Times Are Different!

Maddie and Jordann and their campfire

I love this photo our son Jeremy sent while he was camping out with his girls, who are 8 and 6 years old. They have always loved campouts, complete with tents and cooking over the fire.  But recently they began what Jeremy termed "glamping" after their family acquired a travel trailer which allows them to have most of the comforts of home (indoor shower and bathroom, beds with mattresses, and a small kitchen.)  They can enjoy being outdoors and still sleep cool and snug. 

When they were here this past weekend, Maddie invited her Papa and me to come camping with them - and they would "give us the best bed!"  I asked her if I had ever told her the story of when we camped out in a buffalo herd the first year we were married.  Her eyes got big and she said no, I had not told her that story, and she was properly shocked as we told what had happened to us.

In July, 1964, (after our December 28,1963 wedding), Joe worked as a geophysicist  on a seismic crew for Petty Geophysical. We lived that blistering hot summer in a small apartment in Duncan, Oklahoma. The crew received word of being moved to Sherman, Texas so we planned a weekend to go there to look for an apartment. We thought it would be fun to go camping at Lake Texoma, so we borrowed gear from another crew member.  On that Friday, we had air mattresses and coolers already loaded into our tiny Karman Ghia, and I had already prepared food to pack at the last minute.  At lunchtime, Joe came home and said the crew move had been delayed for several weeks. Crestfallen, we cancelled our camping plans since we couldn't afford to go find a place to live there and pay double rent for a month.

But when we were eating dinner after Joe got home that evening, we thought of a Plan B!  Lawton, OK is only a little over 30 miles from Duncan, and northwest of Lawton is Mount Scott, a prominent mountain in the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.  Why not drive over at there instead?  So we rechecked our prepared gear and food and headed out. 

The closest I had ever come to camping was a weiner roast with my best friend's family or sleeping in a bunk bed at church camp!  So I wasn't much help other than being a good sandwich maker. Joe thought it would be a great geology field trip!  Arriving after dark, as we entered the roads leading toward campsites, I did notice warning signs for wildlife, including some cautions about buffalo, longhorn cattle, and snakes. After all, it was a wildlife refuge!  Evidently alot of other people had the same good idea about a weekend campout, because all the campsites in the common area were already occupied.  Joe drove down to a grove of trees that looked perfect, we inflated our air mattresses and enjoyed the cool breeze, so different from our apartment that had no fan or air conditioner. We left the coolers in the car, and as I walked back to the car to get water, I looked out toward Mount Scott with a full moon rising over it and smiled.  But as I stood there, I felt a twinge of uncertainty. There were what seemed to be round dark shadows moving in this landscape.  I called Joe and pointed this out, but non-plussed, he said they were "just rocks,"  Quickly, I made up my mind - whatever this was, it was moving, and moving toward us.  I told him I was getting in the car, and soon he joined me as the first large animals lumbered by. A small herd of buffalo thought our grove of trees looked inviting too!  Or maybe they were just curious and wanted to investigate our presence. I remember laughing to the point of hysteria!  If I had rolled down the car window, I could have scratched a hairy belly!  And we couldn't just drive off and leave our borrowed gear on the ground!  Joe discovered if he turned on the car's headlights, the animals moved away from the light.  So he told me to move the car back and forth and he ran for the air mattresses.  Unfortunately, inflated air mattresses do not fit well into Kharman Ghias, adding to our nervous hilarity. We drove around for an hour, but never found a spot we (mostly me) found acceptable, so we drove back to our hot apartment and finally went to bed.

Later we learned that the designated camp area was surrounded by a moat to protect campers from Buffalo visitors. We didn't stay in Duncan long enough to repeat our attempt to camp at Mount Scott, and years later when we finally did pitch a tent for a family camp out at Lake Texoma, Jeremy, who was then a small boy, had his own camping adventure when he picked up what he thought was a big ball on the trail and it turned out to be an armadillo!  

Glamping might just be OK!

Thank You, Jane!

Coming Into My Own by Jane Hill Purtle

I will preface my remarks and commendation with saying that the biggest reason I bought and read this memoir as well as the reason it had such attraction and impact (push and pull!) is that the author's story and mine intersect very personally. We have the same great grandmother. My grandmother and Jane's grandfather Hill were half brother and sister. But the family tree is not the only thing we share. Although we have not crossed paths physically many times in our lives, we are alike in many pursuits - loving art and literature, writing, keeping family stories, nurturing friendships, grandmothering, enjoying gardening and birds, seeking spiritual truths and making faith and family priorities

I may have read it for different reasons than you will, but you will be bettered by sharing Jane's journey.



After I posted the above review on GoodReads this morning, I wrote my cousin a note to wish her Happy Birthday since I read in her book that her birthday is September 13. I told her that on this day (9/11) of remembering many sad things as well as acts of bravery and courage, plus stories of family and faith, I wanted to let her know I was remembering her and her birthday. I am grateful for her story.  Thank you, Jane.

Wrapped in Love, Covered with Grace

As Nora nears 6 months of growing and changing and exploring her world, we celebrate the gift she is to us and are grateful.  One day, after I rocked her to sleep and laid her in her crib, I saw the coverlet I made for her hanging nearby and covered her gently with it. In previous posts, I told the story of the lace which I knitted for edging. I made a short piece of the lace when I was pregnant with Nora's Daddy, Ben. Forty years passed before I pulled the lace out and began again.  The story is explained in these two blog posts.

www.tinyurl.com/BeginningAgainForNora

www.tinyurl.com/Nora-sLace

I stood and watched her, smoothing the satin and fingering the tiny knitted stitches. I thought about how fast she is growing and prayed she will always know she is wrapped in love, covered in Grace. 

Back to School

                      Maddie and Jordann, 3rd grade and 1st grade, August 21, 2014
                                (which also happened to be Jordann's 6th birthday!)

During the past 2 weeks, 3 of our granddaughters started back to school.  At 11, Skye is entering the world of Middle School in 6th grade. As you see, Maddie and Jordann are off to their new starts as well.  I am remembering their fathers at the same age, ways we wrapped up summers and headed back to classrooms, the excitement of buying school supplies, sneakers, and new lunch boxes. I am grateful for teachers who encouraged them, inspired them with art and music,  and helped them learn the reading, language, math, and science skills that serve them all so well as adults. I prayed for those teachers and our little boys all during the year but especially on that first day of school.  I do the same for our granddaughters, the teachers who will join them on their learning paths this year, and the friends they will make and enjoy.

 I also think about back to school times at West Side Elementary in Jacksonville, Texas in the 40's and 50's,  my own early school years.

Summers were long and hot. We had no television and no air conditioning, I remember going to the library, reading stacks of books, cooling off in the porch swing on our front porch, eating watermelon, and going barefoot. I remember tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash fresh from the garden, with blackeyed peas and a pan of cornbread that would be made early in the morning to avoid heating up the kitchen later. I looked forward to going back to school because I loved school and would get to see my friends.

Our house was one of the 2 houses on the same block as the school, so I didn't have very far to walk. My mother sewed most of my clothes, and getting ready for school to start meant looking through pattern books to pick a pattern along with the fabric to make my dress for the first day of school.

I see my granddaughters repeating some of that pattern as they go with their Moms to get uniforms, shop for the required shoes, and plan what they will wear on the first day.  They may have very different schools - the older one is in a Christian academy, and the 2 younger ones begin this year at a brand new charter school. They not only have TV, but phones and tablets and laptops. They will not only be studying basic "reading, writing, and 'rithmetic", but also drama, Spanish, and Mandarin.

But as I hear them talk about planning their first day and see their pictures posted in emails and FaceBook, I see they know the importance of beginnings and are off to a year of new adventures in learning.  Back to school, my beautiful  girls! I am looking back at all my own memories, but I am also looking forward to your futures. You may be scientists and researchers and authors and wives You may be musicians and artists and mothers. You may someday be sending your own little ones "back to school."

                                 Skye, 6th grade, August 14, 2014

What Don't You Like?

I am glad to say that all my blog posts are about things I love or simply wish to remember, so most of my writing is positive.  For instance, I love this piece of stained glass which hangs in our living room window that looks out to the porch and garden.  I love everything I can see through that window, but to be fair, there are things I see that I do not care for.

 In Jan Karon's Mitford series, conversations between her two central characters, Father Tim and his wife Cynthia, often include a whimsical exchange triggered by an exclamation of fondness about something from her followed by his question:  "What don't you love, Kavanaugh?" And she always has an immediate answer.  Like this one, quoted from Karon's A Common Life:  "Ducks that cry all night, beds with creaking springs, and feather pillows with little gnawing things inside."

I have not been asked the question, but certain things lately have struck me as happening often enough to be thoroughly annoying!   My list is not as creative as Cynthia's, but would include:

Questionnaires that arrive in the mail or my email inbox or get passed to me at the end of a meal which ask me to fill out a survey rating every medical appointment, customer service, or product I buy, especially the ones on Amazon that ask me to rate books I purchased so recently I could not possibly have read them yet!

Cell phone ringers set on loud that blast out bad music in public places, and their owners who answer them only to continue what should be a private conversation for all to hear.

The millions of address stickers I get in the mail that come with a solicitation for a contribution.  Especially the ones that don't even spell my name right!

Plastic forks that break at the first bite, and paper plates that fold in half when loaded.

Unsolicited political phone calls as well as those which clearly target only senior citizens.

Smoke alarms that signal weak batteries in the middle of the night, and signal, and signal.

Oh yes, one more:  the pop up that tells me I have perfect spelling when I try to send a message from AOL. Really?

That is all for now.  What about you?  What don't you like?  Let's hear your list!

Admiration

As Nora nears 5 months old, she is increasingly aware of color and patterns.  She is more sensitive to faces, smiling at those familiar to her and exhibiting wariness or alarm at those who are not. She fingers spots and dots on toys, reaches for the bright paisley of my shirt and the textured wood panel of her changing table. Here, she is fixed on the butterfly quilt that belonged to one of the grandmothers she is named for, Opal Terrell Teal.  As I smiled and watched her admiration, I thought of so many stories the quilt could tell.

Opal was my mother, making her Nora's great grandmother.  The butterfly quilt was made as a gift for Opal on her 17th birthday in 1931, a common pattern choice in those depression years that so needed the butterfly's symbolism of hope.  The women who chose these colors and patterns and stitched every tiny, even stitch were Opal's mother and grandmother, making them Nora Opal's great-great grandmother and great-great-great grandmother.  I stood as I watched Nora admire their handwork, thinking of their stories and hers.  They could not have known that almost a century later, a beautiful little girl would so love what they made. But I am confident they know now.  Opal herself did not know when she passed the quilt on to me how I would keep it and love it and give it again.  But I know she joins Clyde and Earnestine in blessing Nora and returning the admiration. Hope is a wonderful gift to pass on.

Some Things Don't Change

Mary Ann, 1940  

While I am happily spending this week caring for our baby granddaughter, Nora, I have thought about my own grandparents, who from all accounts were thrilled at my birth and delighted in my smiles and laughter in the same way I delight in Nora's.  I reflect with gratitude, remembering stories of my own parent's happiness in having a baby after almost 9 years of marriage when I see my son and daughter-in-law's radiant faces as they hold their daughter.  When I care for her, hold her close, rock her,  and sing to her, I am re-enacting those long ago love stories.

Many things are very different now- early pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, disposable diapers, washers and dryers that are marvels, air conditioned homes and automobiles, car seats, and  Mp3 lullabies!  I am thankful for every convenience that helps to keep babies safe and provides help for parents, but there is no replacement or upgrade for the calming reassurance of human voice and the comfort of loving arms.  

                    Ben and Nora