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.

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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?

4:30 AM!!! Oh, Come on God! Give me a break!

I always wake up around 3:00 AM and reflect on life for just a few minutes before I doze off until the real wake up time.  I have heard this means I will either die young or live forever.  I am not real sure but I think the dying young is already an option that is off the table.  So this morning I opened the peepers to reflect and decided to just get up and get it started.

I do believe that life is best lived in reverse because at 4:30 AM I can see very clearly what I should have done as opposed to what I actually did.  It must have been about 1973 or in that general area somewhere, when I was working at the Red Carpet Resturant in Hutchinson.  I worked nights when I started there, but eventually moved into the morning cook/baker/fry cook position.  At this particular time I was just dating husband 3/4.  Now that boy was a drinker.  (Of course they all were so that point is moot.)

I think perhaps the "drink until you fall down and pass out gene" runs in my family.  Not that it makes anything I did right, but you need to know that my learning curve spikes in a lot of places and is non existent in the other places and the spike and the curve is not always in the upward direction.  To make this story readable, I need to tell you that the night before, he and I had decided to "go dancing".  This entailed some drinking.  The laws then were that you could take your own bottle to the "dance place" so we did that.  Course we ordered chasers.  I had opted to only drink wine that night.  Wise choice?  You decide.

I started out with something called Annie Green Springs or some such innocent sounding concoction.  It was really good as I recall, but of course that bottle went dry and since I was still thirsty someone went next door on a liquor run.  I was very clear that I wanted the same brand and all so I would not lose my rhythm.  Sadly, they did not have that brand, so I receive a giant bottle of something called Rascal Berry.  It sure sounded innocent enough.  I should have known that was not going to be good.  By this time it was after midnight and I had to be at work at 5:00 AM.  At 2:00 AM or so, I decided I had the flu.  I needed my bed.  Or at least comfortable sprinting distance to the commode.  It could not have been the wine.  Wine only has a 10-12% alcohol content.  

When sweet thing dropped me off at home so I could drive myself to work, I was still wretching.  I do not know  just how romantic that evening had turned out.  As for my life the next few days, it was a blur.  My mother waited tables and thought I should go home since I had the "flu" and Francis was quick to tell her that it was self induced.  No sympathy what so ever.   The boss just glared at me, but offered me no time off to recuperate.  I was top notch at my job and even in the throes of death, I was the best he had.

The next few days passed in a sort of blur. 

Day #1  I did not hear from sweet thing and I prayed for death. 
Day #2  I emptied my system of every thing I had ever eaten in life.
Day #3 was no better.
Day #4 was the turning point.  I could keep an ice chip down.  That was the best ice chip I ever tasted.   Praise God! 
Day #5 was  mostly just shaking and sipping some sort of buttermilk concoction that I was craving at the moment.  Some where in there I must have had a day off, because a full week passed with me courting the angels of death, before I began to pull out of the downward spiral.

Now you should know that back when I was dating husband #1, my brother, Jake and I decided to have a little drink to celebrate.  What we were celebrating I will never know, but I do know that he went to the liquor store and bought a 5th of some sort of "rot gut" whiskey.  We hoped there was enough to make us happy.  Since all we had to chase it with was red Koolaid, we used that.

That little celebration was the first time I had the "dry heaves."  Ever have those?  I do want you to know, that from that day to this, I can not drink red Koolaid.  The sight of anything red in a glass turns my stomach.  When I say "turns my stomach,"  I mean since me into culture shock and there is going to be some upchucking going on with my digestive track.  Never tried that again.  I suspect it may have been more the liquor than the Koolaid, but I can never be sure. 

I guess what I am trying to point out here is that liquor is evil.  It makes me sick.  I must be allergic to it.  I realize that I am just not a good drinker.  Nor am I a happy drunk.  Any time a guy thought he would ply me with liquor and get lucky, he was sadly mistaken. 

Alcohol and me are just not ever going to get along in this world.  I may have actually been Carrie Nation in another life.  I wonder what her background was?  Now you know some of mine.  When I make my off handed remarks, they are coming from life experiences.  Several times I have been told that I should write my life story, but no one would believe it.  So I am just going to be content to tell you that

"My life would be best lived in reverse with the brakes on ."

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.

It was a black and white world back there on Strong Street.

I see the news and it makes me sick.  We are consumed with fear and hatred of the "Radical Islamic Terrorist," the illegal immigrants, the gays, the blacks, and God only knows who else that we are killing  in the name of "peace and tranquility."  My dying ass!

We have elected a man to the white house who embodies all the hatred rolled into one ball and he does it in the name of "Keeping America Great."  I ask you just how great we are now?  And when I say "we elected,"  I mean just that.  Everyone that cast a "protest vote" or skipped voting because it "really doesn't count", or worse yet, the ones who actually marked a vote for a man who spews hate through every pore got us where we are right now!  Blame it on Russia if you so choose, but had we been United as we claim, they could not have gotten their foot in the door.

When Donald Trump was spewing his hate and "Lock her up!" rhetoric I, like most other Americans, just chalked that up to showmanship and politics as usual.  The majority of American's laughed at his antics knowing that no way would he be elected.  But the electoral college bit us in the fanny  And little did I realize the fact that this world is filled with frustration and hate that is mostly directed at our governement.  This and the fact that church attendance has fallen to a new low tells me we have a real problem  Back in Nickerson we hid our heads in the sand.

Oh, I knew that there was a "colored family" that lived outside of town some where, but we never saw them.  We also knew the Klu Klux Klan operated every where.  I never actually saw any cross burnings, but a small town is good for gossip.  I never really knew who was in the Klan and at one point I thought probably my dad was.  Seems he had a rather colorful past that was tied to the Chicago mafia, but like I said....

My mother was probably the hardest working, most honest, and kindest woman who ever graced this earth and she taught me well.

If someone is hungry, feed them.

I someone is thirsty, give them a drink.

If you find something valuable on the ground, it is still not yours.

A lie is a lie.

Some women are just born to be old maids.

Some men are just "momma's boys."

We are all the same color when the lights are out.

Most of her wisdom could be dispensed in a sentence of less than 10 words.  No sense spewing out a bunch of useless words that no one was gonna remember no how!  Gotta love my momma!

But back to my rant of today.  I live in the county where all the gardens are.  Beautiful Mesa!  In the summer the fields are alive with workers picking the crops.  On a 100 degree day I see them in thier long sleeved shirts and pants with hoods over thier heads.  They keep thier bodies covered to keep the hot sun off of thier skin.  I need shade and a breeze when I am outside.  Inside I need my central air. They move across fields in tandem and behind them the fields are empty and beside them the trucks are full of green peppers, buckets of tomatoes and bags of onions.  A sight to behold and the graneries are full.

Well, that is how it is supposed to work.  But this year is different.  I see Black SUV's driving the back roads.  I see no workers in the fields.  I see crops going to seed and not being harvested.  Way to go America!  This will teach Mexico that we mean business!  This will show them! This will teach them to take our jobs!

Sorry folks, not seeing it here.  I do not see any of the locals out there bent over picking me a carrot.  Not happening.  I do think a few of the locals may have went out to make some of that "easy money" but they aren't going back.  It is sad that the system that has worked for so many years for both farmers and workers is no longer happening. 

I hear the arguments that by taking down statues we are rewriting history.  I do not see it that way.  As far as I am concerned, the rebel flag waving off some rednecks truck is a flagrant reminder that we had to fight a war with our neighbors to free human beings from the yoke of slavery.  Ever study how this came about in the first place?  In nutshell, a bunch of rich men needed workers and needed them cheap, so they went to Africa to capture black people that were not doing anything anyway to come and live over here and work for room and board.  Far be it from their little pea brains to think perhaps that property they now owned had a mother, father, siblings, wife, husband, children or anything that mattered.  Not a pretty sight and I am pretty sure that they do not need to see a bunch of statues, flags or anything else to remind them.  Much like a statue of Hitler in the town square is not something any of us intelligent people need to remember the Holocaust.

Does anyone remember back when Vietnam was happening and we had all those refugees?  Different

nationality, same reception.  America has always been a melting pot, so to speak, but we tend to forget that our ancestors were the first to be integrated in this land!  The people that were here when we landed on Plymouth Rock are the only ones that really belong here.  Call them Native Americans, Indigenous people, Redskins, or Indians they are the real owners of this land.  Sadly they made one mistake.  They took pity on the pious immigrants who came here on the Mayflower to make a new life.  They fed them.  They helped them survive the elements of a brutal winter in a strange land.  Then they were killed by them.  Talk about biting the hand that feeds you!

America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Sometimes I am just not as proud of America as I should be, but then I remember!  I can only control the thoughts and actions of one person and that is me!  So I shall take my optimistic little self and keep waving my banner and hearing the chants that have been echoing down through the years. 

"Remember Stonewall!"  "Hell no! We won't go!"  "Black or White, all is right!"  And all the ones I have forgotten. 

GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

Catalpa Trees, Clothesline, and Muscovy Ducks

Now what do all three of these have in common?  Oh, I know!  There were all an integral part of life at 709 Strong Street.  They are also things we do not see much any more.  For instance, the clothesline.  Back in the day it was used at very least once a week.  The clothes were washed in a washing machine with an agitator.  Whites were first.  The hot soapy water was wrung out through a wringer and the clothes went into rinse water tub number 1.  The second rinse contained a drop or two of "bluing".  Now the bluing was a very important addition as it gave the whites a bare hint of blue which actually made them appear more white!  This was important in case anyone saw your clothes hanging on the line.  If the whites were not white you were going to be discussed around the supper table that night!

The wash water was always one degree below boiling when the wash was started.  After the whites came out, the light clothes were put in and that was followed by towels and such which was followed by darks.  The last load of clothes were dad's overalls.  If there was any water left at that point we could throw in blankets or rugs.

As each load came through and ended up in the basket, it was taken out to the clothesline and hung to dry.  There were more rules to the hanging of the clothes then even I can recall.  Underwear were to be hung by the waistband with the crotch facing any direction except the road as a pervert might see them and loose control!  If the said underwear had a hole, the item must be folded so the neighbors could not see it and know we were poor.  Shirts, blouses and overalls were hung by the bottom.  Dish towels were never hung by clothes.  Baby clothes were washed and hung very first as babies were delicate.

When the washing was all done, the drain hose was called into action and buckets of dirty water were then lugged to the back yard and dumped in an area that was designated as "the water dumping area."  This is when the Muscovy Ducks were in high heaven.  I do not know if you have ever seen a Muscovy Duck, but they are nasty.  They are usually white and black with a green sheen to the black.  The males are huge with a neck as big as my arm and the females are very small.  I seen them breeding one time which was enough for me.  That was nasty and I am not sure my perception of the Muscovy is not influenced by that experience.

Any way, they would get in the muddy water and root around with thier beaks, seeking God only knows what and that made them very dirty and seemed to make them very horny.  As I side note here, they are the only domesticated duck that (to my knowledge) can fly.  They also chatter to each other.  I hated wash day for that very reason.

Our kitchen had a "pitcher pump" and a sink for the washing of dishes and such.  The drain consisted of a pipe out the bottom that made a hard right angle and disappeared through the wall and drained into the back yard.  You guessed it!  Another hang out place for those damned Muscovy Ducks!

Ah, but my solice lay in the front yard.  In the front of the house by the road that ran by stood 2 tall Catalpa trees.  I have noticed in later years it is fashionable to top them short and they then have a ball on top.  Ours were "ala naturale".  They were both the same height and appeared to be twins, but they were vastly different.  The one on the left had lots and lots of little limbs and it was impossible to climb.

But the one on the right was my friend.  It had only smooth branches.  I would get a bucket and stand on it making it possible to reach the first branch.  I would grab it and hoist myself up, throw my right leg over the limb and survey my kingdom below.  From the bottom branch I would grab the next branch on the left side of the tree and work my way up the left side of the tree.  When I reached "my place" I would set on a branch (always the same branch) and be alone in my head.  At this point I was probably 25 - 30 feet off the ground.  I could see down Strong Street and up Strong Street and I could while away the hours dreaming of things and places I would someday see.  I lived a very happy life in my head.  Had I but known where my life would lead me I would have never come down from that tree.

Momma cleaned houses for the ladies in town and most of the time she walked to and from her jobs.  I always looked towards town and when I seen momma coming I would jump down and run to meet her. I do not know what we talked about or even if we did, but I loved my momma and for just a few minutes she was mine alone.  Of course when we reached the house I had to go get the little kids from Ory Ayers's house and momma was no longer mine alone, because those little brats were so needy!

I can close the door on that part of my life, but I can not make it stay shut.  I have heard it said that as we age we revert to our youth.  I do know people with Dementia and Alzheimer's lose short term memory first and I am thinking, maybe that is a good thing.  My childhood will always be my salvation.  It will always be the one place that I feel safe and when I die I hope I go back to Nickerson and Strong Street with my brother, sisters, and momma.

Yep.  That would be heaven!

Do you remember the WCTU? My first encounter was in 1950 ish.

I do not remember the circumstances only that it happened.  Seems like back in the 1940's and 1950's the WCTU was very active.  For those of you who do not recognize the acronym, it stands for Women's Christian Temperance Union.  They campaigned to get rid of alcohol.  Seems like there was a woman named Carrie Nation who went into the bars with an axe and did a lot of damage.  The WCTU was started back in 1874 by a woman named Frances Willard along with another lady named Annie Wittenmyer.  In later years it expanded to include labor laws, prison reform and womens suffrage.  Willard died in 1898.

Having briefly read her history, I am thinking she may have very well been a lesbian way before it was acceptable to be of that persuasion!  That is neither here nor there and has absolutely nothing to do with my journey into the WCTU at the tender age of 9.

What I do recall is that my 5th grade teacher saw potential in my poetry writing at that early age and encouraged me.  Her name was Miss Burgess and she lived with another teacher named Miss Rinehart.  (If memory serves me correctly.)  The WCTU was having a meeting at a church out in the country between Nickerson and Plevna.  I think the area was called Huntsville.  My job was to memorize a poem and recite it for the ladies.

Now back in those days, women were expected to stay home and keep the house and kids and if the husband chose to get roaring drunk and beat the living shit out of them, it was their duty to submit!  That was our mentality then. 

I do not remember the poem, but as I recall it started, "In a castle gray, by a pounding sea, on a cliff where the white gull flew lived a lonely boy and his uncle....."  And it was about a young boy who lived with an alcoholic Uncle as he was an orphan.  I remember it was very sad and troubling and after my recitation (which was perfect) the women were ecstatic and very pleased with my performance.  The poem had been so troubling to  me that I had erased it from my memory and only think about it on occasion.  It seems in the poem the Uncle either threw the boy over the cliff or threw himself over the cliff, thus showing the evils of the demon rum.

I do not recall much about the WCTU, but I do know and probably still have a piece of paper some where that states I am or was an honorary member.  I do recall thinking of that group on occasions when one of my dear sweet husbands was "in his cups" and kicking me around the room leaving me a shattered woman sobbing in a corner.  Those were the good old days!

So why am I thinking of this today?  God only knows.  Most of the time I never recall the bad parts of my life, but it seems that with the climate in our world today and the violence that people exert against each other in the name of race, sexual orientation, poverty, immigration status, and any other reason they can find to hate in  a world that should be filled with peace and love, there is something missing.  Seems like it might be compassion.

But we are all a product of our past, so I have learned to be more compassionate.  I have learned that no matter what I am feeling, I must be tolerant of others because I do not know what demons they are dealing with in their mind.  If we could all just open our eyes and learn, wouldn't the world be a beautiful place?

Some scars stay with us forever and no matter how deep we bury them, they are just a heartbeat away.  Sometimes I just have to retreat and lick my wounds because I know they are there.  Very few of my scars are seen by anyone.  That does not make them any less real.  I thought about volunteering at the battered women's center, but the very thought gives me flashbacks.  How could I look into a face that mirrors my very soul and help?  Isn't that sad?  

I am not Superwoman.

I woke up this morning at my usual 3:30 and laid in bed reflecting on life as it plays out here on South Road.  I have a dumpster in my back yard and it is about 2/3 full.  I really need to either finish filling it or just call the pickup man and have it taken away.  That is when it dawned on me the reason for my indecision about a lot of things is that I am trying to save everything as well as everybody that I come in contact with in this world. I function best when I make lists and check things off as I go.  So here it is a little after 4:00 AM and this is my black and white list.

1.  I can not save the world.  The world can not save me.
2.  I can not change people.  I can change my perspective of people.

And here my list peters out.  Not doing so good, am I?  #1 is a given.  It is simple and to the point and there is no room for arguement.  I run myself ragged trying to make sure that everyone has a roof over thier head and a belly full of food, but I miss the big picture.  The world exists outside of my little realm. There are more homeless kids then just the few I see at Posada.  There are more immigrants then the few I see at Los Pobres.  And they change.  The ones I saw last year or even last month have moved on and forgotten about me.  New ones have come in their place.  I hope some where something I did or said helped someone, but I have no way of knowing.  So I move on as they have moved on.

Now as to my perspective of people.  I tend to project on people  I deal with the personna I want them to have.  Most of my friends have become my friends and stayed my friends from the first day I met them.  Frank and Clifford have been my friends since I came to this place from Kansas.  I go years without even speaking with them, but they are there and when I need something they are the first to respond.  I like to think I serve some pupose in thier life as well.

My circle of  friends changed from when I first came here and again after I divorced that husband and again after the stint in college and working at Liz's cafe in Bessemer, and another divorce.  I settled into rather a loose routine when I married Kenny.  That was when I began working in the  LGBT  and later in the AIDS venue.  After the loss of Kenny and then Mark the circle of friends morphed into the immigrant and/or the homeless sector.  I did a stint at Hospice and dabbled in the indigenous sector.  Along the way I picked up a (for want of a better word) "boyfriend".

Now what I was thinking on that little trick, I will never know.  I, once again, projected on him what I wanted him to be, which was a fine Christian believer who would not tell a lie and could always be depended on when I needed someone.  As that turned out he seemed to morph into someone I did not even know.  So while that one is dying a slow, painful death, I am re-evaluating and giving serious thought to selling everything in my garage in a yard sale.  I guess, if the people who stored it there, wanted it, they would have it.  Right?

But all that is neither here nor there and has naught to do with my life today.  Since I seem to be the "on call" person for getting donations from point A to point B, I am going to pick up a load of clothes for Sister Nancy and then come home and get out in that tin shed and get to sorting.  One pile is going to be garage sale stuff and the other is going into that dumpster.  Then I am going to start on this house.  I  have 2400 square feet of floor space crammed with stuff  I never used, will never use, and have no idea why in the hell I drug it all in here anyway!  I have 2 floor looms, for godsake!  I have more sewing machines than Singer!  I have boxes of thread for sewing, weaving, knitting, crocheting.  I have boxes and boxes of books for weaving, knitting.....you get the picture?


So there you have my life in a nutshell!  One passing thought.  Years ago I gave a plaque to my first husband.  It read "If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself."
When he died I inherited that plaque.


When next Spring comes, there is going to be a "For Sale" sign up on South Road and there is going to be an empty garage and an empty house here on this little acre.  My little Honda Fit is going to hold everything I need to finish out my days on this big blue ball.  I am trading my purse for a billfold with a debit card.  My dogs are old.  My cat is mean and I keep remembering "He who travels fastest travels light....and alone."

And the journey began with just one love.

When I was 19 years old, my brother had a friend named Earl Duane Seeger.  I took one look at that man and life was never the same.  As soon as I met him we began dating and 3 months later we were married.
 
For our first anniversary he gave me a puppy.  I named the puppy Jakie after my brother.  It was a little brown Chihuahua.  At the time we lived in a third floor walk up so potty training was a real challenge.  That dog was a real challenge.  If I left the house without him, he got in the hamper and drug all my dirty clothes out and strung them through the house.  I would take him for walks and he would go wild wanting to get back to the house to pee on the floor. 

He did have redeeming qualities.  He would stand in the middle of the floor and talk to me.  I could never understand what he was saying, but he sure tried!  He even made paw gestures which I never understood either.  But he was a lot of company when Duane was gone.  Not so much company, as work!  Damn dog was into everything.

Duane was a tree trimmer and so we moved around a lot.  The first year of our marriage we lived in 14 different cities in Kansas.  When I learned I was pregnant we were living in a hotel in Toronto, Kansas.  The doctor was located in Yates Center.  When he told me I was pregnant I asked him where the hospital was located and he told me,  "Around these parts folks have their babies at home."  Well, that scared hell out of me and we moved back to Hutchinson where mother lived.  But the best part was there were also hospitals there!

We found an apartment  on Sherman Street.  It was a ground floor apartment with a fenced back yard. There, 2 years into the marriage the inevitable happened and we were blessed with our first little bundle of joy, Debra Louann.  The dog hated her.  He hated that I held her.  Hated that I fed her and we often joked that if we did not watch out he would drag her out the door and bury her in the back yard.  By then we were living on Sherman Street in a ground floor apartment with a fenced back yard.

She was born in February and that spring we decided to "Make the circuit" again.  For some reason we were in Salina, Kansas and it was hot!  I was in the car with Debbie and Jakie.  Duane had gone into the bar to pick up a 6 pack.  When he came out we drove off down the street and did not miss Jake until we had gone a few blocks.  I do not know when he jumped out, just that he was gone.  We drove around and walked around and called him, but we never laid eyes on him again.  I advertised in the lost and found and got nothing.  Jake was gone and that part of our life was over.  I cried for days.

So we were alone with no doggie.  Just Duane, me and Debbie.  It would not stay that way for long.  I set here 55 years later and apparently I survived.  There would be 3 more kids in the next 3 years, a short break and then one more.  There would be lots more pets, but I will always remember Jakie.  There would be lots more husbands, but I will always remember Duane.  He taught me to speak in alpha-alpha.  His name was:   Duansie ka bansie ti alago fainsy; tee legged tie legged bow legged, DUANSIE!  I remember lots of things.  Not sure why, but I do. 

It is funny the things we remember, isn't it?  The good part is that as the years pass, our memories alter just a little bit in our minds.  The gut wrenching memories that threatened to destroy us many years ago become just memories.  Maybe they are factual and maybe they are not, but they are mine.  I have good memories of 75 years of living and some not so good, but they are all mine and they made me who I am today, and for that I thank the God above for every moment it took to make every one of those memories.

See this?  This is the new hydrant I installed early in the spring.  The old one quit working completely .  So we dug down, took out the old one and installed the new one.  Worked perfectly until day before yesterday when the pump went south.  

So now, if I want to water I have to hook a hose onto this spigot on the side of the house.  Not thinking that is going to happen with that spider web down there.  I am scared spitless of spiders so I must decide if I want to spen $500+ to fix the well or touch that web!  Oh, wait a minute.  

What is this just inches from the web?  It is a hornet nest.  Damn the luck.

The choice is becoming very clear.  I am going to call the pump man.  He will come and have me running very quickly and the spider web will be a moot point as will the hornet nest after I spray it in the morning...Live sure does get tedious here on the Mesa on my little acre.  The quiet nights and lazy days are what it is all about after all.

I sometimes think I should sell this place and move into town.  Then I go to town and I hurry home to my little piece of  heaven.  It is secluded and people can not even find the house  when I give them detailed directions.  So here I will stay all by myself until they carry me out feet first. 

Spider webs, hornets, weeds, snakes, centipedes be damned

Silly me, I thought I was going to have some currants!

Way back on Strong Street we had a row of currant bushes.  As I recall they were green when they set on, then as they grew bigger, the turned red, then maroon and finally black.  When they were black they were "ready" and momma would make them into something.  I really don't remember what, but I do remember the ripening process.  Of course we always had to eat one that was just turning red so we would remember why we didn't eat the red ones.  Then we would eat a maroon one and while it was not sweet it at least did not choke us like the green and red ones did.  As I remember, the bushes had little stickers on them.  I may have forgotten way more than I remember about those damn currants!
See, a couple years back I found currant bushes growing in the wild area behind the house.  I was thrilled beyond words that the birds had planted them their for me, and I anxiously awaited the first black currant.  It did not happen that year.  I got one red one and by the time I quit spitting the birds had eaten the others.
So another year came and more bushes appeared and it became clear that if I wanted a currant I was going to need to sleep on top of the currant bush.  Not wanting to do that, I devised a plan this year that entailed netting, sticks, and and mouth ready for a juicy, black, sweet currant.  Sadly, I missed looking one or two days and when I next checked, it was too late for netting.
Now the plan is that NEXT year, I will be more vigilant.  I will check the bushes every day and I will be rewarded with sweet, black currants.  Wait!  I now recall that I went through this same crap when I remembered the black, juicy Mulberries that also grew on Strong Street!  Every time I got ready to harvest them, they were rotten.  The only thing they were good for was squishing up between my toes and getting me a paddling for tracking them in the house.
Maybe I am learning something about life in Nickerson.  I remember it as a Utopic place.  A place where I was always happy, but perhaps that was not the case.  Maybe the bitter currants and the messy mulberries were just that!  Maybe escaping to Nickerson was my way of escaping the reality of life.  It was all so easy when mom and dad were responsible for me, but now I am old and looking back mother really was on to something when she used to tell me "Hind sight is 20/20."
I guess I will think about that for a while and see where that leads me.

See that cat? That cat will be the death of me yet!

See how innocently she is looking at me?  That is because I just grabbed this side of that 7 feet tall china cabinet and pulled it out from the wall.  Why did I do that, you ask?  Because she was on the other end trying to see behind it.  Why was she doing that, you ask?  Because she brought a mouse in and turned it loose and it ran behind there.  This is not my first rodeo with the china cabinet and the cat and a mouse.  

The way this works is she gets on this end of the china cabinet and tries to peer behind it.  At this point I usually begin to scream at her and beg her to get the damn thing and she looks at me like I have lost what little sense I had, and walks off.  But today I decided that she was going to catch that damn mouse or I would know the reason why.  It is just a matter of mind over mouse, after all.

So I barricaded this end so the mouse could not come this way.

And then I went to the other end and pulled it out so she could saunter in and catch said mouse.  Looks likely doesn't it?

Well, sadly, while I was pulling this out, said mouse ran between my feet and under the table.  On a quest, I got the broom and scooted him out from under the table, causing him to run behind the dog food dishes.  The cat was a quiet observer, not of the mouse, but of me.  I could see she was confused and could not understand English.  I am sure she knew something was going on and seemed content to watch as I chased Mr. Mouse from one hiding place to another until he was in the open space at which time I used the broom like a golf club and send him soaring out the back door.  This seemed to upset Icarus who ran out the door to catch him and bring him back in.  That did not happen!

I am proud to say that to the best of my knowledge my home is mouse free tonight.  Unfortunately, I do not have enough strength to slide the china cabinet back where it belongs.  Adrenalin or something is lacking.Tomorrow I am going to purchase a small shotgun which really should make my life easier.   I do not know if I will use it to hunt mice or the damn cat, but I guess we will see.  In any case, tonight I sleep except for when I wake up and wonder just when that cat may decide to bring me breakfast in bed!

The morning after.

Before bed last night I soaked in a tub of hot water with some Epsom salts added.  I just wanted my poor body to stop hurting.  It took me maybe 6 minutes to fall asleep and then I must have woke up 4 or 5 times to the vision of the last 400 feet that I could not make.  Ever see a log jam?  Ever see a log jam that consisted of railroad ties?  That was what the last leg had been.  As I visited with Karen today I told her that when I looked up the incline to the top it looked like everyone was crawling over the ties.  She told me it looked like that because that is what they were doing.  Praise God I had sense enough to quit when I did!

I am still sore.  I have chunks of skin missing with no explanation of where it went.  My left hip is still not completely back in the socket and my right knee will probably never bend again.  Most of my hearing has returned and my vision is almost back to normal.  I am beginning to think rationally about whether or not to try this again.  And would I recommend it to my friends?  Let me be very clear. No.  Not only no, but hell no!  And not just hell no, but HELL NO!!! I would rather be put on a Chinese water torture table and have my fingernails pulled out slowly by a drunk Chimpanzee.

Now that I have cleared that up for you, I am going to my garden and see if I can remember where I planted those damn beets.  Then I will come in and rip the rest of the carpet off the stairs.  Just nice clean therapeutic work to clear my mind and prepare my body for bed where I will sleep with no dreams of stairs that climb straight up to a log jam  4 feet from Heaven.

Gonna just shoot up that Manitou Incline and be home before 1:00!

Oh, the day started out beautifully.  I picked Karen up at 8:00 and we headed North to Manitou Springs.  I had done my research and I knew the Garmin was ready with the address in and go punched.    Now something you should know about Manitou Springs and that is there are 6, 000 streets all a block long that go straight up hill or straight down hill and they are all one way going the wrong way.  Not to be deterred we finally found the place with free parking and a free shuttle to the base of the Incline.

I had carefully packed plenty of water and toilet paper just in case.  My debit card was in my back pack along with my identification and my insurance card, just in case.  I also had rain gear, just in case.  Even took a pair of socks, just in case.  The shuttle was a little full, but free and he knew where he was going.

So off we went full of confidence that the next stop would be the top.  Just hop from one board to the next.  Yep, a piece of cake.  Well, it would have been nice had that been what happened, but sadly, the steps were not all the same size, nor were the of the same height.  Started out real good, but then the got further apart and taller.  It was hot.  The sun was bright.  The flies found me most tasty.

Karen cheered me on with "We got this!"  "You can do it!"  You know how optimistic a preacher can be.  I think the whole trip up was 2,000 steps.  After 300 I told her to just go ahead and I would plug along until I got tired and meet her later.  So off she went with her bouncy little air and I began plugging onward and upward.  Soon I had lost sight of her so I took a break.  Then onward and upward with the steps getting further apart and taller.  Damn!  This was not going well at all.  Several times my life flashed before my eyes.

I met a couple girls from the Philippines.  They were very sweet and this was their first trip up.  I told them this was my first trip and also my last!  They offered me words of encouragement and told me how proud they were that I had come this far.  I was, however, well past the point of being cheered on to go higher.  I was now putting one foot in front of the other because I could think of nothing else to do. 

Finally after about an hour or so of crawling up steps, fighting off flies, drinking lots of hot water, a very nice man pointed up the hill and said, "See that boulder in the middle of the path?  If you can make it that far it is the "bail out point for the Barr Trail."  Yes!  There was a God!   There was hope that I could make it that far and then get off this God forsaken piece of hell and start the downward descent.  Now I do a lot of walking so that is no problem.  This was different.  I walked bent forward with my knuckles dragging and counted 10 steps.  Then 5.  Breathe.  Then 7.  Breathe.

The phone rang and Karen was on top!  She was coming back down.  Great!  Meet you at the exit to the trail down.  And then there she was.  Damn!  That was fast!  I still had about 30 steps and the the little steps and there I was! 

Well, not quite saved yet.  We still had a 2.6 mile hike down the hill.  It twisted and turned and before I began to hallucinate, we reached the parking lot.  I would have fallen down and kissed the earth, but I would not have been able to get back up.  I ached in every muscle I had.  My head was throbbing.  I was sunburnt and I just wanted my mommy!

The Manitou Incline is not for the faint or weak of heart.  It will rip you to shreds.  There were times I was crawling to get over a series of tall steps and God had long since ate me up  and spit me out.  I regret that I was not there to take a picture of Karen Howe at the finish line.  I regret that she could not take a picture of me, but I learned a very valuable lesson today. 

I have spent the last month telling everyone that would listen that I was going to hike up the Manitou incline.  No doubt about it.  It was a sure thing.  A done deed.  Today I learned that I am not invinceable, and there are things I can not do.  This is sure as hell one of them!  I have learned that I best be for remembering how old I am. The Manitou Incline is a cold, unforgiving, hot dry, piece of Colorado landscape that I am going to keep my feet off of for the time being.  There was a time that I would have gone back again and again until I conquered it, but for now I just want to conquer this glass of ice water and think how proud I am to go to a church where the minister can march up into the clouds and not look back.

Congratulations Karen Howe, minister at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Pueblo Colorado

It used to be a very long ways from her house to mine.

Back when I was in third or fourth grade, I had a best friend.  Her name was Barbara.  Her house was in the center of town very close to the school.  Mine was on the edge of town on the other side of the school.  Mother cleaned house for her mother so we were connected by that, I guess.  Arrangements would be made that I went home with Barbara on occasion.  Usually we just played and some times I would spend the night.  That was the best.  There were sheets on her bed and the bathroom was inside the house.  Now that was not a deal breaker, but it was really nice and I could always hope that some day I would live in a house so fine.

I don't remember what we played, but I am sure it entailed dolls and stuff like that.  Maybe we colored. I think we played hide and seek sometimes.  I liked hiding at her house because she had a garage and a car port.  I think,  I just don't remember. I do remember that her dad would sometimes make us an ice cream sundae and he always put a cherry on the top.  That was to die for and to this day when I see a squirt of whipped cream with a cherry on it, I revert back to my childhood and my friend Barbara.

I do remember that when it was time for me to go home I dreaded that long walk.  The streets in Nickerson were not paved.  Well, Main Street was.  It was paved from the school to the highway.  Then the highway ran off to Hutchinson or Sterling depending on which way you turned.

Sometimes Barbara would let me borrow her roller skates because it was so far to my house.  As I calculate it in my mind now it was probably about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile.  The roller skates were really of little use because I only had 4 blocks of sidewalk then I had to take them off and carry them because anyone knows you can not skate on dirt.  I was careful to take very good care of the skates so I could use them again.  In all fairness, I spent a lot of time falling down and getting back up.  I could have been home a lot sooner had I just hoofed it.

Barbara never came to my house.  I always went to hers.  I guess that had something to do with her house being more modern that ours.  I sometimes wonder what became of her.  I saw her mother after I was married and learned a little about the years between.  Seems her mom and dad were divorced.  Barbara had moved to Kansas City and had a very good job and a very rich fiance.  I let it drop there, because I had no reason to pursue it.  Still I wonder.

I wonder about a lot of people back there in Nickerson, Kansas.  Sherry Stires who lived up by the high school in a big two story house.  She invited me to spend the night once, but she showed me a spider web on the outside of her house with a giant spider in it.  Scared the living pee wadding right out of me!  No way could I have stayed in her house.  I think I never went back there again.   Sometimes at night when I can't sleep I try to remember the names of my classmates.  Seems like there were about 23 or 24 of them.  I think I will try that now.  Let me know if any of these ring a bell.

Gay Withrow, Joan Moore, Barbara Hawk, Irene Reinke, Martha Knoblock, Nancy Cuthbertson, Sherry Stires, Beth McGonigle, Gary Battey, Loren McQueen, Larry Collee, Earl Kelley, Barbara Massey, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Joyce Pedersen, Ronnie Beck, David Sjoberg,  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Starting the month off right!

 The first thing I did on Monday morning was to get on the Wii and see how old I am.  45.  That is pretty good.

Posada had fallen heir to a bunch of bananas so I made them some Banana Nut bread.  9 loaves to be exact.  Pretty good stuff if I do say so myself.

 I finished up the wax I had accumulated and they now have 4 1/2 dozen candles which they probably will not need until next winter, but they are there now.

I checked the strawberry bed and found several little blossoms, but I can not eat blossoms.

 I was very happy to see that there were several little green strawberries and I am most happy to announce that since these pictures were taken I have had 2 nice red strawberries and like the little red hen and her loaf of bread, I ate them!

I am most happy to report that I have gotten most of my broken limbs out back and burnt some of them.  Just have to finish up the Red Bud Tree.  The green beans are up as well as the zucchini.  Also up is either the watermelons or the cucumbers.  Not sure which one I planted.  I am going to have the sprinklers worked on and when that is done I should be pretty well set until winter when I will no doubt freeze my ass off, but for now...life is good.
Or it would be had I not seen the fox out by the goose pen early this morning.  No doubt she has babies and is looking for something to feed them.  Damn!

Update on the garden situation here in the Rockies.

I tilled a couple weeks ago, being careful not to till up the asparagus or the green onions.  (Which I missed harvesting last fall because the weeds took the garden and I could not find them.)  At that time I planted green beans and potatoes.  The green beans came up, but they froze last week under 9 inches of snow.  Potatoes did not even make an effort!  The strawberries, which I planted in the leaking horse tank that I filled with dirt and covered with a tarp before the snow, are doing beautifully and have tiny, teeny green strawberries about the size of a turnip seed setting on them.  The 6 tomatoes that I planted with the strawberries after the snow are setting on little bitty tomatoes.  Now if I could figure out something that uses both strawberries (which I really do not like) and tomatoes, I could have something high fiber for lunch.
The Red Bud tree is broken in the middle and looks very sad.  That happened when it snowed.  The snow was very destructive and I am now losing 2 of my evergreens.  The wild rose bushes fared well and I am happy to report that not a weed was damaged!  The bind weed is in full bloom and has leaves of record size.  (Sarcasm in case you do not recognize it!)
Patty and Bill were here for a week and Bill got a lot of my chores done.  He moved the books in the garage as well as the boxes.  We treated the stumps and he cut the broken limbs and drug them out back to the burn pile.  He took over "goose duty" thus freeing me up to watch Jeopardy!  He mashed all my aluminum cans and we took them to the recycle.  My car was full and we split $12.00.  May not seem like much but it is $12.00 more then we had.  His thumb is healed and they are going to try to lengthen his tendons this next week and hopefully it will be back to work for Willy!  Hats off for a job well done.
My daughters, Patty and Dona, along with my niece, Michelle attended my High Tea at the church the day before mothers day.  That was a rousing success, but I see a few flaws I need to iron out before the next one!  Then on Mother's Day they fixed me a wonderful lunch on the grill.  Bret and Amanda and the baby showed up to eat.  Pork steak and sirloin were on the menu along with asparagus fresh from the oven, baked potatoes, garlic toast, angel food cake and on and on!  Thank you children!
So that about winds up my week.  Oh, crap!  There was that trip to the dentist.  Did I ever tell you how much I like having some one's fingers in my mouth?
Last night I was home all alone and the solitude was different.  Makes me wonder if I really want to spend my waning days alone?  The solitude was broken by the sheriff cars in the drive way, but that is another story.
For now, I am pulling on yesterday's jeans and the ragged tennis shoes and I am off to attempt to till the garden so I can replant.  Oh, but first I have to find some breakfast.

Welcome to my world!

An epiphany by any other name, is still an epiphany.

I was laying in my be the other night and I was thinking back to when I was a teenager.  When I was in the 7th grade mother had her hysterectomy.  I must have been about 12 or 13 at the time.  Mary and Dorothy had gone to stay with Flo Roberts and the rest of us stayed home with Dad.  We were on Strong Street at the time.  It seemed like she was in the hospital a week and then came home.  As small cot had been put in the front room by the window so she could see out.  That is all I remember of that time period.  Out of this experience came a need to attend church.  Mother said so, so as soon as she was able, we went off to church. 
There were only 3 churches in town.  The Baptist church was closest, but they hollered and raised there arms and waved them around when they sang and that scared us.  The Methodist was closer to Main Street, but it was for the rich people.  Everyone knew that.  The First Christian was on Main Street right beside the school, so we went there. 
It was a beautiful red brick building with stained glass windows all around.  Miss Barkiss, the school music teacher played the piano and directed the choir.  I forget who played the organ.  Miss Matters sat in the seat at the end of the last row on the right side.  No one ever even looked like they wanted to sit there.  She was, or at least appeared to be, very mean.  The school principal attended with his family.  So did the sheriff.  A spirea bush grew near the stairway that led to the basement.  The basement was where we had ice cream socials, cake walks and Sunday School for the younger kids.  It was also where the bank for birthday money sat on the table.  I remember putting my pennies in and everyone counting when it was my birthday.
The minister was Rush J Barnett and his wife was named Genevive.  They were wonderful people and loved children.  Very soon I had found my life calling.  I memorized many Bible verses.  Mrs. Barnett was always working with us kids.  I decided early on that I would be a missionary.  Africa sounded so good to me.  I would go save the souls of all the little black natives.  Pastor Barnett gave me lots of books to read and I devoured every word. 
As with any church, there were workings going on that us kids knew nothing about, and the time came that Pastor Barnett was replaced by Pastor Johnson.  In churches, when one pastor leaves the new one comes in and brings his or her own way of management.  The old pastor is not heard from again.  I was devastated that I had lost my mentor.  Reverend Johnson had a wife who did not want to lead the youth group and a teen age son who was , for want of a better word, a jackass.  We should follow him and that was not happening.  He was a jerk to the max, so slowly we just quit going to church.  It was no longer a safe place or a place we even wanted to be.  On to my epiphany.
I soon became clear that I would never be a missionary and I would never make it to Africa to save the wretched natives.  There was no one to lead me and when you are a young girl in search of a future, dreams die easily and quietly and are replaced by reality.  And Strong Street in Nickerson, Kansas gave way to Avenue A in Hutchinson.
Fast forward to the present.  The kids are raised and living fruitful lives in other places.  I am all alone on my back acre and I stay very busy.  I work tirelessly for anyone who wants something.  I feed the homeless, work with the migrant center, volunteer  and sit with people who are ready to cross the bar.  I give rides to those who need them and am busy every day with one thing or another.  So last night it dawned on me, that the girl named Louella is a frustrated missionary.  It is 60 years later and I am once more trying to save the world!  I have no leader and stumble around blind, but my heart is in the right place. 
So, all you therapists and psychoanalysts out there need to come to my rescue.  How do I stop this insane behavior?  How do I get off this merry go round called life?  Do I just have to keep beating my head against a brick wall till the good Lord calls me?  I know I can not feed all the hungry people and I can not save all the wretched souls.  I can not set on all the committees and there are not enough dollars in my bank account to keep everyone warm and fed.  Will that 15 year old girl on Strong Street ever go away and leave me in peace?
I guess my life has become rather like that story I heard about the man who was throwing the star fish back into the ocean and someone asked why he did that because they just kept washing up and he could not save them all;  he could not make a difference.  He threw another one back and replied, "It made a difference to that one."

Louella is still in there!

It is sad that after all these years I finally realized that the little girl on Strong Street is still in there and still hungering for acceptance.  I thought she would have learned by now, but she hasn't.  The saddest part is that she comes out at the damnedest times and I have to talk her back in.  Always craving acceptance and validation.  I think I may have read somewhere that we have to confront and comfort the inner child before we can be a complete person.  Maybe so.

The world sees the fascade that I present.  I tell it like it is.  I am dependable.  The "go to person" when something needs done.  I am honest to a fault.  I would give you the shirt off my back (as momma used to say) and the last dime in my pocket.  But under all that callousness and crap is still that skinny little girl back in Nickerson watching from the sidelines.  While the other girls went to the parties and cheered for the boys on the baseball team, I stayed inside and drew pictures on the black board with the "nerds."  We were drawing fins on Cadillacs before they were even thought of by the company!

I never doubted for one minute that my mother loved me.  Dad was a different story.  Grandma Haas and  Great Grandma Hatfield loved me.  They never kissed me or hugged me, but they fed me and smiled at me sometimes.  Touching didn't used to be a big deal back then.  I wonder why?  Aunt Mabel and Uncle Goll used to come see the grandma's from Coldwater and Aunt Mabel would let me rub cold cream on her face.  Once she sent me to Hinshaw's General Store to buy a towel so she could teach me how to do textile painting on fabric.  When I got it home and opened it up there was a brown "shelf mark" on it.  I wanted to take it back and get one without the "wear" mark, but she told me it was "good enough" for me.

And thus set the tone of my life was set.  I married a man because he was the one who asked me.  I stayed with him because that was what we did back then.  I had babies because that was the way it was.
When I divorced and was a single mother with no child support I survived.  And I married several times thinking that was the answer, but it was not.  I came to Colorado.  I divorced.  I married. I divorced and then I met my last husband, Kenny.  He did not know about my hungry inner child and he loved me for who I was.  When I opened up enough to share my childhood with him, he laughed.  And when I told him my first husband called me a "nickle bred gutter rat" he found that hilarious and began to call me  a "gutter bred nickly rat."  Life took on a new perception when I looked through his eyes.  But now he is gone.

So here I set crying over some slight that happened at church, or not having someone to hold my hand when I go walking, or wanting to run an idea by someone, and no one is there.  Nights get cold and lonely and very scary sometimes.  That is when I close my eyes and feel the wool blanket against my cheek and hear the coyotes yip in the distance and sometimes, the lonely scream of a cougar down on the river.

I guess it is all coming full circle.

And the legal drinking age was?

By the time I was in high school I was old enough to drink liquor.  Well, maybe not according to the State of Kansas, or my mother, but I had a friend who had a father who made and bottled home brew.  He also left every weekend and left the stock unlocked.  I soon became known in Nickerson High School as "Home Brew girl."  That is a title I am not quite as proud of today as I was back then.  But the truth of the matter is it set the stage for later days when we moved to Hutchinson.

About the time we moved I was a senior in high school and tired of going there every day especially in a big city like Hutch where I knew no one.  So I got me a job in a burger place out on 4th and worked 2 weeks.  That was pretty boring.  It was one of those places where a speaker was on the tables and the customer ordered and I carried the food out .  Whoopee shit!  Big future there. 

I found the beer joints up on Main about the same time.  The interesting part here was when they checked ID it was in the form of a question.  "Are you old enough to drink?"
"Well, I been doing it for quite a while now so I guess I am."  Duh!

Now the best way to get free beer is to work in the place that sells it.  Within a one block area on Main Street were 3 bars that were known as the "3 Queens".  The first was the Manhattan Club, then the Brown Derby, and lastly was the Brass Rail.  I had heard of these places from way back when we lived in Nickerson and dad used to go drinking in Hutch.  Years later I read about them in the old family history when one of my great grandfathers had kept a journal.  One entry concerned his sons who worked for other farmers for cash money.  They had gotten paid and had " gone into Hutch and blowed up $20."  He was very upset about that little trip and mentioned it several times.  $20.00 was a lot of money back then and "blowing it up"  was a cardinal sin.

Also when I was young my fathers son (my half brother, Gene) had came home from the Army and was regaling us with tales of the 3 Queens and a lady of the night named "Sea Biscuit" who could out drink any man.  Her favorite drink was White Horse Scotch and milk.  I was "lucky" enough to meet her on one of my forays into the night life of the 3 Queens.  Sadly, she was not at all what I had pictured.  She was old, skinny and could cuss like a sailor.  She still drank White Horse Scotch and milk.  She had given up the "lady of the night" business and was married to a very tall man who was very quiet.  I think of them  when I hear the song, Country Bumpkin (click to listen.)  Her real name was Delores.  No last name, just Delores.  She did not remember my brother Gene.  She advised me to make something out of my life and not spend my time down on South Main.  My brother, Jake, concured with her and so my life in the bright lights of the 3 Queens was very short lived.

Then I found a place way out on 4th Street called the Tiny Tear.  The Tiny Tear was a cafe that was friendly to teenagers.  Sometimes I cooked there which also entailed waitressing.  I do not remember how I got from point A to point B since I did not have a car, but I managed.  The Tiny Tear was more my speed.   The kids that hung out at the Tiny Tear were very possessive of the place and we did not like strangers coming on our "turf."  During one of our "rumbles"  I met a guy who would be the love of my life.  His name was Jimmie and he called me "bright eyes."  Had the fates smiled on us we would no doubt still be together and I would still be in Hutchinson, but sadly, they did not.  He had just broken up with his girlfriend and 2 months into our torrid love affair she announced that he would be a father.  Back in those days that was an automatic marriage guarantee.  Thus ended our future.  I do not know what ever became of him, but I do know they had a couple more kids and I think he still lives back there, but I am not sure.  I still think of him fondly, but I also miss my little black calf named Dennis that died when he was 3 days old.  Water under the bridge.

I have good memories of my younger days.  While I may not be real proud of some of my shenanigans they did lead me to who and where I am today.  I do not have a prison record, for which I am thankful, but I do have a lot of life lessons that I could share with the kids now, but they would not believe me, so I won't.  My memories are just that, my memories.  And while I am sure Jimmie will never read this, if he does, I hope he remembers me just a little.

Spring time on the Mesa or better known as catch the damn wet backs.

Spring time on the Mesa is like no other time nor place.  Fields are being plowed, disked and some are already showing little onions and radishes popping through.  The field up on 27th Lane held black cows the last few months of the year and through January.  And of course there were little calves.  So damn cute hopping around.  How one cow could tell her calf from another always amazed me.

There were lots of cows and lots of calves.  This picture was taken on March 17.  The next day all the cows and calves were gone.  It made me very sad because having been exposed to life's realities I knew where they had gone.  They were taken to a sale barn.  Mothers went one way and the calves were sent to another pen. They were sold separately.  I can hear the calves crying and the mothers bellowing at night and that breaks my heart.  The field is now green with new alfalfa.  It is called the cycle of life.  Where do you think your hamburger comes from?

For time immortal Migrant workers have been a piece of the fabric that makes the Mesa one of the most lucrative garden spots in this United States.  Some of our greatest novels are based on the backs of migrant workers and the poorest of the poor who work the fields.  Who has not read "Grapes of Wrath?"  "God's Little Acre?"  "Angela's Ashes?"  The very fabric of this nation has been dependent on the poor.

Have you ever really just mingled with people who are struggling to put the next meal on the table, assuming they have a table?  You turn on the lights in your house and go into your kitchen to fix a meal.  Or order in a pizza.  At night you lay on your bed between your sheets and dream of tomorrow and going off to your job, or club, or wherever it is you go and do whatever it is you do. 

They come up here from Mexico.  You know where Mexico is and you know that our government wants to build a wall and keep them out of "our country".  Think about that a minute.  Are you going to show up out here in a few weeks to start pulling radishes and green onions and bundling them into little bunches to send to market?  Probably not.  Are you going to the produce stand to buy them nice and fresh for your table?  Sure.

When you are slicing those onions or eating that radish I want you to think about how that got to your table!  When you are roasting your chile, or eating your sweet corn fresh from the field, think about whose hands put it there.  Someone was bent over in the hot sun with their hands in the dirt picking it for you.  The "field workers"  are provided a "port-a-potty on the back of a trailer for their bathroom needs.  There is a cooler of water that may or may not have had ice in it when it left the farm.

The fields are alive with the workers all day long.  If it has rained and cooled the earth a little bit they are working in mud.  Most usually the sun is beating down all day long.  There is no shade.  They  work with hats and scarves covering every part of their body to keep the sun rays off them. 

Lunch break comes and they eat their beans and tortillas.  Of course they are cold, but they are also filling and easy to carry to the field. They drink water.  Lots of water.

When their 12 or 14 hour day is over they return to wherever they slept the night before.  Maybe a shack or shed some where.  Maybe a relative provides them shelter.  I do not know.  I do know they live in the shadows and they exist in a life that would break me in a New York minute.  Some of them have "papers" and some do not. 

They come here to work and when the season is over they go back to Mexico.  They go back because they live there.  That is their home.  They send money back to Mexico to take care of their family there.  That seems to upset some people.  I admire them for that.  While they were here they put money into our economy and what they saved they sent home.  They are taking care of their obligations.  Does that make them bad?  No!  How many people are we supporting because our "citizens" do not feel any need to work and take care of their own.

Many years ago my daughter and a son-in-law went to the fields to work.  Easy money. Pick a few peas and money in the pocket.  Yep.  They took my car and were gone 10 hours.  Patty had a red eye because she was behind Tex and he pulled a weed and threw it over his shoulder into her eye.  Their total take for the day was $6.30.  That was second only to the time that all 3 girls went out to top onions and I spent $30.00 buying the equipment needed.  That was a worse fiasco then the first trip. 

So, it is now Spring planting on the Mesa.  The "wet backs" are not showing up like before.  There are a few, but there is also a big white van that patrols the fields.  Not just the fields, but the sidewalks, and any where people with no hope congregate.  The men/women in these vans have the title of ICE on their uniforms.  That stands for Immigrant Code Enforcement (I think that is right.)  There job is to catch people "with out papers" and send them back to Mexico.  ICE is a good acronym for them because they are cold and ruthless.

(Interesting note here:  Back on Ellis Island when it was a clearing house for Immigrants and someone came through that did not have papers, the guard would call out "WOP!"  For many years Italians were called "WOPS".  I think it was later deemed a derogatory name and is no longer in use.  Just a thought there.) 

So here we set in a country that was founded on the poor and marginalized, meting out "justice" on the weakest of the weak.  I do not need papers because when I walk down the street I am white and everyone knows it.  I own my home.  I am privileged.  I have a car and draw Social Security.  I have it made.  Or do I? 

Our government bombed Syria because Syria gassed the same people who wanted to come to our country to escape.  No!  They are refugees and we will not have them here.  Isn't that just a little asinine?

I see the hatred in my country and it breaks my heart.  No more protection GLBT.  Confederate Flags flying in the breeze.  DAP full bore and hell with the Indians and their treaty.  EPA is a waste of money.  Global warming is a myth.  The homeless and the migrant workers are in danger and I can not help.  I want to gather the world  to my breast and tell them it will be alright.  But it won't.  The hatred is palpable.  I had a shirt once that said;

"They came for the Jews, but I was not Jew, so I stayed silent."

"They came for the Blacks, but I was not Black, so I stayed silent."

"They came for the Gays, but I was straight , so I stayed silent."

"They came for the disabled, but I was not disabled, so I stayed silent."

"Then they came for me, and there was no one left to SPEAK OUT!"

I will go to church this morning and I will pray for peace.  I will pray for my people who are suffering and I will pray for my friends who hide in the shadows and I will pray for my friends who ignore what is going on in our country. 

And then I will come home and weep.