Facebook asked me and I said...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen!

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny how that works.

  

1967 in Liberal, Kansas

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

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

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

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

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

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

click here to play

What ever happened to Carol Mason?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Well, what do you think?"  

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

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

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

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

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

Some memories live forever.  This is one of them.

The potato bug saga.

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

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

"Whatcha' lookin' at little girl? "

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

"Do you want a job?"  

"Sure."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My life goes on.

Close enough to perfect for him

 Click here to listen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace!

Idle hands are the devil's workshop!

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

maybe.

Thank God for God!

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

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

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

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

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

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

You never really know someone....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is a lot easier said then done.

The center of home and family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                                                                              

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

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

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

Just an old oak table.

Early Morning Reverie...

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

In reality, I see nothing.

At the base of the porcelain god...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

40 years and counting!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guess I am just old school.

40 years ago and down hill from there!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And all my memories are good!

I have no waist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A poem that should be written.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The road not taken.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red Carpet Restaurant way back when.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything in its time and place!

It was all woman's work!

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

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

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

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

A year and a half later I had a daughter.  

A year  and one month later I had a daughter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace....

Hook, line and sinker!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peace.

Money tied in the corner of a handkerchief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those damn Muscovy Ducks!

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do not even remember having a glass!

The last thing at night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ten dollars and 200 miles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks, mom!

There used to be two of me!

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

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

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

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

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

RIP