Time Is Flying and Brings Many Changes!

When I look out our kitchen window each morning, I feel as if the neighbor's corn plot just on the other side of Gerald's neat garden has grown a foot over night! Next Gerald's garden takes my eye and absorbs my mind. I drink in the beauty there. Such a variety of plants of various heights with nary a weed in their midst is truly as beautiful and fascinating as a painting.

Gerald is starting to bring in a handful of blackberries each day and laying them on our kitchen table. A short row of staked berry plants defines the south end of his garden for the first time. Loaded with red berries, this new crop will soon need to be put in cobblers or the freezer.

We have almost used up the excess okra put in the freezer in 2014, so Gerald planted a row of that vegetable this year. I will be happy to restock the one vegetable that I know our grand-kids all like. They even like the way I frequently burn it a bit when I fry it and the cornmeal crust gets crunchy and brown.
Watermelon and cantaloupe vines hug the ground like patches of lacy green, and further behind are staked tomatoes with ripening fruit I am eagerly anticipating. At my urging, Gerald is trying to cut down the size of his garden although he has always enjoying giving away its bounty. We have needed to admit our age and cut back on many things. There is not longer time to do all the things we used to enjoy and also keep all the dental, eye, hearing, and other doctor appointments now required.

I always bragged about the weeds back in the day when I gardened. Gerald never complained, but I knew he was offended. They definitely were not pretty; but despite them, I raised plentiful crops and the weeds represented hours I did not spend hoeing and weeding. I did everything with a hoe as I was not one to learn to use riding equipment in a garden, although Gerald probably would have liked the excuse to provide it if I had wanted it. He has never met anything on four wheels that he does not enjoy. That is why our lawn just keeps getting larger every year.

Gerald got back his tractor this week—with all new parts wherever the fire did damage before he valiantly ran up our lane to get a bucket to put out the fire. We were certainly grateful for insurance that covered the thousands and thousands beyond the first thousand deductible. He always carried a fire extinguisher in a combine, but he had never had a bird nest start a fire on a tractor before. Now he is carrying a fire extinguisher on the tractor too. He enjoyed using the larger tractor the insurance provided for him while ours was being repaired, but he admits he does not need that size any more. That is a difficult admission for any farmer to make.

I have always heard folks say that life seems to speed up as one ages, and that feels true. I have trouble admitting all the advanced ages of our grandchildren and that great grandchildren are now bringing memories the previous generation used to make. However, I have just finished Thomas L. Friedman 's latest book Thanks for Being Late. I heard him promoting it and asked Gerald to give it to me for Christmas. It has taken me this long to finish it 461 pages, and I must admit that it was only the last part of the book that talks about things I understand. Remember: I liked to garden with a hoe. And though I really love computers, changing the ribbon on a typewriter is what I understood. Computers are way above my pay scale, so Friedman is absolutely correct that life has accelerated way beyond my comfort zone. Nevertheless, he is an optimist and gives me hope that this acceleration will bring answers to many worrisome problems that maybe we do not need to be worrying about since fortunately there are great educated minds out there working on those problems right now!

The last part of his book was more understandable to me, and I found it very important. He reviewed the values he grew up with in Minnesota. I have spent little time in Minnesota, but I recognized the values that Friedman valued as the same ones I knew in small town and rural Southern Illinois. I suspect many Americans recognize these human values he grew up with.

We need to see people and help one another feel that we are all part of the human group or as he worded it, “people embedded in a community.” People need to be “protected, respected, and connected.” We must listen to one another, include one another, and eventually learn to trust one another. In other words, follow the Golden Rule and recognize that we are all God's children.

Friedman praised the emphasis on good schools in his childhood community that outgrew its previous prejudice against Jewish families such as his family and then provided outstanding teachers that have produced many present-day successes now serving society. We need to embrace one another to reap the benefits of other groups than our own. If we really value education, we must be willing to embrace life-long learning, so I am now beginning to re-read the first part of his book that was difficult for me. Now I am beginning to understand the consequences of the word “exponential” and I know what Joe Biden was talking about recently when he mentioned Moore's Law. Yes, everything is accelerating and time is flying and things are changing. But that is not necessarily a bad thing, and we can embrace the speed and changes.

For example, before I finished this column, I went up to the kitchen and found not a handful of blackberries but a bucket with enough for a cobbler. That is definitely a good thing!

Troubles Abound But So Do Joys!

Photos of beautiful baby Caroline, our first great granddaughter are all over our house. Vickie is again helping Erin today during this difficult time. It is still a wonderful time but also a difficult time because the military leave for Caroline's father has ended. Today Josh returns to base for re-deployment to South Korea. So much sadness in the world because of hate and evil! My breakfast was ruined as I learned of the horrible shooting of our Republican congressmen while they were practicing for the traditional ball game tomorrow night that raises money for charity. I also know from Internet headlines that there has been a shooting and deaths in San Francisco; and as I write this, I am avoiding facing that knowledge until later.

One of the scariest things about such shootings is that a single crazed individual can wreak such terrible harm while the majority of Americans works so hard to make things better in the world. Finding out the shooter was from Belleville in our area of Illinois was further upsetting. An acquaintance of his was taped saying he was not an evil man. I think I understood what that acquaintance meant—that he had not previously done such horrific acts to warn us of how dangerous he was. But with Steve Scalise's life and another victim's life in critical condition, we know this so-called ordinary man did a very evil thing. And we have to determine to live as happily as we can with danger just as previous generations had to do as they faced dire problems and many dangers. So Congress says the baseball game will go on tomorrow night.

We were pleased that both “our” women's college softball teams were in the final eight who went to Oklahoma City for the national play-offs. Our granddaughter Geri Ann, who will be graduating Sunday from the University of Oregon, was a student coach this season for the Ducks, and we were pleased to see them go into the semifinals although our son's Texas A&M team was done on Elimination Saturday. We wanted in the worst way to go to the tournament, but common sense prevailed and we stayed home and watched on television.

Although Gerry managed quick visits to love on baby Caroline on his way both to and from Oklahoma City, he had to hurry on to Houston where practice for the Scrap Yard Dawgs was well underway. This is the second season for this new professional fastpitch women's softball team, and Gerry is coaching them this summer. Since those games are not on television or our computer, Gerald is following the Scrap Yard Dogs by phoning Gerry and by checking their website. I follow them through Gerald's reports, but may find more time to read about them soon.

I am spending a lot of time looking at photographs of places in Spain. Our granddaughter Brianna and her friends, who are studying there, are taking and posting astonishingly beautiful photos of places and colorful events in Grenada and Seville. The rich ornamentation on the centuries' old buildings and the lovely elaborate gardens are fantastic. I did not realize Spain was so full of loveliness, and I am enjoying it all vicariously.

Such great beauty in the world reminds us of the good that has abounded in past generations along with all the wars and evil deeds. Talking to a far-away cousin's daughter this week, I heard her explain that as a retired RN with their four children reared, she now spends her time volunteering in her church's food pantry and soup kitchen and other such community projects. I see Susan Geisler's postings about jobs available in her area and know she is trying tohelp those needing employment. I read the long article she posted about the sad problem we have in our nation with infant mortality, and know she is trying her best to improve that problem. I see my college debate colleague's post encouraging parents to read to their children. Now retired from a life in educational theater, I can tell she still cares about other people's kids and wants to spread any information she can to help. We have choices to make in life. We can be negative and despair because of the evil that exists or we can strive to be a part of those who work to create beauty and improvement in the lives of others.