Colonoscopy? Thank M#$%*@o!!

Yesterday was the annual March Against Monsanto.  All over the country people who care came together and carried signs protesting what is going on with our food supply.  Our demonstation was not very well attended and at first that made me angry.  Then I rethought it and I have decided that perhaps anger is not the right emotion.  Disappointment?  Maybe, but not really.  After much soul searching I put my finger on it.  It is Fear.  It is fear for not just myself, but the whole country.  Let's review here.

Most of my friends do not recall the "good old days" like I do.  I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and restroom facilities consisted of an "outhouse" and Saturday night was bath night in the kitchen in a galvanized tub that Momma filled with water heated on a wood stove, which was also used for cooking.  Meat was a rarity on our table, but when it showed up it had usually been walking or hopping around in the back yard earlier in the day.  And we picked greens out of the yard.  We ate Lambs Quarter.  Ever hear of that?  A weed.  Our animals were fed grain that had been fed raised in some farmers field and harvested by that same farmer.  It was delivered to our place by wagon.

There was not much sickness in our small town.  There was one lady who kept having tests and more tests and the tests found nothing.  She had a hysterectomy, an appendectomy, tonsillectomy  and finally just died.  There was also a young man who set in a wheel chair in front of his house and smiled and waved every morning before school and every afternoon after school.  I forget what he had, but we knew he was not well.  He died when he was 14 or so.  But for the most part babies were born, grew up, and moved away.  The old people stayed behind and eventually died and that was that.  The flu went around and we survived. 

Then came polio.  Then a vaccine to control that.  A vaccine for small pox.  Want to know a secret?  I was very puny when I was pre-teen, so I never had those vaccinations.  No polio, no whooping cough, no small pox, no tetenaus, no nothing.  Still have not had them, do not want them and have survived just fine without them.

Then I noticed people coming down with one thing or another.  I was 15 years old before I had the sign of a boob or hair under my arms.  But I noticed my kids were alost fully developed by the time they were 12 and now it seems to be 8 or 9.  What is going on?  My first thought was growth hormones in the meat we eat and the milk we drink.  Everyone thought I was nuts.  Oh, well.  You explain it.

Then I found out little bits of info here and there that disturbed me.  Our fruits and vegetables are radiated so they stay fresher for us and can last longer on the grocery store shelf!  Every thing that comes off the shelf also has a preservative in it.  Buy a loaf of bread.  Bake a loaf of bread.  Put the 2 items on your kitchen counter and walk away.  Two weeks later the store loaf will still be there, nice and fresh.  The one you baked will be consumed by mold and unrecognizeable as anything edilbe.  Scary, huh?

No!  What is scary is what the government that is supposed to protect us is doing to us in the name of progress.  A company named M#$%*@o, the one that invented agent Orange for use as a defoliant in Vietnam came up with a way to "improve" our food supply.  Just alter a few genes in the DNA of and they will be grow very big, very fast.  Plants will be able to kill insects from within.  One bite and the worm in your corn hemmorages and dies.  I have been known to eat 3 ears of corn.  What do you think that does to you?

Do me a favor.  You apparently have a computer and Google is all over the Internet.  Google GMO.  Google World's Highest Cancer Rate.  And if you only do one, cut and paste this one.  Which countries DO NOT allow Genetically Modified  Organics.

The point I am trying to get across to you, my friends, is this:  Educate yourselves.  It is your body.  You decide what goes in it.  Big business has bought and paid for our government.  If you think about it, you know I am right.  Congress keeps passing laws to protect those who pollute our food supply.  Think about our last election.  We had a measure on the ballot to make companies label our foods.  What happened?  Big money came in and ran a campaign aimed at your pocket book.  

"If we have to label our products you will have to pay more at the store."  That is a crock!  Food has to be labeled any way, we just want it HONEST!

"Oh, us small farmers will be put out of business."  Of course you will when we find out what you are doing to us!

And last but not least, why do out of state businesses care what goes on in our state?  Is it personal?  Hell no!  Oh, wait.  It is personal.  Personal to thier bank accounts.  Please, if you do nothing else all day, spend just a little time researching your food supply and finding out why the medical problems in our country are spiraling out of control.  

And on a brighter note, our crowd was younger this year.  It is too late for us old people to save our colon, but if we can save the children, there is still hope.  This little fellow made this sign while we were standing on the corner waving at people going by and honking.  OMG! GMO!

Currant bushes

Back in Nickerson, Kansas, we had Currant bushes.  They grew along the fence between our chicken pen and the neighbors pig pen.  Every spring that whole fence would be lined with the light green bushes with tiny yellow flowers.  Ever eat a Currant?  If you pick them to green they will pucker your mouth  and that is not good.  If you wait long enough they will turn a dark, dark purple and then they are ready. Not much better as I recall, but at least you could eat them.  They are about the size of a pea.  I think now I can go to the health food store and buy them dried and snack on them or make some sort of healthy bread.
The neighbors have a stand over there and I see one has come up in my back yard along with the wild garlic.  I like to keep the area directly west of the house as a wild area.  I also have a Choke Cherry bush which has spread to cover a good area.  In the late Summer I gather enough Choke Cherries to make a batch of jelly and then let the birds have the rest.

Now, what do Currants and Choke Cherries have in common with a Gooseberry?   Gooseberry is the all around winner as "things no human should ever eat!"  My mother-in-law had a Gooseberry patch in her back yard and it was a rule that we must all pick a bucket of Gooseberries and make a pie once a year.  I took Bret and Shelly over to pick and explained to them that if the Gooseberry had a bit of dark color that would be best.  First obstacle is that Gooseberry bushes have very long sharp thorns.  I figured they would be bloody messes, but they were very careful.  Their hands were small so they could pick a berry without being stabbed.  Then to my horror I looked over and they were picking them and EATING them!  My, God!  I figured they would be in bed with a bellyache the rest of the Summer.
And then the occasional wild Lilac bush has popped in also.  This one is beside a wild Red bud tree.   I have 10 Lilacs around my house.

And the New Mexico Sunflowers are about to take the place.  Can not lay my hands on that photo, but if I ever turn up missing look for me under them.  SoI am now off to do whatever it is I do all day.  

You'all have a good one!

Another High Tea is in the books.

The tea cups patiently await the tea drinkers.

The tea pots are lined up to carry the brew!

Scones are trying to get out of the bag.

And away we go!

Classical music is provided by Jerome.

Sorry you missed it!

Check it out here!

High Tea Time!!

It is once more that time of year.  The date is  May 9 at 228 Evans Avenue  for the Second Annual High Tea at First Congregational United Church of Christ.  It is one of our favorite fundraisers and  many people really look forward to it.  The ladie's and the gentlemen like to put on thier hats and head over for an afternoon of fun, companionship and gastronomical delights.

This year Jerome will be delighting us with some classical pieces on his violin.  As I understand it, Beth will be his page turner!  Nice when people pull together.

Now these look like some rowdy women here!

Just a little sampling of what is in store for your enjoyment.

Last year we had Pastor Jeannine to help serve and she will be sorely missed this year, but I am sure she is peeking down and cheering us on.  Gone, but not forgotten.

So, here is the deal.  I need to know if you are coming!  Give me a call at 719-546-1555 and let me know.  You can pay for the tickets at the door, but I do need a head count by May 3.  It starts at 2:00 and tickets are $20.00.  I would love to see you there.

Click here for video of last year's tea.

Lou Mercer 719-546-1555

Funny how this friendship thing works, isn't it?

Over the course of many years I have had lots of friends.  I guess one would call them friends.  I had one friend in grade school, but she moved on to other friends when we began high school.  I did not leave high school with any real friends.   After marriage I moved around a lot so that was not conducive to any friendships.  When I moved back to Hutchinson and went to work I did begin to form relationships with other women who were in the same postition of raising a family on my own.  Unfortuneately I also met men who were marriage minded and so it goes.  To cut to the chase, when I moved to Colorado I left the few friends I had and did not look back.
 
So now it is 35 years later and here I am.  I still have 2 of the Kansas friends, although I do not talk to them much.  Several others have passed away as the human race is known to do.   I have culivated a whole  new crop out here in Colorado and for the most part I am pretty happy with my friend situation.  My mother once told me that true friends are hard to come by and that if you reach the end of your life and you can count your true friends on one hand you are blessed.

Here is my take on a friend...a friend is someone that I have something in common with.  A great friend knows what I am saying and takes me at face value.  A true friend does not judge me because I stumble and will help me up when I fall.   My friend likes to spend time with me, but does not smother me.

Recently I have had occasion to wonder about a "true friend".  True is defined as faithful, loyal.  Friend is defined as a person attached to another by affection or regard.  I have always just tried to be there for my friends, to listen, lend a helping hand and when the rough spots are over, forget that they were there.
So, following that premise, I think my friends should do the same for me.   Not so with one.  I looked at something he had done and thought , "What a petty, mean little man he is!"  I told him that, too.  His reply to me was to point out all the things he had done for us over the years out of the "kindness of his heart."  What all he had "given " us.

Fifteen years is a long time to be friends with someone and then have them remember every thing they did and recount it.  Did my loyalty mean nothing?  Sure looks that way to me.

I was at a loss to counter what I had did for him because what I had done, I had done and forgotten about.    He is a business man and I had recommended him to several lucrative clients.  And prepared lots of special diet food for him and the wife, but I forgot about it as soon as it was delivered.  Labors of love are not remembered after they are done.

So water goes under the bridge.  Chalk it up to experience and move on.  So, I called my friend in Missouri and made plans to meet her in August.  That is how it goes.  She asks nothing of me and I expect the same of her.  Good talking to her.  Kind of renews my faith in friends.  We have a long history and we shall catch up in August and forget about the inconsequential little people who want stroked and told they are wonderful  when they are hurting people for no good reason except selfishness.

One thing I have learned on my journey is that  to have a friend, you must first be a friend and that is how it goes!

Spring, Sprang, Sprung!

I have a total of 10 Lilac bushes around my house and yard and every one of them looks like this.  They are loaded with blooms and the beauty is surpassed only by the wonderful fragrance of the Lilac.  I do know that the correct conjugation is not spring, sprang, sprung and that by so doing I have changed a noun to a verb, but Spring does that to me.

I understand that we are supposed to have snow today and this will not be the first time my Lilac's have peeked through the cold and frozen white blanket to cheer my day.  April is probably my favorite month simply because of the Lilac's.  Purple is my favorite color and Lilac is my favorite fragrance, so there you go.

I like to think that in another life I would have been a Lilac.  They are strong and can withstand about any condition:  below zero weather to a hot dry summer.  They do like sunshine and will struggle when planted in a shady place and wither and die in the dark.  Much like me.   

I am going to cut a bouquet of these and bring them in the house, but only because I have so many.  I do not like cut flowers because it breaks my heart to watch them die in a vase, but I only get to see these when I go outside and they make me so happy.  I can set on the deck in the evening and lose myself in beautiful dreams with the Lilac fragrance drifts through my reverie.

So, I guess you get the idea that I am maybe a little fond of Lilac's?  I know Spirea will be blooming soon or may have already bloomed, but it has no smell and the flowers are tiny so I over planted on the Lilac bushes.  

The day calls me, so off I go.  You have a good day and remember to stop and smell the flowers along life's pathway!

Good morning world!

I woke up this morning with my brother on my mind   Sometimes that just happens.  So I went into Picasa because I was wanting to find a picture of him, but then I got side tracked and that is never a good thing.  I found this picture from a year or so ago.

That made me afraid to go downstairs because I know that one came from under the deck.  So I kept looking for Jake's picture.  And I found this.  This one just made me miss my Rowdy bird.

And my sister.

And the other sister.

And Cleo

And finally I found Jake. It is sad that this is the best picture I have of him.  Well, to be honest this and one taken when he was 9 years old are the only pictures I have at all.  So, I miss him, but life goes on and the road winds over hills and down in valleys and life is just pretty much is what it is.  We miss those who are not here, but we also miss those who are.

Today is not a day I want to spend missing anyone.  I got up at 4:30 with hopes of actually getting the garden planted today, yet here I set.  Had a friend tell me the other day that the way he does it is carries a timer.  He decides he will spend 1 hour on yard work and when the timer goes off he moves on to something else.  So I am going to try that one.  First I will go spend one hour in the garden and then 20 minutes in the shower and then off to do a chore in Belmont......

The road to hell is paved with good intentions!!!

I have recovered in more ways than one.

I have recovered from the vacation.  That is always good.  I was disappointed that the Lilacs were not blooming while I was there.  So I checked when I got home and mine are closer then they are in Kansas!  That worries me because they have always been two weeks ahead of us.  Looks like the predictions that the climate zones are shifting are right on target.  Oh, well, not much I can do about that.
Today is my annual trip to see the doctor.  For the record, I do not like to go and since I am much like the wonderful one horse shay from the days of yore I am waiting for the big one.  You remember that poem?  I do not want to go look it up and quote it right now, so I will just tell you the jist of it is that a craftsman of years ago built  a wagon for a horse to pull and used the best of everything and did such a wonderful job that it lasted until one day when every piece gave out at exactly the same time.  I think my body will do that!
But I want to tell you about the old Doctor back in our home town.  He was located in a small red brick building that sat in the middle of the block between the church on the corner and the start of the Main Street downtown.  I do not remember his name or anything about him except that during my growing up years I was very sickly and since mother worked cleaning houses her hours and his were not always the same.  If momma could not get me in during office hours, he would come to the house.
Sometimes I would have an earache so bad I bled out my ears.  Then I would be constipated and next it was diarrhea.  High fevers were the normal at my house.  Stomach aches that kept me in bed were frequent.  Doctor figured I would never live to see adulthood.
Finally for lack of anthing else to do, he took my tonsils out.  Never had another sick day in my life.  I am now old enough to be considered old  and I take one thyroid pill a day.  And I go to the doctor once a year because I am supposed to go.  But, you know, I think back on the days when Doctor came to the house.  Do doctors make house calls now?  I do not think so.  And where I go is a 5 story building with labs and specialists and doctors and optometrists and about any service you can imagine.  A far cry from that little 4 room brick building on Main Street where one man and his nurse, who was also  his wife, dealt old time medicine to the people in Nickerson.
I have not been down the mainstreet lately, but I will go in August.  Going to see if that little building is still there.  I know the church built a big place out on the highway.  I know the school is no longer across the street from the church.
Time marches on.

Debbie and Hammer proudly present the Cozy Cafe in Longton, Kansas.

Longton, Kansas is a step back in time.  This is the Cozy Cafe and everyone at this table is related to me in one way or another.  Front left is my oldest son, Sam.  Then comes Hammer the son in law and across from him is my oldest daughter, Debbie.  Patty and Dona are back there somewhere.  The only two missing is Sue and Bret.   Savannah and Joey are at the other end and fornt and right is my friend Evelyn who traveled with me to Longton.

The cafe has been in operation for the life of the town, I think.  This is Kay, the lady who started it years ago.  See, we used to be able to smoke while we cooked, but not any more.  When she passed her husband sang at her service.  He sang "Angel Flying to Close to the Ground" and Debbie assured me he sounds just like Willie Nelson.

This is her husband,  Richard Claytor.  I got to meet him briefly on my way out the door and headed for Colorado.

This caught my eye and I could see the truth in it!

And of course the obligatory public service announcement.

The menu was simple and very reasonably priced.  Sam wanted to have a talk with them and explain to them that they could make money if they charged more and people would be willing to pay more because it was very good food.  I finally convinced him that it is not Dallas and they are happy in thier small town with small town prices.

Most of the houses are small and not much upkeep happens.  The streets are not paved except for Main Street.

This is the mansion where the fancy prople live.

A barn in down town Longton by the school.

Then we went to Debbie's farm and you can see them towards the end of my youtube rendering.  Just click here

I love Spring and I really love Spring in Kansas!

Getting ready to wend my way across Colorado and through Kansas to the South East corner.  Goose feeder is filled and the house sitter is packed and ready to move in for the duration.  This is the prefect time to go.  When I arrive the Lilacs will be in full bloom.  That alone is worth the trip.

While I was looking for a picture of the Lilac's I found this from a Longton trip I made several years back.  I plan on driving by this again in hopes it is still standing, but I doubt that it will be.  Nature has a way of taking care of those things.  The nice part is, it is still cool enough that the snakes will not be out yet.  This is back woods country so snakes have the right of way.

This is a two story building on main street of Longton.  Yes, that is a tree growing out of the roof!  Plan on checking that out also.  We plan on taking a little hike around this area.

But for now, I have to get ready for church.  Have a good one and I shall return.

Come on Post Office! Give me a break here.

This was the first boo boo  Click on that to read the first episode.

So last week I sent a letter/card/whatever to Texas.  Mailed it on March 6.  Did the 1-3 day Priority thing so it would get there quickly.  Insured it, the whole 9 yards.  Paid extra for all this.  I might as well have wiped on that money! Tomorrow will be one week and there is no sign of it ever getting there.  

March 11, 2015 , 7:28 am

Departed USPS Origin Facility

DENVER, CO 80266 

The package is delayed and will not be delivered by the expected delivery date. An updated delivery date will be provided when available. Your item departed our USPS origin facility in DENVER, CO 80266 on March 11, 2015 at 7:28 am. The item is currently in transit to the destination.

March 6, 2015 , 10:02 am

Arrived at USPS Origin Facility

DENVER, CO 80266 

March 6, 2015 , 8:47 am

Accepted at USPS Origin Sort Facility

PUEBLO, CO 81006 

March 6, 2015

Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS

As near as I can tell the post office scooped it up and rocketed it to Denver into a big hole, where it remained until I put an inquiry on where the parcel that was destined for 3 day delivery had gone.  

As near as I can tell it is suspended some where after Denver and before Texas.  OK.  I accept that the post office is overworked and they need to raise the postal rate every time I figure out how much a stamp is, but come on people.  Isn't this a little ridiculous?

How can I get something from point A to point B with out the post office cooperating with me here?  I could have laid this on the dash of my car and driven it down there and basked in the Texas sun for 5 days and came home and made supper.  See I know there is avacuum between here and Oregon, but I did not know about the one between here and Texas.

Well, that is my speil for the day.  I will let you know when and IF my card makes it there.  In the meantime, I will just stare at the tracking number and wonder.

Hey! Where is the dog?

Have spent several days now wondering about why I can not remember having a dog when we were growing up.  We always had a bunch of mangy cats hanging around in the back yard and in the barn, but I can not remember any dog.  We had Muscovy Ducks that were always making a mess where the sink drained out through a wall in the house and dumped the water in the back yard.  Now there was one stinking mess if I remember right and I am pretty sure I do.

Now in the first place ducks are messy and Muscovy Ducks are the messiest ducks in the world.  They are black and white.  The males are very big and the hens are very small.  I had 2 males and 2 females many years back, but they are anti-social and I think they killed one of my geese.  Nobody home and in the pen but the geese and the ducks and there was the dead goose.  They could fly.  Most domesticated geese and ducks can not fly, but those suckers could.  What this has to do with a dog is beyond me, but you do know how my little mind wanders.

So we had the Shetland pony that kicked brother Jake in the head, Danny the brown horse that no one could ride but Josephine, and a bunch of old work horses that were good for nothing but eating hay.  Oh and the rabbits mother raised, but those were to eat.  The milk cow was not really a pet. The cats were what is known as "feral"  which meant they were born in the wild, raised in the wild and no way in hell were you going to pet one of them.  Try and you could lose a finger or an eye and usually both.

As I recall the only people on the block who had a dog was the Rienke family.  They had a white dog with brown spots.  I think his name was Spot.  His life was spent on the end of a chain where he spent the day barking and the only time he quit barking was when he was wolfing down his dinner.  Thinking back there were not many dogs in the town of Nickerson.  Walking home from school, I know the Redford family had a big, mean dog that was on a chain on the clothes line.  Ever so often he would escape and we would see him running through town dragging his chain behind him.  Used to scare the living pee waddin' out of me because I knew if he seen me he would eat me, but thank heavens he never did.

Maybe if I had been able to have a dog to play with I would be better adjusted today.  I guess there is really no way of finding out.  I know as soon as I met my first husband he gave me a little Chihuahua puppy and I have had dogs ever since.  I have two dogs and a cat now.  I have got to try to outlive them, because they would not know how to act if they went to a home where they were not rulers of the roost.  When we go to bed I have to put 5 cat treats on the dresser for Icarus.  Then I give Daisy a Milk bone and then Elvira a Milk bone.  Then I turn out the light and crawl into bed with Icarus protecting me and the dogs run out for a short bark at the moon before they fall asleep.

Thinking back, I bet we never had a dog because every scrap of food had some one's name on it.  The whole country was in a depression so food was scarce everywhere.  But then there was this picture.

There is my mother with a black dog.  I think my dad did not like dogs.  Whatever, it is a mystery that I can not solve since no one is around to guide me.  Maybe I had a dog and maybe it lived outside, so I forgot about it.  Yes!  I bet that is it.  I will stick to that story because I like it.  I bet he was a Collie dog and  his name was Rover!  Oh, finally, I will be able to sleep tonight.

I miss Rover.

Let me be clear on this poverty thing.

Maybe we are getting lost in semantics here if indeed semantics is the word I want.  I very much appreciate the comments I am receiving when I write about my childhood.  "Oh, grandma, so sorry."  "I just never knew how hard you had it."  "This is so very sad,"  The thing is here, I did not have it bad.  Granted we were poor, but back in the times I grew up in, most people were.  We may have been poorer then most, but there were families living in box cars and chicken coops and eating less than we did.  While I never knew these people, I knew of them.  That was enough.

My mother was there and my father was there.  My sisters and brother were there.  My family.  What I remember most about growing up was not what we ate or did not eat, only that we survived.  We survived and moved on to better times, but we survived.  We grew up playing "Kick the Can". "Blind Man's Bluff, " and "Red Rover, Red Rover."  We could always drag enough kids together to play something and when darkness fell and the streetlight came on over on the other corner, we better get for home.

Clod fights were common place and we needed to use our good common sense when choosing a clod out of a plowed field to lob at someone.  If it was too soft, it fell apart in the air.  If it was too hard it could do some real damage.  Of course, it it was too big and too hard it could kill some one.  As you see we all survived to adulthood and in that day and age, that in itself was a miracle.

I remember setting on the side of a dirt road in my little cotton dress and my bare feet trying to build an ant hill for an ant I had found that I thought was an orphan.  I remember pulling dead wood off of a Cottonwood Tree and lighting it on fire and then blowing on it to keep it burning because I thought it would pass as punk for a fire cracker in case I ever found one of those.

I remember wading in the Arkansas River and the water was so clear I could watch minnows swimming.  I could cup my hands and drink it.  And I could lay in the cool water and then jump up and run home in the warm sun and be dry when I got there.  I was brown as a berry .  Of course I was barefooted!  We got new shoes in the fall when school started and when we grew out of them we passed them down.  I have a closet full of shoes now, but I still long for the days when shoes were an option.

I remember setting on the front yard with my brother and listening to the Grand Ole Opry from WSM in Nashville, Tennessee!  I remember Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff and a host of others.  I remember stars so bright they were diamonds in a black sky and a moon that lit up the yard like a spotlight.

I remember so much that I have no words for most of it and that is what I am trying to get across here; not the poverty, but it has to be told because it was what it was.  So when I tell you about something, try to see past that to the lesson that is there.

Making soap was how we got soap,  Times are different.  Now if you want soap, you go buy it, but it was not always that way.  We rendered out fat because we needed lard.   We played our little games because that is what we passed time on our way to adulthood.  We had a checker board instead of an XBox.  We played Dominoes instead of turning on a television or booting up the computer.

I grew up in the best of times and I am going to continue to tell you about them.  There was a time that poverty was an inconvenience, but never a time it caused me to lose my zest for life.  It was a time to be gotten through and a time to be thankful when it was over, but there is not a childhood memory in this head of mine that is dominated by poverty.  Poverty was for the people we saw pictures of that were guant and sad looking with a look of silent pleading in thier eyes, not for those Bartholomew kids at 709 Strong Street in Nicherson< Kansas!

PEACE!!

Chicken feet? Of course. Right up there with Carp!

I was talking to a friend the other day and explaining to him the facts of survival back in the "good old days." I am pretty sure he thought I was making it up about the carp and all.  He told me that Carp was a trash fish and no one really ate them.  Hmm.  Seems like I recall wading in the river with a big seine and filling tubs with them   Mother had a way to can them so the bones got soft and they were almost like Salmon.  I said "almost".  They looked like Salmon, but they sure did not taste like Salmon.  We liked the Carp best drenched in corn meal and fried in lard.  And we always had bread when we had fish because one of the little kids would always swallow a bone and the only way to get it on down was to eat a piece of bread.  I am amazed today that none of us ever had a perforated intestine, but we didn't.

So few people are around today that actually lived through the times back then in the small town of Nickerson when it was catch as catch can and anything that didn't move real fast was going to be eaten.
Try to imagine 8 of us living in a 2 bedroom house and no income.  The house payment was $10 a month and it came first.  Mother always planted a big garden that consisted mostly of sweet potatoes, onions, beans  turnips, and corn.  The corn was not the sweet corn like we enjoy around here in the summer, but was dried and then ground into corn meal.  The root vegetables were pulled up and stored in the root cellar.  Apples were abundant and several bushels of those ended up in the root cellar.  We ate apple sauce, fried apples, baked apples, and boiled apples.

Mother always seemed to have chickens around and chickens meant eggs, except when "brooding" season was upon us.  That was when the old hens sat and hatched out babies.  Not all of them sat and we still gathered eggs, but I always kept a damn close eye on those beady eyed hens.  They were just as apt as not to fly off that nest and peck me if I got to close.  They never actually did that, but I lived in mortal terror that one day one might.

Usually the hens kept us with plenty eggs, so there were cakes when we had sugar.  If one of the neighbors butchered a hog and dad helped we had pork and we got the fat which was cooked in a cast iron pot and this gave us "cracklings" and lard.  I think out here they are called chiccarones.

Meat was never very plentiful at our house through the week, but come Sunday, we always had meat of some kind .  My favorite was fried chicken because then there would be potatoes and the good country gravy.  Now to the feet part.  Mother had to make a chicken stretch to feed 7 of us, so every bit of the chicken as going into that skillet.  Not the head though.  The feet were immersed in boiling water and skinned.  They went right into the skillet and while there was no meat on the feet they were good for chewing on and the little kids never knew they were not really getting anything to eat.

Sometimes mom would come up with a roast beef.  That was something to die for.  I especially liked the gristle.  I could chew that for the longest time and actually thought it was good.  Amazing how that worked!  Today I only eat chicken breast.  If I cook a roast it better not have any gristle in it.

So to this day I do not eat apples in any cooked form.  I do not like to smell them cooking and so I do not cook them.  I eat them raw and only when they are nice and crisp.  Needless to say, I have given up the Carp for Alaskan wild caught Salmon and the only fowl on the farm here is the geese and they are not going to be eaten.  I steal their eggs and make them into noodles.  That is my idea of birth control!  Chicken breasts is the only part of the chicken I buy or cook.  No feet for me!

I look back on the hardest times and I can not help but realize that my mother had to be the strongest woman in the world.  She took nothing and raised us kids to be functioning members of society.  She took in laundry and cleaned houses to put food on the table and clothes on our backs.  She made me a teal corduroy coat when I was in fourth grade and Lord only knows where she came up with the fabric.  I wore that coat longer than I should have because the kids finally began to tease me, but it was mine and I loved it.  When I hear Dolly Parton sing "Coat of Many Colors"  I always think of my mother.  As I get older I realize everything makes me think of my mother.  The missing her is as bad all these years later as it was the day she passed.  I do not think one ever "gets over" the death of our loved ones, we just learn to live without them and I am now acutely aware that my kids are probably walking in my shoes.

It is called life.

Home, Home on North Strong Street where my memories actually begin to be sort of accurate.

I have noticed that fuzzy little memories of life on the Stroh place and then the Ailmore place change according to my mood of the moment.  Most of the time I remember those days as carefree and happy.  Well there were a few exceptions.  Seems like I was always getting my ass beat for something that I was sure I had not done, but someone gave me the credit for being the instigator of one foul deed after another.  But when we moved North of town life took on meaning.
Miss Donough was my first grade teacher.  She was so pretty and so sweet.  The school was two stories tall and we were not allowed to ever go up the stairs.  I longed to walk those stairs all the way to the top and see what mysteries lingered there, but alas I was 4 years away from that trip.  Little did I know how quickly those years would fly by and then I would be going up the stairs every day and would hate that too.
The first grade classroom was very big.  The alphabet danced around the top of the room and the numbers followed.  At one end of the classroom was the "cloak room."  That meant coat room.  It was also the place where we took off our goulashes and there was a shelf for our lunch buckets.  Now you should know that when I say lunch bucket, I mean lunch bucket.  Some of the rich kids had lunch boxes with designs on the side of them.  Some were black.  Some kids brought paper sacks and those kids could just throw them away when they were done.  While I envied them that luxury I still thought it was wasteful.  We carried a bucket that had once held lard.  It was called a lard bucket when it had lard and lunch bucket when it had lunch.
At the far end of the classroom was the "sick room."  It held a small cot and it was for whoever was sick to lay on until they either felt better or a parent came and took them home.  I longed to be sick and lay on those clean white sheets, but it never happened.  Being blessed with an immune system that never allowed a disease or virus to enter your body is a curse to a kid wanting to see what it felt like to lay on a sheet.  Our beds at home were shared with at least 2 other kids and sometimes more.  Sheets were unheard of at our house.  Mother cut up old wool clothes and made them into quilts which were used both as a sheet and a cover.  Course with that many kids there was a lot of body heat shared.  To this day I can not even "rough it" when I go camping.  I need a sheet over me and under me and a pillow with a crisp pillow case under my head. I love fresh sheets and if I weren't so damn lazy I would wash my sheets every day.  I digress.
At the end of my first year of school, Miss Donough married a man named Mr. Breece.  Miss Donough ceased to exist and Mrs. Breece came into being.  I sadly left the first grade and moved across the hall to the second grade and Mrs. Wait.
This was where I would learn "manuscript" which is known today as "cursive", but is no longer taught in school as a required subject.  Not sure that anyone writes anymore what with the tablets, laptops, and such. It was here I also learned to add and subtract.  The second grade class was also responsible for raising and lowering the flag on the flagpole in the sand box.  Not the girls though.  No, no.  Girls were in training from day one to be good little girls and learn how to be good wives and mothers and raising and lowering the flag was not woman's work.  Strange, but all my life I have been on the wrong end of the stick as far as boy/girl things went.  Second grade passed in a blur.  We were kids.  There were no class distinctions.  We had not yet learned that there were the "haves and the have nots".  We had not yet learned that clothes were for anything except covering our bodies.
We ate what was in our lunch buckets and were damn glad to have it.  Potato sandwich's, wrinkled apples, or a cold piece of carp were just fare for the day.  Just something to keep us fed so we could make it through the day and home to our tar paper shack we called home.  A place to lay our bodies down, a place to rest our head and dream of places we were learning about where there was electric lights, a gas stove and  water that came out of a pipe in the kitchen, all warm so you could wash the dishes or take a bath.   .A fairy tale place that existed just outside our reach.  Soon I would learn that Strong Street was the wrong side of the tracks, but for now I was happy and secure,  and when I was 8 years old the present was all that mattered.  

Did I cause World War II? Some say yes.

This is my mother at about 7 years old.  I would guess that this is a picture taken to commemorate the purchase of the new washing machine on mom's left since pictures of kids and dogs were not real important at the time, but a new waahing machine was!  And the washer seems to be more centered than mother!  LOL

This is my mother when she was in high school.  She was a farm girl with the soul of an angel.  Now I did hear tales that perhaps mother was not the saint we gave her credit for and history did show that before she met my father, she was married to a man named Jack Walden and my oldest sister was indeed a Walden when we were in school and before she married.  What ever became of him is unknown to any of us.  I recall scuttlebutt that he was a gangster from the Chicago area and mother did indeed live in Chicago before Josephine was born.  It was rumored that she had escaped his evil clutches and returned to Plevna, Kansas and grandma Haas had sold a cow to pay the doctor bill when the baby was born.  No one is alive now to ask, so I guess if I want to I can make up a story, but for history's sake, I will not.

This is my mother and father when they eloped.  Now here is another story.  Dad had been married before and he and his wife had 5 children.  There were 4 boys and one girl.  One of the boys and the girl died of sand pneumonia back in the "dirty 30's"  His wife was rumored to have lost her mind and then died or perhaps taken her life.  Dad put the 3 boys in an orphanage.  Earl and Richard were adopted, but Gene remained in the orphanage until he was taken by a family named Banks who did not adopt him, but gave him a home until he was mostly grown.  Some where I have letters that he wrote to my dad while in the orphange which I shall post for posterity, but not now.  They are very sad.

There were also rumors that dad had his own dark side and I recall a man named Costello that he took me once to the house and I waited in the road while he went inside and talked to him.  Frank Costello lived in a very big house across the river.  And that is all I know about that!  We never went there again and what Dad  did was never fully known to us.

This is me when I was tiny (a sight that will never be repeated).Wasn't I the cutest little thing that you ever saw?   I was hatched out in  Nickerson, Kansas  right before Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.

Now, I ask you, what the hell happened!?  My mother was beautiful and my father looked like he was mostly Irish and here I come as sturdy German stock.  But it is what it is.  I fully intend to delve into my dark past over the next few weeks, so hang on kiddies, we may be in for a bumpy ride!

OMG!! I can see the rocks on the bottom!

So you know how you get when the world is more than you can handle and it looks like the time  (to quote yogi bear) to "Exit, stage right!"  Friday after work I made good my escape to the high country and partook of just a tad bit of hiking in the warm sunshine of the Salida, Buena Vista, Coaldale area.  I also was shown a part of Buena Vista that I did not know existed, the Water Park.  This is an area built on and along the river.

This is the Collegiate Peaks.

This is the hiking area.  Avalanche Trailhead.  That sounds a bit ominous, doesn't it?

It proved to be beautiful and not really cold.  I had to hop over a couple babbling brooks, but what are friends for if not to help me?

And the trees are showing new growth.  If Winter comes, can spring be far behind?

So then to the River Park.

And across the bridge and look down at that water and see the rocks in the bottom!  I can see through the water and there is no sludge or moss or cans and botttles and other litter.  What happened!

So I took a little stroll up the mountain on the other side and there is my car, way down there.  It looks like a Hot Wheels car.  Mine is the tiny one in the middle.

And speaking of tiny, look at those little people below me.  I am Queen of the mountain!

So, back to earth and back across the bridge.  There I met two lovely ladies who asked me to take thier picture.  So I did and then took one for me!  They are from Denver and Kathleen is a Spritual Conselor and Tracy's grandma lives in Pueblo.  Of course, I lost thier card.  Not really lost, just lost to me at the moment, but it will turn up.  In the meantime, you should know that it is chance encounters like this that make my life worth living.  It is so great to meet friendly people when miles from home and exchange a few words with them.  Sorta like ships passing in the night, only it is day!  Thanks, girls!

And then it was time to head back down the mountain to life in the big city of Pueblo.  Time to put the geese away, pet the dogs and cat, eat a bowl of cereal and go to be to dream of what a wonderful Valentine Day this was.  If you want to see the full video ( and it is very long and I put classical music to it), just click here.

Ah, the world of e-commerce never ceases to amaze me and keeps me very busy.

I have been selling on ebay since 2008 (?) and have maintained a 100% feedback despite myself.  I sell mostly bird seed catchers which is a band that goes around the cage to deflect the seeds back into the bottom of the cage.  I sew these to order in the size and color that the customer wants.  If they are buying, they might as well buy something they like.

Occasionally I will exchange many emails to arrive at what I have on hand and what they want for thier home.  Usually it goes something like this:
"What color do you want?"
"What color do you have?"
"What color do you want?'"
"Grey."
"Great!"
This conversation takes 1 1/2 minutes.  But occasionally I get a person who is probably lonely and wants something special.  This was a very interesting discourse and I am still laughing about it so thought I would share it with you.  Names have been blocked to protect the sender.

Dear loumercer3,

my question is this simply: I bought one of the kind that does not have a bottom, but the seeds just fall out the bottom part so no good. It is like a see through mesh and white color. To me non mesh kind is dumb, as you cannot see the birds through them. The mesh does not get torn and is fine to me. Yes maybe not as tough, but I have had no problem and it was half the price - just no bottom part. SO, can you make me a see through mesh kind with a bottom? => I do not care if the boittom is solid material as you do not see it really. I just want the mesh kind, to be able to see the birds better. Others that are mesh are colored, BUT the sheer white looks the best (more neutral and see through) and sellls the most.. If I invented these I would make it as clear as possible, not even white. And have a bottom on them. I do not understand why I see none on the whole eBay like that. So le me know if you can make me this and is it extra cost? I need this size. Thank you, William

I replied:

Dear bazmart,

I do not sew net, mesh or chiffon which is what you are describing.  First it is very hard to sew, does not hold up well and I worry about tiny toenails getting hung up in the net.  Sorry.

Loumercer3.

He sent the same email

Dear loumercer3,

Once more:      my question is this simply: I bought one of the kind that does not have a bottom, but the seeds just fall out the bottom part so no good. It is like a see through mesh and white color. To me non mesh kind is dumb, as you cannot see the birds through them. The mesh does not get torn and is fine to me. Yes maybe not as tough, but I have had no problem and it was half the price - just no bottom part. SO, can you make me a see through mesh kind with a bottom? => I do not care if the boittom is solid material as you do not see it really. I just want the mesh kind, to be able to see the birds better. Others that are mesh are colored, BUT the sheer white looks the best (more neutral and see through) and sellls the most.. If I invented these I would make it as clear as possible, not even white. And have a bottom on them. I do not understand why I see none on the whole eBay like that. So le me know if you can make me this and is it extra cost? I need this size. Thank you, William

And I replied.

Dear bazrmart,

I am sorry, but this is the issue...I will not under any conditions for any price sew a mesh seed catcher either with or without a bottom.

Lou Mercer

And he replied:

Dear loumercer3,

ok thanx for reply. Here is the deal. Only you and 1 other seller make these in bigger size and they said (nicely I may add) that they could not also. My wife has an older singer sewing machine left to her by her mother. She got if fixed for $100 (it is the real good kind everyone wants that is like one of the best old kind). BUT, she won't do it as too lazy (poor me). SO, I will just sew a bottom on it by hand myself. And I think I may find a way to have them made myself (plenty of Guatamalen people in Florida who will work cheap. And be your competitor on eBay (no I am not kidding). Again, you can see the birds through them, so I will bet people will buy them way more than the others. Like I say, the white mesh looks the most see thru more than the color ones, and it sells the most by far. So if I make it even more see thru and add a bottom I will take a good market share. Have a nicer day!

And I replied:

Dear bazrmart,

I wish you much luck in your endeavor. I am 73 years old and would like nothing better than to retire and move up in the mountains away from wifi and all its's entanglements. Too bad your wife is lazy, but like you said, lots of cheap labor around. I think I will raise my prices and help you out.

Lou

 So there you have it.  I may have been a bit strong in my reply, but such is life!  As of yet, I have had no answer to the last email and if I am really lucky he is now out searching for a Guatamalen with a sewing machine who is interested in replacing his lazy wife!  LOL