85 - SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Good grief!  How did I get here?……Turning 85 years old isn’t for sissies!   I’m a “wanna be” 50-year-old.  That’s right – 50-year-old!  I have no desire to go through all that hassle of hard knocks in life again.  Everybody goes through that; I don’t care what they say.  It’s a rite of passage for most every young adult.  You know the story.  We think we know everything, but we don’t have a clue.  Well, I’d just like to skip that part and be 50 years old and start from there again.    

It was somewhere around this age that I figured out I could actually do something other than cook, wash clothes, and raise a family and that it was alright to do it.  Prior to that, my entire married life had been wrapped up in the daily needs of my family, first and foremost.   Most of those years included working a job outside the home as well, so having time or energy for hobbies wasn’t an option.  The housework, going to work, ironing, polishing shoes, washing shoestrings, helping with homework, and all over again was my daily routine.   Then came the empty nest.   Who was I?

All of a sudden, I felt like a whole new world had opened up to me!  I wanted to learn how to do things that maybe I’d only thought about, or something I’d always wanted to do, but never had time.  I wanted to read more.  I wanted to volunteer and visit the elderly.  I had a real thirst for just learning, for the sheer knowledge of it.  Gardening, sewing, baking, books, art, choral music, travel, civic clubs and lots of things that I had not had an opportunity to be exposed to or participate in.  Even computers!  And the internet!  And then Google!  It was a miracle!  Life was wonderful!

Now I don’t want you to think that all this knowledge that I suddenly craved turned me into a walking encyclopedia or Queen of all things good.  Far from it!  I’m still dumb as a box of rocks and my attention span is about that of a five-year-old.  This is compounded by the fact that I was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years ago and will have to take anti-seizure medication for the rest of my life.  My claim to fame is that this medication is the whole reason I sometimes come across as somewhat goofy and therefore, it explains my occasional goofiness. But it hasn’t totally fried my brain and I still have the love for a good book, good music, beautiful flowers, antiques, especially textiles and fine needlework and exquisite silver.  I’m not an expert at anything and a master of nothing.  But I’ve managed to try just about everything on my bucket list and plan to keep trying.   

Age isn’t kind to most of us in many respects.  The miseries caused by natural processes now prohibit many of my exciting and fulfilling activities.  But I still love to learn.  I still find myself Googling words and phrases or looking for things that I hear about that I want to know more about.  My body doesn’t keep up with my mind as good as it used to.  And my mind doesn’t keep up with Google and the computer.  I don’t cook much, and my back doesn’t like to pull weeds and my fingers hurt when I sew.  My eyes don’t see as good to read, but I’m still doing my best to do all that I can.  What better way to laugh than to communicate and share funny stories with those you love!  Besides, I need to keep my smile muscles from atrophying. 

That, my friends, is what makes life worth living.  Doing something that gives you joy and creates in your mind and soul a peace and fulfillment that gives instant gratification.  Once that is gone, you lose a part of your life that is difficult to replace.  Sometimes, it is irreplaceable.    I’ve still got some living to do.  You only get to go around once.  

ENOUGH ALREADY!

Can we move on now?  Paula Deen has begged forgiveness from God and everybody in the whole world, including Matt Lauer, the hawk of  The Today Show, who kept needling her for that “gotcha” moment.  

I felt truly sorry for Paula as I watched Matt question her over and over while she tearfully tried to convince the whole world how she was raised.  I believe her.  I think she’s a good woman who loves to cook and from her past endorsements and success, I believe she’s good at what she does.  She’s not perfect.  Neither am I.  Neither are you. 

Why can’t we just leave it at that?  Enough already!  Done!  Over!  I hope Paula will leave it at that and move on.  Her actions will speak louder than her words just as they always have.

That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it!

Summertime

Ahhhhh, summertime, and the livin’ is easy.  Growing up in small town America in the late 40’s and early 50’s, nobody took a summer vacation away from home.  At least nobody I knew.  A few families did have beach houses that they either owned or rented.  Not many.   So, I really didn’t think I was deprived of anything.  The community swimming pool was open from 1:00 p.m. until about supper time and that was as close as most folks got to a vacation.

I can still smell the chlorine now!  It was sparkling clear water and the place to be on a summer day.   It would be packed with kids of all ages.  There was a small pool where Mothers would take their little ones to play.  They would chat and visit all afternoon while the little ones played until they turned blue and shivered with cold.

Most of the time, I would have to walk to the pool.  It was several blocks from where I lived and summertime in southeastern Georgia is not for sissies.  The pavement would burn your feet to a crisp and the sandspurs would send you howling to the nearest emergency room if you weren’t careful so I hated to have to walk but I didn’t have a choice.  Walk or stay home.  Those were the choices in my day.    

The girls I knew would carefully roll up their Catalina, Rose Marie Reid, or Esther Williams (these were all the rage of the day) swim suits and bathing caps in a large beach towel.  They had to be rolled just right or the whole thing would unwind and your suit would fall out.  Or worse, if you wore your suit to the pool and chose to roll up your clothes in the towel, your underwear might wiggle its way right out of that towel in front of the whole crowd at the pool.  I had that happen more than once. 

There was a grassy area near the sliding board where we would spread our towels and lay out in the sun after we had slathered ourselves with baby oil mixed with iodine.  That was supposed to give you a drop dead gorgeous tan.  It gave me a drop dead awful sunburn which peeled off in huge ugly globs of skin and left a million freckles in its place.  Just what I needed to complete my drop dead gorgeous beauty! 

Shy Boy was always there and he and the other boys would compete for who could do the most flips off the diving board, which they weren’t supposed to be doing anyway.  Then they would stand on their hands, play tag, run, jump off the diving board, and do everything possible to gain the attention of all the girls sitting on their towels getting their gorgeous tans pretending not to notice.    

There was a little store where you could buy cokes and candy and a dressing room where you could shower and change and re-roll your towel.  It didn’t matter this time how you rolled it up.   It’s getting close to supper time and the pool closes soon.  Swimming all afternoon can make you mighty hungry!

SHY BOY AND BABY BOOMER

I was always envious of my friends who had a large family.  I thought how much fun it must be to have a sister to talk to and play with.  Hand me down clothes was a big thing in my day and I was jealous of my friends who had big sisters who would give them their clothes when they outgrew them.  That sounds a little off the wall now.  Who would want hand me down clothes to begin with?   But, I guess it was the fact that I was lonely at home without a sibling. 

Living with Uncle Aubrey and not having any privacy with me sharing their bedroom must have presented some challenging moments for Momma and Daddy.  But they managed to present us with a “baby boomer” brother for me.  Of course, this event forced the evacuation of our living quarters at Uncle Aubrey’s to a brand new rental house which gave me a bedroom of my own at the age of 15.   I had some girl friends whose parents had also given birth to some “baby boomers” at that time, and some of them were not nearly so excited about their new siblings.  But let me tell you, I’ve never been so happy in my life.  That little baby boy was the most beautiful baby in the world and I took over his care as if he were my own.  He was then, and is now, a special part of my life.

Life was good.  High school was awesome.  Shy Boy was still the love of my life.  He was a handsome football player.  I was still an ugly fat girl wondering what he saw in me but happy he did.  To be a cheerleader was the ultimate goal of most high school girls in my circle of friends, especially if your boy friend played football.   It took four years of trying out before I finally got chosen.  I guess the judges felt sorry for me.   But I got myself a cheerleader sweater and skirt before I graduated high school!

Mr. Glenn, the principal, was everybody’s watchdog.  He knew your parents and you knew he knew them.  One day he called me into his office.  I was shaking and embarrassed at having been summoned, knowing it couldn’t be a good thing.  He told me that he had seen Shy Boy and me at lunch time out under the pine trees holding hands and he knew that my parents would be gravely disappointed if they knew we were engaging in such behavior.  I promised that it wouldn’t happen again.  And it didn’t.  At least not at school.  I would never do anything that would embarrass me parents or hurt them in any way.  I’m kind of quirky that way.  Oh well.   I never even played hooky for crying out loud!

Department of Common Sense

Something caught my attention today…….a picture of a billboard which said “What we need is a Department of Common Sense”.  Of course, it is frightening to think that we’ve come to that level of inadequate Government oversight and leadership that someone would actually make a joke such as this. 

I'm amazed at how uninterested the general public seems to be in what's happening in our governmental affairs.  Interestingly, many liberals have been noticeably quiet in regards to the news of the past week.   Where is the outrage?  Does this denote a lack of concern, ignorance, or agreement with the current administrations actions? 

No matter what your personal agenda is, no matter what your political aspirations are, what’s right is still right and what’s wrong is still wrong.  That’s true in your personal life and it’s true in your Government.   

I LIKE YOU - DO YOU LIKE ME?

My primary school years were mostly uneventful.  Recess was my favorite subject.  My girlfriends and I played jump rope and there was a jungle gym at school with swings and a see saw.  We all got along well and my friends were still my friends when we graduated  high school.   Those who survive remain friends today.  It was a close knit community where everyone looked after each other's children as if they were their own.  

Valentine’s Day was a special time of year.  Every year, our teacher would obtain a large hat box from a local department store and she and some of the children (usually girls) would decorate the box with special Valentine paper and cut outs of cupids and hearts.  Then when the lid was put on, there would be a slot cut in it for the cards to be put into.  On Valentine’s Day, everybody would bring their cards, put them in the box and then at the end of the school day, the teacher would pick somebody to draw the cards and give them out.  Naturally, everybody wanted to be the one who got the most cards.  That would mean you were probably the most popular girl or boy.  I never got the most cards, but I’d get a lot of cards.  I remember being worried about some of the kids in class that would only get one or two cards or no cards.  It made me feel bad.  I also felt bad for some of the kids who didn’t bring any cards to put into the box.  

School functions were well attended by parents and consisted mainly of chorus, band or short plays,  but you could count on the auditorium being full of parents and grandparents craning their necks to see their kids perform.  Christmas and Thanksgiving always held special programs and we could count on Turkey and Dressing in the Lunchroom.  The Pledge of Allegiance was a given.  Prayer was a given.  Not an option.  In class and in "chapel" as it was called.   

Now, I was a pretty homely looking kid.  Stringy, dishwater blond hair, fair skin with freckles, a crooked front tooth, and “pleasingly plump” as “Biggy” used to say.  I didn’t have a lot going for me.    When I was in the 3^rd grade, however, I happened to notice a shy boy in the 4^th grade whose brother was in my class.  The brother was not bad, but kind of a clown in class.  The shy boy was something else.  I was smitten!  This shy boy in his overalls with his long johns showing at the bottoms and half smile was about the best looking boy I’d ever seen.  I didn’t think he would ever give me a second look.  He could have any girl he wanted with his looks.  But I watched him for a year or two.      

As it turned out, Mr. Shy Boy with the long johns was watching me too.  We started passing notes in school.  You know the kind – “I like you – Do you like me?”   Then it was LT + ST and on and on.  All of a sudden, we were a “couple”.   I felt soooo special.  Here I was……this ugly, fat, “tween”, with a boyfriend to die for. 

And we were just entering eighth grade.

JACK OF ALL TRADES

Momma went to work after I started school.  She was a beautician and took pride in making women look pretty.   Now, getting a perm in your hair in those days meant getting a PERMANENT wave.  It was an electrical process with all sorts of wires and clamps and heat and stinky stuff and waiting for the exact amount of time or else you’d wind up with a scorched head of hair or worse, no hair.    Hair was rolled up with bobby pins and combed out with finger waves.  Nails were manicured and polished with precision and eyebrows were tweezed and sometimes, Momma would even give a facial to some of the ladies.  All the time they were chatting and laughing and some of the ladies were even smoking.  I remember going to the beauty shop where Momma worked many days after school trying to do my homework, but it was useless because there was just too much see and hear.  Watching and listening in a beauty shop in a small town is like being in the CIA!   You could really get the scoop there on everybody and everything.

Momma was a jack of all trades.  Sort of.  She wasn’t much of a cook, but she could cook up a pot of grits and that was always the start of a meal.  The rest of the meal just sort of fell into place.  She nearly had a heart attack once because she had to make a chocolate cake for the MYF ice cream social at church, and vowed she’d never do it again as long as she lived. 

But Momma could sew and she’d sit down in the floor with a bunch of newspapers or brown paper sacks and a pencil and draw out a pattern for me a dress. I remember her skill at making my costume for the school “Operetta” out of crepe paper.  I was the best looking fairy in the whole show!  It had a full gathered skirt, ruffled sleeves and I wore a large ruffled hat.   Boy that was something!   Then, for my very first piano recital in the 3^rd grade, Momma made my taffeta aqua evening gown, which was absolutely the prettiest evening gown in the world.  She topped it off with a corsage of pink sweetheart roses from the fence that grew out back, and I did a splendid job on my first musical solo piece.   Momma was proud. 

The next year when she got out the dress to try it on to see if it would work for my recital, it was a wee bit tight.  She told me to hold my breath and I sucked up a big breath and she yanked up the zipper.  Yikes!  She zipped up three inches of my skin in the zipper.  Needless to say, there was a whole lot of screaming going on for a few minutes while she unzipped the dress and begging me to forgive her.  I was a bit miffed.  She did let out the seams before I tried on that dress again, but I did wear it again for the recital.

I did a short stint in the Girl Scouts in the 3^rd grade.  I decided going to camp would be a great way to spend a week in the summer.  Besides, I had never been away from home without my Momma and Daddy so it was sort or a rite of passage.  It meant that I would have to join Girls Scouts but I figured I might as well give it a try.  Camp Juliette Low was in Savannah and I spent a week of misery weaving bracelets and swimming in waters infested with crocodiles and dodging spiders and snakes.  I was sitting at the gate of the camp on my suitcase waiting for Momma and Daddy on Saturday morning the last day of camp.

Since Momma worked, she had little time for washing and ironing which was all done by hand.   Down the road several blocks, in what was known then as the “Quarters” lived a black lady who washed and ironed clothes for us.  She had a bunch of little children.  I loved to go with Momma to get the clean clothes so I could see the newest baby.  Sometimes I could hold it.  I loved holding her babies. 

I remember how the clothes smelled of steam, bleach and starch.  The woman would always be ironing on the front when we came.  She had an RC Cola bottle with a sprinkler cap which she used to sprinkle the clothes.  There would be a whole bunch of them rolled up already sprinkled and ready to iron.  She washed and ironed for lots of people.  Her baby would be beside her in a crib and the other little ones around the porch playing in the dirt, chasing each other and laughing.  They’d always gather around when we’d come to get our clothes.  The house had no screens on the windows and looked just like all the others on the street.  They called them shotgun houses.  One room after another – usually just two rooms.  Momma paid her for the clean clothes and left the dirty ones.  She was happy and Momma was happy.   That was a normal way of life in those days.