FACING BOOGER-BEARS

          

When I was little, we finally got a TV in the house and the one thing my siblings always wanted to watch on Saturdays were the scary movies…like The Werewolf , Dracula, or Frankenstein. I didn’t like those movies, in fact I hated them.  I had much rather be watching Captain Kangaroo, Mighty Mouse or the Mickey Mouse Club…. but back then, TV was still such a rarity and so very new to us, that I couldn’t not watch!

I admit though, most of the time, my little  head was up under a pillow….but I could still hear.

I use to have nightmares about Frankenstein…You remember him, right?  Back then, horror movies were like the  toys of that age and time…They let you use your imagination. You didn’t have to see all the blood and gore like they show today to be justifiably scared ….it was what you didn’t see  that terrified you.

Anyway, in my dreams it as always night, with a full moon and Frankenstein would be chasing me.  I  would  be running down the dirt road in front of our old house…running down Horseshoe Bend….or rather trying to run down it…because in my dream, my legs would be as heavy as lead, and try as I might, I could not get anywhere…In the dreams, it always felt like my feet were stuck in the Georgia mud. I would be constantly looking back over my shoulder and he would be gaining on me. Scary stuff…especially for a little 5 or 6 year old kid.  I hated having those dreams and would always wake mama up with my crying.

This went on for what seems like years…One night, I went to sleep and the same dream popped up…He was chasing me again…and I had grown tired of running…and he was gaining on me and I was so fed up with all this….

So I stopped ... I stopped running and I turned around and waited on him to get there.

Oh, I was so scared and can remember that dream like it was yesterday….I can still feel my heart beating wildly… about to burst out of my little chest….but dang it, I was fed up with running….and running … and running…and all I knew was that..

Me and my little brave self wasn’t going to run no more…

He would just have to kill me.

Funny thing was, when he got close up to me,  so close that I looked him in his face…

He disappeared.

Whew….

Now that I am grown , I occasionally find myself still running away, much the same way I did as a little child in those dreams. Oh, not from monsters per say, but from some fear or worry or loss.

So,  I have to remind myself to stop the running…to turn around and face what I am scared of.

It wasn’t easy back then and it isn’t now, but to ever find peace within ourselves….

We have to stop running, and turn around to face the booger-bears sometimes.

In order to make them disappear…

So we can get on with our lives.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

HOME COOKIN’

                     

                                  Dan and and his grandma

I don’t know what has gotten in to me…...but I am constantly thinking about FOOD!!! Not just any food…but home cooked food.

                                                   My azalea

Maybe it is the steroid pills the ER doctor put me on, once home from the hospital, or maybe it is the fact that I love to watch the Food Network channel…

Or maybe it is just the inner child in me wanting to go back to simpler times…

                         

                                  Wyatt playing on his PAPA’s boat

Times like when I was a little bitty thing out on Horseshoe Bend sitting at the kitchen table watching while my mama cooked our supper…

And yes, it was SUPPER…dinner was the meal we had a noon time.

Oh, to be able to go back to then and know what I know now.

                     

                                  Wyatt on His Papa’s boat

Now, we never had fancy food…never had much meat at all to talk of , except when Daddy killed the hogs in wintertime or on some Sunday mornings when my mama would go out the back door and get a chicken out of the yard to fry for breakfast. 

                                      

                                           Wyatt coming down slide

Come to think of it, we did eat doves, squirrels and wild rabbits. My daddy loved to hunt and fish…and since we lived just within a a couple of miles of the Oconee River, yes we did have a lot of fish too. Most times Daddy fished off the bank, but sometimes he would take his old boat. (Daddy, along with his friends, always built the wooden boats he fished out of .)

                     

                                       Our Little Will

If I close my eyes, I can see my mama getting the old oblong wooden biscuit bowl out of the white Hoosier cabinet and place it on the table. She used that bowl so many times  that the bottom was slap worn out of it, so daddy laid  a piece of tin in it. I can see her open the cloth flour bag and carefully ration out cups of the snow white flour into her old metal hand sifter. 

                 

                               Will is trying to crawl !

She didn’t use shortening. She used REX LARD…which came in a big red metal can. Then she would measure out the can milk into a glass of water… which by the  way, I have been informed that the correct name for is evaporated milk!  She didn’t use a fork, but put her hands down in the mixture and begin forming the dough.

Let me tell you, my mama could make the best biscuits and white gravy that you ever put in your mouth….

Oh my goodness…that in itself was a meal..and often times it was…for we were poor as church mice.

                    

                              Look at those baby blue eyes!

Yesterday, while at work, for some reason, I got to thinking about green beans and potatoes….cooked slowly with the ham bone that I had in my freezer simmering in them …and then I got to thinking about  squash…yellow squash, boiled and then fried down with white onions…with red juicy slices of tomatoes on the side in a little saucer…and then maybe some pork chops…battered and fried real slow, smothered fried …and I would top it off with some ice cold sweet tea….

Sounds real good doesn’t it??? 

Just thinking about it at work made me feel like I was in a wonderful dream….

Well guess what?

This is one dream of mine that is going to come true…..

It won’t be as good as my mama’s food or good as being able to sit at her table, talking to her while she cooks…

But I can promise you this…

It will be good!

Oh, and one more thing…

I went to God’s house this morning!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

JUST LOOK AROUND YOU

        

Someone asked me many, many years ago,  “How do you know for sure that there is a God?” and it took me by surprise, because I had never before really ever given it a thought…

I had just always known in my heart and soul that God existed.

It was late spring or early summer way back in 1969 0r so…back in the dark days of the Viet Nam War when all our young men were leaving home for that hell on earth…some never to return. So I guess it was only natural for the thought to surface. I was a teenager back then and out on a date with the person who had asked the question.

At the time…we were riding on various dirt roads out in the country. We had just crossed a beautiful little trickling stream that ran right across the road. A lot of the trees had blossoms  and there were wild flowers everywhere. The sky was Easter egg blue complete with white puffy clouds. That day, the  bright golden sunshine played hide and seek in and out of the thick forest of trees as we rode down that Georgia dirt road.

I was silently thinking of what I could say…wondering how on earth do you explain that something exists if you can’t see it. Then it came to me…just as if GOD Himself  had spoken to me….and maybe HE did…

‘YOU CAN SEE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.’

It was as if a new light had came on in my soul…I excitedly told him…“Just look around you…LOOK AROUND YOU!  Do you know anyone, any human being who could have created all this? Look at the sky…the sun…the stars and moon at night…and the wind…you can’t see the wind….but you feel it and know that it’s there…It’s like love….you can’t see love either…but you know it is there.” 

I believe I convinced him.

This has been a beautiful Sunday…

With those white puffy Cumulus clouds floating by lazily up above in the blue skies that were highlighted by golden sunshine……

It was almost like Someone had painted the scene on a giant canvas and it had taken on a life of it’s own.

I guess when you think about it enough…

Someone did.

So, after months of staying away…

I went to HIS HOUSE today so I could thank HIM…

It was about time, wasn’t it GOD?

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

A FULL DAY

Wyatt and Will were dressed so sweet Easter. They were in matching outfits! They brought them by the house before they went to Washington, so they could get their  Easter baskets I had  fixed for them and I could get a few quick pictures. I even got to throw out a dozen boiled eggs and a few candy ones in my front yard before they had to leave. Wyatt looked so funny when he saw the colored eggs in the yard! lol  He didn’t quite get the idea of placing them in his basket either….He would pick one up and yell;  “MEATBALL” and throw it as hard as he could!  (All balls are meatballs to Wyatt!)

AT MAWMAW’S :

After Amanda and Kelvin left for Washington, Dan and I went out to Sue and David’s in the country.  I love going out there. It is one of the very few places that I can feel at peace with myself.  Around 5:30 or so, Amanda and Kelvin came back  with the children and Wyatt got to hunt Easter eggs again...thanks to his Aunt Sue and Uncle David!  Jady’s children were there and after watching them for a little while, Wyatt finally stopped “throwing meatballs” and started “finding the eggs” and putting them into his basket! 

I can climb up Aunt Sue’s steps!

Here’s an egg!

          A FAMILY

He also loved playing on the trampoline! I put him on it and he kept saying , “BOUNCE MAWMAW!!” and “ AROUND, AROUND, AROUND!!!” as he ran ninety miles n hour around the mat! Jady’s twins were up there with him and sat very still letting him play! The only problem was, he didn’t want to come off! lol

There was so much good home cooked food there! I had taken homemade macaroni and cheese casserole, spiral cut ham, baked beans and chocolate éclair cake. Sue and my nieces had potato salad, strawberry pies, monkey bread,a fruit tray with vanilla yogurt...not to mention the hot dogs, pork chops and hamburgers that Chris cooked on the grill outside! Plenty to eat, plenty of Pepsi’s, Mt. Dews and sweet tea to drink…and family…what else could you want?

I got up this morning and after taking the pups for their morning walk, I brought them back and gave them all a  bath. They are so funny... so like little children when they first find out they have to have one, but afterwards, they are so happy and  run around playing doggie tag ! lol

After the baths, I decided to cut my grass. Living where I do, I have to hide my dang lawn mower spark plug in my house. I keep it with the socket wrench that I use to take it out…only this morning it wasn’t in it. So, while I was up town getting gas for the mower, I went by and bought a new plug. I got a call from Dan while I was at the bank depositing my check, telling me that he found the plug…bless his heart…but it was too late. Oh, well…got a spare now.

I have a riding mower, but after paying over 200.00 getting it worked on a couple of years ago…it accidently fell off the truck when me and Jody brought it home…After turning it back upright, I was able to ride it to the shed and park it, but when I tried to back it out of the shed later, it wouldn’t budge. Someone said the brake may be stuck…well, I don’t know beans about mowers and I have no way to get it back to the shop…so long story short…I have to push cut my grass….and let me tell you it was hot as Hades this morning…but I got it done.

Coming back around the house, I saw my car out in the street where I had parked it in order to cut the front lawn without throwing gravel on it….and I decided that after having waited all winter, it was time to wash my filthy piece of car….so I did…and it looks so much better and I swear I heard it sighing a big sigh of relief afterwards! 

When I went to get in the car to move it back to the driveway, I couldn’t get the driver’s side door open! See, a couple of months ago…Kelvin had the interior door panel pulled out when he was spraying W-D 40 in it so the “door ajar” light would go out…and I guess it messed up the ‘clips’ that hold the panel on…and when I asked him again if he could please fix them back last week, he said,“ take it to the dealer” …so I called the Ford dealer…who kindly told me it would be better to call the collision center…. which saved me a lot of money..They fixed the door within a couple of minutes! GOD Bless all of you at the collision center…there are some awfully sweet people in our town.

The collision center is right next to the car wash, so while I was out that way, I went  there and vacuumed my car out, so the only thing I need to do now is clean the windows on the inside. Speaking of the windows…the other day I tried to wash my windshield using my windshield washer and though I tried and tried , no fluid would shoot out…so I thought it was empty. I went by the dollar store and bought a new gallon of the stuff today and started to pour some in the thing….It was full! So now what’s wrong? sigh….Oh yeah…I had  to use a tree limb to hold the dang hood up cause the hydraulic things no longer work! See what I mean? It is only a piece of car… but it is all I have and I am grateful…because a piece of car is better than no car at all!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

THE GOLDEN YEARS

 

  

Back when my children were small, I would let them color the eggs for our Easter egg hunt. We had very little money, and back then the Easter egg dye kits were expensive, so I always used food coloring. It went a lot farther and to me, the colors were more vibrant.

I can still see my children…sitting at the tiny kitchen table waiting impatiently for the eggs to cool so they could dip them into the cups of colored water.  We didn’t cut our grass until after Easter, because we always hid a few eggs out in our own back yard on Easter morning for our two children and also for Jady and Charity…my nieces ( *my other children) who lived below us.

I have a pictures of Danny hiding the eggs…when he was in his twenty’s,  and the one below of him helping little Charity find some Easter eggs….Funny how simple things can become the most important things…those pictures mean the world to me now. 

After the small egg hunt in our back yard, we always loaded up in our old car and went to Grandma’s and Granddaddy’s  where they had hugs and kisses and an Easter basket waiting for them. Then on to Nanny’s and Pawpaw’s house right down the street where the whole back yard became a field of hidden eggs. 

Danny, and his brother-in-laws; Jerry and Donnie would be hiding them while we women held the children hostage in the house..which was no small feat…trust me.  There was always a PRIZE egg that was the hardest to find. Back then, it was only a couple of dollars, but you would have thought it was a fortune the way the children hunted for it.

After the kids had found the last of the eggs, everyone gathered under the carport to just relax and talk …Pawpaw ( Danny’s daddy) could be found every year, sitting on the back door steps with the salt and pepper shaker and a couple of eggs he had conned from his grandkids…this image is ingrained in my mind and probably is in all his kid’s and grandkid’s minds too.

You know, it just dawned on me…we always dressed our children up in the cutest little Easter outfits…no matter that we were just going over to Nanny’s and Pawpaw’s…or Grandma and Granddaddy's house…All of us had our children in their cute little special outfits…bought with some very hard earned money.

Being a grandmother now ( Sorry Wyatt…I mean a Mawmaw) I know now how very special that had to have been for our parents…to see all their grandchildren arriving in their Easter best…looking so innocently beautiful.

For us, times were so hard back then…

It was a time of layoffs and unemployment checks, gas lines and bald tires….

Most times we didn’t know where our next dime was coming from…

They say hind sight is twenty-twenty…

and I believe this to be true…

Because looking back…

I realize now that those weren’t the hard times we thought they were…

Instead..

they were truly

the golden years….

for all of us.

If you are lucky enough to be with family this Easter Sunday…treasure the time that you are given.

Thank You God for these precious memories….

And most of all….

Thank You….

For  the very special gift You gave to all humanity so many Easters ago…

HAPPY EASTER

      &

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

LESSONS LEARNED

Mama, me and Dorris

Some things you have to go through in life to be able to learn them. No matter how many people try to tell you before hand…you have to go through them yourself in  order to know.

Like when you are three or four years old and your mama says…‘don’t touch that wood heater…it is hot’…but the side of the heater is glowing so pretty and red…that you just have to touch it…

And you find out real quick…just what hot feels like…

Me and my mama

Or  like when she tells you that one day you are going to understand why mama always worried about you…no matter how old you are…

You have to be a mama to know what she meant.

Folks will tell you that everything will change when you lose your husband…

Danny and me.

The relationships with your children

and even the family traditions that formed your life for over thirty five years…

They too are going to  change.

We just have to learn to deal with it…

and in the mean time…

We have our friends…

People that God put here on earth to help us get by….

To comfort us when we are down…

Just like when I walked into my home this evening after work and found not one…

But two beautiful Easter cards from Tiffany and Cathy….

God bless you my friends.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.