Dreams of Country Living

My grandmother’s friend whom we called “Auntie Blanche” lent us her small apartment in Laguna Beach for our honeymoon back in 1945. Only two blocks from the beach, it was an idyllic place to start our married life. Wally was back from his second tour in the Pacific war zone. This time as a fighter pilot on the carrier Ben Franklin.  Before he'd left, in his proposal to me he had said, “If I make it back from the war zone alive, will you marry me?”

Neither of us knew at the time how prophetic those words were. He was in the air over Japan when his carrier was hit by an enemy aerial attack. The decks had been loaded with fighter planes armed with bombs and ready for take-off. The enemy had picked a good time, for them. Sixty percent of the personnel aboard perished in the fiery catastrophe and The Ben had to list its way back to the States. Wally and his wing mates were ordered to land on another carrier. Their planes had to be dumped after landing, and the pilots were sent home. 

Laguna was a good place to step into married life but I was young (19) and didn’t know about post traumatic stress. Wally didn’t talk about it but losing some of his best friends and the fate of the carrier must have affected him deeply. We got married on April 25 at the Mission Inn Flyers’ Chapel in Riverside. Someone lent us a record player and we bought a stack of classical records which we played over and over in Auntie Blanche's place. We spent time at the beach too and read books aloud to each other. One was a new best seller called “The Egg and I” by Betty MacDonald. In spite of the trials of country life we read about in that book we agreed that sometime in our life ahead we’d want to have a country experience. We promised ourselves that.

Exactly thirty years later our time came. We moved onto a sixty acre ranch in Southern Oregon. The place looked like a picture from a storybook when we first laid eyes on it from the road across the river. Red farmhouse, red barn, red chicken coop, red woodshed and red workshop, nestled back from the bend in the Upper Applegate River amidst the green woods of the Siskiyou foothills. It looked like a corner of Heaven itself. 

A chapter in my only book, Claudia’s Home, tells about that. Suffice it to say the realities of country living were not totally idyllic although I felt these were worth it. Wally did not. He sadly opined, “I thought we’d just be sitting on the front porch looking out over our little spread, but you had to populate the place with chickens, ducks, a cow, a pair of sheep that turned into fifteen, and those horrid guinea hens who screech. We have to pull weeds and rocks out of the pasture, plant hay and alfalfa, and water the whole works by setting irrigation pipes.  This is definitely not the way I thought I’d be spending my retirement!”

I stood my ground though and Wally agreed to stay on. After about eight years we sold my little Paradise and moved on. We sold it for a hefty profit and that sweetened the experience for Wally but I cried as we drove out for the last time. Would I be glad to be there today? No, I guess not.

Not long after we left some friends of ours told us of their country experience too. It was to have been the fulfillment of a honeymoon dream like ours, a small ranch in Southern California, but they only lasted two years before becoming disenchanted and selling out. No one came to even look at their place until finally one day as he was painting the house an agent brought three or four clients in business suits to see the place. The lookers walked briskly through the house, glanced around at the property and said, “We’ll take it.” No dickering. Full price. When they left our friends hugged each other and yelled, “Whoopee!” Two weeks after the closing of escrow and their moving out they heard on the radio that an amusement park called Disneyland was going in there! 

Well, Betty MacDonald’s book about her country life was a huge success. We made a big profit on our ranch, and our friends escaped their bonanza. I guess country life is for pioneers. I love those books that tell about the early settlers. I love the special memories I gleaned when I washed clothes with an old-fashioned Maytag washer, hung them on the line and milked a cow for homemade churned butter. I see in my mind's eye the free range chickens, gather their eggs, the ones that don’t get hidden by a broody hen, and turn into baby chicks. 

There’s a little video about the ranch in my brain that can be played at odd moments when I review my life. In it I sit by a cozy Franklin fireplace watching snow fall on the big Sequoia tree in the front yard. I see the pond where we swam and watched little yellow ducklings follow their mama on a summer’s eve. I walk with Wally along the creek that makes a waterfall into the river. I smile when the baby lambs come out the barn door and frolic like jumping jacks. I climb the apple tree and pick enough for a pie. I get the water pot ready for fresh sweet corn on the cob. I churn the cream from Nambi my Guernsey milk cow to make the best butter in the whole wide world and lather it onto freshly baked homemade bread. I pet our little Border Collie dog when she comes in for a treat. I do countless little and large chores again and take walks through the woods and talk with wild birds and gaze at trees dripping with Spanish moss. I swing on the rope swing that sends me flying out toward the Siskiyou mountain called Old Brushy. I go to bed and hear the frogs croaking out by the pond and in the morning I look out over the land I can call mine again in memory. 

And I remember that man of mine who gave up several years of leisure to fulfill a promise we made on our honeymoon. I think the war and the ranch contributed to his demise at the age of sixty-six. It was our honeymoon promise, a dream come true, but like all dreams you never know how they’ll turn out.

Going Home, One Way or Another

Years ago I saw the insides of a computer. What would you call them? Components?  All I remember is how tiny the parts seemed, so intricate and complicated. It was hard to believe that all those delicate innards of a computer could do what they did. I could not understand it. As for the human brain and body, forget it. I’m just not the kind of a technician it takes to investigate such things, let alone carry on the development of them. It’s hard enough for me to use a computer for my own simple purposes.  

I remember my dad’s old Underwood typewriter though and in a pinch I might be able to invent one if some unnatural disaster should finish off everyone but me in this world, or if I’d be catapulted to some earth-like planet as yet uninhabited. I’d have a lot to learn and reinvent but I’d definitely know how to use the principles of the inclined plane, the hammer, gravity, the pulley, the screw driver and, of course, the wheel. 

So, what got me started on this line of thought today? The fact that I thought today was Saturday, the day my friend, Joan, is coming from St. Louis to spend a few days of her vacation with me. I’m ready for her  now and that means I have a day to twiddle my thumbs, day dream or take a nap. Or write a blog about a better world, one of peace and invention. A world like the one an old song describes in these words: “...there’s no sickness, toil or danger in that sweet land to which I go.”

And then there’s the suggestion of a land we may have come from. Was it better than this one or worse? Does this “land of woe,” as the song calls it, resemble the one we came from or the one we’re headed for? What’s our purpose in being here? Is it to take charge and create a better world or to simply let the powers that be have their way? Are we here to participate in invention or to work our way back to the recollection of a perfect world where all we needed to do was discover, employ and enjoy?

Are the vicissitudes of this world a kind of testing ground or school in which we learn by trial and error, or are they simply guideposts saying "Do Not Enter?" I’m contemplating these questions because I want to know so I can understand and act correctly. 

I think that there must be a way to get around the computers of life. Even the brain, blood and bones body may someday become antiquated, obsolete, with the discovery of a better body that could prove to be our original form.

I suspect we’ll all have to be both dreamers and workers in the new world. In this world and in our own ways I think we’re all, as the song says, “just a-goin‘ over home.”   

Vacationing At Home

In many days gone by I used to dread getting ready for company. For some reason, probably financial, I didn’t have household help then and procrastination was hard to resist. I’d say to myself, Wait until a day or so before they come or you’ll just have to do it all again. Then it never failed to be one gigantic job and I’d be still sweeping the doorstep or taking a bath right up to the doorbell’s ring.

Today is different. My elder son, Wally and his wife, Nancy, are coming from Virginia tomorrow and it just happens that Maria, my housecleaner, is scheduled for today. Maria always does a great job. Things will be spic and span. There will be family gatherings and outings and guess what? I won’t be preparing a single meal for a week! I won’t be driving people here and there or even paying for tickets to plays and art shows and other outings. Just you wait, dear readers, your day will come too when you’ll be the matriarch or patriarch of your family and will only need to think about two things, - looking your best and enjoying the company.

I’ve given away my luggage because I don’t expect to be traveling any more. I was nearly sixty before I ever set foot on another continent and made up for it by taking three or four tours abroad starting with three weeks in China when the country had only been opened up to Westerners a few years. What an out-of-this-world trip that was! I wouldn’t recognize the new China. Then I took tours in the British Isles and Europe. Always with a group, never alone. With Dr. Robby, my second husband, I took several ocean cruises, Hawaii, the Mediterranean, the Panama Canal, Mexican Pacific and the Caribbean. 

All traveling is fun and pleasant to remember, but now? Now I’m hoping to live long enough to take “virtual” tours where I can sit at home and enjoy them on a wrap-around screen that will fall from the ceiling with the push of a button. It’s not that I am lazy. Well, I confess I am lazy. No apology for that. When you’re a senior-senior you don’t need to apologize. You just wear a sweet smile and sit back to enjoy each day like a big picture show.

Being at home these days is like a vacation to me. I’ve done most of the things I might have put on a “Bucket List.” Got a bucketful of memories to last like chocolates do when you’ve learned to keep them cool and savor them slowly and sparingly. I’m no angel and my world has not always been sweetness and light, but here’s one of the many Bible citations I’ve loved on this life-trip:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life...” (Psalms 23) I looked that passage up in a Bible commentary once and it said, “Goodness and mercy are like pursuing angels, and they’ll run you down!” Gloryosky! I think they did it already!  

Land Of The Free

In America we often take freedom of religion and speech for granted. We do not worry that we’ll be punished if we’ve criticized our government leaders openly or dared to question religious practices. 

As I grew up I loved to read. I soaked up the printed page like a sponge and believed most of what I read if it sounded authoritative. Then it hit me one day like a burst of light, - I don’t have to believe this just because somebody managed to get it published! I also learned to be selective in what I read. In the college library I came across a book I’d heard of that contradicted my religion. I even started to pull it off the shelf when I said to myself, “I don’t need to read this.” And I slipped it back in.

But there came a day when I had to read another book condemning my church. I’d started dating a young man who seemed to be wise in his choices. He didn’t drink or smoke or gamble. I was curious about his religion but didn’t ask, and he didn’t ask me about mine. When things began to be serious between us I finally told him, “I am a student of Christian Science." Then quickly I said, "My grandmother was healed of frequent migraine headaches through the prayers of a C.S. practitioner. They were so severe she couldn’t eat and she was down to 85 pounds. She and Grandpa had been active in the Congregational church and it was hard to leave because their friends and the minister tried to convince them they’d be 'going to the devil.'”

This little disclosure seemed to offer him an excuse to leave on some errand, but he didn’t say anything about my announcement except, “Let’s get together and talk about this soon. If we’re going to get married it might help to be on the same page. You see, I’m a member of the Congregational church.”

The next time I saw him he came to have dinner with my grandmother and me. (I was living with her while going to college then.) After the meal Grandmother left us in the living room and retired to her bedroom. She didn’t know what was about to transpire that evening. Nor did I.

Presently my young suitor pulled out a book and handed it to me. “I got this from my minister,” he said.

 I must have winced when I read the title, “The Non-Sense of Christian Science,” but I opened it and began to read. Soon I could see that it was mostly a compilation of citations removed from the textbook of Christian Science, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Each citation had been taken out of context and made to look ridiculous. 

That’s when I went to get my copy of the textbook to show him how important it is to put the citations into their context in order to see the rationality of them. We spent hours sitting on the sofa going through his book and mine. He was not convinced by my book and I was not convinced by his. Soon after we went our separate ways. 

Now I don’t believe two people can’t marry if they’re not adherents of the same religion. I have some good friends who have had a good marriage even though he is a minister of an orthodox church and she is an active member of The Christian Science church. The children were exposed to both churches early on and their daughter chose to attend the C.S. Sunday school while the son chose his father’s church. What has held them all together? Love, no doubt, and the allowance for each member of the family to believe as his or her conscience dictates. This little family didn’t quarrel over differences, they were too busy living their similarities.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all do that? If we could agree that divine Love is, even now, working out the truth of things we could wisely let Love solve our differences or live with them peaceably. So, what should we do about glaring errors such as the stoning of people, the execution of those who do not believe our way? What should we do when someone chooses to rely on prayer, not to go to a doctor, and he subsequently dies? 

I believe that prayer should be our first resort, but I also believe anyone else should be free to choose his or her first resort. Humanity has made some significant headway in human behavior but it has a long way to go. As for the latter instance where one chooses to rely on prayer instead of medical means we might, in fairness, explore the instances where healing has resulted through prayer, even when these cases have been given up by the medical profession. This was true of my grandmother when nothing the doctors could do for her helped and, after her healing through prayer suffered not even one headache, even slightly, the rest of her 90 years. 

As I thought about this today, this Independence Day of 2014, and of the freedoms we enjoy in this country, I can’t help remembering too that our founding fathers were, for the most part, God-fearing men. It is heartwarming to me to see on our currency a reminder, “In God We Trust.” The separation of church and state protects religious freedom but does not mean our country is godless. Atheists are free to preach but should they succeed in stripping all mention of God in the halls of government we shall no longer be the land of the free. 

A little flag is waving by my front door and I’ll soon be going to a 4th of July party. It’s no doubt good that fire crackers have been outlawed but I’m glad I can remember the smell of them. As a child I thought this was my favorite holiday. Now? Christmas, then New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, of course, to name a few. No country’s government is 100% good but I’m glad to have a day to remember the beginnings of the U.S.A., and pray that there will be no ending to this land of the free!

Happy 4th of July!

Trying To Understand

I can’t tell you how the heavens and our Earth were formed. I have read, of course, about several theories scientists agree on at present, one which is known as the Big Bang. I hesitate to argue with anyone about it. Why? Because I simply don’t understand it. I do find it hard though to believe that something comes from nothing. To me, that’s like saying there can be an effect without a cause, ideas without a mind. 

Things like that are interesting to consider, ponder, discuss and wonder about, but I doubt that the absolute truth of the universe will be secured by a number of human minds and brains any more than a colony of ants could hope to define the Eiffel Tower by the consensus of their tiny brains, if they even have brains.

As long as we mortals think we have our own little minds we’ll come up with our own little answers. If, however, there is one infinite Mind and we’re able to lock into it, think what we may have a chance to understand! 

So, what triggered this post? I’ll tell you what. It was Facebook. The virtues and vices of Facebook can be argued. I got on it with the recommendation of my kids and can say I enjoy it up to a point. Keeping in touch with friends and family that way is good. Pictures are good too, if all of that time can’t be put to better use. 

What I find offensive, however, is the use of Facebook for initiating arguments over politics, religion, (or the denial of religion) and personal conflicting opinions. Not that there shouldn’t be a place for these. I’m not one to forbid certain subjects such as the old warning to avoid discussing politics, religion and women. The cardinal rules in pursuing these subjects, however, should, in my book, be respect, courtesy, charity and humility. Maybe someone should start a companion to Facebook for more serious discussion. Could it be called “Thinkbook?” It could even help to end wars and bring about world peace if used to understand, if not agree with, beliefs different from our own. 

In the meantime wouldn’t it be refreshing if there were no put-downs or shout-outs? The simple fact is that what is true will survive and what is false will not. That is inevitable. Nothing we say or believe will alter that. The more understanding of one another’s views and less judgmental arguments against them could use a formula we find as plain as the nose on our faces: 

two eyes, two ears and one mouth. 

Oh, and an honest and loving heart big enough to embrace everyone’s better self. ♡

A Morning Lost?

Not often do I admit to a stomach ache. One reason is I hardly ever have one, but this morning I had to call my friend and say I couldn’t go with her to shop and have lunch as we’d planned. “I’m not feeling well,” I said. It was OK. She had others to keep her company and I could stay home and get over whatever was bothering me.

I don’t look for causes like “Was it something I ate?” I’ve learned to give physical problems as little thought as possible and focus on mental solutions. So I made myself a place with pillows on the sofa and let my canary sing and play in his cage in the window. I would be amused by his songs and antics. That should help to free my thought.

The gardeners were busy keeping the grounds lovely and the noise of their mowers and trimmers came in through the open windows. I sometimes wish they still used old fashioned lawn mowers. You know, the kind they’d push and the blades would make an almost musical sound. Music. Yes, I would turn on the I-Tunes on my computer. Some old romantic songs like “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places...” 

Why is it so many of those old songs make you cry? They got me to thinking again of a young couple I know who are breaking up. I love them both and hoped so much for their happiness but it just isn’t working out for them. I thought of that scenario going on all over the world. Over and over. The music made me blue. It gave me a heartache. I switched it off.

As I sank back into the sofa I remembered a childhood experience of mine. It was puppy love, that’s true, but even at the age of seven I was smitten.  The boy was a handsome high school fellow who noticed me and smiled as he walked past me in the downstairs hall. The upstairs classes were for junior high and high school kids but they had to pass our lower school class rooms to enter or leave the school.

I’d see this fellow now and then and he always had a word to say, a smile. For me! I got to looking for him, even following him around as he walked with his friends downtown past the old courthouse and the grandstand in the park. His friends started teasing him about me but that only made me feel more special. “She’s cute!” they’d say, poking him in the ribs, “but aren’t you robbing the cradle?”

One day I waited, sitting on the bottom step during lunch hour, for him to come back. When he did I started to follow him upstairs. That was against the rules and his friends teased him more. “Look, she’s tagging behind you!” Then he turned suddenly and with glaring eyes and loud voice he called out, “Stop! Why don’t you get lost?”

I was instantly stunned, shot right in my heart, but as I retreated to my classroom I would not let myself cry. I sat there alone before the bell rang and I made a choice. I would never follow him again. I would never look for him or even at him again. I would put him out of my mind altogether. It was a wise decision for one so young but it was also cold and calculating. And I kept true to my word. Soon it was easy.

That little episode as a child may have robbed me of some element of romance throughout my life. I never was tempted to give in to a needy kind of love. My idea of super romantic love I enjoyed in movies but not in real life. Mine was a careful kind of love. I used my head as well as my heart and that worked for me. That’s why I worried about those two young lovers I spoke of. They needed each other, and I wanted so much to see them happy. That hasn’t happened and probably won’t.

As I rested on the sofa with thoughts like this running through my head I made another decision. The problems of those young people had made me sad for a long time and I needed to stop worrying about them. They will get their answers, whether they stay together or part, and I should mind my own business! I fell asleep and woke up around lunch time.The stomach ache?  It was gone. I got up and fixed myself a lunch of avocado on crackers and orange juice. I felt fine. 

Sometimes I think that we’re here on earth to learn all about love. I’ve learned quite a few lessons along the way and today I learned another. Let divine Love work out our love for others and theirs for each other. I can guarantee the one divine Love doesn’t even know heartache or indifference. But Love cares, and our love for others is nourished by this one all-embracing Love that meets all needs. By knowing this I lost a heartache and a stomach ache. And my morning was not lost after all. But tonight my favorite old movie channel is not featuring a romantic movie. Oh well, I'll get along. 

Better Than Fiction?

I said something in a recent blog that now haunts me. I said that reality must be better than fiction, that the true life stories of my ancestors would move me more than any made-up story. But I just finished watching a movie that makes me wonder. I am still wiping away tears. Not because it ended sadly but because it ended perfectly, the way you would have hoped it would.  

One all time favorite of mine is Maytime with Jeanette McDonald and Nelson Eddy. Another is Waterloo Bridge with Vivian Leigh and Robert Taylor. There’s also Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I could name a few others. These films I could see over and over, and I have. Each time they work on my emotions as deeply as when I first saw them. Not many movies can do that to me. Real life can too but in real life the tears cannot so easily be wiped away.

I remember when I was seventeen or so I got a job as an usherette in the Laguna Beach movie theater. That old theater is still there but I haven’t been in it for years and I wonder if it still has a balcony inside. I wore a uniform then and the balcony was my spot. Before the doors opened they used to play music and one piece would send me into the ether. It was Holiday For Strings by David Rose. Alone in the darkened movie house I’d turn off my little flashlight and stand next to the railing while violins played their magic and sent me soaring out into my future. As if I were on a rocket ship launched into the unknown space toward my future life, I could only see the stars. I couldn’t know where I was going or what I’d come across in life, but it was wonderful beyond words to be going there accompanied by such music! 

Oh, you ask the name of the movie I watched today, the one that prompted this blog? It was Random Harvest. I can’t imagine any actors other than Greer Garson and Ronald Coleman who could have made it more real or brought me to real tears. 

And here is another question: Who’s to say what is really real anyway? In some dimension, if it lasts, I suppose even fiction is real.