A Spanish Fire Drill

In the latter part of my career I was the Director of a new Alzheimer unit in a brand new facility in Overland Park, Kansas. The unit was beautiful. The program for the anticipated residents had been thoughtfully planned out. The paint, the furnishings, and lighting was designed especially for confused people with a special layout that would be easy for them to navigate in. The dining room was large and spacious, the living room was enormous and plenty of walking room which Alzheimer afflicted people require. There were game tables, spacious bedrooms with private showers. Everything that the experts and I could plan for had arrived and been put together by the maintenance people and the contractors. There was just one thing that I nor had anyone else had anticipated; Spanish speaking employees.
When the Unit was completely finished. It was time to put the linens on the beds. I had no idea that the staff did not speak English. I told them what to do, showed them where the linen closets were and left them to their duties so I could take care of other last minute things of my own before the new residents arrived the next day. I had a busy schedule that day, one thing that was very important was to run a mock fire drill to make sure the alarms were all working. The one thing that I didn’t do which I almost always did in the work place, was ask if anyone had any questions.
A short time later, I went back to the Unit to check on the staff; nothing was done. They were wandering around looking lost. I asked them why they hadn’t made the beds and put out the towels. I got an answer that I had not anticipated; all Spanish. They understood some hand gestures. So I had them watch me as I made a hospital bed and gestured for them to do the same. I put out towels and had them do the same. Things went smoother then.
That afternoon, I coordinated with the Maintenance Engineer that I wanted a Fire Drill to take place at one o’clock in the afternoon. What a disaster! The staff went round and around in circles looking absolutely scared to death. The alarm was very aloud. I started shouting orders to them. Then I remembered that they couldn’t understand me. I started slamming doors, throwing pillows outside the doors, pretending like I was getting the residents away from the fire. They looked at me like I was crazy. My last resort was to find someone that spoke Spanish. I did; the chef. He was very educated in both Spanish and English and the problem was resolved with much laughter on his part, not on mine.
The Spanish speaking staff were transferred to wings that had Spanish speaking residents and all went well from then on.

Tanker Truck Flattens Patrol Car
28 Ton Capacity Transport
Flings Tar Onto Home

BUT THAT WAS MY HOUSE! The day was Wednesday, June 28, 1961. I will never forget that day as long as I live. Interestingly enough, I do forget some of the details. So I do expect my brother to post a lot of comments and anyone else that reads this blog and lived in Cherokee at that time.
I was a junior in high school and had a job at a photo studio during the summer. My dad and I often went home for lunch together. The paper where he worked, and the studio that I worked at were just a couple of doors apart. The part I don’t remember is how I found out.
The highway patrolmen were conducting brake checks on traffic as it entered Cherokee. The truck driver was not aware of this check point held by two highway patrol men and could not see them as he came down a steep hill. He tried not to hit the patrol car in front of him so he turned the corner sharply but “ flattened it like a pancake,” so said the Cherokee Times.
I can remember walking home with dad and him telling me what happened, now that I think about it. Mom worked nights and was in the house and so was my brother, Keith.
The tar broke out a basement window and got quite a lot of tar in the basement, and all over the driveway and the yard. I cannot believe that Mom and Keith were not injured or burned.
I was just sitting here reading the article and thinking that the damage sounds so minor. It took my dad a year if not longer to get the tar out of the house.
I can also remember a box fan in the bedroom window where my parents slept, blowing air out. That was said to be a blessing keeping at least some of the tar out of the house.
Of course, my parents had to sue for damages, I used to have the papers that Mom had saved. I don’t remember much, but I think their lawyer sued the state for having a check point at the bottom of the hill. I do remember how much money they got after the lawyer fees; just over two thousand dollars.
My dad patiently took so many things and soaked them in gasoline to clean them. I do know that they had to have a new cement driveway put in.
I am going to let Keith fill you in on details that I have forgotten.
One thing I am remembering as I sit here writing this story is the smell. I don’t think I will ever forget the smell of hot tar. The only way we could get into our house was with planks that were put over the tar as temporary walk ways. It seems we used those planks for a very long time.

Joey And The Raspberries

I don’t know if you’re like me, but it doesn’t take much to make me nostalgic. Melanie put a post on one of my stories the other day that there used to be an cassette tape of my trip with Rosie. Well, I looked to no avail. I searched and searched. That tape probably was at Rosie’s house when she died, and tossed. Well, while I was looking, I did find a cassette of Wally and the kids and I at the zoo when they were really little. I thought perhaps that the trip to Kentucky was on the back side of it, but it wasn’t. I had just recently made some cd’s of the zoo trip for the kids, but I listened to it again today and got tears. The trip was about thirty seven or thirty eight years ago, but listening to their little voices it made it seem like yesterday. Wally and I didn’t have a video camera and didn’t take that many pictures. I wish we could have afforded to do things like that, but we have that recording of our children.
I did smile while I listened this morning, my voice is just about identical to my mother’s. I used the same terminology and the timbre of my voice was the same. I am so glad that I did that.
Now days the young parents have access to such wonderful high tech things to preserve their children’s voices and antics. My advice to them is “do it” as often as you can.
Today is just a short little story about Joey and his cousin, Stacey. They were only about six months apart in age. What one didn’t think of the other one did. I don’t have a picture of Stacey, but this is a picture of Melanie and Joey standing in front of the fence where a few minutes later, Joey and Stacey went exploring with no supervision.
We were all at Wally’s brother’s house visiting outside with our kids. After a bit I said aloud, “I wonder where Joey is.” We started searching behind this fence because we could hear little voices. Behind the fence was a huge patch of red raspberries. When they came out Joey and Stacey’s faces were stained with raspberry juice. Joey grinned and me and said, “Good strawberries, Mama.” Priceless.

The Mirrors To The Soul

When I am gone from this world, people will probably say Lu Anne always had a quick laugh and friendly smile.
I made up my mind years ago, that through tough times, a smile made people feel better and helped me through some rough spots.
When I had two small children, I needed to help to supplement our income. I did not want to go to work and leave my children with a sitter, so I decided to run a daycare center from my home. I took children on a daily basis, and for a week at a time while their parents went on vacation, and I also took a terminally ill two year old boy. He had brain cancer and had had surgery, but the prognosis was not good. His mother begged me to care for him while she taught school. It was imperative that she work because of the medical bills. At first I told her that I just couldn’t. I was scared to death that another child would hit him in the head with a toy and severely hurt him. After I had a serious talk with my husband, he said to go ahead and take him, but give him and his brothers time to make him his own playground in our back yard. They fenced it off away from the other kids swing set, made him his own sand box and safer toys. It was wonderful. He could watch the other children play, and I let one or two little ones play with him at a time. Kevin stayed with me about a year before he died. I will never forget that little boy. I always thought that God had helped make it possible for me to care for him. Smiles on the days he was there were hard to wear.
I often think, if people were really in tune with me, they would know that I may be smiling on the outside, but if they would just look in my eyes, they had to know how sad I was.
I worked in long term care for almost twenty years. I often wondered if I made a difference in those peoples lives. I know that they made a difference in my life. I would laugh with them and they with me; sometimes it was so difficult. At times I wondered when I stepped in the door if there was anything that I could laugh at that day. I always found something.
I wasn’t feeling well for awhile. One day the nurse at the nursing home where I worked sent me home. She said I was staggering and that I needed to make a doctor’s appointment. I was surprised. I felt alright, not super, but alright. But I did what she asked. After some tests and quite a long period of time, the neurologist said I had Multiple Sclerosis. I laughed. I was so happy. He said that that was the most unusual reaction to that diagnosis he had ever seen. I told him I was so relieved it wasn’t brain cancer, any other diagnosis was a blessing.
One day after being married to my husband for almost twenty years, he asked for a divorce. He said he couldn’t live with the diagnosis of M.S. Of course, that was a lie, but be that as it may. I didn’t think I would ever see anything funny in life again. But once again, I put on my mask of “Normal” and took one day at a time. People thought I was adjusting well. They weren’t there in the middle of the night when I would cry out, “Why, Why?” One day I started laughing. I thought “you hate mustard in your potato salad. She puts mustard in her potato salad. Hope you’re happy.”
Someone once said that the eyes are the Mirror of the Soul, My thought to that is, “People, you need to look, really look into people’s eyes and then you will see either the reflection of your own emotions or the real image of the eyes that you are looking into and act accordingly.”
I have a very good friend that always knows when something is wrong just by looking at me. There is a similar phrase that says, “the face is a picture of the mind as the eyes are it’s interpreter.” How very very true.

My Sister, Our Kids And A Motor Home Part 3

I was really ready to leave Kentucky. I love to travel, and I love to experience and taste new things, but I was up to my eyeballs with new experiences. It was time to go to Indiana to Santa Claus Land. Yippee!
I take hundreds of pictures, but after digging and digging, I could only find one lonely picture of Melanie and Joey at Santa Claus Land. I think that Julie was standing with Rosie when she was taking the picture. In 1971 I have a picture of Rosie licking the battery in an old Brownie camera to take a flash, so I think Rosie had all the pictures. She must have sent me this one. If you look close there is a great big tree in the background that is decorated like a Christmas tree. My memory is really gray about this little amusement park. I do know that a lot of people sent Christmas cards from here so they would have a really cool postmark.
Santa Claus Land had people dressed up in costumes that amused the children. You can see that Joey isn’t quite convinced that Minnie Mouse is the real thing. The building in the back is the entrance where the parents took their little ones for the kiddy rides. We had a really good time and didn’t have to worry about the little ones getting away from us. I did spend the last of my money there. I think I may have had about two dollars and some change left when we got back in the motor home.
It was about a six or seven hour drive back to Sioux City, and that again, is a guess. Except for the Southern cooking, we had pretty much lived on minced ham sandwiches, chips and things like that. I told Rosie that I would make the last batch of minced ham sandwiches and that would get us home. Then we would have some hot food. Rosie said she would buy us all some hamburgers and I said no, that she had spent enough money as it was. We were going through a town of about ten thousand or so and we stopped at a red light to let some pedestrians cross the street. The camper had a snub nose so you could look down and see perfectly. A young teenage girl was crossing the street. In her hands she carried a sack from McDonalds and a chocolate shake . I told Rosie that that girl had no clue how lucky she was to live another day. Rosie knew what I meant and we got the giggles so bad, we missed the green light and horns started honking and that of course, got my dear sister’s dander up. She proceeded to tell the other motorists that if they had lived on minced ham sandwiches for six days they would understand. We talked about that poor girl for months and years after that. I think probably every time we had a minced ham sandwich we thought about that lucky little teenager.
On the way home all we could think about is getting home and relaxing. All of a sudden a horrible noise sounded from the back of the camper. It was so loud it sounded like an explosion. Rosie was scared to death. Here she had three little kids with her about three hundred miles from home. She told me to go outside to see if I could see what the problem was. Oh, I could see alright. The muffler had completely fallen off and had rolled down the ditch. Just as I was going to pick it up, she screamed at me, “No, No, No.” I thought she had lost her mind. She had the presence of mind to tell me that it was extremely hot and I would burn myself something fierce. We had to sit at the side of the road and let it cool off, wrap it in a towel, put it in the side of the camper and very noisily head home. We did stop to see how much it would cost to fix it but they would not take an out of town check so Rosie said, “Fine, we are going home.” That my dear readers was probably the most fun I have ever had in seven days. But that is not the best part. When Wally came to pick me up he told me he had gotten a raise. It was just a few cents an hour, but every little bit helps. How about that for a wonderful ending to an exciting story?

My Sister, Our Children, And A Motor Home Part 2

(Salt Cellar)

Even though the night was a short one, Rosie, and I and especially the kids were anxious to get day two underway. Well, there was no arguing, we would stay at Pauline’s house for breakfast. Now I have to remind you, Rosie and I were from the north. Breakfast was definitely southern. Pauline had grits (I thought they were disgusting) she also had ham and biscuits and red eye gravy. Why the people from the south call it gravy is beyond me. Now that stuff in my opinion should not be served to humans, just to clean out the skillet. For people who have never had it, it is just grease from the ham which she really browned, the ham was quite fatty. Then she took the ham out of the skillet and put some black coffee and a little sugar in the grease. She cooked it down some and there you have red eye gravy, the staple of most southern breakfasts which is used for biscuits. Pauline was a very sweet southern lady, and I enjoyed her very much.
I don’t remember if we had to travel to another town to Mammy’s house or if we just had to go to another part of the same town we were in, be that as it may we were on the road again. It just doesn’t seem like it was a long time. I believe the name of the town where Mammy lived was Elkton. Little did I know, but the fun was just going to begin as we pulled that big old motor home into this little country village.
Mammy lived in a small house. I think, maybe a little two bedroom cottage. Her kitchen was small, made a little bigger by an added screened in porch. Her home did not have city sewer. I was not aware of that. My little guy, Joey, was getting really tired of being cooped up in a motor home. He was ready to play. Our home was really big with a great big wraparound porch. He was just not used to being confined. He went outside and ran and jumped and played. I was watching him out the window, to make sure he was being safe and staying on the yard. He would play tricks and run really fast and jump across a little drainage ditch at the edge of the yard and then back again. He was being such a good little boy. He was about three years old then. Rosie came up to me while I was watching Joey, and said, “Uh you might want to stop Joey from jumping across that ditch.” I could not imagine why she would say such a thing, so I asked her. She then told me that the ditch was the drainage ditch for the sewer. Eww! Yup, I checked his shoes, sure enough they did need cleaning. Oh, Dear, the joys of being a little boy’s mom and a culture shock.
That evening was also inclusive of a culture shock. I don’t remember what Mammy fixed for the main course, but I will never forget what she had for a vegetable; okra. She had multiple vegetables. It seems like our little trip was in the latter part of July or the beginning of August. I can remember sweet corn, tomatoes, and all kinds of goodies. The dish came to me that had okra in it and I asked what it was. I could tell by the sparkle in my sister’s eyes that she was being really naughty. Mammy said it is very good, just don’t chew it, just swallow it. Well I took some and cut it with a fork. That is all she wrote. No chewing or swallowing. No way! Oh they laughed.
After supper was over, of course, I was going to help clear the table. I was told to put the dishes in the sink and just cover the things on the table. I was so stupid!!! I asked her if her refrigerator had quit working. She told me that even the salad with the Miracle Whip would be just fine sitting over night on the table with a clean dish towel over it. What had I just eaten???? Well I survived. I didn’t get sick. I guess the human body is extremely resilient.
The next morning I was determined not to have red eye gravy again. I went to the camper and got out cereal for Julie, Melanie, and Joey. Mammy’s kitchen, like I said was small and she had a narrow sideboard under one set of cupboards where I could fix the children their cereal. Evidently Rosie fixed Julie’s because Julie didn’t yell and scream like Melanie did. On Mammy’s sideboard was a cut glass dish that was beautiful, similar to my mother’s sugar bowl. There was no spoon in it, so I looked for the silverware drawer, grabbed a spoon and put a heaping spoonful of sugar on Melanie’s cereal, poured milk on it and called Melanie to the table. Within seconds of putting it in her mouth, Melanie started to scream and spit. I was so embarrassed I wanted to kill the child with my bare hands. Until she asked me why I had put salt on her cereal. It was not a sugar bowl, but in fact a salt cellar. Oh, Dear, for the third time in twelve hours. Tomorrow will be the third and final chapter of our memorable trip.

My Sister, Our Kids, And A Motor Home

This story is stretching my memory because it happened when Melanie was five so that was thirty seven years ago. Rosie called me one day when my husband and I were at our brokest. I don’t know if that is a word, but it works for me. At that time, I generally made pancakes for supper every night from scratch. I remember Wally telling me that if he never ate another pancake it would be too soon. They were good pancakes, I had made the homemade apple butter for them, or the homemade chokecherry syrup or whatever we wanted, everything was homemade.
Anyway, Rosie had called me and said that she would like me and the kids to go to Kentucky with her and Julie in the motor home. Oh, I could have cried. I wanted to go so bad, I could taste it, but there was no way that I could squeeze out enough money to go on a trip. In my mind, Kentucky was half way around the world. So of course, I told her the truth, I would love to go, but I just couldn’t. Then she said the magic words, she said she would pay for everything but what I wanted to spend on the kids. Rosie said she would pay for our food even. Oooh, things were getting a little easier for me to visit with Wally now. You have to understand that Wally was a proud man. He wouldn’t even let me buy clothes at a yard sale because he wore hand me downs all his life. So this little “visit” was going to be difficult I knew. Wally was a proud man, but he was a soft old teddy bear. He said I could take twenty five dollars on the trip and food out of the pantry to take on the motor home.
I almost broke both legs getting back to the telephone to call Rosie back.
I think that Wally took me to Sioux City and we loaded up the motor home. I took home canned pickles, and all kinds of things that I had “put up.” Rosie and Jr’s motor home was called a Champion. It was beautiful. I have only pictures that I got from the internet of their motor home from the same year. It was a big old thing, but you put three little kids and two grown ups in it somehow it shrinks.
Rosie had a travel plan. We were going to go to Indiana to Santa Claus, Indiana and we were going to go to Adventure Land in Iowa. I think it was like a miniature version of Six Flags. There were many stops for us along the way too. One of the places my sister just loved to go was to visit the Amish Colonies. She loved to have some time to do some “wine tasting” and she inevitably bought some goodies.
Ok, let’s get started on our trip. Wally went back home, I made sure I had all of my babys’ things packed away and out of the way. Rosie, got behind the wheel, I sat in the co-pilot’s seat and away we went. NOT! Everything in the refrigerator flew out and all over the floor. So Rosie had to stop and go to a store right there in Sioux City and get something to keep the refrigerator door closed. It took all I had to keep it closed manually until she got some tape or maybe Velcro so it would stay closed. I may have said something to her that I hoped that that was not going to set the tune for our trip, but we just laughed and took off like fools.
Our next stop was the Amish colonies. Everything was going extremely well there. Rosie didn’t do too much “tasting” I think she bought a broom or a quilt and away we went.
We both had stocked the motor home with food for sandwiches and goodies, so every so often, Rosie would stop for potty breaks and we would have a picnic. The kids loved it and so did we. Rosie and I were separated by age and miles. She worked as a nurse and I as a housewife and mother. So our quality time together was extremely limited. So what I am trying to explain to you readers, is that our mouths were going a hundred miles an hour in visiting not just eating.
If memory serves me right, we went to Adventure Land next which is somewhere by Des Moines, Iowa. It’s really strange, it has only been thirty seven years, why can’t I remember all of this? Well anyway, we had an absolute ball there. I got my sister on the log flume and I thought she was going to scream her lungs out. We had so much fun. It was so good for our little ones too, to see their moms in a different perspective. They were acting pretty "goofy!"
We decided that we were going to drive straight through to Kentucky so that we could spend more time with Rosie’s mother-in-law. Now I have to stop here, because when I woke up this morning I started thinking about this story. The first place we stopped in Kentucky was not “Mammy” or Jr’s mother’s, it was his sister’s house, I believe her name was Pauline. We had arrived a day early, so that’s why the gun. By the time we got to her house it was late at night and Rosie knocked at the door and a guy came out with a gun and pointed it at her stomach. I thought I was going to faint. I am sitting here laughing my head off. That’s what happened later that night too, but not right then. Anyway when they later realized who Rosie was, we were invited in and the gun put away. I ushered the kids out to the motor home after awhile and put them to bed. They were utterly exhausted it was way after midnight.
I went to bed with a magazine, but kept one ear and eye on the door to make sure my sister was going to be okay with those crazy people. After awhile she came out to the motor home and I could tell she had been “tasting.” What, I don’t know, but where we were in Kentucky, it was a dry county, so it was probably moonshine mixed with soda. Anyway she and I were visiting and I could hear her get her bed ready which as most of you know that have ever camped, was the kitchen table. She was closer to the windshield and my bed was closer to the kids. She was really talking and laughing and I was grinning to myself, wondering what she had been “tasting” when all of a sudden the most horrible noise and a great big thump followed by a “uh!!” My poor sister’s bed had collapsed. She evidently had put the boards too close to the edge when she put the bed together and when she rolled over, down she went. Her legs were up and her head was up and her bottom was on the floor; she was a perfect V. I had to get up and help her out of her situation, which wasn't all that easy either. I thought we would never quit laughing. We were still laughing when the sun was coming up. We would get real quiet, then someone would go, “uhm, uhm” then it would start all over again. This is a two part story. The second part of this story is probably even funnier than this one. What a crazy trip. See you later, from the boon docks of Kentucky!