After years of staying at home, in July of 2000 I went to work at the new Kohl's Distribution Center. Cliff was thrilled. We finally had some extra money to do things we wanted to do. However, since he worked the evening shift and I worked days, he was on his own until time to leave for work. He said he hated the empty feeling he got when he walked into the house. So he spent as much time as possible outside or in the shop until he left for work at 2:30.
And then God sent Cliff some little buddies, and that empty feeling faded away. The twins were home-schooled. Once they wandered over to the shop and got acquainted with my husband, they stayed. After they showed up, not only did Cliff quit missing me, but he was quite happy with my being gone. If I got off work early, or had a day off, I was a bit of a wet blanket on their activities.
If Cliff needed somebody to run the tractor for him, he'd say, "I'll get one of my boys to help."
Those boys were so cute in their little coveralls. Cliff taught them to weld, and he let them use his tools and his shop for all sorts of do-it-yourself projects of their own.
Need somebody to help haul hay? No problem. Cliff's boys were right there to help with a job that NOBODY wants to do. Ryan, the twins' cousin, is also one of Cliff's boys.
When we picked up free corn for our hogs, the boys helped out.
Sometimes the twins would bring their lunch over so they could eat with Cliff. Once in awhile he took them to Subway or Pizza Hut.
When I wanted a cabin in the woods, guess who helped Cliff fix up the old storage shed for me? Yep, the twins and Ryan. Cliff's boys.
There's Travis, all grown up.
That's Tyler. Poor guy, every time his hair grows back, it's time for more chemo and he loses it again. He's doing OK, all things considered.
To this day, if Cliff needs a hand with something, he'll say, "I guess I'll call one of my boys." They are night owls, so he usually has to wake them up. But one of them will usually crawl out of the sack and come to his aid.
Even Grandson Arick calls on them from time to time. He recently called on Tyler to help him get his Jeep out of a hole.
Today Cliff's boys turn twenty-one. They're still kinda cute, even all grown up.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TYLER AND TRAVIS. MAY YOU BOTH LIVE TO BE A HUNDRED!
We first moved to this area in 1975. The Pitts family lived next door: Bonita babysat, and Ronnie worked in Kansas City at Sears. They had three children.
My kids would ask to go over there to play, and since Bonita had a houseful, I'd let Jimmy and Rachel go over, but I'd set a time limit: Be back in an hour.
One time they came home after spending their allotted hour over there, and I asked six-year-old Rachel, "What have you guys been doing?"
"Singing," she answered.
"Singing?"
She answered that yes, Donnie (who was perhaps thirteen at the time) had been playing the piano and they had been singing.
Hmmm.
Later on, we got to know the family. They were all musically inclined. Ronnie played guitar, Bonita sang. Donnie played piano, and he and his sister, Ronda, sang in harmony. The youngest boy, Kevin, is the only one I never heard singing or playing an instrument.
Bonita sang a country song I had never heard anywhere else, and she did it with style. It was so good that, in my mind, I can still hear her singing it. Google tells me that a guy named David Wills had a hit of the song in 1975, and I sometimes hear it nowadays in Cliff's shop, on his satellite radio. But for years, I actually thought Bonita wrote the song. She sang it with that kind of feeling.
Here's the song by the person who actually recorded it; I'd give a hundred dollars if I could hear Bonita singing it again, because I swear she did it better:
The kids got older, and sometimes I'd sing along with Donnie and Ronda. I even bought an old piano once just for them. We put it in our kitchen, so Donnie could play and we could all sing together. One time we moved the piano outside and had the Pitts family over for a singalong in the yard! There was one song that Ronnie did especially well:
Oh, they were a talented family. Did I mention that they're related to country singer Sara Evans? But it didn't stop there.
Ronda is still singing. So is Donnie. And Donnie's boys, the twins that Cliff considers his grandchildren even though they aren't related, are picking, grinning, and drumming. I've shared this video before. I know the quality leaves something to be desired, but I recorded it with a dinky little Powershot camera, so what do you expect? Travis is on guitar, Tyler is on drums. Their dad, Donnie, is playing keyboard.
Quite a legacy, I'd say.
Continue to keep Tyler in your thoughts and prayers. So far he has refused to let cancer whip him. If anybody can beat the "big C", he can.
Does anybody use that phrase these days? In my own mind, I figure it must have come from ladies who sewed a lot and were left with scraps of yard goods and spools of thread... odd-shaped pieces, and the ends of remnants, yarn, and thread.
I did not rejoin Flylady yesterday, but I did clean out my refrigerator and toss some things. Cliff asked me what the goo was that I found in the bottom of the refrigerator under the crisper. I told him I didn't have a clue what it was, but at least it didn't stink. See, this is why I need to get back with Flylady.
I had no sooner gotten the refrigerator clean than the electricity went off and stayed off for a couple of suffocating hours. We went and did our shopping, and after we got home I sat in the shop with Cliff. It was pretty cool there; his shop is insulated. But I kept thinking about all that meat in the freezers!
There's absolutely nothing going on around here; we're trying to keep cool, like most of the country. I understand that people in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas are really hurting for rain, and that farmers are selling off cattle. Do you suppose that means there will be cheaper meat in the stores? Funny how those prices never seem to trickle down to the consumer, isn't it?
That's my check-in, dear readers. Unless something of note occurs, it may be a couple of days before I blog again. I'll leave you with a picture I took yesterday of Cliff and Tyler, the twenty-year-old neighbor who is fighting cancer. Actually, he looks the picture of health, doesn't he? He and Cliff sat in the cool of the shop and chatted for awhile. (Prayers and positive thoughts for Tyler are much appreciated.)
Ten years ago, he and his twin brother spent most of their waking hours in the shop with Cliff, learning to weld and creating masterpieces.
This was taken eight or nine years ago the day after Cliff bought the John Deere.
You wouldn't believe some of the creations those boys came up with. Sometimes they'd fabricate strange vehicles with Cliff telling them, "That won't work," but they'd go right ahead with it and find out that, sure enough, it wouldn't work. I guess that's the best way to learn.
I was working at the time, and Cliff was lonesome; and the twins, Tyler and Travis, just happened to show up to fill the vacuum. They hung around right through to the time I retired, which was also about the same time they discovered girls.
Funny how things happen like that, isn't it?
