My good days

I have been living my life hermit-like, away from people and away from crowds.  Cliff and I have kept to the same routine every day for a long time, and I have loved the sameness of our days.  I get out of bed in the morning thanking God that I can walk and see and hear (and I never forget to thank Him for coffee).   I can't even remember when I last had a bad day.  How many people can say that?  
Sitting in church yesterday, I saw what I've been missing without realizing it:  People!  
There's something about meeting with a group of people who have a common purpose.  I am once again part of something bigger than myself.
It is an awakening to hear the prayer requests and realize the world doesn't revolve around me, and that not everybody has had such a string of good days as I have.   
What's up with all the asthma these days?  How awful it must be to not be able to take a decent breath.  Several people at church are having problems with asthma, and this reminds me to also pray for Cliff's favorite aunt and his brother, Phil.
A six-year-old girl's cancer has returned.  Her grandmother also has been treated for cancer.   
In a small, local church I am surrounded by neighbors, some of whose frailties I know, and they know some of mine.  I am reminded that church is a place for faulty people like me.  A big church has better singing and often more powerful preaching, but if I sit in a pew feeling invisible, there is something valuable missing.  
I am once again part of the community, and it feels good!
After church yesterday Cliff, his sister, and I attended a fund-raiser dinner the boy scouts were hosting.  The meal was surprisingly delicious.  There was a huge turnout, over five hundred people (in a town with a population of 780). I saw on Facebook that they later ran out of food.  
To make a good day even better, in the afternoon my cousin Betty and her husband came to visit.  Betty and I reminisced about our childhood days, sharing memories of our grandma.  I wound up Grandma's old music box so she could hear it play, which of course brought a smile to her face.  We shared some quotes and sayings from Betty's dad, my Uncle Leo.  Examples:  "There are dumb people, but there are no dumb animals."  "Take the money from the rich people and give it to the poor, and in a year's time the money will be right back where it started."
Cliff and I were talking about how special those shared childhood memories can be, and it prompted him to call one of his cousins.  They were still talking when I went to bed an hour later.
See what I mean about good days?
    
   

A family weekend

A couple of Cliff's cousins visited this weekend.  

Cliff has lots of fun memories of visiting Aunt Juanita and playing with her boys, Art and Doc.  That's Art and his sweet gentle wife, Lois; she's seventy-mumble and still working.  Some of her younger co-workers call her Grandma, and ask her when she's going to retire.  We've seen them at a couple of gatherings in the past two years, but we've always met at Golden Corral.  You can't have a good visit at a restaurant.  

Since they called and said they were paying us a visit, Cliff's brother, Don, came all the way from Kansas.  He and his wife spent the night at Cliff's sister's house next door.  

Edna, another cousin of Cliff's, spent the night at our house.  If Cliff looks strange in this picture, it's because he's eating corn bread and I told him to quit chewing for a minute.  Edna likes my corn bread, too.  

Now I have to tell you, Edna is in her late 70's and doesn't make a habit of traveling a hundred miles to visit somebody; so we were honored to have her.  I would never have gotten well acquainted with Edna had it not been for the Internet.  I knew who she was. because we used to visit her mother, Cliff's Aunt Margaret, when we were newlyweds.  But I didn't know her as a person until we began our email correspondence.  I love this woman.    

We all had fun talking about old times.  (Iris gave Cliff her ball and was waiting for him to throw it; it's all about her, you know.)

You should have seen these two characters clowning around... Cousin Art and Cliff's brother, Don.

Even the oldest grandson was here; it's deer season, you know.  He was waiting until later in the day to hunt.  

Since Cliff's sister had been shopping all day (along with Don's wife), we went to her house after she finally got home; Edna wanted to see Rena, and meet Donald's wife.  Just call us (me, Edna, and Cliff) the three stooges

This is Edna's mother, Cliff's Aunt Margaret: Look at the previous picture... can you see the resemblance?  

Of course, the icing on the cake was when my daughter and her family showed up today with our great-granddaughter.  I wish all of you could have such an intelligent, beautiful great-granddaughter.  But of course, they broke the mold when mine was born.  

I jest.  
Even for a loner like me, family weekends are special.  

Did I mention that a former neighbor kid got a deer while hunting on our place?  

Life is good.

A blog I recently discovered

I'm proud to tell you about this one, because the lady is almost a relative.  Well, I guess you could stretch things and call her a relative:  a second cousin by marriage, or something like that.  She's Cliff's cousin's daughter.  
Were it not for Facebook, I wouldn't even know who she is.  I've heard Cliff talk about her mother Willa, and her aunts and uncle, about the times he had with them as a kid.  
I knew her grandmother, Cliff's aunt: when Cliff and I were in Versailles, we'd go by and visit, in her later years.  
I was "friended" on Facebook by a couple of Cliff's cousins, and later got a request from this Angela.  
"Angela who?" I wondered.  "I don't know any Angela."  
When I saw Cliff's two cousins were mutual friends of hers, I knew this was some relative of Cliff's.  
This happens a lot on Facebook.  I usually go ahead and friend them, then never think about them again.  
But somehow as I was poking around on Angela's wall, I saw she had a blog.
(If you aren't familiar with Facebook, I realize how ridiculous all this "friend" and "wall" stuff sounds.)  
I was blown away by this lady's writing, so very introspective and thought-provoking.  
She's a genuine author, folks; she just hasn't written her book yet.  Or maybe she has, but it hasn't been published.  How would I know?  I barely just found out who she is.      
Go meet Angela at her blog, "If My Life Were a Book".

State Fair, cousins, and apples

I like lots of variety in my day, and this day took the cake.

Cliff's cousins wanted to get together in Sedalia at one o'clock, at Golden Corral. We rode the bike. But since the Missouri State Fair is going on through tomorrow, we went early and walked around the fairgrounds for three hours.

This little guy couldn't have been over five years old... my guess is four. But he was leading this cow all over the place. Cute, huh?

Then I watched a half-hour program put on by a conservation agent guy, and learned a lot about Missouri snakes and turtles.

That guy? He's one of Cliff's cousins. Now you know what sort of family I really married into; thank goodness my children turned out normal; I assume they took after my side.

And to make a perfect day even better: thanks to the recent cool temperatures, the Gala apples are ready. We got a half-bushel of seconds for five bucks and put them in the trunk of the bike. They are SO good!

Thinking about a close call

Last Sunday we rode the motorcycle from Buffalo, Missouri, where we'd spent the night, to Sedalia, Missouri to meet up with some of Cliff's cousins.

Our helmets are equipped with microphones so we can communicate without yelling at one another. Since it was Sunday, I was singing hymns to Cliff as we rode along. "How Great Thou Art", "Thank You, Lord, For Your Blessings On Me", and probably a dozen others.

Although my seat is elevated slightly more than Cliff's, I really can't see over his head. If I want to watch the road, I usually look to one side of his helmeted head.

However, I was so wrapped up with my singing that I was paying no attention to the road ahead. Until I felt Cliff suddenly brake. I peered around his head to see a tractor-trailer rig heading toward us, with a car trying to pass him, not very successfully. She was in our lane approaching us rapidly.

The lady driver pulled in so close to the front of the truck, I don't know how she kept from scraping his bumper. We heard the trucker apply his jake-brakes.

There would have been some options if the lady hadn't made it into her lane; Cliff could have pulled onto the narrow right-hand shoulder of the highway, perhaps... that little four-foot stretch of pavement on the other side of those wake-up bumps.

It was indeed a close call. I'm very thankful it was nothing more than that. And I'm thankful for a skilled, alert trucker who single-handedly prevented a wreck that could have injured or killed us.

If that had happened, we wouldn't have been able to meet up with Cliff's cousins.




And that would have been a real shame. The only time the people in this group see one another seems to be at funerals, which get more and more frequent.

And if that lady passing the truck had hit us, the next funeral might have been ours.

Cousins, then and now

When my parents and I moved to Kansas City, our first home was in a very poor section of town north of the Missouri River known as Harlem. It was there that I first made an almost spiritual connection with the Missouri River; the Harlem levee and the A.S.B (Armour, Swift, and Burlington) bridge became my playground. I'd stroll right down to the river's edge and watch strange (and sometimes nasty) things floating past.


Some country cousins spent a week at our house, and I introduced them to my wonderful playground.

Yesterday at a family reunion some of those cousins and I talked about those days.

Here we are actually on the bridge: The cousin standing in the center, above (Mary), is the one in the center below, in the green. The one with chin in hand above (Carolyn) is the one on the left below in red.



The little girl on the right above, Junie, is the lady on the left below. Her sister Lela ( second from the left above) is on the right below. June hasn't changed a lot in fifty years, has she?

And now, changing the subject a bit: Considering how much I loved the Missouri River back then, do you think it's any coincidence that I ended up living in a place where I can get on my horse and be on the banks of that river in twenty minutes? I believe God hears the desires of a child's heart.

Picture taken at 6:30 A.M. today.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY... cousins

My (maternal) cousin Carolyn and me, perhaps 1945?

Maternal cousins: Betty, me, and my cousin Royce... probably around 1950. (That's my grandma's house in the background, and Grandma's dog, Tippy.)

Paternal cousins... I'm third from left. 1959

For more Wordless Wednesdays, go HERE.