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?
    
   

Detours and gravel roads

For some reason, the state of Missouri has decided to replace bridges on every state road that exists; I don't know if it has to do with stimulus funds from the past or what, but we can't go anywhere using the normal route.  If we want to pick up prescriptions or see our doctor in Oak Grove, there's a detour that makes the trip take about twice as long as usual.  How about heading east to Lexington?  Oh no, the scenic route has been closed for months; and when they get that fixed, they'll close 24 and reroute traffic through the middle of our little town, population 780.  Of course, they're going to do this when the Wellington Fair is taking place.  Nice way to totally ruin a fair that's been having problems staying afloat as it is.  
Need to go west, to Independence or Buckner?  That's usually a straight shot, taking 224 to 24 highway, but not now:  We have to cut through the country on the gravel roads I used to frequent with my horse, Blue:  dusty, narrow, hilly roads.
But that isn't all bad, because it jogs some happy memories.
I point out spots that Blue and I enjoyed, telling Cliff about the horses we saw around the countryside.  I show him the groves that were thick enough for me to hide in when I needed to take potty breaks, Blue patiently nibbling at leaves or weeds.  I show him the road where, if I let go of the reins and gave Blue his "druthers", he'd turn and take the quickest route home.
The whole countryside is more meaningful to me because of my adventures with Blue.  Now remember, I don't drive, never have.  So it isn't like I had the opportunity to explore back roads in a car, like most folks would; but I spent hours on those roads at the speed of a Foxtrotter's gait, noticing things you'd never have time to see, speeding by in a car.  
I've heard so many people who have horses say they need somebody to ride with or they don't enjoy riding.  Not me! I loved the solitude of riding alone, just me and my horse; I actually preferred it that way.  Of course, as Cliff always says, if I threw a party and invited all my friends, I could hold that party in a phone booth.  I'm a loner, and always will be.  
Cliff listens to me drone on about my backroad adventures with Blue and says, "I'm glad you had your horse; I sure did worry about you, out here all alone."
He needn't have worried.  Blue knew he was babysitting an old lady who never learned to ride properly.
So, while the detours because of all this bridge-building (no wonder Modot is going broke) are a nuisance, I've enjoyed the memories I made with my perfect horse, Blue.

On another note, yesterday Cliff and I put up some new electric fence in order to allow the horses to have a little fresh grazing.  I was on the tractor, unrolling the wire, and Cliff thought the world needed a picture of me driving.  So here you have it, me driving the John Deere.  Notice how I manage to go right between those trees without hitting them?  Impressive, right?  

You can't go home again... much

Yesterday I had Cliff go past some areas of Blue springs that I mentioned in my last blog entry.  All this may be boring to most of my readers, but it helps me remember how and where things used to be.  

As I mentioned, Adams Dairy has been out of business for a long time, but the name can be found all over Blue Springs.  The building you see was the milk processing plant:  same building, but much remodeled, and it's occupied by a title company now.  Milk from various dairies was processed there up until the seventies, I believe.    

Although the Adams Dairy farm, across the road from this, was standing back in the sixties, there were no cows there in my memory; that part of the Adams operation had ceased at some time in the fifties.  However, Mr. Adams pastured some Hackney show ponies there.  Cliff and I saw him several times at the Missouri State Fair, riding in the little cart behind his ponies.  He must have been at least ninety years old the last time we saw him.  

 If you drive past the place where the Adams Dairy home was located, you'll see the back of this Walmart.  Yes, it was raining.  

This is where my dad went to work when my parents moved to Blue Springs.  The building has been added onto, and much remodeled.  Oh, and the Alton name hasn't been on the sign for many, many years.  


We drove by what used to be the Gilkey place, the property my parents rented and where they milked cows and raised gardens.  It's still vacant, although a lot of dirt has been moved around on it.  Across the road where my parents first moved when they relocated to Blue Springs, you can see the back of a shopping center which includes the Target store where my oldest granddaughter works.   
We went home by way of Bates City, since there are bridges being replaced on our normal route.  We hadn't had any Bates City Barbecue for a long time, so we went in and got ourselves a sandwich.  It isn't the best barbecue you'll ever eat, but it's good enough.  

Whenever we're in Bates City, Cliff drives very slowly past this house.  See that 1650 Oliver tractor?  Cliff bought it from a friend of his brother's, played with it awhile, and then sold it on Craigslist.  He always laughs when he looks at the tractor because that old man lives in town; the tractor appears never to have been moved.  The guy used to farm, and he told Cliff he just missed having a tractor around.  So there it sits, a big (rather expensive) yard ornament.

Flash bulb memories

I mentioned in my last post that I wish I had taken some indoor pictures at Grandma's house.  I don't know why I never thought of it, because such pictures would be real treasures now.  The only one I have that was inside her house is a picture of my sister and her family.  It shows nothing of the interior of Grandma's house except  for the stovepipe running from the heat stove in her living room to a wall, behind my sister's family.  
I wish I had a picture of me and the cousins sitting at Grandma's kitchen table drinking Kool Aid and eating good garden vegetables, and a photo of the the extra bedroom where I used to sleep when I spent nights there.  (Remember when Kool Aid was in a brown envelope placed inside of the outer envelope?) 
The Oregon Guy talked about old cameras in his post today, and mentioned flash bulbs.  That brought back a memory that you may find hard to believe.  
I once did a blog entry telling about how my mom and I got caught up in attending professional wrestling matches.  It all started when Daddy was laid up for a long time due to an injury at work; he was the real wrestling fan in the family at that time.  We all three started going to the wrestling matches in St. Joseph on Friday nights.  Daddy went back to work, but Mother and I kept on going; we were hooked.  We bought seats ahead of time so we could sit on, or near, the front row.    Before long we were going to the weekly wrestling events in Kansas City, Kansas, on Thursday nights.  So we were going to see wrestling twice a week.  Every week.  
Once in a blue moon, the really big-time wrestlers came to Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City.  I think those were held on Wednesday nights.  
I always took my brownie camera with its flash attachement along.  I took pictures of all the wrestlers and got autographs from the nice ones, and some from the bad guys too.  I had quite a scrapbook back then.  Now, I refused to admit to myself that the whole wrestling thing was a big show, a fake.  So the "bad guys" usually weren't bad outside the ring, and most of them would give an autograph if asked.  However, I once saw a boy around ten years old hold out his autograph book to Dick the Bruiser, and the Bruiser tore it in half.  I couldn't see the sense in it, since it happened out in the corridor and I was the only witness.  
Now, back to the flash bulbs.  

Antonino Rocca

Dick the Bruiser

Mother and I were at Municipal Auditorium watching Dick the Bruiser from our front-row seats (I think he was wrestling Antonino Rocca, I'm not sure); I'd take a picture of the action, remove the flash bulb, and put it under my chair out of the way.  As often happened, the wrestlers ended up outside the ring on the floor and continued their combat.  They worked their way around to our side of the ring; Dick the Bruiser paused, looked my way, and headed straight toward me.  He bent over, reached between my feet, and grabbed a used flash bulb.  
Now just imagine what was going through my head during this time.  Yeah.  I figured I was going to die at the hands of this madman.  
Dick busted the flash bulb on some part of the wrestling ring and bloodied up his opponent's face with it; I'm assuming that was all faked, but who knows how far those guys would go to put on a convincing act?  Back then I believed every bit of it.  
Thanks for the memory, Guy.

Today's motorcycle ride

This morning I asked Cliff whether he had an agenda for this day: When the weather's like it was today, I need to know if he's planning on a motorcycle ride, so I can plan around it.

He said he figured he'd take the chain saw and walk our fence on the east side, clearing off any trees or limbs that had fallen onto it.

"OK," I told him. "I'm going to change water in my hot tub, and then I think I'll ride Blue."

Two to four times a year, the hot tub needs to be drained and refilled. I clean the walls of any accumulated scum, clean the filters, put fresh water in and add chemicals. It's a fairly time-consuming process, and one I can't just turn my back on, because at my age, I am easily distracted.

I had just started refilling the tub when Cliff came back to the house.

"Well," says he, "it's so nice, I think we ought to take a little ride."

*sigh*

My poor old horse is so neglected lately.

Once the hot tub was full, we were ready to leave. I suggested we take some back roads to Kurzweil's, near Garden City, and split a tenderloin sandwich, since we hadn't had lunch. (May God forgive me for trying to clog my husband's arteries.)

Once we'd eaten (great tenderloin, by the way), we headed home a different way than we'd come; I hate going through Harrisonville on the motorcycle anyhow. There was a blacktop road going north, with a sign that said "Gunn City".

"I've never heard of Gunn City," I told Cliff.

He hadn't either, so we turned there.


Small town indeed. Population eighty-something.

Next town we came to was Strasburg:

Now, we are familiar with Strasburg: I bought my very first Jersey cow from a trader who lived about two miles outside of this town. We called her "Ole Jerz". She died of milk fever a couple of years later.

Someone seems to be remodeling a building in downtown Strasburg.

And there's a pleasant-looking little country store just outside of town.

Now to the "sentimental journey" part of our trip: My parents lived in this double-wide mobile home for several years. After they moved to Branson, we lived there for two and a half years, from perhaps 1979 to 1982. Cliff hated it there, so when the renters moved away from the property where we now live, we came back home. Mother and Daddy came back to live there, because Daddy had just learned he had lung cancer.

This is "our twenty acres", the first property we owned, bought in 1967 when our son was four months old. We lived there for seven years.

I don't believe in regrets, but I think if we had it to do over, we would never have sold that place. We drive by there about once a year, and today is the first time we've seen drastic changes to the house. They've added on, big time. I'd love to see what it looks like inside. To the left of center, behind the trees, is the first pole barn Cliff ever built. Still standing after all these years.

When you see this sign, you know we're almost home.

No, this is NOT our renters' trailer, although there is some resemblance. Every time we pass this place, Cliff says, "It ain't much, but we call it home."

It was a good day and a good ride. Now don't ANYBODY try and stop me from riding my horse tomorrow. Okay?

old memories

I was typing a story up to add to the family geneology website and realized it might make a blog entry, so here you go:

I learned many songs from my parents, but there’s one song I never heard from anyone except Mother. The way she sang it, it was entitled “In A Lonely Village Churchyard”.

She told me she learned it in Arkansas during a visit to Aunt Ada’s. Now, the old folks always said “Adie” for Ada, and “Emmie” for Aunt Emma, although my grandmother Clara wasn't known as "Clarie" for some reason; at least not to my knowledge.

Mother laughed at the memory of her cousins in Arkansas lifting up various floorboards in the house to gather eggs; it seems their chickens had free run under the house.



Aunt Ada’s family had a record player of some sort, no doubt a wind-up one. I don’t know if the records were the old cylinder kind, or the discs that came later. These days I think of so many things I would ask Mother if she were around.



Here are the words to the song Mother taught me:

“In a lonely village churchyard
There I see a mossy mound.
That is where my mother’s sleeping
In the cold and silent ground.

I was young but well remember
On the night my mother died
When she saw her spirit fading,
Then she called me to her side

Saying "Darling, I must leave you;
Angel's voice will guide you on.
There'll be no one left to love you
When your mother dear is gone.

Oft I wander to that church yard
Flowers to plant with tender care
On the grave of my dear mother:
Darkness finds me weeping there,

Looking at the stars above me,
Waiting for the day to dawn.
Angels watch while I am thinking
Of the resurrection morn."

After I got on the Internet and learned about Google, I tried in vain to find the words of the song and figure out who sang it. Finally I stumbled onto similar lyrics in a collection of Carter Family songs, only it was about a dead sweetheart instead of a mother.

Now I've studied A.P. Carter quite a bit, and I know he went back into the hills collecting folk songs, then changing them just a teeny bit to make them his own. That's very likely what happened in this case.

Curtain stretchers (and other memories)

My parents moved a lot as I was growing up, but we lived in the switchboard house at Guss, Iowa, for at least seven years. Many of my fondest childhood memories are linked to that home, and most of the snapshots taken of me as a baby were taken in front of it. I included Skinner School in the slide show because that's my first school, the one I attended when we lived in Guss. I remember the "Uncle Sam" mailbox that's pictured here.




I remember what much of the inside of that house looked like. I recall sitting on the front porch on a summer evening with Daddy, the radio inside broadcasting "the fights" (boxing matches) blaring through an open window, and my dad getting so involved in the action that he was squirming in his seat and throwing punches. He was a big fan of Joe Lewis.

Some other things I recall from those seven years of my childhood:



Every spring Mother would take down the lacey curtains in the living room, wash them, and put them on the curtain-stretcher so they'd dry wrinkle-free. I remember running around the stretched curtains in the yard and peeking through them. The whole living room smelled clean and fresh when the curtains were brought back inside, after drying in the sun.

I recall Mother using pants-stretchers, too, on Daddy's pants; a Google search tells me that those are still available!

Flour-sifters. When I was growing up, flour was always sifted before measuring it and adding it to your mix. In fact, I still sifted flour after I got married, back when I made all our bread. I still have a sifter, but I only use it when I make an angel food cake, or an "Elvis Presley's favorite pound cake", from scratch; that happens about once every five years.

I recall making baby dolls out of clothespins like these. I'd take an ink pen, draw a tiny face on the top part, and bundle my "baby" in a Kleenex tissue. I believe my mom showed me how to do this. (Oh, and she had taken an outgrown baby dress of mine and sewed it up at the bottom for a clothespin holder to take out to the line! I just remembered that.) She also taught me how to shape the silver inside wrapper from my piece of Juicy Fruit gum into a chalice. She showed me this while sitting in Church, probably trying to occupy me. But I digress.


Egg beaters were in common use in the '40's and '50's. Fact is, I still use one, if the only thing in a recipe that needs beating is eggs. It's much easier and faster than getting out the mixer and dirtying up a mixer bowl.

And that's today's trip down memory lane.

a small batch of hamburger stew

I made meat loaf yesterday, and was left with perhaps a third of a pound of ground beef. I know, most of you would have incorporated it into the meat loaf, right? But I'm a stickler for using the amounts stated in recipes.

I eyed the meat, wondering if it was enough for two hamburgers. But since I limit our meat portions, that didn't seem like a good idea.

After sleeping on it (not the hamburger, silly; the idea of what to do with it), I decided to make hamburger stew. Thankfully, I do make some things without a recipe.

Trouble is, I'm so used to making a huge pot of stew, and it's hard for me to judge amounts in a smaller batch.

At this point, I realized I should have used one more potato, but it was too late... until I remembered the microwave! I baked a potato in three minutes, peeled it, diced it, and tossed it in. No problem.

I wait until the last ten minutes or so to add the cabbage. Here again, I had to be careful to use the proper amount for such a small batch of stew.

As I added ingredients, it occurred to me how many spices I use that my mother never had in her cabinets, as far as I can remember. Here are just a few of them.

All the above except for lemon pepper and bay leaves are in my stew, which I just sampled. It's good!

When I was a kid growing up, sometimes I'd climb up on a kitchen counter, open the cupboard doors, and sniff all the spices in there, one by one. Mother had a lot of phony Watkins flavorings (coconut, lemon, etc.) that smelled divine. My favorite thing was vanilla; it was so heavenly that I decided one day to taste it.

Bad mistake.

chickens of my childhood

Being raised like an only child (my siblings were both gone from home by the time I was two), and many times isolated from other children once school let out, I learned at a young age to use my imagination and entertain myself. I played cowboys and Indians, switching between characters as needed. I rode my imaginary horse, which trotted at a leisurely pace anywhere I wished to go... although I remember wishing my imagination worked just a little better, because I could never quite make myself believe I was on a real horse.

Until we moved to Kansas City, my mother always kept chickens on the place, wherever we lived. Even in the small town of Eagleville, we had a chicken-wire fence creating a yard around the hen house. I loved to play with the chickens and watch their behavior. No need to be bored with them around!


Early in the spring Mother would order fifty or a hundred day-old chicks, and I remember riding to the hatchery to pick them up. It was exciting to hear the peep-peeping coming from inside the cardboard box they were in on the ride home; there were round holes in the sides of the box to let them get air, and you could see the yellow fluff of their bodies moving, through the holes.

It seems most of the chicks were yellow (which means they'd be white as adults), but usually there were a couple with black on them; I always claimed those as my pets, since I could tell them apart from all the others.

The chicks started out in a room upstairs (so the poultry smell didn't invade our living quarters) in a brooder similar to THIS. There were light bulbs in it to keep the babies warm, and trays for food; a glass fixture that went on an upside-down mason jar gave them water.

I learned as a very young child to tell if the chicks were happy or sad, just by the sound of their peeping. The sound of happy chicks peeping is one of the most pleasant memories of my childhood. If they got chilled or ran out of food or water, their peeping got a desperate sound to it.

The chicks grew fast, and they were soon taken outside to a brooder house, where a heat lamp was hung over them for heat; they needed a source of heat until they were well "feathered out". I recall one time at my grandma's house, rats got in her brooder house and killed some chicks.

Usually Mother got straight-run chicks, which means an assortment of male and females. The males were destined for the skillet; the females would supply us with eggs; I believe back then we could take extra eggs to the grocery store and receive money for them. I'm sure my cousin Carolyn remembers how it all was, since she spent her childhood on a farm up the road from Grandma. When Grandma went to town on Saturdays, she never said she was going to shop: She said she was going to do her "trading".

Fried chicken was almost the only meat you'd ever see on our table. We didn't have a deep freeze, so when company was coming, Mother went out and killed a chicken or two the day before. She simply stepped on the chicken's head while holding onto it by it's feet, and pulled. What fun it was to see a headless chicken flopping around all over the yard! Then she'd dip the chicken in scalding water to loosen the feathers and turn it over to me to pluck all the feathers off.

If there was a hen that wasn't laying, she had the distinction of ending up in noodles. Once in awhile Mother would be mistaken about the hen's non-production and there'd be eggs in formation inside her. What an experience, seeing the miracle of how eggs were formed!

I got so many great anatomy lessons watching my mom "dress" chickens (I always found that term peculiar; shouldn't it be "undress?). I was fascinated with the craw, which was full of rocks and sand. Mother explained to me how, since chickens didn't have teeth, the craw did the chewing for them. The words "craw" and "gizzard" were used interchangeably; but checking online, it appears they might not quite have the same meaning.

My mom, and all my aunts, made the best fried chicken ever. I've never tasted any like theirs since. When the chicken was done and the cast iron skillet cooled off a bit, I'd pick out all the little crispies left behind in the skillet. Good stuff, Maynard!

That's my trip down memory lane for today. By the way, if you want to meet someone who keeps chickens as pets, go visit Kelly. That lady LOVES her chickens!

More on my blue canning jars

Some research on the Internet has led me to believe the jars pictured in my previous entry were made between 1923 and 1933.

This goes along with a story my mother often told me.

Mother acquired a lovely little girl (around four years old, I believe, at the time) when she and my father married in 1932: my half-sister, Maxine, whose mother had died giving birth to our brother.

Someone asked Maxine if she was getting plenty to eat now that she had a step-mother (she called Mother her "foot-mama" at first).

"Oh, I should say we do!" Maxine reportedly replied with great enthusiasm. And then she started naming all the individual things they had been eating, including many canned goods given to them by my maternal grandma as sort of a wedding gift... peaches, green beans, jam, and so forth.

I like to think these old jars are the ones Grandma gave to my parents, full of things so delicious that the flavors and abundance amazed a little girl who had been without a mother for a while.

Things I can't bear to get rid of

I still have stuff in the "junk room" upstairs at the old house. Oh, I've made great progress doing a little at a time, but it's slow going. It wouldn't be so bad if I could just toss things, if I wouldn't look through every box.

The photographs weren't so bad because I simply stuffed them in boxes. You know, out of sight, out of mind. Hopefully I can find leisure moments to catalog them somehow, eventually. Well, finding leisure moments isn't as much a problem as using them properly, I suppose.

Before we moved here, I went through my books and selected the ones I figured I'd read, or use, again; and I brought them here. They were some of the first items I moved.

That left one box of children's book and one box of adult books to get rid of.

I made the mistake of looking through them again, and found some more to keep. Me and my stupid memories. No, I guess it isn't the memories that are stupid: It's my trying to hang on to the tangible evidence that's crazy. Because once I'm gone, the books will be gone too.

I recall reading the "Little Red Riding Hood" and "The Three Little Pig" books to every single one of my grandchildren, starting with Arick. When I was reading the big, bad Wolf's lines of course, I'd speak with a growl, just the way my parents read it to me years ago.

My two youngest granddaughters, Monica and Natalie, loved the "Spot" books, and both of them had every one memorized by the time they were two years old.

Each page had a flap you could lift, with more words underneath. Cliff and I would read the main part of the page, then a granddaughter would lift the flap and "read" what was underneath.

Now now can I toss something like that in the trash?

On the plus side, I still have lots of books that will go to the trash. I put them on Craigslist under "free", but I really doubt anyone is going to come way out here in the boonies after a bunch of books.

The junk room is starting to look much emptier. The main things left are Christmas ornaments, which will go in the attic of our garage, and dozens (perhaps hundreds) of canning jars. I intend to give away at least half of them on Freecycle or Craigslist, but I'll keep some. One never knows when hard times might hit and we'll be forced to garden; then I'll be glad to have them.

Reflecting on my mother's mementos

My mom kept hundreds of letters, post cards, and mementos. However, it wasn't something she did consistently throughout her life.

I've noticed she kept things from 1930-1932, which was her dating/courting period. Obviously that was a significant time for her; she kept diaries during those years, but all that remains are a few pages. Mice, stains, and time have spoiled most of her journaling.

Then there's no correspondence stored away until 1937-1938. I've researched and read the letters from that time, and I think now I understand why she kept everything from those years. It's because there were such life-changing things going on in her life.

First of all, she lost the baby boy she had carried to full term because the umbilical cord was around his neck. You can see she wrote on this picture, "Me pregnant for Lonnie Ray".

Next, she and Daddy were trying to get his son from his first marriage into their custody. My dad's aunt had kept my brother from birth after his mother died birthing him, and had steadfastly refused to give him up. Although my dad had every right to his son, my parents were too poor to hire a lawyer.

But my brother started giving the aunt some trouble as he approached adolescence, and she realized she wasn't going to be able to handle him.

I've read letters from some aunts to my parents, telling them that this was their chance to get the boy. And finally they did. In the above picture you see my parents with my sister and brother, after their family was united.

Also in 1938, my mother's daddy got cancer, suffered horribly, and died. So in that picture where my mom is pregnant, her daddy (in the overalls) did not have long to live. He wasn't that old a man.

All the letters my mother kept from that time mentioned at least one of these events, one way or another. Yesterday I read on a post card my grandma had sent, "It's been nine months since your dad left us."

After that, there are no more cards and letters until 1944. In July of that year I was born. My mother, at age 34, had finally given birth to a live baby. She kept every card of congratulations and even all the Christmas cards from that year. There must have been great rejoicing in that house. She kept the letters the doctor wrote to her, both during her pregnancy and after my birth. In one of these, the doctor tells her to be sure and not spoil the baby. Obviously, she didn't obey orders. But all of that goes into what makes me ME.

Oh, there are a few items Mother kept in later years. But never to the extent that she did in those traumatic times, her saddest and her happiest years.

It's surely been a blessing to me, reading those letters from the past.

Thanks, Mother. I'm sharing these things the best I can.

Winter is a time for memories, so I sit and remember:

I hated the way my mom fixed my hair. It was supposed to be “Shirley Temple” style, although somehow the effect isn't the same on a brunette. I was ten years too late for the style anyhow. And let's face it, I was nowhere near as cute and charming as Shirley. It appears as though I spent at least one recess rough-housing the day they took the above school picture, because I had a rather frizzy, unkept look about me.


Mother said she fixed it that way because my naturally curly hair would have been too unruly, just combed. Oh, and those hot summer Sunday afternoons when we went to First Sunday singings at some Church-of-Christ fifty miles away, I had to wear a hairnet over my curls. Air conditioning was nonexistent in the early fifties . So we drove with the car windows down, eating dust and wearing our hairnets to keep from getting tangles blown in. My mother always seemed to find a dirty spot on me someplace.... neck, elbows, knees, face.... and she’d pull out a hanky, spit on a corner of it, and scrub at the offending spot with the hanky before we got out of the car: The original Wet Ones!

I did love the singings, though. Any man in the group who could even halfway carry a tune would get up and lead a song, and everybody sang their parts. That’s how I learned to sing alto. Sometimes they’d take requests, and I always asked for “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand”. The singing started at 2:30, but first there was a basket dinner.

We spent a lot of time in Church back then. Of course you have to remember, for the adults it was work, work, work all week long. Few people had television. Church was entertainment and recreation as well as worship. In nice weather, the adults were likely to linger an hour or so after Sunday night service, just visiting. We kids played tag, or spun around getting dizzy as possible, falling on the grass laughing. Boys loved to catch Junebugs and chase us girls so they could put a Junebug down the back of our dresses. I still remember how creepy that felt.

Oh yes, we wore dresses. Not only to Church, but for all occasions. My dresses were hand-made by Mama; they all had a bow that tied in back. When I was very young, many of my dresses were made from print chicken-feed sacks, and once I asked Mama to make me some panties to match from the same material. She did, but they were rather itchy, so I didn’t wear them much.

And now for a another real oldie, I give you a picture taken at a Gospel tent meeting my grandparents attended with their brood; Mother dated it as 1928. I hated that she marked on the front of the picture when I first saw it, but that bothers me less, as time goes on.

My motorcycle DVD

After hours of frustration and much waiting and watching, I successfully put together a DVD consisting of digital pictures I've taken of our motorcycle adventures over the past two years. I'm fairly well satisfied with the music I chose to go with it. It lasts for forty-five minutes.

Watching it and listening to it on TV was almost like going on an actual motorcycle ride. I'm so glad for digital cameras, because back when film had to be developed, I just didn't take many pictures.

Who knows, we may get another Goldwing. Or not.

But I'm glad I at least have the memories.

And now I know how to make DVDs of photos, which may be a handy skill to have. I doubt I'll do another forty-five minute one, though. I am not a patient person.

My latest project

Thanks to digital cameras, I have taken literally hundreds of pictures during our motorcycle adventures.

Using Windows Movie Maker, I'm in the process of compiling the best ones and putting them in order on a DVD, for memories.

It will tell the story of how we got the fever for a Gold Wing from start to finish.

I'm pondering on what music to use as a background sound. I hesitate to choose the obvious "Motorcycle Song" by Arlo Guthrie, because it's seven minutes long and tends to grate on the nerves after awhile. Perhaps I'll use several shorter tunes, depending on how long the DVD turns out to be.

I even have a video I made once of one of our trips to Subway on "Two-for-Tuesday". I may incorporate that in with the still pictures, somewhere.

It's going to take awhile. Wish me luck.