Giving myself an attitude adjustment here!

 It has been exactly one month since my life has been turned upside down and it is now time to take charge and do something about it.  The idyllic life of the last few years is gone.  I am alone.  I have been alone before and at my age I probably better get used to it.  I will start by deleting a phone number in my phone.  It will never ring again, so why keep it? 

I have ashes on my dresser waiting for Spring when they will be taken to the final resting place.  I take comfort in knowing that will happen.  We should all have a final resting place when our time comes and the time is here.  I can never forget this past month of my life, but I can remember the years before it all changed.

He was a wonderful man.  He was kind and caring and made me laugh.  He made me feel special, and that will never change.  The small dark place he harbored deep inside was one I could not reach and that will always make me a little sad.  Actually it makes me a lot sad, but it is what it is.  

We were in each others lives for a while and for a reason.  We had many talks about God and the hereafter and I think in my own simple way I brought him a peace he needed.  At least I hope so.  So, for now, I will put one foot in front of the other and keep going one day at a time.

And I will forever miss the soft brown of his beautiful eyes and the moon will come up and I will remember how much he loved the full moon.  I will continue to live, but I will never forget.

Rest In Peace, my dear, dear man.

Life is pretty much a crap shoot.

 Here I set like so many times before, waiting for the sun to come up.  And like so many times before, I am second guessing myself.  What did I miss?  Was there something said that I missed?  Any sign at all?  And after all the soul searching and all the self recriminations, it all comes back to nothing.  Could I have done anything to prevent what happened?  I told her no.  But is that true?

We tried so hard to stay safe.  We did not go to public places.  We wore a mask any time we were out of the truck or the house.  He contracted covid; I did not.  He quarantined in his house and I stayed in mine.  I took him groceries and left them on his porch.  We talked on the phone.  The conversations got shorter.  Staying home alone, day after day begins to wear on you.  People are gregarious by their very nature.  He was no different.

Mother always told me "You never really know anyone.  You only know what they tell you and let you see."  Momma was wiser than most people and had an inner wisdom that gave her an insight like no other.  She could see the good in everyone, even the orneriest old coot in town.  And she could also see the weakness and evil in the hypocrite beating his chest and pointing his finger.  She had the sweetest smile and her hazel eyes twinkled when she looked at me.  She actually made me think I was capable of anything.  But she was wrong.

I have always thought I was put here on this earth for a reason, but I am now questioning that.  If I was, what is the reason?  I have raised the kids.  I have fought the political battles and won a few, but what is that?  If not me, someone else would have carried the banner.  

Life goes on and I look back and just wonder what it was all about.  If I had life to do over, would I?  And if I did, would it change anything?  I think not.  I know I have got to come to terms with some things, but I am not sure I know where to start.    I can not stop the river from running to the sea.  I can not get the toothpaste back in the tube.

In hind sight, there is nothing I would change, because I still would not have known what someone else was thinking.  I can not know what thoughts someone is thinking if they do not say them out loud.  Am I at peace with this?  No.  Can I change anything? No.  Would I like to?  Yes.

All I can do, and the only advice I have at this point is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, keep hoping and praying for a better day.  I do not want to keep second guessing and I want to remember that I did the best I could with the tools and knowledge I had at the time and if that upsets anyone, so be it.

I think it would be how momma did it. I sure miss my momma and that will never change.

 

Sure am missing Nickerson, Kansas

 Merle Haggard says it best.  https://youtu.be/TuwhpVde6NY The roots of my raising sure do run deep.  Growing up in Nickerson, Kansas was definitely a challenge.  Like all small town there was a right side of town and a wrong side, but it this case it was the whole "outside of town."  We lived "outside of town" only 2 blocks from the high school when I was very small. That was the "wrong side of the tracks."  When I started second grade we moved clear across town out by the cemetery.  That was also the "wrong side of the tracks."  Either place was a place we could listen to that lonesome train whistle blow.

I learned early to love that sound.  It meant the train was going some where and I knew it was far away.  When the train whistle subsided in the distance, the coyotes howled.  Occasionally a wolf would howl.  Coyotes made more of a yipping sound, but wolves had a mournful howl.  It was like they were trying to call the moon from the sky above.  Either one scared hell out of us kids and we waited for the howling to subside before we could sleep.

But as poor as we were, we knew we were safe in our beds.  To my recollection, I never knew my dad to own a gun.  He was in the Army in World War 1.  He was what I thought was a big man, but in actuality he was only 5'8".  It was not an unusual height back in those days.  I do not know why, but I am assuming it had something to do with what they ate back then.  The emphasis in those days was not so much on vitamins and minerals as it was on survival.  A cow was easier to raise than a head of lettuce.  But all of that is irrelevant.

I remember the first time we got linoleum in our house.  My God!  You would have thought we had died and gone to heaven!  We could walk across the floor  barefooted and not get a "sliver".  Slivers were little pieces of the wood flooring and could only be removed by a pair of tweezers and a needle held in the hand of our dear mother.

Closing the house up at night entailed closing the front and back inside doors.  There were no locks.  There was usually a hook and eye on the screen door, but they were used to hold the door closed when the wind blew.  Bad people did not exist in Nickerson.  I recall once coming home from school and there was a dog walking on my street.  It scared me to death.  I actually climbed up on the icebox so the dog could not "eat me".  Nothing ever changed in Nickerson and that dog did not belong on my street.

Occasionally someone would pass away (We never referred to it as dying.) and the hearse would have to pass the end of our street on the way to the cemetery.  Nine chances out of 10, we knew the body that was being transported because Nickerson might have had a population of 1,000 people if everyone was gathered in one place.  Needless to say, we had to stand quietly with our hand over our heart until the hearse had passed.  This picture was taken from the cemetery side, thus the words are backwards.

For whatever reason I keep retreating to my childhood I know it was my safe place.  One would think that at this late stage in life I could accept who I am, but I don't.  I love to hard, trust too easily, and my biggest weakness is that I am ever the eternal optimist.  But I forget the most important thing momma told me:

"You never know anybody.  You only know OF them.  You know what they let you see."

Thanks, momma, now I remember.

Louie and Linda

 Good Morning world!  It is 5:25 AM as I start this.  Happy Birthday, Bret Mercer!  Today I actually felt a twinge of happiness as I crawled out of my little bed.  You all know the saying, "Where there is life, there is hope."  And if that were not enough to make me happy, Bret told me they have lifted the burn ban!  He did say to call to confirm that, but just knowing that I could possibly be able to burn my brush piles after a year of not being able to, pleases me.

Laying in my bed and enjoying the last moments before the day begins is my favorite time of day.  This morning my mind drifted back to before I married Kenneth.  At that time he was still married to his first wife and lived out east of town.  Charlie and I had just moved to Colorado from Kansas.  He had lived here before and wanted to return and start a business.  I was game for anything at that point and my kids were back and forth between Hutchinson and Lakin, Kansas, so Pueblo was my destiny.

To get back to the point, Kenny was friends with all his neighbors and Louie was an old bachelor that lived across the highway from Kenneth and Wanda.  He was an engineer on the railroad and ran the train through the canyon to somewhere in western Colorado every day.  He returned every night.

Now, Louie lived in a rather ramshackle house in the midst of his animals.  He raised pigs, goats, cows, and chickens.  Might have had a turkey in the lot.  His chicken house was 2 stories and Kenneth always found that fascinating.  The whys and wherefores of Louie is irrelevant, but his uniqueness was legendary.

I learned at some point from Kenneth that Louie had married a 29 year old woman.  What he told Kenneth was basically this;   "Yep took me a wife.  She is a big one, but when I took her to the court house for the license.  the man told me it costs the same to marry a big one as a little one and I wanted to get my money's worth."

Of course I wanted to meet her so I made arrangements to go for a visit.  When she opened the door, I knew why Louie had taken the plunge.  She was a big woman!  She was probably close to 6 feet tall and heavy, but not obese.  She was dressed in a moo moo.  It reached from her shoulders down to the floor and she seemed to float across the floor.  It was not the dress or her size that caught my eye, but rather what was peeking out under the hem of her garment!

She was barefooted and 2 tiny chickens were under her skirt.  As she walked across the floor they were apparently busy under there staying out of her way.  Linda was a very warm and caring person and I spent several afternoons at her kitchen table, just passing the time of day "oohing and aahing" over the tiny animals she cared for under her skirt.

Sadly, Linda did not live  past 30 and when she passed Louie had her cremated with the explanation that he could finally lift her!  He took her on his final run through the canyon and left instructions that the same ride would be the one he took when the time came.

Years have passed since those days and I am the only one still on the up side of the sod.  Life gets lonely here on my little acre, especially with the covid 19 pandemic.  I just thank God every day for the people in my life like Louie and Linda who have graced my doorstep and brightened my life in some small way.  It is my earnest prayer that someday I will be able to see all the unique friends I have met over the years.

That would sure make heaven a brighter place!

Happy Fourth of July!

 I bet this is about the last kind of post you expected when you found me this morning.  Last thing I thought I would write about today, but I need a break from reality.  I need to be happy if even for just a few minutes.  It is 9 days until Christmas.  I have no tree.  No presents.  No hope for any happiness on the horizon, so it is off to Nickerson and the 4th of July.

It is back to the ramshackle house at 709 North Strong Street and it is July 4th, 1948 and it is hotter than hell.  No air conditioner in our window.  Electricity is only used for the lights because we do not want to "wear it out".  The war has been over for  almost 3 years.  My brother, Jake, had brought me home a package of fire crackers.  I do not know where he got them, but they were wrapped in cellophane and they were red.  There must have been 10 or twelve in the package and I was fascinated with them.  In truth, I was scared to death of them!

They were (as I recall) about an inch long.  They were a very dark red.  The fuse was a piece of white twisted paper.  If I had something like that today, I would light the twisted fuse and they would all pop and it would be over in 10 seconds.  But that is now and this was 72 years ago.  Times have changed.

We went to the old, dead Cottonwood tree out by the barn.  Jake showed me how to pick the dead wood and select just the right piece to use as "punk".  Punk is dead cottonwood  from the heart of the tree.  It separates easily, is very light , and it is free.  The man selling the fireworks had given him a free punk, but I needed my own.  In order to keep the punk glowing red, it needed to be blown on at regular intervals.  My brother was the smartest person in the world!  He was 4 years older than me and I worshipped the ground he walked on.

I recall untwisting one from the bunch and putting it in an ant hole.  With the wick pointed upward and the punk held downward and my eyes about 4 inches from the firecracker I touched the glowing punk to the wick and nothing happened.  Well, that is not quite true!  Something happened, but it was not a popping firecracker.  It was my mother jerking me off the ground and explaining to me that this was a stupid maneuver.  My brother rounded the corner of the house and quickly exited, stage right!

She then taught me the proper was to do it.  Unwind one firecracker.  Lay it on the ground.  Blow on the punk to make it red and touch the end to the fuse.  As soon as the fuse showed signs of being lit, back up very far away.  And then she was off to find brother Jake.

I do not remember many more 4th of July's until my first husband talked me into holding a Roman Candle in my hand and hurling it back and forth to make the balls go further.  When that exploded in my hand, my firecracker days were over!  Today I enjoy watching the fireworks across the river and I do it from the safety of my bedroom.  

I miss my brother.  I miss my mother.  I miss my sisters.  If this were not true, would I be writing about a 4th of July that happened 72 years ago?  No.  I would be curled up in my bed still sound asleep.  

There is an old saying that goes like this, "When God closes a door, he opens a window."  This means that life changes and life goes on.  Until the day God calls me home, I will have choices.  He has closed a door in my life and I am looking for the window.  I hope there is one, but right now, I am not sure.  I sure hope there is! 

So, until you hear otherwise,  Happy Fourth of July!  

I was happy then, wasn't I?

 Pandemic.  Such an evil word.  There was talk before about the possibility of a "pandemic."  What would we do?  All the people in power had simple solutions.  It was easy back then, wasn't it?  Medical was ready.  Hospitals were ready.  Every thing was in place to handle a health crisis.  What went wrong?

The flu kills people every year, doesn't it?  Sure.  People got their flu shots.  But my mind kept going back to the little red man in the diagram flying over here in a shiny plane.  The diagram showed him getting off the plane on the west coast.  Washington I think.  Then he got back on the plane and flew to Florida.  Such a simple little diagram, but then all the best laid plans of mice and men, as was inevitable, went to hell in a hand basket.  Little red dots began showing up all over the map.  OMG!  The impossible had happened.  We were smack in the middle of a pandemic which covered the whole world.

Even back then it was fascinating to watch.  They could trace it.  They could see it move across the country.  They could see people dying, but the little red dots meant nothing until they chose my world to come into.  We have lost a complete year out of our lives.  Our kids have adapted to online learning, but where is interaction with other people and kids occurring?  Online?  There is no electronic device that can replace the touch of a human hand; the sound of laughter.  Even a cup of coffee with a friend at Starbucks is a thing of the past.

My car rarely leaves the car port.  A quick trip to Lagreese is about the best I can do.  I still mail a few orders out from the neighborhood drug store, but my zest for life is gone.  The library where I used to spend so much time, is now off limits.  The AIDS quilt was not hung this year.  It is deserted and a time limit is imposed.  Church is closed and shuttered.  I can still walk down on the levee, but even that is a lonely undertaking.

My Sunday afternoon Scrabble in no more.  I fear I could slip into the doldrums and just wither away.  The sad part is that I am pretty sure I am not alone in this.  I met a friend at Starbucks last Saturday and we drank coffee in her car.  When our visit was over she walked to my side of the car and she hugged me.  She hugged me for probably a full minute and it felt so good.  We are not supposed to do that you know, but sometimes you just gotta' go with your gut and to hell with the outcome.

Someday this will all be over, but it will never be forgotten.  People are gone from my life like they were never there.  But they were there!  They were warm, caring, kind people!  Some of them were funny and made me laugh.  Some were super intelligent and challenged my mind.  One was special in every way.  I have a picture on my screen and I see him every day, all day long.  But he doesn't smile.  I still feel special, but it is an empty specialness and it leaves me cold.

Maybe some day I can smile again, but not today.  Maybe some day when my friends stop dying, and my church is open and I can see the rose window, I can smile.  But not today.  The pain is too fresh and the wound too deep.

Enjoy what you have, while you have it, because life is fleeting and love an illusion. 

A black felt circular skirt with a pink poodle.

 

In case you have never seen a poodle skirt, this is it.  They were the rage back in the mid 50's.  I never had one, but that did not keep me from wanting one.  I think every girl in school wanted one, so I was not alone in that.  There were only a few of the more elite girls that could afford one and it sure wasn't in my momma's budget. Of course if I had gotten the black felt circular skirt with the pink poodle on the leash, I would have needed the black and white saddle oxfords to go with it.  And a nice sweater!  Sweater would have required a bra and boobs, but I did not have that or those either.

We wore brown or black shoes.  Mostly brown.  They were lace up and tie shoes and the skirt I wore was wool.  Wool was cheap and durable.  Wool had to be hand washed in cold water because if it wasn't it shrank.  Mother was always careful to not let that happen.  Now you should know, there was none of that changing of the clothes every day like goes on around here now.  I wore my brown wool skirt to school on Monday and every other day.  Sometimes I changed blouses in the middle of the week if there happened to be a clean one laying around some where.  When spring arrived we changed to our cotton clothes.  

A side note here on the shoes.  We each got a new pair in the fall and they were our "school shoes."  The fact that they were our only shoes was beside the point.  They were polished every Saturday night so we could look really good on Sunday, when we put on our "Sunday clothes."  We each got a new pair of shoes when school started in the fall and by the time spring came and the ground was no longer covered with snow, we had grown out of them or they had completely fallen apart, and we went barefooted until it was time to buy new shoes the next fall.  Barefeet were more common back when I was growing up.  Try going in some where now without your shoes.

Now it goes without saying here that Josephine was the oldest girl and I was next in line for the hand me downs.  After I was done with an item it was passed down to Donna, Mary and then Dorothy, in that order.  Any time some one showed up on our doorstep with clothes they were getting rid of was a good day.  I always prayed someone would grow out of their poodle skirt but that never seemed to happen.

I seem to recall sometime in my growing up years that stiff, lace petticoats that held the skirts out to make them full were also in style.  Seems like that was high school and I did not have one of those either.  My sister Donna did and I recall it scratching her legs  and making them red. Served her right for being so uppity!

You need to know that Saturday was the day we did "the washing."  That way we had clean clothes for church on Sunday.  We also polished our shoes every Saturday night.  Had to have them looking good for church on Sunday.  We all wore brown shoes and the shoe polish was in a bottle with a dauber that we smeared the brown liquid on the leather and let it dry.  Then we buffed them until they shined.  We were each responsible for the care of our shoes and making sure our clothes were laid out for the next day.  We wore the same clothes to school 5 days a week.  We did change into "play clothes" when we got home.

But, back to the poodle skirts.  In my mind, if I could just have a poodle skirt and a nice sweater and black and white oxfords  and bobby socks on my feet, I could have ruled the world.  There were probably only 3 girls in the whole school who actually wore those things and the fad did not last long.  Seems I was not the only girl in the world who did not have those items in my wardrobe and I did survive.

Now years later, after I have raised my kids the best I could, I know what my mother went through.  Poverty was a palpable part of our lives.  Hand me downs were a way of life.  Staring through the window of the Corrington Mercantile at the fabrics and dresses and dishes just made me sadder.  It made me want more.  My mother patched our clothes with a needle and thread.  Today we live in a disposable society.  

And who is the winner?  Believe it or not, I think it is me! I have money to buy whatever I want, but I still put little  pieces of fabric together, but now I call them a quilt!

The patience of Job!

Those of you who know me also know that I tend to be a tad bit of a know it all and have a bit of an abrasive personality.  I am a fairly intelligent woman and I want to win.  I keep track of my score on Jeopardy! right up to the moment I fall asleep.  I love to play Scrabble and therein is the source of this blog.

My friend, Anthony was almost my polar opposite.  He was quiet and also very intelligent.  Our favorite thing was playing Scrabble with friends.  I found a game on Amazon called Boggle which could be played alone or as competition.  We made our own rules.  Boggle consists of 16 cubes with letters on all four sides.  We flipped it out on the table and then each one of us took turns making a word and fitting in into a grid with the words made before.  We could only use the letters that were showing on top.  Sort of like a crossword puzzle when it was finished.  The last one to make a word won.  Simple and fun.

Anthony always set quietly while I found my word and played.  He was the most patient man I have ever known.  The last Sunday is the one I remember.  We played; he won.  We played; I won.  On the last game it was his turn and I could see a very obvious word.  I could barely contain myself as I watched him searching the letters. I knew if he seen it, the game would be over.  He looked up at me in my agitated state and said very quietly, "It is my turn."  Yes it was and I watched as he chose the word and beat me!  But that was my Anthony!  

He never gloated over a victory and neither did I.  We were two very good friends enjoying a competition.  I respected his mind as he respected mine.  I find that very rare in a man, but usually it is a sign that he is comfortable in his own skin.  I liked that about him.

He was patient with me.  He was always kind.  Sometimes he was opinionated when we were talking about life, but always he listened.  He did not want anyone to take advantage of me and was quick to point out to me, if he thought that was happening.  While he never met my whole family, he knew who they were.  He loved his family, but sometimes he was sad and missed the ones who were no longer here.  I understood that.

My life has two parts now; before Anthony and after Anthony.  The pain of losing him gets easier every day, but not really.  There is a hole in my heart that can never be filled.  And I would not want it to change.  I will always see those beautiful brown eyes looking at me and hear his soft voice saying 

"It is my turn."  

The dash to the outhouse!

 I am up in the morning anywhere from 3:30 AM  to 5:00.  If I lay there any longer my aches and pains seem to kick in to remind me of my age.  This was all well and good back when I lived alone in my one bathroom house, but now I have a son who lives with me and he leaves for work at 5:30.  This means he sneaks very quietly up the stairs and into the bathroom and I do not hear him.  So when I open my bedroom door and see the light under the bathroom door, I know I missed my golden opportunity and I will now be doing the little dance that does no good what so ever, but seems necessary.

So this leads me to the moonlight trail to the outhouse back at 709 North Strong Street , Nickerson, Kansas,  seventy years ago.  While it was still light we all had to go visit the outhouse.  Hopefully that would be the last trip for the night.  Now, in the event we actually had to go in the middle of the night, we were allowed to make concessions.  One of these was if we only needed to go as far as the horse tank if we only had to do #1.  There was a "chamber pot" located behind the wood stove for the little kids to use and Dad.  I do not ever remember being an actual "little kid."  I am sure that after we left the Stroh place Jake, Josephine, myself were all big kids.  Dorothy was a tiny baby and Mary was 2 years old.  That would have meant Donna was 4.  Since they were little they went to Ora Ayres to be babysat while I was in school  She charged 50 cents  a week.    

I remember her kitchen well.  It had  very big wood cookstove that took up the whole kitchen.  I need to interject here that  when her and Jerry(?) were first married they were in a car wreck and Ora had suffered some brain damage.  She was still a functioning adult, but her reasoning skills were rather limited.  She could babysit and she could cook.  We grew up eating chocolate cakes that she baked every day and were used as a substitute for bread.  Now her cakes were a strange green color, but mother said it was because she skimped on the chocolate or used an inferior brand.  But that is neither here nor there and has no bearing whatso ever on anything and I do not know why it stuck in my mind. 

Jerry was an avid gardener and when he harvested his crops were kept in his bedroom.  His harvest seem to consist of mostly peanuts which were boiled and eaten that way.  Gross.  Never understood that, but it really was not any of my business.  The back yard had a grainery and that was where the chickens lived.  The "out house" was located in one corner of a row of ramshackle sheds strung together that surrounded the grainery.  It was a hole in the ground with a wash tub with a hole cut in it and turned upside down.  That was one place no one wanted to go and I never had nerve enough to perch on that with my pants down!  It was breeding grounds (in my mind) to a new breed of giant, poison spiders.

Some times mother sent us big kids to bring the little kids home.  That was always a treat because Ora would give us a piece of the green cake and we actually liked it as long as we did not know the difference.  Entertainment at her house consisted of blocks of wood which were used as cars to travel on the dirt roads we drew on the dirt yard.  

As I write this, I realize that this was our "normal".  If I gave one of my grandkids a piece of wood and told them to go pretend it was a car they would think I had lost my mind!  I can get Jiraiya to walk across a field with me to check on crawdads in the ditch, but a block of wood is just a block of wood to him.  He likes to fill the feeder for the geese, but then the computer games are his weapon of choice.

I miss my life on Strong Street and I can not imagine why I ever wanted to leave, but I did.  My idea of heaven is not a street paved in gold, but the sandy soil of Strong Street and the mud that dried in the puddles and waited for the sun to bake it so we could walk barefoot and feel it crunch beneath our feet.

  That and a piece of green cake will get me a seat at the throne of God any day!

Mama always said....

It is without fail that I wake up every morning to my mother's voice in my ear reminding me of something she thinks I might have forgotten.  Today it is the one about "If you can reach the end of your life and count all your friends on one hand, you are blessed."  Once more, I can see the wisdom of her words.  She defines a true friend as someone who carries you in their heart.  Someone who knows your deepest secrets and will take that secret to their grave.  It is someone one that you can call after months or years of absence and both of you are happy for the call.  Someone who knows the good and bad about you and accepts it as normal.

And this morning I counted. There is one in Kansas.  One in Missouri.  Those 2 go back to the Red Carpet so they are my oldest friends.  Now that Renate is back in my life, I realize that makes 3.  John Tenorio was #4, but he passed two years ago and has not been replaced.  His brother has pretty much filled that vacancy because I can bitch and moan to him and tell him my thoughts without him thinking ill of me.  Number 5 is solid.  I met him when I first came to Colorado and we have remained friends for all these years.  Now let me tell you about this friend.

I do not talk to him very often, but we both know we are just a phone call away.  And I know I can count on him to understand.  He was one of my first phone calls when I lost Kenny.  He called when his dad died and again when his mom passed.  Our first conversation in several years occurred about my Anthony two weeks ago.  He kept jumping ahead in the conversation with "Did you get married again?"  "Are you going to get married?" When he heard the outcome of the story, he was devastated as I knew he would be.  He lives in a pollyanna world where good things happen to good people.  That is not so in the real world.  The real world hands you happiness and just when you think it is alright, you learn it is not.  And that is why we need friends.

So, momma, if you are up there, and I am sure you are you need to know that the scrawny little brown haired girl you raised to be a full grown woman actually listened to you.  I do very little in this life that is not influenced by things you taught me when you thought I was not listening.  Your picture is the last thing I see when I leave my house.  There is another by my bed on the stand where the Bible should be.  I remember to cherish my friends. I do not lie, steal or cheat.  I try to treat everyone fairly.  I do not let my left hand know what my right hand gives away.  I love my fellow man.

I try really hard, but some days life just sucks.

Renate, my friend the artist!

This is a picture that Renate painted for me.  It is beautiful, but sadly the overhead lights are reflected in the glass.  (Nobody ever accused me of being a photographer.)  But just look at this picture.  It is beautiful.  I never knew her to paint.  When we were kicking around we were both into writing.  Apparently she got a wild hair at some time and tried her hand at painting.  Now, while I am not schooled in the fine art of painting, this appeals to me and makes me feel that I am right there  on the lake and it even makes me feel a little cold.  She has a desire to paint pictures and sell them, which I am thinking she should be able to do.  Maybe some day I will be able to introduce her to my friends as  "Renate Tursi, the accomplished artist who lives in that great big house on the hill that she paid for with her paintings money".

I have never had an artistic bone in my body and my talents are mostly the written word, but some times I like to cook and bake new things.  Today I made pecan bars and that was a mistake.  See, there is no one here but me and this was a pan 13" x 9" and the bars are about 1 inch tall.  So I called Ross over and he ate one and took 2 home, but that still leaves a lot in the pan.  Bret should wander in later, but he is not a big sweet eater and these things are very sweet.

  

Well, let me tell you something about baking.  It is rather hard to bake anything that is not loaded with calories.  First you have the flour, then the sugar, and the butter and then the good Lord deems that it must all be held down with frosting, which is just a different kind of sugar.  I can make noodles, but there again, starch, starch, starch.  

And now guess what?  I am sleepy so I guess I will call this finished and head off to bed.  I know there is no lesson learned today and I have not touched your soul, but just know that sometimes I just need to type something that means nothing and teaches no lessons.  Mostly I guess, I just wanted you to see the picture Renate painted for me and to know that is is so nice to have my friend back in my life even under the worst of circumstances. We are not the same people we were  10 years ago, but we have a history and that history will work to make us better people.

Good night, Renate!  Tell the dogs I am coming soon!

 

Time just keeps right on marching.

 Funny, I thought the world had stopped, but it has not.  It has been 2 weeks today since my life was altered by circumstances far beyond my control, and yet so close to my grasp.  When I say life is funny, I do not mean it in the literal sense.  It is funny in the way that we really think we matter and that we have any control at all over the events that transpire and pull us into a web that is intricately woven by some unseen hand.  The house I used to enjoy going to on Sunday after church is empty and a realtor placed a sign in front of it.  I will not drive by to see if anyone lives there, nor to see if the broken limb has fallen to the street below.

When I pass by the reservoir, I will remember the afternoon we went hiking and I will smile.  When I   drive  down Pueblo Boulevard past Minnequa Lake, I will remember the 3 of us trying to get a small kite into the air and  I will smile. When I go to Sam's club I will remember that he used to buy me a juice called Naked because it had no additives. 

"Hey, Lou!  I got you Naked!"  " Oh, Anthony, I sure hope that is in  a bottle".

Little things that meant nothing now mean so much.  It is almost 6:32, the time my phone pinged that I had a message; the last message I would ever receive from that number.

Yes, life goes on whether we want it to or not.  God is still in his heaven and I still trust him with my life.  I do not know his plan, but I am sure he has one.  Nothing is random and God will never give me more than I can carry.  This I know is true.  And there is one more thing I know that I tend to forget and that is this:  "God never closes a door without opening a window."

Right now I do not know where the window is, but I am sure I will find it and it will lead to peace.  That is how my God rolls!

OMG! It's a YAK!!!

 I can never think of my friend Renate without those words popping into my head.  There are words that could manifest there, such as friend, kind, compassionate, funny, dependable and even sucker, but Yak is the one that is in the fore front of my mind.  And "Yak" is followed by gales of laughter.

Renate is coming today.  I wrote about our reconnecting yesterday or the day before.  I have lost all track of time when it comes to days of the week and I consider it a major accomplishment to know that today is December 4 and it is Friday.  To be honest somebody told me.  My youngest son lives with me and he reminded me that today is Friday and Renate is coming.  And I told him the Yak story before he left for work and he gave me the "poor delusional momma" look as he left.  But I was victorious because I now knew for sure what day it was and that Renate was coming today.  I think it has been close to 10 years since I seen her.

My last memory of her was a trip up to Beulah with her dad and step mom.  Renate and I were in the front seat and she was driving.  Dale Tursi and his wife Val  were in the back seat enjoying the scenery.  We were talking about meaningless things that had transpired the previous week.  We were on our way to Beulah where we planned a drive through the mountains and stopping some where to partake of what ever was in the picnic basket she had packed.  

Since the scenery rarely changes we were just talking and not really paying attention when suddenly about halfway up the drive we both caught sight of animals in a field where cattle belonged.  The cattle had always been there and now we both stared in amazement at 8 or 9 black very strange looking animals which could have been cattle had they not had long hair.  

The words that came out of both our mouths at the same exact time were "What the hell!?  YAKS!!!  Those are Yaks!"  It was so ludicrous that we then dissolved into gales of laughter.  Renate parked and Dale and Val were in a state of confusion.  

Renate pointed at the Yaks and explained.  "Look!  (pause)  Yaks!  I thought they could only live in cold climates!"

I am not sure why, but they were not nearly as amazed as Renate and I by the sight.  They sort of looked at us and shook there heads.  We then continued our day, but I am willing to bet that when Renate reads this she is going to be taken back to that day and she and I are going to have a very good laugh.  

Some things can only be remembered by the people who were there and while I have since learned Yaks can live in Colorado, I have never seen one.  

Renate is my friend.  My mother once told me these words "If you can reach the end of your life and count your true friends on one hand, you are blessed."  And as I set here, I think of many people who have been my friend over the years.  God has blessed me with many friends through the years, but when I follow her criteria, I see she is right.  

On one hand I can count 5 friends.  Only 5 that I consider true friends.  A true friend is one that keeps my confidences.  One who knows my deepest secrets, but never finds a need to discuss them.  Renate is one of them.

So lunch today and who knows what tomorrow may bring.  Life gives us little twists and turns, but always seems to lead us where we need to be.  I am looking to have a beautiful reunion with my friend and hopefully in this drab world we are currently in we can find a little laughter, God willing.

When God closes a door, he opens a window.

 I have always known this to be true although I also tend to forget it a lot.  I need to lay the back drop for this story first.  30 years ago I began working with AIDS patients as a care giver and personal companion.  The epidemic was in full swing back then and a lot of people were worried about "catching it", so people who did my line of work were in great demand.  But this is about a friendship forged in the midst of sickness and dying buffered by an underlying hope for a cure.  Sadly there was not a miracle cure discovered, but there was medicine discovered that could suppress the virus and allow people to live fairly normal lives, but that is history and this blog is about a friendship.

While I worked in the field with the clients, my friend was a case manager.  She dealt with them in their medical care and financial needs.  I helped them with house work, laundry, cooking, shopping, banking and that sort of stuff.  I also tried to give them avenues of entertainment including walks in the park, picnics and  and stuff like that.  Since there was a stigma connected to them at the time my job description changed almost daily.  I was whatever I needed to be at any given time for any reason.  And always in the background was Renate.  What did I need?  How could she help?  Always a phone call away.

In our line of work at that time there were frequent deaths.  It was a scary time for us as well as the clients.  Science was working overtime to conquer this plague and all we could do was try to help where and when we could. We started social events to try to have some sort of normalcy.  We started World AIDS  Day and made an AIDS Quilt.  We were marking time and eventually it paid off.  The community learned that AIDS was a manageable medical condition and it was spread by love.  Safe sex became our mantra, and now many years later, it has paid off and we can teach safe sex.

  I eventually left the client base because they did not need me any more.  I went to volunteer at hospice and Renate retired to live her idyllic life with the man she loved. Renate and I drifted apart after she retired.   But life is cruel. I knew she moved to Fowler and now had a life partner, but that was all I knew.  And now all these years later, the circle has reconnected and we have made contact again.  Her life has changed and mine has changed.  She is a widow and I just lost my Anthony.  She will be here tomorrow!  She thinks she can still find my house, but we will see.  The neighborhood has changed and time has passed.  We will see.

So, today I am going to make cookies or cinnamon rolls for my friend.  It seems strange to say the word "friend" in connection with some one I have not seen in many years, but some bonds are never broken and when people fight for a cause that is right and just, they remain friends forever.  

It will be nice to see her and  I am going to hug her so tight she can not get loose!  And we will cry over Jim and Anthony, and laugh over Mark and Allen and all the clients of long ago.  And when she leaves we will make a vow to never be seperated like this again and maybe this time it will work.  I just know this, the Lord works in wonderous ways, his miracles to perform.

Peace.

And now it is tomorrow.

 Life has a way of going on whether we like it or not.  It has been almost a week since my life was thrown into a bottomless pit, and yet the sun comes up every morning.  One day it snowed; the next the air conditioner kicked on to cool the  house.  I cooked a turkey and I burned the roaster beyond ever being useful again.  I swept the porch, but not the sidewalk.  I bought goose food.  I made coffee every morning.  Funny how the mundane works to keep us sane.

Covid 19 is still the number one story on the news, both here and abroad.  I mask up and go to the grocery only when I need something.  I wove a couple rows on my runner, washed the sheets on Jiraiya's bed and stared blankly at the television for several hours.  Life goes on.  Someday I am sure, life will again have meaning, but not right now.

If the church was open I could go set in the corner and talk this all over with God, but it is not, so I do the next best things.  I stand in my front yard early in the morning and watch the sun spread across the eastern sky.  I watch the birds shake themselves out of their stupor and rise against the sky in search of a fellow bird much as my soul rises in hope that this new day will be better.

And at night I search for the moon.  Sometimes it is full, which fills me with wonder.  Sometimes it is a crescent and sometimes it is dark, but always it is there.  As I watch it rise on the horizon, I know that some where, some how, I am not alone. I have a little trouble remembering when life was fun and I can not hear the laughter that used to live inside of me, but some how I know it is still there.

My hand reaches for the phone and then stops in mid air.  The number is dying in my head even as my hand retracts.  That part of my life is over.  It is over, but it is not forgotten.  It will live every day in my heart and someday, there will be a big harvest moon.  It will be a beautiful orange and it will make me smile.  And then, as now, the moon will enter a new phase and I will only see the outline of a cresent against a black sky.  

And maybe someday, I will smile again.

Today is Thanksgiving Day.

 Oxymoron is defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that seemingly contradicts, such as  "cruel kindness."  Today is Thanksgiving Day.  The day we give thanks for all the wonderful bounty that our creator has bestowed on us.  I am sorry.  While the turkey is in the oven as it has been for the last 79 years of my life, the bounty is not reflected in my heart.

We are in the middle of the worst pandemic of our lives.  The government leaders are begging us to isolate and stay in our homes, but the airlines are busy.  There is a festivity in the air that is completely asinine to the darkest sorrow in my heart.  Life is going on as usual in so many areas, but not here on South Road.

I have not seen my kids in over a year.  It has been longer than that since I seen my sister.  I only have one sister left. I have a few nieces and nephews that I never see and rarely hear from. A couple friends that I talk with several times a year and that is about it. The Aunts and Uncles have all faded from the horizon and I am left in the abyss that is called my life.  My life is in Colorado now.  I have friends here and I had a special friend named Anthony.

Anthony has been gone 5 days.  We had plans.  He was such a caring man.  I wish the whole world could have known the simple little soul that was Anthony.  If I have to say something I am grateful for today, it can only be that he was in my life for the time he was in my life and he touched me to the very depth of my soul. My world is a better place for him having shared a part of it.

He loved the moon.  I loved the moon.  We looked at it together, he on his side of town and me on the mesa.  We talked every day.  Sometimes it was just a touch base thing and sometimes we talked for hours.  We had different opinions about many things, but we respected each other and that made it good. I had coffee with him every Sunday after church.  It was the high point of my week.  And then he got sick.

Thanksgiving?  I think not.  I will cook the turkey, because that is what I do.  I will feed the geese, because that is what I do.  I will sleep through Jeopardy!  because that is what I do.  I will remember that Anthony would call me when the opening theme song of Jeopardy! started and tell me good night.  He knew.  He understood me and he loved his family.  He missed his family.  He told me that many times.  And now his family will miss him.  

The gentle giant is with us no more, but as sure as there is a God above and the deep blue sea below this man will live in the hearts of everyone who knew him. 

For now, Rest In Peace, knowing you are missed by so many and loved by all who knew you.

Until we meet again........

Farewell to my friends as I close another chapter.

 Sometimes God reaches down and for no reason whatsoever, picks the most beautiful flower in the garden to hold as his very own.  He holds it close to his heart and whispers, "You are mine!"  And so it was last Saturday, when he took my friend.

In life we meet many people.  Some are random and pass through leaving very little trace behind.  Some linger for a while and leave without a trace left behind.  There are also those who have spent a lifetime with us without leaving a trace behind  and then there are those who become entwined in our souls and the very fabric of our being.  Anthony was such a friend.

I do not remember how many years ago it was that I met Anthony and Annie, but they forever altered the fabric of my being.  Annie was an invalid and Anthony was her caregiver.  He had been for many years and as such had enlisted Hospice to help with respite care.  I worked for Hospice as a relief.  The first time I met Annie she was drawn to my blue eyes and if Annie was happy, Anthony was happy.  So began a friendship forged of a common need. 

This friendship continued after the passing of Annie, and continued until last Saturday when God seen my Anthony standing all alone in the garden of life.  He reached down and cradled him in his arms and with only a brief glance at me standing in the breach he put his arms around my beautiful Anthony and took him home.  And they were gone. 

We are all given our reasons for being on this earth and we sometimes know what they are and sometimes we do not.  My first obligation was to Annie.  My second to her son.  They are both with God now and I can only thank my dear savior for having had the privilege of knowing these two beautiful souls.  I am  a better person for having them touch my life.

Nobody's Cat.

 The same sun came up this morning, just like it has every day for so many years, but this time it is different.  It is an empty sun shining on an empty world.  I do not know how many people there are on this little ball we call earth, but I am sure it numbers in the billions or trillions.  That does not matter to me.  What matters is the one person who is not here.  The one person who made my world turn.  The one person who could brighten my day and give meaning to my life.  The one person who understood when I was sad and laughed when I was happy.  The one person whose hand was warm and whose eyes were bright.  The man who wrote "wash me" on my back car window.  The man who fixed my coffee with just the right amount of froth to the creamer.

When I met this man many years ago he was taking care of his invalid mother.  He was so kind to her and so solicitous of her every need that I thought he must surely have wings under his shirt.  Our first serious conversation concerned an old cat that lived on his patio.  I asked whose it was and he said "no ones" it just lived there.  

I asked him about the small crate the cat slept in. "Well, I put it there so it could get out of the weather."

How did it come to be on his porch?  Well, it followed him home from the store.  It was a kitten then and he had to pick it up several times because it was tired and lagged behind.  He did not want it to get lost.  Did it ever come in the house?  Well, sometimes because it was cold he let it sleep with him.  I thought it pretty much qualified as being his cat and when he had to have it put to sleep he cried just like it was his pet.  But he still said no.

Over the years we became friends.  We learned to understand each others idiosyncrasy's.  It was tit for tat and yang for yang.  He was an  independent man and I was an independent woman.  We were friends in a way that many people strive for and few people achieve.  I shall never stop reaching for his hand and never stop waiting for the phone to ring.

Fly free, my little friend.  God has gained a priceless treasure in his store house of love.

Covid and isolation.

 At this point in time I just want to remind everyone that the covid isolation is a very real thing.  You may think it is just a phenomenon, but it is very real.  As a society we are heat seeking missles, but now that our nation is forced into isolation we find ourselves left to our own devises and they are not always healthy or correct.  Imagine, if you will having covid, and being alone day after day in your home.  Someone may very well drop off groceries, or medicine or call for a brief visit, but you are virtually alone.  All day.  Every day.

At what point do the days start to run together and you question what day it actually is and how many days have you been alone?  I am asking everyone who reads this to pick up your phone.  Call a friend that you know is alone and let them hear the sound of another human voice.  It does not need to be a long conversation.  Just touch base.  Let them know they are not alone.  You never know when you may be the one brief glimpse across the abyss of a very lonely person.  Just to know that there is another person out there is sometimes all it takes.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that anyone wants to be totally alone for days on end. If they want to be alone they can ignore the ringing phone, but do not make that choice for them.  Give them the chance.  I am sure you all know someone who could use a short hello how are you.  

Covid will be with us for a very long time and we all need to take care of each other even if it is just a short hello.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your neighbor.  Do it for the hell of it!  The life you save may be your own.

And now it is over.

 

All the bluster and hype and worry and wonder is behind us.  For all the cries of sabotage and cheating still echoing in the wind,  all the votes are now now counted and entered in the book.   There is a winner and there is a loser.  It always happens that way, doesn't it?  The red people worked hard and the blue people worked hard, and Kanye West had his moment of fame.  Now in 3 short months we will have a new president.  We have a shot at doing it right this time.  This happens every 4 years, with one difference.

I can not say that I will miss the Donald, because I never liked him in the first place.  I always thought he was a charlatan who padded the payrolls of his kids with "stay busy work" in the white house.  But this is not about that either because if I were in his position, I would help my kids in the same way. His wife just pretty much stayed out of the way unless he needed her to decorate his arm.  This is about the Democratic Party and the part they play in the government.

(I must interject here that I think my cat is a democrat.  Right now she is laying half on the keyboard and half on my lap.  This makes it very hard to type, but it is where she chooses to be and will bite me if I try to move her.  That's how Democrats are; they do not like change.)

See, Democrats are pretty laid back and do not really want to make waves.  As a whole we are peace loving souls and have the live and let live attitude. If we have a President who just leaves us alone, lets us be at peace, we are good to go.  We believe in equal rights for everyone. We do not want anyone to go hungry and everyone should have a bed at night where they are safe.  An honest days pay for an honest days work. Peace and love and seeing a doctor when the body malfunctions is good.  If my husband is woman, that is my business.  Climate change is real.  The earth is a global community and we are all responsible to care for mother earth.  Sadly, Donald Trump did not understand that!

He began to slowly whittle away at our world.  Other countries  leaders began to pull away.  Environmental laws were lifted.  Russia was our friend.  There is an old saying, "No man is an island unto himself."  That is very true and as the man lost his grip on reality he pushed us further into a corner.  We woke up to the fact that we would soon be right back where we started. And thus began the forming of the Big Blue Wave!

It has long been known that Democrats are lackadaisical in voting and tend to support whoever is popular at the time.  But when push comes to shove and we are threatened with our rights and privileges being lost, we come out of our caves and suburbs and bond together in a way that makes a difference and when we come together with Republicans who know that their leader is not interested in the well being of America, we are unstoppable.  The days of Jim Crow are over.  The days of flying the confederate flag are over.  The days of our sons and daughters being shamed for who the love are over.  And Donald Trump can sue and count votes the rest of his life, but America has spoken!

I do not think Joe Biden really wanted to be President, but we needed a leader and he was experienced under the Great Barak Obama!  So he was it.  His choice of Kamala Harris further solidified the deal.  That woman is perfect in that she covers all the race and gender cards and more than that is a caring compassionate human being.  The fact that she is drop dead gorgeous is an added bonus.

So peace to all.  In a few short months Joe and Kamala will smile and wave to us from the front door of the white house and if there is a God, soon the Rose Garden will be restored.  In the mean time, I will sleep better at night knowing compassion will soon be restored to our land.

Opinions are just like a--holes; everyone has one.

 and most of them stink!  I just turned off the news.  I have turned everything off and it will stay that way the rest of the day.  Today is election day.  Normally I am all a twitter and anxious to see who will rule over me for the next four years, but this year is different.  For most of my life I was a registered Independent and mostly voted Republican.  That all changed way back when Amendment 2 was up for adoption in the state of Colorado.

Normally when I see the words "Shall there be an amendment to the constitution...." it incites something in me to say yes.  Not so with this one.  A yes vote basically removed any protections that my gay friends were allowed to enjoy.  It cleared the way for open discrimination against them for job security, rental of a place to live, marriage and any protection in anything and everything that you and I take for granted.  In order for my fiends to have any basic protection for anything, I had to vote "no."  Sadly there were a lot of people who voted yes and some of them knew what they were voting at the time.  To make a long story short, it passed with a very strong yes vote.  To make it even shorter, we went to the supreme court and it was declared unconstitutional and we all lived happily ever after. (Well, not really, but at least that part was removed.)

But so began my journey into the arena of politics and the need to have my vote mean something.  Today when some one brings up politics, my first question is "Are you registered and do you vote?" If the answer is "No, because my one vote will not make a difference", then we have the talk about one drop of rain in a bucket is nothing, but 6 million drops will flood your ass!"  You register your car.  You register (hopefully ) your gun.  You need to register your wants and desires with the state and federal government.

Voting, to me, is a sacred right.  With my vote I sent the first man of color to be my president.  With my vote, I overturned gay discrimination.  And with my vote I can raise or lower my taxes.   I can require that you have insurance on your car and that your dog has a license.  I can change the county, state, and federal laws.  I can put the man in the White House to rule over my country.  But if I don't vote, I am screwed!

If I don't vote I have no right to bitch about how the rest of the country voted.  So I do.  It may not be much and it may not be the man (or woman) that I wanted, but it is the one the majority of the people chose and I can live with that.  Or at least I think I can.  We will see.

I may not agree with the choices you make, but I will defend to the death your right to make them.

Peace to all.

A trip to a dark place in my past.

 It has been over 65 years since I thought of Jimmie.  He holds no significance in my life except that he was there for a brief period.  I was 17 years  old and ready for my life to begin.  I was ready for love and love seemed to be everywhere.  The years of the 16 and 17 year old Louella were all about exploration, and mostly dancing and finding someone to call my own.  Some one who would love me forever.  The boys were plentiful back then and they were just as innocent and just as eager as the girls.  Sex had not yet reared it's head on our horizon.  Oh there was the occasional stolen kiss and the fumbled attempts at "copping a feel", but that was as far as it went.  Most of the dates were "double dates", because very few of the boys had access to a car back then.

And then came Jimmie.  Jimmie was older.  Jimmie had been in the Army.  Jimmie had a car.  He was the cool boy who stood on the sidelines with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  It was rumored that he had a wife and son back in England.  That just added to the mystic of Jimmie.  Sadly it very soon became common knowledge that Jimmie was the love 'em and leave 'em kind.  Pretty little teenagers following him with their red eyes soon became a common sight at the record hop.  And then he looked my way!  

He took me to his house to meet his mom and sister.  He showed me a picture of his wife and son.  Looking back in retrospect, I am not sure it was anything but a picture from a magazine, but it added to the legend that was Jimmie.  He did not appear old enough to have spent a lot of time in the Army, but he said it so that made it so.  I, of course, was holding my sexual favors back in hopes of a wedding ring.  I sure did not want to be one of the sad little creatures watching him from afar.  He soon tired of me.  And as time would tell, God above smiled on me the day he broke my heart.  I had given him a picture to put on the dash of his car and he threw it out the window explaining to me that I was too immature for him.

Jimmie quit coming to the dances.  No one seen him, but we heard through the grapevine that he was working out of town and he gradually faded from our memories we all moved on.

When I married and moved out of town and began my own family, mother kept me up on all the gossip.  She sent newspaper clippings  of happenings that involved the circle of friends that she knew I hung out with.  One day there was a clipping about a nurse who lived in a trailer outside of town with her husband and two small children.  Someone had come to her trailer while her husband was at work and killed her two children and thrown them into the field.  He then raped her.  He did not kill her.  They had a lead as to his identity.  It was Jimmie.

I am sure people back home remember the headlines.  I do not remember all the details of the trial, but he was definitely the same Jimmie I knew and he was definitely guilty.  I could google it and find out, but I do not care.  I only know how lucky my friends and I were that we had all dated him and we were all alright.  This just goes to show that mother was right about another thing.  She always said "You never know anyone, you only know OF  them.  You know what they let you see."

That happened 65 years ago and I read about it at some point in time, but God in his wisdom left me untouched.  Not just me, but many of my friends.  This is something I have not thought about for many, many years, but today I thank God for bringing me through a lot of valleys to this wonderful life I now live in Pueblo. Colorado!

Brings me to this song which pretty much says it all.  Unanswered Prayers

That is an arachnid.

 And when I start screaming and clawing at the front of your shirt and trying to crawl on top of your head, it is called arachnophobia.   And yes it is a very real mental condition, and yes it can be controlled.  Death of the human suffering this condition will cure it, pretty much. How do I know it is real?  Stick with me here for just a bit.

Now, many of you know me.  You know that I fear nothing.  I have walked through the very fires of hell and came out the other side smiling.  Now that might be an exaggeration, but I have seen my scary things in life and for the most part been unaffected.  I can see a snake slithering into the goose house and still manage to go in and do my chores.  The only snakes I kill are the ones who get aggressive with me and that only happened the one time.   (Course that can also be said for a few husbands who were not smart enough to know when to stop.)

When I came to Colorado I was married to a guy named Charlie and he had a son who was pretty much grown.  Of course, they wanted to show me the high spots of Colorado and one of them is Beulah.  Since we had a two door car and they were both big, Susie and I were in the back seat when we were coming down from Beulah.  Suddenly Charlie pulled over and stopped.  There was a tarantula crossing the road and heading into the ditch.  When I saw the size of that thing, my eyes glazed over and purple lightening was flashing inside my head.  

Now, a note here to my friends in Kansas.  These things are BIG!  I swear to God that one had to be a foot across!  It had teeth!  It was looking at me in the back seat.  It wanted to eat me.  When David started to open the door to "get it and take it home for a pet" my world went suddenly black.  I shit you not!  I had both of those guys by the collar and raised up out of the seat.  At that point they decided they really did not need a spider for a pet.  I still have flashbacks when I think of that day.

Years passed and I never encountered another spider of that size until I married Kenneth.  One evening  after supper Jackie and Jim walked into our house.  Jimmy carried a paper cup and had something to show me.  I knew!  Instinct kicked in and I told him not to do it, but being the California boy he was, he was proud of his catch and wanted to show me.  When he dumped that spider out on my table, I lost all sense of reason.  The next thing I clearly remember is him begging me to forgive him.  Here to tell you right now he is still on thin ice.  Ask him about it.  Today we can look back and laugh, but that took a year or so.

And now I do not even think about tarantulas, unless something kicks in and triggers me.  Hiking at the reservoir the other day was a challenge to me because it is breeding season and they are migrating to the breeding grounds.  Oh, dear God!  My hiking partner was quick to tell me that  if we saw one he would not catch it and he understood I would not like  a closer look.  And no he would not kill it just because it wanted to go in the bushes and have a little spider fun.  Watching for rattlesnakes was not an issue, but the thought of beady eyed spiders became one!  Luckily the man did not have to witness my descent into total paranoia!

So there you have it.  The worst things I had to contend with in Kansas were millipedes.  They are about an inch or so long and have millions of legs.  They scurry up the wall and then hide so you can not kill them.  The spiders are mostly granddaddy long legs.  Couse the Black Widow likes to build a web in your basement window and hatch out her babies.  The Black Widows with babies are always females because they eat their husband after sex.   Preying Mantis females eat their husbands head off after sex.  Gives a whole new meaning to "losing your head over a woman!"

So, now you have learned a new word, arachnophobia, and a little lesson on the sex life of those innocent looking little insects that inhabit our earth.  Just remember this:

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

Peace!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

With age comes wisdom, or so I hear.  Mother used to say that and I do believe there is some truth to it.  Maybe it isn't so much that we are wiser now, but that we have just come to think of all the crap we digest as inevitable.  

Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.  Now that one is sad but true!  I do know that with age comes wisdom.  I also know that is a crock if ever I heard one.  With age comes wrinkles!  With age comes a mind that is full of wisdom and no markers on how to retrieve any of that knowledge.  It is having friends and the constant struggle to remember who they are and how to get in touch with them.  It is slowing down on stairs and knowing I am always just one stair step away from the nursing home.  Old age sucks, it really does but I guess it is better then the alternative which is dying young.  Or so I hear.

This picture of my mother sets on the shelf right above my head.  She is always with me and sometimes I can hear her goading me.  She had a very wry and twisted sense of humor and I do believe I inherited that.  Now whether that is a good thing or not , I am not able to say.  I do know when I am sad she talks to me and when I am happy her little red cheeks show signs of a smile.  I am not sure I ever heard my mother laugh.  I like to think she did and her and I shared a lot of the same values, except for that Rush Limbaugh stuff.  I did subscribe to his newletter and paid for it to be delivered to her house, but that was about the length of that.  Below her picture is  a snippet of my sisters.  Sadly there are only two of us left, another of the hazards of growing old.  The good part though is that Donna is the only one that can dispute the memory of mama and she is 400 miles away.  Mama always loved me most!!!

This is the last picture I see when I go out my front door.  The lower left corner  is mama with her favorite child (ME).  The right corner is mama 50 years old.  And of course in the back is the mama I remember after I moved to Colorado. 

I like to think of my mama.  I loved her very much.  I am not sure she was ever proud of me.  If she was she never said it out loud to me.  I do know she liked my cooking.  When she came for a visit she carried a list in her pocket of what she wanted me to cook for her.  Tomato Soup made with fresh canned tomatoes from my garden...NOT Campbells.  Cream puffs.  Liver and onions.  Cinnamon rolls.  Fried potatoes.  She wanted to set in my rocker and watch the Hummingbirds.  She liked to stand at the island where my stove is and question every move I made in the meal preparation and was quick to tell me that was not the way she did it, but she was the first one to the table and the last one to leave.

Do we ever grow old enough that we do not miss our mommy?   I think not.  I guess I do have the satisfaction of knowing that someday my kids will remember me fondly.  Want to know how I know this?  I made the remark one time about a person who had disappointed me.  And she told me that one about not knowing someone. "You never really know anyone, you only know of them; the part they let you see."  The old Indians used to say, "Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."  I remember lots of things.  I remember the time my sister came home from a date with her dress on wrong side out.

October has started.  Today is October 6 and yesterday was my brothers birthday.  In 24 days it will be the anniversary of his death.  He was 28 when he was killed in a car wreck.  He left behind 2 sons.  I never knew them.  Mom did.  Or at least she knew the older one.  His name was David Payne Andersen (I think).  The other one was Edward Howell Hamby (I think).  The important thing here is that October is probably the hardest month of the year for me.  October is the birth month of 2 of my kids as well as the anniversary of the day I married their father.  

Just bear with me here, because this too shall pass.  The sun will come out tomorrow!  Tomorrow is another day.  At least we have that to look forward to.  Or do we?

Three legged pot and the best thing to come from corn.

 I was watching PBS yesterday and I forget the guys name, but he was back in Pennsylvania or some where in an Amish community about heritage or something.  (Try to remember that you are dealing with someone who checks the date 45 times a day to just be sure it is actually today!)  Any way, the center of the courtyard in this community was a 3 legged kettle.  I think I have written on that before, but just in case I will sum it up again.  

The 3 legged kettle is a big cast iron pot (for lack of a better word) that set in the back yard near the water source, which in our case was a hand pump.  Water for washing clothes was heated by building a fire around the bottom.  Course it took a while to heat, but back then the laundry was an all day job.  Wash the clothes, rinse the clothes, second rinse the clothes and then hang them on the clothes line to dry and hope the birds did not poop on them.  Our clothes line was in back of the house as was most peoples.  That led to the old adage, "Don't air your dirty laundry!"  The same kettle was used to "scald a hog " when it was butchering time.  

Dammit!  I digress!  This lesson was about making hominy.  Mother used to make hominy so I was familiar with the process, sort of anyway.  First the field corn had to be completely dry.  It was then "shucked" which in this instance is removing the dried kernels from the cob. Of course, the cobs were saved for use in the "outhouse" which is a whole 'nuther blog.  Just be aware that the cobs that were red were the softest in case you ever need to know!

The loose kernels were put in the pot of water with the fire burning underneath.  This was an all day job and as it cooked it needed to be stirred regularly.  A very long wooden paddle was used for this.  As it cooked it swelled.  Dry corn takes a long time to cook with a simmering fire outside.  As it simmered it released the hard core of the corn.  After due time mother added lye which raised the water temperature higher than any fire would raise it.  We continued to stir, but at this time we needed to skim off the hard stuff that was coming out of the corn.  The important thing to remember at this time was not to let any water touch our skin because it would burn us bad.  While the lye back then was made from the soft gray ash of hard wood, usually hickory, it was still caustic.  

Fresh water was added and we now used a sort of dipper with only tiny holes so when we scooped we got water along with debris.  When at long last the water was clear the corn, which was now soft and fat was dipped out and put in the center of a large piece of cheese cloth.  This was hung on the clothes line to hang in the sun until it was dry.  I am assuming that from there it went to the root cellar.  I do not remember.  I do think that a some point it was also dried and made into grits.  Grits are ground hominy.  I only like yellow grits.  (My friend Sherman only liked white grits, but that is another story.)

Looking back, it sure seemed like an awful lot of work for very little product, but that was the whole point of life back then.  We worked all summer to fill the root cellar with stuff to keep us alive through the winter.  Sweet potatoes were a staple because they kept better than white potatoes.  And Apples!  My God it seemed like everyone in the world blessed us with apples in the fall.  Apples kept well in the root cellar and we had them all winter!  Fresh apples, fried apples, baked apples, stuffed apples, apple pie, apple sauce! But the best apple of all was my mother!  She was the apple of my eye!  (Little humor there!)

So bid the farmstead fare thee well for now.  I think that is an old German saying.  Instead of saying goodbye, Grandma always said "fare thee well" which means " good wishes to you at parting." 

Peace and prosperity to you all and may you never have to cook your dried up corn again!

3:31 AM Before the crack of dawn.

 For those of you out there who do not know me, know this:

This is the declaration of Independence.  It is probably  the most important document ever to be drafted, written, and signed by our founding fathers.   It was handwritten.  It was not typed out on a computer with the spelling checked by a spell check program.  It was written with a nib dipped in ink on parchment paper.  It is preserved in the national archives.  It was important then and it is important now. 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg understood this and she died while defending it. It is the document on which all of our rights and obligations are spelled out in simple English.  It was signed in handwritten signatures by the founders of our country.  You can read their names.  It was signed by the 56 men of the congress.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.” 

I have not read the entire document in many years, and do not intend to do so at this point.  What I do know is this:  Our government was set up as an "all people are created equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  It was not set up for me to pay homage to a President and a congress led by a moron and sanctioned by religious zealots who point fingers at anyone who does not approve of their drivel.

I am old and hopefully I will just drop dead one of these days and not have to worry about it.  It saddens me that I had a nest full of kids and the best I can leave them is a country filled with strife, discontent, and a dollar that is worth about six cents.

Free speech?  Does that exist?  Sleeping with the enemy was once a movie, but now the country we feared most, Russia, is cozied up with the one man who should be protecting us.  I could go on and on, but I am going to go fix my son's lunch, because that is the one thing I can do at 4 o'clock in the morning.  

I am loving this pandemic!

 It suddenly dawned on me that this pandemic could not have come at a better time!  My whole life has been spent socializing in one way or another, but now I am forced to stay home alone and I gotta' tell you, I am loving this shit and I am going to tell you why.  It is an election year and our country is in the shitter and we are going to vote.  

It used to be the election was just a contest and the man who promised us the most usually walked away with the prize, but this year is different.  I have set here for the last 3 years and 9 months and watched a "business man" run this country like he runs his businesses.  Sadly, most of his businesses are teetering on bankruptcy, he is facing rape charges, nepotism is rampant in the white house, and if that were not enough, his wife had the Rose Garden ripped out and replaced with sod so said president could hold a rally on the front lawn of the white house.  Every country in the world has turned its back on us with the exception of Russia.  Putin is loving us.  We are a laughing stock in the eyes of the world and this does not seem to bother the upper echelon!

The confederate flag seems to be a symbol of pride.  Nancy Pelosi is a joke.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg tried to out live him and failed.  Old people are the butt of jokes and women are being sterilized on the southern border.  The government operates as an independent arm of something that we keep pouring money into with no hope of ever getting anything back.  The saddest part of all is that "my friends" can not see what is happening.  The Russian Government handed Donald Trump the last election and if you think it can not happen again, you are sadly mistaken.  

My friend, Nancy, who has since gone to her reward had a picture of Union Avenue taken at a rally 13 years ago for Barack  Obama.    There were people every where.  It was a picture of unity and happy faces.  There was hope in peoples eyes.  It was followed by 8 years of hope, unity, fellowship and a feeling of living in the greatest country on earth.  Check out our last 4 years.  If you can look at that period and tell me you are better off now, then I am the fool!

I do not visit my Republican friends any more.  I have dealings with them, but not on a social basis.  If circumstances arise where I have to deal with them, it is just in and out and do not throw that orange haired bully in my face and try to convince me that he gives a big rats ass about any of us. Sad that it has to be that way, but it is.  I find any number of reasons to avoid human contact with all but a chosen few.  

Today is Sunday.  Our church is closed.  I have not attended church since last March.  Supposedly we will meet the first Sunday in October.  We will see.  In the interim, I will just set here and wonder what day it is since I have no benchmark.  And I will watch the news and I will curse trump and all his cult following for what has become the most violent time in my memory.  I lived through school integration, demonstrations during Vietnam conflict, but this time there is no hiding from it.  Our government is out of control and headed for a collapse like none we have ever seen.  And you want to know the saddest part?

When this is all over and the smoke has cleared away, this will be the darkest time in American history.  This "regime" will go down as the one that bankrupted America, caused the most derision, and it was all orchestrated by a morally bankrupt business man supported by religious organizations marching in the name of God and financed by the NRA under the banner of the confederate flag.

And with that, I bid you adieu and like I  used to say when I was interviewing a job applicant, "Don't call me, I'll call you!"

My mother was a Republican.

 Mother was born a Republican.  I am sure she died a Republican and I am willing to bet that every vote she cast in her life was for a Republican whether it be for county clerk of Reno County or President of the United States of America.  She followed in the footsteps of every Haas that went before her.  Sadly, I am not sure she could have lived with our current government.  I could be wrong.  In hindsight she may not have been the kind caring woman that raised me.  Even as I type these words, I am ridden with guilt, so I feel I need to expound on my feelings.  Let me go back in time here.

I moved to Colorado in the early part of 1970's.  I used to make 3 or four trips back home every year to keep in touch.  Thanksgiving was usually spent with mom.  Usually the kids were dropped off in Lakin, Kansas with their dad.  Now when I travel alone, I like to listen to the radio.  Back then I did not have a tape player, which later morphed into a CD player.  It was radio only.  It was on one of these trips that I lost the music station and was introduced to Rush Limbaugh.  I know there are people out there who listen to him or he would not be on constantly.  Being a liberal, I found him both repulsive and ludicrous, so it was with a feeling of disbelief that I walked into my mothers house to find her glued to the radio listening to Rush Limbaugh!  With trepidation I asked her what she was thinking even listening to such drivel.  

It was at this point in my life that my mother explained to me that the damn liberals needed to be stopped and that Rush Limbaugh was the voice of all her beliefs.  Until that moment, I had not given a lot of thought to the two party system that compromised our government.  I just knew I liked Ike.  I liked Truman.  I liked the man who had come on the radio when I was very young to announce that the war was over.  I did not understand that we operated under a two party system and that my beliefs were in direct conflict with my mother. 

As time passed I supported Jane Fonda and rallied to end the Vietnam war, although it was never called a war!  I did subscribe to Rush Limbaugh newsletter and had it delivered to my mother because that was what she wanted.  Integration was not discussed because our opinions differed so radically.  Abortion.  Welfare.  Watergate.  There was no discussion of anything political with mother.  She had Rush Limbaugh in her corner and that was that.  I am sure that the day she died, she read her Rush Limbaugh newsletter and I do know that when they sent me the renewal notice, I did not pay it.  My Republican mother was no longer a slave to Rush Limbaugh and his drivel.  For that I was grateful.

Now here I set all these many years later, still thinking about political parties.  I have assuaged my conscience with the idea that the Republican party that my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother adhered to so closely is not the same Republican party that exists today.  I can not look at the man who holds sway in the greatest house of all time and hurls edicts to crush the down trodden even further is really in charge.  I can not believe that my friends who identify with that party will actually vote to keep him in charge.  I can not think that my mother would have put an x in front of his name had she known the devastation he would cause.  

Ruth Bader Ginsberg stood between him and totally bringing the downfall of all our work.  I can only pray that a miracle will transpire and someone with half a brain will stand in the breach between us and total antihalation.  

I am an optimist.  I love my fellow man regardless of the color of skin, religious affiliation, political party preference, status of their bank account, or any of that other drivel.  I am just like Will Rogers who once said, "I never met a man I didn't like."  (I think Mae West often quoted him on that one!)  I will always look for the silver lining and hope springs eternal in my bosom, but today was about mother and she raised me.  They say the fruit does not fall too far from the tree, and I believe that to be true!  I hate to think that at this late day in my life I will trade in my Liberal Democratic walking shoes, so I have to alter my thoughts of my mother.

I am sure she would have remained a Republican after her last breathe of life, but I am thinking she may have mellowed a little and realized that there is a fox in the chicken house.

Rest in Peace my mother!  There is a glimmer of hope on my horizon.