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!

...

I did not write this......

I did not write this nor do I recall how it got on this blog page, but here it is!  I am sure I copied it from somewhere and put it here because it sure seems to hit the nail right on the head!

 “If I get dementia, I’d like my family to hang this wish list up on the wall where I live. I want them to remember these things.

If I get dementia, I want my friends and family to embrace my reality. If I think my spouse is still alive, or if I think we’re visiting my family for dinner, let me believe those things. I’ll be much happier for it.

If I get dementia, don’t argue with me about what is true for me versus what is true for you.

If I get dementia, and I am not sure who you are, do not take it personally. My timeline is confusing to me.

If I get dementia, and can no longer use utensils, do not start feeding me. Instead, switch me to a finger-food diet, and see if I can still feed myself.

If I get dementia, and I am sad or anxious, hold my hand and listen. Do not tell me that my feelings are unfounded.

If I get dementia, I don’t want to be treated like a child. Talk to me like the adult that I am.

If I get dementia, I still want to enjoy the things that I’ve always enjoyed. Help me find a way to exercise, read, and visit with friends.

If I get dementia, ask me to tell you a story from my past.

If I get dementia, and I become agitated, take the time to figure out what is bothering me.

If I get dementia, treat me the way that you would want to be treated.

If I get dementia, make sure that there are plenty of snacks for me in the house. Even now if I don’t eat I get angry, and if I have dementia, I may have trouble explaining what I need.

If I get dementia, don’t talk about me as if I’m not in the room.

If I get dementia, don’t feel guilty if you cannot care for me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s not your fault, and you’ve done your best. Find someone who can help you, or choose a great new place for me to live.

If I get dementia, and I live in a dementia care community, please visit me often.

If I get dementia, don’t act frustrated if I mix up names, events, or places. Take a deep breath. It’s not my fault.

If I get dementia, make sure I always have my favorite music playing within earshot.

If I get dementia, and I like to pick up items and carry them around, help me return those items to their original places.

If I get dementia, don’t exclude me from parties and family gatherings.

If I get dementia, know that I still like receiving hugs or handshakes.

If I get dementia, remember that I am still the person you know and love.”

-Rachel Wonderlin

Walmart dinner rolls/no expiration date

 One of the girls brought this bag to Thanksgiving Dinner last year.  That was November 24, 2022.  Today is January 13, 2023.  That makes these rolls 2 months old at the very least.  They are still soft.  They have no real smell.  There is no expiration date any where on the bag.  I did poke a hole in one of them and it appears to be soft.  No one opened them until I opened them today to poke my finger in one.  Now this is troublesome to me.  

See, I thought that the government had some sort of control over the food that is stuck in a bag and put on the shelf at the grocery store.  Must have been in my dreams.  The fact that there is no expiration date on the bag is in itself troubling.  So I know they were made prior to November , 2022 and the list of ingredients is nothing I have ever read before.  Bread on my table is made with flour, salt, olive oil, sugar, yeast, and water.  That is it.  My rolls will be starting to dry out the next day and by the third day, mold will be starting.  This tells me there is no preservatives in mine and they are easy enough to make that I make them a couple times a week.  Everyone likes them.

So,kids, this is the lesson for today.... read the label.  Do you really want to actually eat something you cannot pronounce?

Sorry about ratting you out, Ozark Hearth, but I only have this one body and I am trying to keep it healthy, so I am not going to eat these rolls.

Peace.

Hindsight is 20/20 looking back!

 My momma, the wisest woman in the world told me that years ago. I sometimes wonder if my kids will ever look back and remember anything I said.  I sure hope they do.

Growing up in a house that was home to six kids we all had our place in the hierarchy.  When my father married my mother, he had 3 sons from his first wife who had died.  They had been placed in an orphanage because he could not care for them.  The younger two were adopted into homes but kept in touch over the years.  The oldest left the orphanage at age 18 and mostly wandered the world.  

Of my family growing up, Josephine was oldest because she was the first born to my mother.  She had a different father than my dad.  Her father was supposedly a gangster in Chicago.  Who knows!  Then came Jake, who was the only son, simply because he was the only son.  Then came me, a bright and shining star on the roster of children!  Not really.  That put me in the middle child position which is not a place anyone wants to be.  But there I was, nonetheless.  Then the others who mostly tended to favor my father in coloring and mannerisms.  Donna and Mary were next followed by Dorothy who was the youngest.  Her sole claim to fame is that she was the last one born to my mother. 

Mary was always my dad's favorite.  There was never a question about it: It just was.  When Mary went to Junior High School and they had a dance, my dad went to town and bought her a beautiful white prom dress.  It was so soft.  Mary met and married her future husband when she was 13 or 14 years old.  He was 15 or 16 at the time.  I think.  I am a little foggy on the ages, but they were both very young. I do know I borrowed her prom dress when I married Earl Duane Seeger in 1960.

I look back down the road that I have traveled, and it makes me very sad.  My mother tried to give us kids everything we wanted and needed when she herself had been through trauma that I would never know about.  There are only two of us left, me and Donna.  I wonder if Donna ever thinks about our childhood.  I wonder if she remembers it the same way that I do?  I do know she squeezed a baby rabbit so hard once that it bled out its mouth and she put it in a drawer and covered it up with a washcloth, but it died anyway!

For the record, Lavender is still my favorite color, and my mother is still the angel that I remember.  The only difference is that instead of living on Strong Street in Nickerson, or on Avenue A in Hutchinson, she is walking on the streets of gold.  She is not in any pain, and she gets to look down on me and see that she raised a very strong woman after it is all said and done.  She is waiting for me to take that leap from here to where she waits for me.  I just hope she knows how happy I am that I was raised at her knee.

We all different mannerisms as is common in big families.  Josephine was the oldest, so she was bossy.  Jake was the only boy, so he was expected to do boy things, like chop wood, take the old tomcat that ate the baby chicken to the forest and chop off its head with the same axe, and mostly just do boy things.  He did let me tag along sometimes.  Of course, we all had to cater to Mary and Dorothy, because Dorothy was the baby, and Mary was the pretty one.  Mary was also Dad's favorite.    I do not think he liked me at all, but that taught me how to raise my own kids later in life.  

I bent over backwards to make sure that I did not favor one over the other.  If I spent $20 on one for Christmas, I spent $20 on each of the others.  Later my son pointed out to me that this was wrong.  I should have bought each one a gift especially chosen for them regardless of price.  He also pointed out that he was the only boy and should therefore be granted special status!  Little turd!

But this blog is actually about my high school prom.  Mom had somehow managed to get her hands on enough shiny polyester fabric in a beautiful lavender color.  She then scraped together enough to buy several yards of lavender net to pair with it.  She sewed me a beautiful prom dress all my hand with a pattern in her head!  It was beautiful!

It is at this point that the adage, "You cannot make a silk purse out of a cow's ear." comes to mind.  The softest net is very soft and lays differently than the cheap net that momma could afford.  When the skirt was stitched together with the bodice, it left the stiff net to completely encompass my waist.  What started out to be a fairy tale night, ended up being a torture.  By the time I got home to take the dress off I had a very raw waistline that was actually bleeding. It was packed away in a box under the bed and I do not know what ever happened to it. 

Lavendar is still my favorite color.  Always will be.  Lavender is still my favorite scent, and the beautiful fields of Lavender in Grand Junction is my favorite place in the spring.   

Momma told me long ago that my childhood would be what defined me in my later years.  She sure hit that nail on the head!  My experiences of those long-ago years guide me in everything I do in my old age.  When I think of momma it is always the house on Strong Street and the old wood stove and the ducks and chickens out back.  It is the Peach Tree by the chicken house and the treadle sewing machine and the Catalpa tree by the road.

Wonder it that is what heaven is like?  I sure hope so!

Peace!

Bamboo toilet paper at my house.

 For many years I used recycled toilet paper at my house.  I thought that was the complete answer to doing my part in saving the planet.  One day it came up in the conversation with a man friend and his son.  The son was most interested to know just how they went about recycling toilet paper.  I explained that it is made from recycled paper into toilet paper.  I buy this stuff online so it is purchased by the case.  Lasts a very long time since I live alone basically.

Now, recycled toilet paper is made from recycled newsprint and things like that, so the name is rather misleading.  Granted, if you are used to the thick, soft stuff like Charmin and other high dollar products, you are not going to like my recycled stuff, nor the bamboo that I am currently stocking my holder with, however, I am definitely on the environmentally friendly side of the ecosystem.

And, as for price I pay roughly $1.46 a roll for this. That is a bit more than what I paid for recycled.  Actually, I pay $1.29 for the recycled from Who Gives a Crap.  It is never easy trying to save the planet, but I try in little ways.

I actually prefer the bamboo because it seems to be a little stronger than the recycled stuff, but honey, my old butt is not real picky!

So, the point of this is, I guess my assessment of recycle versus bamboo is what I am trying to convey.  Bamboo is a very fast growing grass that is used in lots of ways, toilet paper just being the one I am familiar with in everyday use.  Not sure if any of these can be purchased at the local grocery store, but since I just got my shipment, I am good for a while!

I do think there is a product out there called Seventh Generation which is readily available on the grocery store shelf.  Or Walmart.  Or wherever you shop;

Oh, and either one is septic tank friendly which makes both myself and the man who pumps my septic tank happy.  So go forth today and think about what you are using in your kitchen and bathroom, and have a blessed day!

Peace! 

Lagree's on the Mesa

My favorite grocery store is a pretty well kept secret.  It is one mile up the road and I pop in there several times a week.  I have actually popped in there several times a day if I am having one of those days when I am completely disorganized.  

I moved out here on the Mesa when I married my last husband 40 years ago.  At that time it was Chet's grocery store.  Kenny was a wise man and told me that we needed to support the local grocery store or the time would come when we needed a loaf of bread and we would have to make a 30 minute drive to town and back.

Sadly, the original owner sold to someone else and the store began to go downhill.  Then the roof began to leak.  Lack of maintenance began to show.  The shelves began to carry inferior brands and the store soon became a place where one shopped as only a last resort.  I think it actually sat empty for a while.  

Then, Hark!  A new owner!  The first thing on his agenda was to repair the roof!  Not more walking around buckets of rain water to shop.  It is my understanding that Lagrees also exists in Alamosa, and another town in the mountains.

You can click on the article on my facebook page and save me a lot of typing!  Here is what I want to tell you.  Lagreese is a very user friendly store.  Clerks, stockers, and even the person cleaning has a smile and will say hello.  I live a mile away from the store and twice left my purse in a cart out in the parking lot.  Both times it was retrieved and returned to me.  Not sure I can do that at King Soopers.  (Not sure I should do that any where!)

And if you think just because they are a small store you will not be able to get something, think again!  Canning supplies, dog bones, organic produce, fresh cut meat, dairy products!  All there.  If you can not find something, just ask one of the stockers.  From lye for soap making to Filet Mignon for a romantic supper.  All there.

Kenny said it best when he said "We have to support out local businesses or they can not survive and when we need something we will have to drive all the way into to town and pay the same price, plus city tax."  

Kenny was wise.  Kenny and Momma.  They would have made a good match!

5 sons in law!

 The last blog I did was totally in accurate!  I have 5 sons in law and only God knows how many ex sons in law.  Course if I count the exes and the steps we could be here for days, so I am just not going there!  

I am not going into further detail.  I will just update you on the Covid-19 situation at my house.  Yesterday I went over to Mesa Pharmacy and got my booster.  In and out in 15 minutes.  Just had to wait to make sure I wasn't dizzy.  I love that place!  They have the sharpest needles in the world.  Not that I get a lot of shots but when I do, I so enjoy a sharp needle!

I am going to move my prescription over there since I am in there dropping things in thier mailbox several times a week.

I have to go buy goose food today and that is all for my errands.  Lord I hope this day is good!

Ok, I am out of here.  Have a good day!

November 21, 2020

One year ago on this  November 21 at 6:38 AM my cell phone pinged.  I was awake and had been for a while.  It was when I saw the message and that it was from Anthony that I was faintly surprised.  "The keys to the house are in the mailbox."  That disturbed me.  So I dressed and headed for town.

My phone rang before I got to his house and it was friends of his from Pueblo West who had been talking to him the night before and were concerned.  They were on their way to his house and just wanted me to know they were concerned. He had been home in isolation for over a week with Covid.

I arrived before they did so I got the house keys and opened the door and went inside.  His car keys and phone were on the kitchen table.  I had never been downstairs except once to check out his new furnace.  Since he was not upstairs, I knew he must be downstairs and he was.  His bedroom was at the far end of the basement and he was in bed covered up.  I told him I was going to call for help and he said "OK."

The rest is history.  Now I have always been a strong woman, but this has been a rollercoaster ride for me.  PTSD is what they call it.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It happens to military in times of battle.  It happens to anyone who has been through trauma of about any kind. It would not happen to me because I would not let it.  As referenced above, I am a strong woman.  Don't let that statement fool you!

Strength has nothing to do with it.  I must equate it with the rides at the carnival.  There are a couple that will have you going very fast forward and then suddenly you are going the other direction.  How you keep your head on your shoulders is beyond me, but it happens.  My life the past year has been just that.  I am normal.  I am driving down the street enjoying the beauty of an Autumn Day and singing my old country music with the CD player and before the next breath I am parked and sobbing on a side street. 

 This is my new normal.  

We were friends.  I thought we were good friends.  I guess what I am dealing with now, a year later is the loss of that friend.  There are steps that should be taken in dealing with death and I have done that, but there are gaps in my mind of that morning and they may never be resolved.  PTSD.   

It was never about love or the lack of it.  It was never personal.  It was not something he did to me or because of me.  I was never a factor in the planning that led to the final act.  I just was.  But by the simple act of "being", I became a means to an end.

So, as I take stock of the situation as it now stands, I know what needs to be done.  Get over it.  Move on.  Give it to God.  The mind is a simple thing, or is it?  Are there maybe things that we encounter on our way to the cross that our minds cannot fathom?  We all have our own concept of reality.  What seems right and normal to me may be ludicrous to you.  What is the answer to how I can finally resolve this in my mind?  

I don't know, but I do know this:  I have friends who care.  I have family who care.  I have a good life.  I still know how to live, love, and laugh.  I just need to do it more.  The answer is not inside these four walls.  I have already said goodbye to Anthony.  I now need to open myself up to a future.  I need to accept love that is all around me and fly high and free!

Peace and Love!

 

If I had known then what I know now.....

 

I met Earl Duane Seeger shortly after my birthday in October of 1960.  My brother Jake introduced us in a bar up the street from the house. I think it was the Crow Bar.  They used to have a thriving business and I remember once they had a Calypso band and I fell madly in lust with the little guy who played the Bongo drum.  Sadly, I could not hold my liquor very well and a bad case of "Four Roses Flu" hit me suddenly and I retreated up the street to the safety of the of my home where I worshipped at the feet of the porcelain throne.

Oh, but the night I met his friend, I managed to sip demurely on a coke laced with absolutely nothing but a couple ice cubes.  That man was drop dead gorgeous with a full head of blonde hair and the most beautiful blue eyes I had ever had the pleasure to gaze into.  And gaze I did!  He was freshly home from the Army and I was freshly out of high school.  His name was Earl Duane Seeger.

(Short note here: I was out of high school because I dropped out the beginning of my Senior year to devote more time to drinking and partying.  That was one endeavor in my life that I succeeded very well at.)  The match made in heaven ended in marriage 3 weeks later and we set up housekeeping in a one bedroom 3rd floor walkup.  

Needless to say, my party days were over.  Earl ,who I called Duane because that was his middle name  worked as a tree trimmer for a guy whose last name was Bean.  He had 2 brothers who also worked for Mr. Bean.  ( They called him "Navy Bean" but I am pretty sure that was not his name.)  They would go to his house every morning, go do their job for the day, and then come home.  Life was good.

The only thing that would have made it better was if I could have had a baby.  (Eventually that happened 5 times.)  Duane and his brothers left Mr. Bean and branched out on their own.  Life went on and 10 years later I returned to Hutchinson with my babies in tow.  Duane ended up buying land in Lakin, Kansas and making that his "base of operations."  We shared custody of the kids without benefit of lawyers and such, but it worked for us.

At one point he had a cafe in Deerfield where he lived upstairs and I had taken the kids to see him.  We had a relationship that while not cordial worked for us.  I remarried a couple times and he had girlfriends.  It was during his Deerfield days that I found that plaque above and thought how appropriate that was for him.  He hung it where he spent time in the  kitchen of his cafe.  It was not a working cafe, but it had lots of rooms upstairs for the kids and the stove and grill worked down stairs.  It worked for him.

After Deerfield he bought land in Lakin and moved onto it.  He moved a trailer house in for him, and then his mother who was a widow by that time.  A couple of the kids also moved trailers in and life went on.  It worked for him and that was the important part.  When he passed in 1994 at the tender age of 53 we were all devastated.  The kids brought this to me explaining that "Daddy read this every day and always kept it in the kitchen where he set." 

Now it sets behind the faucet on the kitchen sink.  It has been in my kitchen since his death.  The kids gave it to me and explained that "Daddy never stopped loving you."  I see it every day.  Earl Duane Seeger was my first real love.  He was the father of my children.   We could not live with each other, but we could also not live without each other.

Funny how that works.

  

Idle hands are the devil's workshop!

Momma said it.  It was reinforced by Grandma Haas and drilled to the depths of my tiny brain by Great Grandma Hatfield.  When I lived with the grandmas my Freshman year of High School, I spent every night sitting with them around the old oak table.  It was there I learned to crochet and read the Bible.  The telephone hung from the wall by the front door.  It was a big brown box with a receiver that you held to your ear and a tube that you spoke into which was transmitted to the wire (I assume) which went to someone else's phone.  To call someone you picked up the receiver and placed it to your ear and turned the crank to get the operator.  

 

The operator would say "Number please?"  You would say the number or the name of who you wanted.  She would then pull the line from your number and plug it into the number you were calling.  Now first I used the pronoun "she"  which is not permissible in this day and age, but back then telephone operators were women.  It was not man's work.  That is just how it was.  I always dreamed of being a telephone operator when I got old enough to work, but I decided to be a barmaid instead.  

Very little time was spent on the phone.  It was a tool.  Usually when the phone rang it was for emergency contact for one reason or the other.  Good reasons, not just passing the time of day.  Or to enquire as to one of the grandma's health.  I was 15 and healthy so no one needed to check on me.

Another thing about the telephones back then was that most people were on a "party line".  Back then a party line meant there were several phones on the same circuit and if you wanted to "listen in" all you had to do was pick up the phone very quietly and hold your hand over the mouth piece and you could be privvy to who ever was talking.  We were not supposed to do it and it would get you a "lickin" if momma found out which she always did!  (To clarify the word "lickin' ", it means spanking.)

But as for the eaves dropping, that is how my mother found out my older sister was pregnant by an older man in town who she was sneaking around with.  The operator listened in on a conversation between my sister and the scoundrel!  She then felt it her duty to report the situation to my mother and anyone else that would listen.  Talk about gossip!  And Mrs. Humphrey almost lost her job.  Almost, because no one else wanted to do her job so she was allowed to stay at the switchboard  and no doubt it was not the last conversation she was privy to either!  

Now how I made the leap from sitting around crocheting and reading the Bible in the evening is beyond me, but here we are!  I guess the fact that I can not sit quietly and meditate goes back to that old oak table, the family Bible and the telephone that was for emergencies only.  We also used to pay for long distance, but that is all gone by the wayside.  We are never out of range of our loved ones no matter where we are.  I can pick up my phone and punch in a few numbers and reach Dona who is out in the chicken coop 200 miles away.  Or I can call Debbie or Patty who are 400 miles away.  Debbie will be feeding something to some body or be lining the grandkids out for the day.  Patty will be on her way to some where with the phone in the car.  Neither call costs anything.  Connections are clear.  

As for my idle hands, they are usually up here on this computer listing on ebay or etsy, or writing something to clear my mind of some obstacle that life has put in my path.  But at 3:00 in the afternoon I turn on Jeopardy! and my little eyelids droop and it is nap time.  And to clarify you need to know this: nap time and  bedtime are two different things.  Nap time I close my eyes and doze off and usually wake up to the closing theme music of Jeopardy.  I do not dream during the show, but my mind takes in the information.

Bedtime usually occurs about 8:00 or so.  I put on my jammies, turn out the lights, crawl into bed, pet the cat and slowly drift off to dreamland.  Usually my dreams are pretty mundane, but sometimes I fight the demons of the day all night long.  Those are the mornings, when I wake up at 3:00 am and get up come in here and write.  I compose beautiful poems and write brilliantly as long as I do not leave the bed or turn on the light, but morning always comes.....

maybe.

At the base of the porcelain god...

I have not had a drop of alcohol in many years.  It holds no siren call to me.  I drink water and if I am feeling the need for libation of any kind, tea will do.  Occasionally I do crave a soda pop, but even that is very rarely.  So, that having been said, why did I wake up at 4:25 AM remembering the siren call of alcohol?  Why were my first thoughts this morning a memory of waking up in a dry bathtub, fully clothed and covered in vomit from the night before?  How many years ago was that?!?  Apparently, the fun I had transitioning from teenager to young adulthood is a memory I shall never live long enough to neither clearly remember or forget.  

When I was 16 I wanted to be a missionary and save the souls of naked natives in Africa, but by the time I reached 18 I had changed my goal from saving souls to drinking the brewery dry.  I had a friend whose dad made home brew and she and I relieved him of a lot of his product when he was not looking.  I think he blamed it on his wife, but it is a little late now to apologize for that little fiasco.

I remember very little of my Junior year in high school and even less of the Senior year.  I showed up for class pictures and ordered my class ring (which I promptly lost) and that was about it.

Now, there were boys who subscribed to the theory that "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  Those little fellows never reckoned with me, did they?  Beer made me mean and hard liquor made me meaner.  Of course, either one was going to make me throw up!  Nothing turns a guy off like some broad barfing  which was the one thing that got me through my high school years with my virtue intact.  The last time I was drunk was when my brother came home from the Army and he bought a fifth of rot gut whiskey for three dollars and some change.  We washed that down with red Koolaid.  And the rest is history.  I threw up for 3 days and swore off liquor for the rest of my life.  Red Koolaid is never found in my house.  And I am pretty much  still abstinent.  Lips of wine will never touch mine!

So let's get back to the subject.  Why, all these years later, are the memories of booze so clear in my mind?  I can not remember what I got in the car and drove to the store to purchase, but I can remember how drunk and sick I was lo' those many years ago.  Now I suppose a psychologist would say I was secretly wanting a drink, but I am pretty sure that is not it, because I could drive to the liquor store which is one mile away and buy a bottle if I chose.  But, no, I drink tea.  And water.  Sometimes chocolate milk.  And of course, coffee.

So, it is now 5:30 AM and I am winding up this entry.  I will have another cup of coffee and get ready to start my day.  Not sure what today will bring, but I am sure I will be stone assed sober for whatever it is that happens.  There are things in my life that are "givens".  That means "it goes without saying."  I will not drink liquor today.  No red Koolaid either. No cooked apples.  For the most part, my life is good.  I miss my kids, but so be it.  Some day!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

I have no waist.

This is nothing new.  When I weighed 98 pounds, I had a 29 inch waist.  Since then I have gained 40 pounds and my waist is 36 inches.  An hour glass figure was always something I longed for, but never achieved back in my younger days.  Mother was always the practical one.  She dismissed it as "So?" That did not seem to help much.

As I inch my way toward being an "octogenarian", I think I have finally come to grips with the fact that it really doesn't matter anymore.  Back in high school it seemed to matter.  Barbara was 36-24-36.  The rest of the girls were similar, but found it amusing that I was 32-29-34.  While they weighed in at higher numbers, I tipped the scales at 89 pounds. The boys found them fascinating; they found me strange.  The "in girls" tittered when the boys entered our realm.  While the girls seemed to accept me as I was, the boys were looking for boobs.

Irene had huge ones so she was a real hit.  Martha found boys stupid and she would rather play the piano.  I found boys strange creatures.  Then there was that the phenomenon of the changing voice that boys had to contend with that proved embarrassing to them!  One would be talking in a normal voice and then out would come a word in his little boy voice.  We would always laugh, but I am sure it was hard on them as the "tiny boobs" thing was to me.  Kids are cruel.

I started my high school years living with my grandmother and great grandmother, so by the time I got back to Nickerson, I entered high school as a Sophomore.  My class mates from grade school had new friends and I was the outsider.   We had a larger curriculum, and the teachers expected us to actually do our home work AND turn it in at the end of class or beginning if it was something we did at night.  I had a Speech class and it was always torture for me to stand in front of a room full of people and "defend my viewpoint" on one subject or another.  Algebra was like a foreign concept.  History was boring.  Chemistry was an accident waiting to happen in a beaker on my table.  So I started skipping class in my Junior year and by my Senior year I was a secret drinker.  I never graduated.  I did, later in life get my GED and went to Business College where I graduated Magna cum laude which helped not one iota in the restaurant business since I was a cook or waitress and not the owner.

I have 5 kids and my body has changed, but the hour glass figure that I so longed for is still not a reality.  I have developed a personality of sorts so, that is good.  At least I have friends.

So I guess the moral of this blog is "God don't make junk!"  It is not what is on the outside that matters.  He will judge me by the content of my heart and the deeds I have done.

I sure hope that is how it happens, cause life sure does get tediuos!

Segregation is still alive and well in spite of it all.

 I just watched a segment on television about an old theater in some place down south.  Might have been Birmingham, Alabama.  There are two important facts here.  #1 is I am actually paying attention to the television and we are still having segregation problems and it is not just down south that it is happening.  

They were showing the history of the theater and explaining how it had been used as a headquarters for Ku Klux Klan meetings.  They gave the history to explain why the theater was the prime place for a museum to replace the KKK.  I am old enough that I can remember back when "night riders" interacted with black people in such a way that occasionally the black person would not return home in the same condition they left in.  This was acceptable behavior back when I was a kid growing up in Nickerson, Kansas.  I expect that the city of Nickerson could build their own museum, but not thinking they are going to do that!

I have very vague memories of my mom and dad having hushed conversations, before he would leave the house for an unknown destination.  When we got up the next morning for school he would still be asleep.  Hindsight is such a much better vision then living in the present!  We would hear hushed conversations in the school yard that abruptly ceased when we came near.  Guess this was something only the older kids were privy to.  

There were no Mexicans in our town.  No blacks.  There was a family that lived in the boxcar down on the curve that we suspected were maybe Indians.  We learned later that the word was "Indeginous", but then they were Indians and they kept to themselves.  There was a father, mother and 3 daughters.  Once I went to their house out of curiosity.  The house was very neat and the mother did not talk at all.  The father just glared.  I never did that again!

After they had been there for what seemed like a long time, Eveline was allowed to attend school.  Granted, no one played with her, but by then we were out of the "playing" stage and into the "trying to learn something that would be meaningful in our future."  Mostly, that involved cooking or baking, or cleaning house.  Eveline did come to my home a time or two, but mother was quick to point out that she had "very long fingernails and God only knew where they had been" so we must never touch anything she had touched!    

I am happy to report that later in her life my, mother actually acknowledged that there were people in this  world who were not lily white like us.  There were things like gay people, Mexicans, and black people!  We further learned that they were human and as such deserved the same treatment as our white friends.  Now in all fairness, I have not been a citizen of Nickerson for over 65 years, but you should know that when I last cruised the streets I did not see anything but white, anglo saxon, protestants.  Sadly something else I did not see, was any new buildings or thriving businesses.  There were a couple run down looking trailer parks and lots of abandoned buildings up on Main Street.  Nickerson seemed to be a step back in time.  What does that tell you?

As for my life, I think I have come a long way.  I have had the pleasure of being grandmother and/or great grandmother to several mixed grand children both half black, half Indian, and a couple not sure of paternity.  Does this make me anything different than I was when I was a snot nosed kid in Nickerson?  I think not.

I wish the people who work so hard for a good life could have crossed my path way back when.  There is a song I used to sing in camp and never really knew what it stood for.  Let me just sing you a couple bars:

"Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world!  Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in his sight! Jesus loves the children of the world!"

I hope I can remember that no matter where I wander and no matter where I roam, or who I meet in my life journeys that we are all children of God and as such are blessed by his goodness and help me to love my brother as myself.  And with that ,  I wish you all peace!

 

The heart of the home is this table right here!

As a young girl back in Nickerson, I recall doing my homework at the dining room table with a coal oil lamp to light my books.  Now you should know that the "dining room table" was the only table that we had and the room we had it in was between the kitchen and the "front room."  The front room was the first room in the house.  Next was the dining room and then the kitchen/wash room/library/what ever else we needed it to be.  On Saturday nights that is where we all took turns taking a bath in a tin tub.  

There were 2 other rooms in the house and they were both bedrooms.  Now back then bedrooms were exactly that!  Mother had the smallest room which held one bed and she slept there with the 2 youngest girls.  The front bedroom had 2 beds, one of which was my fathers.  The rest of us girls slept in the other bed.  Jake was relegated to the floor.  But this is not about where we slept, this is about the dining room table.

We had electricity, but we rarely ever used it, because we were afraid we would wear it out.  The table was a round oak table much like the one I have in my dining room today.  I am sure the chairs were wooden because we could not afford one of those fancy chrome sets that everyone coveted.  There was a green wooden table in the kitchen, but that was for holding pots and pans and such. 

We ate at the dining room table.  We did our homework at the dining room table.  If someone dropped by they were seated at the dining room table.  Usually we sipped on a glass of water from the well.  The icebox was in the dining room by the door to mother's bedroom.  Once a week the iceman came.  We had a sign that was in our front window.  It was similar to the one in the lower right corner.  The iceman would pick up the size block we wanted with his ice tongs and carry it inside and place it in the icebox.  The money was always left on top of the icebox.  A new block of ice was always a treat because it was so clear and square.  We used to follow the ice wagon on hot days as cool our feet in the water that came off his melting load.  I digress!

  

I tend to get off subject.  The point is that the dining room table was the heart of the home and life has not changed that much.  Kenny and I had not been married very long when we decided we needed a new table.  We went down on Union and found an antique round oak table that suited us perfectly.  Since he was working in Denver we went to the oak furniture store and purchased 6 straight backed chairs and we were in business.

Shortly after that, my mother came for her first visit.  She lived in Hutchinson, Kansas and as I recall she rode the train to LaJunta where I picked her up and brought her home.  She was very happy to see the round oak table and the 6 oak chairs.  She set down and started to reminisce.

"This is the heart of the home.  It is here that everyone gets together to eat and it is where all important decisions are made.  It is here that the family comes together.  It is here that company visits.  This table is where happiness and sadness are always discussed."  And she was right.

When someone comes to my house, even today, we set at the table.  The couch and recliners are only used to watch television.  The heart of the home I grew up in was always the table and it still is today.  Whether it is dinner for 20 people or a cup of tea with a friend, it all happens at the table.  I have a breakfast bar with stools that are never used.  I have an office, but I pay my bills and do my correspondence at the table.  Mail is put on the table.  It is the center of my existence.

My mother has been gone many, many years, but the table will always be where I see her most.  She used to set at that table and work her crossword puzzles.  I can not work a crossword any where but there.  I miss my mother every day of my life.  It never gets better.  Someone asked me once, "How long do you mourn when someone dies?'

My answer to that is "forever."  How could you ever forget the woman who gave you life?  Things come and go, but mothers and dining room tables are forever.  I have pictures of my mother and Kenneth's mother beside my front door.  They are the last thing I see when I leave and the first thing I see when I close the door when I return.

I realize that someday, I will no longer be here.  No doubt there will be an auction and the dining room table will go to a new home, but that is alright, because I will be at the big table across the great divide with my Mother and all my grandma's and there will be a giant table that has room for all of us.

Kinda looking forward to that!

Black Lives Matter. Indian Lives Matter. Hispanic Lives Matter. Where does it end?

I shared a post on facebook.  Poor little ignorant me.  It showed a picture of people; men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanic, all kinds of people.  It said "All lives matter."  It was soon pointed out to me that I was the racist in this occasion.  WHAT?  You have got to be kidding.  How is that racist?  Don't all lives matter?  Apparently not.  So here is my reasoning:

I am white.  I am privileged.  I accept that.  I think my life matters.  I do NOT, however, think my life matters more than yours.  I have white friends.  I also have friends who are not white.  Does one of their lives matter more than another life?  I think not.

I have got to admit, that when someone called me out as using white privilege's I was very hurt.  I could not then, nor can I make the connection now.  I have seen the meme that explains to me in cartoon pictures that the blacks are discriminated against and need our help, as white people, to stand with them in thier struggle.  Got that.  Have had that for a long time.  The same happened with Gays.  Same happened with Vietnamese.  Same happened with equal rights for women.  Same happened with equal pay.  My life has been spent fighting for rights of humans, animals and I even helped sandbag when Midtown was in danger of flooding.  

You know, after all these years, I am ready to throw in the towel.  I realize that right now, at this point in time Blacks have priority, but isn't there a way to stand with the Blacks AND the Indeginous tribes whose lands have been stolen by OUR government and thier women disappearing?  Don't they matter?  Don't the kids locked in cages on our southern border deserve part of our attention?  Or are we so single minded that we can not think about more than one thing at a time?

To me this is the equivalent of having 2 fires on the stove.  Do you just put out the one that is bigger or work on them both at the same time?  Or when an army is engaged in war, do they only fight the enemy they see or do they work on another flank as well?

I am going to say this to whoever wants to listen:  What ever color your skin is, I care about you.  If these means I am exerting my "white privilege"  so be it.  This is all I am going to say about this matter and you can either take me or leave me, and that  my friend is your choice.

What you don't know won't hurt you.

Or so my mother, the wisest woman who ever lived, taught me when I was growing up.  It was not something she told me once to help me over a rough spot.  It was a fact that she lived and breathed.  And she was right.  What I did not know did not hurt me, but there was that part she forgot to add about "The chickens always come home to roost."  These two adages are intrinsically tied together in this game of life.  I think this one came about when I thought my first husband was fooling around on me.  And she was right.  If he was and I really did not know it for a fact, it did not hurt me.  Sadly, though, God has his way of dealing reality to a situation.  This reality came in the form of a venereal disease when I was 6 months pregnant.  Yep, the chickens came home to roost that day. 

That should have been the end of that marriage, but I hung on for 5 more years and 3 more kids.  During their growing up years, I labored under the adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  Yep.  I kept the handles on the stove turned in after  Debbie reached up from her walker and grabbed the cord on the electric skillet.  That could have been a fatality very quickly.

 "Better to be safe than sorry."

"Do not judge a man until you have walked  a mile in his shoes."

"No sense beating a dead horse."

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."

And then I figured out that  "What is good for the goose is good for the gander."  only I was the 'goose' and he was the 'gander'.  Divorce became a frequently used word in my vocabulary, along with the  "A rolling stone gathers no moss." and "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

As for  going back and rehashing old wrongs, that fell under the saying of, "Let sleeping dogs lie, " and "Never poke a hornets nest."

I think a lot of the best ones actually come from the Bible, but mother was prone to spit out a few of them also.

"As you sow, so shall you reap."

"Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind."

My oldest daughter taught me (many years later) that  "What don't kill you will make you strong."  And she was right, or so it seems as I near the end of my journey. 

I find myself reaching for my Bible more regularly these days.  I do not know whether it is because we are limited in our interactions because of Covid 19, or just because I am getting old.  I do not feel old, but I can count the numbers and I find myself reaching more often for the handrail on the steps.  I guess it is just the old circle of life and it all boils down to "click here".

Rest in Peace Larry Kramer

I started a big long blog that entailed the history of how and why I became involved in the Gay Rights movement back in the early 80's , but that is irrelevant.  What is relevant is the death of Larry Kramer.  If you do not know who he is, you need to Google him.  He was a writer, a playwright, a military man.  He tried to commit suicide at one point.  But most importantly, he was the man who sounded the alarm for the disease that was killing gay men.  It was a phenomenal event back then.  No one knew why gay men were dying, but they were and in greater numbers. 

In 1981 he published an article calling attention to this in a gay periodical.  Two years later he published again, this time calling it "1,112 and Counting".  It was about this time that I may have shaken myself out of the lethargic cocoon within which I was wrapped.  I had a good friend back home named Gilbert who fell victim to the disease about that time.  He was the first friend I lost, but he would not be the last.

I began to follow the news and Larry Kramer.  It was staggering statistics for sure.  And it just kept going.  Does any one remember when Colorado passed Amendment 2?  We worked very hard to get that overturned.  We were fighting for Gay Rights and we were fighting the AIDS epidemic.  I think Larry Kramer and I were fighting the same battles, but on different ends of the country, but for the same reasons.

I wish I could have met him.  Some of my best friends are in the gay community and I have always championed their cause.  I see I am rambling, so let me just sum this up and get back to life.

Larry Kramer was a giant among men and his legacy will live forever.  Our world is a better place for him having passed through it.  In 2002, he said: "I put the truth in writing.  That's what I do: I have told the fucking truth to everyone I have ever met."

And that, my friends is why Larry Kramer holds a special place in my heart.

Lawrence David Kramer, writer and activist, born 25 June, 1935: died 27 May 2020

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!

I remember the Quarantine signs.

Quarantine was a word that struck fear in our hearts.  That was back in the days of Nickerson.  Mumps, Measles, Diphtheria, Chicken Pox and then came Polio.  I do not know what all we were quarantined for back then, but it was just common knowledge, that if one of the kids came down with anything, the whole house was isolated.  You did not have to ask anyone, you just did it.

You should know this upfront; I never had any of the childhood diseases.  I was born with the constitution and the immune system of a horse.  While the other kids languished  on their sick beds, I carried on my life as normal, although I could not leave the house because I would be a "carrier."  I have a theory on why this was.

I was never laid low by the childhood diseases, but I was constantly in the sick bed with inflamed tonsils.  My tonsils would be so red and swollen, that mother worried I would suffocate.  Finally, at the ripe old age of 10 or 11,  my tonsils were removed.  I often envied the kids who got measles, or chicken pox because they got to eat canned soup and all that good stuff.  The only thing that seemed to sooth my inflamed tonsils was ice cream, which we rarely had.  (But when we did have it, it was homemade!  It was made in the crank ice cream maker with heavy cream, lots of sugar and eggs and fresh peaches.!)

I am following the CDC guidelines and not going out.  I see this is letting up in China where it started, so that is good.  It will no doubt subside here at some point.  At least I hope so.  In the meantime I just remain hopeful.  I am a hoarder by nature so the larders here are full.  My mother was a hoarder before me as was my mother-in-law.  It traces back to the poverty we endures way back when.  MIL was the worst I have seen.  If there was a tablespoon of anything left, it went into a piece of Saran Wrap and was stashed in the freezer.  I have been known to throw that little tidbit away!

So here I set, alone in my house, with lots of time to write and guess what?  I have writer's block.  I can not think of a damn thing I want to share with anyone!  I guess this is just the curse of old age.  It has taken me 3 days to write this much.

So, I am going out and do chores, then drive over and drop off a package at the drugstore and then come home.

Have a good one!

Spring time will soon be here....again...Thank God!

I have been in this house for 36 years and I have fought the bind weed every step of the way.  Elm trees are my nemesis, especially when they grow in the fence line or sprout up in the middle of the Choke Cherry bushes.  But last year, I noticed that I am now blessed with cacti.  They are the flat leafed ones and I forget what they are called, but they have that fruit on the end of the leaf.  Prickly Pear.  I first encountered this little fellow 50 years ago when I lived out by the airport in Garden City, Kansas.  We had friends named Don and Claire .  She was of Mexican descent and wise in the ways of foraging for delicacies.  She came by one day and told me she found a field of Prickly Pear Cacti and wanted to go harvest some of the new tender leaves for food.

Since Duane was at work, I agreed and we loaded the kids up and away we went.  Oh, and I took a pair of Duane's leather gloves because she told me they were deadly sharp and we would need them.  So we picked a big basket full and then went home.  Since I had no idea what they were I let her take all of them with the promise that she would fix something really good to eat.  I carefully put his leather gloves back where I got them.  Bad mistake.

The first time he put them on he began to cuss.  They were full of something very sharp.  Oh, oh!  I of course confessed and I know they say confession is good for the soul, but trust me, it was not good for the ears or the body.  I had ruined his good gloves for nothing!  He was not going to eat that damn cactus and that woman better not ever show up at our door again and Don was an idiot for ever marrying that piece of what ever.  Any way.

So imagine my surprise when I went out behind the garage  to the area that was home to 500 million goat heads and 300 Sunflowers and lots of bindweed and found the cutest little Prickly Pear Cactus.  I was tempted to just leave it grow, but thought better of that and got the shovel out.  I cut the root and tossed it into the milk crate.  Then I saw another.  And another.  And soon the big double milk crate was full.

The survivalist  in me rebels against killing anything be it a cactus or a big tall Sunflower.  I could eat the cactus if need be for survival and the birds could harvest the sunflowers.  The strangest part is that I see no signs of cactus growing any where and the field out back is planted sometimes to a cash crop, so I doubt it they worked their way in from there.



Another mystery is the Centipede and how it manages to slither in my house when there are no visible signs of cracks, but slither it does nonetheless.  That is second only to how the bull snake manages to get in the goose house and eat the eggs!  I have actually drilled holes in the eggs and blown them out so my daughter could paint them and it is no easy chore!  First it is way bigger than a snake mouth and the shell is very thick..



So I guess, my biggest problems out here on the Mesa are the snakes, cactii and the myriad of cats that now occupy the neighbors garage.  Guess I will just set right here and let it all sort itself out.  If this is the worst that happens to me, I guess I am pretty lucky!