Transitions

Three teen grandchildren—Elijah, Trent, and Brianna--spent last week helping in our village church with Vacation Bible School. Seems impossible that the little kids who used to come yearly to attend VBS are now old enough to work with the younger children—and they did a splendid job. I have to fight to keep from still seeing them as the little group that used to follow me into the grocery store like little ducklings. People would smile as we went by, and I would be so proud of those little guys.

But summers come and go, and seemingly suddenly these same kids are all grown up—two will start college in just a couple of weeks. They still make people smile, and I still know pride that they are my grandkids.

Our summer evenings used to be spent in local ball parks watching Gerry’s girls play softball. (We also watched Leslie at the Carterville park one summer and attended a game or two watching Elijah and Trent in far-away parks. If I remember right, preschooler Leslie was picking flowers in the outfield or something like that.) We still go to softball games, but now those games are usually in college stadiums or on TV. This spring we were cheering on the Southern Illinois University Salukis, for whom Tara used to play, because Erin was there at first base as assistant coach.

Now Gerry and Vickie’s youngest, Geri Ann, is about to enter her senior year of high school, and this week she is playing with Southern Force for her sister, Coach Tara Archibald, at Chattanooga at the Amateur Softball Association 16 and Under national tournament. I can remember tiny Tara playing with a broken arm one summer—with her doctor’s permission, of course. I’d be rambling around the park with Erin, and then a few years later when Erin was playing, I followed Geri Ann around making sure she did not fall into the creek that goes through Marion park—or was that just Erin? Elijah was there in a stroller and sunglasses for some of these long-ago games. At Harrisburg and Johnston City, Vickie always brought Geri Ann to the park in spotless condition fresh out of the tub--but with sand bucket and shovel. No child ever left the parks with dirtier clothes and face than she did. I remember that I supervised Sam in that Johnston City sand pile also. That was back when he would watch big league games on his living room television and run the imaginary bases there making a home run every time.

He came home Saturday night from his youth group’s mission trip to Joplin, MO, and I was blessed to be there at his home when he arrived. As we anticipated, the week working in Joplin had been life changing. He was fortunate to be on one of the groups working indoors—repairing things, salvaging filthy tables and other school equipment, and painting walls. He said that the roofing crew knew temps in the three digits on top of the tar-covered places some days. Major chain stores there are still operating in tents while new buildings are being built. He just kept remarking that photos cannot begin to capture the devastation there. And yet he said people have come together to solve their problems. Prayers are frequent on a daily basis in a downtown tent.

One of our families moved last week within their city, and two more will be moving soon to other locations. Our oldest great grandson will be starting kindergarten on August 9. Erin is still hobbling and taking antibiotics and enduring a major life style change, being confined to her house and watching more television than she has ever watched in her life. Her doctor says her knee looks good, and we hope she will soon be back to her usual active life.

While it was hard to act surprised, our family kept the Facebook messages flowing as we congratulated Mike Thompson and our granddaughter Leslie Eiler on their announced engagement. At his parents’ home in Ohio, Leslie finished reading Jane Eyre and received a proposal and she stammered yes. We are all admiring the ring on the posted photos.

Oh, there have also been promotions and awards in the family this month. And Leslie’s mother Jeannie rode 60 miles the other day on her bicycle, which deserves an award. So many changes and transitions have taken place this summer. Makes my head swim. But life was meant for transition. I was helped to appreciate all the summer’s growth and change by Sandra Henry, the daughter of my second cousin Shirley, whom I used to meet to play in the creek between Mt. Airy Farm and their farm home on another hill. Sandra posted today on Facebook: ”Once told that if you always did what you always did that you will always be where you always were. Much truth in this simple statement!“

Spring Winding Up

We only watched the Women’s College Softball World Series two nights since Arizona State won both games, so the third game was not needed. Brian and Mary Ellen with Brianna’s help finished up the planting of their newly leased farm.

Now we will wait and hope for rain for them. It sprinkled for awhile at Katherine’s house yesterday while I was there, and she was excited thinking about Brian and Mary Ellen’s seeds in the ground. She was remembering how she delighted over rain back in her gardening days. (I enjoyed her lilies from those days as I walked into her house.)

Gerald has a small vegetable garden in good shape, and the huge lawn, which he spends a great deal of time mowing, is looking absolutely fantastic. My golden day lilies are blooming profusely beside the kitchen wall, and there are roses begging me to pick them for an inside bouquet. With all the rest of the nation, we are experiencing very hot weather that reinforces the calendar telling us that spring is almost over.

Summer activities have started. Sam and Josh came in, hot and sweaty from open gym at the high school yesterday afternoon, and joined us in their family room. Katherine handed them the remote control since we could watch reruns of Oprah anytime. It took me awhile to realize that those were not real basketball players on the screen as Sam and Josh played a virtual game complete with cheering crowd and some kind of costumed mascot parading around.

Sam had his bag packed and waiting in the living room since Brian and Brianna were going to pick him up to visit them in Waggoner and attend the Irish Days festivities up there.

Our downstairs door is unlocked tonight; and when I go to bed, I’ll turn on the outside lights for Tara. She, Maddux, and Payton are on the way down and will stop briefly before going to the first Southern Force tourney down south. Aidan,5, could not come because he has his first baseball game this weekend. That sounds young, but he is physically and mentally ready.

Jeannie just asked me on Facebook if they could stay here tomorrow night. That means they are on their way to Nashville to see Leslie’s first apartment and to attend one of her gigs singing and directing preschoolers towards healthy living.

Families must hurry to plan summer trips, vacations, and camping because school no longer starts after Labor Day but in the middle of the heat of August. Over a month of summer will be spent in the classroom by today’s kids. Lazy days of summer are a thing of the past.

I must get off here and call my sister and wish her a happy anniversary. Her daughters have been touting their parents on Facebook today.

Cyndi wrote: “Today..62 years ago.. God united in marriage two very unique people…Mom and Dad. Praying an abundance of blessings on these two very special people in my life!!!"

Gloria wrote: "We have the best parents!!! Anyone who can look at a picture of 2 little girls they’ve never met, drive l000 miles to get them & love us the way they have, deserve an abundance of blessings!!! Happy Anniversary to my Mom & Pop!!!"

Those two little girls are now beautiful women with beautiful grown children of their own, and Rosemary and Phil delight in those grandchildren’s children.

Summer's Ending

Our neighbor’s tall green wall of corn lining our lane became variegated some weeks ago. The green separated the brown top tassels from the three feet of brown on the bottom of the stalks. When we got back from Georgia, the wall was all brown. Before we even returned to Woodsong that evening, Gerald had to drive up to Brian’s fields to see if the soybeans were brown, and they were almost there. Some farmers have started harvest, and Brian and Trent were down to their camper this weekend preparing for that event soon. The tomato plants are still producing, but not so much that I have to fill bags of tomatoes to share as I did a few weeks ago. School is well underway, and sweaters are needed some evenings as autumn approaches.

When I drove into our village on Thursday, I was surprised to see flags flying up and down the roads. I tried to remember what holiday it was since volunteers only put the flags up for special events. As I drove further into the heart of the village, I saw yellow ribbons on the flag poles and in people’s yards. Then I remembered reading on Facebook the night before that Jeremy Truitt, one of our Crab Orchard young men, was safely home from Iraq. Sure enough there was a large banner in front of one business welcoming Jeremy back home and giving a date for a celebration at the school in his honor.

I do not know Jeremy or his family, but I was touched with the love the community was showing, and it was easy to imagine the gratefulness and relief his family knows that he is back home. By the time I reached the Methodist church where I was to speak on the Trail of Tears to the lunch bunch there, I was wiping tears away and having to get my emotions under control. Today I learned young friends must drive to St. Louis tomorrow to meet their nephew coming in for his great grandmother’s funeral and also for a last leave before he ships out for Iraq. I know this young man and remember how he worked with younger children in Vacation Bible School just a few years ago before their family moved to the East. All is not well when our young people must be initiated into adulthood by going through such terrible dangers and deprivations.

It seems to me that there is also an unusual amount of surgeries and illnesses going on in our community—so much so that I can hardly keep the events in my head. My sister’s daughter down in Texas had surgery while we were away. The day before we left, my brother and wife came by briefly. They had come down the night before because both her brother and her sister were seriously ill in an area hospital. By now her sister will be back in the hospital for surgery. Our beloved oldest member of our congregation was to have back surgery and tonight we have learned that first she must have gall bladder surgery. Our neighbor from the farm across the road phoned from the hospital last night, and at that point I realized that the date for her scheduled surgery had come while we were away. And I just learned that another further away neighbor, who had done well for years following a stroke, is not doing well now. While some folks are old enough that we can expect their health to begin to deteriorate, many on our church prayer list for cancer and other illnesses are young.

Because we have such material abundance in our nation, it is easy to forget that without good health, the wealth means nothing. Although I mention material abundance, I am not forgetting that so many of our citizens have lost their jobs that they feel anything but wealthy right now. And I know there are way too many people in our nation living in shelters or even on the street. Yet in comparison to a large proportion of the world’s population, our people are still rich with electricity, plentiful running water, indoor plumbing, and community food banks. Nevertheless, if you have no job or hope of one and you are afraid of losing your home and having to move in with relatives or to a shelter, the mind must focus on what you do not have or how to cope with an uncertain future. You will probably be more likely to worry about how to pay the electricity bill than to appreciate having electricity.

How do we handle all the misery all around us? I heard a psychologist on television today point out that we humans often turn away and deliberately do not see unpleasantness because it is so painful and upsetting to see the problems around us. I know that I do. Not seeing is one way of coping. Are there better ways?

Closing Days of Summer

The baby martins have grown up and flown from Woodsong with their parents for other climes. Most everyone I know had their children/grandchildren start back to school this past week. Although friend Pat did tell me they still start after Labor Day up in Wisconsin, where some of her grandchildren live. I know schools now have air-conditioning and that we need to help our children keep up with the harder working students in other nations, so I try to refrain from griping about August school startings. Yet I am very glad my own children did have to start their school year as early as so many seem to do now.

I thought August ought to be for final outings and cramming in summer pleasures and that Labor Day was a perfectly lovely way to end summer schedules. Both as a child and as a parent, I loved summers. I always felt sadness when my children started back to school even though I felt their excitement and rejoiced in that.

The only exception I remember was one summer when someone came around a blind corner on our graveled country road and ran into us with a farm truck; we had to put our car in the shop for weeks. That same summer, the lawn mower kept breaking down, and finally the lawn was almost a foot high. I just wanted that summer to be over. I can imagine that some of those whose homes were severely damaged by the May 8 derecho feel the same way about this summer. Many homes still have tarps on their roofs waiting for the roofers to get to them. We will all remember this as the summer that streets were busy with pickups with attached trailers full of tree limbs. Nor was it was uncommon for limbs to have fallen off on our streets from those pickups.

Last weekend was busy with too many things we wanted to do, but this weekend our schedule was free. We enjoyed meeting Gerald’s brothers and my sisters-in-law at Triple E barbecue down at Lake of Egypt for supper Friday night for fish and/or barbecue ribs. Their bulletin board has personal for-sale items and ads with pictures of horses and dogs. Wait staff and customers were mostly in jeans and T shirts, and at least man had a huge belt buckle proving how good he is on a horse. The room was noisy and full of people glad to be off work for the weekend.

While we ate, brother Keith got a phone call telling him that their granddaughter Lauren had just won an very impressive sum of money for roping up at Lake Saint Louis. Having completed her internship at an area hospital, she will soon be back at an out-of-state university to finish her nurse’s training, but she made a killing this weekend on her horse. Her older sister Tracy, recently graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, has moved to Oklahoma with her three horses, where Tracy is also working in her chosen field for a dentist.

On our way home, Gerald’s phone call about our granddaughter’s softball tourney down in Georgia did not bring such good news, but Gerry’s call last night relayed Oconee High School had three wins yesterday. I get some hints from Facebook how grandkids’ school days have gone so far, but I still need to touch base with their mothers to hear first hand. Although autumn won’t officially start for almost a month, summer is over—whether we like it or not.