A girl whose death gave me life

My mother was my father's second wife, and therein lies a sad, sad story.  

Until recently, I had never done the math to realize what an awkward situation this is to explain on a public blog.  At some point in the early spring of 1927, my twenty-year-old father impregnated a fourteen-year-old girl!  It took me awhile to let that sink in, and it still shocks me.  Of course, that was pretty common at the time, but it's troubling, isn't it?  The way my dad related it was that someone in the girl's family asked him if he was responsible, and he said he told them, "I could be."

This is the only known picture of Vernie, my dad's first wife.  `

So of course, they got married.   The woman who later became my half-sister  was born in late December of 1927.  A year and three months later, Vernie gave birth to a boy; she died in the process, at the age of 17.

Last Saturday we visited her grave.  For years there was no gravestone, but my parents got one, saying my sister Maxine's mother should have a marker.

As I thought about this whole story, I realized that I wouldn't have had a sixteen-year-old step-sister when I was born if that teenaged girl hadn't died.  Everyone on all sides of my family has loved my sister.  She's like that wife described in Proverbs 31.  My Uncle Leo told a story about my parents visiting Grandma's house and all the adults went together to do something; they came back to find dinner ready.  "And Maxine was just a little girl," he said.  

She never rebelled against anyone, the way yours truly did.  I was the kid who threw a fit if I was asked to wash dishes.  All her life she has been the most gracious, kind, classy woman I've ever known.  Her mother would have been proud of her.

Just yesterday I realized the gift Vernie gave me through her death was more than just my sister:  That poor little teenager had to die in order for me to eventually be born!  Oh yes, my father and Vernie would have had more children; my mother would have married someone else and had children.  But none of those children would have been me.

If you are wondering what happened to the little boy she died giving birth to, that's another story.  My dad had an aunt and uncle who took the infant in (they called him Jack), because a single, working man couldn't take care of a baby.  Three or four years later when Daddy married my mother, the aunt refused to give up the boy.  When he was 12, he became difficult for the couple to handle, and they finally turned him over to my parents.  He made a lot of bad decisions throughout his life, but I recall having good times with him and his family on Christmases and other holidays when I was a child.    

My sister and brother with their spouses and babies; my sister only had the one child, and he is as outstandingly perfect as my sister and her sweet husband

My mother marked on all the old pictures like these.  Strange way to  do it, but at least I know who is in the old pictures.  LOL

Cousins

We went to the house where the four siblings often gather: two of them come from Omaha, one from Oak Grove, which is only 15 miles away from where Cliff and I live, and one far south of Salina, Kansas.  

There was a nice big pickup in the driveway, hitched up to a long trailer; nothing else.  Cliff said, "I'll bet they're here.  They probably put the cars in the garage."

We found out later that truck belonged to Royce.

I went to the door, rang the doorbell, then knocked.  Then Carolyn came to the door, looking flabbergasted when she saw me.  She invited us in, and we sat in the living room visiting for awhile.  Betty had a summer cold she didn't want to share with her siblings, so she stayed home this time.

I told them about the graveyard we couldn't find, and how disappointed I was that I couldn't even direct Cliff to the farm where their parents lived all my life.  Carolyn spoke up and said, "I'll take you; we were just at that cemetery yesterday."

The youngest daughter has a little trouble getting around and opted to stay behind, but Carolyn, her brother, and the two of us got in Carolyn's Ford Platinum and away we went.  Anybody who reads my blog knows that Cliff is tractor-crazy; well, he met his match with my cousin Royce.  He's strictly an Allis Chalmers guy, and has a picture of every one on his phone  They talked tractors nonstop in the back seat all the way to our destination; meanwhile, Carolyn and I were trying to hear one another and converse in the front seat.  What a racket we all made!  

We went first to that other graveyard, Logsdon Cemetery, but that will be my next entry.  Then we went to see Uncle Leo's farm.  It was sort of sad-looking, simply because there's no life there with nobody living there.  I took some pictures of the place; it was in easy walking distance of Grandma's house when I stayed with her for a week in the summer.  Uncle Leo milked cows in the 1950's, and had sows and baby pigs.  They had hens to lay eggs, and they bought chicks in spring every year to raise for meat.  There were always kittens in the barn, it seemed.  I loved that place.

The family of six carried water in a bucket from this well into the house until the late 1950s.  I recall Uncle Leo coming up from the field on hot days at noon and wetting down his whole head at the pump to cool off.  The building Cliff is standing by led to the cellar where Aunt Mary's canned goods were kept, as well as big cans of lard.  There was room in there to house the separator that took the cream from the milk, and there was always a little bit of milky smell in there.  Once, on somebody's birthday, the kids took turns hiding in there turning the crank on the ice cream freezer as a surprise for whoever's birthday it was.   

As a kid, I was awed by the size of Uncle Leo's propane tank.  I liked to climb on it and pretend I was riding an elephant.  Ha!

Cliff, looking toward the road 

There is a very long, graveled lane leading up to the house from the road.  Once when I was there, Uncle Leo took us kids to pick up a Go-Kart.  If I remember right, Royce had worked around the farm to get the money to pay for it.  The kids took turns riding up and down the lane on that noisy thing, but I refused to try it, just as I have always rejected driving anything with an engine. 

So many memories.   

Coming up, another graveyard.

Remembering the Departed, part 1

Neither my husband nor I have ever been ones to go to graveyards on Memorial Day weekend, although I myself have always loved cemeteries.  A person can often read the words on a tombstone and find a story between the lines.  

Growing up, my parents and I never missed going to Eagleville on Memorial Day, and I think that's when I became fascinated with tombstones.  While the uncles, aunts, parents, cousins, and my grandma stood near the graves of their ancestors relating stories of their forebears, I'd wander off and read tombstones; once in a while my mother had to remind me not to step on the graves; she was serious about that.  Then we'd go to some graveyards where some of my dad's people were laid to rest, deposit our flowers, and go back to Kansas City.

Maybe it's because I'm in my declining years, but this year I felt a desire to go to the Allen cemetery in Harrison County, Missouri, and see those graves.  Cliff can't do much right now, since he has a new cochlear implant that will soon be giving him (hopefully) a little more hearing on the left side.  He can't bend over, carry heavy objects, or wash his hair for awhile.  But he can drive, so he willingly accepted the duty of taking me to walk among the graves.  

I intended to buy some flowers at Walmart in Richmond on our way, but the flowers had sold out two days earlier.  It was the same story at Dollar General except for some single tulips and other such flowers, so I got a few of those.

Although I lived in Eagleville near my maternal relatives for maybe three years, we might not have found the Allen Cemetery, if not for GPS.  By the way, my maiden name is Allen, but my dad's family has nothing to do with that name of the graveyard; that's simply coincidence.  His people are buried in other small cemeteries around the county; he and my half-brother may be the only Allens in this graveyard, for all I know.

This is my mother's youngest brother and his wife

Cliff expressed surprise that there  were already flowers on this grave two days ahead of time.  I reminded him that Uncle Leo's four children often get together in the house my uncle and aunt owned in Bethany, since they are scattered around in various places.  "In fact," I said, "I wouldn't be surprised if they are there now."

Ruby was the firstborn of the children.

Below is my half-brother, Jack.  He died from cancer in a halfway house in Kansas City.

My mom and dad

My maternal grandparents.  Grandpa died before I was born.

Uncle Carl and Aunt Bernice.  Carl was two years younger than my mother.  She told me that she and Carl sometimes went fishing together as children; if their dad was around, he would tell them to get the weeds out of a row or two in the garden first; then they could go fishing.

This is the view from the back of the graveyard.

There was another graveyard nearby that I wanted to visit, but we didn't know how to get there.  Also, Uncle Leo's farm was somewhere near the cemetery; nobody lives in the house there, but the children haven't sold it.  They, or their grown children, keep the grass mowed through the summer.  I think a local farmer rents the pastures for his cattle.  I wanted to take some pictures at the farm because it was such a big part of my childhood, but I couldn't find it.  So, we drove to Bethany, ate at Toot-Toot's, and then went to see if my cousins were indeed in town, as I suspected.

To be continued

I've been busy

I still have strawberries, although there aren't as many big ones now.  I've shared some with neighbors and we've been eating far more sugared strawberries and shortcake than anybody should.   All that bending over to pick the berries doesn't bother my back; I've never had back trouble.  However, there's something about bending over that really troubles my knees, especially the replaced knee.  

I still go out mornings to see what's coming up or growing in the garden.  I carry the hoe around with me so I can get any weeds I see.  I imagine in a week I'll be having the grandson mow my berries.  I'll start a row somewhere else in the garden, and till what's left of the old patch several  times.  I'll plant vegetables in the old patch next year, or maybe even this year.   There will be strawberries coming up in the old patch for a couple of years, but they'll finally disappear.

Cliff goes tomorrow for his left-ear cochlear implant.  The grandson is off work for a while due to an injury on his right arm, so he will take Cliff to the hospital; I won't be there because I have a dental appointment I really can't miss, and Cliff said he's anxious to get this implant over with.  Believe me, I don't like not being there with him, but he would have had to wait much longer if he had passed up this opportunity.

We aren't doing anything special for Memorial Day, unless we decide to visit my parents' grave at some point.

That's about all that's happening here. 

Sunday Stealing

Stolen from The Book of Questions

1. When you tell a story, do you often exaggerate?  No, unless it's something like "the dog was running 90 miles an hour", which anybody would know couldn't  be true.

2. If a friend were almost always late, would you resent it or simply allow for it?  I would resent it, but I wouldn't say anything.  I just wouldn't count on them after that; especially if it's happened more than once.

3. Can you be counted on to be on time?  Yes, because Cliff hates being late as much as I do, and he's the driver.

4. When did you last yell at someone?  Why?  The only reason  I yell is to make sure Cliff heard me.  I don't recall yelling at anyone else.

5. If you could have free, unlimited service for five years from an extremely good cook, chauffeur, housekeeper, masseuse, or personal secretary, which would you choose?  I don't want any of these, although I'm sure a housekeeper would be great.  I just don't like other people going through my things.  And I love to cook.  I wouldn't like somebody else doing it.

6. Would you be willing to go to a slaughterhouse and kill a cow?  Do you eat meat?  Yes, I eat meat.  And I've been in a family-owned butcher shop many times, since Cliff worked there as a butcher.  Kill days were Mondays and Thursdays, and while I don't like the smell of blood and guts, I have been in there while they were working.  We once had a Jersey cow with mastitis (an infection of the udder, sort of).  There are things to do that will get rid of mastitis, but nothing worked on her.  So Cliff butchered her in our garage rather than simply euthanizing her.  I loved that cow, but I knew my  husband would kill her without making  her suffer.  I had no problem eating the meat.  

7. Do you feel ill at ease going alone to either diner or a movie?  What about going on a vacation by yourself?  No.  When I lived by myself in an apartment in Kansas City, I rode the bus downtown to go to movies or shows.  I saw Peter, Paul, and Mary and The Kingston Trio by myself.  As for vacations, when I was working and had more money, I flew to several Christian chat room get-togethers alone (even for my first time flying!!!) and another time I spent a week with an Internet friend near Washington DC... she has also visited us twice.  I consider those trips as vacations.  Here's another:  When I secured my job at Kohl's, it wasn't to start for about three weeks.  A friend at the church I attended invited me to go on a mission trip to Mexico.  She and her group were clowns and would entertain the children.  So I became "gofer" for five clowns for five days.  Not because I was trying to save anybody... but I wanted a vacation, and had never been to Mexico.  

8. Would you like to be famous?  In what way?  No, because I'd go crazy having to be around people all the time... and if you are famous, there will be people around.

9. Would you rather play a game with someone more or less talented than you?   I'm not competitive, so it wouldn't matter either way.  

10. Is there something you've dreamed of doing for a long time?  Why haven't you done it?  I've always wanted to go to the northeast of the United States and see Niagara Falls, the Liberty Bell, Maine in the fall, and so forth.   I  haven't done it because for most of my life, we couldn't afford it.  And at this point in my life, I can't walk long enough for some of the touring you do on a vacation like that.

11. If you were at a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner and found a dead cockroach in your salad, what would you do?  I wouldn't let on; I'm not sure if I'd keep eating or not.  When I was a kid we had cockroaches in the old house my parents bought.  She sprayed so much Stanley Sure-Kill, it's a wonder any of us lived through  it, but the only one that died was my parakeet.

12. Would you accept $10,000 to shave your head and continue your normal activities sans hat or wig without explaining the reason for your haircut?  Yes, I think I could do that.

13. If you were able to wake up tomorrow in the body of someone else, would you do so?  Whom would you pick?  I'll keep my own body, thank you.  Aches, pains, and all.

14. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?  I was loved by my parents.   Looking back, I  wouldn't change anything, even the going to church three times a week.

15. What, if anything, is  too serious to be joked about?  It depends on who is around.  When it's just my husband and me, we do a lot of dark humor and improper words and phrases.

 

What a great day

For some reason I woke up in a great mood today, and now, near bedtime, I still feel great.  I don't remember if I mentioned it in my blog, but I weaned myself off Lexapro recently.  I had begun wondering if the stuff was keeping me from feeling anything, because I was just feeling sort of "meh".  Not depressed, though; more like my emotions weren't working like they used to.  The feeling I've had today is what I was missing, and I'm glad I'm back to normal.  

It was 47° when I woke up, and has been cool and sunny all day.  I've picked strawberries and put quite a few in the freezer.  Of course we've eaten plenty of them, too.  I washed our bedding and hung it out on the clothesline.  Now I'm waiting for the Preakness to start.  I usually forget to watch the Triple Crown races except for the Kentucky Derby, but this year I told Alexa to remind me at 6 A.M. on the morning of each of the race day.  Cliff likes to watch the big races with me, too.  He's been in the shop most of the day, piddling with one of his tractors.  Of course he came in at noon to eat dinner.

I have to talk a bit about Cora, the little girl we babysat from the time she was two months old.  

It was love at first sight, and you never saw a couple of old folks any happier.

As you can see, Cliff had her riding a tractor early on.  

And you should see that girl now, at almost ten years old.  She's barrel racing!

She'll be spending time with us this summer, one day every other week.  She often asks to spend a day with us, and of course we look always forward to that.  

I allowed her to stand on a chair and make pancakes with me from the time she was two.  She still wants to make pancakes when she comes, but now I don't have to help her.

We  made fools of ourselves over that little girl.  Her parents were very lenient about our spoiling her, and they were never mad when Cliff took her to the shop to help him fix things and ended up with grease on her pretty clothes.   She helped me dig potatoes from the garden.  Because I go barefoot in summer, she went barefoot too, and could walk on gravel with me.

  

She went to the Missouri State Fair with us, and even a few tractor shows.

She changed our lives; a gift that keeps on giving.

Time flies

For a long time I thought we bought the trailer house and had it put in  the  pasture in 2011. I don't know how I came to that conclusion.  This morning Cliff asked me how old the shingles on our  mobile home are; I told him we moved out here in 2011 and had the roofers put on the shingles in the same year.  And also, I told him, that's  the year Mama Kitty came to us.  Her story is HERE, by the way.

Oh, how wrong I was; Mama Kitty didn't decide she and her kittens would move to our barn until 2011.  The year we actually moved out here was three years earlier, in 2008.   If I didn't have a blog, I wouldn't know when anything happened!  Oh, and we did not have our roof fixed the same year we moved, either.  That was a year later.  I found that out in this entry.  

Speaking of my lost memory, I was working in a flower bed next to the back of the house last week and saw what I first thought was a weed, until I realized it had some small, dark red flowers on it.  Examining it a little closer, I studied the leaves;  I was pretty sure it was a chrysanthemum!  I know I had to have bought that plant and put it there, because this was a pasture until we got the trailer house, and mums don't grow wild.  But I have no recollection of buying it; in the end I let everything in that spot sort of go to weeds, except for some irises, and the grandson used the weedeater on the rest each time he mowed our yard.  I dug up the mum before our latest rain and put it in another spot that I had cleared of weeds and debri.  The little plant seemed not to mind.

This morning I walked outside with Cliff to show him the mum and take a picture to show my readers.  Alas, some of its beauty was stolen when the grandson's 500-pound dogs, Bonnie and Klouse, came running out to greet us.  Klouse stuck his size 10 right hind leg on my little flower before I could get a picture.  I'm sure the plant will be fine, but it doesn't look so cute now.  

And now you know why we put a fence around my garden

Poor little Chrysanthemum

I was thinning around the peonies when Blue saw the dogs coming and hid

Even cats can write poetry

 I was in a silly mood this morning, so when I came inside from the garden, I decided to write a poem for Blue, the cat.  In honor of his poetry, I placed him at the top of my blog this morning.  The poem is getting a lot of likes on Facebook.  It's all in fun, it isn't a great poem.  But people who like cats will see the truth in it.

MY STORY by Blue the Cat

I'm the greatest cat you'll ever meet.

If you see me walking down the street

You'd wish you had a cat like me:

I'm strong and smart and wild and free.

I can sit on a chair that I call my throne.

If you don't like me, just leave me alone.

I have two people who serve me well.

They are faithful slaves and they think I'm swell.

I can climb up a post when the dogs come running...

They're only jealous cause I'm so stunning.

Dogs often put me put me to the test,

But they know my slaves love me best.

I've killed five hundred mice and moles.

We smart cats always meet our goals.

I can work in the garden; I can climb a tree.

Don't you wish you had a cat like me?

The drought has ended (at least for a while)

Rain had been in the forecast almost every day for a week last Saturday but as usual, people either north or south of us got our precipitation and we got bupkis (that’s about the only Yiddish word I know… Thank you, Dick Van Dyke!). We were used to it; my oldest grandson even bought me a fancy gadget to water my garden for Mother’s Day, bless his heart.  In the middle of the afternoon that day, we heard thunder.  No big deal; we’ve heard plenty of meaningless thunder.  It even got loud enough that I decided to get in the house lest I get struck by lightening, and shortly after that, Cliff came in from the shop where he and the grandson had been working on one of his old tractors.

All of a sudden, a downpour hit our trailer house the like of which I haven’t experienced in years:  We were getting rain!  I said, “If this keeps up even for half an hour, we are going to have a lot of rain!”

Then a persistent, unfamiliar noise wafted down through our ceiling, and we looked at one another, confused.  Gabe even lifted his head up from his spot on the couch, with his ears at half-mast, listening with us to the thumping on the roof.  

I said, “Wait a minute… is that hail hitting the roof?  That’s the loudest hail I’ve ever heard!”

I looked out the window, and sure enough.  Hail was hitting the ground, then bouncing upward; it looked like popcorn popping, and must have gone on for at least ten or fifteen minutes.  The little hail-balls I saw were about the size of Orville Redenbacher’s popcorn after it is popped, but the noise above us sounded more like baseballs.  I saw the grandson run to his car and drive it into the shop.  And all that time, the rain was pouring out of the sky.  We live a mile and a half from our town of Wellington; they didn’t get the hail; only rain.  We are about ten miles north of Odessa; in all the time we were having the pouring-down rain, they got bupkis.  (Sorry, but I love that silly word.)  I heard Odessa did get some rain later that night.

When the storm was over, we had two inches in the rain gauge.  Yesterday there was another half inch on top of that.  We have some very light rain now, but it hasn’t amounted to anything, which is fine with me.  There’s a guy coming out to see if we have roof damage; we do have insurance.  Many peaches and apricots were on the ground after the big rain; I think the garden will be OK, although the peas are laying over on the ground and the tomato plants were somewhat injured.  So were the potato vines, but I am confident the potatoes will be alright.  I really couldn’t see that the strawberries were hurt much; most of the berries are still tiny and green.  We had a lot of strawberries yesterday on our cereal, and more on some ice cream later.  However, those were picked before the storm Sunday.

After Cliff gets up, I think we’ll watch The Dick VanDyke Show Episode Season 4, episode 24.

By the way, my computer has a problem; I suspect it’s a virus and am going to have to take it someplace to get it cleaned up and fixed.  Meanwhile, I’m doing this on the iPad, using a keyboard.  It’s not that much different than using a laptop.  Since I needed to take the picture of it with my iPad, that’s the old mini iPad Cliff uses that you see here.  I know there’s some way to get pictures from another device onto mine, or vice versa; I’ve never needed that, so I don’t know how to do it.  All that is sitting on a lap-desk.  I lift it all up and it’s just like a laptop.        

Blessings in a dry year

My garden, as it looks from my yard.  Mostly bare ground.

All that green behind the irises?  Strawberries.  I'm going to have to get rid of much of this bed and start a new patch or two.  

Because of the drought, the berries will be small.  Small berries are better than no berries.

Radishes, big ones.  I didn't water them; I suppose since they only go down about 3 inches, those 3/10-of-an-inch rains once a week were enough.

In 1967 we bought a house on twenty acres where we lived for seven years; there was an apricot tree in the yard.  In 1968, when my daughter was a little over one year old, that tree produced bountifully.  My little  girl walked around in diapers, picking up apricots and eating them, calling them "babacots".  That was the only year it bore fruit, because apricot trees bloom so early, the frost usually gets them in mid-Missouri.  I  never forgot the wonderful taste of those fruits, and planted a small tree in our back yard here ten years ago.  Of course, every year the frost and cold has taken the apricots... until this year!

Oops, this is the peach tree.  Hard to tell on pictures.

THIS is the apricot tree

I wonder if this limb will break with the weight of the mature apricots.

Don't forget the radishes.  This is the year I found out radishes are good cooked.

What a wonderful world!

 

Big Brutus

When I was done with my rock-climbing at the waterfall, Cliff drove us 45 minutes further west to West Mineral, Kansas, to see Big Brutus.  We felt like we were in the wilds of Kansas when we saw this sign and turned onto a gravel road.

Our first glimpse of the attraction was when we were a mile or so away.

Cliff doesn't look very big now, does he?

Cliff in the driver's seat.  Even if this thing were still in working order, its speed was just two tenths of a mile per hour.  

               Looking down to see what was going on.

Pretty impressive, right?

I  have lots more pictures, but I imagine this is plenty for a blog entry.

Needless to say, this was Cliff's favorite part of our little mini-vacation.  He loves machinery.  He likes BIG machinery; and he likes knowing how things work; he will stand and stare at some part of a machine, trying to figure out how it worked and how it was made.  

If you want to know more about Big Brutus, you'll find some facts HERE; just google Big Brutus and you'll probably get more info than you ever wanted to know! 

Goodbye Joplin: On to a waterfall and then West Mineral, Kansas

I wanted to see this waterfall.  I love the sound water makes running through a brook and knew it would make a beautiful sound.  Unfortunately, it didn't seem as though the powers that be encourage people to go down to see it.  We didn't even have an address.  I read reviews from people who had gone there, and some mentioned it wasn't easy to find.

 GRAND FALLS

Known as the largest continuously flowing natural waterfall in Missouri Grand Falls is a must-stop-photo op for visitors. Located on Shoal Creek just a few minutes downstream from Wildcat Park “The Falls” plunges 12 feet down a 163-foot-wide ledge of solid chert before crashing into jagged crags and then flowing peacefully to the south.

There are no facilities at the Falls. Swimming is allowed.

It was a cloudy day.  Cliff stayed in the truck while I risked my life walking on all those rocks, because I'm an idiot.  I proceeded very slowly.

I loved the place, and decided to risk my life a bit more by climbing up to the dam that supplies water to Joplin.

This shows both the waterfall and the water that's coming over the dam.

On my way to the dam, I took another picture of our truck, with Cliff still in it.

Here's the dam. 

Here I am back from the trip to the dam.  I was ready to get in the truck when I saw a man with a camera RIGHT DOWN BY THE WATERFALL!  So I decided to risk my life one more time in order to get a video of the sound of the waterfall, right from the edge of the stream.  As I was going back up the rocks to the truck I stumbled, but managed not to fall.  Just so you know, the reason Cliff didn't come with me is that he has more trouble walking than I do on such a difficult, uneven pile of rocks. 

See what you think of my video. 

This was really my favorite place, but the place we went next is a close second because I love to see my husband enjoying himself;  it was the sort of thing he absolutely loves.  I'll try to get back to that tomorrow.

A meme about songs (Sunday Stealing)

1. a song with a food name.    Take an Old Cold Tater and Wait   LISTEN

2  a song with an animal in it   Tennessee Stud  Listen

3  a song about a bird   Lonely Little Robin  Listen  

4  a song about a dog   You Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog  Listen   

5  a song mentioning a cat   Senor Don Gato  LISTEN

6.  A song listing a character from Wizard of Oz.  Marie Laveau   LISTEN  (she's a witch, right?)

7  a late night driving song    Turn the Page   LISTEN

8  a song from a movie   Nine to Five   LISTEN

9  a guilty pleasure song   Three little Birds   LISTEN

10 a song about friends   Lean on Me   LISTEN

11 a song that is about summertime   Summertime   LISTEN

12 a song that needs to be played more on the radio  Enjoy  Yourself   LISTEN

13 a song about drugs or alcohol   Rainy Day Woman Number 12 and 35   LISTEN

14 a song you would sing at karaoke   Me and Bobby Mcgee   LISTEN

15 a song from year you were born in   I'll Be Seeing You   LISTEN

Numbers 2, 7, 10, and 15 are all-time top favorites!  I noticed that I'm the only country music fan participating in this meme.  Probably the oldest one, too.  I shared this entry on Facebook so my friends who like country music will make up for other participants, who are no doubt making fun of my taste in music.  :D  

Still in Joplin

 I got the impression there would be many, many murals in the Joplin Mural Park.  Unfortunately, we didn't find many, but they were good ones.

I realized only too late that we should have gotten pictures with one of us standing beside the  car.  

And thus ended our first day of vacation.  Both of us found our favorite places on Day 2 of the trip, before we headed toward home. 

Things we will do the next time:

1.  Take a guided historic building tour in downtown Joplin

2,  The City of Joplin, Missouri designated a specific section of town as the Murphysburg Historic District, and recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. It features nearly 40 homes, most of which are on Sergeant Avenue and Moffett Avenue, and each showcases unique architectural styles. As groups walk the streets, they will be transported back to the late 19th and early 20th century, when Joplin’s wealthy and influential citizens built these homes.

3.  The murals we missed seeing, like this one:

AND

4.  City Hall on Main Street (Route 66) located in the Newman building, which opened in 1910 as a department store.  It houses works of art that depict important eras in Joplin’s history.

5.  Get a picture taken of me beside the car in the second mural from the top up above.

Yes, we'll be back.