No matter where you go...

 No matter where you go, you are still going to be there!  This was the brilliant observation of one of my  ex-sons in law.  Not sure which one it was, but I will attribute it to one named Keith and leave his last name buried in my memory.  I rather doubt that he reads this blog or even knows of its, but in the event he does, I am sure he will get a kick out of this.  I still see him from time to time and we are both surprised that the other has survived life this long.  Of course he is no longer with the daughter he was married to at the time, but since I was not named in the divorce action I can call him one of my old used to be sons in law.

Most of my sons in law lived in mortal terror of offending me in one way or another, but a couple actually endeared themselves in my heart and remain so to this day.  Take Hammer for instance!  He was 2 tours in Vietnam, a biker with a Harley, drank like a fish and had more hair than Lady Godiva!  He and my daughter Debbie, were jailed once for refusing to break the death grip they had on each other in the middle of 4th Street.  The first time he came to my house he ended up face down here in my office because an aerosol can exploded in the neighbor's trash that was burning in the field out back.  PTSD.  He said something once and I exclaimed, "Are you nuts?" and he replied, "Yes I am and I am certified!  Get a pension for it!"   They are still together and live in Eastern Kansas.  They are raising 3 grandkids and are approaching 40 years of wedded bliss, I think.  They were married at the Pueblo County Court house.  I was Maid of Honor and Shirly Smith was Hammer's Best Man.  Good times!

My girls are much like me in that they need to sort through and figure out just what they actually want in a husband and then they are settled for life.  My son, however, waited for what he was sure he wanted and is now living happily ever after in Dallas, Texas.

I guess Kenny spoiled me for ever wanting to take the plunge again.  I have been a widow for 20 years now.  I rarely date, and when I do, it does not take long to figure out that being alone suits me!  Something about not answering to a man appeals to my base nature. "I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry, and if whiskey don't kill me, I'll live till I die."

Right now it is 3:21 AM and I am up for the day.  What man would understand this?  I am going to go into the kitchen pretty soon and warm up some butter beans I cooked a couple days ago.  Man would want something cooked like hashbrowns, bacon, eggs and toast with a big cup of coffee.  I may cook that some afternoon, but not today.

I am just setting here counting my sons in law.  I have 4 daughters and have had a total of 12 sons in law I think.  May have missed one there somewhere, but if so I apologize.  

The other thing I have learned in life is that when you are over the hill you pick up speed.  That little adage puts all the rest in perspective.  

So as my clock approaches 4:00 AM, I am going to say that I am happy with the men in my daughters lives at the present time, and they all look like they have settled in for the long haul!  That is good.  Life is good.  My life is good.  One word of advice...

If life hands you a lemon, make lemonade!

Peace!

Turn around and she's two, turn around and she's 4.......

turn around she's a young girl, going out of the door.  click here  How fast the years go by!

Seems like when I think back over my life the highlights run together in a blur.  First I was the young girl running out the door with the love of my life and then I was running back through that same door  with 5 kids in tow because my life did not play out as I had envisioned it.

Then I was running out that same door with the new love of my life and heading West to Colorado.  The kids grew up and moved away, but life went on.  Now, as life slowly plays out before my eyes reality is a whole new concept.  When I was young, I grabbed life with both hands and hung on for dear life!  And what a ride it was!  At the age of 30 I had been through 3 husbands and was on my way to life in Colorado with husband number 3 who would also be number 4.  A 2 month stint with husband number 5 and on to number 6.  That was Kenny and when I said "till death do us part" I actually meant it.  We were married in 1983 after one year of living in sin.  He died in 2003.

I have lived here in this house alone since then.  I have male friends, but not any that I would have given up this life for.  My hospice work led me to one man who asked me to marry him because he had no one to leave his worldly goods.  We worked out an agreement whereby I inherited everything and dispersed it all to needy recipients.  That was kind of fun.  

There was one guy I hiked with so I would not have to go alone, but he was a bit of a jerk, so that never went any where.  I am honest and I expect honesty in return.  Compassionate to a fault.

I have been an activist.  I have been a pacifist.    I have helped people cross over in my work with Hospice in the Eleventh Hour program. I have fed the homeless.  I have rescued animals.  But the important part is I have been true to me.

I have loved and lost, but I have survived!  And I will go on surviving, because the German blood that runs through my veins dictates that I survive.  And the blood of my great grandmother makes me take care of people.

And my old mother goose lets me pet her sometimes!  Who can ask for anything more?

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".

Taking the dating thing a step further!

I am setting here on the computer thinking and I have Pandora playing on my classic country station.  Just heard Garth Brooks and now Randy Travis is buying a pretty negligee for me to wear while he is "Picking up Bones".  All this does is take me back in time to the few times when a man piqued my interest since Kenny passed 17 years ago.  First know that music plays a big part in my life, but not just any music.  I love country and mostly I love the old country.  Jake and I listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a car radio on Saturday night long before television brought it into the front room.  I remember when Dolly Parton was on Porter Waggoner show while her hair was brown and her boobs were nubbins.  Yep!  I go way back.  And Kenneth and I shared that love of country.  He came home once to announce that he had heard the song that would be "ours".  Here it is.  You have to listen to the words.  And it went both ways.  But that is water under the bridge!

I decided about 7 years ago that I should start dating.  Now rest assured of one thing, that was no easy decision.  I have lots of friends, both male and female, gay and straight, but to let a man inside my world on a one on one relationship was not easy.  Sherman was fairly easy.  He asked nothing and expected nothing so we fell into an easy relationship of lunches on spur of the moment, walks along the levy and coffee at Starbucks.  He was a Republican devoted to Fox News and his chosen music was Classical.  But I am pretty sure God put me in that relationship to save him from himself and I have shared with all of you how that ended with his very slow and painful death from cancer.  To make a long story short, he left the Republican Party, embraced all my charities, and gave his worldly belongings to Los Pobres, leaving me the residual of his estate with instructions to feed the poor and clothe the needy.  And he asked me to marry him.  We shared one kiss in the 3 years we were together and that was after he proposed and I accepted.  Had we met under other circumstances it might have been different, but we did not.

Then I started hanging out with a man who would become my hiking partner.  Once again, no physical contact, just hanging out.  He was a Bruce Springsteen aficionado and I was not.  Bruce Springsteen, in my opinion only had 2 songs; "Born in the USA" and " Streets of Philadelphia".   He insisted that if I would just try I could come to worship at the Springsteen alter, but it did not happen for me.  I did enjoy our hikes and miss that part of the relationship.  No physical contact at all with that one. Hmmmmm.

The last flicker of a flame I felt was a man who seemed perfect in most ways.  The fact that he was a jazz enthusiast was kind of disappointing.  Jazz is just music and while I can appreciate a wailing saxophone, a tinkling piano and the blast of a trombone, there are no words.  I need words.  I need "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain".  "Don't Come Home Drinking with Lovin' on Your Mind." And "Seven Spanish Angels" sends me into a torrent of tears.  Words.  Sadly, this man did not know what an asset like me could have been.  Dropped me like a hot potato!  But life goes on.

And looking back over this blog, I think I will skip the whole dating thing.  I have a cat.  I have a dog.  I have a grandson who comes once a week and spends the night.  I have friends who go to lunch with me and a few who listen when I talk and see the lonely little me under the bravado that is the Lou Mercer legend.  I have my God who leads me here and there and uses me for what he wants. So I end on this note!

Rest in Peace, Aunt Maudie

In 1960 I met my first husband in Hutchinson, Kansas.  He and 3 of his brothers lived over on 2nd street in a small house beside the foundry.  Virgil was the oldest and he had a wife and 2 sons in Germany, or so I heard.  Delvin was not involved.  The same with Duane and Larry.  Larry was the youngest.  Duane, I married in 1960 and Larry and Maudie married a year later.  At the time the men were working for a man named Bean who owned a tree trimming business.   At some point the men decided that it would be better to move from city to city and trim trees and move on.  So that is what we did.

The next few years are a tad bit hazy in my mind, but I do know Maudie and Larry had a daughter.  When I became pregnant with Debbie we decided that we should settle down and be more stable, so we decided on Hutchinson.  Soon after I had Debbie, the men decided they wanted to move to Garden City.  Maudie's family was there and her daughter was now 1 one year old.  So the Seeger families moved west.  And then came the fruitful years where we had our babies and filled our families.

Maudie and I remained friends and sister-in-laws through the years.  Sometimes we were not in touch, but sometimes we were.  Our kids spent their youngest years as cousins and remain cousins to this day.  I am still Aunt Louella.  This makes a long story short.

Having given  you a bit of a background, I now want to say to the family, I am so sorry for your loss.  Your mother was a unique individual and I regret that I never stayed in closer touch with her, but know I will always remember our younger days together.  Your mother was a unique individual!  I will never think of "Aunt Maudie" wearing her hair in anything but a "bee hive" and know that her bee hive was always the highest and fullest bee hive that could be achieved.  I do not know when she changed her hair style, but I am sure she did.

Maudie was a very strong willed woman and I am sure that never changed.  I admired most the marriage she had with your father, "Uncle Larry."  They remained together through thick and thin and back in the early days, there were a lot of "thin" days.  Family was very important to her and I am sure that she was important to her family.

The Maudie I knew surely mellowed over the years.  There are stories I could tell that would curl your hair, but I shall keep those and only take them out and look at them from time to time.

So mourn your loss and then get back to the business of living, because that is what we all must do.  I shall mourn the young woman with the high, high beehive and the red fingernails.

God be with you at this time.

Aunt Lou

My very first marriage proposal.

It is now 4:20 AM.  I woke up about an hour ago thinking of my first marriage proposal.  Since that was 57 years ago, I thought I should lay there until that memory faded, but it did not, so I thought maybe the kids would get a kick out of  knowing I actually remember their father!  Not only do I remember him, but I remember him fondly.  He was my first love.  From the time I met him until we were married was a total of maybe 6 weeks.  To say it was a whirlwind courtship would be an understatement!

Back in those days, we still wrote letters.  Earl Duane Seeger and my brother Jake were good friends.  Well, they were drinking buddies, any way, but friends nonetheless.  I always called my first husband Duane.  Earl always sounded so formal and I had a brother named Earl, so he was Duane.  Duane worked for a man who traveled the state trimming trees.  Later in life Duane studied and got his license as an Arborist, tree trimmer, and licensed sprayer.  That is all beside the point.  What is important is at that time he would be out of town all week and only home on the weekends.  So we wrote letters.  It was too expensive to call on the pay phone and I think a stamp was like three cents back then.

So one day I got a letter from Duane and a lot of it was in German.  I showed it to my brother and asked him  what it said.
 
"Ich libe du means 'I love you'.  Ich libe du zer fiel means 'I love you very much'.  Wollen zie hie rauten mit mer?  I think that means 'Will you get married with me?'  I am not real sure, but I think that is what it means."

So being the starry eyed 18 year old girl that I was, I knew this was true love.  We were married at a church on the corner of Sherman and 5th street in Hutchinson.  His mom came from Jetmore with her husband.  My mom was there  as were a couple sisters, I think.  It was October 30, 1960 (I think) and it was the first snow fall of the year.  I borrowed my little sisters prom dress so I kind of looked like a bride.  At least I felt like one and I embarked on what I thought was the rest of my life with my husband at my side.

I kept his letters  until we had one of our many fights and I threw them in the sink, covered them with gravy and announced that the marriage was over.  Back then it was a simple matter (in my head) of just walking out and not looking back.  I did that many times until 10 years and 5 kids later, I never went back.  I loaded the kids in the back seat of a 1959 Chevy and filled the trunk full of clothes.  It was a trip I will no doubt remember to eternity, because it was the end of life as I knew it and I had no idea where my next meal was coming from.   (He sold every thing I did not take (including my house plants) at the weekly storage auction in Garden City, Kansas.)

He did not want a divorce, so he refused to participate in the court or paying for it.  Of course he refused to pay child support as well, but he did share in custody, but we went by our own rules.

Do we ever forget our first love?  I think not.  Are the memories always pleasant?  I think not.  My mother once told me that we all have different perceptions of what we go through in our lives.  Mother was very wise.  Over the years, my memories have changed.  I have mostly forgotten the bad parts and only remember the good.  I remember a blonde haired, blue eyed Greek God with a beautiful smile.  I remember how special he made me feel.  If we could have lived in a vacuum it might have lasted, but we couldn't and it didn't.  

He and I both moved on, but did we really?  In my mind he will always be 23 years old.  We will always be dancing to rock and roll music and we were good!  Fishing.   Coon hunting.  Watching the moon from a river bank.  Seeing the sun come up.  Memories.  Who knows.

That ship sailed a very long time ago.

Beauty is skin deep.

I was never what you call pretty growing up.  Even as a teenager, I was on the scrawny side.  My hair was brown and my front teeth were over sized and stayed that way my whole life through.  I was very sickly and spent lots of time with an ear ache and a pain in my side that was attributed to appendicitis.  However, when I was 12 years old I was rushed in for an emergency tonsillectomy.  Strange as it may seem, I never had a sick day after that.  I did remain skinny, weighing in at 92 pounds when I married my first husband at the age of 19.

I have managed to go my entire life without an inoculation of any kind.  I was always so jealous of the kids who had the small pox vaccination scar on their arm.  Now I do not know how I managed to survive and not get vaccinated for anything, but I did.  Well, about 25 years ago I was trying to fly a kite in the field next door and stepped on a nail.  Kenneth took me to the emergency room and the doctor wanted to "update" my tetanus vaccine.  I told him I had never been vaccinated against anything in my life.  He gave me the tetanus shot and I let him because Kenneth was between me and the door.   I left with instructions to make an appointment in his office for my immunizations.  Never kept that date and the matter was dropped.  So I will say this, I am very healthy and rarely ever get sick.  (There was that time I was laid low by a bad batch of hummus from Sam's, but that was man made misery in a tub.)

So back to the subject.  My sister's were all pretty and actually had a shape.  I remained a stick figure on the horizon and when I would complain, mother would just tell me.  "Beauty is skin deep."  To be honest, that did not help much.  Of course as life goes on, things become more important than beauty.  And something that I learned early was that an abusive husband will prey on your weakness.  I had 3 of them, followed by one that was just a user and then I met Kenneth.  Kenneth never told me I was beautiful. He told me I was smart.  He told me I was a worker.  He told me I was dependable.  He told me I was trustworthy.  He told me he was comfortable with me.  He told me he loved me.  He loved my mind. He loved my compassion.  He loved my zest for life.  He loved my cooking.  He loved everything about me and I began to feel beautiful.

And of course Mother came for regular visits.  One time we were discussing life before Kenny and she was telling him how I had raised the kids alone and many times gone without food so they could eat.  Kenny chimed in at that point with, "Well, you could never tell by looking at her that she ever missed a meal!"   He had a way of putting life in a perspective that made it work.

One time I made the remark that  I had never felt pretty.  And beautiful was a word that was never  used in the same sentence with my name.  He looked at me kind of strangely when I said that.  His answer was all I needed.  He said, "Yes, beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone."  And then I understood, that this simple man thought I was beautiful and I have held to that thought through all these years.

I had a man once in my life that saw through my exterior and into my soul.  That only comes around once in a lifetime but it lasts forever.  

Mother said it best.

When we were kids on Strong Street, life was so simple.  In the winter we filled the water buckest and set them close to the wood cook stove in the kitchen so they would not freeze.  When it snowed it snowed and if the snow was deep Mother sent Jim Davis to the school to walk home in front of us so he could break a path for us.  Dad couldn't do it because he was busy playing Dominoes at the "Recreation Hall ( which was another word for "Beer Joint") in town.  Back in those days cars only had rear wheel drive which was the precursor to front wheel drive or all wheel drive.  Let's think about that concept a moment.

Rear wheel drive meant that all the power was in the back axle and the steering was in the front axle.  So basically, a car was propelled from the back and steered by the front.  Only time you actually had control of where you went, was when you went backwards.  OMG!  Isn't that how life is lived?  It sure is!  How many time have I looked back and thought " I should have done that differently!"

Which calls to mind several things my momma used to say and I could not understand them back then, but as I gain in age and wisdom, I am actually getting pretty damn smart.  There are 2 that spring to mind today for some reason.  The first one is  "As you sow, so shall you reap."  And the second is  "Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  I was naïve back when she would tell me this.  She explained it to a nine year old girl in simple terms, "If you want to eat a tomato, you have to plant a tomato.  You can not plant a turnip seed and get a tomato."  That was simple enough back then when eating was the most important thing in my young life.  And later when I was married to the "love of my life" I could not make the correlation.  That saying had no meaning in my life through the next 4 husbands either, but now that I am on the down hill slide, I can see it all very clearly.  Whether it has been the roughly 45 years of learning that has been drilled into my head or just the culmination of life that woke me up, I do not know, but here I am dispensing wisdom to anyone who will listen!

So let me explain the "sowing of the wind and reaping of the whirlwind" as I understand it today.  During the Vietnam War years, I waved my flag and demanded they "bring the boys home".  You see how that worked out for me.  When the powers that be decided to end it, it ended.  Gay rights came and I waved my flag.  AIDS hit the scene and I demanded care.  Martin Luther King, Trayvon Martin, Civil Rights; it was always something.  Now it is immigration and ripping babies away from mothers that has me stirred up.  Always demanding.  Always thinking my voice matters.  But does it?  Probably not.  I am on facebook, but I do not appear too often, because when I do I piss somebody off.  Mostly I defend as a "Libitard", but occasionally I get personal.

My last marriage taught me all I need to know about living a peaceful existence.  He respected and trusted me, and I returned the faith and trust.  He was my friend.  Sometimes he would need to remind me that I could not save the world and that Don Quixote tilted at a lot of windmills in vain.  I no longer have Kenneth as my rudder, but I do have my faith.  Social Justice is my thing and I pretty well stay away from people and their personal problems.  I adhere to that "Do not judge me until you have walked a mile in my shoes."

Trouble with the husband?  That is between the 2 of you and as long as it remains only the 2 of you, you have a chance.  I guess you could put it on facebook and let people vote on it, but when it is all said and done, it is between 2 people.  I equate facebook to the whirlwind and the poster as the sower and reaper.  I guess life could be simple if both parties were to post the saga as they perceive it in their mind.

"Geraldine does not fix meals I like.  She is always on the phone.  She is lazy.  I have to clean house.  She loves the dog more than she loves me."

"George   doesn't like the same food I do.  He is always wanting to talk when I am on the phone.  He is lazy and does not clean up after himself."

These are little things in themselves, but they become bigger than the whole.  George and Geraldine have planted little seeds.  Each one is harmless in itself, but as they lay in the ground festering, they become all consuming.  They do not discuss them, just water them with words and watch them grow.  And then comes the day of harvest.  The gentle breeze of yesterday is now the whirlwind of today.

Mother said other things also.

"Clean up your own house before finding fault with the neighbors house."  (Am I blameless in this or did I do something selfish?}

"The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."  (Ever watch a cow standing in knee high grass and straining at the fence that separates the 2 fields?)

"Try to get that toothpaste back in the tube."  (When hateful words are hurled there is no getting them unsaid.")

And of course there is the Golden Rule!  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  and let me end this with what my oldest daughter says:  "What doesn't kill you, will make you strong."

Death is final.  There is not compromise after that.  The dead one inevitably wins because they got in the last word.

Just some things I am throwing out there today.  Take it or leave it.

Until death us do part.

That used to be in the wedding vows.  Let me see if I can actually remember those vows.  "I, Louella Beth (insert last name here) do take thee, so and so, to be my wedded husband, to love, honor, cherish  and OBEY, in sickness and in health , forsaking all others and cleaving only unto thee till death us do part."  Or something like that.  Now you should know that every time I took those vows, I really meant them.  At least at the time.  As I recall, the vows kind of changed over the years and when I married Kenny, the ceremony consisted of a retired minister in an assisted living, his wife in the next room asleep and Kenny and myself.  Oh, yeah and the handing of a $20 bill which he quickly pocketed.

He signed the license and said, "Well, for all intents and purposes you are married unless you want me to say something more?"

"Well, yeah.  but leave out that obey part and just say about him loving and cherishing me.  Oh, and bringing home the paycheck.  Leave out the part about me having to clean house and all that,  I'll cook but that is about it."  So he laughed and said that and then had  us sign .

The whole time spent with him was about six minutes, after which we stopped at the donut shop and had a donut for our wedding supper.  It was 15 degrees below zero when we passed the bank in Canon City that day.  But you know what?  That marriage worked!

It is now 35 years later and here I set.  Kenny has been gone 17 years. and it is like he is still here.  To put this in perspective, he occupied almost half of my life.  No other man can make that claim.   We thought alike.  We liked the same foods.  We both liked the same music.  We went fishing and I baited my own hook.  We had one serious disagreement (which was of course his fault.).  I did not have to wear makeup and whatever I made for supper was fine and if not, we went out to eat.  Time flies!

So anyway, I woke up this morning thinking on my life.  I think I am turning into a hermit.  I get up and kill time until bedtime.  Then I sleep until it is time to get up and do the whole thing again.  Ever once in a while I think I should start dating, but then I have a second thought that beats hell out of that first thought.  I dated one guy for a while, but sadly he succumbed to cancer.  Then there was a guy that was way younger than me, but he loved himself enough for both of us, so that one fizzled out.

Well, to get to the point of this missive, there is no point.  I am just kind of putting things in perspective in my life and I do that by poking the keys and reading what I wrote.  Life is good, and most importantly, the world is still turning.  I should, no doubt, go on a cruise or something, but I do not want to leave home.  I am going to crawl on an airplane on April 28th and fly to Dallas.  Getting on an airplane is something I swore I would never do, but here I am with my ticket in hand and the day approaching.  Sometimes we just have to do stuff because.  I guess that is what is known as making a bucket list.  So far, it is the only thing on my bucket list.  Perhaps if I make it to Dallas and back, I shall make a bucket list.  We will see.

89 year old man gets his first erection in years!

Really!  Really?  I got this email today or yesterday and it absolutely amazed me.  My name is Lou therefore I must be a man.  And I must not be able to get it up.  Now this is not the first one of these ED letters I have gotten.  And quite frequently I am contacted by a sweet young thing who would love to share her "unique" pictures with me.  Hmmm.  What is the world coming to?

Many years back I signed up for one of those dating sights.  I would like to meet an older man for companionship, walks along the river, dining out, and maybe a movie.  I love county music and dancing would be a plus.  Must be a Christian.

That unleashed a torrent of men who wanted me to know that their "plumbing" still worked and that their stomach was flat.  We could meet for a drink at some hotel that had a bar.  The Library was out.
A walk was fine as long as it entailed walking to the car.  Country was alright as long as it included a dark road and no music. Dining out was fine, but home cooked was a lot better.  And church was definitely not on the table at all.

Maybe I am just too old and jaded for this life as it exists now.  I still want conversations.  I want walks.  I like people and I do not want to be looked up and down like a piece of prize meat at the butcher shop.  I want to know who you are, not what you are.  Are you honest and trustworthy or are you looking for a slam, bam, thank you mam?  Will you call me for no reason?  Will you surprise me with a doughnut and a cup of coffee?  A trip to Starbucks on a Tuesday afternoon and then check out the movies.  Will you unload my goose food and put it in the barrel?  And will you show up at church just because you want to see what it is like even though you are a Catholic?  That is what I am looking for.  Oh yeah. and if and when it snows I need the walk shoveled and a trail broken out to the goose pen.  But I gotta tell you, I am not holding out much hope for such a man to exist in this world I live in.  So I am not going to the dating sites, no, not me!

Living alone definitely has it's advantages.  Like right now, I am eating a breakfast burrito with green chile.  Breakfast for supper.  No salad for the digestive tract.  No iced tea.  No have to set at the table because that is the eating place.  No dessert because I want to eat up the rest of the Pina Colada ice cream I made a year ago.  I have moved by clocks back an hour and instead of going to bed at 9:30 I am going to bed at 8:30.  Which will be 9:30, or at least I think that is right.  Who knows.  I hate the damned time change almost as much as I hate cooked apples.

I wish I was a goose.  The geese go to bed at dark and get up at dawn.  They have no idea of what time it is.  All they have to worry about is eating their food before the other goose eats it up from them.  I have never been able to check the sleeping arrangement in the goose house so I am not sure who sleeps beside who.  Oh, and there is another joy for remaining alone... I can sleep on either side of the bed.  I always sleep on the side closest to the door, but I could sleep on the other side if I so choose.  Hell, I could even sleep with my head at the bottom of the bed, or I could sleep downstairs.  Or on the couch.  The possibilities are endless!

My house phone is not working and a quick check with repair service tells me it is not going to work for a couple days.  Damn!  I wonder if they will understand when I deduct 2 days off the bill.    Ok, I am having dessert.  It is Carmel popcorn.  The house is very quiet.  The cat has snuck onto my lap making typing rather awkward, but at least she is quiet.  See if I could find a man this good, I would be all over that, but it ain't happening so I think I will go to bed now.  So if my clock says 6:30 now, a few minutes ago it was 7:30 and my body is thinking it is 8:30 or maybe  9:30.  I know one thing and that is about the only thing a man could do for me at this point in my life is tell me what time it is and why in the hell do we have to change it every time I figure out what time it is!

Ah, the age of innocence!

This is a picture I have that is very old and I have had for many years.  Since I have geese it seems apropos that I have it.  Along with that I have a family history that details how great grandma and  other relatives before that raised geese.  They also raised sorghum and made molasses.  This may actually be a picture of me.  Probably not, though.

Here is another one by a different artist.  This one is a print.  The title is To New Pastures.  Either picture by either artist is basically the same.  This was back when leggings and boots and tending the flock was what it was.  Geese are funny little things.  You herd them.  I walk behind mine and they go where I point.  A cow, or horse or even a dog is led or at least they follow.

.

What do you suppose this little girl is thinking about while tending the geese?  Video games were not even a concept back then.  Running water was probably not in her home.  She may or may not have attended school.  Not all girls did back in those days.  She probably was married by the time she was 13 or 14 and had her own family before she turned 20.  Things like that do not seems plausible today, but it was a different age then.

This is my grandson.  Herding the geese comes natural to him.  On days when he is coming, I do not let the geese out until he arrives.  I carry my camera so I can get a third picture for my wall.  I guess this is as close as I am going to get!

He prefers a sunflower to a stick when it comes to herding.

Well, actually he needs 2 sunflowers!

We are pretty sure he will be ambidextrous.  And after all that herding, he needs a nap!

How different his life already is from the little girl above!  He spends grandma time watching youtube and Wheels on the bus.  He arrives in a red car when mom and daddy bring him.  A "walk" consists of a stoller or buggy.  Whatever they are called.

It is hard to imagine, but the same blood runs in his veins that runs in mine.  Will his memories be the same as this little girl?  I don't know.  I am hoping that on some level we are the same.  I feel that I have a link with my kids, grand kids, great grandkids, but do they have the link with me?  As much as my kids try to be different from me, they stay the same.  They try to branch off and become their own person, but deep down, they crave home made noodles and a needle in their hand.  

I guess, what I am trying to say is, I think somewhere in the far recesses of my mind I have memories that belonged to my ancestors.  I would love to go under hypnosis and see if I am another Bridey Murphy.  Are there dreams that are actually memories?  

Or am I just nuts?

What goes around, comes around! Or so I hear.

My fifth  husband did not last long, therefore he did not make much of an impression on my life.  I had just divorced number 3 and 4 (married him, divorced him, married him again and divorced him again so I have to count him as 2) and was really moving forward with my life.  I was working for the ex-husband  and going to business college at night and holding down a part time job to pay for that.  And just in case you wonder, I was on the Deans List and graduated head of my class.  This just proves you do not really need to sleep to function.

So any way, I was working night shift waiting tables in Bessemer ( area of town around the steel mill).  There I met HoratioHornblower.  I will call him HoratioHornblower because I want to protect his anonymity (that and the fact that it should have been  his name.)  He came in every night after work for coffee and since it was slow then we could visit.  He was very quiet and seemed to be settled in his life.  Well, you know that old saying, "Still waters run deep."  I was soon to find out just how deep that water was.

To make a long story short, I had a disagreement with the owner of the café and walked out.  There went that paycheck, along with my dreams of becoming a CPA.  But Horatio was right there.  Marriage, that was the answer.  He took me to Clarks Western Wear  and bought me a pair of white flare legged pants which were popular at that time, a blue and white checked western shirt, white boots and and a cute little white straw hat with a blue ribbon to match.  I was a cowboy now!  I had never had a man buy me clothes before so I really felt special.  Little did I realize that was the last thing he would buy me.

We got married in the park and went home to Scranton.  I soon found that he had several grown kids.  Never did figure out for sure how many, but there were lots.  And they all depended on Daddy for the little things in life that made their life complete, like money for movies, money for gas, money for new clothes and on and on.  After just a few weeks of wedded bliss it dawned on me that there was no money forthcoming from him for rent, groceries or anything else.  He used his money to "pay bills."  Ok.  So we filed income tax together and I had always claimed married 1 so I could get money back.   He had nothing held out for income tax since he claimed all the kids, 7 dogs and an ex wife. 
Then I set back to wait for that tax check to come.  And I waited, and waited and waited.

After about 7 weeks I decided to dust the dresser in the bedroom and when I took the scarf off I found a letter from the IRS informing Mr. and Mrs. Whothehellwasthatguy that the income tax totaling $3,000.25 was being applied to the back child support payments that were garnished by law.  WTF.  Needless to say when I confronted him with the letter he had no knowledge of any of this.  WTF!  Then he accused me of falsifying that letter.  WTF!!!!!.

Needless to say I was done with that marriage after only 4 months.  I did go on to get my degree with the help of my dear mother.  Sadly back in those days, waiting tables and cooking paid more then Accounting so it was all a waste of time.  If life could be lived in reverse we would all be better off, wouldn't we?

So why did I wake up with this on my mind this morning?  Who knows.  It could be that I have learned life lessons, but I am still not smart enough to apply them.  Yesterday the boy came and I had him get the ladder out of the garage and cut a limb off the Apricot tree.  See, I learned that if the tree limb rubs on the roof it damages the shingles and I have to pay to replace them.  Life lesson learned.  Sadly, when he went home to Florence he left the ladder leaning against the house.  After cussing and fuming, I got it down and drug it back to the garage.  I should have checked before he left.  Now sadly, this is a life lesson that I will never get through my pea brain.  Always check when someone does a good deed, that there is not a knife sticking out of my back.  Love you Bret.

On a bright note, Anthony called and told me he has my fruit juice.  He goes to Sam's and he knows I like that particular brand so he always buys me a big bottle.  I watch his mom while he goes to do errands.  Fair trade.  There are people who match me measure for measure and that is good.  Maybe I will start concentrating on those people.

My momma always had a saying, "You scratch my back and I will scratch yours."  I guess that pretty well covers the life lessons and I may actually start practicing that.  There is not much sense doing for someone who does not do for me.  In my charity work there are many people that are truly thankful for my little I do and that makes me feel good.  Guess that is why I do it.  But in my personal life, some people tend to take me for granted.  I just realized something!  It is all in the spelling of the word.

Do I want to be taken for granted or do I want to be taken for GRANITE! 

Have a good day and remember...What goes around, comes around.

And I remember when 9 below was nothing, or so it seemed.

I crawled out of the sack this morning and man it was cold.   I heard it was supposed to be -9, but I just checked and it is -2.  So I inched the furnace up just a hair and thought back to 65 years ago, when the best I could do was huddle around the wood stove in the front room and try to get just a little heat going.  It was mostly Jake's job to get up very early and get the fire going.  It just was easier for him to bank the fire and throw on another log through the night than it was to get up and build a whole new fire.  That way at least a little heat was going.  The stove was closest to the room where Dad, Jake, Josephine, Donna, Mary ande I slept.  Momma slept in the back bedroom with Dorothy and sometimes Mary.
Going to bed was never really anything to look forward to, if you know what I mean.  In the summer it was not so bad because we kind of spread out and slept wherever there was a flat place, but winter meant getting out the blankets and all of us piling on the one bed that was not occupied by dad.  It was a matter of survival back then.  Blankets were mostly the old wool things that came from the Army.  They were scratchy wool and if we were really lucky one side would have a sheet or something tacked on to it.  The idea of a sheet under us and one over us was unheard of at that time. If such a thing existed they would be on dad's bed.  Elbows were pillows.  Jake slept across the bottom of the bed wrapped in his own cocoon because he was a boy after all and could not sleep with his head near our heads.  I realize this is a weird way of thinking and would be considered scandalous today, but it was what it was back then in the "Grapes of Wrath" world of John Stienbeck.
Usually this sleeping arrangement worked pretty well, but there were times it failed.  Mary was not completely dependable when it came to sleeping the whole night without an "accident".  On those nights she was unceremoniously awoken and hauled off to mothers bed and we were left to sleep around the circle of wet  mattress where she had been previously.  We usually tried to put her on the edge of the bed because then her little bed wetting problem was not so catastrophic.  And another bad habit she had was chewing her toenails and the edge of the bed gave her better access to her chosen target. ( I often wonder if she ever gave up on that little habit.)  Mary was always Dad's favorite because she was little, quiet and very sweet.
Josephine eloped when she was 15 or so.  That freed up some bed space and we were very happy to have those few inches of mattress.  Now I have to go on record here as saying she eloped with a man who was 29 years old.  Today he would be tarred and feathered, but then it was fairly normal.  The legal age for a girl to get married back then was 13 in the state of Mississippi and not much older in most of the other states.  I think that is right.  And if a girl wanted to get married younger than that she needed one of her parents to sign for her.  We have definitely improved on that law!
Back in those days if a boy got in trouble with the law, he could join the service and they would drop the charges.  He had to be at least 16.  Jake changed his birth certificate and got in when he was 16.  He was in the service and back out before most of his classmates graduated.  He was sure handsome in his uniform.
I can remember walking home from school after a snow storm.  We had a friend named Jim Davis and mother made arrangements with him to walk in front of us and break a trail in the snow.  Had he not done that we would probably still be there.  I recall once it was so bad dad brought the horse to break the trail.  When they talk about record snow falls, I know what they are talking about.  We measured it in feet back then.
So this morning I set here in my warm little house and look outside at the snow on the ground and wish I could stay home, but no such luck.  But I have a car that goes in the snow very well and if I just use a little bit of common sense I can make it to town and back.  It is supposed to warm up today and being the heat seeking woman I am, I am looking forward to that.

Stay safe out there!

I think I will have a Vanilla Phosphate!

Does this look familiar?  Maybe not to some of you younger people, but my generation recognizes this immediately as the soda fountain at the corner drug store.  I got this off the Internet, but trust me, they all looked alike.  Best part was you could set there on that stool as long as you liked.  Vanilla Phosphate, Cherry Coke, Plain Coke; it was your choice.  And if you had a friend you could ask for 2 straws and share. We knew how to make good use of a nickle back in those days.

Our drug store set right on the corner and next door was the Berrington's  IGA  Grocery store.  Flemings grocery was on the other corner.  So you walked in the front door of the drug store and right inside the door was the magazine section.  They do not do that anymore because some one will "grab and run", but back then all the thieves were locked up!  Nothing but good people in our town.

Towards the back of the store was the pharmacy.  It had a little window that if you could reach that high, you knocked on and the druggist would ask you what you wanted.  He stayed behind a locked door and mixed your prescriptions when you handed him the slip.  I never really seen the druggist, but I know he was there because Mother told me so.

Scattered throughout the store was things you might need like crutches. gauze, heating pads, hot water bottles, mineral oil, epsom salts and other stuff to which a 10 year old girl pays no attention.  And the lady who held sway, kept order in the store, mixed the drinks at the soda fountain, and generally scared the living pee wadding out of us was a lady named Neva.  Dear Neva had been born with one eye that looked upward and to the right.  We were never sure if she could see out of this eye, but we were sure that we would do nothing wrong in case she could.

It used to be the greatest thing in the world to have the nickle and know we could go to the drug store.  I was not alone in my thirst for knowledge held by the magazines on the rack inside the door.  Back then there were a couple "rags" named Modern Romance and True Story.  Now inside these pages was some hot stuff.  It I was really fast, I could locate one of them and open to a paragraph and read about "married love" before Neva spotted me and asked "Are you gonna buy that?"  To which I always put the book back and headed for the soda fountain.

Back in those days places were clean and friendly.  I might be the only one in there and I could set for hours and dream away while twirling my straw in an empty glass.  If a customer came in, though, I knew they were getting busy and it was time to leave.  I wonder if that drug store is still there?  I may just take a trip back down memory lane some day.  It has only been 60 years, so I think it should still be there.  Probably Neva does not work there any more and I bet the new druggist does not even know what a "mortar and pestle" is. Not sure I have that right my own self!

I think I will stop by the magazine rack and see if they still have those romance magazines.  Pretty sure the price has gone up, but I would like to just peek inside and see what kind of "married" love is going on nowdays.  Until then

Keep your powder dry!

And my world is once more in turmoil...or is it? Could this be a good thing?

No, I am not perfect!  I thought I was and  by the end of the day I may be perfect again, but last night I lay in my little bed trying to  rationalize myself to sleep.  I marched through 6 husband much like William Tecumseh Sherman marched through Atlanta on his way to the sea during the latter part of the Civil War and never dreamed any of it was my fault.  I came through all those years, while not unscathed, my head was still held high.  Today I am humbled, bloodied, and bowed.  This is the reason:

	Member id loumercer3 ( 1388) Top Rated: Seller with highest buyer ratings Click for help Proven track record of excellent service Ships quickly, with tracking provided on over 90% of items sold Has a minimum of 100 selling transactions per year Learn more about Top rated seller BubbleHelp Opens Start of layerBubbleHelp End of layer
	Start of Layer The positive Feedback percentage is calculated based on the total number of positive and negative Feedback ratings for transactions that ended in the last 12 months, excluding repeat Feedback from the same member for purchases done within the same calendar week (eBay time). Note: This could mean that the number of ratings used for this calculation is different from the same number shown in the recent ratings table on the left. Positives Positives + negatives This member's 12 month Feedback ratings Positives: 290Negatives: 1 This member's positive Feedback percentage 290 290 + 1 = 99.7% End of Layer Positive Feedback (last 12 months): 99.7% [How is Feedback percentage calculated?]
	Member since: Feb-06-06 in United State

Recent Feedback     ratings (last 12 months) This table shows the number of positive, neutral, and negative overall Feedback ratings the member has received in the last 12 months. More help about Feedback Rating- opens in a new window or tab   1 month 6 months 12 months Positive 35 205 326 Neutral 0 0 0 Negative 1 1 1 I have been operating on ebay since February 06, 2006.  In all those years I have maintained 100% both as a buyer and a seller.  Just check around and you will find that few people have managed that along with a Power Seller button and a Bronze rating.  Ebay is a cold, hard business with a lot of rules.  I have managed to stay on the good side of the powers that be for over 7 years. Needless to say when I checked my feedback yesterday I was astounded to find a red negative on  a $12.00 item.    Let me explain further what feedback does.  100% ties in to give me the power seller button and the bronze rating.  The best part about the bronze rating is the discount on my monthly bill to ebay.  Ah!  Now we come to the real nitty gritty of the business.  I pay for all my privilege's and the bronze rating reduces that bill by a percent that is tied to the feedback.  Now, I talk to people who do not give feedback or just click neutral.  Neutral is also bad, but does not actually count.  When I buy on ebay I will check a seller's rating.  If it is not over 99.5% I will find a seller that is.  Feedback is my bread and butter. So I contacted this lady and asked her what I had done to displease her.  Her verbal feedback was good, so I thought she may have just hit the wrong button. I was right.  She did say she would get on later and try to fix that.  If not the red negative will march across my dashboard for all the world to see for a full year.  But the damage has already been done to my little psychic.  My potential customers will see it and may choose another seller.  But all the "could'a, should'a, would'a," can not undo what is now planted in my little mind.  Perhaps I was not the perfect wife after all!  Maybe if I had the grit and determination during the marriages as I do with my little ebay business, I would now be a widow to my first husband, or the second, or the third......you get the picture.  But I wasn't and that brings to mind another old saying, "That is water under the bridge."  Yep!  Lot of water under the bridge and it looks like storm clouds gathering out west!  (That is a cryptic message to my avid followers.) So today I am off to church.  I am furnishing communion today and I made fresh bread, not because I want to impress anyone, but because I was to lazy to go into town and buy it!  While in the hallowed house of God, I shall bow my head and ask him to do something about this little problem.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I do not think that God will reach down and change that negative to a positive, but I think he may do a little something about this haughty spirit of mine that could sure use a little humbling.  As I contemplate my bucket list, that is one of the things that I want to change.  That and my filing system and my will.  Oh, yeah and clean the damn car. So you all have a good day and as a biker friend tells me, "Keep your hand on the wheel and the rubber side down.  Life goes better that way!"

Phases of my life

I was just sitting here with the Super Bowl on down stairs and not listening to it and I started thinking about different mantras I have had hang on my wall and how little impact they actually made in the grand scheme of things. 
Right after I married Earl Duane, I made a little cross stitch thing that said "Home Sweet Home". 
Two  divorces and 5 kids later I had a bumper sticker that said "If It Feels Good Do It." 
Then I changed cars and husbands and of course a new bumper sticker.  "Horn Broken.  Watch for finger!"  That was my rebellious years. 
Followed by "Love Many, Trust Few, Always Paddle Your Own Canoe."
Then came Kenny and I began to grow into myself.  The needlework on the bathroom wall now said "Ewe's not fat, Ewe's fluffy!  That was the cutesy one. 
Then came "When you are over the hill, you pick up speed."
 That was followed immediately by  "You know you are old when everything either, sags, dries up, or leaks."
Today I stare at my final thought for the day.  "Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."

You have got to be kidding!!

Oh, now this is more than even I can fathom!  I am used to receiving the dating sites advertisements in my spam box through my email.  But wait a minute.  Do you know what LinkedIn is?  Well what I thought it was and what it is may be two entirely different thing.  Again I blame my naivete!  See I thought it was a place where professional people could meet like  minded people and maybe pick up a referral for a service they or I offer.  I know my son has made great contacts through there and gotten his resume in the proper hands.  So I carefully filled out my little profile and listed all the things I can do and just finished that update a couple days ago.  Today I received a list of 4 groups I might want to join. 
First one was for the Millionairs Club which I was pretty sure was out of my league, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?  I clicked on that sucker and was amazed to find it was one of those dating sites that usually ends up in the spam filter.  I was just a  little disappointed to find that cause I thought hob nobbing with millionaires might be kind of fun.  So with a sad little sigh, I went to #2.
That was a dating service as well.  Same with numbers 3 and 4.  Give me a break here!
So the question here would be this; why does every place I go think that because I am single  and domesticated, meaning I can cook and sew, that I am therefore looking for a mate?  Or is the mere fact that I am a warm blooded being enough to qualify me as "eligible"?   Is the fact that I am living alone a desperate plea for someone to save me from this solitary existence?  Did I say that?  If I wanted a man, trust me, there are plenty of them within reach. 
Do I need to be constantly bombarded with pictures of the lonely fellow gazing in profile towards an empty window?  Looking for love?  No, not really.  Sure I would like to have someone to shovel the walk when it snows, or run the tiller in the spring, or clean out the goose house and tank, and wash the car.  Send me that ad and I will be all over that one. 
I can see that one: "Very handsome and healthy single male looking for a short, fat woman in her waning years to pay bills for, do yard work for, general handyman duties to include cleaning the car and changing oil.  I love to clean house, do laundry and entertain grandkids on occasion.  Sucessful applicant must be intelligent, selfish, cook occasionally, and go to bed early every night and get up at 4 AM because it is the best part of the day and sunrise won't happen if she is not there to jerk it out of the ground.  Age is not a factor as long as she is breathing, little over weight is preferable, bad breathe is a plus,and slovenliness is a necessity.  I require no attention, no attaboys, and sex only when she deems it necessary."
Send me that one and my name is all over that dotted line!  Not really, but it sounds good, doesn't it?
Just wanted to vent my fustrations a little bit.  I am very happy with my life just like it is and I can send that stuff to the spam box all day long and set right here and enjoy my sunrise, sunset and the weeds sprouting all day long!

Happy Anniversary to me.

 First let me say, I do not share this anniversary with Kay and Frank. Thiers is in August.  That is why it catches me off guard when i see it in the church bulletin.  That is a mistake every year.

Well, it is Friday, December 23, 2011. I know where I was on this date in 1983 and I know what temperature it was.  I was here, in this house preparing to become a new bride.  Kenny and I had been living together for just over a year.  My theory on that was that I did not have a very good track record in the marriage department, so I decided if we could live together for one year that it should be good to go.  So now the year was up.

Kenny had dropped a drive line in one of the dump trucks and had left it to be repaired at Pueblo Brake and Clutch.  Gene Baugh was helping him on the repair work.  It was -15 degrees so working outside was not a fun thing anyway.  Well, about 11 AM they had gone to pick up the drive line and found the shop closed for the Christmas Party.  No way to get it and so what to do with the rest of the day?  We had decided a while back that marriage was definitely an option, so him being the romantic that he was, he stomped the snow off his boots, slammed the door behind himself and announced, "Well, let's go get this shittin' mess over with!"

Now, ladies, who could resist anything that romantic?  I happened to have a new pair of jeans, a very nice checkered western shirt, and a new pair of white cowgirl boots.  He had some nice Levi's and a clean shirt, and wellington boots.  So off we toodled to Canon City.  Went there because Pueblo published marriage licenses in the paper every day and we did not want the fuss and bother of explaining why we never invited anyone.  We got to the Canon City courthouse about 30 minutes before closing, grabbed out license and the name of a retired minister and away we went.  4th floor of the retirement home.  Nice little man, but I forgot his name.  Two witnesses to sign.  One was his wife who was bedridden and another was walking down the hall and knew how to spell her name.  Whole thing took about 7 minutes and that included introductions, staging, and paying for his
services.  Then it was off to our wedding supper.  That was a chocolate covered doughnut and a cup of coffee at the doughnut shop.

When we got home we found a note from Gene.  "Congratulations!"  And a bottle of very cheap wine.  We never did get that gagged down.  We asked Gene to share a few months later and his response was "If I knew I had to drink it I would have got the good stuff."  Finally found a son in law who could be talked into drinking about anything.  He shook it up good and when he took his thumb off the cork, it flew out of the bottle, hit the ceiling, and ricocheted into the side of my head and almost cold cocked me.  Made him take it with him when he left since he was the last one to touch the bottle.

So now here I set 28 years later.  It is -7 below zero.  Got a foot and a half of snow out there on the level.  Got no Kenny, but I got a lot of memories.  It may have started out  a little non traditional, but it was quite the ride and I would not undo one minute of those years.  And when life gets a bit more than I can handle, I remember Kenny and the song he always said was "ours" and when you have that once in your life, once is probably enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EigVvZMw3Ds&feature=fvsr