The Adventure Continues

Everyone at the Eiler household slept in Saturday morning except Rick, who was up and out running with his buddies. He had the morning paper already read and on the table for the rest of us. When Elijah came down, I had to tease him about coming in at 3 a.m. (This was an incident from the play where the mother would start with 3 a.m. and end up saying her son came in at 4 or 5. Elijah was in by midnight or shortly after I think. I heard him arrive home, but I didn’t open my eyes to check the clock. It is so pleasant to be a grandmother!) Elijah was soon off in the van to some morning activity.

Jeannie borrowed the car and went for groceries, which included lunch for all of us. Her allergies were still sounding miserable but the night’s sleep had helped. After lunch we had a couple of hours free, and I joined her in her wall paper scraping project.

She had invited me to sit in the rocker and visit with her while she worked—but I was intrigued by the difficulty of removing the ancient wall covering and I could not resist trying the spray-on goop that looked like jelled blue Windex. I wasn’t very good at it, but I enjoyed the visiting. We did not finish the room, but we had a lot of bits of damp paper on the floor to prove we’d tried.

Jeannie is my daughter who always has a project going. Was it l,000 origami birds she was assembling for a school tree one year? She brought materials along on her visit to Woodsong, and I tried making a few while we visited that time. Another time it was an ongoing mural in a preschool room that was adorable when finished. I lacked the talent to help with that one. Once it was letting her children experience the birth of puppies. They sold some, gave one or two away including one destined to a short life that a loving volunteer accepted with promises to make that short life a happy one. Other times she is planning a party or has a food project going. I am not usually around to help, but I enjoy seeing the photos or hearing her stories. I always love seeing the art on the walls of her home or her latest intriguing finds from rummage sales.

After a brief rest, it was time to go across town and pick up another friend of Cecelie named Jen also. (If I understood right, there is a third Jen too.) Jeannie took us downtown to a multi-theater complex where we saw Letters to Juliet. (Or was it Letters from Juliet? I am assuming this movie was based on a real custom of putting letters to Juliet in a wall in Verona, but I did not know of it before. If there was not such a custom before, there will be now after this romantic movie.)

Our plan was to grab a bite to eat before the play, but the movie was longer than Jeannie anticipated so everyone elected to hold off on food till afterwards and go on to the last night of Enter Laughing. Rick met us there, where we had great seats to enjoy the high energy production that exists when kids throw their hearts into making the last night the best of all. I vicariously experience both the exhilaration and the underlying sadness knowing the students’ weeks of close-knit work is coming to an end.

For Tim Conners, this play was a trip down memory lane. It was the first play he directed at Freeport High School twenty years ago. Conversations with some of those long-ago students inspired him to reprise this production. The cast picture after the play captured this year’s kids in the identical pose as those earlier thespians. Maybe memories keep alive what we don’t want to end.

Jeannie and I stayed up talking awhile after the evening ended, for I had told everyone I intended to leave the next morning whenever I woke up. We said our goodbyes at bedtime. At seven I woke, dressed, packed the car, filled up at the local gas station and was leaving Freeport at eight. Jeannie had printed directions from MapQuest showing me how to go straight down from Bloomington on Route 55 to reach Mary Ellen’s home.

I had also been extremely upset that I missed Trent and Brianna’s spring play because of a conflict. I so wanted to see their first high school performance. Since Brianna was playing clarinet in the band and choir concert on Sunday afternoon, I decided to surprise her by showing up. Again the weather was beautiful and everything went smoothly for me despite the somewhat tricky frontage road. I reached the town of Waggoner (population 250) without incident where I was delighted to see two sisters on two tiny bikes riding down the main street. The older was probably five or six, and it was obvious that this was a place where it was taken for granted that it was safe for the children to ride in the street. I was smiling as they pulled without haste into their yard. Only then was I able to increase my speed to arrive at Mary Ellen’s rural home five miles down the road.

I had chosen not to pull off the road for breakfast, and I expected to find a restaurant for lunch at Raymond, where Trent and Brianna’s high school is. I knew there was a band association banquet for the kids and their families at 1:00 and I would be invited if it was a pot luck, but not if it was a catered affair requiring reservations. Brian was on his tractor doing yard work and greeted me explaining that Mary Ellen and Brianna had gone on to the high school to set up for the banquet since Mary Ellen was immediately elected president of this band parent group last fall. (Parents with time for such volunteering are always scarce and Mary Ellen was willing to pitch in and get acquainted as a newcomer to the community.)

Brian phoned Mary Ellen to tell her I was there, which prevented my plan of walking in unexpectedly, but it got me an invitation to the banquet since Mary had bought a ticket for Trent and he had chosen not to go. As soon as Brian finished up and showered, we’d drive over together to Raymond, which I would never have found probably by myself.

In the meantime, I was able to go downstairs with Trent and check out his poetry project assigned by the junior class English teacher. He had hooked up his computer to the big screen television, and I could easily read his entries and enjoy his artistic arrangement and choice of fonts for each poem. The teacher had given the kids prompts and formats for various types of poems, and Trent had done a good job. The next morning I would see his printed-out version of the project.

Telling Trent goodbye, I encouraged him to catch up on his Algebra II assignments while we were gone. Again my car came in handy since a trailer was hitched to Brian’s truck.

We traveled across the flat acres of central Illinois divided into squares by the straight rural roads. That is why all the roads there look alike to me. (Here in Southern Illinois, roads curve following the woods, bluffs, and creeks that the roads are beside.)

The delicious buffet dinner in the gym foyer featured fried chicken and yummy slaw supplemented by veggies and salads carried in by the parents. We sat at decorated tables set up in the school gym, where there was a long dessert table tempting us with the parents’ specialties. Band and choir members were presented certificates rewarding their service and accomplishments, and Mary Ellen presented the parent association’s $500 scholarship to a senior student going on to study music at Greenville College. While parents pitched in helping put away tables and foods, the high school kids hurried to get into their beautiful new band uniforms or choir robes.

The 3 p.m. concert in a beautiful auditorium began with the fifth grade band and the typical squeaking clarinet and progressed through the junior high choir and band. Finally, both the high school choir and band performed, and the splendid results of hard work and years of practice were exhibited. Not only did we receive a program that listed all performers’ names, but we also were given a several page printed collection of notes on the music played and facts about the composers. I liked this added touch, which I’d never seen done before, for I thought it educated all of us in addition to the students.

Afterwards at Mary Ellen and Brian’s house, people changed into comfy clothes. Soon we climbed into Brian’s new truck with comfy back-seats despite the high step up to enter. He was returning equipment he had borrowed for his lawn, and I would see his office at Stone Seeds for the first time. After some more sight seeing, Brian took us to a favorite Springfield restaurant and we had a delicious late night supper. Back home with ink for Trent’s printer for his poetry project, we visited awhile. Mary Ellen printed me out directions over to Mattoon where my brother and wife live, and we went to bed in hopes of a good night’s sleep to start the new work week. I slept very well, but I think Mary Ellen had sleep troubles as her mind worked on some details for her first upcoming house sale. She started her day helping two teenagers get organized and drove them to Raymond for school and returned. A nine o’clock meeting and a trip to the courthouse would follow.

A realtor from an urban area of Missouri moving over to Illinois requires a lot of adjustments. Mary Ellen had to become acquainted with this rural area and find the business cohorts to help her meet clients’ needs. After counseling me on the road to Mattoon since Gerald’s morning phone directions were different from MapQuest directions, she drew a quick map on the back of an envelope with left and right directions to help me get to Raymond. With her final help, it was easy to follow Gerald’s suggestion to reach Route 16 from Raymond instead of from Farmersville. After stopping for breakfast at Pana, I phoned my brother Jim to see if they were going to be at home. They were.

I had a great four-hour visit with Jim and Vivian and caught up with family news there. I was able to share a just-received email from my second cousin’s daughter, who is interested in family history. Sandra and I have been having long email discussions about Mount Airy Farm and the Goreville Martins, and I’ve been forwarding them to Jim and my sister Rosemary for comments since they have memories I do not have.

Our great Uncle Sam was Sandra’s great grandfather, and like most people she was very fond of him. He had a sharp wit and loved children. He worked hard running a hay baler for neighboring farmers. He came up from Sleepy Hollow, our ancestral home, after his wife Meda died, and Sam lived out his life at Daddy’s home place--Mount Airy Farm. Later Sandra’s family moved into that farm house, and she said they could still smell Sam’s tobacco in the house. The house burned down while they lived there, and she saw her daddy fighting the fire after she and her sister ran to the nearest neighbor who had a telephone. Their large family moved to Marion, and shortly after that, her father died.

We grew up knowing Sam had once been in prison for killing a man over a line dispute. We were told the story by my dad, who was nine at the time of the incident, and he said it was in self defense. We knew Sam had stayed in prison only a year or so and was entrusted with many duties, but his family suffered terribly with Sam away. Another descendant told Sandra he was released early because he was exonerated.

Right before I left on this trip, Sandra had emailed me exciting information. She had phoned a relative of Meda, whose business card was in a Christmas card I received from my cousin Helen Martin Sitter five years ago. Helen said this man had information on Meda’s family. I did not have time to follow up on it, but fortunately I had filed that card in my folder for Uncle Sam. It was one of some items I had mailed to Sandra since she asked me about Meda’s family and I knew nothing.

He was able to tell Sandra why Sam was exonerated. A man who refused to testify in Sam’s defense at the trial had a salvation experience. He worked at the hardware store where the murdered man went to purchase a lap ring, and he heard him say he was going to kill Sam Martin with it. I suppose he did not want to get involved or was afraid to testify. Now he was filled with guilt at his suppressed knowledge and he went to the authorities and told this information, and Sam was released from prison.

This all happened over a hundred years ago, and yet our finding out this wonderful story of the man’s salvation brings us joy today. Truth sets a prisoner free and brings happiness a century later to Uncle Sam’s descendants and loved ones.

Reluctantly leaving Jim and Vivian, I got back on the road and came down Interstate 57, picked up a pizza in Marion for Gerald’s and my supper. It was good to be home. I was happy to see Jeannie’s flowers for Mother’s Day were still quite lovely on the dining room table and once again it looked as if the ant poison had finally worked on the annual invasion of tiny ants in the kitchen. Honeysuckle is blooming profusely everywhere on country roads and on our deck, and the golden day lilies beside the house began their summer blooming while I was away on my Big Adventure.

I'm Back!

I’m back home at Woodsong after my Big Adventure.

A year ago, I missed grandson Elijah playing the lead in Brighton Beach Memoirs, and I felt I could not bear to miss his playing David Kolowitz in Enter Laughing, this year’s spring play. Every play or musical I have missed of Jeannie’s kids does not just disappoint me at the time—but forever after I feel deprived and disappointed.
We were up to see Cecelie’s fifth grade play and the annual Showtime at the high school just a month ago although we had missed the fall musical. Gerald has always loved to drive and travel, but he finds he tires enough on trips now that it takes longer for him to recuperate. When we returned from Showtime, he told me he wouldn’t be making the upstate trip so soon. So I began to ruminate on whether I would have the courage to make the trip by myself. I could not even remember when I last drove up by myself. It had been at least two or three years. When Jeannie and Rick first moved to Freeport, there was very confusing road construction going on in the Bloomington area, and I think that early difficulty made me dread the drive even though I made it several times by myself. Now we enjoy all that improvement made way back then, but I still was a little leery of my driving that far. (When Gerald goes, he drives usually all the way because my driving makes him nervous, and he makes me nervous if I try to drive unless he goes to sleep.)

I knew Brianna and Mary Ellen would want to go, so I checked out that possibility since I had also been wanting to drive by myself up to their new home, which is only half way up the state. Then Mary Ellen, who is an excellent driver, could drive the rest of the way. However, Lincolnwood High School end-year activities made it impossible for them to go, so I had to either go by myself or stay home.

Actually the night before a friend who had gone to our church women’s banquet with me offered to go along. But I was leaving the next morning if I had the courage; and while I wanted to prove to myself I could still make the drive, I did not really want an audience. I knew my friend drove in that area of the state, but if I let her drive, I would not regain my confidence.

Jeannie had written on Facebook how sick she was (art allergens in her classroom). At the end of school year, I knew she was stretched with Rick away at late-night track meets, social butterfly Cecelie needing friends picked up, and Elijah in and out borrowing her van or Rick’s truck making for the normal happy confusion of a too-busy family with two sweet dogs in the mix to be cared for in whatever bits of time anyone could find. (Only after arriving did I find out she also had a major room redecorating project going on.) She knew I wanted to come, but I did not tell her I was coming until I was actually on the road three hours and phoned her for a bed reservation.

The weather was beautiful for the drive up (with only a few sprinkles at noon time); and despite a great deal of road construction slowing me down to 45 sometimes, none of that work was scary or dangerous as it sometimes is. It was good to see the putting America back to work signs up and down the state, and I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful splotches of purple wild flowers along the road in the northern part of the state. They weren’t familiar to me, and I didn’t find out what the flowers were named, but they greatly added to my travel pleasure.

Remembering that doctors felt being too long in the car may have caused the trouble I had with blood clots two years ago, I tried to stop for breaks and walk a bit. I had given myself plenty of time to arrive for Friday night’s performance, and my mantra was, “I’m just moseying along doing what I want.” I had the most relaxed trip I have ever driven and all went perfectly. I felt sort of silly I had been nervous and reluctant about the trip.

When I arrived and been greeted by Cecelie, Jeannie, and the shit-zus, it was time to think about the evening. I hated seeing how bad Jeannie’s allergies were acting up. I had taken an outfit for the play, but I decided I’d just change my blouse and otherwise wear my travel clothes. I was still in a moseying mood. Elijah had already gone to the play in the van, so my car was useful and I turned the keys over to Jeannie as she wound through far neighborhood roads to pick up Cec’s friend Jennifer and then back to the Jeannette Lloyd Theater.

There we saw the second-night performance of Joseph Stein’s farce based on Carl Reiner’s 1967 movie and his semi-autobiographical novel. I’d looked that much up on the Internet and a bit about the 1930s plot of young Kolowitz who was an unhappy messenger boy in an immigrant hat maker’s shop with his over-controlling parents wanting him to be a druggist while he was interested in girls and the movies. His admiring buddy pointed him to an ad for an actor to audition for a partial scholarship to acting school—which was really just a ploy by a ne’er-do-well drunk wanting someone to pay to be in his stage company.

The slap-stick shenanigans from shop to hat factory to the stage of the “school” to the parents’ kitchen to the phone booth to a restaurant and a cemetery date moved rapidly and kept us laughing. The young man tried to please his parents, his boss, his steady girl, his buddy, the theater owner Marlowe and his daughter the leading lady, and he didn’t mind fabricating whatever stories he needed to do so. Finally Kolowitz stood up for his own clueless ambition to be an actor despite his lack of experience or talent.

We found the source of the catchy title was Kolowitz’s audition when he was asked to read the script and he began by reading “Enter laughing” without knowing it was a stage direction. Naturally the comedy had a happy ending, although the next-to-last scene showed the theater owner falling down dying in his typically over-dramatic way and three stage-hand extras on their knees behind him. Their dead-pan puzzled looks were worth the admission price. But all 15 cast members gave us well-crafted often hilarious scenes that were worth the price. Elijah made us like this dissembling non-talented young man, and we were glad when the last line was his announcing with pomp certainty, “I am going to be an actor.”

Director Tim Conners purposefully chooses different styles of plays, and the kids learn while they have great fun. Not just acting and stage craft but this year about the Bronx, Jewish and immigrant families, and the Great Depression with its differences in attitudes, clothing, and the value of a nickel. I think the students also saw the universal quandary as young people and parents try to work out their love for each other balanced with their need for freedom.

I was glad I had driven up and still had the Saturday night performance to look forward to.

Good and Bad--And Maybe the Bad Was Good

Georgia softball team won the second game against University of Texas on Monday night. We all were elated. It started out unbelievably lopsided—almost embarrassingly so. Everyone was saying they were feeling sorry for the Longhorns, but then Texas hit a home run, and the scored ended 11-5. Georgia’s defense was spectacular, but we also had three home runs. Erin and Mel Dumezich were there from Texas A&M feeling good with their final exams over! Mary Ellen saw the camera pan their row in the stadium, but I missed it. It is not only fun watching, but the follow-up phone calls and conversations are great fun too when your team has just won an important victory.

Now we are excited planning to watch Georgia play Tennessee tomorrow at 4 on ESPNU. I think that is CST—but if I am wrong, then that game will begin here at 3 p.m. Our women’s banquet at church is tomorrow at 6, so I may not get to see the ending of the game. It will likely be a very tough game. Hope it ends well for the Dawgs.

Yesterday morning I was still lazily drinking coffee and reading the newspaper in my pajamas when the phone rang. The dentist office was calling to say that impression did not work and could I come back for another one! That was not in my plans for the day, but I changed my plans. I admit I was scared. I told the dentist that I suspected he was dreading the redo as much as I was. He assured me he was going to give me a shot in the gum this time, change whatever caused the problem before, and this time would be different. And it was.  I had a feeling he had put some thought into that previous episode.

Actually it was a good thing his office called. At noon right before I left home, I had reheated some of the corn casserole from Sunday. It was good, but evidently one kernal had gotten hard in the microwave. We were watching a replay of Monday night’s game, and I was not paying attention. I usually try to use both sides to chew but favor the side without the temp crown. I have followed the dentist’s advice not to eat popcorn or chewy taffy, etc.

My attention to the ball game wavered when I thought I heard a slight pop in my mouth, and I wondered if I had damaged that temp crown. I had. I could not tell it with my tongue, and if I had not had the unexpected appointment, I would probably assumed the crown was okay. So my dentist had to repair that also and warn me if it happened again to call him immediately since it could change my adjoining teeth or something so that the permanent crown might not align properly.

So all is well that ends well. Is that what the parents used to say in the Little House books? If not that, it was a similar sentiment and a good way to handle difficulties once they are over.

Week of Maintenance and Weekend of Fun

Medical appointments provided book ends for my week of high maintenance. On Monday I only spent a little over an hour in the dentist chair where I had been spending nearly two hours in past weeks. This appointment was to take off a temporary bridge, make a permanent impression for new bridge, and then put the temporary bridge back on.

I usually zone out in the dentist chair. My very pleasant dentist shows me X-rays and talks to me about them as if I understood what he is saying. I can see the X-rays in front of me, but I lack the imagination to figure out where the pictured ones are in my own head and I lack the vocabulary to understand his intentions. I assume they are honorable and try to be pleasant nodding in return. I close my eyes when the work begins and try to think of something far away.

All went well until I had that tub or whatever held the goop for the impression. I guess the stuff hardens. Suddenly I was aware that all the tapping and hammering in my mouth was more intense. It just did not seem to end. I gripped the seat harder the way I usually do when I feel pain in that chair. When the pain kept coming with every blow, I put one sharp finger nail into my finger on the other hand and tried to think about that self-inflicted pain and deflect thinking about my mouth.

I tried not to flinch, but I did not always succeed. Was I going to have to leave with my mouth propped open with something clued in there permanently? The dentist was offering apologies. I don’t think I ever had a dentist say sorry to me before, which was very nice but somehow did not make me feel calmer. When my mouth was finally emptied of the offending excess, I had a feeling the dentist was more relieved than I was. Something had caught on a cap or a bridge or something on the other side of my mouth. “I’ve never had that happen before,” he added.

Needing a reward, I went by my favorite lunch place and treated myself to a cup of their always good soup, which they serve with a big fluffy roll and sweet butter. Thus fortified, I went by daughter Katherine’s and found her rose bush in the front yard full of little red roses. I picked one as I went in for her and put it in a mini vase. She planted many flowers and plants in the old days when she was still able, and they are quite beautiful now.

Tuesday was spent on various tasks at our house, and we went in for Sam’s band concert that night. The concert was splendid, but the hot gymnasium brought back many memories of those May-time programs we attended for so many years when our kids were in school.

The rest of the week was mostly pleasant although Katherine had a rough time on Wednesday, which is the weekday she has no morning help right now. Lana, an afternoon aide, had fixed her a nice lunch in bed before she left just as I came by,  Then  a girl friend (from kindergarten days no less) dropped in to bring her a lovely set of wind chimes as a souvenir from a trip to the coast and, best of all, a chatty newsy visit before she left for a flight to Jordan the next day top visit her daughter.

I was enjoying the visit as much as Katherine until I looked at my watch and gasped. I had unexpectedly needed to volunteer to take Sam for an eye appointment at Walmart, and it was time. We arrived l0 minutes late, and the doctor had already gone. We went on to Sears on the off chance they might have a cancellation, but they didn’t, and neither place could take him until Friday—which wouldn’t work since the Marion Junior High band had been one of five in the entire state chosen to go to some special competition in Champaign that day.

Feeling defeated, Sam and I went back to their house, and Gerald made a trip into town to help Katherine from bed to chair. We left her and Sam ordering pizza since David was working late. I suggested Gerald get a sandwich or something at a drive-in on his way home, and I finally made it to Kroger for senior citizen day. I was grateful that unlike most months, I did not meet any old friends to converse with. I bought more than enough groceries to qualify for the fifteen cent discount from their gas station the next time we needed a fill-up, and a very young clerk helped me load all the groceries into the car. I too went through the drive-in and munched my sandwich as I drove home. I made sure the perishables were put away and relaxed the rest of the evening reading a new magazine and also on the Internet with its unlimited reading material.

Friday arrived with a long-made appointment with the ophthalmologist. Expecting in January to need new lenses or another cataract surgery, I heard the optometrist explain that my prescription was fine and the cataract had not grown, but the cataract corrected over two years ago was now clouded over as often happens in these surgeries. Their office would call the other office to set up an appointment to take care of it with a painless ten-minute procedure. Sounded simple, but when the ophthalmologist’s office called with the appointment, the woman said it would require an appointment just to examine me first—not for the procedure. That sounded a careful thing to do. So I really did not dread this appointment.

In the meantime, Gerald had shown me a flyer about a doctor giving free skin cancer screenings at a local hospital. Gerald knew I was a little concerned about a new spot on my face since I have had two skin cancers (the good kind) on my face before. So I had made an afternoon appointment the same day as the morning eye appointment.

At the eye doctor’s office, I was turned over to a woman whom I was not introduced to nor explained her function. She proceeded dilate and to test my eyes quite thoroughly, and I thought that was fine. But then she said after shining a light in both eyes that the cataract probably did need surgery. I was convinced she was right because I was unable to see anything with that light flashed in that eye. I could see with the eye with the implanted lens despite the bright light. She thought that eye was okay. Now I was thoroughly confused since this was all so opposite of what the optometrist had said. Next I was moved to another room to wait for the doctor. There I sat on an ill-fitting chair with my feel dangling making my Birks fall off.

The doctor was the one who had removed the cataract in November of 2007. He seemed in a hurry as he introduced himself, offered a handshake, and seemed to make a cursory glance at the papers I assume the previous woman had given him. Not only did he agree with the optometrist that the little lens was perhaps more like waxed paper now than shiny clear Saran wrap, I could tell he planned to do the procedure to correct that this very visit, which was not what I’d been told when the appointment was made months ago. He too examined my eyes with instruments and called out figures for his nurse to write down.

He asked if I had been shown the film about the painless procedure and I had not. (I guess because the woman examiner did not think I needed the procedure.) I told him I did not have anyone to drive me home. (I was already somewhat worried because of the dilation.) He said that would not matter because I would be able to see okay after this five-minute procedure. He said for me to view the film and decide if I wanted this done.

His nurse showed me the film, which clarified about as much as the dentist’s X-rays. I told her I was confused since I had just been told in the other room that I did not need this procedure. She said for me to listen to the doctors since both the optometrist and now the ophthalmologist said the same thing. So I never did understand that other person’s function in the other room.

I asked her if there were any advantage to wait since the doctor said I did not have to do it immediately. She said there was more chance of floaters if I waited. The doctor said the laser would click, click, click, and a tiny hole would then let light in. Five minutes, no pain, and then to be released to run around town and complete some errands before I met Gerald who was going over to Murphysboro with me that afternoon when I went for the skin cancer screening. Hmmm. Not having to come back for a later appointment certainly was appealing, so I followed the nurse’s advice and told the doctor to proceed.

I thought they all fibbed, because I did feel slight pain along with the click, click, clicking. Not bad enough to count I guess. Then the doctor said I could leave and come back in an hour or sit in the waiting room for them to check me in an hour. What happened to the five-minute procedure? I said I had some errands to run and would come back. I walked outside in the bright sunlight and was totally blinded. I got into the sun-warmed car which felt good since I’d frozen inside the office the past hour. But I knew I must not drive and I could not see to read, so I grabbed my suit jacket I’d fortunately stuck in for the late afternoon and went back to the lobby and went to sleep in my chair since I could not see.

An hour and ten minutes later, the woman technician (or whatever she was) came and checked the pressure in my eyes and said I could go now but would need to see the optometrist in a week or so. The receptionist offered to make that appointment and I was grateful since I was groggy from sleep and confusion and almost blind. I faced that bright outside sunlight again and wanted to clap my hands over my eyes.

Although I saw better than the previous hour, I drove very carefully to my daughter’s house stopping for a couple errands on the way and skipping the other errands. I thought I was much better until I got to Katherine’s and stepped out into the bright sunlight there. I was grateful to stumble into her much darker house. Her red rose bush was now complemented with small white iris blooming profusely, but I didn’t dare stop to pick any for a bouquet. She and her aide were shocked I hadn’t been given a pair of cardboard sunglasses as they’d had when their eyes were dilated.

I stayed there until time to meet Gerald at the agreed upon parking lot. I was very grateful that he had needed to go to Carbondale and, thus, was taking me to the skin screening. I think I could have made it, but I was not eager to drive. That efficient screening with the very nice young doctor at the hospital went very smoothly. I was seeing fine by now. I did not need to worry about the spot on my face but could watch a tiny reddish spot on the underside of my arm that I did not know I had and that might or might not be pre-cancerous. After stopping for Gerald’s errand, we came back to the home-town parking lot and I took the wheel when Gerald got back into his truck. I immediately noticed that road signs were brighter and so was the computer when I arrived back at Woodsong. I cooked us a nice supper and was glad the week was over.

The weekend has been great with phone calls, messages, visits, and even beautiful flowers from our village florist sent by the daughter upstate. Saturday afternoon Gerald and I listened to game tracker when Texas A&M won two games at Oklahoma State up at Stillwater. Best of all, we were able to hear the sweet voice of our granddaughter Erin helping the game commentator. Brian had come down to the their camper to farm this weekend. So by the time the games were over, Mary Ellen, Brianna, and Fifi had arrived at Woodsong to join him and had plans and foods for today’s dinner.  Before the weekend was over, Mary and I watched Julia and Julie, whcih she brought down for me to see.  We claimed our mothers' privilege and took over the television in the family room.

David and Sam had come to fish Saturday afternoon despite the windy weather, and Sam stayed on when he found out Brianna was here. They had the usual good time together both outside and on my computer with a writing project. But they also went with Mary Ellen to pick up sticks on a new piece of ground Brian and Mary had bought and which Gerald had cleared of unwanted growth this spring along the edge of the field by the road. Gerald had invested emotionally in clearing this, so he volunteered to take the tractor with the bucket and help. They came home tired, dirty, and hungry but proud of themselves at how much better the field looked.

I had the foresight to stop for lunch meat and side dishes at Small’s as I left town after my hair appointment, and so we all sat down to sandwiches, chips, and such, which was topped off with Mary Ellen’s banana bread. Brian came down from the other farm and stopped long enough for supper, and Mary Ellen went back to the field with him until after 1:00 this morning. David had picked up Sam, and Bri watched a movie till midnight and I told her to crawl into one of the beds here. As I understand it, Fifi took over as Brian’s companion when Mary came in to tumble in bed. Brian claimed at lunch that he did get some sleep up at the camper. I couldn’t figure out when.

I had not caught on that Gerry’s softball game at Austin, which was to be televised on ESPNU at 1:00 was EST. I envisioned us all sitting together at the table eating dinner before we headed to the family room to see the game on television. I had stuck a chicken into roast when we left for church services along with a pan of dressing. Mary Ellen had planned green beans with olive oil and in the other oven, pork steak and a large prepared corn casserole she was wanting to try out. (It was good but we all thought it too sweet—she makes it much better. The pork steak was delicious.) I had a package of fresh romaine to serve with a variety of bottled dressings. And from the fridge there were baby carrots, pickles, and olives.  Mary Ellen provided cantelope chunks and grapes, and I had bought a little cake once from Small’s and stuck it in the freezer, so I thawed that.

The game was starting soon after we came home, so we turned on the kitchen television as Mary Ellen and I put food out on the counter buffet style. I put out picnic-type trays and everyone filled theirs to go watch the game in the family room. Since David and Katherine weren’t able to make it this early, I ran in and picked up Sam to watch with us. He and I missed Wiggins’ homerun, but we saw Goler’s. It was over in five innings after Georgia got ahead 9-0, which was an important win for Georgia and Alison Owen. But tomorrow is another day, and we will be glued to the television at 6 (CST!) hoping Connie Clark’s Longhorns do not come back to give revenge. Best of all, I will not have a medical appointment all week.

More Bad News from Nashville

Immediately after posting the above, I went to Facebook to see if Leslie had anymore to say about the flood.  This was what she had written in her status: 

Non-Nashvillians: please spread the word, in case folks don't grasp the severity. Temporary shelters are at capacity, missing people are unaccounted for, many homes are under water, we're in a water conservation emergency, much of Nashville's economic base is threatened by flood damage, etc, etc. In other words, we're going to need help. Text 'REDCROSS' to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief.

Into the Forest and Home Again

With my participation in the Forest Stewardship Week over, I had to make a decision which way to drive home. I’d checked the mileage both ways, and both were about the same. I had an errand to do either way I chose, but I was also ready for some rest time before the final softball game between Georgia and Louisiana State, which was going to be broadcast on ESPNU at 8, with a supper to fix beforehand.

I chose the Harrisburg route again knowing I wanted to stop by and see Josie Brooks at the Book Emporium. But I was thinking longingly about taking a side trip to see Bell Smith Springs, which I’ve always wanted to visit. When my car approached the highway sign with an arrow pointing to it, the car turned on its on left blinker and headed down the side road. I was glad not to have to make the decision.

Soon on both sides of the road were amazingly tall trees—skinny trees actually because they were growing so thick and close together. As I enjoyed their beauty, a sign on the left explained I was in the middle of the Bay Creek Wilderness Area of the Shawnee National Forest. Googling here at home, I found such areas in national forests were created by Congress in 1990, and seven wilderness areas make up about ten percent of Shawnee with its over 270,000 acres and 1,250 miles of trails. More signs encouraged me that I was approaching Bell Smith Springs, and then an arrow pointed south to yet another side road. Still surrounded by trees, I drove on till I came to a parking area although the road continued beyond.

I had met no one since I left Highway 145, and no one was at the parking area. I was glad to be alone since I had been with people all day. Opening the car door, I realized I was not alone in silence. Winds sweeping through the rustling trees made almost a roar—but it was a comforting pleasant roar broken only by occasional bird sounds. I read the information provided in glass-fronted display cases and learned over 700 species of plant life surrounded me. Before starting down the rain-eroded path of small rocks glued together with some sort of hardening agent, I followed instructions and wiped my shoes on the provided boot cleaner lest I unintentionally carry in any seeds of invasive plant. (I was told to do the same when I left, and I did.)

I was glad for the path since the most common of the 700 species beside the path was poison ivy, but I also enjoyed a number of varying small blossoms among the ground cover beneath the towering trees. Far down the path and still enjoying being alone, I did recall from a decade or more ago, the story of a murder somewhere along such a deserted natural area. Shaking that ugly image from my brain, I determined to relish the beauty around me as I descended towards a canyon that the information board said had rocky sides of sandstone left by sand deposited millennia ago by some long-ago ocean. Unexpectedly, I came to stopping point where the path ended at a rock-walled viewing spot and then descended to the canyon by rocky steps between two such sandstone bluffs.

Another decision time. No banisters although the walls on both sides of the narrow steps going down were close enough together to offer some balance support. Did I dare go on? Common sense prevailed as I knew I am no longer as stable on my feet as I was a few years ago, and I really did not want to create an emergency if I were to fall down there in the canyon. I settled for sitting down on a lichen covered rock beside the path and looking down on the narrow rocky steps and the water below.

The ancient-looking steps assured me that many before me had appreciated this beautiful spot, and I marveled at how the steps had been created. I wondered who had done this for the rest of the world. Maybe during the Great Depression when Shawnee National Forest was being created during 1930-38, perhaps some of the young men in the CCC camps did this back-breaking creative work. Maybe even before this, it was some long ago nature lover who struggled and built these steps on his property to encourage others to come and picnic by the springs and swim in the river flowing through the canyon.

Videos on U-Tube show strong young swimmers in this century jumping and back flipping off the bluffs into the water here. My solitude was interrupted by a middle-aged couple, who had parked above by me and come down the path. After our friendly greetings that hikers exchange, they did not hesitate to descend the rocky steps looking for the natural stone bridge they’d read about. Envying them, I pondered again the possibility of trying the steps. (Now if I broke a leg or someone tried to murder me in the canyon, they could help me.) However, I really did not want to ruin that couple’s escape to the wilderness by going where my age told me I should not go, so again I refrained.

I was quite comfortable on my stone seat although I had scooted to the middle after seeing some spindly poison ivy I hadn’t noticed touching the sleeve of my sweater. I sat quite awhile longer enjoying the wind and bird sounds and then walked back up the incline to my car.

I could go back to Route 145 where I had turned off, or signs told me I could continue west to Route 45. New territory appealed to me, and I was glad I chose that way when I saw a sign leading to parking near Burden Falls in the Burden Falls Wilderness Area. I listened to the falling water there and smelled the damp forest aromas for awhile and then started west again. While I was at Burden Falls, a truck that I assumed carried forest employees went on by me onto a private-looking narrow road; otherwise the roads I traveled belonged to me alone ever since I turned off 145.

Occasionally there was a private home or farm tucked in an opening in the forest or then more along the road as I seemed to leave the forest behind. There were a number of side roads, but I stayed on what looked like the main road. Finally I was back on a well-maintained highway following a school bus and seeing many farm homes and rural churches. I knew this was not Route 45 and could only hope all my choices had been correct. Soon Route 45 appeared, and I was in territory I’ve traveled many times.

I was refreshed but tired when I reached Woodsong, and glad to read the paper and mail waiting for me there. Gerald was watching the afternoon game on game tracker between the Georgia Dawgs and LSU, and I joined him in his office. The night before we had watched their first game in the series at Baton Rouge as we celebrated Katherine’s birthday at her house. We had a good time. Though we would have loved seeing Tara’s family, we liked knowing Tara and her family were watching the same game down at Gma Shirley’s house as they took a road break before night-time driving for Tara’s Southern Force tourney down in Woodstock, Georgia. Yet despite our good time, seeing the Dawgs lose 5-1 after 15 straight wins did put a damper on the end of the evening.

Now despite our early lead in the afternoon game, LSU rallied and we lost that game also 5-3. Georgia is the team who are supposed to be experts at coming from behind and winning. LSU stole our game plan, and I wasn’t in too happy a mood as I fixed us a bite to eat so we would be ready to watch the third game on the television in the family room.

At last Georgia prevailed when freshman Alison Owen made her first game start as a pitcher and we won 3-2. Rains came during the night, but we woke up knowing our son was a happy guy when he phoned on his way to see Geri Ann, 16, and Tara’s Southern Force at their tournament. His three grandsons awaited him at Woodstock, and he was eager to join Vickie and Bryan in taking care of them. He was even happier when he could report that the Force had won the tournament and, thus, is already qualified for the 16U gold nationals for summer teams. He was also exuberant about Aidan, Maddux, and Payton whom he pronounced on Facebook as being sooooooo sweet.

Somehow Bryan, Tara, and the boys made it through the Nashville floods safely on their 12-hour drive back to northern Illinois. Meanwhile, our granddaughter Leslie, a Resident Assistant on the Belmont campus, was struggling at Heron Hall with its flooded basement. With no electricity, the RAs were on watch throughout the weekend, which might not have been as difficult if she had not been suffering a terrible sore throat and a final ethics paper to write. The electricity is back on now and the paper is written, but she has not said if the campus is closed yet. We have all prayed for her and sympathized with her on Facebook.  We sympathize also with those whose homes and businesses were destroyed in this unbelievable disaster, which makes us realize that winning or losing softball games is not too important.

Learning to Appreciate Our Forests

The morning drive down to the Dixon Springs Agriculture Center in the Shawnee National Forest was good preparation to fill me with an appreciation and a desire for good stewardship of our natural resources.

Going south from Harrisburg surrounded by the green of spring was a visual and spiritual treat. Neat manicured lawns and small businesses beside the silver highway were followed by golden meadows of wild mustard. There were signs indicating horse trails and bike routes and one temporary highway sign warning of the possibility of tractors on the road. I saw nary a one of any of those, but I did see a Black Angus herd vividly contrasting with the bright green grass they fed on. In some areas, the highway down steep hills was bordered by overhanging leaf-laden branches only occasionally broken by the large locust trees hung heavy with clusters of white blossoms. Then there would be more flat land with a village, farm fields and pastures, or another Social Brethren Church.  A sign pointing to a side road reminded me I had never seen Bell Smith Springs, a local attraction.

This was my first visit to the Dixon Springs Ag Center although I have heard Gerald and others speak of it often during my adult life. I pulled into the park-like facility set up for the 21st Forest Stewardship Week with tents, port-a-potties, and stations for children from sixteen counties. Jim Kirkland had secured almost l00 resource people to give the region’s school children hands-on experience in outdoor life and for each to take home a seedling at the day’s end.

Classes of children accompanied by their teachers went from station to station to hear twenty-minute presentations about topics, such as gardening, archeology, ecology, and many others. There were eight sessions for each class that could stay the entire day. Some had fewer sessions to meet their bus schedules. A huge activity tent gave kids a chance to make something between sessions. I would have liked to have wandered around the Center and attended the presentations in the other stations, but that wasn’t an option. I did sneak into the darkened faux cave tent during my noon hour and learned a bit from information in lighted display boxes in the cave’s walls.

I enjoyed lunch on Friday with “the bee lady,” dressed in her protective gear. Retired from the Chicago area, she and her husband returned here a few years ago and became interested in bees and now produce and sell honey, when the summer season cooperates for the bees to produce adequately. I was reared with bees both in Jonesboro and on the farm at Goreville since my father kept hives as his Craig ancestors had done. With bees threatened with extinction, I hope the bee lady inspires some children to carry on this tradition.

My station was typical of most—a table and three rows of benches. A very functional arrangement. With the wind blowing strongly both days, I appreciated the large block of wood Jim carried in to hold down my small stack of papers. The second day for even more anchorage, I brought some rocks I keep in our living room—one Indian relict, one piece of granite from the Crazy Horse memorial, one rock Gerald found after the Eiler grandkids made Easter nests on the lawn at Woodsong this spring, and a lovely smooth stone from the base of the Tetons.

I was impressed that this well organized event had what we needed but with little show of extravagance or waste of tax payers’ money. Someone had secured ready-made metal legs and mounted large pieces of plywood on them for the tables. The benches were three short sturdy carpenter horses topped by a long board for the children to sit on. All these could be handily stored for their next use, and the rustic simplicity certainly established the right atmosphere for the sad story of the Trail of Tears. I could easily point up to the sky and down to the grass at our feet when I explained that the treaties our government made with the Cherokee had promised their nation’s land east of the Mississippi River would be theirs as long as the sky was blue and the grass was green.
Sad but true stories of terrible mistreatment of the Indians brought pained looks of sympathy from the children. I also tried to help them see that in the midst of the greed and arrogance of those who thought they were more civilized than others, there were also white lawyers, missionaries, and ordinary citizens who fought for justice. And when they lost that battle, others along the Trail offered kindnesses that reduced the suffering that the cruel Removal caused.

Nearest to my station was one teaching the children to reduce, reuse, and recycle and another station just across the narrow road was trying to teach the children to use firewood where they found it and not contaminate other trees with the emerald green tree borer. A woman there costumed as the tree borer caused a lot of laughter, squeals, and excitement. Probably some parents will be scolded this summer if they start taking firewood out of the forest.

In our rural area, I am sure many of these children live close to nature and enjoy camping and exploring woods and creeks, and now they will be more knowledgeable as they do so. Yet many others living in towns with busy parents and sometimes with few extra funds have little opportunity for outdoor adventures. They had them this week as they trekked from station to station on beautiful warm windy days surrounded by the encircling forest in the not-so-distant horizon.

School Year Winding Down; Softball Winding Up

Katherine was interviewing a possible employee this afternoon, and wouldn’t you know that somehow her computer had corrupted files. When I tried to help her run off the application form on the computer, I kept getting boxed messages. I was about to give up when I clicked the x on the box instead of the OK button. Then the printing started—but important portions of the document were left blank and a three or four page document became nine pages.

Her life consists of many challenges, and this afternoon was a perfect example. One snag in her life kept being added to by another. I left with her still working with the computer and the potential employee, so I am not sure how she corrected or handled that problem. When Gerald, who was slightly under the weather today with a strained neck muscle, asked me how things went and I started explaining all the variety of difficulties that happened in a two-hour time span, I saw his eyes glaze over with the enormity of what she endured. You have to be a tough cookie when you can’t walk and your hands don’t work right. Fortunately, Kate is one tough woman.

We had planned to try and take her and the family out for dinner on Monday, which was her birthday. Her mother-in-law fixed a birthday dinner for them on Sunday—their birthdays are just one day apart. However, on Monday night, Sam had lots of homework and she and David needed the night at home, so Dave grilled steaks and served cheesecake for her birthday with cards and roses as usual. She said all the many many wishes on Facebook also made her day.

We agreed for her birthday that it would be fun for us to come in and order in food tomorrow night. The University of Georgia will be playing at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and the game will be televised on ESPN at 7 CST--our time. We decided today that pizza would be simpler than carrying in a meal that required serving dishes and some clean-up. We want to concentrate on the game. Sam will have completed his demonstration speech for language arts tomorrow, so he will be ready to celebrate—just as his cousin Erin down at A&M is celebrating tonight that she had finished her last speech—as well as a complicated group business project. Everyone is winding up classes and last essays and exams and panting for summer vacation to arrive. Our two seventeen-year-olds both have proms in their respective schools on Saturday night, so I know their mothers are busy with that on their minds.

After Katherine’s house, I arrived back to serve our supper of cold cuts at Woodsong—Gerald didn’t want any of the chicken soup I had fixed for something hot. We had some more fresh strawberries that we could dip in Splenda. He told me Tara had phoned. She, her husband Bryan, and the boys will be making a pit stop in Williamson County tomorrow night to give the two older boys a chance to run off some energy. They too want to watch Georgia’s game, so we are hoping they come to the Cedars for pizza as Katherine would then be the first Glasco aunt to be able to meet our Payton. Her sisters would be so jealous. After their break, the Archibalds will be driving throughout the night while the little ones sleep to arrive in Georgia for Tara’s Southern Force softball tourney. Bryan, too, has just finished a big project at work, so I hope this trip is a relaxing one.

I’m going to the Dixon Springs Agriculture Center tomorrow to talk to third and fourth graders about the Trail of Tears. My station will be one of many that groups of kids will pass through all day. On Friday, I will be talking to fifth and sixth graders. Younger children attended this Forest Stewardship Week extravaganza on Monday and Tuesday. Over 3,000 school kids will have attended this very annual  event this week right before Arbor Day. Everything is outside, so it should be a great day tomorrow ending with pizza with Gerry’s team on television. Home softball games are over for both Georgia and A&M, and tournament time is rapidly approaching.

Rainy Days, Puffy Clouds, and Softball Games

After last year’s rainy spring, farmers here have been pleased to have had a dry spring in order to get started planting. Then the rains began Friday night, and we had rains off and on all day yesterday. Driving to town in the afternoon, the cast-over sky seemed to enhance the freshly washed vividly green landscape all around me. Then it started pouring. The rain slacked off when I arrived at the beauty shop, but then increased when it was time for me to leave. I was grateful for Gerald’s large camouflage umbrella.

I had planned to run by Katherine’s, then pick up two or three items at the grocery store, and go on to the library in our village to check out the book I had ordered. Safely in the car and pulling in the wet umbrella after me, I decided after talking to Kate on the phone, to just hie myself home. Later that afternoon, it cleared off nicely, and I drove to the village and picked up The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.
That morning I had just finished reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, one of the very earliest of English novels. I’d chosen it from the book case at the Country Inn last weekend at Freeport. Guests are allowed to take an unfinished book with them when they depart and turn it in later after they finish it. I’d heard part of the story all my life, and I wonder if I may have read some condensed version in an elementary school book. At least I knew Robinson had a buddy named Friday and I kept waiting for him to appear. Robinson was alone on that island a long time before Friday came and was rescued from cannibals. I was beginning to wonder if Friday were actually a character in that book after all.

Published in 1719, the book has the stilted rhythm and the moral weaknesses of that era, but I found it very interesting to read. I liked all Robinson’s coping techniques to survive being stranded alone better than the last part of the book. All the exciting shoot ‘em up stuff at the end bored me as he had to fight his way off the island and make a dangerous trek through the mountains and France before finally becoming wealthy for a happy ending. But then I don’t like car chases and violence in today’s books or movies either. I can take happy or sad endings, but Defoe’s seemed too contrived. I felt bad to learn from notes in the book that Defoe died forgotten and unrecognized for his classic.

Back home from the library, I prepared Gerald and me a light supper and afterwards, we sat looking out the windows onto our lake while the clouds gave us a moveable feast of beauty. The skyline was filled with large fluffy white clouds with a couple small blotches of silver grey and an elongated streak of silver grey clouds above the puffy white. Leafy trees on our little island gave us a collage of greens from pale lime to bright green with the dirty green of the big cedar mixed in. The sun in the west was highlighting the trees so that they almost sparkled. Then the winds blew those clouds on. Above the lake was now a ceiling of grey. New puffy clouds blew in trimmed at the bottom with a row of silver grey almost like the rickrack that grandmothers used on the hem of little girls’ dresses. The sun was still making the trees shine, when rain hit the western kitchen windows. After a brief but intense bit of rain, calm descended again as the night darkened.

I quit the moving picture show in our windows and made the phone call I had been trying to make for a couple of days to visit with my sister. On Thursday, I called and visited with my brother, and I wanted to share that visit with her and to feel the better human connection that the voice gives us over emails. She was ebullient over the green earth club at the middle school across the street having been at her home that day. The kids have a grant to buy plants and provide neighborhood homes with landscaping help. They had visited her much earlier and talked over the plan for her house, and someone with a tiller and someone with mulch had visited homes that week. Now was the big day when the kids put the plants into the ground and completed mulching, and the students accomplished this despite the cold day in Amarillo.
Rosemary and Phil love kids, so knowing these children were involved with this impressive learning activity pleased Rosie very much. She was also still excited about the regular Friday evening supper she and Phil serve to their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. They will have anywhere from a dozen to 15 or so usually—just whoever has a schedule that allows them to show up. But with their grandson Philip Todd and wife Jennifer on leave from military service in Hawaii (after earlier serving a couple of times in Iraq), there were 18 present the night before. She fixed two roasts in her crock pots and Phil fixed a meat loaf. Lots of veggies and Phil’s famous cookies, and she made two big frozen strawberry pies with a new recipe. I always like to hear about the Friday night gatherings and imagine how good everything tasted.

After our long conversation, checking Facebook and hotmail, surfing a bit on a favorite writers’ site, I started my new book and went to bed later than I should have. Today was another off-and-on gently rainy day, but we were only away the farm for church services, since we wanted to follow Georgia and Texas A&M softball games.

Both of our teams won. The game with A&M (ranked 21) against University of Missouri (ranked 11) was on television, and it was an exciting game to watch. Missouri made us fearful we might end up losing the advantage three home runs had given us. But we did it. Rhi Kliesing hit a single in the bottom of the seventh that broke the 5-5 tie allowing a runner to cross home plate. Missouri had walked freshman Meagan May that inning because earlier she had hit two home runs breaking the school’s single season home run record. Since pitcher Mel Dumezich was on Tara’s summer team a couple years ago and Aidan still has a crush on her as his all-time favorite softball player, we were especially glad to see her victorious after the team’s discouraging loss yesterday. And, of course, we were happy Georgia has had 15 straight wins now.

Another Brief Visit from Tara and the Boys

After driving all night from Athens and taking Gma Shirley to her place down the road and around the corner from us and down that road (where Gerry used to ride his horse to visit Vickie during their high school days), Tara and her three boys arrived at Woodsong around 4 a.m. Tuesday.

Gerald had gone to bed very early with plans of hearing them when they arrived although we had left the porch light on and the door unlocked. They entered so quietly that we might not have heard except Aidan, who was carried in after Payton still in his carrier, was some what disoriented from sleeping. He spoke up while Tara went back to get sleeping Maddux from his car seat. Gerald and I both heard that sweet familiar voice form our bedroom beside the front hall, and we hopped out of bed to welcome our returning guests.
Tara had the two older boys in bed asleep almost immediately and as soon as Payton had been fed, they too retired to their downstairs bedrooms. Gerald and I were astounded at how peacefully and quickly Tara, Aidan, and two babies were settled for the rest of the night, and we too went back to sleep peacefully ourselves.

Gerald slept late—almost to seven o’clock, and when he returned from his daily walk down the lane to fetch our morning paper, Aidan had come up to the kitchen to join him for cereal. Of course, Aidan and Gerald both had big plans for the short time they would be with us. After playing in the lime pile and rides on the “mule,” the big lawn mower, the tractor, and the toy tractor, Gerald’s shed was emptied of vehicles, and they both ran down enough to come back into the kitchen.

By this time I was up. Aidan explained to me, “I’m a little tired. I don’t usually sleep this early.” I knew what he meant. I slept a little earlier than usual myself.

I asked Aidan if he would like an egg, and he said yes. (We do 30-second eggs at our house. Spray a microwave-safe dish and break an egg into it. Beat the egg and then cook in the microwave for 30 seconds.) Toast? Yes. Then when the toast was done, Aidan decided he needed peanut butter and jelly as well as the egg between those two slices of wheat bread. Of course, Gma Sue was glad to oblige although I supposed he would never consume all that. But with only a little crust remaining, his plate was soon emptied.

Nest our courageous Tara came up with 15-month old Maddux, who was feeling shy but cheerful. She fed him cups of milk and Fruit Loops. Then Aidan declared that Maddux needed an egg. I prepared to fix him one, and Aidan took the egg from my hand saying, “I want to peel it.” Then I understood why he wanted Maddux to have an egg. He enjoyed tapping it and breaking it into the bowl with just a little spilling on himself and the counter. Maddux didn’t eat much of the egg, but he did get some protein and his big brother got practice peeling a raw egg. Gma Sue got an early morning dose of pleasure.

Down in Georgia, Gpa Gerry had helped Maddux overcome his fear of the noise of vehicles—so much so that Maddux did not want to get off the four-wheeler down there. So Gerald had to take both the big boys outside for farm adventures. Payton woke up and Tara brought him upstairs freshly diapered and swaddled in a blanket. He was wide awake, content and cozy while I held him to allow Tara to eat breakfast and busy herself with other chores.

Occasionally he had a digestive pain of some sort and made noises of discomfort but would soon be happy looking around with his big eyes trying to discover who this new person was holding him. After quite awhile, his blanket was disturbed enough that I took him and laid him on the dining room table intending to re-swaddle him.

That was just what he needed—to lie free on his blanket and swing his arms and kick his tiny legs. His mother and I were a fascinated audience as he went through his round of exercises for us and showed us how close he could come to rolling himself over.

Eventually Tara brought his clothes to put on him. I had assumed he would go through life wearing his brothers’ well-furnished wardrobes. However, since he was born early and was smaller than the other two boys, she still had some never-used newborn outfits to use with him that they’d never been small enough to wear. As beautiful as he had been with just the diaper kicking and stretching his naked limbs, he now looked so sweet in his tiny soft shirt and pants, which his mother with all her experience placed on him with much quiet efficiency. Again in his blanket, I was gifted with him once more, and Payton and I enjoyed the morning together. And it was a gorgeous morning—warm with gentle breezes that felt so good.

By this time, Aidan and Maddux had been outfitted with life jackets by Gpa Gerald for a ride in the rowboat down at the lake. Tara, Payton, and I had to go see all this fun. The drive-way was cluttered with the vehicles that Gpa had shared, and the little wheelbarrow and shovel was left by the lime pile—a pile Gerald created for these great grandsons under the open shed at back of his shop.



All too soon, it was 11, and Tara wanted to get back on the road to avoid rush-hour traffic if possible. (She had experienced that in Atlanta.) We could not in good conscience encourage her to stay longer. We had had a great time, heard about Geri Ann’s six home runs in the Southern Force tourney, and had fresh news from her mother and daddy down in Georgia. Her car was repacked, and we saw how she managed to get three car seats in the back. With another round of hugs and kisses and silent prayers for their safety, we waved as they started down our lane for the long trip ahead of them to reach their upstate home where Daddy was eagerly awaiting the return of his family.

Maybe tomorrow I will reluctantly pick up all the toys scattered throughout the house.

A Good Weekend and All That Jazz

Tara and her sons left Woodsong Friday morning after breakfast, and we did the same. They were eager to see Gma Vickie and Gpa Gerry and also GGma Shirley, who is visiting at Athens, GA. Shirley had not yet met Peyton, so everyone was excited.

Tara’s summer team, the Southern Force, had a tournament south of Atlanta this weekend, so that was one purpose of this trip. Now after coaching at the tourney, she’ll have a good visit with her parents and Geri Ann (Tara’s high school sister who plays on her summer team), and she’ll have an especially good visit with Gma Shirley since she is riding back home to our community with Tara. This should make traveling with three little ones considerably easier than the trip from here down to Georgia.

We were on our way to Freeport at the top of the state, where our youngest grandchild, Cecelie, a fifth grader, was one of the 12 dancing princesses in the Carl Sandburg School spring play. Her big brother, Elijah, was one of the more than 50 kids involved for the second weekend putting on the Freeport High School’s 30th rendition of Showtime. We drove by our fields and saw our son-in-law Brian busy planting—and farmers were in the fields all the way up the state. (One sad sight was seeing one farmer in the field harvesting last fall’s corn crop. It was standing pretty good and so was worth harvesting, but that’s the latest I’ve ever seen.)

Half way up the state, we swung by Raymond and met our daughter Mary Ellen and our granddaughter Brianna at Subway for lunch. Brianna wanted to see Cecelie’s first big play. All our grandkids like it when life allows them to see any of the Freeport plays, musicals, or Showtime. Sam wanted to go, but he was going up to Illinois State with his band for state contest.

We arrived just had time to check into our favorite motel, Freeport’s Country Inn, grab a sandwich across the street, and find Cecelie’s school for her 6 o’clock performance. Jeannie was waiting outside to give us a good parking spot and take us through her art room on the way to the gym/stage.

Cecelie’s other grandmother and friend Jerome were already there. Rick was working at the track meet, but he had been there with Jeannie the night before to cheer Cecelie on. Jeannie had roses for her and Gerald took photos, so Cecelie was ushered into the Freeport theater world with sufficient attention. Having her big cousin Brianna come just to see her was quite an honor, and the two blonds had a great weekend together since Brianna is talented with younger children.

After that show, taking only time for the photo session and to view Jeannie’s students art work using perspective, we hurried onto the Jeannette Lloyd Theater on the other side of town for the jazz band concert followed by Showtime. Gerald dropped me off to go back for an early opportunity to sleep after the long drive up. Seats were sold out and we needed one more, but Jeannie went up to view the show from the balcony, so the blonds and I had good seats.

As always, neither the jazz band nor the Showtime cast/crew disappointed. This year’s final segment honored senior citizens—after first roasting us with humorous skits. I’d seen Elijah’s monologue during Easter weekend, and I’d already told him it was sometimes too realistic of my life to be funny—though I could not keep from laughing. Then, however, some very talented older people (friends and grandparents) joined the high schoolers on stage and showed that they too could sing and dance very well.

It was sweet seeing Sam Wellman (who was at Woodsong with Elijah’s sister Leslie who once brought a group down for a summer Eiler Grey tour she created singing at coffee houses) and his partner join the older couple dancing, and Sam pretended to take his dance moves by observing the senior citizen. Finally they changed partners. The entire ending with many messages flowing from the seniors to the kids was very endearing, and the kids’ adoring responses warmed the cockles of us oldsters’ hearts.

Saturday was spent sleeping in, helping Jeannie put photos of Showtime’s spring tour into frames for the entire cast, lunch at Culver’s and our usual Freeport activities—Gerald checking out their Rural King and Menard’s and the cousins swimming together in our motel pool. Before we knew it, it was time for the cast potluck. Jeannie found time to make Mexican chicken pie, and we joined other families for this annual event in the cafeteria before the sixth and final performance of Showtime. Then the kids had their annual balloon launch on the front lawn, another photo op for Gerald. We found out seats in the rapidly filling theater and anticipated the jazz band and this year’s guest artist Ken Jarczyk.

Towards the end of the concert, after director Bill Petersen’s introduction of Jarczyk telling of the many jazz greats he had played with, Jarczyk would enter. Each night Petersen would lead him into sharing an anecdote or two about these famous musicians. This last night, I noticed he had on a sharp looking cap he had not sported on Friday night and that Petersen’s questions were different.

Telling about being with an awe-inspiring alto sax player while still a very young man, Jarczyk explained how he got up his nerve to approach his hero for advice and hoped, of course, he might hear a compliment from him on his own playing. The great’s response went something like this: Kid, there will always be someone who has better tone than you. Kid, there will always be someone with better technique. So always wear a great hat!

Immediately, as the jazz ensemble began to play again, the kids pulled out and donned the most colorful variety of hats and headpieces you can imagine. We had a visual treat as well as an aural one as they ended their participation in this last Saturday jazz performance before the curtain closed. And quickly reopened with the show choir giving a rousing opening rendition of “Showtime.” Some had somehow managed to change from the jazz band tux into the required costumes for the opening scene.

From then for the next hour and a half, these kids moved sets, changed clothes with lighting speed, interacted with the audience, and sang and danced with intense energy. After their tour and six local performances, they were bound to be tired, but you could not have told it as they gave their all to make the last night special. I was so glad I was there. I was also glad to go back to the motel to rest, while these kids stayed to strike the set.

We met up with the Eiler family and Brianna again at worship this morning, and after lunch and final goodbyes, we headed toward our end of the state. We learned Tara’s Southern Force had won their tourney, Gerry’s Georgia team won their home games against Auburn, and Erin’s A&M also won. When we dropped Brianna off and visited with Trent at their house out from the village of Waggoner, we found out Mary Ellen had gone to help Brian at the farm and she was leaving about the same time. We agreed if we passed on the highway we’d wave at each other.

As it turned out, she needed gas and we were both going by Okawville’s DQ about the same time, so we agreed to have supper together. We hashed over the good weekend together, and a couple hours later we were here at Woodsong and Gerald showed me his slide show memento of our trip.

Daddy's Birthday

My father was born April 15, 1898, and so he would have been 112 today. Tonight his great great grandson Peyton Archibald is sleeping in his little crib that his grandmother paid 50 cents for.




Our granddaughter Tara and her three boys came to Woodsong around 6:30 to spend the night here before leaving in the morning for Athens, Georgia. We have had so much fun playing with Aidan (almost 4) and Maddux (16 months) and snuggling Peyton (5 weeks). The two big boys had to use their shovel on the lime pile and push the little wheelbarrow around. Aidan took a ride on the "mule." Maddux did not want to. Everyone is sound asleep now after supper, baths, etc. I am going to bed now too.

Another Teenager, Dandelions, Old Age, and Softball

We just came home from celebrating our grandson Sam’s 13th birthday. With a band trip coming up to Illinois State at Bloomington/Normal, he declined the recent custom of celebrating with buddies and asked his folks to just have his grandparents over this year. It has been awhile since we were the honored guests, so both sets of grandparents were glad to oblige. It was great fun to see him receive his new guitar that he is eager to learn. Lessons have been arranged, so we are looking forward to hearing him play at his next birthday--if we get invited for that occasion again that is. Otherwise we will just listen as we have opportunity.

The table flowers tonight were scarlet azaleas from their front yard. I had picked some lilacs from Katherine’s little bush on the side of the house Monday and taken them in so she could enjoy their fragrance. The tall dogwood in their back yard is flowering gloriously; and beneath the dogwood and even further out, the ground is covered with sweet purple violets. These are especially welcome to view out their bedroom windows since the derecho did severe damage to their back yard a year ago. They are gradually getting it back in shape, which was no small chore for David.

Going to town right now is especially pleasurable because so many lawns have bright flower beds and flowering trees and shrubs. Beautiful yards are probably kinder to passers-by than the home owners, who often see their own flowers briefly when they enter the house by the attached garage. This is similar to people who make efforts to look attractive. They only see themselves a few minutes in the mirror, while the rest of us get to enjoy their beauty for much longer periods of time. Some people think the beauty-conscious folks are vain, but I think they are generous and are being good to those of us who look at them.

Our azaleas are just now beginning to bud, and the other grandmother tonight said theirs were also still in the bud stage. We have the best crop of dandelions that we have had in years, and I notice many other folks do too. I love their bright circles and think they make a lawn even prettier, but Gerald does not appreciate them. Our lane was bordered on both sides with a row of dandelions that had not been there in past years, and I was enjoying them. But before they took over the grass on both sides, Gerald sprayed them last week. Since he cares for the lawn, I could not complain. (At least not very much.)

When I was working in the flower beds the other day, we quickly ran out of mulch. Gerald brought in a large amount in his pickup today and placed it in plastic garbage cans close to where I need it. So I have tomorrow morning’s work cut out for me.

Another neighborhood death occurred on Monday for a sweet friend from long ago. Our two youngest children were in the same class through twelve years of school. She has been housebound for several years now. Her husband also has been very sick for a long time. Their four sons and wives have coped beautifully during these many years providing care themselves when the parents were less handicapped and then adding extra workers when constant care became needed.

Today’s son and wife and the helper staying with the husband before tomorrow’s funeral encouraged him to brag on the cake I took over, and he graciously did so. But I could tell he did not remember me, and I saw a tear in the daughter-in-law’s eye as I felt a lump forming in my throat. It hurts so to see previously strong independent folk become weak and elderly. I remember those years when we watched our parents age. It makes me wonder what is ahead for those of us just a few years younger than the neighbor.

Since we don’t write the script, we’ll take what comes and try to reap whatever benefits are available in the often sad last chapters of life. My father especially had never known any kind of health problems until his last decade or so. He had always been intensely independent and always a helper of others rather than needing help. I was pleasantly surprised at how well he accepted the limitations that Parkinson’s Disease and heart attack and stroke imposed upon him. I am going to try and keep his example in mind as I continue to age in the years ahead. On the other hand, I may turn out to be a real pill.

To end on a happy note, University of Georgia softball team won both games in their double header against Mississippi State at Starkville last night.  Between phone calls and a visitor, we listened and cheered them on.

Goodbyes, Hellos, and Softball

After last goodbye visits to Ernestine and Leah from brothers Garry and Keith and wife Barbara, Gerald loaded the car trunk with multiple suitcases and bags. He transferred the car seat for Emmy over to our back seat from Garry’s car that Ernestine and Leah had been borrowing during their visit here from Wyoming. A little later than we hoped, we left Woodsong and headed to Saint Louis. We weren’t on a strict schedule, but Ernestine and Leah wanted to check into their motel by the airport in time to have a good night’s sleep before the flight back to Rock Springs.

We stopped at the post office in Marion for Leah to take in excess items collected while here to mail home, and we stopped at Saint Clair Square to find a restaurant for our evening meal. By the time we were in Saint Louis heading west to the airport, Emmy was protesting loudly that she had enough of that car seat. At that point, we began to notice that we were moving very slowly and finally to realize we were stuck in a traffic jam that had been created by a wreck ahead. With her mother on one side and her grandmother on the other to entertain her, Emmy quieted and really did well as we sat still or occasionally inched forward. When that ordeal was over, we were almost there.

Their first floor room was waiting for them with a crib in place, and Gerald quickly found a cart to pile their luggage on to take to their room as they would have to do the next morning when they caught the shuttle bus to carry them to their flight. We left hurriedly because we were saddened by farewells and we knew how tired everyone was. (We learned from follow-up phone calls this afternoon that Ernestine had not slept very much worrying that the crib was not up to code. Leah slept well because she had been up and down every hour and a half the night before with teething Emmy at our house.)

Gerald had been working in his shop all week when he had spare moments to redesign some part of the softball batting tees that he delivered last weekend and then found out one part did not work as he hoped. He thought our daughter-in-law Vickie would be coming through this weekend and could take them on to Athens. After we got in late Thursday night from Saint Louis, he also talked the next morning of delivering them himself to Oxford, Mississippi, where Georgia played Ole Miss. I just kind of shook my head in wonder at that idea, and he too decided he was too tired for that jaunt—which he had pointed out was only as far away (one way) as our round-trip to Saint Louis. Sure enough Vickie did come through here to pick up her mother for a visit in Athens, so early this morning Gerald took the redesigned parts over to her car at her mom’s place.

Because of so much rain and wind and the absence of my favorite hair fixer on the days I could get to town, I had a bad-hair week the entire time the Eilers and Ernestine and gang visited here. I was very happy to have an appointment for a much needed hair cut and styling with Stefanie on Saturday morning—another reason I was not going to go to Oxford, Mississippi. Afterwards I ran by Katherine’s hoping to complete a couple more coats of polish on her nails that we had worked on the day before when she said they were splintering. She was in bed and smilingly sent me on my way.
I knew the Taylors were down for Brian to start farming because Gerald told me as I left the house that I had missed a brief visit with our daughter Mary Ellen. I’d not heard her come in, and she didn’t want to slow me down when she learned I was going to town. So coming home from the beauty shop, I’d run by their camper. Only Brianna was there, and I asked her if she wanted to come over to Woodsong. She said no because Uncle David was bringing Sam out.

When I arrived back at our house, Sam was there thinking that was where Brianna was going to be. So he and I drove back to the camper and picked up Bri and Fifi. Fortunately, the lunch meat I had planned for Gerald’s and my lunch was adequate for everyone to have sandwichs. Brianna got to eat the last piece of the bunny rabbit cake—a cake that her mother, as a young girl, had started making us each year, but she had not had at their Florida holiday meal.

(I learned that Sam’s other grandmother makes the same cake but instead of a white cake, she makes a carrot cake. You know the cake where one layer becomes the bunny face, and the other layer is cut so you have two ears to place on the head and the remaining middle is placed under the head as a bow tie. I thought carrot cake was very appropriate, but since Mary Ellen did not like carrot cake, I know why she used the white cake mix we have used ever since.)

Sam and Bri had a good time together on the “mule,” riding bicycles around the lake, and doing their cousin Desyngia project (a book they are collaborating on), while Mary Ellen and I had a long mother-daughter talk we seldom have opportunity for. I was able to hear about their Florida vacation with Gma Dot.

The Taylors were back over today from the camper, but they had a very late breakfast and couldn’t eat lunch with us. When I came home from church and realized the chicken I had put out last night from the freezer and then into the fridge was still frozen, I hurried and fixed Gerald and me sandwiches again, so we could go catch the Georgia Bulldogs on the game tracker.

Bri was watching something on television in the family room, and Mary Ellen sneaked an afternoon nap in the brown room. For some reason, there was no audio announcer today and it was a long game (10 innings). It was not as thrilling a viewing experience as that close game should have been, which is why Mary Ellen chose to retreat to the brown room.

I fell asleep in my chair in the middle of the game. I was disappointed to learn I had slept through Brianna Hesson’s home run and Alisa Goler’s two homeruns. (All-American Alisa is so good and, thus, is walked so often, that she doesn’t have many opportunities to hit.) But I was wide awake during the extra innings and was able to experience Jenny Auger’s winning homerun in the top of the l0th. Alison Owen was pitching and held Mississippi scoreless in the bottom of the inning allowing Georgia to sweep the three-game series.

When Gerald then started telling me how close Starkville, Mississippi, is where Georgia is playing a double header Tuesday night before returning to Athens, again I just shook my head and went upstairs to cook the finally thawed chicken.

The Most Beautiful Time of the Year

Well, Duke won—barely—but regardless, I am sure Willie Veasley will be a forever hero in Freeport. What a great game! We were sad Butler came so close but not close enough, but I had to be happy for the Duke parents and fans. Tonight I am happy for Georgia (vs. Georgia Tech) and Texas A&M (vs. Texas) as our teams won both softball games.

Our Wyoming guests finally came back to Woodsong Monday evening after we met up with them and Keith and Barbara at The Old Homeplace in Goreville for supper. Our house has been filled with baby Emmy’s happy squeals ever since. She talks a lot—just doesn’t use English yet although Gma Ernestine says Emmy (ten months) knows several words. She will say a word all one day and then she will refuse to use the new word again. It is obvious she knows what we say.

When Gerald or I try to entice her into our arms, she lets us know that as friendly as she is with her constant waving and flirting with us, she prefers to be held by someone from Wyoming. Her body language and nonverbal noise-making are quite communicative and effective, so she probably doesn’t have too much need for words yet.

I have only been able to hold her each morning by bribing her with the out-of-doors, which she likes. We go out on the deck for a while so she can look at the birdies flying all around us, the flag flapping in the wind, and Uncle Gerald’s pretty flowers down below us--bright red tulips, daffodils, paper whites, and hyacinths. We talk about these things and she points and answers with her private language. We sit on the swing there a little while, but that doesn’t last long until the nonverbal communication tells me we must be up and going.

She loves for people to walk her holding her hands, and she can take a few steps by herself. Again she prefers to revert to walking with help even after she shows you she can make it from one person’s arms to another’s. Her mother Leah and Ernestine are actually happy that she is delaying walking till they get back through the airport and home again this Friday.

I have had a long talk with Ernestine at the breakfast table and a long table talk with Leah another day. Gerald brought Katherine and Sam out yesterday afternoon to visit and eat up Easter dinner leftovers for our supper. It was imperative that Katherine see her Aunt Ernie. Cousins Kath and Leah have always had a special bond, so Leah wanted to see Sam and Katherine wanted to meet Emmy.

Gerald and Ernestine went back to Goreville this morning for a long breakfast visit with the brothers, while Leah and I slept in. I was scheduled to be at Camp Ground Church in Union County for an Illinois Trail of Tears Association board meeting at 1:00, so I left lunch on the table and took off after grabbing a sandwich.

It was exciting talking with Carol Hoffman of the Southernmost Illinois Tourism Bureau about plans for the TOTA national conference to be in Metropolis on September 20 to 23. Several new sites have been certified in Illinois, and the National Park Service is having signs made, which should be in place before the conference.

We hope to have displays in the two Trail of Tears rest stops on Interstate 57 by May. Pope County brochures are already there for the asking. It has long been a concern for many in our area that while the rest stops bear the name Trail of Tears, there was no information available. Somehow the gravesite of King Nepture, the famous World War II war bond selling pig, (on the north bound rest stop) did not seem adequate for these two rest stops named for the Trail they are sitting on.

Because of so much progress made, which will make the Trail of Tears more noticeable and more accessible across the southern tip of our state, it was a satisfying meeting. Harvey Henson showed us the prototype of the new three-county brochure, which will also be available soon.

The drive down had been beautiful with red bud trees, which began blossoming on Easter Sunday and were in full bloom today. Despite the overcast sky and threatening rain, the drive back in far different muted light was just as beautiful. I arrived at Kroger’s for senior citizen stocking-up-on-groceries day just as the rain started, and I needed the big umbrella. Fortunately the rain let up when the young man helped me get the groceries in the trunk. Before I reached Woodsong, however, I was driving through a deluge.

Ernestine and Leah had planned to use this afternoon to see our sister-in-law Opal, who has been helping during their family crisis by caring for her great granddaughter Josie while her daughter-in-law Jaime was in Saint Louis following a stroke and heart attack. Leah also wanted to see her paternal grandmother’s grave in the Marion cemetery before they did some necessary shopping preparing for their trip back home. They were back to the farm late in the evening after the heavy rainfall allowed Leah to discover what her driver’s ed teacher had meant about hydroplaning. She hadn’t experienced this kind of rain in Wyoming. Lots of snow, yes, but not this much rain.
Today is our oldest granddaughter Tara’s birthday. It was also the due date for the birth of her new baby son, and her mother Vickie had made arrangements to be there for that occasion. Since this was spring break, it was surprisingly convenient for Vickie to plan to go from Georgia to northern Illinois. However, Peyton (one month old today) is already safely here before Vickie arrived for his scheduled birth. I bet they are having much more fun this week than if he had dallied. Three healthy little boys under four is much to be thankful for, and I know Vickie is having a great time with her daughter and sons.

At Woodsong what more could we ask? A baby in the house, blossoming pear trees, our little island abloom with redbud and daffodils, and Gerald’s little sister and niece here to help us eat up the eggs the grandkids died last weekend. Until autumn comes when I’ll make the same pronouncement, it is the most beautiful time of the year.

Easter Company Has Gone Back to Freeport—the Home of Willie Veasley

Well, I just moved the sheets from the brown room over to the dryer and stuck in a load of towels to wash as I write this.

When we built our retirement home, I found out Gerald truly wanted an underground house. I knew he was curious about them. I knew he sent off for information. Lots of it. We once went to see a partially built one here in our area that somehow Gerald had a connection with. We walked inside it (with owner’s permission), but we really did not see it after completion although I wanted to. (It either was never finished or was sold or something.) We also toured one, which was beautifully furnished and had been lived in for several years—built by the company Gerald wanted to use. It was a beautiful home. Since I kept saying I didn’t think I could sleep well with all that concrete and dirt over my head, I did not take any of this seriously.

A farmer’s wife like many ministers’ wives or military wives, etc., often does not get to choose her own home. You take whatever exists on the farm you are renting or buying. I like used houses, so that did not bother me. I was somewhat shocked when our first landlady Unile Bozarth, whom I loved and admired, casually said one time (nearly 50 years ago) that any woman worth her salt wanted a new house.

I had never considered wanting a new house until she said that. After I considered it, I came to the conclusion that I still loved old houses best. So I enjoyed living in the four houses on four different farms early in Gerald’s career. Nevertheless, when it came time to build a retirement home on the little lake Gerald had built, I did feel I should have equal say in what was built since I had never been able to choose before. When I woke up to the fact that Gerald was planning on an underground house, I suddenly caught on that he had not heard my repeated negative comments as I tried to be interested and politely appreciative of the homes we visited. Then I knew I had a problem.

The first solution was voicing my objections strongly enough that he heard me. Of course, it hurt his feelings since he thought underground houses were the way to go and such a house was already completed when he imagined the future. After all, he had never been able to choose a house either in all these years of marriage. (He did not say that, but I knew it. And he had worked much harder than I had during our years together.) I felt bad I had pulled the rug out from under his dreams. Still I did not want all that dirt on my head.

We were in Michigan visiting our youngest daughter’s family when Gerald saw a plan in the Sunday paper he liked. We both mulled it over, and he sent off for the inexpensive plans the paper offered. A couple of years later when we actually built and changed the plans considerably to fit our needs and our building spot on the lake, we had worked out a compromise we both liked.

The walk-out downstairs has three back rooms underground, but the upstairs has a regular roof over our head. (Yes, we had to have it repaired after the derecho, and I’m certain an underground house would not have had that problem. You know, of course, who the person was who handled the insurance people and the roofing contractors. I’m no good at that sort of thing.) Nevertheless, we have a compromise house—partly underground and beautifully above ground. We both like it.

Back to the brown room. It is the underground bedroom. With our grandchildren in mind, at first I was going to call the two downstairs bedrooms the boys’ room and the girls’ room. I decided that was a bad idea in case that sleeping arrangement needed to be changed, so they became the brown room and the yellow room. It turns out everyone loves to sleep in the brown room. With no windows, it provides the best sleeping in the house. Dark and cozy. Leslie like most college students is sleep deprived, and she especially likes to sleep there. I like knowing she is catching up on rest.

Because the yellow room has only a standard bed while the brown room has a queen-size bed, I had reserved it for Gerald’s sister and niece and baby, whom Gerald thought would spend Friday night here before going on to her brother’s house for her reunion. (The yellow room was reserved for Vickie and Geri Ann as they drove to Aurora—but those plans changed too. ) So the grandkids started filling up the couches although we didn’t have to go to air mattresses as we sometimes do.

When Ernestine and Leah arrived Friday afternoon, they decided they would be better off to go on to the Mississippi bottoms Friday night and wake up the next morning down there to go on to her afternoon/evening reunion, I told Les the brown room was hers. Now the sheets are drying to be put back on in the morning for our Wyoming guests.

We were disappointed that Ernestine and Leah missed seeing the Eilers who were shopping Friday afternoon, but since they were planning on having Easter dinner with us, no one was too concerned. We thought Jeannie and family would have a good visit today with her Aunt Ernie, Leah, and baby Emmy. Gerald took them down to Garry and Ginger’s farm—the home place where Ernestine was born and grew up, and we looked forward to today.

However, during the night, Ernestine became sick from all the weariness of travel and reunion with no rest. (The youngest sibling in Gerald’s family, Ernestine has a stroke a couple of years ago—but did remarkably well going back to work in about a month and not showing any observable after effects. But she knows to pace herself and get adequate rest—something you cannot always do when traveling and unable to completely manage your own agenda.) They had to postpone their visit till tomorrow.

The biggest disappointment for me was that Jeannie, who lives so far away and had to leave this evening, was going to get to visit her aunt and cousin, and she didn’t get to do so. Katherine had hoped to see them Friday night when David brought them out, but she enjoyed more visiting time with Jeannie since Ernestine was gone already. Katherine will be able to do so tomorrow or Tuesday when Mary Ellen is hoping to get to come down after they return from Florida. Gerry sent Aunt Ernie a hug by Internet that I’ll give her tomorrow.

Between cell phones and Facebook, families can keep in constant contact without too much time and expense. On holidays, we would all like to be together, but that is not feasible, so we enjoy the modern substitutes. We actually get more visiting done when there is just one family here, so we especially enjoyed Jeannie and Rick and their kids’ visit.

Saturday night was spent listening to Butler University beat Michigan State. If you want to see my quiet dignified son-in-law Rick vicariously coaching a ball team, visit Leslie Eiler’s Facebook video of the event. Willie Veasley had been one of Rick’s math students at Freeport High School. Leslie had Spanish with him. Jeannie remembered when he broke records while playing basketball at Freeport. All Freeport is very excited about this tournament.

When I explained that I had planned to be for Michigan because of Katherine McWilliams’ blog about how much it meant to Michigan to be in the Big Four with all the mood-depressing unemployment up there, Jeannie reminded me that Freeport had lost a lot of jobs also for several years now—and Willie Veasley was lifting their town’s spirits. So I caved and cheered for Willie. Sam, who was out to the farm to stay with his cousins, remained loyal to Michigan, and I was proud of his fortitude.

Actually, I missed the middle of the game because Gerald came in to announce that our granddaughter Erin was helping with the radio broadcast of Texas A&M softball team which was playing Nebraska up at Lincoln. So I rushed to his office and computer to see game tracker but to hear Erin’s sweet voice and splendid comments. When she went off the air, I hurried back to see Butler win and the Eilers wildly celebrate. If Butler wins tomorrow night, I am not sure I could stand the noise to watch it with the Eilers. But I will be pulling for Willie Veasley.