The Shiny Twinkie

My son-in-law's gift to the family this Christmas was a travel trailer!  He and my daughter are off to pick it up and give it a trial run overnight, while I hold down the fort with the grandkids.  (I'm still in Washington as I type.)  I chuckle to myself.  If there is ever any inspiration to lose weight, life in a travel trailer provides it!

The first picture I received of the new TT came from my kiddo this afternoon who called it a shiny Twinkie.  And she's right!

I've had some experience with travel trailer/motorhome camping, so my mind is racing to come up with a list of supplies and helpful hints.  It also gives me ideas for future gifts--things that they will need for TT living. 

On another note, if you are a regular reader of Peggy's Ramblings, you might notice that this post actually has a picture in it, and (for once) I did it myself!  I tried something that I had done for another application.  It worked!  Maybe by the time I'm 80, I'll have this technology thing figured out!

SPOILER ALERT: Santa Claus Discussion Here

As the song goes, Christmas was meant for children.
Most people's happiest Christmas memories come from when they were children and still believed in Santa Claus--a magical white-bearded man, dressed in red, who rides through the sky on a sleigh pulled by reindeer on Christmas Eve, dropping into houses via their chimneys in order to leave gifts for the residents of the household.  It's the stuff dreams are made of for little kids.  Maybe adults, too.

I guess I was like most normal kids.  We put our tree up just a few days before Christmas in those days (because they were real trees that would dry out and become fire hazards).  There were no presents under the tree because only Santa could bring those.  Well...not so much.  There were presents there--gifts that the folks had purchased for other family members.  Just not the children.  Nothing seemed particularly screwy about that to me back then.  I do remember being concerned because none of the places where we lived had fireplaces with chimneys.  How could Santa come down a nonexistent chimney?  My mom told me he made special arrangements to come in through the door.  I mean, Santa can do anything, right?  Nothing so weird about that, either.  Also because we had no fireplaces, we pinned our stockings to the backs of chairs or sofas, hoping for goodies.  There were always goodies, so Santa could do it all.  As children, we suspend our disbelief.  I remember one year that we left milk and cookies out for Santa.  The next morning, only crumbs and an empty glass remained, with a thank you note from the bearded guy.  Wow!
Telling me to go to bed and actually fall asleep on Christmas Eve so Santa could come was asking the impossible!

I think I was in Kindergarten when some other 5-year-old kid told me that there was no Santa Claus.  Santa was actually our parents.  (Hah hah, for once, it wasn't my older sister spilling the beans to me about reality facts!)  I remember that I wasn't traumatized.  It seemed perfectly logical to me.  Not sure I had already suspected, but I knew I had to check in with my mom about it.  When I told her what I'd been told, I tried to convince her that I didn't believe the tattle-tale, but she knew the jig was up.  Our baby brother hadn't been born yet, so there was no purpose in carrying on the Santa myth.  We were then advised NOT to start snooping for presents ahead of time because, if they were discovered, we would not get them.  One of the two daughters always went searching, anyway.  (Hint: it wasn't I.)  We found stuff but got it anyway.   Seems that parent threats were as hollow as parent-carrying-on the Santa thing.

In the years that followed, my focus left Santa and focused on the real meaning of Christmas.  My brain hasn't retained the actual date, whether pre-or-post-Japan, but we were all at my grandparents' farm on Christmas Eve.  My sister and I were to sleep on the hide-a-bed couch in the living room, in the same room where the parents and grandparents were playing cards on the round card table that belonged to my grandparents.  They were either playing Pinochle or Bridge, but spirits were high (as was the cigar and cigarette smoke in the room).  There were two picture windows in that room.  My grandmother would keep the curtains closed in the daytime but open at night.

That particular Christmas Eve, a dense fog descended over the farm.  We couldn't even see anything just a few yards from the windows.  When the fog lifted around midnight, we were met by a magical fairyland.  Everything--every leaf and blade of grass--was covered in white.  This was my first introduction to hoar frost.  I just saw it as a Christmas miracle.  I sat on my knees looking out the south-facing window, seeing a dark and quiet world, all covered in white.  I will never, ever forget that.  Inside was laughter and gayety.  Outside was beauty beyond belief.  Welcome, Baby Jesus!

My mother had told me a story about the night that Santa Claus came to her house when she was a child.  He came through the door and visited with her and her siblings.  When Santa departed, Mom was sooo upset that her father hadn't been there to see him!  I thought that was funny, especially since her father (my grandfather) had a wandering eye.  Amblyopia, I guess.  As kids, we understood that our Popo had eyes that went in two different directions, never corrected by surgery or anything else.  When my sister's children arrived (his great-grandchildren) he had yet another gig as Santa.  Laurie, the youngest, declared, "That's not Santa.  That's Popo.  I saw his eye!"  God bless the babies!

My absolute favorite family Santa story involves my son-in-law, but I have to set the scene here before I can tell it:

Denis is Russian by birth.  Russia doesn't celebrate Christmas as much as it does the New Year.  He endeavors to be American, in spite of his own culture.  Denis is soft-spoken, patient, and adaptable, and I love him to pieces.  When he married my daughter in California, he inherited two children who were, at the time, living with their father in Illinois.  And then, they moved back to the Midwest to be closer to the children--a big career move for him.  They had rented a condo in Grayslake, IL.  As Christmas approached, I went up to visit.  I stayed in the entrance-level room, with a closet under the stairs leading to the next levels.  When I went there, I took with me the Christmas presents from the children's paternal grandparents--one of which was labeled for "Lily", an American Girl doll that Grandma Judy had given our granddaughter the previous year.  All of the presents were hidden in the closet under the stairs.

If the children no longer believed in Santa Claus, the rest of the family didn't know it.  They were certainly old enough to have been properly informed.  (My personal belief is that they knew the truth but weren't willing to confess because it would make the magic go away.  Just a guess.)

On Christmas Eve that year, we finally got everyone scooted off to bed.  I was asleep in the basement room when I was awakened by some noise in the stair closet.  It was 1:00 AM.  There was Denis, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, rummaging around, trying to find all of the presents to take upstairs to the tree.  He had borrowed a Santa suit from the neighbor because he didn't want to be discovered if the kids should catch him putting out presents.  He didn't want to be the one to mess up the illusion.  I asked what he was doing.  He told me he was sorting through the boxes to determine which ones to take up to the tree and which ones to wait until later.  He was grumbling to me about it, then said,  "And who the hell is Lily??"

I couldn't help it.  I started to chuckle and then started to laugh to myself...and I still laugh!

I had never heard Denis swear before or since.
I never left my bed that night, but there before me was Santa Claus, swearing in a Russian accent, distributing presents for people who were in bed,  just trying to be the good guy in a culture that was relatively new to him.

There will always be a huge soft spot in my heart for Denis Shchepetov and Santa Claus, both of whom are the same man.  Some things are just too special to forget!


         

Old Story About My Sister

I was aware of this story when it happened but had quite forgotten it until Thanksgiving weekend when, somehow, it became a topic of conversation with a newfound cousin over lunch.  I'm a terrible story-teller but wanted to put this one in writing for the archives.  (Sorry, Shari!)

My sister, a widow who lived in the country just west of Springfield, IL, had a swimming pool, which was an attraction for family and friends.  She also had a Corvette convertible, also quite an attraction for those who are into that sort of thing.

I can't recall the occasion, but her daughter and daughter's companion, plus companion's family came to enjoy the pool.  As it happens, part of the daughter's companion's family is biracial.  No biggie for us.

Shari (my sister) participated in the party, and then decided to take one of the young guys on a trip in the Corvette, for a thrill.  And what a thrill it was!  In the process, I think the road went to gravel and the car skidded into a bean field.  No one was hurt.  Then along came a sheriff's deputy.  Here is my 77-year-old sister, in her bathing suit, with an expensive car in a bean field, accompanied by a young African-American dude.  Nothing weird, right??

The only story I know that can top that one is the one my son-in-law tells when he was a foreign student from Russia, driving around in a junk car with his fellow Greek foreign student at Indiana State University, going from ATM to ATM to find one that would accept his numbers to take mega-money out of his Russian account.  They were wearing camo...had backpacks packed with cash...had accents that revealed them as foreign...and had a car that broke down in the boonies.  When they finally were able to reach police help, they were luckie duckies that they didn't get arrested as terrorists.  I love this story!  Denis is an American citizen now, doing quite well for himself and my family.  Things could have been so much different!!!!

Love my sister.  Love my son-in-law.  It all ended well.  That's all that counts!

 

Team Names

This post borders on the ridiculous but is an indication of how my solitary mind works, sometimes.

I was having an online conversation with my daughter last evening when she mentioned that one of the local high schools where she lives was playing in a football championship game.  And this is where my brain train left the track.

At their inception, schools will adopt a name/mascot for their teams, especially for football, that implies something fierce, courageous, and strong as a representative of their teams' competitive might.  Last night's game in Washington took place between the Bothell Cougars and the Camas Papermakers.  Wait...what???  I understand Cougars as a team name, since there are still sightings of cougars (mountain lions) on a regular basis in the Bothell, WA, area.  Picture the head of a predatory cougar as their avatar. But Papermakers?  Yes, yes, I understand that the logging industry in Washington is likely a major contributor of paper for the nation, but what do they use as a symbol for their team?  And what do the cheerleaders yell?  How does their Fight Song sound?  It's amusing to speculate.  (The Papermakers won the championship game, by the way.)

My own high school's team (in Oak Park, IL) was the Huskies.  Picture the head of a Siberian Husky with a strong look in its eye.  Go, Huskies!

The high school where I taught for many years (Monrovia, IN) had the Bulldogs.  Picture the head of a bulldog, always gray in color, with a spike-studded collar to make it look tougher.  Fight, Bulldogs!

My alma mater, Illinois State University, was represented by the Red Birds.  Not Cardinals--Red Birds.  Picture the head of a cardinal with a hawk-like look in its black-outlined eyes.  Win, Birds!

I mean, you can see it, can't you?  The University of Illinois has the Fighting Illini (unless they recently changed it for politically correct reasons).  Picture the head of an Illini warrior, with complete "Indian" headdress.  Purdue University here in Indiana has the Boilermakers, with their symbol as a big, black, steam-powered train engine with a huge cow-catcher on the front, coming at you head-on.  They all work, yes?

And then there are others that are a bit more humorous to contemplate, with no disrespect intended:

*Cloverdale (Indiana) has the Clovers.  Clovers are plants.

*Indiana State University has the Sycamores.  Sycamores are trees.  

*Indiana University has the Hoosiers.  Hoosiers is the nickname for people who reside in Indiana, but no one can tell you from whence the name came.

*Plainfield (Indiana), where I live, has the Quakers.  This one tickles me the most.  The reference isn't to earthquakes but rather a religious denomination, The Society of Friends, nicknamed Quakers.  Indiana in general, and Hendricks County in particular, has a large number of Friends churches.  Some Quaker people were instrumental in the Underground Railroad, helping enslaved people reach freedom.  The Friends Annual Western Meeting House is in Plainfield; hence, the team name.  The team picture is of a man in traditional Quaker garb, top-heavy with broad shoulders and Popeye-like biceps, and a tough look on his face--the "Fighting Quaker".  HOWEVER, by practice and tradition, Quakers are pacifists.  Somehow, it seems contradictory to be yelling, "Kill 'em, Quakers!" to encourage the football team.

Hey...they didn't ask me!  I didn't make this stuff up.  Were I better informed on team names, I could probably come up with more.  For the moment, it's enough for my mind to wander into the possibilities:
Stomp 'em, Clovers!
Sic 'em, trees!
Hoo-hoo-hoo, Hoosiers!
Kill 'em with kindness, Quakers!

I'll let myself out.       
   

Thanksgiving, 2019

Veni, vidi, vici....
This Thanksgiving was to take place at my house-on-a-slab, minus my Seattle family.  My sister and her beau were coming for the Feast on Tuesday, and I had invited my best friends who are also co-grandparents for my/our grandchildren, plus their live-in son and his lady friend.

Tuesday

Shari and Jim rolled up along about 5:30 Tuesday afternoon.  The smoked salmon that my daughter sent from Harry and David (which was VERY tasty, btw) arrived a few hours before they did.  My original plan was for us to finish up grocery shopping then have Schwan's pizza for supper, but that went down the tubes based on the hour they arrived.  We didn't go shopping, since we already had most of what we needed, so we all had a libation while I fixed a breakfast skillet for supper.  We visited a bit and were all in bed quite early.  I slept like crap.  The next morning, Jim said that he slept very well, while Shari fell out of bed and hit her arm on the nightstand, causing one of those horrendous red bruises that she gets...

Wednesday

This was to be food prep day.  I already had the turkey thawed, but first, I took Jim and Shari on a mini-tour of Plainfield after she fixed Jim some scrambled eggs  Obviously, my sister has been here before, but this was Jim's first visit.  I did my best to confuse him!  We did one errand thereafter, then stopped at Meijer for a few little things.  Came home, putzed around for a bit, then decided we'd better get the ball rolling on roast turkey.  Shari fixed stuffing (which took some time) and stuffed the 20-lb. bird.  It was beautiful!  I took a picture and posted it on Facebook.  Sadly, and to my ultimate shame and embarrassment, it was the ONLY picture any of us thought to take all weekend!!!)  The bird needed to roast for almost five hours, so we all had time to visit.  

During the "down" time, Jim had a book he was reading.  Apparently, he had been writing a multi-part article for the local MO mag that he writes for at home and had been up and stressed for days about it.  Thus, coming to my house at the completion of all of that, and being allowed to read in relative peace pleased him.  Shari and I stayed in the kitchen and gabbed.  After a while, Jim decided that he wanted to go for a walk.  He asked if I had gloves that would fit him, since he has "extraordinarily long fingers".  I produced the ragg-knit gloves that my Russian family had given me, and they fit nicely...so he went for a walk east on Stanley Rd.  He saw a house that was for sale and was attracted to.  I don't think there is any intention to move to central Indiana, but he/they are always looking....   

At one point, Shari was asking about what we were going to put out for the hors d'oeuvres on T Day.

A note about that:  our mother started the whole holiday hors d'oeuvres thing back in the day because she was busy cooking our feast and didn't want to be a short-order-cook for breakfast or lunch.  Her hors d'oeuvres set on a card table in the living room usually consisted of:  shrimp and cocktail sauce, pickled herring, raw oysters, crackers and cheeses, and California Onion Dip with Ruffles potato chips.  Of course, those were in the days when the whole family gathered at the farm.  Shari is also used to having family come and go all day, so she carries on the tradition.  (She has a big family!)  I knew there would only be the three of us for hors d'oeuvres, so I was only prepared to put out shrimp.  WELL!  That wouldn't work!  I put together a short list of extras we would need and asked Jim to go to the store with me...then decided I could go by myself...then HE said HE could do it alone.  Huh???  They don't have GPS, but he figured he had put it all together in his mind to go to Meijer and back alone.  I asked him his route.  He said it wrong, so I corrected him.  It seemed to be a point of pride to him, so we let him go with our short list, making sure that he had both of my phone numbers handy in case he got lost.  Not too long after he left, a phone rang in the house.  Wasn't either of mine.  Wasn't Shari's.  OMG!  It was Jim's!  Left in the living room....so now this man is out in the wilds of Plainfield with no communications!  Of course, I worried endlessly until he pulled into the drive, unscathed.  Amazing!  

Thereafter, we were prepared to put out shrimp and sauce, salmon, crackers and sliced cheeses. California Onion Dip and Ruffles, and everything else that wasn't nailed down.  Just for the three of us.

I didn't get the turkey in the oven until well after noon.  It cooked while we talked and my mind raced about what dishes everything would be served in, etc.  Of course, when the bird came out of the oven, it had to "set" for awhile and needed to cool before I could carve it.  In the meantime, we ordered Chinese from Happy Dragon to be delivered for supper.  By this time, I had run out of steam for the day, but needed to carve the bird and get the carcass out of the kitchen...so I pushed myself.  Got more than enough turkey for supper, and then some, before putting foil over the carcass and putting it inside the grill on the patio, since the temps weren't supposed to get above 40 degrees.  Also put the drippings from the roasting pan in containers on the patio so that nature could do its work to separate the fat from the broth for gravy.  (It worked!)  

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day

Thank God we had set mealtime at 4:00!  That gave us most of the day to set the table, blah, blah...

I was expecting Judy, Phil, and Dan, plus us, for the feast, and Dan's lady friend for dessert.  

Shari was a tremendous help, taking care of the details that I sometimes don't think about, etc.  When the Heffelman crew came,  everything was in the oven and ready to roll, but no....Dan informed us that his lady would be here for the meal and we needed to wait for her.  We set another place at the table...while everything in the oven was drying out and over-cooking.  I think it was another 30 minutes before Jami got here.  I felt like a heel because I hadn't understood that she was coming for the meal; Judy felt bad that she hadn't told me (I'm not sure she even knew); and the food was quickly getting overdone.  Had I known, I would have put a second leaf in the table so no one would have to sit on a corner.  As it was, Judy chose the corner rather than have Jami be inconvenienced.  It's just the kind of thing that Judy does!!  

We had WAY too much food.  Everything was dandy until the desserts came out.  Shari took a piece of pecan pie, then announced to us that she needed to excuse herself because her stomach was upset.  Instead of going to the garage room, she went to my bedroom--I assume because there is a bathroom back there--where she fell asleep.  After everyone departed, with leftovers in hand, Jim moved Shari to their bedroom, and we all retired, full and pooped.

Friday

Shari got up feeling fine after a lot of sleep.  We had a bit of breakfast, then (after puttering around a bit) prepared to go meet Cousin Jim and his wife at Chili's at noon.  I will call him Cousin Jim so as not to confuse him with my sister's Jim.  

A word about Cousin Jim.  Some months back, I got an email on Ancestry.com from a woman in Tucson, AZ, asking if I am related to a certain couple that were her grandparents.  As it happens, her grandparents were my grandparents, too, on my father's side--people who had passed before I was born.  (I know very little about my father's side of the family.)  Our fathers were brothers!  In the course of trading emails with her, I discovered that she has a son who lives in Indianapolis and works for the FAA.  Since I am within spitting distance of the airport, I reached out to my newfound cousin.  When Sister Shari and her guy were here, I thought it was a great opportunity to meet him and his wife, so we set a date for Chili's at noon here in Plainfield.

I feared our luncheon might be awkward, since none of us knew each other, but it wasn't.  Cousin Jim is quite personable and his lovely wife is, too!  Shari's Jim held up his end of the conversation, so all was well.  As we were departing the venu, Cousin Jim's wife said she was happy to know that he had family here.  That absolutely fractured me because her own family is half a world away (she is Filipina), so we all hugged as if we'd known each other all our lives.  What a joy!

When we returned home, I brought the turkey carcass in to be totally de-meated.  We froze all of that.  All the while, Jim and I were conversing.  We solved some of the world's problems. 

Saturday

Everyone got up and showered.  I made cinnamon rolls. After some chit-chat and some packing, they were ready to depart.

They left for Lebanon, IN, where they were to meet Jim's twin sister and husband at a Steak and Shake for lunch before leaving to go back to MO.  (His sister lives in Lafayette, IN.)  I got a call from Shari later saying that they were safely home.  Had arrived about 5:30, their time.  She sounded upbeat.  At that hour of the day after a busy weekend, that's a plus.

My biggest regret about the entire weekend is that we didn't get the grandchildren called on Thanksgiving, and the ONLY picture anyone thought to take was the one I took with Shari and the turkey.  What were we thinking??????

There was enough food that I sent lots of it home with both Judy and Shari, and still have some for me.  

So there you are.  Another holiday down successfully, with a LOT of help from my family and friends!

Going Home

When my sister's husband passed away three years ago, she was sick with pneumonia, and I had to take over some tasks that I wasn't totally prepared to do.  I had suggested a bagpiper at the cemetery.  She agreed.  It added $150 to the ceremony, which made me wonder if it was worth it.  It was!  Roger was Canadian by birth.  He and I--and all of us, perhaps--loved bagpipes.  We, of course, asked for Amazing Grace, which is a common request.

As we arrived at the grave site on the day of the funeral, the piper was already in place and piping, as we gathered.  Amazing Grace, of course, met all of us.  And then the piper went into another song.  I had heard it before.  Couldn't put my finger on it.  As the piper still played and slowly walked off toward the trees, it all seemed so right.  Then we turned to the business of giving Roger to God's care.

A day or so later, in a private moment, I googled "bagpipe funeral songs" and there it was on YouTube.  The song is called Going Home, and you don't even have to know lyrics to hear the words.  Going home.  Roger had gone Home.  And I cried.

Home is a big deal for me.  I never really had one much of my life, except my grandparents' farm.  I didn't have roots in the military that was my childhood.  I never really had friends that I could keep much longer than between stations for my dad.  I think it made me weaker, yet stronger, all at the same time.  When I had a child of my own, I wanted roots for her that I never had.  I'm not sure that she understands how many decisions I made back in the day just to make sure she had the roots that hadn't been mine.  It doesn't matter.

Why does this all come up today?  Well...I subscribe to an online greeting card site that has beauty, fantasy, and class.  Their latest offering for Thanksgiving has Going Home playing in the background.
Everyone wants to go home for Thanksgiving, right?  Much more than Christmas, Thanksgiving is a time for families to gather and close ranks with whatever else has transpired with them in the past year.  It is more personal, introspective, and necessary for personal peace.

When it is my time to "go home", I will do it with the understanding that God is in charge, with LOVE along the way.  In the meantime, bring on Thanksgiving!  I have so much to be thankful for.

Whaaaat?

Not sure what happened to the beginning of my last post about friend Bill, or how to fix it.  Just keep reading.  It works itself out, I guess.

My Blind Friend, Bill

I went to the funeral home last evening to attend the visitation for a friend's wife who had died from pancreatic cancer. He is an amateur radio operator, like me.  His name is Bill; his radio call sign is KG9QJ; and he is blind.

My friendship with Bill and his wife was solid, back in the day.  I took him to amateur radio flea markets/fairs (called "hamfests"), as well as provided transportation for him to and from his job, while his wife appreciated my efforts to help out. 
<--amateur 25="" a="" about="" ago="" all="" and="" another="" are="" as="" became="" because="" been="" bill="" blind.="" call="" earrings="" efforts.="" errands="" for="" friends="" gave="" gold="" have="" he="" his="" i="" is="" jobs="" male.="" many="" me="" mine="" my="" nbsp="" needed="" never="" of="" often.="" only="" out.="" p="" probably="" radio="" same="" save="" share="" she="" sign="" so="" still="" stories="" sweetheart="" take="" talented="" thanks="" that="" the="" them="" there="" this="" time.="" to="" transportation="" very="" was="" wear="" wife="" will="" woman.="" years.="" years=""> Over time, I became inactive in amateur radio.  (So many reasons--all excuses.)  I lost touch with Bill and his family except for occasional posts from his wife, Jennette, on Facebook.  And then, mere days ago, I got an email from a local amateur radio dude indicating that Bill's wife wasn't expected to live through the night.  She was a friend of mine on Facebook, but I'd had no clue that she was even sick.  She passed away that evening.  The arrangements were made.  I went to the funeral home Thursday afternoon to pay my respects but felt like such a jerk because I hadn't been there to help support him through his private hell.

When it was my turn to approach Bill and his eldest son, Tom, in the line, this is how things went:
Me:  N9QT checking in.
Bill:  Peggy?
Me: (hugging Bill for all he was worth and crying) Oh my God, Bill!  I didn't even know Jennette was sick!
Bill:  She didn't want anyone to know that she was sick.
Me:  Well, thanks for not telling me, I guess, because I would have worried.
Bill:  If you would get on the radio once in awhile, you might know some of these things...
Me:  I KNEW you would say that!  What will happen with you now?
Bill:  I will continue to live in my home.  You know where I live!
Me:  Alone????
Bill:  Who do you think was taking care of Jennette through all of this, with a little help from my right-hand man, here???  (Pointing at his eldest son.)
Me: (Turning to the people behind me in a short line.)  Someone needs to remind this man that he's blind.  He keeps forgetting!

There was some slight business about his hands being so warm when my own were very cold, and some other business about my rollator because I didn't want him to trip over it.  He said, "That's exactly what Jennette had!" I said I would offer to be his caretaker but that I can barely take care of myself these days...blah, blah.  I asked about his most recent Leader Dog, Driver.  He said, "We call him D because he gets confused."  In short, while I feel horrible for Bill for having lost his life's partner who was his love, his life, his breadwinner, his eyes, and his transportation, I came away knowing, once again, that this man is a survivor and will find his way through life as he always has.  I feel like such a schmuck by comparison...
     
When I was still teaching high school, I brought Bill and Sparky (his first service dog) with me one day per year to be my lesson plan, for about three years.  I shamelessly couldn't tie his presence into English lessons except to talk about communications.  (Bill is a ham operator.  I am a ham operator.  Ham operators are all about communication, right?)  No one ever challenged me.  The kids loved talking to a blind dude to ask their adolescent questions.  "How do you go to the bathroom?"  "How do you know store clerks aren't cheating you when they give you change?"  "Are you happy that you got blind later, or do you wish you'd been born blind?"  And, of course, they loved having a dog in school.  Once per period, we would take Sparky out of harness to show them the difference between a dog at work and a dog who was free.  It was great.

Then, one year, when I was directing the school play, Bill offered to help...so I let him.  He wired a bell so that it could be rung by a switch to imitate a telephone ring.  He suggested changes, etc...and the kids loved having him at rehearsals.  We didn't have an auditorium...just a multi-purpose room.  Poor Sparky couldn't get any traction on that floor so mostly gave up on romping with the kids when he wasn't in harness.  The kids loved having him there, and I appreciated the help.

I had cast a set of fraternal twins for the play.  Jai and Jonah.  All went well through rehearsals, but then one of them, Jonah, had a tonsillectomy ten days before opening night.  Uh....  Jonah had a big part.  The afternoon of dress rehearsal, he started spitting up blood into the trash can.  I had to call dress rehearsal off early, send the kids home, and drive Jonah home because his emergency number couldn't be reached.  He ended up in the hospital to have his throat cauterized, and I ended up having to find a person who could take his place in the play with less than a day's notice.  The story gets longer...but I'll cut to the chase here.

Each year, there were two performances of our plays.  Opening night is always full of nerves.  The next night, the finale, is the one where the director needs to be on the watch.  I never experienced this in my own performances when I was in school, but kids in these small semi-rural schools become short-timers, thinking of pranks to pull.  In all of the plays I have directed through the years, I gather the kids together on opening night to tell them that I have done everything I can do for them...that the performance is theirs...and I would be directing activities from the behind the audience via radio to my friend Bill who was backstage.

And then it happened.  In one particular scene of the final performance, Bill and service dog Sparky walked to the middle of the stage in full view of the audience, stopped, and said, "Sparky, I don't think this is the restroom"...and walked off.  OMG!  He had thrown in with the heathens!  When I collared him about it later, he said he did it in order to prevent a promised on-stage de-pantsing if he didn't.  It was funny.  Not sure anyone in the audience understood it because it was an inside joke for the kids, but it got a laugh.  Gee, thanks, Bill!

Bill and I go back a long way.  We helped each other out whenever we could.  He maintained vending machines in rest areas and other places (like the Girls' School, which was a reformatory).  And the blind jokes...Oh, the blind jokes!

Me:  You were on a ladder to check out your radio antenna?  Are you nuts??
Bill:  I'm okay if I don't look down!     

At a nightclub with Rickie and the Rowdies performing:
Performer:  We might have someone who will be topless!
Crowd:  Yay!
Bill: (shouting out)  That won't impress me a bit!

Walking into a Subway to order food:
Employee:  Well, aren't you cute!
Bill:  Thank you!
Employee:  I was talking to the dog, but you're cute, too!

At a hamfest (flea market for amateur radio):
Ham friend: (To Bill)  There is a guy down there (pointing to a place at the venue) who is selling extension poles for $10.
Me:  Bill can't see your directions.
Ham friend: (Leaning down and talking to the service dog.)  There is a guy down there who is selling extension poles for $10...

On the road from a hamfest, with Bill and dog in the car:
Bill:  You turned the wrong way.
Me:  How do you know that?
Bill:  The sun is in my eyes.  I notice the light.
Me:  You are blind and are telling me I'm going the wrong direction??
Ham friend on the radio:  Peggy, where are you?  We are looking for yooo...
It absolutely killed me that a blind dude corrected me, but I was definitely going the wrong direction!

Once, I wanted to put an electrical outlet on my patio.  Bill volunteered.  I had my doubts, but it happened.  The only thing I had to do was tell him the color of the wires involved.  He not only put it together but made it so that the outlet would be "hot" whether the porch light was on or not.  I was in awe...

I love Bill, not as a blind man, but as a friend.  His blindness only sweetens the pot of his potentiality.  You think you've got problems?  This man--THIS MAN--is all about being a survivor.  He humbles me.  My friend Bill is everything we should all hope to be!

The Best Money I Ever Spent

As the gift-giving season approaches, I am reminiscent of gifts I have given, whether Christmas or not, that represent money well-spent.  Truly, I have received wonderful gifts in my lifetime, probably the greatest of which was from an anonymous someone who paid the bank loan I had taken out to put a new roof on my house just last year.  I can't come close to paying that forward to anyone, but there are a few gifts I have been able to give that made me feel proud, and several of them were just last-minute brainstorms.  Here are some of them of which I am most proud and happy:

1.  My daughter was married and expecting their first child.  She lived on a golf course where her husband was superintendent.  He was often out on the course, which left her mostly home alone during the days, (six miles from my house).  On a whim, I bought them FRS radios so they could at least be in contact.  That gave way to cheap Tracfones, as cell phone technology progressed.  I couldn't afford to buy them real cell phones because they all required good credit and contracts, neither of which I could supply at the time, but at least I could feel satisfied that she could contact her husband should his presence be really needed.

2.  My daughter was married and still expecting their first child.  She still lived on the golf course.  On Mother's Day of that year, I knew that she would be working in the club house on the course in the morning.  They didn't have much and were pinching pennies.  I had purchased a maternity outfit for her for her very first Mother's Day, and decided to show up with breakfast to make it special.  She didn't know I was coming.  I took her a McDonald's sausage biscuit (her favorite), a drink, and the maternity outfit.  The clubhouse wasn't busy, so we sat and visited on Mother's Day morning, enjoying each other's company.  She was delighted, which made ME delighted, and we had some nice Mommy's Day moments.

3.  After that first baby was born--the delight of my life--along came Christmas four months later.  I decided that the best thing I could do for my daughter and hubby would be to give them a date night out together, alone.  They were inveterate Colts fans, so why not a game, plus dinner?  (This is when the Home of the Colts was still the Hoosier Dome and before Colts' Super Bowl fame.)  I bought tickets online.  Added money for dinner wherever they chose.  Added more money for parking downtown.  And then, OMG, I couldn't send them to a Colt's game without Colts' apparel!  Bought a sweatshirt for one and a long-sleeved t-shirt for the other, then (of course) added babysitting.  This was in 2002.  It was an expensive gift (for me) at that time, but I couldn't touch the same experience today for what I spent.  And you know what?  They went.  They had a good time.  The baby and I survived.  All was well!  I think it was the first time they had been out together without the baby since she had been born.  That, in itself, made every penny spent totally worth it to me.

4.  Over time, that marriage dissolved.  Next thing I knew, my daughter and grandchildren moved in with me...and then, almost as suddenly a couple of years later, the grandkids went to live with their father in Muncie, IN, while their mother went to live with a new fellow in Terre Haute.  He was in grad school at Indiana State University there and would be graduating in late December, then the two of them were leaving for California where he would be taking a position with Microsoft in Silicon Valley.  I hardly knew him and didn't think I knew my daughter anymore, so I was wandering around Walmart looking for ideas about what to get for them mere days before they departed.  I noticed that Garmin GPS units were on sale.  I knew nothing about GPS technology except that everyone was getting them, so I bought one for them because I knew they didn't have one.  Within minutes of opening the gift on the day of our gift exchange, the young man who would become my son-in-law in a couple of months had that silly GPS installed in the car and ready to operate as if he had been born with one in his hands!  It served them well on their trip westward and for years thereafter, with updates along the way, until they found other better technologies and gave "Linda" to his parents.  All for $89 sale price.  Yeah...worth it!   

5.  When the grandchildren were suddenly shipped off to Muncie, my granddaughter's Girl Scout leader, who had connections with the elementary school, delivered Robbie's second grade "effects" to me.  Among them was a water color wash painting of a seascape.  There was a whale and a dolphin, quite recognizable, and a treasure chest at the bottom, and other things of interest.  I was quite stricken with the artistic talent of that picture, done by a 7-year-old.  My granddaughter!!!  This was in the fall.  As far as I was concerned, that picture deserved a frame, but it was a bastard size.  For months, I searched for a frame that would work.  Up and down the aisles of Hobby Lobby, Michael's, anyplace that had any kind of a frame selection.  And then, out of seemingly nowhere, a frame that would work appeared just before Christmas.  On sale, it was $45.  Yikes!  That was a lot of money for a relatively simple picture frame, but I bought it, put the picture in the frame, wrapped it up, and hoped my grandbaby would appreciate my sacrifice.

Christmas Day arrived.  Robin opened the wrapped picture.  She didn't seem particularly impressed, but still waters run deep.  As her father and family drove up for our Christmas feast, she grabbed the picture and sat on the couch with the picture propped up on her lap, facing the door for all to see, awaiting their praise.  She really was proud of that picture, and so was I !

The picture was hung on the wall of her bedroom in Zion, IL. where the family had moved--a room that she shared with her step-sister.  Many not-so-nice things happened, thereafter, and both of my grandchildren went to live with my daughter and son-in-law who had moved to Illinois to be closer.  Somehow, that glorious picture didn't survive.  Nobody admits to knowing whatever happened to it.  But for that one moment in time, it made my granddaughter feel special, no matter the cost of the frame, and that was most important to me.

6.  When my brother-in-law died, I arrived at my sister's barely in time.  I got there on Monday afternoon.  He passed early on Tuesday morning.  It wasn't my mission to be there for him.  He was already in God's hands.  I came because my sister needed me.  She was horribly sick with pneumonia.  The doctor wanted to put her in the hospital, but she had too many things to attend to, which put me in Disaster Mode.  The family whirled around us.  I ordered her to her chair and tried to take over.  There were many things to do.  My right-hand-man became grand-nephew Nick.  We ran errands with him providing directions and muscles to do what we needed to do.  There were some negative issues along the way, but I relied on Nick to be family communicator (via cell phone), strength mule, and navigator.  He had no income.  At one point, I pulled out a $20 bill to give him.  At first, he didn't want to take it but pocketed that twenty quickly when I said he had earned it.  Easy money for both of us!

7.  I've been to Seattle at least twice a year since my daughter and family moved there four years ago.  I've seen many places and sights, thanks to my family, but had steadfastly refused visits to the Space Needle, due to prices.  Parking alone costs $30.  Grumble, grumble.  Plus at least $19 admission each...for what??

A couple of years ago in May, Grandma Judy and I went to Seattle together to attend our granddaughter's performances in Les Miserables.  We also had a delightful lunch on Whidbey Island, outdoors on a lovely spring day, which I bought.  I also paid for a tank or two of gas in all of our travels.  And then we did the whole Space Needle thing. I resisted.  There were five of us, representing a LOT of money.  Yeah...big deal.  We went up the big outside elevator to take us to the top--something that would normally freak me out--but the instant I stepped out of that elevator, I was faced with a view of Seattle, Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, and all other points below that showed me that every cent paid that day was worth it!  This was one experience I didn't totally pay for but was awed by the experience.  What a breathtaking view of Seattle!

8.  Last winter, the Seattle area experienced horrendous snowfalls.  Were it in the Midwest, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but the PNW is not equipped to deal with much snow.  If I remember correctly, the normal expected snowfall, total, in my daughter's area is three inches.  Last winter, they had over 16 inches, with one snowfall happening before a previous one could be cleared, and no one equipped to deal with it.  To make matters worse, my family lives on a hill.  Mail wasn't being delivered.  Stores were totally out of products with no way of getting them restocked.  It was Snowmaggedon!  Before all of this happened, I had packed up a box full of Girl Scout cookies and shipped them out.  The shipping alone cost more than the cookies, and it occurred to me that there are Girl Scout cookies even in Washington, but I damned the torpedoes and sent them anyway.

As it happened, the cookies finally arrived on yet another snowy day.  The stores were bare and families hadn't been able to get out because the hills of Washington were too icy to travel.  My family was also trapped at home, so the goodies in the household had all but dried up.  The cookies arrived on the first day that USPS could get through to their house, so it represented a "box of love from Grandma".  Worth it?  Yes.  Do it again?  Probably.  Life isn't always about being sensible, right?

9.  Do you ever have a hankering for something that you can't have?  You can't have it because it simply doesn't exist where you are??  My daughter and family put themselves on a no-sugar diet last year.  They reserved one day per week to have sweet treats.  One particular week, she was in a quandary about how to expend her sweet calories.  Sugar cream pie came to mind.  It's one of our family's favorites.  Unfortunately, that particular brand (Wick's) is an Indiana thing.  It's just not available outside of the state.  I got online and discovered that I could send six Wick's Sugar Cream Pies to Washington for $153 plus tax and shipping.  WAY too much money just for pies, right?  Yes.  But I did it.  And I'm not sorry I did it.  I had sent my family a little taste of home, and I felt good about that!

It really IS better to give than it is to receive.  I have no regrets in that area of my life!
     

Update on the Alien Tomato

My sprouted tomato got quite a bit of attention on Facebook.  No one had ever seen anything like it before.  Me, too.

The first day, it was a mystery.
The second day, more sprouts showed up on the outside of the tomato.
The third day, the sprouts showed signs of decay.
The fourth day, the whole tomato began to rot.

I considered my options.  The sprouts were terribly fragile.  There was no way I could have planted the whole tomato, and planting just the sprouts would have been horribly labor-intensive with no promise of success.  I would have to purchase peat pots, soil, and watch the sprouts daily.  Been there and done that before.  Knew it wouldn't be successful.

My housekeeper came on the fifth day.  She and I both took pictures of the tomato, and then...in a moment of clarity...pitched what I had come to name Audrey III in the trash. 

One of my FB friends looked up the phenomenon.  It's called vivipary, caused by a number of conditions.  It is all edible, but I wasn't ready to put Audrey on a BLT sandwich. 

Thus endeth the saga of an overripe tomato.  The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.  God bless the name of the Lord. 

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't

Every year on Halloween, I:
     *put a large bowl of candy on the fireplace mantel near the front door;
     *put my bat wreath (with a motion sensor that makes its red eyes flash and gives a maniacal laugh when someone approaches) on the door,
     *rake the leaves off the sidewalk that leads to the front stoop,
     *put my Halloween flag on the little garden flag standard by the door,
     *turn on the porch light,
     *plop my festive court jester hat on my head,
then sit down to await the "ghoulies and ghosties and three-leggedy beasties".

And every year on Halloween, I greet the little monsters and gangsters, dinosaurs and superheroes, requiring that they actually say "Trick-or-Treat" before I give out candy, and take a moment to guess what their costumes represent.  It's fun.

The trick-or-treat hours in Plainfield are 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM, and Plainfield parents generally stick to those hours.

Traditionally, the first ones at the door are the very little ones--maybe first-timers--accompanied by Mom or Dad or both--sometimes with older siblings who show them the ropes; sometimes infant siblings who can't even walk yet; and sometimes with the family dog (also in costume).  As it gets dark, the clientele changes to the older ones, with the moms and dads standing on the sidewalk by the street.  Then, too, some arrive by vehicle.  A carload of them may get dropped off at the beginning of a block with the car slowly following close behind to the end of the street.

And every year, when the last of the kidlets go home for the night, I sit down to write a blog entry about all of the fun things I saw or experienced.

THIS year, however, was different.  Why??
As October 31st matured, the temperatures dropped to wind chills in the 20s, the wind whipped into Wind Advisory mode, and what is that I see?  Snow??  Yes, snow!  It snowed all afternoon.  Fortunately, none of it really stuck, but it didn't make for much fun for marauding children to be out at night.

I couldn't get the leaves raked because they were coming down faster than any effort I could make.
I didn't wear my jester hat because I couldn't find it.  (That is to say that it wasn't where it usually is, which means that either my housekeeper or I changed its location when my mind didn't.)

One hour into trick-or-treat time, I hadn't had that first knock on the door.  I stuck my head out to see if there were anyone on the street.  I did notice that there weren't many porch lights on in my block (what a bunch of Scrooges!) and...oh yes...there were some costumed children getting out of a car halfway down.  Finally, a party of four knocked and threatened for a treat.  I told them they were my first trick-or-treaters...that I guessed it was too nasty out for kids.  The mom standing on the sidewalk by the street chuckled and yelled out, "We are dedicated!"
I had another group of two children.
And close to closing time, I had another group of two.  Both were boys, probably of middle school age.  The tallest of the two mentioned that they were probably the last ones still out--that the rest of their group gave up an hour or two ago.  I totally understood why.

Total number of goblins last night:  eight.  Eight!  
Some communities changed their trick-or-treating to today, based on the weather forecast.  Plainfield didn't.  I will keep the still-full bowl of candy by the door just in case.  What remains will go to the Homeless Feeding Mission that my church provides to Indy's homeless, and a couple of local areas that have hungry people.

Happy Nasty Halloween.  On to Thanksgiving! 

Everybody Needs a Debbie!

A year ago last summer, I gave up and admitted that I needed help in keeping up with the cleaning in my little home.  I wasn't defeated, just weary of the effort it took to do the simple things, so I put out a feeler on social media for a cleaning lady.  Two people responded, but only one followed up by requesting an opportunity to come and see what kind of help I actually needed.  We met.  She provided references (which I checked).  We agreed on a price and a time of every two weeks (which might actually be more than necessary, but read on).  Her name is Debbie.

As far as I was concerned, her help was tentative until she and I could both determine if we would be a good fit for each other.  What are the odds that the first contact with a person would become a major blessing--at least for me?  Debbie is a whirlwind.  She's not some young chick, either.  She's just a little slip of a thing with drive, energy, and the antithesis of a hoarder.  She is the single mother of two adult kids and also a grandmother.  She is a thrifty and no-nonsense kind of gal.  After a couple of cleaning visits to my home, I knew that I was in good hands!

When I "hired" Debbie, I really needed a housekeeper, a gardener to take care of my yard, and a handyman to help with small household repairs.  In very short order, I understood that I got all three with Deb!  "Oh...did I tell you I also do lawns?"  "Oh...did I tell you I also do car detailing?"  "Oh...did I tell you that my live-in son is a plumber/carpenter/whatever you need?"  All of the things I used to be able to do for myself were covered!  Yes, these things come at a cost, but without them, I would be living in a cesspool.  She doesn't do the kitchen or the laundry, but having her come inspires me to get those things done.

It's a common joke that we have to clean before the cleaning lady comes.  The same is true here, except I frequently haven't gotten rid of the clutter before Debbie arrives.  She comes at 9:00 AM every two weeks.  Sometimes, I've been out of bed for hours.  Sometimes, only minutes.  She has seen me at my worst, and because I'm not paying her to faun over how lovely I am, she doesn't care if I'm still in my bathrobe, and I don't care if she hasn't washed her hair that morning.  So that blasts that!

Knowing that Deb is coming inspires me to get some things done.  Yeah...most of the time, that's true.  Unfortunately, I run out of steam often the night before, but just having another person in the house gives me pause to put priorities in order.  I'm so much more productive knowing that Debbie is on the way than when no one is expected.  She and I laugh about that.

I'm going to miss some stuff here, but these are just some of the things that Deb and her son have done to make my life better:
*Bi-weekly house cleaning.
*Replacing a leaky kitchen faucet for something much, much better.
*Replacing endless burned-out kitchen light bulbs.
*Installing kitchen blinds replacements.
*Putting up wall pictures that haven't been up for three years.
*Replacing curtains on windows that have been bare for three years.
*Unclogging the bathtub drain.
*Getting a bedroom window to go back into place.  (Long story.  Took two of us!)
*Exchanging winter clothes for summer clothes in closets, times two.
*Digging up old perennials from under the split-rail fence in my front yard and replacing it all with new plants and gravel.
*Detailing my car for the first time since I've owned it.
*Mowing the yard, blowing the leaves, and unclogging the gutters, times often.
*Going with me for a shopping trip for needed supplies for the yard in the spring.
*Working with me to organize what she calls The Scary Closet in my house.
*Requiring me to put a lock on the mini-barn after I bought a new lawn mower last spring.
*Unasked, buying new throw rugs for both entrances/exits to the house because the old ones were shedding rubber all over everything.

Debbie is a de-clutterer.  I think she gets frustrated sometimes that I won't always let things go that are just taking up space.  She tolerates my dysfunction.  Still, I feel blessed that there is someone in my life who can/will follow me around and mop up after those dysfunctions without judging.

Everyone needs a Debbie!
She knows more about my household situation than anyone, and I trust her.
Hope you can find a Debbie in your life!

The Alien Tomato

Although I have always put tomatoes in the refrigerator, I have always heard that I shouldn't.  Not sure why.

So, awhile back, I bought a couple of tomatoes to use for BLT's.  One such hot-house tomato was on the counter but got pushed back behind boxes of crackers.  This morning, as I was finally clearing off the counter, that tomato appeared.  I expected it to be mushy and moldy, but it wasn't.  What I discovered, instead, was that it was sprouting!

I am 72-years old.  Have grown, eaten, and  purchased many a tomato through the years.  I have had to throw away a bunch of them because they had gone past the pail before I could use them...but never, in my entire life, have I witnessed an unrefrigerated tomato sprout through the skin!

The minute I saw that the tomato had sprouted, I threw it away...but then took it out of the trash to take pictures of it to post online.  In the course of the day, more sprouts showed up, and I became enthralled.  This is Nature's way of sustaining a species, and I'm not 100% sure that I should discard it.  I mean, I love tomatoes.  If I found a way to plant these tiny seedlings and could sustain them all through the winter, could I have free tomatoes next spring?

My brain tells me to throw the tomato out, but my heart and my upbringing tells me to try...in the same way that I tried to revive a baby mouse that we found in the bushes...and in the same way that I saved a baby Robin at a Boy Scout camp.  (The latter didn't end well.  I don't care to talk about it.)

Should I save the tomato sprouts and try to grow them for a crop next spring/summer, or should I realistically understand that these tiny plants need more tending than I have to give?   Stay tuned! 

The Funeral

For reasons known only to God, I slept a full seven hours last night.  That doesn't mean that it was meaningful sleep, but at least I wasn't awake and/or up every two hours checking the clock.  Seven hours is not only welcome but unusual.  The downside is that it cuts my day shorter than usual.  Here it is after 2:00 PM, and I'm still not getting anything done.  Why?

In the course of my morning, I was surfing Facebook on my phone when I ran into, quite by accident, the livestream of Congressman Elijah Cummings's funeral at his home church.  Former presidents Clinton and Obama were to speak, and I couldn't turn away.

Congressman Cummings was African-American and a Democrat.  He recently passed away and became the first African-American to lie in state in the nation's Capitol, but his actual funeral service took place at his home church in Baltimore and was live-streamed on Facebook.  

I don't need to tell anyone that I am not African-American.  My skin color is quite white, and I have lived my life understanding that people of color and I haven't had many shared experiences in life; however, I've experienced African-American church services and funerals before and know that they simply are more moving than anything us white folks have to offer.

When we lived in Pontiac, IL, our next-door neighbor and his family were black.  They had lived there forever, with land south of John Street, while the land north of John Street was made into a subdivision that was somewhat posh in those days, and it happened during his lifetime.  The neighbors' names were Hubert and Katherine...plus their adult son, Hubert, who was emotionally disabled due to PTSD and other problems.  They had another son, married with children, who lived elsewhere. The father Hubert was called Ruby.  And Ruby was a sweetheart.  I never knew much about Katherine because she wasn't well and mostly stayed in the house, as did the son, Hubie.

Ruby was Methodist.  He and family drove to Bloomington, IL, every Sunday (35 miles or so, one way) to attend an African Methodist Episcopal Church there, in spite of the fact that Pontiac had a "regular" Methodist Church, of which I was a member.  He felt that he needed to go there to be with other believers of color.  Ruby was an old man back then and, I'm sad to say, had seen a lot of history in his time and understood "his place" in society.  He didn't want to create problems for anyone.  It hurt me to know this.  It wasn't right.  I loved that old man.  In time, and with old age, Ruby finally braved staying closer to home for Sunday services, even though there were basically no other blacks in that congregation.  Long after I left Pontiac, I read that Ruby--easily in his late 70s--was on church mission trips out of the country to help build churches and homes in underdeveloped areas of South America.  (Reminds me of former president Jimmy Carter.)

Somewhere early in my neighborship (?) with Ruby and family, his wife Katherine died.  I didn't really know Katherine, but I knew Ruby, and I attended her funeral.  I think I may have been the only white face in the gathering.  Still, I will never forget the experience.  This wasn't my first "black church" experience, but it was mind-blowing.  I can't do justice to the African-American minister's service, but I'll try.

To wit:
"My wife and I were to depart on a mission in the middle of winter to a warmer place than home.  It was snowing and cold where we were.  We had our coats with us, but had to wait in the airplane...and wait...and wait.  The pilot came over the PA to say we were awaiting permission to take off.

"Finally, that permission came.  The plane rose up over the snow and cold, up into the clouds where we stayed above the invisible earth.  When it came time to land, we went back down through the clouds to be delivered to our destination.  We looked out the windows, not knowing what to expect.  To our wonder, it was warm, sunny, and cloudless.  We threw off our coats and basked in the glory of it.  We clearly had gone to a better place!

"Our sister Katherine Boswell has been given permission to take off.  Her spirit has soared above the coldness and pain of life's winter, and come to rest in a place of constant beauty and warmth.  She has no more need of a winter coat, or medicine, or any other earthly reminder that she is anywhere else but in the presence of Jesus!"

And I would never be quite the same after that eulogy.
Of course, the pastor's delivery was more dynamic and animated than his words, in the traditional style of African-American preaching.  (Black ministers hold the franchise for getting their congregations actively involved in their sermons!)  Not only was I enthralled, but also comforted.  And I didn't even know the Dearly Departed!

A couple of days ago, one of my former students announced on Facebook that his grandmother had passed.  He wrote glowingly of her in eloquent terms, not at all mushy, and I understood in that moment that as long as he lived, she would never truly die.  Which led me to wondering what, if anything, my own grandchildren could/would say about me after my passing.  I don't think they remember the early days of their lives when I was more present, less disabled, and so shamelessly head-over-heels in love with everything about them.  (Still am, on that latter part.)  Now, I think I'm just a dinosaur to them, but who knows?  I guess it doesn't really matter.  I have enough delightful memories of them to last for the rest of my life!

In any case, today's funeral service for Rep. Cummings took me down a special road.  One of the speakers quoted one of my favorite hymns, then immediately also quoted a stanza of one of my favorite poems.  I wondered if my former students were watching because the Robert Frost poem  ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") was one of the memory selections I required of them each year.  And the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul, will forever be part of my life.

I confess that I wept during most of the service all alone in my little house-on-a-slab.  I wept for Rep. Cummings and his family; for the words of Mr. Cummings' children, relatives, wife, and staff; over the words of past Presidents; and over the words of the Pastor of the New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.  My tears were cathartic because, as I wept for Mr. Cummings' demise, I also wept for my own,  They were also tears of sadness over lost innocence in this land of ours, considering the climate of now.  And in there, somewhere, were tears of happiness and joy that there are still good people in the world who find "right" worth fighting for, and tears of hope that the world that we leave for our children, grandchildren, and the generations beyond can become that warm and sunny place where sister Katherine's soul landed after having been given permission to take off.

I pray that it will be so.



 

The Complaint Department

Once upon a time, people took their consumer complaints to a place in a store that was humorously labelled The Complaint Department.  The actual name of that part of the store is Customer Service, which takes away the antagonistic connotation of complaining.  (It's kind of like calling a mental health institution The Loonie Bin, or calling an unwelcome portion of an audience The Peanut Gallery--both of which are now considered wildly insensitive and/or racist--and both of which I now have to strike from my vocabulary, in spite of the fact that I had no clue either weren't at least somewhat acceptable in common parlance.)

In all of my transactions, I don't complain.  I state facts.  I indicate frustrations, but I never blame the employees who are just doing their jobs.  Well...most of the time.  And most of the time, I get satisfaction in whatever transaction I'm trying to remediate.  But who do I complain to when there is no one to blame??

Not so very many years ago (but at least five), I was sitting around my daughter's dining room table in Lindenhurst, IL, with my grandchildren, their mother (my daughter) and stepfather, their father and stepmother, and their paternal grandparents (who are also my friends).  We were just talking, as we all do so well, with the old folks dominating the conversation.  The subject of health came up.  Comments quickly went down the rabbit hole of old age aches and pains.  At one point, it struck my funny bone that we were now participating in the kind of complaining that we, collectively, blamed our own old folks for when we were younger.  I mentioned it.  We all chuckled and changed the subject.  Whew!

Thinking back on that, I have considered my family:

My father did complain about his arthritic knees but only because they gave him trouble whether he was walking or sitting.  After having his knees x-rayed, his doctor declared, sadly, "You don't have any knees left, Mr. Covill".  His knees weren't only osteo-arthrically affected but also bone-on-bone.  I understood that.

My mother was spry in her late 60s, but she would hobble for the first few steps that she took every time she got up from a sitting/lying position.  I asked her why.  She said her feet hurt when she launched into walking.  Her only complaint, ever, was, "It's hell to get old."  If she had other complaints, she never let on.  (I'm pretty sure she had plantar fasciitis, but I didn't even know what that was in those days, until many years later--after her death--when I got it myself.)  I told her she should consult a doctor, but of course she didn't.  Even the day she died, she didn't complain.  She had chest pain but the rest of us weren't informed until it was too late.

My grandmother--oh dear Lord, my grandmother!--was a bastion of strength and stoicism.  She was a proud woman with dignity.  She would never, ever, admit that she was down, even if the ceiling fell in on her.  She'd gather her wits about her and figure out how to get out of the rubble.  Her entire life had been fraught with challenges to her sensibilities.  In her last 15-20 years (late 1960s, early 70s) her health failed.  She couldn't feel her feet and local doctors couldn't do anything for her.  She went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where they found a benign tumor pressing on her spine.  The tumor was removed but the damage was already done.  She never walked again.  She was in a wheelchair with no control of her bladder.  At first they tried diapers, but those didn't keep her from sitting in her own urine for hours, with only my aging grandfather to help her.  Thereafter, she had a Foley catheter and a urine bag on the side of her wheelchair.  She was seriously diabetic, relying on insulin shots several times a day to get by.  She also had pernicious anemia which would put her into comas until she got a blood transfusion that would bring her around.  In time, she had to be put in a nursing home for the care that her condition required, and she never really accepted it.  I could write a book about this woman--the glue that kept our family together--a woman who loved the farm and did the gardening and wanted nothing more than to be outside where she could see the flowers and hear the bugs humming--living in a wheelchair, and finally a nursing home--with a black gangrenous foot and looking for all the world like a person who was looking death in the face.  And welcomed it.  One of her last comments to my mother (her daughter) as she came out of a coma was, "Why didn't you let me go?"  She was ready to go.  Tired of the fight.
Still, this woman NEVER COMPLAINED ONCE about her circumstances.  Never blamed God.  Never asked for anything out of the ordinary, and refused help that would inconvenience others.  In fact, once when she was revived from an anemia coma, she woke to see my mother's face and said..."Oh...not you again, Maggie"--apologetically, as if my mother's faithful attendance to her mother's care was more than could be expected.

So...here I am.  I have more aches and pains--serious aches and pains that actually affect my ability to get around and just live--and I don't know what to compare it to.  My family didn't let on.  Did they feel as bad as I do?  Am I just a drama queen in the face of pain with every step and movement?  Do other people suffer this way?  Have I tried enough to fix things?  Every day is something new.  I TRY not to complain, but it ain't easy. I hate whiners, but I am one, and it's not fun to admit.

If you hear me complaining about my lot in life, please remind me of my grandmother.  That will shut me up quickly.  God doesn't have a Complaint Department.  I need to learn how to be thankful just to be alive!!   

Well, Shut My Mouth!

Last night, my granddaughter asked me to do a quick grammar check on a paper she had written for one of her pre-college classes.  We've done this together a number of times...online...from Indiana to Washington, and back again.  I usually have to ask what the assignment is so I can determine if what she writes fulfills it.  This time, she was quite confident that what she had written said what it was supposed to say, so all she needed was a quick red pen from English Teacher Grandma.

But before she actually sent me her document, she hedged a bit.  She was responding to some comedian's routine about the difference in generations.  She wanted to make sure I understood that her essay wasn't some sort of passive-aggressive hit at me.  She said it addressed "adultism" by the comedian.

Huh??  I'm 72-years-old but have never heard the word "adultism".  I thought it was just another buzz word that my granddaughter's generation invented.  And then I looked it up.  Apparently the term was coined in 1903, and refers to adults' control over children.  OOOOOoookay.  So now I am really, really confused.

When I was a kid, the age of majority was 21.  Prior to that, parents were directly responsible for the behavior of their children.  That implies control, right?  Isn't that what parents are for?  To train/influence/control their kids who are not mature enough to make smart decisions?   Then along about the Vietnam Conflict, states changed the age of majority to 18 because soldiers complained that they were old enough to die for our country but not old enough to vote.  And although I understand that thinking, I also know that 18 isn't anywhere close to being mature enough to make life decisions without Mommy and Daddy to help.  Is my reaction adultism??

My generation had a word for the differences between generations:  Generation Gap.  Not sure if it was invented in my time or only came to be known then.  I am, however, acutely aware of when I first noticed the difference between my parents' values and my own, and equally aware of when I had crossed the line from a child in need of parenting and a parent in need of childhood.  I've written about it all so many times. 

Today's world is nothing like the world in which I was raised.  My parents were folks of the Greatest Generation--taking the Depression and World War II, and Korea, in stride.  I was born a Baby Boomer, after the fire loss of the family homestead, and slightly later, the horrible home-accident death of a child.  They worked their buns off to provide for the family so that we would have things better than they did.  Although it seems that Boomers are being blamed for destruction of the planet and everything else that is wrong in the world, We weren't poor, but we certainly weren't rich or spoiled, either. 

I admit that I am no longer hip to the younger generation.  I love them all, and I try.  God knows, I try!  Over time, I have learned that my experiences mean nothing to others, so I'm working on reading the room and keeping my aging opinions to myself.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't. 

Life isn't about being right!!

 

Apolitical Little Me, Part II

My first marriage failed because my then-husband had mental health issues that no one bothered to tell me about before we were married.  He was a good guy but had stuff going on that left me out in the cold.  We lasted five years.  I gave up.  We were childless, so no problem, right?

My second marriage failed because my then-husband decided he loved someone else more than he loved me.  It happens, right?  I knew about it.  Had all the evidence in the world that I confronted him with, but he never, ever admitted it, nor did he ever tell me he wanted a divorce.  I hung on and hung on thinking he would come to his senses so we could talk about our relationship's future, until the day that our 11-year-old daughter said, "I think we'd all be healthier if you and Dad got a divorce."  That was the day that I realized I had been waiting for him to decide our fate as a family.  That day, I took my life back.  I decided that he would take care of himself and his other lady, which meant that I needed to take care of myself and our daughter.  She and I moved out and he and his Significant Other married three months later, but it quickly showed me that I would never again let someone take advantage of my affinity to having patience and giving second chances.

By this time, I was only two years into my teaching position in my school district.  I still had requirements to fulfill by way of college credits, which I did in order to maintain my job.  It wasn't easy, but I did it.  My ex and I weren't seeing eye-to-eye on much.  He had spit on me and called me a bitch in my own residence while asking for his first visitation with our daughter (early August, after we'd moved out in late May).  I had legal things to deal with as a result of that...and then...and then...the stuff hit the fan at school.

This was in the early 90s.  Our school district had hired an elementary school counselor--unheard of in Indiana.  She made the rounds of the schools, dealing with kid issues.  During one such round of school visits, she was teaching relaxation techniques to 6th graders, and the fundamental Christian floor fell out from under us all!!!!  Suddenly, there was a posse of folks from a couple of the local Christian churches all over the counselor, the curriculum, and just about everything else.  It was an organized effort, headed up by a local pastor who was also a School Board member.   The Supt. was forced to form a "curriculum committee" in order to deal with the issues.  It was to be facilitated by a $200/hr. dude from the University of Indianapolis.  The committee would consist of ten community members and three teachers.  I was one of those latter three.  (Don't ask why!)  We met once a week for many months, sometimes until midnight.  Things got weird.  Accusations of slashed tires and dirty tricks were made with no police reports, etc.  I asked for an escort to my car more than once, mostly because the community members were wearing their figurative tin foil hats and making false accusations and conspiracy theories that they wholeheartedly believed.  That scared the dickens out of me.  How can supposedly rational people believe this stuff?  I had just come through a nasty divorce that was full of gaslighting and dirty tricks, which had already made me feel vulnerable.  Now this??  The whole experience made me uncomfortably aware that my idea of being a Christian and a responsible citizen of the United States was out-dated.  And things weren't over yet.  At the end of that school year, ALL of the district administrators resigned and moved on, as did 13 of our dedicated teachers.  Yeah....that worked.

About this same time, I received a mailing, meant for the previous occupant of my house.  It was from the Rev. Jerry Falwell, originator of the "moral majority" phrase.  The mailing was asking for donations to help run Christians for school board elections all over the country.  I freaked.  If taking over school boards in order to carry on what I'd already been through in my district was the idea, I had no intention to support it, Christian or not!  It scared the wadding out of me.  I felt that common sense and science were under attack.  It was my first real glimpse into the politics of religion, and the religion of politics.  I wanted no part of any of it.

Then came Donald Trump.
Way back, long before he became a political animal, he was in the news because he was rich.  (So??)  He was often in the news because of his dalliances.  Ivanka, Marla...etc.  He cheated on his wives.  He was a sleaze, but he was still rich.  (So??)
At one point back in the early 2000s he started making noise as a politician?  What politician?  He has bankrupted his own properties, accused of stiffing his workers, employing illegal citizens...you name it.  Bottom line, I flat-out didn't like him LONG before he declared himself fit to lead the country.

In 2011, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway announced that D. Trump would drive the pace car for the 500 that year.  Instantly, a Facebook page originated to say we don't want him to do that.
We Don't Want Donald Trump to Drive the Indy 500 Pace Car.
Seventeen thousand people signed the petition.
Suddenly, the Donald's schedule got too "busy" for him to attend. Instead, A.J. Foyt--a man clearly qualified to do so--was chosen as the Pace Car driver. I couldn't have been happier!

When Mr. Trump decided to run for POTUS, I chuckled to myself. What a joke! The man is so narcissistic and hedonistic that he could never actually win. America is better than that. Imagine my personal shock when he won--through the electoral college, not the popular vote. And then the craziness began. Lots and lots of craziness.

The crap that he's into today--the accusations of breaking the law, of breaking the Constitution's emoluments clause, of lying to aggrandize himself, of not releasing tax returns, of threatening schools if they release his grades, of paying off strippers so they won't talk about their affairs with him, of refusing to cooperate with legal subpoenas--are nothing new. In fact, if any of the accusations were alone, none would be a big deal. But they aren't alone. It's one right after another, yet he blames the media and the Democrats for the stuff that comes up.
Every. Single. Time.

To be honest, everything he does is under total scrutiny as President, but this isn't new with him. He dealt out as much as he could during Obama's campaign and administration--most of it ridiculous, and most of which he is now guilty of, himself. Every day is something new. Something egregious. Something unforgivable for a POTUS, and yet he gets away with it. If holding the G7 summit at one of his properties next year isn't a conflict of interest, most people wouldn't care, but then there is the issue of the military planes that refuel in Scotland and put up the crews at his properties for more $$ than the govt. allows...and the VP's visit to a Trump property because it is close to his ancestors, and all of the govt. money going to the golf courses the Prez goes to--his own properties--that the govt pays for with our money. It's not just one thing. It's one thing piled up on many other things, and it all started right from the beginning...with Melania Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention with whole big blurbs being plagiarized, word for word, from Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention four years before. (Even though Mrs. Trump at first swore that she wrote the speech herself, but then had to admit that she had a speech writer, so the speech writer would step up and accept responsibility for the "oopsie".) Then Mr. Trump insisted--in spite of eye-witness accounts and photographic evidence to the contrary--that his inauguration was attended by the largest crowd in history. So there ya go!

I am certain that the Trump Crap Show isn't over. Stay tuned for more, but not from me. Meanwhile, the younger and more innocent me watches while the more mature me sees Christians acting like anarchists and politicians acting like victims of the media and the Democrats when they are "hoist on their own petards".

Because of my divorce, and because of the election of Donald Trump, I don't trust anyone anymore. I even question my own faith, sometimes. Perhaps that is the message of politics?

Apolitical Little Me, Part I

People who knew me as a child/youth would not recognize me now.  My physical body has changed, of course, but my personality has changed even more.  In my early years, I was politically naive and religiously innocent.  Raised as a military kid, I believed that "right makes might".  Since we had won all of our big wars at that time, I figured it must have been because God was on our side.  And because God was on our side, our side could do nothing wrong, nor would God allow anything bad to happen to us.

One of my earliest memories was knowing a song that I sang to my mother:
I see the moon;
The moon sees me;
The moon sees somebody I want to see.
God bless the moon;
And God bless me:
And God bless that somebody I want to see.
I told Mom that I knew who the moon saw.  It was God, of course.  Never mind that it doesn't make sense in the song.  And you know, I have no clue where I learned that.

But I believed in God and Jesus, even though I wasn't ever really taken to church by my parents.  From junior high onward, I went every Sunday, alone.  In fact, I have gone to church alone most of my life, still believing that my country would never do anything sneaky, and never knowing about the politics of religion.  In elementary school, I worried that God would be mad at me because I would fall asleep before finishing my nightly prayers.  In high school, I talked to God ceaselessly, as the Bible commands.  I was squeaky clean.  Never smoked.  Never drank.  Never got involved in sex with any date.  (In fact was mortified when one of my friends in high school told me that she and her boyfriend had decided not to "pet below the waist".  Whaaaaat?  Should that ever have been a question??

In 8th grade (1960-61) we had a mock presidential election in social studies class.  We had to study the issues and vote between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.  I voted for Kennedy because he was handsome and charismatic.  (Kennedy won the real election.  Three years later, he was dead from an assassin's bullet.)

And that's when LIFE happened.
The older I got, the more of the real world I got to see.
Gary Francis Powers, in a US spy plane, was shot down over Russia.  (Our country spying?  Surely not!)
President Kennedy assassinated, followed within a few years by other leaders--Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King--all by our own citizens.
The Kent State University massacre.  Anti-Vietnam-War demonstrators being fired on by US troops (National Guard?) on a college campus.  Our own people against our own people.
Towns in riots over the war and over politics.  What's it all about, Alfie??
AND, I participated in some life activities that the younger me would have abhorred.

I wasn't raised in a political climate.  My maternal grandparents, farmers during the Great Depression, were definitely Democrats because they believed that FDR was, as my mother put it, the Great White Father.  My father, as a Navy officer, never really revealed his political leanings except to say that the President of the USA was the Commander-in-Chief, to be respected no matter the politics.  Respect was drilled into us as kids.  Dad was very much against violent demonstrations, however, saying that "those people" were destroying their own neighborhoods.  (Understand that he didn't grow up with much and was grateful for all he had, for which he had worked hard.)  And once, during the Nixon impeachment proceedings, he told me that "Tricky Dick" hadn't done anything that any other president hadn't done.  Looking back now, I know he was right, but my brain doesn't use that logic to excuse bad behavior.

I was a hippie sympathizer in those days.  I secretly wanted the renegades to stick it to the establishment.  I was tired of old people in government telling young people what to do.  (The military draft, etc., made it a big deal.  I was present in downtown Chicago one evening during the 1968 Democratic National Convention when demonstrators were being tear-gassed and beaten.  I was there as a curious bystander, soon to understand that I shouldn't be there because I didn't have the guts to shame my parents by being seen on camera when the demonstrators were yelling, "The whole world is watching!  The whole world is watching!"

I departed Chicago but was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the antithesis of what I thought was right and good in the world.  How could I be a Christian and still vote for "hawks", when I was a "dove"?  Nothing was simple anymore....

De-Constructing a Home

With apologies to the writers of The Declaration of Independence:

Sometimes in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to dissolve the physical bands which have connected them to others in order to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle him/her in order to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

My body is in Indiana, but my heart is in Illinois right now as my sister endeavors to put her beautiful house in the country outside of Springfield on the market to sell.  Why?  After being widowed for about three years, she now has an also-widowed companion, and they have decided to make a life together in Missouri, where he lives.  Their plan is for her to sell her home and move to MO, and then for him to sell HIS home while they find a place that is "theirs", rather than his or hers.  No biggie, right?  Wrong!

Both my sister (Shari) and the new love of her life (Jim) were in long-term marriages before their spouses passed.  We are talking well over 50 years each here.  And this is how life works:

1.  When you become a married adult and "go to housekeeping" (as my mother-in-law put it), you establish a home.  You acquire "stuff".

2.  When children arrive to the marriage, traditions are established.  "Home" takes on a new meaning--not just for you, but for the children, as well.  With children comes more "stuff".  More furniture.  More equipment.  Toys, and all of the claptrap that goes along with raising a family.
 
3.  When your grandparents die, your parents incorporate the family treasures as their belongings.  And then when your parents die, you incorporate the treasures of your grandparents as well as your parents.  And, of course, you have your own "stuff" at home to make it all happen.  You combine Your Stuff with Their Stuff to try to make it all work.

4.  At a certain age, your children grow up and leave your nest to begin their own lives.  They don't always take everything with them.  You end up storing it until they are ready, hoping that they WILL be ready, someday.

5.  At another certain age, your home is full-to-overflowing with stuff.  You already have everything you need and most of the things you want.  Holidays and gift-giving occasions come, and--lacking the funds to give you much in remembrance of the day--your kids start giving you "things" to go along with your "stuff".  Daddy really liked that stuffed moose that he got last year, so we'll get him another.  Mom has a collection of owl figurines.  How about another owl figurine?   In the end, you have a huge collection of things that you just don't feel that you can throw away because they meant something to the people who gave them.  If a little is good, a lot is better...right?
 
6.  And then you fall in love again and make plans to move and pare down.  You have to make choices:  Keep, Pitch, Donate.  Someone will be offended when the stuffed animal they gave is tossed in the donate pile.  Someone will be offended when someone else was given something they had hoped to get.  Yet another someone will be jealous when another family member is given the authority to get things done.  Trust me:  it happens in every family, no matter how close everyone thinks they are!

Shari's plan was to get the house on the market by the end of September.  Then life got in the way.  She spent the better part of two months in MO because Jim fell and required serious knee surgery, and Shari did what I would have done: she stayed to help take care of him because he was largely immobile.  That meant she wasn't at home in order to direct packing.  She assigned packing chores to family.  Her last email to me just before she left for IL was that the house was "pretty much packed up".  When I arrived last Saturday, I found that the house wasn't anywhere close to being packed up!  Most pictures were off the walls, and many knicknacks were packed, but she hadn't been there to decide what to keep, what to pitch, and what to donate.  Ugh!  Then, too, she and Jim had a planned trip to Colorado this month, so she will be gone even more.

I visited and stayed for the better part of four days.  Unfortunately, I couldn't be of much help except to supply moral support and a little supervision for the family that gathers the instant she comes home.  To be totally honest, I was overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed FOR HER.  She didn't seem the least bit flapped, which is why I kept trying to bring her feet back down to the floor.  I hate having to be the realist in all of this.  It could all be done in an instant if they had thousands of dollars to hire packers, etc....and there will be some of that...but Shari has to be there to direct even that.  I have expressed to her and her feller that de-constructing that home, that house, is going to take more time than either of them ever thought.  Fifty-five-odd-years of accumulated stuff than means nothing on the market.

Of course, I came home with a new perspective on my own digs.  I don't have nearly as much "stuff" as my sister does because my house is smaller and I am poorer.  Still, I am at the point at which I have to say that nothing more can come in until something goes out.  And how many of the "things" that I am keeping are here just because I think they might mean something to someone, someday?  Time to dig deep and do the cleanout before I die and my only child is stuck doing it via long distance!

De-constructing a home isn't the same as demolishing it.  The house will be gone, but the family relationships will still remain, although different than what used to be.  Some people will get it.  Some never will.  They are the ones that would like for things to stay the same forever.  The older I get, the more I wish that things would stay the same, but I am changing daily.  It ain't that easy, folks!  If my sister can have a new life this late in years, I'm all for it.  I just want her to understand--which I think she does--that "things" aren't what it's all about.  Now time for her family to figure that out, too!