Saving Grace - Mysterious Places

                              I have always been curious by nature. A lot of people say I am just downright nosey. It has been my experience that if you want to know something you have to ask or look to find the answer. I often asked questions that would make my parents frown or other people to tell me to mind my own business. I didn’t mind, I simply learned to go about things in a more discreet manner. I would sit quietly and listen. I learned lots of things this way.  However, curiosity got me in trouble on more than one occasion.

                Our house sat very close to the duplex next door, so close the roof overhang of the two houses nearly touched. A full grown adult could stretch their arms out and put their hands on the side of each house simultaneously. We called it an alley, it was fun to play in there because it was shaded from one end to the other from the roof overhangs. It was a lot cooler there than anywhere else in the yard.  I also learned that in the summer time, the windows were always up and if you sat quietly on the ground beneath the window you could hear everything the adults were saying. Mother always kept the windows open and a fan in each one. It gave you a cross flow of air in the living room since we did not have air conditioning then. She had one fan blow in and the other blow out so it circulated the air much better. The fan facing the alley blew out so the sounds came out with it. It was very easy to hear to things being said out there. I often found answers to why the adults were acting so secretive and stop talking when one of us would come into the room.

                When they would suddenly shut up when I came into the room, I would ask my mother a question, it didn’t matter what, just to make her think I came in with the question, and once she answered it I would turn around and go through the kitchen and out the back door. She would simply think I was going back out to play. I would go around the house and silently head down the alley and sit beneath the window. Before long, Mother would continue talking and I would know why she was upset or what she was planning that she didn’t want us to hear. Yes, I would have got spanked had my mother ever found out, or maybe she would have played a horrible trick on me, saying something so I could hear it just so it would excite me or worry me enough I would have to come to her and admit I heard what she said, but that never happened.

                On this particular day, I was not out to find out what my parents were talking about, they were not even home. One of my older sisters told me she found something interesting and wanted to show it to me. She took me down the alley to midway and showed me a round hole. I had seen the hole many times but I did not know what it was or why it was there. Hot air was blowing out of the hole. She stuck her hand into the hole and it disappeared to the elbow.

                “What’s in there?” I asked.

                “Nothing, it hits a wall.” She answered.

                “Where is the air coming from then?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “Air has to come from somewhere, don’t it?” I asked.

                “I think so, but nothing’s there.”

                “Let me try.” I pushed her aside enough so I could stick my hand in the hole the way she did. I stuck my hand into the hole and noticed the sides were smooth. My hand hit the back of the hole which was a wall of some sort. I noticed though that there was a bend there. It was not simply the back of the hole, but a bend and a turn.

                “It bends and goes around to the side.” I told my sister.

                “Where does the bend lead?”

                “I don’t know.”

                “Well check.” She whispered to me. I know she was thinking the same thing I was, there was something secretive about this hole in the side of our house.

                “You check.”

                “No you, you’re hand is already in there.”

                I sighed and against my better judgment and fear, I turned my hand into the bend. Suddenly, I heard a funny sound - dddzzziiittt. I suddenly felt a burning sensation and pain in my finger tips. I jerked my arm back pulling my hand from the hole and screaming out. I turned around and my sister was gone. I caught a glimpse of her rounding the front of house. I looked down at my hand and noticed it was covered with blood. My fingers burned and hurt. I shook my hand and blew on my finger tips. I was scared, there were wide gashes in most of my finger tips and blood was running down quick. I wrapped my hand in the bottom of my t-shirt and ran for the house. I went to the bathroom and ran cool water over my hand but it did not stop the bleeding. I knew I was going to be into trouble.

                I ran through the house and up the steps to my room. My fingers were still burning. I flopped down on my bed and blew my fingers. I was trying to think of what to do, how to stop the blood and keep the incident from my mother. It was hot and sweltering upstairs, and soon I began to sweat. I turned on the fan that was perched in the window and let the air blow across me. I was crying then. I stretched out on my bed, blowing my fingers and somehow, I fell fast to sleep. In mind sleep I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. I thought I was dreaming.

                The sudden gasp brought me from my sleep and I realized I was not dreaming when I heard Grandma Grace gasp again. I did not think about the scene she must have come upon. My head was lying on my hands so the cuts were not visible. The cotton of my pillow case had soaked in the blood from my fingers and spread out. I am sure it looked like much more than it actually was, and the blood looked as though it were coming from my head. All of this happened in a matter of seconds, so I hadn’t even moved. Grandma was sure I was dead. She leaned over me and placed her hand beneath my nose to check if I were breathing.

                I turned my head towards her then and she sighed with relief.

                “What happened to you, child?” She nearly screamed, sitting on the bed next to me.

                I sat up then and threw myself into her arms and sobbed. I showed her my hand. I explained the whole situation and told her how it burned. She soothed me and rubbed my hair until I quit crying.

                “Grandma, Momma is gonna whip me when she gets home.”

                “No, she won’t.”

                “Yes she will Grandma, you don’t know Momma.” I began to explain. I don’t know why I was afraid of mother spanking me. She rarely ever raised a hand to me. Daddy would have been angry and I was quick to remind her of this whenever I thought she was going to hand out that kind of punishment.

                “I will take care of it, she will never know.” Grandma said. I don’t know if she actually deceived my mother about the incident or if she deceived me and told mother about it later. If she did, they probably got a good laugh, but Mother has never mentioned it to me. She simply took my hand and my bloody pillow and led me down the steps. Once we were downstairs, she glanced around the house. There wasn’t a soul in sight so she led me out the door and up the street to her house. There she took off the pillowcase and put in the sink with some cold water and a little bleach. Once she had it soaking, she sat me in the kitchen with a couple of cookies and glass of kool-aid while she searched for the things she needed.

                By the time I was finished with my cookies, Grandma returned with a first aid kit and began cleaning my fingers and putting Band-Aids on the ones with cuts. Once she had me all fixed up, she had me change my shirt into a clean one and she put the bloody one in the sink with my pillow case. She scrubbed the blood out of my shirt and my pillow case and then tossed them into the washer and washed them. While they were drying, we went out into her yard and I watched as she pulled weeds out of her roses. I loved Grandma’s roses. She cross pollinated them to create different colors. She was very good at it and she filled her yard with roses of many colors. The fragrance blew up and down the street when the wind blew.

                When my shirt and pillow case was completely dried, I changed back into my shirt and Grandma sent me back down the hill to my house. I was very grateful she took care of the situation. I was young and my fears were great. I had envisioned bleeding to death and by the look on Grandma’s face when she found me, she had envisioned it too. I never forgot this lesson, but it did not curb my appetite for learning about places or things. I continued to be curious and I continued to search out new mysterious places. 

Daddy's Handbook for Girls - Fair Games

                I honestly believe my dad was the world’s greatest winner at the games they have at the fair. He won nearly every game he played. One year, he won so many large stuffed animals that he was banned from playing the games the rest of the time the fair was there that year. Honestly, when the game callers saw him coming, they tried to close down their booths for a break. The year he was banned, I was about twelve years old. The week the fair was in town, Daddy went nearly every night. He liked to walk around and check things out the first night. He would stop from booth to booth and watch others play.

                As the night progressed and he was sure of the games, he would then begin to play. This particular year, the booths had a bunch of large stuffed cats, leopards, jaguars and the like. Mother loved leopards so Daddy won one of those for her. This year the cousins were in from Indiana and so with all of us there, plus the cousins, he needed a lot of prizes. He would play games and win prizes, take them and lock them in the truck and go back to win some more. He was amazing at it.

                On the night we were allowed to go, we only went one night of the fair each year. Probably because there was nine of us and getting in the fair wasn’t cheap. I would ride a ride or two and find Daddy and follow him around through the games. His favorite game was a fishing game. They gave you a fishing pole with a ring tied to the end of the string and you had to get the ring around the neck of a bottle and sit it up properly, then get ring back off without knocking the bottle over to win the prize. Daddy could win this game every time. It was the first game to ban him this particular year.

                “How do you win so much, Daddy?” I asked and before he could answer I followed with, “Teach me how to win one. Please, please, please!” I would have my hands clasped together and hopping up and down.

                “Calm down and I will tell you, " he replied. 

                I immediately calmed down and stood there at attention so he would explain. I wanted to win one of the large prizes so badly. He handed the man enough money for two poles. He then handed one of them to me. He stood next to me and explained, “First, you have to be very careful and patient. Then you gently ease the ring over the neck of the bottle. Slowly raise the pole until the bottle begins to swing. Hold it as still as you can until the bottle stops moving. Then you ease the bottle the rest of the way up. Once the bottle is sitting firmly on its bottom, slowly lift the pole until the ring slides off the bottle. That's all there is to it. Easy peasy, Japanesey.”
                 As he gave the explanation, he would demonstrate the procedure and won a large prize while I was standing there.
                "Whoop! We got a winner! We got a winner right here!" The game caller shouted.
                He let me pick out the cat I wanted and then stood there waiting for me to try my hand at the game. I slowly lowered the ring until it slid over the neck of the bottle. I was holding my breath and trying to do just as he described. I gently pulled on the pole and began to lift the bottle. I got to the point where the bottle was swinging from side to side. I was so excited, and light headed from holding my breath I began to bounce on the ball of my feet. This made the bottle swing faster and it simply rolled right off the ledge the bottle was on and I lost.

                Every time I played the game it happened this way. Shortly after my third try, it began to rain. Daddy grabbed my hand and we took off running to find everyone else. Once everyone was rounded up, we were loaded into the back of the truck, getting soaked to the skin, and we were ushered home from our only night at the fair. Down trodden and depressed we rode home to find an anomaly we had never seen before. It was raining on one side of the street, but on the side where our house was, the sun was shining. This lifted our spirits a little because at least we could play outside. The neighborhood kids that lived on the side of the street where it was raining all came over to our house to play.

                Since the fair was a bust for us, when it got dark, mother set up the white screen and brought out the projector. She popped large bowls of popcorn and made kool-aid for all the kids there. We sat out blankets on the ground while mother showed cartoons on the screen. Usually this was a weekend night treat or a special occasion treat for one of our birthdays. All the kids in the neighborhood loved cartoon night in the backyard at our house. The cousins were there this year as well. We all had a good time and Daddy went back to the fair. He won several more large stuffed cats that year. All in total he won 22 cats and pasted them all out to the kids and cousins. He was banned from the games because he caused many of the booths to lose money.

                Daddy always treated all children the same. They all got the same thing no matter where they came from, a child he was raising, a cousin or a neighbor, we were all the same in the eyes of Daddy. Daddy was the epitome of love, so was mother, but she did not have the same funny carefree attitude I remember from Daddy. The fair was a treat for many years to come. I often went back, even as an adult and tried to win at the games. I never had the skill or patience for the games the way Daddy did. I learned the lesson of how to play to win, but I could never execute the patience to win the games. After Daddy passed away, I couldn’t help but go to the fair at least one night a year and walk around and look at the games. It never fails to bring back old memories and lessons of fair games. 

Saving Grace - Morris the Cat

Morris the Cat

                When I was a child of about nine, there was a cat in a commercial and his name was Morris. The interesting thing about Morris is my mother had a cat that looked just like him and so she named him Morris. Morris was a big orange tomcat and as calm as a cat can be, especially since he was a stray. Mother got him his shots and fed him in a bowl on the front porch. He came by a few times every day for food and love. He would eat and then climb up in mother’s lap to be talked to and petted. She loved that cat.

                Being the ever helpful child I was, I decided Morris needed a bath. I took mother’s large canning pot and lid out in the backyard, filled it full of water from the hose­ – which was very cold especially since it was a hot summer day- and dish soap. I then went around the house and found Morris sitting on the porch licking his paws after eating his latest meal. I picked him up and lugged him to the backyard. Once I reached the canner, I put Morris in the water, and he immediately got angry and scared and tried to get out of the pan. In his efforts, he scratched my arm and drew blood, which made me angry and I shoved him in the water and put the lid on the canner.

                I grabbed the canner by the handles firmly holding down the lid and shook it for all it was worth to make sure Morris was good and wet and soapy. After all, he needed a bath. Once I was sure he was clean enough, I sat the pot down to open it so I could rinse him. As soon as I loosened my grip on the lid, however, it exploded, cat and all! Morris flew out of the canner scowling and screaming and ran for the road. He shot up the street like a ball shot from a cannon. I stood there dumbfounded watching him run. I was rubbing the scratches on my arm and thinking I should have asked one of my sisters for help.

                A few days later I was sitting on the swing on the front porch when mother came out with a glass of Pepsi and sat down in her favorite chair. She sat there often watching children from the neighborhood play and people going up and down the street. All of the sudden she looked up at Donna, my aunt, and said, “I wonder what happened to old Morris? I haven’t seen him for a few days and he hasn’t come to eat the food I left for him.”

                I turned my face where she couldn’t see it for fear she would see that I knew what happened to Morris. I jumped down from the swing, hopped on my bike and rode around to the back yard. Guilt filled my body but so did fear. I was afraid of what mother would do if she found out what had happened with Morris. I was thankful she hadn’t seen the scratches on my arm for fear she would put two and two together. I sat beneath the old tree in the backyard with a million things running through my mind. I was sorry Morris got mad. I didn’t mean to make him mad, but he needed a bath and then he scratched me. I was not aware at the time that cats, especially tomcats, did not like water, (let alone cold water on a hot day).

                I learned some very valuable lessons that day, but even though mother wondered out loud about Morris for weeks, I never told her what happened to Morris. A couple of years ago, we had a family reunion at Jacobson Park and we were all sitting around talking about memories. Someone mentioned the old commercials that Morris was in. It was a cat food commercial. Of course, this memory sparked mother’s memory of old Morris. She said, “I used to have an old tomcat I named Morris because he looked just like that cat. I wonder what ever happened to him.”

                Since I was forty years old and no longer afraid of mother’s wrath, I looked up at her and said, “I know what happened to Morris.”

                “What?” she asked with curiosity in her voice.

                I relayed the events of Morris and his bath. Mother’s eyes filled with flames and her face turned red. “I loved that old cat. I walked the streets night after night looking for him afraid he was hit by a car and you ran him off. I asked all of you kids what happened to him and you never said a word.”

                “I wasn’t going to either, I knew you loved that cat and I was not about to make you mad. I didn’t know you were out walking the streets at night to find his body. He moved on up the hill to Oak Hill to another house. I saw him sometimes while waiting for the bus for school but he wouldn’t come to me. I felt bad about it.”

                There was a round of people scolding me and others laughing, but the mystery of what happened to old Morris was finally out in the open and mother could put her curiosity to rest. I never tried to bathe another old tomcat. I did bathe some kittens from time to time with flea bath. I always started them out young with the water and it was always warm. I learned many lessons as a child and how to bathe a cat was one of them. 

Daddy's Handbook for Girls - On Fighting

                The first rule of fighting is never start a fight. The second rule of fighting is no matter how good you are there is someone somewhere that is better. Why would a father be teaching his daughter about fighting? Of course, because I had trouble with bullies and wanted to learn how to defend myself. I remember coming to my dad and talking to him about a bully at school. I wanted to be able to stand up for myself and put a stop to someone walking all over me. My dad, being the responsible man he was, went right into the reasons why I should not fight. He was a firm believer of taking time to talk out a situation. When it comes to bullies however, you just can’t talk to them. They are unreasonable.

                If they were reasonable people, they would not be bullying people who were smaller than they were in the first place. We had such a bully at our school. During this troublesome time in my life, this bully decided he wanted to fight me and for no apparent reason. I was horrified. I was also a tomboy, in a sense, my father’s first son. He taught me lots of things a lot of fathers would never dream of teaching a daughter. He was my rock in those instances and his lessons brought me through a lot of grief in years to come, even after he died at a very young age of fifty-one. Since it was a bully situation, he recognized the necessity of my being able to defend myself at the very least.

                His wisdom began with: The first rule of fighting is never start a fight. The second rule of fighting is no matter how good you are there is someone somewhere that is better. The first rule was to prevent me from becoming a bully and the second one was to make me think before I ever felt fighting was a necessity instead of a last resort. Dad firmly believed fighting was a last resort situation. Once he drummed these two rules in my head, he said, “Hold your fists up like you’re going to hit someone.”

                I immediately held up my tightly gripped fist with my fingers firmly wrapped around my thumbs. Dad looked me over and asked, “Are you sure you want to hit someone with your fists like that?”

                Of course, I had never been in a fight in my life. What did I know about how to hold my fist to hit someone? I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “I guess so.”

                “No, you don’t want to hit someone with your fists like that, or you will break your thumbs.” He explained as he took my fists in his hands and carefully rearranged them so my thumbs we wrapped firmly outside of my fingers. “Now, when you hit someone, you won’t be putting all the pressure and force on your thumbs. The important thing about fighting is to know how to prevent you from getting hurt.”

                I listened intently because the last thing I wanted was to get hurt. I wanted to know how to take care of myself and I definitely did not want to get hurt. I sat down next to him on the chair and my eyes focused intently on his face. I listened to everything he had to say. His next bit of advice stuck in my memory for many years to come. He said, “When you punch, you need to jab and jab straight in. Don’t try to swing. Swinging takes the force out of your punch. It is like pulling back at the last second. If you are in a position to have to hit someone, put all your force behind it. Don’t go swinging madly like an old wash woman.”

                This brought my attention the motion he was making with his own fist, punching straight forward with a forceful motion.  Holding his hand up with his palm facing me, he told me to punch his hand by jabbing with a straight motion. I did so, with him urging me to do it again, and again and again. Once he felt like I had the mechanics down on jabbing, he then asked me to swing and punch his hand so I would know the difference. I swung and punched his hand. I immediately realized how inertia could be slowed down with the swing but added force to the jab. This instilled the mechanics of this action in my head until one day, as a grown woman, a battered spouse, it surfaced again just in time to same me from a very abusive man.

                Now, when you are face to face and there is no other option but to fight, then it is okay to strike first. “While they are looking at you, jump up and grab them by both ears and scream like a banshee. It will take them off guard long enough that you will have time to drive your knee in the groin area and prepare for your next strike. Most of the time, this action will make them think you are so crazy that they no longer want any part in fighting with you. If they still want to fight, give them all you got and don’t stop until they are lying on the ground or the fight is over.”

                I laughed when he explained this part of fighting. I thought he was being funny, but he was dead serious. Daddy was a very small, short man. He was short enough to be a small woman. I think he was five-foot-three or four. He had dealt with bullies any times over the years since they tend to pick on people much smaller than they are, this left Daddy a prime target. He had perfected these moves. The look on his face made me realize he meant everything he said. I took it all to heart. It was many years before I had to use any of his advice because shortly after he began to instill these methods in me, the bully that bothered me moved away. I did however, use Daddy’s methods on a craze wide beating husband one time allowing me to protect myself and stand up for myself in a very important time in my life, but that is another story. 

Solitude

     Solitude is hard to come by in my house. We have two young children, two young adults and my husband and I. From daylight to dark the children play. They steal your heart and demand your attention. So when a rare incident of solitude comes, it is often wasted on trying to figure out what to do while I have it. I have a list of things I want to do and need some quiet time in order to do them. I want to practice writing on a daily basis and start getting the novels that rattle around in my head on paper. I want to practice drawing and spend time creating portraits of my grandchildren. I like to read and listen to audio books on my I-pod, something I try to do all the time, but without solitude, I can’t hear my books very well.

     Today is one of the rare days when I have several hours of solitude. I was in shock for the first hour and then I begin to wonder what to do with it. I thought of taking a much needed nap and I did lie down for a few minutes but I did not sleep. I thought of writing on one of my novels, but I couldn’t decide where to begin. I thought about drawing and practicing shading but I really did not want to drag out my supplies not knowing when I would have to put them up again. Out of sight, out of mind, once the grandchildren know where my supplies are, they will be gone forever.

     What did I do with my solitude then? I spent it quietly with my computer, working on my books and talking with my husband from time to time. Then of course, I began to miss the grandchildren and the steady noise they bring to the house. It is now too quiet to do anything. How can this be? I have waited for free time for so long and once I have it, I don’t know what to do with it! I think I am going to finish my writing, check my email, check my Facebook and then take a nice long hot shower and go to bed. I have had enough solitude for the day!

Diary of a Fat Lady!

                            The last thing a woman is going to do is wake up in the morning and suddenly decide to get fat, (unless she is trying to hide and change her identity for some mysterious reason). Actually, it just kind of sneaks up on you a little at a time until it is too late. I remember many times cursing my dryer for shrinking my new jeans that I had only worn a couple of times. Something that was even more irritating than the shrinking dryer was going to the store to shop for more jeans and finding out the sizes had suddenly changed. My size just didn’t fit anymore. Something had to be wrong, because I have worn this size forever! Little things like that happen over time until one day you look in the mirror and there is a fat person looking back! Once the fat person is looking at you in the mirror, it is simply too late to worry if your gaining weight, because obviously you have been gaining it for a while.

                Not only do you get fat, but you get tired and weary right along with getting wider and wider. It gets harder to haul your big butt up the steps, down the street to the mailbox and chairs begin to get uncomfortable. You lose all interest in things you once loved and the phrase leaving the lights out bring on a whole new meaning. Once this happens, the fad diets begin and you lose some weight and get back down into your favorite jeans that dryer hadn’t shrunk after all! A few months later and you’re looking in the mirror and the fat person has returned looking back at you. And guess what? She looks even fatter than she did the last time she showed up! This is when the new fad diet begins. It turns into a yo-yo fad diet, eat the way you did, and find a fat person in your mirror cycle.

                Sooner or later, if you’re smart, you will suddenly realize that fad diets are the devil and if you want to lose the fat person in the mirror, you have to make some serious changes. I am at this point in my life and for the last five and a half months, I have been making necessary changes to my diet. However, the fat person in the mirror is still there (although she is not quite as fat). It seems as though the skinny me appears much slower than the fat person appears. I keep looking for the skinny person to show up in the mirror, but apparently my mirror is a little stubborn.

                Soon, I will finish the journey of learning to eat the right foods, in the right amount and it will be a new pattern of life, a new way of life. Since I waited too long to wake up to the fat person in the mirror, my health has suffered and now I am in for a new journey. The gastric by-pass is now a necessity. Learning the new lifestyle has insured that once the fat person leaves the mirror this time, she won’t come back!  I will celebrate her demise! I have learned though, and I will celebrate with a stalk of celery or an apple instead of a piece of chocolate cake!

Happy Fathers' Day

I was thinking of my dad today. I lost him 20 years ago in May. He was a wonderful man and a great father. He, along with my mother, raised nine children. It seems they took in stray children like some people took in stray dogs or cats. My dad spent everyday showing us all love. He treated us all as though we were the same. When a neighbor or another child was at our house, and often there was at least one extra, he treated them the same way too. There was always love at my house. I grew up thinking love was meant to be freely given to children. Some of my favorite memories of my dad were:
1) Sitting on the front porch singing funny songs like: Little Red Riding Hood, We Three Drunks, among others.
2) Consistently teaching new ways to fix a car, change a tire, and check the fluids in my car.
3) Always coming to get me when I needed a ride.
4) Teaching life lessons I would never forget,
5) Teaching me how to fight, stand up for myself and how to properly defend myself.
6) His never ending smile, apples, sweet tea and cherry pies.
7) His uncanny ability to win all the large prizes at the fair, so many he was banned from playing the games.
Of course this list could go on and on but I will leave it there. On Fathers' Day I always remember my dad fondly and I wish my children and grand children could have got to know him as well as I did. He was a great man that died way too soon!

Stuff Jotted Down

This is a very old blog, I started it years ago when I was trying to get a photography business started. My last post was in 2008, and I just quit because my health issues made it virtually impossible for me to continue with photography with any real consistancy. Today, while viewing a friends post on Facebook, he posted a link to the blog, http://bluhoo.blogspot.com/ so of course, I checked it out. I laughed so hard I made my husband curious so I began to read pieces and parts out loud to him. We both laughed. Laughter in our house is a strange and odd sound because so often there isn't any to hear. I immediately clicked to follow this blog and it brought me here to my old one. I went ahead and made changes. I erased all the old posts and set up a different design. I have always liked writing and since I want to write a novels with stories from my head- a dangerous place to be at times- I thought I would set this up and give it a whirl! After all, to write, you need to practice and I can always use a place to vent and create. So let's see where this takes us.