What you don't know won't hurt you.

Or so my mother, the wisest woman who ever lived, taught me when I was growing up.  It was not something she told me once to help me over a rough spot.  It was a fact that she lived and breathed.  And she was right.  What I did not know did not hurt me, but there was that part she forgot to add about "The chickens always come home to roost."  These two adages are intrinsically tied together in this game of life.  I think this one came about when I thought my first husband was fooling around on me.  And she was right.  If he was and I really did not know it for a fact, it did not hurt me.  Sadly, though, God has his way of dealing reality to a situation.  This reality came in the form of a venereal disease when I was 6 months pregnant.  Yep, the chickens came home to roost that day. 

That should have been the end of that marriage, but I hung on for 5 more years and 3 more kids.  During their growing up years, I labored under the adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."  Yep.  I kept the handles on the stove turned in after  Debbie reached up from her walker and grabbed the cord on the electric skillet.  That could have been a fatality very quickly.

 "Better to be safe than sorry."

"Do not judge a man until you have walked  a mile in his shoes."

"No sense beating a dead horse."

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."

And then I figured out that  "What is good for the goose is good for the gander."  only I was the 'goose' and he was the 'gander'.  Divorce became a frequently used word in my vocabulary, along with the  "A rolling stone gathers no moss." and "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

As for  going back and rehashing old wrongs, that fell under the saying of, "Let sleeping dogs lie, " and "Never poke a hornets nest."

I think a lot of the best ones actually come from the Bible, but mother was prone to spit out a few of them also.

"As you sow, so shall you reap."

"Sow the wind; reap the whirlwind."

My oldest daughter taught me (many years later) that  "What don't kill you will make you strong."  And she was right, or so it seems as I near the end of my journey. 

I find myself reaching for my Bible more regularly these days.  I do not know whether it is because we are limited in our interactions because of Covid 19, or just because I am getting old.  I do not feel old, but I can count the numbers and I find myself reaching more often for the handrail on the steps.  I guess it is just the old circle of life and it all boils down to "click here".

Plevna, Kansas, class of 1959

I woke up at 2:30 this morning thinking about my classmates in Plevna, Kansas.  It was my Freshman year and I was living with Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield.  The high school was on one end of Main Street and Grandma's house was on the other end.  Main Street was 2 blocks long.  The High School, the bank and the filling station was on one side.  On  the other side was Hinshaw's Mercantile, the phone company and Grandma Hatfield's house.  The next house was Grandma Haas's house and then then church.  Great Grandma Hatfield's house was empty since she had moved next door to take care of Grandma Haas.

Great Grandma was a legend in her time.  She was born Helen Gagnebein.  She had married Frank Miller and had 3 children, Lou, Mable, and Grandma Josie.  When he passed she married a man named Hatfield who had a son named Steven.  I always liked Uncle Steven because he had a very round face and always seemed to be happy. Rumor had it that she was headed to the alter with #3 when he suddenly died.  She declared that she had buried 2 husband and the love of her life and was now done.   So she moved across the street to take care of her daughter, my grandmother.  All this has absolutely nothing to do with my Freshman year!

The point is that Grandma had suffered a stroke and could no longer live alone and take care of herself.  Great Grandma needed help and I was the chosen one.  Thus when I left Nickerson Grade School, I was thrown into High School at Plevna, Kansas.  As I recall there were 30 kids in the whole high school.  The Freshman class had like 8 or 9 kids.  When I was laying in bed before I started this missive I could remember 6 of them and clearly see their faces, but as soon as my fingers hit the keys, my brain went south.  I remember Norma Daily, Janet Pastier, the twins Dean and Dale Hinshaw and that is all.  Seems like there were 8 or 9.  I do remember the principal was named Mr. Miller.

They did have a girls basketball team, but I was not allowed to do that because it entailed wearing pants and neither of the grandma's approved of that!  So while the basketball season was on I played ping pong in a room above the stage in the auditorium.  I was not very good at that either.  Everyone brought their lunch except me and I had to run home and check to see if the grandma's needed anything.  Great Grandma would have an orange peeled for me.  When I left the school I could hear Great Grandma's old stand up radio blaring the noon market report.  While we had not farmed for years there were relation who did and the market report kept Great Grandma apprised of the price of wheat, cattle, corn and pork bellies.  I never really gave a shit, but it was important to them!  I would then dash back to school before the bell rang.

Now the most thriving business was the Hinshaw Mercantile.  Dean and Dale would some day fall heir to that!  They were twins, but you would never have guessed it.  Dale was the one who must have gotten to the table first because he was a pudgy, red hair and freckles, pale skinned, mean spirited creature (for want of a better description) fellow.  He never had a nice thing to say to anyone and I sincerely hope he grew out of that!  Dean was a skinny, tanned, dark haired little fellow with a very beautiful smile.  They were as different as night and day.  Needless to say, I thought often about how maybe someday, Dean might hold my hand.  (It never happened.)

The grandma's were united in their way of raising me. The only reading material allowed in the house was the Holy Bible.  No newspaper, no magazine except for the Workbasket which was a crochet magazine that was treasured beyond all else.  I was taught to crochet and that was my past time.  My Grandma Haas and her sister Mabel married brothers.  Aunt Mable would come for a visit from Coldwater, Kansas with her husband  Uncle Goll.  Once she brought her textile paints with the intent of teaching me how to do something besides crochet.  We went to the Hinshaw store and she bought me a white bath towel to paint a design on.  Sadly it was shop worn and the brown outline of where it had lain never faded, but I did paint a water lily on it and she made me feel like I was 10 feet tall.  Damn!  How I miss those days!  I gave the towel to my mother and you would have thought I had handed her the moon!  Things like that used to matter.

If I live to be 200 years old, I will always cherish the memories that were made in that little house there on the end of main street in Plevna, Kansas.  I will always remember the round oak table with the crocheted table cloth and the two grandma's I lived with for a time.  I learned to crochet by the light of a kerosene lamp because, though they had electricity, they did not use it very often because they did not want to wear it out!

I can still see the 2 little white heads bent over their needlework and how occasionally one would look up and smile at me.  They both had the most beautiful blue eyes in the world.  I have often wondered if I really was any help to them or if they were helping me.  I do know, if I were able to go back in time that I would not change one minute of my time spent in that house.  Well, maybe I would.  I would listen next time.  And when we read the Bible (which we did every night)  I would read an extra chapter.  Living with those two women was the best part of my whole entire life.  I just pray that they know what an impact they made on my life all those years ago.

Thank you God for the gift of Grandmothers.

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When is it my turn?

I have been setting here watching this whole pandemic since the beginning and I have these observations:
1.  YOU have your constitutional rights and you choose not to wear a mask.  Well, I would like you to clarify just where your constitutional rights supersede my constitutional rights to breathe?

See, the thing here is I go to the store.  The store is required to require that a mask be worn.  There is disinfectant every where because they are required to provide this in order to be open so I can go to the store and buy groceries.

The store is in compliance.  I have my mask and I am in compliance.  Now I am standing in the checkout line after giving you and your "constitutional rights" a wide berth all the way through the  store.  And here you come.  The 6 foot marks are clearly marked, but you have gone so long thinking this_____________________ is 6 inches that 6 feet means absolutely nothing to you.  There you stood looking like a damn moron, drooling over your Twinkies and 6 pack that were the situation any different, I could have laughed.  But I didn't.

 My thoughts were this:  I am 78 years old.  You are probably pushing 30.  I need groceries, but then you need your sugar fix and a beer is sure going to make you feel better.  I was next in line.  You would have walked right past me, but I think you knew deep down, that I was not going to let you do that.

I smiled at you.  You looked at your phone.  I see you for what you are.  You are an arrogant bastard and you have constitutional rights and no goddam body is going to make you wear a mask.  I am sorry, but I grew up in a different world.  My mother instilled in me the knowledge that all men are created equal.  We ALL have rights and not all of them were given by the constitution.  Some of them are called "common decency". 

One of them is as follows:  Respect your elders.  By the mere fact that I survived 78 years I deserve to have my space in the line at the grocery store.

I wear my mask and that is no concern to you one way or the other.  Wiser men than you decided that this virus is killing people at an alarming rate and we need to do everything in our power to slow it down.  We are now living with a virus that replicates faster in the United States than any where else in the world and I think that it is thanks to idiots like you who have your "constitutional right" to do what ever you choose.  I myself, think you should be jailed for attempted murder.

I do not worry about catching this because I practice good hygiene and protect myself from selfish people like you.  I have grandchildren that I want to protect.  I would like to get back to my church someday, but regardless of whether that happens or not, I will be alright.  I will go to Lagrees again and I will no doubt encounter you again.  I will smile at you, again, because that is who I am, but know this, my friend, you are an asshole.  I know I do not have the right to be judge and jury, but you are an asshole nonetheless.

So have a good day.  You will know me when you see me because I wear the mask with the pussy cats on it!

Can't we all just get along?

Does anyone remember Rodney King?  So much has happened in my world since the days of Rodney King that I can not right at the moment even remember what that was all about, but I do recall that it was in California and the year was 1992.  King was beaten by police officers and when he sued the verdict came back that the 4 police officers were innocent.  I did check and there were 63 people killed in the riots,  2,383 injured, and 12,000 people arrested.  Rodney King himself stood up and begged people to stop.  I remember seeing him on a black and white grainy television and saying,
"Can't we all just get along?"  That was almost 30 years ago and yet, here we are today.  Different state, but same scenario.

I can not watch the news.  I can not watch that video again and again.  To watch that police officer, kneeling on George Floyd's neck as three other officers watch not only brings tears to my eyes, but raises my righteous indignation at everyone involved in that brutal act of murder.  And it was murder; deliberate cold blooded disregard of a human life.  "I can not breathe!"

How many breaths do you take in a day?  I am sure I could google it and I would then know, but does it matter?  We take them for granted.  They come easily inhaled and just as easily exhaled.  A cold, COPD, and other health issues will make us stop and think about the breaths we take, but mostly we just take the first one and then the next one and go right on through the night breathing while we sleep. 

I grew up in a small town.  We had a small place up on Main Street that had bars on the windows and that was where  the "ne'er do wells" or drunks or other miscreants could be locked away.  The "peace officer"  (whose job it was to oversee whoever was locked up) had a chair to set in by the front door in case the person who was locked up needed something.  To the best of my knowledge no one was ever locked inside.  The only excitement that the jail ever saw was when Ory Ayers and her daughter rode their stick horses into town and circled the jail and rode back home.  Life was pretty simple back then.

There were no blacks in our town.  There were only white people.  I know my mother's family came over from Germany and settled in Nickerson or nearby.  There were 3 churches; Methodist, Christian, and Baptist.  I guess growing up in such a place made me tolerant and accepting of other races.  We never fought over anything.  Our environment was just pretty much mundane.  Occasionally families would have disagreements with the neighbors, but it never went farther than that.  The gypsys sometimes camped on the edge of town, but we never seen them.

So here I find myself in a world I do not understand full of people I do not understand and I find myself screaming at the television in complete frustration. Oh, trust me, I have done my share of marching and changing the world, but never was I violent.  We carried signs.  We made speeches.  We helped little old ladies across the street.  And now, sadly, I find myself in need of being helped across that same  street, and up the steps, and on to the other side.

I can not help the Rodney Kings or George Floyds of the world.  I can only set here and watch as it unfolds and pray that some where, some how, someone will pick up the banner and fight for the rights of all the mistreated in our world, but it doesn't seem to be happening.  There is so much unrest in this world today that by the time I figure out which cause to support, the whole thing has changed. 
And so the world goes on.  My words change nothing.  I live in fear that if the world spins any faster we may all lose our gravity and spin out of control.

OMG! I am going to throw up!

Few people know that for a brief period in my life I was a heavy drinker.  It is one of the things that I did not succeed at very well.  Actually, not at all.  This journey into my past came up this evening when my oldest daughter called to make sure I was safe from the rioters and the coronavirus.  I am not sure just how the subject of drinking came up in the conversation, but it did.  Oh, I know.  We were discussing the riots that are going on because some jerk knelt on a guys neck and killed him.  The fact that he did that was bad enough, but that he did it while in the capacity of law enforcement made it worse.

Debbie and Hammer had started their life together in a volatile relationship since both of them were drinkers.  She was remembering how two policemen had subdued her by "hog tying " her.  They held her spread eagle above the ground and she was pretty much helpless.  No damage to her and no damage to them in that situation.  The point of that being that a person can be neutralized without pain on injury.  That all became a moot point when I explained to her that I had neve been arrested, and so was never "neutralized".  I further explained to her that I was never a rowdy drunk.  My journeys into the bottom of the bottle always resulted in projectile vomiting.  Thanks to this I also did not end up in the wrong bed at the end of the evening.  When the world started spinning, I got sick.  Now, I do not mean kind of sick.  I mean I hit the bed, hung on with both hands and tried to pass out before what ever I had eaten for the previous  weeks came up.  I never made it and I always wound up praying to the porcelain god and I must confess that the cool water splashing my face was a welcome relief.  Men some how did not want to take a chance on me not getting sick, and I respected their wisdom.

I watched my friends as they "had a drink to relax."  Or partied and had a "really good time."  Not me.  Drinking was to get drunk.  Getting drunk, meant getting sick.  There never was any enjoyment in it at all, so I finally just gave it up as a lost cause.  Kenny never drank and the only time there was any alcohol in our house was when Vi and Mel came in the summer.  We would have a tomato beer.  A tomato beer.  Not beers. A tomato beer and usually it was a quart of beer and a can of tomato juice.  Ah, the good old days.

Now I drink water and sometimes tea.  Coffee for breakfast.  Once or twice a year I stop at McDonalds and get a cola of some sort.  Small one.  A guy in New York sent me a bottle of wine many years ago.  It took me 2 years to drink it down about half way and I threw the bottom half away.  Just don't have the taste for it anymore and I sadly fear that a good drunk would probably kill me at my age now!

Well, I guess I am off to bed.  Nice to know my bed is stable and my dreams are forgotten as soon as they happen!  Y'all have a good one.  May your blessings be many and your worries few and may the road rise up to meet you and the wind be always at your back.

Cheers!

Rest in Peace Larry Kramer

I started a big long blog that entailed the history of how and why I became involved in the Gay Rights movement back in the early 80's , but that is irrelevant.  What is relevant is the death of Larry Kramer.  If you do not know who he is, you need to Google him.  He was a writer, a playwright, a military man.  He tried to commit suicide at one point.  But most importantly, he was the man who sounded the alarm for the disease that was killing gay men.  It was a phenomenal event back then.  No one knew why gay men were dying, but they were and in greater numbers. 

In 1981 he published an article calling attention to this in a gay periodical.  Two years later he published again, this time calling it "1,112 and Counting".  It was about this time that I may have shaken myself out of the lethargic cocoon within which I was wrapped.  I had a good friend back home named Gilbert who fell victim to the disease about that time.  He was the first friend I lost, but he would not be the last.

I began to follow the news and Larry Kramer.  It was staggering statistics for sure.  And it just kept going.  Does any one remember when Colorado passed Amendment 2?  We worked very hard to get that overturned.  We were fighting for Gay Rights and we were fighting the AIDS epidemic.  I think Larry Kramer and I were fighting the same battles, but on different ends of the country, but for the same reasons.

I wish I could have met him.  Some of my best friends are in the gay community and I have always championed their cause.  I see I am rambling, so let me just sum this up and get back to life.

Larry Kramer was a giant among men and his legacy will live forever.  Our world is a better place for him having passed through it.  In 2002, he said: "I put the truth in writing.  That's what I do: I have told the fucking truth to everyone I have ever met."

And that, my friends is why Larry Kramer holds a special place in my heart.

Lawrence David Kramer, writer and activist, born 25 June, 1935: died 27 May 2020

Well, good morning you big fat goats! Hello, sheriff!

Most of you know that I have spent the last 40 years of my life out here in the county living on a back acre.  I love the seclusion.  I love that I have to give anyone headed out here a detailed drawing and description of how to find my actual driveway.  My Garmin ends with my car setting in the middle of the road and the words "You have arrived!", but you have not.  But that is just for the humans who do not listen.  Animals are another story.

One of my first encounters with the wild animals out here involved my Tulip bed.  I planted all different colors across the border in front of my lawn.  I was very excited to see them poke their little spikey heads up and waited for the buds to show.  Sadly, I went out one morning and the Tulips were gone!  I knew where they were and when I looked down into the ground I could see the colors alright.  Something had come in the night and eaten them!  I could see the yellow and red flower buds below the ground.  How sad that made me.  I could also see a couple piles of cow droppings (I use the term droppings instead of "piles of cow shit!).  We did not have a cow, but the man behind us and over on the next lane did.  This was my first encounter with wild animals.  I do consider that any animal that runs loose is a wild animal.

I would learn over the years that Foxes would eat my ducks and geese.  Also, that a horse would sometimes trot across my property and leap over my back fence.  Sometimes when I would return at dusk I would find skunks playing in the yard of the house in front of me.  Once a big owl was in the tree right out side my back porch and my cat disappeared that night, never to be seen again. 

When the Harveys moved in across the way, they were animal lovers.  He worked on the ditch and she at the Animal Welfare.  They brought home many animals in the form of dogs, cats, birds, and goats.  Never once did their animals  invade my space.  It was peace on earth.  No problems, although one day her blind dog ate her pet chicken.  The chicken would squat down to be picked up and when it squatted in front of the dog, the dog just ate it!  That was sad.

Fast forward to new neighbors and more goats.  Sadly by this time the fences were falling into rack and ruin and goats do not respect anything.  They do not understand property lines.  While they are meant to "keep the weeds down" it rarely works that way.  And so it went.

It became my lot in life to put them back in their pen if I did not want them in my yard.  Bear in mind that I am an old woman and if I wanted goats, I would have bought them.  I do not and I did not.  One morning in utter frustration I put the goats in their pen 3 times before 7:00 AM.  I lost my temper with the girl who owned the goats and I explained to her how her goats were ruining my life and my yard.  She actually kept them in for 3 days.  But then here they came again.

I called the sheriff.  It was then that I learned that Colorado is a free range state.  If I do not want their goats in my yard it is my responsibility to fence them out!  Now understand that I have a full acre here and I park my car in a carport out front.  A fence around this place would cost $4,000.  It would also entail opening and shutting a gate every time I wanted to leave.  I do not have that kind of money laying around and if I did there are many things I could do with it.  I like the openness of the front yard.  I do not like the goats.

So here I set with the original problem still unsolved.  I can not shoot the goats.  That is illegal.  The fences that could not hold the goats last week are still not repaired.  Momma always used to say "Good fences make good neighbors."  I understand that.  I just wish they did.

In the meantime life goes on here on my little acre.  Every day I get a day older and deeper in debt.  When the goats figure out a way to get out, (and they will )  I may just wander on down to the bank and apply for that loan. I would love to have new floors, but looks like a new fence may be what I have to have and then the other neighbors can just do the same.