Idle hands are the devil's workshop!

Momma said it.  It was reinforced by Grandma Haas and drilled to the depths of my tiny brain by Great Grandma Hatfield.  When I lived with the grandmas my Freshman year of High School, I spent every night sitting with them around the old oak table.  It was there I learned to crochet and read the Bible.  The telephone hung from the wall by the front door.  It was a big brown box with a receiver that you held to your ear and a tube that you spoke into which was transmitted to the wire (I assume) which went to someone else's phone.  To call someone you picked up the receiver and placed it to your ear and turned the crank to get the operator.  

 

The operator would say "Number please?"  You would say the number or the name of who you wanted.  She would then pull the line from your number and plug it into the number you were calling.  Now first I used the pronoun "she"  which is not permissible in this day and age, but back then telephone operators were women.  It was not man's work.  That is just how it was.  I always dreamed of being a telephone operator when I got old enough to work, but I decided to be a barmaid instead.  

Very little time was spent on the phone.  It was a tool.  Usually when the phone rang it was for emergency contact for one reason or the other.  Good reasons, not just passing the time of day.  Or to enquire as to one of the grandma's health.  I was 15 and healthy so no one needed to check on me.

Another thing about the telephones back then was that most people were on a "party line".  Back then a party line meant there were several phones on the same circuit and if you wanted to "listen in" all you had to do was pick up the phone very quietly and hold your hand over the mouth piece and you could be privvy to who ever was talking.  We were not supposed to do it and it would get you a "lickin" if momma found out which she always did!  (To clarify the word "lickin' ", it means spanking.)

But as for the eaves dropping, that is how my mother found out my older sister was pregnant by an older man in town who she was sneaking around with.  The operator listened in on a conversation between my sister and the scoundrel!  She then felt it her duty to report the situation to my mother and anyone else that would listen.  Talk about gossip!  And Mrs. Humphrey almost lost her job.  Almost, because no one else wanted to do her job so she was allowed to stay at the switchboard  and no doubt it was not the last conversation she was privy to either!  

Now how I made the leap from sitting around crocheting and reading the Bible in the evening is beyond me, but here we are!  I guess the fact that I can not sit quietly and meditate goes back to that old oak table, the family Bible and the telephone that was for emergencies only.  We also used to pay for long distance, but that is all gone by the wayside.  We are never out of range of our loved ones no matter where we are.  I can pick up my phone and punch in a few numbers and reach Dona who is out in the chicken coop 200 miles away.  Or I can call Debbie or Patty who are 400 miles away.  Debbie will be feeding something to some body or be lining the grandkids out for the day.  Patty will be on her way to some where with the phone in the car.  Neither call costs anything.  Connections are clear.  

As for my idle hands, they are usually up here on this computer listing on ebay or etsy, or writing something to clear my mind of some obstacle that life has put in my path.  But at 3:00 in the afternoon I turn on Jeopardy! and my little eyelids droop and it is nap time.  And to clarify you need to know this: nap time and  bedtime are two different things.  Nap time I close my eyes and doze off and usually wake up to the closing theme music of Jeopardy.  I do not dream during the show, but my mind takes in the information.

Bedtime usually occurs about 8:00 or so.  I put on my jammies, turn out the lights, crawl into bed, pet the cat and slowly drift off to dreamland.  Usually my dreams are pretty mundane, but sometimes I fight the demons of the day all night long.  Those are the mornings, when I wake up at 3:00 am and get up come in here and write.  I compose beautiful poems and write brilliantly as long as I do not leave the bed or turn on the light, but morning always comes.....

maybe.

Thank God for God!

 I like to wake up early.  Usually around 4 :00 AM or so.  I just lay there enjoying the quiet and contemplating what today will bring.  Yesterday I received word that a family member had passed.  Of course it made me very sad, but then I started thinking about the relationships that I have had over  the years and I realized just how important all of them have been.  He and I had been close many years ago before my life turned in another direction.  I would like to say that we had stayed in touch, but we had not.  I did visit with him a couple years ago, but only briefly.  But death does have a way of making us pause and think.  This one is no different.

Momma always said that every one we meet, every place we go, every experience we go through makes us who we are today.  Now I am here to tell you, I have met a lot of people, been a lot of places and experienced things both good and bad and I think I am pretty well shaped into the person that I will be when the good Lord sends the angels to pick me up and bring me home!

Now I speak of angels as plural.  God is singular.  The angels are women with soft golden hair.  The are in bright white, long dresses.  They have haloes.  There hands are soft and white with long fingers. Guess they need long fingers to play the harps.  They have golden haloes.  The one on the left carries a harp and the one on the right carries the Holy Bible.  They are smiling.  I am not afraid of them and I would follow them any where.  I will not be afraid to leave this world because I know I am safe.  

 I have no face for God.  He has no form.  He just is.  The closest I can come to describing God is a very, very bright light.  There is the essence on a throne, but there is no throne, only the essence of one.  There are golden trumpets over the essence and I can hear the clearest, most beautiful sounds coming from the trumpets.  It makes me happy.  You know how when they play "Taps" at a military service it makes you cry?  These trumpets do the same only these sounds make me happy.

I am not afraid of death.  Life is the part that sure does get tedious some times.  I should not say that because for the most part, my life is good.  It does get a little rocky some times, but it is what it is.  If there were no rough patches I would not know when the good parts came!

So, as I bid yet another link to my past farewell, know that my faith is strong and my hope for the future still intact.  Know that Annie said it best  click here and enjoy!

You never really know someone....

 Mother told me many things long ago.  Of course at the time, they did not apply so they went into the cache deep in my mind and were of course, forgotten.  It is strange how things remain in the deepest recesses of our memory and they seem to be completely forgotten.  Life goes on an even keel and then out of no where, up pops the devil! 

Another thing my mother instilled in me was a very deep grain of honestly.  I find it pretty close to impossible to tell a lie.  The reasoning behind that is that if I lie I have to remember that lie or I will be tripped up when the truth comes out.  So, if I tell the truth I know what to say when asked about an incident.  Usually life goes on with no need to remember anything, but occasionally something really matters.  And there are a few incidences that I have closed the door on something that happened and completely blocked it from my conscious.  But all that is neither here nor there this morning.

This morning is about living and dying and deceit and honesty.  I had a friend.  I thought he was a good friend.  We spoke every day.  We shared time.  We ate together.  Drank coffee together.  We shared past experiences and future hopes.  I was close to his family. I loved them and they loved me in return.  A friendship that would endure, I thought.

He contracted covid.  Of course he went into isolation.  He was a caring man and did the right thing.  So we talked on the phone.  No more Sunday afternoon Scrabble games.  No more cooking a pot of Lima beans.  No more coffee made from special beans.  Just the phone.

He sent me a text at 6:38 AM one Saturday morning.  "The keys to the house are in the mailbox."  Cryptic?  I thought so.  I got dressed and drove over there.  I got the keys and went in.  He was in bed downstairs and I told him I wanted him to see a doctor.  He said alright.  I told him my phone would not work in the basement so I  went upstairs to call.

He put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. 

In that split second my whole world changed.  I do not recall hearing a gun shot.  When I went back downstairs I thought he was asleep, so I went back to wait for the ambulance.  And then the coroner.  It has been 8 months.  It has been a lifetime.  

I assume someday I will quit playing the "what if" game.  Coulda', woulda', shoulda'.  It is all water under the bridge.  PTSD or whatever, it is all moot.  Over and done with, move on.  But you know what?

That is a lot easier said then done.

The center of home and family.

 The first time my mother came to this house is clear in my memory.  This table was new at the time and I had not bought the china cabinet, but the memory is clear.  I had picked her up in La Junta and brought her for her first visit to Colorado.  Mother never liked to drive and so the train was her mode of transportation.  She boarded in Hutchinson and arrived at La Junta.  That is where the train turns and heads south as I understand it.  Why it does not come to Pueblo is beyond me, but I was not in on the planning of the route.  This may all change some day, but I sadly fear I will not see that although I did work on getting a line to connect Pueblo and Denver.  Some where in that one is a "switch" to connect La Junta and Pueblo and then north to Denver.  That is all moot. 

She set at this table and we had a glass of tea.  As she set there she remembered many tables like this in her life time.  As far back as I can remember there has always been a round oak table.  Oak used to be a cheap wood and perfect for making a round table.  I am sure there are square ones, but not in my memory.  A coal oil lamp was in the center, perched on a crocheted doily.  

When I lived with the grandma's in Plevna, the round oak table was covered by a hand crocheted table cloth and in the center was a ruffled doily that held a coal oil lamp.  It was at that table that I learned to crochet the ruffled doily that held the coal oil lamp.

I think when we left Nickerson, she left the oak table behind because it was heavy and awkward and she wanted one of the new Formica ones that did not require oil to keep its luster. 

As she stretched her arms to feel the smoothness of the oak surface, I could see her mind going back to her childhood.  "This is where the family always came together.  After work they ate together.  Decisions were made at this table.  Home work was done by the light of a coal oil lamp.  We mourned at this table when a soul passed.  We celebrated a birth, or a wedding at this table.  It was the center of our life.  Promises were made and promises were broken at this table.  It was the center of life."

Mother was right.  It was at a round oak table in Nickerson that I did my homework.  Every meal was eaten at that table.  Home made ice cream was eaten at that table.  It was at that table that we learned of deaths, births, weddings and everything else that transpired.  It was in the center of the center room of our home.  It was the center of the home.

                                                                                                              

When you come to my house, we will have coffee or tea at this table.  When we eat, we eat at this table.  My correspondence is written at this table and bills are paid at this table.  I have a kitchen counter and stools at the counter, but I never use them.  They are to hold "stuff".  The stools set by the back window to make room for the table that holds 2 heavy duty mixers.

  When I picture my mother, it is at this table.  When I remember the grandmothers, it is at their table.  Sadly when I am gone, this table will be sold at auction.  I do hope that it can go to a home where it can create memories for another family, but I have no faith in that.  I expect it will go to an antique shop and someone will take it home to add to their collection of antiques, but that is out of my grasp, isn't it?

For now, I shall use it as I have always used it and when I am done, it will become an item# on a list some where with no connection or memory of Kenny and Lou.  A "fine oak table with 4 matching chairs and 2 chairs in need of repair."  There will be no mention of the laughter, love and tears shared at the table.  No mention of the dreams conceived in the early morning hours or the frustrations voiced in the waning hours of the day.

Just an old oak table.

Early Morning Reverie...

 

 

At 4:30 in the morning; looking across my desk I see a mother and father, a smiling baby in a lace dress held upright by a lace pillow  and a a second grader with bangs and no smile.

 

In my memory  I see a wife and mother, a battered woman, a waitress, a baker, a cook; a college graduate.

 

In my heart I see a grandmother full of love, kindness, and hope for the future.

 

In reality, I see nothing.

At the base of the porcelain god...

I have not had a drop of alcohol in many years.  It holds no siren call to me.  I drink water and if I am feeling the need for libation of any kind, tea will do.  Occasionally I do crave a soda pop, but even that is very rarely.  So, that having been said, why did I wake up at 4:25 AM remembering the siren call of alcohol?  Why were my first thoughts this morning a memory of waking up in a dry bathtub, fully clothed and covered in vomit from the night before?  How many years ago was that?!?  Apparently, the fun I had transitioning from teenager to young adulthood is a memory I shall never live long enough to neither clearly remember or forget.  

When I was 16 I wanted to be a missionary and save the souls of naked natives in Africa, but by the time I reached 18 I had changed my goal from saving souls to drinking the brewery dry.  I had a friend whose dad made home brew and she and I relieved him of a lot of his product when he was not looking.  I think he blamed it on his wife, but it is a little late now to apologize for that little fiasco.

I remember very little of my Junior year in high school and even less of the Senior year.  I showed up for class pictures and ordered my class ring (which I promptly lost) and that was about it.

Now, there were boys who subscribed to the theory that "candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  Those little fellows never reckoned with me, did they?  Beer made me mean and hard liquor made me meaner.  Of course, either one was going to make me throw up!  Nothing turns a guy off like some broad barfing  which was the one thing that got me through my high school years with my virtue intact.  The last time I was drunk was when my brother came home from the Army and he bought a fifth of rot gut whiskey for three dollars and some change.  We washed that down with red Koolaid.  And the rest is history.  I threw up for 3 days and swore off liquor for the rest of my life.  Red Koolaid is never found in my house.  And I am pretty much  still abstinent.  Lips of wine will never touch mine!

So let's get back to the subject.  Why, all these years later, are the memories of booze so clear in my mind?  I can not remember what I got in the car and drove to the store to purchase, but I can remember how drunk and sick I was lo' those many years ago.  Now I suppose a psychologist would say I was secretly wanting a drink, but I am pretty sure that is not it, because I could drive to the liquor store which is one mile away and buy a bottle if I chose.  But, no, I drink tea.  And water.  Sometimes chocolate milk.  And of course, coffee.

So, it is now 5:30 AM and I am winding up this entry.  I will have another cup of coffee and get ready to start my day.  Not sure what today will bring, but I am sure I will be stone assed sober for whatever it is that happens.  There are things in my life that are "givens".  That means "it goes without saying."  I will not drink liquor today.  No red Koolaid either. No cooked apples.  For the most part, my life is good.  I miss my kids, but so be it.  Some day!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

 

Turn around and she's two, turn around and she's 4.......

turn around she's a young girl, going out of the door.  click here  How fast the years go by!

Seems like when I think back over my life the highlights run together in a blur.  First I was the young girl running out the door with the love of my life and then I was running back through that same door  with 5 kids in tow because my life did not play out as I had envisioned it.

Then I was running out that same door with the new love of my life and heading West to Colorado.  The kids grew up and moved away, but life went on.  Now, as life slowly plays out before my eyes reality is a whole new concept.  When I was young, I grabbed life with both hands and hung on for dear life!  And what a ride it was!  At the age of 30 I had been through 3 husbands and was on my way to life in Colorado with husband number 3 who would also be number 4.  A 2 month stint with husband number 5 and on to number 6.  That was Kenny and when I said "till death do us part" I actually meant it.  We were married in 1983 after one year of living in sin.  He died in 2003.

I have lived here in this house alone since then.  I have male friends, but not any that I would have given up this life for.  My hospice work led me to one man who asked me to marry him because he had no one to leave his worldly goods.  We worked out an agreement whereby I inherited everything and dispersed it all to needy recipients.  That was kind of fun.  

There was one guy I hiked with so I would not have to go alone, but he was a bit of a jerk, so that never went any where.  I am honest and I expect honesty in return.  Compassionate to a fault.

I have been an activist.  I have been a pacifist.    I have helped people cross over in my work with Hospice in the Eleventh Hour program. I have fed the homeless.  I have rescued animals.  But the important part is I have been true to me.

I have loved and lost, but I have survived!  And I will go on surviving, because the German blood that runs through my veins dictates that I survive.  And the blood of my great grandmother makes me take care of people.

And my old mother goose lets me pet her sometimes!  Who can ask for anything more?