Twenty-Five Years

My mother passed away 25 years ago on this day. Early in the morning, I received the phone call that she had passed somewhat unexpectedly in the night. She had pancreatic cancer, and the doctors had said she likely had another month or two to live. I knew the end was near; just two days earlier, I had brought a local preacher in to see her, giving her the chance to make her peace if she wanted, or to say nothing if she didn’t.

I hadn’t expected her to pass away so soon after that visit. Perhaps that brief moment, that permission from someone like the preacher, was all she needed to move on. I will never know.

My mother worked hard to make a good life for herself and her two children, my brother and me. She held a full-time job for all the time I lived at home. I remember how she kept the house sparkling clean, always ready for the days my father returned from business trips. She retired in the 1990s, when she was about 46, because by then she had her years in after having worked at the same company since she was 16. She died 10 years later. Her retirement years were not easy, unfortunately.

I wish she could have been happier.

Pancreatic cancer is a cruel cancer. I'm sure treatments are better now than they were 25 years ago, but not by much. It's a cancer that is generally not diagnosed until it is in its advanced stages. The most common type, pancreatic adenocarcinoma, has a survival rate of just 8% of people five years after diagnosis.

My mother lived just over a year beyond her diagnosis.

I have now lived a longer life than my mother did. It's sobering to think that I have spent more time alive, breathing in the lovely smells of my beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, than my mom did. 

Fifty-six is awfully young to die. Each year I live beyond that feels like borrowed time.

The Weight of the Evening

It is thundering without rain.

 The silence between the claps is deafening.

 

The trees are still, and the birds have flown to the ground.

 

The air is heavy with heat and humidity.

 The sky grumbles, mumbles, and still, I see no light.

I feel the pressure of the weather change in the circumference of my head.

 The weight of the evening is like the grip of grief around my heart.

Now I smell it—that scent of rain. 

It’s in the air, but the drops still hang high above, waiting. 

The sky has darkened. 

The thunder continues its ornery grumbling.

I hold my breath. 

I watch the trees for movement, scan the sky for that tell-tale streak of light that would mean it’s time to step away from the window.

Suddenly, I think of my great-grandmother. 

She used to sew by the window, scissors in hand, when lightning struck. 

The bolt went through her and out the scissors. I have them on my desk now—a family memento that has never needed sharpening since that day.

Happy Birthday, Mom

 

My mother in her Girl Scout uniform

My mother would have been 81 years old today, if she had not passed away in 2000. She was 56 years old when she died.

I was 37. My mother was a young mother, giving birth to me when she was 18. That's awfully young to be raising a child, although back then it was more normal than it might be today.

Looking at the picture of my mother in her Girl Scout uniform, I wonder what that young woman hoped and dreamed. Did she want children? Did she want to explore the world? What was her passion?

Unfortunately, I never really got to know my mother as a person, as one might a friend, say. We were never able to meet one another as adults, on equal footing, and learn about each other as people. I think that may be an issue for many families.

My mother always saw me as a young child who was an adult. She used to say that I wasn't raised, I was "jerked up." She was right about that. I have always felt like an old person, trying to do the right thing, trying to be nice, trying to find my way through what I considered my morality and my justice. I think my ideals and personality were not things she was prepared to deal with. Had she lived longer, perhaps things might have been different, but I don't know. 

My mother worked as a file clerk for a company in Salem, Virginia, that was located a block behind the house her parents lived in. It was a convenient drop-off point for us kids when we were sick or during the summer. 

She hated the drive from Botetourt into Salem; it could be 45 minutes or longer, especially before they redid the Botetourt exit. Traffic would back up there for miles after 5 p.m.

She retired from the same job when she hit 40 years, or maybe it was 35, but at any rate, she was in her late 40s. She talked of traveling with my father, though she had a fear of flying. I know they took a few trips by car before things fell apart for them.

My mother was a very good seamstress and sewed most of my clothes when I was young. I did not appreciate this talent at the time and wanted store-bought clothes like the other kids had. Young children generally do not recognize or realize what is going on with parents. They are, after all, children. I'm sure this was a money-saving move, and also something my mother enjoyed doing. She was good at painting craft things, such as plaster Christmas houses, and her work always looked quite professional. I wonder what she could have done if she'd had training in art or something. I also wonder if she wanted to do more with that creative side of herself. She never said.

She also was a very good cook. To her dismay, I did not take to the culinary arts and I'm not sure she realized that particular gift went to my brother. Maybe she knew. I hope she did.

My mother and I had a tumultuous relationship. Neither of my parents knew how to nurture a sensitive and creative child and did not have the tools to try. I remember my mother telling me I would never be a writer, that I had to take secretarial courses. I was a secretary at various times, but I also managed to be a writer despite the lack of support.

I don't think my mother found the happiness she wanted. She tried to be happy, but I never knew her to be very pleased with her circumstances in life. I felt that nothing I did was ever the right thing. I spent most of my childhood trying to figure out how to please someone who admired a dandelion one day and threw it back at me the next.  I did not succeed.

For all of that, she was my mother, and as such I of course loved her as best I could love anyone. Her last year of life was not very good; pancreatic cancer is a rough way to go. 

Anyway, happy birthday, Mom. You died while you were still beautiful even though you were ill. In my mind you will always be forever young.

Happy Birthday, Grandma

Today is my grandmother’s birthday. She would have been 102 years old if she were still living.

When I picture childhood, I am sitting at her kitchen table with a bowl of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup steaming in front of me and a packet of “Granddaddy cookies” off to the side. Those were Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème Pies, called that because my grandfather took one in his lunch every day. They were comfort food for a chronically puny kid who missed thirty or more days of school each year with bronchitis or walking pneumonia. Grandma’s house was my infirmary, my library, my television paradise, and most of all, my refuge.

She had already raised five children by the time I came along, with a sixth one to come a year to the day after me. Even so, she poured fresh patience and love into every grandchild who passed through her door. 

On sick days she tucked me into her lap, swaddled in one of Aunt Susie’s afghans, and rocked while she sang “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do.” Her voice and the chair moved in rhythm until I drifted off to sleep. If I wasn’t too sick, I’d camp out on the couch with tissues. Grandma could pick up more TV channels than we could in the country, so together we watched The Price Is Right, Dark Shadows, and The Guiding Light. I was too young for some of it, but I loved every minute.

At 2 o’clock every afternoon, the house fell quiet. That was when Grandma talked to someone named “Mama Fore,” and we were not to interrupt unless we were bleeding. Even then, it had better be a lot of blood.

Reading was my favorite part of sick days. Grandma was proud of her World Book Encyclopedias, and if I wasn’t too snotty, I could sit and read them. I flipped through pages on the Galapagos Islands and Greenland, just because the names sounded interesting. I read my aunt’s Nancy Drew books, the Little House series, The Silver Skates, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and just about anything else I could get my hands on. Most people don’t read the encyclopedia, but I did, and I loved it.

Grandma had only a fourth-grade education, but she valued knowledge. She read the newspaper from front to back, even the grocery ads, and would read it aloud to me. I was reading The Roanoke Times by myself at four years old and have hardly missed a day since. Over fifty years of reading that paper ought to earn me something, don’t you think?

She let me ask questions, and I had plenty of them. If someone told me the sky was blue because God made it that way, I’d follow up with another “why?” Grandma didn’t mind. She encouraged that curiosity.

Her house held rituals I remember even now. Friday was hair day at Aunt Neva’s. Grandma would walk the three blocks there, crossing a four-lane road, sometimes with us tagging along on bikes if we were old enough. 

There was always a rag bag in the hallway closet full of old sheets and fabric. We made doll blankets and superhero capes and were supposed to put everything back when we were done. I’m sure I forgot sometimes.

She made macaroni and cheese that I have never been able to replicate. It was baked until it was crusty on top and firm all the way through. I’m not even sure I liked it, but it was part of dinner more often than not.

When my brother and I stayed with her during the summer, we’d sometimes walk the mile and a half into downtown Salem. We bought balsa airplanes, paddle balls, or plastic model kits with our saved-up change. Before heading back, Grandma treated us to snow cones from Brooks Byrd Pharmacy. I always picked the blue one.

She hung laundry on the line whenever the weather allowed. She liked the way fresh air made it smell. She grew big, showy peonies along the side of the house. They were beautiful.

After my grandfather died when I was twelve, everything changed. He passed away shortly before he was fully vested in his pension at Kroger, where he worked, and the company refused to give my grandmother anything. That left her raising two boys on Social Security. My mother and the rest of the family stopped shopping at Kroger after that. 

Grandma never learned to drive, and after Granddaddy died, that made life harder. My mother or uncles had to take her to the grocery store. I remember Mom tried to talk her into getting a license, but Grandma would not hear of it. None of her sisters drove either. I wonder why.

She had losses. She lost her husband. She lost my mother, her oldest child. She lost a brother and a sister. I was too young to really know how she felt, especially about my mother’s death. She didn’t talk about things like that. But when I was fifteen and headed to prom, I had my date drive all the way to Salem so Grandma could see my dress. She called my mother after I left and cried because I had thought to come. I was the oldest grandchild.

When I was older and it was no longer a long-distance call, I’d phone Grandma often. It didn’t matter what time it was. She always picked up, even if she had cousins running around the house. We talked about simple things—what was growing, what we cooked for dinner—but I miss those conversations more than I ever imagined I would.

Every year, she looked for the first robin and said it meant spring had come. I don’t think she liked winter much. I think she liked warmth, flowers, and children.

Sometimes now, when I’m lonesome, I talk to her. She doesn’t answer, at least not out loud, but I feel like she listens. She was always good at that. I might need a long talk with her very soon.

Happy birthday, Grandma.

For My Grandfather

The hollow whisper of bone against pine

He is rattling in the hush of earth

unsettled now in unquiet times.

I knew him as an old man, hands withered,

worn with work-filled days

But he was young once, and went to war.

For me he played his guitar

sang country songs while his fingers

flew up and down on the strings.

I think of him and his silent hands still speak, 

a rhythm etched in time.

His old heart would burst if he could see me now.

 

I hear him pluck in the weight of his absence, 

strings humming with a ghost’s breath, 

rough fingers worn like weathered roads

His memory is like dusk settling over a quiet song. 

He plays in echoes, not lost but shifting in the wind — 

a tune only I still hear.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend

Last night, I learned that the husband of my old best friend Brenda, who passed away in 2021, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Alleghany, an adjacent county.

Willie was a distant cousin of mine. We shared a set of great-great grandparents. I just saw him last week at a talk about the history of Carvins Cove.

His older sister, Monty, died in 2016 when she was hit by a vehicle in Floyd County. She was my friend and cousin too. She was a writer, and we talked shop often, even occasionally challenging one another via email to write or work on projects.

I never was able to properly mourn his wife Brenda's death, because of Covid and the family had a private ceremony. And now her husband has gone in a shocking and horrible way.

He is survived by a son who lives out of state.

I wrote several articles about Willie when I worked for the newspaper. He and Brenda were important members of the Town of Fincastle, the county seat. He served as the town mayor for a while, and Willie and Brenda were instrumental in keeping the Christmas lights going in the town for many years. They were pillars of the community.

You can read one article I wrote in 2011 here.

Here is an article I wrote about Willie in 2009:

Willie Simmons

***

A gift to a sister has given wood turner Willie Simmons of Fincastle a new and useful implement to add to his creations of bowls, pepper mills, and other products.

The master craftsman in February came across a "bunch of this colored wood" through a friend in Pennsylvania. The wood, scraps from a gunsmith, have become fun and colorful handles under Simmons' skillful hands.

He added a decorative handle to a seam ripper and gave it to his sister, Monty Leitch, who took it with her to a sewing class. "A lot of people saw it and wanted one," Simmons said. He went to Walmart and bought all of the seam rippers he could find in order to create more.

Since then, the product has been a big hit with local sewing enthusiasts - so much so that one of them wrote the item up for Threads magazine, "the crown jewel" of sewing magazines, as Simmons called it. 

The seam rippers will be a featured "great gift" in an article scheduled to appear in the November magazine. Simmons is expecting to receive many orders on his website (wpswoodturning.com) when the article comes out.

Seam rippers as sold in stores are small and easily lost; the handles that Simmons places on the product make the seam ripper less likely to become another victim of the junk drawer gremlins. The handle also makes the product easier to manipulate and appears to be particularly helpful to those with arthritis or other hand ailments that may impede use. Additionally, the handle is reusable and metallic "ripper" part can be replaced if it becomes dull with use.

"I'm tickled to death" with the way the handles have worked out, Simmons said. "I've hit on something people can use."

The wooden handles come in pink, blue, purple, orange, camouflage, red and other colors as the wood becomes available. Because the wood is nearly 400 miles away and of a limited supply, these products may be limited not only in color but also in availability, Simmons said. The limited supply also means he cannot create special orders.

The colored wood also makes decorative handles for ice cream scoopers and make up brushes. The interesting colors are eye-catching, and these products are selling well at craft shows and in Simmons' shop.

As a craftsman, Simmons said he likes for his items to do more than sit on a shelf. "I don't make art work," he said, though some of his pieces are as decorative and lovely as they are useful. "I like stuff being used."

He has been a wood turner wood for over 25 years, and woodworker for more than 30. He became interested in working with wood when he was helping his father with his furniture and antique repair shop, which was located at the same site as Simmons' woodworking shop. 

For the last 20 years, Simmons has honed his craft and sold his work at various arts and crafts shows. Many of the festivals he attends are out of state or in northern Virginia.

Simmons last year began creating walking sticks as a special order for a Charlottesville businessman who, after adding his own touches, sells them to Orvis. The walking sticks, which are made of tiger maple wood, can be purchased from the mail order company's online catalogue. "I'm very pleased with the work I have done" on the sticks, Simmons said. "I think they are gorgeous."

The sticks sell online for $279.00. Simmons has some sticks for sale at his shop, though they are not exactly like the ones available through Orvis. They have different finishes or have not been stained. Supplies are limited, he said.

The sticks he sells frequently have "ambrosia streaks" in them, and the sticks online do not have those markings. Ambrosia streaks are created when a beetle that attacks maple trees leaves its byproduct in the wood. The stain leaves unique streaks, Simmons explained. It's a desirable thing in the wood.

He has also been experimenting with the walking stick designs and has created a two-part walking stick that may also be used as a cane. 

Simmons will have his wood working shop open during Botetourt's Open Studios, which takes place October 26 and 27. His work is for sale anytime he is at his shop.

The Morning

About 52 years ago, on a Saturday sometime in May, I woke early.

My parents were still asleep, as was my brother. No one was up but me. 

We lived in an old farmhouse at the time. It had a row of boxwoods across the front next to the road.

For whatever reason, when I rose, I decided I was going to trim the boxwoods. We did chores back in those days - maybe I had been told I was going to be doing that over the weekend. In any event, I was nine years old, and I was going to do a job. I dressed myself, ate a Pop Tart, found the hedge clippers, and went out front.

Snip. Snip. I vaguely remember the pile of greenery growing up around me as I trimmed. I recall it wasn't hot but a mild day, and the work was, if not fun, pleasurable. I was doing what needed to be done. I imagined that inside the boxwoods lived all manner of creatures - fairies, gnomes, talking rabbits. I carried on quite a conversation with my imaginary friends hidden in the greenery as I moved the clippers across the boxwoods, cutting away the excess growth.

I was so engrossed in my work that I never heard my parents calling for me inside the house. Nor did I hear my mother's calls out the back door.

It wasn't until she came around front calling my name that I stopped and looked up from my trimming of the hedge to see her worried face.

Her face changed from worry to shock as she stood there taking in the sight of me. I wasn't missing - I was working. And nearly finished, at that. I had been at it for well over an hour.

My mother has been gone for almost 25 years. Today is no special day; I have no reason for this memory. Sometimes, though, I forget what my mother's voice sounded like. It has been many years, after all, since I last heard her say something.

But when I call up this memory, when I hear her calling out my name as she rounds the corner of the house, concern echoing in the timbre of her shout, I remember every time.

The Button Box

My extra present at Christmas was something old.

It was my mother's button box. Well, actually it's a fruitcake tin from the 1960s, full of buttons.

I had mentioned it on a blog post about my mother back in June, when Thursday landed on her birthday. I wrote about some of my memories of my mother for Thursday 13, and mentioned the button box, wondering what had happened to it. My mother passed away in 2000 from pancreatic cancer. Most of her things remained with my father.

My stepmother saw my blog post (I didn't know she read my blog), and she knew where the button box was. She pulled it out of the basement and cleaned it up and gave it to me for Christmas.

She was quite emotional when she gave it to me. I probably did not offer up the expected reaction - I am not one to cry, especially in front of other people, but I was certainly shocked and surprised to see it.

I imagine many women of my mother's generation had a button box. Waste not, want not and all of that. My brother and I used to make a kind of toy out of the buttons and a string, a zinger type thing that I am not describing well. It was always fun to comb through the box and see what was there.

Long ago, I probably remembered what some of the buttons came off of and thought about those garments as I sorted through the buttons. Now, I have no idea, but there are certainly a lot of buttons in there, as well as needles and a die from a game, among other things.

It was incredibly kind of my stepmother to clean up the box and give this to me as a keepsake. I really appreciate her thoughtfulness.

Christmas Eve

The older I get, the more nostalgic I seem to be for those Christmas Eves long ago. The ones where my parents threw a big party, and loads of people came, and my brother and I opened our presents to one another - an effort by my parents to calm us down.

So many people, and Santa Claus coming? What kid wouldn't be wound up tighter than a corkscrew in a wine bottle?

We were supposed to go to bed, but we generally stayed up as long as we could, peering around the corner, watching the grownups talk, dance, and play music. How were we to sleep with all of that noise, anyway?

On one particularly memorable Christmas Eve, (and I may have told this story before) I remember hearing shrieks from women. I peeked around the corner and the ladies were pointing toward the refrigerator.

A drunken mouse was roaming around the floor. I am not sure where the men were - playing music or standing around outside, maybe - but the mouse was there. He'd obviously been imbibing on something.

My mother very calmly and quickly slipped off her shoe. Thwack! She slammed it down on the mouse, amidst the cries of the other women. Then she got the broom and dustpan and swept it up off of the linoleum and took it outside.

She came back in like nothing had happened. I was not surprised, having seen my mother do amazing things, but the other women were either aghast or admiring.

I thought it was hilarious.

Once we finally went to sleep, and the guests left, my parents would do the Santa thing, placing our gifts under the tree. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, my brother would shake me awake.

"Santa's come! Santa's come!" he would whisper excitedly.

I would climb out of bed and follow him to the living room, where we could see our bounty spread out beneath the tree. Then we'd go back to bed until our parents called us in.

When we arrived in the room and did not look surprised, my father would look at my mother. "They got up again," he would say.

This happened nearly every year, even when we were teenagers, though by then most of our presents were wrapped, not left out. After all, we knew who Santa was.

The excitement held for a long time.

I sure miss those days.

Getting Ready

I was getting ready for company earlier today, and I was struck by a memory of my mother doing the same thing.

My mother, though, had a routine that would make mine look like child's play. She was the ultimate personal hairstylist and makeup artist for herself.

She teased her hair up until she was too ill to do that anymore. And she wore makeup almost constantly; I seldom remember seeing her without it.

My mother always looked beautiful when she went out, even if only to the grocery store. She would be totally decked out, well dressed, and dignified.

I'm not sure she owned a pair of blue jeans.

I, on the other hand, had a routine that included hair and makeup, but I have always had easy to manage haircuts - blow, maybe a bit of a curling iron, brush, and done. My makeup routine was foundation, eye shadow, mascara, a little blush, a powder to top it off - done. I could usually be dressed in 30 minutes and my wardrobe of choice was pants and a top. Occasionally, I wore a skirt.

Dresses and I did not get along. I have always had trouble with shoes, because I have trouble with my feet. I once was told at a law office that I would never get promoted because I did not wear heels.

I opted for dress flats back then.

These days, I do my hair, still, but it remains in an easy-to-handle cut. My makeup is now nonexistent because I can't find any makeup to which I am not allergic. I can be ready in 15 minutes, 10 if I push it, not counting a shower.

My mother would be appalled to see me going out to the grocery stores in blue jeans, a t-shirt, and no makeup. I wear nothing but sneakers. I own a pair of black sneakers for dress shoes, if you can believe that.

If I stop and think about it, I'm a little appalled myself, but I haven't found a way around it. I am always neat and clean, if not decked out. It's hard to find decent clothes in my size, and since I am home more often than not, I don't know that it matters too much.

Mom sure could do herself up, though. She always looked her best.

My mom & dad, mid 1990s, maybe?

Contentment - Day 6

I thumbed through old papers this morning, looking for a manual on a piece of machinery my husband couldn't find.

In doing so, I stumbled over an envelope full of photos. I pulled it out and began looking through them. They were pictures of me from school and a large picture of my grandmother as a young girl that I would have sworn was of my mother if not for the name written on the back. And there were pictures of my mom.

The envelope was one of the last things she gave me before she died.

It wasn't the pictures that got to me though - they were just images. What did get to me was the smell.

The envelope smelled not of old paper, but of my mother. A smell that I'd not thought of in many years, and one that even now I cannot describe.

Something like a cross between makeup, hairspray, and light perfume.

Nothing that comes from a bottle.

Just my mom.

Happiness - Day 24

This should have been yesterday's notation, but here goes.

Last night we went to my father's to visit with my cousin and his wife who were in from California.

They live in Chico, near the Park Fire. They came in last weekend but went to Myrtle Beach with my father and stepmother, so I did not get to see them until last night.

We had a good time sharing memories of differing childhoods, one on the west coast, and my brother and I on the east coast.

Kids are kids though. I also heard stories about my cousins that I hadn't heard before. I have always been a little sad that I don't know my father's side of the family that well. They moved to California when I was 6 months old. My dad and mother stayed here.

At any rate, we all had tacos, made by my cousin who wanted to cook, and enjoyed an evening on the deck telling tales.

Everyone but me: from left, my cousin Steve, my
brother's girlfriend, Steve's wife Lisa, my stepmother,
my father, my husband, and my brother.

______________________

Happy August Happiness Challenge!

 

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

The Day Elvis Died

There are many things that happened nationally that I remember because I remember where I was and what I was doing.

I know exactly where I was when the second plane hit the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001. I know where I was when Challenger exploded. I know where I was when I heard President Reagan had been shot. I know where I was when I learned John Lennon had been shot. I know where I was on November 9, 2016, when I learned that Hillary Clinton lost the election even though she won the popular vote.

And I know where I was when the radio announcer said, in solemn tones, "The King is dead."

We were driving through some flat area of Kansas or someplace like that, my parents, my brother, my grandmother, my two young uncles, and me, all piled into a bus-van type contraption that my father had found for a trip across the country.

My father had been flipping radio stations to find something to listen to, and that was what we heard, "The King is dead." We were all hushed while my father tried to find a station to figure out what was going on. At first, we were confused - what king? King of a country? Not the king of rock and roll, surely. He was only 42 years old.

After much fiddling with the radio dials - we were, after all, in the middle of nowhere in the Midwest - my father found another station.

"Elvis Presley is dead," the announcer said.

My father gasped, my mother shrugged, my grandmother said something to the effect of that being too bad.

My brother and two uncles went back to playing cards in the back of the bus-van, my grandmother returned to her nap, and my father drove, his hands tight on the steering wheel, not yelling at the boys for making noises they made as they messed around in the back.

I sat behind my father, and I watched him. I was only 13, but I knew this was important.

I have never asked Dad what that meant to him, to have someone he had idolized die and have no one to share it with when it happened. He didn't talk about it, didn't make much of it. He just kept driving.

My father was a big Elvis fan. My father had a band of his own and he sang many Elvis songs. He idealized himself as a "B" version of Elvis, or so I thought. My mother, who was riding shotgun in the bus-van, didn't seem to care one way or another, but I remember feeling the change in my father's mood even though he didn't say a word.

I remember his sadness, though he made sure no one saw him sad.

He wasn't alone, of course, we were all there in the bus-van. I knew he was feeling something, but we have never been a very lovey-dovey touchy-feely kind of family. I don't know if I was the only one who knew that this was a blow to my father. I've never talked about it with anyone, though my father asked me some time ago if I remembered where we were when we heard about Elvis's death. He was pleased that I remembered, right down to the cornfields along the side of the long stretch of highway.

Wise men say many things; others say very little. I always equate Elvis Presley with my father, and I always have that memory following me around, the memory of me, the young girl-woman in the seat behind her father, watching without comment while the man she once thought hung the moon absorbed devastating news.

His New Favorite Picture

 

A love note from our great niece put my husband in a fine mood. We have it proudly displayed on the refrigerator.

Happy Birthday, Dad

Today is my father's birthday. He is 83.

My mother, my father, me, and my brother
 on the day of my wedding.

My father sang in a band. Still does.

The younger version of my father with his kids.

My father and brother at Dad's 80th birthday party.

My father dancing with my stepmother.

My father enjoying the outdoors in 2021.

Thursday Thirteen #865

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 80 years old today. Here are 13 things about her.

My mother as a young girl.

1. She was madly, fiercely, and desperately in love with my father.

2. By the numbers: She had her first child when she was 18 (that would be me) and her second (my brother) when she was 21. Mom was 38 years old when I married. She retired in her late 40s (I can't remember exactly how old she was), and she passed away at the age of 56 from pancreatic cancer. I was 37 when she died and my brother was 34.

My mother bringing home my brother.

3. Mom could sew well and up until I was old enough to pitch a fit and ask for store-bought clothing, she made most of my clothes.

4. She followed my father to live on a farm that was adjacent to the property on which her father grew up. She diligently canned green beans, helped kill and pluck feathers from chickens, and kept a fire burning for heat, all while working a 40-hour week job that was a 45-minute drive away from home and taking care of her husband and two children.

5. Mom had a button box that was full of glittery things that I liked to play with. It wasn't a box, actually. It was a metal fruitcake tin. But it certainly had a lot of buttons in it. I wonder what happened to it.

6. She could be very creative with arts and crafts. She painted small houses to use for Christmas decor and made mushrooms out of some kind of plaster that she painted up nice.

7.  She was a great cook, although not necessarily with breakfast. (I think that was because, like me, she just wasn't an early morning person.) I remember Dad on Sundays (when Mom wanted to sleep in) would start yelling, "Hungry!" and then he'd get us to join in until we were all shouting, "Hungry" one right after the other. She would stomp into the kitchen muttering and start throwing stuff onto the skillet. She liked to try new things to cook, including a mud duck that tasted like . . . mud. She made a pumpkin pie once that we called pumpkin pudding because it did not set up properly. But most of her meals were delicious.

8. She was always well-dressed and her hair perfectly coiffed. She wore her hair the same way all of her life.

9. She was pretty in a traditional way, though she had freckles and she disliked those immensely. My paternal grandfather used to call her "Liz" because he said she reminded him of Elizabeth Taylor.

Does she look like Liz
Taylor?

10. She was a wonderful grandmother to her grandson before she passed away.

11. She was not afraid of mice. Once during a party, a mouse strode out into the kitchen and Mom took off her shoe, whapped the mouse dead, and then scooped it up with some paper and tossed it outside.

12. She had a decent singing voice but never really got the hang of playing an instrument. She could accompany herself a bit on the organ, though.

This is the way I remember her.

13. She was loyal to her friends and family.

______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 865th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Tomorrow's the Day

Tomorrow is my birthday. I already have my present, a new iPhone SE. Yes, I am still behind with an SE model, but I don't like those big bulky phones they have out at the moment. I'm a short little fat person and I need something small.

I used to like birthdays and holidays, but I do not find them as enjoyable as I once did. More and more, they're just other days. It's not like all of those birthday greetings on Facebook actually mean anything. FB makes it easy to wish someone a happy birthday (and at the moment I don't even know if my notification is turned on, I have turned it off in the past).

That's part of growing old, I guess. Life kind of sucks the joy right out of everything, once you've been around the block a time or two.

Anyway, tomorrow's Saturday, and I was born on a Saturday. The story goes that my mother worked Friday, went into labor at the office, and gave birth to me in the wee hours of the morning. My father said I had the cutest little ears. Or maybe that was my grandfather. Somebody said it, anyway.

I still have cute little ears. Ha. One of them is a bit tender because I accidentally hit it with a hot curling iron yesterday.

So happy birthday to me!

Toodling Around a Town

After we left The Old Brick Hotel in New Castle, we decided to walk the block of Main Street to see what there was to see.

This used to be a bank building when I was writing over there.

The Craig County Courthouse from the front.

Main Street. It looked like someone had spruced up the buildings with fresh paint.

They have a brand-new farmers market.

It looks really nice and should be a great addition to the community.

We walked back toward the car, and I said, "Let's go in here." The shop was called The Emporium, and it was set up kind of as an old-fashioned grocery and had a small bookstore in the rear.

I saw a man enter just after us and I thought he looked familiar, but I had written over there for a long time and many people would look familiar. I was looking around up at the front when I heard someone say my last name out loud.

My husband responded, "Well, how are you!"

I went back to discover, to my surprise, a former firefighter who used to work with my husband. He is also my aunt's ex-husband's brother, making him my cousin's uncle. So family. Sort of.

We did not go to New Castle expecting to run into anyone we knew. To run into someone we considered extended family was incredibly unexpected. We hadn't seen this long-distance relative since 2017 and hadn't had much of a chance to speak then as we were at a concert.

We spent a pleasant 15 minutes or so catching up on family news.

Definitely a nice surprise. Given the earlier surprise of finding paperwork that dealt with my father's family in a county that was not known for that family, (plus seeing a camel), we felt like this afternoon drive had a bit of cosmic coincidence going on with it.

Then we drove around the town some more and saw a cemetery that I couldn't recall seeing before:

I really liked the angel on top. I love old cemeteries anyway; they give off such a cool vibe. They don't make statues like that in new cemeteries.

And that was the end of our adventure. We really should get out of the house more often.

New Castle

Our destination on our Friday drive, wherein we saw a camel unexpectedly en route, was to New Castle, Virginia.

This is where I wrote for a newspaper for a number of years - almost a decade, from about 1995 to 2004. I recently filled in and did some freelancing for the paper again while they looked for a new writer who lives over that way (it's a 40-minute drive from my house). 

I discovered during my little return to writing there that the bound copies of the newspaper - the morgue, as it were - were missing, and the current editor had no idea where they were. I vaguely remembered that the owners had wanted the old bound books tossed, and I also remember my alarm at this loss of history. I recall suggesting to someone that they should give the books to the historical society.

So, it was the historical society and its museum that was our true destination. I wanted to look for myself to see if the bound books where there.

The museum is located in what is known as "The Old Brick Hotel," although it's had numerous names over the years.

Inside, there are the usual museum things:

The Civil War display, found mostly in the southern U.S.

Other military display.

The dining area of the hotel/bar.

A kitchen replica.

Some plates I liked showcasing various things about the community.

The museum office/welcoming section. We saw this last because we went in the back door.

We took a tour of the museum, and I picked up a few history books to purchase. I found the old newspapers I was seeking, and also learned they were moldy and probably not something I really wanted to look through. I have moldy and dusty papers tucked away in a tub in the shed that I could get to just as easily.

One odd thing happened. I mentioned that my father had lived in New Castle for a few short years when he was a young lad, and one of the older ladies asked me his last name. I told her, and she jumped up and started looking for a piece of paper. "There are no members of that family here," she said, "but I have this."

And she handed me a piece of paper that showed where my ancestors, who were doctors in the Civil War, had kept records of their treatment of local residents. She was as surprised as I was to have this weird coincidence with my father's name turn up.

But we still had yet one more surprise to come.