Life goes on in spite of it all.

 I woke up at 3:10 AM this morning missing my momma.  I am not good with dates and have to consult a book when pressed to put a time, place and date on any given event.  Seems like Bret was 3 or 4 years old when momma died and he is pushing 30 now.  I know Kenny has been gone almost 20 years.  And here I set!

I know God has a purpose for me, but I am not at all sure what it is!  Covid has us so limited in our lives that my volunteer work is pretty much out the window and the church is closed more than it is open.  Every where I go I wear my protective gear, race home and wash my hands and face.  Pueblo County is now the hot spot for the virus.  I have had my vaccination and am ready for my booster next week and the numbers just keep climbing.

It saddens me to see how little regard the populace has for us old people.  When I do venture out it is usually to Lagreese and back.  I hurry in with my list in my hand and grab what I need and scurry back to the car and home to my sanctuary.  I used to meet a friend at Starbucks and have a Green Tea Frapaccino or Latte, but I now go through the drive thru alone.  Life is not the same as it was 2 years ago.  For Christmas last year I received a $100 Starbucks gift card from a dear friend .  I have used it once.

Life is just easier living in the past.  There is no present and the future looks like it is going to be Republicans and Democrats fighting over who can spend the most money and do the least good.  The other countries seem to be pulling it together and controlling the spread of this virus, but we are so busy fighting about whether your rights supercede mine or vice versa.  I just want to go to Kohls and buy a couple new towels and maybe a bra, but I am afraid to venture that far from home!  And is Kohls still out there?

As the road before me gets shorter, the road behind me looks better.  There was a time when we helped old ladies across the street and picked kittens up out of the gutter and took them home.  There was a time when we gathered in the park for birthdays and played volleyball!  There was a time when I got a mohawk hair cut and went to the Eastside Safeway and the "gang bangers" smiled at me and gave me a thumbs up.  Not now.  Safeway was torn down a couple years ago and I do not even know if Louie is still cutting hair because I never see his barber pole turning, but then again, I never get to town to check.  Once a month I pick up my prescription at Blende Drug.  The rest of the trips are one mile North to Lagreese and one mile South back home.  Church is on Sunday, but it is not always open.

I do have a job taking supper to a man in town 3 evenings a week and that is nice.  We play a game of checkers after he eats and then I hurry home to put the geese to bed.  The cat is always glad to see me, but even she is on her downward spiral!  And I have to be alert around her because she bites!

So it is almost 4:00 AM and I am on my second cup of coffee.  Whoopie!  I noticed yesterday that the tin shed has blown full of leaves so when the sun comes up I will go out and sweep them out into a pile and burn them.  I mean if the powers that be are allowing burning today.  If not I will sweep them out and let them pile up some where else.

Maybe I will make cinnamon rolls today.  Maybe I won't.  While I moan and groan about my lot in life you should know that it beats hell out of the alternative!  And remember this: You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!

I heard that line of crap some where!

I got a doorbell and installed it just in case someone came by and I did not hear them knock, but Janet came and she said she rang it and I never heard it!  $30 down the crapper on that one!

It isn't always the words that count.

Did you ever have your tender little feelings hurt by something someone said?  Or didn't say?  I have been on the receiving end of both those scenarios.  I have to say that I appreciate the former to the latter.  When someone says something hurtful at least I know where I stand and honesty is, after all, the best policy.  My momma drilled into my head that I must be honest under any given situation.  And in all fairness, I learned early on, that a lie is hard to remember, so mostly I just stick to the truth because it is easier to remember.  This works well in most areas of my life, except my marriages.  Some times I shave off a couple, not because I am lying, but because a couple of them were not worth remembering.  I call this my "lie of omission."  Mostly when I divorced I took my previous name back because it matches my kids name.  I went from being Louella Bartholomew to Louella Seeger.  There was an Ivey, Bayless, Gonzales who all morphed into Lou Mercer.  And that is who I am today many, many years later.

Much like Mae West, I never met a man I didn't like and that is true to this day.  I have, however, not met a man that I felt like giving up my retirement check for to this day.  I also love Black Walnut Ice Cream and Wintergreen Lifesavers, but I am not adverse to a big bowl of any kind of ice cream and Spearmint Lifesavers work well too.  This just shows I am flexible!

There was a time in my life that I thought my given name was "stupid bitch".  When I left that man and had 5 kids to support with no help from him nor the welfare system, I was 103 pounds of next to nothing with no self esteem.  I had no life skills and no work experience except  3 weeks that I had worked at a laundry in either Garden City or Liberal.  But I had a vision!  I could see me someday in a home of my own and my kids would be fed and clothed.  It was a dream I clung to and by sheer determination I made it come true.  Granted, it was not the best house in town, but the roof did not leak and we were warm.

I worked for several months on the "shake table" at the Ineeda Laundry just up the street from my house.  Nights I washed dishes at the Blue Grill down on South Main.  It was there that I met a man named "shall remain nameless".  He was a writer.  My dream from the first day I held a Red Big Chief tablet and a lead pencil was to be a writer.  Nameless  and I were friends and he let me read a novel he was aspiring to publish.  I knew I could do better!  To make a long story short, he went on to be a news director at one of the local radio stations.  We dated briefly, but since I had a nest full of kids and he was a "man about town" that did not work out well.  I did run into him a couple years later and was amazed to see he had gone completely bald, was fat and still full of himself!  Very glad I dodged that bullet!

Shortly after meeting him I  discovered a lady who lived 3 doors down on 5th Street wrote for several of the "romance rags".  True Confessions was her favorite source of income.  It was from her that I learned that True Confessions and every other romance magazine was a figment of someone's imagination. They were all in the same form, woman meets man, man is not interested, man pursues woman and they kiss and then live happily ever after. 

I look back on that period in my life and realize that nameless was part of what made me into who I am today even though he was only in my life a short time.  He fueled me to write and journal and all the stuff that today is my salvation.   I did google him a time or two, but found nothing.  I at least published a book and collaborated on a second one.  I still have visions of being a successful published author, but if that never happens, and chances grow slimmer every year, I am still happy with my life.  

Mother always said "If you can come to the end of your life and count your friends on one hand, you are a very successful person." and I can!  My friends are legion, my dreams are many, and with God at my side I may still conquer the world!

Here's hoping!

Rode hard and put away wet!

Momma said it, so it must be true!  She also said, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions!"  "Hindsight is 20/20 looking back."  "Easier said then done!"  Now for some reason, I think these little quotes come under the definition of "idioms".  It might be fun to note here that "idiom" is seperated in my paperback dictionary by only 2 words from the word "idiot!"  That is just a little tidbit of meaningless trivia to start your day off right.

It is now 3:09 AM and I have been up for about an hour.  I made a cup of coffee in my French Coffee Press since I am too tight to go buy another percolator for the sole purpose of making one cup of coffee every morning.  I have finally mastered the fine art of making exactly one cup full with no coffee left over.  Living alone has lots of advantage this being just one of many.

As a single, live alone woman, I am free to step out of the shower completely naked and dash down 2 flights of stairs to answer the phone.  I am also free to take my shower at any given time of the day, or night.  Lunch may occur at 3:26 AM and breakfast at 3:26 in the afternoon and ice cream is liable to happen about any time and is not considered a snack, but rather a meal depending on which other 2 meals it occurs between.

When someone says, "I will call you," that means nothing to me.  "What day and what time are you going to call?"   "Friday" is not a definite time.  If you think I am going to set home all day on Friday waiting for your call, you are on some sort of ego trip and that is a game I am not going to play.  "Soon" is also not a definite.  When one reaches my age every day is a gift!  While your call may be important to both of us it is not what my life hinges upon.  And, if you are 3 or 4 days late in calling, I will assume you are dead.  (Note here that "assume"  makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me".)

Sometimes I wander out the back door with a purpose in mind, like opening the goose house for the day.  Then I see something I have been needing to do, like sweep the leaves out of the tin shed, and that leads to pruning the choke cherry bushes, which then leads to trying to find the damn Dremel that has "walked off"!

The cat understands me, and that is all that really matters!  Right now she is over under one of the tables that holds ebay items and she is digging in a box.  I am assuming she thought she smelled a mouse or rat, or maybe she is just trying to get a rise out of me for some reason.

I am thinking of all the things I need to do and people I need to call and I am pretty sure no one on the list wants me to ring their phone at 3:21 AM!  And, anyway, I am mentally running through my friend list and coming up dry as to who I could call now and hear a welcoming voice.  I could call Bernie since she is 3 time zones ahead of me, but I just talked to her a couple days ago.  I know Debbie is up in Eastern Kansas, but I will talk to her when she calls in about 2 hours, so....

Maybe I will make another cup of coffee.  I am trying to organize the lower basement where the sewing room is, but the Centipedes are doing the "centipede thing" and I do not want to deal with them right now.  So, I am going to re-read this and publish it and do something that I do not know what it is right now.  No doubt, the 6:00 news with find me asleep in my recliner!

Remember, "All's well that ends well." and God will never give you more than you can carry!

Peace!

Closing of the season.

October is a sad month.  It does not start out as sad, but it ends on a very low note.  1965.  October 30.  Dona Marie turned 1 year old.  Sam was 26 days old.  Duane and I had been married 5 years.  My brother was in a bad car wreck in McPherson, Kansas.  We left the kids with Duane's sister in Jetmore and drove to McPherson hospital arriving about 1:00 AM.  

My mother was alone in the room.  My brother lay swaddled in bandages on a hospital bed that held him in a semi raised postition.  His right leg kicked  constantly.  Mother said they had gone though a stop sign and broadsided a loaded gravel truck.  She thought he was trying to hit the brake, although he was not the driver.  He was incoherent.  Mother was already planning in her mind how she would bring him home and she knew he would be an invalid, but that was her son and she would take care of him.  Jake was her only son.

His name was not Jake, it was Delbert Leroy Bartholomew.  He was born October 5, 1935.  He carried a scar on his right cheek that he got when he was about 9 years old because he snuck up behind a Shetland Pony and "goosed it".  Of course it reacted and kicked him.  What did the silly little shit think would happen?

 

He introduced me to my first husband.  After that we sort of drifted apart.  Distance had a lot to do with that as well as guilt that my husband was not the knight in shining armour that Jake had anticipated for me.  The fact that he fell in love a couple times and now had a son he needed to help raise and another on the way made the distance even greater.

 

I missed Dona's first birthday that year and my sister in law cared for my only son that was 26 days old.  To say I was devastated by his death would be an understatement.  He was so young and vibrant.  He had his whole life ahead of him and I needed him in mine.  But, God had other plans.  

And, that my friends, is what this is all about.  God has a plan for our lives.  I do not know what his plan for me was, and I may never figure it out.  I do know that the little girl above being held up by her sister and brother could have aspired to soaring heights, but fell short of the goal!  I look back and try to see just where I went wrong and it is a mystery to me.  I wanted to be a missionary and when that fell through I just pretty much drifted along with the tide.  So, in all fairness, I think maybe God just put me here in Colorado to kind of shake up the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. 

I have worked to get AIDS awareness to the forefront and what was a killer disease is now a manageable health condition.  

Gays are now accepted as a segment of the population.

I worked the Eleventh Hour in the Hospice program and helped many people smile as they crossed the bar and looked back before leaving this earth in a cloud of fairy dust to meet their saviour.

My children all seem to be successful in one way or another and are responsible citizens.

The important part of all of this is that as I mark this anniversary every year.  I will spend October 30 crying most of the day, but I will do it where no one sees.  I have a shoulder to lean on that even I can not see.  They say "seeing is beleiving," but that is not always true.  I have never seen God, but I do know that without him, I would not be here today. When I am happy he smiles with me.  We have even been known to laugh out loud.  When I cry he holds me.

So rest in peace, my dear brother.  Jake, Josephine, Dorothy, Mary, Mother, Dad, Grandma, Aunts, Uncles, friends, lovers, in-laws and outlaws.   click here

The changing of the coffee pot!

 For over 30 years, this coffee pot has set in the same place and every morning I have poured a pitcher of water through it and been rewarded with a pot of hot coffee, just the strength I wanted, but yesterday my world changed.  At my age this should not be, and yet here I set with my world in shambles.  Kenny and

I bought this Bunn after about 10 years of marriage.  We both liked coffee and this pot would give you a full bodied brew in less than 2 minutes.

Now Bunn has a warranty that if something goes wrong they will replace parts for as long as you own the Bunn.  We did have a new something put on it a time or 2, but we are talking over 30 years!  Hell, my ovaries did not even last that long!  So when the hot plate switch did not turn off any more, I made an executive decision and since I do live alone, I can do that.  I set the Bunn over onto the trash can.  It has served me well and I will give it a decent retirement.  

I reached for my trusty French Coffee Press and I shall henceforth make one cup of coffee at a time.  It requires one tablespoon of coffee and one cup of very hot water.  Perfect for an old lady that lives alone!

Now, parting with the Bunn is not going to be easy and it will not remain in the trash can for an uncaring pickup man to small it with the hydraulic press that mashes all my other trash.  It will set by the back door for a while.  Then I will move it to the tin shed.  In the spring I will probably let it set in the garden for a while.  Some day, when I forget having coffee with Kenny every morning I will throw it in the trash bin.  

Now with utmost sadness, I have to tell you, I do not think it will ever leave the house.  I will never forget Kenny.  I have lived in this house for over 40 years.  I raised 2 of my kids and one of my grandchildren here.  I buried my husband and a couple ex husbands, my mother, a grandchild, sisters, in laws and outlaws with one hand on that coffee carafe.  I just can not see the Bunn ever being put out to pasture.  I might just plant an African Violet in the pot and set it over by the front window. For sure, it will not end up in the trash!

So for now, I am going to heat up another cup of water and put a tablespoon of coffee in the French Press and take another look back down the road I have been traveling and relive a little of the life I no longer live.

Never forget the good times!  

And once more it is the changing of the seasons.

It is amazing that no matter what we do as mortal men/women, it pales in comparison to what Mother Nature guided by the hand of God can do!  The sun comes up every morning and goes down every night.  It's path across the sky is always the same.  We look at the same horizon that was placed there lo those many years ago.  The sun I will see in a few minutes is the same one that my mother watched on the plains of Kansas and is the same one her mother and grandmother watched  across the ocean in a land I will never see.

Always in the back of my mind, when I think of my ancestors, I picture Ellis Island.  I will never see the Statue of Liberty, but it is as clear in my mind as the keys on this keyboard that I write on today.  I see the Haas family clearing land along the river to build a home to raise children.  The natural progression of live never ceases to amaze me.  Nature never ceases to amaze me!  

When I was a child, I thought as a child and when I became older, I put away my childish ways, or did I?  Life was so simple when all I had to do was play in the dirt and eat wormy Mulberry's from the tree North of the house.  Sunday's always found us in Plevna, Kansas at Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield for Sunday dinner.  We always gathered at the round oak table and there was always room for all of us and we all had a chair.  Grandma Hatfield always cooked the chicken and there was always enough.  It always amazed me how that worked out!  There were never leftovers and no one left hungry.  There was always pie for dessert and the pies were always cut into exactly enough pieces.!  

Grandma Haas was crippled by a stroke and she walked with the help of a walker.  Great Grandma Hatfield took care of her, but still kept her active.  They both wore aprons.  Always.  Get up, get dressed, put on your apron.  I have an apron that I usually wear when I am baking, but other than that, just clothes.  Great Grandma would get a pan of potatoes and a paring knife and hand them to grandma.  It took grandma a while to get the potatoes peeled, but it was her job.  

The parrot, "Polly" would set on its perch and sing "After the ball is over, after the dancers are gone....".  Great grandma would step around the corner and feed Polly a piece of apple, or celery or something.  And the Grandma Hatfield would tell how Polly had come from Brazil and was brought here by an ancient relative who "sailed the seas".  Polly had been featured in the Kansas City Star many years before.  When Grandma Haas passed and Great Grandma Hatfiield moved to Coldwater, Kansas, Polly and her perch went with her.  When we learned of Polly dying, we were all devastated.  An era was over.

Great Grandma Hatfield lived to be 104 years old.  I never seen her again.  When she passed she was returned to Abbyville, Kansas to rest in the family plot there.  I want to return some day and see her grave.  When I have served my time here on earth, I will be interred in Pueblo, Colorado.  Just seems like the place to be.

I love to go "back home".  I love to visit the graves of my forbearers.  It gives me a sense of peace to look back on the road I have traveled. My heart swells with a sense of pride that the ancestors that came before me  forged a living from unyielding earth to make a place that this skinny little, knob kneed creature that lived to become "Lou Mercer" could grow and thrive.

Momma taught me to never forget where I came from and always be proud of my ancestry.  

And I am!

60 years ago on the front page of the Hutchinson News Hearld

 Not sure it was 60 years, but there are 2 incidents that are clear in my mind.  One entailed a rape and murder of a 17 year old girl.  It happened on the Arkansas River just off  highway 96.  There were 2 boys involved.  There was no question as to whether they were guilty or not, just what the punishment should be.  You see, they were young and their life was just beginning. 

They were the victims here also.  The girl had gotten in the car with them willingly.  They were drinking and she knew that.  She should have known better.  They had sex with her and then she said she was going to "tell on them".  They were both slated to go off to college in a few weeks and one or both had scholarships which meant they were respectable and the girl should have known better than to get in a car with two young men who had obviously been drinking!  What did she think would happen?  She must accept her share of the responsibility here!  These were boys from very respected families and she was from the "other side of the tracks."

So they used her and then "somehow" she died and they panicked.  They tossed her body on the ground under some trees and threw some dirt and leaves over her.  They went home and went to bed.  When the cold hard light of day dawned on the deed and the boys were confronted, they immediately blamed it on the girl.  I do not recall exactly what kind of punishment was meted out, but it just reinforced my belief that "money talks and bullshit walks."  And it was a further lesson about remaining chaste and not getting in a car with boys.

There was also about that time a teenager whose last name was Steele.  He  lived in the South end of Hutchinson.  Now you need to know that at that time North and South were divided by Sherman Street.  South of Sherman were letter streets and North were number streets.  The further south you went the lower the value of the homes.  The further north of Sherman, the higher the value of the property.  

Now the teenager in this story lived on Bigger which was past F Street, which was "ghetto".  It seems his stepfather was a heavy drinker and his mother was blind.  As I recall his stepfather was beating his mother again and this time he grabbed the shotgun and shot him.  Of course he was immediately arrested and since they had no money he was left in jail to await trial.  

The newspaper ran a story about both of these "incidents".  The first favored the boys since the girl was not there to defend herself and she may or may not have been drinking, but the boys agreed it was her fault.  As I recall they were given very light sentences so they could go on to become fine upstanding citizens.

I recall the one about the Steel boy showed him in his jail cell awaiting trial.  He did not have money for bail, so he would remain there until his trial.  Although this was his first offence and was protecting his mother he could not get out on personal recognizance.  He was after all, a juvenile and his step father was just beating his wife.  As an adult male that was his right.  

Maybe some one back in Kansas remembers these two stories and can refresh my memory since that was years ago and back then I did not worry about anything someone else did.  I am a different person now and injustice is not in my vocabulary and it does not matter how much money you do or do not have: right is right and wrong is wrong.  I have spent my life fighting for the underdog and making sure our rights are equal and not influenced by money or skin color or your sex or sexual orientation.  I have a big umbrella and I can fit a lot of people under it.

We have come a long way, but I still seem little "Jim Crow" acts that almost make it under the radar.  I now see women punishing men for things they did.  I do favor a statute of limitations  for things that happened 50 years ago.  I worked side by side with men who received twice and three times as much in hourly wage as I did.  After all, I was a woman; a lesser being.  But you know what?

I am who I am today because of who I was back then.  And I pretty much like the person I am today!

Peace!

 

 

My new bedroom.

I recently had a major renovation in Sam/Bret/'s old room.  It entailed  a bathroom "remodel".  It was a majorchange and I want to tell you that the man in charge of said remodel is nothing short of a genius.  He knew more about what I wanted in a bathroom than I did.  Suffice it to say, I am now in the process of moving my bedroom down stairs so I can be closer to "my bathroom."  I do realize that as the homeowner, every room is "mine", but this room is special.   

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When I paint a room, it changes the color, but when a room is redesigned by someone else and reflects my wants and needs so in tune to my desires so perfectly, it is damn scary.  This man  even knew what colors were in my head.  Few men even know I have a head much less one with a brain rattling around up there,

but Mitch is one in a million.

So, now I have a house full of kids for my "Happy Birthday Weekend" and I am down here in what will soon be "my room".  Right now I have a twin bed in here, but that shall  change,   Kay has an old  (I mean antique old, not old "old"} which she is giving me and as soon as I get this room carpeted and buy a mattress and hang a curtain on the window, it will be my sanctuary.

As I bring this to a close know that I am setting on a paint can with my laptop on my knees and this is not my best work, but it is what it is.

I am on the up side of the sod and that is good!!!

A time for new beginnings?

 A Happy Birthday to me!!  These keep right on coming and the only way to stop them is to die, apparently.  Since I am showing no signs of that, I will just open my cards, answer my phone and say thank you.  I realize birthday is a good time to look back down the cluttered road of my life and remember birthdays before.  Now here is the really sad part, I don't remember them.  There is only one birthday that I can actually focus in on and remember it clearly.  That was my seventh.  

First I want to tell you that over the years I have had husbands, kids, friends, acquaintances, teachers, co- workers, lovers, family and my birthday has never been forgotten.  And every card, letter, phone call or personal visit has meant a lot to me.  I have been covered in flowers delivered by FTD and the aroma still fills my senses.  I love flowers!  I hate it when they have stayed past their prime and I have to throw them out and put the vase some where.  All of these touched me deeply, but the one 73 years ago will travel with me to the streets of gold!

Mother cleaned houses as a side job and one of her clients was a lady named Paralee who was also a cousin to mom.  Paralee was also the neice of Aunt Helen and Uncle Skinny Lang.  Not real sure how all the blood lines worked in here, but I do know that side of the family had money.  That and the fact that Paralee and her husband worked and only had one kid.  On this particular birthday, Paralee wanted to see that I had a birthday party.

I am not sure how many kids from school showed up, but I do know somebody gave me a gift of a cookie cutter.  It was red plastic and the design was Cinderella.  I was ecstatic!  It immediately became my favorite possession.  Now you need to understand that growing up in Nickerson without benefit of running water in a house heated with a wood stove was not exactly the lap of luxury.  Gifts were few and far between and the cookie cutter joined the Chiquita Banana cloth doll that mom had gotten with coupons saved and then stitched  the pieces together by the light of a coal oil lantern.  I slept with the cookie cutter and the cloth doll.  I dreamed of the day when I could make cookies and cut them with my own cookie cutter.  

The dream of the cookies I would make was much like building castles in the air.  Sugar was rationed.  Since the cow had died, butter was non existent.  Store bought "butter" was a one pound block of white grease with an orange pellet that you poked a hole in and then worked it into the white grease so it looked like butter.  World War II left an indelible mark on most of us kids back then.  Our sole source of information was what we picked up listening to the adults.  I know I was too young to understand, but I can remember the jubilation when the war was over and our troops came home.  

Some how all the horror of Auschwitz and the pictures of the emaciated bodies of the Jews still lives in the recesses of my mind.  The stories that came out of that period must never be forgotten.  We must never again turn a blind eye on man inhumanity to man.   

And once more, my mind has turned a corner.  How did I go from a happy 7 year old at her first birthday to Auschwitz?  Could it be that perhaps this is where my passion for lifting the downtrodden  comes from?  I can clearly remember things that I should not remember.  I can hear Roosevelt announcing on the radio "The war is over."  I do not think it was actually him since the war officially ended after his death, but memory is a funny thing.

Momma always said that our mind will remember what our mind wants to remember and momma was right.  I want to remember a red Cinderella cookie cutter and a birthday party that may or may not have actually happened.  So, on my happy birthday to me day, that is what I will remember.  And I will see friends that love and care for me.  By the very act of clinging to life for 80 years, I have earned my stripes!

So Happy Birthday to me!  And rest assured, I am not done yet!  I may be the matriarch, but I am still 7 years old in my mind; an innocent little girl aching to grab the world by it's horns and make it her oyster!

Peace and love!

A Louisiana sweet roll

 I rarely think about husband #3 who also has the honor of being the only one to be #4 and the only one I had to divorce twice.  He is also the one who moved me to Colorado where I would thrive for the next 47 years and he is the one on my mind this morning.  Oh, not because of an undying love but because I woke up thinking about an old orange cabover that Kenny owned and taught me to drive.  We owned several of the big rigs when we were trucking early on in our marriage.  It only made sense that I should have some sort of an idea of what driving one entailed, so up in the cab I crawled with Kenny in the passenger seat.  

Now, I chose the cabover because I wanted to be able to see the road and the ditches and all that stuff.  A conventional has a big long hood and I am only a little over 5 feet tall so seeing the road was a challenge.  If you have never driven a stick shift, you will be lost in a truck that has 13 forward gears.  My Honda has 5 forward gears and I get along very well, but it is only about a foot off the ground and if I stretch my arms I can reach clear across it.  But I digress.

Charlie was an operator by trade.  Now an "operator" in this context is someone who operates heavy equipment like front end loaders, backhoes and stuff like that.  The big yellow ones you see on construction sights.  At the time of our marriage I owned a small cafe.  To get back on track, shortly after we married he took a job with Krause Plow and Implement as a truck driver.  His first assignment was to deliver a load some where in Louisiana.  Krause let the drivers take their wives if they wanted to, so off we went.  My first adventure!

The trip to Louisiana was only 300+ miles "as the crow flies", so we arrived at our destination late at night.  He found a place to park the tractor/trailer with "facilities" nearby and we crawled into the sleeper.  I was tired and slept like a log.  When I awoke the next morning I was alone.  Very soon I heard a rapping on the door.  Charlie had returned with a bag in his hand.  Inside  was coffee and a roll.  He was very excited about the roll!

"It is a sweet roll!  They are authentic Louisiana sweet rolls!  Here eat one!"  I took what looked like a biscuit that someone had forgotten to add the baking powder ingredient.  It tasted the same.

"This is not a sweet roll.  This is not sweet at all."  His eyes lit up.  

"I know!  Here!  You have to put honey on it!  That is what makes it sweet!"

And that was the highlight of the trip.  We did have that memory and every time I made biscuits after that, we had to have honey.  That made them sweet rolls.

Since coming to Colorado life has changed.  I am now widowed from husband # 6, but when I see a biscuit, I still think of old Charlie and how excited he was to introduce me to authentic southern cuisine in the form of a "sweet roll" that was really nothing more than a dry biscuit, but then isn't that what makes life interesting?

Momma always said, "If life hands you a lemon, make Lemonade.  Charlie taught me if life hands me a biscuit, make a sweet roll!

Our journey here on this planet is up hill and down hill, but when it is all said and done, it is the good times that we remember and it is our journey that shaped us into who we are.  And when the trumpet sounds I plan on having my little jar of honey just in case someone brings biscuits!

Peace!

Would you like something to drink?

 Sure.  An innocent question I ask or am asked quite frequently.  It is a social thing and accepted as harmless fodder in our day to day interactions with people.  Sure.  My drink of choice is water with ice.  An occasional soft drink on a hot day or a  big glass full of ice with tea goes good.  It has not always been that way.  Sadly I am one of those people for whom "a drink" means stay the hell away from anything that contains alcohol.  One drink is too many and a thousand not enough.

I learned very early on that if there was booze at the party it was not going to end well!  The boys in the crowd quickly learned that the best they would get out of me full of liquor was barfed on.  Dancing went out the window.  I became belligerent.  My first date with my first husband was spent with him holding my head while I wretched out the door of the car.  This was followed by me passing out and brother Jake taking me home, putting me fully clothed in the bathtub and throwing a blanket over me.  

I hated hangovers more than fried apples, which I loathe with every fiber of my being.  Every time I picked up a beer or mixed drink I told myself, "This time it will be different.  This time I will just have this one.  One.  Well, maybe one more."  And down the rabbit hole I went.  "90 miles an hour down a dead end street," so to speak.

I managed to function in my job because I limited my drinking to my days off from work.  I drank at home after the kids were safely in bed.  Since I was a single working mother with no child support I could not afford my habit.  Had anyone suggested AA I would have been offended.  Life has a funny way of putting us where we need to be at the time we need to be there and I am a prime example of that.

  My third husband brought me to Colorado and after about a year we divorced.  At that time I learned my first husband's brother was living in Pueblo with his wife.  Delvin and Nedra and I got together.  They were big on "AA" which is the acronym for Alcoholics Anonymous.  They attended meetings probably every day of the week and would swing by and share the "Big Book" lessons with me.  I explained to them that I was not an alcoholic because I did not drink.  He explained to me that being dry did not mean I was not an alcoholic.  I was one drink away.  And you know what?  He was right.

I would love to have a big red tomato beer.  Or a Pina Colada.  Or a Rum and coke. Or a fifth of rot gut whiskey and chase it with red Kool-Aid, but that is not going to happen.  I know myself enough to know that one drink is too many and a thousand are not enough.  I have overcome the nicotine addiction and put the cork in the bottle, so it is all down hill from here.  I just gotta' keep breathing, putting one foot in front of the other and some day the trumpet will sound and I will be out of here.  Keep my hand on the rudder and my eye on the prize.

Maintain.

Into each life a little rain must fall.

I remember back when I was a kid that life was so simple.  One of the highlights in my memory is crouching in the dirt and watching through the chicken fence as an old brown hen laid an egg.  I recall her looking at me a time or two and wondering if she was ever going to get done.  I do not recall it being any kind of "bonding moment" with the chicken, but in that few moments we were alone in the universe.  After she laid her egg and left the nest, I picked it up and took it into the house to momma.  While she was pleased that I brought her the egg she was upset that I had bothered the chicken it her egg laying business.

So, now to the crux of the matter.  Looking back I can see the folly of my experience.  First, laying face down in the dirt I was subject to all kinds of bugs and spiders.  Not to mention the fact that snakes also slither around chicken houses looking for prey.  And had the chicken not been engrossed in the act of laying an egg, she could have pecked my eye out!

Living on the farm was a constant learning experience.  The chicken experience was mild compared to the life and death struggle that went on constantly.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to pick up our old Shetland Pony, Star.  Dad had gotten Star back when we lived on the Stroh place.  As I recall that was one of Dad's biggest follies.  He had gone into Hutch to join some of his old cronies for "a drink" and returned many days later with Star in a horse trailer.  That was the meanest damned horse that ever crossed the pike!  As Dad was unloading him he was kicking at the sides of the trailer and when he was finally on the ground, he made it clear that no one was going to set on his back! Or pet him! Or brush him! Or do anything but feed him and stay the hell out of his space!

We moved to the Strong Street house about the time I started second grade and Star died about a year later.  I recall the "dead animal wagon" coming to the house and the man taking a wench line out of the back of the wagon and into the barn.  Mother made us go into the house at that time and let us out as the truck left the yard with a horse leg sticking straight up in the air.  The demise of Star was complete.  He would be made into dog food.  I learned that from my school chums.  "Yes!  Dog food.  And his hooves will be made into glue."  Now how in the hell 7 year old kids knew that was beyond me, but it sounded true enough to me that I spent several nights crying myself to sleep, mourning a horse that was meaner than hell and no one could get near. 

There was a big Mulberry tree in the back yard there and under it I started a cemetery.  Donna squeezed a baby rabbit to death and  I buried it under the tree and put a stick to mark the place.  Dead birds were eulogized as well baby chickens that did not survive.  A mouse made it in also. And then I lost interest.  

Jake went off to the Army and I entered high school.  The days of sand and shovels were behind me.  Time to grow up and plan my future.  I would be a missionary.  I read about Africa and how the natives needed saved and brought into the grace of God.  Reverend Barnett gave me books to read.  I  learned that a lot of them were cannibals!  That kind of scared me, but at 15 years of age the world was my oyster!

And then I went to live with Grandma Haas, who was crippled by a stroke, and Great Grandma Hatfield, who was caring for her.  And the rest is history.

What a difference a day makes.

"Twenty four little hours.  Now there is sun and floweres, where there used to be you."  Those are words to a song.  Seems like that was a song that fit a lot of  situations back in days gone by.  It also fits a lot of situations today.  We are all given our lives and we set out on paths to either spend them wisely or fritter them away by doing nothing.

Sometimes we set off in one direction and then do a complete turn around and head some where  totally opposite of what we wanted to do.  Sometimes we end up doing things we never dreamed we wanted to do and it is a good thing.  Sometimes it is not.  

There is also the "random factor" that comes into play from time to time.  A train can pass harmlessly through a crossing every day at the same time for years and no one notices, but on the one day that  Mr.  Brown leaves his house 10 minutes late he arrives at the crossing at exactly the same time as the train and if he is slow to apply his brakes, it may very well be the end of Mr. Brown.  Some might call it "fate".  But is it?

Some speak of a thing called "pre-destination".   Do we come into this world at a predetermined time and exit at a predetermined time or is it all completely random?  Or is it a combination of both?  Have you ever experienced de javu? This may or may not be the proper spelling, but de javue is that moment in time where something is happening (or has happened) and you are thinking, "I have been here before!  I know what will happen next."  Maybe you can change the outcome and maybe it just plays out to a predetermined ending.

I like to think that I was placed here by a God who watches over me and keeps me pretty much in line.  You know, a God who loves me and wants only the best for me and I will live happily until one day when he gently reaches down, smiles at me and takes me by the hand to live in glory forever.  That is a very pretty picture and while I believe this to be mostly true, I do know he made one mistake with mankind.  He gave us free will.  And there, my friend, is my downfall!  Not only my downfall, but the undoing of every man, woman, and child on this earth!

I started out well with dreams of becoming a missionary and saving the lives and souls of the wretched natives in the wilds of Africa.  Had I clung to that goal, would I have succeeded or would I have ended up in a pot over a fire and become a meal for a bunch of naked natives in the outback?  What this all boils down to is this: CHOICES. Some of my choices have been made with no thought at all as to the eventual outcome.

Momma always said, "Hindsight is 20/20 looking back."  What this means is simply that I can now see what I should have done and the choice I should have made when Mr. Earl Duane Seeger asked me to dance that night at the Crow Bar.  But then, had I declined I would not have my little family of Debbie, Patty, Dona, Sam and Susie, would I?  I would not have my grandchildren nor my great grandchildren.  

While I do not see my kids very often during this Covid business, it does not mean I love them any less.  My choices now cover children in 3 states; Kansas, Colorado and Texas.  This past week my middle daughter lost a son.  This means I lost my first grandchild.  He made the choice to jump in the car and "run into town."  He had probably done this a hundred times before, but this time he did not come back.

While we will miss him we will remember the free spirit that was our little Joey.  With a heart full of love we will bid farewell to the life of a young man will never reach his full potential and will always be remembered as just Joe.  But then again, maybe he did fulfill his mission in life!  He taught us that love knows no bounds and that the mold was not built for everyone to fit inside.  

I will always remember the last time I saw him.  I was ready to leave and return to Colorado.  He was fiddling with his phone, but we have the understanding that when parting there has to be a hug, and an "I love you " said.  Even if we are in a hurry, or upset, or whatever.  Amicable partings are a part of life and always accompanied by a hug and an "I love you."  And I had that with Joey that day.

So RIP Joey.  Go fly free knowing that you were loved while here on this earth and will be remembered always in a special corner of my heart.

Grandma.

https://youtu.be/OQxRiv0jqmM

Facebook asked me and I said...

 Question on facebook this morning was "What is the one smell you can not stand to smell cooking?"  My answer was immediate, "Apples."  That is always my answer.  I can still smell the apples cooking in my mind.  My poor little Kenny never quite understood my aversion to the smell, but he learned to live with it.  When his mom was still alive and his sister Martha lived with her they would bake apple pies and invite us over.  Kenny usually went alone on those visits.

While he accepted that this would never be an apple pie house, I do not think he ever understood my reasoning.  It is not that I chose to hate cooked apples.  In fact I am alive today because of the apples that were gathered, stored in the root cellar, and cooked through the cold winter months to keep us fed.  I shall try to explain this to you so I can understand it myself.

When I smell apples cooking I smell poverty.  I smell a 2 bedroom house that was home for 8 people.  I relive itchy wool blankets that kept us from freezing.  I remember trips to the outhouse in the middle of the night and fearing I would be eaten by wolves or kidnapped by Gypsy's.  I remember heating water on a wood stove so we could wash dishes or take a bath in a tin tub.  Apples and Carp.  Foods that kept us alive.

But I do have good memories.  Those memories are triggered by crisp, cool air and a moon high above on Saturday nights listening to "The Grand Ole' Opry" with my brother on a car radio in the front yard of 709 Strong Street.  I love the twang of a flat top guitar and the mournful sounds of Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb and all the old singers.  My world almost ended when Hank Williams died in the back of a car on the way to the Grand Ole Opry.  

The feel of sand between my toes takes me back to running along the road to the Vincent Sand Pit to watch my brother fish or swim in the murky water.  I never learned to swim, but I could bait a hook and catch a big old catfish!  Mostly it was Carp, but it was food for our bodies and nourishment for our souls.  The smell of the Lilac bush takes me to my Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield.

There were 8 of us back then.  Now there are 2.  I think back to the bygone days and while they make me nostalgic, they are also my salvation.  It was the ramshackle house and the poverty that shaped me into the woman I am today.  I like the think I am compassionate and caring.  When I see the poverty and homelessness of today  it makes me appreciate how much my mother sacrificed for us kids.  Not just me; all of us.  We got an education and learned humility and responsibility.  Mother gave us our basics and then pushed us off the branch like the momma bird does with her fledglings.  We all flew!

I like to think that my kids learned something from me.  They all seem to be responsible.  They are hard working.  I have never known them to take anything that was not theirs.  They give an honest days work for a days pay.  And the one thing I know and hope they learned also is that if God brings you to it, he will bring you through it.

Amen!

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny how that works.

  

1967 in Liberal, Kansas

 My mind seems to remember things that occurred 55 years ago much clearer then the events that transpired yesterday for some odd reason. 

 Duane had met this farmer who owned a house about 3 miles out of Liberal.  The house was vacant and in need of repair and we needed some where to live.  We agreed to clean the place  and paper and paint as needed to make it livable.  The farmer would pay for paint, paper and brushes and such and the deal was made.  We spent the first night on the floor in the front room with all the kids.  Soon we had a bed and a wash machine.  Duane went to work every day and I began scrubbing in the kitchen.  I papered, painted and had that room done the first week.  For the first time in our marriage I actually felt like I had a home.  

The reason I remember the year is because Sam was one year old and had received a blue elephant toy that had wheels and he could set on it and push himself across the floor.  I recall that we also had a gravity flow floor furnace.  In case you do not know what that is I will tell you.  The gas fired furnace was in the basement and heat was transferred to the house by vents that opened in the middle of the front room floor, the bedroom and the bathroom.  It was archaic at best, but was what this house had.  I came in one day after checking the mail find Sam stranded on his elephant on the furnace vent because it was stuck and he could not put his feet on the furnace because it was too hot.  Other than that incident life was pretty good in the heating area. 

And the kids soon learned that they would burn their feet on the gravity floor furnace.  We got chickens.  We got a dog.  As time progressed I finally got the inside of the house all painted and papered. The rose bush bloomed by the back door and life was good.  The farmer came to visit and check out the now refurbished house.  He was impressed.  He brought his wife.  She was impresssed.  They were so impressed they presented the house as a wedding gift to their son and handed us an eviction notice.  Sam was now 2 years old and we were homeless, but you know the old saying, "When God closes a door, he opens a window?"

God opened a window in Garden City, Kansas.  And another window in Hutchinson, Kansas.  Life went on as life will do.  Duane became quite successful as a tree surgeon and an arborists.  I, of course, followed my heart and ended up in Pueblo, Colorado.  And after several changes of heart I am still here.

I think back on my life and have to admit to one thing....If I could live my life over, there is not a thing I would change.  There is a country western song that pretty much sums it all up.  This song is for Pueblo, Colorado.

click here to play

What ever happened to Carol Mason?

 It is amazing how my mind works!  I lay in my little bed at night and think pretty thoughts and drift off to sleep.  Mostly I think about Jesus and contemplate the day I will get to go see him.  So why does my mind that is supposed to be asleep go other places and wake me up at 2:30 AM back at Hutch High?  And why is Carol Mason alive in memory just as clear as the last time I seen her?  Let me give you some back ground on my relationship with Carol.

I met her in her Senior year.  I was in my Junior year.  That was back in my "cool days."  I think she was in my Stenography class.  That is the one where we learned to take shorthand.  Not sure that subject is still taught at all.  Kind of like typing.  And cooking and sewing.  Those all used to be "life skills."

Carol lived with her Grandma on 9th Street (I think).  She was of Indian descent.  She had coal black hair and coal black eyes.  Her eye teeth were prominent and in this day and age an Orthodontist would have been all over her, but back then it was just cool.  Carol never got flustered.  She never hurried.  She never got flustered when boys looked her way.  She was just so damn cool!  She did not smoke and I never lit up near her.

She never walked fast.  Her eyes never seemed to leave the ground in front of her wherever she was going.  There was no world outside of her and I.  Looking back I can see that she was an introvert.  She never told me why she lived with her grandma, only that when she graduated she would go back to California.  I wanted to go with her, but she was adamant that I stay in school and graduate and that when I was through with school she would send me a train ticket and I would join her in California.  My life was planned.  I think her dad was in the service out there.

As we grew closer I learned more about her.  She had a boyfriend named Lee and they were to be married when she graduated and moved back to California.  As the day grew closer she became more nervous about the wedding.  One day she decided she should cook me a meal, much like the first meal she would serve to her soon to be new husband.  Life was so simple back then!

I arrived at grandma's house on the appointed day of the "first meal after the wedding day."  The table was set for two.  No grandma in sight.  Come to think of it, I only saw the grandma one time and that was just a fleeting moment.  

I was served my meal.  It quickly became apparent that Carol was not real domesticated in the kitchen department and that poor Lee was going to starve.  I looked at the fare and knew I could not survive on this and it was not going to suffice for a full grown working man.  It was a hot dog along side a spoonful of macaroni and cheese.  I looked at that miserable fare and then at Carol's expectant face.

"Well, what do you think?"  

I wanted to say something nice, but I was way to honest for that.  

"That poor man is going to starve to death!"  So we ate our humble fare amid bouts of laughter.  There was not even a second hot dog and dessert was non-existent.  But Carol was cool and I was sure Lee knew that.

She moved back to California after graduation.  We kept in touch and she sent me pictures of the wedding.  She still planned on buying me a train ticket for my graduation.  We wrote back and forth.  She got pregnant and gave birth to a still born baby boy.  I dropped out of school.  I married and had a daughter.  My dreams of California died easily, but the memory of Carol Mason, not so much.

I still think of her now and then and can picture her in my mind.  She was a loner.  I was probably her closest and maybe only friend.  I never knew why she was here, maybe to be company for grandma.  I don't think she had any brothers or sisters.  Who knows?

I saw her once when my youngest was about two months old.  She came to town probably for her grandma's funeral.  It was awkward since I had a living child and I knew she had lost her only baby.  I never met Lee.  I never went to California.  Probably never will.  Can not think why I would want to go there.  When I think of Carol, she is 18 years old.  I remember her voice as very soft.  She never stood out, she just was.  She was Carol Mason, my friend.

Some memories live forever.  This is one of them.

The potato bug saga.

 It took lo! these many years for me to figure myself out!  Being born into and going up in poverty was not the cause of anything.  It was just the catalyst that propelled me into being the person I am today.  I recall the first nickel I ever made.  I do not remember the man's name, but he lived in a ramshackle house on the corner of the street we walked up to get to "down town."  He had his whole yard planted to potatoes.  The rows were even and ditches clean for water to run down to irrigate his crop.

He was setting on his front porch and wearing the uniform of the day; overalls.  I stopped to look at his potato crop.  It was green and tiny white blossoms topped each plant.  The porch was about 40 feet from where I stood. 

"Whatcha' lookin' at little girl? "

"Just looking at your potatoes.  They sure are pretty."

"Do you want a job?"  

"Sure."

He then came down to where I stood and explained that "potato bugs" were decimating his crop.  (Side note here:  I am sure he did not use the word "decimating"  because I am pretty sure neither he nor I would have used that word, but 70 odd years later it seems to fit.)  He further went on to explain that he would give me a pint jar containing gasoline and I would go through and pick the bugs off and drop them in the jar.  For each jar I filled he would give me a whole nickel.  I ,of course, jumped right on that offer.

The sun was hot as I worked my way down the first row.  The jar took a very long time to show any signs of ever getting full, but I persevered.  I gave no thought of hurrying home because I could only see the reward of the big shiny nickel when the jar was full.  I do not know how many potato bugs I picked that hot afternoon, nor is it important at this late date.  What is important is that about the time I got the jar full my brother showed up.  Momma had sent him to find me.  He went with me to deliver the jar to the man.  He was pleased and gave me my shiny nickel.  I promised I would come the next day to finish the field. 

But when I got home and showed my mother my new nickel, she frowned at me.  "Do you know that old man is not well?  His wife is an invalid.  He has to take care of her.  You march right back over there and give him his money back!  You know better than taking his money."

Mother explained to me that we were put on this earth to help those less fortunate and we were not to do it for rewards except the one reward we  would receive when our time on earth is done.  And I did as I was told.  The old man was dumbfounded when I gave him his nickel and explained that I would come back tomorrow and finish the job.  He took me inside to meet his wife the next day.  She lay almost comatose in a small bed and I do not think she even knew I was there.   I finished the field and never saw the old man again.  I assume he and his wife went to their reward because that is how life works.

The point to this is that any time I come across some one less fortunate then myself, I want to help them.  I do not mean financially, but physically.  I guess that is why I worked so tirelessly during the AIDS epidemic.  That is why I labored for the homeless teenagers.  Not sure they appreciated it, but I knew I was doing the right thing.  Migrant workers hold a place in my heart.  But times have changed and I am becoming one of the vulnerable.  I was going to town up South Road and saw a young woman beside the road with a suitcase and bag containing clothes.  I almost stopped, but I did not.  I know she has a story, but I do not want to be a statistic.  

I do very little charity work any more.  What I do is in a controlled environment and when I finish, I walk away.  My shelf in the closet is where I keep all my treasures and awards.  No one really needs to know where I have been or what I have done.  That is between me and God.

Dreams of being a missionary in Africa were scrapped for the reality of being a wife and mother in Western Kansas.  Visions of opening a mission were traded for the reality sewing sweat bands for migrant workers.  Woulda', coulda', shoulda'.  

My life goes on.

Close enough to perfect for him

 Click here to listen

40 years ago my late husband and I began "living in sin".  He was fresh out of a divorce from his wife of many years which had produced 4 children.  I was fresh out of divorce from my fourth husband.  To say we were both a little "iffy" on whether or not this was a wise move, would be an understatement,  but what the heck.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And those 4 words seemed to be the basis of the whole relationship.

My son was still in high school and my youngest daughter was in middle school.  His wife had kept the house and he had money in his pocket to make a down payment on this house.  He had an end dump and I was working for a construction company that he worked for.  Lot of strings there but we seemed to have a lot in common.  I was freshly out of my second marriage to my fourth husband so with 5 divorces on my resume', he proposed.  I accepted with one stipulation: We would live together  (in sin) for one year.  If we survived that year, we would make it legal.  

Now, I never thought of him as a romantic, but being a local gravel/demolition hauler, he spent a lot of time listening to the radio as he drove up and down the road.  He came home one night to announce that he had heard the perfect song for us.  "Close Enough to Perfect" by Alabama.   The lyrics were what he heard and thought it fit me to a "t".  I was touched. Kenny was such a simple, black and white person that I could not have found a better song!

"Some times her morning coffee's way to strong.  And everything she says, she says all wrong."                She's always there beside me, as only a friend would be.  She's close enough to perfect for me!                      Sometimes she gets down and starts to cry, but then again the lady has a right.                                            She's all I ever hoped for, she's all I'll ever need.  She's close enough to perfect for me!"

Now, I ask you, could any woman hope for more in a life partner?  All my life I had searched for a man who would be my partner.  A man who would care for me just like I was with all my faults and phobias.  He was the first man I ever met that accepted me just like I was with all my imperfections.  And I could trust him.

So one year after moving in with him on December 23, 1983 when the temperature was -15 degrees. we hopped in "Fugi" and drove to Canon City, got a license, found a retired minister in a high rise senior housing and took our vows.  We stopped at the donut shop and had a donut and returned home to live happily ever after until death us did part.

So, good morning world.  I have been living alone now for almost 20 years.  Am I happy?  I am not unhappy.  Am I lonely?  I am alone, but not lonely.  I manage to get through the days and sleep through the nights.  Do I date?  Not really.  That would entail dressing up and actually leaving the house.  I would like to spend more time with my kids and grandkids, but they are back in Kansas or down in Texas and I have a neurotic cat that hides when anyone comes.

Mother always said memories are better than the actual living, because we can remember things the way we want.  So, from my perfect world, to your perfect world...

Peace!

Idle hands are the devil's workshop!

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

maybe.

Thank God for God!

 I like to wake up early.  Usually around 4 :00 AM or so.  I just lay there enjoying the quiet and contemplating what today will bring.  Yesterday I received word that a family member had passed.  Of course it made me very sad, but then I started thinking about the relationships that I have had over  the years and I realized just how important all of them have been.  He and I had been close many years ago before my life turned in another direction.  I would like to say that we had stayed in touch, but we had not.  I did visit with him a couple years ago, but only briefly.  But death does have a way of making us pause and think.  This one is no different.

Momma always said that every one we meet, every place we go, every experience we go through makes us who we are today.  Now I am here to tell you, I have met a lot of people, been a lot of places and experienced things both good and bad and I think I am pretty well shaped into the person that I will be when the good Lord sends the angels to pick me up and bring me home!

Now I speak of angels as plural.  God is singular.  The angels are women with soft golden hair.  The are in bright white, long dresses.  They have haloes.  There hands are soft and white with long fingers. Guess they need long fingers to play the harps.  They have golden haloes.  The one on the left carries a harp and the one on the right carries the Holy Bible.  They are smiling.  I am not afraid of them and I would follow them any where.  I will not be afraid to leave this world because I know I am safe.  

 I have no face for God.  He has no form.  He just is.  The closest I can come to describing God is a very, very bright light.  There is the essence on a throne, but there is no throne, only the essence of one.  There are golden trumpets over the essence and I can hear the clearest, most beautiful sounds coming from the trumpets.  It makes me happy.  You know how when they play "Taps" at a military service it makes you cry?  These trumpets do the same only these sounds make me happy.

I am not afraid of death.  Life is the part that sure does get tedious some times.  I should not say that because for the most part, my life is good.  It does get a little rocky some times, but it is what it is.  If there were no rough patches I would not know when the good parts came!

So, as I bid yet another link to my past farewell, know that my faith is strong and my hope for the future still intact.  Know that Annie said it best  click here and enjoy!

You never really know someone....

 Mother told me many things long ago.  Of course at the time, they did not apply so they went into the cache deep in my mind and were of course, forgotten.  It is strange how things remain in the deepest recesses of our memory and they seem to be completely forgotten.  Life goes on an even keel and then out of no where, up pops the devil! 

Another thing my mother instilled in me was a very deep grain of honestly.  I find it pretty close to impossible to tell a lie.  The reasoning behind that is that if I lie I have to remember that lie or I will be tripped up when the truth comes out.  So, if I tell the truth I know what to say when asked about an incident.  Usually life goes on with no need to remember anything, but occasionally something really matters.  And there are a few incidences that I have closed the door on something that happened and completely blocked it from my conscious.  But all that is neither here nor there this morning.

This morning is about living and dying and deceit and honesty.  I had a friend.  I thought he was a good friend.  We spoke every day.  We shared time.  We ate together.  Drank coffee together.  We shared past experiences and future hopes.  I was close to his family. I loved them and they loved me in return.  A friendship that would endure, I thought.

He contracted covid.  Of course he went into isolation.  He was a caring man and did the right thing.  So we talked on the phone.  No more Sunday afternoon Scrabble games.  No more cooking a pot of Lima beans.  No more coffee made from special beans.  Just the phone.

He sent me a text at 6:38 AM one Saturday morning.  "The keys to the house are in the mailbox."  Cryptic?  I thought so.  I got dressed and drove over there.  I got the keys and went in.  He was in bed downstairs and I told him I wanted him to see a doctor.  He said alright.  I told him my phone would not work in the basement so I  went upstairs to call.

He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. 

In that split second my whole world changed.  I do not recall hearing a gun shot.  When I went back downstairs I thought he was asleep, so I went back to wait for the ambulance.  And then the coroner.  It has been 8 months.  It has been a lifetime.  

I assume someday I will quit playing the "what if" game.  Coulda', woulda', shoulda'.  It is all water under the bridge.  PTSD or whatever, it is all moot.  Over and done with, move on.  But you know what?

That is a lot easier said then done.

The center of home and family.

 The first time my mother came to this house is clear in my memory.  This table was new at the time and I had not bought the china cabinet, but the memory is clear.  I had picked her up in La Junta and brought her for her first visit to Colorado.  Mother never liked to drive and so the train was her mode of transportation.  She boarded in Hutchinson and arrived at La Junta.  That is where the train turns and heads south as I understand it.  Why it does not come to Pueblo is beyond me, but I was not in on the planning of the route.  This may all change some day, but I sadly fear I will not see that although I did work on getting a line to connect Pueblo and Denver.  Some where in that one is a "switch" to connect La Junta and Pueblo and then north to Denver.  That is all moot. 

She set at this table and we had a glass of tea.  As she set there she remembered many tables like this in her life time.  As far back as I can remember there has always been a round oak table.  Oak used to be a cheap wood and perfect for making a round table.  I am sure there are square ones, but not in my memory.  A coal oil lamp was in the center, perched on a crocheted doily.  

When I lived with the grandma's in Plevna, the round oak table was covered by a hand crocheted table cloth and in the center was a ruffled doily that held a coal oil lamp.  It was at that table that I learned to crochet the ruffled doily that held the coal oil lamp.

I think when we left Nickerson, she left the oak table behind because it was heavy and awkward and she wanted one of the new Formica ones that did not require oil to keep its luster. 

As she stretched her arms to feel the smoothness of the oak surface, I could see her mind going back to her childhood.  "This is where the family always came together.  After work they ate together.  Decisions were made at this table.  Home work was done by the light of a coal oil lamp.  We mourned at this table when a soul passed.  We celebrated a birth, or a wedding at this table.  It was the center of our life.  Promises were made and promises were broken at this table.  It was the center of life."

Mother was right.  It was at a round oak table in Nickerson that I did my homework.  Every meal was eaten at that table.  Home made ice cream was eaten at that table.  It was at that table that we learned of deaths, births, weddings and everything else that transpired.  It was in the center of the center room of our home.  It was the center of the home.

                                                                                                              

When you come to my house, we will have coffee or tea at this table.  When we eat, we eat at this table.  My correspondence is written at this table and bills are paid at this table.  I have a kitchen counter and stools at the counter, but I never use them.  They are to hold "stuff".  The stools set by the back window to make room for the table that holds 2 heavy duty mixers.

  When I picture my mother, it is at this table.  When I remember the grandmothers, it is at their table.  Sadly when I am gone, this table will be sold at auction.  I do hope that it can go to a home where it can create memories for another family, but I have no faith in that.  I expect it will go to an antique shop and someone will take it home to add to their collection of antiques, but that is out of my grasp, isn't it?

For now, I shall use it as I have always used it and when I am done, it will become an item# on a list some where with no connection or memory of Kenny and Lou.  A "fine oak table with 4 matching chairs and 2 chairs in need of repair."  There will be no mention of the laughter, love and tears shared at the table.  No mention of the dreams conceived in the early morning hours or the frustrations voiced in the waning hours of the day.

Just an old oak table.

Early Morning Reverie...

 

 

At 4:30 in the morning; looking across my desk I see a mother and father, a smiling baby in a lace dress held upright by a lace pillow  and a a second grader with bangs and no smile.

 

In my memory  I see a wife and mother, a battered woman, a waitress, a baker, a cook; a college graduate.

 

In my heart I see a grandmother full of love, kindness, and hope for the future.

 

In reality, I see nothing.