Well, pour more water in the radiator.

Back when I was knee high to a grasshopper and before I went to live with the grandma's, it was customary to go visit them in Plevna at least once a month.  This entailed Sunday dinner (noon meal) with Aunt Lola and Uncle Alvin.  At this point I need to explain about the family car.  The only time this car was used was when we went somewhere far away.  Plevna was 24 miles and that was considered far.  The other place it went was Hutchinson, where my half brother Earl and his family lived.

I do not know what kind of car it was, only that it was black.  I am going to say it was either a Chevrolet or a Chrysler and I have nothing concrete in my little head to make me say that, but I think that is right.  So we would load up in the family car early in the morning, because it was a 2 hour drive.  I know that sounds excessive, but you need to understand some things.  First there were 2 adults and 6 kids in this car.  Potty breaks were frequent because no 2 of us ever needed to pee at the same time.  So any time dad would see a clump of weeds he would pull over and somebody would jump out and use the cover to "Squat behind".  

If the potty breaks were not a bother, the need to add water to the radiator was also a necessity.  The need to add water to the radiator, and leave water from an extended bladder never occurred simultaneously.  I am not sure why the radiator did not hold water, but one thing is sure, it did not.  There was often talk of "getting that radiator fixed", but it never seemed to happen.  Seems it was cheaper to just pick up "another cheap car" then fix the one we had.  You know, to this day I can not read the "Grapes of Wrath" without picturing the Joad family as being the Bartholomew family.

Now that is another thing.  Back in those days, the spelling of last names was really not too important.  The census taker came to the door with a piece of paper and all of the members of our household were written out in long hand by the person doing that job.  Consequently, when I check the census to find info, Bartholomew is spelled Bartholomeu, and Rueben appears as Rubin, so I am not sure who my father was.

But back to the car business.  I had an uncle who was very rich and owned a car way back when I was on the Stroh place.  It had a crank in the front and that was the starter.  It took 2 people to start it.  As I recall, it had a "rumble seat" which really served very little purpose at all except that it only carried 2 people and the rumble seat was what passed later for a trunk, except that a person could set on it if need of it was required.  And, just so you know, back in those days, upholstery on the seats was actual cloth.  And you had your choice of colors, black and later they added white and army green.  We could set by the road and know what kind of car it was by the sound of the motor.  Now you can not even hear them!

I do not know how I learned to drive nor when, only that at some point I did.  I do know that an automatic transmission was pretty much a luxury and needed to be ordered if you wanted one.  Learning to shift a standard transmission using a clutch was pretty much the hardest part of learning to drive.  When you learned that it was just a matter of keeping it on your side of the road.  Oh, and the brakes were another matter.  You had to be aware at all times of the possibility of the brake fluid leaking out a pinhole in the cylinder and when you pushed on the pedal it just went to the floor and at that point you better be able to "gear down" and stop.  Damn!  I sure miss those days!

I still drive a "stick shift", but that is just because that is what this Honda had when I bought it. I take it in for an oil change when the wrench light comes on and that is about all the little thing needs.  I have no idea where I was going with this when I started out, but I hope I covered whatever it was that I wanted to share with you.

This old age is a real challenge sometimes!  I used to have a bumper sticker that covered it.  It said,

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most! 

Is this normal? If so, I am out of here!

Dayton, Ohio or El Paso, Texas.  Either one is just another town and more senseless violence.  Where has my world gone?  We are going to have active shooter training at our church.  Our innocent children are wearing bullet proof back packs to school.  This is the new normal.  Where are the days of sand and shovels?  They are no more.  We are living in a new reality where we are all of us just a bullet away from eternity.  Why?  I make no claim that I have any answers and neither do you.

Many years ago our forefathers started this country and gave us the right to keep and bear arms.  The constitution calls for a well regulated militia.  The National Rifle Association is one of the biggest if not the biggest contributor to the coffers of men and women running for Congress.  They ask so little in return; only that the person they are supporting vote for laws that are in their best interest and their best interest is to sell lots and lots of guns for lots and lots of money.  And I do love that pat answer they give when I ask why these nuts need a gun.  They say,  "The only way to stop a crazy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."  Just how often does that happen?  I know, not very often.

It seems like some guy walking into a Walmart or wherever with an AK 47 is no cause for alarm.  I am sorry, but I do not know why they are allowed to do this over and over and over and no one stops to question why these nuts are allowed to legally purchase a gun and enough ammunition to fight a small war.

I do not give a big rats ass why someone wants to kill people they have never met.  I am sure that as I lay bleeding out from holes all over my body my last thought will not be "Gee, I wonder why he did that?  He must be a very troubled youth."  No, my last thought is going to be why in the hell I could not have a government that made any kind of an effort to regulate gun control.  Russia put a lunatic in our highest position of power and gave him a twitter account to spew his hate and venom and absolutely no one seems to give a damn except me.  This is being accepted as the new normal.  I feel like Rip Van Winkle when I listen to the news at night and death, hate, destruction is acceptable.  And this is all done by morons in Washington who claim that they are Christians.  I beg to differ with these men and women who I think are the anti-Christ.

My God is a God of love.  A God of compassion.  A God of healing.  He is not at God who locks people in cages because they want to escape tyrants that are killing them, raping the women and selling the children.  My God frowns on anyone that turns their back on that kind of behavior.  I hate the fact that I am too damned old to stand in front of the world and take all those people in my arms and bring them safely to an America that used to be.  My America is gone.  It will never return.  Climate control is out the window and Global warming in now a reality and I want to thank all the people that stand behind Donald Trump and call him a leader because it is on your head that our America is the laughing stock of every country on earth.

And all of you people who will call me a lunatic for this posting just know that I will be keeping the door open and I will do my best to protect you when you realize that you have shit in your nest.

Russia? oh, shit.

Entry	Pageviews
Netherlands	101
United States	30
Canada	25
Russia	17
France	4
United Kingdom	4
Austria	2
Moldova	2
Nigeria	2
New Zealand	2

These are the readers I have who follow my blog and the countries they come from.  I know the 2 guys in New Zealand (Hi to Len and Willy), and I know a couple in Canada, but the fact that the Netherlands is my biggest following rather surprises me.  And the fact that 17 people in Russia read my blog blows me away.  I understand the 30 in the United States because my family is that big, but to know that I am read worldwide blows me away.

Well, I am sure there is a logical explanation for this, but I do not want to dig too deep into the workings of the world wide web for fear of finding out more than I really want to know.


Just sayin'.

Copied from Sangre de Cristo at some point.

Not real sure where I copied this from, but I do know I was with Hospice at the time, so pretty sure that is where it comes from.  The point is that it hits the nail right on the head.  I have lost a lot of dear friends, family, acquaintances, pets, a few enemies and the list goes on and on, in my life as I am sure it does in yours.  

I recall an advertisement on television where an older woman is in the bathroom preparing for bed and she is talking to someone, I assume was her husband, off camera.  She lays down her hairbrush and turns out the light and the camera pans to an empty bed.  I did not understand that as much then as when it happened to me.  The realization came to me just a few days after my husband passed.  I was devastated, but then life does go on.  There is no do overs when death comes knocking, but we are given no choice but to go on putting one foot in front of the other and living one day after another.  

It does become bearable after a time, but the one we lost will never be replaced.  I think about my mother every day.  I miss Shirley.  I miss my sisters and my brother and all the aunts and uncles.  The first actual death I recall was my calf, Dennis.  Then it was my nephew that was born at home.  Then it was grandma Haas.  I am sure there were others before, and I can not remember all that have gone since and still continue the march to the grave.  But this gives me solace.  This and the one about the departed being a ship sailing off across the ocean.  It is leaving the shore where people are weeping and it grows smaller and smaller until it is gone, but on the other side of the ocean, it is arriving and the people are cheering as it draws nearer!  

I do hope something I have written today in my own rambling little way gives someone an ounce of peace and acceptance.  And some day, when I make that journey, and you learn of my passing, know that I am happy and think of me with just a touch of sadness and a whole lot of joy!

Until then, may the peace that passes all understanding be with you all.

And now she is no more.

She was there and I planned on going to see her yesterday, but then I decided it would be tomorrow.  Tomorrow is now here and it is called today.  And now she is no more.  It is strange how this death thing works.  Some people hang on and linger and put it off and wait for another day.  Just one more day.  Just another hour, or another year or another anniversary.  Or not.  I do not know which is better, but I think she did it just right.

Many times in my hospice days I had set by a persons bedside for hours, or weeks or months, waiting for the Angel of Death.  And when it happened, after what ever period of time, and even then we were not ready.  It was too soon.  The family needed just one more day.  One more hour.  One more minute.  But that was not to be.

What did I learn from my hospice training?  I learned not to put it off until tomorrow.  Tomorrow may be too late.  5 minutes from now may be too late.  And yet I still procrastinate.  I have projects in various stages of having been abandoned for something I found more intriguing.  Another brass ring in this thing called life.  And it is called life for a reason.  It is meant to be lived.  It is meant to be lived now and in this moment, because there is no tomorrow.  Tomorrow never comes.

A friend just called and invited me to lunch and since I have not seen her in a while, I am dropping every thing and going.  This may very well be a tomorrow that came and I did not see it.

Climate change or somebody's butt sucking air?

I watch very little news on the national level any more.  When Trump was elected I made up my mind that I would give the man a chance and let a business man handle the finances of my country.  I do still call it "my" country although my fore fathers came here only 119 years ago.  I still have pictures of the Haas family clearing land to farm.  They are very grainy pictures and were not taken on a cell phone, but they show the progress.

I am proud of my roots.  My grandfather was 9 years old then.  My great grandfather brought the whole family a little at a time.  They settled in the Reno County area, but have since spread out across the country.  They cleared river bottom land and began farming.  Back then, there were no King Soopers, or Walmart and mostly people depended on each other.  My great, great grandmother was a person who took care of people when they were sick.  Great, great grandfather raised turkeys and geese and did custom farming.  I forget what they grew, but it seems like it was sorghum and they made molasses out of it.

I diverse.  Back to the subject at hand, which is the environment.  For years steel mills belched black smoke and there was no concern for the air we breathed, but then the powers that be woke up to the fact that we were killing each other by not protecting the air we breathe.  Thus was born the EPA and it became a world wide concern that we were polluting our environment and we only have one world.  So we passed laws and then we held summits and passed rules for protecting our earth.  It became a global concern.

And then someone elected Donald Trump and his ilk.  He does not believe in Global Warming.  He sets in his air conditioned office, rides in an air conditioned car from one place to another.  And or storms get more violent and more frequent.  We keep cutting down our rain forests and not replacing the trees that clean our air.  We pull out of the global community that is trying to save our world and hide our heads in the sand.

I do not profess to being an intelligent woman.  I hide from things that scare me, like global warming, genocide and anything that upsets my little apple cart.  I do not watch the national news because I am standing over here with my head in the sand.  I can not abide with racism and ignorance.  There are no gun laws.  We just settle our differences with an AK-47.  For God's sake, people, we are sending our children to "active shooter training" in our schools.  Where are the day's of sand and shovels?

Last night I talked to a friend in New Zealand.  Telephones are our link to any where in the world.  But now cell phones have replaced communication in person.  Send me a text.  What happened to coffee klatches?  What happened to a walk in the park?  What happened to a moonlight stroll?  What happened to honesty?  Integrity?  What happened to helping an old lady across the street?  Where is our common decency when we could carry on a conversation with someone and not tell them to go back where they came from?

We play follow the leader here in America.  It is now right and just to lock people in cages because they want to escape genocide in their country.  We build walls when we should be building bridges.  I never dreamed two short years ago that our country could be so divided and that Republican and Democrat could be dirty words.  But here we are.

I am going to church in a few hours and pray for my country.  It is my country too, you know.  I will first post this and then read the comments to my thoughts on facebook.  My friends will be supportive, but there will also be the negative comments calling me "an effin liberal."  Such is life.  I am proud to be who I am and where I came from, but then God made us all and he made us in his image.....or did he?

Strong Street and the Cemetary

This is the Hoffman house which was right before our corner on North Strong Street.  Mr. Hoffman was quite the gardener and he first built a basement house and then built the house on top of it, but they lived in the basement for about a year.

 And here is the N. Strong Street sign.  We were so proud when they put it up because it made us think we were really important.

When we lived here we had a bare board one story house with a cracked cement front slab porch.  There were 2 big catalpa trees in front one of which we could climb and survey our kingdom.  This is the same place under the Catalpa trees that Jake and I used to listen to the Grand Ole' Opry.

There was also a walking stick cactus on the property line between us and the Reinke family.  We used to push each other into it.  Ask me if those things are sharp!

 This is all that seems to be left of the Catalpa trees. Just brush.  I never see a Catalpa that I am not transported back in time.

 I do not remember where this house was located, only that it has replaced one of the houses on Strong Street, because they are all gone now.

Next stop is the cemetery.  This is the tombstone for my sister Josephine's little son that was born dead.  I was there when that happened, but I think I told you about that.  Jack Lamb brought the tiny casket to the house in his car.  We had the service in the front room of her house.  I remember the tiny little face and the tiny little hand holding his blue blanket closed over his little body.  He looked like he was sleeping.  That was so sad. 

In the corner of the cemetery to the left of the entrance in the front was a bunch of brush and in it was these tiny tombstones.  They are hard to read.  I used to walk over there on hot days and go to that corner because it was under a big tree and it was cool there.  I would sing to these little kids and in my photo album I have a picture of the corner as it appeared than.  I took a picture when my brother came back from Germany and brought me a Kodak camera.  Sixty years later and they finally cleaned out that corner and laid these few pieces of tombstones together in an effort to preserve it as it was then.

This is the only grave that actually survived the years.

And so I leave.

 Wildmead Cemetery will always be in my mind and the little friends I had that were my company when I needed them most will remain behind.  I always felt so safe in that place under that tree.

I doubt that I will return to that cemetery again in this lifetime, but it will always be a part of my heritage and while I did not know the kids in the corner I was accepted by them and I am sure some where in another place and time, we will meet again.

Only God knows what goes through my mind, but I am trying to piece it together and find peace.