Starting a Second Decade of Woodsong Autumns

Fall change is in the crisp air. As I drove home from Katherine’s on Saturday night down our lane, two deer were munching a late night supper in neighbor Scott’s fields. Their alert raised eyes reflected the car lights briefly, but they quickly went back to eating. Soon those crops will be harvested and the deer will have to find another soup kitchen. Last night as I drove down the lane, I saw that Brian, Mary Ellen, and Brianna had been there during the afternoon to move their parked farm equipment on down to their Harrisburg fields.

Hearing a wild goose call this morning made me look out the window hoping to see an overhead feathered friend flying south, but I only saw our two remaining ducks swimming together on the lake. We have gone from having an over abundance of wild fowl at the lake to a much diminished population since Gerald stopped feeding them. We have finally accepted the fact that baby fowl will not live long here with all the predators waiting to ponse sometimes even before they hatch.

When I changed our sheets Saturday morning, I went ahead and put the extra blanket on the bed that I had just been tentatively laying at the foot of the bed just n case we needed it. Fearing front, Gerald picked a bucket of ripe tomatoes and a bucket of green tomatoes from the garden for fear of frost. I have tried to share the ripe ones; and last night as I watched Book Notes, I wrapped the green ones in newspaper to continue ripening and carried them into the garage. I know many people like fried green tomatoes, but somehow I have never tried to make that dish. I feel guilty enough when I fry okra, which our family loves, so I don’t feel inclined to experiment frying tomatoes. But we will enjoy having home-grown tomatoes probably into the beginning of winter as these green ones ripen.

The sweet gum tree out by the garden is now gone all red, and I so enjoy looking at it out the kitchen window. Gerald planted that tree as a tiny plant no bigger than an onion slip over ten years ago before we moved here. Gerald found the baby tree in a flower bed at the north of our other house, where evidently a bird had dropped the seed since we did not have any gum trees in our yard there. Now it is such a lovely shaped tree and taller than the martin house on the other end of the garden. It is beginning to shade the north part of the garden, so I suggest that is another reason to make the garden a little smaller next summer. The tree must definitely stay.

Another tree I look at almost daily when I awake is outside our bedroom window-- the pin oak that Gerald planted after we moved here ten years ago. Its branches usually have a bird or two lighted in them. It has been such a pleasure to see that tiny slow-growing tree reach its present adolescent height.

Many years ago when we would drive home from the University of Illinois where Gerald was in grad school, we would pass a beautiful new farm house beside the road. One of Gerald’s professors had told the class that the farmer who lived there built that new house towards the end of his career and almost immediately he had died leaving his widow alone there. I could never look at the house without a lump in my throat. When Gerald started getting very serious about building this house, that story was one reason I was reluctant. (Besides the sadness of leaving behind the house that held all the memories of rearing our children.)

Finally, Gerald asked me if we’d likely both live five more years, and I knew we likely would. And then the question was: would it be worth it to build and move if that were so? We both decided it would be worth it. In the memory-ridden house, we recalled that Gerald had knocked out walls, put up walls, enclosed porches, made the bathroom work when we first moved in, remodeled that bathroom at least twice while adding two more in a major remodel for the entire house, and on and on. No wonder Gerald was sick and tired of working on that house. Well, we moved into this house on October 14, 2001, when it was not yet completely finished in order to accommodate the family who had bought our old farm house.

So we have now lived here ten years, and I am realizing that referring to this as our “new” house is no longer accurate. It has definitely been worth it. Twice, we have had families living with us—part of a family one summer while Jeannie took classes in three different colleges to get the art classes she needed and Katherine’s family for six months while a slow and incompetent contractor did a major remodel to make their house more accessible. One summer while the Taylor camper was not available, Mary Ellen’s family spent a lot of weekends with us. And with Gerry and Jeannie’s family members divided between north and south of here, we have been able to provide bed and breakfast when needed. We could have done all these things in the old farm house, but certainly with a great more difficulty and not much comfort for those involved. I don’t think much of that would have happened. People asked us why we wanted four bedrooms, and I suggested they come sleep on our floor with our holiday overflow, which would be much worse if not for the Taylor camper. There really isn’t any room that has not had considerable use.

I knew one of the things I would miss most when we moved was the beautiful old maple trees at the other house. Yet it seemed like every time I finally got the limbs picked up after a wind storm, that very night we’d have a rain and branches would be blown out to be picked up again. We felt bad for the new owners who have twice had devastating disasters from those wonderful old trees, and they have had to remodel and repair resulting damage to the house. At our age, those problems would have been even more difficult for us. We have thoroughly enjoyed watching all the trees Gerald planted grow, but he put them all away from the house. We no longer have to pick up limbs or rake leaves each fall as we did over at Pondside Farm.

Has there been upkeep on this house? Definitely. If you are not renting from a landlord who does repairs, you have to expect that. From the beginning, things had to occasionally be finished up, repaired, or changed. Yet I think it was more pleasant for Gerald to do those tasks in a new house than one he was bored with working on. For the past two years, I kept telling myself I’d repaint the ledge of the window over the kitchen sink, but I dallied enough about doing it, that by this summer I was afraid of crawling on top of the counter to do it. Of course, Gerald did it along with getting the garage door and front entrance doors changed. I am wondering what our second decade here will bring.

Rainy, Chilly Fall Weather

Cloudy, drizzly, rainy weather makes me want to stay home and inside. Gerald switched us over from AC to heat in the house last night because of this pre-taste of the climate to come. Down in Georgia, Gerry said there was rain and chill there too, and so Geri Ann’s tourney game was cancelled today until tomorrow.

I am grateful Brian has our crop in and grateful that Gerald finished up some of the “junking” he has been doing to clean up excess metal stuff that had been cluttering back fence rows. I think he paid for it with a sore back and so declared yesterday he was through working. He took off for lunch with his brother Garry down at Dixie Barbecue—our famous eatery in my hometown of Jonesboro. But this morning he was busy tightening up both our front and back doors to work better at keeping the house warm this winter. I didn’t expect his “not going to work” resolution would last long.

Everyone seems to be making chili or soup for supper these days. I made soup Sunday night, but I still haven’t stocked up on chili ingredients. The local food writer gave us an interesting article today with anecdotes and recipes for chowder made from Big Muddy River buffalo fish—like her daddy used to catch with his handmade net.

We had delicious fish from a vendor at a lake in Kentucky on Sunday when our church had its annual fall fish fry after morning services. Everyone was saying the fish and hush puppies were the best ever. (That may be like every year we think our Christmas tree is the prettiest we ever had.) Regardless, the fish and all the side dishes and desserts carried in to go with it were delicious. Again I was so grateful that those with servant hearts cooked up this feast for us. The weather was wonderful, and I was glad to have a out-of-town daughter and granddaughter able to be present to enjoy it with us before they began their long drives home in opposite directions. Katherine also enjoyed some of that fish for her lunch yesterday.

I took a couple small bags of tomatoes into Katherine’s aides yesterday. Until recently, the dry spell we had reduced our over abundance of tomatoes to just enough for our own table. When production started up again, the bottoms of the fruit were broken with ugly black cracks that had to be cut off. Gradually the newer tomatoes are in better shape. The vines are loaded, and I even made a bit of juice and stuck it in the freezer for that upcoming chili. We will have more than enough tomatoes now until frost, which may come sooner than we'd like.

Tomatoes and melons were all that Gerald planted this summer—but plenty of both. We had cantaloupe to share as well as tomatoes and really enjoyed indulging in them until the vines quit producing. I was very grateful when I heard about the cantaloupe deaths that we had not had to buy any from the store. I am not sure I want to know how those melons became contaminated.

Phone calls are not as frequent in today’s world, but we have had two from long-ago friends that pleased us. The first on the answering machine on Sunday afternoon was from our dear long-ago neighbor Joyce Combes, who was back in town for a high school reunion. We were sorry we missed our opportunity to have her visit us before she flew out back to Virginia. Gerald was here but did not hear the phone ring. I was visiting Katherine as I do each Sunday afternoon.

Our nephew Bryce, our great nephew his son Lex, and our great great niece Bryce’s little granddaughter Josie were here visiting that afternoon, and Gerald was perhaps too enthralled with Josie to hear the phone. As usually happens as families keep expanding with new generations, it is impossible to see one another as we did back in the day when we were the only older generation.

It is hard to realize that all those nieces and nephews have grown up and many are grandparents themselves. Although she lives in a nearby town, I have only seen Josie a few times during her lifetime—the last time at her Gma Opal’s house--but she thought when she came here that she was going to get to play with “Gma Sue.” Since I know Bryce and Lex would have called me Aunt Sue, I don’t know why she was calling me that—but I was honored. And a little jealous that Gerald had the pleasure of her companionship as she explored our great grandchildren’s basket of toys in the family room.

Today Gerald was lying on the floor fixing that kitchen door when his cell rang. Brad Jowers, who grew up in the Crab Orchard community before his parents Bobby and Katherine Sanders moved the family to Texas, was in Portland, Oregon, getting ready to fly to California and from there to New York. He wanted to know who Gerald was going to be yelling for tonight when the St. Louis Cardinals play those Texas Rangers. I bet Brad’s days as a Cardinal fan when he lived in Southern Illinois makes him feel a tad torn. At least it inspired his phone call to Gerald, and we were glad to hear from him.

Not so pleasant was a call yesterday and another today wanting me to change my credit card interest rate. I had finally got on a do-not-call list for those bothersome calls, but evidently that only lasts so long. Both times I clicked the number to talk to an operator and asked for the calls to stop. Unlike the last time I went through this routine, there was no courteous response—just a quick click when I expressed my desire to not have my life needlessly interrupted.

Well, I think I better go fix another quick bowl of soup for go with our supper sandwich again tonight. That game will be starting soon.

Autumnal Tumbling

Red and orange are gradually being added to the green, brown, and yellow leaves in Southern Illinois. Only a few leaves are falling so far. Yet autumnal tumbling describes our recent life at Woodsong. We seldom finish one activity or thought until another tumbles in to interrupt or change our direction.

Harvest on our farm is finished thanks to the great efforts and management skills by our son-in-law Brian. He also has winter wheat sown already. He must wait awhile to harvest the rest of his acreage—rented fields over near Harrisburg-- which were sown later. I hope he has been able to get some rest before then to make up for those nights he was still working at 3 a.m. the next morning.

Granddaughter Brianna was down to help her dad over the weekend as well as to enjoy her cousin Sam Cedar’s first Homecoming parade on Friday afternoon, the football game that night, and the coronation the next night with her mom, who had also shown up on Saturday to help with the harvest.

Despite heavy traffic, I made part of the parade, which Bri was watching with Katherine and David, but I hurried off to attend (late) the Women’s Club meeting at the library since I had missed the previous month and I especially wanted to hear Jon Musgrave’s program and his latest research for his next book.

Gerald and I went to our first football game in years in order to see Sam march in the pre-game show and at half time. We left early since we had to park so far away and would be walking near the edge of the street on rough ground. We didn’t want to do that in heavy traffic. Although we walked a long way, many more people were parked further up that road than we were, and I am sure it was the same on the other side of the school. We heard the end of the game just as our car arrived in the garage—and Marion won by one point. It was Centralia's first defeat this season.

Before we left for the game, we had a message on our answering machine from my sister that their daughter Candy was in the hospital and might not live through the night. We found out she had made it, but she was still unconscious; we were still worrying about that on Saturday afternoon when my brother Jim and wife Vivian came by for a visit after being in Union County celebrating with the Class of 1946 the 65th anniversary of their high school graduation. It was a two-day affair and they also added the third day so they could visit friends, Vivian’s sister Ruby, and us.

On Sunday we were enjoying all the photos posted on Facebook of Sam and his beautiful date for the Homecoming dance. We came home from church to find that Mary Ellen, Brian, and Brianna had carried in dinner for all of us from Kentucky Fried Chicken. So we had a good visit over lunch with no effort on my part before I drove in for an afternoon visit with Katherine to hear all about Homecoming from her perspective and their anniversary celebration the night before. Before David got home from his friend’s farm, where they are making preparations for hunting season, I got to take Sam to his youth meeting—that was after he came home from a friend’s house. My sister phoned that afternoon on my cell to give me an update on Candy while I was still at Katherine’s.

Katherine herself was still receiving intravenous antibiotic every twelve hours by home health aides and David. On the previous Monday, various complications at the Cedar home kept happening so that we helped out by taking Katherine to the ER at the Carbondale hospital for tests and to be given the right antibiotic with the insert of a receptacle left in her arm so that she was given the antibiotic every twelve hours at home. Since the extreme busyness at ER that night kept us there seven hours until 2 a.m., we were thankful we had taken her and that David was home with Sam. Katherine had been told that they were dealing with three heart attacks and the arrival of four ambulances.

It was a strange experience because the waiting room was filled with weeping people, and the crowd kept growing as the night progressed. The grief was so raw and intense that I wondered if a child was dying, but it was such a diverse crowd that I could not figure it out. We were shocked and very saddened ourselves when we learned that a kindergarten teacher in a local school had hung herself in a classroom after school and was found by another teacher. As the word spread, her fellow teachers were coming in praying she might live and trying to comfort one another. She did live until the next morning when organs were donated. The school, as shown on the news the next day, was in mourning and tried to help with counseling for the students, but who can explain suicide, let alone to children.

We were so pleased with the very sharp ER doctor that night. Katherine knew from previous infections what was needed and he listened carefully and was not threatened by questions by an intelligent patient. Instead he called her urologist and found out she was right, and consequently everything was done correctly. It is difficult for patients to advocate for themselves, but a good physician appreciates it. There was the sweetest and most understanding nurse taking care of Katherine in the ER that night, and it made the long tiring experience much less difficult.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, a visiting nurse came to remove the receptacle for the antibiotic and to write the final report. And this home nurse was so intelligent, informative, and supportive that I find myself really high on the medical profession right now. We have had some bad experiences with doctors and ER people in the past, and so has Katherine, so that makes you really appreciate the good people.

Some people are scared of any kind of government employees and, thus, are scared of government involvement in medicine. I am convinced that competent and caring people work in the government bureaus just as they do in private situations. And unfortunately incompetent, arrogant, ignorant, lazy, and cruel people also work both in private businesses and in government bureaus. All of us, whether we want to be or not, are at the mercy of other people. Most of us are not unfortunate enough to be in a beauty shop, on an air plane, in a church house, or at a political rally in a supermarket parking lot when a crazed individual shows up and starts shooting. All we can do is try to encourage one another to be one of the giving people and do what we can to prevent incompetents and crazies from hurting others.

Meanwhile down in Amarillo, Candy is better though still in the hospital, and her daughter is up from Florida to visit her. Her Oklahoma sister is coming this weekend. Her local sisters are hosting their niece, and when Katherine talked to Rosemary this week, Rosie and Phil were fixing another family dinner in addition to their regular Friday night supper for their clan.

While all this family unhappy happenings have been going on, we are also carefully following and celebrating granddaughter Geri Ann’s high school softball career down in Georgia. She and her fellow pitcher Courtney Poole, both seniors, are continuing their winning ways on the mound and with their bats. Geri Ann has just broken both the all-time season record and career record for homeruns among Georgia high schools. The playoffs with several more games will continue for the next two weeks. Someone may catch up with her, especially since no one will pitch to her now, but her grandparents in Illinois believe she will finish on top.

We are also excited about our granddaughter Leslie down at Belmont University at Nashville. Her Facebook page is filled with congratulations on her stunning performance with the Rock Ensemble there on campus Wednesday night. We find it hard to believe that our little blonde is a senior in college, but we aren’t at all surprised she is winning praise for her powerful voice. Hearing her called a rock star by her band friends and Belmont audience is somewhat unexpected. Anyone who has heard Leslie sing in her high school musicals, with her guitar at coffee shop concerts, or leading worship at church would not think of her as a rock star. Yet this was the campus ensemble she was asked to perform with, and obviously her virtuosity includes rock. Here is a link to one of their concert performances now on You Tube:

Panic Attack by Dream Theater-Belmont University Rock Ensemble
www.youtube.com
From the Rock Ensemble's 2011 Show Written by Dream Theater

Tonight our computer is moving so very very slow. A slow computer in addition to all the busyness contributes to my not blogging in a timely fashion lately.

Harvest Time Thoughts

Our son-in-law Brian is down and working very hard at harvest. Gerald has helped him all day today by hauling grain. (It is usually too damp to start before l0; but Gerald did things here at this farm and then joined Brian, and he was ready for rest in his easy chair in front of the TV when the day was over.)

Brian works before and after time in the field in their camper analyzing crop results and keeping in touch with his home office at Stone Seed. (If he is lucky, he may even get needed sleep there.) At noon, I was fascinated that Gerald brought in a map print-out of the fields. Brian’s combine evidently records what it is harvesting, and Brian downloaded the information and took the chip into Twin County farm service to create this map. The same technology can be used for future fertilizing so that just the areas of the fields that need more fertilizer will receive it in just the right amounts. This is all over my head and my ability to understand, but I do understand that this is remarkable technology that is changing crop production in important ways.

The other Bryan in our family—granddaughter Tara’s husband--is now with his family in Georgia but continuing to work for his Illinois firm with the help of high speed technology that sends his work to his home office. I am amazed at these important advances in communication. I am so glad he able to be with his family now instead of depending on Skype to keep in touch with his wife and three little guys. A former Southern Illinois University football player, he was able to take Aidan, age 5, to a Georgia football game on Saturday afternoon, which was a dream come true for him. Of course, he will be making frequent trips to northern Illinois, but modern transportation makes that easily done also. Like most people, their family has been impacted by the recession since the house they purchased with high hopes and made improvements on has lost value and is awaiting a purchaser.

On TV tonight, I saw where a church in Oregon or somewhere in the Northwest had been given permission to create a tent city on their parking lot for homeless families since the city’s homeless shelters were full. While I am grateful to the church for providing this help, it is heartbreaking that families must go through this. Especially when many many beautiful homes all over the nation have been foreclosed on and are now standing empty marring their neighborhoods and often being vandalized by thieves stealing copper and other marketable items. I keep wondering why some innovative bankers cannot figure out a solution to these lose-lose situations. Again this is all over my head and my ability to understand, but I keep thinking there surely are some brilliant minds out there able to figure out a solution. As the world pays tribute to Steve Jobs, let us pray that some other creative geniuses and problem solvers will find ways to help us get families out of our present problems.

My contribution to complete the harvest has been to be available a couple of times to drive Brian and Gerald to new fields after they finish one field and have to move machinery on to the next. My skill sets are still back in the 20th century; and unlike many farm wives, I never even learned to drive the tractors or combines back then. I am not dumb, but I never had adequate training to overcome my fears and limited aptitude, so I spent a life time caring for children, vacuuming, mopping, cooking, and washing dishes—all of which I consider very important work. I was not only where I chose to be, but I think I was where I should have been with the particular geographic opportunities and peculiar set of circumstances and abilities that I had.

Nevertheless, as technology keeps improving and growing ever more complicated, education and training is increasingly important and must grow more available to everyone and more effective. We must believe in our people. There are millions of young men and women in inner cities, suburbs, and rural areas that are not dumb just as I am not dumb—but because of their limited education and lack of the skills needed in today’s economy somehow appear that way to themselves and others. As a nation, we have to figure out how to use human potential all around us. There is plenty of work to be done, and we need to prepare our citizens to be able to accomplish all the work needing to be done.

Fun and Fellowship at "The Nifty Fifties"--and Hope

Before I even drove home from our 19th Annual Baptist Student Union Reunion Friday afternoon, I felt I must drop by a young friend’s house to share the hope that Nate Adams had given us with his afternoon presentation. The personal story he told convinced me that five or six people praying could bring about important results.

Former Southern Illinois University classmates and other BSU alumni from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s had met Thursday evening for a bountiful supper in the fellowship hall of Lakeland Baptist Church in Carbondale to start our reunion. Hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings topped by banana splits as dessert were served by friendly Lakeland members. That menu and the colorful juke box decorations surrounding us made clear “The Nifty Fifties” theme.

So did being greeted by Jim Cox of midwest radio/television fame in his Rock and Roll T-shirt and our president Ginger Wells and husband Gene in their blue jeans. Another attendee had on 1950s style church-going outfit complete with cute hat atop her head. One bright red poodle skirt with multiple petticoats beneath it certainly caught my eye, and there were others brave enough or ambitious enough to rise to the challenge of dressing the way it was. Rosie Robinson registered us, and as usual George and Jerry Casey took our pictures—this year in a Route 66 automobile. We will be receiving those photos in the mail soon. Pastor Phil Nelson welcomed us, and Gerald and I were pleased to see this friend of our daughter Katherine from their 1970 BSU days together.

We moved from the fellowship hall across the driveway to Lakeland’s new worship center for an evening of fellowship, inspiration, and games led by Bob and Oleta Barrow. We liked hearing about the SIUC Campus Mission from Chase Abner again and also from two cute twins Ashley and Andrea Dimitroff, students from DuQuoin. You may want to check out the Campus Mission Facebook page to share with the young people in your church.

The former BSU quartet—Roger Deppe, Bill Eidson, Darrell and Harlan Highsmith--proved they can still sound good even after 50 years. Jo Nell Cannon was the best liar in the Liars Game, and she said the next day she had a lot of explaining to do to a fellow church member who showed up from Mt. Vernon and kept hearing people tell her what a good liar she was. The close harmony of Les Snyder and his sons Brent and Chris was beautiful and powerful. Then we finished the evening singing 1950s songs under the direction of four couples who got into the swing of things—especially Verona and Darrell Highsmith smooching behind their big hats.

For me, the best part of Thursday evening was people’s stories. Finding out that multi-talented Jim Cox had never expected to go to college and took vocational classes in high school not only surprised me but filled me with appreciation for his Johnston City pastor Bob Walker who took Jim to his mother’s home and arranged a free room for his first term to encourage Jim to try college and see how he could work his way through—which he did with a job at the Baptist Foundation.

Then there was George Casey telling us about growing up in Tunnel Hill, attending a one-room school with only three in his class. (All three of his rural classmates ended up with masters degrees, which says something good about one-room schools with the right teacher.) Turning down scholarship offers from McKendree and University of Illinois, George came to SIUC at age 15. He felt the support and fellowship of Christian students at Doyle Dorm not only helped him make the adjustment to university life but also convinced him he wanted to become a Christian, which he did during his junior year. He also gave us a quick history of student work at SIUC from Myron Dillow’s history book about Baptist life in Illinois. You can read George’s “BSU Story” on the website our president emeritus Helen Galloway created for us: www.bsu-siu.com.

Helen too told about what BSU meant to her during 1945-49. When George earlier told about the BSU float winning in the 1948 Homecoming parade celebrating SIU’s progression from Southern Illinois Normal University, why did we figure that Helen was on the committee that used “We Ain’t Normal Anymore” for their theme? Kidding aside, however, as many wonderful laughs as Helen has provided for us these many years, her servant heart has always been in the right place and accomplished so much for our Illinois churches, her students during her guidance counselor career, and now in her home church and for our BSU reunion that grew from a garage-full of friends at a rummage sale to the large gathering we have now that inspires and blesses us, Helen already has the October newsletter up at bsu-siu.com and lots of updating already accomplished with the promise this year’s reunion pictures will be posted soon. Check it out at bsu-siu.com and drop Helen a note of appreciation.

Gerald and I had gotten up early Thursday to bid farewell to California friends who had been with us for a week and who left Carbondale when I drove them to the train station Thursday morning. So we were grateful we didn’t have to stay for the late night practice of the Reunion Choir under the direction of Barbara Eidson. However, the next day when I heard them sing, I was grateful that they had the energy and dedication to stay late and prepare the lovely songs we heard on Friday.

Coffee, fruit, and bite-size yummy pastries awaited us Friday morning in the fellowship hall and at ten o’clock we went back to the worship center for praise and worship under the direction of John Davis and Carol Smith. Darrell Highsmith led us in a thoughtful memorial service before the Reunion Choir sang, and Carol thrilled us with her piano tribute.

It was inspiring to hear Becky Searles, teacher and trainer of teachers, interview her husband Dr. Howard Searles about his years of work with Emmanuel Hospital Association in northern rural India. Becky is in her 45th year in education and now serving Trinity International University and Judson College. Howard is still recruiting for EHA and has seen seven hospitals grow to twenty-one and returns to help often even though he retired from medical practice seven years ago. For more about EHA’s work, visit http://eha-health.org/.

Lora Blackwell explained again the Fellowship of Baptist Educators program in which she participates and which not only provides teachers for other nations but also collects Bibles and books for overseas libraries with limited resources. See www.shelby.net/~baptisteducators.

Just back from weeks working in northern New York, Jack Shelby told us about our Illinois Baptist Disaster Relief Volunteer program and its 37 teams, who pay their own expenses and do everything from supplying hot meals and child care during disasters to having chainsaw crews ready to clear fallen trees and repair roofs. He told of cleaning up one little 90-year-old lady’s lawn covered with limbs as high as fence around the yard. When she thanked them, she explained when she looked out and saw the damage and mess outside her house, she knew she could not do anything about it. So she prayed the Lord would send angels to clean it up for her. She was delighted with the crew that came and she told them that she now knew that “Angels aren’t always pretty.” Another encouraging tidbit Jack shared was that at one table during one of the 19,000 volunteer days Illinois provided that year, they discovered that every man at the table had had open heart surgery. For more information, see www.ibsa.org/dr.

At our fantastic catered lunch, I met or should say re-met a neighbor I had not seen since her childhood. As she dipped my salad. she explained that she was Melody, the second daughter of Jay and Winnie Payne and she and her husband were the ones who had moved a mobile home to Jay and Winnie’s place. They sometimes bring Jay and Winnie fishing at our lake. Then I noticed her T-shirt and realized we were being catered by Marion’s Western Sizzling. Winnie is an outstanding cook, and so are her daughter and husband.

After lunch, Jim and Rosie Robinson led us in group singing. We listened to the men’s quartet again and heard Helen Galloway introduce special people—the missionaries in our midst. But I was most looking forward to her introduction of our Illinois Baptist State Association Executive Director, because she told me she had been working on that introduction for a week. She did not disappoint. She had us laughing, Nate blushing, and our hearts open to what he had to say.

He did not disappoint either. He is more than aware of the importance of trying to provide for our present young adults the kind of nurturing and educational opportunities that the adults in the Great Depression sacrificially created for our age group when we were young. With young adults of his own, he understands the need to tell the good news of Christ so that it will be understood by this generation and they too will enjoy community and relationships that will bless them throughout their life on this planet and beyond. The method needed? Prayer and caring people reaching out and sharing their journey and their struggles as they make the effort to follow the teachings of Jesus and the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Knowing that many listening would do that filled me with hope as I left the reunion and headed home rejoicing.

Our Oldest Grandchild's Newest Job

UGA Softball Announces Tara Archibald As Assistant Coach - The University of Georgia Bulldogs

http://www.georgiadogs.com/sports/w-softbl/spec-rel/093011aaa.html


www.georgiadogs.com

Catching The City of New Orleans

There was a time when going to the airport seemed exciting, but now train travel seems exotic to me. For the first time in many years, I took someone to the train station this morning. We have had a wonderful visit with Lois and Tom and their grandson Josiah, but today was the day they had to leave us.

We were all apprehensive about getting to Carbondale on time for their 7:30 a.m. train to Chicago where they will transfer to go to the west coast. We’d been sleeping in, and one always imagines the horror of not hearing an alarm clock when doing so is important. Gerald has an internal alarm clock and does not sleep in, so we had him primed to wake us all up if necessary. But we went to bed early last night, and the nervousness about our needing to leave Woodsong at 6 a.m. served to wake us.

Interestingly, Lois’ cousin Tony Ferrell and wife from Albuquerque were also in our region visiting at the same time that Lois was here for our high school class reunion. Tom, Lois, and Josiah visited the Bible class Gerald and I are now teaching at Center and worshipped with us Sunday morning. They had to skip our church potluck to drive to Anna. Tony arranged a Sunday afternoon family reunion at the fellowship hall at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where his late sister Tammy was a member. Tony and Lois are both very interested in genealogy research and are in frequent email connection, but this was a rare opportunity for them to meet face-to-face before the Ferrells go off to Australia on one of their many foreign jaunts.

Lois has had a good life in California, and since two other of her five siblings moved to the west coast, a photograph of a recent reunion out there had 50 or so family members. Nevertheless, Lois always knows some home-sickness for this area and the more distant relatives here in the county that was home for the first 18 years of her life. So the Sunday reunion followed by another trip to Union County on Monday to visit cemeteries and to meet up again with Tony and other cousins were highlights of her visit.

And she was able to get copies of her birth certificate from our more than 150 year-old Union County courthouse that somehow will be needed by a granddaughter currently living in Italy. Of necessity, a new courthouse is being built behind this old one that the public is very fond of, and I think Lois enjoyed walking into the familiar building with public servants well known for their kindness and efficiency with visitors.

Yesterday was needed for getting their breaths, returning the rental car, and packing for the journey home, so we scheduled our one “touristy” day on Tuesday. We drove down the beautiful hills and hollows to the Ohio River at
Golconda and Elizabethtown. On top of the Golconda levee I imagined as always load after load of the Cherokee arriving there in autumn 1838 on the steam ferryboat from Kentucky. We drove through town past the wonderful old court house there and looked at the large Victorian houses throughout the town and finally past the deteriorating mural of the Cherokee Removal painted on one of the flood walls. (The town is making a terrible mistake letting that mural fade, and I keep hoping a high school art teacher or some local artist will make its restoration a successful project.)

Driving on to my other favorite Ohio River town, we reached Elizabethtown in early afternoon for the very generous river catfish dinner served on a small floating restaurant. I love eating there while we watch the barges go by and feel the sway of the river as it gently rocks the boat. This meal on water reminded us of one of my all time favorite dinners that Tom and Lois treated us to beside the San Francisco bay while we watched the ocean gulls come and go outside the huge glass windows. The down-home riverboat atmosphere was in sharp contrast to that fine restaurant atmosphere, but the company of good friends was the same and the body of water outside very pleasing.

We are so glad the owners rebuilt after the restaurant fire a couple years ago. Then last spring’s flood shut them down for 37 business days, and I am glad they also survived that also. The restaurant floated up up up as the river widened and deepened. Ribbons tied high on tall telephone poles many yards west of the river’s edge now astounded us as we thought of the amount of water there just a few months ago.

The gazebo on a huge rock formation beside the river in front of the Rose Hotel next door was also inundated last spring. I knew that because innkeeper Sandy Vinland posted pictures on Facebook. And yet looking at the gazebo now high on its rock base made it hard to even imagine the river ever being that much higher.
We had to wander in the backyard of the Rose Hotel and visit the graves there including one for Mr. McFarland, who built that much storied two-story brick building in 1812. Then we visited the gift shop in front and walked into the lovely ancient dining room where Sandy dresses in Victorian dresses to serve breakfast to the guests at the hotel. I was sorry she wasn’t there to say hello to, but I enjoyed the memories of our celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary there.

We still had time for our visit to the Cache River wetlands area that delights with its 1,000 year-old tupelo and cypress trees. The plant and animal life in the swamps there are amazing in their diversity and so different from the rest of our area filled with bluffs and rock formations left by the glacier melting here eons ago.

We were very disappointed to find out that our Illinois fiscal problems had shut down the Barkenhausen visitors’ center. The displays there and the brief interpretive film, which is one of the best of such films I have ever seen, were something I was looking forward to showing off to our guests. But we did take a brief hike back to the viewing platform beside the green algae-covered swamp filled with cypress knees and the champion trees. We only saw one other visitor—a nearby resident who had brought his dog and gun out to the hunting area we walked past. Gerald visited with him before we hiked on, and evidently he was successful in his hunt since we heard his gun go off and his truck and dog were gone when we came back to our car.

Although yesterday was planned as a slow day to rest before our friends’ departure, while we were in town returning their rental car, we did work in a visit to the Kenneth J. Gray museum in the mall. Although many did not mean his nickname “The Prince of Pork” as praise for his many years of service as a Representative in the United States Congress, I personally appreciated all he did for our region—including Rend Lake, Interstate 57, elderly and low income public housing, the federal prison, and so much more. A child of the Depression, a veteran of World War II, a pall bearer at John Kennedy’s funeral, Ken Gray knew the mighty but cared for the common people including those coal miners with black lung disease and the many unemployed in our end of the state. I am proud to have the beautiful book about his service co-written by my friend Maxine Pyle on my coffee table in the family room. She and Marleis Trover named their book Pass the Plate, a quote from Gray who said, “If ‘pork” means housing, education, roads, and jobs, then all I have to say if “Pass the Plate’”

Woodsong seems quiet now without Tom and Lois to converse with and their delightful grandson Josiah to make us feel in touch with what is current in today’s youthful world. As their visit wound up, we spoke of outings we did not accomplish this visit as something we would do “next time” and the possibility of a visit with them in California again – perhaps when Geri Ann plays softball out there during her upcoming college years. And so as we hugged goodbye at the train station, I tried not to think it might turn out to be the last time we’d see each other.

Long Live the A-J Class of 1951!

It does not seem possible it has been over 60 years that five or six of us stood in our high school graduation gowns on the stairs of Bar-San Hall and had our photograph taken together. We were the closest of friends. We were happy about graduation but yet sadly aware that we might not be having our photo taken again any time soon. I don’t think I ever saw that photograph, and as it turned out the entire group was never together again—ever. Nor will we ever be on this planet.

Nevertheless, thanks to some local hard working committee members, the Anna-Jonesboro High School Class of 1951 celebrated their 60th anniversary with a reunion last night at the Giant City Lodge.

That reunion invitation was the impetus for our special friends, Tom and Lois Doctor, of Oakland, CA, to make a trip back to Lois’ roots. They were traveling by train and plans were all made. However, their two daughters were not too happy with all the intricacies that train trip was going to involve with their train from Chicago arriving at almost 1:30 in the morning in Carbondale.

Happily, the daughters enlisted grandson Josiah to travel with them, so we are finally able to meet the grandson we have always heard about. It is so good to have him here at Woodsong with Tom and Lois. Josiah is between jobs following his bachelors degree in liberal arts from a small Oregon college, and while on this trip, he is busy preparing a portfolio for applying for graduate school. So this break in his schedule worked out just great for this delightful young man to be a companion to his grandparents and to break bread with our Class of 1951.

Actually, Lois graduated with the Class of 1950. But her grade school years and her first three years of high school were with our class, and she served us as a class officer and student council member. We have continued to claim her as one of ours just at the Class of 1950 does. With enough credits, students were allowed to graduate early at that time in Illinois. By taking advantage of that, Lois was able to get a year of college accomplished at Southern Illinois University Carbondale while the rest of us finished high school.

Then on a fall day in October 1952, she and our friend Lynn stood at a street corner in our small town and sadly said goodbye since Lois was leaving with family members to live and work in California and eventually get her art degree there.
In a few years, Lynn also ended up making a life in California. The two of them saw each other occasionally despite their busy lives rearing their families, going to school, holding down jobs, and so forth.

Although I always saw Lois or Lynn when they were back in Illinois, the three of us were not together again until Spring 2001 when Gerald and I went to California to see our oldest granddaughter, Tara, play softball with the SIUC squad. We stayed at Lois and Tom’s house and they showed us the San Francisco area and drove us to Tara’s ball games. And they arranged a dinner visit in Concord with Lynn, a final visit I will always cherish. Although Lynn had planned to return for a visit here in retirement, she died of leukemia in December 2007.

This year our reunion programs listed 22 of our classmates whose names were read in memoriam. Those names included Margaret Ann Keller Petty, who died a few years ago. She had collected names and addresses for our reunions. Richard Hase, who worked again on this year’s reunion, passed away before it came about.

Also not able to be present this year was Lotrell Tweedy Hileman, who has worked on several of our reunions including this one although she had a stroke after their first committee meeting. Martha Ury Dillow and Tom Bacon have faithfully served our class with all the paper work and foot work that such gatherings require, but they are ready to turn the job over to anyone else who has the time, energy, and health.

If no one takes up the challenge, we voted to turn our left-over funds to Anna’s Stinson Memorial Library. Hearing of the deaths of spouses and children and health crisises was sad but not unexpected after 60 years. Yet there were many heart warming moments and many laughs and chuckles. Our class president, Richard Youngs, read messages from members who could not be present. Despite her upcoming catarack surgery, Martha is going to take on one more job and mail out the reunion photos that Gerald took for us and is busy printing here at Woodsong.

We have had a good run. and getting together with classmates was a wonderful event.

Time Flies and Life Changes

For three nights last week, I enjoyed the large moon hanging high in the sky above me as I drove home to Woodsong from Marion. How could it be time for a full moon already I wondered. Is there anyway to keep time from passing so fast? I’d been warned that time seems to pass more quickly as we age, but I thought somewhere in my distant past I had also heard about time dragging for the elderly. Well, we take what we get, don’t we? Somehow the week passed as rapidly as the past month, and I failed to blog midweek.

Just as pleasant as the great moon was driving to and from Marion yesterday in gentle rain. It continues to be wet this morning; and although we have only accumulated seven-tenths of an inch thus far, we are grateful.

When I returned to the farm from Katherine’s last evening, our son-in-law Brian’s truck was in the driveway. He was down to check on the upcoming harvest, and we will see him again soon. He will not be renting a combine this year. His first combine is on the way and will arrive Wednesday. There is a smile on his face when he speaks about it. How many good memories this brings to us of the excitement of a new combine. Down through the years, we have observed that the price of a combine is usually about equal to the price of a new home, so it is a major purchase filled with new technology and the pleasure of a sparkling clean interior with good smelling seats. (Often the new technology on farm equipment means the farmer must expend considerable effort to get any bugs worked out. I hope that is not the case for Brian this year because he has a contract to fill very soon.) Moisture and the weight of the sample he collected indicate a good harvest.

Jari Jackson and I traveled to John A. Logan College Thursday night to attend our monthly Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting. Jon Musgrave has been working hard on collecting information on venues for group book signings for the Guild. Since he will voluntarily provide the news releases for the group, this sounds like a wonderful opportunity for our many individual authors to get their books out there to the public and to promote our Guild anthologies.

I came home with Lois Barrett’s newest novel Shuugh, God and Lulu and started reading it but made myself quit and go to bed. I did not do as well Friday night when I stayed up to 1 a.m. to finish. Wife abuse and women who return to chance it again and again is a puzzling problem in our society, and Lois was trying to help us better understand it. Many times these women don’t believe in divorce, and neither do I. Divorce is a sad ending to high hopes. But once the vow to love and honor is broken by brutality, I don’t think true marriage exists anymore. Divorce is just a legal piece of paper acknowledging the reality that the marriage vows were destroyed. That is simple common sense to me. However, Lois’ book shows a more complicated look at some humans’ ability (perhaps addiction?) to accept flawed relationships and to risk physical danger to enjoy the times between abuse. Forgiveness and loving in spite of injury and insult amaze me. Newspaper accounts of murdered spouses concern and scare me for those in abusive situations.

The next morning before I left for routine blood work after the mandatory fasting, Gerald, who had been able to enjoy his daily coffee and newspaper, told me the sad news on the obituary page of two friends’ deaths. I don’t remember ever going to two funeral visitations in one day before, but on Saturday I did.

One in the morning was for the mother of one of Katherine’s best friends, one of the teenagers who used to frequent our lives. Although it has been many many years ago, it seems only yesterday that Bernetta Hill and I stood outside a high school graduation ceremony in the Crab Orchard gymnasium, and Bernetta shuddered at the thought that in a year or two, our daughters would be on that gym floor with caps and gowns on.

Katherine said Bernetta, a secretary who worked in the high school office for 28 years, was the “school mom” always ready to quietly and discretely help anyone with a needed band-aid or safety pin. But neither Katherine nor I knew that Bernetta was a poet. Among the many photographs displayed at the funeral home were some of her fine poems matted and framed, and one grandson read one at the graveside service. He told how she wrote him every week while he was away at college—even when arthritis reduced her to typing with two fingers. Katherine related to that since in recent years she also can only type with two fingers and much effort. (The ability to play the piano was one of the first losses that multiple sclerosis brought, and eventually her handwritten journals of poetry ceased.)

That night I drove down to Goreville to the funeral home. Jim Terry was born and stayed his entire life in this small town working at the family business and devoting much time and energy to voluntary service to its residents just as his parents had before him. His parents lived down the street from mine when my parents returned in retirement to Daddy’s roots.

Jim and Dixie, both only children, also lived down that street and reared their five children there while Dixie had a child care center in their home and attended to countless Goreville preschoolers. (This was before their move to nearby Lake of Egypt to a big house that eventually was three generational--a home to their parents and a returning kid or two.)

In recent years, they moved back to town to a home built to accommodate Dixie’s excellence as a cook and her extraordinary organizational abilities where she entertained not just their large family at a multitude of gatherings but also frequently catered tea parties for women’s clubs and groups of friends. Through all of their lives, Dixie was writing for both local, regional, and national publications. (At one time I was aware that she was doing six columns in addition to constant feature and news stories.) Jim was right there with her supporting her efforts just as Dixie went to the many area sports events that Jim never missed.

When Jim received a diagnosis of pulmonary fibrosis in April, they made a decision to live the remaining time to the fullest. Together they spent their last summer attending family outings, Cardinals and Miners games, concerts, picnics, and making daily drives through Ferne Clyffe park to see the deer. And they read the Bible.

Wanting good things to last forever, I have never liked change. But Bernetta’s son Jeff reminded us that his mother, who had not walked in over a year, was now pain free and dancing in heaven. The Bible in Jim’s hands at the funeral home and the many memorial donations given to charities in addition to the abundance of flowers demonstrated that people can die well just as they lived. Change and time passing more rapidly than we like is the way life on the planet is ordained to be. Wise people adjust to that reality. I am working on it.

Sowing in Tears

Thinking again on the many lives lost a decade ago on September 11, Americans shed many tears yesterday. A visitor at our village church yesterday had come back home where he was ordained for the ministry over 49 years ago. Now retired but still preaching, Ed Handkins answered our song leader’s request that he sing for us.

Before singing “It Is Well with My Soul,” Ed reminded us briefly of the familiar story of how the hymn was written. Ed knew this would be a needed song yesterday when much of our nation, still suffering and still grieving from the attack ten years ago, was also trying to hold tightly to the belief: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Not only had the anniversary reminded us of great loss of lives in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C., but as I looked around our small congregation, I realized so many monumental personal problems that people were living with.

And I was reasonably sure that there were many more problems that I knew nothing about in that small sanctuary. I have enormous respect for pastors who know of so many human hurts in their congregations and are helping people deal with them but often cannot share these heavy burdens with the rest of us. None of us understand the pain and destruction caused by nature nor by human nature. We wish such troubles could be annihilated and that the sorrows like sea billows would go away. They obviously don’t. But as I listened and thrilled to Ed’s powerful voice, the message in song penned by the grieving Chicago lawyer brought me comfort and a sense of God’s care.

I’d briefly heard the Horatio Spafford story before, but listening to his hymn yesterday sent me hurrying to Google today, and I learned a much larger and longer story. An even more complicated story.

Horace G. Spafford was on his way to Europe in 1873 to meet his wife Anna, who had wired him of the shipwreck that had taken the lives of their four beloved daughters. At the point in the ocean where the wreck had occurred, the captain told him where they were. Spafford, who had been a poet from his youth and who wrote lyrics for songs, found it in his faith to write the hymn that has been sung all over the world for over a century now.

Despite their work for the abolition of slavery, serving in their local congregation, given to hospitality, and helping friends such as Dwight L. Moody and musicians Ira Sankey and Philip P. Bliss, the Spaffords had never been exempt from troubles. As a young teen, Anna had lost her immigrant parents soon after they came to America. After their marriage, Spafford had made land investments in northern Chicago shortly before the terrible Chicago fire, which resulted in deep financial losses for him and a harrowing experience for his wife. He was away, but Anna took in refugees from the fire only to become sufficiently threatened by the approaching flames that the guests and she and her four little girls had to evacuate.

The family trip to Europe was planned to help Moody and Sankey in their evangelistic endeavors and to provide a time of healing and rejuvenation for their family.

At the last minute, Horatio had business prevent his going with Anna and their daughters on the luxury ocean liner. He would come later. A ship from England rammed into the S. S. Ville de Havre one night. Within twelve minutes, the steamer sank. Life boats were unavailable held fast by a recent paint job. Surrounded by Annie, Megan, and Bessie with the youngest daughter Tanetta in her arms, Anna was on deck when heavy winds took her child from her clutch before all were thrown in the ocean.

Anna was one of the small number of survivors when she was rescued semi-conscious on a piece of planking and taken by the rescuing boat to Wales. Horatio was on his way to bring her home when he composed the famous hymn.

Back in their empty house in Lakeview near Chicago, Horatio and Anna grieved and resumed life. They went on to have a daughter Bertha and a son named after his daddy. Now they continued their spiritual life with an entirely new set of values. Then a scarlet fever epidemic in 1880 claimed the life of the son when he was four. Some people wondered what the Spaffords had done wrong to be so punished with such losses.

As they intensified their Bible study, they became intrigued with the second coming and with a desire to go to Jerusalem. As soon as their baby Grace was born in 1881, the Spaffords led a party of thirteen adults and three children to the then Ottoman Palestine to start a Christian community trying to pattern after the New Testament church. Their mission was to serve the poor, and they made no distinction in serving Jews, Muslins, or Christians.

They tried to help whoever needed help and won the appreciation and respect of the people living in Jerusalem who called them The American Colony. Of course, they also attracted jealousy and criticism including that of two United States consuls. A court case exonerated them, but some of their beliefs and practices are still questioned today.

They adopted Jacob Eliahu Spafford, a talented and bilingual son who continued work with the colony in his adulthood as did his two sisters and other children reared in the commune. Horatio had died in 1888 at age 60, but Anna assumed leadership until her death in 1923.

Relief and charitable work was then continued under the direction of the second generation of The American Colony’s children and even the third generation until the 1950s when inner tensions in the group caused the communal group to cease.
Many people disdain the group for its unorthodox beliefs and for human errors and less than perfect lives.

But down through the years since the tragedy at sea in 1873, health care and hospitals have been provided, schools made available, orphaned babies and children have been cared for, and thousands of people were fed in times of food shortages during wars or plagues. The Spafford commune has produced an amazing abundance of good fruit that has helped and blessed people of all faiths. Read more about Horatio and Anna’s heritage at:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/americancolony/amcolony-holyland.html.

Wolf Lake Class of 1948 and Labor Day Weekend

Gerald was one of 16 in his Wolf Lake High School graduating class. One alumnus and wife were in the habit of coming back for a late summer visit and a McClure grade school reunion. A few years back, the local social leader of the 1948 class—Irma Dell Eudy Elkins--started calling the rest of us to meet for dinner at Fox Hollow, the East Cape fish eatery.

Others who went to school with this class and some relatives might also show up for the gathering. I finally began to get acquainted with those long-ago buddies from Gerald’s high school days. A couple of classmates have died and a couple of the locals don’t feel the need for seeing long-ago classmates, but still there are always two or three long tables of us. When this year’s reunion was planned, last spring’s flood caused the fish place at East Cape to close. There was some question whether Foxy’s could reopen, so Irma Dell reserved the room in a Mexican restaurant at Anna for us on Thursday night before the holiday weekend began.

This year everyone was missing “Doc” Knupp whom classmates had sent funeral flowers for earlier in the summer. He had been brought with his walker from a nursing home the last couple of years, and we were glad to again see his sister Mary Ellen from Cape who had brought him last year.

We enjoyed picking up Ruby Morrison Treece from her assisted living quarters in Marion, where she had moved when her multi-floored Cape Girardeau home became too much to take care of. She is still recovering from open heart surgery, but is looking good. She and Gerald shared a birthday when they went to the rural Miller Pond School as children. (That building was just torn down this summer, and Gerald’s brother Garry acquired those bricks) For a few years back then, a small country church congregation met in the school house on Sunday, and Gerald and Ruby made professions of faith there on the same day. Ruby married a young farmer in the Mississippi River bottoms, and Jim was the brother of our sister-in-law Opal Treece Glasco. In small communities, there are often layered connections between people, and this has always fascinated me.

(Anyone who digs into genealogy when populations were more limited immediately begins to find such overlaps--siblings marrying siblings and such. When we had two daughters living in Nashville, TN, I became convinced from their stories that this was also true in city circles because they learned that a stranger at a party might turn out to be connected to someone they already knew. I regretted I had not majored in sociology to better understand these inter-connections of people better. I guess this is similar to the six degrees of separation that mathematicians and academics explored for us and popular culture embraced.)

Ruby was an excellent student with a wonderful sense of humor and later became a successful business woman when they left the Mississippi bottoms and moved to Carmi after Jim became an insurance agent there. We enjoyed talking all the way to and from Anna, and Gerald and Ruby caught up on many mutual acquaintances.

A sad message from my cousin Ken Johnson in California waited when we came in that evening. His brother Eugene up in Collinsville had passed away. So the end of that evening was filled with my reflections and reminisces of my Rockenmeyer family connections. Ken and Gene used to bring their Boy Scout tents to Mount Airy Farm, and we kids would all camp out in the front yard with cups of meat grease to put on our chigger bites. More recently, Gerald and I took our grandkids to Cahokia Mounts one summer and on to Gene and Elsie’s house, where Gene had an entire museum room devoted to his rock and Native American collections.

Suddenly we were into Labor Day weekend, and we had made no special plans. I realized as I read the weekend papers that many people were making the most of this late summer holiday weekend with visitors, reunions, cookouts, or going to the DuQuoin Fair, and I felt a little left out. Our nephew DuWayne had become sick at work on Friday and was in Cape Girardeau hospital for tests, so yesterday afternoon Gerald went with his brother Keith to see him. I was at our daughter Katherine’s as usual on Sunday afternoon. She and I were highly delighted when her sister Mary Ellen phoned. She and Brian had come down to clean out their grain bin today for this year’s crop and found no one home at Woodsong. So Brian brought her into Katherine’s, and soon Mary Ellen had Kate and me in stitches as only she can do. When David brought teenage Sam home from his youth group, Sam added to the hilarity with his impersonations and witty remarks and the belly laughing continued. I knew this was better than any comedy club, and I no longer felt left out of the holiday celebration.

Mary Ellen and I finally went home and joined Brian and Gerald at the kitchen table, where everyone fixed themselves hot pockets or pot pies from the freezer and visited more while also enjoying tomatoes and cantaloupe from Gerald’s garden. Since Brian had taken their camper up last week for the Farm Progress Show where Stone Seed had an exhibit, they and Fifi stayed over night with us. So there was more visiting this morning. And today Gerald brought in the first watermelon from his garden to finish our lunch menu. With no planning, my Labor Day weekend has been a success.

Sad Farewell to Jerry Stapleton, Age 60

As we knew it would be, the parking lot of the funeral home was full last night when we pulled in. We were dreading the fresh grief inside although the accident that cost the life of Jerry Stapleton had happened over a week before. He had been taken to a Saint Louis hospital by helicopter and lain there for over a week on a breathing machine with broken neck and paralysis and then a massive stroke. Some thought that perhaps a light stroke or some such event had caused the accident with its catastrophic results in the first place. As far as anyone knew, he never had to suffer the anxiety of knowing about his injuries as he never became conscious.

From a large and highly regarded family, Jerry had been in the community’s prayers ever since an accident. His sister’s sister-in-law kept us all abreast with Jerry’s condition on Facebook, so we were prepared for the bad news.

During the thirty-six years we lived at Pondside Farm just a half mile from here, there was only one house between ours and the Stapleton house just down the road. Russ and Mildred Stapleton had three boys, all tall like their World War II veteran father, and one little girl named Debby, who was the right age to play with our youngest two—Jeannie and Mary Ellen. Steve, Jerry, and Mike were all several years older than our son Gerry, and they also had cousins Gordon and Paul on down the road apiece. Our brother-less son found the Stapleton homes a bonanza of boys with fishing, ball playing, horse, and hunting interests. As soon as he was allowed to ride his bycycle on our rural gravel road, he would head there with promises to me that he would be home before dark. Poor little guy got in trouble a lot when he would break those promises. Because of the age differences, I worried about his being a pest, but the boys made him welcome.

When I wrote our kids about Jerry’s accident, our son emailed back: “That is so sad! Paul, Steve, Jerry, Gordon and Mike were my closest neighbors. Good families. Never, ever did one thing mean to me! That is really a testament to how good of boys they all were!” Down in Georgia, he was torn that it was not possible for him to be in that huge crowd at the funeral home. But he was so accurate about “Good families.”

Russ farmed and worked in the mines. In addition to all her homemaking duties and cooking for her own family, Mildred worked in our village school lunch program for many years. When she retired, she used her expertise and for many more years volunteered to head up her church’s participation in Marion’s lunch program for anyone who shows up to eat five days a week. Participating churches take a week’s turn to prepare meals. Mildred would be there all five days. Only long after health problems plagued her did she finally retire from this unpaid job.

Russ and Mildred are perfect examples of bad things happening to good people. Their son Steve served in the Marines in Viet Nam and was exposed to Agent Orange. He came home and worked in the mines, but he had to fight cancer for many years. Like so many of our veterans, he died early at age 61 in 2008. Parents never get over losing children. As one of my high school classmates said to me about his son’s death: they are supposed to live longer than their parents.

Mildred and Russ celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary at the party their kids threw for them July 4th weekend at their church fellowship hall. We had a family reunion and could not attend, but I thoroughly enjoyed the invitation with an adorable poem telling the story of their romance and marriage. I found out from Mike last night that Debby had written it. Somehow I take comfort from knowing that they had that special time together with all their children, grandchildren, and friends before they had to go through this second sorrow of losing another son.

Jerry’s wife Pam and his two sons and daughter are all living productive lives that speak well of Jerry’s heritage from his time on earth. The community will continue to share their grief and pray for comfort for all of them as they face life without him.

The death toll is rising from the terrible destruction of Hurricane Irene, so many Americans families are facing great grief right now. We know that grief is to be expected in this life, but somehow it often surprises us when it happens.

Tammy Morris, a writer in our community, gave us this scripture paraphrase on Facebook a couple of days ago: ""weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning...' -- life brings hills and valleys and each has something that add character, so if you are in a valley and weeping during the night, just remember that there is a hill and a morning full of joy up ahead." Thank you, Tammy.

Reliving Cobden's Glory Days

Our meals have been enlivened this week as Gerald excitedly tells me what he has read in The Amazing Appleknockers: Illinois Cinderella Basketball Team of 1964. Despite a very busy week getting a replacement for a broken draw bar, which he was still out in his shop adapting today, he was snatching moments to read the book, and I was getting his updates. He was eager to finish the book and find out all the details about the Appleknockers’ story, which he did yesterday afternoon, but he was still talking about it at lunch today.

For a school with 147 students to become one of the Elite Eight out of 735 high schools in the state was pretty incredible. They traveled by train to the state tournament, and were pleasantly surprised to see people along the way holding up signs celebrating with them and cheering them to victory. They were rapidly the crowd’s favorite and the reporters’ dream team. The village of Cobden was almost deserted as residents traveled to support the team in Champaign at the University of Illinois.

Everyone up there was asking what an Appleknocker was. In our end of the state, we all knew where the term came from. If you grew up in Union County, your older brother or the neighbor boys probably picked peaches and apples in the fields around Cobden. The authors explained that by knocking apples off of over-loaded limbs, workers could bring about better quality apples. They repeated the story that the town mayor told to newspaper reporters that the school adopted the name in the 1940s after they made it to a sectional tournament even before they had a gymnasium. When Cobden won, one spectator supposedly said, “Whoever heard of a bunch of appleknockers winning such a thing?” That was the impetus for the school to officially and proudly adopt the Appleknockers as their mascot name.

Like most Illinoisans during March Madness 1964—especially those of us in the southern part of the state—we were sitting in front of the television watching the Appleknockers as they played in the state tournament. I don’t think we owned a television in 1964, so we probably came over to the hog farm to watch with Keith and Barbara in their living room. We watched with pride and held breath to see these kids from our end of the state keep winning. They advanced to the championship game but sadly were defeated 50-45 by the team from Pekin. For kids who thought they could win the whole thing, the deep disappointment made that second-place trophy totally unappreciated that final night. They listened to Coach Ruggles’ consolation talk and politely attended the party in their honor at their motel, but they had come to win, not be to be runners-up.

The train trip home was quiet and solemn as each player relived the loss and knew what should have happened differently. They had just lost the most important game of their lives. Coach Ruggles wanted to help them feel better but nothing he said or did changed the dark mood. As they approached Cobden, they saw cars outside the train windows and thought there must be a funeral in town. What they did not know was that cars from the region were backed up on Route 51 from the curve north towards Carbondale and down to Anna in the south. Some estimated four to five thousand had come to Cobden to celebrate their second-place win. American flags, a giant welcome home banner and bands from area high schools were playing. Cameras flashed as the boys stood amazed at seeing more people than they had ever seen in the village before.

Convertibles were waiting for them to crawl into for the parade. While spectators cheered, the parade with fire truck and crepe-paper decorated vehicles three times circled the loop—the two parallel main streets with railroad track between them that cause people to claim that Cobden has the widest main street in the world. They proceeded to the high school where people crammed the gym decorated with streamers and flowers, and there was a fifteen-foot cake made to look like a basketball court.

By the time the speeches, recognitions, and continuous ovations were almost over, the boys began to realize what they had done and were able to share the pride and joy being heaped on them. Finally, bushels of plastic apples were brought to the stage for the players to autograph and toss to the crowd who begged for them. Apples were flying everywhere, and I suspect most of those who caught them have them still someplace in their homes. People in our region have never forgotten this team and their amazing performance. Now thanks to the story in book form, those too young to been alive back then will have the opportunity to remember it also.

Co-authors Teri Campbell and Anne Ryman both grew up in Cobden hearing the wonderful stories about this Sweet Sixteen team when Sweet Sixteen meant something in this state. (Now teams are divided by size, so no team from a tiny school can ever again play the larger teams in a state tournament.) Teri spoke to Southern Illinois Writers Guild last Thursday. Someone asked Teri if writing about the games was difficult for her, but she explained that in her job at John A. Logan College, she had been writing up JALC’s sports stories for eleven years, so that was the easy part for her. Co-author Anne Ryman lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband Scott Cancelosi and daughter Maria and works for the newspaper there. They started the book in 2003 and collaborated by phone and Internet. I grabbed one of the last of their books from the first printing and Teri autographed it for Gerald. More books are likely printed by now and available on Amazon, but I knew Gerald would not want to wait when I told him bits and pieces from Teri’s talk. The book was definitely one of my most successful gifts to my husband.

Good News! The Knee Bends!

Gerald and I woke with one thing on our minds. We must drive to Carterville area to the surgery center where Erin was facing no one knew what. Erin’s boyfriend Rick had picked her up and taken her there shortly before we arrived, and he was asleep in the waiting room since he had gotten off work at 2 a.m. and had not had a full night’s sleep. Gma Shirley also arrived, and we all tried to distract ourselves from worrying about what was happening to our Erin, who was to be anesthetized in order to have her stiff knee bent.

A nurse appeared at the door ever so briefly and reported that the manipulation procedure was starting. After four recent surgeries for the ACL, none of us could bear to think about a fifth surgery today but we knew it was a possibility if too much scar tissue prevented the knee from being bent. (I don’t know enough about the knee or surgery to know why the two earlier times first at the surgical center and then the hospital were called two surgeries each time and not one, but I assumed it was because they made two incisions.)

Within a half hour, we were all invited into the conference room where the surgeon told us Erin was in recovery and everything had gone as well as he could have hoped for. No incision and further surgery had to be done. He had heard some scar tissue popping, but evidently it broke up without need for further scraping or whatever we were fearful he might have to do. He illustrated with his own leg movement how good Erin’s was now. She must go home with anti-pain meds, continue the antibiotics, and move, move, move the knee and then start more physical therapy in the morning. Gerald phoned Vickie and Gerry knowing they were as focused on what was happening here as we were.

Soon we were all invited into the recovery room to sit around her bedside where she was drinking a coke and smiling and very happy that she could bend her knee again. When it was time to go, her crutches were brought out and she declined a wheelchair. Rick would be taking her through a drive-in for breakfast. We all hugged goodbye with great relief and gratefulness.

Changes

When Gerald talked to Gerry this morning, Gerry and Aidan were on the way to the first of Geri Ann’s three tournament softball games. Gerald asked Gerry what he was doing, and Gerry replied, “I’m explaining the difference between an hour and a second to Aidan.” I am sure Gerry is re-learning how five-year-olds think now that Tara and the three little boys are in Georgia while Bryan is still in Aurora preparing their house for sale and completing the seven exams he has to pass to be a licensed architect in Illinois. Tara is already at work as the new assistant softball coach at the University of Georgia, and Gma Vickie is swamped, I am sure, with the move to a house large enough for two families, which will facilitate her helping with child care.

Gerald misses these three little boys so much himself that he is very sympathetic to Bryan temporarily stuck up north, so he phoned him to commiserate and check to see if there is any chance of catching a ride down for one of Geri Ann’s senior softball games at Oconee High. We have to follow their team by phone calls or by checking newspaper accounts on the Internet.

Maybe all our transitions will be over soon, and family members will settle into their new fall roles and residences. I am unsettled just from watching and vicariously experiencing what everyone is going through with new rental houses, new schools, new jobs, and on and on. I don’t even know the addresses for half of my kids and grandkids right now! (I never like change and rarely like anything new, so no wonder I am unnerved.)

Trent starts college with a calculus class on Monday night and is in the new house in Chatham. Brianna has already begun her junior year in high school there. Elijah is settled into his dorm room at Illinois State University and has his first classes on Monday also. Leslie and fiancé Michael are in Freeport visiting her folks and attending a friend’s wedding and will start their senior year at Belmont next week. I am wondering if they will get to stop at Woodsong on their way back to Nashville.

Probably the most unnerving event will take place on Monday when Erin has to go back to the surgeon and surgery center for a knee-bending procedure. I was pleased to unexpectedly see her other grandmother, Gma Shirley, last night at a women’s social gathering at our village church. We are both waiting to find out what time Erin has to be there for this procedure—and we are praying there is no scar tissue found inside that knee. Meanwhile, today Erin is meeting with the new SIUC softball team and is excited about her upcoming second year as assistant coach there.

Her good friend Toni Whitfield. a grad student, has already moved for this school year into the little house Erin rented last year. That’s appropriate since Toni’s folks were the ones who furnished much of the house last fall with their extra furniture and they serve as Erin’s substitute parents in this area. Toni is one of those multi-talented people— athletic, artistic, and academically gifted. She can sew and do things practical as well; and on top of all that, she is quite beautiful. I hope we again get to see her occasionally now that she and Erin are housemates.

Sam has started high school and is already busy with all that entails. His mother says there has already been plenty of homework. (I though maybe all the summer academic work he was assigned would make this semester easier. I guess it does not work that way.) But I think Sam likes the challenge. I feel a little awed when I pass his old grade school and the junior high and realize that he has already moved on to bigger things and I don’t need to read the announcements on the schools’ public bulletin boards. He is contemplating that driver’s license that will eliminate the need for me is his life, and that is as it should be. But my contemplation of where has time gone is also understandable and as it should be.

Visiting Summer Visitors

Gerald’s cousin’s daughter Lynn and husband Brent Carter are visiting her dad, Bill
Tweedy, this week at his Cobden area farm. Lynn and Brent’s daughter Tiffany and two little girls--Aubrey, 4, and Kylie, 2—are there meeting up from the far sides of America. We wanted to see them before everyone returns to their side—the Carters to North Carolina and Tiffany to Oregon. Gerald suggested an outing, but their schedule didn’t allow it, so they invited us down last evening.

We left a little early since Gerald had planned to go to a Carbondale office supply store on his way home from physical therapy yesterday morning, but since this would be on our way to Bill’s house, he postponed that shopping stop until our evening trip. After obtaining the sale items we both found, we were back in the car heading south towards New Route 51.

Soon we came to the bright yellow water tower at Makanda, the sweet memorial to our late Senator Paul Simon, who lived in that village and always wore a bow tie. The smiley face on the water tower wears his signature tie, and we remember the impact for good that he accomplished for our region and our nation.

There we headed down Old 51, which always bring memories since it was the only way from our hometowns to Carbondale for so many years. We passed Dead Man’s Curve and the second sharp curve soon after and knew gratefulness for New 51. Going past Flamm’s Orchard, we remembered the peach cobbler being served on the picnic tables there. Turning at Limestone Baptist Church, we headed down the more narrow but lovely tree-lined Union Springs Road.

All through our journey, I was enjoying and so grateful for all the attractive and well cared for homes of just ordinary people who live on these rural lands. I had just finished re-reading Cora Alyce Seaman’s book that gave such an accurate account of Depression- era farm homes and lifestyles, and these homes re-enforced my acknowledgement of how fortunate Americans are today. Our wealth and comfort compared to then are so great. The next two generations younger than us with their phones, computers, and other luxuries, which they rightfully consider necessities in today’s world, have no idea what hard times really are. I am so glad.

Finally we came to the Tweedys’ beautiful home with its lovely vista. Brent and Bill and little Kylie were outside working on new back seats for Bill’s Gator that obviously pleases his great granddaughters as much as Gerald’s does our great grandsons.

Inside I was happy to see Lynn again and to meet Tiffany, whom I surely saw during her childhood but not often, and to make an acquaintance with blond Kylie and sandy-haired Aubrey, who were such pretty little pixies sharing their delightful charm and energy as they bounced around in our midst. (We missed Mickey, who was in Omaha with her daughters, but Bill assured us that her evening’s phone call had included an inquiry about Katherine, whom she faithfully prays for.)

Bill was scheduled for supper and a youth group he works with at his church, so he had to excuse himself before we sat down to Lynn’s delicious supper she had prepared for us. The two little girls were seated at the counter near us with their glasses of milk and plates of food, and I noticed they seemed to enjoy supper to replace all the energy they had expended. Brent and Lynn said they would soon be in bed and quickly asleep after their hard day’s play and activities.

We talked long at the table even after the yummy fresh Flamm peaches were served with hot-from-the-oven homemade cookies. We were still talking when Bill came in from his youth meeting explaining he was later than he intended because of a health crisis in one youth’s life that everyone was dealing with. Soon he was on the phone in the other room continuing for a long time to deal with the situation.

I knew so much gratitude for people like Bill who are ready to share their time and talents immersing themselves with the lives of other people’s kids Never mind, that he might excuse himself claiming he had done his part many years before with his three daughters and friends. Or he could claim fatigue that was certainly present from his recent participation in an agriculture conference in Hawaii. Or he could easily sound quite reasonable if he chose to skip youth work because of all the trouble his back is causing him recently—probably requiring more surgery very soon. But he is ignoring all his own pain and the reasons he might not be able to serve and is gladly investing in these kids’ lives.

Finally still talking around the table, Gerald and I were yawning and knew it was past our bedtime and probably our hosts’ and we started into the country darkness to head home. We were richer with the biggest cantaloupe I think I’ve seen from Bill’s garden and with some of the peaches he wanted to share from Flamm’s. We were also richer from an evening with loved ones from both coasts of our nation who are filling their lives with service to others as they also care for their children and grandchildren and participate in America’s 21st Century with all its benefits and challenges.

Pleasant Weather Returns

Cooler weather has been most welcome although we would also welcome another summer rain. Crops still look good everywhere in our neighborhood though. The moon is almost full again, and seeing it shine down on the lake is one of my favorite sights.

Six beautiful gray doves were outside on our patio as I started up the stairs to fix lunch the other day. Unfortunately, my movement inside scared them away and they have not been back as far as I know. Our ducks are down to one pair and seem to stay on the other end of the lake right now, and geese have all disappeared too, so we are especially grateful for an increase in the quail in the fields around the house.

Gerald is continuing physical therapy for his injured rotator cuff, and he is not certain the therapy is working. So there may be another step coming. Erin has been back at work for a couple of weeks, but she is still on crutches. She and her cousin Drew (and later her Uncle Louie and Aunt Chris) were here fishing at the lake on Saturday. She had forgotten her crutches, which is permissible for short periods, but her knee is still stiff and unbending, so we are praying that her therapy will kick in soon, so she won’t have to be anesthetized for yet another procedure.

Our oldest grandson Aidan started kindergarten down in Georgia last Tuesday, and he was so excited that the next two days he woke up at 3 a.m. to go to school. On Friday, however, he told his grandmother that he believed he’d take that day off. Oh dear!

Sam has finished marching band camp and starts high school tomorrow. Last night Gerald and I went to his family’s evening worship service and heard Sam and his youth group share their summer experiences at church camp and then at their mission trip to Joplin, MO. It was inspiring to hear how the people of Joplin have reacted to the tornado damage, and it was inspiring to hear these young teens tell about learning to roof and to use hammers. It was good that their work in moving school furniture will help the kids at Joplin begin school on time. Knowing the kids did all this in temperatures over an l00 degrees was especially impressive. We were grateful for the parent volunteers who helped keep the kids hydrated.

This past week has been unusually busy with extra activities going on at Katherine’s house, so I did not get around to blogging. I really have done very little of anything although I have been involved with helping pass on an entire wardrobe for a family member who has lost weight. Our family are great passers-on. What no one we know can use will end up at Salvation Army.

Also I have helped share Gerald’s abundant tomato crop with Katherine’s helpers. This year’s tomatoes are especially tasty and uniformly large and luscious. There is now another bucket full in the kitchen that Gerald picked today, so I may need to freeze some juice or find some more recipients.

Summer Ends Before Labor Day Now-a-days

Tall walls of corn line many country roads, deer feast in soybeans up to their necks, tomatoes are finally ripening, and the heat tells us it is definitely summer. Yet dental and eye appointments fill parents’ calendars, newspapers ads feature school supplies, kids sweat through marching band and football practices, and schools are about to start. Some even tomorrow! I feel sorry for children going back to school in the middle of August, but as hot as it is, maybe enough schools are air conditioned these days that it will be okay.

Jeannie and her younger daughter Cecelie came through last Monday and spent the night and visited with us here the next morning on their way to Nashville, TN, to see the older daughter, Leslie, and admire her new engagement ring.
This afternoon they came back by briefly but couldn’t spend the night. They had to hurry home because they’d stayed a bit longer than they hoped in an effort to find the perfect dentist for a tooth problem that Leslie won’t have time to take care of back in her home town when she goes briefly for a friend’s wedding. The mission for the right dentist was accomplished with a first appointment tomorrow. Many good comments online gave Jeannie confidence.

Of course, they talked wedding plans while there and visited bridal shops and even thrift shops. (The current reception dreams call for lots of glass and vintage lace and unmatched plates and glasses. These early ideas may change by June, but Leslie and Jeannie are both original, and I am sure whatever transpires will be fun and a work of art.) So while Cecelie took the Gator for a spin, we drank a coke together at the kitchen table and heard Jeannie’s report of their visit. Her daddy listened on with typical wry male comments (just put a ladder up to the window and save time and energy) and I openly relished hearing the report on all their girl talk. He did too, but he knew he was supposed to make those kinds of remarks or we’d been disappointed.

After that brief break, we were off to Katherine’s and, of course, she wanted to hear a repeat of the Leslie news. She loves to hear Nashville activities and music scene talk since that was her life once upon a time. Just last week she received a childhood Winnie the Pooh book left behind with other things in a friend’s Nashville attic when she moved back to Illinois.

Very soon Jeannie and Cecelie had to be on the road again for the long many-hour drive to northern Illinois. Jeannie has already been working in her art room and will throw herself into school prep in the morning.

After Jeannie and Cecelie left, I was helping Katherine with paper work for Sam’s high school registration in the morning when she realized she had never made the call to the new dentist to schedule her and Sam’s needed appointments. (When you can’t use your hands, a phone call is often a challenge and sometimes impossible. The usual phone problems are exacerbated by a beautiful new phone David chose for her because it was supposed to be more handicap convenient—but for some odd reason, something is not working right and it keeps losing its power.)

While it was recharging, even though it was long after 5 p.m., I grabbed my cell phone and dialed the 800 number for the new dental place in Marion that at least has longer appointment-making hours. Suddenly Katherine was trapped in a time-consuming Q&A for new patients by a very kindly speaking young man in who-knows-what city. In the middle of that, David walked in with their very special friend from Israel. We thought the 800 phone call would never end, but with all that time invested, it had to be completed. Finally she was able to join the two men in the living room.

I don’t think Katherine has ever met his wife, but she has talked to her on the phone and keeps a Hebrew dictionary handy since neither woman speaks the others’ language. Somehow they communicate. David opened the present she sent Katherine, and I left the three of them happily visiting.

I’d taken Katherine sweet corn from her Uncle Garry that he passed out at his brother Keith’s birthday breakfast at Jonesboro this morning. Gerald attended on his way to Cape to get our car serviced. I also took her tomatoes from Gerald’s garden, and Jeannie had some of each put into her northern-bound car too. Finally, as I left town tonight, I delivered the bucket full Garry had sent to our sister-in-law Opal. I did not take her tomatoes since she always has them in her own garden along with the beautiful masses of flowers and plants lining her sidewalks that make a visit to her home so pleasing.

Although it was much too late by now to stay and visit, I had the special treat of seeing her three-year-old great granddaughter Josie, whom Opal was watching while Josie’s mother gave dance classes. I hadn’t seen her since she was a baby. I enjoy Josie’s photos posted by Jinna, her mother, on Facebook, but she was much more grown up than the photos revealed. I was delightfully surprised when she followed Opal’s example and suddenly she snuggled close and gave me an unasked for hug. I left with a smile on my face.

Back at the farm, Gerald had long before fixed his own supper. I hurriedly fixed myself a bite including one of Garry’s ears of sweet corn. Garry and Ginger live on the home place where Gerald grew up, and Garry is walking in their late father’s footsteps growing extra food and freely passing it around to more people than you can imagine. Dad Glasco would be proud his tradition continues.

Today was not only Keith’s birthday, but our niece Vicki, Garry and Ginger’s daughter, reminded us that 28 years ago her baby son David Brandon was born. We lost him at Christmas time that same year, and our family shed some more tears for him today even as I also shed tears for the babies dying tonight because of the famine in Somalia.

Putting Small Summer Miseries in Perspective

Is there any greater minor misery than a cold in the summer time? Since I am in the throes of one, I naturally do not think so. I keep losing the tissue box, and I definitely do not feel like looking for it—but I have no choice. I kept hoping this was allergies, but realized yesterday morning at a very sad funeral that allergies and tears were not the only thing making my nose run. (A 35-year-old man that so many people loved left behind a young widow and two sons. That is true misery, and a cold is inconsequential.)

Gerald and a nephew have gone to Chattanooga to cheer on the two Southern Force softball teams at the ASA national tourney. Theoretically I wish I were there, but with this cold, I am very grateful that I am not.

Fortunately I had already cancelled out on meeting Jeannie and Leslie in Paducah today. I am driving Gerald’s pickup while he is away, and I knew I had no business going on strange streets looking for a bridal shop I had never been to. I wanted to go since Paducah was where Jeannie and I went to choose her wedding dress so many years ago. I wanted in reminince and enjoy dinner at Olive Garden, where I think Jeannie and I ate when we down for her fittings. I cannot remember the name of that long ago bridal store or how we got there, but oddly I remember the woman clerk telling us about their recent family tragedy where a neice and brother-in-law took refuge beneath a tree during a summer outing—and were both killed by lightning hitting the tree. (That is consequential misery.) I also remember that the AC in our car was out when we made those trips, and I was upset about it. Jeannie would ride her bike to the farm from Carbondale and we would go to Paducah from there, and I felt she should have AC at least on the trip to Paducah. Again when I look back, I know that was inconsequential although it tore me up at the time.

True tragedies put life’s minor flaws and inconveniences in perspective. A young friend I sat by yesterday at the funeral wrote on Facebook last night that her son had hit a deer and then a car hit his car. But everyone was fine except the deer. She was so grateful and rejoicing—even though an older teen son had an accident a few months ago.—and I know from personal experience how difficult it is to keep teens in safe cars. Yet she was able to bounce back and come out knowing that an accident that left her son unhurt was not a serious problem. She urged us realize how quickly life can change and she paraphrased Francis of Assissi urging us to show love at all times and if needed use words. Such good advice when small summer problems seem larger than they are when we are hot and tired and praying for rain and wiping sweat off our brow. (Or in my case, wiping my nose.)

The link to Leslie and Mike's love story...

Here 'tis:

http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleId=9768998700132418&MsdVisit=1

Enjoy!