What ever happened to Carol Mason?

 It is amazing how my mind works!  I lay in my little bed at night and think pretty thoughts and drift off to sleep.  Mostly I think about Jesus and contemplate the day I will get to go see him.  So why does my mind that is supposed to be asleep go other places and wake me up at 2:30 AM back at Hutch High?  And why is Carol Mason alive in memory just as clear as the last time I seen her?  Let me give you some back ground on my relationship with Carol.

I met her in her Senior year.  I was in my Junior year.  That was back in my "cool days."  I think she was in my Stenography class.  That is the one where we learned to take shorthand.  Not sure that subject is still taught at all.  Kind of like typing.  And cooking and sewing.  Those all used to be "life skills."

Carol lived with her Grandma on 9th Street (I think).  She was of Indian descent.  She had coal black hair and coal black eyes.  Her eye teeth were prominent and in this day and age an Orthodontist would have been all over her, but back then it was just cool.  Carol never got flustered.  She never hurried.  She never got flustered when boys looked her way.  She was just so damn cool!  She did not smoke and I never lit up near her.

She never walked fast.  Her eyes never seemed to leave the ground in front of her wherever she was going.  There was no world outside of her and I.  Looking back I can see that she was an introvert.  She never told me why she lived with her grandma, only that when she graduated she would go back to California.  I wanted to go with her, but she was adamant that I stay in school and graduate and that when I was through with school she would send me a train ticket and I would join her in California.  My life was planned.  I think her dad was in the service out there.

As we grew closer I learned more about her.  She had a boyfriend named Lee and they were to be married when she graduated and moved back to California.  As the day grew closer she became more nervous about the wedding.  One day she decided she should cook me a meal, much like the first meal she would serve to her soon to be new husband.  Life was so simple back then!

I arrived at grandma's house on the appointed day of the "first meal after the wedding day."  The table was set for two.  No grandma in sight.  Come to think of it, I only saw the grandma one time and that was just a fleeting moment.  

I was served my meal.  It quickly became apparent that Carol was not real domesticated in the kitchen department and that poor Lee was going to starve.  I looked at the fare and knew I could not survive on this and it was not going to suffice for a full grown working man.  It was a hot dog along side a spoonful of macaroni and cheese.  I looked at that miserable fare and then at Carol's expectant face.

"Well, what do you think?"  

I wanted to say something nice, but I was way to honest for that.  

"That poor man is going to starve to death!"  So we ate our humble fare amid bouts of laughter.  There was not even a second hot dog and dessert was non-existent.  But Carol was cool and I was sure Lee knew that.

She moved back to California after graduation.  We kept in touch and she sent me pictures of the wedding.  She still planned on buying me a train ticket for my graduation.  We wrote back and forth.  She got pregnant and gave birth to a still born baby boy.  I dropped out of school.  I married and had a daughter.  My dreams of California died easily, but the memory of Carol Mason, not so much.

I still think of her now and then and can picture her in my mind.  She was a loner.  I was probably her closest and maybe only friend.  I never knew why she was here, maybe to be company for grandma.  I don't think she had any brothers or sisters.  Who knows?

I saw her once when my youngest was about two months old.  She came to town probably for her grandma's funeral.  It was awkward since I had a living child and I knew she had lost her only baby.  I never met Lee.  I never went to California.  Probably never will.  Can not think why I would want to go there.  When I think of Carol, she is 18 years old.  I remember her voice as very soft.  She never stood out, she just was.  She was Carol Mason, my friend.

Some memories live forever.  This is one of them.

The potato bug saga.

 It took lo! these many years for me to figure myself out!  Being born into and going up in poverty was not the cause of anything.  It was just the catalyst that propelled me into being the person I am today.  I recall the first nickel I ever made.  I do not remember the man's name, but he lived in a ramshackle house on the corner of the street we walked up to get to "down town."  He had his whole yard planted to potatoes.  The rows were even and ditches clean for water to run down to irrigate his crop.

He was setting on his front porch and wearing the uniform of the day; overalls.  I stopped to look at his potato crop.  It was green and tiny white blossoms topped each plant.  The porch was about 40 feet from where I stood. 

"Whatcha' lookin' at little girl? "

"Just looking at your potatoes.  They sure are pretty."

"Do you want a job?"  

"Sure."

He then came down to where I stood and explained that "potato bugs" were decimating his crop.  (Side note here:  I am sure he did not use the word "decimating"  because I am pretty sure neither he nor I would have used that word, but 70 odd years later it seems to fit.)  He further went on to explain that he would give me a pint jar containing gasoline and I would go through and pick the bugs off and drop them in the jar.  For each jar I filled he would give me a whole nickel.  I ,of course, jumped right on that offer.

The sun was hot as I worked my way down the first row.  The jar took a very long time to show any signs of ever getting full, but I persevered.  I gave no thought of hurrying home because I could only see the reward of the big shiny nickel when the jar was full.  I do not know how many potato bugs I picked that hot afternoon, nor is it important at this late date.  What is important is that about the time I got the jar full my brother showed up.  Momma had sent him to find me.  He went with me to deliver the jar to the man.  He was pleased and gave me my shiny nickel.  I promised I would come the next day to finish the field. 

But when I got home and showed my mother my new nickel, she frowned at me.  "Do you know that old man is not well?  His wife is an invalid.  He has to take care of her.  You march right back over there and give him his money back!  You know better than taking his money."

Mother explained to me that we were put on this earth to help those less fortunate and we were not to do it for rewards except the one reward we  would receive when our time on earth is done.  And I did as I was told.  The old man was dumbfounded when I gave him his nickel and explained that I would come back tomorrow and finish the job.  He took me inside to meet his wife the next day.  She lay almost comatose in a small bed and I do not think she even knew I was there.   I finished the field and never saw the old man again.  I assume he and his wife went to their reward because that is how life works.

The point to this is that any time I come across some one less fortunate then myself, I want to help them.  I do not mean financially, but physically.  I guess that is why I worked so tirelessly during the AIDS epidemic.  That is why I labored for the homeless teenagers.  Not sure they appreciated it, but I knew I was doing the right thing.  Migrant workers hold a place in my heart.  But times have changed and I am becoming one of the vulnerable.  I was going to town up South Road and saw a young woman beside the road with a suitcase and bag containing clothes.  I almost stopped, but I did not.  I know she has a story, but I do not want to be a statistic.  

I do very little charity work any more.  What I do is in a controlled environment and when I finish, I walk away.  My shelf in the closet is where I keep all my treasures and awards.  No one really needs to know where I have been or what I have done.  That is between me and God.

Dreams of being a missionary in Africa were scrapped for the reality of being a wife and mother in Western Kansas.  Visions of opening a mission were traded for the reality sewing sweat bands for migrant workers.  Woulda', coulda', shoulda'.  

My life goes on.

Close enough to perfect for him

 Click here to listen

40 years ago my late husband and I began "living in sin".  He was fresh out of a divorce from his wife of many years which had produced 4 children.  I was fresh out of divorce from my fourth husband.  To say we were both a little "iffy" on whether or not this was a wise move, would be an understatement,  but what the heck.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  And those 4 words seemed to be the basis of the whole relationship.

My son was still in high school and my youngest daughter was in middle school.  His wife had kept the house and he had money in his pocket to make a down payment on this house.  He had an end dump and I was working for a construction company that he worked for.  Lot of strings there but we seemed to have a lot in common.  I was freshly out of my second marriage to my fourth husband so with 5 divorces on my resume', he proposed.  I accepted with one stipulation: We would live together  (in sin) for one year.  If we survived that year, we would make it legal.  

Now, I never thought of him as a romantic, but being a local gravel/demolition hauler, he spent a lot of time listening to the radio as he drove up and down the road.  He came home one night to announce that he had heard the perfect song for us.  "Close Enough to Perfect" by Alabama.   The lyrics were what he heard and thought it fit me to a "t".  I was touched. Kenny was such a simple, black and white person that I could not have found a better song!

"Some times her morning coffee's way to strong.  And everything she says, she says all wrong."                She's always there beside me, as only a friend would be.  She's close enough to perfect for me!                      Sometimes she gets down and starts to cry, but then again the lady has a right.                                            She's all I ever hoped for, she's all I'll ever need.  She's close enough to perfect for me!"

Now, I ask you, could any woman hope for more in a life partner?  All my life I had searched for a man who would be my partner.  A man who would care for me just like I was with all my faults and phobias.  He was the first man I ever met that accepted me just like I was with all my imperfections.  And I could trust him.

So one year after moving in with him on December 23, 1983 when the temperature was -15 degrees. we hopped in "Fugi" and drove to Canon City, got a license, found a retired minister in a high rise senior housing and took our vows.  We stopped at the donut shop and had a donut and returned home to live happily ever after until death us did part.

So, good morning world.  I have been living alone now for almost 20 years.  Am I happy?  I am not unhappy.  Am I lonely?  I am alone, but not lonely.  I manage to get through the days and sleep through the nights.  Do I date?  Not really.  That would entail dressing up and actually leaving the house.  I would like to spend more time with my kids and grandkids, but they are back in Kansas or down in Texas and I have a neurotic cat that hides when anyone comes.

Mother always said memories are better than the actual living, because we can remember things the way we want.  So, from my perfect world, to your perfect world...

Peace!

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.