Grasshoppers, anyone?

 

I love this picture. I have some friends who are missionaries in Cameroon, Africa. When they first went to the field, I asked Ellen if she would like some Pampered Chef products to take along. One of the items selected was the batter bowl, which comes with a lid. At our shows we tout all the benefits of this bowl...it truly is very useful and versatile. However, this is one use that I don't think anyone in the home office thought of.

When Thom and Ellen came to visit, they told me how much Gladys, the lady who works in their home, enjoyed all the products. In a later letter, there were several photos.

It started out with the young Cameroonians out in the field gathering grasshoppers, the next picture is this one of Gladys, holding the catch in the batter bowl...then the grasshoppers frying in the pan...finally being eaten by Thom.

It reminds me of the old song, "Where He leads me, I will follow, What He feeds me, I will swallow." 

My Mother

 

Have you ever read the book, Strawberry Girl? It was written by the author Lois Lenski, who wrote books about children from different regions of the country. I asked my children for a copy of it for a Christmas present this year. When they started looking, the looked for an original copy, but it was out of reach, and so they gave me a paperback edition, which happens to be a sixtieth anniversary edition. I just began reading it last night. I'm sure that I read it as a girl.

The setting is Florida. The characters are families who are making a living, or trying to, off the sandy soil. I remember my mother speaking of having to pick strawberries as a girl to help the family make a living. In her later years, she would still go to the fields to pick them after the farmers opened them up to the public. One day she said how much she disliked the task...it isn't easy, you know, with the strawberries growing on the low plants.

My mother was raised in north Florida. She told me that her father's family came from South Carolina, as did the characters in this book. Mother was the second of six children. At one time in her life, she told me that her daddy worked in a logging camp in Scanlon, and they actually lived in a box car. She never did describe to me how it was, and I have a hard time imagining it. Was it literally a box, with no windows? Was it somehow made to be livable? It was when she was twelve that she said she contracted malaria. I can only imagine how hard that might have been.

I remember her teling me how her mother washed the kids' hair with kerosene to get rid of the lice that they had gotten from those "dirty children" who lived not too far away.

I don't know when they moved to town, but Mother graduated from high school in 1930 from the high school in Starke. Some of you know Starke as that town on 301 that you have to drive through when you're going from I-10 to I-75. Although she was next to the oldest of her siblings, she was the only one to graduate from high school.

At some point, she moved from Starke to Lacoochee to live with her older sister, and that is where she met my daddy, who lived in Trilby. He worked at the Cummer Cypress Lumber Mill. They met and married in 1933, right during the depression. Mother didn't have wedding rings until she had been married ten years. In one of my first posts, I shared how they left Lacoochee and moved to Bradenton.

Mother was a very hard worker. She worked in a drug store in Bradenton from 1947 to 1964 when my father died from a heart attack. Montgomery Ward opened a big, new store, and she managed their coffee shop for a while.

She was 50 when my daddy died. I had graduated from college and had gone to Cincinnati to work, and I did not realize what a hard time my mother was having. Both of her parents died and my father died all within a thirteen month period. She continued at her work in order to keep going, but as I said, I didn't know just how hard it was for her.

She was always there for me, whenever I needed anything. I guess that's what mothers are for, isn't it. When Don and I built our house, she gave us money for all the window treatments. When Sarah was born, she took care of her for her first two years of life. We paid her Social Security so that we could claim the child care on our income tax, and when she had finished taking care of her, she gave us the money back that we had given to her.

She's been gone for twelve years. She had a hard life, but a good life, and she never complained... not that I remember anyway. Time has a way of erasing anything unpleasant, doesn't it, and that's a good thing.


"Look in those eyes. Listen to tht dear voice. Notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all gifts. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes, the anxiety of that tone and look, however slight is your pain. In after life you may have friends, fonds, dears, but never you will have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which mone but a mother bestows." - Macaulay 

Pensive

 

Someone commented that they liked the name Color. When she was a kitten, her colors were so vibrant and so many, that seemed a logical name for her. After her experience with the paint and her venture into the outside world, we didn't have to worry too much about her straying very far again.

It's amazing how an animal becomes so much a part of one's life. Ourdaughter graduated and went off to college, and whenever she came home, Color was glad to see her. The same with David. He wasn't as permissive with her as the rest of us. However, Color loved to rub her face against his big feet. On occasion, she would take a sniff of his sneakers and walk away with her mouth open, as if to say, "Boy, those shoes stink."

After I retired from the school board and was home during the day, she said, "Now I've got you where I want you." My lap became her resting place. I loved the excuse of not being able to get up.

On April 30, 2002, the day that my husband went off to work and never came home again was, if you've read my other blogs, the most difficult day of my life. When you open the paper and read of the accident that took your husband's life, it is surreal. So often we read articles like that and think, "Oh, those poor people."
And then it's you.

Our house was filled with people that afternoon and evening. Color didn't know what to think. She had never been fond of a lot of people. Family was o.k., but other than that, she'd rather not.

After everyone had left that evening, I went upstairs to do some e-mailing, and Color was lying at the to of the stairs. I finished and went to my room, and she came down and lay near the door. A mournful cry began. I got up to see what was wrong, and she was lying there twitching, her eyes crossed, her tongue hanging out. I thought for sure that she was dying, and I think I said out loud, "Go ahead and die tonight. At least it won't hurt so bad after everything that has happened today." I checked on her throughout the night, touched her, and each time she looked up at me. About five in the morning, I got up and took a shower. I hadn't slept anyway. When I looked for her, she wasn't there. She had gone downstairs.

She got better, and then six months to the day later, she had another spell like the one on April 30. The vet said she felt sure that she had hepatic encephalopathy. A couple of years previous, we had done an ultrasound, and found that her liver was filled with cysts. The ultrasound is another story in itself.

The vet gave me some medicine for her, she got better and had no other spells, until finally last fall, she breathed her last.

After everyone else had gone, she had remained, and now she's gone...a wonderful friend and companion. 

Lady in Red

Color came to live at our house when she was about seven weeks old in 1987. We had ventured into the pet business earlier in the year with a white kitten, who unfortunately had feline leukemia. The vet had immunized her, but we decided later that her mother must have been infected, because her owner said she had gone off and never came home.

After what the vet said would be a safe amount of time to introduce another cat into our home, we looked in the newspaper for a kitten needing a home. As a result, Color came to live with us and be a part of our family. She fell in love with my husband. Every day when she heard him come in through the garage, she would sit at the door and wait for him to come in and make over her.

Often at the dinner table, she would jump up on a chair and sit with her nose sniffing around to see if there might be something that she would like.

One evening when she was three or four, I left the house to go for parent conferences at our kids' school. When I went out the front door, she scooted out in front of me. We looked for her; I went on to the school, This was on a Tuesday night. We looked everywhere, called the SPCA and Humane Society, but she didn't turn up.

Every morning when my husband was praying with the children before taking them to school, he would pray for Color and could hardly talk. On Friday morning, I had come down stairs before Don, and I heard a cat in the back yard by the pool. I went out, and there she was...ready to come in. There was pink paint on her back...no telling where that came from.

The children had the day off from school, and so they cared for her. When I called them to see how she was doing, they said that her fur was coming out when she licked it. After I got home from school, we took her to the vet, and he shaved off the painted fur and gave her a shot against infection.

After that episode, I didn't worry about her too much if she got out. She knew the way home. However, we made very sure that she was nowhere near us when we opened the door.

More to follow....

Mourning

Sometime ago, I came across the blog of a young pastor in Norwood, Ohio. My eyes lit up because when I graduated from college, I went to Norwood and taught for two years in the Norwood Baptist Christian School. Even though it has been almost forty years since I was there, I still felt a closeness to the friends that I made there.

Chad was living there, seeking to make a difference in the city. He was also a great Steelers fan, and when Pittsburgh was playing Cincinnati in football this year, he caught all kinds of grief from his friends. On of his entries, he had a picture of the Terrible Towel, and the link to the store where they could be bought. I ordered a couple for friends here in Florida.

Not long after the Super Bowl (Yea! Steelers!) he posted that he didn't feel too well and that he probably needed to go to the doctor. Much to my shock, two days ago, I visited his blog, and in the comment section, someone had posted that Chad was in critical condition in ICU with bleeding in his lungs. He then developed a blood clot in his leg.

This morning at 7:00 he passed into the presence of the Lord at the age of 34. What a wonderful promise, "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." But what a hole left for his wife and children. Pray for his wife, Renee, and his two children Colon and Aiden.

A better view

 

I'm learning how to do this stuff...fun...and I should be doing other things right now. Oh well... 

My grandfather and great-grandmother

I was browsing blogs the other day and found one whose author was scanning old photos and sharing some of them on her posts. That has been my intention for some time...to preserve some of those old photos that continue to age.

When my son, David, was in junior high and high school, he wanted to play the guitar, and I never encouraged that. I apologized to him later. He finally bought a guitar and basically taught himself to play, and he is used that gift in his campus ministry and church.

Once while he was home, I showed him this picture of his great-grandfather. He's the one with the banjo. I don't know when the picture was taken, but I imagine it was in Georgia becasue that's where my daddy was born. I think that David was pleased to know that he perhaps shared some of the talent from his grandfather's side of the family.

The woman in the black dress is my great-grandmother. I know that because I recognize the black dress from another photo. I don't know about the others. I wish I knew the date also that the picture was made. 

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjacks

March is the month of spring training in Florida (and Arizona.) Here in Florida it's known as the Grapefruit League. In February, pitchers and catchers come to the state and start their practice, and then during March, the teams practice playing. All of the hopefuls who are invited have high numbers on their uniforms.

Today at the Pirates/Twins game, I only recognized three or four names. The Pirates won, by the way. I believe they've only lost one game so far, but then they've only played since March 1. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are on a roll. They've even won four games (I think.) As I'm writing this and looking for some stats, I see that Kirby Puckett has died after suffering a stroke yesterday.

Spring training games are very relaxed. You don't have an announcer trying to be smart and making comments...they just announce the player, and we watch. Last week, or the last week in February, was a picture of one of the pitcher's dogs doing his business on the infield. You don't see that every day. You do see the players running sprints near the outfield wall, and you can hear the crack of the bat as men work on their batting skills.

Today was my day to eat a foot-long hot dog. I shall eat no more during the season, since I just signed up with Weight Watchers online. I relished every bite. No salted, roasted peanuts though. The salt is a no-no.

I have a friend from church who goes with me to the games. This is her last rite of spring before she returns to Indiana for the summer.

In a month, they're gone. The young ones are hoping to make the roster of the team, as are some of the experienced players. The field becomes quiet until another spring.

More about David

As I said earlier, David went to Penn State and majored in engineering. As he continued in his studies and worked alongside men who had done engineering all their lives, he asked them about their work. To most of them, their job was a paycheck. Now a paycheck is an important thing, but with David's involvement with a group called Christians in Action on campus, he began to realize that God had a different calling on his life.

He continued his engineering, but after he graduated, he became a campus minister with the Coalition for Christian Outreach, based in Pittsburgh. He worked for three years in Indiana PA at the university there. As his contract ran out, he realized that he indeed did want to be involved in education and applied for graduate school at the University of Virginia.

During his time as campus minister, he got married to a wonderful woman named Sabrina. They headed off last fall to Waynesboro VA, not far from Charlottesville, and as they counted the cost of starting graduate work as an out-of-state student, they realized the cost would put them deep in debt. So for this year, they have been working to establish residency, with the hope of starting next year.

A lot has happened...the main thing is that a baby is on the way, and that has changed things again. David's substitute teaching, and he hopes to get a permanent position for fall, and hopefully, to start taking a course.

Things have not gone as he had planned, and I know that there has been some discouragement, but I remind him that God is never late in His plans...just some detours sometimes...and besides that, I'm going to be a GRANDMOTHER!

My Grandkittens

I love to go to the blogs that have pictures of cats. My, how many cat lovers there are in the blogosphere. I lost my feline friend of 18 years last fall. She was with us through thick and thin. My daughter, Sarah, however, has two cats named Tucker and Samson. Whenever I need a kitty fix, I go to her house.

Tucker came to live with her when he was about six weeks old. She had held him from the day he was born, and my they have such a wonderful bond. He is all black, except for a little bit of white here and there. He had his fourth birthday in May.

One day Sarah said, "Mom, I think I'm going to get another cat." She had been going to Petsmart, and a cat there chose her to be his mom. The Humane Society places cats there in hopes of adopting them out. Every time she would go, Samson would reach out his paw to her. He chose her insteach of her choosing him.

The boys get along famously. Samson has never been declawed, and when Sarah brought him home, Tucker showed him the scratching post, and he began using that, and his claws don't come out at all unless he's chasing one of his many mice around the house.

Tucker is long and lean; Samson is short and stocky. They keep each other company while Mom is at work. Such great friends!!

David

My last post was about my daughter, Sarah. Today I’d like to post about my son, David. This is one of my favorite photos of him. The picture was taken at DisneyWorld on Tom Sawyer’s Island when David was about three.

David was born on Easter Sunday, 1979. That day also happened to be April 15 that year. My dear friend, Sara, for whom my daughter is named, happened to be at work that day. She was an accountant and was doing last minute taxes for other people and perhaps her own. David was born just before 11 that morning, and after I got back to the room, I called her at work to tell her that he had been born. Her response, “We’ll call him the Easter bunny this year, but after that, he’ll just be ‘Form 1040.’” What a day for a birthday! At least, we’re patriotic. Sarah’s birthday was Inauguration Day, and David’s income tax day…What a reminder! (

When David was 10 months old, he became very ill with HFlu. After his recovery, I was in my dermatologist’s office, and when I told him about David’s illness, his comment was, “I would have like to have seen that. We lose babies with that.” I knew that he was ill, but I didn’t realize just how ill.

David is very tall, and even in kindergarten, he towered over his friends. He became a very good student in school, and as he got into junior high and high school, he began to play basketball. He had played baseball in Little League. David was not the most athletic on the basketball team, but in his senior year, he was named a scholar-athlete above the other young men.

When it came time for university, he said to his father and me, “I want to go to a big school when I graduate, and I don’t want to go to school in Florida.” There were 55 in his graduating class. Because my children were my mother’s only two grandchildren, she provided for their college education with her gifts and investments over the years.

So off to Penn State David went. He went with the idea of majoring in engineering, which he did, but about halfway through his college career, he really became convicted that his work should be more people oriented. After graduating, he spent three years in Indiana, Pennsylvania at IUP, doing campus ministry.

He now is in Waynesboro, Virginia, establishing residency before entering UVA’s graduate school of education. More about David in another post….

Sarah

This is one of my favorite pictures of my daughter, Sarah. She was about four at the time. Sarah's my firstborn, born when I was 35. I tell everyone that I started the trend of ladies having babies at a later age.

I was 31 when I married, and Don and I waited a while before deciding to have a baby.I had a very dear friend named Sara who lived and worked in Bradenton. She was quite a few years older than I, but we had a great relationship, and when I became pregnant, I told my husband that if this was a girl, she had to be Sarah. Two other couples at our church were pregnant at the same time, and they had both chosen the name Sarah Elizabeth for their babies, that is, if they had girls. I prayed really hard that they would have boys, because the name Sarah Elizabeth was the only name that I had for a girl!Lo and behold, they both delivered before I did, and they both had boys. What a relief!

And then, on January 20, we delivered our daughter. We didn't know that we were having a girl. Sonograms were not quite as prevalent as they are now. A dear Jamaican friend, who was still working in Haiti where I had been, told the ladies there that if the baby's heartbeat was on the right, it was a girl, and if it was on the left, it was a boy. Several missionary women were pregnant; their babies' heartbeats were on the left. And guess what, they gave birth to boys. Sarah's heartbeat was always on the right, and yes! We had a baby girl. My obstetrician said that he had heard lots of ways of predicting the sex of a baby, but never that one.

Today Sarah lives and works in Bradenton. She is my rock. When her daddy died, it was one of the worst days of her life. They had such a bond; they are so much alike. When she laughs and throws her head back or turns her head, I see her dad. I'll never forget what he looks like when I look at her.After I had surgery a year and a half ago, she was right there to see to my needs. I can say today that she is my best friend.

I love you, Sarah.

A cup of coffee?

Would you like a cup of coffee? Whenever we went visiting in Haiti, the lady of the house felt that it was her duty to offer a cup of coffee. It was wonderful to share a cup of coffee with these very gracious people, but, oh my, the work that went into preparing it.

Kitchens in a Haitian home are away from the regular dwelling. Before the coffee can be made, a fire has to be built to heat the water. Madame did not go down to the corner grocery for the flavor of the day. She bought the beans, roasted them, and then ground them. In Haiti you pile them. There needs to be an accent aigu over that e, but I don’t know how to do it. ( The coffee goes into the sack that she has there, and then she pours the hot water over the beans to make the beverage.

Then madame graciously served the coffee in demitasses on a tray. The coffee is very strong, and it needs lots of sugar. Good to the last drop!

There’s nothing like sharing a good cup of coffee with a friend.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Saturday my friend Peggy and I took a trip down memory lane.  We drove over to Polk City, Florida to visit Camp Gilead.  We both went there to camp when we were young girls.  At our church in Bradenton, we had enrolled in Bible Memory Association.  If we learned 250 verses, we would earn a free week at Bible camp.  Five of us enrolled, and we did learn those verses…all over a twelve week period.  We learned entire passages and had to recite them to a listener at the end of the week.

The nearest camp to us was in Alabama, and that was not a possibility for us to go.  This was 1951, fifty-five years ago.  We heard about this camp in central Florida that had a Bible memory program, except you had to learn 300 verses to go to their camp.  A gentleman who worked with them knew about the five of us, and he wrote to Children’s Bible Mission (CBM) to see if we could attend their camp if we learned an additional 50 verses.  They agree, we did, and that began our experience in Bible camp.

Upon arrival at camp, we registered and went to our cabins.  The camp was fairly new.  The camp director was a lady.  Peggy and I said that those ladies seemed awfully old to us.  They were barely 30, but when you’re nine, anyone seems old.  We slept in cabins that had bunks.  The cabins were frame construction, with big wooden flaps that you propped up for ventilation.  When it rained and they had to be closed, they were really hotboxes.

We went to chapel every day.  The chapel was in the center of the campground.  It had the same wooden flaps for windows, and the floor was sawdust.  We had Bible lessons in the morning, a missionary speaker in the afternoon, and chapel again at night.  In between those times, we spent time swimming in the lake and enjoying handcrafts.

At the end of the week we enjoyed a banquet where awards were given out for the week.  Miss Hazel was the head cook, and could she cook!  We never went hungry.  The dining hall (that’s what it’s called now) was called the mess hall then.  Peggy reminded me of the songs that we sang from table to table after the meal…”What did Delaware, boys?”  She wore a “New Jersey.”  “What did Mississipp, boys?”  “She sipped a Minnesota.”

After the first year of camp, we could do correspondence courses to earn our next two weeks of camp, and we five did do that.  After that, some of us worked in the kitchen, became junior counselors, then senior counselors.  I worked there a couple of summers during college, and then had the opportunity to be missionary speaker one summer.

We hold many good memories from those days.  That camp director who was not even 30 when we when we first, went just had her 83rd birthday.  Peggy and I stopped and picked her up in Lakeland and took her with us for the afternoon at camp.  More about all this on another day…

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentine’s Day! My friend over at Melange asked people to write about someone in their lives who loves you unconditionally. My husband, Don, was one of those people. We had a whirlwind romance…I had been teaching missionary kids in Haiti. He had been in Vietnam, and when he got discharged from the Air Force, went to work for a small airline in New York. That airline went belly-up, and some of his parents’ friends said to him, “Why don’t you go to Florida? You can live in our mobile home and look for work there.

He came to Florida in 1970, went to work for Tropicana in the feed mill and eventually learned the electrical trade. He became a member of the church that I was from, and when I came home during the summers to visit my mother, I noticed this tall man who had become active in the church. I can home from Haiti in 1972 to visit churches and friends who had supported me and to go to Europe to study French for three months.

Just before I left for Europe on the day after Christmas 1972, we talked a little bit. We both had sung in the Christmas cantata. I sent him a postcard from England, and then we began corresponding during the three months that I was in Europe. To make a long story short, I came home from Europe April 12, and we got married May 12. Yes, you can put a wedding together in less than a month.

We missed celebrating our 29th anniversary by two weeks. On April 30, 2002, my valentine was killed in an accident. He was in his big work truck. (I had often prayed that he would not become preoccupied with his next job and hurt someone else.) On his way to a job, an elderly driver made a left turn in front of him. He did his best to avoid hitting her, his truck overturned, and he was in the presence of the Lord.

Four years later, it still hurts. It is easy to say with the mouth that God makes no mistakes…God is good all the time. And I know that is true…He is the great I AM, and He knows my hurts.

For you who have that dear one, hold them close and don’t fail to tell them that you love them and appreciate them. I never dreamed that morning when he left for work that I’d never see him again. Thanks for listening to my heart.

Ryland

Almost every morning when I don't have another obligation, I meet a friend at Bob Evans Restaurant. Marlene and I worked together at our elementary school. She kept the school going as head secretary...I was just a teacher. :-)
We retired about the same time. I retired in 1999 when the school board offered an early out. She followed the next year under the same program. Marlene's youngest daughter has three children who are all now in school. This past fall she began taking care of a baby for a young couple. The mother works with Marlene's daughter at the Eye Center downtown. When the baby was just a couple of months old, she had to have open heart surgery to repair a couple of holes in her heart. She was in All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg for a while, and it was after that that Marlene began to take care of her. Those of us who have seen her regularly are just so thrilled to see this little girl grow and flourish. Ultrasounds had not shown these defects.

Two other little girls were born last year. Their parents knew before they were born that they would not live very long. Both little girls had chromosomal disorders. The doctors of the parents here in our town did not encourage them to bond with the baby or to bring the children to visit. When the baby was born, they did bond, and the children did come to visit. Then the parents said, "We want to take her home." The doctors said that if she could be weaned off the respirator, they could bring her home, and they did. The said that when she came home, she was so content, as though she knew right where she was. The dear little girl lived for about two weeks after she came home to be with her parents and her sisters and brother. The other little girl was born in New York State. Her mom and dad, a young pastor and his wife, also desired to bring their baby home, and they were able to. She did not live nearly as long, but the comment was made that she too seemed to know when she was brought home. At the memorial service for the little girl here in Bradenton, we were able to see by DVD her short life, and the last sounds we heard were her lusty cries. At the end of both services of these children, balloons were released toward heaven. Both little girls had been named by their parents before they were born so that we could know them and pray for them. I don't know what it must be like to lose a child at any age. I lost my dear husband unexpectedly in 2002 in a terrible accident, and I know how that is. I do know that God knows all about it, and He is the God of all comfort for those who sorrow.

A Successful Show

A Successful Show

I determined today to blog before reading anyone else’s.  I’m constantly amazed at some people’s blogs.  They’re incredible.  One, in particular, has become my favorite.  She writes about her daughter, her cats, her dog, and posts incredible photos with appropriate literature selections.  Her own writing is so well done.  If I knew how to put links in my own blog, she would be at the top of the list.  I’ve read the directions and tried, but I haven’t been successful yet.

Last Saturday, our local Sweet Adelines group, the Magic of Manatee had its annual show.  A whole year’s worth of work culminates in that activity.  We spend the year learning new music and choreography and spend the first Saturday of every February entertaining about 1600 people who come to our performances.  

For those who don’t know, Sweet Adelines is an international organization that promotes singing in “barbershop style.”  Our group is approaching its 50th anniversary as a chapter.
I sang with the group when my children were in elementary school and junior high, but then I became ill and didn’t have the stamina for it.  After I felt better, David was busy with baseball and basketball, and that took precedence.  After April 30, 2002, when Don was taken in an accident, my life changed a lot.  Someone from the group asked me one day how I was doing, and I said that days were pretty much the same as ever, but nights were difficult.  She said to me, “I know just the place for you.”  I told her that I had been thinking about coming back to chorus.  I did, and that has been probably the best thing that I have done since Don died.  We practice one night a week, sing out in the community, and several of us get together on Saturdays to see a movie and have dinner together.  Our group is one that cares for each other, and that means so much to me.

At our show, we not only sing, but we have a guest quartet.  This year we had a group called The Humdingers.  They go by another name in a place in Orlando…they can be found at any time on Main Street.  They were so entertaining…after the show we have an afterglow where we let it all hang out.  They did for us their act that they did while we were backstage.  They were full of corn…funny guys…just lots of fun.

Now we get ready for regional competition which takes place in Orland the end of April.  We will present two songs, one ballad and one uptune.  So after this evening of letting our hair down a little bit and enjoying a video of our show, we’ll begin working hard again.  

Lunch with the girls

Last Saturday some girls from my high school class got together for lunch. This has become an occasion over the past few years. There were only six seven of us there. Sometimes we've had as many as twenty. When I started this blog, I intended to chronicle my life for my children to have some more knowledge of what it was like growing up when I was young, and I've wandered from that, but hopefully today, I'll get back to my first purpose.

One of the ladies there is known fondly to us all as Joey. Her mother was my Brownie leader. Now that goes back a long way...to second grade, I think. There was a troop of us who started out in Brownies together and went all the way through high school as Girl Scouts. Some of the girls in high school became mariner Scouts. I dropped out before that.

What I want to say is that many strong ties were made that remain to this day. We went in diverse paths after high school, but some have found their way back to Bradenton to live. Now, many are beginning to look elsewhere as the cost to live here continues to rise.

It won't be long before we celebrate our 50th class reunion (class of '59.) I used to think that only old people graduated from high school that long ago. But I was wrong.

We girls in Brownies all went to Ballard School, which was the school in Bradenton. There were some other schools in Manatee County, but I don't think I was even aware of them until I got to junior high and began to meet kids from those schools.

At Ballard, we mostly moved from grade to grade together, because we were grouped according to our last names alphabetically. In fourth grade, a new school was built not too far from my parents' house, and the kids that were going to go to that school were moved to a clasroom together, so that when the school construction was finished, they could move in without interrupting the other classes.

Jan. 29...I started this a few days ago, and I've lost my train of thought, or I don't remember where I was going with it, so I'll close this for now. These lunches have been so important in my life, reconnecting with friends from long ago. Bradenton used to be a small town where everyone knew everyone else. It has grown so in the last few years, and I used to say that the hometown feeling had disappeared. When Don died, the hometown was all there. Many of these girls and their famiies were at his service. The hometown is still there, one just has to look a little harder for it sometimes.

A true role model

I want to write about someone today who has proven what it is to be a Christian in word and deed in every aspect of his life. I had never heard of Tony Dungy before he became the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He came to Tampa Bay and turned around a team that had had many losing seasons. He had a losing season his first year, but he encouraged the owners to give him time. The next year there was a turnaround...especially in defense. The team finally won a league championship, but they never made it to the Super Bowl under Coach Dungy.

After failing to take the team to the Super Bowl, the owners began looking elsewhere for a coach, and they were very blatant about it. While he was winning the division title, the managers were talking with another man, and he was even lining up staff. The owners fired Tony Dungy, and six days later he became the coach of the Indianapolis Colts. During all the ugly time, he conducted himself as a gentleman and a Christian. His comment about his firing was...they hired me and opened the door.

If anyone reads about sports at all, he knows what the Colts have done this year. At Christmas time one of the worst things that could happen to a family, happened to the Dungy family. Their oldest son was found dead in his apartment inTampa. The world watched as this man and his family came to Tampa to mourn for and bury their son. The public was invited to the visitation. The paper stated that 2,000 came to the f uneral home to express their condolences. The next day at the funeral, nearly 2,000 were at the church to support the family.

One of the Bucs said that he had been raised without a father, and he had learned from Tony Dungy how to be a dad...what a coach! Several said that if there was anyone that they wanted to pattern their life after, it was Tony Dungy.

After the service for his son, Tony spoke to the public, and he affirmed what we as Christians know. We are apart for a while, but one day in His time, we'll be reunited. What comfort! We truly do not sorrow as those who have no hope, but our hope is in God

I heard him speak once at a Success Seminar. I had gone to it because I wanted to hear Zig Ziglar speak, but Tony Dungy was there also. He spoke about succes and said that if we never win a Super Bowl in Tampa, we will have succeeded if we have made a difference in the communtiy. He then spoke about three coaches. He spoke of two football coaches, one in Minnesota, and one in Pittsburgh, and then he spoke of his mother, who was his greatest coach. He said that she taught him Proverbs 3:5,6. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct Thy paths.

When you read this, take a moment to pray for Tony Dungy and his family.

I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas---not at all.

Here it is December 5 already. When I started blogging, I thought I'd write often, and I find that time slips by. As another blogger said recently, he finds himself going from link to link, finding the most interesting people. That has happened to me recently. I came across a blog from a lady who lost her husband in an accident. That stuck a very familiar chord, and I left a comment on her blog. After I had done that, I read further and found that her husband had perished in the plane that hit the Pentagon. She was left with two little girls.

I'm finding that trying to return to normal after such an experience is a difficult thing. Nothing is normal anymore. One would think that the further one is removed from a tragedy, that it would get easier. In ways it does, but that deep hurt is always there, you just don't let people know about it, because they feel that after all, you should be over it by now.

I've written a Christmas letter...really just an annual report about the family. I printed it on pretty paper, and then when I reread it, I had mentioned nothing of Christmas. Bah, humbug! I must do an addendum to let people know that I do really rejoice in the Christmas season. Since I've had problems with my eyes, I don't read as much as I used to, but one book that I've read this year is a book called Girl Meets God written by Lauren Winner. What a wonderful testimony of a young Jewish woman, who goes to Columbia University because she knew there would be a large Jewish population there. In a bookstore she picks up one of the Mitford Series, reads it, becomes interested in Christianity, and comes to know the Lord. Her book is basically a journal of her journey, but she makes some wonderful statements about Advent.

She writes: "The calendar tells us that this all culminates on December 25, but really the whole season slouches toward Easter. Jesus became incarnate now, in the manger of Bethlehem, but if His incarnateness is meant to make Him more relatable to us, if we are meant to have better access to God because our God has a body like we have, if we relate to Him better because He knows what it is like to weep and throw up and be tempted and suffer, then the Incarnation that starts on Christmas isn't finished until Good Friday. And the miracles that start in the strange inexplicable Virgin Birth aren't finished until the Resurrection.....Even his birthplace takes us to the Last Supper: Jesus, the Bread of Life, is born in Bethlehem, bet lechem, "house of bread," and at the Last Supper, He will break bread for us, and then on the cross He will break His body. Nothing in Scripture, even the names of birthplace towns, is coincidence."

Our choir sang yesterday a song called, "Pieta," a song about Mary cradling the baby Jesus and singing her lullaby and then after He was taken down from the cross, cradling Him again and singing...we speak the phrases "Jesus is the Reason for the Season," and "Born to Die." Does that really strike a chord.

Having been raised in church and being around Christians all my life, I know I've taken a lot for granted. I love Ms. Winner's book becasue she has taken nothing for granted but has studied her Judaism, has studied Christianity, and God has captivated her heart.

One of the events that became a tradition with my husband and me early in our marriage was to go to DisneyWorld during the Christmas season for the Candlelight procession and reading of the Christmas story...a wonderful experience. A mass choir made up of high school and college choirs from around Florida gathered, proceeded down Main Street, and amassed in the train station for the telling of the Christmas story. The narration is interspersed with beautiful Christmas music...from "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" to the "Hallelujah Chorus." It is awonderful experience.

We're planning to go again this year...for the first time in a long time. I'm so looking forward to going again and remembering. I thank God for the wonderful memories.

I've rambled a bit, but I do enjoy this means of expressing my thoughts.

A very joyous Christmas to any who happen to read this.