Long Long Ago and Now

Seems like yesterday that our grandkids first came to the farm to be together and attend Vacation Bible School at our village church:  Elijah, Trent, Geri Ann, and Brianna.  As usual, I was helping there, so it was easy to take them along. For these preschoolers, staying at the farm for that long with each other was a big deal. I slept upstairs with them each night and we would tell stories and make sure no one became homesick. I am guessing the two boys were four or five and the two little girls were three or four. I was so proud having them attend with me.  A cherished memory was going to the local Kroger store and having those four following me like a line of little ducklings across the parking lot and into the store.  As we marched, bystanders watched and smiled at their cuteness.

That was the same year, I believe, that their big afternoon adventure at the farm was catching fish. At that time, we had two farm ponds with one at a higher level than the other though they were a long way apart.  It was planned to allow the higher pond to overflow with a wide shallow slice of running water gently flowing across the meadow and finally our side lawn and down to the lower pond.  That summer the stream of water was thick with baby fish.  The children were so delighted to be able to grab the little fish in their hands and look at them before letting them go on down to the lower pond.

After that, it became a tradition that the grandkids would come and attend VBS together. I encouraged mud pie making, catching fireflies, and other country past times. After we moved the half mile over to Woodsong from Pondside Farm, that first year here we had some adjusting to do. A favorite downstairs bedroom is completely underground and offers wonderful darkness.  We moved two queen size bedsteads into that room with barely room to walk between the beds, but the kids and I were able to sleep together there and continue telling stories and saying night time prayers. 

I think because Tara and Erin lived in our community up on Route 166 during their earliest VBS attendance, they attended from home. Leslie was still living in Carterville and went to VBS there I assume. For some reason that first year Leslie did not come down from Freeport, but later she did.  She also helped a year or so with the opening music. (At night she was as great at telling ghost stories as at music, and I had to put a stop to that when someone got too scared.)  Tara and Erin came down from Johnston City and helped too. Even Gma Shirley came from her church and helped one year when we needed more workers. When Sam and Cecelie became old enough to attend VBS, they joined the older kids. By this time, the cousins had grown very close and were adept at making up their own games and activities.  Geri Ann had to work around ball practices and games sometimes but she was always here when possible, but then she moved to Georgia.

As the kids grew up and entered high school, they would volunteer to be classroom helpers, so they continued to gather at the farm for VBS when camp and summer activities allowed. This year Trent and Elijah have completed their two years of college, but they are here to help teach. Soon to be a high school junior, Sam too is again  working  as he did in VBS at his own church. Brianna has little more than a month until she starts her college career. Once again she is working with preschoolers, and once again she gets to see the one special little girl that comes to our VBS from a nearby church each year.  They early bonded because just like Bri as a preschooler, this quiet little beauty was very shy. They understood each other intuitively.  It was so sweet to see their once-a-year friendship develop down through the years. There are other VBS kids their own age that our grandkids have stayed close to through Tweets and Facebook contact.  I like to think the children who have grown up to work in VBS are honing leadership skills that will profit themselves and others for years to come.

For the first time in decades, I am not working in VBS this year, and I don’t have to be sure to have adequate seat-belt spaces for grandkids going with me.  Their cars are parked outside.  I am enjoying hearing the piano in the living room at Woodsong though and the four here this year creating and practicing skits for opening exercises. I like hearing them debate what to do with their free day time since VBS is at night this year. While I was in bed this morning, Gerald said they got up early today and Sam scrambled eggs for the gang.

Some things haven’t changed, however. There are ten pairs of kicked-off shoes in the front hall the last I counted.  Half devoured cans of soda are left around.  Last evening after a swim in the lake, I picked up wet towels to toss in the washer/drier because I don’t like them left on carpeted floors. I enjoy it all  because of all the magical memories that started long long ago.

Celebration Time

Jeannie finished her 600 plus mile bicycle ride at 2:30 Friday afternoon and stuck her toes in the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers at the southern tip of Illinois in Cairo. Then they loaded the bike on the back of the van, and she crawled into the van with her coach to drive to nearby Metropolis. There her coach (husband Rick) took her photo in front of the huge Superman statue. Her goal and plans had been completed. They next arrived at our house, and we had thawed leftovers from their daughter Lesley’s wedding for our supper. (It may take me awhile to empty the freezer of those.)

Actually we celebrated Jeannie’s achievement the night before. Gerald and I drove to Murphysboro and then up and down the steep hills there over to the Big River—the Mighty Miss. We met up with Jeannie and Rick at Grand Tower, where they were taking a break in the mid afternoon. They were running late after a late start because of some camping problems the night before. They also explained it had been rough riding because not only was the wind against Jeannie, but part of the Mississippi River Bike Trail had been on a graveled levy road. When it started lightning and they were traveling under electrical lines, Rick was ready for her to leave the levy and get back on Route 3.

We enjoyed driving through Grand Tower and seeing the Devil’s Backbone Park there by the river. We had a little circling to do before we found each other in this little town because our cell phones suddenly did not have service in one part of the town. But finally we got a connection, and they told us they were parked by the First Baptist Church there.

That was easy for Gerald to find because he knew exactly where it was. When he was eleven, his family had brought him there from their little country church, which met in a tiny country school building, to be baptized in the baptistry there. Their family friends, Johnny and Suzie Dickson, belonged there, and so it was a familiar building to Gerald’s family. We were there a few years ago for Suzie’s funeral. So we took photos of Jeannie and us in front of the outside sign and finally went back to Route 3 heading to Gerald’s brother Garry and wife Ginger’s farm. We were delighted to see rain puddles beside the road in Wolf Lake before we turned off on the road to the forest preserve. Garry and his son Kerry have had considerable more rain this year than we have, and their crops were looking good.

The Mississippi River Bike Trail actually goes through the Trail of Tears Forest Preserve near Gerald’s home place, where Garry and Ginger live now. They said they knew they frequently saw bicycle riders going on that road, and now they understood why. For some reason, the bike trail leaves Route 3 and goes into Jonesboro and heads down Route 127 for the final lap to Cairo.

While we waited for Jeannie and Rick, we called Gerald’s brother Keith and wife Barbara and Garry and Ginger’s daughter Vicki, who was in Carbondale when we reached her, and we let them know that Jeannie was finally in the area for supper rather than lunch as we had thought might be the case. We all met and celebrated and took more photos at a restaurant in Anna before Jeannie and Rick rode back home with Garry and Ginger and spent the night with them. This brought back a lot of childhood memories for Jeannie from the days when she visited grandparents there.

After Jeannie and Rick arrived to sleep their final night at our house, she rose early the next morning to ride her bike here, but it was raining. This was the first time they had been stopped by rain the entire trip. (I thought maybe nature was telling Jeannie she had ridden enough!) We got a nice rain, but unfortunately just a few miles up the road on the farm with our crops, we only got a wee shower. Nevertheless, we had a wonderfully lazy relaxing breakfast with the Eilers before they took off to meet their kids—Elijah and Cecelie--coming down from Freeport to Bloomington.

There Rick went on towards home, and Jeannie took the kids back down to the south Springfield area to Brian and Mary Ellen’s house. Later that night the two Eiler grandkids and the Taylor grandkids--Trent and Brianna--all arrived at Woodsong for the week. Of course, they stopped in town at Sam’s house to bring him out too. These teens have gone from coming to our house to attend Vacation Bible School to coming to help with it. They love being together. I did not think Elijah would be able to come since he was working, but come to find out, he had taken the job with permission to take off this week.

This morning Sam’s dad picked him up to go to his church in town, but the other four went to Sunday School and worship with us, and I was pleasantly surprised to see all four sitting up in the choir. (We have a very informal village church, and anyone is welcome to sing in the choir.) Behind us, our friends Don and Pat Boyd had sitting with them their youngest son Rod and wife Theresa and three of their four kids who had flown in from Florida. It was good to see this collection of so many grandkids sitting in the pews where it seems only yesterday their parents were sitting.

After lunch, the kids collected Sam again, and soon they were at the dining room table playing one of their favorite games that someone brings to the farm. We all went over the church house tonight to join others there decorating and setting up for tomorrow morning. Back home after a quick help-yourself supper, the house is now filled with giggles and voices as the cousins work on a skit they plan to do. Somewhere in the house Sam’s ukulele is sounding. This is all good and worth celebrating. Certainly we have problems and more than one grief going on in our lives also, but this part is good and we are glad.

By the way, Jeannie wrote on Facebook that it was a beautiful day for a bike ride up in Freeport.

Beach Ball Bible Basics

Beach Ball Bible Basics

1. What are the two main parts of the Bible? Old and New Testament.



2. How many books are in the Old Testament? 39



3. How many books are in the New Testament? 27



4. How many books are in the entire Bible? 66



5. What are the Ten Commandments? These were the ten instructions for people to live by written on stone tablets brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses.



6. Where do you find the Ten Commandments in the Bible? Old Testament. Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5.



7. If you want to know about Jesus, what testament do you look in? New Testament



8. What are the four books in the New Testament that tell the story of Jesus? The first four books--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--the Gospels.



9. Where can you find the story of Jesus’s birth? Matthew 1 and Luke 2.



10. Where can you find the longest recorded sermon that we have of Jesus? Matthew 5:7. Challenge: Read the Sermon on the Mount outloud and find out how long Jesus’s sermon was.



Directions for the game:

Child throws beach ball to another child to answer the question. Then draws a question from the basket and reads it.

If first child answers correctly, he gets to be the next thrower. If first child does not know answer, he/she throws it to someone else until correct answer is given.

Crops Are Maturing

Bright green corn plants have replaced the golden stubble of harvested wheat in the field beside our lane. The plants seem a foot taller each passing day. There are no soybeans here on this farm, but as I drive through the countryside, tall green soybeans blanket former empty brown fields with their thick bushiness as far as the eye can see. I enjoy watching the growth. The fat deer I saw tonight enjoyed feasting on that growth. With this heat, I would not want to be out in those fields right now, but evidently the deer, who was on the edge of the field, can handle the heat.

One of the scariest times I ever had was when someone left a farm gate open and our three-year-old son escaped the yard and had taken off down that machinery road beside a field of corn in this kind of weather, Everyone on the farm started yelling for him and running down that road praying he stayed on the road and did not go into the field. Fortunately, he did and was having a wonderful time with his freedom when we found him. A little boy lost in that that maze of corn would likely have passed out for want of oxygen before dark came.

Gerald is feeling better and had his first physical therapy appointment today for his hurt shoulder. We will likely never know what caused his temperature to spike over the weekend. Maybe allergic to the pain pill prescribed for the shoulder? Whatever, he has not missed a day spending several hours outside in this steaming heat. Of course, with air conditioned tractor cabs, working out there is nothing like the old days when he ate dust and stayed drenched with salty sweat running down his face. But time outside the tractor and hours working in his shop still give him a daily dose of high heat. He claims his shoulder and other aching joints and muscles hurt less with the sun beating down than they do when he is nodding off in his easy chair in the air conditioned house. Nevertheless, I am always grateful when he is in that chair or on his computer during the hottest times of the day.

After two unexpected surgeries over the weekend because of infection caused by the previous surgery, Erin was able to go home Tuesday morning. A port will allow the constant supply of meds for two weeks as she hobbles around on her crutches with the rolling tower with its bags of antibiotics following her. Vickie, her mother, stayed with her constantly at the hospital and is there with her now in Erin’s house. The surgeon has assured her that the second weekend surgery showed her knee was without remaining infection, and the cultures came back without any bacteria growth. So we are hopeful that all is well except for the pain and the time lost. It has been a very scary time.

In the meantime, on Monday afternoon, I did some of the Carbondale errands that I had meant to do last Friday. I was able to join Vickie and Gma Shirley in Erin’s hospital room for another brief visit. My mornings this week have been studying Vacation Bible School materials in preparation for next week at our village church.

Tara’s family is coming down for a softball tournament here this weekend, and Gerry and Geri Ann are coming back up from Georgia. Sometime my three teenage grandchildren who are going to help in VBS will be arriving also. Only our youngest grandchild is still young enough to attend VBS, but she can’t come this year because of a camp conflict.

One by one the older kids have switched from being a student to being a VBS helper, but they still want to come and I am glad. Although Sam helped last year, he will be unable to this year because he is going with his church youth group to Joplin, Missouri, to help there with the World Changers organization. He has new heavy duty work shoes and his mother made sure his shots are all up-to-date. The kids here at Woodsong are going to miss him terribly, but we know he will have a life-changing experience in Joplin.

Erin was expecting during her work-filled summer to have a bit of fun keeping in shape and spicing her evenings with slow pitch softball. Instead she is experiencing the tough irony of an athlete being knocked off her feet by a sports injury. She’d had surgery on both knees a couple of summers ago because of years of catching, but she did the physical therapy work afterwards to be able to play in Europe all last summer and be active all this year as she coached and gave lessons. As tough as she has been, she has always been empathetic to others, but I do not doubt that this misfortune will make her even more so. This too will be life-changing. More than crops are maturing around here this summer.

Greenwich Village Remembered at Woodsong

Monday was rather scary because when Erin woke up all alone at their Georgia home, she was extremely sick and thought she had food poisoning. Her dad was directing her by phone to drink Gator-aid, and her momma was arriving back there at 6 p.m., but Erin was having to face that she might not be able to leave on her scheduled flight out of Atlanta the next day for Austria. However, by the time Vickie’s flight arrived in Atlanta and she drove down to Watkinsville, Erin was better and she had her mother there to help her finish packing. She caught all her scheduled flights and she was in Austria ready for her first softball practice with the Sharx. We all breathed a sigh of relief and a prayer of gratitude.

Once again my dining room table has been covered this week with papers, music, and booklets with plans for Vacation Bible School at our village church. Becky Belt and I will be working together in the room the children will come to for their Bible story. Each day we will see all the children enrolled as they rotate by age groups through our room. I am reviewing the Genesis story for the first day—God not only created us but made each of us unique and special. Then there will be a lesson the next day on Joseph, one on Zacchaeus on Wednesday, and one of Jesus on Thursday. The last day will be from Philippians and we will think about how we can live in ways that honor the God who loves us.

I cleared the table yesterday, however, for Eric and Ann Levin were coming over and I wanted to put out some fruit for munching, and it was all because of Red Room, a writers' site on the Web.
Somehow Eric had found my website here, where I mentioned that I went to Greenwich Village the summer after college graduation. I wanted to be a writer, and I thought the proper thing for me to do was to collect experiences. So going to Greenwich Village, where I had heard writers hung out, seemed like an interesting experience to have. I applied for an interdenominational summer project called “The Church in Urban Life” and was accepted. (If it had not been for Gerald coming along and our getting engaged, I probably would have stayed in New York for a year or two. At least that was my intention. But because of our engagement, I settled on just going there for the summer as already planned but teaching the next school year in a Chicago suburb.)

Recently I have been looking at old scrapbooks and trying to decide what to do with them. One scrapbook was on my summer in Greenwich Village. Those in the summer project stayed at Judson Student House, a cooperative, near Judson Memorial Church, which was one of the project’s sponsors. We each were on our own to seek out a job and support ourselves. I found summer secretarial work for Dr. Martin Siegel at The United Synagogue of America in upper Manhattan beside the Jewish Theological Seminary.

At the student house, where we all pitched in cleaning and doing kitchen work on a schedule, we would have seminars, discussion groups, and lecturers on city politics, economics, and the church’s response to city challenges. On weekends we would go to different activities, the museums, and plays. On Sunday we’d visit different churches, such as East Harlem Protestant Parish, Christ Church, and Riverside Church, or we’d attend services at our sponsoring church, Judson Memorial.

Eric Levin, who was born and reared in New York City, where his father had a cigar store in the Village, phoned out of curiosity after seeing that I had spent that summer in Greenwich Village. Gerald took the first call and they became acquainted. I was home to get acquainted when the second phone call came. Eric has lived in our very rural community for years, but because he works out of the community and is not native born like many here are, he said he had not met too many local folk. He came to the Friends of the Library presentation, where I spoke on the Trail of Tears, and we became better acquainted.

He told me about his father’s smoke shop and how he worked there in his teens during the 1960s and met many of the writers who shopped there, so of course I was fascinated. I told him I had just looked through this ancient scrapbook for the first time in years and he would have to drop by and see it. So last night was the night we chose, and we were able to meet his wife Ann.

He had told me on the phone he had gone to school in Berkeley and then came to Pomona, a tiny village southwest of Carbondale, the home of Southern Illinois University. I imagined that he came from Berkeley to one of the communes which sprang up in that era in that beautiful hilly country, but he didn’t. He just wanted rural life. He was very tired of cities—especially after being the victim of a hold up—and someone told him about Pomona and he came here without knowing anyone and rented an old farm house without running water and became a true country man while he finished his degrees.

He also had told me he had married a local girl, who died young. Imagine our mutual surprise when conversation last night led us to realize that this first wife was from the same Godwin family that Gerald’s mother descended from. Eric’s father’s ashes were scattered at the Jerusalem Church cemetery, where his first wife’s had been, a cemetery where many Godwins are buried.
I liked hearing Ann tell about her interesting career as a social worker who works with dialysis patients. We found out that she was from nearby Johnston City, where I taught part time for a couple of years not too long before she started high school there, so we just missed each other. Though she did not know Gerry’s family, we did know several of the same folk.

Eric’s 90-year-old mother is now living in assisted living in Marion after just having been moved from her duplex there at Liberty Village. An accomplished pianist, who studied psychology along with his sister at New York’s New School of Social Work, but who had a business career with a corporation, she sounds absolutely delightful. She loved having a place to grow flowers and feed birds. For the first time in her adult life, she was driving a car. Now friends make sure she still gets to all the concerts at SIUC.

Altogether it was a fascinating evening comparing and contrasting urban/rural lifestyles and sharing our experiences. . We did look at the scrapbook and Eric showed me on a city map in there where his father’s shop was on 7th Street and where he went to grade school across the street from Brooklyn College. We saw the playbills for The Trial, Victor Borge’s comedy, The Boy Friend, Fanny, The Teahouse of the August Moon, and The Pajama Game along with the $l.75 ticket stubs for the cheap balcony seats where I would sit.

After the Levins left, Gerald went to bed, and I came down to check email and Facebook to see what time the Eilers—Jeannie and Rick, Elijah and Cecelie got away from Freeport. But I could not get on the Internet. A phone call located them on Interstate 57 near Mattoon, and I figured they would not arrive until 2 a.m., so I started this belated blog. Actually they arrived at 1:30 so I am just now finishing the blog. I woke up to Jeannie and Rick laughing with Gerald in the kitchen. That was before Rick took his morning run and Jeannie rode her bicycle over country roads for her morning pleasure. Then we had a good visit before the six of us sat down for lunch and a final time together before they repacked the van stuffed with all their camping gear and bicycles and the dogs Lucky and Leah. Now they are on their way again to visit Leslie at Barefoot Republic Camp in Kentucky and then travel with her for the rest of the weekend in Nashville.

It is time for me to get out the VBS materials and return to my studies at the dining room table. Although the number of grandkids coming is shrinking as the kids have moved away, taken summer jobs, and so forth, there will be three teens here, and instead of being students at VBS, they all three will be helpers with the younger kids. Down through the years, as the children have matured, they have pitched in and helped. They like helping and they love being together for whatever projects they cook up to entertain themselves for the rest of the day at Woodsong.