking back to Strong Street.

I know we lived there for several years, but I am not sure how long.  My favorite Christmas is the year I received a pink ball for Christmas from Santa Clause.  Santa always left our gifts on our chairs at the table.  That year I received a coloring book, a box of 8 Crayola's, 2 chocolate candies an orange and a pink ball.  It was about the size of the orange and it was the most wonderful ball in the world!  When I dropped the ball it bounced very high.  I threw it against the house and it bounced back.  It was so wonderful, but of course , that did not last.  It was just a matter of time before the wonderful pink ball picked up a sticker and no longer bounced.  The last time I recall seeing it was deflated and living in a mud hole.  Soon the coloring book was all colored, the Crayon's broken and missing from the box.

The last Christmas I recall was the last one I want to remember.  Jake told me Santa was not real and he knew that for a fact because Momma was going to let him play Santa and give out the presents that year.  I did not believe him, so I asked him what I was going to get and he told me.

"It is a tin doll house with a mother, father, brother, sister and a dog. A black dog." And that was what I got.  Jake had assembled it by pushing the metal tabs through the slots and folding them down to hold them in place.  And sure enough, there was a pink mother and father, a boy and a girl, and a little dog.  It had a couch and chair, a table and 4 chairs, and a tub and stool and sink in the bathroom.  The kitchen had a sink, refrigerator and a stove.  Jake told me he would get me more stuff someday.  But it never happened.

Some how the wonderfulness of the doll house was over shadowed by the sadness the Santa was not real.  All those years, it had been my momma cleaning other peoples houses and saving money a little at a time to surprise me.  It made me sad to think of her doing without so I could have something I really wanted.  I came to hate that gift more every day.  Momma never knew, but I did.

I hated the poverty that was our life.  I hated that my father did not ever touch me or carry me like he did Mary, Donna and Dorothy.  I told myself that he probably did, when I was little, but I do not remember that.  He spent a lot of time drinking when I was growing up and I attribute it to that.  Sure doesn't help these many years later.

So today, I am staying home, alone.  I am alone because I want to be, not because I have no one.  I have 6 children who have mates and children and some of those children have children which means I am a great grandmother.  I have nieces and nephews.  I have very good friends.  I just want to be alone, so I will.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and pray that you all enjoy life to the fullest.  I know I am going to do just that!

Peace!