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.