He Saw The Heart Picture!

I loved my job in long term care and did not consider retirement until I contracted Multiple Sclerosis. When I did retire it was a huge adjustment. I had a set routine: up, shower, coffee, dress, drive 45 minutes to work, work 8-9 hours, drive home in horrible traffice and flop. This routine had been satisfying my need to help people and of course, to socialize. Those of you that know me, know that my need to laugh and joke around and tell stories to friends and strangers alike know that that part of my life was so very important.
As M.S. took over not only my physical mobility, but my cognitive ability My life in my estimation was shot! I couldn't play the piano, nor type on my computer. My eyesight at times would vanish. I was completely blind twice. Therefore, I couldn't drive or read regular print in a book.
A series of events took place; a divorce, a courtship and a diagnosis of Progressive Multiple Sclerosis with a very somber series of events.
I married my present husband which was retired. However, he sang karaoke. So went went to the clubs. I sometimes was in a wheelchair and/or walker, or a kind husband or friend helped me to sing with him or to help me to the restroom.
Well, a turn of events in 2017 which involved a change of medicine has made it possible for me to walk and talk as well as type! Whew. Those three things are most important to me.
My husband was and is retired. Did I mention that? When you are the age of retirement and much older often times you get what your children call "set in your ways." Well, actually a lot set in our ways. The latest subject of our conversations is the fact that I do not remove the bubble wrap from the flavored water that we both like. I set it in the fridge and slit the wrap with scissors and let it chill. Fran thinks that it should be removed from said bubble wrap and separated. It was getting to be such a hot subject of whose bottle of water was whose that I suggested that we put our initials on the bottles. He chuckled about that. I was serious!
Last night after he went to bed I put a six pack of water in the refrigerator. I was on my way to bed when I thought, "You know what I am going to leave him a note and see if he says anything." I had not removed the bubble wrap.....
I sat in my chair this morning drinking my coffee and I heard him say, "By the way I saw your note." I chuckled and that was the end of the water conversation.
Yup, we are definitely set in our ways.

Another Reason For Pictures

I am still uncovering some pictures that my mother had in a little 4"x7" scrapbook. I knew I had them somewhere. I started looking for a picture of my sister Juanita a few days ago. I found one. It's a group picture, it will have to do. They were all black and white and chock full of love and history as well as insight into some of the stories my mother used to tell.
My mother was raised close to Cherokee, Iowa on a farm that had originally belonged to my Great Grandfather Nathan Hayes. He gave it to  my grandmother, Lulu E. Hayes Banister for a wedding present. She had married my grandfather, G.D. Banister son of G.W. Banister one of the original settlers of Cherokee, Iowa.
It happened that my father being single  was looking for work. The Depression was in full swing. My grandfather hired him for a hired hand around the farm. Dad had experience doing farm work in what he used to call The Dakotas. He helped thrash oats and picked corn and a general farm hand. You see my father was raised by his elderly grandmother due to his mother's very early death and his father being a victim of a stroke. He was a determined young man and vowed to finish high school. That he did at the age of 27. He had to work to pay for his clothes and food. When he had enough he would go back to school. He was part of the Cherokee basket ball team which he was very proud. My brother still has the Year Book with his picture in it. When his money ran out he would go back to work. That's just how much an education meant to him.
Well, in those days a hired hand was part of the family and ate meals with the family at the kitchen table. The kitchen had a west window that allowed the sun to shine on my mother's auburn hair. He told me one day that he fell in love with that beautiful woman with the sun glowing in her red hair. I'm sure that the sun made the red more red when it was directly shining on it.
Here are some pictures of the two people that ended up being my parents for many many years.
My brother, Keith R. Johnson and my father look so much alike. This picture looks like he is at a park pavilion, note the picnic basket in the background. My daughter mentioned that she would always recognize his posture. He stood like that even in his older age.

The next picture asks many questions. He is wearing an apron which he did in latter years as a lineotype operator at the Cherokee Daily Times newspaper, but I cannot determine exactly what he is doing in this photo. Again he and my brother are mirror images.
My father's birthday will be soon in January. He was born in 1903. He was nine years older than my mother. This picture of her makes me smile. There are many pictures of her always wearing a hat. Note pants and high heel shoes. She was making a fashion statement that's for sure. (I have a feeling that my grandparents were not impressed.)
And the last picture is of them together. Very much in love.
He lived to be 75 and my mother lived until she was 90.

Christmas When I Was A Small Child

When I was a small child I lived in an old farm house. It had a roof and windows and kept the rain and wind out. However, it had little else. No air conditioning, no calking around the windows to keep the dirt and cold out on windy days. The walls were not insulated with anything but perhaps some plaster over the fragile thin slats of wood that were beneath layers and layers of wallpaper.

LuAnne
8 months

My father hated rodents worse than my mother and was constantly warring the battle of intruding mice. He would find their holes that they had successfully chewed through from inside the walls and cover them with the lids of tin cans. I can still see him using tiny nails to try to inconspicuously as possible keep them out.
When it was Christmas time as far back as I can remember we had some kind of tree. I remember once it was a scrub bush type tree. I remember that because of some grumbling/murmering discussion about it between my mother and father. I was so young that I couldn't understand what the problem was, I loved that little scrub tree.
I also remember we had no tree stand. My father again, with his trusty saw and hammer and nails would make one to surround the tree. It always looked to me like wooden feet. Mother would always cover up the "feet" with a clean white sheet.
If you have read very many of my childhood memories, you will remember how very poor we were, but there always seemed to be a dime for a box of silver tinsel. I can remember my mother teaching me just how to hang it on the tree to cover the barest parts. When we were through, you could not see through the "holes." We had bubble lights that had a mind of their own. Often my dad left the lights on the tree even though they didn't work, because during the day they were pretty. Different colors of yellow, green, and reddish orange as I remember. Mother tried so very hard to keep her glass ornaments safe year to year. However, each year it seemed that she had less and less to choose from.
 She had "rags" that were pieces of old sheets that she wrapped some of her favorites with, but she also saved some of the peach wrappers when she canned peaches. She used some of those to protect her treasures also.  There were no paper towels in those days that I knew of.
That's it except for the star topper. I don't even remember what it looked like now, it's been so very long ago. But I do remember it was a star.
I can remember the very "lean" years, not with sadness at all, but with so much love that I was always surrounded with. Christmas was one  purchased gift and one homemade gift and church. And don't forget our stockings on Christmas morning which always had an orange and some peanuts in the shell and Christmas hard candy in them.
 We were taught from our very young ages that Christmas was not about gifts, but about kindness to others, and the Christian meaning of the beginning of Christmas. We knew the Biblical story of the birth of Baby Jesus by heart by the time we were 6 or 7 at the oldest.
Over the years my parents finances and circumstances improved. The trees became more lush, some flocked, some with pine cones, and some were artificial during the end of their lives.
I can remember the last tree that they had they used over and over again. I was never disappointed because it remained the same year to year. It was home when I walked in the door.
That's what I remember; home. Not fancy, not a very warm house when I was a child, but warm hugs and lots of laughter. Christmas.

My Dad And Veteran's Day

My dad was a quiet spoken and gentle man. He seldom raised his voice. He loved his family with a fierce love that equaled few. He was not a veteran.
 I was born in 1944. As I have mentioned several times in my posts, I was constantly asking questions. As I got older and went to school, of course, I learned about Veteran's Day.
I went to school in Cherokee, Iowa. My grade school was called Lincoln Elementary. I can remember asking for a nickel to take to school to watch the Veteran's Day movie upstairs.

Upstairs was a long ways up for a little girl. I can remember the steps were cement and the edges showed silver all the way across from hundreds of people using them for years and years.
In those days, Veteran's Day was observed on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11:00 in the morning. It was then that an armistice was signed to end war and start peace among all nations in the year of 1918. It was the day that the first world war had ended. The world had never seen anything like WWI. Over a million people had been killed. Nothing like that war was ever expected to happen again. But of course, it did.
My ancestors had fought for our freedom since the Revolutionary War. My great great grandfather fought in the Civil War and my Uncle was in active duty during WWII. My brother was in the Navy for several years as well.
Well, of course I asked my daddy if he was a veteran. I can actually remember him hanging his head when he answered me. He said, "No, I didn't pass the physical." His brother had been in active service also. Mom and Dad would get letters in the mail from both Dad's brother and Mom's brother.
It took me a few years of growing up to understand just how important Dad felt that his brother and brother-in-law's jobs were compared to his.
My father was a farmer at that time. He did his duty for his country by helping feed the folks that were still left in our country. I can remember them taking food into town for folks at the church that needed help because their "bread winner" was in the service. I can also remember someone stealing food out of their car one night. Mom told me she was sure that whoever stole their food was hungry. That's the way folks used to be. Yes stealing was wrong, but hungry children is wrong also. We had very little money, but we did not ever go hungry.
My children's father was a veteran of WWII and won the Silver Star for saving lives of his men from a German attack. He often said to me, "I just don't understand why I was saved when men that fought with me were not. They had wives and children at home. I did not." He had several brothers that were in the service at that time also.
My mother-in-law had brothers that either served in the service or helped our nation by building bridges and roads. Her mother hung their pictures proudly on her living room wall I was told by one of her nieces. When the war was over one of her brothers joined the Navy. Marie said that her mother was not a bit understanding of that decision, saying, "The war is over, you don't need to go." I think many mothers feel the same way. My mother was when my brother left. The fear of him being hurt and also just missing him was told many times over the years.
My husband had three children in the service as well. It seems everyone knows someone that was or is a veteran. Thank you for all that you do to protect our flag and our freedom. Do not ever hang your head because you don't pass the physical. There is so much you can do for your country at home.

Voting Day A Long Long Time Ago

When I was a little girl, I have often mentioned in my posts that I had an inquiring mind much to my grandfather's chagrin. He thought that little girls should be quiet and never enter into grown up conversations. I do remember my mother standing up to him one time. Seldom in those days did children, even grown up children stand up to their fathers. But this time she did. Mother told her father that if LuAnne didn't ask questions she wouldn't learn new things. She continued to tell him that she had every right to ask questions. Wow! When I think of that conversation now it just makes me smile. He was such a stern man and he liked to think he ruled the roost. Only at this time he wasn't ruling my mother's roost. Ha!
Eventually, however, my constant questions and singing and talking at our table did make my own quiet spoken father take action. He did indeed tell me that at the table there was to be no singing and I could speak when spoken to. You have to remember that this was when I was six to eight years old or younger.
As I grew older I was more aware of not only my home environment, but also aware of what was going on in the country due to current events in school. Elections were talked about and discussed in school.
One evening my mother and father left my brother and me home alone with my sister while they went to an old school house to vote. Two things to note here; they rarely if ever left us home and another we lived in the country.
 Of course, as soon as they got home I asked them who they voted for. Oh my, I got a lecture! I was told that it was no one's business who people voted for and furthermore do not ask again. My parents did not react like that. Both of them were quiet, my father more so than my mother. Since I got that stern response I never asked again, or for that matter didn't ask why I couldn't ask who they voted for. What was the big deal?
I found out when I was older why the secrecy of their voting when I was a teen and young adult; McCarthyism. There was a movement in the early 50's that wreaked havoc with Americans. Many Americans would be accused of being Communists and would be Black Listed. There were even movies stars that would be Black Listed and their careers were ruined. It was a terrible time. I remember watching  at that time what were called "News Reels" at the movies about him.
He was a very influential man because for one thing he was a Senator from Wisconsin. He professed to have a list of card carrying Communists. Even the folks in the White House feared but also hated him. In later days it was discovered that he in fact had "lost" the so called list.
Because of our constitutional right of free speech he was allowed to speak in public forums which were also covered by the press. Before long there was a mass fear among our citizens both from the city and the rural areas albeit my folks.
He was finally defeated by not only alcoholism but by the good people of the our United States.

I was reminded of this horrible time not only today, Election Day for the Mid Term elections, but by the open way people now tell everyone how they vote. The days of McCarthyism is over thank goodness. We are once again free to voice our opinions because we live in a freedom of speech country. We may not always agree with the people that we hear make speeches, but we can say, that we do not agree with no recriminations like in the early 50's.
This is a fun picture of my parents in 1955. I actually was allowed to take this picture with Dad's Kodak Brownie camera. Cherokee, Iowa Bluff Street at my grandparent's house.

I'm Sad Today

She left us the other day. I miss her more than words can say.

She saved cards, and letters, knitting books and pictures.

She made beautiful sweaters and blankets and mittens and hats.

She made microwave cakes, and dolls, and of course, that's not all.

It was my job to choose what things she saved to give away.

It was my job to throw her candles away.

You see, she saved her candles.

The candles from each birthday cake.

That job today was most difficult for me.  Her house was sold,

 so regardless of how I felt, I needed to do it.

Today was a day I shan't soon forget.


I cried a lot today. I wasn't crying for

Marie. I was crying for me. I miss her so.

It will soon be time to smile and laugh, Marie would

 have it no other way.

Marie was seventeen when she had her first birthday

 party. That's all she told me. I have no one to ask about that party. I'm sure she

had a good time; music and laughter, no doubt, with her love of family and friends.

Speaking of time, it's time for me to say a final good-bye.

Yes, I'm very sad today.

Another "Melanie Question"

Once again I happened to read one of my daughter's daily questions on Facebook. This one said, "What was your favorite summer activity when you were a kid?"
Well, my life was pretty boring, let me tell you. We lived on a farm. My mother didn't drive. She baked for a local grocery store to help put my sister through nurses training. I read and played piano.
But I thought, I did do something that was fun when I was about 8 or 9. I looked at the comments that people had answered Melanie's question with and it went like this: swimming, swimming, swimming in the river. (I was one of the very first people to read her question.)  "Hmm," I thought, I had only gone swimming once in my life and didn't like it when I was a little girl. I can still "smell" the chlorine in the air at the pool in Holstein, Iowa.
So I decided to answer my daughter's question truthfully.
When I was young, yes, I was an avid reader. Along with the Little House On The Prairie books, I loved the Boxcar Children books. I had and have an avid imagination so I asked my mom if I could go hiking and take a lunch. She said, "sure." and packed my lunch in one of my dad's farmer hankies. It was really fancy; homemade bread and butter and a quart canning jar with water in it. If she sprinkled sugar on my bread and butter, I wouldn't be surprised. She did that a lot for an afternoon treat.

Cattails by the creek

Okay, I was "hoboing" it and off I would go. I walked  through Iowa prairie grass that followed a very shallow little creek that seldom had more than three or four inches of water in it. My life wasn't as exciting as the orphans, but to me it was as good as it got.
The first thing that I would do is to lay down in that tall grass and look up into the sky. I loved looking at the clouds and imagining shapes of animals etc. that they made. My sister, Rosie, taught me how to do that from our bedroom window.
A person has no idea how noisy a field of prairie grass is if you had not done as child as I did; just being still and listening. There were no airplanes, trucks, tractors, cars going fast down the highway. We lived about a quarter of a mile off of the highway. To an adult walking through the grass the air was only disturbed by birds chirping. Down on the ground I could hear crickets, grasshoppers, and the swishing of the grass itself in the breeze. There must have been a gazillion ants and beetles and who knows what, but I loved it! Would I do it now, no way.
When I tired of that I would eat my lunch and drink some of my water and catch tadpoles in my canning jar. I was fascinated with them. My mother was not. She was not happy with the condition of my grass stained dress either. No slacks for little girls in those days.

Melanie asks the questions I get to reminisce!

I did go "hiking" again once or twice, but it was not as fun because I had to worry about my dress getting stained.
I'm sitting here typing thinking, "It was too bad you didn't have a dog to go with you on your hikes, you might have enjoyed it more." We had off and on dogs. They were strays I think sometimes by their own choice. Another story someday.