Am I Six or Sixty?

I’ve settled on being six,
When I thought it okay to chase boys.
It was the best age for everything;
I believed everyone would share their toys.

When I was six, I was pretty,
And I learned to tie my shoes,
And the alphabet was shaped like people
That did backbends and juggling moves.

I no longer believed my big brother
And sister knew everything
Because I had my own teacher now
To teach me what life would bring.

And then I got in trouble
For talking to Freddy, my beau
And for borrowing Rosary’s crayons
I was moved to the front of the row.

When my teacher told me that
I was bad for being sick,
I learned to hide my asthma;
I had taught myself that trick.

But I did learn the alphabet
And what every letter said;
I began to recognize
The words that were being read.

At recess it was easy
To have a lot of fun;
I was never afraid
To walk up to anyone

I would ask their names
And what they liked to do
If I didn’t know how to do a thing
I was an eager student, too.

The boys had fun games, like marbles
While the girls twisted their curls;
But the teachers didn’t like
Boys to play with girls.

Boys and girls were sinful,
If you put them together.
There were all kinds of other bad things.
Of the law, we learned the letter.

Now, here I am at almost sixty;
My second chance at childhood.
I caught my permanent beau,
And the fun we have is good.

Feeling innocent again,
I think my faith is fixed.
You can try to change my mind,
But I like being six.

Points to Ponder

Is “satisfactual” a word? I looked it up in a dictionary; it wasn’t there. But don’t you think it should be a perfectly proper word? It sounds great in the Disney song, “Zippety, Doo, Dah,” and it sounded so happy when Richard’s mechanic called to ask if the work that was done on my van was satisfactual. It really made me smile that they care enough to call and ask, and in such a personal, friendly, happy-to-serve-me manner.

And what about “consciencely?” I’ve been reading a book about introverts and extroverts. In it, the author talks about how introverts are more prone to think back over their thoughts and actions and live consciously than are extroverts. When I was growing up, as a Roman Catholic kid, we were taught that every night we should examine our consciences to remember if we had wronged anyone that day. This is what I call living consciencely.

When Rachel was a girl, I asked her to clean up a room. As most tasks did, this took her an extraordinary amount of time. When she finally resurfaced, I asked her what had taken her so long. She replied, “I was arranging the books on the bookcase “sizealogically.” I knew immediately what she meant, and the bookcase had never looked better.

Scott used to say the highest number in the universe was an “alakzillion.” It’s a nonsense word that makes sense to use for an unknown number; is “infinity” any better than? And alakazillion sounds so much more impressive. Nobody would have to say, “To alakazillion and beyond,” because they could quantify alakazillion with regular multipliers ?

Is there a central place where we can submit words for formal inclusion in the American vernacular? We could make a new reality show out of it, and have words voted into or out of the American dictionary. In order to have a vote on any given word, you must be able to use the term in a sentence that the majority of voters would agree made sense. It would be kind of like Balderdash, making up new words and defining what should be their meanings.

As anyone can plainly see, I contemplate deep issues when Richard is away. I have one load of laundry in the basket waiting for folding, one in the dryer waiting for the basket, and one in the washer waiting for the dryer. The dishwasher is still washing and the banana/black walnut muffins are still in the oven. I had a doctor once tell me that I should take up tennis instead of thinking. Maybe he was right. But who would do the laundry and baking while I was out beating up fuzzy yellow orbs with a racket? Besides, I was told by a tennis pro and a band director that I was a spastic. We all gotta do what we can do.

Another point to ponder: Has anyone ever verified that Dale Carnegie had any real friends?

Profound to Profane

I don’t know if the minds of most people bounce around from the profound to the profane on a daily basis, but my mind certainly does. I was once called a philosopher by the dean of students at my son’s Catholic boarding school; mostly I’m called “not right” or “nuts.”

Is it nuts to announce that there are similarities to volunteering with the Ruritan supper set-up and being the den mother for a bunch of cub scouts? Cub scouts do good work in their communities while having a lot of fun, with help from their mothers. This sounds much like what the men of Ruritan do, but with the help of wives.

There are many men in Coker Creek who have no wives and have well outgrown listening to their mommies (assuming they ever listened to them). They’re a good-hearted bunch and are ready, willing, and able to take direction from whatever woman shows up first in the Ruritan kitchen. I don’t really know the drill, but I’m willing to wing-it if no other woman with a longer Ruritan history is in attendance; however, I tend to put things in the wrong place, and since we’re mostly people “of a certain age,” moving things from their usual spots can be rather disorienting.

The first time I was in charge of set-up, I had the hamburgers after the salads, and we had to move everything into the proper places before we could commence to serve supper. Just last night, someone helping me put the dish washing water on the dish rinsing side of the sink. It was a mess trying to keep people from pitching potato salad spoons onto my clean flatware. I don’t try to think outside of the box or color outside the lines; I just don’t always have good control of my crayon. I sure am glad when someone else shows up to take over.

I want to be clear on one point, I’m not helping set up the kitchen because I think this is women’s work; I’m doing it because Richard’s on the board and I need something to keep me busy, and out of trouble, while he’s in the meeting. I did spend over two decades catering functions in every manner of meeting and party place; so, I feel somewhat qualified.

Even rule-following Richard is beginning to expand the parameters of the boxes we live in; he made a cake out of beets. But, he did swear me to secrecy about what was in the cake until all the accolades were in.

Now, here’s a little ditty that rattled out of my brain:

The Zit in My Armpit

I have a zit in my armpit;
It hurts so bad I could cry.
The doctor said it’s MRSA,
And it could get worser
But it’s unlikely I will die.

He gave me a pill prescription,
And liquid soap, and some salve.
If used daily, without fail
From hair to my toenail,
It will cure whatever I have.

Quite Quiet

It was a quiet day up our way;
Richard was under the weather.
I tiptoed around and stayed off the phone,
Hoping his aches would get better.
He’s usually such a stoic that,
When he admits he’s sick,
I feel like I should take him
To the hospital, double quick.

I can be a bit hysterical
About sickness in those I care for.
I made him a cup of chicken soup;
He didn’t think that he should dare more.
Oh, what’s a mother to do
When her chicks are feeling bad?
It’s so hard to know how much to do
Without driving them awfully mad.

Once we’ve almost lost a chick
We’re prone to hovering over it.
If anyone or thing threatens harm,
We push them back a bit.
But if pushing isn’t what they need
How can we show we care?
With a good book and a computer,
We can simply be quietly there.

Summer Song

Is there anything better than a day with a person you watched grow up as that person parents their own children? I absolutely love seeing the love glowing between parents and their children and grandparents and their grandkids. This has been a charmed summer with many children to admire. We’ve been so fortunate in being honored with visits by nieces and their fantastic families, who traveled many miles to share their children with us. We’ve also had the pleasure of being included in the Granny Camps of others.

Mountaintop Mary brought her brood over for a cookout and allowed me the honor of introducing them to Ms. Mamie’s chickens and garden. Donna allowed me the same opportunity to share our garden with her daughter and three of her grandchildren. She and her husband Marshall later brought them to our First Friday supper where they sang the most beautiful blessing to begin our feast. They seem to have enjoyed their first adventure in Jello fishing, followed by Jack Darnell reading to them from his work.

How great would it be, to turn all of Coker Creek into one huge Granny Camp? I tried to talk my daughter into starting a Granny Camp with us, figuring that we could utilize all the experience we had in the early years of her child rearing. She has two daughters who had been trained from birth to be counselors, so we had just the right ingredients.

But the price we pay for having super successful grandchildren is that they’re very busy pursuing their own futures. I do have to admit that Rebecca spending part of her summer helping to host exchange students from Korea will probably do more to promote world peace than cracking corn in Coker Creek would.

I was invited by Rachel to the big Atlanta suburb of Marietta to attend a live production of “Hairspray” with her and her daughters. I hardly knew how to act; it had been so long since I’d attended any cultural events in the any decent-sized city. I was seriously under-dressed in capris and flip flops while my three girls were gorgeous. How soon we forget how to dress for success.

I was unbelievably awed by the talent in Rachel’s town theatre on Marietta Square. I have been to Broadway, and the theatre called the Strand could compete any day. It was great laughing with my little ladies on my field trip from Granny Camp.

Then, it was on to our own version of the Grand Ole Opry at Charlie and Deborah’s place where we’re entertained for free by world-class musicians, and we have great food prepared by world-class cooks. Mountaintop Mary and Don brought their Granny Camp attendees, with little Emma all dolled up in a dress and petticoat with her hair in a beautiful French braid for performing the Irish lullaby “Tura Lura Lura.” Is there anything sweeter than the voices of young children raised in song, even if they are someone else’s grandchildren’s voices?

What’s a Wild Woman To Do?

Do you ever get the feeling that we were meant to be nomads? That maybe the Native Americans had the right idea about following food instead of farming? If floods were coming, they could just pick up their tents and head to higher ground. If one region had a drought, they could walk on over to where water was flowing. It may be that the best years of the lives of the Jews were spent collecting manna, milk and honey from heaven and not worrying about their next meal or fighting to defend their real estate.

Sometimes, it just seems easier not to get overly attached to any one place or person. A fellow blogger, “The Other Jack Darnell” writes about his and his wife’s lives as people without a permanent place. They do have an address, but that’s not where they live. They actually live in their RV and travel the country helping friends and learning life lessons from all with whom they come in contact.

Richard and I lived this way for the better part of our post-Katrina year. Imagine how much less complicated family affairs are when you can always be welcome guests. We’ve all heard the joke about parents who moved and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Sometimes, that sounds like a great idea; our kids figure it out for themselves if we’re not around to meddle. And empty nest syndrome has a hard time settling on one who is constantly creating new nests.

I wrote a journal back then, before I learned about blogging; I called it the Wandering Warrens. We split our time between visits to New Orleans, cooking and cleaning for fellow Katrina victims and traveling to see the sights of the good old USA. Every time we felt overwhelmed by the post-flood problems, or were in a lull in the rebuilding plans of our families and friends, we’d simply rev up the RV and head on down the road. We had a moving picture window on our own ever-changing world with new neighbors every other day.

Sometimes the only way to keep peace is to agree to disagree, and many issues, if left alone long enough, seem to solve themselves. Whenever the tension gets too high, when one lives on wheels, one can move on down the road until the dust settles. I miss the ability to let sleeping dogs lie that only the life of a nomad can continue; when conflict resolution was, “See you later, Alligator.”

Now, here we are in a small community with very large memories. Word of what we do spreads like wildfire, and the enemies of others are expected to be our enemies, too. The flip side is that the friends of others are automatically supposed to be welcome by all of one’s friends. There is no anonymity, so one always has to watch what one says and does, and anything out of the ordinary is construed as crazy. What’s a wild woman to do?

Fabulous Flowers

The corn fit for human consumption
Is now in our freezers or cans.
Mountaintop Mary’s horses
Are happily munching the culls.

Our poor dog who was bred for
Romping on snow-covered mountains
Is recently looking as limp as
Our zucchini and yellow squash.

Our garden food looks awful,
But our flowers are fabulous.
Sunflowers’ bright yellow heads nod
As we crawl through the cukes.

The four o’clocks open themselves
Just in time for our foraging.
The bright faces of our flowers
Keep us from complete despair.

We moved to the mountains expecting
That there would always be cool breezes;
But, we are happy for air conditioning,
Even with living in the trees.

While we do debate the merits of trying
To outwit the whims of nature,
For sunflower bouquets alone
We may grow a garden again.