Tech Wrecks

I wouldn’t trade my computer for a typewriter but there are times I’d like to throw it in the trash can and get something more forgiving. Security is all well and good but when it locks me out from my e-mails because of my not remembering the password I’d gladly give up the security. I know; I should have kept a copy of my passwords but after not needing them for a good length of time I just presumed I won’t ever need them again. Right now I’ll wait for someone else to help. Before long maybe Julian will be the one to unravel my dilemmas but I’ll need to wait a while for that. He’s only six months old. 

Today, this week, I’ve been mostly alone since Robin has been up in Oakland with the baby visiting Erin and Rachel, the ones who will eventually adopt him. There’s a lot to do around here since my move to a bigger villa. Boxes left to unpack. Pictures to be hung, but all I seem to be able to do safely is wash dishes, sweep the floor and so forth. I’ve gotten used to letting Robin do things and she’s been so busy with the baby I don’t push her. 

At least I can blog so here I am doing that again. The e-mails will have to wait. I remember the days when I’d need to stop and erase every typo and if I wanted to make a more excessive change, like moving a paragraph around I’d need to start over. Now all I need to do is erase the paragraph or edit it to be moved. So I don't want to do without technology, I just want it to be easier.

It’s election time and I’m stuck on watching the TV for the latest news about that. If I were a Democrat (which I’m not), I’d be for Bernie Sanders just to help him beat Hilary Clinton. I could even overlook his Socialistic ideas to do that. In fact I could subscribe to many of them, like free college tuitions and fairer tax rates. 

Life has become a waiting game for me, especially when I need to wait for technical help on my computer. I can read magazines, books, and catalogues. But it’s quiet as can be without anyone else in the house. I haven’t made any close friends here but everyone seems cordial to me. And Jenny and Jack, my granddaughter and great grandson, have been here a lot of the time to keep me company.

Tomorrow Robin is due to come home with Julian. It will be fun having them both back. I love the baby and could watch him all day. Tech problems can wait I don’t get many e-mails anymore anyway. For the time being I’ll neglect technology. It’s a wreck that can wait. 

Make Mole Hills Out Of Mountains

What are the mountains in my life? In yours? And what are the mole hills? Even these are pesky. I remember how my son, Wally, when he was a young boy went to visit his grandparents in southern Minnesota one summer and Grandpa gave him a gun to shoot gophers with. He told me later how he found a gopher hole and situated himself to wait until he saw the gopher. It didn’t take long. Little gopher’s head appeared above his hole and Wally’s gun went off. He'd hit and killed the little gopher.

Wally went back to the house and cut off the feet to take to the county office where he got money for the gopher’s feet. But he couldn’t spend that money. He had caught just a fraction of a minute’s glimpse of the little gopher’s eyes looking into his before he’d pulled the trigger and they were so innocent and pure that he wished all his life he hadn’t pulled that trigger of the gun.

I found a little sign with the words of the title of this blog on it somewhere and pasted it to my computer. It always reminds me of that incident in Wally’s life. 

Farm life is full of hard moments. We lived on a ranch in southern Oregon for eight years  and I found out this. We had inherited a flock of hens from the previous owners and I never killed one of them except, and here’s my own true confession. There was one little black hen that started eating the eggs in the nests of the chicken coop. She wouldn’t quit and  one day I grabbed her by the feet and took her squawking to the wood shed where I chopped off her head. I’ve never forgotten that. I’m sorry about it whenever I think of it. I can still hear her cries. It's the only time I’ve ever killed anything but an insect. 

There is no way to make a mole hill out of a mountain. It would be absurd to even try. But a mountain can become a mole hill And in time it can even be reduced to nothing. How? By seeing it properly through the lens of intelligence. Get off the mountain. Climb down and walk away. The farther away we get from the mountain the smaller it becomes Troubles are often reduced when we cease giving them our attention. We can walk away, we can walk around, we can make nothing of them in our own minds by replacing them with thoughts of truth and goodness. Mountains of troubles can be cast out altogether so they no longer appear even as mole hills. 

As I write this blog I am plagued with another mountain. It is a screaming baby who wouldn’t quit. Robin has complete charge of the little guy since I am not able to lift him and she is going crazy. It’s been going on all afternoon. Until now. This moment the air is quiet. The baby has quit his crying and is going to sleep, I think. Sometimes the mountain falls into the sea of tranquility. Let’s hope this has happened now.  

There's A Baby In The House

He’s five months old and his name is Julian Daniel Altman, Katie Altman’s child, but soon to be adopted by her sister, Erin and Erin’s partner Rachel. He will then call Erin “Mama” and Rachel, “Mommy.” From the time he was born until he goes to Oakland to be with Erin and Rachel he’s been in his Grandma Robin’s charge. Katie loves him dearly but can’t take care of him. The father is not able to take care of him either. 

If you knew little Julian you’d be so happy to know that Katie did not listen to the many people that thought he should be aborted. He is a darling! He belongs now to his mother’s family. All of us. And he’s such a joy! He smiles at anyone who smiles at him. Not just an obligatory smile, but a real loving smile that tugs at your heart.

Katie will be able to see him whenever she can get up to Oakland where Erin and Rachel live. She’ll be known to him as her “Tummy Mom.”  

He has another auntie who is Auntie Jenny. She has a boy of her own named Jack who is between three and four years old. The other day some children were telling about their brothers and sisters and Jack, after looking rather sad, soon brightened up and said proudly, “I have a cousin, and his name is Julian!”

In my house Julian has his own bedroom next to Grandma Robin’s bedroom. When he wakes up in the morning, Robin brings him in to my bedroom where I give him his morning bottle. From then on he’s in Robin’s care. She is so good to him and for him. She bathes him every day and he loves it. She knows just what he needs when he cries and what he doesn’t need, like being picked up constantly. But he doesn’t cry a lot. He’s a happy little guy most of the time.

For me Julian has been a lovely addition to my home. He has brought my daughter here too and she is a lovely addition to my home. We’ll miss him when he’d gone to Oakland but we’re happy he will be in the loving care of his auntie mother and her lovely partner, Rachel. They’ve been wanting to have a child but didn’t know just how best to bring that about. Julian is a godsend to them. 

No one can predict the future but I’m betting on little Julian to be a kind, loving, and successful addition to the world. I may not live long enough to see this but I’m sure it will be so. Maybe if I’m good enough I’ll get to be appointed one of his guardian angels. What a joy that will be to his Great Grandma Joy!

Great Grandpa Pulford

Of my great grandies Grandpa Pulford was my favorite because he talked to me. He told me about his childhood in England when he’d sit on the pier waiting for his father to come home. My Great great Grandfather was a seaman aboard a sailing vessel and his coming home was always a joyous time for little Thomas. He’d bring presents from the “New World” and tell them all about that magical place.

One day he took the whole family on the ship across the ocean from England to the land of America. The voyage was rough but they stayed a while in Connecticut and then headed west where he got a homestead in Minnesota from the government and began to work the land. My Great Grandpa Pulford was only eight then but when he got older he learned how to cut down trees and pull out the stumps with oxen. He had a team of six oxen and it became his business to do this for others too.

He also used his oxen to haul supplies to and from La Crosse, Wisconsin for people. Then he married Liza Reese and they began to have a family. They lived in Wykoff Minnesota. My Grandma Hahn was one of his daughters. I remember her very well. She was a Methodist and was my Sunday School teacher. I learned the books of the Bible from Grandma Hahn and read the New Testament.

We’d go to special holiday gatherings at the Pulfords where my Aunt Matie lived with Great Grandpa and Grandma Pulford in their old age. I don’t remember much about Great Grandma Eliza. Only when we came and left did I get close to her and give her an obligatory kiss. The rest of the time she was busy talking with the women in the family.

Great Grandpa Pulford would receive White Owl cigars from the men in the family and I don’t remember him without a cigar in his hand smoking it gently. After a while the menfolk would go off by themselves and talk leaving him alone. He’d sit staring into space because he was blind and I’d go over to stand beside him. He’d push his footstool over my way and invite me to sit down on it. He seemed so happy to have my company and would tell me about his childhood and their coming to the New World after he’d asked me about myself. “How old are you now, Joycie?”and what grade in school are you?”

 I learned later that his mother had met his father aboard one of the sailing ships belonging to her father when she was on a voyage with her mother. They were secretly married by the Captain of the ship much to the displeasure of her parents when they found it out. When she would not hear of getting divorced or having the marriage annulled they threatened to disown her and she would not receive any inheritance. This didn’t change her mind and she left home to live with her husband. They had several children. Grandpa Pulford was their youngest boy.

He told me about the time he ran away from home to join the Union Army during the Civil War. He had not gotten far however before a neighbor picked him up in his wagon and talked him out of it. “You are leaving you mother when she and your father need you

so much?” His older brothers had all gone to war and there was no one to help the father at home but him. The neighbor then turned the wagon around and took him home.

Grandpa Pulford always looked so nice at these family gatherings. He wore high buttoned shoes, a suit with a vest, a white shirt and bow tie. His hair and beard were white and always well combed.I loved him and always sat beside him watching him look out into space and puff on his cigar. He passed away sometime when I was still quite young and I missed him so much. 

Thank You, Honey

I’m a lucky mom. I’ve had my loving, willing daughter beside me for some time now. I’d reached the point where I thought it was nearly over for me on this earth. But my daughter, Robin, jumped to my rescue, making things easier for me. I gave her my car in exchange for her driving me wherever I need to go.She helped me find local transportation in a GoGo. I bought a new recliner chair, a walker, and settled down to what seemed the inevitable, a gradual giving in to my demise.

But it didn’t happen and I’m still plugging along with her help. She stays with me round the clock one day and leaves the next day to be with her significant other. She puts on my socks, helps me with sleeves, takes me everywhere she goes on my days and says she loves the life style this has brought her. Every little thing she does for me I say, “Thank you, Honey.” It seems to me that I say it a thousand times a day. 

So is getting older still getting better now? Well. I’m not able to do everything I used to do. Sometimes I need help getting up and out of a chair. I can’t put on my socks or shoes by myself. But everything I can’t do Robin will do for me. She’s cheerful and fun to be with and so in many ways life is getting better. I have little or no pain and am still of a sound mind. But because of my limitations I wonder if others think I’m getting better. I think not. That’s why I haven’t written in my blog for some time. But I’ve changed my mind about my demise. I don’t think it will come soon. I try not to think about that at all.

I’ve moved  to a larger place at The Willows and moving is never easy but there again Robin has done most of the work. Not only that, she has taken over the care of baby Julian, her grandchild, Katie’s child, full time. He is a sweetheart and it’s fun for me to see him so much, He is now nearly five months old and has his own bedroom here, but soon his Auntie Erin and her partner, Rachel, will adopt him. They live in Oakland, CA so we won’t be seeing him very often. But we’re all happy he will have a good home and upbringing. Katie isn’t able to do it but she’s happy to see her sister take over so he can stay in the family.

As for me, I hope to keep going for a while yet so my blogs will be be going along too. It’s a strange feeling for me to have passed my 90th birthday. Getting older is getting better still, I think, but it’s different. I have a lot of things to do like writing all I know about my ancestors for the kids. You may get in on these chapters too. 

In a movie we saw recently about older people going to a hotel in India to spend their final years one of them says, “Getting older is not for sissies.” I’m finding this out and I expect most of my readers will too. The hardest part is getting better the older we get. 

Missing Chapters In Our Books

If you’ve lived long enough likely you can look back on your life and see where there are missing chapters. My missing chapter began when I was nineteen and said yes to a young Marine fighter pilot. Although I was only half way to a bachelor’s degree in college this fellow held all the credentials I needed for a husband and he was tired of being a bachelor. He’d been looking for a woman to remedy that and, outside of my youth, (he was five and a half years older) I fit the bill. He just had to win me. 

Wallace (Wally to family and friends) had grown up in Minneapolis next door to my grandparents, the Darlings, and only two blocks from my mother and father and me. But my family moved to the southern part of the state when I was five. The picture of Wally had been on Grandmother’s fireplace mantel in her little adobe Riverside California home when I’d arrived to live with her and go to the community college nearby. 

I knew what I wanted to do. I would get married, have children and live happily ever after. In the meantime? I liked school, I loved my grandmother, and those two years would probably open up a path to my future. A degree in art? A model? A military career? It was all a blank. The military career was possible. I could enlist to become a WAVE or a WAC or marry a military man. But first I wanted to get started on a college degree. 

The picture of that handsome young smiling cadet on Grandma’s mantel? He looked cocky and fun-loving. “Who is he, Grandma?” I asked on my first walk-through of her house. “Oh, that’s Wally Wethe. I’ve known him since he was a little boy of about eight. His family lived next door to us and sometimes your grandfather and I took care of him and his brother, Alan, when their parents went out. Now he’s been overseas in a place called Guadalcanal for nearly two years fighting in the war. I started writing to him and he seems to like getting my letters. Anybody’s letters. People write to the boys in the service just to cheer them up you know.”

Before long Grandma got a letter from this young man. “I told him you would be coming to live with me,” she said, “and when she got ready to seal her letter back she'd asked, “Would you like to add a note?” Of course I did and before long he wrote back. “You may know by now,” he said,”that I have a sister too. Her name is Carolyn and she’s about your age. My family moved out to Los Angeles when the war started and Dad works in an aircraft factory. He missed World War I and is too old now for this one so it’s a way he can contribute to the war effort. Alan is out here fighting too but I can’t say where. He’s a Marine sergeant.”

And so after about another year Wally’s tour of duty in the South Pacific was over and he and his family came to visit us. We went to a park and Wally took Carolyn and me out for a boat ride on the lake. It was fun. I liked him and his sister but we didn’t get together again soon. We sort of went our separate ways. The letters stopped. I was busy trying to keep up my grade A standing in school. Wally was stationed somewhere north of L.A. Carolyn was with her folks and in her senior year of high school.

I'd had a boyfriend in high school who was in the Army then and I wrote to him, but things hadn't got serious between us.  Harry was a musician and played the trumpet. I could see myself marrying him someday but my dad had said, '"Don't marry a musician. You'll always be poor." Then one of my schoolmates introduced me to her brother one day. He was handsome, a Merchant Marine, home on leave. “I saw your picture in the paper,” he said. “The one where you had been chosen pin-up girl for Battery C out at March Air Force base. I told Sis she’d have to introduce us to each other. He gave me a flirtatious smile and added, “Will you be willing to go out with me sometime?”

That’s how I eventually got engaged to Richy Thompson. But the engagememt only lasted two weeks. “I’m sorry,” I wrote in the note I sent to him with the ring he’d given me, “we’re not meant for each other.” Richy, I could see, was only after me for one more conquest. Then he’d go on to someone else and I knew it. So did he. The ring had fooled me. I wondered how many girls had been enticed to give up their virginity to this smooth operator. Maybe I was not the first to wear that ring. Maybe it wasn't even a real diamond, but I didn't get it appraised. Don't get the cart before the horse, I told myself. I'd go back to my original plans and wait until I was at least 23 to even think about marrying someone.

Not long after that Wally’s sister, Carolyn, came down to visit Grandma and me at a little cottage she’d rented in Laguna Beach for summer vacation. When Carolyn went home she told her family about my brief engagement. “What? Joyce is old enough to have a guy ask her to marry him?” Wally was surprised.

“I had put you in the kid sister category,” he told me years later. “And I thought of you as a big brother type,” I said. 

“I was never very good at dating,” Wally confessed. “I was always too shy to ask a girl out. At an age where most guys were dating seriously I was fighting a war. Whenever I got stateside I’d admire one and try to work up the courage to ask her out, but then I’d see her with some sleazy guy and before long she’d look sleazy too. Besides, I liked flying and kept busy. But then some of my buddies were getting married and invited us bachelors over for dinner.  It wasn’t long before the four walls of my room in the Bachelor Officers Quarters began to look pretty dull. I wanted to get married and still I couldn’t break the ice to even ask a girl out.”

Then he told me how one of his fellow pilots was a charmer with women. “He and I decided to go up to San Francisco on a five day leave we’d been given. He told me he’d show me how get started with women. Well, we covered every bar in the city but darn if the angels must have been looking after me. Even he didn’t find anyone, let alone me. We decided to give it up and go back. I went to my folks’ house and after telling Mom about it she said, 'That’s funny. I got a call from Mrs. Darling just yesterday and she asked me if either you or Alan had ever thought of dating Joyce. I told her I’d ask you.' 

“Well, when you answered the door the next day you had a big smile on your face and I said to myself then, ‘You’re crazy! You don’t go to bars to find a wife! This may be the kid sister-girl next door type but we have a lot in common. Same church. Good families. And that’s when I started coming down every other weekend to take you up to L.A. I had plenty of money saved up from when I was overseas fighting a war and couldn’t spend it. So, well, we had a good courtship didn’t we?”

“We sure did!” I said. “Gardenia corsages every time, dinner at a new and fancy restaurant along Sunset Strip, then a stage play or symphony concert. I couldn’t say no to you when you proposed. You were too good a catch!” But that little word “Yes” to your proposal closed the door on the chapter most women have when they finish college and get a job or embark on a career. We actually fell in love on our honeymoon. I knew I was going to miss my chapter of single-hood but I never regretted my choice. 

The wedding had been sweet. It took place in the Flyers' Chapel at the Mission Inn. Our honeymoon was thirty days in Laguna Beach. And the 40 years of marriage? Like any marriage ours had its bumpy places. I had to learn how to cook but soon I felt comfortable enough about that to invite other of Wally’s Marine married couple friends over and our forty years together were so good I didn’t seriously miss that missing chapter where I might have had a career, earned my own way in the world and maybe even made a name for myself to be proud of. 

It’s taken me this long to realize I did make a name for myself, even three names. I was Homemaker, Wife, and Mother of Three. Our lives were pillar to post but we loved it. The other chapters of my book didn't need that missing one. In my advanced years I’ve lived alone, twelve years after Wally and nearly ten years after Robby, my second good marriage. Nowadays I’m a mom, mother in law, grandma to seven, stepmom to three, and great grandma to five little ones. I live in as lovely a place as I’d ever want and I’m learning a lot about a wider and wonderful Life. 

Sometimes I think back and wonder what might have become of me if I’d chosen different paths but the one, that missing chapter, doesn’t give me any regrets. Doggone it, I may even be living that chapter now! How about you?

"Go West!"

The legend of Johnny Appleseed, thanks in part, 

to Walt Disney, has come to children of all ages and it has planted more than apple seeds. I love the songs that made the movie come alive with lessons easy to learn. One of the songs has been teasing me lately. It’s the one that starts, “Get on the wagon going West, out to the great Unknown...Get on the wagon going West, or you’ll be left alone.”

Even the sun appears to go West and I’m thinking that the famous Christmas star led the “Wise Men from the East” westward in their search for the Messiah. So, would that mean progress leads westward literally? 

Without getting too tangled up in geography, let’s assume that the progress of mankind is symbolized by the West. In our time it would seem that progress has led to greater freedom. Tying in to the story of the prodigal son in the Bible could it also mean that the freedom to go west, even into a “far country,” can teach us through trial and error the true definition of freedom? Western society with its broad offerings of right and wrong

 often presents a wide path to destruction. It shows that happiness is lost in “riotous living,” licentiousness behavior, lawlessness and wickedness. Yet that very extremity can prove to be God’s opportunity. 

The grand awakening to a kingdom of heaven within is something we can learn of and live by. We often chafe at the restrictions of law, but experience shows us the freedom that obedience to divine law, while seemingly restrictive at first, opens onto a highway above the dangers of selfishness, ignorance, hate and the ills of error. It bridges over the catastrophes we cannot avoid with a willingness to awake to divine answers. 

The saying, “Go West, young man!” is controversial in origin, and no doubt the literal implications of betterment can be argued, but I’m going to see what I can glean from the idea of a westward way. We could literally avoid the night if we did not stop in our western path. What does it mean to “Go West?” Are we following the Star of Bethlehem, the promise of a birth of our own divinity, preceded by that of the prophets of old and Christ Jesus, or the lure of the fool’s gold of our own selfish desires? 

When I weary of how the world seems to be going according to today’s media, I can only try to figure it all out with the help of the wise men and women of all ages. It’s good to believe that the kingdom of Heaven is within us as Christ Jesus declared. In the lives of most of the survivors of old age I’d like to know we can rise above any circumstance with that promise and “get on the wagon,” West, East? Or within? 

So, when that old demon calling itself death stalks me with questions like when, where and how? I say, “I have no time for you! I’m on the wagon going West! You can just stay in the ditch!” 

Of course, like Johnny Appleseed, I’ve got to see what good I have to plant along the way. Seeds of Love? Truth? Compassion?  And I need to watch out for seeds of weeds like ...well, you know what I mean. Leave them in last night’s bonfire.

Day Dreaming Again of Feathers for Me?

Sometimes when I get tired of doing what I probably should be doing I turn to day dreaming. Then one of those day dreams may flag me down saying, "Blog about me!" So, I may consent and see what comes of it. What shall I write about now? The subject just came to me, as it usually does the minute I ask. But why feathers? Because if I were destined to come to earth next time in another species after my sojourn here as a human what species might I choose? I am quite sure I’d choose to be a bird.

Not a big bird but a smallish one that sings beautifully. I’d like to be a part of a community of its kind. I’d like to go to sleep at night in a tree where many others of my kind gather at twilight to exchange stories of our day and cuddle up on a branch next to others with our feathers all puffed up to shut out that day and say goodnight with a thank you to our bird-God for seeing us safely through. 

I used to watch that happen on evenings when I waited for Wally G, my Marine husband. After a day’s work he was ready to serve as a counselor at the little white chapel on the Marine base at Cherry Point, No. Carolina. That’s when he’d talk with the enlisted men and women who needed some comfort after a hard day of drills and exercises meant to toughen them for real battles to come. They were young and strong but they were barely out of boyhood and the comforts of home and family were sorely missed. Wally was good at helping them find fresh acquaintance with God and the spiritual rest and assurance needed in that rugged path they’d fallen into. He’d been through those feelings, hiding pain and needing the comfort he himself was learning to find in the Holy Bible's spiritual refuge. 

I, on the other hand, would have had a busy day myself as a mother of three, keeping house, laundering clothes, cooking, taxiing kids to music lessons, ball practices, gymnastics and such. Only a homemaker mom can know how many are the little and large tasks that confront a mother’s day. My relief often came in the form of finding a peaceful place to day dream. A few minutes would do it. That small sanctuary of time waiting in the car with the windows down gave me nothing more to do than watch the birds settle into the big tree across the path and listen to them as they exchanged accounts of their day in lively bird chirp fashion. Or were they merely jostling for places? I’d wish so much I could know! What was it that animated them so? The tree was fairly alive and jumping!

Then gradually, stories told, positions claimed, things would quiet down until only a few chirps could be heard. At last, though I couldn’t see them, I knew their little heads were being tucked under their wings because all the urgency and excitement was toning down except for those few who had to get in the last word. Then I got a taste of the meaning of serenity! What peace!

I wish I could find a tree like that again where birds gather to spend the night. I felt privileged just to be there listening and watching and feeling a-kin to the feathered flock. Maybe if I could find such a tree again the birds would tell me their secrets. What is it like being a bird? 

Tommy, my canary, has been with me for nearly five years and he hasn’t been able to tell me even though I’ve asked him over and over. But he does greet me with a special double chirp when I come home. And he talks to his image in the little cage mirror and at times even scolds that fellow. If I’ve forgotten to bring him his afternoon apple treat he lets me know with a repeated chirp that sounds increasingly demanding. 

Dogs seem to do best at communication with humans. But I don’t want to be a dog. To be honest, not even a bird. But I’d love to feel a little more a-kin to Tommy and if I could sing like him? Now that would be a feather in my cap! Somewhere in my yesteryear I heard a man at a county fair who could do that. I was so impressed! Does anyone imitate bird song nowadays? If so, why haven’t I heard them on U-Tube or anywhere? 

Time to stop day-dreaming. It’s a quiet day here in my neighborhood. What are the others doing? Maybe I’ll find out at dinner tonight. Come to think of it, the dining room where we show up at five p.m. for dinner often sounds a bit like that bird-tree. Do you think for a minute a bird might wonder what we talk about? Or ask us in bird language what it's like to be human?

In a little while I’ll be wishing I could tuck my head under my wing to shut out the evening news on TV. If only I could find a tree where the birds gather for the night, I’d gladly go there and listen to their news instead of ours. And just think of how beautiful I'd be, already dressed. in the morning  in colorful feathers that take me on a fly-by of the neighborhood! 

  

"Go West!"

The legend of Johnny Appleseed, thanks in part to Walt Disney, has come to children of all ages and it has planted more than apple seeds. I love the songs that made the movie come alive with lessons easy to learn. One of the songs has been teasing me lately. It’s the one that starts, “Get on the wagon going West, out to the great Unknown...Get on the wagon going West, or you’ll be left alone.”

Even the sun appears to go West and I’m thinking that the famous Christmas star led the “Wise Men from the East” westward in their search for the Messiah. So, would that mean progress leads westward literally? 

Without getting too tangled up in geography, let’s assume that the progress of mankind is symbolized by the West. In our time it would seem that progress has led to greater freedom. But tying in to the story of the prodigal son in the Bible, could it also mean that the freedom to go west, even into a “far country,” can teach us through trial and error the true definition of freedom? Western society with its broad offerings of right and wrong often presents a wide path to destruction. It shows that happiness is lost in “riotous living,” licentiousness behavior, lawlessness and wickedness. Yet that very extremity can prove to be God’s opportunity. 

The grand awakening to a kingdom of heaven within is something we can learn and live by. We often chafe at the restrictions of law, but experience shows us the freedom that obedience to divine law, while seemingly restrictive at first, opens onto a highway above the dangers of selfishness, ignorance, hate and the ills of error. It bridges over the catastrophes we cannot avoid with a willingness to awake to divine answers. 

The saying, “Go West, young man!” is controversial in origin, and no doubt the literal implications of betterment can be argued, but I’m going to see what I can glean from the idea of a westward way. What does it mean to “Go West?” Are we following the Star of Bethlehem, the promise of a birth of our own divinity, preceded by that of the prophets of old and Christ Jesus, or the lure of the fool’s gold of our own selfish desires? 

When I weary of how the world seems to be going according to today’s media, I can only try to figure it all out with the help of the wise men and women of all ages. It’s good to believe that the kingdom of Heaven is within us as Christ Jesus declared. In the lives of most of the survivors of old age I’d like to know we can rise above any circumstance with that promise and “get on the wagon,” West, East? Or within? 

So, when that old demon calling itself death stalks me with questions like when, where and how it may get the best of me, I say, “I have no time for you! I’m  going West! You can just stay in the ditch!” 

Of course, like Johnny Appleseed, I’ve got to see what good I have to plant along the way. Seeds of Love? Truth? Compassion?  And I need to watch out for weed seeds like ...well, you know what I mean. Let's just leave them behind in last night’s ashes of our bonfire.

My China Pig and Other Things I Love

My mother once told me I should not say I love things. “You love God and people,” she said. “You just like things.” But I’m not so sure Mother was right.

There’s a small fat china pig on four tall wire legs standing on a small table in my living room. She brings a smile to my face whenever I stop to look at her. I found her in a little out of the way shop called Hog Hollow in St. Louis County about fifteen years ago. My hubby thought me silly to spend $16. on that pig but I couldn’t help myself. She looked so whimsical and she still does. She needed a home and love. I just had to buy her.

I’ve always liked pigs and at one time I might even have considered getting one of those small sized real pigs as a pet, but I never stumbled on one. I’m afraid dear hubby would have balked big time at that idea!

My china Pig has made it through many moves since then and she’s just one of the many things in my home that gives me smiles. My real live red (really carrot-red) canary whom I named “Tommy Tucker” sings beautifully and not just for his supper as the nursery rhyme Tommy. He’s simply a happy little feathered fellow who sings for reasons of his own and his song makes me happy. 

All the things I treasure in my home, the pictures and lamps, the pillows and clocks, books and other memorabilia are more than things to me. Each has a living memory to be cherished.  I remember where and when it came into my home and now and then I take a few minutes to give each one the loving attention it deserves. I have moved too often to have kept anything that doesn’t spark a tug at my heart. Although all my things may seem like too much to the casual looker, I insist I’ll take them with me into heaven itself unless I can give them to others who will care as much. You can imagine how I feel when I step into a thrift shop where the orphaned ones dwell for a time and are crying out to be loved again! Nearly as pathetic as going into an animal shelter! 

I have no apology for loving things. They are so quietly persuasive. Of course I love people more, but people as my housemates? Not many would fit into my little nest. Still I seldom feel lonely. I have only to look around and if I find a broken heart among my souvenirs I let divine Love mend it so that it will never know it ever had been broken. 

They say “You can’t take it with you.” Not anything. I’m not so sure about that. I have a big attic in my heart’s home where I can find any number of things that aren’t here anymore. There’s my little red tricycle and my Radio Flyer wagon. My sled, my dolly that I called Flossy, my collection of children’s books, my first grade class room where I proudly claimed my first desk. The French horn I played in the high school band. The house I grew up in that stood a-top a country hill. And the wee chapel where I was married in the Riverside Mission Inn.

If you ever think life is barren, broken, gone, just sneak into your memory attic and look for all the good things you’ve ever had. They are still there. Never mind the ghosts. They can’t stand the light of love.  

The Laguna Tic Bit Me Again!

I went back in time yesterday. That’s what it feels like whenever I wind down through the canyon road that leads to the other side of the rim of foothills behind Laguna Beach. There are four houses in the Cliff section  that I’ve called my home at times ranging from 1937 through 1975. Do I wish I’d stayed in any one of them? How would my life story have read today if I had?

Well, my favorite town definitely was Laguna Beach. Even though it has kept much of its charm from my childhood days it is polished and still the same “ten miles long and six inches wide.” That is simply a geographical fact and no doubt one that has helped to keep it unique.  

“Where shall we go for lunch, Mom?” My weekly date with Robin, my daughter, hadn’t taken us to Laguna Beach in a long time so we decided quickly. Lunch at a special place is usually a part of our day.

“If I could have my pick of places I’d choose Trotter’s Bakery,” I said. 

Robin agreed. “Me too. Who could forget those ham and cheese sandwiches on rye bread we used to take to the beach? They were warm and so filled with thin slices you could hardly open your mouth wide enough to take the first bite.”

“And don’t forget the aromatic mustard and delicious giant dill pickle too!” I added. But many years ago Trotter’s had been taken over by a fancy gourmet restaurant. “It might seem traitorous, but let’s try that one,” I said. And we did. We sat right by the sidewalk with only a half partition to keep us separate from mothers with baby strollers, friendly dogs and shaggy old-timers as well as young laughing teens clad scantily and heading toward the beach. The ambiance, service by a charming young woman and superb food were great.

Afterwards we went shopping and I bought a pair of shoes that cost me what three pairs might have in my usual shops, but they promise to be easy on my feet and they’re not clunky but good looking as well. In quest of a garden watering can we ended up at the old Coast Hardware store that “has everything” we were told. I didn’t buy one but went out with a new clock, a potato masher and two paperback books about Laguna Beach in the early days.

“There’s a picture of me and my mother in this one,” I told Robin. “We’re in the crowd standing on the curb as President Franklin D. Roosevelt went through town back in July of 1938.” With the help of a magnifying glass Robin found me. “Yup, that’s you all right, Mom! You must have been about twelve then, right?”

I couldn’t decide between the books so I bought both and now I’m going to have to ration my time perusing them because, well, it’s been so long since I spent my junior high school days there I want to savor every page and picture. 

I’d gladly have lived in Laguna Beach all my life if I could have but we did land there at the end of Wally’s Marine flight career and stayed for fifteen years when our three kids were going to school. We all picked up the “Laguna tic”as the old-timers said we would. 

But had we stayed I’d have missed those eight years on our Oregon ranch, the three in our lakeside home in Bellevue Washington, the seven near Robin’s little family in Laguna Niguel after Wally G. died, the three in my old hometown of Preston, Minnesota, the eight with Robby, my second hubby, in Chesterfield, Missouri, the four in Santa Barbara after he passed, and my latest five in Laguna Hills. 

Laguna Beach now shares its first name with all the other Laguna cities that have sprung up where bare hills, strawberry fields and orange groves claimed the lands in back of the hills behind Laguna Beach. What has grown up here since those early days? Cities, suburbs, and spreading crops of skyscrapers, not to mention the labyrinth of packed freeways and an international airport. 

My little community here at The Willows is quiet and homey and lovely. I’m glad to be near my beloved Laguna Beach so I can see her, reminisce as I taste the salt air, bask by the beach and stroll her quaint streets. Through all the years she has managed to keep her charm, but golly those books I bought sure make me feel old! (But better!)

The Game of "What If?"

I don’t know if there is a game called “What If?” This little piece of mine is not meant to plagiarize the name if there is, but it sounds like it might be a fun parlor game. On the other hand, if you bother to read this you may agree that my particular “What if?” would take more time than an after dinner fun game. It’s far too serious than that. My question would be, What if Eve had not eaten of the “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and tempted Adam to do so too? Would they have become bored to death having all things handed to them on a platter? Not needing to labor either in the fields for food or in procreation to have children? Would they still be living in an old age of 6,000 and some years of relative retirement? Or might they have then eaten of the “Tree of Life?” Would they have found all children born of God?

Silly questions I suppose, but they bring to bear another question. Would it have been the loss of that thing called “free will” we think so highly of? Sure, we’d have been spared the pain of wrong choices and chance, but would it have made us practical robots of a “Lord God?” 

Knowing the world’s constant dangers and warfare, strife and terror, would we choose the better option of foregoing the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and passing it up for the tree of Life? 

In thinking about this I know my choice would be to be obedient to the Lord God’s warning. Only, I’d have to ask, “Why did you allow the good and bad tree to grow in the garden in the first place? Why did you present such a temptation to snare your children into slavery and a world of pain and short-lived pleasures? If You are the good God you’d like us to believe, why would you make life take place in a wild and dangerous wilderness? Even I am a kinder soul than to put my kids into a school where there are countless wrong options to every one right one.”

Now I’m asking myself what can I learn from this allegory which is so unlike the record of creation in the first chapter of Genesis? That God was not some tribal “lord” but a good God, a one and only God, who sees darkness as only a first impression on the “face” of creation, sort of like a cloud or mirage that presents an initial misconception needing only light to penetrate the darkness and ignorance and reveal the truth of being.

I’m thinking now that this earthly schoolroom is merely the way God, divine Truth, Life and Love encourages His children to take on more of His light in order to get through the initial "dark glass" so we can see clearly out of the “Valley of the shadow of death.” Maybe we’re like His children playing in the streets but learning in both school and home. We find here that we must daily choose the paths to take but it’s not hard when we are obedient to maps the successful pioneers have drawn for us. 

The Bible says that God rewards us for choosing His way and following it as they did. With long life will I satisfy them and show them my salvation, He promises. To me that implies that if we need more time and are given it, I’ll buy that. I’ve done my share of lagging behind. I want to be ready for the next grade in this "school." I’ve got some make-up homework to do. I’ll need a good lamp as well as my own light and plenty of extra oil because it’s beginning to look a bit dark out there!

So you won’t find me complaining about old age. There’s time for me and you too if we keep shining. Our light comes from on high but we need to do a lot of letting it be! A friend of mine, well along in years, once said to me, "These are good years to figure out the meaning of life." I agreed then and especially now.  So, get out your old rockin' chair too. Or think about it with your hands in the dishwater. When you're in the shower or saying your good night prayers. I'm finding it beats solitaire or old movies. And it keeps your mind on pleasant prospects. 

Old Rocking Chair's Got Me

What’s happened to that old-school kind of girl who used to blog? Well, she’s been taking time out for simple sitting sessions. When the days are sunny and the air is so still you can hear every bird within a block or two, then I’m beginning to see the virtue and honor of that old rocker’s company.  Along with gentle rocking comes a sort of rhythm of the universe. No need to think too hard. No need to figure things out by myself. Just relax and soak up all things that speak harmony. Declare along with the old song, “He’s got the whole world in His hands, He’s got the whole wide world in His hands. He’s got the whole world in His hands, yes, the whole world in His hands.”

I go out to the patio to give the rocker the kind of company it wants whenever the weather is pleasant. When it’s more comfortable to stay in I have another rocking chair. Whatever comes to mind that might worry me or distress me, I just do some letting go in one of my rockers. This involves exactly what it says. I don’t try to sweep the current worries, the “elephants” out of the room, I just refuse to be concerned about them. If they are things I should be concerned about I simply acknowledge that I’m willing to do what needs to be done when the time is right. Patience and promise don’t mind a little procrastination. Someone once said, “The right thing at the wrong time is no longer the right thing.” I don’t believe we need to feel guilty about things yet to be done. Just let the spirit move and when it does you’ll feel sincerely good about doing them. 

A great religious leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has said that “God rests in action.” We know He never sleeps, so He must. Ego of the right sort need not push us around and wear us out. Life is a great ride when we do the right thing at the right time. Will power is not the virtue it’s cracked up to be in my book and a good rocking chair session can inspire me to do or not to do as well as how and when to do the good thing.

So, frequent sessions with my rocking chair have been recharging me. They’ve helped me let in the light of gratitude and love and truth and I’m inspired, well on my way without pain, prodding and punishment. 

My patio rocker I bought at a small wild bird feed farm in southern Minnesota near where I grew up. The proprietor and owner was a young man whose farm served to provide him and his family a simple country life, a thriving business and contact with customers who didn’t mind traversing the winding and rugged dirt road to get there. 

When I saw the plain wooden rocking chair in his barn sales room and commented on how great it would look on my porch he said, “Try it out and see how comfortable it is. It was made by an elderly Amish fellow who constructs only one a year in his spare time.” That was in 1993 and of course I felt myself to be the one that year it was built for. I never met the crafter but can easily picture him, long white hair, long beard as well, and work-worn hands. I wonder about the others he built. Mine has been on my porch or patio ever since and is still as sturdy as new. but now it’s in need of a fresh coat of varnish or paint. As I take out times to rock in that chair I feel the time to get it refinished is not far off but am I the one to do it? We’ll see. 

The new leather rocker in the house is also used for watching television or reading. It is far less simple and, yes, even spiritual, than the weathered wooden one. The job of giving the Amish man’s chair its due may find its answer in one of my sunny sessions as I rock in tune with the angels. I’ll let you know when and how it happens. In the meantime my old rocker will never complain. It's just not in its nature to do that, and when I'm  sittin' and a-rockin' with it, even I have not a care in the world. I'd be ashamed to complain!

Always Means Forever

The song, Always, was “our song” but we almost lost it over a 60 acre ranch amidst the Siskiyou foothills of southern Oregon. Here’s the story:

It began shortly after my birth in December of 1925. My grandparents’ neighbors’ little five and a half year old boy came over to our house in Minneapolis as he often did to bring my mother some little thing from my grandmother. As usual he came up the steps of the kitchen porch. 

“Wally, Come here in the kitchen,” Mother called when she heard him knock. “I want you to meet Joycie, our brand new baby girl!” She had just lifted me out of a basin in the kitchen sink and wrapped me in a towel after a warm bath. After we married about nineteen years later, Wally always said, when people asked how we’d met for the first time, that I was naked.

(Now, just for the record, Wethe is a Norwegian name pronounced like you’d imagine it to be if it were spelled this way: Wethy. I was Mrs. Wallace Wethe for forty years.)

After Wally’s twenty-some year career as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot we lived several years in Laguna Beach and then eight years on the country place we’d promised ourselves we’d find sometime when retired from the service. 

After the first year on the ranch Wally was ready to leave. "I expected all we'd need to do was to sit on our front porch rocking chairs and enjoy the scenery," he'd said. I, on the other hand, had spent all the previous years looking forward to just such a home as Forest Gate Ranch. My heart had found home. How could we forget our promise of Always over this? The compromise that kept us there for seven more years was sharing our home with Wally’s mom and my aunt. It saved our marriage and “Always” remained our song. Then we sold our place and  moved to Bellevue, Washington. I was happy in our new home overlooking Lake Sammamish but within three years my aunt, my mother-in-law and even Wally all died! I decided to move to So. California to live near my daughter and her family. They all came up to help me pack.

Jenny, my little granddaughter, was curious. “Is this a city, Daddy?”

“No, Honey, it's a suburb, but we’ll take a day off tomorrow and drive over to Seattle. That’s a city.”

After lunch on the Space Needle the next day we wandered into a tall office building. The many floors were connected with stairs and balcony halls winding around a central  atrium. In the center on the ground floor there was a concert grand piano with an older man playing beautiful old love songs. At about the fourth level we stopped to just listen. He had paused for a few minutes but then started playing again. I said to myself, “Oh, Wally, you should be here now. This is our kind of music.” Then I suddenly realized it was not only our kind of music, it was our song, “Always!”

I looked around, half expecting to see Wally standing beside me. Instead I heard, “I’m right here, Mrs. Wethe.” (That was his only pet name for me.) 

I didn’t hear our song again for a long time but one day after my move to Orange County, there it was right where the cassette tape had stopped halfway through the last time Wally had played it! How was I to know? I hadn’t ever played that tape! 

A year or so later I decided for a change to take the freeway to work one morning. I didn’t know why. I’d slipped another tape of Wally’s into the car’s player. One of his favorites, Respighi’s Fountains of Rome. I felt so caught up in it that as it reached the climax I waved my hand over toward the passenger seat as if Wally were there sharing the moment. At that very instant a big truck passed by the window on his side and I read in giant red letters the words “ALWAYS MOVERS.”

         

I can’t remember the last time I heard our song until last night when I sat on an aisle seat in the balcony at the Laguna Beach Playhouse. As the lights dimmed I heard a slowly emerging tune. Yes, it was Always! One of Irving Berlin’s earliest compositions, “our” song! Hershey Felder gave us a one man show about the life of that remarkable song-maker, an evening of tears, laughter and music that I’ll never forget. I've come to expect hearing ALWAYS only at unexpected times. I know it is not only our song; you don’t need to tell me. Countless others have claimed it. Maybe even you?

When I lived with my grandmother and went to the college near her home she had Captain Wally Wethe’s picture on her mantle. She’d been writing to him during his two years of combat duty in the South Pacific and I met him when he got home. He came from his base nearby to visit his childhood neighbor, Mrs. Darling, and her young granddaughter, me. Weekend dates led to falling in love and a lovely wedding in The Flyers' Chapel at The Mission Inn in Riverside.You might say ours was an arranged marriage, that Grandmother picked my husband for me.  

I sometimes think Wally may have picked my second husband for me too. He'd often mentioned as we crossed the country where we'd see layers of geological strata, that he loved to fly but if he might have had more of a choice he'd have become a geologist. He never met Dr. Forbes Robertson the professor of Geology at Principia College who taught our children, or knew that this man had not fought in WWII but had contributed greatly by discovering in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic the bauxite aluminum ore that went into the airplanes he flew. I'm sure they'd have been good friends. It’s one reason why I added Robertson to the name Wethe.  But that’s a story for another day. 

A Few Good Words

Wally’s new tour of duty in the winter of 1953 took us to Glenview, Illinois. There was only one motel there then and it was definitely not first class. With two lively little boys and a dog in one small room and  weather so dismal it could dampen the spirits of an optimist like me, the task of finding a house to rent seemed overwhelming. 

We couldn’t afford to buy a house and the only rental we found was a two story weathered frame house that leaned, literally, like the Tower of Pisa. The floors were covered with worn out torn linoleum. Wally was already working at the Naval Air Station and our real estate man said, “People here usually buy. There’s hardly ever a house for rent.” 

When Sunday came along we made an effort to go to church. It would take divine help to drag me out of the mental pit I was in. And I found it, surprisingly, in the words of a little white-haired, blue-eyed lady.

“So, you’re new to our town?” she said. “Where do you live?”

“Well, in fact, we’re in the process of looking for a place but things aren't going so well,” I said.

Immediately she smiled and her sparkling blue eyes conveyed joy and confident assurance as she said, “Why, my dears, your house is looking for you!” I could have hugged her and was about to say, “It is? Where? You know of something?”

Then I realized she was merely saying that God knew where and would make it known to us soon. I was cheered by her words. The sun had come out and we found a good restaurant, had dinner, bought the Chicago newspaper and drove back to the motel. The boys spread out the comic section and Wally took the dog for a walk. When he got back he said, “I saw the manager and he gave me a message.  Someone saw the ad our real estate man put in the paper. He said it’s another country place, but you’ll like this one better." Wally pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "Here’s the address. Let’s bundle up the boys and go take a look.” 

We found the address on a mail box but could not believe the agent would have sent us there. The house was like a country estate, large and white with a long curving driveway lined with elm trees and surrounded by spacious lawns with a fruit orchard on one side and a three car garage on the other. Under the blanket of snow it looked way out of our league. The owner was waiting for us. He was short and talkative as he eyed us, openly admitting that he’d been a bookie and when the city would not let him buy lumber because of the shortage during the war he simply bought three smaller houses and moved them onto the property creating one big house by putting them together. Then his wife changed her mind and told him she didn’t want to move out of their old house after all. So it had stood empty for years. He showed us through. 

A living room with large bay windows had a baby grand piano and Oriental rug. A family room with a stone fireplace had a sofa and comfy chairs. A huge refurbished kitchen came with a breakfast room that accommodated a long table and chairs. A spacious dining room for formal dinners would be perfect for our mahogany set. The large master bedroom with a sunroom and bath along with another bedroom and bath completed the downstairs. Upstairs were three bedrooms with cedar lined closets and a bathroom. 

This house seemed just perfect for us. Even the scant furnishings would compliment our own perfectly. I knew we’d not be able to afford it but it was good to see something really nice. The rent had not been mentioned so I asked, “Mr. Connors, how much are you asking for rent?” When he answered with a figure just matching our budget I was shocked. Wally too. Then Mr. Connors added, “But I don’t want to hear about any problems. If something, say the furnace or plumbing, goes wrong, you pay to fix it. There’s a gang mower and a sit-down mower in the garage. You keep the lawn mowed.” We readily agreed!

In the two years we lived there nothing major went wrong and the gang mower was fun for Wally and the boys. The boys couldn't drive the mowers but they loved to ride on their dad's lap pretending to steer. Wally’s sister came to live with us. She had the upstairs all to herself, and got a job with an advertising firm in the city, riding the commuter train to and from work. She met the young man who became her husband and they had a beautiful wedding in the small town Presbyterian church. The reception was in our house. 

Best of all the sun room off our bedroom became a nursery for our third child, a little girl! Wally’s tour of duty was one of his best and we acquired a church family of friends with whom we had great times. The little woman who first greeted us became a dear friend and her first words, “Why, your house is looking for you!” had given one little family the lesson that whatever we need is never withheld by a God who loves us. All we have to do is hear a few good words and believe them.

Have a Happy New Year!

Leaving The Old World

Sometimes it’s hard to say goodbye to the old world, the one we know so much about. And other times we set off with a light heart eager to greet some new world. Often it may be with both sentiments. 

Like most of us who call ourselves Americans I count my forebears courageous to have left their old world for the new. They must have had gumption. I’d like to think I could someday meet up with them and listen to their stories. Wouldn’t you like that too? I wasn’t fond of history classes in school because they seemed dry and remote, unrelated to me. But just think, buried within all those tedious dates of special events, of countries and kings, wars and peacetimes, lie stories of those of our ancestors whose lives bore so heavily on ours that we would not have been quite the same without them. 

I got to thinking along these lines this morning because a considerable number of years ago I was also about to leave my old world where I’d been cozy and snug for nine months. I had my coming out party on Sunday, December 6th. The year doesn’t matter except that it put me ahead of two younger siblings, boys who were dear to me in spite of their childish teasing now and then. Because I was the only girl and the oldest, I always felt that being a girl was something special. Due to our mother’s passing as a young woman, I became a second mother to those little guys.

I’ve been deeply grateful for both the Hahn family, my father’s, and the Darling family, my mother’s, and though they were neither famous or wealthy, they were honest, God-loving, kind and caring people. They were Americans, loyal and true, who gave their children the very best they could and the kind of childhood we can all remember as nearly idyllic. 

I suppose not too many years are left for me, but I intend to make the best of them, as I have in every past year. I’d like to take the time to do more reading, study more the best books, and dig deep into that place within where Jesus said we shall find the kingdom of heaven. I don’t expect I’ll go through any “pearly gates,” and I certainly don’t expect to “burn in hell,” but day by day, both here and hereafter, I expect life to go on for me and all, eternally giving back to us all the love and dedication we have for God and man, and even ourselves. I see the road ahead as leading us in paths ever more pleasant. Old age complaints and death, cannot dampen our gratitude for the good we’ve been blessed with all our lives. Only the bad times will fade away. 

I’m glad to see each dawn as an opportunity to enjoy life where work and play are as indistinguishable to me as they are to a little child. I can hardly tell the difference, even now. 

In case I don't get to blogging again until 2015 comes along I wish you all a blessed Christmas and a New Year of getting older and better! Don’t hurry. Don't worry. Don't work so hard. Just make work be play. 

The prophet Zechariah saw his new world the way I’d like to see mine. He spoke for God when he wrote:

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets.'”

I think it won’t make much difference whether we see ourselves as old or young. We’ll all be happy at home with God and all His other children. I can see us all in those streets, sitting and telling our stories, walking with staffs in our hands, or happily playing ball on the streets!

Time To Think, Write, and Give Thanks

You haven’t found a blog by me in quite a spell. Why? It’s the usual reason, I haven’t had time to think of one. No, that’s not the answer. I’ve thought of dozens but it takes long hours to write one and my life of late has been caught up in short vacations and family visits. All good, but a writer needs to be alone to think so thoughts can spill out on a page. Some writers are able to jot down the skeletons of their ideas, put them on file and get to them later. With me it’s like fishing, I need to give the line a sharp tug when an idea nibbles or it gets away. 

Now I have a day alone to prepare creamed pearl onions and fruit salad for my contribution to tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner at Robin’s place nearby where the family will gather. It’s a tender sweet time of the year to express our gratitude but a time when we cannot ignore the empty chairs, forget the ones who have gone or couldn’t make it. 

On my family picture wall among the happy familiar faces I find a small oval frame that holds a picture symbolizing family and all that is good about this sojourn through “the valley of the shadow of death.” A small flock of sheep clustered around the feet of Jesus. The Shepherd is carrying a tiny lamb whose mother is by his side looking up. She is in the shade of the Shepherd indicating her trust.

Amidst the other sheep, but trailing close behind, I see only half of one black sheep. He is done with his straying and humbly willing to follow now in the right path and he, or she, is the closest one to the Shepherd. Way in the back one sheep is straining its neck to look ahead, making sure the Shepherd is there and still leading.

The others? I could, I suppose, identify each one as some member of my family, or even see each one as myself at different times of my life.  The face of Jesus is a picture of gentle divine Love, a symbol of his love and sacrifice in leading us home to the recognition of Heaven within and ever present. 

The family picture wall seemed the proper place for that little treasure. I found it at a flee market in Medford Oregon about thirty-six years ago and count it as one of my most precious possessions. Seems odd that it cost me only twenty-five cents!

My Dad's Horse and Cart

I barely missed those horse and buggy days, but Daddy didn’t. One of our favorite bedtime stories was the one about his first and only horse. We heard it only once.

“I was so proud to have Blue,” he said. “A boy didn’t feel like a man in those days until he got out of knee pants and had his own transportation. I’d ride her into town and everyone knew Blue. I used a bridle, of course, but I always rode bareback. She was smart and knew my commands as well as if she was human. I dare say no one felt prouder of his horse than I did my little filly.” 

“What’s a filly? Daddy?” I said.

“A filly is a small female horse. My Blue was the most spritely and beautiful of any animal I’d ever known, even though she was small.  And she was mine! I’d saved up the money to buy her with what Pa gave me for doing chores and helping him in the fields.”

Then Daddy got a dreamy look on his face as if he’d left us and was standing there admiring his little horse, not sitting at the foot of our bed.

I had to ask, “Why did you name her Blue, Daddy? Was she really blue? I never saw a blue horse!”

“Well, honey, if you’d ever seen Blue after I gave her a bath and curried her down in the sunlight you’d think she looked blue. I suppose she was actually black but I just had to name her Blue.” Then he went on, “Blue was my best pal on the farm and many’s the time Pa would have to tell me to leave her in the barnyard and get back to work. Well, I knew that Blue could run fast and when I saw they were having a cart race at the county fair that fall, I went to my savings again and bought a small cart and a harness.

I told her one day, “Blue, my girl, we’re going to practice racing this cart and we’re going to the county fair and show the whole world you’re not only beautiful, you’re the fastest little filly on the track! You’ll be famous! I knew she understood something of what I said because she whinnied and shook her head up and down just like she agreed.”

“Did she do it, Pop? Did she win the race?” My little brother Danny was sitting up on the bed then, and he was eager to get to the end of the story.

“Now hold on, son, I’ll get to that. I have to tell you first how we practiced. It took her a while to get used to the harness and cart but soon she was all right with it, though I’m sure she preferred the way I rode her bareback. We’d go to the fair grounds to practice. She’d trot so fast that people would come to watch us. They loved little Blue, but there was a problem. When she was tired she’d slow down and plop on her belly. Now if that’s not tellin’ a person she’s done runnin’ I don’t know what is!”

Daddy went on. “But I never used the whip on Blue and I wasn’t gonna either. I just sweet-talked her and then she’d get up and go again. We got farther every day.

“Well, the day of the cart race came and I was sure my little Blue would win. The starting gun spooked her some but she was off. She wasn’t used to having other horses and carts on the track either but even that seemed to spur her on. She kept right on going faster and faster until I thought the wheels might bounce loose and wreck us both, but Blue had got us way out in front and the crowd was cheering for her.”

“So, she won the race, huh Dad?” Danny bounced on the bed.

“Well sir, I was sure she’d make it ‘cause we were not far from the finish line but then Blue started to slow down. I was not about to use the whip on her, not even then. I called to her from the cart and begged her to get up and go. I called out, ‘You’re doing great, Blue! Just keep it up!’ But by then she was tired and fell onto her belly. When the other carts raced on by she just looked at them curiously as if to say, ‘What’s your hurry?’ 

“Well, I realized then that she hadn’t ever practiced racing with other horses and carts and she was simply tired. I got out of the cart and whispered in her ear. I said, ‘You did OK, Blue, my girl. Even if you didn’t make it to the finish line and lost the race, everybody here knows you could have beat them all. I’m not going to be embarrassed, I’m still proud of you!' And, you know what? When my little Blue crossed over that line slowly, the last one, the whole crowd clapped and stood up for her. We couldn’t have been more cheered if we’d really been first!”

“But weren’t you disappointed, Daddy?” I asked.

“Of course I’d rather Blue won, but still I was proud of her. She was no dummy. We should all know when it’s time to quit. Later when the vet visited our farm he took a look at Blue and said, 'Sorry to tell you this but your little filly has a heart problem. If you’d have pushed her on in that race she may well have died on the spot.'”

Daddy looked down then to where his hands were folded on his lap. I could see he was trying to hold back the tears when he finally said. “Blue didn’t last long after that. I sold the cart and never tried to win a race again. In fact, Pa had bought a brand new car, a Rio, before long. I was proud to drive that into town but you don’t love a metal animal, and I was smart enough to let the car go on its good looks. I never raced it."

Daddy added, “I wish I hadn’t raced Blue at all, but at least we were best friends and she was smarter than any horse I ever knew.” 

Then Danny said. “Well, Pop, aren’t you glad you didn’t whip her?”

Daddy looked up then and smiled at us both. When he hugged us we felt prouder of him than we’d ever have been to see him holding a blue ribbon!

No Time For Being A Stick In The Mud

I just finished cleaning out the refrigerator. It shames me to find jars and cartons with their contents gone sour and moldy. I say to myself, This isn’t me! Yet it certainly can’t be blamed on anyone else. When I finish I feel good, more like myself. 

Before I tackled the refrigerator I got caught up in Facebook and as I cleaned out the fridge I wished I could do the same with Facebook. But Facebook belongs to those who write on it and if things get too obnoxious I can learn how to “de-friend.” (Haven’t had to do that with anyone yet.) 

Some of my friends say, “I don’t do Facebook!” I can see their point, but they may not know what they have missed. For me it would mean missing pictures of where my children go on their vacations. Pictures of their children and themselves at home as well. I would probably never know much of many of my nephews and nieces and their children. Wait for letters filled with snapshots and you’re likely to wait forever. Some of my Facebook friends share stories of inspiring feats of accomplishment, like acrobats, dancers, artists, comedians, people who have overcome adversities and succeed in life. There are many amusing pictures of darling babies, young people I know, friends and the things they say and do, the places they go. Often some of my Facebook friends send me U-Tube offerings, a variety of slide shows about animals and people that entertain, inspire or make me laugh. My only problem with Facebook is that I have to watch myself or I’ll spend too much time there.

When personal controversy enters in, and really good people forget their goodness in pushing their point, then Facebook is like going through the refrigerator and finding something good that has turned bad. It’s even sad. Then I think, shall I get into the act and add fuel to the fire with my own opinions or try to be a peacemaker or just overlook it? After all, my views as an octogenarian could get me classified as a kooky old woman. My point gets pitched. So, I’ve found it best to wait and be asked for my opinion. More time to think about things and argue with myself. 

In high school I took a class in debate and one of my assignments was to argue on the side of an issue that I totally disagreed with. I think it had to do with the age young men should be drafted into military service in times of war. (No drafting of women then, only enlistments.) I only remember that this forced me to see how I could be of another mind when I looked at the topic in a different light. I won the debate even though it didn’t change my private opinion. What it did do was show me how to be understanding and respectful. I learned that one can be convincing without putting down his opponent and demoting herself at the same time. 

It’s impossible not to have opinions but it is possible to know when, where, how and if we should voice them. When I think back on my life I cringe at the way I was so sure of everything. Sometimes I allowed temper to destroy my equilibrium, squelch my case and put me in the uncomfortable seat of apology where the point I’d been making got lost because of my behavior.

So this is just another way I’ve found that getting older is getting better. I am still learning how to communicate wisely. When I feel the adrenaline rise I am learning how to button up and pray. Do you ever find yourself carrying old grudges and re-igniting them in anger? I do, and I’m always sorry for it.  I’m more open to changing my mind now, more willing to consider all sides. 

When I hear where another is coming from and see where they’re going when I give them the floor and really listen, things become clearer. 

Sometimes I wonder if God isn’t giving me more time here on earth because I need to clean out my refrigerator, rather, my suitcase of lessons un-learned before arriving at the gates of heaven. This should be a time of polishing the gemstone of my better and best self. Old age, any age, is no time for being a stick in the mud!