Bell bottom trousers, coats of Navy blue.....

My Anthony was a sailor.  Ah, but that was many years ago before Viet Nam. I have his wool top of his uniform and if I can find a camera I will post a picture of it.  Not of him, because I do not have him any more, but I do have his scatchy wool top and his green denim flak jacket. And playing through my mind is this little ditty:

"Bell bottom trousers, coats of navy blue, He'll climb the riggin' like his daddy used to do!  If you have a daughter, bounce her on your knee, but if you have a son send that "fella" out to sea!"

He was on the USS Proteus which was a sub tender.  That meant it was his job to make sure the submarines were all in tip top shape.  He was stationed at Pearl Harbor and that was a long time after the bombing there.  His time ran out just as Vietnam was becoming a way of life and he did not "reup".  I am glad he did not because Vietnam was not pretty and he would not have become the man he was had he gone there.

I have tried to think what it would be like to be submerged beneath the ocean for days or weeks on end and being the claustrophobic that I am, I can not even imagine life beneath the waves.  Anthony and all his shipmates had to be a special kind of person.  I think Irene told me that their father was also in the navy.  I think it takes a special kind of person to join the Navy.  

My father was in World War I.  He had a scar on his upper arm where a horse had bitten him.  He was in the cavalry apparently.  His sons were in World War II as I recall.  Richard was in the Navy, Gene was Army, and not sure if Earl was in at all.  There seems to be some sort of code they all follow, something I never understood.  Jake was Army and was in Germany, but it was peace time. Kenneth was Marine and he was in Korea.

There is one thing I know and that is when a man came home from the service, they were always clean shaven.  They kept their shoes polished and always seemed to be alert to their surroundings.  My son was in ROTC when he was in high school and I still keep the little awards he received.  I am glad he did not go into the service because I like him just the way he is!

Anthony was younger than me, but that never seemed to bother either one of us. I remember when I was in high school and how I lusted after the sailors in their little tight white pants before I was even old enough to know what lust was.  To think I had to wait 50 years to finally get my sailor is kind of sad,  but it was worth the wait!  Anthony stood straighter then most men.  He rarely got rattled and he understood my sense of humor.  Few men can measure up to my expectations, but he did.  He has only been gone for three months, but it seems like forever.

He was only in my life for a few years, but he has left a mark on my soul like no other man before him.  It is as if time has stopped and the world is standing still.  

I wonder if I will ever awaken from this dream?

Ragged 'n Ripe Peaches and Momma!

It did not happen often but it was always wonderful.  We watched the peach tree and waited for the peaches to drop.  It was only in the house at 709 North Strong Street that we had a peach tree.  Peaches have always been my favorite fruit.  A big, juicy dark red apple with four points on the bottom was always nice, but a rarity at our house.  Sometimes some one in town would have a plethora of apples and we would be sent to harvest the leftovers on the ground beneath the tree.  These were sorted, worms removed and the harvest made into apple butter or apple sauce which was basically the same thing.  Jars of apple sauce lined the shelves down in the root cellar.  Fried apples appeared regularly for supper, or dinner.  Chopped apples swam in oatmeal. To this day I do not eat an apple unless it is a dark red one with 4 points on the bottom and it is raw.

Pears are actually my favorite fruit, but I do not recall having them as a child.  Once when Duane and I were living in Liberal a man in the neighborhood came and told me I could harvest the pears on his big pear tree.  He furnished a ladder and I climbed up the tree and managed to harvest a big bushel basket.  Of course the kids were eating them almost as fast as I picked them, but I persevered and home we went.  I do not recall where the jars came from nor the rings and lids, but I did can them and processed them.  Sadly, the kids did not like them from the jar and when we moved the jars were left behind.  I assume some one did something with them.

Bananas were a rarity at the store, so pears, apples and peaches were what I grew up eating as far as fruit went.  Unless you want to count the Currants and wormy Mulberries. Oh, wait!  Every Christmas we each got an orange.  That was special only because it came once a year and beneath it was my Big Chief tablet and a brand new pencil.

However, my fondest memory in the whole world was when Momma turned the sign in the front window and the iceman would leave extra ice.  I knew what would happen next!  On the day the extra ice was left down in the root cellar, Momma would dig out the ice cream freezer.  It was washed and dried and assembled on the floor in the kitchen.  A can of "Ragged Ripe Peaches" would appear on the table.  Rudolph Reinke would appear with a jar of heavy cream.  The ice block would be brought up and Jake would use the ice pick to chip the ice so it would fit in the space between the metal bucket holding the elixir and the wooden outside.  Making ice cream was a family affair and probably the only time we could all refrain from fighting.  Momma cooked the ice cream until it thickened a bit and than poured it into the metal can.

Now,  after we had taken turns on the crank and it was getting hard to turn, the crank was taken off and the lid removed.  Momma had drained the Ragged n Ripe peaches and used the syrup to sweeten the ice cream.  The peaches were added to the mix and the lid returned until it would turn no more.  The crank was removed and the tub and ice cream was covered with a heavy wool quilt and left to "ripen".  

We were told to go outside and play.  Of course that did not happen because we knew that at some point momma would remove the quilt and pull the paddle out.  Of course there was always a fight over whose turn it was to "lick the paddle".  That was solved by each one of us taking a turn.  But the glorious part was when all the licking was over, supper eaten, and the baby in bed, momma brought out the "Ice cream bowls."  As I recall they were glass and were a rather amber color with raised flowers of some sort.  Today I recognize them as "Depression Glass" and they are rather pricey to buy, but then they were plain ice cream dishes. 

When we each had our bowl we were given the coup de gras (or something like that), which was a saltine cracker.  You heard me, a plain saltine cracker.  The saltiness of the cracker and the sweetness of the ice cream combined to make the best memory in the world to this skinny little girl from Nickerson, Kansas.  I will never think of my mother with out the taste of homemade peach ice cream.  

Over the course of the years on Strong Street, the peach tree became infested with bores.  The tree died, mother went to business school and got a job in Hutchinson, Kansas at some investment company.  Life was never the same after that.  We had running water and electricity and a car.  All the finery's life had to offer.  

I have three ice cream makers down stairs and before Covid became a part of our lives, I used to make ice cream at our church and have an open house.  The church wanted to make it a fund raiser, but I was just searching for a link back to my past. Life is sure funny, isn't it?  Peach ice cream was not a big hit at the ice cream socials and that kind of makes me sad.  

Ice Cream comes from the store and is in a box.   I do not think they even make peach ice cream, but I can taste it just like I was setting on the porch on Strong Street and mother was inside with dad.  I can see my sisters and brother and when I look into their eyes, I know the meaning of complete bliss!  

Nothing will ever take away my memories!    

Segregation is still alive and well in spite of it all.

 I just watched a segment on television about an old theater in some place down south.  Might have been Birmingham, Alabama.  There are two important facts here.  #1 is I am actually paying attention to the television and we are still having segregation problems and it is not just down south that it is happening.  

They were showing the history of the theater and explaining how it had been used as a headquarters for Ku Klux Klan meetings.  They gave the history to explain why the theater was the prime place for a museum to replace the KKK.  I am old enough that I can remember back when "night riders" interacted with black people in such a way that occasionally the black person would not return home in the same condition they left in.  This was acceptable behavior back when I was a kid growing up in Nickerson, Kansas.  I expect that the city of Nickerson could build their own museum, but not thinking they are going to do that!

I have very vague memories of my mom and dad having hushed conversations, before he would leave the house for an unknown destination.  When we got up the next morning for school he would still be asleep.  Hindsight is such a much better vision then living in the present!  We would hear hushed conversations in the school yard that abruptly ceased when we came near.  Guess this was something only the older kids were privy to.  

There were no Mexicans in our town.  No blacks.  There was a family that lived in the boxcar down on the curve that we suspected were maybe Indians.  We learned later that the word was "Indeginous", but then they were Indians and they kept to themselves.  There was a father, mother and 3 daughters.  Once I went to their house out of curiosity.  The house was very neat and the mother did not talk at all.  The father just glared.  I never did that again!

After they had been there for what seemed like a long time, Eveline was allowed to attend school.  Granted, no one played with her, but by then we were out of the "playing" stage and into the "trying to learn something that would be meaningful in our future."  Mostly, that involved cooking or baking, or cleaning house.  Eveline did come to my home a time or two, but mother was quick to point out that she had "very long fingernails and God only knew where they had been" so we must never touch anything she had touched!    

I am happy to report that later in her life my, mother actually acknowledged that there were people in this  world who were not lily white like us.  There were things like gay people, Mexicans, and black people!  We further learned that they were human and as such deserved the same treatment as our white friends.  Now in all fairness, I have not been a citizen of Nickerson for over 65 years, but you should know that when I last cruised the streets I did not see anything but white, anglo saxon, protestants.  Sadly something else I did not see, was any new buildings or thriving businesses.  There were a couple run down looking trailer parks and lots of abandoned buildings up on Main Street.  Nickerson seemed to be a step back in time.  What does that tell you?

As for my life, I think I have come a long way.  I have had the pleasure of being grandmother and/or great grandmother to several mixed grand children both half black, half Indian, and a couple not sure of paternity.  Does this make me anything different than I was when I was a snot nosed kid in Nickerson?  I think not.

I wish the people who work so hard for a good life could have crossed my path way back when.  There is a song I used to sing in camp and never really knew what it stood for.  Let me just sing you a couple bars:

"Jesus loves the little children.  All the children of the world!  Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in his sight! Jesus loves the children of the world!"

I hope I can remember that no matter where I wander and no matter where I roam, or who I meet in my life journeys that we are all children of God and as such are blessed by his goodness and help me to love my brother as myself.  And with that ,  I wish you all peace!

 

1:35 A,M. This is Gordon with your local bank.....

 "It is the middle of the friggin' night!  Don't you people ever sleep?"

 That was my wake up call that woke me up out of a sound sleep and pissed me off.  When I go to bed, I go to sleep.  All day long I have fended off the robo calls that want to insure my eleven year old car with almost 200,000 miles on it against any repairs.  Bumper to bumper.   Or they want to loan me thousands of dollars on just my signature.  Or house insurance.  Or life insurance.  Or buy my house.  Or sell my house.  The list goes on of things I might possible want that I have not thought of by myself.

Tell me this, how can we put a man on the moon, but not stop robo calls that bombard me all day and into the night!  I pay for my phone.  I bought it and I pay every month for the privilege's of using it and it would be nice if when I picked it up on the second ring if it could be someone I knew and wanted to talk to, but such is not the case.  

"Hi!  This is Dan."

"Good Afternoon.  I hope you are having a good day so far."

"Don't hang up!  I have a bank that can solve all your financial woes at 0% interest."

"I want to buy your house!"

I have signed up on the national do not call list.  I have blocked calls.  I screen my calls with caller id, but I gave that up when I saw my late husbands name and  phone number.  I tried making a list of the numbers, but they are smarter then I will ever be.  There is no hope.

I could turn my phone off at night, but I have 6 kids who are subject to accidents and need momma.  Or maybe they just need to tell momma a little good news.  (That could happen!)  Sometimes a friend will call just to pass the time of day.  I should be able to actually use my phone for my personal needs.

On the computer I can mark spam mail as such and send it to the trash bin and it goes to a folder and gets deleted, but not here at home in the real world.  The phone is subject to jangle at any time, day or night.  I often wonder if these people ever sell what ever they are selling.  They must or they would not keep calling.

So here I set with my jangled nerves, ready to face another day of missed opportunities here in my home.  Wouldn't it be nice if Gordon could get a real job and work like the rest of us instead of spending all night trying to figure out a way to separate me from my meager savings?

Good luck on that!

I still believe in waltzes!

 It has been a couple of rough months, but there is a new sun on my horizon!  I woke up with this song on my mind and realized that where there is life there is hope.  Loretta and Conway 

The last two months have not been kind to me to say the very least, but I am still here.  A saying comes to my mind that I always credited to my mother, but I actually think it was my oldest daughter that spits it out fairly regularly, and that is this "What doesn't kill you will make you strong."  And that saying is spot on!  ( I love that phrase!  Spot on!  But more about that later.)

Those of you who know me well, know that my track record for husbands was not anything that would be something that you would want to emulate nor the footsteps I wanted my children to walk in behind me, but it is what it is.  I spent 20 years with my last husband and another 16 mourning his passing before I took my first tremulous steps into the world of dating and learning to care for a man.  In all fairness, I learned to care for him long before the dating dance began.

He was kind.  He was fun.  He was thoughtful.  All of those are important, but he was also one of the smartest men I have met.  Intelligence is very important to me.  Kindness is very important to me.  Although we never discussed it, I knew he was a man I could trust and depend on to be there for me.  If I was having a bad day, I could call him and I knew he would be there.  That is the kind of man he was.  He was empathetic and while he may not have been as wise in the ways of the world as some men, he was perfect for me.

Momma always said, "All good things must come to an end."  And you all know, Momma was always right.  So the good thing came to an end and it broke my heart.  Death is a very hard pill to swallow and when it happens suddenly it leaves shock waves behind that are not always easy to deal with.  My last husband spent over 2 months on machines that kept him alive because I could not find his DNR at the precise moment I needed it.  (If you have one, keep it on the front of your refrigerator and make sure it is there every day!  When the EMT comes they will need to see it or you are going to end up some where you do NOT want to be.  Enough about that)

So the man who opened doors for me, who made sure I had my seat belt fastened, and told me to call when I got home so he would know I made it is no more.  

No more coffee on Sunday afternoon. 

No more Boggle.

No more flying the kite.

No more walks at the Reservoir.

Not going to see the Aspens change next fall.

Not going to the Sand Dunes.

No bantering over which is best, Jazz or Country Classics.

No more happy to see him and sad to leave.

No more anything but a long empty road that leads to no where.

It is called life.  Naked come we into this world and naked we will leave.  Happiness is only what we catch every now and then and it only lasts for a fleeting time, so enjoy it while you can, because it can all change in the blink of an eye.

I will survive, because that is what I do.  I am a better person for having known him and his family is my rock.  Of course I have friends who want to help and they do, but at the close of day, when I lay in my bed and reflect back, I can not help but shed a tear and remember what a Bard of long ago wrote:

"Of all the things of mice and men, the saddest of all is what might have been."

So laugh while you can, love while you can and remember the movie "Gone with the wind" and Scarlett Ohara standing in the rubble saying "Tomorrow is another day!"  

And to that I might add, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."  I am a better person for having known Anthony and a sadder person for losing him, but I will survive, "the good lord willing and the creek don't rise!"

Peace!

We meet everyone for a reason.

1. They are sent to awaken us.

2.  They are sent to hold space for us.

3.  They are sent to help us grow.

4.  They are sent to remind us.

5.  They are sent to stay, holding a long term role in our lives.

I found this on an old yellow index card when I was cleaning the mess on top of my desk this past week.  It is in my handwriting, so I know I copied it from some place and at a time when I probably needed to know this stuff.  And I also know, that at this time and place I needed to find it and be reminded of just where my friends came from and why they are still here.

I look at this list and I look back at my life and I realize that everyone of these sentences are true.  Now, granted, some of my dearest friends are not in my life in an active way, but that may be because they served their purpose and moved on.  Some of them are in my darkest past and I no longer have contact with them, but they do pop into my memory from time to time. 

And as I look back on my most troubling times in my long ago past, there were no friends.  It was during those times that I escaped into my childhood.  In my childhood I was safe from the present I was living.   It was my childhood that gave me the strength to move forward and gave me the courage to "accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  I think that all this shows up in the Serenity Prayer in some form.  That prayer, while used by the AA groups, is a good one for all of us to follow. 

I look back down the twisted, littered road of my past and I have to acknowledge that during most of that time, there were no flesh and blood friends, but there was always God and the certainty that he was holding me up.  And it was just as if I was held by the blacksmith as he held me over the roaring forge.  He melded me and formed me into the woman I am today.  

Mother taught me that "as you sow, so shall you reap."  And "sow the wind and reap the whirlwind."  And another important one was, "To have a friend, you need to be a friend."  When I moved from Western Kansas back to Hutchinson, I had 4 kids walking and one in the oven waiting.  While that time was very hard to live through, I came out the other side stronger and did actually forge some friendships that I continue to this day.  

When I found this tattered, yellow index card on my desk, it suddenly took me back to those times!  And I began to reflect back on my life and friendships I have formed.  I am truly a blessed woman!  I can not count my true friends on one hand, but that is because there are so many.  I have received so much love from people that I rarely even think about that I am humbled.  How this skinny little girl from Strong Street can be so esteemed is more that I can fathom!

Just know this;  I could not have survived here in Pueblo, Colorado, without your help.  And I certainly felt all of the love these last couple of months.  (Has it only been 2 months?  It seems like an eternity!)  So, I am going to take this tattered, yellow index card and put it in a frame and put it up there on that shelf above the monitor where I can see it every day.  

I may not be able to categorize all my friends, but know that I love everyone of you.  You have all touched my world in some way.  I am a firm believer that if you let me cross your mind that you have sent me good vibes.  It is those things that make me want to get out of bed in the morning and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  It is all of you  who make me who I am and what I am today.

Peace, my friends!

Two things no one should ever eat.

 The first is a Gooseberry!  My mother-in-law, Leone Mercer had a Gooseberry patch in her back yard on Heisler Street.  When Bret and Shelly were wee little tykes I took them over there and they wandered out back and found the Gooseberry patch.  When I happened upon them they were actually eating them.  I had never encountered a Gooseberry, so I picked one and popped it in my mouth. OMG!  Those things were beyond sour.  I could feel the bottom of my brain stem rebelling!  Leone assured me that "made into a pie it is the best thing you will ever eat."  Some how, deep in my soul, I rather doubted that.

Regress back to 709 North Strong Street in Nickerson and an eight year old version of myself exploring my new home.  We had moved there from the Ailmore place and since dad was buying this house we were now homeowners.  Facing the house from the street on my right (which I learned later was the North side of the house) was a Walking Stick Cactus which would be a source of much pain.  Going on to the back fence was a row of elm trees, followed by a Mulberry Tree, more elm trees, and then a long row of Currant bushes.  Mother assured us that they were good to eat when they were ripe.

I spent many hours climbing the Mulberry tree and searching for a ripe one to eat because Mulberry is a very good treat as long as they are ripe.  The ones on the top ripen first and it is just a few days until the ones on top began to fall to the ground.  Now Mulberries are a deep purple when ripe and since we went barefooted all summer, my feet were also purple on the bottom.  If that was not enough to deter me, the news that Mother told Dad did give me pause.

"Ruben, those Mulberry have worms in them.  You have got to keep the kids out of them."  Well, I could not see the worms, so I just figured she was seeing things and continued my feast.  The mere fact that I am still here seventy years later makes me think she was either wrong, or they were damn little worms and did not hurt anything!

Ah, but the currants!  The currant bushes were in a row and the row was probably forty feet long.  Early in the spring little yellow flowers covered the bushes and we soon learned that little green berries about  a quarter inch in diameter would appear.  Of course I never was the patient type, so I picked one and ate it.  I guess I should say, I attempted to eat it!  My God those things were bitter!  I think I have a permanent pucker from those things.  The sad part is that as they ripened a little they got less bitter and as soon as they got fat and ripe, the birds swept in and harvested them!  As I recall, they were rather opaque when they were almost ready and then turned black when fully ripe, right before the Sparrows came in and ate them all!

There was a Peach tree that hung over the chicken house and I never was fast enough to get one of those either!  I did get one that was almost thinking about maybe getting ripe.  It was hard and not sweet at all and mother was right, it did give me a belly ache.  

And the Catalpa tree had beautiful white flowers and when the flowers dried up, a long bean came on and hung down.  Jake and I figured out that if we let the bean dry, we could light it up and smoke it.  Sadly I did not blow out the fire on the end of it when I took my big drag and sucked the burning fire into my mouth!  

I often wonder how I survived to adulthood!  But I did.  And the saddest part of all of this is that I look back on my childhood days as happy ones!  My idea of heaven is to go back to that little 2 bedroom shack on Strong Street, shinny up the Catalpa tree, watch a chicken lay an egg, and fly my kite over the cemetery with my brother.

Life was sure simple back then.