Treasured Moments

Christmas is a time of reflection and family and warm feelings, and I know I'm going to cry as I write this.  It is intensely personal.  If you aren't up for it, don't read it.  That's my spoiler alert!

1.  In the fall of 1964, my mother had to travel to be with my grandmother and grandfather at the Mayo Clinic to hope to find out what was wrong with my grandmother's legs.  (They found a benign grapefruit-sized tumor that was pressing on her spine.  The surgery to remove it was successful but the damage had already been done.  She remained in a wheelchair for the last 15 years of her life.)  I was a senior in high school.  In Mom's several-day absence, I had auditioned for--and got--the lead in my school's fall play.  That was a big deal.  Oak Park-River Forest High School had a real theater department, in a real auditorium, with real theater features, and the school was big enough with over 3,000 students that competition was stiff.

When we picked up Mom from the train station on her return, I finally found the chance to tell her my news from the back seat of the car.  She seemed delighted, even though exhausted and still worried about her mother's future.  A couple of days later, I heard pounding from the upstairs of the house. Never thought too much of it until I went to bed...and there, on my bedroom door, was a wooden star painted gold.  Just like on the dressing room doors of Hollywood stars!  I will never know whose idea it was.  I only knew that Dad made it in his wood shop at his school and that it meant my parents honored me.  I still have the star!!

2.  My parents footed the bill for my college education.  My housing, food, tuition, and books were covered...plus I was given an allowance.  Anything more, I had to work for...which I did.  (But not always wholeheartedly.)  Not too many kids these days can say that!  Graduation from Illinois State University---the same college that my father graduated from--was in June of 1969.  At that time, I was already engaged and we were making plans for an August wedding.  Still, on the day of Commencement, my father shook my hand and said, "Congratulations.  I have done everything I can for you by giving you a leg up on life.  The rest is up to you."  At first, I was confused, but then I understood that my parents weren't writing me off.  Dad was merely expressing pride in that they had provided me with something he'd had to work so hard for--a college education--and that I had gotten a degree and had already signed a contract for my first teaching position.  His job was done!

3.  As the wedding took place, my father walked me down the aisle of St. Stephen Protomartyr Church in Des Plaines, IL.  When he gave my hand to my future husband, he whispered in my ear, "Good bye, Peggy COVILL".  Why, Daddy...WHY would you want me to cry on my wedding day??!  My father, tough as he was, was a sentimental guy.  No matter what my last name is, I will always be a Covill!

4.  When my beloved grandmother died in 1975, I did okay...until the last pass by the casket after the visitation.  I broke down in sobs.  My mother held me up.  She said she wondered how long it would be before I gave in to the sorrow that I felt.  God bless my mother's understanding!

5.  The next day...the day of my grandmother's actual funeral--a VERY cold day in February---we had to practically carry my grandfather from the grave site.  He had lived out the vow of "til death do us part"...but now, he couldn't go.  He sobbed, "I don't want to leave her here!  I can't leave her here!" His children led him slowly and compassionately away, but it was not lost to me that this dear old man had been faithful in every way to the inevitable end.  I learned something about love that day.

6.  Ten years later, in early January of 1985, my 89-year-old grandfather was taken to the hospital with major pain in his gut.  It was determined that he had a bowel blockage.  No one wanted to operate on him because of his age, but the alternative was to let him be in horrible pain.  He went to surgery but never came out of the anesthetic.  He was comatose and unresponsive to stimuli for a week.

One night the next week, the hospital called me.  The nurse had been trying to locate my mother but couldn't find her.  I was next on the call list.  The nurse said, "Mr. Armstrong is on his way out."  I knew where my mother was, called her, then dashed off to the hospital which was only minutes away.  When I arrived, the nurse said, "When I called you, I thought Mr. Armstrong had expired, but he's rallied a bit".  But not for long.  I stood by his bed for no more than ten minutes as I watched the monitors go down and down and down until there was nothing left.  Suddenly, there was a priest by my side...and Sister Noreen, a grief nurse/nun.  (God bless Sister Noreen.  She was only doing her job, but I wanted her to go away.  We would all be fine!  I just needed time to prepare myself for the arrival of my mother and aunt.)

Nothing and no one will ever convince me that this whole thing was circumstantial.  I believe in my heart that my grandfather held on until someone from the family could be with him in his passing, and I was chosen.  All I could do was sob, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."  And then I went (with Sister Noreen) to wait for my mother and her sister at the elevator.  They arrived right when I predicted they would.  I met them and told them that Popo had passed.  I felt my mother slump in my arms at the news; then we went into his room to see him.  I had already asked the nurse to remove all of the tubes and such for his daughters to see him.  On seeing him, my mother said, "Oh...that's not so bad."  And so, the torch was passed.  My grandfather had let me know in his passing that I was now in charge.  I did the best I could to be there for my family that night.

7.  My mother died suddenly on the day after Thanksgiving in 1986.  She'd had a "mild" stroke in October and was still in the hospital's rehab center when the bottom fell out.  Through all of this, there were problems between my husband and me.  He was angry with me because I'd had the audacity to host a garage sale at our house with a friend of mine without consulting him, so he announced that he would be taking HIS children to Indiana (we lived in IL at the time) to visit with his parents at Thanksgiving, even though that was in violation of the agreement we had made a scarce two years before to do one family or the other on the holiday, but not both.  This was MY family's turn...but it was not to be.  We were at odds for the entire month of October into November.  It wasn't nice.

That day, I wouldn't let our daughter go with him.  He griped about it, asking me what he was supposed to tell his parents about why she wasn't there.  I suggested that he should tell them the truth: that my family was in crisis and Megan needed to be home with me.  I'm not sure that ever sank in. In any case, he left for Indiana on the day after Thanksgiving...and my mother died that same day.

Will spare some of the sordid details.  Suffice it to say that my mother's sudden death left me numb.  My treasured moment in all of this heartache came at the grave site.  My in-laws...my husband's parents who didn't even really know my mother...came to the funeral.  And ONLY the funeral.  They didn't even stay for the bereavement dinner afterward.  They drove the four hours over and the four hours back just to be there for me.  All I know is that I turned from the casket at the cemetery, in my fog, into the arms of Artie McNary who had tears streaming down his face.  I'll never forget that. This dear man felt a compassion for me that I didn't ask for nor assumed.  What a blessing he was!

8.  Less than a month after my mother's death, I sat in the bleachers at Washington Elementary School in Pontiac, IL, for my daughter's Christmas concert.  She was 7.  She also had a solo in a song, The Friendly Beasts. I just blubbered, so sad and so proud...  Sad because my mother wasn't there to hear it, and proud because my child had such a clear and lovely voice.  Wow!  I still have a tape of that performance.  It will remain one of the shining moments of my memories.

9.  My father died while in my sister's care.  He had been ill, and she and her husband had been taking care of him at her house in Illinois.  At the time, I was involved in an Easter Cantata here in Indiana with a church somewhat west of my home, but I had a solo...and these cantatas are always emotional experiences. In any case, I came home from the first performance to a phone call from Shari that Dad had passed. There was one more cantata performance the next evening, and since I knew there was nothing I could do to help in IL, I stayed home for it.  I didn't know the other cantata cast members very well, but the night of the last performance, while we were putting on our costumes, I told the gals in the room that my father had died the night before.  One lady said, "Oh, how nice!"  I was shaken by that until she added, "Last night, your father couldn't hear you sing.  Tonight, he can!"
That made all the the difference in the world to me.  I still have no idea who she was...

My father was buried in his Navy uniform, as planned.  After he retired from the Navy, he became active in the American Legion in Streator, IL, serving as Adjutant and then Commander for many years.  At the funeral, one of his Legion friends stepped back from the casket, stood at attention, and saluted my father.  The final salute.  God bless the man!

10.  There are lighter memorable moments.  For example, the night my grandmother died, my mother and grandfather were at the hospital while my father waited for them at home.  When they returned to the homestead after she passed, my father greeted them at the door and embraced his father-in-law as they all sobbed...and in that moment, my grandfather's pants fell to the floor.  Laughter then intermingled with tears.  Stuff happens, not to be forgotten!

I guess all of these are treasured moments are because they occurred at times that tend to stay in memory. I hope I didn't dwell on deaths too much.  I have many more treasured moments, but not as poignant as these.  We remember things that happen in our most vulnerable times.  Why is that?? In any case, I pray that my future treasured moments are focused on the good stuff!      

    

    
  

Never Say No

Once upon a time, when I lived in Pontiac, IL, my church had a Mother-Daughter Banquet.  I was invited to sing as part of the entertainment.  I wish my memory were better about that whole thing, but as I remember it, I was somehow encouraged to sing a song from The Fantastiks, "Never Say No".  I had never seen the Fantastiks, nor did I have any sheet music for it, but the song seemed to fit the occasion.  I scrambled to find a way to get the song to the pianist (the Internet didn't exist back then)...and she did the rest.  In short order, she had the song down, even if she had to improvise!

Here is the song I sang:

 Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Dog's got to bark, a mule's got to bray.
Soldiers must fight and preachers must pray.
And children, I guess, must get their own way
The minute that you say no.

Why did the kids pour jam on the cat?
Raspberry jam all over the cat?
Why should the kids do something like that,
When all that we said was no?

My son was once afraid to swim.
The water made him wince.
Until I said he mustn't swim:
S'been swimmin' ever since!
S'been swimmin' ever since!

Why did the kids put beans in their ears?
No one can hear with beans in their ears.
After a while the reason appears.
They did it cause we said no.

Your daughter brings a young man in,
Says "Do you like him, Pa?"
Just say that he's a fool and then:
You've got a son-in-law!
You've got a son-in-law!

Sure as the June comes right after May!
Sure as the night comes right after day!
You can be sure the devil's to pay
The minute that you say no.
Make sure you never say no!

I write this today because it is still true of my daughter, today!  When I sang the song, she was probably 7 or 8.  Now, she's 35 and still stubborn beyond belief!  (She gets that from her father, thankyouverymuch.)  God has blessed me with a beautiful and intelligent daughter, and two grandchildren who are equally as handsome and smart.  All I need now is to figure out how to maneuver through the rest of my life without becoming a problem to them all, while they continue to be a worry to me?  When do parents ever get to let down?  When do we get to say "no"??  

Keeping Me Humble

There is nothing quite as good at making you aware of your frailty than having your back go out.  Understand that I've had more and more trouble with my back over the past two years--to the degree that my activities have been somewhat limited.  This time, however, I've been brought to my knees.  Not fun!

Two days ago, I woke up with severe pain in my lower back on the right side.  It only hurt when I moved.  Any movement that included bearing weight on my right leg was excruciating until I could rectify positions.  I could walk, slowly, if I hung onto things...furniture, doorknobs, counters, etc...but it was slow.  I felt like an invalid.  (Still do.)

I looked to painkillers.  The first day, I started out with two Extra Strength Tylenol, which helped a little.  When that began to wear off, I turned to Hydrocodone (Vicodin) that I had been prescribed a year or two ago for a toothache.  Am I immune to that stuff???  I've taken it twice in my life.  It didn't do anything for me, both times.  So much for that!

I was feeling very sorry for myself.  My Christmas tree was not up yet and some of the mess from when the family was here was still evident...but I couldn't move.  And then, out of nowhere, my yard guy/helper showed up without a call from me.  In short order, he had the tree put up, swept the kitchen floor, vacuumed the carpets, took out endless garbage bags, and ran a grocery errand for me.  Answer to prayer!

My helper also brought my rollater in from my car.  (A rollater is a walker on wheels with a seat on it.  Bought it a year ago from the Aldi's store up in my daughter's neck of the woods--on sale for $30.)  So far, it has been a godsend.  I don't use it often, but it sure is helping me now in my own house.

 Today, I have stayed medicated with the Tylenol.  It has helped, but I'm still moving very, very slowly.  This is not acceptable.  I have things to do!  Christmas is coming!  Not to worry about feeding myself.  There is plenty of food in the house, and I have been eating whatever I can get my hands on due to boredom.  Still, I would like to be a viable member of society rather than having to depend on others to get along!  Please God, let this back spasm go away.  What I dealt with before seemed bad enough.  This, however, is awful!

I am so thankful that I live in this little bungalow-on-a-slab.  No stairs.  Not sure how I would get along if I were struggling to get by with stairs in the mix.  You can feel pretty powerful when your body works as it used to...but when it doesn't, it's pretty humbling.  I am seeing life through new glasses.  All I want out of life right now is to find a way to walk unmedicated and without pain.  Prayers are gratefully accepted!

Now, THAT'S a Daddy!

Over the last month or so, there has been a change in the family dynamic.  My granddaughter is now living with her mother and stepfather in Lindenhurst, IL.  Big changes for a young gal!  Of course, all eyes have been on Robin to see how she fares in her new school situation, etc....but Ever Watchful Grandma Peggy has also had her eyes on the rest of the family to see how they react.  I have been particularly interested in my son-in-law who has no children of his own, although he has been stepfather to my grandkids for over four years now.  He's done very well.  Still, being a weekend stepfather isn't the same as having one of the children actually living in the house on a daily basis.  How would he handle it? And now, after seeing it first and second hand for myself, I wonder what I was worried about!

First of all, Denis refers to the children as "my daughter" and "my son".  He does not make the distinction that they are "steps"...and doesn't like it if someone else does, except in obvious situations. This indicates to me that he is dedicated to being the best parent he can be to them.  Ryan adores him--thinks of him as the "fun master" because they play together: Nerf guns, video games, pool...even soccer.  Ry is reluctant to let Denis shower or sleep in because those cut into their time together. (Poor Denis!)

Denis is a VERY patient man.  I have never heard him raise his voice in anger, even though he probably has had reason to--with or without the children.  (The only time I have seen him totally frustrated is when his parents were here from Russia and he had to do translation duty, Russian/English and English/Russian...and one other time when his wife had a meltdown.)  Now that Robin lives with him, she goes to him for help with her algebra homework (something I wasn't taught until 9th grade, btw...and she's only in 7th).  As a computer programmer, Denis is a whiz-bang in math.  That, coupled with his patience and ability to explain, makes for calm and peaceful homework help.  He doesn't do the work for Robin--just answers her questions.  Tonight, I guess she said, "Thank you for making my homework so much easier."  She has no clue how much worse things could be...or maybe she does.  (I was a teacher, but my daughter and I had what I called Homework Wars every night.)

Robin and Denis are doing Tae Kwon Do together.  Robin had expressed a desire to do it, and Denis wanted the exercise...so they complain about their sore muscles together.

Denis is not Robin and Ryan's father, but he does his best to be what they need from him when they are there.  Having been a stepparent myself, I am aware of the pitfalls that come with the territory. My then-spouse never, ever thanked me for treating his children like my own.  Once he actually said that I cared more about something else than his kids, even though I worked my fanny off for them.  I got the recognition I felt that I deserved from his parents, however, when Grandpa Artie told me how much he and his wife appreciated that I never drew divorce lines that kept them from seeing their grandchildren and us at the same time.  I never forgot that.  And I will never forget Denis for his efforts to be the best daddy possible, having been thrust into the role by way of marriage.

God bless the stepparents of the world who are actually putting the well-being of the children at heart.  Denis is truly a daddy, even though he has never had a child of his own.  I love him even more for that!      


  

Communication 101

Have you ever thought about how you communicate with your friends and loved ones?  You probably think you do well, but I'm here to tell you that you don't.

There are three facets to what you say to your people:  1) What you actually say, 2)  What you actually mean, and 3) What your intended audience hears.  For example, when your spouse says "Are you going to wear that shirt to the party?"  He/She really means, "It isn't acceptable for you to wear that shirt to the party."  What you hear is, "If you wear that shirt to the party, I will never forgive you."  Do you get it?

When my daughter was younger, her interpretation of what I said was similar to this.  I can remember a time or two when she told her friends that her mother would "kill" her for a certain behavior.  Yeah, right.  "I got yelled at for doing that" meant only that Mom didn't approve.  I never actually raised my voice or even made a big deal out of whatever it was she did.  (Maybe I should have!)

I was reminded of this during Thanksgiving weekend when the grandchildren were here.  I had bought multiple bags of candy that quickly disappeared with the children sneaking the pieces out of the kitchen.  The last bag had three pieces of Rolo candies in it.  I knew that Robin likes Rolos, so I asked (from the kitchen, where I was, to the living room, where Robin was), "Robin, are you the Rolo-eater in the family??"  That's what I said.  What I meant was, "There are three Rolos left.  Do you want them?"  What she heard was, "ARE YOU THE GUILTY PARTY THAT ATE MOST OF THE ROLOS?"  Robin's defensive response was that she ate Rolos but she wasn't the only one and hadn't eaten all of them.  My daughter and I looked at each other in amusement.  I had erred in my intended communication!  I corrected the communication and gave her the three remaining Rolos.  Sheesh!

My son-in-law has come to refer to a "Manslater"--something that Saturday Night Live touted as a handy tool for men to understand their wives.  We've laughed about it for a couple of years.  Denis, whose second language is English, is only just learning about the little nuances of communication in America.  In the meantime, as honest as I think I am in my efforts to make myself understood, I have figured out that even I get misinterpreted.

Life goes on!

Bless the Beasts (and the Children)

Back in the 70s, The Carpenters had a hit song with the same title as this blog post.  What I have to say has nothing to do with the song OR the movie of the same title.  I use it because it speaks to my Thanksgiving weekend experience...and the things we learn from our kids and our critters.

My family came to my little house-on-a-slab for the Thanksgiving holiday, including my grandkitty (Toffee).  We are always crammed into the abode but it always seems to work.  Toffee (aka Koshka--"cat" in Russian) was not at all skittish about her surroundings when let out of the carrier after the trip.  She's been here before.  This time, she seemed to feel at home, whatever that means to a cat.

Interestingly, capturing her to put her back in the carrier for the trip home is always tricky.  She has a sense about things.  Hallway doors to bedrooms get closed, limiting hiding spots.  People start putting on coats, suitcases come out, and people get really busy...and suddenly, the cat is largely absent.  This trip, she was hiding under the covers of Meg and Denis's bed.  An ominous lump.  When it came time for the carrier, Meg uncovered the cat who made a run for it, but ran TOWARD the humans instead of the other way.  Busted!  Poor Koshka!  How do they know??  (All of the dogs I ever had in my life seemed to know when the bathwater that was being drawn was for them instead of for the humans and could be found hiding under the bed.)

There were issues with the children, too.  Who knew that putting up Grandma's Christmas tree would strike fear in the hearts of the young'uns?  I can use the help and always considered it a family activity, but apparently we have put so much emphasis on it that the children run the other way!  Needless to say, I didn't press the issue.  My tree is still not up.  I actually considered not doing it at all, but that would be unAmerican!

Within 20 minutes of the family's departure, I was informed that Robin had left her iPod in her bedroom and would need to be mailed.  (Done.)  And after they returned home, they were missing Meg's Kindle and the charger cord for Robin's school-issued Chromebook.  I did a hunt complete with flashlight, standing on my head looking under things.  Nothing!  Thankfully, both were found with them before we all went to bed in our respective homes that night.  Whew!

There were other issues, of course, but nothing earth-shattering or that need to be discussed here.  I was happy to have the family here...and even happier that we shared Grandkid Time with the other Plainfield grandparents.  As we age, our collective time to spend with the grandchildren is limited. I'm not at all unhappy about how things went. God is good all the time!  

Remembering Thanksgiving

I was visiting at my daughter's in northern Illinois for the last two weeks, but the Thanksgiving feast is to be held at my little house-on-a-slab in Indiana.  At home are all of the non-perishable trappings for the side dishes.  The task remained to purchase "the boid".  Jewel/Osco in the Chicago 'burbs, a large supermarket chain that Indiana doesn't have, was advertising name-brand turkeys for $.48/pound with an additional $25 purchase...so I trekked out to get one.  As supermarkets go, Jewel is higher than Walmart and MUCH higher than Aldi's, but they did have some good sales that would contribute to the $25 purchase, and I really didn't figure I was going to find turkeys for much less than that sale price.  I came home with a frozen 16+ pound bird for just under $8.  I'm happy with that!

The temperatures here have dropped like a stone over the last few days, and with that, come the memories of Thanksgivings past.  I don't remember much about the earliest family feasts, but the ones I do remember were most always held at my grandparents' farm near Streator, IL.  I recall at least two occasions when I was driving down from the Chicago area in a snowy white-knuckle trip to get home for the holiday.  One particular trip, I was behind a slow-moving salt truck and grateful for it.

My mother was always the cook.  Didn't matter that she had two later-adult daughters, Mom did the honors...and the rest of us took it for granted.  I've already written about the time that my grandfather didn't remember eating the feast meal because he'd had tee-many martoonis prior to the meal, and the time that the rest of us weren't totally sure that the meal would happen because Mom was somewhat inebriated, for the same reason.  Then there was the time that Dad went rabbit hunting on Thanksgiving Day and fell on his shotgun because he thought he could outrun the rabbit he had winged.  Shattered his pinky finger which later required surgery and an overnight stay in a hospital.  (It's a wonder the gun didn't discharge and kill him!)  But I digress....

For a couple of days prior to Thanksgiving, there would be several loaves of bread left open to get stale, to be used for stuffing.  (Stove Top had not been invented yet.)  Mom crumbled the bread into a roasting pan with onion, celery, and spices--the best of which was sage--and broth.  Most went into the turkey's cavity.  The rest went into a casserole dish into which oysters were added.  (Ewwww...!)

Mom and Dad didn't buy frozen turkeys because they wanted BIG birds.  To get a 25-pounder, they had to order it special from the grocery store.  It wasn't so much that our family was big enough to warrant that big a bird; more like they just very much liked leftovers.  My father, who was always hungry as a kid, would absolutely gloat over the size of our Thanksgiving turkey!  In order to get that sized bird cooked in time for a farm family to eat, Mom would sometimes have it in the oven by 5:30 AM.  (Farm people expect the big meal of the day to take place noonish.)

 Over time, Mom decided to make things easier on herself, so dinner time was eased into the afternoon, which meant that people would be hungry for lunch when she wasn't inclined to provide another meal due to feast preparations.  That started the tradition of hors d'eouvres.  Along about 11:00 AM, a card table was set up in the living room, and on it went chips and California Onion Dip (a family favorite), cheeses and crackers, raw oysters with lemon juice on the side, big shrimp and cocktail sauce (enhanced with wasabi that we'd brought from Japan), and pickled herring.  We all fell on that table like a bunch of vultures at a kill.  (In fact, sometimes we were so full from the appetizers that we weren't hungry for the feast!)   Oh, the memories!

(I have added this section since this was originally posted; hence, the bold print.)  
When my grandparents were still alive, Mom always made two pumpkin pies from scratch, and one mincemeat pie.  (Who eats mincemeat pie????  I don't think I ever even tasted a single piece...just because of the name!)  Mom's pumpkin pies were always quite dark in color due to spices, and it troubled her that they always "sweat".  They would develop droplets of water on top.   She read Homemaker's Extension articles about how to prevent that, but none of us complained, so she learned to stop worrying.

After I was married and spent some Thanksgivings with my husband's family, there were other issues to deal with.  Grandma Helen cooked the bird the day before so she could have the mess out of the kitchen on Turkey Day, but Grandpa Artie always complained that she overcooked the turkey, making it too dry for his liking.  The Dry Turkey Complaint became a yearly event and a family joke.  None of us took it seriously because we weren't cooking it or judging it.  It was just good!  

Since the McNarys were Indiana people, they provided a Thanksgiving eating tradition that I had never experienced before: egg noodles.  Along with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls and other huge carbohydrates, there was also a big pot of egg noodles.  I watched as family ladled the noodles onto their mashed potatoes while putting gravy on the turkey and stuffing.  My mother would have called that "gilding the lily", but it was tradition--if not in all of Indiana, at least in that household.  (Since several big local grocery stores sold out of Reames Homestyle Egg Noodles well before Thanksgiving, I suspect it is a wide-spread Hoosier thing.)   

My mother died on the day after Thanksgiving in 1986.  She'd had a stroke in October and was on a rehab floor of the hospital in Streator.  Somehow, she'd had some kind of set-back and was sent back to acute care, but she confessed that she didn't think she could handle not being home for the holiday.  Dad, God bless him, decided to have the feast at the farm in spite of Mom's absence, so I went over to assist...and my then-husband and I had a falling out that determined he would leave for Indiana to see his other kids right after the holiday was over.  I refused to let our daughter go, due to circumstances.  I'll spare the details of the day, but I was aware because of a phone call to Mom that all was not well.  I did what I could to get her moved to see a cardiologist, to no avail.  Mom left us with no one from the family with her--only the hospital nurses.  When I called my spouse in Indiana along about midnight with the news, he had already left for Illinois.  He was too late.

Thanksgiving was never quite the same after that, but the traditions remain.  Mom would have it that way!  People come and go.  Thankfulness goes on forever.  I am so very grateful for what I had which has made me what I am.  I believe this year's Thanksgiving takes place on the same day of the month that it did 24 years ago when our mother left us.  Thanks, Mom, for being my role model and friend.  My turkey feast will never taste as good as yours, but I keep trying!

Underpinnings

We're all adults here, right?  I want to talk about underwear.  If you can't handle it, feel free to move on.

When my grandchildren lived with me, I often found that the male grandchild had urine on the bottom of his shirt, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why. Male briefs have a flap to use to release the dragon to urinate.  How would urine escape that??  I finally got brave enough to ask a male friend about that.  How can that happen?  His answer was that some men use the flap; some men pull the leg hole over to the side; and some men just pull the top of their pants down to piddle over the rim.  Bingo!  I guess if the latter method is used and the stream is started too soon (or finished too late) that the shirt gets splashed.  I get it!

And then I learned that some men wear t-shirts under their street shirts in order to keep their chest hairs from peeking through the fibers of the outer shirt.  Ahhhh...  I get that, too!

When I was a kid, my mother dressed me in Carter's "spanky pants".  That would be white cotton underwear.  I lived with white cotton underwear for years and years until I became a sexually active adult and progressed to nylon/satin undies.  They made the jeans slide up over the rump so easily, but they also made me sweat.  Oh well!  In my older years (now) I have reverted back to white cotton, just so I can bleach them when I wash.  Nylon/satin undies don't do well with bleach, and I need to bleach.  Thus, my britches don't slide up nicely over my panties anymore, but at least I know they are clean! Not very appealing to the opposite sex, but I'm not part of that scene anymore!

Turn your attention to brassieres.  Bras are intended to provide support for the breasts, but there are no two sets of breasts that are alike.  In recent years, bra companies have gone with formed cups--similar to what "padded bras" used to be.  They moved the strap adjustments from the front (where they could be reached), to the back (where they can't).  The last time I went bra shopping, I made sure I was getting what I needed...but...ugh...no longer true.  The straps slide down on my arms.  The cups gap at the top and gouge into my middle.  My bosoms just don't seem to like being strapped in, so when I am at home by myself, I am the quintessential old lady with no chest support at all!  (If you are surprised, you don't get it.)  I need to create a company called "Gravity Bras".  Laff now.

There is another aspect of old age underpinnings that I haven't discussed yet:  the need for something to sop up urine in "stress incontinence" situations.  I'm not there yet, but it's coming.  Everyone laughs about Depends commercials, but it's really not so funny.  One of my friends had his cancerous prostate removed, and now he is faced with being unable to shut off the stream.  Laugh if you will, but your turn will come!

Heh heh...when my grandchildren were very young, we had daily laughs about underwear.  Someone would say, "What is that under there?"  The kids would say, "Under where?"  We would all laugh.
Gotcha!

Getting Used to the New Buggy

Who woulda thunk that I'd ever own an SUV?  Not me, for sure...but here I am with a silver Saturn VUE in my driveway.  Having a new vehicle requires some adjustments.  I haven't spent much time figuring it out yet.  I need to do that before the snow flies.  One thing is for sure: the SUV actually does NOT have more room than the Impala did.  The trunk in the Impala held far more than the storage behind the hatch of the SUV, but there is that folding seat function that helps a bit.  No matter.  The SUV is 130,000 miles newer, and that works for me!

Problem #1 with the new buggy: no place to mount a ham radio.  Even if there were a place, I'd first have to order a power cable for the mobile radio that I have because the last one was sacrificed when I got rid of the car.  My sister and I simply couldn't find a way to remove it, especially since it had been spliced with the mobile HF radio's power cable, and both were hard-wired to the battery.  There must be a way.  I'm just not ready to compromise the integrity of the car, yet!

Problem #2 that vexes me is that if the radio or CD player are in use, the clock doesn't display the time.  Surely there is a way to fix that?  I'll have to take out the manual and look it up.  Wait...a radio operator that reads instructions?  No way!

Problem #3 is that the rear view mirror is narrow in scope, and the back window has enough window posts, etc., that there are more blind spots.  I am learning to be more cautious when pulling out of my driveway or changing lanes on the highway, just to make sure that there aren't any vehicles there that I didn't see.  (This happened a time or two with the Impala, but the potential is greater with the Saturn.)

Problem #4, which really isn't much of a problem, is that getting into the Saturn requires a small hip-hike up, whereas my old Impala required only that I get my leg in and plop down.  Thus, getting into the Saturn is harder than getting into the Impala, but getting out is easier.  (My sister has a 2015 luxury Tahoe that is a major production to get into.)

My sister told me a few weeks ago that she spotted my old buggy in a Walgreen's parking lot in Springfield, IL (where I bought my new car), complete with crumpled fender and old bumper antenna mount, but that the broken rear door handle had been replaced.  (I still have the broken piece of door handle here.  Plastic.  Door handle made of plastic?  How does that get fixed??)  I'm glad the Impala found a good home.  It was a reliable car when I had it, but it was getting old.  I feared that it was going to break down on me on my trips to Illinois.

I'm still trying to get used to seeing a silver buggy in my driveway.  I try to be careful with it, not letting it get full of the trash that the old one did.  But now, I need to find the ice scraper and the IPASS transponder and the garage door opener for my daughter's house, all needed before my next trip to Illinois...maybe in mid-November.

Life goes on.  The character of my vehicles has never been part of my profile because I've never been able to choose a type or a color to suit me.  I have always just been lucky to have what I have.  I am hoping that the Saturn will fill the bill as my very last car.  If that happens, I can get used to it!

News You Can't Use

*I really ran myself out of money early this month.  Not to worry.  I'm not going hungry or anything quite as tragic as that, but I am paralyzed to do anything about the leaky kitchen faucet or a replacement lamp for the living room.  And since November begins the holiday season, plus my car insurance due and my grandson's birthday, it isn't going to get better!

*Got a phone call from one of my radio friends two days ago.  He is struggling with old-age health problems--his and his wife's-- the same as I, but now he is hit with the death of his little furry buddy...his dog.  I ache for him.  Mike is a man with huge soft spots in his heart for the likes of the rest of the world.  I hope he can get over this in favor of another pooch that will fill the shoes of those pets who have gone before.  :(

*My sister sent me a present!  Got it yesterday...a box of Harry and David pears..."just because".  I probably should explain that I'm not really a pear person because they are grainy and stringy...but not these!  I have fresh fruit in my house.  Thank you, Shari!

*I drove to Monrovia today to pick up some fundraiser cheesecakes that I ordered through the Band Boosters.  Hadn't been there in years, and it looked different.  Chit-chatted with the gals in the office, all of whom I knew, and saw another familiar teacher in the parking lot.  It felt good!

*I am sometimes asked if I miss teaching.  No.  Not even a little.  Teaching is horribly stressful.  The last 2-3 years were even more so because my daughter and grandchildren lived with me, and I took on more responsibilities.  (I did that to myself.  No one asked me to.)  There have been several times when I thought I should augment my meager income with a part-time job...but then I look at how I well I don't do with just getting by, and trash those ideas.  Whatever influence I had on students is in the past.  I'm still in touch with some of them...and one of them sent me a very touching message just yesterday on Facebook after I sent her an email of support.  It was time for me to retire when I did.  I look back and wonder how I managed!

*I notice that my daily mood is largely influenced by the sun.  When the days become short, I get less and less energetic.  Thank God we are returning to Standard Time this weekend.  I am up well before daylight each day, even though the clock says it is day time.  We'll gain an hour of daylight on Sunday which will then dwindle back down by Christmas.  Indiana really needs to be in the Central Time Zone, but they don't ask me...

*Because Facebook and other avenues of social media are fraught with political nonsense, I am backing down.  I find myself resenting even the most innocent of comments about politics, and I deserve better of myself.  If I don't like what I'm reading, I shouldn't read it, right?  That takes me out of the realm of many of the people I love and respect...but they exclude me with their politics.  Thus it is when living in a "red" state.  Ugh!

Adventures with AT&T

I have ATT U-Verse, which bundles my phone, cable TV, and Internet DSL services into one bill, which comes automatically out of my checking account every month...except this one, apparently.

Last month, my bank shut down my debit card for some reason and issued me a new one.  Since every automatic bill cleared last month, I (erroneously) assumed that they all came out via automatic check rather than my debit card....but apparently, ATT is one that used the card number.  Thus, my October ATT payment was denied by the bank...and my latest bill shows me a month in arrears, plus next month's bill....over $400, due on Nov. 10th...date changed due to internal problems of some sort.  Whaaaat?  All of my ATT bills used to come out after the 15th, which I budgeted for when my Social Security came through (second Wednesday of each month).  A little quick research showed that ATT had changed billing dates, starting in November, but that the date could be changed by the customer if inconvenient.  Thus, I decided that I needed to talk to ATT to resolve the probs: arrange to make the overdue payment, change the info for future automated payments, AND  change the new billing date back to what it used to be.

Next order of events was to find a phone number to call ATT.  The letter that I had about the payment not going through had no phone number on it, so I reverted to using the phone book (and a magnifying glass!) to find a number.  The one I picked was for "Residential Services."  I armed myself with all of the information I thought I needed and hunkered down on the patio expecting a lot of whoop-de-doo hoops to jump through just to get a real person to talk to.

I called the number.  I got a recording that said, "Just for calling today, you are entitled to a $100 gift.  Press 1 for more information, or you may just hang up."  I didn't particularly want to hang up because that would leave me without another number to call, figuring that whoever I DID talk to could at least put me in touch with another number....so I pressed 1.  After quite a few rings, a very heavily Indian-accented man named "Michael" (yeah, right!) answered.  He asked how he could help me, and when I told him, he told me to "rest assured" that he would put me in touch with someone who could do that, but first...about my $100 "gift"...  He obviously had access to something about my account because he knew my name and address, asking only for the zip code.  Then he asked what stores I shop at (for issuing the "gift card"), and I began to smell a rat.  I told him that I wasn't interested but to please transfer me to someone who could help with my account.  "Rest assured that I will do that.  But why don't you want a free gift?"  I told him because I felt he was going to ask me to do something I didn't want to do...so just transfer me.  "I haven't asked you to do anything." "No...but you will.  Please give me the number of someone who can help with my account."  He was hard to understand, so I didn't catch the  first part of what he said about the "free gift", but the last part had to do with a $4 activation fee for the gift card.  I'm sorry, but I wasn't about to give him my financial information for an activation fee--which, I'm sure is what would come next.   We did this verbal dance probably four times before he got the hint, so he gave me a number to call for my account:  1-800-555-1212.  I knew instantly that it was bogus.  Recognize it?  It's the number for Toll Free Directory Assistance.
 

I called my daughter.  In short order, she gave me another number to call.  (How does she do that????  Not even the stupid letter that I got from ATT had a number on it!) 

Called the number, and that started me on the automated phone call loop.  It was voice activated.  I was asked to say what I wanted...so I started out by wanting to change the automatic payment information.  That seemed to work...but when it asked what else I wanted, I said "Change billing date", but that took me back to changing the automatic payment information, which I did AGAIN...and so it went.  I knew I needed to talk to a real person.  You know about real people??  Like, the folks who can take care of things with understanding in short order????  Did you also know that you can just press 0 in these automated calls in order to be transferred to a real person?  I didn't either, but it worked before, so I tried it again.  Worked!  I got a gal named "Arlie".  When I told her that was my grandfather's name, we got a chuckle...and then, she quickly got things taken care of for me as my phone beeped "low battery".  Of course, in the process, she also tried to sell me faster Internet....but also thought that she could lower my cable bill.  She is the first person I've talked to at ATT for awhile that actually listened to me and took NO for an answer.  I liked that and will write an email commendation for her.  (Sometimes that works better than a big tip!) 

So...another crisis averted after an hour's frustrations with technology at its finest.  When I was on the phone with Arlie, I also told her about my conversations with "Michael".  It seems that she also works on that part of the ATT experience and so has registered my complaint and even started researching it while I was on the phone with her.  Nice job!

     

Gofundme?

There is a feature on Facebook that can be launched to raise funds for various causes.  The feature is called GOFUNDME.com.  I know nothing about how it works, only that accounts are set up to raise funds for various individual situations.

In recent days, I've seen several posted.  Two are to raise funds for funerals for unexpected deaths.
One is a plea for funds to send a child to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.  Another is a bid for money to replace a vehicle that was destroyed in some kind of civil riot somewhere.  All worthy causes, I'm sure.

I think most families carry life insurance to cover funerals and car insurance to cover vehicle damage (unless policies don't cover civil unrest).  But if they don't, how are the rest of us responsible?  I am a Christian and a charitable person.  My church espouses "Live simply so that others may simply live". In the vernacular: I'm down with that.  The truth is that I DO live simply.  There are no frills in my life!  I live in a tiny house with a "new" 7-year-old vehicle.  I have no real social life that costs money.  My income is such that I have to decide, month-to-month, what things I can have and what things I can't.  I give to my church and favorite charities as I can, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't just set up a gofundme account for myself and say, "My house needs a new roof" or "My house needs new carpet".  But those aren't sob stories.  I guess I need to say, "I can't live well because I am retired and on a fixed income."  Not sad enough?  Probably not.  I came from a different generation of folks that took care of their own.  Taking charity was for the uneducated and downtrodden.  I am neither uneducated nor downtrodden.

I see the whole gofundme thing as nothing short of begging.  It's one thing for a friend or family member to set up a charity account for a person or family, and quite another for the family itself to ask for money.  I guess I'm too old-fashioned for today's world.

Come to think of it, I've run myself so short on money this month that I'm not sure I'll have enough cash to buy Halloween candy for the trick-or-treaters on the 31st.  If you wish to contribute to my plight, just mail your hard-earned funds to:  Peggy's Little House-on-a-Slab, Plainfield, IN.  And God bless you!      

My Music "Education"

I'm not always sure what my grandchildren think of me.  Generally, I think they believe I'm an old fogey who doesn't know nuthin' about nuthin' when it comes to music and modern life.  Sometimes, they try to trick me by playing a song and asking me who sings it, or what song it is.  Most of the time, I fail because I just don't listen to contemporary music, but every once in awhile, I shock them because they play a Beatles song (something they think their generation invented) and I can not only ID it but sing it by heart!

Robin (age 12) has reached an interesting place in life.  She enjoys reading and music and insists that the rest of us need to share the books and songs she likes.  She could secret herself in her room to listen to her music (and does), but when she can, she makes me listen to her favorite songs, too. What I have discovered is that the stuff she loves is stuff that impresses me, too!  This past visit, she was having me listen to (and read the lyrics of) songs from a musical called Wicked, which is an offshoot of The Wizard of Oz.  She could sing every word in a clear and pretty voice, and was gratified to have a captive audience in me.  (I understand this!  How many times have I forced others to listen to or watch things that I enjoy, just because having company in the moment feels so good!)

I was tickled this summer when Robin was in band camp.  The leaders posted a video of the kids watching the movie Frozen.  When it came time for the song Let It Go, every stinkin' kid in the assembly sang it loud and proud along with the movie!  What a moment that was!

Last week, when Robin played the song Wicked for me on her iPod, I mentioned that the singer sounded like the woman who sang Let It Go.  Both Robin and my grandson Ryan quickly informed me that it IS the same woman.  Do I win????

I notice that a lot of choral music directors these days have the children singing songs they like.  That didn't happen to me.  We were "educated" in the classics.  The first music teacher I remember was the one I had for three years in Oak Park as a 6th-8th grader...Mrs. Boehm (rhymes with "game").  We sang songs out of a songbook that was filled with American classic songs--Negro spirituals, songs of the frontier, patriotic stuff of course, but Mrs. B also made us listen to (and tested us on) orchestral pieces:  Beethoven, Handel, Prokofiev, Mussorgski, Tchaikovsky, etc.,--all themes that I recognize to this day.

When I hit high school, I was in the high school choir at my church, First Methodist, led by a very serious choir director.  I was introduced to more than just the normal hymns.  We did Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and many other classic church songs:  Ave Maria, and too many others to list.

When I graduated to high school, there was a hierarchy of vocal music statuses.  The whole vocal music department was directed by Miss Edna Ruth Wood who was a no-nonsense woman.  I'm not sure if others were afraid of her, but I was!  Freshmen went directly into "chorus".  If you were good enough and wanted it, the following year was "choir"--usually separated by men's choir and women's choir.  Then, if you wanted to try out for the creme-de-la creme, you could audition for A Capella Choir--only available to Juniors and Seniors.

Since only A Capella Choir could participate in the musical each year, I definitely wanted to be in that choir.  It was comprised of the best singers of the entire (huge) school...but auditioning was terrifying.  The worst part of the audition was sight reading, done while the rest of the contenders sat and listened.  Each student was given probably four bars of music to read, given the starting cord, and asked to pick out the beginning note and go from there.  Ack!  I managed, praying all along that I wouldn't embarrass myself.  In any case, I made A Capella and was a very happy young lady!

A Capella participated in a Christmas Concert (with massed choirs), and then a Vespers Service near Christmas with only us, alone.  Then there was the yearly musical, and later, a spring concert.  As offshoots, there were solos and solo bits in larger concerts and and a group called Mixed Ensemble, which would be today's answer to show choir.  I was in it all!  I had a tiny solo in the musical my Junior year (Brigadoon) landed the lead in the musical my Senior year (Plain and Fancy), and a concert solo as a Sophomore, plus a solo bit in Vespers my Senior year.  The ending song of the Christmas concert each year was the Hallelujah Chorus.  To this very day, I get goosebumps when I hear the first measure of that song!  There are many other songs/arias that I can sing because I was part of them way back when...and ya know?  I don't regret a minute of what I was forced to learn then.

I had lead parts in two musicals as an adult (Damn Yankees, and Razzmatazz), and two solo parts in Easter cantatas, also as an adult.  I have sung solos at funerals and weddings, in churches and schools.  I came, I saw, I sang!  My singing voice is totally gone now, but I still "feel the music in me".

My grandchildren are in band now.  They are being exposed to good instrumental music, but there is a part of me that really wants them to be a part of vocal music, too.  Both children have nice voices and both children seem to have the same eclectic taste in and appreciation of music that my daughter and I have, largely (I think) because of exposure in our younger years by parents, grandparents, and excellent music teachers.  There are very few Christian hymns that I don't know.  I can recognize (if not name) classic symphonies and well-known opera arias.  I'm up on classic Italian art songs (thanks to my voice teacher).  I know much of classic sacred music and came of age during the 60s which was rich with folk music, protest songs, rock music, and bands that are still playing today.  Marching bands get my blood going.  I think part of the reason that I love my church has to do with the fact that we have a Director of Music/organist who brings his enormous talent and taste to our sanctuary every week--music that makes me cry and music that gives me hope.  

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.  I have been blessed by good teaching and exposures. I'm actually quite proud of that.  I sure hope my grandbabies get the same!

Household Archaeology, Part Four

Days after my family's departure, I have (so far) only found one thing that was left behind:  my son-in-law's hooded San Francisco sweatshirt.  It was hanging on the hook behind the front door, so we all missed it.  Of course, I haven't gone through all of the rooms yet, so there could be more.  We'll see!

The Edge of the Door

In my grandparents' farmhouse, there was a door that opened from the kitchen to a bedroom that was always called "Popo's room".  (My grandfather.)  It wasn't a normal internal door.  It had divided panes of glass with a shade on the back side to promote privacy.  And on the opening edge of that door were the height marks of generations of Covill children and grandchildren.  When we gathered for holidays, the children were measured and marked on the edge of that door.

Last week or so, I woke up thinking about that door.  When we sold the farm, there was no way to retrieve the door...and nothing to be done with it even if we could.  I realized in that moment that it was gone forever...a whole bunch of family history was beyond my grasp, and I had never grieved its passing.

In fact, I never really grieved the passing of the farm, in our family for well over 150 years.  I was raised by a military wife/mother who taught us never to look back....and so I haven't.  But sometimes, things hit that should have been resolved years ago.

I hope that door is still there, and I hope someone in the family can find something to do with it before the entire house is torn down.  I'm not sure anyone cares but me.  I was just shocked by my reaction when I woke up thinking about it.

Household Archaeology, Part Three

You ain't a-gonna believe this, but it happened again!  My helper arrived today to do the floors.  After he left, there was a sock...a black sock.  More specifically one of my daughter's black socks.  Where was it?  I have no clue...but the last time my daughter was here was, I think, back in March.  Make your own conclusions!

Household Archaeology, Part Two

My house must suck.  By that, I mean that it surely has some vacuum or magnetic characteristic by which inanimate objects are just drawn in to be left behind, like a huge black hole in the universe. The objects either fade into the background, not to be seen at the time folks depart, or they are lost in plain sight.  It messes with my mind.

When I wrote the first edition of this post, Household Archaeology, I thought that I had surely found all of the hidden treasures left behind by my grandchildren (who were here, by the way, back in early August).  But I was wrong.  Just last week, I opened a drawer in the computer desk in the living room--a drawer that never gets used--and stuffed inside was a ball cap that the children got as a freebie from the State Fair.  Okay....NOW I have found everything that got left behind, right? WRONG AGAIN!  Just this morning, my friend Adam, who had stayed here post-surgery last week, sent me an Instant Message inquiring if he had left some pill bottles behind.  He'd had his things in Robin's room, and I hadn't been in the room since he left....but there were his pill bottles (three of them) on the dresser.

Surely that was the end of the dig?  Nope!  While I was in Robin's room getting Adam's pill bottles, I discovered, in plain view, a tube of deodorant.  Not mine, and probably not Adam's.  My guess is that Robin left it behind.  How could I not have seen it before????

I am tentatively declaring this particular dig for artifacts closed because....guess what?  The family will be here this weekend, and I can start the whole process all over again when they depart!!

Flying By the Seat of One's Pants

I'm a lucky duck in that I have, mostly, a whole bunch of radio friends who have supported me in my trials and tribulations in life as a single woman.  Most of them are men, and most are married, but amateur radio is a "brotherhood" of sorts.  If someone needs something that someone else has or can help with, we are there for each other.  I simply cannot begin to list the number of times when my radio "buds" saved my rear (or my daughter's rear) through the years.  I have rarely been called to return the favors...but it did happen this past week.

A week ago yesterday, I got an Instant Message online from one of these friends.  It seemed that he was scheduled for inguinal hernia repair at the VA Hospital in Indy the very next morning, but had not been able to procure a ride.  In my years of knowing him, he has always done things on the spur of the moment....

Adam has been a widower for probably 20 years.  He is an Illinois transplant, like me, with children living in northern Illinois, but he hadn't called them because he just knew that all they would want to do was transport him up there after surgery, and he didn't think it was a good idea.  Long story short, the VA will not carry out surgery unless the patient has a driver that will stay on the premises for the procedure and promise to stay with the patient at least overnight thereafter.   Could I be his driver??

We moved our conversation to the telephone.  Adam needed to be at the VA at 6:00 AM for 8:00 AM surgery.  He lives waaaaay down in Greenwood.  I wasn't pleased with the idea of driving way down there and way back in the wee hours of Monday morning.  To be perfectly honest, I was a little irritated that he had known about this surgery for weeks, maybe even months, but hadn't worked out the details yet.  I seriously considered telling him that I wasn't up to it....but then I remembered the time that he gave up a day to babysit me after my aneurysm deal when I wasn't allowed to be home by myself...and remembered, even more, the day when he almost single-handedly moved Megan out of the house in Muncie just prior to divorce, moved her stuff into a storage unit, helped us get the rental truck back where it belonged, then talked a closing Bob Evans Restaurant into staying open for the five of us working on the move who were dirty, tired, and hungry, paid for the meal for everyone, and left the waitress enough of a tip that she kept saying, "Are you sure?  Are you sure?"  How could I tell him that I couldn't help him out when he had done so much for us??

In short order, we determined that he would come here after he did some things at his workplace on Sunday and would spend Sunday night here so we could launch to the VA at 5:30 AM.  Since I didn't have much warning, the house was mostly a mess.  I didn't even have a bed prepared for him to stay in, although I have plenty of beds.  He stayed on the couch.

Adam came through surgery okay.  The surgical team talked to me as a "significant other".  Later in the day, they released him after they were certain that he could urinate okay.  We stopped for food, then came back to my house where he was ensconced on the couch with his good drugs and whatever amenities he needed.  It had been a looooong day!

Adam's original plan was to stay at my house Monday night then somehow find his way home....but his home has stairs...and he was on narcotic drugs that made it not wise for him to drive, even if he could stand the pain.  I had no intention of turning him out!  His being here wasn't a problem for me, except for the fact that I was keeping different hours than usual.  (By Tuesday evening, I was sufficiently tired and crabby that I just went to bed!)  Since I hadn't had much warning that I would have a house guest, the place wasn't really presentable, and I was somewhat embarrassed by the fact that all he had was a not-very-comfortable futon couch on which to sleep.  But he didn't complain.

I didn't do a thing to accommodate Adam.  In fact, I feel guilty about that.  I made sure he was taking his meds.  I fed him, sort of.  I asked if he had been checking his wound to make sure it wasn't doing anything stupid.  That's it.  As happens, however, with narcotic meds, he became constipated.  He weaned himself off of those and was taking all of the stool softeners, etc., that had been recommended, but was experiencing some pain with the "rock" in his gut.  Straining was out of the question.  I got concerned, envisioning an emergency trip to the VA to relieve him....but....praise God, the dam broke and he got relief!!  The very next day--Friday--he decided that he was well enough to go home.  I checked on him Saturday and he sounded okay.  I am praying that all's well that ends well.

As annoyed as I was in the beginning that he hadn't taken care of business earlier, I came out of this experience happy that I was able to help.  We are all called to help one another.
So be it!

My Sister; My Friend

I left a week ago to visit my sister and bro-in-law in the countryside just west of Springfield, IL. They live in a perfectly beautiful home on a wooded lot, complete with pool and a lot of amenities that they have worked hard to have...but...as with all good things, there is a price.  My bro-in-law has FTD (dementia) now, and my sister struggles every day to get through the challenges while trying to maintain a standard of living.  Shari feels somewhat unsupported...and I, in my solitary life, do too. The fact that we morally support each other in our old age, even at a distance, is a good thing.  I don't get over there very often, and having them here isn't workable.  (Long story.  I could always accommodate Shari, but my bro-in-law would not do well here, and she really can't leave him alone for any length of time.)

Most of the time when I go there, I try to earn my keep by doing helpful things.  This time, however, was all about me.  It was a bit embarrassing but totally appreciated!

First of all, my sister is an excellent cook.  When we are allowed to eat at home (because her husband's whole "social life" is geared around eating out with his favorite waitresses), she cooks yummy and fattening meals!  One evening, we had marinated pork chops and mashed potatoes and veggies.  Another night, we had baked steak with all of the trimmings.  She also fixed homemade chicken salad for one lunch and American goulash for another...and of course a wonderful brunch on Sunday.  I never come home lighter than I went!  She doesn't cut corners with the butter or the mayo. Hence, everything tastes wonderful!! When we ate out, we did Mario's (Italian), Applebee's (in Jacksonville, at least 40 minutes away), The Barrelhead (lunch)...and am I forgetting one?  My senior brain is failing to remember if there was another.  We also ate at my niece's one night.  (Good food, but everything was swimming in butter!)

Shari and hubby recently purchased a 2015 Tahoe.  They already had a nice one but decided to trade as their "last car" function.  They have purchased their last several vehicles (Corvettes and Tahoes) from Friendly Chevrolet in Springfield--a dealership that hosts the local Corvette Club of which Shari and Roger are members.  They have a favorite salesman who has done right by them.  Every time I head out on a trip to my daughter's in northern IL or my sister's in central IL, I worry if my aging car will make it.  My Impala was 12 years old with much of the original equipment on it.  It was needing new tires, had a dimpled fender, 187,000 miles, and was filthy, inside and out.  A few months ago, I went about the business of taking a cash distribution on my retirement funds so I could begin the process of looking for a "new" car but hadn't begun the process because I didn't know where to start. I asked Shari to ask her salesman to look for me to see if they had anything that would work. Basically, all I wanted was a set of wheels with less than 100,000 miles on it to serve as my "last car", and set a price range.  On Tuesday of this past week, we went to the dealership and met with the salesman.  I had no thought that he'd be able to come up with anything, but I did take my car title just in case.

In short order, Salesman Joe brought out a 2008 Saturn with 104,000 miles on it.  It was in my price range, but I was a bit discouraged thinking that anything in that range was going to have way too many miles to make me comfortable....so I told him I was going to exercise my female option and not buy the first car I test-drove.  He went away for awhile longer and came back with a 2007 Saturn VUE SUV.  I test drove it...and thought it said 105,200 miles....BUT...it turned out to be only 52,000+.  That sold it!  The price was $400 above the high end of my price range, but I quickly decided that I wasn't going to find another buggy that looked as good or had that kind of low mileage. There is virtually no damage on the body, and I think it will work well for me.  There are issues--like I can't see anywhere to mount a 2-meter ham radio--but I now own a silver Saturn SUV with black and silver interior...and the shakedown cruise in heavy rain all the way home from Illinois proved it could run like a champ!

That afternoon, we went home and stripped the old car of radios and garage door opener, IPASS transponder, and extraneous junk.  The next morning, I called my bank to transfer funds from savings to checking and called the insurance folk before we went to pick up my new wheels.  Love it!

Thursday, we went for pedicures.  I know a lot of women do pedicures just to have pretty toenails as they wear their sandals and flip-flops.  For me, however, it's a different scenario.  I can't reach all parts of my feet anymore, so getting my nails clipped is a big deal--plus the fact that the skin on my feet and legs is dry, dry, dry and flaky.  Well!  The pedicure was just what the doctor ordered!  It wasn't that it felt all that good, but it was all about the fact that the above listed problems got taken care of in that one visit!  I decided that if I can find a spot here at home that will do all of that for the same price as in Springfield, I'll do the pedicure thing every couple of months.  It's worth it!!

Friday, we canned peaches that I brought from Indiana.  We probably should have done them earlier in the week because they were getting mushy, but I think they'll taste fine.  Poor Shari.  We used all of her equipment and messed up her kitchen just for this project (for me)...but it beats trying to do it all alone at home!  Thanks, Sis!

The rest of the visit, besides having our nice talks, etc., I got to see all but one faction of the family. It was especially nice to see my cousin Betsy whom I haven't seen in years.  I'm sure my sister has to be exhausted, but she holds up well (better than me even though she is older)!  I came home feeling so much better than I did when I went!

Thank you, dear sister, for your help and hospitality.  You are the best!

Let There Be Light?

How hard can it be to buy a couple of lamps????

I have two matching lamps in the living room, purchased many years ago to grace my then-new end tables.  They weren't exactly what you would expect me to buy, but I liked them and thought they fit the tables and space.  Through the years, between the dog and the grandkids, they were knocked over a number of times.  The original shades eventually got destroyed which caused me to use smaller substitutes that didn't really fit, but the lamps themselves seemed to be okay.  That is, until a month ago.

A month ago, my grandchildren came for a week's visit.  One evening, my grandson fell asleep on the couch, so I left him there for the night.  He's a thrasher, but I didn't think about that.  When I got up in the morning, the lamp on the end table near his head was on the floor, broken.  The bulb was broken, the base was broken, the socket was bent way out of shape--basically, the lamp was not able to be saved.  My mission, thereafter, was to find two more matching lamps for the living room and give away the one good old one that remained.  How hard can that be?  I have begun to find out!

About a week ago, my pension check came in, and since the cupboard was almost bare, I determined to shop at the new Meijer store in Plainfield for groceries and new lamps.  There were a couple of lamps there (only two) that I somewhat liked, so I put them in my cart, then picked two shades of the mix 'n match variety that said they would go with the lamps.  Took them home to unpack a couple of days later.  Uh oh...no harps!  (In case you don't know what the harps are, I will explain that they are the metal arches that hold up the lamp shade.)  I have never, ever bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp, so I went back to Meijer to complain.  They told me that harps are sold separately these days. All I had to do was go back to the lamp department to pick up a couple.  Which I did...but the lamp harps didn't come anywhere close to matching the lamps--lamps were dark brown burnished brass; the harps were silverish brushed stainless...plus they added $10 to the cost of the lamps.  Wow.

I was still determined to make it all come together.  When I put one of the harps on one of the lamps, then tried to put a lamp shade on, it would not work!  The hole in the frame of the lamp shade was bigger than the spot on the harp that would hold it.  No way it would happen.  Nothing to do but take it all back to Meijer.

I did that today.  I told the gal at the Customer Service Desk that this was a bigger problem than merely giving me my money back and restocking the shelves.  They were going to have more customer concerns based on the fact that the harps and lamp shades don't match the lamps that they are selling, but I took my money and went to Target to see what lamp offerings they had.  (Unfortunately, not much.  Their lamps were uglier; their harps also not matching and more expensive!)  I could have shopped elsewhere, but my stamina was already taxed.  I went home empty-handed.

I guess I'm a little bit shocked about where things have gone in the whole lamp thing.  I've never, ever, bought a lamp that didn't come with a harp.  And I've always trusted the mix 'n match thing, whereby the vendors promised stuff would go together.  Yeah, right!

Why am I writing about this?  Just so you'll be aware.  Unless you are someone who can purchase the high-dollar items where illumination is concerned, you are subject to the same surprises as I.  Once bitten, twice shy!  

Homosexual or Homo Sapien?

Look...I'm not a homosexual.  In fact, I am somewhat disgusted by the things that my mind imagines that go on in the bedrooms of homosexuals, but the fact is that I probably would be equally disgusted if I could peek into the bedrooms of heterosexuals.  Kinky sex was not invented by the gay folk in our midst.  I don't approve of the bondage/dominatrix thing, but I also don't particularly want to see laws to stop it.  What would be the point?  If two consenting adults do what they do behind closed doors, who am I to say them nay?

I am one of those who believes that gay folks are hard-wired to their sexuality from birth, and I think science will eventually prove me right.  Unfortunately, we aren't there yet.  The conservative Christians among us still believe that homosexuality is a choice.  Can you imagine a single person on the planet who would want to put him/herself on the firing line by choice?  Gender identity usually shows up in junior high or earlier to everyone else, but each homosexual person I have talked to (several) said they knew much younger.  Yeah...every child wants to be a societal outcast among peers.

Indiana--God bless its Bible Belt roots--has lost a court battle to ban same-sex marriage, and the governor has decided to take it to the Supreme Court.  The SC can refuse to review the case.  We'll see.  Meanwhile, it is obvious to ME that the case, should it be reviewed, will lose.  Sooo much tax money down the drain, but at least the Gov. can tell his conservative constituents, "See?  We tried, but the court shut us down.  Not my fault!"  It's all about politics.  In twenty years, long after I'm dead and gone, people can look back at this and understand that things were different then, in the same way that things were different twenty years ago.

I just get really, really weary of dealing with the nonsense.  For what it's worth, I'm rooting for the gay community to win the right to marry.  Government should NOT be involved in the bedroom.  If you disagree, take heart that the laws can be manipulated to change your life, too.  It's all about understanding.

  

Household Archeology

I feel like I'm on an archeological dig.  Every day, I am unearthing some new artifact in my house, all of which relate to my grandchildren's latest visit.  The kids went home three weeks ago.  If I were a better housekeeper or less disabled, these discoveries would have been taken care of by now. Unfortunately, I'm slow, so the treasures just keep on appearing.

I've already written about the black sock that Ryan left behind just under the couch in the living room.  Then there was the pair of underwear that I told Ryan to pack at least twice, but after he had gone, it was still on the floor of his room.  (One look told me why he didn't pack it.  The reason has to do with bathroom hygiene...and I'll leave it at that.)  I THOUGHT I had found everything, but noooo...

Wednesday morning of this week, I glanced into Robin's room, which I had already done several times since the kids were here.  She had left her bed somewhat unmade.  Her bedclothes are white, but my eye fell on something draped over one of the posts of the footboard of her bed--something I had believed was just a sheet but actually looked more beige than white.  When I picked it up, it turned out to be one of the four precious t-shirts that I had taken her to buy at Hot Topic when she was here.  These t-shirts all had names of her favorite bands on them, and she was quite eager to get them home to wear to school--but here was one of them, left behind at Grandma's house.  Did she even miss it?  Nothing about it had been mentioned.  I grabbed a small box and shipped it up to her mother's house so she could have it this weekend when she got there.  Turns out she knew she couldn't find the t-shirt but hadn't realized that she had left it here.

I thought surely I was done with the discoveries of buried treasure.  Au contraire!  This morning, while picking up some trash that had found its way out of the wastebasket next to my computer "nest", I found what was left of an open bag of butterscotch chips--right under the chair where Robin always sits.  That bag had been in the refrigerator for quite awhile, but here it was, quite unceremoniously stashed where Grandma wouldn't see it quickly.  Needless to say, the chips have now gone the way of the rest of the trash in the house.  It's a wonder I didn't get bugs!!

It seems that the household archeology works both ways.  The children leave things here, but they apparently also take things from here.  Just yesterday, my daughter sent me an Instant Message saying she had found a beige bath towel in her laundry and wondered if it could be mine.  I described it, then counted what I have (I only own six bath towels), and sure enough, it's mine.  I think that towel had been in Ryan's bedroom here after his shower, and he just packed it, thinking it was a beach towel.  (Who knows?)  Then, too, she had found two beach towels that she didn't recognize and wondered if those, too, were mine...but no, the kids came with those from their other home.  It gets complicated.

There are other perils of travel.  There was the time that I was leaving my daughter's and couldn't find the bag that stores my sleeping bag.  I finally just crammed the sleeping bag into a garbage bag and asked Meg to save the missing bag for me when she found it.  I asked about it several times.  The last time I asked, she said, "I brought it to you when we were there last time."  Uh...no.  Didn't happen.  I had just about resigned myself to having to purchase some kind of a duffel to put the sleeping bag in since the carrying bag had been missing for months and months.  And then, on my last trip up to her house, we were going through a box, and there it was!  Likewise, Meg lost a pair of support hose that she wears in the car for her trips here.  She swore they were at my house, somewhere, but I looked and looked to no avail.  Finally, they were found--also months later--at the very bottom of a pocket of her suitcase.  Eureka!

I'm hoping that there won't be any more remnants of the grandchildren's last visit that will remind me of my slowness, but I haven't finished cleaning yet.  Who knows what could still lie buried in this house?  How far down will I have to dig before I hit the ruins of the ancient civilization that used to be my home???

"We're Just Playing."

I can hear my mother saying it now, and I have often repeated it myself whenever shenanigans were going on:  "Stop that.  Somebody's going to get hurt."  Nawww...we're just playing.  Slam, bam, crash...Waaaaahhhhh!  Were Mom and I psychic?  No.  It's just something that comes with experience, knowing that what starts out innocently enough usually ends up in tears and bandaids.

My daughter and her best friend, Tiffany, would get to horsing around.  One such event cost me a trip to the ER with my accident-prone daughter; another cost me $50 for a new bicycle tire.  "We're just playing!"

My daughter and her father were throwing a ball at each other in the family room.  I told them to stop before something or someone got broken.  "We're just playing."  The very next throw, Daddy's glass of beer got hit with the ball and went flying, requiring major clean-up.  Told ya!

My grandchildren would start out with a tickle-fest...but then someone would get hit in the mouth, and it hurt, which made one of them mad, and the fight was on for real.  My admonitions when it was still tickling would fall on deaf ears.  "We're just playing."  My response always was, "Somebody's going to get hurt."  Invariably, someone or something would.

Same thing at school.  What the students would describe as "play fighting" would escalate into the real thing in short order.  "Senior pranks" were often cute and creative--like the student's locker that was filled with thousands of marbles that scattered all over the hallway and down the stairs when the kid opened his locker in the morning.  Then there was the time that one of Monrovia's honor students took part in a "prank" where the office door locks were super-glued shut and very liquid pig manure was smeared all over an entire bank of lockers, requiring a delay to the start of the school day while custodians and teachers alike (I was one of them) were all cleaning up lockers with bleach.  Yeah...it was just a prank.  "We were just playing."

Our school also had a Powder Puff Football contest during Homecoming Week each year, until one occasion when the girls that took part decided to get cute with the staff sponsors and started dumping things all over them.  It got nasty and disrespectful.  Thereafter, the Powder Puff games were canceled for years.  (Not sure if they were ever reinstated.)  Same thing with what started as an impromptu water balloon fight in the band practice field beyond the parking lot at the end of the very last day of school.  It was great fun, but every year, kids got a little more serious about what they were putting in their balloons.  It got to the point that the administration started video taping it from the roof of the school, along with staff stationed all around, watching to make sure that cars weren't damaged and people weren't hurt. But, inevitably, some were...and that was the end of the water balloon fight, forever.

So now, here we are again.  What started out as a good idea has been bastardized by a few to spoil the spirit of things.  Perhaps you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge, which started out as a fundraising idea for Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease).  The crux of the challenge was that people who were nominated (or "challenged") by their friends had 24 hours to have a bucket of ice water dumped over them and donate $10 to ALS, or, if they didn't take the challenge, they were supposed to donate $100. Suddenly, Facebook and the Internet were awash with videos of people getting doused with water. (Not sure how many actually donated, but it looked good anyway.)  At its height, the IBC raised $100 million for ALS.  BUT--did you predict this?--some students in Ohio thought they would improve on what started out as a creative way to raise money.  They picked a classmate with autism and got him to agree to take the challenge, except the so-called water they dumped on him contained feces, urine, and spit.  The kids now face legal charges, and the whole Ice Bucket Challenge has been tainted by the stupidity of a few who were "only playing".

I'm still shaking my head over this one...

Who Do I Think I Am?

There is a show on television that airs on a particular channel every once in awhile called Who Do You Think You Are? The basis of the show is that of celebrities seeking their genealogical roots (with a lot of help), and making some conclusion about themselves based on what they find.  The quest takes them to several locations all around this US and overseas.  When it's on, I don't watch all of the episodes, largely because I don't know or have any interest in the celebrities being featured, but once in awhile I will take a particular interest in one.  Last week, I saw one that featured Kelsey Grammer (of Frasier fame) that I found interesting.  A couple of others have caught my attention, as well.

I think the show is highly scripted because, as I have found in my own genealogical escapades, it just "don't" happen as easily as the show makes it appear...and in every case, someone else has done the archival legwork.  Ha!  I could do that, too, if I wanted to pay a genealogist to TRY to find information that might not even exist, but if nothing were found in the case of the show, there would be no episode to watch.  The network would have to abort that episode.

Here is the pattern for the show:

1.  A celebrity meets with a parent or other family member who shows him/her one or more pictures of a particular ancestor with some family lore about that ancestor, which starts the quest of finding information.

2.  The celebrity starts out in an historical society or county seat somewhere near the origins of the ancestor in question and sits down with an historian or genealogist in front of a laptop computer, searching on Ancestry.com for clues as a jumping off place for the quest for information.

3.  The celebrity travels from place to place throughout the country and overseas, based on clues obtained from the last place, to talk to other historians/archivists about the ancestor.

4.  The genealogist at each location presents books or documents--and sometimes hand-written letters, etc.--that give a little more information about the ancestor and his/her life.

5.  The celebrity ends up, alone, in a cemetery or a field or a highway where the ancestor once lived or traveled, musing about what life must have been like for the ancestor and his/her motivation for doing what he/she did in life.

6.  Sometimes, the celebrity ends up back at home with the parent or other family members from the beginning of the show in order to report what was found in the search.

Easy, right?  Not so much!  I've already mentioned that archivists don't do genealogy research for free.  (If they did, they would be swamped with requests to look up Great-Great-Grandpa Harley or someone else of minor import in the grand scheme of things.)  Here are some of the other pitfalls of doing genealogy searches--and I'm only hitting on a few of them:

1.  Name duplications.  Do you have a clue how many Davids and Johns and Josephs there are/were in the world, or how many generations name their children after family members?   Combine that with a common sir name, and you already have a research problem on the very first level.  Is this Joseph Armstrong from a couple centuries ago my grandfather, my uncle, or my cousin?  It takes quite a bit more research to figure out!  (I love it when ancestors name their children something less common.  My daughter has a relative whose first name was Greenberry!)

2.  Mistakes.  Mistakes?  Surely census records and other documents don't have mistakes.  Say it ain't so!  Sadly, it is--everything from misspelled names to inaccuracies that are reported to the census taker as truth.  I have a relative that was listed on a census as a child of my grandmother's who was, in reality, one of her grandchildren.  I have another relative whose tombstone shows her to be Mary Ellen Corron, when in fact, her last name was Curn.  It was changed at the whim of the daughter who bought the stone.  (Long story.)  Then there are the Bryans of Kentucky...also spelled Bryant and who knows how many other ways?!  The family Bible shows one of my relatives as "Amanda Elizabeth" when all of the other records show her as "Elizabeth Amanda."  Can't even believe the Bible on this one!  Dates can be wrong.  Names can be wrong.  Even places of birth can be wrong.  And so it goes...

3.  Dead ends.  There are a lot of details of the lives of the ancestors featured on the TV show that were simply assumed or filled in by the archivists.  They are probably very good, educated guesses, but no documentation can or will ever be found to prove them.  It is frustrating, at best--especially so for someone who is as curious as I and wants to recreate some events in order to understand what made some of my ancestors tick.  My grandmother, for instance, was born out of wedlock at the Carroll County Poor House, near Savannah, Illinois.  This was a secret that she took to her grave.  It was decades after her death before I/we found out the truth.  What she told her children--which was either what she was told and believed or something she fabricated in order to hide her humble beginnings--was that her father was killed in an accident when she was two years old.  His name was rumored to be Peter Morgan or John Peter Morgan, but my great-grandmother entered the Poor House under her maiden name in order to have her baby, and my grandmother's birth was recorded there also under her mother's maiden name.  Was there really a John Peter Morgan?   We'll never know.  I don't know how they came to be in Carroll County or how long they were there before moving on to Wisconsin.  We have no place to start in trying to find Mr. Morgan, and no way of knowing if any Mr. Morgan we should find was actually my great-grandfather, since he had nothing to do with the family.  Dead end.

4.  Broken, unreadable, or missing tombstones.  Old cemeteries--particularly those that are small and in the back of a property rather than in a dedicated spot--can get overgrown.  Old tombstones get lost in the foliage of the place, or get broken and removed from the grave to a safer spot up against a tree somewhere else in the cemetery, or erode to become unreadable.  Or sometimes, the family that buried its loved one couldn't afford a proper marker for the grave.  A year or so ago, my daughter and I spent the better part of an afternoon traipsing through cemeteries in a couple of tiny little Illinois towns looking for the graves of my father's parents (not buried together).  We had documents to show that they were buried there, but after hours of searching, could find nothing.  (Later, a genealogist offered to send a lady who knows the cemeteries well to look again for us.  She confirmed that there were no grave markers for them.  I wish I were a rich person and could afford to buy tombstones for them!)  My daughter has a direct-line ancestor who fought and died of disease at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War.  No one seems to know where those men are buried.  Likewise, I had an uncle in the generation preceeding my grandmother's who died at the Jacksonville State Hospital (for the insane) in Illinois.  His unmarked grave is somewhere over there in a grassy area where many are buried.

I get lost in all of this because I find it so fascinating, but also frustrating.  I have no clue how people succeeded in doing genealogical research before the days of the Internet!  In all of my searches, most of which have been greatly enhanced by my daughter's efforts and knowledge, I've had three moments of reverence and revelation.  The first came when I found the Rocky Spring Presbyterian Church near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where some of my Armstrong ancestors joined the Revolutionary War effort.  And there, in the churchyard cemetery, was the grave of Joseph Armstrong whom I thought was a grandfather of mine.  It was a beautiful day.  I stood at the foot of the slab that marked his resting place and talked to him.  I told him that I hoped he would be proud of the family that became his descendants, had he ever known us.  It was an emotional couple of minutes for me, like standing in the face of greatness.

The second moment came after my daughter scanned a very, very faded old family picture on her computer.  I'd had the picture for decades and had seen what was common in those days--my great-great-grandfather sitting in a chair in front of a house, with my grandmother as a child standing next to him. What I hadn't seen before because of the faded nature of the picture was a detail that only showed up with the computer enhancement: at a side door by the back of the house stood a woman on crutches (my disabled great-grandmother) and a tall, bearded man (her husband??) with a basket of laundry at the clothes line.  Wow!  What a moment of discovery!  My great-grandmother had been in that picture all along, looking toward the camera--at me!  I was awestruck.  Can't explain it.

The third moment came with the discovery of my grandmother's humble birth.  That happened almost by accident.  My grandmother had told me, years before she died in 1975, that her birth records had been lost in a fire when the Carroll County Courthouse (Illinois) had burned down.  I never inquired about why she was in Carroll County since her family was from Tazewell County, and she had later been raised in Wisconsin, but "Carroll County" stuck in my mind.  Just a few years ago, with the advent of the Internet, I looked up the Carroll County Courthouse.  And there it was in all it's red-brick splendor.  It dated back to 1859 and had never burned.  (My grandmother was born in 1890.)  I reported this to my daughter on Instant Messenger, and what seemed like only a few minutes later, Megan had found the records of the Almshouse (Poor House), with my grandmother's birth recorded. Her mother had been admitted, "crippled and in the family way".  I was struck dumb.  A great family mystery was solved.  It was there all along.  We just had to find it.  My grandmother was orphaned by age 12.  I'm quite certain that she worked hard all her life to hide the circumstances of her birth, fearing that people would think less of her.  She was a proud woman...but knowing the truth only made me love and admire her more for all of the obstacles she had overcome in life.

I would love to have a situation like that TV show in which archivists are doing the legwork for me.  I have so many questions about some of my ancestors, most of which will probably never get answered--but it's so much fun to try!  Unfortunately, since I'm not a celebrity, people wouldn't watch a show about my family, no matter how fascinating I think it is.  So much for that!!

Who do I think I am?  I'm still trying to find out!