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!

709 North Strong, Nickerson, Kansas . Hot bed of the midwest?

Yep!  That is where I started second grade and where I lived until we moved to Hutchinson, Kansas.  Oh, there was that 6 months or so that I was with Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield, but for the most part, I learned all I needed to know about live there on Strong Street. 
It used to snow back in those days and we would sometimes need to walk home from school in the snow which was up over our knees, or so it seemed.  Of course, my knees were not as far up to as they are today.  Or maybe it just seemed that way to a little kid.  We walked every where we went and it seemed like the walk to and from school was so long, but as I look back now, it was a total of 8 or 9 blocks and it took forever.  I drove it last time I was there and it actually takes about 3 minutes and that is waiting at the highway for the hay wagon to pass.
First block was the school block.
Second block was the people I did not know.
Third block was Eldon Belote and Loren McQueen.
Fourth was Wells(?) and she had delivered her last baby in the bathroom (one of which we did not have inside the house).
Then Darrel Kalb on one side of the street and Jimmy Redford on the other.  (Both of these boys were objects of my 7th and 8th grade crushes.
Then the house where the guy had set it on fire to collect the insurance money, but wound up in jail for his efforts.
Block 7 was Whittlin' Joe and Johnny Carson who let the chickens roost in their house.
Block 8 was Howard Fein who made his lower plate jump out at me once and scared the livin' pee waddin' out of me because I did not know teeth were not attached.  (I did find out later how that worked when momma got her teeth pulled and got false ones which made her look like Tex Ritter, or so I thought.
Then home.  Home was always good.  It was a safe place and there were people there that I liked, or thought I did and then I left home because I did not like them, but then I found out I did, but by then there was no going back.
Behind our house was the cemetery where we liked to play because there was grass there.  And down the road was a sand pit where we were not allowed to go, but we did it anyway, because we were kids and kids do things they are not supposed to do.  We did have to be careful because sometimes a pack of wild dogs would roam the country side and we did not want to be killed and eaten.  Oh, and there was those Gypsy's that camped right outside of town and were known to grab young kids and take them God only knows where and do God only knows what with them.  Luckily I was never kidnapped.  No one in our family or anyone I ever knew was kidnapped.  I never actually seen the Gypsy's and I never knew anyone that did, but still, you could never be too careful!
The high school gymnasium burned down at some point during my high school years.  Now, I must go on record here as saying, I do not remember much about high school.    I do not know whether terrible things tend to be buried deep in our psychic, or the fact that I had a good friend who's dad made home brew might have tended to blur and distort some of my memories.
I do know I was not very interested in boys, not meaning that I was interested in girls.  I mostly liked to just day dream, I think.  I could see a very bright future for me as a writer, an actress, and entertained ideas of every kind, but never the role of wife or mother.  I did date a boy who later proved to be gay.  We had lots of fun and won all the dance contests.  Now I want you to know, that back in the day when we had the "sock hop" at convention hall, there was some dancing going on!  Remember American Bandstand with Dick Clark?  It was mine and Corky's dream to go there.  Course we never made it that far.  We did the over the shoulder, through the legs, toss in the air, stroll, chicken, bebop and anything else you could imagine, but we never made it to Band Stand! 
We did make it to Joyland in Wichita one afternoon.  Unfortuneatly that ended with me throwind up on the Round Up.  Nothing makes a date stand out in time immemorial like the girl hurling her cookies!
I have many memories of those years and I did not know until 55 years later that this was the ground work for Louella Bartholomew to become Lou Mercer.  My biggest regret in life  is probably that life can not be lived in the rear view mirror.  Ah, would I have done things different?  Hell yes!  But would I be the person I am today had I lived it different?  I doubt it.  There is a lot to be said for that song  The roots of my raisin' run deep.  I've come back for the strength that I need.  And help comes no matter how far down I sink.  The roots of my raisin' run deep.
For the record, I am happy with the person I am today.  Not real proud of some of the lessons I learned, but today I am a content woman with my mantra painted on a sign on the deck.  It reads

Love many, trust few.  Always paddle your own canoe!