WAY BACK WHEN

I picked up a few limbs that were blown down from the huge oak tree in my front yard overnight when I got up this morning. I tossed them across the road where the city truck will pick them up. We were under a tornado watch last night, but I did not hear it raining, nor the wind blowing at all. Guess I slept pretty good…better than I thought!

Later on today, I went out to Tendercare Pharmacy to get Dan’s meds. On the way back home, I had the radio tuned to the Greensboro station. Just as I was passing Lee’s Chinese Restaurant, Chubby Checker began singing ‘Come on baby, let’s do the twist’ and I was instantly transported back in time.

When I was a little kid back in the 60’s, our Movie Theater was the building that now houses Lee’s restaurant. Back in the day, they use to play music before the show on Saturdays and you could dance… if you dared! ‘The Twist’ was one of those songs that played and we would get out there in our socks and twist our little 7 and 8 year old booties off! The Twist was the dance back then and we thought we were something!

Isn’t it amazing that the songs of our youth, the songs of the 50’ and 60’s, are still being played and even enjoyed by our own children and grandchildren? I truly believe that there was something special about that era….Oh sure, we had our problems back then. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis and the drills we had at school? But those times sure seemed to be  so much lighter and brighter than now….

Or maybe it is just by looking back that we can actually see it clearly for what it was…an age of innocence.

Back in the 50’s/ 60’s people had only one TV, if they were lucky and that one TV only picked up two or three channels! You used an antenna that was attached to a tall metal pole stuck in the ground outside the window where the TV was. Some had it way up on top of the roof and the picture was still grainy and fuzzy. You were constantly going outside to turn that antenna, hoping to pick up a better signal.  Now days we have a TV in every room with hundreds of crystal clear channels on each one and the TV antennas are a thing of the past.

Some folks still had outdoor toilets and a well in the yard for their water back then. Our well went dry out on Horseshoe Bend, so daddy had to haul water in milk cans from the dairy near by. How we got by on those few milk cans of water..how my mama managed to make it all work out, what with all us children, day by day…is beyond me.

The refrigerators were small and the ice box was just that, a tiny box in the top, with just room enough to put two metal ice trays in. Great clunks of ice would form around it and you had to defrost that little freezer by hand.

Danny and I had one of those refrigerators when we married. If I close my eyes, I can still see it. I was sitting here thinking back and wondering what I did with my meat.. If I had no room for it in that little bitty freezer, where did I keep it?  It soon dawned on me that I didn't cook meat at every meal, but usually only once a week. We mostly lived on beans and potatoes or beans and rice! We did have some fried salt fatback every now and then though.

The washers had wringers and the dryers were outdoor clothes lines. Baby diapers were made of cloth and you sure didn’t throw them away. You rinsed the soiled ones out and then you washed them…preferably in Ivory Snow or Dreft.

For my first baby, Dan, Danny’s Big Mama made me about two or three dozen diapers out of mill cloth..She also made the first sheets for our old iron double bed out of that mill cloth.  I can remember hanging up Dan's diapers in the hot summer mornings and by the time I got the last one out, the first one would be dry. In the winter time, you really didn’t need clothes pins, because those cloth diapers usually froze right to the line when the weather was freezing cold. If the wind was blowing, it would sting when they slapped you in the face! But you know what? I can still remember the sweet smell of those baby diapers when I took them off that clothes line and folded  them for my babies, because I would stick my nose to them and breathe deeply…

Oh, they always smelled so good and  fresh.

You know, it seems to me that it’s not what you have, but rather what you make of what you have, that helps you to be happy and content.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Years ago, some of us who wrote in AOL JOURNALS were asked to take part in honoring those who were killed during the 911 terrorist attack on The United States of America…

You chose a name and then you found out what you could about their lives and you wrote about them… so that they would not be forgotten.

As long as I can , I will continue to republish this each year.

So that Margaret Seeliger will not be forgotten…….

           

It was a beautiful morning,with bright, clear blue skies as Margaret Seeliger and her husband Bruce left their Manhattan apartment and stood in line to vote in New York's primary election. It was a sunny day with all the airports reporting 100% visibility. After voting, they would have walked on toward work together as usual, but Bruce had a doctor's appointment.

So this morning, they kissed goodbye at the corner of 76th Street and Third Avenue. Bruce stood watching as Margaret boarded the train that would take her to her job and unknowingly, to her fate. You see, only thirty-four years old, Margaret Seeliger was employed as Head of the Student Health Division of Anon Insurance.

Which happened to be located on the 100th floor at 2 World Trade Center in New York.

Margaret had boundless energy, and lived her life to the fullest. She felt and often stated that "you never know how long you have here on this earth" , so she was always busy. Many of her weekends were spent in Buffalo visiting with her mom, who had fallen victim to Alzheimer's. Margaret was a very important part of her mom's care, attending to even the smallest details for her.

Since her mother was no longer able to do so, Margaret had taken over the role of being "Grandma" to her 11 nieces and nephews. She and her husband Bruce were constantly traveling to soccer games, or school plays in Rochester, California, Philadelphia and Atlanta, Georgia. Looking so much like her own mom, the children had even began calling her "Grandma".

On some weekends, she and Bruce would catch a flight to Atlanta to visit with her sister Beth and her three children. It was on one of those last visits that Margaret asked Beth to hold on to the crib and baby clothes that she had in her basement...secretly confiding that she wanted to start trying to get pregnant that November.

November never came for Margaret.

On that bright and beautiful morning of September 11, 2001, Bin Laden ordered an attack on AMERICA, killing thousands of innocent people as planes crashed into the the Pentagon, an open field and… The World Trade Center Towers.

           

Where Margaret worked.

I can not imagine the fear and the panic that had to be running rampant through the buildings as people tried to flee to safety, but Margaret Seeliger bravely gave up her space on the last over crowded elevator that would leave the 100th floor of 2 World Trade Center… So that two of her colleagues could make it out.

MARGARET SEELIGER DIED A TRUE HERO.

So, Bin Laden…

MAY YOU FOREVER ROT IN THE HELL THAT WE HAVE SENT YOU TO.

YOU DESTROYED OUR TOWERS, YOU MURDERED OUR PEOPLE, BUT YOU DID NOT DETROY THAT WHICH HAS ALWAYS MADE AMERICA THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD…

LOVE, COMPASSION, LOYALTY, BRAVERY…

AND OUR BELIEF IN THE ONE AND ONLY TRUE GOD.

God bless you Margaret Seeliger and May Our Almighty God rest your soul….

May His Holy Spirit continue to bring comfort to your family and friends.

YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.

FOR WE WILL NEVER FORGET

GOD BLESS YOU ALL

            &

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

WE ARE BLESSED

             
You know, it never fails that I get a message from God when ever I am riding on a little ‘woe is me’ train of thoughts. Just when I am really digging deep into the pity ditch, and whining to myself that I have it so hard…
God will zap me!
He always does.
Always.
See, anytime that I worry about things, God reminds me of how fortunate I really am.
I worry about having a home that is falling apart. This 100 year old tin roof may leak when it rains, but hey, I’ve got a bucket!   As long as those two giant trees that hang over it stay firmly rooted in the ground and hold onto their huge limbs during the storms, me and Dan will be okay. At least I HAVE a home.
Some folks call a cardboard box a home.
I worry that I  have a car that is over 16 years old. (and  it has cost me over $500.00 in the last three weeks alone) Thank God I had a little money put back for ‘ just in case’, cause my ‘just in case’ hit all at once and left me and Dan stranded in Madison. Yesterday, I saw that the price of gas jumped 20 cents a gallon overnight at the place I get it at…but you know what? At least I HAVE a car.
Some people have to walk to get to where they are going.
I worry that groceries are high and seem to be getting higher every week that I go into the grocery store. By the time you buy a 5lb. bag of flour, a 5lb bag of sugar and a gallon of milk, you have already spent over ten dollars! Not to mention how much it cost to wash your clothes. I never thought I would live to see the day that detergent would cost as much as it does now. Then God reminds me that I have a job to make the money to buy a few groceries.
Some people don’t have a job to go to.
Some people still go to bed hungry.
I have been hungry in my life before..it’s not fun.
Getting old is no picnic either. You have aches and pains where you never even knew that you had parts. I think my bones are like cereal…they snap crackle and pop!  Just what in the heck was someone smoking when they coined the phrase, “The golden years” ?  I have yet to find those golden years. I think I will instead call them the “been there / done that, now leave me the heck alone, my bones are aching ” years. 
But then…
God reminds me that I am here with my family and loved ones, and I am able to see my little grandbabies grow, able to enjoy this beautiful world that God has created. In the words of the song;  it’s a wonderful world. How awesome that HE created all of this just for us. I see HIM in the clouds, in the trees, in the sunrises and the sunsets, in the flowers, the oceans, the rivers, the mountains and the wheat and corn fields, and in all HIS creatures… HE is here with us.
WE ARE BLESSED.
GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

STARLIGHT, STAR BRIGHT…

Starlight

Star bright…

first star

I see tonight…

wish I may

wish I might

have this wish

I wish tonight.

How many of us, back in the days of our childhood…back in those golden days of care free innocence…have said this simple little rhyme while gazing up at those twinkling bright diamonds that our Lord displays for us at night?

I did.

In the darkness of the summer nights, while watching the lightning bugs flittering here and there with their little yellow tail lights blinking on and off, on and off , listening to all the frogs and crickets calling for rain…me and my sister Sue would be sitting on the steps of our front porch. Back there on Horseshoe Bend, way out there in the Georgia pines, two little country girls would be wishing their little hearts out on that ‘first star’ they happened to see.

I sort of figured sister Sue was probably wishing to marry Ringo Starr, the drummer for the Beatles. She had such a huge crush on him back then.  I loved Paul, but I saved him for my dreams at night…I wasn’t wasting any of my wishes on something that I knew would never happen in a million years!

Sue never did tell me what she was wishing for and I didn’t blame her back then. Everybody knew that if you told your wish, that it wouldn’t come true! My wish never varied. When I saw that first little twinkling star, I would wish each and every time with all my might and holding my breath that…

I lived in a house with indoor plumbing and paint on the walls!

I SWEAR I DID! 

So I didn’t tell sister Sue my wish either. She would have laughed her tail off at me if I had. I laugh about it now too when I happen to think about it, but I do know this much…

Wishing on a star must work sometimes, because I got my wish.

It may have came years later, but by gosh that little girl on Horseshoe Bend got her wish.

The grown up me just wishes that I had been a little more specific and used a whole lot more imagination!

Hmmmm…

You know…

I think I am going to go sit out on my front porch for a little bit and look at the stars.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

Dead Things

           

Whew!!! Dan and I just got through cutting the grass and weed-eating. We got a pretty late start, but we got it done!

After we cut and trimmed our yard, we cut the old home place's yard. To do this, we put the lawn mower and weed-eater in the trunk of my car and hauled it up there. The dang mower died on us before we got halfway through, so we had to bring it back home and get the other one.

I did get the flower beds weeded though, thank goodness, before the weed eater died too. It just needs recharging.

The lawn mower, on the other hand is really, seriously…

D-E-A-D .

I noticed that the trees Amanda and Kelvin planted in the front yard are dead as door-nails! They are so dead, that they are dark brown from the bottom of the trunks to the tip top branches and look like trees you would see in horror films.

I had hoped so much that they would live. These two trees, one on each side, had lived longer than any of the others planted there since my daddy’s death.

I had hoped they would break the spell.

Back in the sixties, right after buying that little Mill Town house, my daddy planted two dogwood trees in that front yard. One on each side. They were the straightest dogwood trees you ever saw.  Bless his heart, he was always having to fuss at the grandchildren for trying to climb them or swing on the lower branches!  He watched after those trees like a mother hen watches her little biddies. He looked forward to seeing those trees blooming with their pretty milky white petals in the springtime.

My daddy was around 70 years old when he began his fight with emphysema. It was a fight that would go on for for several years. Early in 1985, he begin slowly losing the battle.

In the spring of that year, those two dogwood trees were so beautiful that every neighbor on the street were talking about them. Although weakened now by that hideous disease, Daddy would sit in his recliner, gazing at their beauty. He was so proud of them.  Everyday when I would go over there, Daddy would say, ‘Have you seen my trees?’

By the time the last few petals had hit the ground, Daddy was already too weak to leave his bed.

A little later on, in July of 1985, my daddy left this world for a far better place.

His beloved dogwood trees?

Well, they died too.

Both of them….

At the same time.

Although there have been other trees planted in that yard since, none have ever lived for very long.

Guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised today when I went up there and saw those two dead too.

Okay, enough of this…I have plenty of other work to do around here and have also got to go to town to do some errands.

I won’t get anything done sitting here reminiscing

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

Daddy

             

He didn’t have much education, but he could spell, read, and do a little arithmetic. He could write his name and do it equally well with both hands, since he was ambidextrous.

He worked two and three jobs all his life. He was a barber and had his own shop when he lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Once he left the mountains, he milked cows, plowed fields, ran a little country store, and worked in the produce section in a grocery store in town and the only hair he cut was his children’s.

He drove a school bus for the county school for over twenty years. Drove that big old yellow bus,number 13,down the dirt roads in the country, even when rain would about wash them out…and never had an accident in all those years he drove.

Back in those days, there were no free handouts, so he worked day in and day out with two hernias the size of grapefruits…one on each side of his body...until he had to have the operation. Then he went back to work way too soon, in order to put food on our table. The surgery came undone and still he worked. Everyday… at least two jobs a day, that paid little to nothing…until he retired.

He had huge bunions, and corns on both his feet and yet he stood on them all day long to make us a living. I use to watch him limp into the house after working all day and my mama pour hot water in a metal basin. I can still see him plain as day, sitting in that old wooden chair with his feet soaking in that tin basin of water. When I get off work now and my feet are tired and hurting, I think about how my poor daddy’s feet had to have hurt so much worse than mine, and it makes me ashamed of my weakness.

One of my first memories is of him rocking me to sleep, all the while singing; ‘Calico girl won’t you come out tonight…come out tonight.’ He did this every night while I was small, because I was his baby girl. ( I remember him singing, ‘You Are My Sunshine’  to my mama. )

He never had to spank us. He never had to yell. He was one of those daddy’s that could give you that look and you would sit your butt down and be quiet in a hurry…but even during those times, we had no doubt that our daddy loved us.

He loved to hunt and fish. He would take all of us kids and mama to church and drop us out and then he would go fishing, coming back for us when church was over! But, knowing this, I have no doubt that he is in Heaven. He was a good man, a God fearing man, worshipping God wherever he was.  The way Daddy saw it, he only had one day off and he could fish for our supper and worship God at the same time.

Lying in the hospital bed, the day he died, he told me he was ready to go home. I thought he meant their home in Greensboro, but later that day, he called the preacher to come. I was there when he said the sinner’s prayer with that preacher…and that night, I was there with him when he took his last breath.

No, He wasn't rich and he wasn’t a highly educated man, but he was my first and best male role model. If I tell you that you remind me of my daddy, that is the highest compliment I can give and trust me, I haven’t given it very often, because not many men can fill his shoes. When he was alive, I knew all I had to do was call him and he would be there.

Someone once said;

‘Anyone can be a Father, but it takes someone special to be a daddy.’ 

No truer words spoken…

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.