Socks

After my mom died in 2005, my sisters and I began the long process of cleaning out her drawers and closet.  We started with the sock and underwear drawer because those things were the least sentimental, and we had to start somewhere.  I was always needing extra socks, so I claimed a pair that were still in the wrapper that Mom had never gotten the chance to wear.  

I brought them home and put them in my drawer with the intention to wear them that winter.  But then every time I got ready to put them on, I'd think, "Mom bought these," and I'd leave them in my drawer.  

They stayed in my drawer for years.  Nine to be exact.  Tucked back in a corner somewhere, surfacing every once in awhile to remind me they were still around, waiting to be worn.  I just couldn't do it.  The little hanger fell out at some point, and the paper holding them together started getting ratty, but each time they'd show up, I'd push them to the back again to wait for another day.

On Friday, Halloween, I needed some socks for my Lucy van Pelt costume.  I had found yellow ones for Kirk's Charlie Brown, and I needed some white crew socks for Lucy.  I went to my sock drawer and opened it up, and what do you think had worked their way back to the front and center again?  Yep, my mom's socks.

The wrapping was significantly worse for wear, but the socks were perfect for what I needed.  I could hear my mom in my head saying, "Sharron, you are being ridiculous.  You've had these socks in your drawer for NINE YEARS!  Don't you think it's time you wore them?"

So, with my mom in mind, knowing that she'd get a kick out of contributing to my costume, I took the socks out and put them on.  The sticky label almost didn't come off all the way, but I got them on, and they looked great.  

It's nice how people can stay in your life long after they are gone with something as simple as a pair of socks.

Almanzo and Jamie

Ahhh..Jamie Fraser...

Not since Almanzo Wilder have I had such a mad crush on a character from a book.

I was 11 years old, and I had just finished These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder, the last big book in the Little House series, and I had fallen head over heels for Almanzo Wilder.  He was gallant and strong.  He came without being asked to pick Laura up from her hated time at the Brewster homestead where she boarded while teaching school on the prairie.  He braved the blizzards so she didn't have to spend miserable weekends away from home.  He dug his horse out of snow drifts and made sure Laura had heated bricks to keep her feet warm along the way.

The first time he showed up, she didn't know why he had come to get her.  She was just thankful for the chance to go home.  Then after a couple of trips in his sleigh, she began to look forward to seeing him, not just her family.  He was so non-challant about it around her that her students figured out he was courting her before she did.  I was disappointed with her when the weather was too bad for him to come get her.  I was excited when she heard the sleigh bells jingling in the distance.  And then when he came to call one Sunday afternoon to take her for a spin around town in the sleigh...I swooned as much as any 11 year old could.

What I liked so much about Almanzo was that he treated Laura like his equal.  I fancied that had I been born in 1867 like Laura, I would have been her, and I would have wanted a boyfriend who allowed me to be smart and assertive and brave in my own right.  I especially loved when they were discussing their wedding.

Laura says, "Almanzo, I must ask you something.  Do you want me to promise to obey you?" 

Soberly he answered, "Of course not.  I know it is in the wedding ceremony, but it is only something that women say.  I never knew one that did it, nor any decent man that wanted her to."

I remember thinking, "That is my kind of husband!"

The night I finished These Happy Golden Years, I cried myself to sleep.  My mom came in my room to kiss me good night and found me sobbing into my pillow.  I wouldn't tell her what was wrong at first because I knew it was silly to cry over a man dead many years by then, who would have been old even if he had been alive when I was born.  But I couldn't help it.  My mom sat on the side of my bed trying to figure out what was going on, if someone was hurting my feelings at school, if my sisters had been mean...Finally, I couldn't hold it in any longer.  I blurted out, "Almanzo's dead!"

I can imagine my mom flipping through the card catalogue in her head, "Almanzo...Almanzo...Who the hell is Almanzo?" as I'm crying into her shoulder.

"What do you mean?" she asked cautiously.

"Almanzo!" I sobbed, "from Little House on the Prairie.  He's dead, and I'll never get to meet him!" and I started wailing even harder.

My poor mother.  I'm sure she had no clue what was going on.  Puberty?  Probably.  Drama? Most definitely.  But to her credit, she didn't say anything to make me embarrassed or try to help me realize the silliness of my tears.  Crying over a character in a book who had already been dead for 30 years by this time?  She didn't say anything.  She just let me cry until I was exhausted, hiccuping, and broken-hearted.

And until this summer when I discovered Jamie Fraser, I have never fallen for a character in the way I fell for Almanzo.  Oh, I've liked many of the leading men I've read about.  I've found them charming and attractive and considered what the real man would be like.  I may have even swooned a bit at some of their lines or a romantic scene or two.  But none have have "melted my brain," as one commentator said, like Jamie.

He is gallant and strong.  He lets Claire be smart and assertive and brave.  He is there for her when she needs him but he lets her be her own woman.  He does what needs to be done, even when it is hard or painful or dangerous, and he puts her and others' well-being ahead of his own.  He is protective but not in a smothering way, and never shames Claire when she does something foolish.  He is funny and sweet and gentle, despite the roughness of the times.  He is kind and selfless and aims to please.  And on top of it all, he's gorgeous and has a crooked smile and mischievous eyes.  He's perfect!  What's not to love?

When I read the books in the Outlander series, I feel once again like that 11 year old girl, who thinks life will be just as she imagined.  That marriage is easy.  That men are perfect.  That she can have it all.  I am not jaded by the reality that life is hard.  Marriage is work.  Men are fallible.

I'm not delusional.  I know the men in these books are not really like this.  They too would have their issues in day to day life.  The benefit of having them in books is that their irritating faults get left out, and all we know is what makes them so good.  It's too bad that we can't do that in reality.  I'd love to leave out all of the things that irritate me about Kirk, all of the little things that after 23 years of living with him drive me absolutely crazy.  I'd love to condense all of his goodness into a 800 page novel and read that. It would be awesome!

I've put the Outlander books up for now.  There are 8 in the series, but I've only read the first 3.  Part of me wants to continue, but part of me wants to save the stories for another time.  When I finished the Little House books, there was no more Almanzo, and I also grieved over that.  If I don't finish reading the Outlander books, Jamie is still alive and young and perfect, and I am still 11, and life is full of infinite possibilities.

Grandma's Angels

Nine years ago this week, my mom was preparing to leave this earth, and my sisters, Dad, and I sat vigil with her so that she would not be alone when time came for her to pass.

Emily and Ethan were little, just 3, and to make things easier with child care, they stayed out at my parents' house with Colleen and me instead of us trying to find babysitters for them.  Emily and I slept on a pallet on the living room floor, and she and Ethan entertained each other during the days of that long week.

On the Thursday before Mom died on Saturday, it was my turn to sit with her.  I got up quietly so as not to wake Emily and was sitting in Mom's room sewing when I saw the door slowly open and Emily poke her head in and smile at me.

"Can I come in?" she whispered.

I patted my lap, and she crawled up onto it, and we sat with her back to my front and her head nestled up under my chin. We were quiet for several minutes, just sitting there snuggling.  Then she turned her face up to me and whispered,

"Did you know that there are angels in this room?"

Goosebumps on my skin, I replied, "There are?  What do they look like?"

I expected her to give me the typical description of an angel to a 3-year-old...white with wings and a halo...but instead she said,

"They're gold!  And they have light!"

Barely able to breathe, I asked, "What are they doing?"

She looked over at my mom, sleeping in the hospital bed, and replied, "They're waiting to take Grandma to see Jesus!" and she smiled as bright as the sun and snuggled back down into my lap.

For the life of me, I could not see anything in the room that would make her say that.  It was not for trying, because I looked all around, but all I saw was the dresser and the windows and the closet door...I wished I could see what she saw.

One of my friends had the presence of mind to suggest that I have Emily draw what she saw that night, so a few days after Mom died, I gave Emily a piece of paper and some markers and asked her to draw the angels she saw in Grandma's room.  She got down to work and this is what she drew:

My mom is red with brown curls, lying in a bed with green covers.  The angels are the yellow faces.  Two have wings and two don't.  I don't know who the green person is.  Whenever I get down, especially this time of year, I get out this picture and remember the faith of children and what they can see with their untarnished eyes, and it gives me hope.

Keys to Nowhere

When I was at Lowe's the other day, I finally remembered to have keys to the front door made for the kids.  We've only lived here for 12 years.  I thought it was time!

I was working the front door key off the keyring and joking with the Lowe's guy that I didn't have any idea what half the keys unlocked anymore.  He was an older, Indian gentleman and raised his eyes at me and said quietly, "Why do you carry them around, adding weight to your life?"

"I don't know.  I never really thought of it.  Laziness, I guess," was my reply.

"Well," he suggested, "when you get home, why don't you take off the keys you don't know and put them in a dish?  Don't throw them away, in case you remember where they go, but just simplify your life a little."

I said that I thought that was a great idea, and mentioned that I have a lot of things I don't really know why I keep, and he said, "This is just a suggestion, but maybe if you take 10 minutes each day and rid yourself of what you don't need, soon you will find your life much improved.  I don't mean to tell you what to do, but just to suggest."

I replied that I thought that was a great idea and promptly came home and forgot.

But then today I got inspired.  I took a little more than 10 minutes to clean out our utility closet in the kitchen.  I bagged up years worth of end-of-the-year school supplies like blunt scissors, partially used crayons, colored pencils, and eraser tips.  I threw away things I no longer had any use for like old lunch boxes and torn Kroger bags and a tablecloth I was going to tear into rags 6 months ago and never did.  I organized our emergency bag full of batteries and flashlights and candles.  I cleaned out our kitchen cabinet that, now that Kyle is gone and they are not gathering in his backseat, is overflowing with mugs.

And in one cabinet, I found a dish of keys that I have no idea what they go to.  I remembered my conversation with the guy at Lowe's and went to my keyring, took off the other keys that I don't know and added them to the dish.

I only kept two keys on my key ring that no longer unlock anything anymore:  The key to my childhood home and the key to my grandma's house.  When my mom sold Granny's house, she kept the key to the front door.  It had been attached to a UofL Cardinal bird, and I can vividly remember her opening the door, and that bird swinging back and forth on the ring.  Mom finally gave it to Kyle when he was a little boy and loved keys.  I snagged it about 15 years ago and put it on my keyring.

Then when we sold the house on Northridge, I kept my key to the back door.  I could not for the life of me give it up.  I remember getting that very key when I was a freshman in high school 33 years ago.  My mom handed it over with gravitas saying, "Be VERY careful and don't lose this key.  If somebody finds it, they can get into our house!"  I have never taken it off the ring that I put it on way back when.

Today, my keyring contains one of Kirk's dog tags that he gave me the last time I saw him before he went to the Gulf War in 1990 and a St. X heart charm that I got when I joined the MOMS club when Kyle was a freshman.  There are keys to my house (both doors), 3 cars, a P.O. box, and those two keys that unlock only memories now.

My keyring is lighter now, but somehow today my heart is a little more heavy.

Homesick

When I was nine years old and Colleen was seven, we were going to spend a few days with our cousin, Tammy, in Lexington.  It was August, and I had just celebrated my birthday.  We were excited at the fun we planned to have.

Tammy's life was so different than ours, and we really didn't know her very well, but we liked her a lot and got along.  She was right in the middle of us, and at eight, was taking ballet and learning to play an instrument, which was really exotic to us.  We were riding bikes and swimming in our little pool in the back yard and playing whiffle ball in the court, and anyone in a tutu was something special. She lived in an old Victorian house that was 3 stories tall and had a servant's wing, a claw foot tub, stained glass windows, and a fireplace in every bedroom.  The back stairs had once been used by servants, and my uncle's sense of humor enticed him to put a plaster hand on the newel post instead of the usual ball, and it freaked us out every time we used those stairs.  The house was massive, unlike our 3 bedroom ranch, but it had no yard, so we played in the park nearby, building fairy houses among the roots of the massive oak trees that grew there.

Tammy's room was at the top of the stairs, and her dad had hung what I remember as a big rubber band from her door frame that let us swing in the house.  We were able to get it going so high that we could almost swing out over the staircase.  We had great fun on that swing.  Later that first night, we all 3 crowded into the big tub in our bathing suits and splashed around like it was a pool.  Tammy and Colleen shared her bed, and I slept on an old army cot that they used when they camped.  It was exciting in idea but not in reality.  The cot smelled musty, and it was narrow and uncomfortable.  Long after my sister and cousin had fallen asleep, I laid awake in that very tall room, unable to see into the corners of the ceiling and looking at the fireplace and the strange closet wondering what might be lurking in those dark spaces.

The next morning, we headed to Tammy's swim lessons with the promise of a dip in the local pool afterwards.  We got to get in and be very quiet while Tammy took lessons, and then we got to swim for awhile, but not as long as we had hoped.  My aunt had fixed us a picnic lunch.  My favorite sandwich was cheese with mayonnaise (NOT Miracle Whip), but she didn't have any mayo or Miracle Whip, so she used butter instead.  I couldn't eat it.  We got a can of Coke to split between us (there were five of us counting my two older cousins), so we each got just a swallow.

The democratic convention was on TV, so we didn't get to watch "Little House on the Prairie" that Monday night, and there was no TV during the day, and we had to go to bed while it was still light outside.

Bit by bit, I realized that I missed my mom and the freedom I had at my house.  I missed the small room that I shared with Colleen and my bed and mayonnaise on my sandwich.  I missed Coke in a glass with ice and watching Gilligan's Island on a hot afternoon.  I missed my yard and my swing set and the knee-high pool that was in our back yard with the bucket of water to wash the grass off of our feet.  I missed riding my bike and my dad when he came home from work.  I got homesick, and I began to cry.

I couldn't stop crying.  I didn't know what hit me, but all of a sudden, I just wanted my mom.  My poor aunt didn't know what to do.  Calling Louisville was long distance, but she asked if I wanted to talk to my mom, and I nodded yes, tears running down my cheeks.  I heard her tell my mom that I was fine and that I just needed to hear her voice and I'd be okay.  She put me on the phone, and as soon as I heard Mom say, "Hi Sharron," I burst into tears.  I couldn't speak.  I remember standing there in the hallway sobbing, no words would come out of my mouth.  I could hardly even breathe.  My mom said, "Calm down, honey.  It's okay.  Do you want to come home?"  It was all I could do to moan, "Umm hmm!" My aunt got back on the phone, and they made arrangements for our dad to come pick Colleen and me up the next day.  My mom told me later that she couldn't stand the thought of leaving us there when we were so homesick.

I cried myself to sleep that night on that narrow cot.  By this time, Colleen had taken my lead and she was crying too.  Poor Tammy was left wondering what happened.

I don't remember a thing that we did the next day except that it was an excruciatingly long day waiting for my dad to get off work and drive to Lexington to get us, but I knew he would come, and it made the day bearable.  I remember being a little ashamed that I had wanted to go home so badly, but not so ashamed that I was willing to stay.

The ride home in my dad's car was heaven.  I don't remember much except the great feeling of relief and of never wanting to leave home again.

Well, as we all do, I finally left home, moving to Texas, then Arizona, and then Hawaii.  I built my own life as a wife and mother, and then the pull from Louisville was so strong that Kirk and I ended up back here, surrounded by family.  We bought a nice house in a neighborhood similar to the one in which I grew up, and I have a great life.

But today, I want to go home.  I ache inside like I did almost 40 years ago.  I would like nothing more than to pick up the phone and hear my mom's voice saying, "Hi Sharron, do you want to come home?"

History Comes Full Circle

When Kyle was about 4, he became enamored of all things related to the Revolutionary War.  He found an infomercial on Colonial Williamsburg one Saturday morning and watched it over and over. He wanted breeches and a vest and a tricorn hat.  He begged for a musket and could we please go to Williamsburg???   He wore his dress up clothes much of the time and pretended to fight the British nearly every day.  We went to a reenactment at Locust Grove, and he was hooked.

At Locust Grove, April 2000

My mom remembered a song by Johnny Horton that started out,

"In 1814 we took a little trip
Along with General Jackson
Down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon
And we took a little beans
And we fought the bloody British
At the town of New Orleans."

Mom went to a record store (yes there were still record stores then!) and while she couldn't remember the name of the song, she remembered the lyrics and sang it to the clerk.  It was "The Battle of New Orleans."  He found the CD, and Mom bought it and brought it to Kyle, excited to watch his reaction.

Never mind that it was the wrong war, Kyle loved the music and the fighting the British, and he listened to that song over and over, marching in a circle around our first floor.  Claire even got into the act, and the two of them made quite a pair.

I made Kyle an outfit and we made plans to go to Williamsburg.  It was a week to remember!  Kyle made friends with the militia and rose in rank from "Private Kyle" to "Corporal Kyle" by the end of our stay.  The militia actually put him to work and had him giving orders and teaching the "new recruits" how to wheel to the left and stand at attention.

Corporal Kyle.  Notice the sergeant is holding Kyle's musket!

Shouting, "Huzzah!" as the fife and drum corps marched by.

 He got to "fire" a cannon and even had Claire swabbing out the gun tube.

He got to meet George Washington and Patrick Henry.  I'll never forget Patrick Henry's response when Kyle said, "I know what you said:  Give me liberty or give me death!"  The Williamsburg "date" that day was before the time Henry actually said this, but the actor replied, "I haven't said that yet, but I like it!  I might want to quote you one day!"

We drove over to Yorktown, and Kyle walked on the battlefield and hid behind trees and charged the enemy.

It was a wonderful, magical week.  We suspended disbelief and immersed ourselves in the past, and had a ball.

We had no idea it would be the beginning of such a long and interesting ride.

Kyle continued his love of history and reenacting.  We visited Boonesborough and Ft. Harrod.  We went to the Civil War fort Ft. Duffield and to Perryville for the reenactment.  We went to Clark's Point and hung out with the Corps of Discovery and got involved with Locust Grove portraying members of the Clark and Croghan families.  We went to Vincennes for the reenactment of the battle of Ft. Sackville. We went back to Williamsburg and to old forts in Minnesota, Alabama, New York, and Florida.  We toured Gettysburg.

Kyle continued reenacting until it wasn't "cool" anymore at about age 13.  He still loved it, but didn't want anyone to see him doing it.   Around 16, Kyle decided to start reenacting again, quietly, but with a good group of guys.  Actually, some of the very same guys he had met as a little 4-year-old boy at Locust Grove and Ft. Harrod were still in the company.  His first reeactment as a a participant was at Vincennes, where we had been spectators just a few years before.  He's reenacted at events at Locust Grove, talking to little kids just like he was so many years ago.  He bought himself a real musket and even has one of the tents like he's sitting in in the picture at Yorktown above.

This past fall, Kyle was lucky enough to participate in the Battle of the Hook, an important part of the Battle of Yorktown.  He "fought" on the actual battle ground

Battle of the Hook.  Kyle is in there somewhere.

and rowed a period-style boat across the river ferrying soldiers to the battle.

Kyle in the front in the green hunting coat.

One night, he and some of the guys from the company ventured into Williamsburg in costume and had dinner in a tavern and sang sea chanties to the guests.

In January, Kyle will travel down to New Orleans to reenact the Battle of New Orleans, the very same battle that he "fought" in my living room, while Johnny Horton sang about it all those years ago.  I wish my mom were here to share this!

But the coolest of all is that Kyle's 4th great-grandfather (my 3rd), Bennett Mattingly, was actually IN the Battle of New Orleans 200 years ago this year.  And, they are just about the same age; Kyle almost 19 and Bennett around 20.  The reenactment will take place just about a mile from the site of the actual battle.

I don't understand this connection to the past, but I love how it's come full-circle!

Kyle at the wreath-laying ceremony honoring the national guard.  Jan. 9, 2015

Reenactment of the Battle of New Orleans.  Kyle is in there somewhere.  Jan. 10, 2015

I Just Don't Go to the Cemetery

With last week being Memorial Day and all, I thought about going to the cemetery to visit my parents' graves.  Once again, I didn't end up going.  I don't know when the last time I've been to their graves was.  Probably over a year ago at least.  I think, "It's Christmas.  I need to go visit Mom and Dad," or "Mother's Day is next week.  I should go plant some flowers." But I don't go.  I know I should feel ashamed, and I do a little, mostly because my sister who lives out of town visits more often than I do.  I remember my mom saying to me once,

"You'll never come visit my grave when I'm dead."

I replied with all sincerity, "Yes I will!" and I meant it.  I did!  But when reality was here, she was right.

And as much as I love poking around old cemeteries with other people's family members long buried, I don't like going to visit my parents' graves.

I'm not sure why I don't go except what is there to do really?  The cemetery takes care of the plot.  They mow and trim.  We've planted day lilies, and my other sister puts in annuals.  I feel stupid just going there and sitting on the ground by their stone.  I'm always trying to decided if I'm standing on their heads or what.  They are on a slope, so they actually have a footstone not a headstone.  I can't get my brain around that idea.  They are dead, so why does it matter what way they are laid in the ground? Isn't the hole level anyway?

Then there is the whole reality thing.  If I go and see their names and dates in the granite, it is just another slap in the face that they are dead.  I already know that.  No need to remind me.  I talk to them all the time, so I don't need to go their graves to do that.  I visit them in my mind where they are much more real and present.  I don't need to go to their final resting place to be with them.

I feel my dad when I'm tending my tomatoes, snapping off the suckers growing up between the stems.  He's with me when I open a jar of okra or olives or eat pistachios.  I read the paper and come across some political story and wonder what Dad would think of this new twist.  When I'm photographing grade school football games, I see him in the stands watching Kyle play.  Every time I see a little gold truck cruising down the street, he is driving it.  He is never far from my mind.

And Mom.  She is in all I do.  I take a recipe out of my recipe box and see her handwriting on lasagna or apple pie or summer salad.  She is in a trip to Huber's or strawberry jam or a slice of zucchini bread.  Every year when I hang my Christmas ornaments, I see her face in them, especially in the little gold balls that she was convinced made the tree perfect.  She's in the coffee that I drink and the cheese toast I eat and the lilies of the valley that I transplanted from her house to mine.  She is at every single party I host, and every time I hear, "Wanda would be proud," I know she lives within me.

So, she was right.  I don't go to the cemetery.  Maybe I should feel guilty, but I really don't.  My parents' headstone is there.  Their bodies rest there.  But their spirit lives in me and around me every single day of my life.  They will never be forgotten, and I don't need to see a marker to remind me how very much they are loved.

The Blessings in Laundry

Laundry is the bane of my existence.  I hate it.  It is a never-ending and thankless job, and no matter what I do, I am never, ever caught up.

If I don't put in a load at least every other day, the mound grows exponentially, and if, God forbid, a week goes by without doing any, the pool is full and overflowing.  But worst of all is when the kids clean their rooms.  Then I'm really in for some work.

Let me take a minute to explain our system.  We have a laundry chute on the second floor that goes all the way to the basement.  At the bottom of the chute is a baby pool that corrals all of the dirty clothes into a controlled pile, otherwise, they would spill out onto the floor and get mixed up with the sorted piles of darks and towels.  This way, at least it's somewhat organized.

I had gotten the laundry mostly caught up at the beginning of last week.  I had one more load to wash, and for that short day or two, I knew the laundry would be under control.  Then the end of the school year happened.  Short exam days for Claire.  Parties and awards for Emily.  Soccer games and recital rehearsal and then recital...By the time I knew it, almost a week had passed, and I hadn't put in a single load.  AND the kids cleaned their rooms.

So when I went downstairs today to start the miserable, never-ending cycle again, I was confronted by a pile of clothes about 3 feet high, spilling out of the pool and onto the floor of the laundry room.  As I set to sorting for the bazillionth time, I decided to make a gratitude check of my laundry situation and started listing all of the good things that my laundry tells me about how lucky I am.  Here goes:

1.  We must be very wealthy to have this many clothes.  Lots of people around the world would be amazed by how much we have.  Heck, we could probably clothe a small village with what is in the pool!  So, that must mean we are rich.

2.  I have healthy children and a working husband who need clothes washed.

3.  I don't have to wash these clothes by hand.

4.  I don't have to tote them to the laundry mat.

5.  I have a nice, big, front loader washer that can do super-sized loads right in the comfort of my own home!

6.  I am physically able to do laundry.  I can walk up and down my basement steps.  I can carry large laundry baskets of clean clothes to the family room to fold.  I can see to sort and fold them.

7.  I have children who can and do help me.

8.  I have a nice house in which to store my clothes.  I am not living out of a suitcase.

9.  I can afford to buy detergent so my clothes smell good.

10.  I have bedding to go on a bed that I don't have to share with anyone but my husband.  My kids have beds of their own in rooms of their own.

So, when you look at it, my laundry tells me just how very, very lucky I am.

Still, doesn't mean I have to like it.

Go Vote!

I voted today.  It wasn't much of a ballot this primary season.  A couple of candidates who are going to win no matter what and some judges for family court, but I went to the polls, and I voted.

I remember when I was a kid, my dad was a precinct captain.  I didn't really know what that was, but it sounded important, and every election day, he would take off work, which he NEVER did, and leave the house at the crack of dawn and head up to Stonestreet Elementary School with a box of donuts in each hand to watch the polls.

After school, Mom would stop by to vote, and we would get to go into the booth with her and stand there while she pulled the curtain shut.  It always reminded me of the Wizard of Oz the way it opened and closed, and there WAS something magical about pulling down the lever and having your voice heard.

At the end of the night, Dad would come home with a big piece of paper in hand, and he would spread it out on the kitchen table and note the final count of votes for each candidate.  Then he would call the district headquarters and report on the results.  I always found it exciting when "our guy," whoever it was, "won" our precinct.  It felt like a good omen to me.  Then we would sit down in front of the TV and watch the returns.  Invariably, The Wizard of Oz was actually on one of the channels, and every so often, it would get interrupted for an election update.  Still to this day, I am riveted to the TV every election night, memories of years gone by fresh in my mind.

Today, my son is eligible to vote in his first election.  He is not interested at all.  He is disillusioned with our country and how little voice we "the people" have anymore, and he doesn't see the point in voting because it doesn't really matter.  "Politicians don't care.  They are going to get into office and do whatever they want anyway.  Why bother?"

Why bother?  I thought about it.  I have never missed a chance to vote since the very first time I was eligible to vote.  I've voted in the pouring down rain.  In the cold.  When I've been sick.  With new babies on my hip.  But why?

I vote because I can.  I vote because some places in this world there are people who do not have the right to vote, and if someone told me I no longer had that right, I would be up in arms.  I vote because less than 100 years ago, women were not allowed to, and many women went to jail in order to have their voices heard.  I vote because men and women have died defending our freedoms, and my vote honors their sacrifice.  I vote because my ancestors came to this country to escape tyranny and intolerance, and my vote honors their choice to become American citizens.  I vote because I refuse to believe it doesn't matter any more.  I vote because I believe when people let apathy keep them from the polls, democracy dies a little bit at a time.  I vote because I am lucky enough to live in the United States of America, and while our system is not perfect, it is our system, and I want my voice, however small, to be heard.

I voted today.  Did you?

Finally, A Second Bloom

2011

2014

One day after school, Kyle, in the third grade at the time, came home excited beyond belief.  He dumped his backpack in the door and rushed to find me in the kitchen.

"Mom!" he exclaimed, "I have a surprise for you!"  And he reached in his pocket and pulled out a napkin, carefully folded into a tiny square.

With a little trepidation, I went to unfold it to see what was inside.  No telling what kind of "treasure" an eight-year old boy could fold up in a napkin!

Before I could get it open or even ask what it was, he cautioned, "Be careful!  It's seeds!  And they will grow into the most beautiful flower you have ever seen!"

Sure enough, three tiny, flat seeds, so light that they would blow away at the slightest whisper, were folded up inside that napkin and carried home in Kyle's pocket.

He continued, "Mrs. Lenihan said that if we put them in some dirt in a pot that in about 5 years, you will have the most beautiful flower ever!  I told her how much you love flowers, and so she gave me some seeds. Aren't you so happy?"  He smiled to break my heart, and I hugged him and said, "Thank you so much for thinking of me, Kyle!  I'm sure these will be beautiful one day."

We found a pot in the garage, filled it with some potting soil, and placed the seeds down in the dirt, where they disappeared almost immediately.  A sprinkling of water, placement in the kitchen window, and we were through.

Kyle checked the pot every day for about a week, waiting for the seeds to sprout.  Weeks turned into months.  I watered the dirt every so often, but couldn't bear to throw it out because of how excited Kyle had been when he came home that afternoon.  After a few months, I found a metal flower pick to stick down in the dirt, and I was really glad that we had picked a Louisville Stoneware pot to plant the seeds in so at least the pot was pretty.

Third grade turned to fourth, and just when I was about ready to toss the whole thing, I noticed a little nub of green beginning to poke up through the dirt.  Kyle was thrilled, and I was intrigued.  Never had I known seeds to take a year to germinate.

We watched as they grew overnight.  One inch, two, three.  Pretty soon, we had about 18 inches of stalk-like leaves, similar to a tulip leaf, but no stem for a flower.  The leaves stayed green for a couple of weeks and then began to die back.  Yellowing at the tips and then down the whole plant until it was limp and brown.  I pulled them off, and we waited to see what would happen next.

Nothing.

Nothing happened for several more months.  Then another shoot of leaves came up and grew and grew and grew, but still, no flowers.

Months turned into years.  The teacher who gave Kyle the seeds retired and moved away.  Kyle graduated from grade school and headed off to St. X.  The cycle of the plant kept up until finally, one day about seven years after we planted those three seeds, we noticed something different.  Coming up out of the leaves was a stalk.  It looked to have a bud on it.  We watched and waited.  A few days later, there it was, this beautiful amaryllis-type flower.  We had no idea what we had grown, but it WAS beautiful!  I took a picture of Kyle with it.  He was 15 and a freshman in high school.

The flower lasted about a week and then died.  I thought he had told me that it only bloomed once, so I was about to toss it once again.  But once again, he stopped me.  "No," he said, "it will bloom again.  It just takes awhile."  So I put it back on my window sill and kept watering.

About a week ago, after three more years of leaf cycles, I noticed another stalk popping up.  Two days ago, the flower opened up, and for the second time in TEN YEARS, we have more blooms, and ironically, tomorrow is his last day of high school.

I have discovered that it is an amaryllis plant, grown from seed, and it took so long to bloom because the seeds were forming a bulb under the soil.  Hopefully as the plant matures, it won't wait so long between blooms because it IS one of the most beautiful flowers I've seen, mostly because every time I look at it, I see those eager eyes, a gap-toothed smile, and three tiny seeds folded up in a napkin.

The Postcard

I don't even remember what it was that I was looking for, but a few weeks ago I found myself opening the drawers of the secretary in my living room searching for something.  What I discovered was my mom's scrapbook on Kennedy's assassination, a postcard, and old friends.

The secretary had been at my parents' house since my grandmother died in 1981.  They had left some of my grandma's things in the drawers and then had added their own items...yearbooks, a Rand McNally map book, and a scrapbook my mom had made on the assassination of President Kennedy.  My mom was crazy about JFK, and when he was killed, she must have been devastated because she cut out and pasted everything printed in the newspaper about his death.  I had looked at it a couple of times when I was a kid, but it was A LOT of news and not many pictures, and I was quickly bored.

When my dad died, I inherited the secretary and the items in it.  It didn't seem right to remove them after 30 and 60 years in one place, and so everything was where it had been left when I opened the drawers a few weeks ago looking for whatever it was I needed at the time.

I saw the scrapbook again and, curious to see it as an adult, I took it out. It's a handsome, leather bound scrapbook.  John Kennedy is poised regally on the front, framed in gold leaf, the Stars and Stripes behind him. I opened the cover.  The first things in it are entire sections of the paper from November 22, 1964, the year anniversary of Kennedy's death.  There is (was) a postcard of the grave site and three photographs of it wrapped in a work order (more on that later), and a copy of a comparison between Kennedy and Lincoln and the weird coincidences of their presidencies and assassinations.  Lots of tidbits and clippings of the anniversary inside the cover, as if, like we all do, Mom meant to add them later and just never did.

I turned the page and found the articles on the visit to Dallas from Nov. 22, 1963.  Glowing reports of how Jackie has captured the heart of Texas and how the president is courting supporters.  Pictures of the Kennedys and the Connallys together...The photo on the next page takes up the entire space.  It's the one of the Secret Service agent climbing over the back of the convertible.  The headline on the facing page reads, 

"President Shot To Death By Sniper; Johnson Receives Bipartisan Pledge; Red Sympathizer Charged As Killer."

And then page after page of clippings and articles from the next several days of shock and mourning.  

I read some of them, much of what I had already read in one way or another over the years, and decided to have a look at the postcard.  It said, "Dear Son..." and went on to talk about a trip to D.C. and the visit to Arlington and where the writer was staying.  It closed with, "Love, Mother and Dad."  The recipient was a man named Gnadinger who lived in the 40218 zip code.  The date was 1964.  Curious.  I had no idea how my mom got her hands on this, but I knew a Gnadinger from St. X, so I called her to ask if they might be related.

Turned out that the recipient had the same name as her husband's cousin, and his dad was still alive, so she promised to check into it.

Well, a few days later, I got an email, that the card WAS from her husband's Uncle Norb to his son when Norb and his wife were on vacation to Washington D.C.!  What a coincidence!  Kyle and Norb's great-nephew are in the same grade at St. X and are both in the play.  Small world!  I was glad to get that settled, but it didn't explain how my mom got the postcard.  They didn't live near each other.  They didn't go to the same church.  They didn't work at the same place.  HOW in the world did my mom get a postcard from the great-uncle of a boy Kyle knows from school just shy of 50 years since the postcard was written? 

This was a mystery, and I had to solve it.  I asked my aunts if they knew any Gnadingers or had any idea how Mom would have gotten the postcard.  No and none were the answers.  I sent an email back to my friend giving her detailed information on my mom and where she worked in 1964 and her maiden name...anything to make the connection.  I figured the postcard probably came from the recipient to Mom when he or his wife realized how much Mom loved Kennedy, but we just couldn't figure it out.  I went ahead and mailed the postcard onto my friend for her to give to her husband's uncle.  It belonged to them more than me, and I thought it might jog some memories.

Finally, I asked my friend where Norb worked.  She said Tube Turns.  My grandma worked there during WW2, but that was 20 years PRIOR to this postcard.  Then I thought I remembered that one of my mom's brothers also worked there.  I called my aunt back, and sure enough, my Uncle Jim worked at Tube Turns for many years.  He was a machinist.

I called Uncle Jim.

"Uncle Jim," I said, "did you know anybody at Tube Turns named Norb Gnadinger?"  

"Yeah I sure did," he replied.  "He was a good friend!  We used to bowl together..."

And so it went.

Uncle Jim reminisced about Norb for several minutes, and I told him the story of the postcard.  Thing was, Uncle Jim really didn't remember anything about the postcard.  I emailed my friend again.  "Ask Uncle Norb if he remembers giving the postcard to Jim Portman."

I got an email back yesterday from my friend.  This was Norb's reply:

"When Helen and I returned home from Washington, D.C., the JFK grave-site postcard was still safe in the house. Jim Portman and I were very close friends for many years. We did bowl on Tube Turns teams together. He and I shared quite similar averages around 160 – 170 and we enjoyed bowling together. If I’m not mistaken, Jim had his schooling at St Patrick’s on 18th Street (?) (Sharron's input: It was actually St. George). Jim’s main job at Tube Turns was the equivalent Machinist trade in the Laboratory Destruct Stress-Testing Dept. This means that as a machinist, he would make a test sample of aluminum or steel on a Lathe and then this sample was pulled apart on the testing machine and the resistance result numbers, if they were satisfactory to our customers, would accompany the materials as we forged various items for our customers. Of course, we also filed this information in our archives. (sorry I’m so wordy)

Every time I would leave my office to check out something in the mfg. shop, I usually visited with Jim and his co-workers. I know that I talked to him about our visit to the JFK grave-site because that was still of interest to everyone. Jim seemed interested in some way about the photo on the postcard and I offered to give it to him. I thought at the time that he just wanted the card to get an idea of what the Presidents grave-site looked like – as I described it to him – and also told him all about Arlington Cemetery and the ceremony carried out at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (at that time). I don’t believe that we discussed this item again."

Uncle Jim then came home and gave the postcard to my mom, who put it into her scrapbook.  It was just a nice gesture at the time, but I'm sure she was thrilled.  Something fairly insignificant to him, but here we were, 50 years later, reconnecting dots and remembering old friends!

I called Uncle Jim to share the email, and Uncle Jim said again what a really nice guy Norb was.  He said, "He was a real leader!  Any time there was an event, Norb was the emcee."  He organized monthly breakfasts of the men once they retired and was just an all-around "great man.  Please tell him I said hello!"

Tonight, while writing this, I got the scrapbook out again and looked through it.  This time I paid more attention to the photographs I had always assumed my mom took when she finally made it to Arlington a few years later.  I would still think that she was the photographer save for one small detail.  They were wrapped in a piece of paper I had never looked at closely before.  At the top, it says, "Tube Turns  A Division of Chemetron Corporation." It's a copy of a work order from 1961 that was pulled out of a ledger and folded around three photographs of President Kennedy's grave.

I'll bet dollars to donuts, they were taken by Norb.

Life has come full-circle.  How very, very cool.

To Renew or not to Renew...That Is the Question

When my kids were little, they sold magazines for school.  It was a huge fundraiser, and if a family sold 25 magazines, the kids got lunch and limo ride to Gattiland.  My dad was always good for 2 or 3 magazines, so the kids hit him up every year, and every year, he ordered, without fail, Time and Reader's Digest.  Sometimes he'd get Sports Illustrated or Newsweek, but the other two were a given.

Now on the order form, there was always the option of one year for one price or two years for a cheaper price, and it took me awhile to realize that my dad had been ordering 2 years' worth of subscriptions for several years in a row.  The good people at the magazine companies just added those orders onto the existing account, creating a several years of pre-purchased issues.

When Dad died, I had the magazines forwarded to my house since they were already paid for.  Time ran out a few months  later, but Reader's Digest kept coming month after month, like a little present in my mailbox from Dad.  About a year after his death, I wondered how long the issues would continue.  I grew to look forward to seeing his name on the cover, like a little tiny part of him was still alive to someone.

So yesterday, when the March issue arrived with the notice

it took my breath a little.  Only two issues left?  Ouch.  I have grown to enjoy Reader's Digest.  The stories are interesting, the jokes are funny, and I pride myself on getting at least 13/15 on Word Power each month.  But more than enjoying the magazine, I loved that it was still coming from Dad, nearly 2 years after he died.  Now, it too, would be ending.  I felt like crying.

So I am faced with the dilemma:  To renew or not to renew?  If I renew, I will still enjoy the magazine each month, but it won't be the same.  It won't be from Dad, and that is where the ultimate pleasure lied.  If I renew, the magazine will be mine and not Dad's, but it will still be kind of a gift from him because he introduced it to me and got me reading it every month.  If I renew, I think I will leave his name on the subscription.  I'll know the truth, but Reader's Digest won't, and at least in somebody's mind, he's still here, chuckling at "Life in These United States," and that's something anyway.