What Are You Doing?

When I used to answer the phone and have a friend ask, What’s ya doing?”, I always felt stumped It was obvious to me that I was answering the phone, but I knew that was not the answer that the caller wanted. They wanted more than that.

So I would search my memory and try to remember what I was doing before they interrupted what I was doing with the phone call. Sometimes I did not care to tell them, so I would have to create an acceptable (less honest but not a lie) answer and hope to please them and get on to the subject they had called about.

Being the curious type, I have been wondering what in the world is Twitter. Tonight I explored Twitter for five minutes and discovered that “What are you doing?” is the question I must answer. I became all shy and brain frozen. I just clicked off until another time. Fortunately I had not asked anyone to be my friend, so I didn’t feel like I was hanging up on someone. I decided to wait to answer until I could say something ore interesting than “trying to figure out what Twitter is all about.”

I knew the President-elect had his Twitter account hacked this week. One news show talks a great deal about Twitter. I hate feeling like someone from the 20th Century. I want to be hip. I like the name: Twitter. It is cute and light hearted and makes me feel good to hear it. Twitter! Isn’t that a clever sound? But what is the point?

What am I doing? Again you know that I am typing on Twitter. Should I say what I just did before I started typing on Twitter? Or should I say what I plan to do next after I quit typing on Twitter? Do you really want to know: “I just took my meds” or “I’m going to brush my teeth so I can go to bed.” I am not sure I have any friends who want to know that much about me. Hmmm. But just in case you do, that is what I am going to do: Brush my teeth and go to bed.

Clearing Out to Start Afresh

It is that time of year. Looking back and looking forward. Although I had taken down the door wreaths and the many table top accessories and small items lining the books on one book case, both trees were still up yesterday morning when the phone call from Mary Ellen came. Her family was sleeping while she was driving, and she was getting sleepy too. So she phoned to get her dad to talk to her, so she’d stay awake. They were trying to make it home to Lake Saint Louis from their holiday trip to Florida since the kids had friends to meet and things to do (of course) and so did the adults. Gerald suggested they meet at Cracker Barrel for breakfast, but a later phone call pleaded to just come crash here at the farm. Of course that was fine with us. All the beds were empty.


While they slept, I turned on the trees for the last time thinking they could still feel a bit of holiday spirit when they woke up—which wasn’t until noon. They were ready to head out the door, but I’d already doubled our left-over pot of chili from the night before, so they were persuaded to have a bowl of chili first, so we could hear about their trip to Disney World and their visit with Brian’s mother.


This afternoon the decorations quickly came off the upstairs tree and it is ready to be stuffed into its box in the morning and crammed back in the closet.. The guest room bed is covered with its ornaments and earlier removed accessories that still must be boxed. I climbed onto a step stool and took down the angel looking down on us from the cabinets in the dining room.


Just to get started, I even took a few ornaments off the downstairs tree, which has the accumulation of keepsake items from 52 years of marriage. There are some pretty plaid bows Jean Harrison gave me on a gift many years ago (20 or 30 years?) and a bright red and yellow bow from a flower arrangement that Hua-ling Hu brought to us at Woodsong once. There is an adorable white miniature plastic cowboy boot with attached tag promoting Kathie DeNosky’s first romance. She gave it to us when she spoke to Writers Guild, and I loved it and knew the tree was the perfect place for it.


There are many ornaments made by our children and grandchildren—including some made from toilet tissue tubes to slip over branches. There are some made by Texas relatives and Wyoming relatives and some made by my sister-in-law Ginger before her stroke. There is a red poppy bought on the street one Memorial Day from an American Legion member. I put it on the tree in remembrance of all the fun my friend Lynn and I had selling poppies in Anna for her grandparents’ veterans group.. (They treated us to lunch at a restaurant, which was a big deal to me. Lunch came with vegetables served in cute little white bowls beside your plate.) Leukemia claimed Lynn’s life a year ago right before Christmas, so I lingered over that poppy. There are so many many ornaments and memories to be mulled.


That tree will take more time than the more stylized tree upstairs did, which didn’t have that many ornaments. (The upstairs tree has always been decorated with artificial roses and blue and silver ornaments.)


I am eager to finish up Christmas tomorrow, although I will probably still be sending a few belated cards and thank you notes next week. On Christmas Eve I had to follow my usual tradition of realizing that some cards would have to go out late. I started in early December with cards to shut-ins first, then the cards I carry to Sunday School rooms to pass out at church to save postage. ( I do this in honor of our late friend Helen Beasley who had her little G.A. girls do this so we could give more to our mission offering. I conscientiously added that postage saving to my mission check.) Then I addressed cards to all the relatives—except some whose addresses had been misplaced. Finally this year, I started on our lists of friends. Then suddenly it was Christmas Eve and time to celebrate whether the cards were finished or not. I always think I will do better the next year and get cards out earlier, but so far I never have.


I love the plainness of January after the richness of December. The house bared of decorations pleases my eye and refreshes my spirit just as much as the color and brightness did when the decorations went up. I cooked white beans and corn bread for New Year’s Day, and that menu has tasted good also after the richer holiday fare.


With the holidays behind us, I look forward to a reestablishing a daily routine. And I want to use the cold wintry days ahead to go through some closets and chests and see if I cannot buy some storage space by eliminating unused items. Most of all, I want to unclutter my office, but that may never happen. Papers, pamphlets, and books accumulate almost as quickly as I can sort and throw out. We will have to wait and see what is accomplished in 2009. I am looking forward to it, but grieving the violence plaguing the planet. I wish we could throw out hatred and misunderstanding and start afresh.

Twice As Nice--I Hope

When I started blogging, I think I assumed there were some sort of “etiquette rules” in effect. I remember someone telling me that I should not write in all caps in emails—that was considered shouting and not appropriate in emails. I have decided now that we are making those “rules” as we go along. Probably “practices” is a better word than “rules.”

I say all that to say this. Originally I did not think I should put the same blog on two different sites. I have decided that was silly. So this year, I will be posting the same on AmazonConnect and on Blogspot sites. So if all goes well, there will be two blogs a week on both sites. That way readers can find the blog on whichever site is more convenient for them.

I will try to keep writing on Sunday and Wednesday nights, but I will probably often times write a day or so late. Then it will be another day of the week when I finally get around to writing. Or I might skip a week or so if we travel or I get too busy.

If anyone wants me to email the blogs to them, I can do that easily. Let me know. I liked the idea of letting folks check in when they had the time to do so.

Happy New Year to each and all of you!

Sue

And to all a good night

It has been a good Christmas, and we are especially grateful because of all the harrowing traveling our family has gone through. First, getting Erin up through icy
Arkansas last week.

Then this week Gerry and Vickie, Erin, and Geri Ann left Georgia to take Aidan back home to his new baby brother and to his parents who were missing him greatly. Oh, they also had their dog Chloe and Erin's housemate's dog Acie. They did fine until they hit bad weather and ice in central Illinois. Lots of cars in the ditches--and there they were with such prescious cargo. They debated pulling off at Champaign, but phone calls ahead told them the roads on to northern Illinois were okay that night. They kept going and Aidan was home at 2:30 a.m. Gerald was following this trip by phone, and I suffered with them as did Gerald. Today, however, when they drove back down to Southern Illinois, the roads were perfect. And the Taylors had good roads down from the St. Louis area. The Cedars, of course, had no trouble getting out from Marion.

No one has had much sleep lately and Gerry and Vickie are already in bed readying themselves for the trip back to Georgia. Erin and Geri Ann have gone to play basketball in their uncle's barn.

We had 13 for dinner, and all but two of those are bedding here tonight, so our bedrooms are full and couches are made up for the young people. We fixed a nice soft bed of rugs and an old bedspread for Fifi, Acie, and Chloe in the garage.

I'm tired. So Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Getting Closer and Getting Done—I Hope!

Monday Gerald and I went to Carbondale as he had a hearing aide check up, and we thought we could visit some stores to shop. That much we accomplished. We planned next to go on down to Cobden after lunch and go by an orchard for apples and by Bill and Mickey Tweedy’s house for a quick drop-in visit. When it started snowing rather heavily, we decided we better get back to Marion. We did stopping for lunch on the way back to the farm. By then it had quit snowing so hard, and we took time to go by the Dollar Store for Christmas cards and a few other items. I found Aidan a battery-run play chain saw that makes a wonderful noise that I think he will love and his mother will hate me for. We stopped and picked up the Christmas letters from the fast print shop, where we had left them on our way over to Carbondale.

Back home I started working again on clearing up all the insurance papers, Medicare papers, and doctor/hospital bills on the dining room table. Ever since computers were invented, I have been unable to understand what I see on such bills. I hate messing with them. They come so many months after the event/appointment that I get very confused.

I miss the days when we had no insurance. I used to stop as I left the doctor’s office and write a check for $5 a visit if I remember correctly. (Gerald’s ag economics professor said health insurance wouldn’t pay off for a young farm family—and he was correct. The only year we had children in the hospital—two children, one of whom was in two different hospitals—we did have insurance. Gerald had bought group insurance, which a fellow farmer—older and much admired—had started more to help other people than himself. Gerald wanted to support his efforts. The next year we dropped the insurance. (Gerald said we would have been fine without the insurance—using the premium to pay the bills—but it was comforting to know we were covered.)

But we are no longer a young farm family, and times have changed. So we did get insurance many years ago. Yet it would be so nice to walk out of a doctor’s office and know the only paper we’d ever see would be the picture of the cancelled check when we received our bank statement. I have to wonder how much all that paper work costs per visit.

But I digress. I was determined to get those bills off the dining room table and a Christmas tablecloth put on before I started addressing Christmas cards on a table downstairs in the den. And I did it. Never mind that today I got one doctor’s bill back because somehow I had failed to put a stamp on it. I phoned the orchard to see about sending apples to my sister in Texas as I did last Christmas—but they explained it was too cold to ship apples now. Oh. I did not think of that.

Tuesday was made exciting with the belated arrival of Erin, our Texas A&M granddaughter. She started through Arkansas on Monday, where the roads were so bad that her grandfather and father advised her to get a motel that night. The next morning she started out only to soon have a two-hour delay while cars were cleared that had gone into the side of a bridge there.

Fortunately she had a book along to read. She also had a tiny black dog with huge ears named Acie to keep her company. No, it isn’t hers, but one she is keeping through the holidays for a housemate. Throughout the trip, she talked to her grandfather as she progressed to Illinois. Finally we were eating hamburgers together at the end of the day and getting acquainted with Acie, who somehow the next day ended up at Erin’s other grandmother’s house down the road apiece, and evidently they have quite a friendship going.

Erin has been busy and keeping us young as she comes and goes from Woodsong. She is connecting with friends here at home, helping her Gma Shirley (the dog sitter) get her Christmas shopping done, and visiting her high school teachers, We like having her around and teasing her about her “good jeans”—the ones with holes all up and down the legs—the expensive ones.

Yesterday I finished my first batch of cards, and today they were mailed. Who knows when the next batches will go out. I have sent cards (stragglers) in July. I like to keep in touch with old friends, and I know they have more time to read letters after the holidays.

I managed to finish my Christmas shopping Tuesday afternoon including a substitute gift for the apples I could not send my sister and husband. Gerald mailed that and her birthday present yesterday while he was in town. Gerald bought the men’s gifts today.

When he took over buying for the guys in the family a couple of years ago, he relieved me of my annual conundrum—what to buy for the men. This year he outdid himself and even wrapped them this afternoon while I was at Katherine’s house helping her when an aide could not come. We had fun going through her gift drawer deciding what she had stored away for various folk. I offered to wrap and was told she wanted that fun. (She had no idea how relieved I was.)

Sam came in with his trombone all excited about his school day. Instead of his regular classes, he had played with jazz band for the Rotary Club and a nursing home with lunch at McDonald’s in between. Two earlier performances this week were cancelled because of weather/illness problems, so he was quite pleased these were not.

Tomorrow we go to Lake Saint Louis for skin checks from a dermatologist there that our daughter Mary Ellen recommended, and we will visit with her family. Erin and Acie are heading to her family in Georgia, where she will also see her nephew Aidan, who flew home with his Gma Vickie on Tuesday. Gerry has been having fun watching cartoons with him, and of course Geri Ann loves having him around. He loves being around “G” and will be excited to see his “E” when she drives in.

After the weekend they will head to Aidan’s house. Tara says Maddux is missing his big brother Aidan. Gma Vickie will get to rock Maddux again while Gpa Gerry and Tara’s sisters meet him for the first time. Erin is taking our presents for that northern Illinois family by way of Georgia. Because tomorrow she is driving an older car of Gerry’s left in a shop here for repair, Erin’s is leaving her vehicle for their return stop from northern Illinois. So the rest of our presents for her family stay here. Come to think of it, it is not just the doctors’ bills that are complicated in this 21st century.

Welcome Maddux Mark Archibald

I haven’t really changed my blogging date to Thursday. We have just been focused on all the excitement of our second great grandchild born Tuesday afternoon, December 9, at Aurora to our oldest grandchild, Tara Archibald and her husband Bryan.

We’ve been busy checking out email photos of Maddux and his big brother Aidan, who will be three in May. I saw more adorable photos tonight posted by Bryan on Facebook. Gerald has taken copies over to his other great grandmother, Gma Shirley. We found out Shirley had her first great granddaughter a week or so ago. We knew Tara’s cousin Jeremy and his wife were expecting at the same time as Tara, but we didn’t know their little girl had arrived. I am sure Shirley has already shown the photos of Maddux and Aidan to great great grandmother Imogene, who lives beside Shirley.

In all this excitement and the busyness of the season, I somehow lost a day. I was actually hurrying earlier this afternoon so I could go to the Wednesday night monthly business meeting at our village church. Obviously, I am a little late.

This morning I took our decades-old Christmas tree and its huge string of lights to the Household Give-Away that the Ministerial Alliance operates. It is only open on Thursday mornings, so I should have known tonight was not Wednesday. But it is easy to get mixed up during this season. I had rushed there because I overslept, but I did get there. They welcomed our tree since they had just given away their last one. Afterwards Gerald and I met at Menards, where he was Christmas shopping and I had seen an ad for pre-lit trees. After our shopping, we had lunch together at Fazoil’s and were pleased to run into Joe and Janet Walker, who live in Marion, but are from our home community, and we had a nice visit.

I’d decided as a concession to my age that I would buy a pre-lit tree this year for the family room. I may have made a mistake. For one thing, it is heavier than the old tree; and if Gerald had not put it together and figured out how to hook the lights together, I am not sure I could have. The multi-colored lights are so very pretty that I almost hate to add all the boxes of ornaments I use on this tree that I consider the family tree where gifts will accumulate. Maybe I will get those ornaments on tomorrow. Gerald got down the lights that the wind had blown up on the house and added some more before it turns cold again.

The upstairs tree is shining out the living room window. It is almost finished. I still have a few more ornaments to put on as I needed some more of the little hooks, which were downstairs. I’ll take them up in a minute and put the last ornaments on before I ready the coffee for Gerald’s breakfast.

I haven’t decided whether or not to add the beautiful silver icicles that Katherine and Mary Ellen and I had so much fun buying years ago at a sale in Nashville, Tennessee. I used them last year, but I may skip putting them on this year. I would just add a few from the silver box every time I passed the tree, and eventually the tree was covered with the old-fashioned icicles.

This tree also needs to be replaced. It has shed from the moment I brought it home over a decade ago, and now some of the limbs have fallen off. A big reason I went to an artificial tree was I was wanting to avoid fallen needles. I want to have those needles vacuumed up before I place the old wine shower curtain beneath it as a tree skirt to match the wine in the couches there.

I received a special Christmas call this afternoon from my cousin Doug in California, and I caught up news on him and Vera and their three boys. Josh is still in the military and he and his wife presented Doug and Vera with a first grandson Josiah Ray. David is teaching math and Chris is teaching piano. David has already started on his doctorate.

We are getting Christmas cards daily in the mail, and I am thinking about ours. I bought some Christmas stamps but still need to buy cards and make copies of the annual Christmas letter. Usually I buy the cheapest cards I can find now that daughter Jeannie no longer makes cards. Hers were works of art that I was proud of sending and some folks framed. I figured these I send now get thrown away and that is okay. The point is to stay in touch and honor the friendships of the past.

Where Is It? Let's See Now

Mary Ellen called from up the road apiece on Friday that they had discovered the controller for the TV in the den was accidentally in their basket of games picked up just before they left our place to head to their other family’s home. Should they return it? Naw, just wait until Christmas when you come down. They can also then retrieve Trent's black left-foot shoe (a thong it is too cold to wear often now). Later Mary Ellen reports that Elijah’s coat was left in their camper. Brianna’s coat, however, was left at Geri Ann’s Grandma Shirley’s house.

Leslie and Gerald assured me that Erin’s winter A&M jacket was left behind at Woodsong deliberately because she won’t need it down there until she is back for Christmas break. So it is in the coat closet waiting for her. Geri Ann’s charger for her I pod is ready to be taken to the post office. Trent’s Nintendo is on the table in the den. Jeannie left behind ingredients she brought down for a cooking project she started but didn’t get to finish. Someone’s electric toothbrush is still in the guest bathroom. I recovered my purple comb from Katherine’s vanity yesterday, where evidently someone must have been primping with it there.

Katherine got tickled thinking that all over America, families are trying to find and retrieve and figure out where their possessions are after all the Thanksgiving holidays. Most families in our area try to visit both sides of their families, and it is a challenge to keep belongings under control.

I used to marvel many years ago at the goodness and the energy used when my daughter-in-law would bring her little ones to my parents’ home in Goreville and then hurry on to another Christmas Eve gathering at her grandparents. The next day after she and Gerry observed Christmas morning at their house, they would come to ours for Christmas dinner and then onto her folks’ home for yet another dinner.

After the grandparents no longer had their observances on Christmas Eve, life did temporarily get simpler. However, now Gerry and Vickie are in far-off Georgia. Tara, their oldest, is in Aurora far north of us. We are all eagerly awaiting the birth of Tara and Bryan’s second son any day now, so holiday celebrations are definitely complicated. We will welcome whoever is able to show up before, on, or after Christmas.

Jeannie and Rick are entertaining his family at their house for the first time this year, so they won’t be down from Freeport either. She’ll experience left-behind objects at her house no doubt.

We received our first Christmas card on Saturday from cousin Valerie, who wins that contest every year. Our second card came today. I better start thinking about mine. When we can’t get together with friends and family at this time of year, it is lovely to connect by mail. And belongings stay in their rightful place when we visit by that method.

Button for Technorati

I am trying to learn about Technorati. This is a button that I am able to post:

Claiming blog for Technorati

I am supposed to post this to claim my blog for Technorati:
Technorati Profile

I hope this works. I am trying again in hopes it will publish this time.

Still Thankful But Winding Down

There is still a piece or two of pumpkin pie left. Broth from the turkey carcass is ready to be put in the freezer tomorrow. And it will be time to cook something new to go with the left-over turkey from yesterday and the lasagna we had on Wednesday night. My house is quiet right now because Jeannie and the kids have gone into town to the movies. With just one family in the house, there won’t be any questions about who sleeps where tonight.

Mary Ellen and Brian and Trent and Brianna left in their camper this morning heading north to visit their family in northern Illinois. Brian’s mother Dorothy, who had driven up from Florida visiting relatives as she came, followed in her car. (The grandkids will probably take turns riding with her.) Brian’s sister Vicki has her camper all ready for Dorothy’s extended (but brief) visit there to celebrate her semi-retirement and catch up with all her grandchildren in the area.

We were reluctant to see them go, but the cousins had all seen each other, and we adults had done lots of talking around kitchen and dining room tables during the days they were here. The kids had gone to the Crab Orchard High School basketball tournament Wednesday night to see Geri Ann and Erin’s cousin Drew play, and Brianna went to Gma Shirley’s afterward to spend the night with Geri Ann.

We’ve watched the tape of Leslie’s concert at The Curb on campus, heard Lige on the piano, and as we sat around the dining room table Thursday night, we were surprised and pleased to even hear Christmas carols in the living room with Brianna on the clarinet and Sam on his trombone. I extracted a promise from Trent to help me with my computer some weekend when I am calm. I am sure the kids did whatever conferring they needed to do on their ongoing Designia project/book/campground. They have always got something going, and with texting they can keep up with each other even when miles away. And the granddog cousins--Lucky, Leah, Fif, and Chloe had all been here at least briefly to visit the farm.

Vickie and Geri Ann had left her mother Shirley’s house around six this morning also heading to northern Illinois to see Tara and Bryan and Aidan. The doctor is moving up the arrival date for Aidan’s baby brother, and Vickie is needing to see this little family since Tara can’t travel now.

Despite a terrific cold, Erin borrowed Gma Shirley’s car to come to Woodsong for the great hair highlighting project and Leslie’s hair turned out beautifully. After she gets that business degree from Texas A&M completed, Erin’s ambition has long been to go to a cosmetology school and someday open her own salon. She swore Leslie to secrecy so that her own hair would be able to amaze everyone when she arrived. I figured that Gpa’s offer of John Deere green for Leslie had inspired her. Erin’s naturally brown hair looked quite cute with a puffed blond back and streaks of turquoise and black framing her pretty face. Dave brought Sam out to play again after their futile bow-arrow deer hunt.

While I was in town to pick up Leslie on Tuesday evening standing outside at Wendy’s, my cell phone dinged and I assumed it was Les saying they were almost there. Instead there was a photograph of guy and a deer and the caption: “26-point deer shot outside Pyramid Park.” Since Katherine, Dave, and Sam live beside Pyramid Park in Marion, I assumed one of them had sent it. I did not recognize the man in the photo but it wasn’t too clear and I thought it might be one of Dave’s brothers or buddies. I figured hunters had scared the deer into town. I remembered when a wild domestic deer hung out at that park—but that’s another story. The Cedars were as puzzled as I was at the photo.We finally realized the sender must have meant Pyramid State Park and someone had misdialed my number in their excitement.

We are winding down and enjoying Jeannie’s family since they won’t be with us at Christmas. I hear people up in the kitchen home from the movies.

My Cup Is Squashed Down and Running Over

[Note: This entry was started on Thursday night, but because it was finished AFTER midnight, the date above is the date it was finally published.]

Driving home from Writers Guild through snow flurries tonight, as I approached Woodsong, it dawned on me I did not blog last night.

I had ridden up to Cahokia yesterday afternoon with fellow Trail of Tears Association board members to meet another board member at the library there. We had to finish before their 7:30 closing. After a quick stop at a drive-in for coffee and hot chocolate to keep us awake for the ride home, I was back at our house in time to blog—if I had remembered to do it.

When I got home on Monday night from an inspiring Black Heritage Tour in Saint Louis, I knew I would have much to blog about this week. Yet when I came down to the computer last night, I found emails from our Glasco Family genealogy group, and suddenly I was visiting a extraordinary site that an unknown distant (very distant) relative had placed online. There were photos of our family tombstones and documents that were just amazing to me because of all the work that had been done and generously shared.

Before the end of the evening at midnight, I had actually corresponded with the photographer and had learned much new information about Gerald’s large family tree here in Southern Illinois. I went to bed and slept soundly feeling the satisfaction that learning new family facts brings to a genealogy buff—even though I keep saying I have quit working on family history since it is such a never-ending process that takes you further and further back in time and leaves less and less time for current life.

I woke up with the glad anticipation of a friend coming for lunch. Jari Jackson retired back to her hometown of Marion, and I was going to be privileged to hear fascinating stories of her newspaper career at many of the largest papers here in the Midwest. After an afternoon of visiting, suddenly we both realized we had to end the visit if we made it to Writers Guild tonight. Later we met again in town to ride over to Carterville for the Guild.

Over twenty writers gathered to share their writings or just to listen to the others. We had poetry, short stories, articles, and parts of novels to entertain us. Our president, Jim Lambert, read from his ongoing effort to meet the challenge of writing a novel in a month. We were saddened as he took us from Death Row to the execution chamber with his character.

We listened to poetry that rhymed and poetry that didn’t and enjoyed both. A children’s book by a probation officer made us both sad and happy. Jeremy Melvin’s novel turned my stomach with fear. He made us all want to hear the end of that book. Pam Braswell said she had been writing “feel good pieces” and her essay about her early walk in the meadow with her horses proved she had succeeded. The humorous work of others made us laugh. One poem made us remember Virginia Tech.

We never fail to be pleased by the diversity that exhibits itself. Tonight we were also inspired by a stroke victim’s haltingly presented poem explaining her difficulty with words. To contemplate her year-long come back from speechlessness was encouraging to us all to overcome our more minor hindrances.

Maybe it was good I forgot to blog last night. There is no way I could really convey all we saw and experienced on Monday’s Saint Louis trip, which began with a visit to the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott case started and went on to the Eugene Field house where his lawyer father, Roswell Field, no doubt lay abed at night thinking about how he might help Dred Scott secure his freedom. I wish I could let you hear as we did Scott Joplin’s music on the player piano when we visited the house where he lived in an upstairs flat and gave piano lessons during the day. On to lunch at the Black Heritage Museum, we saw exhibits there that made us realize anew the absolute horror of slavery and to puzzle at humanity’s unbelievable capacity for cruelty. We traveled through Saint Louis cemeteries, and some put a Lincoln penny on Dred Scott’s tombstone. (I’d planned to do that, but an unexpected nap prevented it.) Finally our guide left us, and we started our trip home in the motor coach, which is outfitted with screens throughout that enabled us to watch videos coming and going. How sadly different were our comfortable luxurious well-fed lives than the lives we had contemplated that day. When a mike was passed among us for comments, one touring member expressed the hope that our new President will bring us another step closer to the justice, equality, and freedom that our democracy aspires to.

Autumn Activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the Base of the Mountain: Tough Times Ahead

My tears came as I watched President Elect Obama give his heartwarming acceptance speech in Grant Park. The crowd looked like a Norman Rockwell painting of America—all ages, all colors, famous people and ordinary people. One young white woman was so overcome with emotion that she was on her knees with her head in her hands sobbing. I understood.

One of my favorite shots was of two young white men, who were mature enough to have voted in previous elections, facing the front with joyous smiles as they waited for Obama to come join the crowd. I understood that too. I saw them again a time or two today as stations replayed last night’s events, so I knew there was something about their vitality, expectation, and excited happiness that also attracted the ones editing that film.

My tears came again when I saw the tears of Jesse Jackson, and I smiled as I watched Oprah smiling as she blended inconspicuously with those around her. And I cried and laughed as I watched the emotion and delight of black Americans there—some very young and some very old. I knew I could never fully understand their emotions. Spike Lee said this morning in an interview that he was still processing and sorting it all out. This was too big for any of us to understand. But the recognition that from now on the world is different has continued to fill the TV and computer screens today.

More than one commentator quoted Obama’s warning that we have difficult times ahead. We have enormous problems that can’t be solved in a year or a four-year term. But we can work together, suffer together, stick together, and get through together the problems we are in.

I have often heard people say that they were poor during the Depression, but because everyone else was, they did not know they were poor. I also have read accounts of those who lived on tight budgets in crowded student barracks on the G.I. Bill following World War II, who said that those were some of the happiest days of their lives. The camaraderie of living in community with those in the same circumstances made for warm friendships and caring neighborhoods.

At this time of economic crisis, we have an opportunity to readjust our values and learn to exalt in both companionship and challenge. People experienced that last night at Grant Park and in living rooms across the land. And because we live in a global world, in lands across the sea.

Now we need to get to work to better our nation. Jobless families may need to plant food on their patios and in vacant lots until new jobs arrive. We need to keep our food pantries full. Let’s conserve the resources of our planet Let’s not lazily put good items in our landfills if someone in the community needs that mattress or chest-of-drawers. If we have the ability to create jobs, let us do it. Let us help one another build strong families. Let’s all work to educate ourselves to a higher level than we now are. We can learn from Obama’s grandmother the value of hard work and from his mother the value of education that caused her to get up before dawn to give her son extra tutoring.

Let’s teach ourselves to have courage just as those young men and women who went to Iraq had to have unbelievable courage to function. Let us learn to love one another whether we can understand one another or not.

I was touched last night by Senator McCain’s speech and today by President George Bush’s sincere expression of good will towards the new President. As Barack Obama is fond of saying, only in America. Only in America can that kind of cooperation and respect between opposing political parties take place. Regardless of whom we supported, almost all of us voted for the candidates we thought would be best for our country. The issues are complicated, and it is not surprising we don't all agree on what is the best solutions.

We can rejoice that the democracy will go on. Whether it goes on successfully or not is up to all of us. We can face the future with fear and despair. Or we can acknowledge the dangers and the fear, but do so with dignity and courage that we can get through whatever challenges lie ahead.

A Nice Fall Day

Fifty years ago today one of my fondest wishes came true. I had a new baby son. So naturally I have thought about Gerry all day today.

After I had put on a roast for our noon meal, I had time read a bit of Charles Frazier’s thirteen moons and regretted having to stop just when I got to the part of the story about the Cherokee Removal.

Being able to leave a clean kitchen to come home to barely gave me time to make it to the optometrist appointment at 2:30 in Marion. But I arrived early even after circling the block to find their beautiful new building, which still did not have an identifying sign since Dr. Power had only moved into it on Monday. Remembering the news account of a car accidentally slamming into his old office and sending patients flying, I knew he was relieved to be in a brick building with a little more space between the building and parking lot.

There I had a couple of concerns taken care of. On Saturday I had received notice from the insurance company that the over $200 left on my bill for glasses last December was not covered. I had already paid $95 in December and assumed the rest was all paid off. Immediately the women in the office assured me that this was properly covered because of its being related to the cataract surgery I had just had. They said the insurance company did this all the time and a simple phone call from them would fix it. (Why do I suspect that the insurance company enjoyed using the doctor’s money all this time?)

Then the doctor himself relieved my concern about the cataract on the other eye. I was afraid that it might have become so much worse that I would need to have the surgery before Christmas, which was exactly what I was planning to do when I had made today’s appointment many weeks ago. He assured me, however, that I could have the surgery safely with the new procedures despite being on coumadin. But also that it would probably not hurt for me to wait the six months until I am off coumadin. We talked politics during and after the exam, so the entire appointment was pleasant and interesting.

Then I was on my way around the block to Dr. Kaarsbery’s office in this newly developed professional park out by our new hospital. She wanted me to have another INR reading today to make sure she is adjusting the coumadin dosage correctly. Last week the reading had been high. A single prick on the finger and the meter assured me I was in the normal range this week.

By now it was getting cool and dark. I had to put on the jacket in the car that I’d avoided wearing. After a quick visit with Katherine, I was back to the Kroger store to pick up the prescriptions I had left there to be filled. I bought as few groceries as I could get by with because it was past supper time and I needed to hurry. With three baked chicken thighs from the deli and fresh fruit, I figured I had sufficient other foods to fill in the blank for Gerald’s supper. We were eating within l0 minutes after I arrived home, and I emptied the car after supper and Obama’s infomercial.

It had turned out to be a good day—just as it was 50 years ago.

Coming and Going

The presidential candidates are all over the map meeting up with America’s citizens to win their votes. The citizens themselves also find travel much more a part of their lives than any other time in history. Not very long ago, it was not unusual for someone to say when someone died that the person had always lived in a certain locale and had never been further than the nearest city. After the Depression, many young men and a few young women served overseas during World War II. As that Greatest Generation dies off and leaves us, we read in their obituaries of the foreign soils they traveled to.

With the cheap gas of the last decades, Americans have enjoyed and become habituated to going and coming often more limited by time than expense. People have to commute to work in places miles away. Many folk travel to shopping in larger cities without much thought. Then as our local stores went out of business, we began to find out we didn’t have anywhere else to shop but at larger communities in our regions.

Gerald and I were so tied down by livestock on the farm that we couldn’t travel for years and looked forward to that opportunity in retirement. In fact, as soon as Gerald retired from farming, his first project was buying a new truck and modifying it to haul efficiently. For the next three years, he worked as a trucker—whenever he chose to take a trip or whenever he could get a load. He loved going all over and seeing the industries back in the mountains or learning to navigate in a new city. When he travels in the same territory today, he still likes recalling those trips, and he is constantly aware of other truckers and can get envious in a hurry when he sees a beautiful truck.

Gerald left for Columbus, GA, yesterday in order to see Geri Ann’s Oconee High School softball team in the state tourney this afternoon. His plans were to stop in Nashville for a dinner date with Leslie, his blond granddaughter at Belmont University.

This is also the weekend that Erin is using some flier miles to come from Texas into Nashville. She and Les will also be having dinner together. Erin will meet a fellow Johnston City friend there and they’re driving home to Johnston City for another friend’s wedding.

I don’t even know where all Gerry’s work has taken him during the past two weeks. I do know he was able to see his grandson Aidan briefly last weekend while in Chicago. And he and Vickie like the other softball parents will be in Columbus motels right now. Tara wanted in the worst way to go with Gerald to see her little sis in the state tourney, but she knew she needed to stay in Aurora. Her December due date is taking its toll on her traveling comfort. But Mary Ellen’s family is excited that she is to be coaching in Lake Saint Louis next weekend for a Southern Force tourney. I’m excited that Jeannie’s family will be spending Halloween night here (briefly) as they arrive from Freeport on their way to spend weekend with Leslie in Nashville.

I was planning on going to the Georgia tourney also, but my doctor on Monday felt it was a risk with me still healing from the blood clot in my leg that had caused the lung clots. So I am at Woodsong instead of on a trip, but I have had a variation in my life style.

Son-in-law David is working in California this week, so I’ve been going into town to spend nights with Katherine and Sam. I come back home during the day. Katherine had a tysabri infusion yesterday and her morning aide was able to drive her to the hospital. Suddenly Tuesday night she realized she needed a ride home and both David and her dad would both be out of town. Fortunately, the evening aide came to get her instead of coming later in the evening.

Gerald believed I could drive the van, which has a lift for Katherine’s chair, but I never have and I was fearful of trying with no one to back me up if I failed. The only time I tried to drive the van, I did not get out of Katherine’s driveway. I quit to avoid hitting Sam’s basketball goal with the projecting side mirror as I backed. I also don’t understand the lift’s operation. The van certainly takes enormously more gas than the wise choice David has for travel to his work place, but we’ve come to expect that those in chairs should no longer have to live their lives confined to their homes.

Our other sons-in-law and our next-door neighbor are also often away from home for coaching events, conventions, or meetings. Our only other near neighbor travels nightly from her farm to her job in a plant over an hour away. This time of year we pray for her safety from the deer dashing across the highways, and soon we will once again fear the icy roads for her.

While the increase in travel is partly pleasure gratification, travel has been built into our work lives. We can never go back to living in insulated geographic bubbles with little contact with the outside world no matter how attractive that nostalgic pull feels. I have always loved reading about village life and also loved experiencing it. How people connect and interact is fascinating and when people can’t easily go elsewhere, there is no question their local community connections are more vigorous and often more life enhancing. One of my all-time favorite books was poet Elizabeth Bishop’s translation of The Diary of Helena Morley, the actual diary of a young teenage girl who told of her life in her village of Diamantina in Brazil in 1893-1895,

The same sort of village or community life is created within cities as people connect with those of common interests. When two of our daughters lived in the same city, we had to laugh at the interconnectedness that made it just as indiscreet to talk negatively about someone there as in it was when my mother moved to Dad’s hometown of Goreville, where everyone was either our family’s relations or relations of relations.

Now we have farm friends and city friends who are hurting while trying to keep gas in their cars to get to work. We have friends who have had to cut out attending functions they really want to attend in order to save gas. We have wise friends with no economic problems who, nevertheless, have cut gas consumption because it is astute to do so and because it is patriotic to do so.

How our nation will come out of this dependence on foreign oil and our present economic crisis will be interesting to observe. I have a feeling that we are going to find out what we are made of in the next few years. Will we be as strong as our grandparents who survived the Depression with much suffering and ingenuity? Will we be as self-sacrificing and as tough as the Greatest Generation who helped us survive World War II?

Getting ready for the debate and a busy schedule tomorrow....

I spent the last two days at home at Woodsong--something I always enjoy. Saturday when I went to our village library, I was finally able to check out John Grisham's The Innocent Man. I finished it last night, and I it is very much worth reading. This is his first nonfiction book after writing 18 novels, but it was more fascinating than any novel.



Today I finally had to go to town, so I recycled newspapers and aluminum cans and then dropped off our church's latest collection of med bottles to donate to the free clinic. I ran by Katherine's and saw her and Sam and then picked up groceries at Krogers. I was home in time to fix creamed tuna on toast for our supper along with a salad and the yummy grapes I'd just bought at Krogers. Now I am hurrying to get ready for the debate.



I want to go to bed right afterwards because I have an over-full schedule tomorrow starting in the morning. So I am going to cheat and share a news release I sent out on Monday about our program tomorrow night at Southern Illinois Writers Guild. How exciting to think that this man started his own business as a high school senior:



Evan R. Youngblood, owner of a technical services company called Megabytes, will speak to Southern Illinois Writers Guild at John A. Logan College Thursday night, October 16, at 7 p.m. Public is always welcome to SIWG meetings in the Terrace Dining Room Annex.
Youngblood, currently Information Systems Manager for The Bank of Carbondale and the IT Officer, started Megabytes when he was a senior at Herrin High School in 2000. Since then, Megabytes has continued to grow into a complete web designing, networking, and computer supply business.


As a web designer for Rend Lake College for 18 months, he also served as instructor for the Institute for Learning in Retirement and Community Education and still occasionally teaches for RLC.


Youngblood will present a program designed to help writers with computer use and will cover digital photo management, some explanations of free or cheap software, and digital TV conversion.

A graduate of both John A. Logan College and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Information System Technologies in 2004, Youngblood is also a private pilot based at the Marion Airport. He participates there in Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles program which offers free flights to children interested in aviation.

One Final Farewell

When I got up at 7 this morning, Gerald and Gerry were already at the breakfast table planning their day--although it was almost midnight when Gerry arrived at Woodsong last night after he drove up from a conference for new coaches in Birmingham.

They have spent the day cleaning out dog pens and the building back in the woods that housed Gerry’s office/batting cage area up the place that had been their home since 1997.
Trailer loads have been carted to the farm here, and I am sure Gerry’s truck is loaded down for the trip back to Athens. Gerry collected the final item left in their former home—a large beautiful plant given to Vickie at the time of her father’s death. Gerald just came in for a 9:30 supper, and Gerry is still out there somewhere having supper with a buddy.

I know I will never drive by their home on Route 37 without some regret that they no longer live there. It was a warm hospitable home on a tiny farm at the very edge of town—absolutely perfect for their family and Gerry’s business. Here the older two daughters finished high school, and Geri Ann finished eighth grade. They had woods to ride four-wheelers in, plenty of room for all kinds of dogs in and out of the house, and deer to view on evening outings. We have great memories of all the family parties that Vickie gave down through the years for birthdays, graduations, or just to get together. We are hoping the new owners have as much pleasure there as the Glasco5 did.

Tomorrow Gerry wanted to be on the road back to Georgia—hoping to reach Watkinsville in time to see Geri Ann’s softball game. But he still has more work to do here, so he will miss that game. Hopefully Oconee High will win the regional, and then he can see the next game. Time to look back is over, and now we forcing ourselves to think about the future.

Grandmother Flash Alert!

When we visited granddaughter Leslie Eiler at Belmont University recently, she explained that for security reasons at the time of the Presidential debates, students would need to either stay in their dormitories or be off campus. I was wondering yesterday where she was when we received an email from Jeannie that Leslie had gone to Knoxville with a suitemate. However, Leslie then received an email that her number had been drawn from the lottery that allowed a certain number of Belmont students to attend tonight’s debate. So early this morning, Leslie was on a bus headed back to Nashville from Knoxville.

If you see a cute little blond in a red suit in the audience tonight, that could be Leslie. We were already excited about the debate, but now even more so.

Political Salsa: Jefferson and Jackson deserve less celebration

Political Salsa: Jefferson and Jackson deserve less celebration

Home Sweet Home

Dear All--

Late yesterday afternoon, Gerald brought me home from Barnes-Jewish Hospital after 5 days there following our combined trip for BSU reunion/cardiology appointment/stress test for Gerald//visit with daughter Mary Ellen's family in the west St. Louis area.

Gerald's test results were good,, and Dr. Alan Weiss was kind enough to work me into Gerald's appointment time and send me to the hospital, where it was determined I had blood clots in lung making my breathing difficult.

I am in good shape with no serious harm done. No restrictions at all on my activities tho I was warned that my energy level will be low for a week or so, and that is true. There was no pain involved in any of this except for minor pain of shots, etc. What caused this clotting? Nobody knows. Doctors focused on traveling, and Gerald wondered if it was the hours at the computer! (Surely not!! Ha. Ha.)

The serious blood clots are now dissolved. As I understand it, the coming six-month regimen on warfarin (blood thinner) will help the body in its natural fight to keep blood from developing too-large clots. After six months, if all goes as expected, I will go off the warfarin. (For your edification, Gerald is quick to call this med "rat poison." He is quite experienced on all this INR coumadin testing, etc.)

I am grateful for the blessing of having the timing on this episode work out so that I was seen by Gerald's cardiologist, whom daughter Mary Ellen had researched and recommended to us. I felt very comfortable knowing I was being seen by one of the best in the nation, and I felt that was comforting to our children. I was as relaxed as one can be in the hospital when every few minutes, someone was in the room asking questions that often I did not know the answer to--or taking me for yet another test. No time or energy for phone calls, etc. After all the tests, I am reassured that my heart is just fine.

I know to never again postpone going to ER if I get breathless again. Actually I already knew this. And in a difference set of circumstances, I would have gone to Marion ER earlier--but I was not at Marion. So oddly, the timing on this turned out to be perfect. This makes me feel that I am meant to complete some writing projects important to me and to de-clutter my messy office that I am very ashamed of. So I thank God for the new lease on time on this planet.

I also thank so many of you for your kind thoughts and prayers. Last night as I worked my way through emails and read your notes saying you were praying for me, I felt very loved and encouraged and grateful for good friends. You will hear more from me when my energy returns and I catch up. Tonight I have to listen to the debate.

Love from Woodsong,

Sue