At the base of the porcelain god...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

40 years and counting!

 I woke up this morning, stretched and began thinking.  I have been in this house at this address for 40 years.  That is half of my life!  How sad that we live our lives one day at a time and then one day realize that what we see in the rear view mirror is our life slipping away!  

What happened to that little skinny girl on Strong Street who wanted to be a missionary?  When did the dreams of working with the natives in Africa and teaching them about taking care of each other and learning about Jesus Christ turn into having a baby every year?  How did I become a mother and grandmother in the twinkling of an eye?  When did I actually set my course on Colorado and watch Kansas recede in my rear view mirror?

There were six of us kids growing up.  Now there is just Donna and I.  I think back to family dinners with aunts and uncles and cousins.  I used to have grandmas and all that.  Sadly even my friend list is dwindling.  Slowly, slowly and one by one, my friends are slipping from sight.  Family?  What is family and where is family?  I have 2 kids in Pueblo, 1 in Texas and 3 in Kansas.  Friends?  Probably the friends I had back in Kansas are mostly pushing up daisies!  Evelyn is still there.  Vi moved to Missouri and I never hear from her any more so who knows.  Last time we talked she waved the trump banner in front of my liberal face and laughed.  Fatal mistake.

Where was I going with this?  Oh, the fact that I have spent more years in this house then anywhere else in the whole world!  When mother was alive she used to send me the obituaries of people I had known.  I dutifully dropped them into a desk drawer.  Then I bundled them up and moved them to a bigger drawer.  Then the drawer was emptied into a cardboard box and put on a shelf in the closet.  The pile continues to grow and my memory is beginning to fade.  Names that were at one time so very important to me are now just words on a piece of yellowed paper.  The heart that used to hurt when I thought of my losses is now numb.

Soon I will take Kenneth to Imperial and have him interred under his stone.  Anthony and Annie are resting on my dresser.  Soon I will take them to their new home.  Then I will wait for my turn.  To everything there is a season, a time to plant and a time to pluck up.  A time to laugh and a time to cry.  A time to live and a time to die.  

Right now it is time to let the geese out.  The sun comes up and the sun goes down and I will put one foot in front of the other because that is what we as humans are designed to do.  Sometimes some of God's children get impatient and try to rewrite the rules.  That never would work for me.

Guess I am just old school.

40 years ago and down hill from there!

You do NOT want to live in my head!  It is one busy place.  Just before 4:00 this morning, my eyes popped open and I lay in my little bed remembering Kenneth.  Him and his wife were 2 of the people I first met when Charlie brought me to Pueblo.  That was in 1972.  I would divorce Charlie, strike out on my own, get a college degree and briefly wed again over the next 10 years.  So to make a long story short, Kenneth and his wife divorced, she remarried and Kenneth and I started dating.  We were both looking for stability and we found it.  I had been through the mill enough to know that men have a way of changing after the ring slides over that third finger, so I was slow to commit.  We came to an agreement.  We would live together for one year and if we survived that, we would marry.

So, we found a house and Kenneth, my son and daughter and I moved into it.  Seems like that was in the Spring.  That fall the fair came as it did every year.  I have never been a big fair goer, but Kenneth liked the livestock, especially the pigs.  His brother raised pigs for 4H.  I digress.  Kenneth was reading the paper and was aghast to find the the first prize in the fine arts building had gone to someone who had made a display from "feminine products".  His little mind could not let that go unseen.

Now this may not seem like much to you in this day and age, but to him it was a very big deal.  He could not believe that such a display actually existed AND that it was open to the public.  See, we are dealing with a man who had never even changed a babies diaper let alone had any idea what "feminine hygiene" actually entailed.  It was a mystery that happened once a month and if it did not happen, it meant he was going to be a daddy. 

So off we went to the Colorado State Fair.  I had tea towels that had won a blue ribbon that year, so we stopped in that building first.  Next stop, Fine Arts.  We entered and looked at paintings, photography, and all kinds of stuff and finally reached the piece we sought!  I swear his eyes actually bugged out of his head!  There it was in the center of the room.  It consisted of StayFree Maxipads sewn into a sleeping bag.  Above it suspended and spread to cover it was a "mosquito net" made of Tampax tied to the net.  It did not take him long to see enough of that!

My little ruddy faced farmer had seen enough!  "Let's just get the hell out of here before someone sees us!"  And that is just what we did!  We lived together another 20 years after  that before he passed to his reward.  He has been gone for 20 years now  but I will never forget the one and only trip we made to the Colorado State Fair.  In later years we actually laughed about it.  

Times have changed.  What was once taboo is now advertised on television, billboards and every magazine you pick up and read.  They do not make men like my Kenneth anymore.  That is kind of sad.  He used to read Playboy "for the articles".  The secrets men and women learned together in the bedroom after the wedding are in your face all day and night on television.  Playboy has lost its mystic. 

As I get closer to the goal of vaulting out of here and landing on the streets of gold high above, I look back at my ruddy faced little farmer and smile.  I would not trade one minute of my past for a whole bucket of tomorrows!  Mother always said we are all made of our memories and you should know, I have made a lot of memories!  

And all my memories are good!

I have no waist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A poem that should be written.

 I woke up this morning with the remnants of a poem in my mind.  I think it has already been written, but I can not find it nor recall the words.  It has been in my mind as long as I can remember, so if it rings a bell with anyone, let me know.  To me it has always been the epitome of the way a perfect relationship should be.  

I do not want to walk ahead of  you, because you may not follow.

I do not want to walk behind you, because I may not follow.

I want to walk beside you,  beneath your arm where I am protected and near your heart  where I am loved.

Country music singers and song writers have been writing the perfect love songs for as long as I can remember.  Garth Brooks and his "The Dance" pretty well sums up the loving and losing.  And then there is this by John Michael Montgomery click here.  Growing up in Nickerson was conducive to wanting a better life.  And along with the better life was always the thought of a perfect husband.  We all know how that went!  A husband should never be a "destination" in life.  I always pictured a husband  as an equal partner.  

When I embarked on my first marriage I was full of hope.  I think he was also, but hope for what I was never sure.  I wanted security and a man to love and fulfill me.  That did not end up well for me, but I chalked it up to a life lesson and moved on.  By the time I reached Colorado my kids were pretty well on the paths they would take and I was pretty well set in my ways.  When Kenny and I married it was clear that we were soon to be entering into the sunset of our lives.  We would grow old, retire and die.  One of us succeeded in that, but one of us did not.

So here I set.  Kenny has been gone 20 years.  I have had a couple male friends, but nothing romantic.  It seems that my place in their lives was to help them cross the bar.  I know I did it right with Sherman, because I saw the look of contentment on his face when he took his final breathe.  The other was different.  I know I held a special place and I was very sad when it was over, but I do so hope that he found the peace he sought.  

So anyway.  This is not a good way to start the day, but it is what it is.  I shall put one foot in front of the other and follow where life leads me.  Maybe it will be a good day.  I can always hope!

Peace and sunshine and if that poem up there strikes a chord and you remember seeing it some where, hit me up!

The road not taken.

 As I recall Robert Frost wrote something like this, "Two roads converged in the yellow woods and I took the one less traveled and it made all the difference."  I think that is pretty close.  But if you stop and think about his poem, it pretty well mirrors our lives, at least mine.

When I left high school for the real world, I was dating a boy named Gene.  He joined the Army and I pledged to wait for him.  Of course I did not.  He sent me a silk pillow from Germany, but by the time it arrived, I was married to my first husband.  After 10 years I returned to Hutchinson and several years later I was given the opportunity to host a television segment in eastern Kansas. Not wanting to uproot myself and my little family  I opted out of that move.  So all these years later here I set in Pueblo, Colorado.   I am not sure how it happened, but 40 odd years slipped away from me and left me here an old woman with kids that live some where else and a 2400 square foot home on an acre of ground to amuse myself with by trying to keep the weeds from taking the place. 

I do sometimes think back to the road I did not take and wonder where I would be had I married Gene when he came home.  Would we have lived happily ever after?  I rather doubt it.  I did not really know much about him except that he lived in the south part of town with his mother and sister.  I close my eyes and try to picture him and I come up blank.  I think he had brown eyes and I know he had a buzz cut because he was in the Army.  I always wanted to marry a sailor so I do not know how I ended up with a soldier.  Guess he was the one who asked me!   Duane Seeger came into my life as a friend of my brother Jake's.  And three weeks after I was introduced to him, we were in front of the minister at the Presbyterian church down on Sherman Street.  But then I did not end up with him, did I?  No, my last husband was  Marine.  

I do like my life because I do not have a lot of roads to choose to take.  I am here.  I am settled and I am too old to want a lot of changes.  Occasionally I think of uprooting and moving back to Hutchinson, or Nickerson, but having to do the actual selling and uprooting is just more than I am able to fathom.  

I like to think I have aged gracefully, but I am not sure that is exactly how it happened!  What I think is that I married Kenny and he gave me my first real home.  So, I took root.  When I lost him 20 years later, I still had kids at home.  That gave me a reason to stay put.  I began doing charity work and then the kids grew up and soon the last one was in love and moving out and here I set.  I do look back at the roads that brought me to this little acre out here on the Mesa and wonder if I could go back, would I do anything different?

I think not.  I think I may actually be turning into a recluse.  I am invited out to eat, because that is the one thing we all do for sure, but I rarely go.  It is just easier to get up in the morning and slip into something comfy and try to figure out what I should do today.  One day turns into another and before I know it, I am off to church again, and then it starts the whole thing again.  Sometimes the tedium is broken by the need to buy goose food, or replenish my own supply of whatever it is I am eating this week.

For several years I volunteered at hospice and I think about returning to that venue, but I do not drive at night and people tend to want to die at night, so that is pretty well out the door.  I do have a grandbaby a couple days out of the month which definitely breaks the monotony of my solitary existence.  And sometimes I go to lunch with a lady friend.  Even went shopping one time with Kay.  But other than that, the sun comes up, I sleep through Jeopardy!, the sun goes down and then I go to bed.

So when it comes to taking another road, that is pretty much a moot point!  I am doing very well staying on the path I am on at this time!  So, Mr. Robert Frost, I wonder what you decided?  If you had it to do all over again, would you?  Would I?  Would anyone?

I recall a conversation with my mother once and it went like this:

"Why does she put up with his bullshit?  Why doesn't she just leave?"  And mother, in her infinite wisdom said this....  "It is like setting in a pile of warm shit.  As long as you are in it, you are warm, but if you try to move out of it you find it is cold and smelly as you move away.  So it is just easier to set there and not move."

So, I think whatever road I took, it still would have brought me here!  Been a lot of twists and turns, and bumps and tumbles, but I am here, I am warm, and I am not leaving!

Red Carpet Restaurant way back when.

I worked at the Red Carpet shortly after I arrived bag and baggage with my kids on my mothers door step.  I had no experience at much of anything except having babies and being a punching bag for some man.  I had 2 jobs at the time.  One was washing dishes in the middle of the night at the Blue Grill and the other was waiting tables at Skaets Steak Shop evenings.  Neither paid enough to live on and pay a baby sitter so when I saw the ad that Bob Bailey would train someone to cook, I was all over that.  

I took my 97 pound self down to 13th and Main and he and I came to a consensus that I needed a job and he needed someone to do things his way.  A match made in heaven began and I began my life as a short order cook working evenings.  Soon I was adding skills such as baking bread, then baking wedding cakes and then decorating wedding cakes.  Next came meat cutting.  Then the morning cook quit and I moved into her position.  It paid better.  I made all the gravies, sauces and such as well as specials such as chicken and noodles with noodles made fresh.  I was in my element.  But this is not about me, it is about a lady who worked as the salad "girl" and it is about domestic violence.

I will not use her name.  She was a very timid woman and always on time for work and left reluctantly when her shift was over.  She rarely smiled and seldom had anything to say.  I will call her "Nadine".  Nadine had a husband and 3 daughters ranging from 12 to seventeen.  Since we worked side by side and we had lulls in the work we talked a little.  She was married to a construction worker.  Big, handsome man who brought her to work and picked her up after.  

I began to notice that she sometimes had bruises on her arms and once a black eye.  She explained that she had "fallen"  or pulled a pan down on her head, or some other "accident."  I also caught the smell of alcohol a time or two.  Oh, that was her mouthwash that smelled like alcohol.  She had tripped and fallen.  Always something that was her own fault.

I had been to her home a time or two when I was just passing by and stopped.  Her husband was always home and he was always charming.  Nadine was like a little mouse around him.  I never dreamed what her life was really like, but I would soon learn.

One morning she came in looking like the wrath of God.  She was very subdued and her right arm hung like it was not part of her body.  I finally called her husband and he came and picked her up and took her to the emergency room.  Her arm was broken!  How had that happened?  She said she had fallen on the concrete porch that morning on her way to the truck to come to work.  

Since she could not work, she did not come in the restaurant.  I did drive out to see her, but she was always subdued and her husband was always home.  I do not know when he actually worked, but she said he did.  Several weeks went by before I got back to see her.  This time when I arrived she was in a bed in the front room unable to speak.  Her husband explained that she had suffered a stroke.  I figured he should know.

It was not until her daughter showed up on my doorstep one evening that I learned the dirty little secret that she had hidden so long.  She told me her dad had beaten her mother and that was why her arm was broken.  She said it had been going on for years and the last beating had given her a brain injury and she could not talk any more.  The daughter was afraid of her dad and afraid for herself and her sisters.  Now, I am no stranger to domestic violence, but this was a whole new level and I was at a loss for an action to take because the daughter was afraid to go to the police because they would "not beleive her".  She was right!

That is how it was back in those days.  A man could beat his horse, his dog, or his wife.  He could beat his kids and that was just how it was.  I am glad to see that things have changed and women are now actually humans with feelings, but that was then and this is now!

To wind this up, Nadine died in her bed shortly after her daughter had come to see me.  There was no funeral.  Her life was sad and her husband pretty well got away with murder.  If I could go back to that time in my life, would I do things differently?  I doubt it.  Until the laws were changed and women were no longer chattel there was nothing that could be done.  If  Nadine had presented herself battered and bleeding to the police station, maybe she could have been saved, but she "loved him" and did not want him to get in trouble.  So ends the tale.

I worked at the Red Carpet for 5 years leaving there when I opened my own restaurant and then moving to Colorado.  My Red Carpet experience gave me the skills I needed to survive on my own out here in Pueblo.  Nadine gave me the strength to leave an abusive marriage.  We all learn little lessons as we traverse this path called "life".  I like to think that my life in Kansas made me the empathetic woman that I am today.  

My late husband knew what my life had been back then, because I told him.  It made him sad, but then my mother explained it to him this way:  "We are all a product of where we have been and what we have done before.  What does not kill you will make you strong and that is what makes Louella who she is today."  

And that is how it goes here in my world.  I thank God every day that I came to Colorado and that my God allowed me to survive to be in my little house with no broken bones and memories of only the good times.

Everything in its time and place!

It was all woman's work!

 I have been over the hill and on the downward slide for many years now and I have learned many things.  The first lesson as a bride at the tender age of 19 was that a woman's job was cooking, cleaning, and figuring out how to budget with no money, because the paycheck never made it past the bar where it was cashed. My first husband was a tree trimmer and as such there were no fringe benefits and of course no insurance of any kind.  No job security because it was also his job to knock on doors and convince the homeowner that their trees needed his expert care and their car payment could wait.  He was good at his job!

It was also known that as "man of the house" he was the only one who knew what the finances were and he would take me to the grocery store and pay for what he thought we needed to survive. This same thought process carried over into the bedroom where birth control was unheard of because after all, his mom had 12 babies.  OK.  Enough said about that!

We were married for 10 years and the first two years were spent with him pointing out to me that I was barren and he wanted a baby.  That was all he wanted, a baby.  Well, actually a son.  He wanted a son.  I was sent to every doctor who had room for another patient and came home with the same verdict, "No reason why you can not get pregnant."  One doctor even hinted that perhaps my husband was sterile and he would like to test his sperm.  That went over like a proverbial "turd in a punch bowl.   So, I gave up.  Bad mistake!  I immediately got pregnant!

 Nine months later I had a daughter.  He had clearly told me he wanted a son and I had ignored him!  Ticked him off royally.  Now, you should know that back in those days, men were not allowed in the delivery room so the best thing to do was drop the old gal off at the front door of the hospital and then call later to see if the wife was still alive and had she had that kid yet.  And most importantly, when could I come home as there were chores needing my attention!  So much for love.

A year and a half later I had a daughter.  

A year  and one month later I had a daughter.

11 months later he finally got a son.  HE.  Not me.  HIM.  Finally I had gotten it through my thick head that he wanted a son.  Silly me!

If I had thought that having a son gave me any status in his eyes, you are sadly mistaken.  Having a son was not all it was cracked up to be because the little boy needed diapers changed and he needed fed with a tiny spoon and a bath and all that was in addition to the needs of the first 3 girls.  So the care of 4 children the oldest of which was 5 years old fell squarely on my shoulders.  He was an "old school" father and his dad never touched him, so he never touched his kids.  I have one picture of him holding Debbie and talk about a man looking out of place!

The marriage survived for ten years total.  There was one more baby, another girl.  Upon divorcing, I got the kids.  He did not pay child support because his reasoning mind said "You have the kids.  I have nothing.  Why should I pay you?  You should pay me!"  And in my co-dependent mind, that all made sense.

Sadly, death called him early.  He was only 50 years old.  I left Kansas in 1973 and have been in Colorado now for over 50 years.  This is my home.  I think sometimes about moving back.  Where is "back"?  Would it be Nickerson where I grew up?  Hutchinson where most of my kids were born?  Or Garden City where they were toddlers and we lived in furnished apartments and drove a car we bought for $35 off a car lot on a side street? 

I look out every morning through my east facing window and think about Kansas.  I see the sun shining brightly and think of "home."  And then in the evening I see the same sun setting across the Rocky Mountains and I smile.  This is home.  This has been home for 50 years and I am sure when God reaches down and pulls the curtain closed on my life he will lift me up, up, up and I will look down at the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and I will know where my home was, is and will forever be!

Always know that when God closes a door, he opens a window!

Peace....

Hook, line and sinker!

 My eyes popped open before 5:00 am, and I lay there thinking of my first husband.  Now, I was not thinking of him in a romantic way, but rather as how he lived his life in a way that he wanted.  To say he was a rebel would be an understatement, because he did not rebel.  He just lived his life the way he wanted to and never bothered with the rules society tried to place around him.  My brother introduced me to him in the bar up the street and 3 weeks later we were standing in front of the preacher.  To say he swept me off my feet would have been an understatement, but there we were.  Of course it all ended up badly, but there were good times and that is what I am thinking this morning.

One of his favorite things was to drive the back roads and just do what came naturally.  There was always several guns in the back seat and fishing poles in the trunk.  His motto was "Be prepared."  I guess he may have been a boy scout at some time! If a pheasant made the mistake of stepping out of the ground cover it was dinner.  I spent many hours picking buckshot out of a pheasant breast so I could cook it for supper, or dinner, or breakfast.

And while the pheasants, doves, and rabbits were not my favorite fare it was rather exciting to know that we were breaking the law because not only were they out of season, Duane never procured a hunting license in all the years I knew him.  You should know that I participated in the hunt as a spectator.  Now don't get me wrong as to the killing of animals.  I could rip the head off a chicken, dip it in scalding water, defeather and gut it in seven minutes flat, but a chicken caught with a wire hook and butchered was a way of life.  Killing a beautiful pheasant was another story!  Survival.

While driving we often came to a creek, river, brook or an unattended farm pond that was stocked with fish.  I could fish!  A babbling brook was my favorite as it contained Crappie!  A creek, lake, pond or river were sure to hold catfish which was my least favorite eating fish.  Perch were fun to catch, but very bony.  Ah, but the Crappie was a delight!  Now it is pronounced with a soft "a" as in awe.  They are small and much like a Perch, but a Perch is very boney and fishy tasting.  The Crappie is a white meat and very mild.  They like running water and a "fly" is the best bait.  When they strike the lure it is a thrill like no other.  With catfish you have to set very quietly and wait until they are damn good and ready, but while you think  you are snagging a Crappie, he is snagging you!

When I married Kenny, we fished out of a boat.  In Colorado trout are abundant, so that is what we fished for.  Kenny would clean the trout, pack the stomach area with butter and roll it in flour and wrap it in tinfoil.  The packet was then placed on the cooling coals of the campfire.  Talk about the good life!

Several years back  I bought a tackle box, fishing pole and all the stuff to fish with on the river.  I never went.  I did tie a weight on the end of my line and practiced my cast, but that is as far as it went.  Maybe I just got old along the way, but something about setting on a lonely creek bank went from being peaceful and fulfilling to hoping no one comes along and kills me.  Old age!  I friggin' hate it, but I guess it beats hell out of dying young, which was the option I did not take.

So, the fish I eat now comes in a bag and is labeled as "farm raised".  I do not have to gut it, or skin it, or debone it.  Just take it out of the package, thaw it out and pop it in the microwave with butter, lemon, and a little dill.  Course I have to put my dishes in the dishwasher and then kick back in my recliner and remember the good old days!

Makes me think of that song I have playing in my head.  "I'd trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday."

Peace.

Money tied in the corner of a handkerchief.

I remember only snippets of life on the Stroh place because I was 6 years old when we left there, but I do remember my very first trip to the grocery store alone.  Looking back I realize it must have been 6 or seven blocks one way which would make it about a mile round trip.  Back in those days most errands were done without the benefit of a motor vehicle because if we had one we did not want to "wear it out" doing menial things like going to the grocery.

I remember mother placing some coins on top of the grocery list and tying  them into the corner of a tattered handkerchief.  That was what served as a coin purse back in the days of abject poverty.  I had walked to the store many times with mother and my sisters, but for some reason this would be my first trip alone.  I expect sister Dorothy was either newly born or about to be and momma needed something from the store for supper.

I clutched the handkerchief  in my little fist and began the journey.  I was familiar with our long driveway so that was no problem.  Jake and I ran up and down it many times barefoot in the soft, silty black dirt.  It was under the tree at the start of the driveway that Donna had gotten a turtle latched on to her finger, but I think I told you about that!  What lay ahead was a long block before I got to Main Street where I would be safe.

I entered that block very slowly because on the right side was a big black cow (which was no doubt a bull) that looked at me with huge black eyes.  He watched my slow progress as I never took my eyes off of him for fear he would jump the fence and eat me.  His horns were long and I knew he was going to be there when I came back so I did not want to make him mad.  I did not see his teeth, but I knew he had them because he was chewing.  I was flooded with relief  when I reached the end of his fence and safety!

The next block had 3 houses before I got to Main Street.  I walked quietly and slowly in case there was a mean dog that wanted to eat me.  As I recall there was not and I reached the safety of Main Street.  Why I thought I would be safe on Main Street is beyond me because I still had the railroad tracks to cross, but Main Street and the Nickerson High School was a beacon to me.  With the giant cow and his big teeth behind me I breathed a sigh of relief, and turned right onto Main Street.  Two blocks passed without incident and there was no train.  I was almost there!

Arriving at the downtown area which was 2 blocks long was monumental to me!  I was only 2 blocks from my goal!  I remember looking in the window at the Library and seeing all the books.  Then Corrington Dry Goods had a dress in the window that I knew my mother would never own.  Then the jail which I walked past very quickly lest a bad guy grab me.  The sheriff was on his chair in front of the door.  He had the chair leaned back against the door and was sound asleep.  The bank was next and then Berridge IGA, but I was going to Flemings.  The drug store was on the corner and across the street I reached Flemings Grocery.  

I handed the handkerchief to the lady at the counter like mother had told me to do.  She opened it and went to fetch the items.  Seems like it was a loaf of bread, a piece of suet, and a portion of butter.  She handed me the parcel with the now empty handkerchief, smiled and I left the store.  My job was almost over!  

The trip home was uneventful until I reached the railroad track.  I saw the arms go down on the crossing and I knew the train was coming!  If I hurried I could make it, but fear froze me in place and I waited by the grain elevator until until the train lumbered past and the arms were once more raised.  Then I waited a little longer just to be sure it was not coming back.  And I still had the giant cow to pass.

I left Main Street and walked as quietly as possible, but that damn cow had supersonic hearing and when I reached his fence I was scared shitless to see that he was looking right at me.  He was waiting.  My mind raced for another way home, but there was nothing coming to mind.  He looked at me and chewed something that I would learn later was a cud.  He never took his eyes off me and after a time I knew I had to go past him again.  Every watch something move so slowly that you never really detected  movement?  That was me!  Looking back and watching this is slow motion from the cows perspective, I am pretty sure he was laughing his ass off, if cows laugh!

When I reached the head of our driveway I broke into a dead run.  When I burst through the door and into my mothers arms I also burst into tears.  I was safe at home!  The mean cow had not eaten me!  The train had not run over me!  I had not been devoured by a vicious dog!  And best of all my mother was proud that I had gone to the store all alone and came home with exactly what she needed.  

I realize now that my mother had probably been more worried about me, then I was. It was my first tremulous step into being a responsible person, but it would not be my last.  Life would always hold challenges and I would always know that at the end of the task my mother would be there with open arms and pride in her hazel eyes for me.

I have met many people through life who have cheered me on and celebrated my victories and wept at my failures, but none as special as the one I called  "Momma."

Those damn Muscovy Ducks!

 

Thinking back to Nickerson is impossible without remembering the stinking ducks.  Let me lay the scene out for you.  We had a sink in the kitchen and a hand pump to pump water for indoor use.  The drain consisted of a pipe that ran through the wall and extended about 10 feet into the back yard.  Beyond that was the rabbit hutches and further out the chicken house and yard.  The chicken yard was fenced and they had a very nice house.  Horse pen and barn were over to the left.  Ah, but the only thing not restrained were the Muscovy ducks.

As I recall, there were 4 of them.  Black and white.  Now a Muscovy duck is different than other ducks.  The Muscovy is a "warbler"  which means it sounds like an old man mumbling to himself.  As a general rule ducks are pretty quite and when they do talk it is a definite "quack".  I am pretty sure that the male ducks I had never uttered a sound and the females were quite vocal.

Another interesting point here is that domesticated ducks and geese do not fly.  The exception to that rule is the Muscovy, which can fly and I know this for a fact because at one point I had 38 ducks, 4 of which were Muscovy.  All the ducks liked to float around in the pond, but the Muscovy ducks liked to fly up to the house and set on my central air unit which was located (and still is) near my back door.  It became a regular chore to hose down the unit when they went back to the pond.

But back to Nickerson and the sink draining in the back yard.  It was the habit of the Muscovy ducks to root around in the mudhole that was created by the water draining onto the dirt in the back yard.  I am pretty sure that mosquitoes laid eggs in that water.  I do know when the ducks got through digging in the wet dirt that it was a very stinky mess.  Hindsight tells me that if the health department had ever seen that mess that they would have bulldozed the house, but that was then and this is now and there is not much anyone can do about that, is there?

Looking back down the years of growing up on Tobacco Road, it is a miracle that any of us survived, and yet here I am!  We all have scars that we got when we were wee tykes and I can now empathize with my mother.  My hat is off to that woman if only for the fact that she raised us all to adulthood without any loss of life.  There were 6 of us back then.  Now we are down to only two.  Donna lives in Hutchinson and I live in Pueblo.  

We gathered only for funerals, but now there are just the two of us, so that does not happen very often.  She actually thinks she is my big sister, so I just let her think that.  I do know that we remember our childhoods differently.  I see abject poverty and she recalls a very happy childhood.  She remembers a very kind father and I never met that man! 

The one thing mother did teach me was that we all have our own concept of reality.  Some of us see the glass half empty and some of us see it half full.  

I do not even remember having a glass!

The last thing at night.

 I see him the last thing every night and the first thing every morning.  He is on my dresser smiling the big smile I loved so much.  He has on his sun glasses because his eyes were sensitive.  He had migraine headaches and they helped him during the daylight hours.    When I wake up I come out to the office and he is smiling that same smile at me from my computer screen.  I speak of him now in the past tense.  There is no present tense when it comes to him.  

I have quit waiting for him to call.  I have quit reaching for the phone to call him.  I do not put 2 cookies in a bag for him.  So much has changed in the last four months and they have been the hardest months of my life.  I have seen and done a lot in my life, but never have I been through anything that has so completely made me question whether life is worth living as this.

This covid crap has not helped.  I have been forced into isolation at a time when four walls are not what I need, but it is my reality.  The one thing this has shown me is that I have friends who love me and care about me.  I have friends I have never met!  Once I received a simple bouquet of flowers from someone I worked with long ago.  There was a phone call from a friend from Garden City that I had forgotten.  A lady brought me some "healing soup" and left it on the porch.  There was a gift of 4 Red Big Chief tablets for me to write my thoughts in.  And so many thoughts coming my way!

Most of my friends have no idea what happened and only know that I am hurting and reach out to let me know they are here for me. They only know that they want to share my pain.  I appreciate everyone of these gestures.  I will survive.  I may not want to, but I will!

My daughter in Longton, Kansas, always said "What don't kill you will make you strong!"  And she is right.  Some day I may need to look some one in the eye and say "I know what you are going through."  When that day comes I will remember what I went through.  I am growing stronger every day .

I am sure of one thing, if the Lord brought me to it; he will bring me through it.  My church was not there for me when I needed it most, but God was.  I could bury my face in the folds of his blood stained robe and he held me when I cried.  

I will be alright.  I make strides every day.  I can say his name without crying.  I can laugh at his little idiosyncrasies that made him so unique.   

And that, my dear friends, is because of all of you!

Ten dollars and 200 miles.

 I do not know about you, but I have 20/20 hindsight looking back and right before the crack of dawn is when I can see all my choices clearly!  Today is no different.  I woke up about 4:30 remembering my last day as a married woman in Garden City, Kansas.  The events leading up to that choice are irrelevant, only know that I had reached the end of my endurance and whatever lay ahead had to be better than the current situation.  Had I remained in the situation I would no doubt have ended my life that day.

With $10 in my pocket and a full gas tank in the 1967 Chevy I waited for my husband to leave for work, or wherever he went most days.  With him safely out of the house, I loaded what I could for clothes in the trunk on top of the spare tire.  That was days when there were no seat belt laws, so 4 kids were stuffed in wherever they could sit, stand or lay and away we went.  I would like to say it was an easy trip, but only 20 miles later I had a flat tire and no jack.  Luckily a boy scout troop happened by and the leader had a jack.  I left the flat laying beside the road and trusted God and the universe to help me reach my destination.  And he did.

I can only imagine the sight when mother opened the door and found me and the kids there and finding out we were there to stay.  She quickly called in a few favors and a babysitter was lined up for the next day.  Since I knew nothing about making a living, I started at the Blue Grill as a dish washer.  There I met a man who was wiser in the ways of the world and making a living then I was.  His advice was to bluff my way into a job as a waitress.  Lie on my resume: they would not check.  And he was right. 

 Mother waited tables at the Red Rooster and soon I had a job waiting tables at the Red Rooster.  There I met Gibby, who told me the cook was the highest paid employee in a restaurant.  So I applied for a cooking job at the Red Carpet.  I kept the dishwashing job and the waitress job and worked as night cook at the Red Carpet. Frank and I remained friends of sorts until he went to work at the radio station.  Gibby and I were like brother and sister until the day he died in California. 

Finding babysitters was sometimes a challenge and more than once I was ready to throw my hands in the air and give up, but give up to what?  Or who?  The kids dad was quick to point out that he would not pay child support.  His reasoning was that he did not want a divorce and that I had the kids and he had nothing so I should just figure it out.  After time I would take the kids to him for a few weeks and then go get them.  I saved babysitting money that way.  It worked out and over the years we could actually be in the same room with out screaming at each other.

To make a long story short, time marches on.  Today my first husband and the father of my children settled down and we shared custody.  I moved to Colorado and he lived in Western Kansas on 20 acres.  The kids stayed with him to attend school in a small town.  Between us we got the kids all raised and out into the world before he passed to whatever reward he had earned.  

I am a stronger person then I was 50 years ago.  Three of the kids still live in Kansas, one in Texas and one here in Pueblo.  My last husband and I adopted one of the grandkids.  I was married to him for 20 years, and he has now been deceased for 20 years. Apparently my mind is still pretty well intact.  Dates are a little fuzzy, but mother always had a way to explain that.  She said, "As life goes by you get more memories in your head.  As you get more memories they are harder to find in your brain.  They are there, it just takes time to get to them through all the other memories."

So there you have it for this morning.  If you get confused reading this, think about how I feel!  Some where I have it all written down and documented, but I do not know where that is.  So just know, I am here now.  Then I was there.  And never the twain shall meet!

Thanks, mom!

There used to be two of me!

 Many years ago when I married my first husband I weighed in at 92 pounds.  Five kids later I weighed in at 103.  When Kenneth passed in 2003, I was a hefty 180.  Same bones, same skin, same everything, just more compacted.  He used to say, "You's not fat, you's fluffy." And for a lot of years that is where I stayed, just a fluffy woman who liked to eat. 

Of course I still had Bret at home and had to cook for him, so I pretty much maintained that weight.  Then he fell in love and left me so there went the reason for cooking.  My weight went down to 165 or so and my doctor was pleased that I was finally doing something about my obesity.  Now granted, I was overweight, I still looked good, because I was compact, but as for "doing something about being overweight" he was dead wrong.  I had not been "doing something" about the problem, but I do think my body seeks its own weight.  Happy I eat and gain weight, sad I go the other way.    

It was not until this past year that the scales began to go the other way.  When one lives alone eating is not a high priority.  Before Covid 19 I was eating out occasionally and having friends over occasionally, but, then safety became paramount.  No more meeting for lunch.  No more stopping for takeout.  Life just pretty much became a solitary existence.   Consequently, since eating alone is not a lot of fun, I now top the scales at 139.  According to all the charts I see I am still considered obese.  

So here is the deal: I am going to set here and be obese.  Hell with it.  I am old with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel and something is eventually going to kill me!  I like cookies.  I really like homemade cookies and I just baked up a batch of white chocolate macadamia and there is no one here to eat them except me!  If I get so big that they have to take me out the big window in the front room, I will surely die a happy woman.  At least I will be full of cookies and at my age, that is about the best I can hope for. 

So peace to all and bon a petite!!  I am off to the kitchen to use up some more of those Macadamia nuts and Walnuts that my sweet little Irene sent me!  May even send her a couple!

RIP

Naked by any other name is still Naked!

After Kenny passed and I no longer worked as a caregiver for Mark I volunteered at  Sangre de Cristo Hospice.  I was a volunteer in the 11th hour program.  This just means that I would have finished my job when the client passed to the other side.  My job was to set with the client while the caregiver ran errands or just took a break from every day life.  Being the kind, caring person I am, I was sometimes called to the bedside when my client was taking their final breathe. Unlike a lot of people I have an acceptance of dying and a secure knowledge that we are all going to a better place.

In this capacity, my last job with hospice was for a man on the southside who cared for his 90 year old invalid mother.  He had several bad experiences with people he hired to set with her when he needed some one.  Seems he had several bad experiences with ladies taking coffee cups or small items just "walking off".  When he enrolled in the hospice program he was adamant that whoever came had to be honest.  After several volunteers were sent there he had given up on hospice was at the end of his rope as far as strangers in his home.  Hospice threw their hands in the air as it seemed to be a lost cause.  And then they tried one last hurrah, Lou Mercer.

By this time I had mostly given up hospice work, but Jolene asked me if I would just give this guy a break and if it did not work out they would let me leave.  I agreed.  The man called and explained that hospice had given him my name and number and would I just come and meet his mother.  What did I have to lose?  I agreed.  

When I arrived at the chosen day and time, he opened the door and looked me up and down.  He was a regular looking man of Spanish descent and looked fairly harmless, so I went in.  Mom was in the kitchen in a wheel chair and eating her breakfast which consisted of a pop tart and a cup of coffee.  I took a chair at the end of the table and she looked up at me.  She immediately smiled and her face lit up!  "Blue! Blue!"  I should note here that my eyes are blue and they stay that way as long as I am happy.  Sadness causes them to take a hazel hue, but I am rarely sad. So that day they were blue.

The son explained all the problems he had with sticky fingers and I explained that I did not have that problem.  He told me he would pay me to set with mother.  I told him I was a volunteer and did not accept money.  And so it began.  Momma and I were friends and he felt comfortable leaving us alone.  When he returned from whatever errand he had been on, he was surprised to see mother still happy.  

Since I would not take his money, he fell into the habit of buying me fruit juice.  The kind he bought was from Sam's and was called "Naked" because it had no artificial ingredients.  We fell into an easy relationship since his mother liked me and I liked her.  She could be a bit cantankerous at times, but I understood how hard it must be on both her and him.  I was happy to do what I could to ease the burden for both of them.  And the bottle of juice became a joke with us.  

"Hey, Lou!  I got Naked for you!"  "OMG!  I hope that is in a bottle!"

He did not call me to often, because he felt he was imposing on me.  I explained that I had no other clients and I actually had come to love his mother.  I think what we developed was a comradery.  Mutual respect and a genuine caring for each other.  I met and loved his sisters and brother.  I am not sure they knew just what to think of the relationship, but they accepted it at face value.   His sister came in laughing one time because they had been shopping and he had to run to Sam's before they could go home because, "I have to get Naked for Lou!"

I was a part of their life for several years before Momma passed.  She was my comrade.  He was my knight in shining armor.   

It is a part of my life that I shall miss until I take my last breathe.  But that is how grief is, isn't it?  At first it is sharp like a knife and cuts to the quick, but then it begins to become a dull ache, and finally it is just a big, empty hole in your soul.  

I still wait for the phone to ring and the voice on the other end telling me to look at the moon.  

"I see the moon; the moon sees me. The moon sees someone I want to see.                                                  So God bless the moon, and God bless me, and God bless the someone I want to see."

Bell bottom trousers, coats of Navy blue.....

My Anthony was a sailor.  Ah, but that was many years ago before Viet Nam. I have his wool top of his uniform and if I can find a camera I will post a picture of it.  Not of him, because I do not have him any more, but I do have his scatchy wool top and his green denim flak jacket. And playing through my mind is this little ditty:

"Bell bottom trousers, coats of navy blue, He'll climb the riggin' like his daddy used to do!  If you have a daughter, bounce her on your knee, but if you have a son send that "fella" out to sea!"

He was on the USS Proteus which was a sub tender.  That meant it was his job to make sure the submarines were all in tip top shape.  He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and that was a long time after the bombing there.  His time ran out just as Vietnam was becoming a way of life and he did not "reup".  I am glad he did not because Vietnam was not pretty and he would not have become the man he was had he gone there.

I have tried to think what it would be like to be submerged beneath the ocean for days or weeks on end and being the claustrophobic that I am, I can not even imagine life beneath the waves.  Anthony and all his shipmates had to be a special kind of person.  I think Irene told me that their father was also in the navy.  I think it takes a special kind of person to join the Navy.  

My father was in World War I.  He had a scar on his upper arm where a horse had bitten him.  He was in the cavalry apparently.  His sons were in World War II as I recall.  Richard was in the Navy, Gene was Army, and not sure if Earl was in at all.  There seems to be some sort of code they all follow, something I never understood.  Jake was Army and was in Germany, but it was peace time. Kenneth was Marine and he was in Korea.

There is one thing I know and that is when a man came home from the service, they were always clean shaven.  They kept their shoes polished and always seemed to be alert to their surroundings.  My son was in ROTC when he was in high school and I still keep the little awards he received.  I am glad he did not go into the service because I like him just the way he is!

Anthony was younger than me, but that never seemed to bother either one of us. I remember when I was in high school and how I lusted after the sailors in their little tight white pants before I was even old enough to know what lust was.  To think I had to wait 50 years to finally get my sailor is kind of sad,  but it was worth the wait!  Anthony stood straighter then most men.  He rarely got rattled and he understood my sense of humor.  Few men can measure up to my expectations, but he did.  He has only been gone for three months, but it seems like forever.

He was only in my life for a few years, but he has left a mark on my soul like no other man before him.  It is as if time has stopped and the world is standing still.  

I wonder if I will ever awaken from this dream?

Ragged 'n Ripe Peaches and Momma!

It did not happen often but it was always wonderful.  We watched the peach tree and waited for the peaches to drop.  It was only in the house at 709 North Strong Street that we had a peach tree.  Peaches have always been my favorite fruit.  A big, juicy dark red apple with four points on the bottom was always nice, but a rarity at our house.  Sometimes some one in town would have a plethora of apples and we would be sent to harvest the leftovers on the ground beneath the tree.  These were sorted, worms removed and the harvest made into apple butter or apple sauce which was basically the same thing.  Jars of apple sauce lined the shelves down in the root cellar.  Fried apples appeared regularly for supper, or dinner.  Chopped apples swam in oatmeal. To this day I do not eat an apple unless it is a dark red one with 4 points on the bottom and it is raw.

Pears are actually my favorite fruit, but I do not recall having them as a child.  Once when Duane and I were living in Liberal a man in the neighborhood came and told me I could harvest the pears on his big pear tree.  He furnished a ladder and I climbed up the tree and managed to harvest a big bushel basket.  Of course the kids were eating them almost as fast as I picked them, but I persevered and home we went.  I do not recall where the jars came from nor the rings and lids, but I did can them and processed them.  Sadly, the kids did not like them from the jar and when we moved the jars were left behind.  I assume some one did something with them.

Bananas were a rarity at the store, so pears, apples and peaches were what I grew up eating as far as fruit went.  Unless you want to count the Currants and wormy Mulberries. Oh, wait!  Every Christmas we each got an orange.  That was special only because it came once a year and beneath it was my Big Chief tablet and a brand new pencil.

However, my fondest memory in the whole world was when Momma turned the sign in the front window and the iceman would leave extra ice.  I knew what would happen next!  On the day the extra ice was left down in the root cellar, Momma would dig out the ice cream freezer.  It was washed and dried and assembled on the floor in the kitchen.  A can of "Ragged Ripe Peaches" would appear on the table.  Rudolph Reinke would appear with a jar of heavy cream.  The ice block would be brought up and Jake would use the ice pick to chip the ice so it would fit in the space between the metal bucket holding the elixir and the wooden outside.  Making ice cream was a family affair and probably the only time we could all refrain from fighting.  Momma cooked the ice cream until it thickened a bit and than poured it into the metal can.

Now,  after we had taken turns on the crank and it was getting hard to turn, the crank was taken off and the lid removed.  Momma had drained the Ragged n Ripe peaches and used the syrup to sweeten the ice cream.  The peaches were added to the mix and the lid returned until it would turn no more.  The crank was removed and the tub and ice cream was covered with a heavy wool quilt and left to "ripen".  

We were told to go outside and play.  Of course that did not happen because we knew that at some point momma would remove the quilt and pull the paddle out.  Of course there was always a fight over whose turn it was to "lick the paddle".  That was solved by each one of us taking a turn.  But the glorious part was when all the licking was over, supper eaten, and the baby in bed, momma brought out the "Ice cream bowls."  As I recall they were glass and were a rather amber color with raised flowers of some sort.  Today I recognize them as "Depression Glass" and they are rather pricey to buy, but then they were plain ice cream dishes. 

When we each had our bowl we were given the coup de gras (or something like that), which was a saltine cracker.  You heard me, a plain saltine cracker.  The saltiness of the cracker and the sweetness of the ice cream combined to make the best memory in the world to this skinny little girl from Nickerson, Kansas.  I will never think of my mother with out the taste of homemade peach ice cream.  

Over the course of the years on Strong Street, the peach tree became infested with bores.  The tree died, mother went to business school and got a job in Hutchinson, Kansas at some investment company.  Life was never the same after that.  We had running water and electricity and a car.  All the finery's life had to offer.  

I have three ice cream makers down stairs and before Covid became a part of our lives, I used to make ice cream at our church and have an open house.  The church wanted to make it a fund raiser, but I was just searching for a link back to my past. Life is sure funny, isn't it?  Peach ice cream was not a big hit at the ice cream socials and that kind of makes me sad.  

Ice Cream comes from the store and is in a box.   I do not think they even make peach ice cream, but I can taste it just like I was setting on the porch on Strong Street and mother was inside with dad.  I can see my sisters and brother and when I look into their eyes, I know the meaning of complete bliss!  

Nothing will ever take away my memories!    

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

1:35 A,M. This is Gordon with your local bank.....

 "It is the middle of the friggin' night!  Don't you people ever sleep?"

 That was my wake up call that woke me up out of a sound sleep and pissed me off.  When I go to bed, I go to sleep.  All day long I have fended off the robo calls that want to insure my eleven year old car with almost 200,000 miles on it against any repairs.  Bumper to bumper.   Or they want to loan me thousands of dollars on just my signature.  Or house insurance.  Or life insurance.  Or buy my house.  Or sell my house.  The list goes on of things I might possible want that I have not thought of by myself.

Tell me this, how can we put a man on the moon, but not stop robo calls that bombard me all day and into the night!  I pay for my phone.  I bought it and I pay every month for the privilege's of using it and it would be nice if when I picked it up on the second ring if it could be someone I knew and wanted to talk to, but such is not the case.  

"Hi!  This is Dan."

"Good Afternoon.  I hope you are having a good day so far."

"Don't hang up!  I have a bank that can solve all your financial woes at 0% interest."

"I want to buy your house!"

I have signed up on the national do not call list.  I have blocked calls.  I screen my calls with caller id, but I gave that up when I saw my late husbands name and  phone number.  I tried making a list of the numbers, but they are smarter then I will ever be.  There is no hope.

I could turn my phone off at night, but I have 6 kids who are subject to accidents and need momma.  Or maybe they just need to tell momma a little good news.  (That could happen!)  Sometimes a friend will call just to pass the time of day.  I should be able to actually use my phone for my personal needs.

On the computer I can mark spam mail as such and send it to the trash bin and it goes to a folder and gets deleted, but not here at home in the real world.  The phone is subject to jangle at any time, day or night.  I often wonder if these people ever sell what ever they are selling.  They must or they would not keep calling.

So here I set with my jangled nerves, ready to face another day of missed opportunities here in my home.  Wouldn't it be nice if Gordon could get a real job and work like the rest of us instead of spending all night trying to figure out a way to separate me from my meager savings?

Good luck on that!

I still believe in waltzes!

 It has been a couple of rough months, but there is a new sun on my horizon!  I woke up with this song on my mind and realized that where there is life there is hope.  Loretta and Conway 

The last two months have not been kind to me to say the very least, but I am still here.  A saying comes to my mind that I always credited to my mother, but I actually think it was my oldest daughter that spits it out fairly regularly, and that is this "What doesn't kill you will make you strong."  And that saying is spot on!  ( I love that phrase!  Spot on!  But more about that later.)

Those of you who know me well, know that my track record for husbands was not anything that would be something that you would want to emulate nor the footsteps I wanted my children to walk in behind me, but it is what it is.  I spent 20 years with my last husband and another 16 mourning his passing before I took my first tremulous steps into the world of dating and learning to care for a man.  In all fairness, I learned to care for him long before the dating dance began.

He was kind.  He was fun.  He was thoughtful.  All of those are important, but he was also one of the smartest men I have met.  Intelligence is very important to me.  Kindness is very important to me.  Although we never discussed it, I knew he was a man I could trust and depend on to be there for me.  If I was having a bad day, I could call him and I knew he would be there.  That is the kind of man he was.  He was empathetic and while he may not have been as wise in the ways of the world as some men, he was perfect for me.

Momma always said, "All good things must come to an end."  And you all know, Momma was always right.  So the good thing came to an end and it broke my heart.  Death is a very hard pill to swallow and when it happens suddenly it leaves shock waves behind that are not always easy to deal with.  My last husband spent over 2 months on machines that kept him alive because I could not find his DNR at the precise moment I needed it.  (If you have one, keep it on the front of your refrigerator and make sure it is there every day!  When the EMT comes they will need to see it or you are going to end up some where you do NOT want to be.  Enough about that)

So the man who opened doors for me, who made sure I had my seat belt fastened, and told me to call when I got home so he would know I made it is no more.  

No more coffee on Sunday afternoon. 

No more Boggle.

No more flying the kite.

No more walks at the Reservoir.

Not going to see the Aspens change next fall.

Not going to the Sand Dunes.

No bantering over which is best, Jazz or Country Classics.

No more happy to see him and sad to leave.

No more anything but a long empty road that leads to no where.

It is called life.  Naked come we into this world and naked we will leave.  Happiness is only what we catch every now and then and it only lasts for a fleeting time, so enjoy it while you can, because it can all change in the blink of an eye.

I will survive, because that is what I do.  I am a better person for having known him and his family is my rock.  Of course I have friends who want to help and they do, but at the close of day, when I lay in my bed and reflect back, I can not help but shed a tear and remember what a Bard of long ago wrote:

"Of all the things of mice and men, the saddest of all is what might have been."

So laugh while you can, love while you can and remember the movie "Gone with the wind" and Scarlett Ohara standing in the rubble saying "Tomorrow is another day!"  

And to that I might add, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."  I am a better person for having known Anthony and a sadder person for losing him, but I will survive, "the good lord willing and the creek don't rise!"

Peace!

We meet everyone for a reason.

1. They are sent to awaken us.

2.  They are sent to hold space for us.

3.  They are sent to help us grow.

4.  They are sent to remind us.

5.  They are sent to stay, holding a long term role in our lives.

I found this on an old yellow index card when I was cleaning the mess on top of my desk this past week.  It is in my handwriting, so I know I copied it from some place and at a time when I probably needed to know this stuff.  And I also know, that at this time and place I needed to find it and be reminded of just where my friends came from and why they are still here.

I look at this list and I look back at my life and I realize that everyone of these sentences are true.  Now, granted, some of my dearest friends are not in my life in an active way, but that may be because they served their purpose and moved on.  Some of them are in my darkest past and I no longer have contact with them, but they do pop into my memory from time to time. 

And as I look back on my most troubling times in my long ago past, there were no friends.  It was during those times that I escaped into my childhood.  In my childhood I was safe from the present I was living.   It was my childhood that gave me the strength to move forward and gave me the courage to "accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  I think that all this shows up in the Serenity Prayer in some form.  That prayer, while used by the AA groups, is a good one for all of us to follow. 

I look back down the twisted, littered road of my past and I have to acknowledge that during most of that time, there were no flesh and blood friends, but there was always God and the certainty that he was holding me up.  And it was just as if I was held by the blacksmith as he held me over the roaring forge.  He melded me and formed me into the woman I am today.  

Mother taught me that "as you sow, so shall you reap."  And "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  And another important one was, "To have a friend, you need to be a friend."  When I moved from Western Kansas back to Hutchinson, I had 4 kids walking and one in the oven waiting.  While that time was very hard to live through, I came out the other side stronger and did actually forge some friendships that I continue to this day.  

When I found this tattered, yellow index card on my desk, it suddenly took me back to those times!  And I began to reflect back on my life and friendships I have formed.  I am truly a blessed woman!  I can not count my true friends on one hand, but that is because there are so many.  I have received so much love from people that I rarely even think about that I am humbled.  How this skinny little girl from Strong Street can be so esteemed is more that I can fathom!

Just know this;  I could not have survived here in Pueblo, Colorado, without your help.  And I certainly felt all of the love these last couple of months.  (Has it only been 2 months?  It seems like an eternity!)  So, I am going to take this tattered, yellow index card and put it in a frame and put it up there on that shelf above the monitor where I can see it every day.  

I may not be able to categorize all my friends, but know that I love everyone of you.  You have all touched my world in some way.  I am a firm believer that if you let me cross your mind that you have sent me good vibes.  It is those things that make me want to get out of bed in the morning and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It is all of you  who make me who I am and what I am today.

Peace, my friends!

Two things no one should ever eat.

 The first is a Gooseberry!  My mother-in-law, Leone Mercer had a Gooseberry patch in her back yard on Heisler Street.  When Bret and Shelly were wee little tykes I took them over there and they wandered out back and found the Gooseberry patch.  When I happened upon them they were actually eating them.  I had never encountered a Gooseberry, so I picked one and popped it in my mouth. OMG!  Those things were beyond sour.  I could feel the bottom of my brain stem rebelling!  Leone assured me that "made into a pie it is the best thing you will ever eat."  Some how, deep in my soul, I rather doubted that.

Regress back to 709 North Strong Street in Nickerson and an eight year old version of myself exploring my new home.  We had moved there from the Ailmore place and since dad was buying this house we were now homeowners.  Facing the house from the street on my right (which I learned later was the North side of the house) was a Walking Stick Cactus which would be a source of much pain.  Going on to the back fence was a row of elm trees, followed by a Mulberry Tree, more elm trees, and then a long row of Currant bushes.  Mother assured us that they were good to eat when they were ripe.

I spent many hours climbing the Mulberry tree and searching for a ripe one to eat because Mulberry is a very good treat as long as they are ripe.  The ones on the top ripen first and it is just a few days until the ones on top began to fall to the ground.  Now Mulberries are a deep purple when ripe and since we went barefooted all summer, my feet were also purple on the bottom.  If that was not enough to deter me, the news that Mother told Dad did give me pause.

"Ruben, those Mulberry have worms in them.  You have got to keep the kids out of them."  Well, I could not see the worms, so I just figured she was seeing things and continued my feast.  The mere fact that I am still here seventy years later makes me think she was either wrong, or they were damn little worms and did not hurt anything!

Ah, but the currants!  The currant bushes were in a row and the row was probably forty feet long.  Early in the spring little yellow flowers covered the bushes and we soon learned that little green berries about  a quarter inch in diameter would appear.  Of course I never was the patient type, so I picked one and ate it.  I guess I should say, I attempted to eat it!  My God those things were bitter!  I think I have a permanent pucker from those things.  The sad part is that as they ripened a little they got less bitter and as soon as they got fat and ripe, the birds swept in and harvested them!  As I recall, they were rather opaque when they were almost ready and then turned black when fully ripe, right before the Sparrows came in and ate them all!

There was a Peach tree that hung over the chicken house and I never was fast enough to get one of those either!  I did get one that was almost thinking about maybe getting ripe.  It was hard and not sweet at all and mother was right, it did give me a belly ache.  

And the Catalpa tree had beautiful white flowers and when the flowers dried up, a long bean came on and hung down.  Jake and I figured out that if we let the bean dry, we could light it up and smoke it.  Sadly I did not blow out the fire on the end of it when I took my big drag and sucked the burning fire into my mouth!  

I often wonder how I survived to adulthood!  But I did.  And the saddest part of all of this is that I look back on my childhood days as happy ones!  My idea of heaven is to go back to that little 2 bedroom shack on Strong Street, shinny up the Catalpa tree, watch a chicken lay an egg, and fly my kite over the cemetery with my brother.

Life was sure simple back then.

My very own Big Chief !

The kindness of my readers will never cease to amaze me!  Yesterday I heard the Fedex knock on the door which sounds much akin to a black limousine speeding past and throwing a body out the back door and into the street!  That has never really happened out here, but you know my imagination.  Those drivers and delivery people do not linger long.

Upon closer investigation I found a package on the milk crate.  Inside it was this:

Inside it was this: 

And for a closer look: There are 4 of those suckers!

Now some of you may remember that I wrote a blog on the Big Chief  tablets that I got for Christmas  back when I was 9 years old and how much I enjoyed the blank pages just waiting for me to fill them with my imagination.  Apparently Linda Kulp way up in Wyoming was listening!

Well, most of you know I have been through a rather rough spot and I want you all to know that the kindness shown by so many of my readers has touched me in a way this old tattered and leathered soul can not even begin to express and in ways I did not know was possible.  Beth Perry sent me a daily devotional that I read every day.  

I have had phone calls and notes from so many people.  Kind words over the phone with a simple "We are here for you" mean so much.  I will survive, but you all need to know this:  knowing that you are all out there and you all read or hear what I say means so much to me.  From California to Florida and Texas to Wyoming, I have the most empathetic and caring people in the world.  

Sometimes you may not agree with the words I write, but through this I do know one thing:  My readers are human and kind hearted people.  You may not be legion in number, but you are callosal in spirit!  Every day I get a little better and while I doubt that I will ever forget this experience, I will come through on the other side a better and stronger person not because of it, but in spite of it.

So thank you to all of you.  Know that I love everyone of you and some day soon, you will tap into this blog and I will make you laugh again, or at least smile.  Or better yet, remember the good old days when I made a trip to the outhouse in the middle of the night and had to wait with the door locked and huddled inside for daylight because I thought something in the dark was waiting to eat me!

I love everyone of you!  I thank God for giving you to me for just a few moments a day!  

I think my daughter said this but I always say, Momma said it best:  "What doesn't kill you will make you strong!"