More Rain

By the time I left the farm for town to do errands and then to eventually end up at our Illinois Chapter Trail of Tears board meeting in Carbondale, it was raining again. I had two or three errands to do on the way to the meeting including recyling the trunk load of newspapers, magazines, glass, cardboard, and plastic . Carbondale has a nice drive-in facility where you take your car inside to unload it, so I knew I could do this even though it was raining.

I always run late when I try to leave the farm. There always seems to be one or two more things I need to do before I leave. Usually I just have to give it up and get into the car and go--ready or not. Fortunately, I had loaded the trunk early in the morning with all the materials needing to be cleared from the garage. Then I was almost so late that I became scared I would get to the recyling building after it had closed.

I had already passed Carterville when I remembered I had told Gerald that I'd be glad to stop and pick up a handle that a business there had phoned us about twice. It was my idea to save gas this way. I debated turning back around and doing what I had suggested. But I also knew then I would have to unload all that stuff in the trunk and put it back in the garage. So I went on. I was so grateful the building was still open that I did not even mind that despite the dry roof overhead, somehow rain was coming in and pouring across the floor and I got my feet quite wet before the meeting.

Marilyn Schild was at Parkinson Lab, where we meet, to tell us about her upcoming multi-state tour of the Trail of Tears and many of its important sites. She admitted she had not been in Parkinson since taking chemistry there some decades ago.

After Marilyn's presentation and some other necessary business, we watched the new Rich Heape DVD on the Trail of Tears, and Harvey Henson served us popcorn and soda. Joe Crabb had brought samples from the Chocolate Factory down on Route 146, so unlike the Cherokee, we had plenty to eat as we experienced the Trail via the film.

We finished up with more business, and I got home after 10. Either in the morning or sometime this weekend I am going to Freeport, so I will probably be late once again writing on AmazonConnect this week. Ah well. I hope it doesn't rain in Freeport.

A Country Day at Woodsong

The sound of tractors in nearby fields has come into the house all day. Farmers are hard at work getting the soil ready for planting. Our son-in-law Brian finished his corn planting up at Wayside Farm on Saturday.

Gerald was helping the men involved with burning off our native grasses at Woodsong this morning as the law requires. Today was the deadline, and finally it was not raining so the job was completed. Those fields are black now, but soon new growth well green them up again. A distant neighbor Gayla had observed all the smoke and phoned to see if she and her husband could look for deer antlers in the burned off areas. She and Mary Ellen were classmates in the Crab Orchard Class of 1981, so it was good to visit with her a few minutes.

As soon as noon-time dinner was over, Gerald was back outside to help our neighbor Scott with disking. Occasionally working part-time for Scott has added interest to Gerald’s retirement as well as to his finances.

He quit in time to come in to watch Erin’s game on television. I scrambled eggs and carried down our supper to the family room, so we could watch on the bigger screen there. Winning this game cinched the Big 12 Championship for Texas A&M, so it was an important game. Being able to watch it on TV was much more fun than using game tracker and an audio account.

It was fun seeing Gerry and the other fathers cheering wildly when we got our home run that put us ahead in a tied-up game. I am sure it was just as fun for their fans when University of Texas made their homerun. It was delightful for us to see Erin pick-off a runner to prevent scoring again and hearing the announcers praise her throughout the game.

After the game, coming into the computer for a final check on the day’s emails brought a welcome forward from a friend. The forward was New York Times sports writer George Vecsay telling about a senior for Western Oregon getting her first home run in her college career. That would have been a neat experience, but how she got it was indeed an incredible story as the email promised.

Sara Tucholsky thought she had hit a three-run homer against Central Washington when she hit the ball over the fence. She was not used to that and watched in awe as the ball soared. However, she missed first base and turned back to touch the bag. The turn must have torn her knee ligament and she collapsed. She had to crawl to the base crying and unable to get up. Her coach knew if any of her teammates touched Sara, automatically she would not be able to advance. The umpires ruled that Sara must touch all the bases or she would be credited with a two-run single.

That is when the incredible happened. Central Washington’s first baseman Mallory Holtman politely asked the umpires if it would be okay if she and a teammate carried Sara around the bases. The umpires considered and gave permission. Mallory and shortstop Liz Wallace lifted her onto their crossed arms and carried her around lowering her to touch each base. Sara got her three-run homer to finish her senior-year career, and Mallory and Liz got a standing ovation from an emotional cheering crowd laughing and crying at the same time. I shed a few tears just reading about it.

How Green Are My Valleys, Hills, and Lawn

Wherever we look out-of-doors right now, we see green. Gerald says the intense green we are enjoying is partly the result of the nitrogen in the late winter’s snows and rains. As tired as we are of rain, it is pleasant to think of the benefits.

Earthquakes have been the topic of much conversation in our area lately. I felt the first one at 4:38 last Friday morning, and I learned later I had done the correct thing by staying in bed. I was too sleepy to do anything else. Although there have been several, I have not felt the after shocks since. I was in the laundry room at my daughter’s when the second shake came. She was in adjoining room and felt it. I guess I assumed it was the washer-dryer shaking the house and did not notice it.

I learned at our women’s meeting at Shirley Butler’s on Monday that some of our Coal Valley Water customers had been without water since last Friday. Shirley had seen and heard the repair work going on near her home the previous evening, so her first reaction to the quake was thinking it was the water department still working.

Unfortunately, the quake evidently made the water problems intensify in that region of our water district. (We seem to have been immune to the problems here on the west side of the district.) Workers are trying hard to get all the breakages fixed. Most people had water back on fairly quickly, but not all. Some people are going to friends and relatives to take showers.

When the water was turned on for our friend Jo, the pressure was so great that it broke the pipes beneath her house. She was blessed to have her son Scott willing and able to crawl under the house and repair the messy muddy leak there. Next door, Kim said when she ran her washer, the pressure causes huge scary noises making her hope their pipes don’t break. Scott isn’t eager to do a second repair job.

Our son-in-law was down over the weekend and early part of this week to start farming. The tiling job last fall was a real help this spring when these heavy rains came. Brian joined us for supper Friday night when our granddaughter Leslie and friend Veronica Tolbert from Freeport stopped off on their way down to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit the national college speech events being held there on Saturday. We didn’t get the return trip stop because there was a boyfriend waiting in Charleston. Ah well.

Our big weekend entertainment was listening to Texas A&M’s two home games. We did the same tonight when they played a non-conference game against Texas State. What a night freshman pitcher Rhiannon Kliesing had. After a week off the mound, she pitched her first no-hitter of the season, and despite no recent opportunities to bat, she made her first home run of the season.

It is pitch dark outside. After this game, Gerald is out there mowing that intensely green grass. It is hard to keep up with right now, and he had to be away all day.

Sunny Spring Days Are So Welcome

While the pear trees’ blossoms have blown away, the redbuds in yards and roadsides have burst into full bloom. The daffodils are fading, but the paperwhites are in their glory. Soon the dogwood will join the redbud. Gerald has daffodils, hyacinths, paperwhites, and tulips all blowing in the wind and adding color to his new welcoming flower bed at the top edge of our retaining wall.

It is a glorious time of the year on a day like today. The sun was shining and a light jacket was all one needed to be comfortable in the pleasant breezes. Since Gerald was going to Kentucky with his brother for the butchered beef, I assumed they’d be away at lunch as they were last week. Instead they left early this morning to enjoy breakfast together before they picked up the frozen beef and had to hurry home. I had made plans to spend the morning with our daughter in town and go to lunch with a friend, so I hurriedly fixed something for Gerald to eat when he returned for lunch.

After a delightful afternoon visiting after lunch at the friend’s house, I made a final stop back by my daughter’s and was privileged to hear Samuel tell about his Longfellow School field trip to at Art Day at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He liked seeing the glassblowing and the pottery making, but the blacksmithing was his favorite.

When I arrived back home, Gerald was already listening to Erin’s game at Oklahoma State. Gerry had driven all night long to get to Stillwater for this double header that Gerald had wanted to go to in the worst way. We went there ranked fourth in the nation. Unfortunately, tonight after eleven straight victories in the Big 12 Conference, Texas A&M lost their first conference game to the Cowgirls 6-5. But Gerry got to see Erin go three for three in the first game and have a fourth hit in the second game, which the the Aggies won. Of course, we are still first in the conference. Between the games, Gerald and I ate a hurried bowl of chili in the kitchen and then had a cup of yogurt for dessert as we watched the second game.

I spent a while reading emails and thinking about tomorrow night’s Writers Guild meeting. Allison Joseph spoke to us five years ago, and I have always considered that one of our finest programs. She will be with us again tomorrow night. Here is the news release I sent out as program chair:

Poet and Associate Professor Allison Joseph has carried a love of language from the Bronx to Southern Illinois University Carbondale while earning degrees, fellowships, and numerous poetry awards. She will share experiences and expertise she has gained at Southern Illinois Writers Guild on Thursday, April 17, at 7 p.m. in the Terrace Dining Room Annex at John A. Logan College. The public is invited.

What Keeps Us Here published by Ampersand in 1992 brought her the John C. Zacharis First Book Prize. Four more books have continued her success: Soul Train published by Carnegie Mellon in 1997, In Every Seam by University of Pittsburgh Press in 1997, Imitation of Life by Carnegie Mellon in 2003, and Worldly Pleasures by Word Press in 2004.

Born in London of Caribbean heritage, she grew up in a Bronx neighborhood she often has written about. Influenced by the late Illinois poet laureate Gwendolyn Brooks and a story teller like her father, she often writes free verse as she tells brutally honest narratives with remarkable human insight that are sometimes autobiographical and sometimes imaginative. She also writes fiction.

Perhaps New York’s poets-in-the-schools program along with the writing she did at Bronx High School of Science inspired her to start the Young Writers Workshop at SIUC in 1999. The creative writing faculty and graduate students are used in this effort and offers a four-day residential summer program that draws high school students from both in and out of the area.

Holding the Judge William Holmes Cook Endowed Professorship, her many honors have included fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences. In 2003 alone, she received six prizes. More recently she was awarded $5,000 for her poems “Cartography” and “Emergency Librarian” in the 2006 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Competition and then received a second Artists Fellowship in Poetry in 2007 from the Illinois Arts Council for $7,000. She is the editor and the poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review, an international literary journal of SIUC.

She was graduated from Kenyon College in 1988 and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Indiana in 1992. She taught two years at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock before coming to SIUC.
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Springtime Beauty in Egypt

In the spring, I feel nothing could be more beautiful than what we enjoy in Southern Illinois. Of course, I feel the same way in the fall. If you are from Southern Illinois, you understand the title of this blog because you know that our region has long been called Egypt. Some call the area Little Egypt, and there are heated objections among the purists as to that little word.

Others of us differ whether we should write southern Illinois or Southern Illinois. As a former English teacher, I would say that southern Illinois is correct. As someone who loves the area and sees it as a very distinct entity, I choose to write Southern Illinois. We are also sometimes called The Land Between the Rivers or River Region. Whatever we are called, we have four seasons, which is one of the reasons I wanted to live out my life in the region of my birth. Like most people living here, my favorites are spring and fall.

Right now I am intent on enjoying spring. (I can barely resist capitalizing spring. I just checked the Associated Press stylebook on my desk, and I was correct not to capitalize a season. And yet I almost went back and capitalized Spring and Fall anyhow! For me this season brings the emotions that call for capital letters and exclamation points.)

Gerald’s brother Keith and nephew Tim have grown beef for our freezers, and Gerald and Keith took them down to Kentucky recently to have them butchered there by an Amish butchering shop. Monday they will go bring back the processed beef. This is the first time in a few years since we have purchased a beef. So yesterday my friend Linda came and helped me defrost the freezer in our garage to get ready for this abundance.

Yesterday was a great day to do this task since it was not miserably cold, and yet it was cool enough that I didn’t worry as we emptied the freezer contents into tubs and buckets and covered them with blankets while we did the defrosting and cleaning work. At the other farm house, my daughters used to be enlisted to help me do this job. I don’t want to waste much time lest foods start to thaw. At that house, the freezer in the laundry room was right next to the children’s bathroom, and we could store the frozen foods in the bathtub and cover with blankets while we cleaned.

A few bits and pieces of previous meals that I had saved when my thriftiness was in overdrive had to be thrown out. Quite a few items I’d saved and forgotten were placed in the refrigerator to be eaten in yesterday and today’s meals. I thawed a beef roast and prepared it today since we will be getting this new supply Monday.

I would be lying if I did not admit that I feel smug every time I pass the freezer and imagine all that nice clean empty space inside thanks to all the sorting and rearranging we accomplished.

With the lovely weather, I have also made a start at cleaning out the flower beds—something that did not get done last fall. I have carried away four bags of leaves, weeds, and dead plants to add to the organic material out in the field. Gerald has rolled the lawn and mowed it for the first time. The beautiful green is so intense that the many blossoms on trees and flowers give a welcome relief. There is still work to be done, and if the predicted rain comes tomorrow, that will be the end of working in the yard for awhile.

Maybe that will help me get to the bills and letter writing duties awaiting me on my kitchen desk.

Senior Citizens Day at Kroger's

The first Wednesday in each month, there is a 10% discount for senior citizens at our local Kroger's. If you have not experienced first Wednesday, you don’t know what crazy is.

The parking lot is so full that you have a healthy walk just going in. Since Harrisburg's store is flooded out, there were even more people than usual today competing for parking. Although I seldom see anyone I know at the grocery store, I always see three or four folks I know on this day. I met a nearby neighbor I had not seen in years as I was going inside.

I had to laugh at one friend I had also seen last month. A former professional who is now retired, she said, “I don’t know why I do this to myself each month.” Then she told a funny story about waiting for a parking space only to have an old codger whip right in front of her and take it away from her. With all the aches and pains and toughness from years of living, you can get bumped quite easily in the crowded aisles filled with people with oxygen, canes, and wheelchairs.

I heard two other short women commenting on how impossible it is at this store to get items off the top shelf. Since there is rarely a clerk available in a modern grocery, I have stretched, used the bottom shelf as a step, asked strange men to obtain an item from the top shelf, and sometimes just given up on something I needed. Somehow it was comforting to me today to hear the other women expressing their dismay at this problem. I guess misery does love company.

Bumping into my sister-in-law Opal, was a pleasant addition to my shopping experience. She was there buying birthday cards for her daughter Kyna and granddaughter Jinna. She said she had to park so far away in order to come into the store, she debated going on home and coming back. However, with the price of gas what it is, she decided she’d come on in even if she did have to park on the outer rim of the parking lot. I am glad she did because I was glad to see her.

I had spent the morning getting a perm for our upcoming weekend trip, and I ran by my daughter’s house after leaving the store. By mid-afternoon, I was home and put half my groceries away. The rest can wait until tomorrow.

Spring Is Springing

On the walk to the mailbox yesterday to mail a letter and pick up our newspaper from the paper box, I was pleased with all the henbit and other tiny flowers by the road. The one mound of dirt from a crawdad making a hole into the ground reminded me of long ago when our children were always fascinated by the many such holes by the pond at the edge of our yard.

The reason I was going to get the newspaper yesterday was that Gerald had left at 3 a.m. to meet Gerry for a last-minute trip to Waco to watch Erin and Texas A&M play Baylor on their home field. Walking down the lane for our newspaper is usually the first task Gerald does each day, and I am spoiled to find it on the breakfast table in the kitchen when I get up much later. Although I would have loved to see the Baylor campus and certainly been thrilled to see Erin, I thought better of tagging along on this hurriedly planned and executed trip because the arthritis that the last trip to Texas stirred up still causes me pain.

Just the trip to St. Louis on Tuesday was painful. (Of course just sitting, walking, or lying in bed can be painful at times also. Other times I am pain free.) I need lots of time to get out and walk and break up a long car trip. We had gone to St. Louis for Gerald’s six-month appointment with the cardiologist there because the ice storm prevented his doctor making his usual trip to Murphysboro for a February appointment. With this trip to Texas suddenly planned, we didn’t dally on our St. Louis jaunt as we might have otherwise, but we enjoyed the pleasant spring drive and especially the trip home since the doctor had given Gerald an excellent report.

I watched the Baylor-Texas A&M game on game tracker in Gerald’s office as usual except by myself and was delighted we won over them the second time. Gerald was still elated when he called at 10 p.m. after watching Erin play and then briefly seeing her as the team collected carry-out at a restaurant before their long bus ride back to College Station. The plan then was for him and Gerry to drive for awhile and get a motel.

Since Gerald had the car, I drove the pickup into Katherine’s this morning. She had an occupational therapist coming to help her work out more efficient ways of doing everyday activities. I was able to fix Sam an egg sandwich when he woke up and even fixed his mac and cheese for him before I left to come back home. (He is quite capable of fixing his own, but I enjoyed doing it and hearing about their two-day trip to the St. Louis zoo and science center.) I was in no hurry to get home since I assumed there was no one to fix lunch for at our house.

However, when I pulled into the garage, there was our car. And downstairs Gerald was conked out fast asleep in his easy chair in the family room. He and Gerry had just kept driving all night, and they were home before ten this morning. I served him a sandwich from the Easter ham and listened to the story of their trip.

I have spent the week gathering up Easter decorations and getting ready to put them away for next year. The bouquet of daffodils that Sharon Robinson gave me has been thrown away now, and most of the left-overs are either eaten up or stuck in the freezer.

Oh, Didn't It Rain?

The local TV station is calling the two days of rain “A Rain Event.” That seems appropriate. In fact, Jim Razor said there has never in recorded weather history been this kind of rainfall in our area. I hope it never happens again!

We are blessed to live on a hillside, and our roads to town were passable yesterday, when I carried out my plans to do numerous errands.. One corner had rain over a wider area than I had ever seen before, but there was room on the left side of road to drive safely on the gravel.

Once I got to Marion, I picked my roads carefully around town. Nevertheless, I was soaked over and over each time I had to leave the car to do one more errand. My raincoat was soaked through despite my umbrella. Wading through all the accumulated water when I stepped out of the car, my shoes and sox were constantly soggy.My slacks were wet half way to my knees. It felt wonderful to be safely back home and change clothes and put on warm fuzzy socks on my chilled feet.

Listening to the weather forecasts last night warning that today’s situation would be worse, I was almost afraid to go out despite my volunteering to help man the Southern Illinois Writers Guild table at John A. Logan College’s Club Day. My straggly hair had not recovered from yesterday's drenching. I really did not need to be seen in public! While I was still deciding if I should go, Pat Evans called that she could not make it as a friend called her just as she was heading out the door to tell her that Route 148 was closed.

Not wanting Jim Lambert to have to work the table alone, I decided to see what our roads looked like. I knew Route 13 to Carterville would be fine. I needn’t have worried. That one bad curve had drained during the night. Unfortunately, many people were not so fortunate. The damage continues to rise including two deaths that were reported tonight when a pickup drove through water and was floated away by the swift current.

At the college, the parking lots were almost full, so most of the students had made it to class despite the flooding. I hurried in to join Jim, who had our table all set up. It was fun to visit with Fog Gilbert on his way to class and then again afterwards when he came and sat at our table awhile. His students stopped by, and one young woman said he had made class so interesting that she only missed that 8 a.m. class one time—when she ran out of gas on the way to school and had to be rescued by her grandfather too late to go on to Fog’s class. And she said his class was not even in her major. Harry Mosley stopped by and visited with us as did SIWG member Deana Smith. We gave her books for her charity book basket.

I even got a glimse of Adrienne Barkley Giffen caught up in the beat as she came down the hall from the booming music in the cafeteria. I had just walked that way after hanging up flyers for our March 29th Trail of Tears Association meeting at Saline County Museum at Harrisburg. I too found myself walking to that beat also even if I am a senior citizen.

It is always stimulating to be around college students and to know how many opportunities lie ahead of them. And it is especially gratifying to meet the writers among them. We are hoping some will show up tomorrow night for our Critique Night and bring some of their writing to share.

A nice ending to the day came as we watched Texas A&M win their first conference game and beat Baylor 7-0.

Returning to Everyday Life

Note: Trying the 6th time to get the following posted. This was written before midnight last night right on the Wednesday schedule. Although blogger says it is published, it does not show up on Woodsong Notes. I hope it does this time.

Monday Gerald had to make-up the income tax appointment he missed last week with Doug Hileman. Between the time change making him lose track of time and the appointment taking longer than he expected, he didn’t make it home in time to go to Geri Ann’s volleyball game with me. Since he couldn’t make the game and he was already in Union County, he ran by Keith and Barbara’s. Yesterday he ran by Opal’s, and in the afternoon he attended the Johnston City softball game against my alma mater Anna-Jonesboro. This time I couldn’t go because I was giving the devotional at our class meeting at Sharon Odom’s at 6:30.

Today he and Keith went to Amish country across the Ohio River near Marion, Kentucky. It is a good thing they went today because the river is rising again, and the ferry is expected to close.

Keith has a beef ready for us to butcher, and they were looking for the man who had butchered for us years ago. We have been buying beef from the grocery store for a number of years now, so it will be good to have the freezer full again. While they were there, they ran by the farms of friends John and Barbara Beachey and Lester Stutzman.

They were impressed with young Ben Beachey’s harness making, and Gerald just had to have one of the belts he makes. Back at Woodsong, Gerald proudly placed a jar of freshly made maple syrup that John gave him and a jar of sugar-free blackberry jam that he said the school teacher made. I need to ask him more about that tomorrow.

Before supper, he already had a photo developed of a farmer with his plow pulled by three sturdy work horses. After supper, I watched a slide show of the river, an eagle’s nest with a eagle head poking out of it, a horse-drawn buggy, and of course a rerun of pictures of the grandchildren and family gatherings.

Sympathy cards line the fireplace mantel, and the remaining siblings are keeping in touch by phone as they resume a new phase of life without their brother.

Death and Sadness Are a Part of Life

For the last 13 months, we have lived with the knowledge that Gerald’s brother Ken had leukemia and would not be expected to live as long as we had previously taken for granted. Their dad lived a long life; and at 75, Ken was working every day and was extremely strong, in spite of suffering from arthritis that no longer allowed him to coon hunt or play softball. Many years ago he had had heart surgery, but you would have never known it.

Doctors advised that chemo would be difficult and might not be worth it at his age--if he even lived through it. Ken and his family took the challenge and went through rounds of treatment first at Barnes and then at John Cochran V.A. He went into remission and looked good and was back on his bulldozer doing work he was good at and loved. Then the leukemia returned.

Again doctors said that to try further treatment with chemo might kill him. Again Ken and his family chose to fight this disease. Just as she had during the months of previous treatments, his wife Opal stayed by his side night and day for the 44 days he underwent yet another round of treatment at John Cochran V.A. Hospital. He was hampered by a heart attack there when doctor’s orders for a transfusion were not followed promptly, but he seem to recover from that blunder rather well. Yet by Christmas Day, the family was concerned that he was not doing well. Still when his brothers went to see him that day, he assured them he had had Christmas there in the hospital room when a son-in-law read the Christmas story to him.

On January 8, he had a bone marrow test, and he and Opal were told that this final treatment had not worked. His sister made her third trip from Wyoming to visit with him. On January 10, he was told to go home and that the doctor had called in Hospice. We were all saddened at the prediction that he would not live until his 76th birthday on January 20. When he did, we all rejoiced, and a stream of people who loved him flooded their house all day long. Then he admitted that he would really like to see his expected great granddaughter. He not only lived to see Josie but to hold her and love on her many times. Again we rejoiced at this and wondered why the doctor had said this still strong man was going to die. Obviously the doctor was wrong about the expected length of time.

Adding to our illusion was a dispute between doctors when one saw the pathologist’s report and found out that person had not discovered leukemia cells. (This local oncologist said, however, that Ken that two infections that could kill him.) Nevertheless, we had an evening of hope—though a false one. The next day, the first oncologist assured the family that he himself had seen the leukemia cells and had been able to make a more accurate report than the pathologist had the tools to do. Still we had to wonder as Ken maintained life and good humor and his family fought for is recovery.

Finally the serious deterioration started. Back in the local hospital, the continued fight against the infections did no good. Ken wanted to go home, and he did. Once more people streamed into his home to show love and concern. Surrounded there in his bedroom by his wife and children, on Monday, he went into a peaceful sleep-like state. Hospice assured the family that Ken could still hear them.

If he could, he heard many vows of love and praise and appreciation. He felt loving arms and kisses. He heard prayers and favorite Bible scriptures read, which were chosen just for him. He heard his daughters singing the hymns he loved. And then after his sister called from Wyoming for a final expression of love with the phone held to his ear, he heard his wife and children's final farewells. And then he heard the angels.

Chili and Softball at Woodsong on a Cold Winter Day

I slept late this morning because last night I unintentionally stayed up late trying to review family history after a distant (very distant) cousin joined our GlascoFamily yahoo group. I was still sleepy and in my pajamas devouring the newspaper and a bowl of cereal when Gerald yelled up from the family room that I had a phone call. I had already thought about the day’s agenda and had even decided the day before to make a pot of chili. I figured I would put it on when I finished the newspaper.

Our neighbor Marylea was on the phone with the announcement that she would be over in about an hour with a pot of chili for us! I am sure she was trying to say thanks to Gerald for having taken his front-end loader over recently and helped when hay was delivered for her horses. So I finished my morning routine, and long before lunch, here came Marylea with a crock pot full of chili for me to plug in and keep cooking. It was good!

Gerald had planned to take Katherine and Samuel for his checkup after his recent ear infections. He was leaving early to go by the hospital and see his brother Kenny and was backing out of the garage when Katherine phoned saying that doctor appointment was cancelled. But in addition to visiting Kenny, he still went by Katherine’s and left some of Marylea’s chili that I had put in his truck for sharing with her family.

We will be eating chili again tomorrow, and I will have a container yet to put in the freezer for next week. I did fix a different meal this evening, but phone calls to Gerald’s siblings took up the thirty minutes that we had between the double header games of Texas A&M with the University of Houston.

So we filled our plates in the kitchen and carried them down to again watch the second game with game tracker on Gerald’s computer. We do this and play the audio of the radio announcers there at the Aggie Softball Complex. It is not as good as being there, but it is the best we can do. We like hearing about the beautiful weather there while we look out and see snow on our lawn. And we like hearing Texas A&M continue to win. Their record is 18-2 now, and the coaches again voted them the number two team in the nation.

Whoops! Life A Mite Out of Control?

Oh dear. I did not think I'd have any trouble writing on here this Wednesday. But I almost forgot again. At least we do have electricity this week! We probably missed Geri Ann's volleyball game because we do not have a schedule. She and her mother have been out of town going to Erin's games in Tempe last weekend, and we haven't connected as usual.

Gerald and I were still at the supper table when Gerry called from the Yucatan about Erin's games. We had forgotten that schedule also. I can't seem to keep up with things. They had already won their first game in a double header against Stephen F. Austin when Gerry phoned. So I left the messy kitchen, and we hurried to Gerald's computer to listen to the second game. We were certainly glad we did because we got to hear Erin hit her first homerun for Texas A&M! Exciting. It must have been quite a hit because the announcers were excited that the ball hit the new scoreboard--a first. CoachJo Evans said in the after-game interview that Erin initiated the scoreboard, which had been up three years.

I do have the kitchen cleaned now. And then after email exchanges about the game, I wrote a sad email catching the kids up on the news about their Uncle Ken, who went to Barnes yesterday and came home the same day. The doctor had changed his mind about giving Ken another bone marrow test and more chemo.

Last night I had barely gotten home from a long day in town including Wal-Mart, my least favorite place to have to go, and I had fixed Gerald a nice supper since he had fixed his own lunch. Again I was starting to clean the kitchen, when my friend Linda called. We were talking about plans for the rest of the week, and I said, "Well, let's see. Today is Tuesday." At that moment (7:05), I realized I was supposed to be leading singing at our class meeting at Imogene Graves' house. I had the song books in the car. But an over-crowded day had crowded that part of the day's agenda from my mind.

Imogene had prepared for us twice last week and because of the ice had to cancel both times. I felt terrible I had forgotten this the third time she had prepared for us. So with hair awry and kitchen in shambles, I jumped in the car and was there by 7:15. Fortunately, I got out of having to lead singing. I got there in time for prayer (which I was needing) and a very good devotional by Charlene Morris.

After our business meeting, we gathered at the table in Imogene's pretty kitchen/dining room alight with red berries and bright red accessories everywhere. She had prepared us a feast, and I am ashamed to say I ate a second supper, but I enjoyed every bite. Then after more sandwiches and the delicious cheese ball and candy had been passed around again (no, I didn't take seconds or candy), she and daughter Shirley served us Imogene's famous strawberry pie. Of course, I could not turn it down. It was sumptious as always.

As good as the food was, the fellowship was better. Perhaps we'd all been housebound too long the week before struggling against nature's unkindness. Maybe it was our sated appetites, but as stories and tales were told, we laughed more than I have laughed in years. I needed that. Now we are looking at weather predictions of another ice storm making tomorrow's doctors appointments and tomorrow night's carefully planned Writers Guild meeting problematic. I am sure I am better able to face tomorrow after such a good time last night.

Now, I better quit writing and go do my knee exercises. As of Monday, I started doing them twice a day. I think I can already feel some difference in my stability.

Resolutions Destroyed by Winter Storm

Last Saturday when I blogged on here, I resolved firmly (I thought) to get back on schedule and blog on Wednesday night like I originally planned. What I did not count on was having a winter ice storm hit Monday night which resulted in our electricity going off at 2 a.m. on Tuesday. Even then I assumed we would be back on by nightfall. That afternoon Gerald hooked up our two gas fireplaces that had not been on for two years--just in case. Good thing he did. Our electricity did not go on until almost noon on Friday. Since our brother Garry and some folks in Lick Creek still do not have power, I am not complaining. I am grateful.

I hope to blog on schedule on AmazonConnect tonight and on here on Wednesday--if the ice does not come, the creeks don't rise, and the power stays on. See you then.

Listening to Erin Play Ball

Gerald and I spent our afternoon and early evening hovered over his computer listening to Texas A&M softball team play in their kickoff tourney at Cathedral City, CA. The announcers described the Big League Dreams Sports Complex and the beautiful mountains, and we enjoyed knowing Vickie was there watching her daughter catch for two All-American pitchers and for the team rated second in the nation. Gerry is at the San Fernando lodge with hunters or he would be in California too.

We were pleased to win over the New Mexico State Aggies 3 to 2 in the first game and disappointed, of course, to hear us lose to Cal Poly Mustangs 5 to 1 in the second game at Fenway Park. (Evidently each field in the complex is named after a Big League park elsewhere.)

Yet we agreed with Coach Jo Evans in the after-game interview that this was nothing to be discouraged about. We beamed when she praised Erin’s playing just as we had beamed when the announcers described Erin’s “pretty out” with one of her exciting throws. We cheered for each of her singles.

We will be tuned in again for tomorrow’s two games after watching Samuel play Upward basketball in the morning. We want to be at Rend Lake at 4 p.m. to see Erin’s cousin Drew Johnson and our young friend Jared Barger play for first place in the middle school Class 2 state tournament there. I am wondering if we can work all this in. We will do our best.

Serenades and Signings at the Illinois Centre Mall

Thanks to Carol Jennings, authors from our area had a fun day signing books at the Illinois Centre Mall today. An administrative assistant in the mall office, Carol came up with the idea of having an early February annual book fair where writers could sell their books to the public. This was the third year for the event, and it has grown and gotten better every year. Authors from here who go to Sturgis, Kentucky, are impressed with the floods of people who come to the fair grounds there all day long for the sole purpose of buying books. There has been nothing like this in Southern Illinois.

However, if the Third Winter Book Fair is any indication, we may someday grow into something even more exciting. Refining the fair every year, Carol outdid herself this year. Attractive posters at the entrances announced our presence. Attractive cloths graced a generous-sized table for each author. Chairs and table name tags awaited us. All we had to do was carry in our books and fountain pens. The cookie store gave each author a coupon for a huge free soda The foot traffic was heavy--perhaps because people were so pleased to have a lovely sunny Saturday after yesterday’s bitter cold snow day keeping the kids home from school. There were twenty-two authors who enrolled to sign and a great variety of books including many poetry books. Judy Askew was up from Brookport, Rick Keisheim from Robinson, and Sheri Richardson was down from O’Fallon, Missouri. The rest of us had less far to drive.

Besides seeing friends and making new ones, perhaps the highlight for me was the children’s violin recital in our midst--bringing a host of parents and grandparents with them. There were tiny children with tiny violins and older kids with large violins. The program was diverse and delightful. Seeing these beautiful children poised and talented performing on difficult instruments was an unexpected treat.

I am sentimental about violins because my father played one. When my sister Rosemary was young living in Jonesboro, Daddy took her to weekly violin lessons from a gentleman in Anna. Thus, she was prepared to play in the high school orchestra. He listened in on the lessons and also learned to play.

When he and Mother retired in Goreville, one aspect of their social life was asking other couples in for the evening. If one of the couple could play piano and it was usually the wife, Daddy would enlist her to play the piano while he played the violin. Mother and the other husband would usually play Chinese checkers together. Daddy became quite proficient at the hymns they practiced, and Mother became quite good on the star-shaped board. I always knew who would win when I played her.

Daddy liked to go with his church group once a month to play hymns and sing at the Vienna nursing home. He was still doing this when he was so old that he was no longer steady on his feet. Naturally, the elderly residents loved for one of their own age to come and play. Daddy would leave the house and smile wickedly at Mother and me and say, “Well, I have got to go play the violin for the old folks.”

That was a long time ago, for Daddy’s violin was silenced first by the ravages of Parkinson and then by his joining a heavenly choir. Yet for my sister and me, a violin is a symbol of our father, and we are quick to choose a Christmas or birthday card that has a violin on it. We each know the other one will remember the same man when it is opened. Daddy loved children, and he would have been even more pleased than I was if he had heard the well-trained youngsters at the mall today

Addendum: Those authors at the mall today were Jim Lambert, Pat Evans, Violet Toler, Mary L. Hackett, Carol Jennings, Dixie Terry, Anne-Marie Legan, Joy King, Harry Boyd, Rick Kelsheim, Ron Schmeck,Patty Morrison, Ernestine Brasher, Sherri Richardson, Judy Askew, David Bond, Roger Poppen, Sue Glasco, Fog Gilbert, Jon Musgrave, Marie Samuel, Jeri Beth McRoy. Did I miss anyone?

Lynn Delores Dillow Borde September 26, 1933 - December 7, 2007

From the sad email from our mutual friend Lois and the sad phone call from Lynn’s son Lance, I learned that Lynn had lost her battle with what she had first written the doctor was calling pre-leukemia.

After that news, a Christmas card came from Lance and his sister Pamela “PJ” Brown. The inserted memorial sheet had five pictures of Lynn from her baby picture to an adult picture. In between was an adorable formal studio photo of a gently smiling child of around four when she was still living in New York. Then a bathing beauty photo. Next, a sophomore high school class picture that I remembered, and a young adult picture I am not sure I had ever seen. Folding the precious insert back into the card and envelope, I told myself I would have to think about it later. Yet I knew what was inside that envelope, and I could not keep from thinking about the loss of my childhood friend.

During that pre-Christmas season with Lynn’s photos hidden inside the envelope’s darkness, we already had plenty to grieve because our lives were full of sadness and pain for family members and their illnesses. I did not want to face the loss of my first writing friend and faithful and most-fun friend. Since she was in California and I stayed in Southern Illinois, she was not in my everyday life. Although we wrote long letters as young adults, those had trickled off some years to only Christmas cards. She talked of coming back for a visit in retirement, and I had looked forward to that. However, with the pre-leukemia letter, I faced the end of that plan and dream.

Lynn left SIUC the first quarter we were there to fulfill her ambition of joining the Air Force. We wrote faithfully and shared our adventures. Later she married, and she and her husband came back on G.I. bills and were in the area briefly before returning to California.

There they remained although there was one brief summer trip back here in the 1960s. We both had young families. I remember I had laryngitis and could not really talk, which I considered a terrible irony since all Lynn and I ever wanted to do was talk--for hours on her front porch in Jonesboro where she lived with her grandparents and where we grew up, for hours when we took a walk from her house to and through the nearby Jonesboro cemetery and giggled as young people can when death is far away. For hours on the telephone as teens talking about cute boys and what to wear to the basketball games in the A-J gym. For hours as we read to each other from our journals when she was Lyndee and I was Suzie. We spent summer evenings at the ballpark and in the Tropics, our teenage hangout. We could make a nickel coke last all night.

After that 1960s visit at our ancient farm house plagued by laryngitis and busy with the care of our little ones, we did not see each other again until 2001 when we went to California to see our granddaughter Tara play softball and stayed at Lois and Tom’s house in Oakland. We arranged a visit with Lynn in her Concord apartment and met her cats that she loved, and we all went out to dinner together.

This week I opened the haunting envelope again. I have kept her photos on my desk and allowed myself to know I won’t see her again during this life. I signed a sympathy letter to Lance and Pam and included the name Suzie. I won't ever sign my name that way again.

Mike Pinto to Speak to SIWG January 17 at JALC

Because our lives are more full than usual right now, I am simply going to post the news release I sent out about tomorrow night's Guild meeting:
Mike Pinto, national motivational speaker and manager of the Southern Illinois Miners Baseball Team, will present one of his challenging multimedia programs at the Southern Illinois Writers Guild on Thursday, January 17, at 7 p.m. in Room F-119 in the Ray Hancock Conference Center at John A. College in Carterville. The public is welcome.

A specialist is personal branding, Pinto uses a visually focused high energy presentation to help his listeners to develop long-lasting personal identities. For the writers and their guests, Pinto will be combining his motivational emphasis with how writers can brand and sell themselves. His goal will be to help those in attendance to achieve more, do more, and get more business for themselves.

His book In a League of Your Own: Positioning Yourself as the Only One to Call will be released in early 2008. Pinto is president of BrandChampions International in Chicago, Illinois, a consulting company specializing in teaching financial advisors strategies to stand out in their marketplace. He is known for his passion, enthusiasm, integrity, and humor.

Pinto has acted as a branding consultant to hundreds of clients including Bank of America, Chase, Countrywide, John Hancock Funds, John Hancock Annuities, MFS, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Pulte, Smith Barney, Stifel Nicolaus, Solomon Brothers, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo, according to his website www.brandchampions.net .

Pinto has given over 500 speeches to over 250,000 people in his 17-year speaking career, which he conducts during the off season of the Miners. He will be in Marion for an awards event for the Miners the day after his presentation to SIWG.

SIWG is a student organization at JALC with author Harry Spiller as sponsor. In addition to student members, writers in the area are encouraged to join. Some members are journal/letter writers, others want to be published someday, many are part-time writers, and some are full-time professional writers. Present membership is 63, and some 30 have authored one or more books.

Jim Lambert of Carbondale is the new SIWG president for 2008. Other officers are Sue Glasco, vice president; Patricia Evans, secretary; and Erika Hookham, treasurer. Yavonne Field-Bagwell is the Guild liaison with the JALC website, and Pamela Braswell is the new editor of The Writer’s Voice, the SIWG newsletter.

The Ray Hancock Conference Center is on the north end of the main building. There is parking in Parking Lot D outside the Center--although visitors can park in other lots and go into the bottom floor and walk past the Terrace Dining Room Annex, where the Guild usually meets and go up the hall to north part of the building to find Room F-119.

A Strange and Unscheduled Week

I have not meant to change my writing date from Wednesday to Saturday, even though it seems as if that has happened. Our lives have been in too much turmoil to keep any kind of schedule for several weeks now.

Gerald and I drove to the Crabb-Abbott Farm east of Vienna on Tuesday after stopping for a hamburger at Ned’s Shed. It was raining too hard to walk down to the creek where the Trail is most obvious, but 88 people braved the rain to come out for the unveiling of the sign marking the farm as one segment of the Cherokee’s Trail of Tears.

We stood in Joe and Ethel’s open garage for brief meetings before and after the unveiling. Our Trail of Tears Association president Sandy Boaz told us that when she checked the Daniel Butrick journal, she found it was also raining on January 8, 1839. Then we all headed over to the Dixon Springs State Park kitchen, where Joe and Ethel and their daughters served us all chili, white chili, hot dogs, and all kinds of other extras and goodies including a surprise birthday cake for Joe.

A special treat for me was being able to visit with the Jim and Maybelle Watkins family--who were my Jonesboro neighbors on Cook Avenue when I was growing up. Their son Jim and wife Nancy were also there. Jim had been in my mother’s classroom in the second grade and then again when she was moved to teach fourth grade to his class two years later.

That night we learned the sad news that the bone marrow test for Gerald’s brother Ken showed an abundance of leukemia cells again. We went up to the hospital the next day and intended to stay all night with our daughter’s family in Lake Saint Louis and come home Thursday morning.

Instead Gerald’s sister Ernestine flew in from Rock Springs, Wyoming, and we met her plane Thursday afternoon. Ken and Opal had been told by the doctor that morning that he would receive a transfusion and platelets and be sent home since the chemo had not worked and the doctor could do nothing more for Ken.

Unfortunately and weirdly in all our opinions, the transfusion and platelets did not arrive for Ken until almost midnight. His two daughters were able to take Ken and Opal from the hospital a little before 2 a.m. on Friday morning and they arrived at their Marion home at 4 a.m. It had been a long and exhausting time--over a day and a half for Ken and Opal when they were finally able to go to bed in their own bed Friday morning.

Since then Ken has been rejoicing at being home, and he and Opal have been holding open house to their children, grandchildren, and siblings. Today their son took Ken and Opal on the drive he wanted to Union County and visited with several of Opal’s family who brought him all Ken’s favorite treats they could think of. He went to bed early tired but happy I think.

We have been sharing Ernestine with her other brothers and wives. Consequently, we’ve been treated to dinner at Cracker Barrel last night and at Ryan’s tonight.

The downstairs Christmas tree is back in the closet where it belongs, but some of the ornaments are still spread out on the bed in that room. Upstairs, when we got home with Ernestine, I put away all the holiday accessories that were lying on the bed in the guest bedroom waiting to be put away. Yesterday I took the living room tree down and boxed up those ornaments, but I could not get one part of the tree pulled apart to fit in the box. I must call that to Gerald's attention to finish that job for me.

Yesteday I barely made it to a doctor's appointment made a year ago, and the office was all torn up and being painted. The woman at the desk explained that our answering machine had not worked when they tried to phone and cancel the appointment. Having been told my new glasses would be ready this week, I then fought the after-school traffic and went to get them assuming they too had been unable to leave the message on the non-working answering machine. There after a wait, the right person got off the phone to tell me that they had been mistaken--because of some problem my glasses had to be outsourced and maybe I would get them next week--although she wasn't sure.

As I said, the week has been filled with unscheduled activities as well as ones scheduled.

Finishing Up, Putting Away, Ending Christmas Season

Usually our trees are not still up this long, but there they are in the family and living room asking me, “When are you going to get busy and take me down?” I always leave the trees up until after New Year’s Day as that is part of the holiday season for me personally. The wreath on the front door blew off a couple of days ago, so I did carry it inside. And I have started removing the smaller accessories and decorations and placing them in the guest bedroom. There they await my hauling the storage boxes out of that room’s closet. I should be free of tinsel and glitter by the end of next week.

On the other hand, I am just now getting Christmas cards sent to Gerald’s relatives. I have our addresses filed in four folders: my family folder of Martin-Rockenmeyer addresses, Glasco-Wenger folder with their family addresses, Local friends' folder, and Away friends' folder. I lost the Glasco-Wenger folder, which just showed up in the garage of all places this week. Ah well.

I still pass out cards at our village church rather than spend money on stamps. My dear friend and neighbor, the late Helen Beasley had the girls she led in a youth organization to deliver our cards at church so we could put more money into our mission offering. I still do this every year in remembrance of Helen.

We drove up to John Cochran V.A.Hospital on Wednesday to see Gerald’s brother Ken because Gerald and his sister were so discouraged after talking to Ken and Opal on Tuesday. We went late in the afternoon since Opal’s sister and husband had also planned to visit that day. We were thrilled at how rested Ken and Opal looked. Their night sleep is broken up almost every hour, so they can’t be getting much rest. But when Ken feels good, that refreshes them like nothing else. And Ken felt good on Wednesday. The platelets and antibiotics administered through the hard-to-place port in his neck artery had done their job. He looked good, and two successful therapy sessions that morning had reinforced his knowledge that he was stronger.

The next day Ken was running fever again. This has been typical through this long ordeal since he entered the hospital on November 28. Up and down. Hope and horror. After his diagnosis of leukemia on February 8 (I think it was.), Ken and Opal spent 73 days in the hospital, where she was always his willing personal attendant. Then with the remission, Ken was back enjoying life again--first slowly and then back on his bulldozer doing the work he loves. We were all ready to claim a permanent miracle and were not prepared for the leukemia to come back--despite being warned.

So with the 73 days plus the newest 38 days and counting, Ken and Opal have spent a large part of the past year in the hospital. Now if the antibiotics work to clear up the infection in his blood stream, the fevers go away, the fungus infection resulting from all the use of antibiotics doesn’t cause problems, Ken is anticipating being able to come home to Marion and celebrate his birthday on January 20 with his brothers at Cracker Barrel, according to their brotherly tradition. I suspect the crowd will be larger than usual that morning and the mood joyous.

With Ken, our grandson Trent, and our daughter Katherine all very ill this holiday season, it has not been a normal celebration for us. On the other hand, we are more grateful than usual for God’s gift of His son to redeem and help us through whatever the new year brings.

I better quit writing and take down and put away a few more decorations.

Holiday Sports

Knowing our daughter and family were at the SIUC Arena last night, Gerald and I watched the game sporadically. I didn’t see Samuel nor parents in the crowd, but Vickie told us tonight that she saw Sam and David. Unfortunately I saw that last 3-point wonder shot by the wrong team that made us lose by two points. It was a thrilling shot--but not for us Salukis.

More thrilling that the game, however, was realizing Katherine was up to attending a game. She had her first Tysabri infusion on Thursday afternoon. When she left the hospital, she was amazed to realize she could see better. The muscles behind her eyes that cause her to need to refocus constantly to temper the nausea/vertigo were evidently already better. She has been limiting herself to looking straight ahead to compensate and lesson the problem. She said she feasted looking sideways on the highway as David drove home.

Tonight some of us gathered here at Woodsong with Erin and family and friends to watch the Alamo Bowl Game in San Antonio. Again we were disappointed to see “our” team--Texas A&M--lose by a touchdown, especially after being ahead during the first quarter.

There was lots of cheering throughout, and that increased when Erin’s special friend Matt Featherston played. Vickie brought pizzas, and I put out soup and goodies. Then Erin surprised us with her masterpiece she had baked--a cake shaped like a football with #46 written in the icing. It was good. The company was good. All that was bad was the score.

Christmas Is Here

Family arrived in the middle of the night last night, so I knew Christmas was here. Others arrived at Gerry and Vickie’s house in Johnston City, and we all got together tonight at The Mix in Carterville to hear a concert by Eiler Grey (our granddaughter Leslie Eiler) and her friend Caleb Francis, who came down from Charleston.

We will gather again tomorrow after church for lunch, and then by Monday morning part of the visitors will be going back up north and one will be leaving to join Texas A&M football team preparing to play in the Alamo Bowl. Others of our family are in Florida and elsewhere this year. So our group on Christmas Day to eat ham and Christmas dinner will be smaller than usual.

I am later than usual in writing on Woodsong Notes also because our family has been enmeshed in too many health issues to have much time for writing Christmas cards or anything else. Too many people in our family are seriously ill right now.

Our hearts and minds have gone through many flipflops this week as Gerald’s brother Ken continues to fight leukemia. I know our family is not alone. Many all over the world are fighting life-threatening illnesses and have no doubt had highs and lows this week just as Ken has. On Tuesday he was doing so well that a doctor said Ken might get to come home for this weekend. That afternoon he had a heart attack when some bleeding started, because his heart lacked sufficient blood to pump.

It made us feel even worse because it was preventable. The doctor had ordered a blood transfusion for him at 7 in the morning. The nurse still had not given it in the afternoon when the heart attack resulted because the heart did not have enough blood to pump. So he was back in ICU.

Yesterday after someone lost his blood sample between his room and the lab, a doctor did it over himself so Ken could have a needed test to find source of bleeding. The showed no serious cause. They were able to stop the bleeding. People were high.

Then he was put in with another patient and the patient’s attendant--and the other two talked all night with lights on. Opal could not stay in the room, so she was forced go to the lodge with their children. This morning after yesterday’s ordeal and no sleep last night, Ken was all washed out. But he is not washed up. He is still fighting, and so is his family.

Christmas is a Time for Sadness--and Expressing Love

Sunday we learned that our neighbor G. A. White had lost his long struggle with cancer. Wednesday night we stood in line three hours as the line swirled and turned in and out of the rooms of the funeral home. It seemed most of the community was there wanting to pay their respects to this man and his family that so many loved. As we waited, we visited with those in front and behind us as well as those in the crowded lines parallel to our line. Yesterday we watched as his funeral cortège passed our house as the long train of vehicles attending the hearse traveled with him to their farm where he was buried.

Yesterday morning’s Southern Illinoisan carried the story of the terrible airplane crash 30 years ago when the University of Evansville basketball team, coach, and others were killed. Most of us recall very clearly the horror of that news. Twenty-nine people died. Recently 29 seconds of silence was held in remembrance in the Duff-Kingston Gymnasium at Eldorado named after the two players from Eldorado: Mike Duff and Kevin Kingston. Greg Smith, a player from West Frankfort, was also killed in that crash. Thirty years has not stopped the grief.

At noon, I received a message from a high school friend Lois Ferrell Doctor in California that our mutual friend Lynn Dillow Borde has died December 7th. I had sent various cards, silly notes, etc. ever since I learned Lynn was diagnosed with pre-leukemia, and I faced the fact that she would not make the trip back here that she had planned for in retirement. In fact, I had mailed a note on Monday feeling regretful that I had been negligent in recent weeks. After reading Lois’ note with the news she’d just received from Lynn’s daughter, I walked upstairs to fix Gerald’s lunch, and Lynn’s son Lance phoned telling me again of our loss.

In Spring 2002, Gerald and I visited in California at Lois and Tom‘s house. They took us to attend the SIUC softball games to watch our granddaughter Tara. We also took Lynn to dinner and had a wonderful visit in her apartment. That was the first time the three of us girl friends had been together as a trio since we said goodbye to each other in the fall of 1951 when Lois left for California. But we kept in touch, and Lois and Lynn lived close enough for occasional visits.

Tonight Katherine forwarded the column by Jimmy Dean in the Marion Daily Republican telling of the struggle for life that Gunner, the 7-year-old son of the Marshall County High School high school coach Gus Gillespie is making at Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, TN. Jimmy Dean had been down to Murray to see his daughter Kara. He’d made the trip with friends including Rich Herrin. They’d stopped in the Draffenville, Kentucky, high school gym on the way down, and they’d met Gillespie as Ron Winemiller, a manager for Herrin’s at SIUC, was now assistant coach there.

Only later before they returned for the prestigious Hoopfest did they hear the bad news about Gillespie’s son. Jimmy Dean wrote how he learned 17 months ago how unimportant sports and everything else is when you are praying for a miracle for your child. Our region will always grieve for the terrible loss of Dean’s son.

Many people around the world are praying for miracles for their loved ones this Christmas season just as we are for Gerald’s brother Ken, who is in intensive care as he fights his battle for another remission of leukemia. He was better this morning, and we are hoping he is soon back in a regular room.

Jimmy Dean urges us to use this season to tell our children and loved ones how much they mean to us. A friend told me this morning about a young adult nephew who claims he doesn't believe in love--he meant any kind of love. To love and be loved are the greatest gifts we can have at Christmas or any other time. Let's not be stingy with these gifts.

Barb and Bob are ok, and so am I!

Yesterday while Pat Evans and I were enjoying our gab fest, I was so happy to get a phone call from my cousin Barbara Morgan. She was checking up on my cataract surgery yesterday morning, and I was pleased to tell her I was doing great. (Dr. Powers agreed with my assessment when Gerald took me today for my day-after check-up.)

Barb did not know that Gerald and I had been trying to phone her and Bob for two days after hearing the stories of flooding in Oregon. She explained that they did lose their electricity on Sunday night, but it came back on Tuesday. Then, however, their phone service was interupted. She could phone out, but our calls could not go through. I was glad to find out that our long periods of ringing her phone were not heard on her end since she could not answer if she had heard! With the loss of electricity/phone service, their computer went dead. But Barb was cheerful sounding, and she was worrying about me while I had been worrying about her.

’Tis the Season for Gripes, Worries, and Concerns

I was very pleased with myself last night when I got the main floor Christmas tree up in the living room. And all the lights on. They cheered me as I started adding the ornaments, and I finished that job this afternoon. Then I plugged in the lights again. The highest string and the big star on top that was hooked to it would not work. I didn’t think that we had any strings that go out with just one bad bulb, so I guess the string has died. What to do now? GRRR. A half-lit tree looks kinda silly.

At least I had not yet put on the icicles--really beautiful long silver ones that bring back wonderful memories of shopping years ago in Nashville, TN, at a 90% after-Christmas sale with my two daughters living there. I still have excess little baskets around the house that we paid 10 cents for. Numerous craft/gift projects haven’t used them all. We laughed and laughed at ourselves that day and had so much fun. Life is much more difficult these days for the three of us, but I like remembering that good time.

I shopped today at the monthly Senior Citizen Day at Kroger’s, which is an enormous pain for everyone involved, but who can resist the discount? If the corporate managers would simply reduce prices without all the silly book work, letters, and the trouble of cards and coupons, I would shop there regularly instead of just on Senior Citizen Day, which is crowded and crazy. I feel sorry for the employees on this day, and I also feel sorry for us oldsters having to cram a month’s worth of grocery shopping into one day to get what I assume is a fair price for their merchandise. I am grateful that the rest of the month I can shop at a store that cares more about its customers’ needs.

However, when I was half way through unloading my cart, the sweetest young woman clerk finished the job for me apologizing that she hadn't been available when I lifted all the heavy boxes of cola off the bottom of the cart. And the young employee who took the cart to the car was equally kind. They both lightned my mood. Another good thing is that I have the Christmas ham bought and stored in the downstairs fridge, where Gerald carried the heavy thing for me. Not so pleasant is still having part of the non-perishables to put away tomorrow--another non favorite task.

I may not feel like it tomorrow since I have to be at Harrisburg Medical Center in the morning at 7:15 for cataract surgery. The eye doctor told me I might be sleepy, but I should be just fine by tomorrow afternoon to even go on a trip if I wanted. I don't want, but a friend is dropping in then, and I look forward to her visit.

We are concerned for our brother Ken, who is in a Saint Louis hospital fighting for another remission from leukemia. His chemo is over, and the next three to four weeks are supposed to be the difficult part.

We are also concerned about our cousins Barbara and Bob Morgan in Oregon. We worry that beautiful Mosby Creek may have overflowed. We haven’t been able to reach them on the phone.

Those are just part of our concerns. Some periods of life have more anxieties than others, and this is one of those periods for us. I think I sometimes like to gripe about minutiae, such as burned-out lights and irritating shopping trips to keep myself from thinking about the really serious concerns that I don’t even want to think about, let alone talk about. Ah well. I have lived long enough to know that troubles pass, and with God's help, humans get through them.

A Den for Christmas--Maybe

We’ve been to two middle school girls basketball games this week. Tonight we hurried back to pick up a prescription waiting at the pharmacy at Kroger’s. We weren’t sure it would be open, but we got there a minute or two before nine and were happy to see lights through the drive-in window. Interestingly, the sign in the window showed new closing hour as 10 p.m. We needn’t have hurried.



While we were feeling so buoyed up by our success, Gerald thought we might as well run out to another store as he needed a piece to finish up a project he has been working on. Our luck ran out there, however, as the workers had just locked up. Had we known the pharmacy was open until 10, we could have gone there first.



When we moved into this house in six years ago, we had a passel of little grandkids. After Gerald put in an outside shop building at the last minute, the area in the walk-out downstairs with a garage door that was intended for a shop was not needed for that. I immediately designated it the “art room” and put in an unpainted wooden door held up by a couple of unused low end tables. Surrounding it with small plastic chairs, the kids had plenty of room to draw or paint or cut or whatever messy idea they chose. The concrete floor could not be hurt. An extra fridge and a popcorn table was there for sodas and snacks.



The kids loved going there for many made-up games and projects. Although there is a tiny TV left over from someone’s dorm room or something, I don’t think the kids ever turned it on. They had written and colored all over the unfinished door; and when they finally got too tall for it, I still had a 13-year-old disappointed when he discovered it gone.



We had given an old kitchen table to a daughter, who no longer needed it. While remodeling their house, someone had broken off a leg. We took it back thinking Gerald could repair it and we could donate it to the Household Give-Away that the Marion Ministerial Association runs. Stuff is stored for those who need it at Community of Christ Church.



However, when we realized the low door needed to be replaced with a taller table, that repaired kitchen table was the answer. Adult chairs were substituted for the little red plastic ones. (Aidan found them and enjoyed them at Thanksgiving.) The growing kids continued to congregate in their special place.



With various electronic games becoming important to them, more and more they were hooking onto the family room TV with cords and junk all over the floor to trip the unwary. Their desire to watch the Disney Channel (not available on the little TV in the art room) competed with the fathers’ desire to watch ballgames. We had a problem. The youngsters had outgrown the “art room” although they still claimed it and used it. I decided we needed a teenagers’ den in there.



On one wall of this room, there was a wire shelf left over from the garage. Clothes could be hung underneath. That had gradually filled up with hunting clothes and old coats and sweaters for the occasional time kids might unexpectedly need a warm garment when they ran outside. Then I moved a bunch of “junk clothes” out of another closet so the kids could have “costumes” for the skits they sometimes create. Before I had time to act on the den project, that overloaded shelf fell down depositing a wall full of garments all over the floor. I piled them on the table and the “art room” was out of commission.



Since obviously the first clothes rack had failed, Gerald and I began to shop for more substantial closet equipment to put on that wall . After his lugging heavy boxes of pressed wood closets to the truck and then into the house, he started to put them together during the World Series only to find the first box did not contain the correct amount of hardware.



All those heavy boxes had to be returned. Actually, they had to be returned twice. The first time Gerald had to bring them back home for two weeks because I had written a check instead of using a credit card. While we waited, he came up with the idea of using extra paneling left over from the house to build closets on that wall. In addition to all his regular duties, he has been working on building the closets. It looks great and oddly makes the room look larger even though this takes up an extra 32 inches with its depth. The doors still must be varnished.



In the middle of the two closets is a place for the heavy family room TV. It will be a job to move it, and we will have to have a new one for the sports viewing. Now Gerald has a wiring job to complete. If we can get the TV in the “den” hooked up for Disney Channel, the kids can watch or use their electronic games even while the men claim the family room. We hope to have this part of the project completed by the holidays. May not happen. We will see.



I have yet to think through the rest of what I am going to do to make this a teenager gathering spot--either move in an old couch from another room for TV watching or maybe buy a couch. I won’t have to do much to make the kids happy if they can have a place they can call their own with the TV that Gpa will be providing.

Grateful the Turkey is Ready for the Oven

My annual battle with the frozen Thanksgiving turkey is over. The giblets are in the pan ready for me to add water to make giblet gravy for Gerry. The turkey is in the little fridge in the garage until I place the pan in the oven in the morning as near to 5 a.m. as I can.

I have never cooked a fresh turkey. I considered it one year--but they were out there five or six days before Thanksgiving, and that struck me as a long time to keep a fresh bird. Maybe not. Obviously, I have no experience except with the frozen kind. That is very convenient to choose early and know it is awaiting your use.

The problem comes when you have to get the bird thawed. For a big turkey that our gang usually requires, I need three or four days in the fridge to thaw it. Still it usually has ice in the middle daring me to get that a sack of liver and gizzard out of the neck hole. The greatest challenge, however, is that ever-present clamp holding the legs together. GRRRR. How many women broke a fingernail on that onery piece of metal or plastic today? I thought I would never get out that neck frozen tightly in the stomach hole.

After wasting ten minutes or so pulling on the thing, I finally broke the rules and ran warm water in that hole to release the neck. I’d pay a couple dollars extra to have those giblets and neck in a separate sack OUTSIDE the turkey, but I don’t figure that I will ever be given that option. I did at last succeed and carried the awkwardly heavy fellow to the fridge ready for roasting.

Now if I can get to bed early, I should be able to turn on the oven even if I am half-awake, stagger with turkey to push into the bottom shelf, set the temp at 325, and if I am real lucky, I might sneak back to bed.

Blessings and Troubles Then and Now

Sadly Gerald lost another cousin--his second this year. So tonight we went to Anna for the visitation for his cousin Clarence Lee Glasco. We again saw many of his relatives, who had also been at the funeral for his cousin Charlene Givens. Cousin Wilma, who was so ill at her sister’s funeral, had recovered from her cancer surgery and looked great. She had been helping and sitting with Clarence during his illness, in fact.

A problematic fact of modern life is that we often only see relatives at funerals and weddings. Yet in the early part of the last century, people who lived as far away as Marion is from Anna would probably not have been able to make the trip to a cousin’s funeral visitation. Despite the high gas prices, most of today’s population can afford such trips now more than people could a century ago in Southern Illinois when travel was mostly by horse-drawn vehicles or trains. Trips to area towns often took the entire day if one did not go by train.

However, we should not forget that there remains too large a percentage of us who cannot travel freely today. Not just because of the price of gas, but because many cannot afford a car in the first place. When I worked with families in this area, one of the first problems I ran into was that single mothers usually did not have a car. Without a car, it often was impossible for them to find a job. Few jobs exist here within walking distance.

Often worse were the problems that owners of a car ran into when the car had problems. It seemed to me that an ancient-looking car with a tail light out invariably was stopped for a ticket. For a single mother on a tight budget, a ticket could spell total disaster for her family’s hope of getting out of crisis. I was never sure what could be done to lessen these problems, but certainly good public transportation, such as the trains that used to be available, would help.

When I drive through the cluster of houses that make up the village of New Dennison near our farm, I almost always think that here was once a railroad center. People caught rides from there to Marion and Carbondale. The late Marguerite Lashley, who had returned to live in her childhood home there, told me how her physician father would pick up the Presbyterian pastor who rode the train over from Carbondale to New Dennison. The doctor’s family in their horse and buggy would take the preacher on to Shed Church. Then the family would return for the Sunday dinner Marguerite‘s mother prepared, and the pastor would catch a train back to Carbondale.

Not only do we lack that convenient public transportation today, but we endure dangers these early citizens did not. On our way to Anna on Route 146, Gerald braked rapidly when a large buck started to cross in front of us. Fortunately, the buck turned. No one was behind us, and Gerald thought he could have missed him if he’d continued. We were glad we did have to find out. His cousin Barbara Houseman had just driven in from a meeting in Springfield and told me she left tire marks on Route 127 coming to the funeral home. Her deer was standing in the middle of the highway. Since November is the month that most highway deaths in Illinois are caused by the deer, two Glasco cousins were blessed with escapes tonight.

After the visitation, we went with Gerald’s brothers Keith and Garry and our sister-in-law Ginger along with nephew DuWayne and wife Vickie to the local restaurant we used to call Dino’s. There we all enjoyed supper together and had the opportunity to visit and still drive home for an early bedtime if I had chosen to go to bed instead of write this blog.

And though we were watching closely, we did not see a single deer coming back to the farm. I hope the hunters see them this weekend. Then their families will have venison for the winter stored in their freezers for hearty meals that few families could have enjoyed in 1907.

Chatting About Daily Chit Chat

Gerald and I took the pickup over to the body shop this afternoon. We were finally able to pick up our car today. The twice-replaced back right door looks great. I hope this door lasts longer than the first two.

I drove on to Carbondale as I had a Trail of Tears Association board meeting tonight, and I have been needing the car to claim my re-soled and repaired Birkenstocks from Shawnee Trails. They’ve been ready for a while, but I had no car to go get them. The management there is so accommodating. I apologized for being so long in picking them up, and the man was so nice that I was almost made to feel I’d done them a favor for being so poky! Once again for far less than half price, my returned Birks looked like a new pair. And choosing repair over brand new helps the environment as well.

While I was that close to 710 Book Store, I couldn’t resist the pleasure of going in to look at the books. I was delighted to find a copy of the late Normagene Warner’s Standing on Tiptoe, one of the most beautiful and honest accounts of losing a child that I’ve ever read. You can no longer order it from Amazon, so I was delighted to find a couple of copies there, and I bought one as I think I gave my last one away. Copies of the late Dr. Ben Fox’s two books were also there.

Earlier this week I finished Cinnamon the same day I started it. This account of the trekking the Appalachian Trail was fascinating and enlightening. I am also thoroughly enjoying Rowena McClinton’s translation of the diaries from the Moravian mission in pre-Trail of Tears Georgia. I won’t finish these two hefty volumes in a hurry though.

Diaries and journals are probably my favorite genre because they are composed of such simple day-to-day activities that end up making a life. Yet the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. One of my all-time favorites is The Diary of Helena Morley, which Elizabeth Bishop translated. It is the wonderful diary of a young girl in Brazil telling of the daily life in their village. I used to order it through inter-library loan, but with the Internet, I was able to buy my own second-hand copy.

In much the same way, I have always been attracted to the weekly journalists who write personal columns about the Smith family spending the day at grandma’s house and little Suzie Jones being sick with the flu. There was a time in my life that I read probably 25 or so of these community columns a week--about people I did not know from neighborhoods with names like Possum Hollow or Tool Shed Corner.

One of my weird writing goals was to write such a column, and I did accomplish that for about nine months. It was some of the most difficult writing I ever did.

The Johnson County Genealogical and Historical Society is publishing a book of Harry Nave’s columns from some decades ago, and I am eager to read his book. I find it exciting that he wrote a book without knowing it--one weekly column at a time.

Fall Cookin’

Autumn brings new menus--no more BLT’s with tomatoes from the garden and no more veggies to pick for lunch.

I’ve bought several bags of local apples. The huge sweet potatoes at Small’s Grocery were so attractive that I couldn’t resist one that I baked in the microwave. Gerald and I ate on that one monster potato for two meals. I have made my first big pot of beef-vegetable soup for the season and the first apple cake I have made in over a decade. The cake is so good, but neither Gerald nor I are supposed to be eating such sweets. I used to make these all fall but doubled this recipe to fill up a large pan twice as big as the 13 by 9 inch I used on Wednesday. Of course, in those days I had a houseful of young adults to feed.

In addition to feeding the two of us, I have been reading and, of course, doing some writing. And have had a good many check-ups and doctor appointments to take up time the last couple of months. I delight in days when I do not have to go anywhere and can stay home to enjoy myself. Yesterday on what would have been my mother’s 105th birthday had she lived, Gerald took me to schedule cataract surgery on December 6th.

When we returned home, with dilated eyes and the flare-up of arthritis that is making it painful for me to walk, I had a good excuse to start reading the first of two huge volumes of translations of Anna Gambold’s diaries from Springplace mission to the Indians in Georgia. The books were ordered months ago, but were delayed so they arrived Tuesday from Amazon, where they were cheaper than at the University of Nebraska Press.

Originally written in a tiny hand script of an ancient variation of German, the diaries are now available to the world in English thanks to the painstaking and remarkable work of Dr. Rowena McClinton, who teaches at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

I have only read McClinton’s introduction so far and have been amazed and enlightened about the Moravian mission movement as it developed in Europe. Since I have had no world history since grade school, all of her explanations were new to me and I was fascinated with the breadth of her knowledge while wishing for more on my part. In fact, I think I will quit this blog and go read more!

The Story Story from the Trail of Tears

Robin Roberts, photographer and horse woman, had discovered the Story Cemetery in the Shawnee National Forrest some years ago while attending the Nine Day Trail Ride. More recently, she found a new marker where before only the Civil War marker of Ephriam Story had been among the 50 or more graves there--almost all with just a sandstone marker as so many old graveyards have. The new marker was for Ephriam’s wife Caroline (Williford) Story and along with her dates was this: “TSI-TSA-LA-GI (I am Cherokee.)”

Robin began a search to solve the mystery of what descendant of Ephriam and Caroline had added the marker for Caroline. (We assumed it was placed by a descendant.)

Evelyn Hogg, the wife of Vernon Hogg, who is the great grandson of Ephriam and Caroline, was kind enough to write a letter and send a great deal of Trail of Tears information to Robin including the family story that Caroline and her younger sister Mary Williford had indeed been left behind on the Trail of Tears. (Mary's name was Benton when she married, and she died in a nursing home in Indiana.)

Vernon had put up signs pointing to the Story Cemetery around 1999, and at that time there was only Ephriam’s marker. Some three or four years ago they discovered the new marker. Like Robin, they were pleased by it, but had no idea who had put it up.

Among the information Mrs. Hogg sent was the indenture of Caroline and Mary Williford, who at ages 7 and 9 in 1846 were indentured to different families until they were 18. Mrs. Hogg had this indenture record thanks to the work of Ed Annable.

Robin had shared by email beautiful photographs that she had taken of the cemetery and tombstones, and I was fascinated by this story of two little girls left behind on the Trail of Tears. She has continued searching for more descendants and has been corresponding with them.

Just as we had conjectured, Robin was able to confirm today that the two sisters’ parents had died as a result of the Trail of Tears and that a family in Pope County had taken them in. Was this family named Williford? Or was that the original Cherokee family name? Why were the girls indentured in 1846? Did the family who had taken them in die?

As information was passed back and forth among a group of us, new information kept popping up that added new questions to the old ones. So I have deliberately only told you a bit of the story. I hope someday Robin can answer all the mysteries for us and that we will have a complete story of the Williford family members who dropped off the Trail of Tears in 1839.

Maybe by then the Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association will have a location for an accessible archive for the public. The TOTA is in the process of collecting the heartbreaking stories of broken families left behind in Southern Illinois as Cherokee were forced to relocate in Oklahoma.

If you have any information on the Story family or any other Cherokee left in our region because of the Trail of Tears, please contact anyone in the Illinois Chapter of TOTA, so we can add your information to the archives.

Life's Unexpected Turns

Knowing I would be disoriented after a trip, I was careful to plan what I would need to do after I returned before tonight’s scheduled Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting.

Not only did I plan, but I carried out the plan. Emails were written, getting particular members together was planned, and phone calls were made. Because of my shame of running in just at closing time to get copies of agendas, etc., copied at the college’s Office of Student Affairs, I made a special trip to that office yesterday to avoid the last minute hassle. The personnel there are always extremely gracious to me when I come in hurriedly, but their kindness only increases my guilt for knowing I am being inconsiderate.

My brief case was packed for the meeting, and all the handouts copied yesterday were ready and waiting. I was excited about the program Deb Tucker had planned and was eager to see her again after her Washington, D.C., and Atlantic Ocean trip and her move to Mount Vernon. We had good publicity in local paper, and Deb had managed to get our SIWG newsletter to us despite her trip. As I talked on the phone today, I found others were also eagerly awaiting tonight’s program with Chris Beavers of Graf Ink Printing in Eldorado.

My first surprise came when Julie Durr, who was to give a report from the nominating committee tonight, phoned to say that her son had an email that John A. Logan College was closed for the day because of water problems. I double-checked the college website and tried phoning the college just to be certain that today’s closing included tonight. Although neither said anything about tonight, it was obvious if the college reopened tomorrow morning that tonight was OFF.

Before I sent an email to those people whose e-addresses I had, I decided I had better have a long-distance executive committee meeting for others’ input. First, I phoned our SIWG sponsor Harry Spiller. I figured he could give me the inside scoop. However, he was also surprised to hear about the closing; he was enroute to his son’s graduation from Navy boot camp at Great Lakes. I called Deb, so she could phone Chris Beavers, and I tried to phone Roger Poppen. (Those two were all that were left of our diminishing officers this year since adversities had forced two others to resign.)

After I had sent off emails to whomever I could, I received other emails about the closing, phoned some people who didn’t use emails, and received a phone call from someone apologizing that she could not come tonight. I also received a phone call from someone who was coming but didn’t know the college was closed. I am sure I will probably hear from someone who made the trip to John A. and found locked doors, and I feel terrible about that. Ah well.

It was an interesting day to say the least. Somewhere in here, I also managed to cancel my credit card that was not in my wallet when I started to use it yesterday afternoon. Last night I emptied the wallet and looked in every cranny of wallet, purse, and car. I searched for it again first thing this morning. I hadn’t needed it on vacation since Gerald and I were together when we bought things. I have no idea where or when it disappeared. I feel sure it was not stolen, for fortunately, no one else had used it since I last did on October 5. Yet I still knew it needed to be cancelled since I had looked every possible place. Of course, I believe I always put it back in my wallet. But it wasn’t there, so that proves I am incorrect in my belief. We use the card to get a discount on our gas, so I am going to lose out for a while until the new card arrives. GRRR.

College Station, Texas

We’ve just returned from our Texas trip. We ate waffles in the shape of the state of Texas for breakfast at our motel, and we heard lots of football talk wherever we went. The weather was wonderful all week, and the many fluffy white clouds in the huge sky were magnificent.

We got off to a slow start from Illinois as someone ran into the back door of our car in the Kroger parking lot as Gerald was headed to the car wash after having the car serviced for the trip. The same replaced door that a pickup had jumped a curb and crushed while I was inside the mall last year was now banged up again!

Thus, we started a little later than planned and a little less calmly. Somewhere down in Arkansas, we got a warning light that a tire was low. A state policeman at the park where we’d stopped to check it recommended a place ahead. A couple of hours later we were back on the road with the tire aired up--but the tire people could not find a leak. Recently we had a tire that had to be replaced despite the fact that two local tire services could not find the tiny leak near the valve that our son-in-law finally located. So we left not feeling too comfortable about the tire. However, we were blessed with nary another trouble with that tire, so evidently the crash on the door had somehow caused that back tire to lose air.

We arrived at College Station the next day in plenty of time to find our motel and the stadium. We were there to see our granddaughter Erin catch that afternoon in two softball games against Navarro Community College. Wearing our hats to keep off the sun, we discovered a roofed stadium, which not only kept off the sun but protected us during the hard rain that fell before the game. Our worry that the games might be rained out was needless as all the brief rain did was cool the air and create a delightful temperature with a lovely breeze. Vickie and Geri Ann, Erin’s mother and sister, had also arrived; and after the games, all of us feasted at the deep-fried chicken dinner that Erin’s friend Matt had prepared for us at the house where Erin and two other softball players live with a fourth college student, whose parents had bought the house for her.

That night we fell instantly asleep and woke early enough the next morning for a leisurely breakfast and then a visit to the George Bush Memorial Library on the Texas A&M campus. Unfortunately, it was being renovated, but we saw the movie, some displays, and the miniature White House replica that has traveled throughout the country. Nearby was a small lake with many flowers and a rose garden, where the butterflies flitted everywhere. We kept walking back into the woods where George and Barbara Bush will someday be buried by their daughter Robin.

Meeting everyone for lunch, we ate Chinese and then had time to go back to the motel to rest up and prepare for the next two games against Blinn Community College, which had a very good team with four good pitchers and a coach with a fine reputation. Again we won both games and thoroughly enjoyed seeing Erin and teammates play and met a few more parents. After a late dinner with our party and sad farewell hugs, we fell into bed and another deep sleep in order to prepare for the next segment of our Texas adventure.

Rocks and Sticks

Our great grandson is visiting his grandparents. And we have been allowed to share him. Like all the children before (and I hope after) him, nothing competes in holding his long-term attention as much as rocks, sticks, and dirt--all picked up with stubby little fingers to play with, to throw, to sift, and to enjoy. I find great comfort in that.

Like many American children, he has some fantastic toys. They sing, they talk, they flash. Some toys are adorably cute, some beautiful, some softly cuddly, and some educationally inspired. He likes them and uses them and remembers them. I am sure he has learned a great deal from these presents from loved ones.

I admit to being delighted when his eye instantly caught sight of the little tractor on the bottom shelf of the coffee table in the family room. I had forgotten it was there. A long time ago, that tractor was one of two I bought for new grandsons over 14 years ago. However, after he rolled it around for a minute or two, he was ready for other excitement.

Yet playing with the little rocks and the dry dusty dirt at the softball field yesterday, he lingered much longer with nature’s toys. Hand and eye coordination were enhanced by this play just as millions of other youngsters have grown through this play. Vocabulary was increased as we talked about rocks, sticks, pick up, throw down, and dirty hands. He experienced the hardness of the rocks and the comparative softness of the dirt as he dug it out of the ground to play with.

It is fun to watch a 16-month-old explore the world and learn its secrets. All the delights that the earth offers from deer in his grandparents’ woods to ducks and geese on our lake to Chloe the dog are fascinating to him. When Chloe came up to him to be petted, those of us sitting a short distance a way saw his brain turn over. He realized that she was just the right size for him to straddle and ride. As he was contemplating this and making move to do so, fortunately he refrained and gave Chloe a loving hug instead.

Long ago when his mother was born, Katherine wrote on a family bulletin board at our house at that time: A new baby is God’s decision that the world should go on. When we took this one by to see his Great Aunt Katherine today, she was just as pleased with God’s decision as she had been about his mother.