“We Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”

Brisk but very pleasant weather made Center’s annual caroling outing much more comfortable than it has been in some past years. Thirteen of us gathered at the church house in the village and put together fruit bags and goody trays for shut-ins. Actually right now we have few. Some we send the treats to, but don’t sing to as they go to bed early.

Loudeen is a recovered cancer patient and looked marvelous. She insisted we come inside her lovely home because she had home-made fudge waiting for us! Her husband is in the nursing home, so she welcomed the visit. Then we traveled on down the road to Chester Turner’s farm. Chester is a community favorite, who always makes anyone visiting him feel like a million dollars. He is any thing but a shut-in, but we visit him anyway. His only child was killed in a car accident shortly after he returned from Viet Nam. His wife died a few years back. Chester remains on the farm taking care of his livestock and riding his horses and mule regularly. He will be 92 on his birthday Saturday, as one of our carolers, who is a riding buddy, informed us. So we also sang “Happy Birthday” to Chester. (The mule is 23.)

Next we went to Angel Acres out in the country from Marion to visit those living there and took a couple of baskets of goodies. (I always thought that Angel Acres was sort of sweet name for a home. However, when I reported a couple years ago that an elderly friend went there, our daughter Jeannie, who has a wry sense of humor, made certain that we knew what she thought if she were to ever be sent to a home with that name. So I guess that won’t be her choice for Gerald and me.)

The residents gathered in the living room were very welcoming, and almost everyone of them sang along with us on the carols. (One was asleep in his wheelchair in the other room.) One very sweet little lady not only sang but waved her arms and directed us on every song. I figured her physical therapist would be delighted that she got that exercise, and I wondered if she had once been a song leader. Wishing everyone a merry Christmas, we started our car caravan and headed into town to The Fountains. We enjoyed their lovely decorations and the aquarium in the lobby.

We were there to visit Robert “Pete” Cline, who is 98. Last year the group had caroled to him at his bedside there, but this year he was up and moving well in his walker. He had gained weight and looked good. His daughter and a group from her church had just entertained the entire home in the recreation room, so an attendant ushered us into a smaller kitchenette/game room, and Pete came in to visit with us.

He had lived in our village for many years, but finally he and Rhoda sold their home and moved into Marion across from a daughter’s home, where we visited and caroled. As they aged, Rhoda eventually had to be taken care of in the daughter’s home, and one year we caroled her there and then across the way to the other house to carol Pete. Then Rhoda was gone, but with the daughters’ and grandchildren’s help, Pete stayed in that comfortable home filled with pictures of grandchildren, and we caroled him each year. Now he has 24 hour care, and still has lots of attention from his children and grandkids. After he recognized some of us, we visited and introduced him to our new pastor and other newcomers before we sang, while he wiped tears from his eyes with his clean handkerchief.

Several we have caroled in the past are no longer with us, so we had only one more place to go. That was to the village of Pittsburg where Tally Taylor’s grandmother lives. She and a friend welcomed us warmly inviting us in, but we insisted on singing on the outside as we usually do at people’s homes. Her tiny white poodle came to the door with them and seemed to enjoy the singing. We enjoyed seeing him.

Back to the church house, we descended to the basement fellowship hall, where Shirley Butler as always had made the tables festive. She had assembled coffee and chocolate milk and cookies and doughnuts. We visited and contemplated that within this next year, we will be gathering in our new fellowship hall on the ground floor. Since Sunday, walls had gone up, so we all felt excitement when we arrived and saw that tonight.

Gradually our little group disbanded to get home to children or chores. Shirley dispensed remaining cookies for folks to take home to children or grandchildren. The kitchen was left clean and shiny as Shirley always does for us—with help, of course. She carried paraphernalia up the stairs to her car trunk even though she lives next door—but the church has a big lawn running down towards the creek between it and Shirley and Butch’s house. For years we had a bridge that Butch built to walk across to their place, but a storm took it down a couple of years ago. Their house faces another street around the corner.

After two or three trips to her car, Shirley also carried up the platter piled high with goodies for Jerome, another favorite who doesn’t want caroling but who always welcomes Shirley. No wonder since she takes him frequent plates from our potlucks or brings him treats from in-town restaurants that she knows he likes. Shirley is one of those unsung heroines, whose organizational abilities and artistic eye have blessed us for years as she quietly serves as our hostess.

We all felt some disquiet tonight, for one of our young men went into the hospital on Monday with a heart attack. Yesterday he had a splint put in. He is out of ICU today and back to his own room. His wife Kim is usually our caroling song leader, and their two teen sons usually join us on our travels around the community. They especially liked to visit Chester, and of course elderly people especially like to see young people. I hurried to the computer when I got home to see Kim’s latest Facebook report on Scott. We are praying his heart rhythm will convert back to normal quickly.

We left each place tonight singing, “We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.” That is also my wish for you.

Celebrating Autumn

A warm sunny Saturday afternoon saw folks sitting on the steps and picnic tables at John A. Logan College entrance. Fragrance floated from the Karmel Korn trailer, and relaxed shoppers coming and going to and from the filled parking lot were enjoying the beautiful autumn day. Bales of straw artistically topped with pumpkins, squash, and gourds set the theme for the annual fall festival of arts and crafts inside.

Writers had the opportunity to display and sell their books at the Southern Illinois Writers Guild tables in the cafeteria surrounded by booths of hand made jewelry, fluffy hand knitted hats, and almost every art form imaginable. Our newest SIWG anthology just off the press had arrived for us to sell our craft at the festival.

This eighth volume of The Writer’s Voice, produced by a commercial printer with an International Standard Book Number and to eventually be available for purchase on Amazon is a long way from the early ones we used to assemble with borrowed equipment at a local school. Editor Kathy Cotton reviewed the anthology’s history and wrote, “The product expanded from sixteen writers and fifty-something pages to thirty-eight contributors—including winners of our own national writing contest—and one hundred forty pages.” Cotton, a talented and dedicated volunteer, who is an artist and dancer in addition to being a poet, designed and formatted the book and completed it on schedule despite problems calling for a new hard drive, then a new motherboard, and finally a new laptop.

Along with the top winners in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, this year’s anthology was opened up to include offerings from the public for a special storm section about the May 8 derecho. Those eight extra contributors and photos of the storm will make this year’s book one to remember.

I enjoyed sitting beside Jim Lambert, our president, and showing people his poetry book Winds of Life, which I am very fond of. And it was fun to meet two of his grandkids who came by with his wife Sandy. Jim was busy showing off Fog Gilbert’s books on the other side of him as well as hawking our anthology. I even sold one of my books to a friend of one of my daughters.

Since there was plenty of help at our tables, I felt free to leave early—even though I had gone late. I came back to Woodsong to finish putting together a green bean casserole and some pickle dishes to go with the pecan pie I had made the day as our contribution to the annual Thanksgiving feast at our village church. Some special people had donated their time to make the hams and turkeys along with pans of delicious dressing. Shirley Butler had outdone herself with beautiful decorations making the church basement an autumnal wonderland. Others prepared our “home grown” program afterward, and we laughed and cried together.

A Blessed Easter at Woodsong

After a leisurely breakfast with the newspaper, we went to our village church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Our three little ones in our preschool classroom looked adorable. Wearing pink with ruffles and lace, Miranda explained, “Grandma made my dress.” When Miss Kim took pictures, we knew we were not the first to admire these children today, because one-year-old Caleb without prompting posed and said clearly, “Cheese!” Bobby, looking sharp in dress pants and matching vest, was all excited that Grandpa was coming to dinner. The Easter card he made was to be for his daddy and grandpa.

In the service after Bible study, many had visiting family members with them to worship as a family on this special day. Our oldest member, Zella Cain had family members filling two entire rows. And that was only half of her family, she told us. We sang, “Up From the Grave He Arose” and other traditional hymns. Deanna Odom had a special reading for us, and we sang “Happy Birthday” to Dewayne Covey, who had been looking forward to this tradition, and he had visiting cousins and aunts and uncles there to participate.

Our beloved interim pastor had a second sermon prepared—he and several had gathered earlier at the church for the sunrise service and breakfast that Gerald and I seldom make. In the early years, I would have been out on the lawn hiding eggs and candies in our children’s nests they made on Saturday—just the way my mother was taught to do as a child. Then when our children took over the nest filling for their children, I would be in the kitchen preparing the ham and lunch for the bunch when we came home from church.

Today was different. For the first time in our 52 years of marriage, I did not dye Easter eggs. For the first time in decades, I did not cook Easter dinner. For the first time in several years, most of our children and grandchildren could not be with us. Yet it has been a special and blessed Easter.

We arrived back in Marion last evening from our trip to visit daughter Jeannie’s family and see Elijah and Cecelie participate in the 29th annual Showtime at Freeport High School. Before we refilled the gas tank and I ran inside Kroger’s to get fresh fruit and milk, Katherine phoned and said, “Mom, David has arranged to pick up a prepared Easter dinner for all of us, and we will bring it out to the farm tomorrow. There will be plenty for Mary Ellen’s family too if they are able to make it.”

We took Samuel on home as he was eager to check out the Easter egg doings at Josh’s house—his buddy just behind the park and their house. Sam carried in a large portion of the colored eggs that he had helped dye at the Eiler house and his Aunt Jeannie had sent home with him. So they became part of our dinner today.

He even was invited to participate in the dyeing session going on at my brother’s home when we stopped at Mattoon for a break. Jim’s wife Vivian, who always remembered her grandmother’s huge dishpan full of colored eggs for her many grandchildren, has always tried to approach that sense of bounty for her kids and grandkids. She and her sister Jo, who had arrived from Chicago by train the day before, were laughing and working with a dozen of so cups of color on the large dining table and assisted by my niece Judi getting ready for the egg hunt at their house today. When Sam unobtrusively took a wax crayon from the kit and put a star on an egg, his mother’s cousin Judi had a moment of wonder and confusion when she took a green egg out and unexpectedly saw a star on it.

So after we dropped Sam off at his house, we returned to shop for the few needed items. With the delightful surprise and neat gift for the next day arranged by our son-in-law, I did not even think about what I might need to buy to go with the little half ham I had stowed in the fridge for Katherine’s family and also Mary Ellen’s family if they were able to come down from Lake Saint Louis. I knew Easter dinner would be scant in comparison to some past feasts, but I also knew my children would understand.

David works extraordinary hours already both at the plant and at home helping care for Katherine and Sam, and that he would go to the work and trouble to arrange to bring an entire holiday dinner out to the farm was very touching—and absolutely lovely. When I phoned her an invitation, we found out that Mary Ellen’s family had gone to Springfield—she had known we might not even get back from Freeport for Easter.

So I took the usual leaves out of the dining room table. With Sam’s friend Josh added as a guest, we had six present. Thus, I was able to use the white china with pink roses that I bought long ago at the thrift store when our family had only six members, and the light green cloth that usually only fits the kitchen table. The green stemmed glasses (also from the thrift store) made a pretty table with lilacs and white tulips for the centerpiece.

While the men talked and rested, Katherine and I looked at photo books and enjoyed seeing Tara, Erin, and Leslie as tiny ones. Sam and Josh went looking for minnows and rode the “mule” and played with Scooter and whatever boys do outside.

All too soon the Cedars had to go back home, and Gerald and I were alone again at Woodsong after the flurry of weekend activity. We enjoyed ham sandwiches and reflecting on the day.

We knew from Facebook that Leslie, who’d been in Freeport for the weekend, had succeeded in getting her first car yesterday and was driving it back to Belmont. Tomorrow she finds out about her summer job. Gerry had been off work from recruiting and had been able to go to church with Vickie and Geri Ann at Athens. Like Gerald, I am sure they were in touch with Erin down at College Station and with Tara’s family in northern Illinois, who celebrated with Bryan’s family this weekend. We were still enjoying Gerry’s proud accounts of Erin’s winning home run on Friday and A&M’s second victory against Texas Tech yesterday. And the Georgia Dogs won all three games against Ole Miss this weekend despite rainy weather and lightning delays.

We know that softball is fun and despite its importance to our family, it is not that important in the grand scheme of things. We know that every one of our family members have challenges and concerns—some of which cause us to live life with broken hearts. We know that many good people are out of work in our state, and they didn’t sit down to ham and all the good food that David carried in. We remembered the poignant presentation of world hunger that we saw at Freeport’s Showtime. We know that they are still pirates and thugs and terrorists in the world despite our rejoicing at the captain’s release. We are grateful for a living God who is willing to help us through the struggles here on earth.

Thawing and Freezing

The ice here thawed enough I could drive to town yesterday morning for my weekly hair appointment. I ran by my daughter’s, but she was asleep and never knew I had visited. In the afternoon, Gerald and I went over to Southern Illinois University Carbondale to watch his friend Steve Soldner’s daughter Regan play basketball with Missouri State against the Salukis. Steve sells Peterbilts down in Texas, and Gerald always has to go by and see him when he visits friends in that area.

With five generations of our family affiliated with SIUC, I could not believe I was cheering for Missouri State, but I did. It was easy during the first half when SIUC was far ahead. As the Bears got within 10 points in the last quarter, I felt more of a traitor although I was very proud of Missouri State for coming on strong at last. After winning in Evansville, the weather had kept them stuck in this area and unable to return home between games as planned.

We were able to visit a bit with Regan’s grandparents from Farina and met her grandfather’s twin and his wife also. Steve couldn’t come up from Texas because they were planning a trip to California to see their senior son play there. They will have three more years to watch Regan’s games.

We ran by Katherine’s and had a nice visit after the basketball game. We missed picking up a prescription at the pharmacy by five minutes, and then ate a lovely dinner at Honeybaker’s because we were tired of my cooking. By the time we got back to our lane, it had frozen again. Fortunately Gerald had scraped enough in previous days that there were bare spots to give us traction as we glanced nervously at the lake.

This morning we drove the pickup to our village church, where George Barker had had about the same experience Gerald had here clearing roads. He could not scrape too deeply without tearing up the gravel beneath the ice, so nothing was completely bare, and then last night froze it again, but we greatly appreciated what he did for us. There was some slipping and sliding in the parking lot as we drove in, and we oldsters walked carefully. When we came out of services, it was thawing again with puddles of water mixed with the snow and ice.

In counties south of us and over in Kentucky and southeast Missouri, many people are still without electricity, and some of our church members have been impacted by those problems. Most of those schools are still closed tomorrow. (Our county’s kids are going back after their four-day break.) A friend in town has her Kentucky son and his three Labs at her house since he is without electricity. Fortunately she loves dogs. Motels are full with people wanting heat and hot showers.

With the bad roads and the Super Bowl on tonight, our pastor declared he was giving us a “double dose” sermon this morning so that we could all stay safely home tonight. He even used two different texts and carefully divided his sermon in two. Both sermons were excellent, and we left being glad we had been in the House of the Lord.

While the ice had thawed quite a bit this afternoon, Gerald did some more driveway scraping including working on a neighbor’s drive. Since I am not a sports fan, while he watched the Super Bowl, I enjoyed surfing and playing around with an article I sent out once in 2007. It is now tweaked to send out again. I joined Gerald to watch the final exciting moments of the game, and then I watched the PBS preview of We Shall Remain, a five-part documentary coming out in April on the American Indians trying to show a more complete history of our nation’s interaction with the primary residents of this continent.

Autumn Activities

Members of Southern Illinois Writers Guild offered their books at our table Saturday and Sunday at the annual AutumnFest at John A. Logan College. We also display and sell our anthologies, but we have noticed a big decline in buying since the rise in gas prices. I enjoyed the day there Saturday with other writer friends.

Our village church will be having our Thanksgiving feast this Saturday night. We can’t have it the next Saturday night because that is in the middle of deer hunting season, and some on our young adults will be occupied securing heart-healthy venison to feed their families this winter.

Because I am to bake one of the turkeys with dressing for the dinner, I bought two on Monday. One is thawing in the fridge for this Saturday, and one went into the freezer for November 27.

We are excited at Woodsong because it seems like all four of our children and spouses will be present for Thanksgiving Day. I am not positive how many grandchildren can make the trip here, but there will be a house full. I think the Taylors are going to move their camper down from the other farm. If the beds and couches fill up, we’ll put blankets and bedrolls in the middle of the living room floor.

I made sure I grabbed some more of the turnips from Charles’ garden that he is sharing with us at our church. I’d already used the first mess, and I wanted some to cook for Thanksgiving Day although Gerald and I may be the only one who eats them.

Preparation for the coming holiday has centered on who is going to highlight Leslie’s hair when she arrives from Belmont. It will not be the first hair adventure that has taken place at Woodsong. Gerald joined the discussion and volunteered claiming he had experience at coloring things and was accustomed to working cheap. However, Leslie declined his offer of his variety of coloring agents—John Deere yellow and green aerosol paint and Kiwi brown shoe polish. So it looks like Erin, who has long pleased her sisters and their friends with hair-dos for special occasions, will get the job.

Our Writers Guild will be having a monthly reading tomorrow night at a local coffee house, and our anthology editor is bringing the newest anthology which is just off the press. We are all eager to see this latest volume. Our grandson Samuel is having his first middle school band concert also tomorrow night, and I am not sure I will be able to make both of these events. I may have to wait to see the new anthology at our regular meeting the next Thursday.