Was it Ed or John?

Trying to remember way back to the Stroh place when I was 5 years old is a stretch.  I do remember that one of dad's friends was a carpenter.  Back in those days a carpenter could carry all the tools of his trade in his pockets and in a leather pouch.  All you really needed was a saw, a hammer, a level and some sand paper.  Oh, nails.  You needed nails.  I think his name was John and he carried his nails in a pouch, but when he was hammering he held them in his mouth so they were "easy to get at."  As years went by that little habit had some dire conseqences.  He developed cancer of the mouth.  He had to have part of his bottom jaw removed and after that it was just not much fun being a carpenter so he just died.  Funny how life goes sometimes.

That was back in the day when cancer was just beginning to rear it's ugly head, or at least the medical community was seeing this strange disease that could eat you alive.  Ever so often we would hear of someone who just took sick, wasted away and died.  We heard the whispered word "cancer" more often back then.  It just seems like when cancer was given a name it spread like wildfire.

So it was no wonder that when momma went into the hospital when I was in 7th grade that I was worried.  Yes, it was cancer.  They hoped they got it all.  Doctor was sure he had and we trusted him.  After all, my mother cleaned his house once a week so it was in his own best interest that he keep her healthy.  And he did.  Her recovery was slow, but she did recover.

Living in a small town and having my mother as a "cleaning lady" opened a lot of doors for our family.  She cleaned and I babysat for the people she  cleaned for.  One of the families was the family who owned the mortuary.  I must remember to tell you about that little episode.  Oh no time like the present.

That was back when television was first coming into being.  The Lamb family lived over the mortuary.   They had 5 little red headed kids.  They had to go out for the evening so I was called to babysit.  There was a body in repose in the viewing room but the man who worked for them would stay until they came home.

I got the kiddies settled in bed and thought I would just watch me a little television.  Do you remember when I think it was Orson Wells wrote a play about the war of the worlds or something to that effect?  The first words the television spit out were " We have been invaded by aliens!  They have come to kill us and we are all in danger!"  Of course I snapped that television off because if I was going to be killed I sure as hell did not want to know about it.  There is a lot to be said for the element of surprise.  I can still to this day feel the terror I knew that night when I heard that.  It was so realistic and I had never dealt with television before so I knew it was true.  But the night was just beginning.

The phone rang and I picked up just in time to hear the man down stairs say to his wife, "Of course, I will be right home.  I am sure it will be alright.  Let me just lock up and I will be there in a few minutes."  Click!  Oh, shit.  Now I not only had the worry of the aliens landings, I now had the reality of a dead body only feet away and no one guarding it.  I knew I was not going to turn that tv back on for sure.  I had only one course of action.

I went into the kids bedroom and woke them up and read to them.  I am sure they thought I was nuts, but I was 15 years old and scared to death.  The kids finally could not stay awake and I heard sounds downstairs so I knew the man had come back, or at least I hoped to holy hell he had!  Just for giggles check out that period in history.  The papers were full of stories about people who had heard the beginning of that movie and thought we were being invaded.  Hind sight tells me that I handled the situation better than a whole lot of people.

It was John.  John was the carpenter.  I remember. Amazing how these facts come back if I just talk to myself for a little while.  I am not sure if the facts that come back are the way it actually happened, but that is the best part of being me.  That is how it happened and John was the one with cancer.  If mother were here, my facts may not stand a chance, but she isn't is she?  So I will enjoy telling my stories and you will enjoy hearing them, because this is just how it is!

Stick horse, comic books and baseball cards.

I have been away from 709 Strong Street long enough that I am pretty sure most of my memories will go unnoticed and the people who helped create them are long since dead and buried.  As long as I do not name people, no one will know who I am talking about.  It is nice to know I have out lived a lot of people so I can tell the stories as I remember them and no one can say "Nope!  That is not how it happened."
One of the girls in our neighborhood liked to ride a stick horse.  So did her mother.  Sadly, this was also the woman who babysat for Mary and Dorothy when mom worked.  Her father was a farmer of sorts.  He raised peanuts and pumpkins mostly.  Also pigs and a goat or two.  Her mom had a bit of brain damage, but managed to still cook and clean.  They had a wood cook stove, but so did we.  Hers was fancier and had enamel on it.  There was also a water pump and a sink right in the corner, so they did not have to go outside for water.  I  was envious of that.
She would make a chocolate cake every day and the daughter always tried to get me to eat it, but I just could not bring myself to do that.  For some reason it had a greenish tint to it.  I think it was probably the cocoa she used, but I was never sure.  She was always frying something, or boiling something.  Seems like parsnips were cooked more than potatoes.  I just figured out the other day that parsnips are actually very good.  Lagree's had some on the mark down shelves and I bought them and brought them home.  I peeled them, boiled them and then sauteed them in butter.  Yep!  Parsnips are now on my eating list.  They have a sort of sweet, nutty taste and I really like the browned parts.
There were 5 in the family.  Mother, Father, son, son and daughter.  The oldest son was already grown and gone when I met the daughter.  The father just farmed.  He planted things and harvested things and fed his pigs and butchered his pigs.  I never knew him to ever have a friend.  I heard rumors that they had been in a car wreck right after they were married and the mother had brain damage and the father felt guilty.
The daughter only wore jeans and flannel shirts.  Her shirt pocket was always bulging with baseball cards she collected.  Same with the pockets on her jeans.  I never saw her in anything else.  When the mother needed to go to town, she and the daughter would mount their stick horses and ride the 6 or 7 blocks into the grocery store.  I never knew either of them to ever ride in the pickup the father used for hauling his produce to market.
The house was sturdy and very well built.  I expect it is probably still standing.  I forgot to look last time I was home.  It had no indoor plumbing and that was not unusual.  All the houses on Strong Street had the out house going on.  Theirs was the worst though.  It consisted of a shed in the corner where two rows of chicken houses met.  A big hole had been dug and a metal wash tub with a hole cut in the center had been turned upside down over said hole.  The proverbial Sear and Roebuck Catalog was at the ready.  Man, I have been in some scary places in my life, but that one was the scariest thing I had every seen.  There was no way in the world that I could ever bring myself to even go inside that let alone pull my britches down and crawl on that tub.  No way in hell!  Never had to pee that bad!
The grandma lived in town in a big house with a bathroom and running water and all that good stuff.  The  brother went to live with grandma leaving just the 3 of them on Strong Street.  When I was 17 we moved away and I never heard of them again.  Years later I heard that the daughter had married and had a couple kids.  The mother died and then the father.  The daughter died when she was 50.  I often wondered how their life went.  They were just such isolated folks back then, but looking back no ones life really touched anyone elses.
We all lived on Strong Street until we left.  I sometimes wonder if mine was the only life that is changed by that little dirt road.  I never heard my sisters ever talk about it.  Was it because they were too young, or in Josephines case, too old?  Did that life shape me for who I am today, or did I escape?  Who knows.  I do know I take solace in the girl I was back then and I think she is buried some where beneath my callous exterior.  When I drive down that street now, I can not recognize the places, but when I close my eyes at night I can see the stars, hear the cougar down on the river, and I can feel the hot, humid air on my bare arms.

I am home!

Racoons are for petting, or eating depending upon your need at the time!

Well, Raccoons are not really for petting, but I just thought I would say that!  Those suckers have some very sharp teeth and can pretty much take care of themselves.  I am remembering back to 1962 when Earl and I were living in Glasco, Kansas in a farm house on the edge of town.  Debbie was a very tiny baby and Patty was conceived but not hatched yet.
 
We were itinerant tree trimmers which meant we moved into an area and trimmed trees until the work ran out and then we moved to the next town.  That was easier than actually building a business and establishing a home.  Most tree trimmers at that time were known as "fly by night", but not us.  The fly by night guys would come into a town for a few days and do a couple high dollar jobs and then move on to the next likely looking place.  We actually had an address and lived in the community.  Well, for 30 days or whenever the rent came due anyway.  But back to the story.

Glasco is straight up US 81 out of Hutchinson, close to Concordia and about 60 miles from Nebraska.  I looked that up on the Atlas, so I know that is right.  I do not know how long we lived there, but some of my memories are pretty vivid.  One of our workers killed a rattlesnake on the back porch right by the door.  It was night and had I opened the door he would have been inside.  Never knew snakes traveled at night, but very glad it was Pete that found him and not me!

The compound consisted of Earl, Debbie and me.  Earl's brother Larry, his wife and daughter.  Two more brother's, Delvin and Virgil.  And lastly Pete somebody and his wife whose name I forget and a couple of thier kids.  I have no idea where we all slept, but as I recall there were a couple mobile homes or campers involved.  And dogs!  Actually they were " 'Coon dogs".  The guys had struck up a friendship with a couple in another town who raised and hunted with them.  Ah!  The thrill of the hunt!

For those of you who have never been exposed to that element of life, you are in for a surprise!  Any extra money we came across was spent to buy the best dogs that Bill and Dorothy had to offer.  There were a couple Black and Tans,  a couple Blue ticks, a  Redbone and a Blood hound.  It was Virgil's job to care for the dogs and it was a full time job.  Ah, but night was hunting time.

Once they brought home enough honey to sink a battle ship.  Every deal with raw honey?  Now there is a blog unto itself.  It had to be heated very slowly and then strained into containers of which we had none and then given away because one human can only hold so much honey!  Fortuneately there were grapes on the river about that time so of course making wine was also on the agenda.  That was set in the cellar which was located in the yard in the vicinity of the back door.  We were not allowed to go down there, but being the free spirit's we were, I gathered up the sisters in law and we ventured into the forbidden territory.  We tasted the fruits of the boys labor and pronounced them "horrible."

That night we could not find my little dog.  We searched every where and had given up the doggie as lost when Earl decided to check on the wine process.  Lo and behold!  The little doggie was in the cellar.  I am not sure I ever convinced that man that my dog had actually managed to get himself into the cellar, but you must remember my first husband drank a lot and as such had a kind of flawed reasoning.  (That was back in the days when I was not above lying to save my ass!)

Back to the eating of the Racoon.  As with all "hunter-gatherers" since the beginning of time, a racoon was finally captured and brought back to the "cave".  As head woman it was my job to prepare the feast.  Oh, my God!  The sight of the Racoon with no fur and no head, feet and a gaping abdomen was more than I could bear!  I put it in a pan on it's back with it's feet pointing upward, poured is some water, added salt and pepper and shoved it in the oven.  Earl checked it several times and finally pronounced it "ready."  There was no way I could have eaten a bite of that if my life depended on it and at that time it did.   I can still close my eyes and picture that.  I know in parts of the world and this country Racoon is eaten, but not the way I fixed it, I am sure.  I equate all wild animals the same as my kitty cat.

I do, however have good memories of Glasco.  It was a little town and I bought 2 chickens at the feed store and butchered them.  They cost a whole dollar for 2 of them.  Old hens, so they were turned into noodles.

The guys went down on the river and cut down a big Walnut tree and sold it to a buyer for $98 which was a whole lot of money at that time.  We were going to do that for a living, but that was stealing and we were afraid we would get caught.  Fear stopped a lot of our ideas.

Pete caught a fish that was very long, had a snout, and he had never seen one before like it so he beat it to death.  Later we learned it was a Gar.  Live and learn.

In my little mind, I was happy in Glasco.  In my little mind I have been happy most of my life.  Sadly the happiness did not always coincide with the time I was living through it, but that is alright.  My mother always had sayings for me.

"Hind sight is 20/20 looking back."

 "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  

And my favorite "Time is the greatest healer."

My life is good.  God Bless!

I hope I do not get deported!

123 years ago a man named Johann Jakob Haas and his second wife, Maria Dorathea (Schrade) landed at Ellis Island Immigration Center.  They came from Dettingen Wrtt, Germany.  Those 2 people were my  great grandfather and step great grandmother. He had 9 children with this second wife.  This was called his second family.

 (Great grandfather had been married before and fathered 7 children with his first wife, Elizabeth Beck.  My grandfather was in his first family.)

At the time I was born, Jakob and Maria had been in the United States of America 47 years.  I guess that makes me a third generation immigrant!  Not sure how that works, but it seems my kids would then be fourth generation immigrants.

How sad it is that I woke up this morning with this on my mind.  And that my second thought was that I am a child of white privilege was even sadder.  My grand children are a mix of races.  I have one black,  2 Indians, one mexican and then then token white boy.  The great grandkids are a hodge podge and we no longer see color at my house.

I know that our government is "cracking down on the illegals" and this breaks my heart.  To see a mother torn from her children and sent back to Mexico because a paper is not in her possession that gives her the rights I have makes me sick.  She raised her kids by working and spending her money in the local market place.  Her kids went to the local school not just for a day or two, but for years.  Years.  She wanted to be here or she would have gone back to Mexico a long time ago.

Does anyone except me remember when the government cracked down on the illegals because they were taking work from the local people by working in the fields?  Seems the migrant farm workers did not come and the crops rotted in the fields because that was work our local people who were legal did not want to do.  Hot out there in the broiling sun .

Our government has never made it easy to get citizenship and it has never been cheap.  Lawyers and paperswork and courts do not make it conducive for people who work very cheap to afford the help they need.  So punish them.  I was born into my citizenship, but many were not.

I know of one man who is 3 semesters short of getting his degree in business management.  He has worked hard to pay tuition and buy books by working in the fields, but he is not a citizen.  He will be sent back to Mexico under the current regieme.  His father was granted his citizenship, but has not received the final paper.  It is lost out there somewhere, so all he has done has been in vain.

Somewhere along the rocky road to today, this freedom train went off the tracks.  The government is fighting the Indians because the pipeline wants to go across thier land and water and do we remember who was here first?  Hell no we don't!  We took thier land.  Then we decided we didn't want them to be there and we took that land and gave them different land and now we change our minds again!  I bet the Indians are wondering why they invited us to that first Thanksgiving!

It would be nice to build a big rocket ship and put all the elitist ignoramuses on it and ship them to the moon and leave us peace loving people here to drink out of the same water faucets and play on the same beaches.  Remember the hippies?  Remember the love generation?  Remember the Viet Nam war?  Remember Stonewall? We are afraid of immigrants.  They might do us harm.  Remember Timothy McVey?  American born.  Remember Columbine?  American born!  Where is our rationale?

It is going to be a long day.  I wish I had a bright spot to give you, but this morning I do not.  This morning my heart is bleeding for my America.  The one we had before someone decided to make it great again.

Oh where have you gone, Martha Knoblock?

The older I get the more I remember when I was young and foolish, but mostly young and taken care of by some one other than myself.  I remember my classmates so clearly.  Now let me go on record right here as saying, I have my memories and thiers may be entirely different.  Like Martha Knobloch.  She played the piano and I recall her piano recital.  She lived near us, but up on the highway closer to the sand pit.  Her mother set up a recital in her home and several of us kids were there.  It seems like maybe only 4 or 5.  We set on a couch,  all us little girls in a row with our feet straight out in front of us.  I am sure her mom made some sort of refreshments, probably to entice us into setting still!  I recall being very proud that I knew someone who could play the piano.  I bragged about that for years, and look here, I still am!
Irene Reinke,  Beth McGonigle and Nancy Cuthbertson grew up to be cheerleaders.   They were the cool kids.  David Sjoberg,  Owen Lentz and  Gary Battey were the smart ones.  Kenny Fenton,  Jim Redford, and Larry Collee were the jocks.  Oh, and David Sjoberg was also a jock.  A smart jock, if you can imagine that.   Earl Kelley, Loren McQueen, Jay Moore, Joyce Pedersen, Barbara Hawk, Sherry Stires, Joan Moore, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Eveline Piper, Barbara Massey, and Martha Knobloch.  I am drawing a blank on the rest of them.  I am sure when I hang up the blog, I will remember the rest of them.  But this was the core group.  Others came and went, but these were the ones I went to school with for 8 years and then into high school. 
I was not a very good girl in high school, so I lost track of them. The bus brought in kids from Hutch and the outlying areas and I just went to hell in a handcart mostly.  All through grade school Barbara had been my very best friend.  Mother cleaned house for them and I spent lots of nights at her house.  Remember the sleeping arrangements at my house made it impossible to squeeze in another kid.  She had her own room!  It had a bed in an alcove and a settee, a fireplace, a chair with a lamp to see by, a desk and everything I could ever dream of for comfort.  And her mother kept ice cream in the freezer and her day would make us a sundae with a cherry on top!  Her dad was the local dentist, so they had lots of money. She had a brother named Bert who always called me "mudpie" because making mudpies was always a pastime in my world.  One thing we always had was dirt and water.  Had I made bricks instead of pies I could have built a house.
I remember 3rd grade when hygiene became important.  The teacher's name was Miss Holmes.  The first thing every morning she would ask, "Did you brush your teeth this morning?"  We had to hold up our hand as a yes answer.  "Did you comb your hair?"  Another yes was expected.  "Did you wash your face?"  Yes.  Then she would walk around and physically inspect our hands to be sure they were clean.  I rarely passed.  I had answered yes to all the above questions, but only because everyone else did.  I am not sure I even owned a toothbrush back in those days.  I never had a cavity in my life until I married my first husband.  He gave me the cavity germ along with the nest full of babies! 
One of the really nice things about school was the bathrooms.  I never knew why they were called that because there was no where to take a bath, but they were nice.  All that tile and running water was more then I could ever dream for at home.  And hot water came out of the faucet!  In the 4th grade I went into the  bathroom one time at the same time as Beth McGonigle.  She had a popcorn ball tired up in a scarf.  It was uneventful until a few minutes later when Mrs. Howe grabbed me by the ear and took me to the office.  There the story was told by Beth that I had grabbed her popcorn ball and thrown it in the toilet!  I had not even touched her damn popcorn ball, but that was the story.  Mother had to come to school and hear what an evil child I was.  On the report card every nine weeks there was an area for teacher comments.  "Louella is mean to her classmates".  "Louella teases the other kids."  "Louella does not play well with others".  That continued until the last 9 weeks when there was no comment written because Mrs. Howe had been taken to hospital because she had a thorn in her lower intestine and needed surgery.  It was iffy whether she would make it or not.  Talk about Karma! 
In 5th grade I had Miss Swenson.  I loved that woman.  She found potential in me and entered one of my poems to a magazine and it was accepted.  Had I stayed in 5th grade forever, my life would have been so different.  But life went on and I am here today to tell you that Karma is good.  Well, Karma is good unless it is bad.  I like to stay on the good side of that bitch!  
I wonder where all the kids have gone.  I wonder if they had good lives.  One of the kids that wandered through my world in the 4th grade was a girl named Mavis Reed.  She had a brother named Jerry.  They lived outside of town and sometimes I would ride the bus to her house and then her brother would take me home on the handlebars of his bike.  Wonder what ever became of them?  Wonder why I thought of that?
Well, the world of church, geese, dog food, and all that calls to me, so I am out of here.  Just in case someone whose name of have mentioned above reads this, I would like to know.  Or if you know what became of the kids in the class of 1959 in Nickerson, Kansas, give me a shout out.  email is loumercer3@aol.com  Just copy and paste in your browser.  I try every day to be a better person just to make up for whatever I did back then.  I keep searching because if we do not learn from our history, we tend to repeat out mistakes and it is the same in the growing up world of skinny little girls!

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Now those of you who know me also know that most of the time I am the hard, hearted Hannah, the vamp of Savannah, but those of you who know me well, know that I do have a soft side and have been known to tear up at the slightest thing that most people except as every day happenings.  Like this morning.  I had to take Elvira in to the beauty shop early and so was heading west up Abriendo (if Abriendo does indeed run past the library in an east west manner.) when a young girl passed in front of my car.  She was shabbily dressed and pushing a cheap baby stroller which was a resting place for several bags as well as a child of perhaps 9-10 months of age.  I know the homeless shelter is located on that street or the next one over.
The picture is frozen in my mind.  I know she was headed there.  Many things pointed in that direction.  The stroller was not one of the padded ones like most parents we know have.  She was wearing a coat and the baby was wearing a cap that covered its ears.  What struck me most was the baby.  I am sure it was a boy for some reason.  He sat erect in the stroller and clutched the bar to keep himself upright.  He stared straight ahead as if to memorize everything before him.  His mother walked quickly with her head down.  This was no early morning stroll.  It was a mission.  It was as if the baby also knew that he must hang on and not lose his grip lest he cause a problem that would deter them from the job ahead.  They were alone in time and space for that moment with me watching them like a voyeur from some other place.   And my mind went back in time.
I have never been homeless.  I raised 5 kids and worked 2 or three jobs at a time so I would not be homeless.  There were times I wanted to give up, but I never knew who or what to give up to, so I just kept putting one foot in front of the other and marched onward to the drum beat that was in my head.
Would I live my life different if I could live it in reverse?  You bet your sweet ass I would!  I would never have left my first husband and everyone of those 5 kids would have had a college education.  There would not have been a choice given to them, but life can not be lived that way.  My kids have all grown into respectable adults with kids and grand kids of their own.  I have great grands which I guess makes me old.  Ah, but with age comes wisdom.  Or so I hear.
No, with age comes a mind that works overtime.  And speaking of overtime, I wish it just worked like it is supposed to.  I spend a few hours every week with a lady who is older than me and we spend most of our time trying to remember what it was we were talking about.  We have a trove of memories that are in there some where, but not readily recalled.  And then there is that damn overly sensitive side that goes with old age.  I cry when I hear almost any song, but the one that leaves me a sobbing heap is "Seven Spanish Angels" with Willie Nelson and Ray Charles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0OhbJPrzWc   Course Happy Birthday to you does the same thing.  Abused animal pictures send me into a 3 day depression.  Hell, any animal picture sends me into a whole new realm.
It has been a couple months since I started to write this article and the picture of the mother and son is as fresh in my mind as it was that morning.  So here is the deal, can someone out there tell me why I can remember my social security number, my first phone number, the address of the house I lived in 65 years ago, but I have no idea where in the hell the car keys are, or that I have a doctors appointment?  I set here in my house all day and when someone says, "What did you do today?" I draw a complete blank.  I saw a cook wanted sign the other day and actually talked to someone about the idea of me going to work there.  My God!  If I had to get up and actually go somewhere at the same time every day, it would drive me nuts!  But then when someone asked me what I did I could say, "I worked all day," which would have actually only been 3 hours, but it sounds good.  Back to the subject at hand.
I watch for the mother and baby every time I drive through the Junction, but no signs of them any where.  So I am going to play out my own scenario.  I think they went to Posada and there they got a bus ticket back home.  I think they lived in the south and they are back with her mother and the mother loves her new grandson.  The lady pushing the stroller went to school and got a really good job and they all lived happily ever after.
That is how things work in my head.

There was a barn and horses.

I woke up this morning remembering the barn.  The horse tank was out the back door of the house and off to the right.  For years it had a "pitcher pump" and we all took turns pumping to keep water for the animals.  Ever now and then we had to fish a chicken out because chickens can not swim.  That was not very often, because chickens are fairly smart that way.  We had Muscovy ducks and they occasionally took a spin around the tank, but they were very leery of those big horse teeth and mostly stayed around the back of the house where the kitchen sink drained out on the ground.  That was back before there were laws about that.
There was a red milk cow.  Her name was "Bossy".  She shared the barn with the other animals.  She eventually gave birth to a black calf that I immediately named Dennis.  She then took sick with milk fever (?).   My dad and the neighbor man tried to save her.  They even cut her tail open and put salt and pepper in it and bound it up.  That was sure to cure her.  Unfortunately, it did not.  Dennis took sick soon after and I think that was because he had no mother to feed him.  He also died, which broke my heart.
There was a brown horse named "Danny" that was my sister Josephine's.  It was her's because that was the meanest damned horse in the world and she was the only one who could ride him.  The rest of us kids were relegated to a Shetland pony whose name was "Star".  Dad would put one of us up on his back and then lead him around the corral.  I never did like either Star or the rides so I mostly hid out when that was going on.  The little kids got a kick out of it though.
My Dad had a big scar on his upper arm (think that is called a bicep).  (For this reason I have always been afraid of horses thinking that one might bite me.)  It dated back to when he was in the Army (World War 1).  He was in the Cavalry.  His job was to tend the horses and one bit him.  I knew my father to be a very mean man sometimes.  He never mistreated us kids physically, but he did tend to mistreat animals.  One of the things used to control horses was a stick with a loop of rope on the end.  The rope was put around the upper lip of a horse and twisted.  The horse was then pretty much at the mercy of whoever held the stick.  I do not remember what that thing was called.  Of course there was a black snake whip that hung in the barn for when the horses were really out of control.
Dad had a fondness (more like an obsession) for show horses.  They were not just show horses, they were work horses that were beautiful.  My dad was one of the last people to give up the horse and plow.  He would never buy one horse.  He always bought a matched pair.  The last matched pair he had was the only pair I even remember.  They were Strawberry Roans.  They were big and a light pinkish color.  They had blonde tails and my father would stand for hours brushing them.  When he went into town their tails were braided and he was a sight to behold.  My father.  (pause while a flood of memories leaves me in tears.)
The upper part of the barn was called the "hay loft."  It was called that because that is where the hay was stored.  That was also where the old cats went to have their kittens.  When the cow was alive and we milked her, there was a bowl by her stall that was always filled with fresh milk at milking time.  The one legged stool hung on a peg above it. 
When the hayloft was filled with fresh hay, we had to check it periodically through the day.  If some of the hay that went in the loft was not quite dry enough, it would heat up and if not turned to get air to cool it, burst into flame.  First it started to smolder and usually we picked that up right away.  We took the pitch fork and pulled that part of the hay stack out and threw it out the opening onto the ground where we spread it to cool, or burn if it was that hot.  Lots of barns burned to the ground because of that little problem.
My dad was pretty much a share cropper and us kids were put into use real regular. Sometimes we went to wheat fields and pulled out the Rye that sprung up magically.  If the elevator man found Rye in the load of wheat being sold, he would "dock" dad on the pay.  Sometimes we harvested field corn.  We picked the dry ears and stripped them in the field and then tossed them on the corn wagon.  The corn wagon was just a horse drawn wagon with board added on the back side so the corn bounced off and landed back in the wagon with the rest of the corn.  We picked rocks out of fields.  We pulled weeds in the garden.  Especially fun was cleaning the manure out of the barn and hauling it to the pile in the corner of the corral.  We gathered eggs.  Brought in fire wood.  Carried out the trash.  Made the beds. Washed the dishes.  In the winter we tried to stay warm and in the summer we tried to stay cool.
One of my clearest memories is laying on my stomach by the chicken house with my brother and watching the "dead animal wagon" back up to the fence in front of the barn.  The man pulled the wench chain out and over to the barn where he wrapped it around Star's neck.  He hit the button and Star was unceremoniously drug up over the sill, across the pen, under the barbed wire fence and up into the back of the truck.  My last memory of Star was seeing the truck pull onto the road and drive off with Star's  legs sticking straight up into the air.  Jake and I were very quiet the rest of the day and night.  Then life resumed, just like there had never been a Shetland Pony named Star in our life.
And now I sit here with my memories.  I see the house just as clearly today as I did then, only now I appreciate it more for it's simplicity.  I see my brother in his overalls.  The scar on his face was put there by Star many years before. 
There are only 2 of us left now.   I feel closer to the past then I do the future.  I long for those days when I could feel the breeze on my arms and face.  Back then I could not wait to grow up and get away.  I wanted my own home.  My own family.  Well, I got it and here I set.  If there is one thing I would tell the people I know it is this:  Hold on to today, because today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  Yesterday is gone and tomorrow never comes.  I think they wrote a song about that.

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!

Whittlin' Joe and Smokin' Johnny Carson

We lived down on Strong Street and they lived up on Highway 96.  They lived the second house in from the corner in a brown tar paper shack.  I call it tar paper but it had a coating on it with flecks of brown, red and black.  You know what I mean, kind of like the asphalt shingles on roofs today.  Their yard was small but it was big enough for a chicken coop and an out house.  It had one tree and that is where Whittlin' Joe could be found every afternoon after school.  He sat on a wooden chair and leaned it back against the tree trunk and whittled his little things he whittled whatever they were.  I suspect he was there all day and not just after school, but that is when I saw him.  The chickens ran free in the yard and some times one could be seen coming out of the house.  They had a small trailer and it was said by my brother (who knew these things) that the trailer was full of things they had whittled and in the summer they went on the road and sold stuff.  I could not argue, because I did not know.  I just know I walked on the other side of the street because they scared me.
I had heard rumors that sometimes Hank Windiate would stop and pass the time of day with them.  Hank lived at the end of our street and was crippled.  I do not know why, just that one arm and one leg were pretty small.  He had a buckboard and an old brown horse which he harnessed and hooked up to it on a daily basis and "went into town."  I have no idea why he went into town every day, but he did.  There were rumors that he had been married at one time and his wife had died.  Hank was another one who let the chickens run in and out of the house.  Hank took sick and died and the town people came and built a fire in his yard and burned everything that was inside.  I never understood that.  And I do not know what happened to the goats, chickens and horse either.  This is just how I remember it.
Between us and Hank were two houses.  First was Rudolph Reinke and his girls, Irene, Delores, Florence and Venita.  He had several more girls who had grown and gone, but Irene was my age and Delores a year or so older.  The mother had died when Irene was a wee tot and Rudolph was left to raise the kids.  He did handyman work and left early and came home late.  He also raised pigs and he could be heard doing his chores and singing hymns in German while he went about his business.  The girls made doughnuts every Saturday morning.  They also had a cow so they made real butter.  They used to trade us butter for the white stuff with a yellow dot that passed for margarine in the old time.  I liked that.  They had a dog on a chain that barked all the time and I do not think anyone ever petted it.
Between Reinke's and Hank was Jake Smith and his wife who I never knew because she looked really mean and stood very straight when she walked.  She walked into town and was a cleaning lady for someone.  Jake was a retired peace officer and he liked to show us his gun and tell us what would happen to us if we ever did anything wrong.  He would arrest us because he still had his badge and he could do that.  He had a chair in the yard and used to tip it back against the tree and nap.  Pretty sure Jake was the instigator of the "sneaking up on Jake Smith while he was asleep and tying him to the tree."  Boy, was he mad!  Of course he was not tied very tight, but it was just the idea of catching him asleep that the boys could not resist.
Walt King lived over on the highway on the other side of our block.  He raised beautiful flowers and a garden to die for, which he did one afternoon.  We saw him sleeping face down in his garden all afternoon and so when mother came home we told her and she and Rudolph went to investigate, but we had to stay home.
The Feins and their son Howard lived between us and Whittlin' Joe on the highway.  Howard was probably 25 years old and still lived at home.  He worked in his garden a lot.  He raised mostly flowers.  I stopped to see him sometimes, but once he made his false teeth jump out at me and scared the living shit right out of me.  I did not even know there were such things as false teeth.  When I told mother she just laughed and said to stay away from there because I was probably aggravating him.  I pretty much avoided him after that.
Right catty cornered from our house was a lot that was a square block with an empty house on one side.  I mean a deserted falling down house with no roof.  Joe Hedrick held his rodeo's there.  I always liked to watch them ride the broncs.  Joe or Jerry.  One was an old man and one was my age.  Today they have an exotic animal farm on the other side of town.  I think it is a bed and breakfast, or it was.  I have not been back in years so I do not know.
Behind our house about half a mile was the cemetary.  I used to love to go there because it was quiet and sometimes there were pretty flowers.  I just looked at them.
So, these are my thoughts this morning.  I sure wonder where they come from?

And our saviour was born in a cattle stall.....

For my whole life I have known the story of the birth of our saviour.  When I was very young it was the one Sunday out of the year that many people went to church.  The only Sunday we were allowed to miss was when we were loaded kit and kaboodle into the back seat of what ever old car we had that was running and off we went to grandma's house.  It was an all day trip because we had to stop several times and put water in the radiator and one of us always had to hop out and go pee in the ditch.  It was an all day ordeal making that 22 mile trip over to Plevna and back, but it was the one thing momma insisted on doing at least once a month.

Dad never went to church.  He did not buy into that malarkey and until the day he died he never ceased to remind us that we were damn fools.  His funeral when I was 25 years old was held in the Lamb Funeral Home and I am not sure who officiated, but I am sure he was up there some where looking down and pitying us poor fools who were trying to get him into a place he never believed in.  I was just devastated because we were burying my father and I never knew him.  Eight months later we buried my brother.  I digress.

Everyone who knows my story knows that I married at 19 and immediately had 4 kids, took a short break and had the last one.  My husband was an athiest and so church was not important.  It was not that I forgot any of my upbringing, but it was just easier to not push the buttons that set him off.  After our divorce when I became truly independent, I made sure the kids got to Sunday school and back every Sunday.  Well, most of them any way.  Now that did not mean that I went, but they did.

And so I grew into adulthood cherishing my beliefs, but not doing much about them.  And much like the parables in the Bible, I had my awakening after I married Kenny.  Things happen in our lives that tend to bring us full circle and we end up on our knees.  So it was with me.  We all have our moments and as I look back, I wonder what in the world I was thinking.  At age 16 I wanted to be a missionary and was on the right track.  10 years later I was a single mom and working 2 or 3 jobs to feed my brood.  But I never lost hope.  Never once did I think there was not a God that loved me.  Several times I wondered why he did, but there he was.

Someone asked me the other day if I really bought that story of Jesus Christ being born to a virgin.  That just doesn't seem possible.  My answer at the time and will always be, " I beleive that story with my whole heart, soul and being.  I always have and I always will."  Then my friend asked why Jesus suffered and died on the cross.  He could have run away and hid.  He did not have to do that.  To that I say, "He died for my sins and your sins.  He died so we could have life ever lasting."

And that, my friends, is what I beleive.  It is why I get up for in the morning and it is my last thought at night when I go to sleep.  I am not scholarly in my Bible like some people, but Lou Mercer is a true beleiver  and I will be when I take my last breathe.

I beleive in Christmas miracles and I beleive in August 4 miracles.  I beleive there are angels among us and they guide our feet so we do not dash them on a stone.  I beleive there is good in everyone and if I die tomorrow I will meet Jesus with a smile on my face.

I would love to see you at my church because we have a very nice pastor named Karen Howe, but if I don't see you, please know I love you and accept you as you are.

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.  May peace and prosperity be yours for the whole year and the rest of your life.

A sharecropper Christmas or Gibby is gone, but the memories are not.

There were eight of us living in a lathe and plaster house where the snow blew in sometimes because there were chinks in the plaster, but Christmas was always Christmas.  It was the one holiday a year that really mattered in that 2 bedroom house at 709 Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas.  There were 3 things that would happen that day without fail.  Santa Clause would have stopped by in the middle of the night, Dad would stay sober and  there would be a meal on the table.  The wheels of progress had started probably the Christmas before when Mother started counting her pennies and making the list of what each one of us would receive. She always had a stub of a pencil and a list in her pocket. I never really got a good look at that list, but I am sure my name had appeared there some where.   All year she worked towards that one goal.  Mother's do that, or at least mine did.
School got out for vacation about a week before Christmas.  Every classroom had a Christmas tree. and every tree had tinsel.  The last day before vacation started was the day to "take down the tree."  The tree then went home with who ever did not have a tree up yet.  We counted on getting one.  There were 6 of us little urchins and the teachers would decide.  We always got one!  I remember the year I was the lucky recipient.  Can you imagine my pride at dragging that tree home the whole mile to our house.  I was so damn proud I thought I would pop!  And the teacher had left all the tinsel on it.  Of course by the time I got it home the tinsel had thinned quite a bit on the side that was dragging in the dirt.  I thought I would pop my buttons when momma propped that tree up and Christmas was on the countdown!
We did not have stockings, but rather we wrote our name on a piece of paper and placed it where we wanted Santa to put our gifts.  Funny, I don't really remember ever giving my mother a gift in all those growing up years.  I made her cards, but never a physical gift.  And then there was the time I babysat and earned some money and went to Doc Wards store and got her a stainless steel mixing bowl.  I did that because I had broken her glass one and felt really bad about that.  Well, when I grew up and moved away I would send her stuff, but that really doesn't count.
As the years went by and mother picked up more house cleaning jobs the piles grew bigger at Christmas.  The first one I remember was a coloring book, colors, a red rubber ball, and an orange.  The last Christmas I remember Santa Clause was when my brother woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me he had helped mom and dad put out the gifts and there was no Santa Clause.  That year I got one of those tin doll houses that clipped together.  You know, the miniature ones with mother, father, sister and brother and all the tiny furniture and you could buy more!  And always there was new underwear and socks!  Wise mother to make the piles bigger with stuff we had to have anyway!
And then it was my turn to be Santa.  In all fairness, I do not remember much about those years.  The kids dad and I divorced when the kids were small and he was good at bringing presents, but not much for the child support.  His reasoning was that I had the kids and all the pleasure they brought so why should he have to pay me?  He was the one with not kids to keep him company and in my warped mind I saw the reasoning that made him tick!
I was always a procrastinator and sometimes Christmas got there before I realized that as Santa I had work to do!  One year my friend Gibby was kind enough to help with the last minute shopping the day before Christmas Eve mind you!  We rushed from store to store and finally had the trunk full.  The next evening I put the kids to bed and Gib came and we began to assemble the gifts, one of which was a tin miniature doll house for Debbie.  Luckily (?) he had brought a bottle of wine and luckier still that I had lots of band aids because those damn little tabs were very sharp and the wine was very strong!  Well, and there may have been a second bottle!  I woke up on the floor and no sign of Gib.
(An aside here, I must tell you about Gib.  He was a friend of my mothers and they worked at the Red Rooster together.  Gib was gay and one of the first to die in the AIDS epidemic, when it was an epidemic. He died in California and we never knew where he was buried.  I do know when I conceived the Pueblo AIDS Memorial Quilt  he was foremost in my mind and the first panel made was for my sweet Gibbie.)
Many years have passed and many Christmas's have come and gone to bring me to this Christmas.  I do not have a tree.  I gave all my lights and decorations to my son.  I do not buy gifts.  I do not fight the crowds.  I will spend Christmas Eve in church and Christmas Day I will attend church and come home.  I am not bah humbug at Christmas, I just prefer to live with my memories.  The best part of memories is that they can be altered to fit the occasion and this year I shall have beautiful memories of wonderful children and bountiful love and I wish you all the same!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!  

Life is not always as it appears, or I am the eternal optimist!

A couple days ago I was working in my little kitchen.  My home is a split level so the office is 4 feet higher then the main level.  I heard something  crash into the office window so I sprinted up the stairs to investigate.  I looked out the window and down at the ground and saw a dark bird standing there.  He appeared to be immobile but in no pain.  A closer look and I saw that he was standing on another bird.  Well, that was strange.  I watched for a little bit and the dark bird moved around and positioned himself on top of bird #2 and began to make jumping movements.
My first impression, being the optimist I am, was that bird #1 was giving artificial respiration to bird #2 and trying to revive it.  It was probably his wife.  As I stood at my window watching I realized I was seeing a miracle that few people would ever witness and I silently prayed for success and waited with bated breath for the gray bird to show signs of life.  Then the realist in me took over.  The bird flat on it's back with wings outstretched was a dove.  The dark bird perched on it's chest was darker, had stripes on it's tail feathers and a hooked beak which was now ripping the throat out of the bird it it's clutches.  It was a chicken hawk!  At that moment I realized what a damn fool I was.
The chicken hawk had chased the dove into my window with such force that the dove had fallen to the ground and became easy prey for Mr. Chicken Hawk.  Closer examination of said window proved this was not the first time this had happened.  The doves tend to hang out in the cherry tree outside the window and the predator birds know this.  When the hawk chases a dove it flies into my window and falls to the ground.  I now have the curtains closed on all my big windows.  I do not like having my windows closed as I feel trapped inside, but that is how it is for now.
And of course, I understand nature enough to know that while the doves eat seeds and such hawks are meat eaters.  I am a meat eater, but I can go to the store and buy my food.  Nature does not work like that.  It is called survival of the fittest.  The hawk outsmarted the dove.  That is how it is.  And isn't life much like that?  Somebody holds the mortgage on my house.  If I do not pay, they take my house.  My car needs gas to run, if I do not fill it up, it does not move.  On a daily basis I am outsmarted by the dogs and geese.  And the cat.  They expect food in their bowl and like a silly fool, I take my money and buy them what they need.  Elvira goes to the beauty shop, but I braid my hair.  How many of you out there are slaves to the same Gods?  (Did you ever notice that GODS and DOGS have the same letters?)  Our reward for the attention we give them is they will sometimes let us pat them on the head.  Not the geese though.  The only thing I get from them is the privilege of cleaning out the goose house 3-4 times a year and carrying water to them in the winter.  All they do for me is poop where I need to walk.
So I will keep the curtains closed for a while.  When the doves migrate away I will open them back up and delude myself into believing that all is well with the world and no one is eating anyone else.  I am an optimist and I shall stay an optimist because to not look for a brighter tomorrow is doom myself to a life of darkness.
So fly away, my little doves!  There is a brighter world some where!

Happy Thanksgiving, happy birthday to Susie and here comes the cat!

Yesterday is over and I think I accomplished everything I set out to do.  Told Susie happy birthday, went to Florence and ate way more food than I should.  Played with the baby for 16 minutes and then drove home the back way through Wetmore.   Pretty drive but I only seen one lonely little deer.  I got home and lit the emergency candle I am making for the homeless.  I had lit it at Arlene and Hillary's and let it burn for 2 hours.  This one is made of cardboard strips and paraffin in a cat food can.  It started out very small and burned like that for about an hour and a half before I blew it out and came home. Perhaps I should back up and tell you about said candles before you think I am nuts.
I know the homeless population needs a heat source at times so I got on youtube (and I do love that channel) and typed in "emergency candles" and up popped my information.  This particular one calls for tuna/catfood/altoid cans, paraffin and wicks.  Looked pretty simple to me, so I assembled said ingredients and began the process.

Paraffin

wicks

Something to melt it in.

And, voila!  There you have the finished product.

Of course this was many tedious hours later after I had cut many cardboard strips and wound them around a tiny wick and pressed them into my chosen containers covered them with melted paraffin and let them cool. Trust me, the winding around the tiny wick with stiff cardboard strips was no easy task, but it can be done.

The finished product is ready for testing.

And like any kid with a new toy, it was imperative that my creation be tested and the testing witnessed by an impartial audience.  I started out with Arlene, Alonzo, Jamie, Bret, Amanda, Jiraiya, a  little black dog.  That was before Bret hollered that the flame was about to get into the curtain, so I came home and finished with this audience.

The findings were thus:  A candle in a tuna can will start out as a small flickering flame and burn for  about 1 hour.  Then the flame begins to spread and burn the wax from the cardboard.  At this point it is best to move it away from the kitchen curtains, blow it out and bring it home to finish the test, and that is what I did.  Of course, I decided to set it in a bucket just in case and it is a good thing I did.  Before it was all over there were flames over a foot high and the whole can was an inferno.  Total burn time about 3 hours.  Oh, the things I do for my projects.

Ok, it is ready and I shall deliver them to Posado on Monday when we make supper for the kids there.  For now, I am off to the shower and then going to do some baking.  And going out east to see Shirley and her grandson and probably pop in on Los Pobres just for grins and giggles.

What is a friend and where can I buy one?

I woke up at 4:10 this morning.  That is not unusual.  What is unusual was the emptiness I felt.  Not emptiness of the soul, because I always have God with me.  Always.  I could not live if I did not.  This emptiness is different.  I guess I can only describe it as a lack of a  life force.  Now what that means can be a variety of things, but for me it seems to be the force that makes me want to face the day with a big smile and reach out and grab life with both hands.  That is missing.
 
I opened the back door to find something I did not expect in the form of rain.  Not just a sprinkle, but real rain falling and splashing on the back sidewalk.  That is usually enough to pull me out of a funk, but not today.  I put a turkey in the oven to bake, tidied the kitchen a bit and thought about this new phase of my thought process.  Emptiness is not a feeling I like.  So I will analyze it here and see if that helps.

I have friends; lots of friends.  Or do I?  Webster defines a friend as "1.  a person attached to another by affection or regard.   (Regard is defined as esteem or respect by the same dictionary.)  2.  a patron; a supporter.  3.  a person who is not hostile.  4.  a member of the Society of Friends:  a Quaker."  Now I have a lot of the 1, 2, 3, and even a few 4.  But I do not agree with his definition of "friend."  To me, a friend is so much more.

My mother always told me that to "have a friend you have to be a friend."  She also told me that if I could reach my golden years and count my true friends on one hand I was to consider myself blessed.  So here I am looking back down the road of my life and it looks like a damn war zone.   My best friend all through grade school was Barbara Hawk.  I do not know what became of her.   I remember when I was in  high school, I had a friend named Carol Mason who had moved to California.  She was going to give me a one way train ticket to San Diego for my graduation.  That never happened.

Then I got married and had babies and divorces and lots of acquaintences, but few "friends".  Gilbert Fields was my friend, but he died early on in the AIDS epidemic.  He is the reason I am an activist today.   ( I wonder if he ever checks in on me?)

 Oh, there are a  couple.  Vi Luna and Evelyn Decker come to mind.  I met them 50 years ago when I worked at the Red Carpet.  I have not seen Vi for several years, but I do see Evelyn and talk to her regularly.  She was out this summer.  So, let's see, that is 2.  And then there is Shirley Bagbey.  Shirley lived out here in the county and then moved to Kansas City 7 years ago.  Now she is back and we talk every day and do "stuff."  That makes 3.  I consider all my kids as friends, but technically they are family, so they go in that category.  There is a man in my life who is sort of boyfriend, kind of a friend and more like family, but not really.

I guess maybe I am expecting too much out of life.  Maybe I should not take life so seriously.  It is all an illusion anyway, or at least that is how it appears to me.  I suppose it is the getting old that bothers me.  I had such high hopes when I was young and even into middle age.  I was optimistic enough back then to adopt a 7 year old kid when I was 50 years old.  I look at the world around me and I hear the rumblings that they will have a pill someday that will keep us alive forever.  Sorry, but that sounds like pure hell to me.

Somewhere I am remembering "Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his friends."  That may not be accurate, but it sounds good to me.  I want a friend like that.

So, I guess I will go open the kitchen window and listen to the rain.  The sun should come up pretty soon and the day will grab me and suck me dry.  Life has a way of doing that!

My life after Trump

Anyone who knows me even slightly, knows I am a liberal.  I did not say Democrat, but I did say liberal.  And that should be in capital letters.  I was once called a flaming liberal by a man I cared about at the time.  Well, actually it was the "f" word, but not flaming.  My response was to walk away.  My mother always said to "call a spade, a spade."  She also said a "A lie by any other name is still a lie."  And "Be true to yourself because at the end of the day there is no one there, but you and your God."  So I have tried to mostly follow what my momma said, and that night was no different.  I must confess I felt a small tinge of sadness as I turned my back and walked away.  I knew I would miss the little guy, but it had to be done for me to live with myself.

Democrats and Republicans can live together, but not Conservatives and Liberals.  So I went off to my AIDS Walk and my Los Pobres and my Gay and Lesbian friends.  I went to my UCC church that my sister in law had called "a den of iniquity".  I frequented the soup kitchen and took water to the homeless.  And Sherman went his way.

For 5 months he did what ever it is big, tall, bigoted men do.  I heard not a word from nor about him.  I did kind of miss him sometimes, but life is never what we want as much as what we get.  I actually started dating a guy who, while he may not have approved of my Liberal stance, he accepted it.  That was about all I could hope for so I went with that. Damn!  I just realized that I can not remember his name!

Now those of you who know me, also know that I am a very simple minded woman and almost completely unable to lie.  I have been called many things in my life, but never a liar.  If I think something, I say it.  If I feel something, I do it.  This guy was not like that.  He fawned over me like I was some sort of goddess, but it was not in his eyes.  I did not see the acceptance and giving that needed to be there.  Oh, he was free enough with the old checkbook, but the smile on his lips never reached his eyes, and that is very important to me.  So when my phone rang that cold night right after Christmas and it was Sherman on the other end,  I could see hope for life again.  Intelligent conversation.  Eating at the greasy spoon on Northern.  And this time it was different.

He no longer watched Fox news 24/7.
He met with Sister Nancy at his home.
He carried my food up the stairs at the SCAP office when I held my lunches.

Those of you who know me know the story of Sherman and how he remained a Republican, but became a liberal.  You know how he died and you know he proposed on his deathbed and changed his will to leave me everything he had in life.  His clothes went to Los Pobres along with all the groceries he had rat holed.  When his will was probated he gave me $45,000 for me to use "as I saw fit for my causes."  And I did.

If you go back in this blog you can find a story called "Long Ago and Not Very Far Away."  He knew I liked to write and he wanted me to write our story.  So I did.  Or just email me and I will send it to you in pdf. fomat.  loumercer3@aol.com

So, back to my life after Trump.  I tell you about Sherman because he would have been a Trump supporter before he met me.  Now do not think for one moment that I am special.  I am not.  The only inference that sentence has is to make clear that I was the instrument that lead Sherman to explore the avenue that there were other beliefs out there and that the gays were actually human beings with human feelings.  He learned that there was a wider world where "wet backs" labored in the fields to feed him and that homeless people slept under bridges because they had no where else to go.  He learned that "soup kitchens"  feed hungry people and missions feed hungry souls.  He learned that a little kindness goes a long way and just because you think one way, does not mean everyone else does.

I hope we can "come together"  after Trump, but right now my soul is tattered by a man that hates gays, women, Obama, immigrants, and apparently everyone that is not him.  I did not make this up.  He said it.  He was very clear about the blacks.  I know the day is coming when he is going to have to tell his supporters that there is not going to be a wall built between us and Mexico and I fear civil unrest when that day comes.  What can we do?

It beats hell out of me!

My annual power lunch!

 What a wonderful group of people I had assembled at my table yesterday noon!  Starting on the left is Shirley Bagby, my dear friend who moved here from Kansas City this summer.  Then Paul Gilbert my long time friend from where ever I found the little fellow.  They are talking horse talk.  Shirley used to go on lots of trail rides and Paul just bought a horse named "Speeders".  On Paul's left and standing in the background is Sister Nancy Crafton who runs Los Pobres.  The lady with the white hair is Nancy Williams, my dear friend who entices me for Bacon once a week.  On her left (and you can not see her at all  (Well, maybe her hair and 2 inches of her forehead.) is sweet little Jolene Hausman, my volunteer coordinator at hospice.  In the plaid shirt is Sister Barbara , followed by Sandy Roybal (?) who is the nurse at Los Pobres.  The empty chair is mine.

And this is Pastor Faye Gallegos who has been my dear friend since she was pastor at Christ Church longer ago than I can remember.

Once a year I like to gather like minded people together and sort of network, if you get my drift.  This year Pastor Faye brought a very special gift to be given to Los Pobres.  I forgot the horses name, but Faye's daughter bought it many years ago and cherished it. She finally decided she would like it to go to a special home and have a special owner.  Sister Nancy and Pastor Faye came up with the perfect home for the little ball of fur.  He (or she as the need arises) shall be the new entertainment for the little kids that go to Los Pobres with their parents.  While the parent(s) are talking to Sister or seeing the nurse or case worker, the children can ride across the desert or along the river or wherever they choose!  Sister has been wanting something like this for a very long time and Pastor Faye and her daughter Patty made her wish come true.

Daisy bids a fond farewell to the little rocking horse.

Well, the chicken and noodles are put away, the people have all left and the house is back empty.  This year is going to be memory very soon.  If you are a like minded person and would like to attend the next one, contact me.  We meet new friends and renew old acquaintances.  Just a day for us!

Jolene made us lovely cookies, but unfortunately  I kept them all for myself! Life sucks that way.  I am trying to post a picture of them, but that is not happening either!  Oh, wait!  There it is!  They are chocolate covered Oreos, just in case you wondered!!

Yep, I am marching onward.

Woke up his morning and had a serious thought.  Probably not my first one, but this one seemed a little morbid even to me!  My Happy Birthday is coming and while that is a cause for celebration it is also a very sobering thought.  Remember when we were young and and our birthday came and it was a milestone?   For me it was great!  When I was young that meant I took 8 or whatever number of pennies to church and stood in front of the kids and dropped the pennies one at a time into the candle bank on the table.  As each penny dropped the kids all counted;  "One!" "Two!"  Little did it matter that I had started out with pennies and I was going home with nothing.  For a few minutes I had been the center of the room.  Everyone had looked at me and sang the birthday song to me!  For a few minutes everyone was happy that I was born. 
But as I grew older the symbolism changed.  Thirteen meant I was not a teenager.  Then sweet sixteen and I never really knew what that signified.  Eighteen was the legal age of consent and shortly thereafter I married for the first time.  By my twenty-first birthday I had started my family.  By 30 I was a single mother with 5 kids.  What had started out as marking milestones was now becoming more of a habit.  The cakes got bigger and the candles got hotter.  By the time I reached 40 I was settled into what would become my middle age with my husband that would prove to be my last.  We lived a very comfortable life.  The kids left home and we adopted a grandson. 
My 60th birthday found me a widow with a pre-teen son.  It was at this time that I began toying with the idea of a "bucket list".  Now be aware that I said "toying with the idea."  An old woman with a teenage son does not have time to entertain many ideas at all.  First get him through school and out into the world and then figure out my life.  That proved almost an insurmountable task, but now it is finished.  He has a home and a new son and needless to say, a woman to replace me.  So here I set contemplating my birthday.
Let's take stock of the situation.  I have no goals set on the horizon.   I guess I do though.  Take this  morning.  It is a blessing.  I woke up, stood upright and am taking nourishment.  I have my day planned.  I am going to go buy Ziploc bags to bag up 25 pounds of  flour that was given to me to take to Los Pobres.  I am going to make a batch of cinnamon rolls to give away.  This afternoon I have a  lady  to set with so her daughter can catch a break.  I digressed there for a moment.  Back to the birthday thing.
I guess what I am trying to convey here is that when I was young and my life stretched out on an endless path before me, birthdays were important.  Now they are not.  At some point they stopped being celebrations and became more of mileposts on the way to the grave.  Every time I add a year to my age, I get closer to not having another birthday.  The good Lord in his wisdom gave us only so many years.  Some he did not give so many, but some he gave a lot.  I am afraid I am one of those to which he has given a whole lot.  I see my life behind me and I look ahead.  I see no hope of a quiet peaceful death any time soon.  The body keeps functioning and the mind keeps working and the grass keeps growing.  And I keep mowing it. 
I wish life had come with an instruction book.  But if it had, would I have read it?  If I had read it, would I have followed the instructions? I knew on some level that my first husband was going to be a mistake.  But I forged ahead.  Had I not, I would not have all my children.  I can not imagine my life without my kids.  And my grandkids.  And my great grandkids.  I have made lots of mistakes, but there is no getting the toothpaste back in the tube, as my mother used to say.  Sorry is a word that is over used because in my life "sorry" just doesn't even touch it.  But here I am, alive and well.  One of my kids tells me "What doesn't kill you makes you strong."  I expect I am one strong bitch by this time.
So, I will mark another year down the tubes and prepare for another to come.  That is how we do it here on earth.  Some day the good Lord may see fit to reach down and tap me on the shoulder.  When that happens I am going to listen this time.  And my kids will stand at my memorial and say nice things about me.  Maybe.  At least I hope so.
I remember how overwhelmed I was the day we buried my mother.  That was a lot of years ago, but the loneliness is still there.  Kids just have a special bond with their mother.  My kids  will be no different.  I hope they can take comfort in knowing that I loved them all.  I loved everyone the same; not one more than the other.  Each one was special in a special way.   At the risk of becoming morbid, I need to wind this up and go bake something.
So Happy Birthday to me!  Another one in the books as we used to say after a catering job or when one of my wedding cakes went out the door.  Enjoy this day.  Enjoy your next day.  Love your family and love your friends.  Do a good deed along the way and smile at someone on the street.  You have today.  Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.  There is no tomorrow. 

My corner of the world is getting smaller.

I woke up this morning in my little bed and lay there for a minute to think about the day ahead.  First I thought about all the shootings and the riots and it made me very sad.  I thought back to when God first made this earth and how perfect it was.  He just wanted companionship and Adam and Eve gave him that, but in typical fashion, they wanted more.  Or at least Eve did.  From the apple to Cain and Able was just a short hop and from there to now it has been all down hill.  Brad and Angelina are divorcing and if I click enough keys I can get all the dirt on that but I really don't care.  Oklahoma is arresting a police officer, but it does not change anything.  The man is still dead whether or not it was intentional or just an honest mistake, his life is gone.

The "Indigenous Tribes" are trying to stop a pipeline.  I can remember when they were Indians and they lived on reservations that were theirs given to them by our Government in exchange for all the rest of the whole United States that they thought was theirs.  What happened to that?  Oh, we needed oil.  Now I remember.  Fossil fuel is what makes our world turn.  We can get wind and solar power, but that is too clean and we will always have wind and sun, or so we think.  What I want to know is why it is only the people on the reservation trying to save our planet?  Why aren't all of us outraged that our government is completely ignoring the fact that this is THEIR land and not ours.  We only have this one earth and unless someone knows something I don't, we need to preserve it and water is just pretty necessary in that equation.

Wars are raging around the world and I have no idea why.  Wait, yes I do.  War is a matter of one person or nation imposing their will and beliefs on another person or nation.  Both sides think they are right.  For some reason our great land seems to think it is our business.  Babies are being aborted and children die from child abuse here in our country on a daily basis.  Animals are mistreated and left on chains to suffer in the back yard of a master who has no heart.  Homeless people beg for a crumb and a blanket to stave off the cold while our city fathers burn their cardboard shacks. 

Where are our peacekeepers?  Where are our Mother Teresa's?  Where are our people who care about our brothers and sisters?  Why is skin color even an issue?  Why is an accent even an issue?  Who is right and who is wrong and what difference does it make in the grand scheme of things?  But wait!  There is hope!

I remember somewhere in the far recesses of my mind a glimpse of news that a huge asteroid or something like that is hurling through space and will most assuredly crash into our dear mother earth.
Think about that!  Will it knock us out of our orbit and send us flying through space with no gravity to keep us implanted on our Terra firma?  It could happen and then would the size of your bank account make a difference?  Would your opinions matter?  Could your friends save you?  Can your fancy BMW go fast enough to save you from the apocalypse that is sure to follow?  Just some thoughts this morning.

Welcome to my world!

The bike lanes are going away!!!

Well, at least they are going away on Fifth street.  I must confess that before I leave the house and drift towards town, I say a prayer to the great white father that I encounter no bikes in town.  The streets are so screwed up with lines going here and there and bikes going both ways on one way streets and cars parked in the middle of the street that it is almost impossible to get from point A to point B without killing someone.  I waited for a car to go the other day after the light had changed and I finally figured out that I was parked.  And no where did I see a bicycle.  At no time in the last 3 years of becoming a cyclist friendly city have I even seen a bike in the lanes designed for them.   Oh, I have seen them on the sidewalk and I have seen them dart across traffic to get to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, but at no time have I seen a cyclist with their little helmets riding in the bike lanes.  Those people are rarer then the Dodo bird which was declared extinct many, many years ago. And do you want to know why?  I will tell you.

Many moons ago when I was a mere child I learned to ride a bike.  And I learned to ride a bike in traffic.  I did not learn to ride on the sidewalk because that was designed for people to walk on, hence the term side walk meant walk on the side. Side walk.  Not side ride.  It was a very simple concept.  If I was riding on the right side of the road the same as a car was driving on the right side of the road I was assured if a car wanted to pass me, the car could speed up and zip out around me.   Anything on wheels follows this rule.  When walking I walk on the left facing traffic.  I can step off the road that way and avoid getting ran over.  Simple concept.  Walk facing traffic and when driving or riding go with the flow.

In this manner I have survived 74 years without a scratch.  It is my opinion that it would have been much simpler and a whole lot cheaper to require a license on a bike and require the owner to pass a test.  Motorcyclists have to and the only difference there is that the motorcycle has a motor and the bike does not.

I understand that their are places where bikes are a major means of transportation and I think had the city fathers just studied how it was done that a lot of frustrations could have been avoided and the city would have saved a lot of money on paint.  My theory on this is that it was not broken so why did they have to fix it?

It is all becoming a blur to me!

It seems it was only yesterday that I was poking in the soil to see signs of life in Mother Earth.  The next day we were in the middle of a stretch of 100 degree days.  This morning I am wondering if I should have unhooked the hoses last night so they would not freeze.  Oh, and some where during the intervening days I recall mowing and cutting weeds and cleaning the goose house and planting seeds and wondering where they went after they came up because the garden was shoulder high in weeds last time I looked.  Spring and Summer are a complete blur. 
I meant to take a vacation and go back to Kansas, but I must have forgotten, because it did not happen.  I meant to go on several hikes, like the Manitou Incline and up Tower Trail in Beulah to get seeds from the Sage plant, but I think it is too cold up there now.  I know it is pretty chilly when I go out in the mornings and I have that dew on my car windows.  Leaves are starting to fall in the yard and spiders are making their way in through the cracks.  Where did the summer go? 
I recall one of those pattern books with the  cute little sayings that can be embroidered in cross stitch.  I actually made several of them and God only knows where they went. I could use them now.  The first one was "When you are over the hill, you pick up speed."  That is the truth if I ever told it.  Seems like some where in the far recesses of my mind I was a kid and the days crept by as slow as molasses on a cold day.  I do not recall summer or winter affecting me as far as the creature comforts of warm and cold.  I do recall walking home from school behind my older brother and sister who broke a trail through the snow.  And I recall sleeping on the floor at school because we could not get through the snow.  It must have been very cold.  I remember those damned itchy wool blankets we slept under.  I recall jumping in the creek or horse tank or a mud puddle when it was summer, so I must have been hot. 
I remember the hayloft and how hot it was up there in the summer.  Sometimes if the hay was just a little damp the pile would start smoldering and the hay would have to be pitched out on the ground to save the barn.  I also remember how warm it was in the winter.  Course I also remember the mice and the cat. There was invariably a litter of kittens which would grow up to eat the baby mice.  Also spiders.  Damned spiders were every where.  Black Widows were the scariest.  We learned early to recognize the web of the Black Widow.  It was shiny and if I touched it with a stick it would crackle.  Sent chills through my bones.  And I could always see the Widow somewhere with her round marble body, shiny black.  Sometimes I could see her dead husband trapped in her web.  She killed him after they bred and that is why she was called a black widow.  There was one that lived behind the door into the chicken house.  Very scary.
(Why does everything always revert back to Nickerson, Kansas and my childhood?)
The other thing I cross stitched was one that said "Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most."  That was my mantra for many years until I decided that I had not really lost my mind, just sometimes I let it go on vacation without me!  I have been told that I should write my life story and I gave that a lot of thought, but that will not happen and here is why...
When I set down to start to write my mind wanders off.  I started to write about how fall is in the air and I had beautiful pictures in my mind, but then I started thinking about how the city fathers have now decided to remove those stupid bike lanes down on Fifth Street.  This started me thinking of how I learned to ride a bike in Nickerson, Kansas and that made me remember school there in the big two story brick building. 
I usually call this "digressing", but I guess if the truth be known, it is just the old adage "All roads lead home."  And I take great comfort in that.