Spring Fever

Winter is lasting too long! I’m weary of the ‘same old, same old’. I’m yearning to plant something. I don’t even have a seed catalog to browse which might satisfy my visual urge for greenery and flower blossoms.

Watching the Olympics broke the monotony of cold winter days. Skiing events brought back memories of snowy winters in Iowa when I, my brothers and sisters, went skiing down the hill at the cemetery. The length of the runs was approximately three city blocks.

Part of the hill was terraced so one had a choice of straight downhill runs, or runs with jumps. Some had only one or two jumps. One of the runs had five terraces, and when one got good enough to ski all five without taking a spill, they graduated to the runs at the bird refuge, a hill similar in height to the cemetery hill, only with trees- lots of them.

The day I took the five jumps successfully, I trudged over to the bird refuge. When I got to the top of the hill and looked down, I saw that one would have to ski around one, perhaps several trees before reaching the bottom of the hill. I watched skiers, mostly college boys, negotiating the runs while I studied the situation. I doubted my ability to avoid a collision with a tree and returned to the cemetery.

Reminiscing childhood memories does not prevent winter fatigue. My sister, Esther and I both are longing for warmer days and have been sharing ideas for summer salads. Of course we both know the old adage, "be careful what you wish for, you might get it". We know extreme weather conditions seem to have become the norm. One of these days we will be wishing for a drop in temperature to alleviate scorching hot days.

Tulips

My beautiful yellow tulips have reached their peak of perfection in the vase of water I put them in on Valentine’s Day. The vase sits on the counter in the kitchen where every time I enter, the first things I see are their exquisite yellow cups amid pointed ends of slender, green leaves.

I have never grown them, but my sister Esther speaks of planting a tulip bed, and in my imagination I can see how lovely one would be. Several years ago, my neighbor across the street in Orange, Texas planted a large bed of King Alfred tulips which took one’s breath away when they bloomed every spring.

Many years ago in Iowa Falls, Iowa, when my sister, Adeline and I were very young, (I think I was in the third grade and Adeline in the second), we were so captivated by the beauty of tulips in a neighbor’s yard that we agreed to sneak one for Mom. There were so many different colors it was hard to choose one, so we decided to each pick a different color.

The loss of two blossoms would never be noticed, but those two picked tulips became our downfall. As we walked among the plants and admired a particular tulip here or there, we began to pick just one more and before we knew it, we each had an arm full of tulips in every color known in the tulip world.

It was a Sunday afternoon and the neighbors must have been away from home or they surely would have noticed us. When we walked back across the street to our house, Dad met us at the door to tell us to be quiet, everyone was napping. When he saw the tulips, he knew immediately what had happened and he took off his belt and gave each of us a good spanking. I was first. As he held one of my hands I twisted around him, getting a good whack on my fanny with each step. I refused to cry but took the punishment silently. I think my silence caused him to give me a few extra whacks.

When Adeline stepped up for her turn, she yelled and hollered as she twisted around Dad, and cried louder with each step she took. It seemed to me that her whacks were not as many, nor as hard as mine had been, but while I watched her getting punished, I realized at that moment, Adeline was much smarter than I.

Sometimes silence is not golden!

The Fat Cat by KimB

The Fat Cat

the fat cat sleeps all day
and sleeps the whole night through
eats its grub and gives a rub and is never ever blue

the fat cat sits on laps
and sits on the window sill
it wiles its gaze while it wiles its days and has but worries few

the fat cat is a wonderment
a lesson for all to see
to learn to laze and to learn the ways of full contentment true

the fat cat talks in a cat lingo
totally unknown to me
if I could learn just one meow, I might just have a clue

the fat cat shows for all to know
and for all who care to see
how to perfect days and to perfect ways with just a little mew

KimB 2009

Good Time Charlie

Charles Wilson was my congressman when I lived in Orange, Texas. He held town hall meeting when he was home from Washington, which were announced well in advance in the newspaper, listing towns, date, time and place.

There were also scheduled stops at Kroger’s grocery store parking lot for his motor home, with several members of his staff substituting for him. Meeting places varied according to facilities available in each of the towns in his district. In Orange, meetings were at the courthouse, in one of the court rooms.

The meetings were always well attended, audiences being friends, neighbors and acquaintances. I took an interest in all the discussions, including those questions from the audience asking for help with social security or some other problem they thought Charlie could solve for them.

I never asked a question or vocalized an opinion, being content to listen and learn about some of the concerns my neighbors had, until the meeting scheduled the morning after the news of the first casualty in the first Iraq war, a family man with several small children.

I don’t remember now the exact news about the circumstances of the death, but at the time it seemed unconscionable to me that the army would have sent a father with small children on a fatal mission.  Knowing that any soldier is ‘expendable’, the army ‘coulda, shoulda’ sent a single person instead of a family person.

When the meeting started, I stood up and voiced my opinion. When I finished, there were murmurs of approval and loud whisperings indicating others in the audience had the same thought.

Charlie’s response was that the army was an all volunteer army. That was all he said. It took a moment for me to absorb the meaning, and I think for the rest of the audience too. There was silence. Then as Charlie asked if there were any other questions, people began to interact with him and the meeting went on.

When the Soviets were fighting in Afghanistan, I watched the televised broadcasts of Charlie traveling with the Mujahideen and I became opposed to our helping them fight the Russians. I had just finished reading two books about the country, one written by a past ambassador to the country and other about the experience and treatment of a group of men who had the misfortune to be prisoners of Muslim nomads some years prior. When the news told of Charlie giving Stinger Missiles to the Mujahideen, I was more convinced than ever that we had no business being in Afghanistan.

I decided to meet with the staff in the motor home on their next visit to Orange so they could relay my protest to Charlie and other politicos in Washington.

That morning, the area was experiencing one of Texas’s famous rain storms. I parked my car next to the motor home, and even though I held an umbrella, I was totally soaked by the time I entered the motor home.

A young woman was solicitous, taking the umbrella from me and rather than staying in the front of the vehicle where a booth had been made into a mini office, she took me to the back of the motor home where sofas and a coffee table were. She listened to my protest most courteously. I started to leave, but then she began to voice the opposite opinion and we had quite a long discussion about Afghanistan.

One of the town hall meetings I attended took place on the front lawn of the courthouse on a beautiful spring day.  We stood in the shade of a tree while Charlie told us about his work in Washington. He was also campaigning and asked for our votes in the coming election. His republican opponent, a strong anti-abortion advocate, was the daughter of my neighbor and had a lot of local support.  Charlie had loyal supporters of his own.  I spoke up and said that as long as he continued being ‘pro choice’, he would have my vote. He came and shook my hand, put his arm around my shoulders and thanked me.  Others began to crowd around and say they would vote for him too.

I kept my promise and voted for him until he retired.

Charles Nesbitt Wilson (June 1, 1933 – February 10, 2010)

February

A month of birthdays, billets-doux and candy hearts. Today, February 9, 2010, my sister Esther and I will meet in cyber space for our regular cyber chat. While sipping our mugs of coffee, we each will enjoy a cupcake in remembrance of our sister, Adeline’s birthday. She would have been 86.

If she were here with me in Houston, I think she would believe the silver cloud streaks, forcing their way around and thru the dark rain clouds, as a happy omen for the year ahead. We always pretended the way you spent your birthday was a harbinger of the year to come.

Adeline’s month was always filled with excitement. For Valentines Day, as students, we spent hours cutting hearts out of colored construction paper, pasting them on paper doilies and writing messages in crayon to give our classmates.

In those days, President Washington’s and President Lincoln’s birthdays were emphasized in all the grades creating an atmosphere of celebration.
I have so many wonderful memories of Adeline. Some of my favorites are when her four children were well past the baby stage and involved in school grade activities. I always enjoyed visiting in the afternoons when they came home from school. Mike was always in need of a new pair of track shoes. Ginny would head for the kitchen and make French fries for her after school snack. David made mustard sandwiches and Mark’s expertise was fudge, the best I ever ate!

Once, when Adeline and I were well into our senior years, and she was recuperating from a serious illness, I casually mentioned in our phone conversation, that she had to get well so we could ride our Harleys cross country.

Of course we had no Harleys, had never been on a Harley, didn’t know anyone with a Harley and knew that we would NEVER even sit a Harley. We both had a good belly laugh at the ridiculous idea of rolling down the highway with King of the Road models, wearing Harley helmets and Harley gloves. From that moment on we played the Harley game.

On one of Adeline’s visits we went to the local library and checked out a beautiful coffee table book on the history of Harleys with photos of all the models. We learned to recognize which model went with what year, and the details of each.

One day while shopping at Wal-Mart we discovered the tiny Harley models in the toy department. That’s when we started collecting them. Adeline even had the Harley police models.

A week later, after Adeline had gone back to California, Esther and Cindy came to visit and brought me a present from Adeline. It was in a brown bag. When I opened it, there was a beautiful pair of black leather Harley gloves! Even the brown paper bag was an official Harley item. They told me that when they had driven Adeline to New Orleans for her flight home to California, they went to the Harley store and bought the gloves before going to the airport. They are among my most prized possessions!

Career Choices

I am not job hunting, nor am I contemplating a choice of careers, but this morning I had a flash of insight that had I not followed my inclination to study art and painting, I might very well have become a Reference Librarian. I love looking things up. I’ve been doing it for years and never realized that I was training myself for that kind of job.

I think it started when I was in the 4th grade. The classroom had a huge dictionary on a stand underneath the windows. Students did not have to ask permission, but could quietly leave their desk to go to the dictionary. I did so frequently to get surreptitious glances outside the window. Sometimes I actually went to look up the meaning and spelling of a word.

The town library was my favorite ‘hang out’ place when I was in the lower grades. I loved watching the librarian finger thru the membership cards in such an efficient manner when she checked out my books. I also liked roaming thru the stacks to thumb thru a book at random. High school, students used the College library and I usually spent my daily assembly periods there. I actually studied or did research for a paper after browsing the latest National Geographic.

Computers have made it so easy to look things up. Surfing the Internet and using Google means I can look up things whenever I like. I am constantly amazed at the data available on any subject. I have become a ‘Researcher’ and never realized it!