This one came out of left field!

I spent today making Cream of Carrot Soup for the High Tea.  I also whipped up a big jug of Lemon Curd for the scones.  Well, for the Cheese Scones.  I am making Clotted Cream for the Apple ones.  Since I was cooking all day, it came as a complete surprise to me when I set down to watch the news and wound up thinking about Nickerson, Kansas and remembering my father telling my mother about a cross burning incident that had happened the night before.  I am pretty sure he had not been involved in the burning, but he sure seemed to know all about it and the names of the men who were involved.

 Now you must understand that this conversation was not held at the dining room table, but rather in whispered tones on the front porch.  Our bedroom window was on the front of the house so since I was awake it was hard not to hear.  And the fact that it is now 70 years later kind of dims the memory.  All the people who were alive at that time are long since gone on to their reward, whatever it might be.  To the best of my knowledge, I never knew anyone who lived in Nickerson, Kansas at the time I was there to be anything but white.  Oh, wait.  There was one family who lived in the boxcar down by the tracks that was maybe another race.  I never was sure what race they were.  Seems like they might have been Indian, but I wasn't sure of  what  race that was.

Our family was mostly German due to the Haas family on my mothers side.  Dad was mostly Irish or English or something like that.  I think maybe Great Britain came in to play some where in his genes.  Now if you think for one minute that I know where I am headed with this you are sadly mistaken.  Last thing I remember was I was working on some lemon bars and the next thing I remember is I was up here clicking away at the keys.  I think it all has something to do with the latest school shooting.  How sad that is that kids have to go through training to learn what to do if their school is attacked by a gunman.  Seems in the back of my mind I hear a song playing about the days of sand and shovels.  A day of innocence.  I wonder what our world has come to that this is normal and is accepted as normal.  And then I think to that conversation on the front porch and it makes me sad, that I can remember burning crosses from my childhood much as the kids today will remember the boy with purple and pink hair that shot children in a school.  What is our world coming to that violence is a way of life and that it is accepted as normal?

Even sadder, the boys doing the shooting are someone's son.  Some mother held the new baby in her arms and never dreamed that someday he would grow up to kill anyone.  Probably the worst she could imagine was that he/she would need braces.  Or maybe they would steal a candy bar just for kicks.  The world has changed.  Back when I was a kid, we saluted the flag.  We said "one nation under God." I think we even had a little prayer before school.  I vaguely remember one of my school mates being killed in a car wreck.  I do not remember his name, only that he had gone with his older brother to a National Guard meeting.  That was about the saddest thing that happened in our school.  Mostly life was mundane.  Mother went to work.  Dad went to the pool hall.  Josephine eloped and Jake joined the Army.  And the gypsys were camped outside of town, just waiting to steal a kid, but the never did.

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, I survived another year.  But is that good or bad?  Yesterday marked 74 years that I have been riding this big blue ball around.  I know I have good company in the form or Stephen Smalley, my cousin and my friend Mary Lou Abernathy, who I never see, and countless others that slip my mind.  All the kids checked in along with a mailbox full of cards from the dentist, insurance company, and the hearing aid place who recognizes every important moment of my life and assures me they are there to help me hear all the best wishes anytime I am ready to fork over the $4,000!  Ah, life!
I do like to look back at how far I have come from that little shack on the outskirts of Nickerson, Kansas.  That is where a mother and father made a home for 6 little Bartholomew kids.  Now there are 3 of us left.

Here I am on probably the last day that I was purely innocent.  The last day that I was completely helpless and I wonder where that blanket went!  I bet one of the younger kids got it as a handmedown, because back in those days, everything was handed down to the next kid.  Now do you realize that I got the handmedowns from my brother!

Doesn't look like he is wearing dresses, does it?  As a young girl I remember worshipping him my whole life.  We listened to the Grand Ole' Opry from Nashville, Tennesee on a car radio hooked up to a battery out on the porch on Saturday nights.  He is the one who taught me how to bait a hook and catch a fish.  He taught me how to choose the hardest clod of dirt in a plowed field and how to aim so I could hit someone in our clod fights.  He built me stilts which I fell off of and damn near broke my neck!  He dreamed of leaving Nickerson and coming back rich.  When he was 16 years old he forged his birth certificate and joined the Army.  Of course, he got caught and sent back home.

His name was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew, but in the 7th grade he became known as Shakey Jake.  That was later shortened to Jake because he did not shake.  He wore overalls and was befriended by a man in town named Roy Hasten.  Roy was an older man who had no kids and loved to fish.  I can remember him bringing Jake home and they always had catfish laid out in the back.  Some of them were really big, or at least big to my little memory.  When I hear the song "Bimbo" by Hank Williams, I think of Jake.

There is not enough paper in this world to hold all my memories of Jake.  I told you how he got that scar.  He did go away to the Army and he came home from Germany.  He married and had a son, divorced and had another son.  His second son and mine are almost the same age.  My father died in February of 1965 and Jake was killed that October.  My son was 1 month old.

10/5/37-10/31/1965

This was Mother.  I wonder if she remembered that dog?  Seems when we were growing up there was always an old cat hanging around outside, but never a dog.  Not sure I ever wanted one, but I am sure we never had one.  Dad did not like dogs.  I was always afraid of them.  There were always stories of "dogs running in packs on the outskirts of town, so be sure and keep the kids inside."  Never saw them, but like the Gypsy's (who I also never seen), we knew they were there and had to be ever vigilant.   Oh, yeah, and the cougars!  We could hear them scream down on the river and trust me, that scared the living shit right out of us.  Sure made me appreciate a home with doors.  Not that we ever locked them.  Doors had to remain unlocked in case a hobo or some homeless person needed to get in to get a drink of water or a bite to eat.  Times have sure changed.

So now I am rambling again!  I had one birthday party when I was growing up.  It was for my 8th or 9th birthday.  Mother was cleaning houses for my cousin Paralee Morris who was a teacher and was married to a teacher, so they were rich.  Paralee was the daughter of Frank and Helen Wocknitz.  Frank was the one who made Tony's Bologna and took the recipe to his grave.  She let mother make me a little party at her house and gave me a red Cinderella cookie cutter.  Birthday parties are just not a biggie with me.

(You must understand that all this stuff that I remember from 65 years ago may or may not be accurate and may change every time I remember it as well as every time you read it.  So it is best if you just read what I write and enjoy it and not try to make any sense whatsoever out of my poor befuddled mind!)

Enough about the birthday!  Fall is in the air this morning and I want to check the garden.  For some reason I would sure like to have a cigarette this morning, but I am always grateful when I realize that I gave those up.  That was a good change.  And change is what life is all about, isn't it?