World AIDS Day & the Quilt

I do not know when Pueblo began the commemoration of World AIDS Day.  I do know that at that commemoration there were only 2 people.  They went to the Arts Center and put black ribbons on several pictures.  Then that evening the 2 of them held a candle light vigil.  She was the sister of a young man who had passed from AIDS and he was a victim.  I never knew his name, but I still see her today.  It was through her that the Pueblo AIDS Memorial Quilt was conceived.

The next year there were 5 of us.  3 of us were parents of a gay child.  The third year there were 2  mothers and my daughter Debbie with her biker husband Hammer.  For some reason we thought we had to stay until midnight all the years before.  That year, Hammer told us we were nuts because it was cold enough to freeze the b@^^s off a brass monkey and there was no one that knew we were there. He was right!

From those humble beginnings many things transpired.  Someone started the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt early on.  It lives in California.  It is constructed of individual panels measuring 3' x 6', which is the size of a regular grave.  I conceived the idea for a smaller version of this constructed of 1' x 2' panels.  The Pueblo AIDS Memorial Quilt was dedicated at the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center on December 1, 1997.  For several years, that was it's venue until we started having World AIDS Day here.  The library is now it's home through December.  It is still stored in my basement.

The big quilt in California is now too big to be displayed any where.  The last showing of it was on the mall in Washington D.C.

NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt

The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, often abbreviated to AIDS Memorial Quilt or AIDS Quilt, is an enormous memorial to celebrate the lives of people who have died of AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it is the largest piece of community folk art in the world as of 2016. Wikipedia

Tomorrow at 2:00 we will gather to recognize World AIDS Day.  Part of that celebration will be to recognize the loss of one of our leaders, John A. Tenorio.  He passed one year ago the day after Thanksgiving.  John was my friend.  I was the mother he lost and he was the brother I lost.  Our friendship had gotten off to a rocky start many years before, but we had both come to realize that this was a friendship blessed by God and misunderstood by man.

Sunday we will add his panel to the quilt.  It is simple.  The fabric is one of the plaid shirts he always wore.  The Christmas card he sent out the first year he was a grandfather is in the pocket.  There is a picture of him and his brother, Len in the city hall parking lot.  It does not tell a story.  It is not a work of art.  But it does hold a lot of tear drops, because I miss that boy more than words can say.  It is just something that will mark the life and death of John A. Tenorio.

May he rest in peace knowing he leaves behind a legacy that will never be forgotten and an empty place in our hearts that will never be filled.

Kids' say the darnedest things!

Back when the television set was still black and white, before color came along, there was a man named Art Linkletter.  He was a "host" and one of the shows he hosted was "Kids say the darnedest things."  This was a show in which he interviewed children in ages probably from age 3 up to maybe 6 or so.  You know, the ones who are not old enough to have a filter yet and living in the age of innocence.  He would ask simple questions and sometimes get complex answers.  His books can still be bought and I am sure they still sell very well.  I doubt that Art Linkletter is still on the upside of the sod, (and that having been said, I will go check it out and probably lose my train of thought!)

{In early 2008, Linkletter suffered a mild stroke. He died on May 26, 2010 at age 97 at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California.} Well, that clears that up.

I used to buy his books, but I have since given them all away.  I suggest you check online and either buy one, or check one out at your local library.  You will be in stitches.  But back to the intent of this blog.

A brief history of my life for anyone not knowing me well.  I have 5 kids , 4 of which were born over the span of 5 years, one being born 3 years later.  When I was 50, my husband and I adopted one of the grandsons.  He is now grown and I have a grandson who is almost 4 years old.  In a perfect world he would be my great grandson, but it is what it is.  He spends one night a week with me and goes to preschool at my church's day care and preschool.  He has learned a lot and that night and 2 days that he is with me has taught me why God gives us kids when we are young.

The point of this is that by raising my kids and working I missed a lot of the cute little things they said and did.  Now that I am old, my powers of observation have developed to the point that I can actually interact with a little kid and appreciate their minds.  Jiraiya is no exception.  Potty training was something I had forgotten.  Seemed like I just took my kids out of diapers and into little bitty underwear, but it must have been more than that.  When the process with him became full blown he would suddenly call out "  I gotta' go poop!  Want to watch?"  And proud grandma would.

The phone was something he was never fond of talking on, until now.  No more conversations with daddy without conversation with him.  He tells me what the dogs are doing.  What the rabbits are doing.  And he always says "I love you gramma."  He actually looks forward to our time together.

The point I am getting to is that he now has reasoning powers.  He now wants the dog to ride in the back seat with him.  OK.  Yesterday we went to Walmart and I bought him 5 finger puppets.  He watched youtube on the kids channel and when he saw them he sang the whole song for me and everyone in Walmart, "Daddy finger, daddy finger! Where are you?  Here I am , here I am! How do you do? "  All the way through , mommy finger, brother finger, sister finger, baby finger.

We had some time to kill so I thought I would visit the ARC, so I pulled in and parked.  When I went to get him out of the car seat he very matter of fractally said
" I will just wait here."
"No, you have to go with me.  I want to buy a dress."
"I will be fine, gramma"

He was so grown up that I gave up on the ARC visit since I really did not want to kill time (or buy a dress) and got in and started the car.

"Gramma!  I want you to get your dress."  The point of this is first that he thinks he is old enough to be left alone in a car in a parking lot.  And secondly, he remembered that I said I wanted to buy a dress.  The whole conversation was very mature and well thought out.

I am sure my kids and I had conversations that were burned in my mind, and they do pop out from time to time.  I do remember some of them, but there is nothing that will give you a wake up call like carrying on a two sided conversation with a kid 75 years younger than you!  They are so innocent in the ways of the world.

So, anyway, Happy Thanksgiving!  And remember to give the good Lord thanks for the bounty and thank the Indigenous People for giving up the land so we could have what we wanted!

I am now a checker at King Soopers!

I love to go to the grocery store and wander the aisles looking for what ever I might be able to cram in my pantry and forget about.  I also love to visit with the checkers when I go through the check out lane.  King Soopers is always so clean and I can find what I need fairly easily.  So Saturday afternoon I wandered into the one on 29th Street.  I knew they had turkey's on sale and I need one for an upcoming catering job in December.

Of course I had to park far from the door because they were busy.  And they are busy because they are a top notch destination store.  Little did I know my world perception was about to change!

It did not take long to find what I needed.  The turkey was on sale.  No, they do not carry bean sprouts any more.  No, they do not carry the seasoning stuff for egg rolls. And the Dole salad in a bag with the 5 veggies is not there.  So with my turkey and napa cabbage I headed for the checkout.  There I met my demise!

The few checkers had lines 4 blocks long!  Ah, but here I found "self check machines" that were waiting for me!  I am sorry but those thing intimidate the hell right out of me, but since it was apparent that this was my lot in life I approached one.  The first item I scanned was the turkey.  "place item in the bagging area" was announced by this machine.  Since the damn thing weighed 18 pounds I did not want to wrestle it around very long, so I placed it in my cart and reached for my next item, which was a napa cabbage.  No!  It repeated the order to "place item in bagging area."  I tried again.  "place item in bagging area."  By this time the woman inside the scanner was losing patience with me.  I finally put the damn turkey "in the bagging area" which seemed to please her no end!

Back to the cabbage.   Of course it did not have a bar code.  After waving it before the scanning area and having no luck, the man behind me stepped up to help.  He called up a screen which had more choices.  He chose produce, which called up another screen.  Not finding the Napa cabbage he poked something else.  By this time  I had given up totally and he continued to check my items, while I stood there mumbling about not wanting to be a checker at my age and I was actually retired.

When it called up the screen where payment was needed, he did step away and let me pay.  Good man.  He offered to "help me to my car with my purchases."  His name was George.  A very nice man.  However, my puritan upbringing dictates that I not pick up men in the grocery store, so I demurred.  Of course the parking lot of a grocery store is a damn good place to get mugged and he may have been a safer bet than the strangers out there.  He did smile at me and tell me that he shops there every Saturday afternoon about this same time.  Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.  They will probably have something on sale next week that I cannot live with out.  We will see.

Back to the subject of this blog.  I never was a checker in a grocery store, nor did I ever aspire to be one.  Yesterday I took Jerome to Walmart to buy his groceries.  Once more we were confronted with  many banks of self check outs.  He refuses to use them.  I got in line just in time for the checker to open the aisle right beside me!  Dodged that bullet.  I was out on the street in 5 minutes or less.  Jerome had wandered off to find someone to check him out and arrived shortly after me.  The God's must have been smiling on us.

I shall resist the self check as long as I can.  My choice is to shop at Albertson's or Lagrees' where they do not have self check.  The checkers at Lagrees's know me by name.  They know my grandson.  I have left my purse in their parking lot 2 times and found it in their office when I did.  They are up the road just one mile, so that is good.  Maybe they are a little higher than in town, but like Kenny always said, "Better support them or we will be driving into town for a loaf of bread."  So I do.

Course I may make a trip into King Soopers next Saturday just for kicks and to see if George is hanging around the self check looking for someone to help.  My puritan upbringing be damned!

Wish me luck on that! 

Taking the dating thing a step further!

I am setting here on the computer thinking and I have Pandora playing on my classic country station.  Just heard Garth Brooks and now Randy Travis is buying a pretty negligee for me to wear while he is "Picking up Bones".  All this does is take me back in time to the few times when a man piqued my interest since Kenny passed 17 years ago.  First know that music plays a big part in my life, but not just any music.  I love country and mostly I love the old country.  Jake and I listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a car radio on Saturday night long before television brought it into the front room.  I remember when Dolly Parton was on Porter Waggoner show while her hair was brown and her boobs were nubbins.  Yep!  I go way back.  And Kenneth and I shared that love of country.  He came home once to announce that he had heard the song that would be "ours".  Here it is.  You have to listen to the words.  And it went both ways.  But that is water under the bridge!

I decided about 7 years ago that I should start dating.  Now rest assured of one thing, that was no easy decision.  I have lots of friends, both male and female, gay and straight, but to let a man inside my world on a one on one relationship was not easy.  Sherman was fairly easy.  He asked nothing and expected nothing so we fell into an easy relationship of lunches on spur of the moment, walks along the levy and coffee at Starbucks.  He was a Republican devoted to Fox News and his chosen music was Classical.  But I am pretty sure God put me in that relationship to save him from himself and I have shared with all of you how that ended with his very slow and painful death from cancer.  To make a long story short, he left the Republican Party, embraced all my charities, and gave his worldly belongings to Los Pobres, leaving me the residual of his estate with instructions to feed the poor and clothe the needy.  And he asked me to marry him.  We shared one kiss in the 3 years we were together and that was after he proposed and I accepted.  Had we met under other circumstances it might have been different, but we did not.

Then I started hanging out with a man who would become my hiking partner.  Once again, no physical contact, just hanging out.  He was a Bruce Springsteen aficionado and I was not.  Bruce Springsteen, in my opinion only had 2 songs; "Born in the USA" and " Streets of Philadelphia".   He insisted that if I would just try I could come to worship at the Springsteen alter, but it did not happen for me.  I did enjoy our hikes and miss that part of the relationship.  No physical contact at all with that one. Hmmmmm.

The last flicker of a flame I felt was a man who seemed perfect in most ways.  The fact that he was a jazz enthusiast was kind of disappointing.  Jazz is just music and while I can appreciate a wailing saxophone, a tinkling piano and the blast of a trombone, there are no words.  I need words.  I need "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain".  "Don't Come Home Drinking with Lovin' on Your Mind." And "Seven Spanish Angels" sends me into a torrent of tears.  Words.  Sadly, this man did not know what an asset like me could have been.  Dropped me like a hot potato!  But life goes on.

And looking back over this blog, I think I will skip the whole dating thing.  I have a cat.  I have a dog.  I have a grandson who comes once a week and spends the night.  I have friends who go to lunch with me and a few who listen when I talk and see the lonely little me under the bravado that is the Lou Mercer legend.  I have my God who leads me here and there and uses me for what he wants. So I end on this note!

The road we all have to walk.

There is nothing to make one face their mortality like the death of a relative or close friend.  And when that person is younger, that really sends a wake up call.  I have lived all my life with the knowledge that there are 2 things that are inevitable; death and taxes.  Of one thing I am sure is that this statement is correct.  Everything that happens in life comes with choices, but not these to things, especially the latter.  Taxes are dodged by a lot of the upper echelon, but that old death card is here to stay.

I came into this world a naked little baby with nothing to call mine.  Lo, these many years later I set here in a 2400 square foot house with a garage out back of the same size.  Every inch of this acre is festooned with sheds, fences, bushes, trees and other "stuff" that I have accumulated.  The house is a storage area for things I have accumulated over the years.  Some of it is good stuff, some collectible, but the most of it is just things I can not bring myself to throw away.  I am going to have a giant rummage sale some day.  Sure I am!  When hell freezes over!

So this morning, when I woke up and looked around, I came to a realization of how this is actually going to play out in real time.  Right now I am healthy so I am allowed to live here in my squalor and think I am really important.  So that is what I do, but rest assured the day will come when I will either trip and fall down the stairs or up the stairs and hurt myself.  I have already fallen up the stairs a time or two, so my fate is sealed.  When I hurt myself, as is inevitable, my kids will come and declare that I am no longer capable of living on my own and whisk me off to one of their houses to "take care of me."

All my treasures will be rummage sale items.  What does not sell will be donated to some charity.  The house will be sold and the proceeds put in an account some where to be used to "take care of me."  One of them will put the car up on blocks and stored until I am "able to drive again" which we all know is not going to happen.  I have committed the unforgivable sin; I have gotten old.  There is no coming back from that disease.

There are actually times when I think about selling the house and moving into a condo in town, but even that is a stop gap.  Human beings are frail by their very nature.  I shudder to think how many animals I have taken to the vet and dispensed to the Rainbow Bridge.  Wouldn't it be nice if that could happen with us humans?  Wouldn't it be nice if I could be here puttering today and then just gone tomorrow?  Not going to happen.  Their are laws against that sort of thing.

So, today is another day to get through on my journey from the cradle to the grave.  Who knows, it may actually be a good one!  In the meantime, let's just listen to this little song I found over there on youtube!  I'll never get out of this world alive!

Rest in Peace, Aunt Maudie

In 1960 I met my first husband in Hutchinson, Kansas.  He and 3 of his brothers lived over on 2nd street in a small house beside the foundry.  Virgil was the oldest and he had a wife and 2 sons in Germany, or so I heard.  Delvin was not involved.  The same with Duane and Larry.  Larry was the youngest.  Duane, I married in 1960 and Larry and Maudie married a year later.  At the time the men were working for a man named Bean who owned a tree trimming business.   At some point the men decided that it would be better to move from city to city and trim trees and move on.  So that is what we did.

The next few years are a tad bit hazy in my mind, but I do know Maudie and Larry had a daughter.  When I became pregnant with Debbie we decided that we should settle down and be more stable, so we decided on Hutchinson.  Soon after I had Debbie, the men decided they wanted to move to Garden City.  Maudie's family was there and her daughter was now 1 one year old.  So the Seeger families moved west.  And then came the fruitful years where we had our babies and filled our families.

Maudie and I remained friends and sister-in-laws through the years.  Sometimes we were not in touch, but sometimes we were.  Our kids spent their youngest years as cousins and remain cousins to this day.  I am still Aunt Louella.  This makes a long story short.

Having given  you a bit of a background, I now want to say to the family, I am so sorry for your loss.  Your mother was a unique individual and I regret that I never stayed in closer touch with her, but know I will always remember our younger days together.  Your mother was a unique individual!  I will never think of "Aunt Maudie" wearing her hair in anything but a "bee hive" and know that her bee hive was always the highest and fullest bee hive that could be achieved.  I do not know when she changed her hair style, but I am sure she did.

Maudie was a very strong willed woman and I am sure that never changed.  I admired most the marriage she had with your father, "Uncle Larry."  They remained together through thick and thin and back in the early days, there were a lot of "thin" days.  Family was very important to her and I am sure that she was important to her family.

The Maudie I knew surely mellowed over the years.  There are stories I could tell that would curl your hair, but I shall keep those and only take them out and look at them from time to time.

So mourn your loss and then get back to the business of living, because that is what we all must do.  I shall mourn the young woman with the high, high beehive and the red fingernails.

God be with you at this time.

Aunt Lou

A quick look at my new design.

Lord only knows what I have done here.  I found a lot of buttons to click on and may have gone a bit over board.

Love, Lou

I been thinking about dating.

It gets a little lonely here in this big house all alone.  To counteract that, I was thinking about dating.  You know, some guy picks me up, takes me out to eat (and I do love to eat!) and then go some where like a movie, or a play or drive around and look at "stuff".  We could even take a walk along the River Walk downtown.  There are all kinds of things to do.  Then he could bring me home and walk me up to the door.  We could look at the moon and say goodnight.

With this in mind, I have begun to look at the crop of men out there.  As most of you know, I am well past the age of consent.  This having been said, so are any of the men I would consider dating.  Moving along, I am pretty sure that were I decide to actually date one of the creatures, I need to update my wardrobe.  I do not recall the last time I actually purchased an item of clothing other then underwear (full cut cotton white) or socks (cotton ankle high white).  I wear mostly tee shirts which are slowly becoming threadbare and grease spotted.  I own 2 button up blouses.  I have worn the checkered one twice and looked at the other one once.  Mostly I wear jeans, but I do have several pairs of slacks for church.  So a ward robe update is necessary if I want to impress anyone.  Seems like a lot of work just to be socially acceptable.

So, to get to the crux of the matter, I flipped on the television the other day and happened onto a channel that I did not even know existed.  Perhaps God poked my remote, but I was treated to several episodes of "Forensic Files".  First one was an affluent family, husband a dentist, wife beaten to death in her bed.  Spoiler alert, the husband did it because he was trying to save on child support and had 2 mistresses who needed attention.  Another man killed his girlfriend, dismembered her, cut her bones in half and scattered them in a forest.  Her head he tossed in the lake.  But DNA did them both in at the end of the investigation.  One of them was so stupid that setting up the crime scene, he had the ladder to the upstairs bedroom window backwards! I do not know just how many of you have tried to climb a ladder backwards to an upstairs window, but I am pretty sure it can not be done!

Any way, that afternoon of binge watching people killing other people, made me rethink this whole dating thing.  Other than serial killers who would kill me just for the fun of it, most of the murders are committed by some one who loves you!  These people have kissed and held their victims in a scenario where intimacy is involved.  Several of them had children! Did you read about the guy here in town who killed his mother, cut her up, put part of her in a suit case and threw it in the dumpster?  Or the guy in the Springs who beat his fiancée to death with a ball bat?  So, back to this dating thing...

It is kind of nice to set here with my comfortable wardrobe, in my little house that needs a good cleaning and not have to worry about going out in the dark with someone who just might be the last trip out I take.  It would be nice to have some one actually care enough to call and say goodnight, but it is really not necessary.  I have kids that check on me.  I have friends  who drop by occasionally.  I have a cat and a dog.

I used to walk around Runyon Lake, but then I noticed there were a lot of druggies hanging out there and I stopped that.  Now I just walk around out here.  No one knows when I leave and no one knows when I come back, but I am pretty sure if something happens to me, it will be a random act and not some guy that I decided to "date".  

Yep.  It is going to be another long day!

What kind of kids are we raising/

I was raised to respect my elders.  Did not matter how elder they were, what they were doing, or why. By the very virtue of my thinking they were older, they were to be respected.  If they were crossing the street, I was to offer my elbow.  If they did not take it, that was their business, but by God and all that is holy, I was to make it available.  And if I saw some one carrying something, I better off to take part of the load.  It did not matter if I knew them or not.  I was to offer and be respectful, and Lord knows I try.

I guess this is why I was so upset tonight when a lady friend of mine who lives in Colorado Springs called me to share a story that happened to her today.  Over the weekend, she and her daughter had cleaned the yard and had many bags of debris in big trash bags.  This woman is 84 or 85 years old.  A retired minister who has spent her life helping people.  She lives on San Miguel Street which is a quiet residential area.  She knew the trash man was coming tomorrow so she had to get the bags and the trash cart out to the street this evening.  She has a bad knee so she has trouble walking any way and moving bags of debris is not a light job.  She got the cart out alright and began dragging the bags.  They were heavy and cumbersome, but she persevered.  Halfway through her endeavor, several young men came out of the house across the street.  They stood on the curb visiting and looking her way occasionally.  Never once did any one of them offer to help.  One of them got in his truck and drove away.  The two remaining continued to talk and glance her way.  Then they parted company and the one who lived there went into the house and closed the door.

She called me to tell me about this.  I was amazed that anyone could watch an old woman struggle and not offer assistance.  The one man is a neighbor of hers!  Have we become so complacent that other peoples burdens mean nothing to us?  What has our world come to that this is happening?  I assured her that had I been there, I would have helped her.  I have raised 6 kids and not a one of them would ever not come to the aid of someone in need.

God teaches us to love our neighbor and it that context it means love everybody, but when you see an older person struggling and that person lives across the street from you, it really is your neighbor.  I think God wants us to help every body.  I just wonder who raised those men?  I wonder if their mother needed help if anyone would help her?

As you have done this to the least of these my brethren, you have done it to me.

Or not.

Box Car Willie

I love youtube and usually have it playing in my background.  The other day I lucked onto the life story of Box Car Willie.  I do not remember dates, but he was one of the old singers and very successful in that endeavor.  He grew up in a shack with his mom and dad just a few feet from the railroad track where his dad worked.  The man could make the train whistle sound and it was so authentic that it was like the train was right in front of you.  And guess where that man took me?  Right back to Nickerson.

The railroad ran right across Main Street from East to West.  It came from somewhere and went to Hutchinson.  Kind of ran parallel to Highway 50 as I recall.  I have found in later years that it runs to La Junta, Colorado and turns south there and goes some where.  I used to ride from Garden City, Kansas to Hutchinson with my kids when I lived in Western Kansas.  But back to Nickerson.

In grade school I had a friend named Eveline.  She had very black hair and eyes.  Mother always said she was an Indian.  I did not know.  She had one sister and her name was Georgia.  They lived in a boxcar that set where the water tank for the train was located.  In Kansas, and I suppose all the places the train ran, there was a water tank every 7 miles.  The first trains had to take on water as they were steam engines.  Water had to be kept ready for whatever time the train came through.  That is why all the towns are 7 miles apart.  Some of them survived; some did not. Nickerson was one that did.

A lot has changed.  I know many years ago there had to be a man who shoveled the coal and kept the engine running.  I am sure now that if there are coal fired engines they are fed through some sort of mechanical means.  Now how I got off on this tangent is more that I can figure out!  What I want to tell you is how I would lay in bed at night and sometimes here the train whistle far off in the distance.  It was always the loneliest sound in the world.  The whistle would also bring on the howls of the wolves.  Train whistles and wolves have been ingrained in my mind as long as I can remember.  There is not a train track near my house now, but sometimes on a clear summer night with my windows open I can hear a faint whistle and it takes me back.

I recall when I started high school that I had to cross the tracks to get back to the road that led to my house.  That road was actually a county road that ran North to Sterling.  I lived one block off the highway.  Sometimes the train would be lumbering through and I could stand and watch it pass.  There were times that I could see men through the open door of the box car.  One time there was a man setting in the open door and he waved at me.  He wore overalls and he looked very sad.  After that I talked to Jake Smith who lived on Strong Street and he told me about how the hobos and tramps "rode the rails."  He said sometimes the "bulls" would pull them off the train and beat them to death.  Not sure if that was true or not, but in my impressionable little mind, anything was possible.

Then my brother, Jake, took me around to show me some of the signs that hobos left on peoples fences or trash cans to either denote a friendly person, a mean dog, or a hot meal for the asking.  They would make a mark to communicate and the other hobos knew to ask or pass that house by.  I do not know  if there are still hobos or not and I do not know how to find out.  I do know in later years the railroad owners hired people to keep the hobo's off the trains.

Life is so sad, isn't it?  Who knows what stories these men (there may have been women too) could tell.  I wish I could go back in time and talk to one of them.  I am pretty sure had I tried my mother would have beat me to death, but what a rich history that time was, and I was not smart enough to know it!  But back to Box Car Willie.  He brought the railroad to life.  He brought poverty to our door and he took the history of the box car  to England.  He was a scruffy little man, but he could pack a house.  They do not make them like that any more.

That era is gone and soon there will not be anyone to remember.  Sometimes my heart is very sad that I do not have knowledge of what I was living at the time.  My grand kids will never know what the outhouse was or that water had to be pumped from a well in the ground, or that the homeless people of today are the ancestors of the men who rode the rails.

Peace! and prosperity to all.

This about says it for me.

I have spent my whole life searching for something.  Always looking for the outfit that would make me beautiful, the meal that would satisfy me, the car I would love to drive, and clear down to searching for the man that would make me complete.  Some of those things I actually found, but no longer have them.  I do the looking back and regretting a lot, but it does not seem to do any good.  Then I found this picture on facebook and it pretty well sums it up.

I have the big house.  I have the car.  I have more clothes then I will ever wear, eat what I want when I want.  I had the man who made me feel complete for 20 years.  Now I am alone and I have the perfect opportunity to find myself.  It is time to deal with that little girl on Strong Street, the battered wife, the neglectful mother, the absent sister, and the wayward daughter.

Many years ago I put all my emotions in a closet and now I find that I would like to take them out, examine them, forgive myself and move on.  I suppose life itself is built on a learning curve and I am just grateful to have stayed on this spinning ball long enough to understand this.

I can not save the world.  I can not even save one person, but I can save myself.  Maybe some day there will be room in my life for another man, but it is not now.  I am going to look at myself in the mirror and not see wrinkles and scars.  I am going to see a kind, loving woman who wants to save the world, but I am going to start with myself.  This pretty much sums it up! (click blue)

Wish me luck!

Lou Mercer Words of Wisdom: I survived October.

Lou Mercer Words of Wisdom: I survived October.: I survived with my mind still intact and I must say, I did not have nearly as much trauma as October usually brings.  Yesterday was the 54t...

I survived October.

I survived with my mind still intact and I must say, I did not have nearly as much trauma as October usually brings.  Yesterday was the 54th year of my brother's passing.  The month also marked my birthday, as well as 2 of my kids, my first wedding anniversary, my brothers birthday.  Halloween is not the only thing in October for me, it just marks the end of a lot of bad stuff.  But it is now time to move on!

I have one sister left and she called me last night.  That was nice.  I want to get down to see her and when the geese are gone I will be free to travel.  At least I hope so.

I accept all the bad stuff and remember that first there was good stuff.  I had a wonderful brother.  I had a wonderful first husband and father to my children.  A lot ended in October, but there were lots of bright beginnings.  I have spent many years reliving a lot of garbage, but today is a new day.  I have dealt with my demons and put them to rest.  I shall spend the rest of my life counting blessings instead of recalling sadness.  With that in mind, I am going to a big birthday party on November 9!

It will be Rose Torres 60 big ones!  I do not like to go any where at night and sure do not want to go alone, but I am going to bite the big one and do this.  It is times like this that I would like to have a man in my life that I could press into service, but such is not the case, so there you go!  First there is going to be dinner and I do love to eat and my favorite stuff to eat is Mexican food made by people who have been doing it all their lives.  Then there is going to be a dance!  Kenny was not a man who had any rhythm in his body, so I have not danced since I married him in 1983.  This could be humorous!  I bet if John Tenorio were still around, he would go with me!  If you are reading this and have any ideas feel free to call and tell me.  Otherwise I am going to be out there dancing alone, but I am going!

So, back to the real world.  Tomorrow is our craft fair at the church.  Our kitchen will be open and I have made red and green chile, breakfast burritos, and lots of cookies for the bake table.  I do not know what time it starts, but I have to be there at 8:30, I think.

So with my new mantra of "Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is far away, so live every day as if it were your last!" I shall wind this up, run through the shower  and chase rainbows!

Peace!

What has this old world come to that this is news?

Can you believe this?  click here

I remember growing up when we had to carry lunch to school because mother could not afford to pay for hot meals for all of us.  I do not recall what we had for lunch, but it was in a paper bag and we were under strict orders to bring the bag and all of the contents home after school.  The next morning we carried the same bag to school.  Waxed paper and everything was reused.

Looking back I can see the discrimination that was alive and well even then.  The tables for lunch were set up in the hallway down the center of the first floor.  They ran all the way between the first grade class room and the second and third grade  classroom.  We were not allowed to eat at the end closest to the kitchen.  Our designated place was at the end of the table nearest the stairs that started at the door of the fourth grade class and ran up to the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade classrooms.

Since the Bartholomew kids were the only ones that had to carry their lunches we ate alone.  The expanse of table that ran from where we were to where the "hot lunch" kids ran was an expanse that I never conquered.  Every night I prayed that we would be rich and could afford hot lunches, but it never happened.

Every morning the smells from the school kitchen rose through the whole school.  Mrs. Ritchie could make my mouth water and my stomach cramp with those aroma's that wafted through the halls.  As sad as this may seem to you, I can still feel the humiliation of those days.  There was no such thing as a "free lunch".  Mother explained that if she had the money to pay for lunch for 3 or 4 of us kids that she could buy groceries to cook food for the whole family.  I did not understand that back then and thought she was just mean, but now I do.  Mother always said "Hind sight is 20/20 looking back."

We would steal sideways glances at the "hot lunch eaters" and as long as I had a sister with me, I was alright.  It was just that when I was alone, it was like I was on an island in the middle of the poverty ocean.  I did not resent the kids that could afford hot lunches, but I resented the fact that I was not allowed to set near them.  It was kind of like I had a disease and might contaminate them.  I want you to know that I can put myself in Anya Howard's shoes the only difference being that I lived it 5 days a week when school was in session.

I have since grown into a woman and sometimes talk to people who can remember back when they carried a lunch to school.  One lady told me how her lunch usually consisted of a potato sandwich.  Another carried carrots.  A man told me "nothing".

Today, I can laugh about those days of poverty.  I have not missed a meal in years and it shows.  I love my mother fiercely and I am very proud of my heritage.  I am proud that I grew up in Nickerson, Kansas on the dead end street called North Strong Street.  It is that backbone that drove me to make sure my kids had hot lunches and never missed a meal.  It is that background that makes my heart ache when a little girl is embarrassed by a woman that could have and should have paid for her meal.
Where is our compassion?  Are our hearts so cold that we can not see the hunger in a little girls eyes? I have tried to convey to my children love thy neighbor, do good to them that spitefully use you, and pray for those who persecute you.  I think they get it.  And I will pray for the cafeteria lady and the rules that made her do what she did.

Every day is a new day and a chance to do better and help our fellow man.

Plevna, Kansas holds my roots.

Gagnebien, Haas, Beck, Miller, Hatfield, and the list goes on.  When Haas members began to arrive through Ellis Island, they went straight to the "Beck Home" in Nickerson, Kansas and then branched out into the surrounding area, mainly Abbyville, Huntsville and Plevna.  Homesteading was active at the time and Nickerson was pretty well taken, causing them to branch further out in Reno, County. I have a family album that shows the Haas family cutting cottonwoods on the Arkansas River.  My branch of the family did not come here until 1884.  As I recall my grandfather was 6 or 9 years old when he went through Ellis Island.

I can still recall with fondness my Uncle Goll, Uncle Coon, Aunt Lizzie and my dear sweet Aunt Lena.  For some reason I thought my grandfather came to America in 1900, but it was actually 1884.  He was 12 years old at that time.  He married my grandma I 1900.  His father would be my great grandfather, Johann Jakob Haas.  Great granfather actually fathered 16 children by two women.   I come from a long line of weavers. tailors, vine dressers, bakers, and of course, farmers.  But all this is irrelevant to this post.

It must have been about 1970 or so that Dorothy and Ernie moved into a farmhouse outside of Plevna.  I know Little Ernie was just talking good.  I went to visit fairly regularly, but usually when Ernie was at work.  Little Ernie was always a special little boy to me although I had a nest full of my own.  He called me Aunt Do Do, since he could not pronounce Lou Lou.  "  I love you, Aunt Do Do."  Once he came running out of the bedroom to announce "Aunt Do Do, there is a hop grasser in my bedroom!"

Ernie had fenced off a portion of the yard and made that a pig pen.  I do not remember where he worked at the time, seems like he worked for Morton Salt.  Could be wrong.  The important part was that he was gone all day and Dorothy was pregnant.  One weekend he decided to build a new sty for the pigs so he got his lumber and drill.  Please know, that lumber and drill should never be used in a sentence with the name, "Ernie".  In typical fashion he held the 2 x4 up with one hand and drilled through it into his other hand.

They had a station wagon at the time so Ernie laid down in the back, kids were some where and Dorothy began the flying 20 mile trip to the hospital in Hutch.  Ernie would call out every few minutes, " I am still alive.  Drive carefully so you don't wreck.  Hurry!"  Dorothy told me that was her most harrowing trip in her life.  They sold the pigs soon thereafter and moved into town.  Think they moved out on Duffy Road at that time.

For many years we had a Haas family reunion at the school gymnasium.  Everyone brought a dish and we just kind of caught up on each other.  They tore down the school where I had attended my freshman year, but left the gym intact.  Hinshaws Dry Goods store burned.  I went through there once many years ago and the Smith house was a trailer park of sorts, meaning there were several mobile homes on the lot.   The Congregationalist Church was still there as was Grandma Haas's house.  The bank was still there.  I have got to take a day and go there next time I head East.  Course I remember when I stopped at Grandma's old house and got covered in ticks!  Do not want anymore of those.

Towns were built 7 miles apart back then because the trains needed a water stop.  Kansas is full of those little towns, or the remains of them.  Some of them survived, but many did not.  I love to look at my family book and try to envision what life was like back then.  Grandpa Haas married Josie Miller in 1900.  Uncle Gol married Aunt Helen who was Josie's sister, so I have double cousins out there in Southeast Kansas.  

My family is so diverse and far flung that one time I met a boy at a dance and came home to tell mother how great he was.  Her response was  "Forget it!  He is your cousin."  End of that romance and I do not even remember his name, so that is that.

I think I will plan a trip back home and go touch base with the old places in Plevna.  Aunt Lena is gone.  As far as I know the house where grandma lived is still standing.  Maybe I could find one of the Hinshaw twins!  Dean and forgot the other one.  Dean was dark complected  with dark hair and thin.  The other one was fair skinned with freckles and reddish blonde hair and a little on the heavier side.  I have forgotten my friends names!  Janet something.  Charlene Smith.  Damn!  A complete blank!  Maybe I will forget that trip.

Sure wish my momma was here.  She would remember.  

The Mesa is changing and so am I.

I moved out here in 1982, one year before I married Kenny.  We lived in sin.  I thought if I could live with him for one year and not get my "knickers in a knot" and walk out that I could probably make him my 6th and final trip to the alter.  As you see, I am still here, so that was a wise decision.  Either that or it was meant to be.  But that is not what this is about.

When driving out here on the 50 hwy bypass the fabric of the whole landscape has changed.  Coming out Santa Fe Drive and turning east on the highway has stayed fairly unchanged, although the 2 bars on the Southside of the highway are shuttered and have been for years.  The one known as "Bear Country" is the only one I was ever in.  There used to be a functioning lumber yard (forgot the name) and it is now vacant.  Right after crossing the bridge, there was a produce place on the north named "Cheatum' and Chiselum'".  It was rumored that some guy killed his wife and cut her up in there.  He then dispersed her parts into trash cans around town.  I am just reporting the news as I recall it, so do not ask for details.  The house across the street is now a car wash the produce stand is a strip mall.

The Headquarters restaurant was where anyone that was anyone went for coffee every morning.  It turned into a Wendy's and is now vacant.  There was another hamburger place that turned into a bank.  We now have a total of 5 or 6 strip malls,  5 or 6 marijuana outlets.  KFC is a pizza place.  While most of the landscape has changed, some of it has remained the same.  Candy's Tortilla is still here.  Chet's is now Lagreese's, but is still a grocery store.  Mesa Vet is still there. Frank's Meat Market. Taco House. Giadonne still has a restaurant, but has torn down the ice cream stand and put in a marijuana store and a Bands in the Backyard amphitheater.  Johnson's auto parts changed hands.  The milk barn is a liquor store.  Mesa Hardware remains the same.  Of course the Mesa Kitchen still sets in the corner of 25th Lane and the highway along with Jr's and the drug store.

I do not like to do the "remember when" thing because it just makes me feel old.  I guess I have been in this same house for 37 years which seems like a very long time because some people do not even live that long, but to me it is only a "little while back".  I was a wife, mother, grandmother.  Now I am a widow, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and I am getting tired. I am an  inch and a half  shorter.  My dreams of what my future will be have changed several times.  When I was young I wanted to sing with a country western band and go all around the country singing in bars, now I just want to listen to my cd's and caterwaul away when I am driving.  Haven't been dancing in 40 years, so probably not going now.

Mother always told me that every thing changes and that hind sight is 20/20 looking back.  I think I have lived a pretty good life and I have definitely outlived most of my enemies.  I think I am ready to maybe set back and let whatever happens, happen.  Tired of chasing rainbows and butterflies.  Maybe they can chase me a while.

We will see!

God Bless us everyone!

It is fall of the year and once more time to gather my friends. partners in crime, or what ever you want to call them together.  Here we have Pastor Faye Gallegos and going to her left we find Sister Barbara, Paul Gilbert, Sister Nancy, Sandy the nurse and the empty chair is mine.

W

We dined on mashed potatoes, chicken and noodles, then finished up with pudding filled cream puffs.  We drank Chamomile tea so we wouldn't be too rowdy.  And of course there was home made bread. 

We had lovely conversation about the work at Los Pobres as well as what is going on around our church, the churches in the Springs.  We missed Maurine and Max Hale.  They have moved up North and do not travel down this way much.  We discussed shelter, or lack of one, for our homeless population.  I do not entertain much, but this is one of my high points.  I gotta tell you, this started out years ago as a Liver and Onion lunch, because very few people like Liver.  I missed last year for some reason so I was adamant about having my Liver Lunch this year.  I invited the ladies and Paul and then Pastor Faye told me Sister Nancy told her how much she was looking forward to Chicken and Noodles over mashed potatoes!  Since both menus are easy, I went with the noodles.  Paul and I can eat anything that does not eat us first!

Any way it was a day of friendship and catching up.  I cherish those times because they are so few and far between.  So tonight I am tired, but happy.  I just ate a bowl of leftover noodles and I think I am going to go eat that last cream puff before Mikie gets home and snarfs it down!

Good night all and sweet dreams from South Road to your house.  God bless us everyone!

Ringworm, head lice and God only knows what else!

My grand daughter was here this weekend with her husband and 3 kids ages 5-13.  All boys!  It was a lovely visit and I look forward to the next visit.  Her husband carpeted my stairs and did a lovely job.  I want to go on record as saying, the title of this blog is in no way connected to her family.  It just brought back memories of when I was first out on my own and my kids were my complete responsibility.  That was a horror story.

Having spent a couple weeks with mother watching the kids and my working, I rented a house down on Smith Street.  The first thing that happened was I hired the girl across the street to babyset.  Then the car broke down.  I paid $49 to Clell Burnett for a 1949 Black Ford 2 door.  Sam immediately poured sand in the gas tank.  School started and Debbie immediately came home with a ring worm.  I knew about ring worm and how to treat them, but she could not stay in school with out a doctors note, so off we went.  Treatment consisted of shining a purple light on it to be sure it was a ring worm and then a tube of something to smear on it which did not work.  Total cost for that (not to mention my time off from work) was $10.  A car cost $50 and a doctor visit 20% of that.  Hmmm.

Time passed and the neighbor girl stole any jewelry I had, Sam set the bed on fire, and my rental house began to leak.  The landlord told me if he fixed the roof, my rent would be raised.  Apparently I had not read the fine print about the roof being extra!

Mother at that time, had her house at 217 West 5th setting empty and she let me move in there with the understanding that I would make the house payments and all upkeep.  Sounded like a dream come true.  She still owed $11,000 on it.  It was perfect for us.  Bunk beds for the one bedroom and twin beds in the front bedroom.   Huff family lived right up the street with kids my kids age.  They also had a big dog.  They also had head lice!

Now, I will go on record as saying ring worm is a whole lot easier then head lice!  Ring worm can actually be controlled with a cotton ball and a bottle of Clorox.  Head lice requires washing everything in hot water, medication on a fine tooth comb and doing it over and over again.  Nope.  Do not want any more of that.  Seems like if you have one or 2 kids that Lady Luck lets you slide;  5 kids, not so much.  Luckily, back then, immunizations were requested, but not required.  I tried to keep the kids current and with help from the programs at school I managed to get them all into puberty without any of them contracting, small pox, polio, or any of the other fatal diseases.  Childhood illness was kept to a minimum, thanks to God and love of their mother!

So here I set almost 60 years later remembering how I raised kids, and how the are raised today and I can not help but be amazed.  Her oldest son is 13 years old and I think she said he is 5'7" and Lord only knows how much he weighs!  He is actually the same size his grandpa was when I married him!  Big boy.  Bigger than his dad.  Wonder what she feeds that kid!  I know he plays football.  Very polite kids.  At least I think they are polite.  There is always the off chance that they are scared to death of me!  My kids called my mom "Grouchy Grandma".  I wonder what these kids call ME?  They actually seemed to like me.  I could be wrong.

Well, this is what I woke up to this morning.  Another day another dollar, I guess.  Today is the day I am going to get something constructive done.

Yeah, right!

Who's gonna prime my pump?

I recall in Nickerson that running water was more than just turning on the faucet.  709 North Strong Street had no faucets.  Out by the horse tank was a field pump.  When the tank started getting low someone, usually Jake, had to pump the water into the tank to fill it back up so the horses could drink.  At the bottom of the pump hung a can.  That can was filled with water from the horse tank and poured into the top of the pump while pumping in short, fast strokes.  With luck, the pump would "catch it's prime quickly" and water would pump out through the mouth of the pump.  If you understand the workings of a pump you know that there is a leather inside that when pumped up and down draws the water up from deep in the well. Occasionally the leather becomes worn and needs replaced.

The pump at the horse tank was a big iron pump.  The handle was long and we used to like to pump because if we could keep a rhythm going the pump handle would sometimes jerk us up off the ground by the sheer force of the water.  We were also allowed to get in the horse tank and play sometimes.  Can you imagine how dirty that water was in that tank?  That coupled with the fact that the horses might want a drink while we were in there scared hell out of me!  Have you ever looked at horse teeth?  They are big and very yellow and I lived in mortal terror that one of them would eat me.  Life was hard back then.

All the house water for cooking, cleaning, bathing or whatever was carried from the pump outside into the house in buckets.  The tea kettle that set on the wood cook stove was kept full at all times and a cup of tea was just seconds away in case one of the fancy ladies from town came.  (This did not happen very often, and to my recollection, never.  Mother did clean houses and sometimes a lady would come to discuss her availability, but they were usually in a car and stopped in front of the house and honked.)

Ah. but fate smiled kindly us. I do not remember who, why or when, but at some point in time someone decided that mother needed a sink and a pump inside the house in the kitchen.  It was then that we were blessed with what was known as a "pitcher pump."  Now this was the cat's meow in pumps.  It did not need primed!  When we wanted water, we just started pumping and very soon it would "catch it's prime."  Talk about uptown!  It set of the end of a big oblong enamel sink.  The drain pipe ran through a hole in the wall that extended about 8 feet into the back yard.  There the drain water ran out onto the ground where the Muscovy ducks played in it.  Boy, that was one stinking mess, but it was sure handy.

I have to go into detail here about the Muscovy Ducks.  Those are about the nastiest things I have ever seen.  When I had my 17 geese and 37 ducks here I had 4 Muscovy's.  Now to the best of my knowledge, Muscovy's are the only domesticated ducks that can actually fly.  The 4 of them used to fly up to the house, across the fence and roost on the air conditioner.  Nasty.  The hens were little and delicate, but the drakes were twice as big and their necks were as big as my upper forearm.  They did not quack; they sort of quibbled.  I did not like them and I think they actually broke the neck of one of my geese.  They even looked evil.  All this has nothing to do with pumping water, does it?

I attended my first 3 years of high school in Nickerson.  It was during those years that I made 2 discoveries; home brew and boys, in that order.  I had a friend named LaVeta (no last name) whose dad made and bottled home brew.  He liked to go to the big city and gamble on Saturday nights and we liked to stay home and sample his home brew.  Her mother helped us.  She would take all us kids to Sterling and there were boys there!  There were dances there.  Sadly, I could not drink and dance, so the dancing went by the wayside and I learned to worhip at the feet of the porcelain God.  I have not had a bottle of homebrew in 60 years, but I can still taste it.  Once more I digress.

In due time mother graduated from Salt City Business College and we moved to the big city of Hutchinson.  The rest is history.  Louella Bartholomew grew up and not longer exists, or so we think.
Some where deep in my soul, she lives.  Her memories are as vivid today as they were when she was living them.  Homebrew and boys are a thing of the past, but the wants and the needs of that skinny little girl are as alive today as they were in that stick and mortar house at 709 Strong Street.

Peace to all.

One of my favorite things.

Abandoned and Haunted Places is a site on facebook.  Go there and do a search and it will come up.  It is a closed group, but they will let you in just for the asking.  I just came from there and saw a big layout of a mansion fallen into rack and ruin.  I have always been fascinated by old houses and that used to be a big deal back when we were young.  Around Nickerson there were several old houses that were within walking distance that I could go explore and I did.  I would let my imagination run wild and picture the mother and father with the children and the dog.  The family always had a dog.

When I moved to Colorado, this fascination moved with me.  Charlie took me up to the abandoned town on the old LaVeta Pass.  At that time there were several buildings still standing and still intact.  The cemetery was right on the edge of town.  I was fascinated with one grave that was surrounded by a wrought iron fence.  I do not remember any of the particulars, but it was clearly not tended.  None of the graves were.  Cemeteries hold a lot of history and I am sure if I could spend enough time there I could conjure up a ghost or two, but I have yet to meet anyone that shares my fascination.  When I go up to Beulah to see my friend Jan, I always make a drive through the cemetery up there.  I always visit the Caple lot and usually encounter a few deer.  But houses have a whole different fascination.  This is my friend who went with me once, Patty Crehan.  The Caple lot is in the back on the right side of the picture.

This is a house in Longton, Kansas near where my daughter, Patty lives.  It is very well maintained. Or I should say "was " since it burned to the ground several years back.

Now here is something very fascinating!  This house is on the other end of Longton and is surrounded by trees.  It is not well maintained at all, but if you look at the architecture of the two houses, they are nearly identical.  This one was taken over by the druggies, but Patty has assured me that it has since been reclaimed and restored to it's former beauty.  I have not been by there, but next time I go I will.

If there is any one out there with the same fascination for the obscure and forgotten that I have,hmu!  (That means Hit Me Up!  I learned that on facebook.)  It is getting a little cold right now to be tromping around abandoned houses with rotten floors, but Spring will be here some day.  Kenny always meant to take me up on LaVeta, but some how the time was never quite right.  He rode a Harley when I met him and it had a small problem.  The brake cylinder leaked and threw the fluid out on my leg so I had to wear clothes I did not want to wear again.  Of course there was always the inevitable application of the brake when the fluid was all gone and no hope of stopping.  Luckily he sold that before we were both statistics.

So, in the meantime, I will just be setting here waiting for someone to realize that I need someone to go exploring with me.  I am sure I can talk Irene into it when she comes back in the Spring, but maybe not.  In the meantime, there is an old cemetery out east of town and I forgot the name, but I saw an arrow pointing that way when I was in Avondale some time back and driving on a back road, so I know it is there.  And a man once told me about some hieroglyphic's he came across just this side of the New Mexico state line.  He found a lot of arrow heads there. He said it was undisturbed.  He found it when he was on horseback herding cattle.  Might look into that, but it would be nice to find a fellow traveler.

In the meantime, I will just set over here and tend to my knittin' like a good little girl.  Maybe I could go pour through my pictures and organize them so next time I want to find something it will be in my newly organized photo album online and waiting!

Have a good one! 

Happy Birthday to Hammer!

I am not sure how old Hammer is today, but I am pretty sure he is old.  He is married to my oldest daughter.  They live in Longton, Kansas.  They are survivalists to the max.  They have a 40 acre farm, many cats, a dog or two and are right now down to a couple calves.  Usually they buy calves, fatten them up and then sell them to pay the bank the money they borrowed to buy the calves and feed them.  It is not a real profitable operation, but it keeps them off the streets.  They are also raising 4 grandkids which is not a break even operation, but something that needs done.

Hammer had done his 2 tours in Vietnam before Debbie met him.  Needless to say, he had the normal problems that all the boys coming home from there had.  Vietnam was a terrible operation and PTSD is a side effect that is never completely over come.  He still suffers from the effects of Agent Orange as well as the horrors of a war that should never have been undertaken.  Hammer and I are pretty much from the same era.  I know other men who served in Vietnam and all I can say about that is I hope our government learned something from those mistakes, because it was certainly an exercise in futility and anyone who was there still has nightmares even if they say they don't.

I do not know how many years they have been married, but I know it is a lot and I was there that day.  They had been living up in the mountains above Eleven mile Reservoir as I recall, but were in the process of moving down into Pueblo.  Since they were between homes they spent a few days here and in the course of finding a home, they decided they should just trot on up to the court house and "do the deed" which is the equivalent of "getting this shittin' mess over with that Kenny and I had done several years earlier.  I would be one witness and witness number 2 was decided to be a lady named Shirley Smith.  Shirley and her husband, Bill,  ran the UPumpit in Blende.  So off we went.

For some reason, on our way to town we decided that Shirley would be Hammers Best Man.  I was mother of the bride, because that is what I was.  The Judge who was officiating was very understanding.  I am not sure he had ever married anyone in Levi's before, but that is what we were wearing.  Hammer is a big bear of a man with the full beard, biker tattoos and a gruff whiskey voice.  He and Debbie make a great couple.  They went to the motel for their wedding night.  (I know this because I just called her and asked her.)  It was 30 years ago.  Damn!

There has been a lot of water under that bridge and a lot of changing on both their parts.  Well, maybe not changing so much as just adapting to each others wants and needs.  They are talking about moving out here closer to me and I think that would be great.  I guess a lot depends on the 3 grandkids which are currently in their custody.  When life hands us lemons, we make lemonade!  Just the way we are.

Today was also my sister-in-laws birthday.  Not sure how old she would have been because she tended to sugar coat a lot of things.  Sadly, she is no longer on this side of the veil.  Very few of my relatives are.

So any way, Happy Birthday to Hammer!  I know he is on a road trip right now, but I trust he will drive carefully and hurry home to Longton.

Peace! 

Oh, hell man! I was a hippie!!

We are 7 days into October and I am still soul searching. No signs of depression today.  

Thank you, Janet Altman, for this recipe!  This was a de ja vu moment for me when I saw this recipe!  I was transported back in time to Glasco, Kansas in the year of 1962.  Debbie, my firstborn was a wee lass.  We lived in a farmhouse outside of town.  Duane and I and Debbie lived in the house and 3 of my brothers-in-law lived in various trailers in the yard.  The income of that year came mostly from Walnut trees that the men stole from the river that was located nearby.  The buyer would come and pay cash for whatever we had laying in the yard.  Cash was good and as Duane explained, it was not really stealing because the owners of the land did not know they were there.   

Of course, the men went into town and trimmed trees and such for cash money.  We did have to pay rent you know.  Also, they liked to drink and that costs money.  It was the only recreation they had, so who was I to complain?  One night we actually had a Rattle Snake on the back porch right outside the screen door.  One of the workers killed it with a ball bat.  Scared hell out of me.

Back to business.  When there are a lot of families living in a small area, I think it is called a commune.  Of course everyone contributes something to the needs of the commune.  (Oh, shit!  I just realized, I WAS a HIPPIE!  I always thought I was, but now I see it for what it was!)  The men folk fished the Solomon River which had lots of species of fish and they were big.  They also brought home game in the form or rabbits,  squirrels, pheasants, quails and wild honey from the trunk of an old tree.  Of course we bought potatoes, onions, rice and staples from the local store.  Occasionally, I could pick up an old hen or two from the feed store for fifty cents.  Life was good.

Then they met a man and his wife in nearby Delphos.  This old man had 'coon dogs.  In case you do not know, those are the dogs bred and raised to hunt for racoons down on the river.  That was a sport in and of itself.  The idea was to take a pack of dogs ('coon dogs) and go down to the river at night and turn the dogs loose and let them find a raccoon which they then chased down the river until they "treed the 'coon."  At this point all the dogs would try to climb the tree and get the coon down.  If the 'coon actually fell from the tree all the dogs attacked it and ripped it to shreds.  (My God! That sounds barbaric!)    But if the hunters were good they could call off the dogs, shoot the Racoon between the eyes and have supper the next night {more about that later).  Sometimes the dogs would not come when called and the next day was spent finding them because they had followed a racoon off to God only knows where.  I used to lay in bed at night and listen to the baying of the dogs and I could tell how close they were by the tremolo of the barking.  My commune (I just love that word now that I know I lived in one!) had 5 dogs.  2 Black and tans, 1 Blue Tick, 1 Blood hound, and a small mixed breed terrier that was actually Delvin's little dog that thought he was big and wanted to hunt so they let him.

So let me tell you about the first Raccoon I ever cooked.  I still have nightmares about that.  The menfolk always cleaned the game.  They were hunter/gatherers, you know.  So they brought in this cleaned Raccoon on a pan.  I immediately thought of my friendly little house cat that I had left at home.  I salted and peppered it, put a little water in the bottom of the pan, covered it with foil and put it in the oven.  It smelled really good as it was baking.  I made a pot of mashed potatoes and fixed some green beans.  When the time came that it was done I put everything on the table and called the 4 men I was feeding that night.  They oohed and aahed and I ran outside and threw up.  I was still thinking of Fluffy my cat back in Hutch.   (I learned later that I was pregnant again which may have had some bearing on my mental state at the time.)

As time went by we cooked and ate many wild animals.  I must say my favorite was Pheasant which was much like chicken except the breast meat was darker and the legs had leaders which made eating a  leg a challenge and wings were impossible.  That, coupled with the fact that they were shot with a shotgun and you just might bite into a piece of lead wrapped in feathers made the eating a challenge. Quail made a great pot pie.  Wild Turkey (not to be confused with the whiskey kind) was actually very good, but therein again you have wild game that is tough and a real challenge to fix, but there was always potatoes and I could make gravy out of a gnat if I had too.  Squirrels live every where and a good marksman could bring one down with a 22 rifle shell through the head.  They were good eating, but I have since learned they belong to the rodent family, which means they are a big mouse!

Damn!  I miss the commune days and wish I had known then that I was in a commune.  I am going to relive my hippie days, because I did not know I was one.  I guess the only thing I missed was Woodstock!

And with that I bid you adieu and remind myself what my mother always  said, "Life is 20/20 looking back!

Raised by wolves? Yep, pretty much so!

I think back to when I was raising 5 kids with no child support, no welfare card, no health care and rarely the same baby sitter 2 weeks in a row, and I shudder.  Lucky for me it was back in the day when you could actually leave your house unlocked and went to bed and woke up still alive.  We lived at 217 West 5th in Hutchinson which is now an apartment complex.  It was located across the street from Dillons Supermarket.  5th Street was also Highway 96.  Highway 50 and 96 both run directly to Pueblo, Colorado.  But that is a moot point.  (I just love to say "moot point".)

The kids could walk to school if they were in school at the time.  They went to Allan, as I recall and it was about 4 blocks.   Near the school was a lady named Ferguson who had kids that were mean to my kids.  She watched them after school.  If they were not in school they went to Mrs. Bensing's to be baby sat by  her.  She was the regular babysitter for my day time, 6 days a week job.

To supplement my income I waited tables at the bar on 4th Street.  That was the Dutch Mill.  Back in those days you were allowed to dance in the bars.  Usually there was a juke box, but some times the Mill had live bands.  Oh, those were fun!  I must confess that I did a lot more dancing and not a whole lot of waiting on tables, although since they did not serve food, it was just delivering beer.  Mini skirts were the thing back then and I had pretty legs, so my tips were good.

On the nights I worked I had a lady who came from South Hutch to watch the kids.  She had a car.  I am trying to remember her name!  She was a little short, stout lady and she had a beard.  I swear, more hair on her chin than on her head!  Ida Mae?  Does that sound right?  We will go with that.
Addie Mae was the sweetest little lady.  She was about my height and a little heavier.  She always smiled and never spoke above a whisper.  She always brought a handful of candy.    Always had a secret smile on her face.  The kids were scared shitless of her.

"Is  she was mean?"  "No."
"Does she holler at you?"  "No."
 "What does she do?"  "Nothing."
"Does she give you candy?"  "No."

While at the Red Carpet, I hired the bosses son's wife to babysit and since Allen Ray was in Vietnam, I moved her in with me.  She was pregnant at the time.  That was nice.  When I came home from whatever job I had been to, the house was always clean.  The kids were always quiet and if it was night they were always in bed.  Very well behaved kids.  And then one day I noticed a bruise on Sam's face.  Upon close questioning I determined that she had hit him across the face with a stick she used to paddle all of them with.  I immediately called my boss and told him to get her out of my house before I killed her and proceeded to throw her belongings on the curb so they were easily accessible.  Seems the babies I worked so hard to feed and clothe were being intimidated by (dammit! I forgot her name.  Debbie just called and her name was Janice.)   Bob understood.

Evelyn Decker moved in for a while and between us, we got them up to an age where they were traveling back and forth between their father and me.  They even began to go to school in Garden City and then Lakin.  By that time I was in love again and married and moving to Colorado.  By then Susie was starting kindergarten and was the only child I had at home.  Over the years they took turns living and going to school either in Lakin or out here with me.  Sam is the only one that actually graduated in Pueblo.  Central High, go Wildcats.!  He then attended the University before going to Wichita for his post graduate work.

The years in Hutchinson are mostly a blur.  I do not know whether it was working all the time, or drinking or what, but I am pretty sure I did not earn a "mother of the year" award or the "Susie homemaker award".  I did manage to have all of them survive with no broken bones and no jail time.
Would I do things differently if I could go back?  I sure as hell would.  Momma always said "Hindsight is 100% looking back, foresight: not so much."  I would not have stayed with their father, and I am not sure how I would do it differently, but I would have done something.  The one thing I did learn from those years and the years that followed is this:  "I did the best I could with the tools and knowledge that I had at the time."  My momma told me that.  Momma was very wise! Course Momma is also the one that said my kids were raised by wolves!

Footnote:  I did attend college after Charlie and during Henry and before Kenny.  I received my BA with a 4.0 grade average.  I have a diploma around here some where and it says something about me being an Accountant.  I worked one full time job and one part time job while doing that.  And I drank a lot of Mountain Dew!