9-11, 2001, found me in Gulf Shores with my family and it was there that we watched in horror as the tragic events of the day unfolded like pages in a guest book at Jefferson Memorial. I think being away from home made it seem even more surreal, more cold (as if the killing cold could have been any more bitter) almost like it was happening someplace else and not here in "you can't touch this" America. There's just something about being in your own home with its familiar intimacies that make things seem more, well, "real". I think that must be why so many people feel the need to get away after suffering a personal tragedy, maybe somehow the impersonal-ness of a hotel room in a strange city must give some a temporary respite from the pain of reality? (God never said that there wouldn't be pain, He promised that He would be with us during it.)
Since we didn't come home from the beach until late that next weekend it wasn't until I went back to work on Monday that I was finally able to talk to friends about what had happened that past Tuesday, about where they'd been when they heard the news and about how their own lives had been affected. I think that God created in us an innate desire to bond, to cling, to share those common experiences with fellow human beings. You might say that we unconsciously create our own unofficial group therapy sessions as the need arises as part of the mechanics of coping. (Women, I must say, seem to have more of those bonding genes than men and we aren't afraid to call a therapy session in a heartbeat.)
Today in church we watched a short video of remembrance about 9/11/2001. And as I sat there and watched it I realized that almost all of the young children who had been in the early part of the service to share in a second-grader's baptism were not even born then, that the only thing that they will ever know about that day will be through the media and whatever we who were here then, tell them. It made me think about Pearl Harbor and my generation. We weren't around then. I've only read about it or watched film clips of it. My parents lived it as children. 9/11 is my own "Pearl Harbor" and the middle schoolers who sat in those seats at church will unfortunately have to wait on theirs. And it will come. Actually, I think it happens each day that any soldier loses his life on the battlefield but another event such as that which happened on 9-11 will probably happen again during the lives of those innocent children. I say this with the sincerest regret that I can give you but also with a truck-load of confidence because as sinful man living in a sin filled world we are doomed to repeat our own bloody history until Jesus comes back to take His children out of it. As long as sin exists we will keep hurting each other with a vengeance but Hallelujah, what an Answer we have for the hurting and the incredible pain that we bring on ourselves. Thank you Jesus, our very Balm in Gilead.
Kiss your loved ones today. Tell God thank you, for everything, and I mean everything. Never take tomorrow for granted. Those who perished at the World Trade Center had absolutely no idea that their last tomorrow was already in the history books.
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Saved From a Life of Crime by Mississippi Power
This morning I saw a beautiful sight...the power company setting a new pole in my neighborhood. I threw on my sensible Birkenstocks and headed down the hill just as fast as my chubby legs would carry me, (never mind that I still had on pajamas, by this time I was past caring what I looked like--you try putting on makeup by flashlight and see if your lipstick doesn't wind up looking like something out of Sunset Boulevard) and all but kissed some young man from Mississippi Power who'd come to save me from being sent to Julia Tutwiler. I had been just this close to shooting out our neighbor's generator (with my imaginary gun) because they had power for the TV and microwave and I didn't. I have my priorities and electricity is high on the list. Don't get me wrong, I know that I have been extremely blessed. God is so good and I could never thank Him enough for the blessings that He has given me. Too many times we forget to thank Him for the simple things like electricity and if you've been without it for a couple of days He'll bring you right back on track with what you ought to be thanking Him for!
Our power was off for two long days almost to the minute and I think if I'd had to walk around with a flashlight one more night I think I'd have thrown my "Little House on the Prairie" books straight through our still-blank TV (the power may be on but you know the cable company hasn't gotten with the program yet.) Camping is not a favorite hobby of mine nor is anything that involves flashlights or porta potties. A lack of electricity makes me claustrophobic, like I've moved to Laura Ingalls Wilder-ville. I can feel a panic attack wanting to start churning up my diaphragm every time I watch LHOTP and snow starts falling thicker than Eaglebrand and Halfpint is whining because she can't walk that 5 miles to school (it can't be up hill both ways because they lived on the prairie for pete's sake and the prairie doesn't have any hills.) I could not have been Ma Ingalls; I'd have killed Charles or Mr Edwards or Mr Olson or anybody else who'd driven up with a wagon full of beef jerky and a sack of meal telling me to throw another log on the fire, that it was time to start dinner. It's a good thing that God didn't leave it up to the likes of me to populate the United States because I'd have never left "back East" where people had neighbors and stores and gas lights and half-off sales.
I know there will be times ahead when the power will go off again and I'll get just as jumpy. But we're going to invest in a generator. I think I've convinced Larry that the expense would be well worth it when you compare what it would cost in gas these days to drive to Wetumpka on visitation weekends (the home of Julia Tutwiler Women's Prison for those that didn't already know) versus buying a generator that will run a television and a microwave. It's really his civic duty to keep a potential criminal off the streets!
Our power was off for two long days almost to the minute and I think if I'd had to walk around with a flashlight one more night I think I'd have thrown my "Little House on the Prairie" books straight through our still-blank TV (the power may be on but you know the cable company hasn't gotten with the program yet.) Camping is not a favorite hobby of mine nor is anything that involves flashlights or porta potties. A lack of electricity makes me claustrophobic, like I've moved to Laura Ingalls Wilder-ville. I can feel a panic attack wanting to start churning up my diaphragm every time I watch LHOTP and snow starts falling thicker than Eaglebrand and Halfpint is whining because she can't walk that 5 miles to school (it can't be up hill both ways because they lived on the prairie for pete's sake and the prairie doesn't have any hills.) I could not have been Ma Ingalls; I'd have killed Charles or Mr Edwards or Mr Olson or anybody else who'd driven up with a wagon full of beef jerky and a sack of meal telling me to throw another log on the fire, that it was time to start dinner. It's a good thing that God didn't leave it up to the likes of me to populate the United States because I'd have never left "back East" where people had neighbors and stores and gas lights and half-off sales.
I know there will be times ahead when the power will go off again and I'll get just as jumpy. But we're going to invest in a generator. I think I've convinced Larry that the expense would be well worth it when you compare what it would cost in gas these days to drive to Wetumpka on visitation weekends (the home of Julia Tutwiler Women's Prison for those that didn't already know) versus buying a generator that will run a television and a microwave. It's really his civic duty to keep a potential criminal off the streets!
Friday, September 2, 2011
Wherefore Art Thou Bobby Sherman?
Dear Cheryl Tiegs:
It's me again, forever the faithful fan of you and Summer Blonde by Clairol (although at this age I've had to resort to the professional stuff and let my hairdresser do the heavy "lifting" to get that sun-kissed look.) I hope you are doing well today. In my imagination you're still skipping down the beach in that famous pink bikini while the likes of guys like Moondoggie and Bobby Sherman are falling all over themselves just itching to hoist you aloft like some life-sized Barbie doll. Work it honey, because in this blog you won't have a single wrinkle and those pesky spider veins won't ever appear in the city limits of the Malibu that's in my mind. You're safe here, Cheryl, I've got your back (now if I only had those long legs!)
About this weight loss gig that I've taken up. You know, the one I told you about in my last blog where I needed to lose 90 pounds to get back down to my lowest high school weight that I can remember? You know, so I can create my OWN Cheryl Tiegs kind of Summer Blonde commercial because I absolutely adored you in yours where the cute guys were holding you up like some freshly-cut pine tree in the lumberjack Olympics? Now you remember. Well, I've lost a whole pound since we last "spoke" so I've just got 89 more to go. Oh, don't get me wrong, I know it's too early to start looking for 4 or 5 cute young guys who'd be willing (or persuaded for a fee) to hoist me up like some prized heifer at the County Fair but I'm a pound closer than I was when I last blogged.
One whole pound...I'm nothing if not optimistic. Are my bifocals lying or is that Bobby Sherman way down at the end of the beach looking my way? Just 89 more pounds, Cheryl, just 89 more pounds...oh yes, and the pony tail is still a project in the works, more like a pony's thumb. I've been sweatin' like a field hand today while I cleaned out the basement but I didn't take the scissors to it even though I wanted to. I just kept thinking "what would Cheryl do?" I figure what you'd do is pay someone to clean out the basement while you and your beautiful hair sat on the couch upstairs and read movie magazines but unfortunately that is where my fantasy and cold, hard reality slapped each other like two divas fighting over a cocktail dress at a two-for-one sale.
Bobby Sherman, please see if you can dial up Moondoggie on the hot line and tell him that mama's comin in 89 more pounds. And Cheryl, keep that hair swishin' and stay perky!
Sincerely, your biggest fan (and I do mean your biggest fan)
Modine Gunch
See Yoo in Mala-Boo
It's me again, forever the faithful fan of you and Summer Blonde by Clairol (although at this age I've had to resort to the professional stuff and let my hairdresser do the heavy "lifting" to get that sun-kissed look.) I hope you are doing well today. In my imagination you're still skipping down the beach in that famous pink bikini while the likes of guys like Moondoggie and Bobby Sherman are falling all over themselves just itching to hoist you aloft like some life-sized Barbie doll. Work it honey, because in this blog you won't have a single wrinkle and those pesky spider veins won't ever appear in the city limits of the Malibu that's in my mind. You're safe here, Cheryl, I've got your back (now if I only had those long legs!)
About this weight loss gig that I've taken up. You know, the one I told you about in my last blog where I needed to lose 90 pounds to get back down to my lowest high school weight that I can remember? You know, so I can create my OWN Cheryl Tiegs kind of Summer Blonde commercial because I absolutely adored you in yours where the cute guys were holding you up like some freshly-cut pine tree in the lumberjack Olympics? Now you remember. Well, I've lost a whole pound since we last "spoke" so I've just got 89 more to go. Oh, don't get me wrong, I know it's too early to start looking for 4 or 5 cute young guys who'd be willing (or persuaded for a fee) to hoist me up like some prized heifer at the County Fair but I'm a pound closer than I was when I last blogged.
One whole pound...I'm nothing if not optimistic. Are my bifocals lying or is that Bobby Sherman way down at the end of the beach looking my way? Just 89 more pounds, Cheryl, just 89 more pounds...oh yes, and the pony tail is still a project in the works, more like a pony's thumb. I've been sweatin' like a field hand today while I cleaned out the basement but I didn't take the scissors to it even though I wanted to. I just kept thinking "what would Cheryl do?" I figure what you'd do is pay someone to clean out the basement while you and your beautiful hair sat on the couch upstairs and read movie magazines but unfortunately that is where my fantasy and cold, hard reality slapped each other like two divas fighting over a cocktail dress at a two-for-one sale.
Bobby Sherman, please see if you can dial up Moondoggie on the hot line and tell him that mama's comin in 89 more pounds. And Cheryl, keep that hair swishin' and stay perky!
Sincerely, your biggest fan (and I do mean your biggest fan)
Modine Gunch
See Yoo in Mala-Boo
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
It's True Blondes Have More Fun...
Dear Cheryl Tiegs:
You probably haven't given a whole lot of thought to that commercial you made back in the late 60's, early 70's for "Summer Blonde" by Clairol but I certainly have. As a matter of fact, just about every summer that rolls around I think about that commercial and how doggone much I wanted to be that long haired beautiful blonde ("now your hair can have that summer look all year long, with Summer Blonde by Clairol") with legs from here to Tuesday, horizontally perched across the chests of half a dozen baby-faced, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly chiseled Adonises in Malibu.
I used Summer Blonde on my hair religiously. By the age of 13 that dreaded puberty phase had set in like a pair of pantyhose with a run right up the front. My naturally blonde hair had begun its nose dive in to the spectrum somewhere between "mousey brown and dishwater blonde". A dishwater blonde was practically no blonde at all so something had to be done to bring back that youthful cotton-top look of my babyhood. Clairol promised me that sun-kissed look, maybe not the hot guys on the beach just waiting to hold me like a human surfboard but blonde locks anyway. Though somehow, Cheryl, I never quite got the look I was going for. I wanted to look like you. Never mind that you were about 5 inches taller than me and probably 40 pounds lighter (and believe you me, being a size 12 back in the Twiggy era was like being a size 22 today.) Back then a girl's weight had to be in double digits only and her dress size in a single one or else you were destined for eating potato chips with the sweat hogs on date night, or at least that's what I was afraid of. It never quite got that bad but at times I did think that unless my hair grew down to my shoulders over night and I grew legs the length of a lamp post that I'd have been relegated to sensible pumps and clothes from the "chubby" department for size 12's. I can't say that the horrible, misguided opinion about a girl's weight has really changed much since I was a teenager but at least now people are more aware of its consequences.
So Cheryl, how are you these days? Had any hunks pick you up like a big catfish on Hillbilly Handfishin' lately? Is your hair still long and blonde? I hope so because in my mind you're still hanging out in Malibu putting Summer Blonde on your hair and spinning old Beach Boys tunes on a Hi Fi. Lately I've decided to let my "inner Cheryl Tiegs" and I'm growing a pony tail. Yes, a pony tail. I know I'm awfully old for one and during this steamy, hot Alabama summer I've threatened to whack this hair that's grown down below my ears off but I keep thinking "what would Cheryl Tiegs do?" and I put the scissors back in the drawer. I've never had one, a pony tail that is, not a real one anyway, in my life. But I'm going to have one and it's going to be blonde.
I've also done a quick analysis of my vital statistics and found them to be sadly lacking in several areas as far as you are concerned and unless I can grow about 5 more inches, lose about 80 or 90 pounds, bob my nose to a perky little button and change my eye color to blue I'll never have anyone stop me and ask what Cheryl Tiegs is doing here in Trussville, Alabama. But you've given me hope, Cheryl Tiegs. I may not can grow vertically but I can lose horizontally and I'm doing it all for you. Well, that's not really true, but you have definitely given me a goal. I'm going to lose 90 pounds to get me back to my high school weight (hard to believe that in 40 years I've put on 90 pounds but if you do it slowly enough it'll creep up like kudzu on a telephone pole.) And you can bet your bottom dollar that when I get my pony tail all out there and I've got it "blondeened" to the proper hue that would make Clairol proud, I'm going to round me up 6 of the cutest young hunks I can find (or rent, for a nominal fee) at the beach to hoist me up just like you were in that commercial. My sweet husband will just shake his head and laugh I'm sure, but he'll be a good sport and take pictures. (my friends can be counted on to play some Beach Boys tunes on their iPods while I pose.)
I'll keep you posted on my progress, Cheryl. I may not be a California girl but I've got a great hairstylist that can give me that summer look all year long!
Yours very truly,
Modine Gunch
See you in Mala-Boo
You probably haven't given a whole lot of thought to that commercial you made back in the late 60's, early 70's for "Summer Blonde" by Clairol but I certainly have. As a matter of fact, just about every summer that rolls around I think about that commercial and how doggone much I wanted to be that long haired beautiful blonde ("now your hair can have that summer look all year long, with Summer Blonde by Clairol") with legs from here to Tuesday, horizontally perched across the chests of half a dozen baby-faced, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, perfectly chiseled Adonises in Malibu.
I used Summer Blonde on my hair religiously. By the age of 13 that dreaded puberty phase had set in like a pair of pantyhose with a run right up the front. My naturally blonde hair had begun its nose dive in to the spectrum somewhere between "mousey brown and dishwater blonde". A dishwater blonde was practically no blonde at all so something had to be done to bring back that youthful cotton-top look of my babyhood. Clairol promised me that sun-kissed look, maybe not the hot guys on the beach just waiting to hold me like a human surfboard but blonde locks anyway. Though somehow, Cheryl, I never quite got the look I was going for. I wanted to look like you. Never mind that you were about 5 inches taller than me and probably 40 pounds lighter (and believe you me, being a size 12 back in the Twiggy era was like being a size 22 today.) Back then a girl's weight had to be in double digits only and her dress size in a single one or else you were destined for eating potato chips with the sweat hogs on date night, or at least that's what I was afraid of. It never quite got that bad but at times I did think that unless my hair grew down to my shoulders over night and I grew legs the length of a lamp post that I'd have been relegated to sensible pumps and clothes from the "chubby" department for size 12's. I can't say that the horrible, misguided opinion about a girl's weight has really changed much since I was a teenager but at least now people are more aware of its consequences.
So Cheryl, how are you these days? Had any hunks pick you up like a big catfish on Hillbilly Handfishin' lately? Is your hair still long and blonde? I hope so because in my mind you're still hanging out in Malibu putting Summer Blonde on your hair and spinning old Beach Boys tunes on a Hi Fi. Lately I've decided to let my "inner Cheryl Tiegs" and I'm growing a pony tail. Yes, a pony tail. I know I'm awfully old for one and during this steamy, hot Alabama summer I've threatened to whack this hair that's grown down below my ears off but I keep thinking "what would Cheryl Tiegs do?" and I put the scissors back in the drawer. I've never had one, a pony tail that is, not a real one anyway, in my life. But I'm going to have one and it's going to be blonde.
I've also done a quick analysis of my vital statistics and found them to be sadly lacking in several areas as far as you are concerned and unless I can grow about 5 more inches, lose about 80 or 90 pounds, bob my nose to a perky little button and change my eye color to blue I'll never have anyone stop me and ask what Cheryl Tiegs is doing here in Trussville, Alabama. But you've given me hope, Cheryl Tiegs. I may not can grow vertically but I can lose horizontally and I'm doing it all for you. Well, that's not really true, but you have definitely given me a goal. I'm going to lose 90 pounds to get me back to my high school weight (hard to believe that in 40 years I've put on 90 pounds but if you do it slowly enough it'll creep up like kudzu on a telephone pole.) And you can bet your bottom dollar that when I get my pony tail all out there and I've got it "blondeened" to the proper hue that would make Clairol proud, I'm going to round me up 6 of the cutest young hunks I can find (or rent, for a nominal fee) at the beach to hoist me up just like you were in that commercial. My sweet husband will just shake his head and laugh I'm sure, but he'll be a good sport and take pictures. (my friends can be counted on to play some Beach Boys tunes on their iPods while I pose.)
I'll keep you posted on my progress, Cheryl. I may not be a California girl but I've got a great hairstylist that can give me that summer look all year long!
Yours very truly,
Modine Gunch
See you in Mala-Boo
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Just Call Me Big Maude from "Convicts at Large"
If you asked me if I was a law-abiding citizen in good standing with the local constabulary I believe I would quickly tell you that, yes, I am, other than the occasional breaking of the speed limit; and even then I am prudent with my decisions. I love animals and trees and anything else that one might could hug and still be legal about it. I want to save the dolphins and the whales and polar bears. I even have a heart for those little tiny little snail darters which, for some unexplained reason that only God knows the answer to, have found themselves to located in only like 4 places on the entire earth and two of them happen to be in a pond near Roebuck Recreation Center and in Turkey Creek. I've been to both of these places on more than one occasion and I can attest to the fact that they've got some hard living going on there.
However, and you knew there was going to be a "however" didn't you, those who know me well, there is a place where this law-abiding citizen will draw the line and quicker than you could say "satan's handpuppet" I'd become the Bonnie Parker, Ma Barker, Belle Starr, you name her and I'd be it, of crime, and this is concerning an article that I saw in the Birmingham News yesterday where the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake is being put on the endangered species list and that it will become law that they can not be killed. I'm getting out my imaginary six-gun right now and loading it up with enough virtual ammunition that would rival anything that was ever seen in the wild wild west on a hot Saturday night and would blow away the first one that I saw with nary a thought (actually, if I really saw one, I'd probably set a new land-speed record for a fat girl in a pair of flip flops.) I am not saving rattlesnakes from extinction nor snakes of any kind. There. I've said it. I will break the law, officer get out your handcuffs and take me away, I just don't care. If I happen to have the bad luck of driving through somewhere that Eastern Diamondback rattlesnakes lurk (because I surely don't want to be on foot) and see one crossing the road you can bet your sweet Aunt Fanny that I'm not going to put on the brakes for it to get to the other side (I've stopped more than once while driving through our neighborhood to give some silly squirrel enough time to make up their mind about which side of the street they really wanted to be on.) I don't care that the paper went on to say that the snakes keep the rodent population down, bring on the rats, that's what we have cheese for.
I am all about conservation, preservation, the Sierra Club, Auntie Litter and even the tiniest fraction of a smidgen of Al Gore when it comes to keeping things "All Things Bright and Beautiful". The Father indeed "made them all" and left us in charge of keeping this earth clean, green and healthy. But I'm falling back to Genesis on the snake bit (oh, a pun!) and I'm going with the cursing of anything that crawls on its belly and has fangs. Snakes don't belong in my world and I'm giving them fair warning that if they come around my house (please please don't) I'll be looking for something in my virtual arsenal where weapons only exist in my imagination or, for my very real and trusty hoe with which I'll show you some extinction! Sorry, you snake lovers, if you're out there, you can put 911 on your speed dial and send a squad car after me if I encounter one of the new "endangered species" because I'll be going to jail.
However, and you knew there was going to be a "however" didn't you, those who know me well, there is a place where this law-abiding citizen will draw the line and quicker than you could say "satan's handpuppet" I'd become the Bonnie Parker, Ma Barker, Belle Starr, you name her and I'd be it, of crime, and this is concerning an article that I saw in the Birmingham News yesterday where the Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake is being put on the endangered species list and that it will become law that they can not be killed. I'm getting out my imaginary six-gun right now and loading it up with enough virtual ammunition that would rival anything that was ever seen in the wild wild west on a hot Saturday night and would blow away the first one that I saw with nary a thought (actually, if I really saw one, I'd probably set a new land-speed record for a fat girl in a pair of flip flops.) I am not saving rattlesnakes from extinction nor snakes of any kind. There. I've said it. I will break the law, officer get out your handcuffs and take me away, I just don't care. If I happen to have the bad luck of driving through somewhere that Eastern Diamondback rattlesnakes lurk (because I surely don't want to be on foot) and see one crossing the road you can bet your sweet Aunt Fanny that I'm not going to put on the brakes for it to get to the other side (I've stopped more than once while driving through our neighborhood to give some silly squirrel enough time to make up their mind about which side of the street they really wanted to be on.) I don't care that the paper went on to say that the snakes keep the rodent population down, bring on the rats, that's what we have cheese for.
I am all about conservation, preservation, the Sierra Club, Auntie Litter and even the tiniest fraction of a smidgen of Al Gore when it comes to keeping things "All Things Bright and Beautiful". The Father indeed "made them all" and left us in charge of keeping this earth clean, green and healthy. But I'm falling back to Genesis on the snake bit (oh, a pun!) and I'm going with the cursing of anything that crawls on its belly and has fangs. Snakes don't belong in my world and I'm giving them fair warning that if they come around my house (please please don't) I'll be looking for something in my virtual arsenal where weapons only exist in my imagination or, for my very real and trusty hoe with which I'll show you some extinction! Sorry, you snake lovers, if you're out there, you can put 911 on your speed dial and send a squad car after me if I encounter one of the new "endangered species" because I'll be going to jail.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The End of Innocence
My grandparents built a wonderful house out in the country. I can distinctly remember riding over 10th Street Mountain the summer that I was five with my grandmother as we took a hot lunch to my paw paw and the laborers to eat as they paused in their work long enough to perch on upturned concrete blocks and share in a good noonday meal. There were no sandwiches back in those hot, un-lazy days of summer for those men, no sir. Grandmother fixed a "meat and three", wrapped it up good and set the bowls on trays along with gallons of cold, sweet iced tea for the bumpy ride that she and I took daily. At that time the highway department was still working on the road that crossed the mountain which separated "town" from "country" and it seemed to take forever to get to where we were going (this same journey can now be made in about 10 minutes.) The house was isolated from other homes but in reality was only a few blocks from the next one on a sleepy highway that would later see traffic greatly increase as the area built up out past my grandparent's on Choccolocco Road.
Their house became a wonderful place to spend summers; my great grandmother, "Mama Doss", (who lived in town yet still had my paw paw wrapped around her finger until the day she died as if he and my grandmother had never moved out of her home on McCoy) had the good fortune (in my opinion as a child) to have been born on the 5th of July which was certainly close enough to the 4th of July for everyone to have an excuse to celebrate in a big way. The proverbial "fatted calf", in the form of juicy beef ribs, was smoked for hours in a homemade Bar-be-que pit that my paw paw got up and tended on the morning of the 4th before the chickens had even taken the curlers out of their hair. Relatives came from far and wide to fete both Mama Doss and America on the 4th of July. I, as a child, could never understand why they didn't just throw my birthday in to the big celebration mix and make homemade ice cream in my honor as well since my birthday was on the 10th of that month but I never said anything. After all, Mama Doss was old, and I was going to have a fabulous birthday party back at home in Birmingham anyway in less than a week.
Life was good at that house. The isolation meant that we could make all the noise we wanted, wear our pajamas on the porch if we felt like it because the distance from the house to the highway although quite visible was just enough to blur the fact that one was still in their sleeping clothes as a friendly neighbor tooted their horn as they passed by. Once when my brother was 11 or 12 he put on an old cheerleader's outfit and a blonde "fall" that he'd gotten somewhere (I'm not even sure why he had it but I know that my sister was teaching him some sort of cheers to go along with it, probably as a prank) and they were jumping up and down out in the front yard. Some guy came driving by blowing his horn and hollering at that long legged "sweet thang" with the pretty blonde hair and it made my brother so mad that he gave him the middle-finger salute and flounced back in the house. The road was just far enough from the front yard so that he really did appear to be a girl.
The house on Choccolocco long outlasted both my grandparents and at some point my mother and dad became the tenants there along with my brother and sister. It was fully remodeled so that on the inside it was only a vague resemblance of the way it looked when my grandparents lived in it. But the one thing that had never changed was the isolation save for the one neighbor who lived on the acreage next door but who couldn't have heard you if you yelled or seen you from their porch and everyone liked it that way. Grandchildren explored every bit of those 5 1/2 acres around that house and great-grandchildren fell in line doing the same thing, continuing to wear pajamas on the front porch if we wanted to because even though the traffic had greatly increased on the highway it was still too far away to really matter.
My brother went off and joined the Marines and then never really came back home to live again except only briefly before he married. My sister moved to town. My dad died several years ago and then it was only my mother. And suddenly the isolation that we had once enjoyed there had now become a liability and I prayed hard each night for a hedge of protection to be around my mother in that house. You can think of its location in the same way that you might think of walking down a busy street with a group of friends and you are leading the way. You come to a corner and because you are in front for a few seconds as you turn the corner you are alone with whatever is there. Of course in a few seconds your friends are joining you, having turned the corner too. But that's the way my mother's house can best be described. She is so close to neighbors but she might as well be a thousand miles away because they all live several acres away and through thick woods. It goes without saying that cellphone service is almost non-existent there as well.
My mother's car is sitting in our driveway. A few weeks ago she made one of her trips to visit my brother in Tampa; we take her to the airport, the flight is an hour and five minutes, and my brother meets her there. She can get there quicker than I can drive from my house in Trussville to hers in Anniston. There was no car in her own driveway and no lights to be seen to keep the wolf from the door. My sister called me this past Monday to tell me that Jeanne, a friend of mother's had gone by to leave some peach jam for her return and noticed when she walked up that the back door was standing ajar and a footprint imprinted on it where it had been forced open. She immediately ran back to her car and backed out of the long driveway as fast as reverse would take her and called 911. She couldn't reach her husband so she did the next best thing and called the preacher. He lives right down the street so it didn't take him long to get there in his flip flops and packing a pistol. Jeanne was afraid that one of the robbers could still be in there, or even worse, my sister so Bro. Roland walked through with his gun drawn hoping to find no one but preparing for anything. No one was there. Whoever had broken in to my mother's home had long gone and fortunately my sister had been safe at her own place in town. The police got there quickly and did what they could but you know that CSI is only a TV show and that real crimes are never solved in an hour nor do the perpetrators ever leave those tiny slivers of evidence that locks them up before the last commercial.
Larry and I rushed over to my mother's as quickly as we could that day. Friends were there. It sort of reminded me, in a sick sort of way, of the Amish building a neighbor's house. Someone was sweeping the floor of all the debris left from the broken door. Jeanne's sweet husband had immediately gone and bought another door, a much heavier one, and he and my son Will were working on getting it back in place. Larry went and bought timers for the lamps. My sister, Jeanne and her 4 children began the task of picking up the things in my mother's bedroom and in the other rooms that they had gone through. Whoever did this was obviously looking only for jewelry and drugs because they did not take anything else. They did not find much either, the things that they did take had more sentimental value than a dollar one although they will probably get money for their drug habit from what they did take. I felt such a sense of violation yet a sense of relief that my mother had not been home and that these people, whoever they were, did not do anything malicious to my mother's home. All they did was take our innocence and it's hard to pawn that for a quick high.
My mother took the news of the break-in just as you'd think that she would, with much grace yet incredible sadness for the things that had belonged to my dad that would or could never be replaced. Once innocence is lost it can never be regained and the innocence of that house disappeared with that footprint on the back door. Whoever put it there had no regard for what they were doing and the far-reaching effects that their actions have and will cause. I almost feel sorry for them, the losers that they are, and pray that God will be merciful and woo their hearts toward His Son Who loves them as much as He loves me. We no longer want my mother there in that house and when she returns from the safety of Tampa we will begin to process of "the next step." Right now we aren't exactly sure what that next step is, we just know that the house that brought such joy to so many and gave us so many wonderful memories in its isolation will never be the same. It will be put up for sale and life will move on but this time it will be where there are neighbors for my mother.
Their house became a wonderful place to spend summers; my great grandmother, "Mama Doss", (who lived in town yet still had my paw paw wrapped around her finger until the day she died as if he and my grandmother had never moved out of her home on McCoy) had the good fortune (in my opinion as a child) to have been born on the 5th of July which was certainly close enough to the 4th of July for everyone to have an excuse to celebrate in a big way. The proverbial "fatted calf", in the form of juicy beef ribs, was smoked for hours in a homemade Bar-be-que pit that my paw paw got up and tended on the morning of the 4th before the chickens had even taken the curlers out of their hair. Relatives came from far and wide to fete both Mama Doss and America on the 4th of July. I, as a child, could never understand why they didn't just throw my birthday in to the big celebration mix and make homemade ice cream in my honor as well since my birthday was on the 10th of that month but I never said anything. After all, Mama Doss was old, and I was going to have a fabulous birthday party back at home in Birmingham anyway in less than a week.
Life was good at that house. The isolation meant that we could make all the noise we wanted, wear our pajamas on the porch if we felt like it because the distance from the house to the highway although quite visible was just enough to blur the fact that one was still in their sleeping clothes as a friendly neighbor tooted their horn as they passed by. Once when my brother was 11 or 12 he put on an old cheerleader's outfit and a blonde "fall" that he'd gotten somewhere (I'm not even sure why he had it but I know that my sister was teaching him some sort of cheers to go along with it, probably as a prank) and they were jumping up and down out in the front yard. Some guy came driving by blowing his horn and hollering at that long legged "sweet thang" with the pretty blonde hair and it made my brother so mad that he gave him the middle-finger salute and flounced back in the house. The road was just far enough from the front yard so that he really did appear to be a girl.
The house on Choccolocco long outlasted both my grandparents and at some point my mother and dad became the tenants there along with my brother and sister. It was fully remodeled so that on the inside it was only a vague resemblance of the way it looked when my grandparents lived in it. But the one thing that had never changed was the isolation save for the one neighbor who lived on the acreage next door but who couldn't have heard you if you yelled or seen you from their porch and everyone liked it that way. Grandchildren explored every bit of those 5 1/2 acres around that house and great-grandchildren fell in line doing the same thing, continuing to wear pajamas on the front porch if we wanted to because even though the traffic had greatly increased on the highway it was still too far away to really matter.
My brother went off and joined the Marines and then never really came back home to live again except only briefly before he married. My sister moved to town. My dad died several years ago and then it was only my mother. And suddenly the isolation that we had once enjoyed there had now become a liability and I prayed hard each night for a hedge of protection to be around my mother in that house. You can think of its location in the same way that you might think of walking down a busy street with a group of friends and you are leading the way. You come to a corner and because you are in front for a few seconds as you turn the corner you are alone with whatever is there. Of course in a few seconds your friends are joining you, having turned the corner too. But that's the way my mother's house can best be described. She is so close to neighbors but she might as well be a thousand miles away because they all live several acres away and through thick woods. It goes without saying that cellphone service is almost non-existent there as well.
My mother's car is sitting in our driveway. A few weeks ago she made one of her trips to visit my brother in Tampa; we take her to the airport, the flight is an hour and five minutes, and my brother meets her there. She can get there quicker than I can drive from my house in Trussville to hers in Anniston. There was no car in her own driveway and no lights to be seen to keep the wolf from the door. My sister called me this past Monday to tell me that Jeanne, a friend of mother's had gone by to leave some peach jam for her return and noticed when she walked up that the back door was standing ajar and a footprint imprinted on it where it had been forced open. She immediately ran back to her car and backed out of the long driveway as fast as reverse would take her and called 911. She couldn't reach her husband so she did the next best thing and called the preacher. He lives right down the street so it didn't take him long to get there in his flip flops and packing a pistol. Jeanne was afraid that one of the robbers could still be in there, or even worse, my sister so Bro. Roland walked through with his gun drawn hoping to find no one but preparing for anything. No one was there. Whoever had broken in to my mother's home had long gone and fortunately my sister had been safe at her own place in town. The police got there quickly and did what they could but you know that CSI is only a TV show and that real crimes are never solved in an hour nor do the perpetrators ever leave those tiny slivers of evidence that locks them up before the last commercial.
Larry and I rushed over to my mother's as quickly as we could that day. Friends were there. It sort of reminded me, in a sick sort of way, of the Amish building a neighbor's house. Someone was sweeping the floor of all the debris left from the broken door. Jeanne's sweet husband had immediately gone and bought another door, a much heavier one, and he and my son Will were working on getting it back in place. Larry went and bought timers for the lamps. My sister, Jeanne and her 4 children began the task of picking up the things in my mother's bedroom and in the other rooms that they had gone through. Whoever did this was obviously looking only for jewelry and drugs because they did not take anything else. They did not find much either, the things that they did take had more sentimental value than a dollar one although they will probably get money for their drug habit from what they did take. I felt such a sense of violation yet a sense of relief that my mother had not been home and that these people, whoever they were, did not do anything malicious to my mother's home. All they did was take our innocence and it's hard to pawn that for a quick high.
My mother took the news of the break-in just as you'd think that she would, with much grace yet incredible sadness for the things that had belonged to my dad that would or could never be replaced. Once innocence is lost it can never be regained and the innocence of that house disappeared with that footprint on the back door. Whoever put it there had no regard for what they were doing and the far-reaching effects that their actions have and will cause. I almost feel sorry for them, the losers that they are, and pray that God will be merciful and woo their hearts toward His Son Who loves them as much as He loves me. We no longer want my mother there in that house and when she returns from the safety of Tampa we will begin to process of "the next step." Right now we aren't exactly sure what that next step is, we just know that the house that brought such joy to so many and gave us so many wonderful memories in its isolation will never be the same. It will be put up for sale and life will move on but this time it will be where there are neighbors for my mother.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Candles on the cake
Yesterday, July 10th, was my birthday and July 12th is my best friend Henrietta's birthday. Her name isn't really Henrietta, it's Sherri, but I haven't called her that since we were freshmen in high school. Back then we had both decided that we were destined to become literary giants someday and that to be a good one, giant that is, a memorable pen name was needed. Her choice was "Henrietta Snodgrass". We may not have become quite the publisher's darlings that we'd dreamed of being but her name stuck, at least for me it did, and I've called her Henrietta ever since. She calls me Trixie and I like that just fine.
I believe that one truly has only one "best friend" in their life and that everyone else is called by other adjectives which modify the word friend, i.e., "good, dear, close, closest", you fill in your own blank. It doesn't even matter if you and that person grow apart, which most best friends from childhood are oft to do, I think that once you've identified them as your "best" that no one can ever have that name again. Henrietta and I went all through grammar school together and we were friends but weren't that particularly close. It wasn't until we were freshmen in high school and wound up sitting next to each other in the same French class that we somehow clicked and virtually became inseparable. We shared secrets and dreams and anything else that came to mind back in those high school years. We watched each other fall in love, wish that the one we'd fallen for would love us more, and shared our kleenex as we sobbed when Ryan O'Neal uttered those immortal words in Love Story, that "love means you never have to say you're sorry". It didn't take long though to find out that Ryan O'Neal was no real psychologist and that Ali McGraw still died no matter how many times you watched the movie.
Henrietta and I moved on with our own separate lives in separate cities after graduation but somehow, and I give her all the credit, she kept the friendship from dissolving even when its depth had become no more than the width of a card and envelope. Many years passed, who knows, maybe thirty, I quit counting, and Henrietta and her family moved back to Birmingham. We both have moved on. We rarely see each other except when I pop in occasionally where she works to say "hi" but when I do it's as if we've never been apart. She sent me a birthday card a few days ago, with the same almost illegible handwriting that she had in high school, and scrawled on the back of the envelope was her home address. It is the same address of the same house that she has lived in since she was a child, the house that she grew up in and the house that was so much a part of my own life. I felt comforted by seeing that address. There are so few constants in my world but that address is one of them because I know if I went there and rang the doorbell that she would answer.
So Happy Birthday in a few hours, Henrietta. I love you, my always and forever best friend.
I believe that one truly has only one "best friend" in their life and that everyone else is called by other adjectives which modify the word friend, i.e., "good, dear, close, closest", you fill in your own blank. It doesn't even matter if you and that person grow apart, which most best friends from childhood are oft to do, I think that once you've identified them as your "best" that no one can ever have that name again. Henrietta and I went all through grammar school together and we were friends but weren't that particularly close. It wasn't until we were freshmen in high school and wound up sitting next to each other in the same French class that we somehow clicked and virtually became inseparable. We shared secrets and dreams and anything else that came to mind back in those high school years. We watched each other fall in love, wish that the one we'd fallen for would love us more, and shared our kleenex as we sobbed when Ryan O'Neal uttered those immortal words in Love Story, that "love means you never have to say you're sorry". It didn't take long though to find out that Ryan O'Neal was no real psychologist and that Ali McGraw still died no matter how many times you watched the movie.
Henrietta and I moved on with our own separate lives in separate cities after graduation but somehow, and I give her all the credit, she kept the friendship from dissolving even when its depth had become no more than the width of a card and envelope. Many years passed, who knows, maybe thirty, I quit counting, and Henrietta and her family moved back to Birmingham. We both have moved on. We rarely see each other except when I pop in occasionally where she works to say "hi" but when I do it's as if we've never been apart. She sent me a birthday card a few days ago, with the same almost illegible handwriting that she had in high school, and scrawled on the back of the envelope was her home address. It is the same address of the same house that she has lived in since she was a child, the house that she grew up in and the house that was so much a part of my own life. I felt comforted by seeing that address. There are so few constants in my world but that address is one of them because I know if I went there and rang the doorbell that she would answer.
So Happy Birthday in a few hours, Henrietta. I love you, my always and forever best friend.
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